What Adam Curry is reading

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  Encounter with a New Mexico "internal border" checkpoint
    Link to Article
    Tue, 06 Nov 2012 06:08
    Paul sez, "Man is illegally detained at an internal border patrol checkpoint in New Mexico for nearly a half hour, not being allowed to leave and at first told that he wasn't being detained until the border patrol eventually told him he was being detained for unspecified reasons. He recorded the entire exchange on video, and spends most of the time asking when he is free to go. Eventually the patrol gives up and allows him to leave, but not before making threatening gestures, warning him that New Mexico police were on their way, and accusing him of criminally blocking traffic when he was asking to leave and wasn't given permission."
    Abusive Border Patrol Agents NM Checkpoint (Thanks, Paul!)
  9th EU-ASEM Summit # update 1
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    Source: Uploads by HermanVanRompuy
    Mon, 05 Nov 2012 17:46
  9th EU-ASEM Summit
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    Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:12
  Who Are The Syrian Rebels?
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    Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:20
  Abby Martin Names Chris Matthews Villian Of The Day For His Rant About Third Party Voters
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    Thu, 08 Nov 2012 02:04
  Austerity Arena: Video of Greek protesters fire Molotov cocktails, police shoot teargas - YouTube
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    Thu, 08 Nov 2012 03:46
  "In Colorado Pot Got 50000 More Votes Than Obama!" Ryan Grimm
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    Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
    Thu, 08 Nov 2012 02:04
  Taliban Responds To Obama's Re-Election
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    Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:30
  Colorado & Washington State Vote To Legalize Marijuana!
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    Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:55
  Michele Bachmann Wins Re-Election!
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    Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
    Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:54
  Legalization Of Marijuana In Washington Leaves Many Unanswered Questions
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    Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:50
  "MITT ROMNEY IS DONE!" Election Night News Coverage Canadian Style
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    Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:50
  Elizabeth Warren "This Is Democracy!"
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    Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:47
  CNN: Meet Tammy Baldwin First Openly Lesbian US Senator
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    Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:40
  Local News Model Plays "The Frightened Girl" Standing Next To GIANT Boa Constrictor
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    Tue, 06 Nov 2012 01:23
  "Military Industrial Complex Is A Trillion Dollar Banker Bailout EVERY YEAR That We Never Get Back!"
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    Tue, 06 Nov 2012 01:04
  V12 Engine Going In Replica Of First Plane To Fly Around The World Fired Up!
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    Tue, 06 Nov 2012 01:04
  VIDEO: Greece strikes ahead of austerity vote
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    Source: BBC News - Europe
    Tue, 06 Nov 2012 01:19
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  South Korea Shuts Down Two Nuclear Reactors After Discovering Parts With Forged Quality Certificates
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    Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:13
  Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Orders Investigation Into His Own Family's Wealth
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    Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:13
  US And Japan Begin Large Scale War Games
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    Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:12
  Syrian Opposition Groups Convene In Qatar To See If The Can They Build A Unified Front
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    Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:12
  US National Archives Blocks Searches Containing 'WikiLeaks'
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    Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:12
  New Jersey Allows Voters To FAX Or Email Election Ballots For The First Time
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    Sun, 04 Nov 2012 14:30
2012 Election Theft Thread
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:55
  My children, did you know there is an amazing discovery in Blogspot just requires brats to have a Google account and then they can rise up and type things in anal English, about all the things they think they know and by magic no on will care about what the brats type or say no more than the fill space which you pollute on monetized sites..........
  I digress.........
  Apparently the White House Insider and Wall Street Insider need some assistance as my blog is too difficult to decipher in things like the algorithms Obama used to steal the election for John McCain repeated in the same numbers for Mitt Romney.I would be more plain in this in breaking this story on election eve by God's Grace but the problem would be...............I do have my limits in how stupid I can communicate.
  Let's sing.......
  or let's not.......
  From the desk of the Tiger Lily.
  To understand what took place in the Obama 2012 election theft that the WHI is now attempting to hijack as a story in his and or her meanderings of sifting numbers in never once mentioning Scytl, SOE or Argentina Euro voting machines all covered here, one has to know something which is difficult if one is an idiot whose keyboard is constantly typing out things, instead of utilizing their eyes to read information.
  Andrew Breitbart.
  Karl Rove
  Barack Hussein Obama
  My children, I will exclude the brats as Lame Cherry has instituted a new policy in all the sifters here who are too anal college degree in setting up their invalidated validity, must now donate in pennance for all the smears they post, as I will inform you my children if you are seeing posts about me which are attacking what goes on here, those types have not donated anything, and they are busy stealing things found here, begging for attention and waiting for widows with mites, to once again pay for their college tuition as they act superior.
  Let's sing..........
  No let's not as the above is too important to do anything else.
  When George H. W. Bush faced his Lawrence Walsh October Surprise in indictments of his administration to install William Jefferson Blythe Clinton into the White House, a young George W. Bush who had numerous messiah or good son complex issues, decided to win one for pappy.
  A young fag became enamored of W. and his name was Puffy Lips Karl Rove, who had an alter ego named Puffy Cheeks Barry Chin who was enamored with W. too. Yes if George W. Bush had just invited B. Hussein over to the White House and let the terrier hump on Obama's leg, none of this would have taken place.
  Where was I in another matter anti matter exclusive in all things in time always are proven right here..........
  Say, why is it the Insiders can say all sorts of things like there was going to be a challenger to Obama from democrats and we were all supposed to follow it all back to Chicago........and none of it came true, but all the brats keep tuning in and never asking who is feeding the insiders gossip information meant to delude the public, as this blog questioned long ago.
  That's right, this blog is always wrong..........yes, that will be a donation price of 50,000 dollars for all the brats or they can register for blogs of their own, not by God, which no one will care to read.
  Where was I?
  Oh yes, so W. goes in with the Architect, Puffy Lips Rove, and they make all the charts the WHI is going over and they win one for Pap Bush over Al Gore, in a horrendously horrid election where a normal campaign adviser could have won over Gore by 20 points due to Clinton fatigue.
  So not to trust to Karl's idiocy again, the Bush camp decided to employ that infamous black box voting which was quite black box, and if you recall in 2004, John Kerry's people had numbers which showed him trouncing Bush until the "numbers" came in...........Karl Rove's numbers.Yes George W. Bush stole the 2004 election by Karl Rove.
  That is why Norm Coleman and other GOP candidates were partly thrown under the bus when democrats cheated as the insider information was out, that Rove had rigged the electronic voting machines.
  That is why there was the mad push in Europe for Scytl and SOE in America to be gained control of by the cartels who have been busy installing communists across the globe, including the lovely Puffy Cheeks Barack Hussein Obama.
  Follow this now, as Karl Rove in being caught, initiated an agreement where his fraud would be hidden and Barack Obama's election theft would be hidden, all so it would come down to a 2016 election of Hillary Clinton versus Jeb Bush.That is what this has been about and has only been reported here. It is the reality as each of these events begin to unfold. America has no free elections any longer, the 2016 elections prove everything posted here as correct.
  So a certain Jewish Conservative guy named Andrew Breitbart just happened to have some disgruntled person whose identity will remain their identity give them some information from things about bin Laden's corpse, to that reality that Barack Obama flipped 10 million votes from John McCain and Sarah Palin in 2008.Breitbart was assassinated over this, as it would have exposed thee entire rigged system for the past 30 years and how it all started with the cartel's choice of Bill Clinton over Prescott Bush's wee lad, HW.
  It was the original 10 million vote flip over McCain, because Bush Rove hate McCain for his not taking his beating like a good soldier in 2000, which started the revelations in this, in Strawman Romney, being fed his Mormon ego, dined on it to another defeat as Rove had orchestrated a decade ago.In reality, Karl Rove should not be called an architect, but a demolition machine as he destroys more effectively everything he touches and barel ever wins anything.
  Mormon Romney thought he could play this game, but was led out as much as the Wall Street Insider in their arrogance. The 2012 election was fixed, just like the 2016 election has already been set.Now who was it that was pointing all the candidate fingers at Lil Jeb, when it looked like he would never rise to anything, but this blog.......yes this blog.
  All of this comes full circle, and 2012 was another preparatory run in the algorithms of John McCain's numbers from 2008.This blog exclusively laid all this out in Scytl, in it's Spanish founders murder, and how the software which runs all of this is based on casino gambling software which spots trends in betting.That is what the 2012 election was to the software in the ballot boxes in it was to make the "house" which is Obama the winner, no matter what the percentage was, as the percentage was set that a certain number of winners in a casino would be fed to make the masses think they could win. With Obama running the McCain program, it required vote suppression as the fury over Obama in America, would blow the margin as this blog stated.
  I warned of the California gas price spike was to reduce the Obama margin for stealing or flipping votes. Obama's contractors though were ready for this in Obama reduced election output to his fictional numbers based on the original McCain codex.
  That is why Al West in Florida had 5000 votes flip in not matching the the count there. GOP Conservatives like Todd Akin who won the election were written off in the hard ballots do not matter, as the system was rigged to specific areas all to flip the elections in test areas to keep Obamacare active.
  What 2016 is, is but the child of 2012 in the reality is, in 2012 was a prototype of 2004 in how not to just steal the Presidency, but how to steal every election in America so the cartel picks every UN candidate running for office.
  Now all of this is too exclusive really and it is why "someone" has been most interested in the blog and apparently posting when I did not post in "re evaluating" things in cleansing what appears.
  All of this ties together and is tied together. It is why when Breitbart went puffy pink no one on the right in Mockingbird said a word as it would undo the whole thing as much as anyone is not allowed to mention Scytl, save this blog.
  The reality is this blog has broken all of this wide open, and yet it is the types who read magazines in the check out, but never buy them who are revealed for what they are. In their little idiot boxes they never seem to consider how many times my life has been in danger, as they are cowards who hide behind the screens.The powers that be who murder people, who throw people in prison who send state police to lie in wait, know completely who Lame Cherry is. That is enough as those are the ones who matter in this world and continually stalk this popular girl.If three things happened to any of the detractors of this blog which I have had the displeasure of dealing with, they would be hiding under the seat cushions. I answer to God though and do this as long as He wills.
  The always experts are the experts always. If one is too stupid to figure things out nor is wasting their time trying to be an expert on this popular girl, Star Trek awaits as perhaps you can speak Klingon.
  Enough of the cryptic revelations.......she's laughing at the joke and I'm too slow.
  agtG
SourceForge.net Repository - [cqinet] Contents of /thebridge/README.txt
  Link to Article
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:11
  1Welcome to thebridge, a member of the CQiNet family.23http://CQiNet.sourceforge.net45Thebridge is an EchoLink compatible conference bridge that runs under6FreeBSD, Linux, QNX, Mac OS X, Windows and hopefully most other Posix7compatible operating systems.89If you've never hear of EchoLink then this software probably won't make10much sense to you. See: http://www.echolink.org then if you are still11interested continue here.1213The EchoLink system, and by extension this software, are for Ham radio14operators. Unfortunately unlike "real" Ham Radio SWLs (short wave15listeners) are not welcomed so if you're not already a licensed ham it is16unlikely that you will find much of value here, sorry.1718If you haven't given up yet but are running *nix and not Windows you are lost,19read the file README instead of this one.202122############################################23Updating from previous versions of thebridge24############################################2526New versions of thebridge are usually backwards compatible with configuration27files from earlier releases HOWEVER new variables are added frequently. Since28the sample tbd.conf file includes documentation on some features which are29not mentioned elsewhere it is worthwhile to review the sample configuration30file with each release to discover new capabilities which you may want to31take advantage of.323334###########35Portability36###########3738A quick word on portability: I have not attempted to build thebridge on39Windows using any tools other than Microsoft Visual Studio version 5 or 6.40It shouldn't be too hard to get it to build with other tools if an41appropriate makefile or project file is created. Make sure the symbol42"_WIN32" is defined. If you get it running using another tool chain I43would be interested in hearing about it.444546###################47Building on Windows48###################4950If you've downloaded the prebuilt version of thebridge (thebridge-x.xx-exe.zip)51the following has already been done for you. Skip on to configuration...5253Extract:54The distrubution file is a Gzip'ed TAR file. The popular Winzip program55knows how to deal with these kind of files. If you don't have it you can56download an evaluation copy from www.winzip.com. When you extract the57files make sure you preserve the directory structure. (In Winzip make58sure the "Use folder names" box is checked.5960Make:61Find thebridge.dsp using Windows explorer and double click on it. This should62cause Microsoft Visual Studio to fire up and load the project. Click build.63There shouldn't be any errors or warnings displayed during the build process.64If you get warnings or errors I'd be interested in hearing about them.6566The final output of the build process is the thebridge deamon "tbd.exe" which67will be in either the Debug or Release subdirectory depending on the build68configuration you selected. The name of thebridge executable is tbd.exe for69"TheBridge Daemon (and it's also a good excuse to create yet another TLA).7071Well It's a Daemon on *nix systems anyway, on Windows it may be installed72as a Daemon (service) on Windows 2000 or Windows XP, otherwise it's run as73a command line program. This does not mean that it will run on DOS, thebridge74is a 32bit Windows program. Thebridge uses the Winsock2 API, if the EchoLink75client program runs on your computer you should be all set. If your computer76runs an old version of Windows 95 you may need to upgrade to Winsock2.777879#######################80thebridge Configuration81#######################8283There is a single text file "tbd.conf" that is used to configure thebridge.84Fire up your favorite editor and change the various variables to appropriate85values. Refer to the comments in the file for guidance.8687Most sites will only need to change the ConferenceCall, ConferencePass,88ConferenceQth and WorkingDir settings.8990NOTE: the EchoLink directory servers *WILL NOT ACCEPT* a conference style91callsign like "*W1AW*" unless you have specifically registered as a conference92by the EchoLink administrators. I suggest that you test the conference93using your usual callsign first. See www.echolink.org/el/conf.htm for more94details.9596Lines beginning with ';' or '#' are comments, if you decide to set any of the97optional settings be sure to delete leading ';' character before the98configuration variable.99100--- snip ---101C:\thebridge-0.05> notepad tbd.conf102--- snip ---103104What, notepad isn't your favorite editor ? Nevermind.105106107#######108Testing109#######110111The daemon has two command line switches to aid testing. The first switch -f112specifies where the configuration is located. The default is tbd.conf in113the current directory.114115The second switch -d enables debug mode, causing the program to output debug116information to the screen. The debug switch may be used multiple times to117increase the detail level of the information displayed up to a maximum of118twice.119120--- snip ---121C:\thebridge-0.05\debug>tbd122thebridge Version 0.05123PullerLoginAck(): Client 2 successfully updated status.124ParseStationList(): completed successfully, 376 stations listed.125--- snip ---126127The first message indicates that the daemon was successful in logging into the128directory server. Note: the EchoLink servers indicate a successful login129even if the supplied callsign/password combination is unknown, invalid or130banned. But the success does indicate that tbd was able to establish an TCP131connection to the server.132133The second message is the real good news, our directory request returned 376134stations. If your callsign or password were not recognized there would be1350 stations.136137If you are not able to get a station list, check the configuration file. You138might also want to rerun the test using some "-d" switches to help determine139what when wrong.140141Unfortunately, due to the nature of the EchoLink protocols it is not142possible to test thebridge further using a single computer. In particular143the client program uses the same ports as the server so it's impossible to run144a server and a client on the same host at the same time.145146Even if you have multiple computers you can't test the program unless you also147have multiple *external, routable* IP addresses. You can't connect to148thebridge from another computer on your local LAN if your local LAN is149connected to the Internet using a NAT box or other form of Internet sharing150where all of your computers appear to be coming from the same IP address.151152The easiest way to complete the testing is to have a couple of friends connect153to thebridge and see if they can talk to each other. When a station connects154to thebridge you'll see a message similar to the following:155156--- snip ---157WD4NMQ JEFF logged into conference.158W7NTF GARY logged into conference.159--- snip ---160161Once you've verified that thebridge is operating correctly we're ready to162complete the installation. Hit Ctrl-C to abort thebridge.163164--- snip ---165Received SIGINT, shutting down166PullerLoginAck(): Client 4 successfully updated status.167Logged out, exiting.168C:\thebridge-0.05>169--- snip ---170171172#######################173Installation as Service174#######################175176Installing thebridge as a system service is an option on Windows 2000 and177XP. A service is a program that runs in the background without any178visible component that can also be configured to start automatically when179the system is booted. Running thebridge as a service is particularly180attractive when thebridge is run on a remote server. I've only tested181thebridge on Windows 2000, but it should run on Windows NT 4.0 and XP as182well.183184Once you have configured and tested thebridge you can install it as185service by specify using the -w and -i command line switches. The working186directory must be specified first followed by the -i switch.187188--- snip ---189C:\thebridge-0.05> tbd -w c:\thebridge-0.05 -i190tbd service installed successfully.191C:\thebridge-0.05>192--- snip ---193194Once the service has been installed it may be started using the services applet195located under administrative tools on the control panel. As you may have196already guessed thebridge is listed as "tbd". To start thebridge running197double click on it's name and then click the start button. Once tbd is198running examine the log and make sure there are no error messages. You will199find the log file(s) in the working directory specified when the service200was installed.201202If you want thebridge to start automatically when the system is booted change203the startup time from "Manual" to "Automatic".204205You may uninstall the service by using the -u switch.206207--- snip ---208C:\thebridge-0.05> tbd -u209tbd service uninstalled.210C:\thebridge-0.05>211--- snip ---212213214#############215User Commands216#############217218A few commands are available to users that are unique to thebridge. Commands219are entered on the message line in the same way as a text message, by220prepending a '.' (period). Commands are not forwarded to other conference221users so they are non-intrusive to normal operations. The command must begin222at the first character on the line.223224Commands may be abbreviated to the shortest length that is still unique. For225example ".stat", ".sta", and ".st" are valid abbreviations for the226".stats" command, but not ".s" since there are two commands that start with227the letter 's' (.stats and .sysop).228229".help" and ".?"230231This command does much as you would guess, it lists the available commands.232233".list" (not available on all conferences)234235This command lists any bulletins or recorded nets that may be available to236be played back.237238".lookup <callsign>"239240This commands displays the node number, Qth and busy status for a specified241station. The station must be online or have been online recently for the242information to be available.243244".play <bulletin #>", ".stop" (not available on all conferences)245246This command starts playing the selected bulletin or recording. Any text247messages that were sent during a net are also replayed sent. While you are in248playback mode you will not be listed on the station list of thebridge and249you will not receive any live conference traffic, voice or text. To end the250playback enter the .stop command or simply disconnect.251252".showip"253254This command dumps the user list with IP addresses.255Format: <callsign> <tab> <IP address> <tab> <'S' | 'R' | 'E'><eol>256The list is terminate by a blank line. The final character indicates the257users protocol, SpeakFreely, RTP, or EchoLink. The callsign field will258also contain the user's IP address if the protocol does not provide a callsign.259260".stats"261262This commands displays interesting (to some) technical statistics about263the operation of the conference bridge such as when the maximum number of264users were connected.265266".lurk" and ".delurk" (not available on all conferences)267268The EchoLink system is very different than "real" radio in one important way...269everyone knows who is listening. Sometimes you might only want to monitor a270channel, but not get involved in a conversation. This is particularly useful271for nets when you want to listen, but don't have anything to contribute.272The ".lurk" command allow you to suppress the listing of your callsign as an273active member of the conference, but you will still be able to listen. You274can rejoin the conference at any time by using the ".delurk" command or by275simply transmitting.276277".uptime"278279This command displays the amount of time thebridge has been running since it280was loaded. I'll admit it, the primary purpose is for bragging rights... "my281conference bridge has been up for ..."282283".version"284285This command displays the version of thebridge software and the type286of operating system it's running on.287288".test" (not available on all conferences)289290This command causes thebridge to record your next transmission and then play291it back to you when you stop transmitting. This allows you to test your setup292and adjust audio levels etc without assistance. Audio quality is a very293subjective thing, it's always best to hear it yourself.294295Note: The UDP protocol used for conferencing is not 100% reliable, the296".test" command will send you the response "Your next transmission will297be recorded and played back." to indicate that your command was received.298Please do *NOT* make a long test transmission unless you receive the response!299Otherwise your test transmission will be sent live over the conference bridge.300301302##############303Sysop Commands304##############305306".sysop <password>"307308None of the sysop commands are available until you identify yourself as309an sysop by using the .sysop command and supplying the sysop's password.310Additionally sysop's are allowed to transmit during the pausetime to give311them slightly higher priority on the channel than normal users.312313When using this command please *make* sure that you enter the leading '.' and314start the command at the beginning of the line, otherwise you may send the315sysop's password to everyone logged into the conference!316317Once you have logged in successfully you will be greeted with a welcome318message. You will remain logged in as an sysop only as long as you are319connected to thebridge, if you disconnect you will have to login again.320321WARNING: Please do not use a "valuable" password for the administrator322password, it is sent in clear text via UDP to the RTP port. i.e. it can be323sniffed.324325".admins"326327This command simply lists the users who are logged in as administrators or328sysops. This is a good way of verifying that you are logged in as an sysop329before issuing commands. It's also a good way to determine if it's time to330change the passwords (grin).331332".busy [on | off | status]"333334This command controls the conference's busy status. The conference's busy335status is listed in the station directory, additionally connection336requests from new stations are refused when the conference is busy. The337status option allows a conference to indicate that it is busy to the directory338servers, but actually continue to accept connections for special purposes.339340".connect [-s] [-r] <station>"341".disconnect <station>"342".disconnect ALL"343".discconnect last"344".discconnect ."345346These commands allow conference rooms to be linked to increase the capacity347beyond what is available on a single server. The .connect command will accept348either a station callsign, conference ID, or IP address.349350The .connect command establishes a permanent connection between until a351.disconnect command is entered by an administrator (of either conference). If352the connection fails the connect will be reestablished automatically when the353path returns.354355When thebridge is linked to another thebridge running version 0.33 or later356then user's callsign and name will be displayed on the linked conference next357to the conference's callsign in the station list.358359The .connect command can actually be used to connect to any station it is360not restricted to conferences. If a connection is established to an user361station he will be able to disconnect using the usual method, this is362equivalent to an administrator entering the .disconnect command.363364The "ALL" option to the ".disconnect" command disconnects all users, not just365users who were connected to using the ".connect" command.366367The "LAST" option to the ".disconnect" just disconnects the last station that368connected leaving any other users connected.369370The "." option to the ".disconnect" disconnects the station that is talking371currently.372373".lurk disable" ".lurk enable" ".lurk <callsign>" ".delurk <callsign>"374375Lurking is one of my personal favorite capabilities of thebridge, infact it376was the first command. However not everyone shares my opinion. The ability377to disable lurking has been the most requested feature. The disable option378disables (duh!) the ability for stations to "lurk", the enable option restores379the capability. By default lurking is enabled. Stations attempting to lurk380when lurking is disabled will be sent a messages informing them that the381lurking feature has been disabled.382383Sysops can set a specified station's lurking mode. This is useful to restore384a stations state after thebridge has been (quickly) rebooted.385386"message [message text]"387388This command may be used by the scripting interface to send text messages389to conference users. Unlike the normal EchoLink text mode messages received390from the command port are assumed to be commands and need not be prefixed391by a period.392393394".monitor [disable] <callsign>"395396This command allows you to put a station in to a talk only mode. This command397is basically the opposite of the ".mute" command, the monitored client can398talk, but not listen. This is useful in certain (unusual) situations such399as the recent shuttle disaster when you want to listen to a conference, but400while ensuring local traffic does not interrupt it.401402The disable option is used to return a station to full transceive operation.403404".mute" ".mute ." ".mute <callsign> [<callsign> ...]"405".unmute <callsign> [<callsign...]"406407This command allows you to put a station into a listen only mode. This408command is particularly useful during nets to prevent repeater IDs, courtesy409tones, and confused users from interrupting a net out of turn. The .mute410command takes effect immediately and remains in effect as long as the station411remains logged in or until it is canceled by the .unmute command.412413The station that's currently talking may be specified by a dot "." character to414save typing the entire callsign.415416If the .mute command is given without an argument a list of stations that are417currently muted is displayed.418419".mute -r" ".mute -c" ".mute -u" ".mute -s" ".mute -t" ".mute -a" ".mute -e"420".unmute -r" ".unmute -c" ".unmute -u" ".unmute -s" ".unmute -t" ".unmute -a"421".unmute -e"422423These variations of the .mute and .unmute commands affect a group of stations424at a time and additionally put the conference into a mode were new connections425from stations of that type are automatically muted as well. These commands426are primarily of use for controlling large nets such as the N2LEN 9/11 net.427428Where the various suffixes mean:429430-a: All users (except yourself)431-c: tbd conferences432-e: Echolink conferences433-r: RF users (-R and -L stations)434-s: Sysops and Admins435-t: Station talking436-u: PC users437438You can use more than one option in a command so if you want to mute439both RF users and PC users, but not conferences and sysops as well as a440specific conference you could enter"441".mute -ru *echotest*"442443The station that is currently talking are *NOT* muted by these commands unless444the "t" flag is included.445446These are additive, if you mute conferences in one command and then mute rf447users in the next command both remain muted.448449".mute chat" ".unmute chat"450451This commands allows a sysop to control if text messages are sent to him.452The command affects the sysop issuing the command only, text messages continue453to be forwarded to other users. This command is useful for net control454stations who are trying to read the user list while a lively off topic QSO is455going on the background in text mode.456457".pausetime" ".pausetime <time constant>"458459This command allows the configuration variable PauseTime to be adjusted as460needed during normal operation. The PauseTime variable sets the minimum gap461between transmissions on the conference. Stations who jump in before the462minimum time has elapsed will be sent a warning message and will not be463repeated until the minimum pause time has elapsed.464465This parameter may help prevent repeater "bouncing" that occurs when multiple466repeaters or link stations are logged into a conference room with poor467operating parameters. It will also ensure that there's a break between468transmissions to allow simplex links to leave the conference.469470".play4 [-f] [-i] <filename> [displayed name]"471472This command allows a recording file to be played all users. When the file is473played for all users an optional description may be entered which will appear474on the station list as the "station" talking. If the description is omitted475the "station" will be shown as "QST". The timing of the playback is476controlled by the same configuration file variables as the .play command.477Normally playback will begin as soon as the conference free (no one is478talking), -f and -i flags are used to modify this behavour. The -f flag can be479used to force the playback to begin immediately even if someone is talking.480The -i flag can be used to force the playback to wait for IdleTimeout seconds481of inactivity before the bulletin playback begins.482483These flags provide the ability for scripts to do things such as automatically484playback a net at a particular while warning any users before hand to allow485them time to finish their QSOs. For example a couple of warning anouncements486could be played 10 mintutes, 5 minutes and one minute before the net and then487the bulletin could be played exactly on time using the -f command.488489A less driven conference operator might simply use the -i command to play the490bulletin as soon as the conference becomes free after the appointed time. This491would allow QSOs to finish naturally before begining a playback.492493".play4 -u <user> <filename>"494495This variation of play4 command allows a recording to be played for a specifc496user.497498".users" ".users ?"499500The .users command lists the callsign of all conference users in order of login501along with their attributes. This command is particularly useful for net502control operators by enabling them to see more stations than will fit in the503EchoLink client's info window.504505The meaning of the attribute characters may be display by the ".user ?"506command. They are as follows:507508A - User is logged in as an administrator.509S - User is logged in as a sysop.510L - User is a Lurker.511m - User's audio is muted.512M - User's audio and text are muted.513K - User's has been Kicked.514B - User is a linked theBridge conference.515C - User is a linked conference other than thebridge.516F - User is playing a file (using the .play or .test commands).517x - User is not currently active in the conference.518P - User is a permanent connection (connected by a .connect command).519T - User is currently Talking.5200 - User is using Speak Freely protocol.5211 - User is using RTP protocol.522! - User is an old version of thebridge which sent SDES packets containing523a private "txt" extension field.524525526".belchfilter" ".belchfilter <time constant>"527528This command allows the configuration variable BelchTime to be adjusted as529needed during normal operation. The BelchTime variable sets the minimum530transmission time for -R and -L station before their audio is passed.531532This parameter may help prevent repeater "bouncing" that occurs when multiple533repeaters or link stations are logged into a conference room with poor534operating parameters. It can also help prevent repeater "kurchunkers" from535upsetting the peace.536537538######################539Administrator Commands540######################541542".admin <password>"543544None of the administrator commands are available until you identify yourself as545an administrator by using the .admin command and supplying the administrator's546password. When using this command please *make* sure that you enter the547leading '.' and start the command at the beginning of the line, otherwise you548may send the administrator's password to everyone logged into the conference!549550Once you have logged in successfully you will be greeted with a welcome551message. You will remain logged in as an administrator only as long as you552are connected to thebridge, if you disconnect you will have to login again.553554An administrator automatically has access to all sysop commands, there is555no need to login as a sysop if you are logged in as a administrator.556557Sysops are typically net control operators, administrator's are typically558node owners.559560".allow add <callsign>"561562This command adds a new station to the access control list. This command is563typically used to add stations to private conferences.564565".allow delete <callsign>"566567This command removes a station from the access control list.568569".allow list"570571This command displays the stations that are allowed access by the access572control list.573574".dns list"575576This commands displays the entries in the domain name system (DNS) cache. The577DNS system converts hostnames such as nawest.echolink.org into IP addresses.578579".dns refresh"580581This command forces the contents of the DNS cache to be updated. By default582the DNS cache is updated every 15 minutes. Forcing an update can help correct583problems caused by hostnames entries in the ACL which are tied to dynamic IP584addresses.585586".quote <command line>"587588The quote command allows a sysop to send a command to all linked conferences.589For example a sysop on one conference can mute a station on another conference590by entering ".quote .mute w1abc". Note that since the command is set to *all*591linked conferences an error message "w1abc not found" will be generated by592593594".quickexit"595596This command caused thebridge to exit without logging out of the EchoLink597directory servers. This may be useful when there are communications problems598or under other special situations. Normally the ".shutdown" command should599be used instead. This command was formally known as .quit, but that caused600accidents.601602603".record <filename>" ".record stop"604605This command starts recording all conference bridge traffic to disk for latter606playback. Traffic recorded includes all conference audio *and* text messages.607Test sessions and commands sent to thebridge are not recorded. The recording608file grows at approximately 129000 bytes a minute while someone is talking.609The gaps between transmissions are not recorded and do not consume disk space.610To end the recording enter ".record stop". Make a note of the filename you611use when recording, you will need it later. Recordings are not available for612playback by users until you explicitly add them to the list of available613bulletins.614615".refresh"616617This command causes thebridge to download an update to the in memory (and618on disk if enabled) station list from the Echolink directory server.619620621".rehash"622623This command causes thebridge to re-read it's configuration file. This allows624changes to be made to the configuration without having to restart the server.625626".set <variable>"627".set <variable> = <value>"628629This command allows the administrator to view and set configuration file630variables interactively. Most, but not all, variables may be set by this631command. Since the configuration file is not updated by this command any632changes will be lost when thebridge is restarted.633634635".shutdown"636637This command causes thebridge to logout of the EchoLink directory servers638and then exit.639640641".list add <filename> <description>"642643Once a recording has been made it may be made available for user playback644by adding it to the bulletin list. Users select bulletins by description,645they never see the filename. This provides the ability to change the file646that is played back without changing the description. For example a647description of "Last week's net" could be updated weekly to point to a new648recording while keeping an archive of older nets.649650".list"651652When in logged in as an administrator the .list command shows the filename653corresponding to the description at the beginning of the line. This is654useful for those of us with short memories when using the next command.655656".list delete <filename>"657658As you might expect this removes a bulletin from the list.659660".kick <callsign>"661662This command terminates a users connection immediately. This command is useful663when you want to disconnect a station completely. For example a link or664repeater station has been connected to the conference for a long period of665time and appears to be unattended and a long net is about to start on the666conference. It might be considered a courtesy to dump such connections rather667than sending tons of undesired traffic out on the airwaves. The .kick668command has no lasting effect, the kicked station is free to reconnect669immediately after being kicked. In our example this would indicate an670active interest in the net from someone associated with the link or repeater.671672".ban add <callsign> [IP Address/HostName]"673674If the previous commands were insufficient to correct a problem then the675.ban command can be used to add a station to the banned list. Unlike the676previous commands the banned list is persistent across connections as well as677system reboots. A banned station cannot even connect to thebridge.678Note: Stations are banned independently of station type, i.e. if W1AW is679banned (what not a league supporter?); W1AW-L and W1AW-R are also banned.680681Additionally stations may be banned by *both* callsign and IP address if682desired. Unlike earlier versions of the bridge version 0.41 and later to683not automatically ban stations by IP address, unless it is specified by684the administrator when the station is banned.685686".ban list"687688This lists the current rogues' gallery of banned stations.689690".ban delete <callsign>"691692Well they finally fixed their repeater, it's about time! This command693removes a station from the banned list.694695".info [Info field text]"696697The .info command displays and modifies the info (location, Qth) string sent698to the directory server. If an argument is not specified the .info command699simply displays the current info string. When an argument is given the700current info string is replaced with the argument and the directory server701is updated with the new string. The new string is *NOT* persistent, if702tbd is restarted the info string will return to the value specified in tbd.conf.703704###############705Script Commands706###############707708".chat [on | off]"709710The .chat command controls the chat mode of the command inteface. When the711chat mode is off messages sent to the command port are assumed to be commands712for thebridge and incoming text messages are not forwarded to the command port.713When chat mode is on messages sent to the command part are forwarded as text714message unless preceeded with ".." to indiate they are commands for the local715system. When chat mode is on text messages received from the net are716forwarded to the command port with an result code of TBD_CHAT_TEXT. See717SCRIPTING.txt for more details.718719NB: Although the .chat mode feature is still supported it is depreciated.720Version 0.84 and later of thebridge provides a separate port for text messages721to replace the .chat mode.722723#########724Operation725#########726727Hopefully users of thebridge will not notice much differences between728thebridge and the other conference bridges other than (hopefully) improved729reliability, uptime and the availability of the user commands.730731Check the screen from time to time to verify that thebridge is operating732correctly.733734735###############################736Bugs/Features/known limitations737###############################7387391. Consider this software to be Beta quality, it is very new and the paint is740still wet. One of the primary goals is stability approaching that of the741operating system and in the FreeBSD or Linux case that says quite a bit. At742this point we're probably a long way from that goal. At least when thebridge743crashes under FreeBSD or Linux the operating system probably won't and we744should get a core file that will allow the bug to found and hopefully fixed.7457462. Security is weak. Currently EchoLink's security is based on747passwords which are sent in clear text on over the Internet and the relative748obscurity of the system. Security through obscurity is no security at all!7497503. If the RunAsUser feature is used under Linux core dumps are disabled. This751appears to be a security feature inherent in Linux. If thebridge stops752running for unexplained reasons please consider running it as root long enough753to get a core dump to assist with correcting the problem.754755756######757Thanks758######759760Special thanks to WD4NMQ, W7NTF, K7KAJ, and NK6K for helping me debug and761test the pre-release versions of thebridge. In particular Jeff WD4NMQ had762already done a lot of investigate work into the iLink protocols before I had763even heard of iLink. Jeff's server code saved me hours of work !764765Thanks to Graeme M0CSH and Jonathan K1RFD for bringing an exciting new mode766to Ham Radio.767768Thanks to N2LEN, K5JD, N7WGR, and KA3LAO for sending in bug reports that769helped me find and fix some Windows specific bugs.770771Thanks to N9YTY for testing thebridge on MacOS X and reporting the results.772773Thanks to W7NTF, K1DWU, WB3FFV, and KD6HWC for providing me with access to774their hosts to test thebridge on platforms that I would not otherwise have775had access to.776777Thanks to XE1DVI, IK2XYP, WB5EGI, VK3JED, SM6TKT, W6FM, KD6HWC, W7NTF, VE3EI,778and N2LEE/N4LED for helping Beta test thebridge.779780Thanks to the fine folks at sourceforge for hosting this and literally781thousands of other open source projects. Please support the OSDN in anyway782you can !783784785################786How you can help787################7887891. Report all bugs. Please provide details on the version of thebridge, the790operating systems, and operating conditions. Log files and core dumps are791not only helpful but in many cases essential.7927932. Developers are welcome! If you have ideas and would like contribute to the794development please contact me.7957963. Documentation. It's a well known fact that most programmers/engineers hate797documentation and are usually poor writers. We need to document the programs798and protocols used by thebridge as well as other programs that will be written.799The CQiNet web site could certainly use some input and a webmaster. If your800language of choice is not a programming language you can still help !801802wb6ymh@cox.net Nov 28, 2004
CQiNet, linking Ham Radio Via the Internet.
  Link to Article
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:06
  What is theBridge?Thebridge is an iLink/EchoLink compatible conference bridge that runs under FreeBSD, Linux, QNX, Windows and hopefully most other Posix compatible operating systems.
  If you've never hear of EchoLink then this software probably won't make much sense to you. See: www.echolink.org then if you are still interested continue here.
  FeaturesCompiles and runs on FreeBSD, Linux, OS X, QNX and Windows.Daemon mode program with logging to syslog.Forwards voice and text mode packets to conference members.Displays members list with indication of who's talking.Use GNU autoconfig tools for portability.Provides test feature to assist users with level settings.FAQQ: How many users does thebridge support?A: That depends primarily on your connection to the Internet. There are no preset limits on the number of users other than the setting of MaxConferenceClients in the configuration file. Approximently 17k bits per second of bandwidth are consumed outbound per user. Since the usual case is that only one single user is talking at a time the inbound bandwidth requirements are must less. The current documented record user count is 63 on the K5JD server during the 9/11 commemorative net. With 63 users the bandwidth was 1076k bits/second.
  Q: Is there a Windows version?A: Yes. This question probably means you think thebridge is a DOS program and are asking if a typical Windows graphical version of thebridge is available. The answer to that question is no. Thebridge is designed to be portable and runs under FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X, Qnx, and yes Windows (but not DOS). I am NOT planning on creating a Windows specific version that provides a more typical GUI.
  Q: Is there any sound support, can I listen to the conference while I run thebridge?A: Sorry No. Currently thebridge only deals with the data at the packet level, what comes in goes right back out. The data is never decoded into audio. Thebridge is designed primarily to be a system daemon, that is a background system process that just runs QUIETLY in the background. You'll need a client program *and* multiple external IP addresses to be able to listen to thebridge.
  Q: How come none of the commands work? When I type on the keyboard nothing happens!A: The commands are entered from the EchoLink client on the message line, not from the host. i.e. The commands are for remote use (both by users and administrators). Unfortunately if you are running thebridge locally and only have a single IP address there's no way for you to connect to thebridge using EchoLink. You can't even run EchoLink on the same host as thebridge. Thebridge is really designed to be run as a daemon under FreeBSD or Linux. I need to do some more work to make it a bit more friendly to a Windows user.
  Q: How come none of the commands work? I AM typing the commands on the message line!A: All commands start with a period or dot. In addition the dot *MUST* be the very first character on the line. Try entering .Help, that is help. The commands work, honest! Commands were done this way to prevent interference with message line traffic.
  Q: The instructions say to find the file thebridge.dsp and double click on it but there is not any such file can you help me?A: Read the README a little slower next time. "If you've downloaded the prebuilt version of thebridge (thebridge-x.xx-exe.zip) the following has already been done for you. Skip on to configuration..." If you don't have thebridge.dsp you have downloaded the .ZIP file containing the prebuilt executables for Windows. If you want to compile thebridge from source download thebridge-x.xx.tgz instead. You will also need to have Microsoft Visual Studio installed on your system for double clicking on thebridge.dsp to work.
  Q: Who uses thebridge ?A: A survey conducted on 10/30/02 found 30 groups running thebridge, 19 running on Windows, 10 running on Linux and one running on FreeBSD. The record uptime was 29 days which is very close to the length of time that the version of thebridge they were running had been released. Details are available.
  Q: Is it possible to connect to thebridge from an IRLP system?A: Yes it is if both thebridge and the IRLP node have been configured by the owners to allow such a connection.
  On thebridge side set the configuration variable SF_Enable to 1 and set RTP_Pass to a conference password. Give the conference password to the IRLP node operators that you want to be able to connect.
  NB: The conference password is the only thing that prevents the general Internet community from connecting to your conference using any VoIP package that supports either RTP or the Speak Freely protocols when thebridge is configured in this manner. It would be very unwise to publish the password openly. If additional security is desired DO NOT SET A CONFERENCE password and use the .allow command instead. The .allow command provides additional security by requiring an IP address match as well as allowing different passwords to be used for each system.
  See the EchoIRLP Web site for scripts that can be used by IRLP nodes to initiate the connection.
  Currently the following conferences accept IRLP connections: *TECHTALK*, *TACOMA*, *LI_NY*, *APRS*, *K5JD*, *MN_CONF*, *OK-CITY*, *SEATAC*, *SINBAD*, *UTAHGATE*, *VK3JED*, *WASH_DC* and *WX_TALK*. Please contact those node owners for passwords.
  Q: What version of Windows does thebridge require?A: Thebridge runs on any 32 bit version of Windows, i.e. Windows 95 and later. Users of early versions of Windows 95 may need to update Winsock (Windows TCP/IP protocol stack) to Winsock 2. The update can be downloaded free of charge from Microsoft's Web Site.
  Q: What version of Visual Studio do I need to build thebridge?A:You only need Visual Studio *IF* you want to modify the program. If you simply want to run it download thebridge-x.xx.exe.zip instead which has already been built for you. That being said, I have the "Professional" version of Visual Studio 6, I don't know if anyone has ever tried to build it with the Standard Edition of Visual C++. I don't honestly know if it would work or not. If anyone has built thebridge successfully with the Standard Edition I would be interested in hearing about it so I can update the FAQ.It would be FAR FAR cheaper to setup a FreeBSD or Linux system if you want to mess around with the code even if you have to build/buy a new computer. The full version of Visual studio retails for > $1000 although you can probably find older versions on Ebay for much less. Both FreeBSD and Linux come with all of the tools you need to build thebridge for FREE.
  Q: How do you run multiple conference rooms on one host?A: You'll need a host that has multiple public IP addresses to do it. If you have such a host:
  Create multiple configuration files, one for each instance.Use the Bind2IP configuration variable to bind each instance to a different IP address.Set WorkingDir for each instance to a unique directory.Set AppName for each instance to a unique name (tbd, tbd1, tbd2, etc...).Modify the startup scripts to specify the appropriate configuration file using the '-f' switch and start the appropriate number of copies.Q: How do you setup thebridge to play a welcome greeting when someone connects to the conference?
  Assign an administrator password in your configuration file.Connect to conference.Login as an administrator (.admin command)Start recording a file (.record welcome.tbd)Talk to record your greeting.Stop the recording (.record stop)Add the recording to your bulletin list (.list add welcome.tbd test)Listen to the recording to see if you like it (.play 1)Repeat steps 4,5,6 and 8 until you are happy with the results.Delete the test bulletin (.list delete welcome.tbd)Add a line WelcomeFile = welcome.tbd to your configuration file.Reload the configuration file (.rehash)Q: How do you debug thebridge ?A: I use an automatic source code inspection system to check my code before attempting to debug it. The code anomaly trapper (CAT) finds the majority of the bugs before I run it. If you don't have one I highly recommend that you download one.
  Wish ListTime stamps for every message line - Rex, ORLANDO conference.Log the station call signs that log in and out - Rex, ORLANDO conference. [Added in version 0.44]A way to 'allow' only certain stations to connect to the conference - John KR0Y. [Added in Version 0.42]Delay the packet transfer in the beginning of each key up lets say for 1-2 seconds to prevent bounce? Maybe a toggle with a milisecond control for the admin.... - Len N2Len [Added in version 0.37]Enable/disable the .lurk feature - NE2EI + a crowd of others. [Added in version 0.37]
Fatal air crash 'blamed on sun'
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 06:28
  7 November 2012Last updated at23:38 ETA pilot who collided with another aircraft causing a fatal dive may not have seen him because of the sun, an accident report has found.
  Martin Hickin, 55, from Coalville, died after his light aircraft hit another and came down close to Leicester Airport on 18 December last year.
  The 48-year-old pilot of the other aircraft managed to land and was uninjured.
  Mr Hickin's aircraft went into a near vertical dive and he was killed.
  In a statement, Mr Hickin's family said: "We are relieved that the two people in the other plane survived this horrific mid-air collision and know that Martin would be too."
  'Lack of contrast'The aircraft collided at about 14:00 GMT, when the sun was 10 degrees above the horizon.
  This meant the uninjured pilot, flying at 110mph and at a height of 1,000ft (300m), was flying almost directly into the sun.
  The report from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said this would have made it difficult for him to see Mr Hickin's Taylorcraft BC12D.
  There would have been a "lack of contrast" between Mr Hickin's aircraft and the surrounding countryside, the report said.
  The AAIB added: "The two aircraft collided because their respective pilots either did not see the other aircraft or did not see it in time to take effective action."
  The report said the 48-year-old pilot "heard a loud bang, the aircraft 'shuddered' and the propeller stopped".
  'Did not recover'The report went on: "His initial thought was that the engine had 'exploded'.
  "However, on asking his passenger 'What was that?' the passenger replied 'Aircraft'."
  The AAIB said that the pilot transmitted a Mayday call and looked for a suitable place to land his aerobatic Pitts Special aircraft.
  Meanwhile, witnesses saw Mr Hickin's aircraft "in a near vertical dive from which it did not recover".
  He was found in the wreckage of his plane, and was pronounced dead from his injuries by paramedics shortly after they arrived.
  His family said he was an experienced pilot who had loved flying since his youth.
  They said he had been a civilian glider pilot instructor for the RAF in his 20s.
Bond theme 'skyfall' (adapted) describes financial crash
  Link to Article
  Source: the tap
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 06:25
  Try reading this whilst humming the theme from the new Bond film 'Skyfall'.Hold your cash and count to tenFeel the rates move and then'¨See my savings fall again'I've drowned and dreaded this moment'¨And savers loose - together!LIBOR is where they startWe're thousands of pounds and poles apart'¨When banks collude, and days are darkBut they'll never own my heartWhat they steal, we looseWe know we'll never be free, without the securityAre bankers loving arms'¨And savers loose '' together!
Diane Sawyer was Drunk during Election Coverage ? - YouTube
  Link to Article
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 06:08
Turkey Seeks Patriot Missiles for Syria Border
  Link to Article
  Source: News From Antiwar.com
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 05:09
  Turkish foreign ministry officials say they are planning to request a NATO Patriot missile deployment along their southern border, but while they are couching it as a defense move, others are indicating it is anything but.
  Rather other officials say they are considering not just defending Turkish territory from any theoretical spillover, but are looking to install them at the border to create a de facto no-fly zone in northern Syria to help the rebels.
  Turkish officials say that this is just one of many scenarios being discussed, but with many in NATO chomping at the bit to insinuate itself directly into the Syrian Civil War, the prospect of deploying multi-million dollar missiles to ''protect'' Turkey from cheap artillery rounds straying across the border is too good to pass up.
  The problem, then, is how NATO goes from deployment to imposing a no-fly zone, since the UN Security Council has not, and presumably will not, authorize one after NATO used a similar resolution in Libya to launch a full-scale war of regime change.
  Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz
Why Is The S.E.C. Concealing Massive Citigroup Fraud?
  Link to Article
  Source: The Daily Bail
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 05:06
  Citigroup, the most insolvent bank ever to foul the earth, is being protected by the S.E.C. We want to know why.
  ---
  Guest post submitted by Cheyenne, writer and producer of the soon to be released documentary, Bailout. Watch a trailer for Bailout here.
  ---
  What is the SEC Hiding?
  Part One
  William Cohan of Bloomberg wrote a curious story last week, "Why does the SEC protect banks' dirty secrets?"
  It's a really good question.
  Standing alone, however, Cohan's article is just another electric tile in a giant mosaic that flashes intermittently in a news cycle, briefly illuminating another piston or grommet in the Wall Street-Washington corruption machine before fading without impact.
  But when coupled with other evidence, Cohan's piece, concerning the S.E.C.'s wholesale expungement of information from Citigroup documents in response to a Freedom of Inforation Act (FOIA) request, leads to what looks very much like a criminal conspiracy by Citigroup executives, up to and including Robert Rubin, to defraud the company's investor-clients on a scale that is nothing short of colossal.
  In this light, the S.E.C.'s concealment effort on behalf of Citigroup--not its first, as we shall see--poses issues about the exact nature of the S.E.C.'s role with respect to financial crime, because neither "regulator" nor "crime fighter" applies under any reasonable interpretation of the evidence.
  The questions raised here are both fair and viable. They're fair because the S.E.C. elected to make a mockery of both the law it's supposed to follow and the public it's supposed to serve by redacting in their totality documents sought under the FOIA, leaving the inference of criminality to waft plume-like through its own stench. They're viable because while the statute of limitations for criminal fraud may have run, the statute of limitations for conspiracy to commit fraud'--a crime whose very essence, secrecy, precludes the statute from running in the first place'--presents no such legal obstacle.
  Part One examines the available evidence, which includes Cohan's article, the congressional testimony of former Citigroup risk officer Richard Bowen, and a lawsuit against Citigroup that the S.E.C. filed and immediately tried to settle--unsuccessfully--a year ago. Along the way, we'll see just how pernicious bailouts are to a functioning democracy.
  Part Two will explore the potential ramifications of the S.E.C.'s failure to sweep its suit against Citigroup under the rug. The S.E.C.'s failure was due, almost laughably, to the random assignment of its case to Judge Jed Rakoff, a jurist whose revulsion at the S.E.C.'s corruption, already legendary, may well carry everyone involved into unchartered territory.
  Cohan's Article About The S.E.C.'s Response to FOIA Requests Involving Citigroup Mortgages
  Cohan's particular focus was on documents that the S.E.C. produced relating to congressional testimony given by Richard Bowen. Bowen is the former Citi risk officer who told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, among other things, that Citi sold MBS products despite knowing'--based on information that Bowen provided to the top ranks of the company, including ex-CEO Robert Rubin himself'--that huge swaths of mortgages owned by Citi were defective to the tune of between 60 and 80%.
  To pursue Bowen's revelations further, another Bloomberg reporter, Bob Ivry, filed FOIA requests with the S.E.C. seeking documents related to Bowen's potent disclosures.
  What Ivry likely hoped to discover was additional documentary evidence (beyond Bowen's email to Rubin included with his testimony) that Citigroup officers, including Rubin, had defrauded purchasers of Citi's MBS products by intentionally selling investments that Citi executives knew to be dogshit. (The term ''dogshit'' is used in accordance with Citigroup technical parameters for its investment products, which we'll come to in a minute.)
  What Ivry received in response, after a bit of wrangling, was a pile of documents notable only for their extensive redactions, i.e., blacked out content. The S.E.C. contends that the information that it's concealing on Citi's behalf qualifies as trade secrets.
  The rub here isn't whether or not the information satisfies the legal criteria for trade secret status. A bit of it probably does while the heft undoubtedly does not. What carries the trade secret assertion into the theater of absurd moral hazard isn't the nature of the information itself, but rather the fact that Citi is able to make the claim at all.
  How Bailouts Cover Up Ineptitude and Potential Crime
  Citigroup is the most pathetic TBTF bank in business, no mean feat among a herd of behemoths that is deathly ill. Citi exceeds its peers in just about every category you can think of associating with ''broke bank'' since the crisis began in 2008:
  Citigroup received the most TARP money, $45 billion, tying it with Bank of America as Wall Street's top welfare recipient known at the timeCitigroup was alone among its peers in having its toxic assets, $306 billion of them, ring-fenced at taxpayers' expenseCitigroup received more secret loans from the Federal Reserve--$2.5 trillion'--than any other bank, $500 billion more than Morgan Stanley, which Neil Barofsky informs us (via Ben Bernanke) in Bailout (the book, not the film) would have been the next domino to topple in the Fall of 2008Citigroup is the only bank that resorted to a reverse stock split, at 1-to-10, to put its share price back over $5, the low watermark for purchase eligibility among many institutional fundsWhen the crisis hit in 2008, Citigroup should have followed Lehman Brothers'--or perhaps led it'--into the morgue of corporate obesity. Citigroup posted losses that year of $27.7 billion, more than four times Lehman's losses before it collapsed into dust during the third quarter, and yet Citi paid out $32.4 billion in compensation'--the bulk of it in bonuses after receiving the $45 billion welfare check.
  And Citigroup's figures that year, as pustulent as they appear, in all likelihood mask even deeper rot within the company. Compare Citigroup's valuations of its MBS holdings with those of another sick TBTF firm at the time, Merrill Lynch.
  Merrill matched Citi's loss with a $27.7 billion loss of its own, and its deteriorating corpus had to be kept alive by Hank ''The Hammer'' Paulson, who shoved it snugly within a warm Bank of America cavity.
  Merrill's troubles reltated in no small part to MBS. In July 2008, Merrill sold $31 billion in mortgage-backed securities at 22 cents on the dollar. A 78% discount, while huge, was not at all unusual as the darkling reality of MBS assets materialized before a market that was sobering up after a very long binge. A few months earlier, Citadel had bought MBS at 27 cents on the dollar. And yet in this very market decline, Citi was marking equivalent investments at the imperial rate of 61 cents.
  Of course, when Citi was appraising its MBS assets at nearly 3 times as valuable as those of the soon-to-be-ambulance-bound Merrill, and regulators were looking the other way (often at pornography rather than the raging crisis), no one knew that Richard Bowen would come before Congress and testify that Citigroup mortgages were 60% defective in 2006 and 80% defective in 2007, casting further doubt'--this time from within the company itself'--on Citi's 61-cent MBS valuation.
  Were Citi's incredibly rich valuations the product of accounting fraud? After all, the congressional repeal of mark-to-market accounting rules wouldn't occur until the following year. Or did Citi have some foresight about that event?
  Perversely, we don't know for one simple reason: Citigroup got bailed out. Citigroup is a confirmed zombie, yes, but a corpse it is not. Unlike Lehman Brothers, Citigroup roams the earth as a going business, complete with armies of lawyers who go around willy-nilly asserting preposterous trade secret protection claims to conceal the truth from the very public that's paying them and their rubber-stamping counterparts in the S.E.C.
  Lehman Brothers, of course, is not a going concern and thus faces no threat of competitive harm through the disclosure of internal information, including alleged trade secrets. Consequently, the bankruptcy examiner's 2200-page report came with 1800 pages of attached documents that were wholly unredacted. Thus we see in all their naked glory information such as internal financial projections made to Lehman's board of directors.
  A second and seldom observed consequence of treating Lehman like a real rather than a crony capitalist was the disclosure of information about regulators, including the S.E.C. We learned, for instance, that the government was in many cases fully aware of Lehman's scams, to wit:
  The Examiner questioned Lehman executives and other witnesses about Lehman's financial health and reporting, [and] a recurrent theme in their responses was that Lehman gave full and complete financial information to Government agencies, and that the Government never raised significant objections or directed that Lehman take any corrective action.
  The same governmental complicity, or worse, may be going on within Citigroup, but we don't know because the government handed Citigroup the ultimate in welfare, a bailout. This opens another can of worms altogether, namely, the motivations behind bailouts. At a minimum they implicate conflicts of interest and may indeed extend to crime. It's yet another layer in the moral hazard onion, which, as the last four years has demonstrated, is inherently difficult to peel.
  This leads us directly back to Cohan's question: why does the S.E.C. protect Citigroup's dirty secrets?
  Fortunately, we have more to go on than redacted documents that reflect nothing beyond the S.E.C.'s contempt for the law. In particular, there are some extremely suggestive clues in the testimony of Richard Bowen and in the S.E.C.'s own lawsuit against Citigroup.
  Bowen's testimony, taken together with the S.E.C.-Citigroup lawsuit, raises the very grave question of whether Citigroup executives made the conscious decision to defraud investors on a staggering scale, and whether this criminal enterprise has the intentional and ongoing assistance of the S.E.C.
  Richard Bowen's testimony
  The parts of Bowen's testimony that are material here are these:
  Bowen was a Senior Vice President and a Chief Underwriter at Citigroup from 2002 through 2005 and was promoted to a Business Chief Underwriter responsible for 220 underwriters doing $90 billion in residential mortgagesBy mid-2006, 60% of Citi's $50 billion in prime mortgages purchased from 1600 different mortgage companies and sold to Fannie and Freddie and other investors were defective. In 2007, defective prime mortgages rose to 80%In 2006, Citi's residential mortgage volume grew by 40%, and an even bigger increase was expected in 2007As part of this expansion, Citi's Chief Risk Officer (above Bowen) ''started changing many of the underwriting decisions from 'turn down' to 'approve'''In one $300+ million Merrill Lynch subprime pool, the underwriters turned down 716 mortgages, which the Chief Risk Officer personally changed 260 to approved, and the pool was purchasedBowen sent an email to Citigroup CEO Robert Rubin voicing his concerns about the companies' massive volume of defective mortgages on November 3, 2007One question that Bowen's testimony leaves unanswered is this: why did Citigroup, in 2006, start significantly increasing not only the number of mortgages purchased but also the percentage of mortgages that were defective? How could the highest-ranking executives at Citigroup profit from taking on vastly higher volumes of mortgages that they knew were defective?
  One compelling answer comes from the S.E.C. case against Citigroup filed last year: they could package them into shitty deals, short them (via CDS), and then dupe customers into buying them. Such a scheme would have appeared at the time to guarantee Citigroup untold riches at both ends, first in fees and later on the winning bet against its own securities. Back then, the credit default swaps orgy at companies like AIG, which sold $3 trillion in protection before collapsing into Tim Geithner's waiting arms, was raging with Caligulean fury.
  The S.E.C. Lawsuit Against Citigroup for Selling "Dogshit" MBS
  The S.E.C. lawsuit, which involves mortgage-backed securities, revealed from its outset a significant degree of complicity between the agency and the target of its lawsuit, Citigroup. The S.E.C. tried to settle the case, for $285 million, on the same day it filed the complaint. A lot of judges would have been happy to see a complex securities case like that disappear instantly from their docket. The executive committee of each federal district court is on the lookout for laggards, and keeping tabs on bloated dockets is one way they do it.
  But alas, in the Southern District of New York there is both a judge with an eye-opening record of hatred for collusion between litigants at the public's expense and a random case assignment system, and on the day the S.E.C. filed suit against Citigroup, October 19, 2011, Lady Luck frowned on the S.E.C. and Citigroup. There are 47 federal district court judges who could have gotten that case. Rolling snake eyes was a more likely event, and with a far better outcome for the S.E.C. and Citigroup, than drawing Judge Jed Rakoff, which is exactly what happened.
  One wonders how much time elapsed--if any--between the time the S.E.C.-Citigroup complaint was stamped "Judge Rakoff" and the S.E.C.'s eager posting of the $285 million settlement on its website. In any event, Judge Rakoff was not amused by the parties' patent complicity and turned the proposed settlement into hamburger, which has extended the case by over an entire year beyond its intended 1-day lifespan.
  On the merits, the S.E.C.'s lawsuit against Citigroup bears a remarkable resemblance to its Abacus case against Goldman Sachs: the bank created an investment vehicle specifically designed to fail, shorted it, and then sold it on to unsuspecting investors by concealing both pieces of highly material information.
  But here the similarities with Goldman end.
  What makes the allegations in the S.E.C.-Citigroup complaint so interesting is how perfectly they gibe with Bowen's testimony, not only in terms of their subject matter (securities backed by bad mortgages) and their timing (early 2007), but with how cleanly they supply a motivation to go behind Bowen's observation that Citi ramped up, in a huge way, its purchases of mortgages known to be defective.
  Recall that Bowen supplies the evidentiary linkage to none other than Robert Rubin, which in turn supplies Citigroup's internals with far more gravitas than their equivalents at Goldman, limited as the latter were to half-million-dollar-a-year minions with names like "Fab." The Citigroup allegations are devastating in that the accused bank...
  shorted $500 million of collateralized debt obligations on its mortgages (CDO's) but concealed this fact from investorspocketed $160 million by shorting the CDO's (via credit default swaps), which defaulted just months later, having already collected $34 million in feeshad experienced CDO traders privately describing the investment portfolio as ''a collection of dogshit'' and ''possibly the best short EVER!'' because ''the portfolio is horrible''didn't mention that it had selected the securities itself, telling investors only that selection was ''based primarily on structural and credit analysis as well as technical factors which may influence trading levels and pricing"If the S.E.C. had had any say in the matter, the case would have gone away a long time before regular events in lawsuits, such as document production and depositions, could even be scheduled.
  It would be interesting to find out, through such discovery mechanisms, whether the Citi deal at issue in the suit, involving as it did the sale of dogshit mortgages (in perfect accordance with Bowen's testimony), was executed pursuant to a plan by Citgroup executives to profit wildly by systematically defrauding its customers by secretly shorting these "investments."
  That would explain Citigroup's suddenly insatiable appetite for mortgages known to be defective. It would also explain Citigroup's zeal to hide just about every scrap of information relating to Bowen's testimony under any label, however ridiculous, including "trade secret."
  And last but not least, it would supply the grounds for a case of criminal conspiracy to defraud investors on an uprecedented scale, perpetrated by none other than the highest-ranking executives within Citigroup'--exactly what the public has demanded, without satisfaction, for a very long time now.
  At the same time, given what we know about the S.E.C.'s treatment of Lehman's accounting practices, it would raise very serious questions about the agency's motivation, not only for its over-the-top FOIA redactions, but for its extreme haste in trying the make its case against Citigroup go away.
  It would take a planet-sized set of balls and a mountain of luck to set in motion the machinery to see a special prosecutor explore whether the S.E.C. has been systematically betraying the public for years. Strange it is then that out of several hundred federal judges, the one with hands-down the best record of fighting Wall Street-Washington graft is presiding over a case that looks like the tip of an iceberg, and that he's doing so at a time when the two most formidable public enemies of American kleptocrats--Alan Grayson and Elizabeth Warren--will return to Washington, D.C. in just a few short weeks under the titles of "Representative" and "Senator."
  Eventually the truth about what happened in 2008, and has been going on ever since, will out, just as it did after 1929. We're just waiting for our Pecora.
  ***
  John Titus has practiced law in federal courts for more than 15 years and is the writer and producer of the soon-to-be-released documentary, Bailout.
  Read more articles from John here...
  Watch a kick-ass trailer for Bailout...
Boeing's defense division 'unexpectedly' announces layoffs, facility closings on day after election
  Link to Article
  Source: Twitchy » US Politics
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 05:05
  As Twitchy reported in September, the Obama administration made moves to encourage defense contractors to delay layoff announcements until after the election, offering to reimburse contractors for any legal costs incurred in not informing their affected employees. Lockheed Martin seemingly took the offer, and today, Boeing announced it would be cutting 30 percent of management positions.
  CNBC reports:
  Boeing announced a major restructuring of its defense division on Wednesday that will cut 30 percent of management jobs from 2010 levels, close facilities in California and consolidate several business units to cut costs.
  Boeing, the Pentagon's second-largest supplier, said the changes were the latest step in an affordability drive that has already reduced the company's costs by $2.2 billion since 2010, according to the memo.The company told employees about the changes on Wednesday, in a memo obtained by Reuters and confirmed by Boeing.
  '...
  Boeing said the changes were not a response to the threat of additional, across-the-board U.S. budget cuts due to take effect on Jan. 2, or the outcome of U.S. elections, but represented another step in its continuing drive to ''be more competitive while investing in technologies and people.''
  Is that confetti from the victory celebration? No wait, those are pink slips.
  Related:
  Biggest gaffe of the night: Obama's sequestration blunder
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Lame Cherry: Junk Food Romney
  Link to Article
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 04:42
  I'm telling you children that Mitt Romney's biggest problem is not Barack Obama, nor even this blog, but Mitt Romney's problem in having the election stolen from him is Jeb Bush.Here, let me quote someone who was involved in successful Presidential elections and over 40 years of political experience in an exclusive here:
  Mitt Romney's advisers are not looking to a 2012 paycheck, but are looking toward their 2016 paycheck
  Michael ReaganSon of President Ronald Wilson Reagan
  She's laughing at the joke and I'm too slow.........That is the reality in all of this what this blog has alerted all to in Mitt Romney's enemies are on the inside, and they are the same treacherous lot who led John McCain off into the oblivion and sabotage Sarah Palin.
  This is a decade old Rovian and Bush machinations all designed to pave the way for Jeb Bush to be in the Oval Office in 2016. You need to be reminded of the post exclusively of this blog revealing that Jeb Bush is writing a book for a 2016 run, and that is quite amazing in Romney has Karl Rove working around him, and a host of other Rovians who were working for John McCain.
  Amazing if one is thinking these advisers are there to help Romney win, but they are there to sabotage Romney just like they did McCain.I keep telling you children that these patricians in the Bush clan WANT OBAMA's policies as they make a fortune off of government seizure of tax moneys and then paid out to programs they are making things for.
  The same with Mexicans in slave labor, they make money for these corporations in cheap labor, and with no health insurance they are dumped onto counties, the same with retirement they will never collect.
  Mitt Romney smugly had his Wall Street handlers tell Sarah Palin she has this 2012 nomination, and then with Gabby Giffords shot, and her scared, they came in to give her protection, only to dump her just before the show started as was planned out.Romney does not have any idea though, that the people he sold his soul to in the Rovians, that their own people are doing the same shell game to him that he did to Palin.
  Romney needs the Rovian machine led by the Prescott Bush people, and he is being led around by this group of handlers being told he has this won, and what to expect on Libya and other Obama blunders, but the problem is it is all by design in Romney was told "this would be close" and that is what the protocols are all geared for to keep Obama policy in place.That is what Romney promised this group in he would keep Obama policies in place for the Rovian support and he signed on for supporting Jews for their bundling.
  If Mitt Romney does not steal this back from Barack Obama, it is not because of Obama. It is because Romney's Rovians have decapitated the GOP of Conservatives, moved Romney from talking to the GOP base on their issues, and is leading Romney to be milk toast in talking to that "independent" group who Romney is told they want him to be the nice guy going to Bill Clinton orgies with B. Hussein.
  It is all about doing to Mitt Romney what was done to John McCain.
  Michael Reagan exposed the facts in this, in his disgust over Mitt Romney not taking on Obama and firing up the GOP base. Mitt Romney's advisers do not want a fired up Tea Party resurrected overturning democrats in a Congressional sweep and landslide wiping out Barry Chin in the elections, as that would mean the GOP would have to undo Obamacrypt and it would mean that Mitt Romney would be in office in 2016 running as President.
  I told you children that Jeb Bush will be voting for B. Hussein in November 2012, and I can tell you that Mitt Romney's advisers will be voting for Obama too, just like they did in 2008, as that is the reason Romney is acting like he has this won....same as Palin was acting.......same as McCain was acting, and these same people all led them to defeat so Jeb Bush would be top dog for 2016 in his Mexican illegals are voting Americans too for 2016.
  Yeah she's laughing at the joke and I'm too slow..........
  agtG 222
WHITE HOUSE INSIDER: ''SHUT UP. MOVE ON'...OR NOT.'' - The Ulsterman Report
  Link to Article
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 04:38
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Romney concession speech 2012: When did candidates start conceding defeat?
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 04:34
  Mitt Romney only mentioned Obama's name once and omitted traditional phrases like ''the people have spoken" in his speechPhotograph by Alex Wong/Getty Images.
  Mitt Romney had not written a concession speech as of Tuesday afternoon, but was forced to acknowledge his loss after midnight on Wednesday morning. In less than five minutes, Romney ticked all of the historical concession-speech boxes: accept defeat, congratulate victor, look forward, call for unity. Who invented this concession ritual?
  Al Smith. The modern presidential concession process has two elements: contacting the victor and addressing the public. Stephen Douglas became the first candidate to publicly acknowledge defeat when he urged the slave states to accept Lincoln's victory in 1860, but he didn't reach out to Lincoln. William Jennings Bryan was the first vanquished candidate to directly contact the victor on election night. He telegrammed William McKinley in 1896 that, ''We have extended the issue to the American people and their will is law.'' Bryan did not, however, break the news to his disappointed supporters in an exhausted, heartfelt speech. Al Smith was the first candidate to combine these two elements when he telegrammed his concession to Herbert Hoover in 1928, then broadcast his concession remarks in a radio address. Adlai Stevenson gave the first televised concession speech in 1952.
  Concessions speeches would have made little sense through most of the 19th century, when candidates pretended not to want the presidency'--if you're not engaged in a contest, there's nothing to concede. But most historians now view the concession ritual as one of the most important moments in American politics. It informs supporters of the losing candidate that the struggle is over. Tuesday night was a clear example of this phenomenon, as many Romney partisans refused to accept the projected Ohio results until the candidate himself did so. It also gives the victor an opportunity to publicly laud the loser in the victory speech, reaching out to those who voted for his opponent.
  The choreographed concession ritual, however, sometimes goes awry. Thomas Dewey refused to telegram a concession to Franklin Roosevelt in 1944. After the punctilious FDR learned Dewey had conceded in a radio interview, he privately called his defeated opponent a ''son of a bitch.'' In 1916, Charles Evans Hughes waited two weeks before telegramming his concession to Woodrow Wilson, who noted that the message was ''a little moth-eaten when it got here but quite legible.''
  Barry Goldwater delivered an unorthodox concession in 1964. He waited until the day after the election to concede, even though Lyndon Johnson had defeated him in a landslide. He also tempered his congratulatory remarks by reminding Johnson that he didn't turn out as many voters as John F. Kennedy had four years earlier. Goldwater vowed to continue in opposition to LBJ's policies, and called for an ''army'' of young people to spring to his side.
  Few concessions speeches are remembered, because the convention leaves little room for innovation. Author Scott Farris, who has chronicled the experiences of presidential also-rans, argues that candidates reveal their true feelings in small changes to the boilerplate concession language. In the first sentence of his long-delayed 2000 concession speech, for example, Al Gore congratulated George W. Bush on ''becoming'' the president, rather than being ''elected'' president. John McCain was widely lauded for giving the best concession speech in recent years. The Arizona senator went far beyond the ordinary accept-and-unite language, effusively praising Barack Obama and the historic nature of his victory. By contrast, Mitt Romney only mentioned the president's name once and omitted traditional phrases like ''the people have spoken.''
  Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Reid moves to limit GOP filibusters - Washington Times
  Link to Article
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 04:31
  Enlarge Photo
  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, holds a press conference Nov. ... more >Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday that he will try to push through a change to Senate rules that would limit the GOP's ability to filibuster bills.
  Speaking in the wake of Tuesday's election, which boosted Senate Democrats' numbers slightly, Mr. Reid said he won't end filibusters altogether but that the rules need to change so that the minority party cannot use the legislative blocking tool as often.
  ''I think that the rules have been abused and that we're going to work to change them,'' he told reporters. ''We're not going to do away with the filibuster but we're going to make the Senate a more meaningful place.''
  Republicans, who have 47 of the chamber's 100 seats in the current Congress, have repeatedly used that strong minority to block parts of President Obama's agenda on everything from added stimulus spending to his judicial picks. A filibuster takes 60 senators to overcome it.
  Leaders of both parties have been reluctant to change the rules because they value it as a tool when they are in the minority.
  But Mr. Reid said things changed over the last few years when he repeatedly faced off against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, who had said his chief political goal was defeating Mr. Obama. Mr. Reid said that led the GOP to abuse the filibuster.
  He did not say what changes he would support, though colleagues of his have proposed several.
  One leading option would eliminate the chance to filibuster bringing a bill to the floor, though it would still let a minority filibuster actual passage. That proposal would also limit the number of amendments allowed by each side.
  Senate Republicans, though, said the real problem is that Mr. Reid too often tries to limit the amendments they can offer to bills on the Senate floor. Left without the chance to debate their own priorities, the GOP sees little option but to filibuster.
  After Mr. Reid's comments Wednesday, Don Stewart, a spokesman for Mr. McConnell, said Democrats would set a bad tone for next year.
  ''We hope Democrats will work toward allowing members of both sides to be involved in the legislative process '-- rather than poisoning the well on the very first day of the next Congress,'' Mr. Stewart said. ''And that Sen. Reid will honor his public commitment to do rules changes only through the regular order.''
  Still, there's likely to be pressure for some changes, particularly from newly-elected members of the chamber.
  Sen.-elect Angus King, an independent who won Maine's open Senate seat, also took aim at filibusters during his campaign, saying the 60-vote threshold for legislation to allow Senate action is not part of the Constitution.
  Indeed, the founding document does not establish a supermajority for most legislation, but it does give each chamber the power to write its own rules, and the Senate has adopted the 60-vote threshold as a debating technique, not a threshold for passage '-- though that's often what it becomes.
  (C) Copyright 2012 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
Daily Press Briefing - November 7, 2012
  Link to Article
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 04:29
  12:52 p.m. EST
  MS. NULAND: All right, everybody. Into the future. I have nothing at the top. Happy Wednesday.
  QUESTION: For the future, can we now talk about the top foreign policy priorities for going forward, and more specifically perhaps, what are the Secretary's plans herself?
  MS. NULAND: I don't think the Secretary's plans have changed. You've heard her say many times that she intends to see through a transition of a successor and then she will go back to private life and enjoy some rest and think and write and all those things.
  QUESTION: Foreign policy initiatives, what's top of the agenda for the Administration now?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I think we need to '' we just had an election last night. There are people who were up a lot of the night counting and enjoying it, so I'm not going to stand here and make any big predictions on the second term. I think we'll let the President take the lead on those things.
  QUESTION: Victoria, I just heard Mr. Tony Blair speak from Jerusalem and saying that the environment was quite propitious, actually, to pursue a very active and energetic peace process led by the United States of America with the reelection of the President. Do you concur with the former British Prime Minister?
  MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, we work very closely with Tony Blair in his role as the UN's envoy on all of these matters and will continue to do so. Our goals are identical. We want to see these parties get to the negotiating table and we will continue to work to facilitate that, but I don't have anything particularly new to announce today, Said.
  QUESTION: Will the Administration pursue the two-state solution as vigorously as it has in the past four years?
  MS. NULAND: Again, all of you guys are going to be looking today for brand-new initiatives for the second term. We're going to let the President speak to his priorities before we start being highly predictive here.
  QUESTION: So lastly, just to clarify, do you believe that the State Department or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, before his presumed departure, will sort of launch a new initiative for the '' in particular for the Palestinian-Israeli peace process?
  MS. NULAND: I think we're going to continue to work very vigorously. She has her personal diplomacy that she does with the parties. I think that will continue, as will all of our efforts, but in terms of anything new to announce today, Said, I don't have anything new to announce at the moment.
  QUESTION: I think a lot of (inaudible) stuck pending the results of the elections if you look at perhaps Iran and the nuclear issue, if you look at Syria and what's going on forward there. Is there a sense now that there might be some way forward of actually moving ahead with the '' with some of these very difficult issues which have really bogged down in the last few months because nobody was willing to make a real decision on them?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I'm obviously not going to credit the premise that things have sort of been stopped, but let me just say that as with any election anywhere, we now have a chance to '' now that the election is finished, we have a chance to look forward, and I'm confident that the President and his team will do that and the Secretary will continue to serve through the term. But I don't have anything new and bold to announce here today.
  QUESTION: Can you explain why you don't agree with the premise of the question? Would that be the fact that there are talks with '' among the P-5+1? There are '' the Doha meeting that you've been involved in, is that what you mean?
  MS. NULAND: All of those things. We've continued our diplomacy all the way through.
  QUESTION: So now that the election is over and the President has safely been reelected, you're going to answer all of our questions about Benghazi? Or is that too much to hope?
  QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
  MS. NULAND: I think you know where we are. We have an ARB running, and the ARB, we hope, will answer all of our questions.
  QUESTION: So the answer is no?
  MS. NULAND: What specifically did you have in mind, Matt?
  QUESTION: Well, any of the questions that you've been asked over the past several weeks that you've refused to answer.
  MS. NULAND: And we have tied that to the fact that we have an ARB running. It was never tied to the election.
  QUESTION: Oh, I think that some people thought that it was.
  MS. NULAND: That was not what we said from this podium ever.
  Please.
  QUESTION: You think as far as Secretary's future plans are concerned, you think still she can change her mind and she will remain and stay?
  MS. NULAND: (Laughter.)
  QUESTION: Because she mentioned two weeks ago she might stay because of remaining work that '' because she happen to be one of the best Secretaries of State in the United States history.
  MS. NULAND: Well, I will make sure she reads the transcript and hears you say that, Goyal. (Laughter.) She seems pretty set in her plans. I think you probably misread a little bit the way the comment came out earlier. What she was talking about was that she would ensure that the transition to her successor happens smoothly, and I think that's still her intention.
  QUESTION: One more. In India, she's well-liked and that's what their views are, that they hope that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, when she was in India, they really love her, stay '' and to be continuous. That's why.
  MS. NULAND: Excellent.
  QUESTION: Thank you.
  QUESTION: The last one on the Secretary of State's impending departure: A moment ago, you said she would serve through the term. Is '' that's pretty certain at this point?
  MS. NULAND: That's what she's been saying.
  QUESTION: She has, right.
  MS. NULAND: Yes. She's been very consistent.
  QUESTION: And do you have any sense of how quickly the transition would come?
  MS. NULAND: Well, one doesn't generally have a hearing on a successor for the second term until the second term has begun, but it's obviously up to the President to make a nomination when he's ready and for the Congress to act '' for the Senate to act on it. So you know how that usually goes. You know '' you've been around the block as well Guy.
  QUESTION: What can you '' can we move on?
  MS. NULAND: Yes, please.
  QUESTION: Syria?
  MS. NULAND: Yes.
  QUESTION: What's going on in Doha right now? And then part two of that is: What's all this chatter about Patriot missiles going to the Turkish border?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I talked to our team in Doha this morning, to Assistant Secretary Jones and to Ambassador Ford. They noted that the actual full conference hasn't actually begun yet in Doha. It's going to start tomorrow. Today is a day of continuing meetings within the SNC and then preparatory meetings among some of the other participants. So they actually didn't have too much to report because the meeting itself, the big meeting, will be starting tomorrow. So we'll stay in touch with them.
  With regard to Patriots, I assume you're referring to press reports that Syria might '' that --
  QUESTION: Turkey.
  MS. NULAND: -- Turkey might go to NATO to ask for some support '' is that what you're referring to?
  QUESTION: Well, I mean, I wouldn't say press reports. I would say Turkish officials saying that, which are then reported by the press, certainly. But this isn't just something that's been made up out of thin air, which is what you seem to suggest by saying ''press reports.''
  MS. NULAND: No. Apologies, you're right. There was at least one Turkish official this morning that talked about going back to NATO. I think you know that since '' well, for many months, but certainly since the Article 4 consultation that we had in NATO with Turkey at Turkey's request following the beginning of these cross-border incidents, we've been working within NATO and with Turkey to look at what other defensive support Turkey might require. My understanding is that as of today, we haven't had a formal request of NATO. But as you know, in the past we have reinforced Turkey with Patriots. So we will await a formal request and then NATO will deliberate. But we're obviously looking at the full range of things to ensure that Turkey remains safe and secure.
  QUESTION: Does it have to be through NATO?
  MS. NULAND: No, but traditionally as a longtime NATO ally, Turkey seeks NATO support when it feels its security might be in peril.
  QUESTION: Right. But outside of NATO, they could just buy them, couldn't they?
  MS. NULAND: They could, and they have a bilateral program with us as well. But there are any number of things.
  QUESTION: With the possible deployment of these Patriot missiles, do you think that we're getting closer to sort of enforcing a no-fly zone or a safe haven? I asked that '' this question last week. Let's see if you have something new to add.
  MS. NULAND: I don't have anything new to add and I'm not going to get into hypothetical situations. On the no-fly zone itself, you know that we've been saying for quite a while we continue to study whether that makes sense, how it might work. With regard to the question of Patriot missiles in Turkey, we've talked about this before. Patriot is a defensive system. It's responsible for knocking down incoming missiles, so its purpose would be to defend the territory of Turkey. So I think you've got apples and oranges going here, Said.
  QUESTION: I mean --
  QUESTION: Well, yes, it's intended to be defensive, but there's certainly nothing to prevent them from using them offensively, is there not?
  MS. NULAND: It's not a missile. It's an interceptor for missiles.
  QUESTION: Yeah.
  MS. NULAND: Right?
  QUESTION: Okay. Just --
  QUESTION: What? No. I mean, something gets shot up in the air to shoot something else down. That '' you can use that offensively; it's just a question of whether it's shooting up or shooting over.
  MS. NULAND: Right. But unless there is something being shot in your direction, it has no purpose. It doesn't have a warhead on it.
  QUESTION: But the issue '' I think one of '' the issue is whether Turkey '' whether it's interested in using this or would it be interested in using this to fire at stuff that is still in Syrian territory, or would it only be once stuff, in theory, enters its airspace.
  MS. NULAND: Again, you're getting into all kinds of hypotheticals that haven't been raised in NATO or, as far as I'm aware, in any formal Turkish context. The purpose of deploying Patriots in the past in Turkey has been to prevent the incursion of Turkish airspace or Turkish territory by incoming from another location.
  QUESTION: Was this done in the past or in countries (inaudible)?
  MS. NULAND: In the Iraq context, I think both in Gulf I, and then in 2003.
  QUESTION: But they don't have any of their own Patriot assets, do they?
  MS. NULAND: I, frankly, am going to send you to the Pentagon for whether there are some permanently deployed things around some of their military facilities.
  QUESTION: Could you clarify one more time for us if you are still committed to non-lethal aid and that's it, I mean nothing beyond that during today or tomorrow or what may transpire as a result of this meeting?
  MS. NULAND: Our policy hasn't changed since the last time you asked, Said, which I think was Monday. Right?
  QUESTION: I have to keep asking.
  MS. NULAND: Yeah, okay.
  QUESTION: When was the last time that the Secretary spoke with her Turkish counterpart? Has she spoken to Davutoglu about this issue specifically '' the Patriots, I mean?
  MS. NULAND: She has not. And again, we're continuing to talk at NATO about what might be needed, including at the level of Ambassador Daalder. The last time she spoke to Foreign Minister Davutoglu I think was a couple of weeks ago, but we are expecting that they will talk again soon, but not necessarily on this issue but on the full package of Syria issues.
  QUESTION: Sorry. Were you surprised by the timing of these comments from the Turks? I mean, it was about four hours after Obama won reelection and they're announcing new U.S. policy, it seemed. What did you make of that?
  MS. NULAND: Well, they weren't announcing new U.S. policy. They were talking about things that they themselves might propose in NATO, which, frankly, are things that we've been talking about at NATO for some time. So it wasn't particularly surprising. The subject wasn't surprising.
  QUESTION: Right. But officials --
  MS. NULAND: And remember that this starts with the fact that Turkey has been the victim of shelling from the Syrian side for more than a month now.
  QUESTION: But I think it was that official who specifically said that they were holding off until after the U.S. election until these requests and these discussions would take place.
  MS. NULAND: Again, we've been talking about what defensive needs they might have for some time.
  Scott.
  QUESTION: Prime Minister Cameron says that the United States, Britain, and other allies of the opposition should do more to shape the Syrian opposition, which I suppose you're doing in Doha, and open direct communication with the rebel military commanders. Do you share the British Prime Minister's opinion on that?
  MS. NULAND: Well, he made some comments about British contacts with the FSA. I think we've made clear that we haven't barred contacts. In fact, I think we mentioned that Ambassador Ford had had a direct phone call with some of the FSA folks and his people, obviously talked to them. So from our perspective, this is a question of trying to maintain a broad cross-section of contacts among those who are trying to shape the future of Syria.
  QUESTION: What was the comment that he would back helping safe passage for Assad out of the country if that would end the bloodshed? I wondered what the United States might think about that, particularly because of the issues of accountability and bringing people to justice once this conflict ends.
  MS. NULAND: Well, he also made a follow-on set of comments, where he made clear that Britain also wants to see accountability for Assad. I would simply note that it's our understanding that a number of countries, particularly regional states, have offered to host Assad and his family if he chooses to leave Syria. Of course, from where we're sitting and we would expect within the eyes of the Syrian people, there will be accountability questions. What we have said is that the question of accountability for Assad is something that the Syrian people are very much going to have to be in the lead on.
  QUESTION: And in what form has this offer been made, do you know?
  MS. NULAND: I'm going to refer you to countries who may be interested in making those offers. We, have not '' we, the United States, have not made any offers to host Assad.
  QUESTION: Which countries have particularly?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I'm going to let them speak for themselves. I'm not going to speak for them.
  QUESTION: As far as any sort of potential immunity deal for Assad goes, that's something that the Syrians themselves have to work out if Syrians of whatever stripes decide that that's the price to pay to get them out of there; the U.S. wouldn't have any problem with that?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals. Our view on this is that those who've committed abuses need to be held to account. How and in what form that comes forward is something for the Syrian people to decide.
  QUESTION: Sorry. Why can't you say which countries it is? Can you at least say how many?
  MS. NULAND: I will '' beyond saying that there are a number of countries in the region who have made clear to us that they have made overtures, I'm not going to speak for them.
  QUESTION: Well --
  MS. NULAND: I'm not going to --
  QUESTION: We're not asking you to speak for them.
  MS. NULAND: I'm not going to name them either, Matt. I'm going to let them name themselves if they feel '' if care to.
  QUESTION: How advanced are these offers though? I mean, have they been made just clear to you or have they actually been made to Assad and his family members?
  MS. NULAND: The understanding is that a number of countries have made clear to Assad that they would be willing to host him. He has chosen not to avail himself of those opportunities.
  QUESTION: I wonder if I could ask you a general question. Last week, there were a lot of concern by many a world leader about a possible disruption of the course of current U.S. foreign policy as a result of any possible political change at the top. Do you think that this kind of goodwill towards the course that you have taken over the past three or four years could be interpreted into sort of ameliorating tense problems in Iran and perhaps getting things rolling in the Middle East and other places?
  MS. NULAND: I didn't exactly understand what you were asking. It sounded like a if x, then y political question, Said.
  QUESTION: Well, it's exactly that, as a matter of fact. I mean, there was like a consensus among many of the world leaders, they were concerned that there may be a disruption in ongoing American foreign policy and leadership throughout the world, especially with a crisis like in Iran, the stalled Middle East process, and so on. Could that be taken and sort of turned into some sort of capital towards, perhaps, a more engagement or more active engagement?
  MS. NULAND: Again, with reelection, the President has an opportunity now to shape his second term, and I'm not going to get ahead of him doing that, Said.
  QUESTION: But if I might --
  MS. NULAND: You can keep trying, however.
  QUESTION: If I may follow up on that. Basically what we could ask with hindsight, not looking forward --
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: -- because you don't want to do that, but looking back at the campaign that has now ended, can you talk a little bit about whether that campaign actually influenced the American foreign policy in any way? And if so, then what was the influence? And then we can deduce the possible changes.
  MS. NULAND: We don't talk about American politics at all here, and we're not going to start now, after the election, either.
  Please.
  QUESTION: The '' I am sorry, one more second '' the President famously said, very infamously, it depends on point of view, I guess, that he will be more flexible in some areas after his reelection. Will '' is that the feeling here at the State Department, that the leaders will now be playing it more by their instinct or whatever you want to '' whatever spin you want to put on that?
  MS. NULAND: The feeling here at the State Department is we're going to let the President shape his second term before we shape it for him, how about that?
  QUESTION: What does the attitude of the officers here at the State Department with the results of the election?
  MS. NULAND: We are not going to talk about political things here, we're not going to talk about the private political views of individuals here. Good try.
  Please, in the back there?
  QUESTION: Syria, just --
  MS. NULAND: Still Syria? Yeah.
  QUESTION: Yeah, one more thing on Syria.
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: On the contacts with the FSA '' is this something that you specifically want to enhance in the coming days or weeks? You said that Ford has had conversations by telephone with the commanders, but is this something --
  MS. NULAND: I think our --
  QUESTION: -- that you're specifically going to want more of?
  MS. NULAND: I think we're not in any particular posture there. I think you know that the focus of our diplomatic effort with the Syrians is on the political opposition meeting in Doha and our hope that the Syrians will be able to meet their own desire to refresh the leadership and have it be broadened and more effective.
  QUESTION: But I thought at this meeting you were hoping that the people fighting on the ground would be more better represented in the political opposition. I think the Secretary said that pretty clearly. So I assume you guys would want to maintain the same level of contact with the opposition as it broadens.
  MS. NULAND: Yeah, I don't think we're looking for any change at the moment. We'll let you know if that changes.
  QUESTION: But you want change in the opposition, that's correct?
  MS. NULAND: We do. We've been clear about that.
  QUESTION: So why do you not want to say that you want to have conversations with '' more conversations with these people if you also want them in the opposition?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I don't think that we have any difficulty having the kinds of conversations that we need to have, and we're not necessarily looking for a change of posture at the moment. We're just going to see who emerges from this process in Doha and go from there.
  Please. Lalit.
  QUESTION: So '' wait, I '' that doesn't make any sense. You want these people in the opposition. You want to continue talking to the opposition. But you won't say that you want to talk to them?
  MS. NULAND: Again, we are not dictating who should be in this opposition. We're not even dictating the organizations that should participate. We are simply saying this needs to be a decision that Syrians make, that we wanted to see a broader cross-section of folks have an opportunity to participate, hear their voices '' have their voices heard in the Doha process, particularly those from inside Syria from the political opposition. It's not actually clear to me whether the FSA is represented in Doha. I don't think they are.
  QUESTION: Yeah, but did the Secretary '' didn't she clearly say that this needs to be more representative of those fighting and dying for '' on the ground in Syria?
  MS. NULAND: Right. But I wouldn't extrapolate any particular organizations from that. She was simply saying that we've had an opposition representation that was largely comprised of folks who hadn't been in Syria in decades, and we want to see more folks who are leading the revolution there, and who are actually cognizant --
  QUESTION: Right.
  MS. NULAND: -- of the desires and needs of a broad cross-section of Syrian people be represented in this organization. So don't put words in anybody's mouth, here, as to --
  QUESTION: But that '' no, no, I'm not putting '' but that would '' to me, that implies that if you want to speak to the people who are leading the revolution, and those are the people fighting and dying on the ground, you want to speak to the leaders '' or you want to see the leaders of the military aspect of this revolution involved in the opposition, no?
  MS. NULAND: Again, they are involved in the opposition. The question in Doha is whether there's going to be a political leadership structure that emerges, that can be more effective.
  QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
  MS. NULAND: Please, back here. Can you tell me who you are?
  QUESTION: I'm with the Institute for Gulf Affairs. We're a news agency. And yesterday, the Bahraini monarchy revoked 31 indigenous Bahrainis in the opposition movement. I just want to know what the State Department's position is on this issue.
  MS. NULAND: Well, we are greatly concerned by the Government of Bahrain's decision to withdraw the nationality of 31 Bahraini citizens. We've continually called on the Government of Bahrain to create a climate that's conducive to reconciliation, to meaningful dialogue, to reform, to bring peaceful change. So '' but it is our understanding that decisions of this kind, like the citizen revocation, can be appealed in the administrative courts, so we want to see that process proceed transparently.
  Please.
  QUESTION: India?
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: Two quick questions India related: One, as far as this '' with the Secretary here at the State Department, or without her, do you see any changes between India and U.S. relations, or change any ongoing policies? And second, in recent months India has been going country-to-country as far as civil nuclear deals like Australia, France, Russia, and now Prime Minister of India was in Canada, also, for the same deal, because the U.S.-India civil nuclear deal signed in 2006 did not go through anywhere so far. What I'm asking you: Do we see now future of this civil nuclear deal between the two countries will go through, and also any change in the new policy?
  MS. NULAND: Well again, I think my answer on the question of continuity and policy '' you know that we have an excellent relationship with India across the board. In terms of what might come in a second term in terms of new initiatives, I'm not going to foreshadow that until the President's had a chance to think through that and articulate those things himself.
  You know where we are in our work on a civil nuclear deal with India. We're continuing to try to settle the remaining issues. We are also in contact with some of these allied countries who are also pursuing nuclear deals with India. There's, in our view, enough work here for everybody, and we all have the same concerns about the way this goes forward safely and fairly. So we're in contact with each other.
  QUESTION: Yeah, finally, because India feels that without U.S. participation and help, even though they will go to country to country, the deals will not go through with U.S. or with other countries.
  MS. NULAND: Well, I think the issues that we still need to work through other participants also have in terms of liability, cooperation, et cetera. So they have to be worked out.
  Lalit.
  QUESTION: Thank you.
  QUESTION: Did the Secretary get a chance to talk to her new Indian counterpart?
  MS. NULAND: She did. She talked to her new Indian counterpart --
  QUESTION: Do you have a readout?
  MS. NULAND: -- over the weekend. I guess it was on Saturday. I thought that we had said something about that. Yeah, she spoke to him on November 3rd. She congratulated External Affairs Minister Khurshid on his new appointment, and said that she looked forward to working with him. She also thanked him for his leadership in the Strategic Dialogue, and also for India's support for accession to the IOR-ARC, and for hosting the recent U.S.-India-Japan trilateral which we had last week. And she said that she looked forward to working with him and having a chance to meet at an appropriate time.
  Please, Guy.
  QUESTION: Yes, on Mali. And I'm sorry, I was not here yesterday. You may have --
  MS. NULAND: We didn't brief yesterday. I wasn't here either.
  QUESTION: That's '' I really wasn't here. One of the Islamist groups in Mali has reportedly now agreed to allow humanitarian aid groups to enter its territory and showed an openness to peace talks. Have you seen these reports? How is the United States involved in this within the context of Ms. Clinton's visit to Algeria, which I think was last week?
  MS. NULAND: I think you're talking about the statements made by Ansar al-Dine yesterday or today. So we welcome Ansar-al-Dine's announcement rejecting extremism and declaring the group's willingness to engage in a process of honest political dialogue with the interim Government of Mali. As you know, we have been calling for some time for a political conversation. This is one of the groups that participated in '' is participating in the ECOWAS-led dialogue process in Ouagadougou, which we're also supportive of. And Ansar-al-Dine is also one of the groups that's had a strong dialogue with the Government of Algeria. So now, having talked the talk, we want to see them walk the walk and lead the way in terms of a strong political process in Mali that can support greater security in the country as well.
  QUESTION: I'm sorry, could you just repeat who would lead the way, the walk the talk?
  MS. NULAND: (Laughter.) Did I confuse you?
  QUESTION: Whom do you want to see do that? Yes.
  MS. NULAND: Well, this particular group, which is a group that's participating in the Ouagadougou process, has said good things about the possibility for political reconciliation with the transitional government. So they're talking the talk. Now they need to walk the walk and work on an actual reconciliation deal that others can join into as well.
  QUESTION: Can I suggest that you use another expression?
  MS. NULAND: Am I boring you, Matt? I'm so sorry.
  QUESTION: Well --
  QUESTION: The Ouagadougou process --
  MS. NULAND: The Ouagadougou process, you like that?
  QUESTION: No, the walk the walk, talk the talk.
  QUESTION: That one, too.
  MS. NULAND: Okay. I'm open to your suggestions.
  QUESTION: Particularly for Nicolas, because apparently it doesn't translate into French. (Laughter.)
  MS. NULAND: It doesn't? It doesn't work? (Laughter.) (In French.)
  QUESTION: Instead, if you could use multiple analogies to American football, that would be good. (Laughter.)
  MS. NULAND: Excellent, excellent, excellent. We'll do '' that's Mark's department, you know. I'm more into ballet and opera on my side. (Laughter.)
  QUESTION: (Inaudible) because American football is not always understood --
  QUESTION: It doesn't translate either, okay. (Laughter.) Mark is the football dude.
  QUESTION: I wanted '' maybe I'm also behind the curve a little bit in terms of what you've already announced, but if I'm not, please tell me if you have any readouts on Mrs. Verveer's travels throughout the former Soviet space. I think she was in Ukraine.
  MS. NULAND: This is Melanne Verveer's trip?
  QUESTION: Uh-huh.
  MS. NULAND: I don't have anything here, but let me see if her office has something to share.
  QUESTION: If you could, thank you.
  MS. NULAND: Okay.
  QUESTION: In Europe?
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: Reports of hundreds of thousands of protestors in the streets in Greece again. I mean, to what degree are some of the economic and social problems registering on the radar here at the State Department in terms of concern about stability?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I think you know that for more than a year now, if not two, three, we've been deeply engaged with our European allies and partners '' the Treasury Department, the President, obviously the Secretary '' to support the kinds of reforms that are necessary and trying to share maximum support.
  Today is a big day in Greece. As you know, the parliament is considering the reform package. And we have all along urged Greece to implement the necessary reforms, to improve the long-term competitiveness of their economy, to make Greece more attractive to investment, and to return the country to growth. This is important not only for Greece but for the Eurozone as a whole. So they have important decisions to make today about how to implement that going forward. And that's obviously a decision for the Greek people to make, but we very much support the process of reform that's underway.
  QUESTION: Over that three-year process --
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: -- I mean, it's been, obviously, destabilizing to the global financial markets.
  MS. NULAND: Right.
  QUESTION: Social stability. The kind of protests that you're seeing in the streets, I mean, what has changed in terms of the characterization of the viewpoint on some of these reforms so far?
  MS. NULAND: Well, not only Greece but other countries '' Italy, Spain, a number of countries '' are having to make very, very tough choices. They're choices that are difficult for their citizens. There's choices that have resulted in political change as well. They've required consensus across the political spectrum. So this is a process that we've been, obviously, in conversation with our European allies and partners with for a long time and in the G-7 context, in the G-8 context. So it's something that we are continuing to watch, and again, it's a very important period right now in Greece.
  Anything? Please.
  QUESTION: Puerto Rico.
  MS. NULAND: Yeah. Puerto Rico, wow.
  QUESTION: Well, I'm not sure if this is your '' within your arena at all, so please tell me if I'm '' probably not.
  MS. NULAND: I think it's probably not, but why don't you give it a try?
  QUESTION: But anyway, they voted last night for the first time ever to become a U.S. state, as in of the 50 '' the 51st U.S. state. And --
  MS. NULAND: Well, one of the 50 would require us to kick somebody out. (Laughter.)
  QUESTION: Sorry. They want to be the 51st. (Laughter.) So they want to become the 51st U.S. state. I mean, is there anything that's united '' that the State Department is actively '' would be involved in? Would that be a process that would come through you, if it were to go forward?
  MS. NULAND: No. I don't think we're involved in that at all. But if I'm not right about that, we'll let you know.
  QUESTION: Okay.
  MS. NULAND: All right. Thank you all very much.
  (The briefing was concluded at 1:23 p.m.)
  DPB #190
Here It Comes: Karl Rove's 19th Nervous Breakdown
  Link to Article
  Source: Crooks and Liars
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 04:18
  In this part of "The Godfather" series, we watched the walls closing in on Karl Rove last night. His eyes darting nervously, breaking out into a flop sweat and kept insisting that what was happening wasn't.
  Imagine the inevitable late-night phone call from David Koch: "What did you do with the money, Karl?"
  "Well, Mr. Koch, as I said, we had a plan...."
  "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE MONEY, KARL?" After all, he promised to buy them an election. They didn't get it.
  Koch hangs up, and Rove sits up in bed, heart racing as he thinks about all the billionaires he has to face with his failure. And that's when he sees... the horse's head in his bed.
  BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
  When does he break? At what point does he descend fully into the madness he so richly deserves?
  He got away with treason after outing Valerie Plame. He sold an illegal war and kept Bush in the White House. So many sins, large and small. Now he has to face himself.
  It's poetic justice.
  "I DID SO MANY BAD THINGS!!!!"
  (Warning: Not suitable for work!)
UKIP Nigel Farage tells Mrs Merkel it's time for Britain to leave the EU - Nov 2012
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by ukipmedia
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 04:12
How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File - Conor Friedersdorf
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 04:09
  Nate Silver was right. His ideological antagonists were wrong. And that's just the beginning of the right's self-created information disadvantage.
  Reuters
  Before rank-and-file conservatives ask, "What went wrong?", they should ask themselves a question every bit as important: "Why were we the last to realize that things were going wrong for us?"Barack Obama just trounced a Republican opponent for the second time. But unlike four years ago, when most conservatives saw it coming, Tuesday's result was, for them, an unpleasant surprise. So many on the right had predicted a Mitt Romney victory, or even a blowout -- Dick Morris, George Will, and Michael Barone all predicted the GOP would break 300 electoral votes. Joe Scarborough scoffed at the notion that the election was anything other than a toss-up. Peggy Noonan insisted that those predicting an Obama victory were ignoring the world around them. Even Karl Rove, supposed political genius, missed the bulls-eye. These voices drove the coverage on Fox News, talk radio, the Drudge Report, and conservative blogs.
  Those audiences were misinformed.
  Outside the conservative media, the narrative was completely different. Its driving force was Nate Silver, whose performance forecasting Election '08 gave him credibility as he daily explained why his model showed that President Obama enjoyed a very good chance of being reelected. Other experts echoed his findings. Readers of The New York Times, The Atlantic, and other "mainstream media" sites besides knew the expert predictions, which have been largely born out. The conclusions of experts are not sacrosanct. But Silver's expertise was always a better bet than relying on ideological hacks like Morris or the anecdotal impressions of Noonan.
  Sure, Silver could've wound up wrong. But people who rejected the possibility of his being right? They were operating at a self-imposed information disadvantage.Conservatives should be familiar with its contours. For years, they've been arguing that liberal control of media and academia confers one advantage: Folks on the right can't help but be familiar with the thinking of liberals, whereas leftists can operate entirely within a liberal cocoon. This analysis was offered to explain why liberal ideas were growing weaker and would be defeated.
  Today?
  It is easy to close oneself off inside a conservative echo chamber. And right-leaning outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh's show are far more intellectually closed than CNN or public radio. If you're a rank-and-file conservative, you're probably ready to acknowledge that ideologically friendly media didn't accurately inform you about Election 2012. Some pundits engaged in wishful thing; others feigned confidence in hopes that it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy; still others decided it was smart to keep telling right-leaning audiences what they wanted to hear.
  But guess what?
  You haven't just been misinformed about the horse race. Since the very beginning of the election cycle, conservative media has been failing you. With a few exceptions, they haven't tried to rigorously tell you the truth, or even to bring you intellectually honest opinion. What they've done instead helps to explain why the right failed to triumph in a very winnable election.
  Why do you keep putting up with it?
  Conservatives were at a disadvantage because Romney supporters like Jennifer Rubin and Hugh Hewitt saw it as their duty to spin constantly for their favored candidate rather than being frank about his strengths and weaknesses. What conservative Washington Post readers got, when they traded in Dave Weigel for Rubin, was a lot more hackery and a lot less informed about the presidential election.
  Conservatives were at an information disadvantage because so many right-leaning outlets wasted time on stories the rest of America dismissed as nonsense. WorldNetDaily brought you birtherism. Forbes brought you Kenyan anti-colonialism. National Review obsessed about an imaginary rejection of American exceptionalism, misrepresenting an Obama quote in the process, and Andy McCarthy was interviewed widely about his theory that Obama, aka the Drone Warrior in Chief, allied himself with our Islamist enemies in a "Grand Jihad" against America. Seriously?
  Conservatives were at a disadvantage because their information elites pandered in the most cynical, self-defeating ways, treating would-be candidates like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain as if they were plausible presidents rather than national jokes who'd lose worse than George McGovern.
  How many months were wasted on them?
  How many hours of Glenn Beck conspiracy theories did Fox News broadcast to its viewers? How many hours of transparently mindless Sean Hannity content is still broadcast daily? Why don't Americans trust Republicans on foreign policy as they once did? In part because conservatism hasn't grappled with the foreign-policy failures of George W. Bush. A conspiracy of silence surrounds the subject. Romney could neither run on the man's record nor repudiate it. The most damaging Romney gaffe of the campaign, where he talked about how the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes are a lost cause for Republicans? Either he was unaware that many of those people are Republican voters, or was pandering to GOP donors who are misinformed. Either way, bad information within the conservative movement was to blame.
  In conservative fantasy-land, Richard Nixon was a champion of ideological conservatism, tax cuts are the only way to raise revenue, adding neoconservatives to a foreign-policy team reassures American voters, Benghazi was a winning campaign issue, Clint Eastwood's convention speech was a brilliant triumph, and Obama's America is a place where black kids can beat up white kids with impunity. Most conservative pundits know better than this nonsense -- not that they speak up against it. They see criticizing their own side as a sign of disloyalty. I see a coalition that has lost all perspective, partly because there's no cost to broadcasting or publishing inane bullshit. In fact, it's often very profitable. A lot of cynical people have gotten rich broadcasting and publishing red meat for movement conservative consumption.
  On the biggest political story of the year, the conservative media just got its ass handed to it by the mainstream media. And movement conservatives, who believe the MSM is more biased and less rigorous than their alternatives, have no way to explain how their trusted outlets got it wrong, while the New York Times got it right. Hint: The Times hired the most rigorous forecaster it could find.
  It ought to be an eye-opening moment.
  But I expect that it'll be quickly forgotten, that none of the conservatives who touted a polling conspiracy will be discredited, and that the right will continue to operate at an information disadvantage. After all, it's not like they'll trust the analysis of a non-conservative like me more than the numerous fellow conservatives who constantly tell them things that turn out not to be true.
Osprey out of Japan
  Link to Article
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 03:56
  TOKYO (AP) -- Thousands of people have rallied against American deployment of Osprey military aircraft on a southern Japanese island amid escalating anti-U.S. military sentiment following recent crimes.Protesters gathered Sunday at a Tokyo park demanding removal of 12 MV-22 Osprey hybrid aircraft from Okinawa. Ospreys were deployed in October despite local opposition over safety concerns following two crashes elsewhere.They chanted, "Ospreys out! Marine Corps out!"Anger is running high days after a U.S. airman allegedly assaulted a teenage boy on Okinawa, just two weeks after a curfew was imposed on all 52,000 U.S. troops in Japan after the arrest of two Navy sailors in the alleged rape of a local woman.More than half of the American troops in Japan are on Okinawa. The recent incidents have inflamed tension and distrust.
Ohio woman who drove on sidewalk to avoid school bus ordered to wear 'idiot' sign | Fox News
  Link to Article
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 01:51
  Shena Hardin was ordered to stand at an intersection for two days next week wearing a sign saying: 'Only an idiot drives on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus.'Fox8.com
  CLEVELAND '' A woman caught on camera driving on a sidewalk to avoid a Cleveland school bus that was unloading children will have to stand at an intersection wearing a sign warning about idiots.
  Court records show a Cleveland Municipal Court judge on Monday ordered 32-year-old Shena Hardin to stand at an intersection for two days next week. She will have to wear a sign saying: "Only an idiot drives on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus."
  The judge ordered her to wear the sign from 7:45 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. both days.
  Hardin's license was suspended for 30 days and she was ordered to pay $250 in court costs.
  Messages seeking comment were left at a telephone listing for Hardin and at her attorney's office.
Puerto Ricans opt for statehood in referendum - BostonHerald.com
  Link to Article
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 01:43
  SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico '-- A slim majority of Puerto Ricans sought to change their ties with the United States and become the 51st U.S. state in a non-binding referendum that would require final approval from Congress.
  The two-part referendum asked whether the island wanted to change its 114-year relationship with the United States. Nearly 54 percent, or 922,374 people, sought to change it, while 46 percent, or 786,749 people, favored the status quo. Ninety-six percent of 1,643 precincts were reporting as of early Wednesday.
  The second question asked voters to choose from three options, with statehood by far the favorite, garnering 61 percent. Sovereign free association, which would have allowed for more autonomy, received 33 percent, while independence got 5 percent.
  President Barack Obama earlier expressed support for the referendum and pledged to respect the will of the people in the event of a clear majority.
  It is unclear whether U.S. Congress will debate the referendum results or if Obama will consider the results to be a clear enough majority.
  Puerto Rico's resident commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, who has championed statehood, did not return calls for comment. He received 48 percent or 874,914 votes, while his opponent, Rafael Cox Alomar, received 47 percent or 855,732 votes with 96 percent of precincts reporting.
  The island is currently a U.S. territory whose inhabitants are U.S. citizens but are prohibited from voting in presidential elections. Its resident commissioner in the U.S. House also has limited voting powers.
  The future of the island's political status, however, also is dependent on who governs the island.
  According to partial election results, pro-statehood Gov. Luis Fortuno was ousted by a razor thin margin by an opponent who supports the island's current political status.
  With 96 percent of precincts reporting, challenger Alejandro Garcia Padilla with the Popular Democratic Party received 48 percent or 870,005 votes. Fortuno, a Republican and leader of the New Progressive Party, received 47 percent or 855,325 votes.
  Fortuno has not issued comment, while Garcia celebrated what he called a victory.
  "I can assure you we have rescued Puerto Rico," Garcia said. "This is a lesson to those who think that the well-being of Puerto Ricans should be subjected to ideologies."
  Election results also pointed to a major upset for Jorge Santini, who has been mayor of the capital of San Juan for 12 years. His opponent, Carmen Yulin Cruz, received 71,736 votes compared with Santini's 66,945 votes with 96 percent of precincts reporting.
  The island's elections commission said it would resume counting votes late Wednesday morning.
  (C) Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Pentagon Islamic Adviser Reappears as Political Leader for Syrian Muslim Brotherhood-Dominated Group
  Link to Article
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:43
  Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has denounced Bachmann from the Senate floor, Speaker of the House John Boehner has called the charges ''dangerous,'' and House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers is now trying to force her out. (Bachmann serves on the Intelligence Committee, whose members are selected at the sole discretion of the Speaker.)
  And that's just on the GOP side of the equation.
  But the notion that the U.S. government is influenced by Muslim Brotherhood operatives is absolutely nutty, right?
  Take, for example, the case of Louay Safi, a Syrian-American Islamic leader who has been actively involved with groups close to the Obama White House.
  Safi himself has been fairly influential in government circles. For several years, he was only one of two endorsing agents for the Pentagon's Muslim military chaplain program as Director of Leadership Development for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). He was also responsible for teaching about Islam to American troops deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq.
  So it was particularly curious last year when Safi reappeared last August as the director of the political office of the newly-formed Syrian National Council (SNC). His profile appears on the SNC's website, and pictures taken at the unveiling of the SNC in Istanbul shows Safi front and center of the leadership.
  His new SNC role and his connections to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood were first reported by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.
  Now Safi's presence on Al-Jazeera is nearly ubiquitous when it comes to matters concerning Syria and the efforts of the SNC and its subordinate Free Syrian Army to topple the regime of Bashar Assad:
  But what is the relationship between the SNC and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, historically one of the most violent Muslim Brotherhood offshoots in the world?
  The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies have complete control of the SNC--as testified to in multiple media reports, including the New York Times and the Washington Post.
  One May 2012 Reuters report observes the pervasive control of Muslim Brotherhood over SNC operations and policies:
  At a meeting of Syria's opposition, Muslim Brotherhood officials gather round Marxists colleagues, nudging them to produce policy statements for the Syrian National Council, the main political group challenging President Bashar al-Assad.
  With many living in the West, and some ditching their trademark beards, it is hard to differentiate Brotherhood from leftists. But there is little dispute about who calls the shots.
  From annihilation at home 30 years ago when they challenged the iron-fisted rule of Hafez al-Assad, the Brotherhood has recovered to become the dominant force of the exile opposition in the 14-month-old revolt against his son Bashar.
  The report goes on to note one incident picked up by the Arab media (see also John Rosenthal's report at the National Review) of Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leaders touting in meetings with other Middle East leaders their control of the SNC and how they positioned a ''liberal'' leader up front to maintain an illusion for Western leaders:
  Careful not to undermine the council's disparate supporters, the Brotherhood has played down its growing influence within the Syrian National Council (SNC), whose public face is the secular Paris-based professor Bourhan Ghalioun.
  ''We chose this face, accepted by the West and by the inside. We don't want the regime to take advantage if an Islamist becomes the Syrian National Council's head,'' former Brotherhood leader Ali Sadreddine al-Bayanouni told supporters in a video.
  The footage is now being circulated by Brotherhood opponents, seeking to highlight its undeclared power.
  ''We nominated Ghalioun as a front for national action. We are not moving now as Muslim Brotherhood but as part of a front that includes all currents,'' said Bayanouni.
  Here is the video of Bayanouni's comments:
  The SNC leadership also traveled to Doha, Qatar (where Safi is now based), back in February to receive the blessing of Yusef al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the international Muslim Brotherhood.
  Thus, it's not a surprise that the non-Islamists opposing Assad haveopenly complainedabout the Muslim Brotherhood's tight grip on the SNC.
  Which brings us back to Louay Safi. How does someone who served as one of the Pentagon's top Islamic advisers turn up as a political leader for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood front group waging a bloody civil war against the Assad regime?
  Perhaps someone should ask John McCain, John Boehner and Mike Rogers that question, as well as where their outrage was when anEgyptian terror group memberwas given a visa in violation of federal law, flown to the U.S.on the taxpayer's tab, and escorted into the White House to meet with members of Obama's national security staff to demand the release of the terror group's leader imprisoned in the U.S.?
  In the past Safi has cast himself as a neutral, objective academic, but his Muslim Brotherhood pedigree in the U.S. goes back a long way.
  His ties to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood became an issue when Safi's relationship with the Pentagon became public after the November 2009 Fort Hood shootings.
  At the time of Major Nidal Hasan's lethal attack, Safi was teaching Islam to deploying soldiers at Fort Bliss. He had also been teaching a class, ''Theology of Islam,'' at Fort Hood. It is unknown whether Safi had any contact with Maj. Hasan.
  According to theDallas Morning News, the classes taught by Safi were overseen by the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and Safi served as a sub-contractor to Hunstville, Alabama-based Camber Corp., which had a $17.7 million Pentagon contract to teach Islamic theology as part of the U.S. Army's Islamic education program.
  After the Fort Hood attack, Safi appeared with a group of U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leaders at a press conferenceannouncing the formationof a ''Fort Hood Family Fund'' under the auspices of Safi's ISNA.
  But Safi's visibility and his ties to the Army's Islamic education program broughtconsiderable public criticism.
  One of the primary complaints about Safi teaching Islam to deploying soldiers is that his organization, ISNA, had beennamed unindicted co-conspiratorin the Holy Land Foundation case--the largest terrorism financing trial in American history.
  During the trial, ISNA had been identified by federal prosecutors as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood, most notably in astrategic memoby the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leadership that claimed their mission was a ''Civilization-Jihadist process'' and that ''their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house.'' Safi's ISNA was identified in that Muslim Brotherhood strategic memo as one of ''our organizations.''
  In fact, Judge Jorge Solis, who presided over the Holy Land Foundation trial, wrote in an opinionlater unsealedthat there was ''ample evidence'' that ISNA and other U.S. Islamic groups hadacted in support of Hamas.
  The defendants in the Holy Land Foundation case wereconvicted on all countsand later sentenced tolengthy prison terms.
  Safi's critics also noted that the Holy Land Foundation case wasn't the only terror support trial to which he had been connected.
  Back in 2002,Safi's offices were raidedby the U.S. Customs Service of the Treasury Department as part of a widespread investigation into the SAAR Network, afinancial empirefunded by Saudi money but controlled and operated by U.S. Muslim Brotherhood operatives. At the time, Safi was working for the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), which was one of the primary targets of the raid, according to an affidavit by the Customs Service that was the basis for the federal search warrant.
  Immediately following the raids Safi took to the mediacomplainingabout the raids and defending those under investigation. ''Those who have been targeted are very moderate voices,'' he told the media. He later wrote editorialsparroting Osama bin Laden and claiming that the ''extreme right'' was turning the War on Terror into a War on Islam.
  Then, in 2005, Safi was named ''unindicted co-conspirator Number 4'' in the trial of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Sami Al-Arian. As the Tampa Tribunenotedduring the trial, conversations between Al-Arian and Safi had been wiretapped under a top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) national security warrant. In one conversation,Safi called Al-Arianto ask him how the designation of PIJ as a terrorist organization by then-President Bill Clinton would impact Al-Arian's work. Al-Arian latertook a plea deal, with the federal judge in the case calling the PIJ US chief a ''master manipulator'' and ''an active leader'' of PIJ.
  Much of this information was known prior to Safi becoming one of the Islamic advisers to the Pentagon and serving as one of the Defense Department's two endorsers of Muslim chaplains.
  But that wasn't the only agency soliciting Safi's help. As Rowan Scarborough at Human Eventsreportedin September 2009, Safi was appearing with FBI officials (yes, the same FBI that had wiretapped his conversations with Al-Arian) at ''outreach'' events. Scarborough noted some of Safi's writings supported violent jihad:
  Some FBI agents are disturbed at his outreach. They point, for example, to a panel discussion last year at Yale.
  On the panel was Louay Safi, an Islamic scholar and supporter of President Obama. Joining him that day was Valerie Caproni, the FBI's top lawyer who weighs in on whether the bureau should investigate suspected extremists. The discussion was called, ''Behind the Blindfold of Justice: Security, Individual Rights, & Minority Communities After 9/11.''
  Safi is a Syrian-born author who advocates Muslim American rights through his directorship of ISNA's Leadership Development Center. He advocates direct talks between Washington and Iran's leaders. He has spoken out against various law enforcement raids on Islamic centers.
  In a 2003 publication, ''Peace and the Limits of War,'' Safi wrote, ''The war against the apostates [non-believers of Islam] is carried out not to force them to accept Islam, but to enforce the Islamic law and maintain order.''
  He also wrote, ''It is up to the Muslim leadership to assess the situation and weigh the circumstances as well as the capacity of the Muslim community before deciding the appropriate type of jihad. At one stage, Muslims may find that jihad, through persuasion or peaceful resistance, is the best and most effective method to achieve just peace.''
  It was precisely the Quranic doctrine of a ''preemptive strike'' that Safi articulated that Maj. Hasan undoubtedly had in mind when he launched his terror attack killing 13 of his Army colleagues.
  After the Fort Hood attack and the surrounding publicity of Safi's role in teaching deploying troops came to light, several media outlets, including the Dallas Morning News, began asking hard questions about Safi.
  Erick Stakelbeck at CBN Newscontacteda Fort Hood spokesperson, who admitted that ''organizers of the seminar were not aware of Safi's alleged association, but have had no issues or concerns over his presentations nor has any unit raised any.''
  So the Pentagon was not aware that one of their top advisers had been the subject of one terror support investigation, had been picked up on FBI national security wiretaps, had personally been named unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of a senior terrorist leader, and was at the time working for an organization that federal prosecutors had already identified in court as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood that had supported Hamas.
  And that same adviser is now a top political leader for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council.
Greek Parliament passes Austerity Law'...but will it be enough? | A diary of deception and distortion
  Link to Article
  Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:30
  There are many times in any given month I lose the plot about what exactly has or hasn't been agreed between Brussels and the ClubMeds. But tonight it seems that Greek MPs have narrowly passed a crucial austerity bill by majority vote, albeit with huge dissent from within the three-party governing coalition.
  Immediately after the vote tonight, two of the coalition parties expelled a total of seven dissenting deputies from their ranks. The third party in the coalition, the Democratic Left, mostly abstained. Yahoo News reports:
  'The passage of the bill was a big step for the government to secure continued funding from the country's international creditors. Without the loans, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has said Greece will run out of euros on November 16th'
  But the last time I looked (before the new Slogette came into the world) the IMF had told the EU FinMins that Greek austerity was miles off target, and they shouldn't be given any more bailout tranches.
  So: will this vote tonight secure the release of the November tranche'....or not? If you scan the media via Google over the last two weeks, there is no trace anywhere of Brussels saying '' officially '' that they've decided to ignore the IMF paper and bail Greece out anyway.
  ''It is clear that Greece is off track and there is no chance they will cut the debt to 120% of GDP in 2020 as envisaged. It will be rather 136%, and this would be under a positive scenario of a primary budget surplus, a return to economic growth, and privatisation,'' a euro zone official told Reuters 12 days ago.
  One thing the Greeks need to remember: the US election is over, and the Black Dude is back in the White House. So the brakes are off. The Sprouts and Berliners are just mad enough to say, ''Nice vote guys, but we think you're dead anyway and we have no desire to throw good money after bad.''
  I don't think they will. But it would be nice, would it not, if the eurocrats were at least well-mannered enough to fill up the gaps in the narrative.
  About these adsLike this:Be the first to like this.
Mitt Romney, white voters: The GOP candidate's race-based, monochromatic campaign made him a loser.
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 21:00
  Mitt Romney greets supporters as he concedes the presidency on Tuesday, in Boston, Mass.Photograph by Don Emmert-Pool/Getty Images.
  In the end, the racial bubble of Mitt Romney's campaign was a little too small. According to exit polls, he won 59 percent of the white vote, just short of his 60 percent target. But even a 60 percent showing with white voters wouldn't have won him the popular vote.
  That's because the GOP bubble remained as tight as ever: Only white people voted for MittRomney.
  Or not quite only. Romney won 48.1 percent of the overall vote. White people who voted for Romney made up 42.5 percent of the overall vote. That works out to 88 percent of Romney voters being white.
  Using the same method, we find that 2 percent of Romney's voters were black, 6 percent were Latino, 2 percent were Asian, and 2 percent had some other ethnic classification.
  Obama's support was 56 percent white, 24 percent black, 14 percent Latino, 4 percent Asian, and 2 percent other.
  The white-run political press remained in denial about Romney's narrowly race-based candidacy right up to the end, mistaking the anomalies inside the white bubble for the general political climate. Thus in the final week before the election, the New York Times reported from Pennsylvania:
  [T]here is a tangible sense'--seen in Romney yard signs on the expansive lawns of homes in the well-heeled suburbs, and heard in the excited voices of Republican mothers who make phone calls to voters in their spare time'--that the race is tilting toward Mr. Romney.
  Obama won Pennsylvania by five points.
  Politico, meanwhile, raised white identity politics to self-parody, in a now-notorious Nov. 4 piece by Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen:
  If President Barack Obama wins, he will be the popular choice of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites. That's what the polling has consistently shown in the final days of the campaign. It looks more likely than not that he will lose independents, and it's possible he will get a lower percentage of white voters than George W. Bush got of Hispanic voters in 2000.
  A broad mandate this is not.
  (For what it's worth, the white vote for Obama ended up being five percentage points higher than the Hispanic vote for Bush in 2000.)
  But white separatism was not enough to break up the actual Obama mandate. Obama's support was so broad that if white people had simply split 50-50, rather than favoring their ethnic candidate, the president would have won 58 percent of the popular vote.
  This was more than Bill O'Reilly could bear last night. Given exit polls and early returns pointing to Romney's defeat, O'Reilly made the racist assumptions of the losing side explicit:
  [I]t's a changing country, the demographics are changing, it's not a traditional America anymore. And there are 50 percent of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it and he ran on it.
  And, whereby, 20 years ago President Obama would have been roundly defeated by an establishment candidate like Mitt Romney. The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that this economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff.
  You're going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama. Overwhelming black vote for President Obama and women will probably break President Obama's way. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?
  The white establishment, undone by hordes of various-colored people who demand stuff. Even as he admitted the white bloc was too small to win, O'Reilly still saw the winning side as an undifferentiated counter-bloc, rather than a coalition of Americans.
  Obama won the Latino vote, 71 to 27. He also won the Asian vote, 73 to 26. Those voters all look the same to the losers. That's why they're the losers.
learn morse code
  Link to Article
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 17:33
  learn morse codeLEARN MORSE CODE in one minute !This is a code listening tool. Print it on your printer.Place your pencil where it says START and listen to morse code.Move down and to the right every time you hear a DIT (a dot).Move down and to the left every time you hear a DAH (a dash).Here's an example: You hear DAH DIT DIT which is a dash then dot then dot.You start at START and hear a DAH then move down and left to the T and then you hear a DIT so you move down and RIGHT to the N and then you hear another DIT so you move DOWN and RIGHT again and land on the DYou then write down the letter D on your code copy paper and jump back to START waiting for your next letter.The key to learning the code is hearing it and comprehending it while you hear it.The only way to get there is to practice 10 minutes a day.Listen to code tapes or computer practice code while tracing out this chart and you will find yourself writing down the letters in no time at all without the aid of the chart.The chart brings repetition together with recognition, which you don't get from any other type of code practice aid.
  HEAR slow morse code This code speed is slow enough to follow the chart above.
  LEARN the DITs and DAHs with these MP3 files:
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890
  And the character to emphasize that there she was, she was walking down the street, is :do-wah-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-do
  Goto DOWNLOADS page for hours of MP3 code practice
  Goto LINKS page
  Goto CARC Carbon County club
  Goto BRAILLE page
  email KB3BYT
  HOW TO LEARN MORSE CODE AND ENJOY IT
  FOX HUNTING ANTENNA PLANS
Gold Transformer: Has US Stolen German Gold? Will This Break German Bank? Does This Make IMF Chicago Proposal Revisited a ''Must Do''?
  Link to Article
  Source: Public Intelligence Blog
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:43
  Gold Transformer
  Germany financial architecture is under stress. If Germany fractures, Euro is gone. Could the US alleged theft of 1500 metric tons of German gold be part of the problem? Could this make the IMF August 2012 working group memorandum on The Chicago Proposal Revisited a ''must do''?
  7 Nov 2012 Does Anyone Really Know How Much Gold Is Held By The World's Central Banks?
  7 Nov 2012 Where's The Gold?
  5 Nov 2012 German gold reserves stored in NY Fed Reserve in safe hands '' Dombret
  31 Oct 2012 Golden Haarp & Allocated Gold Exposure
  31 Oct 2012 More And More Germans Want Their Gold Back
  31 Oct 2012 Why do the Germans want their gold back?
  22 Oct 2012 FLASH: German gold report reveals secret sales that likely were part of swaps
  Phi Beta Iota: There is one certainty, in our view. The existing fiscal arrangement are unsound, unsustainable, and a betrayal of the public trust. There are two possibilities: the Automated Payment Transaction Tax, and the Chicago Proposal Revisited. The true test of the second Obama-Biden Administration is going to be this: can they break out of the toxic status quo and change the game?
  See Also:
  DuckDuckGo / Automated Payment Transaction Tax
  DuckDuckGo / The Chicago Plan Revisited
  Gold Transformer: Federal Reserve Transparency Ploy, End of the Middle Period in Predatory Central Banking '-- Fed Cannot Account for $9 Trillion + Meta-RECAP
  Mini-Me: Germans Suspect Federal Reserve Bank of NY Has Stolen 1536 MetricTonnes of Gold '-- On Tim Geithner's Watch
  Mini-Me: Geithner's Fingerprints? Tungsten Gold Bar in UK + Meta-RECAP on Financial Fraud
  Nov 7
Wordt Chanel No.5 binnenkort verboden?
  Link to Article
  Source: ZapLog - externe links
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:36
  De Chanel No.5 commercial met Brad Pitt zou wel eens de zwanenzang voor het 90 jaar oude parfum kunnen zijn. Wetenschappers hebben potentieel schadelijke ingredinten gevonden in het beroemde parfum en nog een aantal geurtjes, waaronder Miss Dior van Dior. Ze hebben daarom Brussel geadviseerd het gebruik ervan te verbieden of drastisch te verminderen. Boommos, dat aan Chanel No.5 de karakteristieke houtachtige noten geeft, zou volgens de adviescommissie meteen moeten worden verboden, meldt The Times.
  Verder wil de wetenschappelijke commissie voor consumentenveiligheid dat de 100 aanwezige allergenen die in de parfums zitten worden vermeld op de verpakking. Nu hoeven parfumfabrikanten slechts 26 allergene stoffen te vermelden.
  Chanel No. 5 heeft volgens de president van het Franse parfum genootschap Sylvie Jourdet 'nooit iemand kwaad gedaan.' De maatregelen zouden volgens haar 'de dood van parfum' betekenen. Het geliefde parfum waar beroemdheden als Marilyn Monroe, Catherine Deneuve, Nicole Kidman en Audrey Tautou eerder het gezicht van waren. 'Hoe meer je natuurlijke ingredinten gebruikt, des te meer is er een risico op allergien. Citroen, jasmijn, bergamot bevatten allemaal allergenen.'
  De Europese Commissie zal de nieuwe regelgeving voor de parfumindustrie in januari 2014 instellen, is de verwachting. De industrie zet, alleen al in Frankrijk, zo'n 2 miljard euro per jaar om.
Drama Behind Securing Crippled Crane in Manhattan
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:26
  Michael Alacha, a New York City buildings engineer, was racing up the stairwell of a 74-story luxury skyscraper being built in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. Hurricane Sandy was battering the region, and Mr. Alacha was trying to avert a disaster.
  High above him, a 150-foot crane boom next to the building, one of the tallest construction projects in North America, was dangling. It had twisted and crumpled in the 80-mile-an-hour winds and was now threatening to plunge 1,000 feet to the street, onto a natural gas main, and possibly cause a major explosion.
  The story of what happened next at 157 West 57th Street, where a billionaire has agreed to pay $95 million for the duplex penthouse, suggests how close the city was last week to a catastrophe at the site. The surrounding blocks were evacuated for six days and the crisis became a riveting symbol of the city's wounded infrastructure.
  Several serious crane accidents have occurred in the city in recent years, touching off investigations that have examined whether the construction industry is using aging equipment and poorly trained workers.
  The accident on Oct. 29 has renewed such concerns. Questions have been raised about whether contractors and regulators should have done more to ensure the crane was secure in the days before the storm '-- and whether the city should revamp its policies to prevent future accidents.
  But the crane was inspected a week earlier and considered in good shape. At least preliminarily, city officials are calling the failure of the boom a freakish occurrence. Still, they are carrying out an extensive inquiry into what happened.
  Mr. Alacha, in an interview this week, said that in the hours after the accident, he estimated that there was an 80 percent chance that the 26,000-pound boom would plummet to the street.
  ''We still had another 6 to 10 hours of severe wind,'' he said. ''It was rocking. Usually, metal gets fatigued and it would let go.''
  For Mr. Alacha, 54, the dangling crane became an obsession, even as his home on the Rockaway Peninsula suffered flooding and his family was forced to move in with relatives.
  On Oct. 26, as warnings about the storm grew dire still three days before it hit, the Buildings Department issued an order to suspend outside work at buildings under construction in New York City.
  Contractors were told to take special measures to secure about six dozen huge tower and crawler cranes. Most often, that meant putting the crane's boom at a 67-degree angle so that it would swivel, or weathervane, with the prevailing wind, rather than try to resist it.
  On the day that Hurricane Sandy arrived, Nicholas J. Grecco, a senior vice president at Lend Lease, the construction company at the site, returned to his apartment on Fifth Avenue at 62nd Street after an 11-hour shift at the building. He had been making sure that equipment, materials and hatches were tied down, he said.
  As Mr. Grecco kicked off his boots at 2:35 p.m., he glanced out his window, which offered a view through the tree line of the 57th Street tower. Suddenly, he said, the crane's boom disappeared from sight.
  He bolted back on foot to the construction site.
  At the time, Mr. Alacha was in the Buildings Department's emergency command post at 280 Broadway, where he saw a newscast of the boom flipping over.
  ''It was something I never wanted to see,'' he said.
  He jumped in a car, sirens on, heading north.
  By the time both men reached the site, Engine Company 23 of the Fire Department had cordoned off the scene.
  Mr. Alacha, Mr. Grecco and Timothy Lynch, who leads the Building Department's forensic engineering unit, took an inside elevator to the 20th floor of the tower and began hiking up the stairs.
  Conditions above the 60th floor were dangerous, open to the raging storm. A heavy plywood door blew off its hinges on a higher floor. Mr. Lynch narrowly avoided an open shaft. The three men exchanged nervous jokes.
  ''It was the last time I laughed for the next three days,'' Mr. Grecco said.
  Firefighters were already at the 70th floor, linked by safety lines and examining the boom. The ties holding the mast appeared to have held up well. But the boom was another matter. Mr. Alacha told the firefighters to return to the street and set up an evacuation zone.
  ''In my mind, the boom was going to go,'' he said.
  For hours, members of the Fire Department, Consolidated Edison crews and other emergency workers labored to shut off the gas main below and clear people from surrounding buildings. They recalled that they hoped the boom would stabilize, giving them time to develop a plan for securing it with cable.
  With the wind easing on Tuesday, Mr. Lynch, a dedicated runner, once more ascended to the top of the tower, where he determined that the mast was not in immediate danger of pulling away from the building, and the boom was holding.
  It took several days for officials, construction executives and crane experts from around the world to figure out how to lash the boom to the building.
  On Saturday morning, three riggers climbed inside the turntable at the top of the crane, where they disengaged the hydraulic motor before manually cranking the turntable counterclockwise, until the boom hugged the side of the building.
  Workers then tied the boom with eight cables to building columns on three floors for stability.
  At 5 p.m. Sunday, the city reopened 57th Street.
  This week, a visitor to the 74th floor had a spectacular view of the damaged boom, its steel bars looking twisted and fragile. The bolts fastening newly installed beams tethered to the boom glistened in the sun.
  Lend Lease, which brought in experts from Europe and Australia, intends to cut the broken boom into five-foot sections in order to haul it down from the tower in the construction hoist. The company plans to install a new crane to continue work on the building, which is scheduled to be finished next year.
  ''I hope it has a happy ending,'' said the building's developer, Gary Barnett of Extell Development. ''I'm still not breathing.''
America's deadly double tap drone attacks are 'killing 49 people for every known terrorist in Pakistan' | Mail Online
  Link to Article
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:00
  Study found war against violent Islamists has become increasingly deadlyResearchers blame common tactic now being used '' the 'double-tap' strikeDrone strikes condemned for their ineffectiveness in targeting militantsBy Leon Watson
  PUBLISHED: 05:52 EST, 25 September 2012 | UPDATED: 07:39 EST, 25 September 2012
  Just one in 50 victims of America's deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists '' while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today.
  The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorised by the operations '24 hours-a-day'.
  And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the 'double-tap' strike where a drone fires one missile '' and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble. One aid agency said they had a six-hour delay before going to the scene.
  The tactic has cast such a shadow of fear over strike zones that people often wait for hours before daring to visit the scene of an attack. Investigators also discovered that communities living in fear of the drones were suffering severe stress and related illnesses. Many parents had taken their children out of school because they were so afraid of a missile-strike.
  Bombardment: More than 345 strikes have hit Pakistan's tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan in the past eight years
  Today campaigners savaged the use of drones, claiming that they were destroying a way of life.
  Clive Stafford Smith, director of the charity Reprieve which helped interview people for the report, said: 'This shows that drone strikes go much further than simply killing innocent civilians. An entire region is being terrorised by the constant threat of death from the skies. '
  There have been at least 345 strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan in the past eight years.
  'These strikes are becoming much more common,' Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer who represents victims of drone strikes, told The Independent.
  'In the past it used to be a one-off, every now and then. Now almost every other attack is a double tap. There is no justification for it.'
  The study is the product of nine months' research and more than 130 interviews, it is one of the most exhaustive attempts by academics to understand '' and evaluate '' Washington's drone wars.
  The site of a missile attack in Tappi, a village 12 miles east of Miranshah, near the Afghan border after a U.S. missile attack by a pilotless drone aircraft in 2008. At least six people were killed
  Tribesmen gather near a damaged car outside a house after a missile struck in Dandi Darpakheil village on the outskirts of Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region
  VOICES FROM THE DRONE ZONESadaullah Khan, a 15-year-old who lost both legs in a drone strike, says that before his injury, 'I used to go to school'...I thought I would become a doctor. After the drone strikes, I stopped going to school.'
  Noor Behram, a journalist: 'Once there has been a drone strike, people have gone in for rescue missions, and five or ten minutes after the drone attack, they attack the rescuers who are there.'
  Taxi driver: 'Whether we are driving a car, or we are working on a farm, or we are sitting at home playing cards '' no matter what we are doing we are always thinking the drone will strike us. So we are scared to do anything, no matter what.'
  Safdar Dawar, President of the Tribal Union of Journalists: 'If I am walking in the market, I have this fear that maybe the person walking next to me is going to be a target of the drone. If I'm shopping, I'm really careful and scared. If I'm standing on the road and there is a car parked next to me, I never know if that is going to be the target. Maybe they will target the car in front of me or behind me. Even in mosques, if we're praying, we're worried that maybe one person who is standing with us praying is wanted. So, wherever we are, we have this fear of drones.'
  Resident from the Manzar Khel area: 'Now (they have) even targeted funerals'...they have targeted people sitting together, so people are scared of everything'
  Despite assurances the attacks are 'surgical', researchers found barely two per cent of their victims are known militants and that the idea that the strikes make the world a safer place for the U.S. is 'ambiguous at best'.
  Researchers added that traumatic effects of the strikes go far beyond fatalities, psychologically battering a population which lives under the daily threat of annihilation from the air, and ruining the local economy.
  They conclude by calling on Washington completely to reassess its drone-strike programme or risk alienating the very people they hope to win over.
  They also observe that the strikes set worrying precedents for extra-judicial killings at a time when many nations are building up their unmanned weapon arsenals.
  The Obama administration is unlikely to heed their demands given the zeal with which America has expanded its drone programme over the past two years.
  Washington says the drone program is vital to combating militants that threaten the U.S. and who use Pakistan's tribal regions as a safe haven.
  The number of attacks have fallen since a Nato strike in 2011 killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and strained U.S.-Pakistan relations.
  Pakistan wants the drone strikes stopped - or it wants to control the drones directly - something the U.S. refuses.
  Reapers and Predators are now active over the skies of Somalia and Yemen as well as Pakistan and - less covertly - Afghanistan.
  But campaigners like Mr Akbar hope the Stanford/New York University research may start to make an impact on the American public.
  'It's an important piece of work,' he told The Independent. 'No one in the U.S. wants to listen to a Pakistani lawyer saying these strikes are wrong. But they might listen to American academics.'
  Today, Pakistani intelligence officials revealed a pair of missiles fired from an unmanned American spy aircraft slammed into a militant hideout in northwestern Pakistan last night.
  The two officials said missiles from the drone aircraft hit the village of Dawar Musaki in the North Waziristan region, which borders Afghanistan to the west.
  Some of the dead were believed to be foreign fighters but the officials did not know how many or where they were from.
  The Monday strike was the second in three days. On Saturday a U.S. drone fired two missiles at a vehicle in northwest Pakistan, killing four suspected militants.
  That attack took place in the village of Mohammed Khel, also in North Waziristan.
  North Waziristan is the last tribal region in which the Pakistan military has not launched an operation against militants, although the U.S. has been continually pushing for such a move.
  The Pakistanis contend that their military is already overstretched fighting operations in other areas but many in the U.S. believe they are reluctant to carry out an operation because of their longstanding ties to some of the militants operating there such as the Haqqani network.
Chris Matthews thanks Hurricane Sandy | The Daily Caller
  Link to Article
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:06
  ''I'm so glad we had that storm last week. 'Cause I think the storm was one of those things. No. Politically, I should say. Not in terms of hurting people. The storm brought in possibilities for good politics.''
  Even Scary Larry is shaking his head. You're not supposed to say it, Chris.
  But take heart, victims of Hurricane Sandy. Your lives may be ruined, but try to see the bigger picture: At least President Obama didn't have to give a concession speech.
  Reminds me of another fine moment in 2012 election reporting. Around 10:45 on ABC last night, when Romney's hopes were fading fast and Diane Sawyer had obviously started celebrating already, she threw it out to some newsdude who was standing in Times Square interviewing a group of really smart Obama voters. After chatting with a young lady who said she voted for Obama because of his foreign policy '-- obviously an ABC viewer '-- the newsdrone started talking to a guy who got hit by Hurricane Sandy.
  Literally in the middle of the poor bastard's sentence about how he hasn't had power for over a week, they interrupted him to exult in the breaking news of Obama's win in New Mexico.
  Priorities.
  (Hat tip: RCP and Jeff Poor)
  P.S.
  P.P.S.
Fox Freakout: Rove Disputes Call for Obama in Ohio, Pundits Scramble
  Link to Article
  Source: Crooks and Liars
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:02
  Fox really is not handling President Obama's apparent reelection very well, with Karl Rove leading the way and disputing the math on whether President Obama may have won the state of Ohio or not -- Fox News, Karl Rove Argue With Network About Whether Obama Won Ohio:
  Fox News had what can only be described as an insane argument with itself over whether or not President Obama had won Ohio, and the presidency.
  The network seemed quite confident in its projections at first, but suddenly, pundit Karl Rove '-- who, as leader of a huge conservative Super PAC has something of an interest in the outcome of the race '-- began to pour cold water on the call.
  Fox News' Chris Wallace then said that Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign is contesting the network's decision to call President Obama's re-election. [...]
  Rove said it was "premature" and "early" to make any real decisions.
  "So, maybe not so fast, folks!" Wallace said. There was a pained silence.
  "Uh, thank you!" Bret Baier said. "That's awkward," Megyn Kelly added.
  Baier then said that he would get someone from the network's election desk to explain why it had made the call. Kelly walked across the office, cameras trailing her, to speak with the number-crunchers.
  The number-crunchers calmly repudiated Rove.
  "We're actually quite comfortable with the call in Ohio," one of them said. Another said he was "99.9 percent" certain that the president had been re-elected.
  "There just aren't enough Republican votes left for Mitt Romney to get there," a fellow decision desk member added.
  Here's Kelly running down the hall at the Fox studios, getting her colleagues' opinions on the election, who didn't want to come straight out and say it, but think Rove's a fool.
The anti Obama
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:59
  In the world of mathematics two negatives do make a positive, but in the matrix the anti messiah Obama and the anti Christ of Europe joined only makes the negative of the End Times.
  In me is the blindness to not deal with the Great Tribulation as this poetic knight is driven by the thrill of my purpose and labors to come and the rewards which will be with the Christ of God. This is in part of what I was born for and prepared like others and it has been tedious in being school marm to children who will not do their lessons nor take heed.
  At times though I receive things which give me hope that the shadow of darkness is about to be come.
  Give me the billion American dollars and I will prepare the 3rd Temple and wares as King David did to be built in a moment. Give me the billion and I will do the greatest deed that Admiral Columbus sailed to the west for. Give me the billion, you financiers and I will follow the Biblical trail for when the Jews build that Temple to be desecrated by the son of perdition on Easter in that coming year.Give me that billion
  a European commissioner....
  It does not even have that anti Christ ring to it does it, and it sounds so very non pulse. Yet can this be the thing the Faithful have waited for in the iron in the miry clay? A controlling European Commissioner of all the economies.......
  France's various proposals for eurozone bonds, banking unions, EU-wide infrastructure spending and common social programmes are all greeted with deep suspicion in Berlin. The Germans suspect that the bottom line uniting these ideas is a desire to get German taxpayers to subsidise France. But Germany's counterproposal '' that the national budgets of EU nations be subject to control by a European commissioner '' is dismissed as an unacceptable infringement of national sovereignty in Paris.
  Yes mein Frauline, it is good to be a German. Let that coarse through your Assyrian veins, beating that heart raped by Russians and chained by the Ashkenaz. Yes mein Frauline, awaken to your Schiller poetic muse and feel the drumbeat of Wagner as the wings of the Valkyrie thunder across your spiritual skies.That kind of power can lead to arrogance. In Berlin last week I heard occasional exasperated references to arrogant Spaniards, haughty Brits, delusional Frenchmen and corrupt Greeks. But the general tone of discussion is serious, patient and responsible.
  I quicken to this master race racism. I adore it in Spanish Empire, British Empire, French Empire and Greek Empire meeting German Empire.....yes those Germans ganged up upon who bred Charlamagne, Frederick the Great and when none of the Franks nor Prussians would come forth in 1930 to lead, they invented themselves an Austrian Ashkenaz Master Catholic in Adolf Hitler to bridle this beast and bring about an order.Absolutely lovely to see all these anxious once world powers now champing at each other's bits and ready to gnaw off their naughty bits to lead this one last time, but alas this was cartel designed to make them all vassals so the German machine would rise , but perhaps this time with an anise flavor to it all, and not dill.That is hint....and no am not translating it to French as I do not speak Ginsu.
  Where was I? That was not a hint.
  Germany is prosperous and Berlin is a pleasant and fashionable city. The struggles of Greece or Spain seem a very long way away. That detachment from the rest of the eurozone '' rather than any ''will to power'' '' is why Berlin remains a peculiar capital for Europe.
  Why can we not all be like Assyrian Germans. Yes for the olde days when one skinned their captives alive, cut babies from pregnant mothers, crucified the conquered and deported the mastered to serve the kiln and threshing floors in Elam.I really do like those Germans. Such a precise and clean people, and when they have a master, they are all the things Obama pretends he is as a man and a woman.
  ''France needs Germany to disguise how weak it is. Germany needs France to disguise how strong it is.'' Now even the disguises have dropped away
  The suits on the ground this blog warned of in the NeoRoman order will in time have jackboots on the ground as the master of the beast in all that order of 666 Latinos will arise and all will marvel at the reincarnation.As this blog predicted years ago, the lines will draw upon the old orders, the old families. The Israelites in the west led by the Angle Americans, the central European aristocracy led by the Greco Assyrian Babylonians (Greece, Germany and Italy) and then the Slavs mauled over with Russia, China and the Muslims in the east.
  Flattery upon flattery, assassination upon assassination and bloody war upon heaps of bloody war. How wonderful a world Mr. Obama's legacy will be.
  They say the son of perdition is aware of this popular girl. How marvelous is that in the viper of the garden tastes the air upon which this Eve walks.
  I would so that he were not so shy and would pop his head up for a peek at the hades he is about to be born into and engulf the world. Seems only fitting one would survey the landscape before scorched earth is the flame grooming the lawns of the sculpted courts.
  Will not it be fun to come to the day to still hear the deluded not being aware they supported B. Hussein Obama, the fraud Chinoid, the precursor to the anti Christ, the instigator of all destruction, that this is still some other's fault from a decade ago in George W. Bush?Who inherited the Clinton recession and after 9 11 kept it from becoming the Muslim Global Depression, at least until Obama unleashed his Super Depression with the central Europeans.
  But all is good now, in they way it was scripted. Europe is about to find it's master and true calling. The world will have flame and death in the Great Eurasian War and people will become rare as gold.
  Yes welcome to Berlin, the unholy Roman empire of one leg upon the Rhine and one leg upon the Alps with Rome as the Universal faith and that which dangles in between is that which lusts not for the Desire of women.
  Yes that sentence alone is enough for the emeritus to write volumes on explaining.
  Î‘Î½ÏÎ¯Î ÏƒÎµ Î±Ï…ÏÎÏ�Ï‚Let's sing instead to honor this inauspicious time. Deutschland, Deutschland ¼ber alles,'ber alles in der Welt,Wenn es stets zu Schutz und TrutzeBr¼derlich zusammenh¤lt.Von der Maas bis an die Memel,Von der Etsch bis an den Belt, |: Deutschland, Deutschland ¼ber alles, 'ber alles in der Welt! :|
  Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue,Deutscher Wein und deutscher SangSollen in der Welt behaltenIhren alten sch¶nen Klang,Uns zu edler Tat begeisternUnser ganzes Leben lang. |: Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue, Deutscher Wein und deutscher Sang! :|
  Einigkeit und Recht und FreiheitF¼r das deutsche Vaterland!Danach lasst uns alle strebenBr¼derlich mit Herz und Hand!Einigkeit und Recht und FreiheitSind des Gl¼ckes Unterpfand; |: Bl¼h' im Glanze dieses Gl¼ckes, Bl¼he, deutsches Vaterland! :|
  How will the Valkyrie ride with a Spartan bit.
  America ransomed from Obama by the anti Christ......what a dichotomy eh.
  Rhetorical......
  agtG 228
  Berlin does not feel like an imperial city. The new government buildings '' the chancellor's office, the Bundestag and the foreign ministry '' have all been designed with plenty of glass and natural light, to emphasise transparency and democracy. The finance ministry is, admittedly, housed in the old headquarters of the Luftwaffe. But most of the grandest architecture '' Unter den Linden and the Brandenburg gate '' is a legacy of the Prussian kings. Modern Berlin presents a more welcoming face, and has become a magnet for tourists and teenagers.Yet while the German capital has deliberately eschewed the trappings of imperial power, the fact is that Berlin is increasingly the de facto capital of the EU. Of course the EU's main institutions '' the commission and the council '' are still based in Brussels. But the key decisions are increasingly made in Berlin.Will Greece have to leave the euro? Ultimately, it will be Germany's call. Will politicians support further bailouts for southern Europe? The vital debates will take place in the Bundestag in Berlin '' not in the European parliament. Who does the International Monetary Fund call about the euro crisis? The most important conversations take place with the German government and the European Central Bank in Frankfurt '' not the European Commission.
  This shift in power from Brussels to Berlin has been accelerated by the euro crisis. Naturally, the German chancellor Angela Merkel still has to go to summits in Brussels and strike deals. She was there only last week. But the euro crisis means that Ms Merkel is now incomparably the most important leader at the table.For different reasons, the leaders of all the other big EU nations arrive in Brussels in a weak position. Spain and Italy are struggling with their debt crises '' and so have become supplicants. The British have opted out of the single currency and the new structures that the eurozone is putting together '' so they are marginalised. The Poles are also not in the euro, and have a relatively small economy.That leaves France. By tradition, a Franco-German partnership is at the heart of any EU deal. For many years, summits were preceded by a separate Franco-German meeting and a joint letter from the two nations. When Nicolas Sarkozy was still in the Elys(C)e, his relationship with Chancellor Merkel was so close that ''Merkozy'' became a journalistic shorthand for Europe's dominant duo.Even then, many were sceptical. One top EU official scoffed that '' ''France needs Germany to disguise how weak it is. Germany needs France to disguise how strong it is.'' Now even the disguises have dropped away. There was no Franco-German letter before the most recent EU summit. Instead, President Fran§ois Hollande gave an interview to the European press to try to pressurise Ms Merkel to give ground on the mutualisation of European debt and the creation of a banking union. But at the summit it became clear that the Germans will not be hurried.
  Some argue that the Franco-German partnership has always gone through rough patches '' and that the two nations will inevitably get together again. This time, however, it could be different. The power gap between France and Germany has become too obvious; and the issues that divide them are too fundamental.France's various proposals for eurozone bonds, banking unions, EU-wide infrastructure spending and common social programmes are all greeted with deep suspicion in Berlin. The Germans suspect that the bottom line uniting these ideas is a desire to get German taxpayers to subsidise France. But Germany's counterproposal '' that the national budgets of EU nations be subject to control by a European commissioner '' is dismissed as an unacceptable infringement of national sovereignty in Paris.By tradition, a Franco-German compromise would be hammered out. But the issues involved are so basic that a deal may not be easily found. In that case, the relative economic strength of Germany could prove decisive '' particularly if, as many in Berlin suspect, France is heading for a profound economic crisis.This steady accretion of power to Germany is greeted with ambivalence in Berlin. For obvious historical reasons, postwar Germany has never sought a dominant role within Europe. After reunification, the goal was always said to be ''a European Germany, not a German Europe''. That instinct to try to submerge German interests within a general European identity remains powerful. But exasperation with rule-breaking and fiscal incontinence elsewhere in Europe is making the Germans less shy about insisting on the need for a more ''German'' Europe. The price of German financial assistance is, increasingly, going to be the acceptance of rules and laws designed in Berlin.
  That kind of power can lead to arrogance. In Berlin last week I heard occasional exasperated references to arrogant Spaniards, haughty Brits, delusional Frenchmen and corrupt Greeks. But the general tone of discussion is serious, patient and responsible. The Germans insist that they are completely committed to the euro and to the EU '' and they are determined to make them work.The problem '' if there is a problem '' is that life is too sweet in Berlin. Germany is prosperous and Berlin is a pleasant and fashionable city. The struggles of Greece or Spain seem a very long way away. That detachment from the rest of the eurozone '' rather than any ''will to power'' '' is why Berlin remains a peculiar capital for Europe.
  .
The Missing Link
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:57
  Did you ever notice anything odd about the Obama's?
  I know you have but this kind of odd is the child psychosis they have as a couple in being aged 10 and 8, and how they have matured to this odd couple of two gay men who are not that fond of each other.
  So you got pictures of Bearick and Muchelle, and you honestly wonder who is the man in the picture between the two..........and when you toss in white guy Romney you start wondering if Muchelle is that missing link Darwin was so fond of.
  The Obama's never kiss, like Bill and Hillary lay one on before lesbian sex. It is like you never seen George and Laura Bush ever tongueing it, but you know that Laura has to have George doing the pony ride with his six guns a blazing as them librarian types use their brains for fun in making things fun.
  Now you got Muchelle. You seen pictures of her as a little ho for prom. Things all hanging out and no one caring about the show. Then she is in college and no man thing wanted to get near that cranky frumper. She ends up getting things handed to her in Chicago and no one gave her a thing to do as she was so stupid.Then the only guy who dates her is B. Hussein, that fag Chinoid, who picked his price in she was black connected.
  Obama was no good in bed, or Muchelle would not have been bitching about him not helping with the kids. Is why she almost divorced his sorry ass.
  It just goes back to B and M. Yes have you noticed that in bowel movement, M. R. Obama for Muchelle in name, just all tells things about this couple which is queer
  They just never kiss and that is what it is all about. There is no affection in them. Couples who are intimate with each other always get excited in their chemistry to kissing as it means something. For the Obama's it means nothing.
  It is like Bill and Hillary doing that porn shot on the beach in swimwear. The only person posing is Obama to the gays. There is just nothing in this couple that says husband and wife or man and woman. It is probably why Obama likes that gay marriage stuff in he is in one.
  In their inauguration, Muchelle would not even lip lock Obama and in debates she won't do it yet. From pictures she seems more in great ape mode for territory with Romney on stage. That sort of is spooky really in Muchelle looks like madam congorilla out shopping for a new manmeat for her rather bushbabe like clitoris.
  It is not that I desire to see Muchelles what's it, but bushmen genetically have a flap down there unlike other genus of humans, and I wonder if Muchelle has some natural selection like that in being bushman bred, as she has a big package down there and scientifically I do wonder what is going on down there.Perhaps if Muchelle would care to snap shot of the slot and send it to the blog for examination I could endure it without vomitting. It is just odd in women do not have what Muchelle has, and I do not mean a gay husband from Asia.
  The entire Obama thing in pictures is like when they pose with the kids, then they can act intimate as no intimacy would develop. Like the kids are the protection from them having to have a go at it.When they are with each other, it is like polite kissing of people you do not like.
  Muchelle just acts around other males, territorial.......maybe she is not looking for man meat, but wondering if that man meat will be having Obama drop his soap later.
  You do notice in the debate picture that Muchelle made certain she was between Romney and Barack. That either means she wants Romney or it means she is worried that Obama wants Romney which is a probability in his calling out Mitt Mitt Mitt in the bathroom tends to give that away.
  Pictures certainly reveal a great deal. I know the Obama hell of a marriage is nothing I would care to be locked into, as gender sex change couples are sick and not wanting to be kissing your mate is just a dungeon.
  The more I see of the Obama's coming close to fading away like a bad dream, it is I have pity on them as I would not want that on anyone, and it is probably one reason why they are such horrid people in looting money and nagging about fat kids.
  Imagine if the Obama's actually cuddled and liked to kiss...........
  America probably would have had 4 great years.
  The Obama's missing link has cost the world a great deal.
  agtG
Atomic Show #190 '' Nuclear plant performance during Hurricane Sandy
  Link to Article
  Source: Atomic Insights
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:53
  There are 34 nuclear reactors located in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy. Of those, 7 were shutdown for planned maintenance. Three units tripped due to disturbances on the grid or issues with one of their redundant cooling systems. The other 24 remained operational and supplied as much power as the grid could accept.
  On Sunday, November 4, I gathered a group of pronuclear communicators, each with their own blog, to talk about the technology's resilience and about how a certain segment of the antinuclear industry loves to spread scary what if stories. Every time nature tests our nuclear power plants and they perform well, the anti's tell us that ''we almost lost (fill in the blank)''. Then they point to an even like Fukushima and tell us that proves that nature can throw more at nuclear plants than they can handle.
  What they fail to admit, however, is that even a very bad event that destroys three formerly productive nuclear power units at an admittedly vulnerable site with insufficient preventive measures did not result in a single human injury any worse than a mild sunburn from exposure to radiation.
  As amateur pro nuclear communicators, we have all chosen a rather unusual hobby; we continue to spread the truth about nuclear energy and continue to explain to people that it really does have the power to save the world from many of its most pressing challenges.
  Guests on this show include:
  Margaret Harding, who blogs at 4 Factor ConsultingMeredith Angwin, who blogs at Yes Vermont Yankee and ANS Nuclear CafeWill Davis, who blogs at Atomic Power Review and ANS Nuclear Cafe
  Additional ReadingSpent Fuel Pool at Oyster Creek
  Entergy Louisiana and Entergy Arkansas and Hurricane Sandy
  Hurricanes and Nuclear Plants in the Main Stream Media
  Podcast: Play in new window | Download
US election
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by HermanVanRompuy
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:51
Meeting with the Prince Philippe of Belgium
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by HermanVanRompuy
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:50
Election aftermath: GOP soul-searching: 'Too old, too white, too male'? - Jonathan Martin
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:47
  Mitt Romney got thumped among women and young voters in key states. | Reuters
  CloseBOSTON '-- President Barack Obama's thrashing of Mitt Romney exposed glaring structural weaknesses in the GOP that will shut the Republicans out of the White House until they find a way to appeal to a rapidly changing America.
  Battling a wheezing economy and a deeply motivated opposition, Obama still managed to retain much of his 2008 map because of the GOP's deficiencies with the voters who are changing the political face of once conservative-leaning Virginia, Florida, Colorado and Nevada.
  Continue ReadingHuckabee slams GOP on minority outreach(Also on POLITICO: Obama's grind-it-out win)
  Republicans face a crisis: The country is growing less white, and their coalition has become more white in recent years.
  In 2004, George W. Bush won 44 percent of Hispanics. Four years later, John McCain, the author of an immigration reform bill, took 31 percent of Hispanics. And this year, Romney captured only 27 percent of Hispanics.
  ''The conservative movement should have particular appeal to people in minority and immigrant communities who are trying to make it, and Republicans need to work harder than ever to communicate our beliefs to them,'' said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who will immediately be looked to as a potential 2016 presidential candidate.
  (Also on POLITICO: Rubio: GOP must focus on minorities, immigrants)
  But the GOP's problem is more fundamental than one bloc of voters. For the second consecutive presidential election, the Republican got thumped among women and young voters in the states that decided the election.
  ''Our party needs to realize that it's too old and too white and too male and it needs to figure out how to catch up with the demographics of the country before it's too late,'' said Al Cardenas, the head of the American Conservative Union and a longtime GOP leader. ''Our party needs a lot of work to do if we expect to be competitive in the near future.''
  Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), a prospective 2014 statewide candidate in a state moving sharply to the middle, was just as blunt: ''After tonight, the GOP had better figure out that a big tent sounds good, but if there aren't any seats in it, what good is it.''
  The desperate straits Republicans find themselves in are structural. But Romney should not be completely absolved of responsibility for his party's ebb. He galloped to the right on immigration and reproductive issues in the GOP primary and only awkwardly attempted to move to the middle on those issues in the fall. His 50s-era persona was almost comically far removed from Americans who are in their 20s and 30s. And he never attempted to distance himself from or truly challenge a Republican Party that still bears bruises left from the Bush years.
  (Also on POLITICO: 12 takeaways from Obama's win)
  But the rapidly growing population of minorities is something that looms larger than one flawed candidate.
  Look no further than Florida, that reliable battleground that usually picks White House winners. Obama won there by only 2½ percentage points in 2008, but somehow found a way to eke out a narrow lead again in the face of 8.7 percent unemployment there.
  Why? Partly because there are 190,000 more Hispanics and 50,000 more African-Americans in the state than there were in 2008.
  Florida Republicans were staggered: Obama managed to actually increase a 20-point margin from 2008 in suburban Orlando's Osceola County, home to thousands of Hispanic immigrants, to 25 points.
  ''Hispanics continue to grow in importance, and we need to embrace these voters for two reasons: It is simply the right thing to do, and it's mandatory demographically if we are to avoid more presidential disappointments,'' said former George W. Bush political director Matt Schlapp. ''It's about simple math and basic moral decency.''
Obama Scytlgate
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:43
  My children, I neglected to mention yesterday an sign which I did not want to deal with the meaning of on the way to voting. I looked into a field on my right side, and there sat a bald eagle on the ground.A soaring eagle was a sign of victory to Americans in the Mexican American War. It is obvious now what that sign portended to in what America's fate is, as I have never seen a bald eagle sit on the ground in the middle of nothing.
  By now I presume that others have started to put together that the 2012 elections were stolen again by foreign agent Barack Hussein Obama AKA Barry Chin. One of Ulsterman's geniuses happened to smear this popular girl that Lame Cherry was right about everything but Romney.
  Guess the election theft proves that Lame Cherry was right againg about the Romney numbers, the election being stolen from Romney and that you had better be wary of your insiders in what they really are up to in feeding you bait like "we will never know the real results".You know the results of this flipped election and statements like that, including George Nouri's economic guru who was telling you EXACTLY how Obama would steal the election, or in his terms "the numbers", all to condition you as Nouri stated in now you must all "get along" or submit to Obama Marxism.
  Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos are not very good actors. They knew from the start last night that Obama had this stolen. What you do not know is there was an organized effort to torture the people on the right with "hope" that he would pull it out.It became so sadistic that ABC ran it's "numbers" with Obama only having 269 to prolong it, and that is what Florida was about, as B. Hussein hit every visitation in this election. This was designed this way to exercise the ghost of Al Gore over George W. Bush, but this time Obama came out on top.
  This is all Scytl, SOE and ever electronic voting machine. As I warned you, this is now legitimized and if you dare to question it, you are in sedition against the state as you just validated this Obama theft.Romney knows completely what was done and he like this entire treacherous lot will say nothing to reveal any of this.
  In that, I do not know if I will be kept for amusement or if they will follow through now on their silencing plans. Obama can give an "American" speech, but his thugs will come now cleverly like Andrew Breitbart discovered, but they will drag a few people out into the streets to terrify the rest of the Mike Gallagher bunch as Obama enjoys the slow twist in th wind.
  The rich's money will not save them. They should have when offered donated in those six and seven figure amounts to build what I was telling them would be built in ClearVision, to be a media outlet. Some of the stooges like Foster Freiss, the Aspen hippie, are just that of the order. Others like the Texas billionaire Jews will be dead soon enough and their liberal daughters will be donating it all to Obama.
  There will be no reform now. It is going to be the entire Obama agenda, with it all cemented in a Supreme Court led by traitor John Roberts, with three enemy agents appointed to make the court Marxist for the next generation.Do not put it past this regime to assist the removal of some of the justices like J. Edgar Hoover.
  That is the thing in this in all of these Rush Limbaugh plagiarists could have when it was suggested, funded this blog to break all of this wide open from the covert shadows to save them. Now the entire situation has changed and intimidation is going to be the rule. You will be ruled now in the gulag, and it does not matter what money or guns you have. It does not matter your connections, as you are in the data base and when the regime says it is your time, it will happen and you will be finished as no one is going to come and save you.
  There are already plans in the works to make an example of a SEAL for a crackdown. Obama is hard pressed now to create the illusion he is commander in chief, and he desperately wants the adoration the military had for George W. Bush as his own.
  That should be enough exclusives as was first reported last night here in Romney and McCain "numbers" matching as Obama wants people to know he is stealing elections and there is not a thing anyone can do about it, as his Berlin benefactors controls it all.
  The numbers said it all. Mitt Romney won the election fairly, but as this blog reported months ago, Obama could still steal it. Obama did just that and each of you was fed the hope that trusting in elections it would save you, so that you would not go into revolution.
  You will be told now to wait until 2014 and trust in that. This is all scripted.
  The winner last night was Jeb Bush by Karl Rove design along with Bill Clinton designing for Hillary Clinton.
  This was all by design and they're laughing at the joke and you're too slow.
  Another Lame Cherry matter anti matter exclusive, before I get my tooth cut out.........yes wisdom tooth shattered on election theft day. Another sign.
  agtG 232Y
Colorado Election Day 2012 - GOP Defeat Party 2012
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 07:19
  DENVER, Colo '-- ''Welcome to Hell!''
  The shout broke a brief quiet inside a lounge of Denver's Sports Authority Field, where the Colorado GOP held its election-night watch party. Fox News had just officially announced that Obama won Ohio, and with it the nation. Karl Rove was another thing, but it was a short moment of quiet, as supporters here processed the fact that not only had the president won the race, but after millions of dollars of advertising and weekly traffic jams from the candidates' nonstop visits, Colorado ultimately did not matter in the final count.
  ''What is wrong with America?'' one supporter murmured under his breath.
  Debbie Cohen, 56, wept.
  ''I am deeply, deeply distressed. I have two grandbabies, and I look at this and I know there is no turning back,'' she said, through tears. ''How can America pick a man like that? I have been through many, many elections, but I have never known the desperation that I know now. I feel devastated. I feel hopeless.''
  Cohen, a teacher, said she'll probably feel better tomorrow, but for now, she needs to grieve.
  ''I don't know where to go, except on my knees to God,'' she said.
  Around her, Republican supporters described the the next four years under Barack Obama.
  ''I'll probably go broke. I'll lose both my businesses,'' said Kelsey Alexander. ''I have a new business'... with 50 employees and I don't know if it'll survive.''
  While Republicans in Colorado had come out in strong numbers compared to the Democrats in early voting, at the end of the night, after many had already left with news that Mitt Romney would not be the next president, supporters learned that even if Ohio hadn't decided the whole thing, there was no good news for Colorado either. The state would remain blue.
  Mark Henze, 55, a bankruptcy attorney, said he has a friend who will lay off 50 employees this week with the news that Obama has scored another term.
  ''People will be laid off '-- and the young ones are the first to go!'' he shouted.
  Next to him, Dana Brown, 66, wearing a bright American Flag shirt, said, ''Why don't we just call this a socialist country at this point?...I don't know how we recover from this.''
  Charlene Brooks has an MBA but said she is working two jobs in retail, because the economy is so bad. And it's exhausting, she said.
  ''I just feel stuck,'' said Brooks, 56, as the celebration in Ohio played on a screen in front of her. ''I'm trying to survive and I'm tired. I don't know how long I can do this. It's physically draining.''
  Even before the results came in, voters anxiously watching television screens throughout the lounge, said they were bracing for possibly bad news and what it could mean for Colorado.
  Jody Rodriguez, 51, said that under President Obama, the country would remain fractured.
  ''I don't feel like we're American citizens working alongside other American citizens anymore,'' she said. ''There will be more rich versus poor, more division.''
  But at the end of the day, regardless of the outcome, she said, her hope is that the economy swings back.
  ''Win or lose, hopefully the country does get better,'' she said. ''I want the country to be grand again.''
  --Sam Levin is a writer for the Denver alternative weekly Westword.--
  EARLIER: Sam Levin on the Homestretch Trail with Obama and Romney
  ELECTION DAY ON THE POLITICS BLOG: LIVE FROM EVERY SWING STATE...' FLORIDA: Charles P. Pierce with the Voting-Rights Watchdogs' OHIO: Mark Warren Traveling with Governor John Kasich (and with Romney)' NEW HAMPSHIRE: Margaret Doris in 5-Vote Territory (and with Romney)' VIRGINIA: Elizabeth Sile on Voter-ID in New Blue County' NEVADA: Jason Whithed Searching for Sheldon Adelson' WISCONSIN: Joe Tarr on the Voter Fraud That Wasn't' NORTH CAROLINA: Aaron Gwyn on the Independent's Indecision' IOWA: Kyle Minor on the Easy Magic of the Battleground' COLORADO: Sam Levin at the Last Defeat Party (and with Obama and Romney)' ...AND PENNSYLVANIA: Isaiah Thompson on the Blue State That Would Be Red
  PLUS: Tom Junod in Chicago with Obama, Margaret Doris in Boston with Romney... and John H. Richardson in Breezy Point with Sandy Victims Voting
  ELECTION NIGHT ON TWITTER: LIVE FROM EVERY ANGLE...' @ESQPolitics: Charles P. Pierce, Snarking the Results All Night Long' @StephenMarche: Watching Nothing but Twitter All Night Long' @Sullduggery: Matt Sullivan, Watching the Pundits on TV All Night Long' @TomJunod: Inside the Obama "Victory" Party in Chicago All Night Long
WH Adviser Explains Vision for 'Public-Private Partnerships Involving Foreign Nations'.
  Link to Article
  Source: WT news feed
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 07:06
  John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, speaking at the Oct. 23, 2012 Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference, sponsored by the Office of Naval Research in Arlington, Va. (Office of Naval Research/John F. Williams)
  (CNSNews.com) - John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, recently told a conference sponsored by the Office of Naval Research that ''public-private partnerships involving foreign nations" are an ''important element of the Administration's focus on public-private collaboration.''
  In the past, writing in collaboration with anti-population-growth advocate Paul Ehlrich, Holdren has said that humanity must face up to a ''world of zero net physical growth'' and that: ''Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.''
  ''What is actually required is nothing less than the transformation of human society,'' Holdren said in a book he co-authored in 1973 with Paul and Anne Ehrlich.
  On Oct. 23, Holdren spoke at the Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference that was held at a hotel in Arlington, Va., and sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. His speech has been posted on the White House website.
  ''I'm especially happy to share the Administration's views on science, technology, and innovation with this audience because it's precisely the mix of industry, academia, government, and the military represented in this hall that is at the core of this Administration's strategy for strengthening our science, technology, and innovation ecosystem--including of course STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] education--that is so central for meeting all of our national goals,'' Holdren said.
  Holdren told the audience that President Obama understands security to include the ''environmental dimensions of our well-being.''
  ''It certainly has been a privilege and a pleasure for me to serve as the science and technology advisor for a President who understands with crystal clarity the importance and the promise that science and technology hold'--not just for our national security in the narrow sense but for our security in the broader sense that includes the economic and environmental dimensions of our well-being,'' said Holdren.
  In his speech, Holdren touted the benefits of ''public-private partnerships,'' pointing, for example, to partnerships advanced by the Department of Energy. In closing, he explained why the administration believes it is important to develop international public-private partnerships.
  ''Now I'd like to wrap up by talking about one other important element of the Administration's focus on public-private collaboration, and that is in the domain of international science and technology cooperation,'' said Holdren.
  ''I raise it in part because I think a lot of you here'--maybe especially many of you with dot-mil email addresses'--probably assume that public-private partnerships involving foreign nations must be too sensitive, or too difficult to take on,'' said Holdren. ''Maybe you think the potential risks almost automatically outweigh the potential benefits.
  ''Well I am here to say that, while of course there are going to be limits on this kind of collaboration in the military domain and other sensitive domains, there is actually a lot of opportunity to advance innovation with international partners'--a lot of innovation that can benefit our nation directly,'' said Holdren.
  ''My opinions on this come from having a front-row seat in a number of such venues: I serve as the co-chair of six bilateral S&T ministerial meetings--with Japan, Korea, Brazil, Russia, China, and India'--and I can say without hesitation that the nation has benefited enormously from those shared arrangements, through cost-sharing and by gaining access to resources that would otherwise not be available,'' said Holdren.
  He did not elaborate on how the United States might have benefited from any collaboration with China, but he did point to a number of examples, including one involving Brazil.
  ''And at the last ministerial meeting with Brazil, the Brazilian Ministry of Defense and the U.S. Department of Defense signed an agreement to exchange R&D information on topics of mutual interest, including biofuels,'' said Holdren.
  In 1995, Holdren joined with Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich and Gretchen Daily of Stanford University to co-author an essay entitled ''The Meaning of Sustainability: Biogeophysical Aspects,'' that was included in a book published by the World Bank.
  In this essay, Holdren and his co-authors said: ''We know for certain, for example, that: No form of material growth (including population growth) other than asymptotic growth, is sustainable.''
  ''This is enough,'' Holdren and his co-authors said, ''to say quite a lot about what needs to be faced up to eventually (a world of zero net physical growth), what should be done now (change unsustainable practices, reduce excessive material consumption, slow down population growth), and what the penalty will be for postponing attention to population limitation (lower well-being per person).''
  ''The large gaps between rich and poor that characterize income distribution within and between countries today are incompatible with social stability and with cooperative approaches to achieving environmental sustainability,'' Holdren and his co-authors wrote.
  In 1973, Holdren made similar points in a book co-authored with Paul and Anne Ehrlich entitled, ''Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions.''
  ''A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States,'' Holdren and the Ehrlichs wrote in that book. ''De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with realities of ecology and the global resource situation. Resources and energy must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries.''
  ''Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being,'' Holdren and his co-authors said.
  ''We have only hinted at the complexity of problems in wise development,'' Holdren and his co-authors wrote. ''What is actually required is nothing less than the transformation of human society. For if these programs can have any chance for success, mankind will finally have to start treating the entire globe as a single entity and all human problems as part of the same complex fabric. In many cases parochial national interests will have to be submerged for the common interest of all people. Some degree of sovereignty will have to be sacrificed if rational control over the planet's resources and the maintenance of the quality of the oceans and atmosphere are to be achieved.''
  Holdren has served as President Obama's top science adviser since the beginning of the administration.
Colorado, Washington approve recreational marijuana use
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 06:16
  By Allison Linn, NBC News
  Voters in Colorado and Washington on Tuesday approved measures allowing adults to use marijuana for any purpose, NBC News projected, marking an historic turning point in the slow-growing acceptance of marijuana usage.
  In Massachusetts, voters also approved an initiative allowing people to use marijuana for medicinal purposes, NBC News projected. In Arkansas, a similar initiative failed, according to NBC News projections.
  In all, voters in six states were being asked to decide on a wide array of laws around legalizing marijuana for medicinal or recreational purposes.
  In three of those states '' Colorado, Oregon and Washington '' voters were deciding whether to allow people over 21 to use marijuana for any purpose.
  In addition to Massachusetts, voters in Arkansas also are being asked to approve the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. In Montana, they are being asked whether to revamp an existing law to make it more restrictive.
  The laws legalizing marijuana for recreational or other purposes could face federal challenges, because marijuana possession is still a federal crime. But so far, the Justice Department has declined to discuss how it might react if the laws pass.
  Proponents say it's about time pot was made legal and that it would create new avenues of tax revenue. But opponents say legalization would lead to more drug abuse and concerns about things like driving while impaired..
  Opponent Kevin Sabet, a former senior advisor to the Obama administration and an assistant professor at the University of Florida's college of medicine, said he was expecting legal challenges at the state and federal level.
  ''This is just the beginning of the legalization conversation, so my advice to people who want to toke up legally or think that they can buy marijuana at a store tomorrow is that we're a very long way from (that),'' Sabet said.
  Proponents of the legislation also said they expected some legal wrangling.
  ''It sets up a clear and obvious challenge with the federal government,'' said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML, which has fought for years to legalize cannabis.
  But proponents also were celebrating what they saw as a turning point in a long-running battle to make marijuana more available to the general public.
  ''We are reaching a real tipping point with cannabis law reform,'' said Steve DeAngelo, a longtime advocate for legalizing marijuana and the director of the nation's largest medical cannbabis dispensary, Harborside Health Center in Oakland, Calif.
  Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper acknowledged legal challenges but said the state would work to resolve the conflict between federal and state laws.
  "It's probably going to pass, but it's still illegal on a federal basis. If we can't make it legal here because of federal laws, we certainly want to decriminialize it,'' he told NBC's Brian Williams.
  Seventeen states and the District of Columbia already have laws allowing for the medical use of marijuana, according to the National Council of Legislatures.
  The initiatives in Washington, Oregon and Colorado would take things one step further, explicitly allowing people to smoke pot for more than just medicinal purposes.
  The idea of legalizing marijuana has gained acceptance in recent years. A Gallup poll released in October of 2011 found that 50 percent of Americans now favor legalizing pot. A decade ago, only around 34 percent were in favor. Liberals and adults under 29 are the most likely to approve of legalizing use of the drug.
  Here's a look at the states considering marijuana laws Tuesday.
  Arkansas: Voters in Arkansas will consider whether to legalize marijuana for medical purposes.
  Colorado: Voters in Colorado are being asked to approve a bill that would allow people 21 and over to possess and use a small amount of marijuana for recreational purposes. A similar measure was defeated in 2006.
  Massachusetts: Voters in Massachusetts are being asked to vote on whether it's OK to legalize marijuana for medical purposes.
  Montana: In 2004, voters in Montana approved a law allowing marijuana for medical purposes. Then, in 2011, the legislature approved replacing it with a new, more restrictive one. Voters on Tuesday will decide whether to allow those restrictions to be upheld.
  Oregon: Voters in Oregon are being asked to decide whether to legalize marijuana use for people who are 21 years or older, and to tax and regulate it in the same way as alcohol.
  Washington: The Washington bill would allow people over age 21 to possess a small amount of pot for personal use.
  NBC's Lester Holt takes a look at some of the states where voters are weighing their options regarding marijuana.
  More election coverage from NBCNews.com:
  Follow NBC Politics onTwitterandFacebook
US Embassy mourns two employees' deaths
  Link to Article
  Source: Embassy - Canada's Foreign Policy Newspaper
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 05:07
  Editor's Note: Comments that appear on the site are not the opinion of The Embassy. Personal attacks, name-calling, offensive language, and unsubstantiated allegations are not allowed.For more information on our commenting policies, please see our Community Discussion Rules page. If you see a typo or error in a story, report it to us here news@embassymag.ca.
No Title Necessary for Vote Fraud
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 04:42
  Look I'm not going to waste a great deal of time in another election fraud by Barack Hussein Obama and his algorythm voting machines as in 2008 as I broke a tooth tonight and will have it cut out in the morning, so am not in the mood to talk about things which this blog was stating now for months that in a fair election, Romney would win it in a landslide, but when one has high urban areas negating in a "close" election the will of America that is what one gets.They told you from Day One what they were doing. They sabotaged candidates to keep Obamacare and his mandates in place, as America is dead and it has had it's last free election as of years ago.
  This is what you get in the American gulag and it would be wonderful if Fred Barnes and the toe sucker would actually note this blog now, along with the few who still thought American elections and government were not 3rd world.
  There is absolutely not any way that Jimmy Carter Obama, after his horrendous torture of Americans, put up the numbers he did, on the tails of ANALGATE and the hurricane, and there is not in any way Mitt Romney put up the exact numbers John McCain did..........
  Look the race is not called yet, but as I said, I'm getting a tooth chopped out hopefully in the morning and that is a bit more important to me than grieving over a dead America that died decades ago.You know something is up with all the Diane Sawyer bull sh*t just keeps Obama at 269 for hours, as they grin and draw this out to torture the people who love America. They get off on this and that is what this is about.
  This is about Mitt Romney as the Strawman, and he was unstuffed by Karl Rove, Jeb Bush, David Axelrod and Barack Obama.Barack Obama is going to get away with his high crimes and it is going to be the reality of the Mormon the Christians did not want in enough numbers and A HOLES like Mark Levin who shilled for Obama in not bringing up the Birther issue and how thee entire media covered up ANALGATE broken here.
  I will return to the exclusive of this blog which is one no one is going to note save here by Inspiration.
  Mitt Romney puts up the same numbers and states just like John McCain. That is from the same program which Obama had run for him in 2008 in vote flipping. That is the MISTAKE that Obama made and is exclusive here as it reveals the algorythmns are unable to be rigged to nuance the data.
  So Jeb Bush writes his book, Conservatives get blamed that America is not them, and it all has to change so Reagan is Road Kill and we all have to be like Obama. That is what you were all told in 2009. The lies of Obama flipping 10 million GOP votes is a reality.
  My angst is more to the assholes like Foster Freiss who this blog reached out to in trying to set something up to really save America, and those billionaires are so cock sure that they could do this in the hippy way.
  I have something in the archives coming up on this in what the people on the right can do, but for now just chew on the exclusive that this blog caught Obama's election theft numbers in matching John McCain's.
  Nothing like a broken wisdom tooth and people still expecting more from you.
  agtG 229
The Special Goodness '-- aka Patrick Wilson From Weezer '-- Picks His Top 10 Heroes and Villains
  Link to Article
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 03:23
  When Patrick Wilson's not playing the drums in Weezer or writing gorgeous solo tunes under his moniker the Special Goodness, he's a renowned list writer. Okay, not really '-- but you would think so, judging by the sheer hilarity and bold frankness of this top 10 list he's compiled for us. Here, Wilson delivers his top 10 picks for heroes and villains, and let's just say he hasn't hit up Marvel comics for inspiration on this one. Check it out.
  Heroes:
  1. No Agenda Podcast: Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak deconstruct the news with much entertainment. Donate!
  2. Joan Rivers: Sasslady extraordinaire, says what she thinks and makes me laugh. And HAWT!
  3. Samsung Galaxy Note: Awesome phone. Everyone says, 'that's too big' until they're reading books on it. Bonus if you hack up your own Ice Cream Sandwich rom.
  4. Cadillac CTS-V Wagon: Does the world need a blown 550hp 6 speed manual wagon? Yes, yes it does.
  5. George R. R. Martin: I haven't been this geeked up since being introduced to Neal Stephenson and William Gibson!
  Villains:
  1. Bureaucracy: Let's just admit our systems are too complex and start over.
  2. Android Battery Life: 67 programs needlessly updating constantly '-- wtf?
  3. My Golf Cart: Total POS. If it's not melting battery terminals, it's leaving parts on the road.
  4. Tie: Theon Greyjoy/Joffrey Baratheon: I couldn't decide who the bigger cunt was!
  5. Humidity with Heat: Instant swampass, and my pal in TX has a service dump ice cubes in his pool... wtf?
Nor'easter: New York officials call for coastal evacuations as storm nears | World news
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:11
  New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city was on a high-wind and coastal flooding watch. Photograph: Kristen Artz/EPA
  New York officials are encouraging a partial evacuation of low-lying coastal regions on Tuesday, ahead of a nor'easter that is expected to bring fresh flooding and snow to a region that is still recovering from superstorm Sandy.
  "The National Weather Service has put our city on a high-wind watch and coastal flood watch," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, in an update on recovery efforts in New York.
  Cold weather continues to pose a risk to thousands of residents who are still without power after last week's storm. Volunteers and officials will go door to door in an attempt to help elderly and vulnerable residents evacuate properties left uninhabitable by Sandy.
  As many as 40,000 people could need resettlement, according to city officials. Bloomberg has said that adequate shelters are available and that police patrol cars will tour areas still cut off from power, using loudhailers to encourage residents to seek refuge.
  The operation has been given added urgency by the approach of a new storm that is due to hit New York and neighbouring New Jersey on Wednesday. The nor'easter could dump wet snow on trees, raising the risk of downed power lines.
  As of Tuesday, some 91,000 customers in New York City remained without electricity. With much of the blackout affecting coastal areas, it is feared that hypothermia could lead to more deaths; more than 100 deaths have been attributed to Sandy in the US.
  At a press briefing on Tuesday, Bloomberg said that in the coming days the temperature was likely to fall to the mid-30s fahrenheit, but would feel more like the upper 20s due to wind chill factor. In addition, the mayor said, tidal surges of up to four-and-a-half feet could bring flooding to coastal areas.
  Bloomberg said that in officials would urge people to leave a "handful of low lying areas", but added that they were not ordering the mandatory evacuation of any zones.
  In a separate briefing Tuesday, state governor Andrew Cuomo urged caution over the incoming storm.
  "We live by the adage 'prepare for the worst, hope for the best'," he said. The governor also said that he believed periods of extreme weather were likely to become common in the coming years. "I have been governor less than two years and we have gone through two terrible storms already," he said. "I think that is a symptom, I think these extreme weather patterns will continue."
  Cuomo also maintained pressure on utilities companies over their perceived slow response to fixing broken power lines.
  He acknowledged that the number of homes in the state without electricity was "way down" on recent days, but said that the current situation was "still not OK".
  "I share New Yorkers frustration, I understand, we are not happy with the preparations or rate of recovery from the utilities companies," he said. "I promise the people of this state that utilities companies will be held accountable."
On the ground voting report
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 18:54
  I just voted at my precinct in the middle of nowhere and I conclude in my Conservative enclave that it is a telling thing of how things should trend in the election.My Obama voter neighbor was there. She lives in her own house and her husband lives in their older house. She did not seem too confident.
  In that there were quite a few people voting, and numbers of people voting mean they are voting for change.
  I voted for Goode and Clymer, and then did straight GOP as I always do when it is not people who think Jesus is a brother of satan. I chose not to retain my judges and voted no on all the other things as government has enough things to play with and have messed things up.
  Obama is playing with his balls again, having others "get out the vote". I can state they would not be getting out the vote last minute in Illinois if he was not concerned about being made a fool of in his own state, as in others.
  Romney is pounding Virginia hard. That means the tie there a tie which he is flipping for him. Obama is holed up in Chicago, looking like his polling confirmed the tracking numbers of he lost it and like a 10 year old just quit.
  What is telling is, gas prices are falling hard, even leading up to the election, while the west coast and east coast is horrid, in that manipulation there. What that all means is a President Romney's backers know how bad the economic situation is, and they are trying to start the economy before he takes office from Obama.
  I'm not stating that Obama can not flip this in electronic machines, but the signs now appear that Obama quit and the barons are setting the markets for a recovery. Obama did this in 2008, but if the elections go fair, it looks like Romney will win this.
  Mitt Romney the 44th President of America, and the first wetback el presidente of America in being a border buster.
  Yes I mean 44 as Obama was an illegal without any American parentage and he gave up US Citizenship as a whorehouse anchor baby for trying to rule Indonesia. Just a few years ago he was paying Kenyans to make up signs on his visit PRESIDENT OBAMA OF KENYA in laying the groundwork there.Amazing if that had happened thousands of nameless blacks would now be dead in Kenya, instead of thousands of white and brown skinned peoples you know the names of.
  Trayvon Martin would still be armed with Skittles and smoking dope if only Obama had been President of Kenya. Is that Niggazi Hoodie's life worth more than some Machete Mama in Nairobi?
  Letterman: Recount Starts Wednesday, Supreme Court Gives Election to Romney December 18...
  Fort Hood shooting victims sue Obama admin...
  Welcome to the Legacy of Obama, the Court Room Criminal.
  Oh, I had a strange dream last night in I was at a gathering at a mansion, some wedding reception I believe, and I was sipping my fruity soda punch which was reddish colored with a stir straw, by a fireplace, feeling like the most popular girl there did not want to be there, and who should pop over for a nicety, but Willard Mitt Romney.Nice guy as I ignored him, so he popped over par dux and chatted me again, as I'm apparently popular.
  Yes there was one of the powers that be there too who was chatting me up, not for a date mind you, but folks were like all Letterman Cocktail Crowd folks in being cotton candy sticky.
  Romney seemed shorter and more blue grey.
  I left my punch on the hearth and woke up to go vote.
  Guess that was important to include here.
  agtG 313 YY
EconomicPolicyJournal.com: Anonymous Reports: Jesse Benton Sabotaged Ron Paul's Campaign
  Link to Article
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 18:15
  Here is the transcript of the video (via cyberwarzone)Hello Citizens of the world, We are Anonymous. Dear brothers and sisters: Now is the time to open your eyes and expose the truth!
  The United States of America has been taken over by the elite one percent. No more are the people of the United States of America the sovereign. Our governments have been bought and sold to the highest bidder. The United States representatives have no need to listen to its people because they have pledged allegiance to those with the most money and power. The United States government are stripping away the freedoms and liberties of its people and the justice system is a perversion to the bill of rights our founding fathers have fought and died for. No longer do the police protect and serve its public but rather many have turned into hired thugs. The constitution of the united states has almost literally been stripped to nothing and the United States government uses terrorism to deprive the rights and liberties of its citizens as well as people from around the world.
  Anonymous now has a leak that exposes Jesse Benton, Ron Paul's campaign manager, about his sabotage of the Ron Paul's campaign during the Republican National Convention (RNC). Speculation Suggest that Jesse Benton was paid off handsomely for his services to sabotage the Ron Paul movement. While more evidence on this is to be determined there is no doubt that Jesse Benton's political career will be well rewarded for his services of betrayal, corruption and sabotage. For those who have supported Ron Paul's campaign and liberty movement we urge you to continue to fight and seek justice. This shame that has been brought to Anonymous' attention will not go un noticed.
  Remember, Remember the fifth of November election fraud, treason and Plot. I see no reason why election fraud, treason and Plot should ever be forgot.
  We are anonymous.
  We are Legion.
  We do not forgive.We do not forget.
FLOTUS Twitter account sending DM spam to people who don't even follow her?
  Link to Article
  Source: Twitchy » US Politics
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:58
  Received a DM from @MichelleObama again, even though I don't follow her. Hey @Twitter, what's up with that?
  '--Anthony De Rosa (@AntDeRosa) November 06, 2012The Obama campaign has been spamming Twitter followers via direct message for a while now.
  Normally, you can only send a direct message to someone who follows you on Twitter. But today, Reuters columnist Anthony DeRosa revealed that he received a DM from @MichelleObama even though he doesn't follow her. And he wasn't the only one:
  Me too! RT @AntDeRosa: Received a DM from @MichelleObama again, even though I don't follow her. Hey @Twitter, what's up with that?'--Samantha Shepard (@SamAShepard) November 06, 2012
  Me too RT @AntDeRosa: Received a DM from @MichelleObama again, even though I don't follow her. Hey @Twitter, what's up with that?'--Robin Respaut (@RobinRespaut) November 06, 2012
  Odd, we'd think spam wouldn't be on the first lady's approved menu.
  So what's going on here? One possibility:
  @AntDeRosa "Twitter has given some accounts the ability to receive DMs from accounts they don't follow'...must opt-in" mashable.com/2011/07/05/twi'...'--Stefan Becket (@stefanjbecket) November 06, 2012
  In July, Mashable reported, ''Twitter has given some accounts the ability to receive DMs from accounts they don't follow. Accounts with this feature must opt in.''
  Did these Twitter users ''opt in,'' or is the FLOTUS account just special?
  Twitchy will let you know if other Twitter users who don't follow the first lady report similar direct message spam.
  Follow @twitchyteam
  Like this:Be the first to like this.
China Most Threatening Cyberspace Force, U.S. Panel Says
  Link to Article
  Source: Gitmo Nation News
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:57
  ''China is ''the most threatening actor in cyberspace'' as its intelligence agencies and hackers use increasingly sophisticated techniques to gain access to U.S. military computers and defense contractors, according to the draft of an annual report mandated by Congress.
  Chinese hackers are moving into ''increasingly advanced types of operations or operations against specialized targets,'' such as sensors and apertures on deployed U.S. military platforms, according to the report.''
  via China Most Threatening Cyberspace Force, U.S. Panel Says '' Bloomberg.
What's Wrong With Ohio Voting Machine Software?
  Link to Article
  Source: BlackListedNews.com
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:12
  In the state that is likely to decide the leader of the free world Tuesday, an 11th hour ''experimental software patch'' is causing consternation, confusion and a lawsuit.
  Ohio, regarded as the ''tipping point'' swing state in Governor Mitt Romney and U.S. President Barack Obama's quest for 270 electoral votes Tuesday, uses electronic voting machines. A large portion are provided by ES&S, the nation's largest e-voting system manufacturer.
  Late last week, a leaked work order revealed that John Husted, Ohio's secretary of state, had installed something called EXP on central tabulation machines in 39 of Ohio's 88 counties. EXP is either an ''experimental software patch'', according to the company's work request to ES&S, or, as the Secretary of State's office has called it, a ''reporting tool''.
  Now Husted finds himself caught in Election Day drama. A rival Ohio politician has filed suit, prompting a judge to rule whether those ''patched'' machines can legitimately be used in the vote count at 9 a.m. on Election Day.
  The EXP update will allow election officials to ''output election results on a thumb drive, and upload [them] at once into the Secretary of State's system,'' Matt McClellan, a spokesman for the Secretary of State told a local news site called TheGrio.
  The ES&S contract [PDF], however, says nothing about thumb drives.
  EXP, XML, CSV?
  The only purpose of EXP mentioned in the work order is simply this: to convert XML files into CSV files, so Husted's computers can read the numbers and upload them to the web immediately.
  But as voting machine security expert James March testified in an affadavit, that's a strange thing to install on tabulation machines. You could just convert the files on the secretary's computer. Why bother installing this patch, or tool, on 39 machines?
  >>Read More...Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
DMT '' The Spirit Molecule
  Link to Article
  Source: ZapLog - externe links
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:10
  Volgens sommige mensen is DMT een sleutel om vanuit het fysieke universum kennis te maken met het spirituele universum. Maar om bij het begin te beginnen hier eerst een stukje wikipedia over DMT.
  Dimethyltryptamine, ook bekend als DMT wordt van nature aangemaakt door een breed scala aan organismen, waaronder de mens. De functie van de stof is tot dusver niet duidelijk, al blijkt uit onderzoek dat DMT mogelijk een rol speelt bij schizofrenie, bijna-doodervaringen en visueel dromen. DMT heeft psychoactieve eigenschappen en kan worden gerookt, ge¯njecteerd of (gecombineerd met stoffen die orale opname mogelijk maken, zie ayahuasca) oraal toegediend worden. DMT behoort tot de hallucinogene en entheogene (Grieks, de godheid binnenin opwekkende) drugs.
  In de afgelopen jaren zijn er hevige discussies gaande omtrent de ervaringen van gebruikers van DMT en het toepassen van DMT bij bijvoorbeeld terminale kankerpatienten. Trips worden over het algemeen als spiritueel, openbarend en diep intrigerend ervaren. Bij een correcte dosis maakt een hoog percentage van de gebruikers een ''Ego dood'' mee. Een staat van bewustzijn waarbij de grenzen tussen de persoon en het universum vervagen; het ego verdwijnt. Deze ervaring wordt door veel mensen als bevrijdend en spiritueel verzadigend ervaren, omdat men het gevoel heeft deel te zijn met de kosmos. Men kan hierdoor het idee van sterven aanvaarden.
  In onderstaande documentaire is in een wetenschappelijke setting gekeken naar de effecten van DMT op de mensen die dit kregen toegediend. De verhalen van de mensen die mee hebben gedaan aan dit experiment zijn opzienbarend te noemen.
  Klik op het plaatje om naar een online versie van het boek te gaan.
  Over dit wetenschappelijke onderzoek is ook een boek geschreven, de bovenstaande documentaire is gebaseerd op dit boek. Hierbij een stukje uit de introductie van het boek:
  In 1991 began the first new research in the United States in over twenty years on the effects of psychedelic, or hallucinogenic, drugs on humans. These studies investigated the effects of N,N-dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, an extremely short-acting and powerful psychedelic. During the project's five years, I administered approximately four hundred doses of DMT to sixty human volunteers. This research took place at the University of New Mexico's School of Medicine in Albuquerque, where I was tenured Associate Professor of Psychiatry
  I was drawn to DMT because of its presence in all of our bodies. I believed the source of this DMT was the mysterious pineal gland, a tiny organ situated in the center of our brains. Modern medicine knows little about this little gland's role, but it has a rich ''metaphysical'' history. Descartes, for example, believed the pineal was the ''seat of the soul,'' and both Western and Eastern mystical traditions place our highest spiritual center within its confines. I therefore wondered if excessive pineal DMT production was involved in naturally occurring ''psychedelic'' states. These might include birth, death and near-death, psychosis, and mystical experiences. Only later, when the study was well underway, did I also begin considering DMT's role in the ''alien abduction'' experience.Bekijk het hele boek online in PDF formaat
  Is DMT een sleutel tot andere universa/realiteiten?
  Uit de documentaire en het boek komt duidelijk naar voren dat mensen zeer bijzondere ervaringen kunnen hebben met dank aan DMT. Ervaringen die volgens sommige gebruikers het menselijke bewustzijn overstijgen.
  Zou DMT werkelijk een sleutel tot andere universa kunnen zijn? Kan DMT mensen in staat stellen met andere entiteiten te communiceren? Heeft DMT een rol te spelen in de toekomstige evolutie van de mensheid? Speculaties hierover en ervaringen van mensen met DMT zijn van harte welkom.
  Aanverwante informatie en artikelen:-) Uitjebol over DMT-) Website - thespiritmolecule.com-) Documentaire, The making of: The Spirit Molecule-) Inside LSD-) Terence McKenna over DMT en andere Psychedelica-) Transpersoonlijke psychologie-) Ayahuasca, slingerplant van de ziel-) ditiseentrip.wordpress.com-) Stichting Open - Stichting OPEN is een interdisciplinair initiatief dat onderzoek naar alle facetten van de psychedelische ervaring wil stimuleren.
  -) Eindeloos Bewustzijn-) De dood, een verkenning-) Het begin en einde van goed en kwaad-) Diversiteit, de bouwsteen van het leven
ICE Releases Docs Detailing Electronic Surveillance Problems, Demands Them Back a Year Later
  Link to Article
  Source: BlackListedNews.com
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:08
  Source: EFF.org
  This is a first for us in all of EFF's history of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation'--Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has demanded we return records it gave us more than a year ago. The release of these documents doesn't endanger national security or create a risk to an ongoing law enforcement investigation. Instead, it seems that ICE simply wants to stymie further FOIA requests from EFF as we try to get answers about the government's electronic surveillance procedures.
  It started a year ago when ICE produced records in response to one of our Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. The records show that companies like Comcast, Cricket Communications, Metro PCS, Southern Linc Wireless, and T-Mobile either pushed back on or failed to comply with specific requests for information on their customers. For example, in response to one of ICE's pen register/trap and trace orders, Southern Linc said it ''did not like the wording of [the] order'' and ''would not give 'real time' ping location for [the] phone, [it] would only give 1 hour old history.'' ICE also reported that it experienced ''technical issues . . . on almost a daily basis'' trying to get data on a suspect from Cricket Communications.'' And Comcast gave ICE the runaround for a month before it turned over IP log history.
  These records are the first we've received in response to our FOIA litigation that actually provide some of the information we asked for'--specific examples of problems federal agents have faced getting companies to comply with communications surveillance orders. We filed this request two years ago after the New York Times reported that the FBI and other agencies were pushing Congress to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to require companies like Blackberry, Skype and Google to build back doors into their systems. And ICE should be commended for releasing these records with only minimal redactions.
  However, ICE should not be commended for what happened next. Based on the important information revealed in this limited set of records, we asked ICE to give us copies of all other records that looked like these. It didn't seem like a tough request to fill, given that these seem to be standardized reports'--and that we included a copy of the records so that ICE would know what to look for.
  But ICE refused. First the agency argued EFF's request was too broad'--that it couldn't possibly search through all its individual offices to find these forms (despite the fact that ICE officers seemed to be encouraged to send the forms to a central fax number). So, to lessen the burden on the agency, we narrowed our FOIA request to cover only a handful of specific ICE offices that reported having problems.
  It took ICE almost a year to get back to us on the narrowed request, and when it did, its response was frustrating. Not only did the agency decide that it would still be too burdensome to conduct any kind of a search for similar records, but ICE also told us it never should have turned over the original records in the first place'--and it wanted them back. The problem for ICE is, these records have already been in the public's hands for over six months'--we filed them as an exhibit (pdf) in our FOIA litigation (pdf) in March 2012, and they're readily available on the PACER docket for the case (or from the Internet Archive).
  This is yet another example of the federal government failing to comply with the letter and spirit of the Freedom of Information Act'--reverting to secrecy when it should be promoting transparency. It's hard to imagine what harm could come from the release of these documents. ICE was careful to block out any information in the records that would identify the target of the investigation, and the information that isn't blocked out seems to reinforce the government's position on CALEA.
  And it's another disappointment from an administration that lauded its commitment to transparency on the first day the President took office four years ago. We can only hope that if the President wins this tight election, he'll use the next four years to fulfill this commitment.
  Read ICE's reports here and the agency's letters to EFF here, here, and here.
  >>
Did you hear the one about Bill Maher and his 'racist' joke?
  Link to Article
  Source: Infowars » Featured Stories
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:06
  Charlie SkeltonInfowars.comNovember 6, 2012
  Some jokes don't 'mean' very much. What sits at the bottom of the sea and shivers? A nervous wreck. This joke says very little about sunken ships that anyone, even an extremely sensitive sunken ship, could possibly find offensive. But make a joke about politics, and dare to give it a racial twist, and suddenly all kinds of toes are getting trodden on.
  Here's one such joke, which has been causing a fair bit of fuss in a tense and nervous pre-election America. It was delivered by the comedian, commentator and Democratic cheerleader, Bill Maher, in the opening monologue of Friday's Real Time on HBO.
  So I would just like to say, for anyone thinking about voting for Mitt Romney, if that's who you are, if you're thinking of voting for [Mitt Romney]'...I would like to make this one plea. Black people know who you are and they will come after you.Just this one plea.I'm kidding! Oh, I'm kidding!
  Some conservative commentators (including the website newsbusters.org) have accused Maher of using violent rhetoric, and have branded the joke inappropriate. They've argued that it would have been unthinkable to make this joke in reverse, i.e. saying to Obama supporters: ''''White people know who you are and they will come after you.'' This seems to be the main gripe of the those criticizing Maher: that he and his liberal pals be the first to be outraged if a conservative voice had said something so racially insensitive. But is the line actually inappropriate? Is Bill Maher making a racist joke?
  It's an awkward, unpleasant thing to pick one's way through the bones of a gag, particularly a topical one, to try and unpick its meaning: like drawing chalk circles around body parts after a car crash. No joke comes out sounding remotely funny after its various bits have been bagged and tagged. That said, let me snap on my rubber gloves, tape off the area, and see I can work out what's happening here, and why people are annoyed at Maher. My apologies in advance for the grinding detail of this analysis.
  The offending joke follows a short sequence of gags about Romney's Zen-like relationship to the ''lying bullshit'' he spouts, and leads into a bit about the ridiculousness of Romney ''packing up canned goods'' for hurricane sufferers. This is the context of the joke: Maher's very considerable dislike of Mitt Romney. The context doesn't seem to be the story which has been talked about in some (primarily conservative) quarters of Obama supporters firing off tweets that promise 'rioting' if Romney wins. It's just a joke about angry ''black people'' coming after Romney voters, simple as that.
  What I've transcribed above is the full text of the joke, including the mumble in the middle [in square brackets] where Maher half-says the name Mitt Romney. I've written it out word-for-word because the set-up differs a little from the truncated form in which it's been generally printed, and the long, lulling preamble is part of how the joke functions.
  So how does the joke work? How is it funny? A chunk of the humour comes from Maher undercutting the seriousness of the set-up by making such a shocking statement: ''black people know who you are and they will come after you.'' The mock gravitas of the plea (which sets up, within the logic of the joke, an expectation that serious advice is about to be delivered) is emphasized by the repetition, the pausing '' as if Maher is reaching out, earnestly, to these misguided voters. And then the earnestness is exploded by the punchline. The violent shock of the pay-off jabs the audience into laughing.
  Maher is comically imputing to ''black people'' the intention of racially targeting and physically attacking Romney voters (who, according the logic of the joke, aren't black). And then he smiles and says '' ha ha, not really: ''I'm kidding! Oh, I'm kidding!'' '' which he has to add at the end because he knows what he's just said is dodgy. Like the lawyer who says something in court that he then retracts. It's been said, it's out there. You can't simply 'unsay' it with an ironic chuckle. But that's what Maher does. Because he's an intelligent, socially aware, 21st Century, left-leaning comic. Racist? How absurd!
  But the punchline itself isn't absurd. That's not where the humour lies. Compare this Steven Wright joke: ''I have a large seashell collection, which I keep scattered on beaches all over the world.'' The comic swerve of the punchline depends (in typical Steven Wright style) upon the absurdity of the conclusion, which blows apart the assumption of the set-up. In Maher's joke, the ''black people'' of the punchline are all set to engage in violent race hate. If this racially targeted aggression were, say, imputed to ''Buddhists'', there would be a comic disconnect between the essential non-violence and passivity of the Buddhists and the aggressive act. This disconnect doesn't work with ''black people'' any more than it would with ''white people'' or ''French people'' or ''fishermen''. Non-violence isn't a go-to characteristic of any of these groups. The laughter of the audience doesn't mean: ''ha ha ha, but black people are '' by their nature '' so profoundly non-violent that this statement about them 'coming after' Romney voters is absurd!'' It's not ''you have said something absurd about black people'', but ''you have said something *shocking* about black people''. The comic disconnect, if there is one, is between the racially charged punchline and the non-racist nature of the person delivering it.
  Maher is not delivering this punchline in the 'persona' of a racist person '' like earlier in the monologue where he imagines Pat Buchanan praising President Obama's handling of Hurricane Sandy with the words: ''you're doing a heck of a job, brownie'' (a twist of Bush's famous words, just after Katrina hit, to the then FEMA director Michael D. Brown). Satire.
  In the punchline of his election plea, Maher isn't satirizing the racist assumptions of a racist person by saying: ''black people know who you are and they will come after you.'' He's just *saying it*. And then he smiles, and says ''I'm kidding'', and the implication is that obviously he doesn't believe it. It's a joke, albeit one with a racist (or at the very least, racially insensitive) punchline. Perhaps trivially racist is a better description. It's hardly a Bernard Manning routine. But what it does do is reduce, for comic effect, the political engagement of black people to that of an angry mob, a scary, dangerous, anti-social, irrational force. Crucially (if you think any of this is crucial!) Maher isn't presenting this as a satire on what Romney voters think of black people. Maher is making that reduction himself. Playfully, I should add. He's delivering a comedy routine, not a barroom rant. He's being casually, laconically racist. And the liberal ear forgives him because it knows he doesn't 'mean' it. He's just said it.
  Indeed, the very fact that it's Bill Maher, the archetypal US liberal, who spends a good half of his professional life scoffing at the racism, real or imagined, of Republicans, who's saying it is part of the joke. Maher has made a joke which is shocking (and funny) precisely because it's so violent and angry '' it's an image of rioting, race-hating ''black people'' that's completely the opposite of what we'd imagine coming from a mainstream, liberal talkshow host (and so unlike the sage piece of wisdom we'd been led, by the structure of the joke, to expect).
  After the joke, Maher throws open his hands and says ''I'm kidding''. Because obviously he's not a racist. Except that, for the duration of the punchline at least, he is. And I believe that it's this absurdity, this paradox (of the racist non-racist), which provides another chunk of the humour. A ''non-racist'' is being shockingly racist. But he's not really racist! ''I'm kidding!'' Phew, that was close. Stand down.
  Not that I care if Bill Maher makes a racist joke or not. I'm not massively in favour of people making racist jokes on television, even non-racists like Bill Maher, but I'm all for people exercising their free speech. Bill Maher should be free to insult black people as much as he likes, just as long as he realises that saying ''I'm kidding'' at the end of a dodgy joke, and giving a naughty boy grin, doesn't automatically make what he's just said ok. It's not a presidential pardon. You can't rip up your own speeding tickets. You can't drive at 70 in a 30 zone and when the cop comes up grin and say ''hey, I'm kidding''. You weren't just playing at breaking you speed limit. You were speeding. And unfortunately, a few blocks back, you ran over a few toes.
  One last thing: the structure of the joke implies that no ''black people'' vote for Romney. According to the logic of the joke, they're are all Obama-voters. And violent. Within the joke, it's non-black people (or rather, misguided non-black people) who vote for Romney. In other words, the election is reduced to race. The joke does its best to sharpen the racial division in the voting population of America. It draws an angry riot line between ''anyone thinking about voting for Mitt Romney'' and ''black people''. It is a joke which divides, not brings together. But you know what, he sold it. The audience laughed. Because let's not forget, Bill Maher isn't racist. If he was racist, the joke wouldn't be funny.
  If it is.
  Charlie Skelton is Script Editor of Channel 4'²s 10 O'Clock Live and a Guardian journalist.
  This article was posted: Tuesday, November 6, 2012 at 8:34 am
  Tags: domestic news
  Share this article:
Galaxy Note to get Android 4.1 by late December
  Link to Article
  Source: CNET News
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:05
  The Jelly Bean update should bring a number of features to Samsung's phablet including the Nature UX, Air View, and more.
  The Galaxy Note should see its Jelly Bean update by year's end.
  (Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)The unlocked Samsung Galaxy Note could get its Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update in late December says the oft-reliable SamMobile. In addition to the requisite bug fixes, the update will include Samsung's Nature UX as well as Air View and Multi View to the gargantuan smartphone.
  Samsung has yet to confirm both the update and its expected arrival, but the firmware in the video below looks fairly complete. Hopefully, we'll get an official announcement from Sammy soon, be it via press release or a social network status update.
  It's worth noting that not all versions of the Galaxy Note may see the update at the same time. Indeed, AT&T and T-Mobile subscribers might have to wait another few weeks, or longer, for their own announcements. That's the same story with the Galaxy S3 owners as U.S. carrier models are still waiting on Jelly Bean, too.
Silicon Valley's new show: A reality check
  Link to Article
  Source: CNET News
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:54
  The big brains of Silicon Valley fretted that they would be reduced to mere puppets by Bravo's new reality show, which debuted last night. They should not have feared. They should have panicked.
  Yes, that's Ben at the party. Before he put the bow tie on.
  (Credit: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)It's all right watching a reality show and accepting it as mere entertainment.
  It's quite another thing to face that reality and decide whether the show truly reflects it.
  So before sitting down to watch "Start-Ups:Silicon Valley," Bravo's real husbanding of the tech world, I went to see what these people were like face to face.
  Somehow I secured a ticket to the red carpet party in a place that had a rather gray, sticky carpet in San Francisco's Marina district.
  I took with me my 6-foot blonde Amazonian bodyguard, Angelina, who is far more party-aware than am I. She towers over humanity like Jesus on Corcovado and everyone pays her respect whether they like it or not.
  Indeed, within two minutes, she had accosted a couple of boys in suits who declared they were there because they knew some of the cast members. Angelina wasn't impressed and told them so.
  Should you be unaware of the reality TV show format, Bravo has two types.
  There is the "Top Chef" strain, which takes people of talent and hopes to bring them together in an entertaining way in order to enhance both their careers and their businesses.
  Angelina lifted me up on her shoulders, so that I could take this shot of the party.
  (Credit: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)Then there is the "Real Housewives" strain, which takes people of absolutely no interest -- other than their slothful materialism -- and turns them into even more grotesque beings, purely in order to entertain.
  Which strain would "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley" represent?
  The show, like the party, didn't begin well. At the party, there were vast numbers of attractive men in suits. Several even wore bow ties. Many of the women wore dresses you've seen in the windows of exclusive stores. But I think a few ripped them off mannequins who were of an entirely different size.
  The show began with beautiful people sizing each other up and saying grandiose things to fast music. Silicon Valley is fast-paced, you see. It's riven with beautiful people who know what they want and know how to get it. Not unlike Angelina.
  "If you can't handle it, you'll go mad," said Ben Way on the show. I think he was referring to the Valley. Or the show. He could have also been referring to the party.
  In real life, he stood next to me on the balcony. He is built like the progeny of Tom Cruise and a jockey. And, yes, he was wearing a bow tie and stroking his gelled hair, as if its angles weren't quite right. He likes the attention.
  And why not? All of these budding geniuses are on the show because they're gorgeous and they want to be famous. They are mere prisoners of their age.
  Crazy ideas, meet realityWay, for example, claims to be a serial entrepreneur. "Basically, I take crazy ideas and make them a reality." Not unlike this show.
  The other men are Dwight Crow -- who looks like the sort of smuggins who makes you want to leave a bar if he's there -- and former Googler David Murray, who has already enjoyed a hair transplant and a nose job. And yes, he's still only 29.
  The women are Way's sister Hermione ("I had to get to numero uno," she says of the Valley), Sarah Austin -- who appears to be, gasp, a blogger -- and Kim Taylor.
  Hermione has astonishingly white teeth for a Brit.
  Within a few minutes, it was clear this wasn't quite "Top Chef."
  There didn't seem to be any competition, nor any explanation of rules. This was just Ben and Hermione chatting about how they had secured a meeting with VC Dave McClure for their startup, Ignite. (Yes, she sent him a middle-finger text. How current.)
  Then Sarah became a barer.
  The blogger appeared in her underwear and we knew which side of reality we were heading toward. Her floral bra didn't match her black undies (entirely), but her ribcage protruded like Giselle's. A million nerds ceased to breathe.
  More salient facts emerged. Saliency here is all about the entertainment.
  Sarah is living at the Four Seasons. So is her dog, Jimmy. Jimmy also is fond of bows. I didn't see him at the party.
  Kim earns a buck for the Milwaukee Dancers. Wait, quick edit: she's a dancer for the Milwaukee Bucks. For which I suspect she gets around a buck. She also sells online ads. Which I suspect may be worth around a buck.
  Dwight has an impossibly hairy chest, as if he'd endured a graft from one of those gorilla suits that fraudsters claim is Bigfoot.
  Sarah takes two hours to get ready. And that's on a normal day. Three or four hours if there's going to be a party. I didn't see her at the red carpet party. Perhaps she was still getting ready.
  David's boyfriend is very serious. David wears briefs. David and Sarah like to spray tan, especially when they're going to a toga party.
  Ben's shoes at the party.
  (Credit: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)Hermione and Sarah are no longer friends. They had a row at SXSW. (Are you keeping up? There will be a test at the end.)
  These people are kidding, right? Actually, I think they might be. When Ben and Sarah are arguing about her relationship with Hermione, Sarah appears to be straining to act. It looks like she actually wants to laugh.
  Then I gasped. Sarah might be having a thing, a fling with Ben. What? This sort of thing doesn't normally happen in a reality show.
  Getting down to business, finallyIf I tell you that we are now at the 45th minute of this highly realistic fare, you might be wondering if there were any, you know, businessy parts.
  Well, in this 45th minute Ben and Hermione are going to finally meet McClure to ask for $500,000.
  I mentioned that their company is called Ignite. I don't think it's online spray-tanning. It's something to do with working out how long you're going to live. Because, in the Valley, everything is quantifiable and everyone wants to live forever.
  Ben hasn't finished the presentation. He's been too busy, um, filming a reality show. Hermione's hair is a mess.
  More Technically IncorrectWhen they meet McClure, they explain that they want to solve one of their own personal problems: they know they're not going to live forever. But they want to know how long they've got in real time -- all the time.
  McClure offered a look that was somewhere between amused and bemused. He grabbed the laptop and wanted to look at the deck himself. Ben, who is new to the Valley, took umbrage.
  Oh, by the way, Ben and Hermione have 43 businesses, something that McClure dryly calls "a distraction."
  "You don't need to sweep me off my feet," he concludes. "You just have to be a good kisser."
  Yes, this was the kiss-off. In so many ways. Their idea was just too out-there and not safe like, um, Ford.
  Do you love intrigue, gossip, affairs, parties, beautiful bodies, inflated egos, bad clothes and money? This show is for you.
  Meanwhile, back at the party, Angelina grabbed me by my glasses and dragged me to a dive bar.
  "You've had enough," she said. Yes, but what about America?
Sandy's Aftermath: Live Storm Updates - Interactive Feature
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:53
  Full CoverageCommentsPhotosGame UpdatesAsk The TimesState-by-State GuideA look at the devastation caused in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy from North Carolina to New England.
The Obama RearView
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:52
  Dumped in the USANow won't you just go awayDumped by the USANow just go away Even if we're just dancing in the dark.Less than 24 hours and this festering sore of Obama racism will be flushed from the body of America where it drained rancid and putrid for four long years.It leaves you with nothing misterbut...........Boring stories of...........Obama dayz Mr. Romney, you will have many first acts. Do you think one of them can be to send in the FBI and find out who assassinated Andrew Breitbart during this Obama regime?
  Soon the only Chinese in the White House will be take out.Lame Cherry
99 disco 2 Drivers door WILL NOT OPEN - Land Rover Forums
  Link to Article
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:28
  Got the door open. Just took all screws I could reach out of the inside door panel. Pulled the panel out far enought to expose the actuator latch assy. Then pulled the black plastic cover off the actuator exposing a worm gear which i spun til the door opened. Now I can take the inside panel all the way off and do my thing. And by thing I mean fumble and cuss and look at the rave manual and cuss more until i finally figure it out.
  __________________ Sure I'll pull you out.
BEST OF THE WEB: Thousands recreate closing scene of V for Vendetta with march on English Parliament
  Link to Article
  Source: ZapLog - externe links
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:18
  "Hundreds"? Try thousands, at least!
  A worldwide day of protests and cyber attacks against governments, banks and security firms has been launched by Hacker collective Anonymous to mark Guy Fawkes Day. Hundreds of people marched in London, while another rally hit Washington, DC.Around 200 Anonymous supporters, according to RT's London Bureau, assembled in London's Trafalgar Square for Operation Vendetta, a march to the Houses of Parliament. The group itself claims over 9,000 people joined the action.
  The demonstrators were carrying banners reading, "We are Anonymous. We are the legion" or "Stop creating imaginary debt!" At the Houses of Parliament they were stopped by police.
  Minor scuffles broke out outside parliament as a few protestors attempted to push police lines back, but the bulk of OpVendetta remained peaceful.
  The "march, strike and protest" in London, as well as a similar event planned outside of the US White House in Washington are meant to pay homage to the 2005 film V for Vendetta.
  "On November 5th 2012 WE THE PEOPLE will march on Washington DC peacefully and unarmed to arrest all members of congress, the president, and all supreme court justices where they will be held without bond until a full independent investigation and trial have been completed. We must re-elect our government within 90 days in order to stave of unrest," organizers behind the march announced.
  RT London Bureau's photo shows police stopping OpVendetta march from entering the House of Parliament on November 5, 2012
  A rash of cyber attacks were reported on Monday in line with the the 5th of November "V For Vendetta" inspired hacking spree.Several Australian government sites were targeted during the global day of protest, while Argentina's government bank was also reportedly hacked.
  An attack on Internet security firm Symantec was originally attributed to the hacktivist collective, but a non-Anonymous affiliated group called @Doxbin later claimed responsibility for taking their site down.
  Another anonymous affiliated group claimed to have hacked the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) website to "bring attention to election manipulation in the Ukraine."
  Trapwire - the US-developed predictive software which can access closed-circuit cameras around the country to monitor citizens' movements - and its European analogue INDECT were also the victims of cyber attacks.
  Anonymous also claims to have stolen some 28,000 passwords and other confidential information from Paypal. Private paste documents allegedly containing emails, names and passwords from the payment service's database were reportedly posted online, though the information was quickly removed.
  PayPal has disputed the hack took place, saying there is no evidence of a breach.
  "We're investigating this but to date we have been unable to find any evidence that validates this claim," PayPal president David Marcus wrote on Twitter.
  Image by RT's Sara Firth OpVendetta march participants gathering at the House of Parliament in London on November 5, 2012
  On Sunday several sites for the US TV network NBC were also targeted by a person or group calling identified as "pyknic." A text block including "REMEMBER, REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER" and "F**K THE FEDS, 419 IS JUST A GAME" greeted those attempting to access several popular TV shows. Why NBC was targeted remains a mystery, and the sites were quickly restored.Anonymous tweeted they played no role in the NBC hack or defacement, and also denied rumors they were seeking to take down Facebook.
  Pyknic also went after a Lady Gaga fan site, Gaga Daily, eliciting a sympathetic tweet from the pop star on twitter.
  A far more serious criminal conspiracy seeking to recreate the films dramatic conclusion was also reportedly planned for Monday.
  In October, a YouTube video appeared featuring a masked individual claiming to represent Anonymous warning a large bomb had been planted at a US government building and would be detonated remotely.
  Anonymous responded on October 24 that the video "is clearly an attempt to portray 'Anonymous' as a violent threat."
  "The YouTube account responsible for uploading the clip was only created six days ago and immediately began uploading other Anonymous videos in an effort to associate itself with the hacktivist collective. You Tube has allowed the video to remain online without taking it down for over two days when far less obscene content is routinely censored within hours."
  Image by RT's by Andrew Blake shows the Anonymous group demonstrating in Washington DC on November 5, 2012
  November 5 commemorates Guy Fawkes' failed 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords in London. A mask bearing his stylized visage - which featured prominently in V for Vendetta - has been adopted by Anonymous and Occupy Wall Street protesters as a universal symbol against tyranny.The film's climax saw the Palace of Westminster destroyed as thousands of Londoners wearing the Guy Fawkes mask looked on.
We're Killing Little Children in Pakistan: What I Told Obama's Counter-Terror Chief At His Virginia
  Link to Article
  Source: ZapLog - externe links
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:17
  John Brennan in Washington, DC in 2011.
  Having recently returned from Pakistan meeting with drone victims, on November 4 my partner Tighe Barry and I were having a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast. The discussion turned to John Brennan, Obama's counterterrorism chief and the key person making decisions about drone strikes. We wondered if Brennan ever had a chance to meet innocent drone victims, as we did, and feel their pain.
  ''Maybe we should go to his house and talk to him,'' quipped Tighe. We laughed at the absurdity of the idea but decided to do a little bit of research. Fifteen minutes later, we were out the door, driving to a Virginia suburb an hour south of Washington DC. I had no idea if it was really John's address, but it was a lovely day for a drive'--and Tighe was willing to indulge me.
  Exiting the freeway, we came to an area of rolling hills, green grass and private horse farms. As we approached what we thought might be John Brennan's street, we were sure it was a mistake. How could this be? It was a nondescript upper middle class neighborhood, with children playing in the yards'--no security, no government vehicles. The house was in a cul-de-sac sandwiched between two other houses, without so much as a fence surrounding it.
  I decided to go knock on the door to make sure we were wrong. A middle-aged, white-haired guy in a casual sweater and jeans opened the door, accompanied by someone who l assumed was his wife.
  Could this really be John Brennan? The same man who championed "enhanced interrogation techniques'' under President Bush? The same man who now decides, on "terror Tuesdays", who will be on the CIA kill list? The guy who developed the Orwellian "disposition matrix"'--a blueprint for disposing of terrorist suspects for at least another decade?
  I hesitated. He looked much younger and thinner than I remembered, and he looked like such a nice man. And would someone who spent his career in the CIA and was the nation's counterterrorism czar be answering his own door?
  "John?," I asked. "Yes," he replied tentatively. I continued, still doubting that he was really John Brennan. "I'm sorry to bother you at your home on a Sunday, but I wanted to talk to you about a recent trip."
  "A trip?", he asked, squinting his eyes and cocking his head to the side. "A trip to where?" "Pakistan," I answered. "Ohhhhh," he said.
  What he really meant was, ''Oh shit.'' For it was at that moment I realized he was indeed John Brennan, and he realized that I knew exactly who he was.
  "How did you know where I live?," the spy-extraordinaire asked. I was suddenly nervous, knowing this was a man who put people on kill lists. Thinking quickly, I told him I had friends in the neighborhood who gave me his address.
  He asked for a business card, and I ran back to get one from the car'--where Tighe was waiting. We exchange looks, OMG!
  When I went back and handed the card to Brennan, he glanced at it and muttered, "Ah, CODEPINK. I thought that's who you were." The last time we met I was being dragged out of the Woodrow Wilson Center by a 300-pound security man while yelling '' I love my country! You're making us less safe. Shame on you Mr. Brennan .''
  I knew I didn't have much time so I starting talking fast'--telling him I had just returned from a delegation to Pakistan meeting with drone victims, how heartbroken I was to hear their stories, how terrible it is that these drone attacks are causing so much suffering to innocent people and turning the entire Pakistani population against us.
How Europe's e-car revolution ran out of juice
  Link to Article
  Source: ZapLog - externe links
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:15
  A small, blue Chinese-built electric car lives on a narrow street around the corner from my apartment, in Rome. There is no charging post or electrical outlet nearby. So how does the owner juice up his car? He simply dangles an extremely long cord from his balcony and plugs it in.
  That's how recharging works for almost everyone who owns an electric car or scooter in Rome '' an exceedingly small club, smaller even than the number of Roman drivers who stop at crosswalks. And that's one of the main reasons why the e-car revolution has burnt out before it even started. In old, marginally solvent, tightly-packed European cities like Rome, there's no way to recharge a battery-powered car and no municipal money to dig up streets to install a charging network.
  More Related to this StoryThe e-car revolution was supposed to be a sort of Manhattan Project for Europe, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs devoted to e-car development, from creating long-life batteries to charging systems that could draw their power from solar or wind energy. Emitting less carbon into the environment was the other big attraction, since Europe takes climate change more seriously than the Americans and Canadians. To be sure, e-cars are not pollution-free. The electricity to recharge the batteries often comes from dirty coal, or natural gas-fired, plants. But an e-car's construction-to-scrapyard cycle is certainly less carbon-intensive than that of a regular internal combustion car.
  Various governments threw billions at e-cars (or e-mobility, to use the bureaucrats' preferred jargon) and set outlandish targets for e-car sales. In their utopian, smog-free vision, millions of silent, zero-emission vehicles would fill the streets and gasoline- and diesel-powered cars would politely go to rust heaven. Up yours, OPEC.
  Now those very same countries are rolling back or killing e-car purchase subsidies and industrial development loans and grants while quietly scaling back e-car use targets. In 2011, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she wanted to see 1 million e-cars on the road by 2020. In early last month, she admitted the goal was impossible and the figure came down to 600,000. Even that may be ambitious.
  According to Germany's Spiegel Online, there are fewer 5,000 battery-powered cars in Germany, a country normally obsessed with green-tinged technology. E-car penetration in the rest of the world is equally negligible. In China, they're dudsville. China produced 18.5 million cars and commercial vehicles last year of which a mere 9,000 were electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, according to The Australian newspaper. In the United States, 18,000 electric and plug-in hybrids were sold last year.
  Hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius, which combine a gasoline engine with batteries, are the one bright spot on the green-tech spectrum. More than 2 million Priuses have been sold.
  E-cars have already become the classic example of ''push'' industrial policy gone wrong. Governments, and some car makers, notably Nissan, were pushing a technology onto the market that was not ready for prime time. The cars were (and are) way too expensive, the infrastructure '' urban and rural recharging stations '' virtually non-existent and the battery technology, though improving, was not good enough to eliminate ''range anxiety.'' The best e-cars have a range of about 100 kilometres, though the marketing bumpf would make you believe it's longer. If you own an iPhone and your battery is going dead just as you have to download a crucial hunk of data or send an e-mail to an impatient boss, you get the idea. Except e-car batteries can go dead in the middle of winter in the middle of nowhere.
  The trickle of e-car sales is all the more unimpressive when you consider the taxpayer loot flung at the industry. Germany has funnelled about '‚¬500-million ($640-million) into e-mobility promotion and tens of billions into subsidies for solar and wind energy that, theoretically, could have powered the nation's bumper-to-bumper fleet of battery-powered cars. In the United States, obscene amounts of money, probably $5-billion (U.S.) or more, has been thrown at battery and e-car development and to three auto makers '' Nissan, Tesla and Fisker '' to establish e-car production plants.
  To be sure, e-cars have enormous potential. But until breakthroughs are made on costs and batteries, and charging networks become extensive, they will remain ultra-fringe products. The one pure battery car that may buck the trend is the tiny new Renault Twizy, a tandem two-seater that is a cross between a scooter and a car. It is not outrageously expensive (partly because you have to rent the battery), is narrow enough to thread its way through traffic like a motorcycle and is light enough to have decent range and acceleration.
  The e-car disappointment shows the futility of trying to pick a winning technology, that is, foisting a technology on consumers that don't want, don't need or can't afford it. There was a better way, one that was ignored. Governments instead could have seriously tightened up fuel economy and carbon-dioxide emissions standards and the market would have sorted out which technologies and fuels would have been best suited to achieve that goal. Fuels such as natural gas and ultra-efficient diesel might have competed with fuel cells, hybrids and battery-only cars or an entirely new propulsion system. The internal combustion engine will be around for a long, long time and that's not entirely the car makers' fault.
Press Gaggle by Press Secretary Jay Carney aboard Air Force One en route Columbus, OH, 11/5/2012
  Link to Article
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:12
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  November 05, 2012
  Aboard Air Force OneEn Route Columbus, Ohio
  1:41 P.M. EST
  MR. CARNEY: Welcome aboard Air Force One as we make our way from the fantastic state of Wisconsin to the equally fantastic state of Ohio -- right -- that's where we're headed -- on this final day of campaigning.
  I just wanted to give you a couple of updates on the recovery efforts in the wake of Sandy. As of this morning, more than 205,000 residents have applied for assistance with FEMA -- $192 million has been approved and directed to assist individuals. The individual assistance grants, as you know, are part of the disaster declarations that the President expedited for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
  Today, Secretary Napolitano approved additional assistance to expedite support for state and local debris removal efforts. Secretary Napolitano is in New York today and was in New Jersey yesterday. Administrator Fugate was in New York yesterday.
  And that is the update I have at the moment on the recovery efforts and the President's oversight of the federal response, except to tell you that he is currently participating in a conference call with Administrator Fugate, Chief of Staff Jack Lew, Secretary Napolitano I think, Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco, and some others about the recovery efforts and the federal response to Hurricane and Storm Sandy.
  And that's it.
  Q Is this Bruce Springsteen's first time on Air Force One?
  MS. PSAKI: We're happy to check on that for you. Before we do, in our final day of campaigning, I just wanted to tick through the states, since we do have an election tomorrow -- just as a reminder -- that we're going to be visiting today. So Wisconsin -- as you know, we just visited the lovely state of Wisconsin -- in the latest polls, President Obama leads Mitt Romney by 15 points among those who have already voted or plan to vote early. In Wisconsin, 266,287 voters in counties President Obama won in 2008 have voted, compared with just 95,449 in Republican-leaning counties.
  As Jay mentioned, we're next heading to the lovely state of Ohio. Twenty-nine percent of Ohio votes have already been cast, and according to public polling, President Obama leads by 24 points among those who have already voted. This means that Mitt Romney would need to win the remaining votes by 10 points in order to tie the race on Election Day.
  As you know, we end the day in Iowa. I know you all know this, but it was worth repeating -- this is where the journey began for President Obama. The state has always had a special place for him and for the First Lady in their hearts. The location where we will be tonight -- his hold room is actually our old Iowa campaign headquarters, so that's kind of a nice little color fact for you.
  But Iowa -- let's see, 40 percent of Iowa votes have been already cast, and President Obama leads among early voters by 23 points in the latest polls. This means that Mitt Romney needs to win the remaining votes by 23 points to tie President Obama on Election Day.
  Q I'm sorry -- 40 percent?
  MS. PSAKI: Forty percent, yes.
  Q And how much does he lead by?
  MS. PSAKI: Twenty-three points.
  Q I wasn't a math major, but it seems like if 50 percent of the votes had been cast then you'd need to match it to tie.
  MS. PSAKI: We'll check the math of our team. They haven't been sleeping a lot, so we'll double-check that for you.
  The last thing, just to add, I know people have been asking about what he's doing tomorrow. Later today -- you should have all received a list of the radio interviews he's taping later today. It's about a dozen interviews, the majority of which, if not all of them, are airing tomorrow morning during drive-time. They're GOTV calls encouraging people to get out to the polls in target markets and with target constituencies. As you know, he's also live-to-taping an ESPN interview that will air during halftime this evening during Monday Night Football.
  Tomorrow he will have about a dozen local, state satellite interviews he'll be doing throughout the day. It's possible he will do additional get-out-the-vote radio throughout the day.
  As many of you know who have been covering us for a while, there is a tradition to play basketball with friends and close advisors on Election Day. That's something that we're working toward and could be in the cards. And then, finally, as he's always said, this campaign is about -- the bread and butter of this campaign is the volunteers and the neighborhood team leaders and people who have made this journey possible. And he'll be looking for an opportunity to thank them tomorrow. As always, we'll keep you abreast as movements arise.
  Q And what are the embargoes on those interviews that you're talking about?
  MS. PSAKI: I believe they were listed in there. If not, we'll get you the list of when they're embargoed until. The majority of them are for tomorrow morning during drive-time, though.
  Q Any chance of getting transcripts for any of them, or do we have to try and listen to them?
  MS. PSAKI: Unlikely. I think you're going to have to listen to them, because they air different pieces during different hours. So we don't want to get ahead of the interviews themselves.
  Q Jen, there were reports today that Mitt Romney may to go to Ohio tomorrow for some last-minute campaigning? Does the President plan to make any stops in competitive states tomorrow or is he going to stay in Chicago all day?
  MS. PSAKI: His schedule is as I just laid out, so there's no plans to leave the state of Illinois at this point. I don't think that will change.
  I will say it's no surprise that Mitt Romney is headed to Ohio, or reportedly headed to Ohio tomorrow. Without that state it's a rocky road for them to victory -- an insurmountable road, I would say. We know that they've been playing a lot of head-faking games and going to states where they don't have a ground game, they've never led in a poll and we have massive voter registration advantages. Ohio remains a very difficult nut for them to crack. And we feel we have a superior ground game and a superior campaign in the state and we're confident of victory there tomorrow.
  Q An insurmountable road -- is that what you said?
  MS. PSAKI: Without Ohio.
  Q The GOTV stuff he's doing tomorrow, will that be from headquarters?
  MS. PSAKI: I think there are satellite locations in a nearby hotel.
  Q Can you say anything about what we've seen in Florida? It was a pretty chaotic scene there with early voting over the weekend.
  MS. PSAKI: Well, we're taking every voting report case by case. Our focus has always been making sure everybody who is eligible to vote has the opportunity to vote. We think that's the right thing for the American people, the right thing for the people of Florida.
  So in Florida, we had several steps that were taken yesterday to open -- for early voting, in-person absentee voting in several counties. That's a positive step forward. We are at the point we are at because the Governor of the state cut early voting by six days and the lines were so long and the enthusiasm was so great for early voting that people were waiting in line for four and five hours.
  We're continuing to work on that today. And our plan is always, until the very last moment when the polls close, making sure people who are eligible have the opportunity. And we're confident we'll be able to do that in Florida and in states across the country.
  Q The campaign sounds very confident that you have a path to victory and maybe that it's even a fairly clear path. But if that doesn't happen, if this is a contested race, do you have a plan in place for Wednesday, and what it could look like?
  MS. PSAKI: We're not going to get into hypotheticals. It's worth reminding you we're tied or leading in every single swing state. We're ahead in early vote in every -- almost every single swing state. We feel great about where our ground game is now. We feel great about where we're closing this race. We know there's a lot of fantasy talk happening from the Romney team about the number of electoral votes that they think they're going to achieve. We're not going to get into that kind of predictions.
  But the only thing that matters is that more people vote for President Obama than vote for Mitt Romney. We're confident of that and we're not going to get into hypotheticals beyond that.
  Q Are you predicting a popular vote victory as well then?
  MS. PSAKI: We're confident that more people in this country are going to support the President tomorrow when they go to the polls. We're confident that in swing states across the country where this race will be decided, that people are going to vote to elect President Obama to send him back for another four years.
  Q Can you talk about the dynamic between Springsteen and the President a little bit? He's on Air Force One. Are they sitting next to each other? Are they in different parts of the plane? Can you tell us a little bit about what they've been talking about today?
  MR. CARNEY: They're sitting across from each other in the conference room and were discussing a number of things, including the impact of the storm on New Jersey. As you can imagine, that's something that is of interest to and concerns Mr. Springsteen. I don't have any other color for you at the time. I don't know if Jen does.
  Q Is Patti in there, too?
  MR. CARNEY: Yes
  Q To follow up on Margaret's question, you do have legal teams in a lot of these battlegrounds. Are they pointing to any potential problems that you need to be aware of and be ready to react in those battleground states?
  MS. PSAKI: As you know, Jim, because you've been covering this a long time, every election year there are always case-by- case issues, which you deal with at the polls. And, of course, we want to be prepared to make sure that people have confidence that their vote is going to count. So that's why we have lawyers in states -- Florida, of course, is one of them; Ohio and any of these swing states. And we're dealing with issues that come up on a case-by-case basis.
  Florida is a good example. Obviously, when issues arose there with lines that were too long and the concern that people wouldn't be able to vote, we dealt with that as soon as it arose. And we're going to do that in states across the country over the next 36 hours we have to go here.
  Q How large is your legal team in Florida right now?
  MS. PSAKI: I don't have an exact number. We have the number of people we need to ensure that people of the state feel confident that they can go to the polls and vote, that their vote is going to count and that their participation in the process matters.
  Q Strategically, is there a reason why he's not doing any events tomorrow, not going to any states? Obviously, you said he's planning on staying in Illinois. Is there a strategic thinking behind that?
  MS. PSAKI: Well, look, I mean, obviously we've had -- as you know, because we're all kind of high on coffee and doing jumping-jacks to stay awake here -- we've had a pretty robust schedule the last couple of days, making sure we're hitting markets. We will have hit probably hundreds of thousands of people in the final days of the campaign.
  Because he's doing about a dozen radio interviews into target markets and he's doing about a dozen satellite TV interviews, he will actually be able to hit and reach people across the country, markets across the country, to communicate the choice in this election and the importance of voting. That's very valuable.
  And it is -- you do make a choice between doing something like that and traveling to a state. And we made the call that that's the way to reach people on Election Day.
  Q Jen, beyond the case-by-case things that you talked about, does the campaign think there has been sort of a deliberate, systemic effort by Republicans either in Florida or Ohio or Colorado, either in the legislature, the secretaries of state, to curtail some of those voting opportunities that you all have worked to expand?
  MS. PSAKI: Well, the facts on this front are clear. In Florida, the Governor cut early voting by six days. In Ohio, the Secretary of State attempted to eliminate the three early voting days before Election Day, which have been historically -- at least in 2008 -- very big voting days.
  We have a fundamental difference in how we view democracy and how we view the right of the American people to participate. We feel it's a given right to vote, to participate in the process and everybody who's eligible should have the opportunity.
  It's not that there are more issues than there have been in past years, but you always want to be prepared to make sure that people who are voting for the first time, people who haven't voted in 20 years -- we've seen many reports of people who are 90 and are voting for the first time -- are confident that their vote will count. So that's why we're fortunate we have lawyers in states across the country. And we're going to be dealing with issues on case by case. We're confident we'll be able to resolve them.
  MR. CARNEY: Setting aside motivations, you know the President's view on this, and you've heard him talk about it with regards to early voting -- that as a matter of principle and policy in this country, we ought to be doing everything we can to make it easier for Americans to vote and not harder.
  You've heard him talk about the value of early voting, because so many Americans might be working double shifts on Election Day, or having to transport their children to and from school or to and from daycare. It's very difficult for many people to vote on Election Day, and there's every reason in the world to make it easier for Americans to vote so that more people participate in our democratic process.
  Q Do you guys have confidence that people in the storm-ravaged areas of New York and New Jersey, where there's electronic voting machines in places with no electricity -- New Jersey had discussed vote by email and fax -- that those votes will all be counted in a fair way?
  MS. PSAKI: Yes. As you kind of referenced in your question, these cases have been dealt with on a case-by-case basis at the state and local level. Obviously, it's in everyone's interest that people who were impacted by the storm have the opportunity. We've seen progress made in the past couple of days, thanks to the efforts of state and local leaders and the President and FEMA, to restore power, to make sure people have kind of the information and the resources they need. And we're going to deal with this as with any case, on case by case. But we're confident that people's votes will count, and that they'll have the opportunity to vote in these states.
  Q Mayor Bloomberg, who endorsed you last week, said that he doesn't have a whole lot of confidence in the New York City Board of Elections. Do you share that concern that he has?
  MS. PSAKI: These cases are being dealt with on a case-by-case basis at the state and local level. We've been making sure -- working hard to make sure people have the information and resources they need not just about how to vote, but also on resources they need around the storm. And we'll approach it that same way over the next 36 hours of the campaign.
  Q A somewhat unrelated question -- when was the last time the President spoke to a member of Congress about the fiscal cliff?
  MR. CARNEY: I don't have any conversations to read out to you. I can tell you that it's very clear, it has been for some time, what the right approach to dealing with our fiscal challenges is, and that is to adopt the principles embodied in Simpson-Bowles and every other bipartisan commission that's looked at this; adopt the position that Democrats, independents, and Republicans across the country believe is the right position and which happens to be the President's position, which is we should address these issues in a balanced way. We should continue to cut spending responsibly. We should make changes to our entitlement programs that make them stronger. And we should ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a little bit more so that revenue is part of this package, so that we don't have to voucherize Medicare in order to get our deficit under control; we don't have to slash education investments or investments in infrastructure, or research and development.
  That is a position and an approach that is broadly endorsed by a significant majority of the American people, and a significant majority of Democrats, independents, and Republicans who aren't in the House of Representatives or the United States Senate at this very moment.
  So one way that we could address a portion of the challenge posed by the fiscal cliff is if the House of Representatives were to pass the bill that the Senate already passed that would extend tax cuts to 98 percent of the American people -- 98 percent.
  So there's agreement in Washington that 98 percent of the American people ought to have their tax cuts extended. Democrats, Republicans, independents -- everybody says, let's do it, we're for it. So Republicans in the House should not block that initiative, they should pass it. And then we can discuss and debate whether or not the wealthiest 2 percent ought to have their taxes cut as well.
  Q Is there a plan in the drawer, waiting for the day after Election Day to get started on the fiscal cliff negotiations?
  MR. CARNEY: You've heard the President discuss the need to resolve these challenges, and he looks very much forward to working with Congress to make that happen. You covered it, most of you here did. The way we get from here to there is not complicated. And there are plans -- beginning with the President's -- that reflect the kind of approach we need to take to solve our fiscal challenges or to meet those fiscal challenges in a responsible way.
  And the President has believed and has said for a long time that he hopes that this election -- which in many ways has been included in the debate about these issues -- will help propel the process forward once the American people have spoken tomorrow.
  Q Jen, back to Bruce Springsteen. Obviously, he's not the only celebrity surrogate that the President is relying on. Is there a potential danger that glitz trumps substance here in these final days when you have all these other people who are out there pushing the vote for the President, but their power is a mere fact that they're celebrities?
  MS. PSAKI: I think Bruce Springsteen might be offended by you calling him glitzy, but -- (laughter.) Look, I think --
  Q Send him back and see what he thinks.
  MS. PSAKI: Look, I think every time the President speaks, including today, he is laying out the case in this election, laying out what we've done and what we need to do moving forward. The American people know what his plan is. They know how hard he is going to fight for the middle class.
  At this stage in the game, with less than 24 hours to go until the polls open, a big focus is making sure people know -- who may be sporadic voters, who may be less likely to go to the polls, who may be a college student and think it's not important -- what the stakes are. And Bruce Springsteen and some other celebrities who have been helping us reach a broad audience that sometimes tune out what's being said by politicians. He's been a great supporter of the President's. He's been a tireless advocate for him on the campaign trail. And we're thrilled he's here today, as I know many of you are.
  Q Jay, you shouldn't go after Kid Rock that way. One governing question. How does the President feel about the response to the storm so far? Does he see -- does he have any concerns about some areas that still remain unserved?
  MR. CARNEY: From before the time the storm made landfall, the President has been extremely focused on making sure that the federal response is as comprehensive and efficient and effective as possible. That included pre-positioning many, many resources by FEMA. It included pre-positioning individuals up and down the East Coast so that we had -- so that FEMA had personnel on the ground to assist with state and local authorities in the run-up to and immediate aftermath of the storm. And that effort continues.
  You know that the President has been extremely forceful at tasking his administration and the members of his administration responsible for responding to an emergency like this with leaning forward, with making sure that bureaucracy and red tape does not get in the way of providing assistance to the states and localities and individuals who have been so affected by this storm. And that effort continues.
  You've seen it with his order that led to the airlift of assets owned by energy companies out West, from California to states that needed those assets in the Northeast. You saw it in some of the measures that have been taken to provide fuel to affected areas in the Northeast. And you see it in some of the details that I read out to you at the top of this briefing.
  And the President -- again, as we began this briefing here on Air Force One, the President was in his office participating in a conference call with senior members of his administration who are focusing all of their time on the federal response.
  There is no question that there's a long way to go here. There's no question that the storm was devastating. And there's no question that there are individuals who still are absolutely in need of assistance -- individuals and businesses who do not have power. And the President is making sure that every time he speaks with governors and other state and local officials, that we're responding to their request for assistance, that there are no needs that are unmet that can be met by federal assistance. And that has been his focus from before the storm landed.
  Q Mitt Romney and Ryan have both had a field day with the President's revenge comment in Ohio the other day where he said voting is the best revenge. Does the President regret saying that? It felt -- it seems like sort of an offhand comment and you guys described it that way. Does he express any regret for phrasing it in those words?
  MS. PSAKI: The President never regrets making the case to the American people that if they don't like the plans Mitt Romney is offering, if they don't like the rotten deal he's offering to the middle class, that they have power to vote and cast their vote -- their ballot at the voting booth. That was exactly what he was conveying with that comment, and absolutely no regrets.
  Q Is there a particular reason he hasn't repeated it since then?
  MS. PSAKI: You know, he talks about this and the power of the American people to have a voice in the process often, not only on the campaign trail but as it relates to moving policy initiatives forward. I think he was kind of describing that on the -- when he was at that event, and we don't look back and have any regrets.
  And the truth is if Mitt Romney wants to close his campaign, which he is doing, attacking the President for saying that the American people have a voice in this process, that's nothing more than the small-ball and scare tactics that we expect from them. Oh, one thing to add -- I'm sorry, I forgot to mention this. I know you all are very focused on the vote totals as they're adding up on Tuesday. I would caution you that California, rural communities, many parts of this country where it takes a little longer are going to come in a little later. I don't know how that's all going to pan out. But just a piece to as you look ahead tomorrow evening and you're watching the vote totals.
  Q The Obama campaign has doubts about California? (Laughter.)
  MS. PSAKI: Never. I will wear a fake moustache, as I've said before.
  MR. CARNEY: As a grizzled veteran of the process, Jen is simply advising patience.
  MS. PSAKI: I am grizzled at this point in the game. (Laughter.)
  MR. CARNEY: Well, maybe not as grizzled as I am.
  Q Just logistically, the other day in Lima, David and David suggested they might do something this evening, a little preview -- another gaggle of some sort.
  MS. PSAKI: I don't think -- because we did it this morning, I don't think we'll do another one, because the event in Des Moines is like 10:30 p.m. at night. But they're around. So if people want to talk to them, we can absolutely help with that. Just let us know. And we'll try to work for getting our other famous friend on the plane.
  Q Will Reggie play basketball with the President tomorrow, or no?
  MS. PSAKI: That is likely.
  Q Will you, Jay?
  MR. CARNEY: I'm going to stay out of that.
  MS. PSAKI: What about me? I was captain of my middle school basketball team.
  Q Well, are you, Jen?
  MS. PSAKI: I mean, I'm like Muggsy Bogues size.
  Q Wear your mouth guard. (Laughter.)
  MS. PSAKI: It's not in my agenda tomorrow. (Laughter.)
  Q Isn't that the tradition in primary races, too?
  MS. PSAKI: That's right. Yep, that's right.
  Q Did you advise publicly details on the President's plans for tonight and overnight?
  MS. PSAKI: Oh, he'll be sleeping his home.
  Q Thanks.
  MR. CARNEY: Thanks, guys. END 1:56 P.M. EST
'Elizabeth II gaat snel achteruit'
  Link to Article
  Source: Telegraaf.nl - prive
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:11
  di 06 nov 2012, 14:44
  Van onze redactieAMSTERDAM - FOTO - Volgens een Amerikaans tijdschrift zou koningin Elizabeth II op sterven liggen.
  'Queen Dying' staat er in koeienletters geschreven op de cover van Globe magazine.
  Volgens een anonieme bron zou de 86-jarige koningin hard achteruit gaan. Elizabeth II is onlangs nog vaak in het openbaar gespot, ook bij officile gelegenheden.
  Buckingham Palace weigert commentaar te geven.
  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
FDA chief will testify at first meningitis hearing
  Link to Article
  Source: ccampeador
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:06
  WASHINGTON (AP) '-- House lawmakers investigating a nationwide outbreak of deadly meningitis have summoned the head of the Food and Drug Administration to testify at the first congressional hearing on the issue next week.
  The Energy & Commerce Committee said Monday that FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg will appear before the committee on Nov. 14. The following day she is scheduled to appear before the Senate health committee, which is also probing the outbreak.
  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 419 cases of meningitis illness linked to contaminated steroid shots distributed by New England Compounding Center. Thirty people have died as a result of the outbreak, the agency reported Monday.
  Committee staffers said they have also invited Barry Cadden, co-founder of the specialty pharmacy linked to the outbreak. Also invited is James Coffey, director of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Pharmacy. Staffers say they are awaiting replies from Cadden and Coffey.
  Compounding pharmacies traditionally fill special orders placed by doctors for individual patients, turning out a small number of customized formulas each week. But some pharmacies like the NECC have grown into much larger businesses in recent years, supplying bulk orders of medicines to thousands of doctors and hospitals across the country.
  In recent weeks, inspectors from the FDA and Massachusetts department of health have reported unsterile conditions at the Framingham, Mass. pharmacy's facilities. The most recent inspection from the FDA uncovered green and yellow residues, water droplets and standing water in or around production rooms that were supposed to be sterile.
  House and Senate lawmakers have called for hearings to examine how the outbreak could have been prevented.
  Compounding pharmacies have long operated in a legal gray area between state and federal laws. All pharmacies, including compounding pharmacies, have long been regulated by state pharmacy boards. However, the FDA has attempted to exercise its authority in cases where major problems have arisen. In several instances, federal courts have ruled that the agency overstepped its bounds.
  FDA officials said last month that new laws may be needed to clarify the federal government's role in overseeing compounding pharmacies.
  (C) Copyright 2012 Globe Newspaper Company.
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Power Is Finally Back In Manhattan. Here's How To Make Sure It Never Goes Out Again.
  Link to Article
  Source: DaDenMan news feed
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:02
  After days without power, lower Manhattan began to get downright medieval. Because so many New York buildings depend on electric water pumps, the lack of running water created a distinctly primitive feeling'--and smell. The human and economic cost has been serious'--lost economic activity is estimated at $20 billion'--and some unlucky residents in New York's outer boroughs won't have power for weeks.
  It doesn't have to be this way. Blackouts are a problem that can be solved. Given that hurricanes have doubled in frequency over the last century, they need to be solved. There are an awful lot of obstacles, but given that America tends to act in response to crisis, it is a good time to seriously reconsider the basic design of the electric system.
  For some time now, it has been obvious that the highly-centralized design of the electric grid is fundamentally flawed'--remember, for instance, New York's massive blackout in 2003. In the current design, power is generated at a relatively small number of massive plants, like the nuclear reactors at Indian Point, and then transmitted long distances to substations, which step down and distribute the power for home use.
  When the system works, it works fine, albeit in a wasteful and polluting way. But, like most large centralized systems, it has many individual points of failure. Consequently, when it fails, it fails big. Right now we're seeing exactly what a big and expensive failure looks like.
  There's a better system. It goes by various names, including ''microgrid'' and ''distributed generating.'' The basic idea is to make the electric network more like the Internet. If well implemented, a better topology would make power failures less likely, and shorter when they happen. The key is to decentralize: to turn a regional electric network into a network of smaller, neighborhood networks, that no single points of failure, so no one substation can take down half a million homes.
  Support thought-provoking, quality journalism. Join The New Republic for $3.99/month.
  Under our current system, lower Manhattan goes dark when the 14th St. substation blows up, until ConEd can rebuild it (and, yes, the company's efforts to do so have been heroic). In a better system, the 14th St. substation would be only one source of electricity for lower Manhattan. The basic topology of the network would be different in several ways. The simplest is that buildings and neighborhoods would be encouraged, not discouraged as they are now, to generate their own power, (either independently, as part of a heating or AC system, or by using solar or small wind generators). Buildings would be able to easily sell that power within their neighborhood (on their microgrid).
  In lower Manhattan, for instance, an apartment building could take power from multiple sources: its own heating system, the local hospital's generator, solar panels on a nearby office, while still relying on ConEd as a supplement and backup. Over time, homes would come to depend primarily on many different local sources of power, as opposed to the large power plants. In the event of a failure that knocked out a local wiring or power, the network would be able to heal itself, by taking power through different routes to reach powerless homes.
  These ideas are borrowed from the Internet's design. A popular legend, that also happens to be true, is that the Internet was designed to withstand nuclear attack. Paul Baran, a computer scientist at RAND in the 1960s, did come up with essential Internet features while trying to design a communications network that, in his words, that would allow ''the survivors of the holocaust to shuck their ashes and reconstruct the economy.'' Baran took the Internet's design from the human brain, which can recover from damage by mapping functions to new neural paths.
  In the 1960s many people thought Baran's ideas were pie in the sky, especially the regulated monopoly, AT&T, which described the central ideas of the Internet as ''preposterous.'' Today, the transformation of electric networks faces similar resistance, despite the obvious benefits. These benefits are not just practical, but also economic: A decentralized electric grid would open the electric business to entrepreneurs and small businesses, and could spark an innovation revolution similar to that seen in the 1980s when computing moved from central mainframes to personal computers. It is hard to predict the business models that might emerge, but that's what makes it exciting.
  The problem is that getting from here to there is incredibly daunting. While there are technical challenges in the integration and storage of multiple sources of power, they are not insurmountable. A 2007 Department of Energy study pointed to advances that have made distributed generation plausible, including ''photovoltaic panels, microturbines, reciprocating engines, thermally-activated devices, fuel cells, digital controls, and remote monitoring equipment, among other components and technologies.'' Indeed, as that study pointed out, some of the basics are in place: there are, in fact, already 12 million independent generating units in the United States, mainly operating as backups. The main challenge, the Department of Energy stressed, is that existing utilities seem to want no part of the new system.
  Inertia is the main problem. At some level, the existing power companies, mostly former or current regulated monopolists, control the system and they have no real incentive to want anything other than incremental change. Like the AT&T monopoly in the 1960s, the utility industry resists ''independent'' generation at all costs except as an emergency backup, and it typically charges various fees for ''interconnection'' or ''standby'' that make relying on local power financially implausible. It is true that moving to a different kind of network would cut into the utilities' revenue.
  There have been movements to reform the American electric network before, but unfortunately, the electricity deregulation movement of the 1990s, rather than produce real architectural or technological revolution, simply generated profit opportunities and sometimes even further centralization. Despite occasional prodding by Congress and the states, the movement to decentralize energy networks needs a real push, or we'll continue to have crippling power outages both after disasters and when trees fall on power lines.
  It takes long term political leadership to try and reform the electric networks. So far, it has been states in the West that have gone the furthest: Colorado, in 2010, passed a bill requiring that 3 percent of the State's power be generated by decentralized sources. If ever there was a time for the East to try to catch up, that would be now.
'Vredesprijs voor Europese Unie is onwettig'
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:57
  Geplaatst @ 6 november 2012
  Het Internationaal Bureau voor de Vrede (IPB) heeft op maandag gezegd dat het toekennen van de Nobelprijs van de Vrede aan de Europese Unie onwettig is.In een open brief aan de Nobelstichting in Stockholm vroeg de organisatie de prijs niet uit te reiken. Dat verzoek werd onmiddellijk afgewezen door het Noors Nobelcomit."Dit is niet zoals Alfred Nobel het voor ogen had en omschreef in zijn testament," schreef de oudste stichting ter wereld die zich inzet voor vrede. Zelf won het IPB de Nobelprijs voor de Vrede in 1910.Alternatieve benaderingenDe Zweedse industrieel en filantroop, die in 1896 stierf, zei in zijn testament dat de prijs moest gaan naar de 'persoon die het meeste heeft gedaan om landen te verbroederen, om legers te laten verdwijnen en om vrede te bewaren en te bevorderen'.Het Internationaal Bureau voor de Vrede merkte op dat de EU 'niet streeft naar demilitarisering van internationale relaties' en dat haar lidstaten 'oorlogen hebben gevoerd en niet op zoek gingen naar alternatieve benaderingen'.Het vredesnetwerk, waar meer dan 300 organisaties aan verbonden zijn, beschuldigde het comit van het 'herdefiniren' van de prijs die inmiddels ook milieuactivisten en anti-armoedebewegingen erkent.WeggewuifdDe Nobelprijs voor de Vrede werd op 12 oktober jongstleden toegekend aan de EU omdat 'de unie en haar voorlopers meer dan zes decennia hebben bijgedragen aan de bevordering van vrede en verzoening, democratie en mensenrechten in Europa'.
ANALGATE: The Little Fairy Who Wood
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:48
  My children, this was all supposed to be such a happy time in the Obama inner circle. September 11th dawned with such hope. There was supposed to be a hostage crisis which would lure Mitt Romney into blaming Obama as a do nothing Jimmy Carter right on Ben Afleck's film to rub it all in, and then chest thumper Obama was going to send in his SEALS to shoot the Khadaffi kidnappers and have gay sex on the Rosie Palm Garden for two days before Jim Lehrer made Mano Romney bend over and drop the soap.
  Yes that Friday was supposed to be a fraud jobs report of all things rosie for Obama, making that hostage spike of 20 points for rescuer messiah Obama to 25 as Obama days were here again.
  Obama and his ledger though was full of childlike dreams of his father. Yes there was going to be as Mitt Romney reeled another little battle of you will recall that Mitt would be leading those evil chrisitans who made that Muslim film which started it all.............There was that "Denver shooter" who was going to be unleashed before Debate Two, a rather white, fat man, from the Mormon hills, with 500 wives, 800 of them being his own daughters, with a spittoon, pictures of a naked Paul Ryan nailing black chics, listener of FOX, shooter of guns not in Mexico and a military man who once took a pee at a KKK rally for George W. Bush.
  All was going to be so great with Mitt Romney juggling that, a nationwide manhunt with Eric Holder and Naps Napolitano talking about evil white people for Romney as The View weighed in on matters of why christians should all be crucified.
  Joe Biden would have bagged Paul Ryan as a deer in the headlights and hung him up over the fiery hearth for all to cheer about.
  Those were happy times in the ledger. Mitt Romney by Debate Three would have been Bob Schieffer just starting out every question with, "Why are you a Nig hater, you Mormon trash", and it would have been all candy sticking it up Romney's crowley.
  That though was not the way it was meant to be as this all came anal circle, in what comes around went around. There could not even be a missile strike on a Mormon jet as the old lady had smoke signals sent to her in Nebraska.........no it could not be because Chris Stevens was looking for Obama missiles not fired at Khadaffi or Sarah Palin exposing all of these long shafts Obama has let loose.
  Who would have ever thought in Obamaland, that this all would come down to feces penis, peckers up the butt, cock rectal reamers, johnson juicing, dick diving deluges, like the good olde days of Uncle Frank Davis getting young Barry stoned and drunk so Obama could write poetry about yellow stinking underwear and the smell of Uncle Frank on him.
  Who would have ever though that the Chicago pansy, the married man whose wife would not suck his erection and went slumming downtown to the gay males for satisfaction would be the undoing of B. Hussein's epic election theft.
  Dead Donald Young, the gay Obama church sexual partner who got murdered and knew too much.
  Innocent Lawrence Sinclair made Obama's first political prisoner by the Biden Delaware thug machine, for only stating that Obama and he were having the same sex all these other gay males were with Obama.
  That Chicago bath house with Rahm Emanuel and others. Such happy soap dropping times.
  The open shirt intrerview with Charlie Gibson the ABC anchor who mysteriously disappeared after being outed here, and his down the glasses condescending screed at Sarah Palin......all coming home, but there yet is little Brian Williams after Obama jokes of him rolling over in bed with him, still in the last leg, unlike Peggy Nooan, is tucking Birdy Obama into bed at night on Air Force One.If only Pegs and Ann Coulter had visible penises they too could have been part of the Obama cums around goes around the rosie red history of this most historical occupant of 1600 Penn Avenue.
  No it appears that as Jesse Jackson prophesied, that Barack Obama's political maleness has instead been cut off, just as he was getting ready to be a real he man in not just bagging bin Laden early, but rescuing homosexual Chris Stevens too.What could have been better than another gay man weeping on the White House lawn with the Village People Navy SEALS singing YMCA, as Barack Obama soaked it all in, in his historic rise from the John Edwards pyre sacrifice.
  It was all supposed to be such a thing of a dream, as it was all written out and planned that way. All taken care of to the last detail of even sending a Mormon to Mormon heaven if all of this somehow went wrong, and yet it all went wrong and there was no fail safe left as the monkey sex demon had left the building.
  I wonder if Elton John, to the gay jesus he lusts after is the one that is paying back sodomite Barack Hussein Obama for all of this or if it is the real Jesus in the Messiah, who did not appreciate Barry Chin being called a god, a messiah and having halos about his head.
  It just seems from storm gods, to gay gods to the real God, that something just started going wrong and it just was a point to make it all about gay sex.
  Yes one wonders about all this rough gay sex of Barack Hussein Obama, if only he had a safe word to say to make all the bad things stop. If only Chris Stevens and the others had a safe room, but then if they had a safe room, how would the Obama hired kidnappers ever gotten him for the start of Obama 2012 election that started so long before on that one January day when that other sacrificed American in Jewess, Gabby Giffords was shot by rubber bullets, and Obama ordered her doctors to make her open her eyes in torturing her to take her off medications early for another Obama miracle.Yes it was all reported here exclusively and it all has come around again as it went around again.
  One former Special Op now employed by a private company in Benghazi said that even the safe room wasn't properly set up. He said "the safe room is one of the first measures you take" and that he is "not sure how you can set a safe room without fire suppression and ventilation in case of fire." He also said, "Ambassador Stevens would likely be alive today if this simple and normal procedure was put into place."
  Benghazi set up for a hostage situation, but instead it all turned into a saga of Barack Obama's personal sex life in having a sore bung hole in a fiery exit.Yes it all became ANALGATE, but it was all supposed to be a fairy tail dream, one in which princess Obama would ride in a carriage, put on a party dress with Nancy Pelosi and a handsome white gay man like Anderson Cooper would slip the glass slipper on his delicate Chinese foot.
  British intelligence sources said that unarmed drones routinely flew over Benghazi every night in flight patterns and that armed drones which fly over chemical sites, some a short flight from Benghazi, "were always said to be on call." American sources confirmed this and questioned "why was a drone armed only with a camera dispatched?"
  Yes it all became ANALGATE...............
  One source asked, "Were the Turks not warned? What forces were available from our ally Turkey? Especially since they had officials there in Benghazi also and had to be concerned '... and where was the U.N. in all of this?"
  Yes it was all TURKEYGATE in all the criminals were there hosting the party for Barack, but all he got was Cheetos on his little fingers.It was all supposed to be a dream come true, a legacy, a real he man making of the bi sexual Barack.
  How it all went so wrong for the little fairy who would.
  agtG 222
The North Dakota Oil Bust
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:44
  As an exclusive of another Lame Cherry matter anti matter exclusive........
  For all the cheering of the boom in Rush Limbaugh's Um Dakota, the reality is since May's high of over 200 rigs drilling there, the number has been diminishing and will continue to do so, as the oil areas have reached all that is going to be allowed to be tapped out there.
  This is important as drilling companies are not just going to stop drilling, so it begs the question in where are they going?A deal has been worked out that suddenly oil shale has been discovered in West Texas, you know land of Pecos and Lily Langtree and Judge Roy Bean. The land of the Sixes Ranch and desolation.
  The North Dakota and Montana oil rigs are pulling up stakes, and South Dakota is not going to be tapped into. The venture in this is now Texas is going to be taking a JR Ewing revisit to making that state a force to be reckoned with.
  What is important to note in this is, these oil men who have been plundering North Dakota under the Obama Buffett regime, have in the past months been funding Newt Gingrich who has been turning out his own educational talks, in the promoting of these barons in energy production. They have felt confident enough to shut down Buffett's BNSF oil tanker trains and are building oil pipelines ..........but not having them built, it is most interesting just what is happening to all that Bakken oil as it is not flowing south on the trains to the southern refineries.Someone is getting that oil, and as California has been shut down by the barons to drive Obama from office, that points to Canada as tanker trucks have been flowing north in mixing Dakota sweet crude in with the high sulfur garbage Canada produces out of the oil sands.
  The Keystone XL is interesting in the politics of this, as that pipeline will be built taking that Dakota crude south through Nebraska to the Oklahoma junction and into Texas.Sec. Salazar of the Obama regime, that old horse killer, has been interesting in his preparing for Obama's exit from office in suddenly he appeared at Fort Berthold with the small band Indian tribes and announced a refinery was going in there for regional oil supply. The major refinery in that area is Sidney, Montana, and the dimensions of this are telling in this regional oil development is going from top to bottom........with diversions which are puzzling.
  At the end of Bush43's administration, a large investment group poured a billion dollars into South Dakota, in a project for Canada oil sands called the Gorilla Project as it was so massive under the Hyperion banner. Barack Obama to benefit Buffett in his oil trains, shut down the Canada pipelines and also shut down this massive refinery.A billion dollars is an immense sum to invest and leave hanging for years, but that is what Hyperion has been cooling it's heals over waiting for that pipeline.Some of the cow patties of South Dakota saw money in this, but some who saw some of the best ag land in the country about to be turned into cancer soaked toxic chemical spills thought a completely different judgment.
  It was one of the strangest of events in putting a massive oil refinery on the Missouri River system where a spill would pollute the entire interior of America. The pipeline is sitting on the biggest natural fresh water aquifer in the world in the Ogallala and yet this thing just keeps sitting out there like a monster awaiting to be hatched.All is quiet there in no one is making any noise about Hyperion, but that Keystone is moving oil into Texas refineries and soon Texas is about to get a huge dump of West Texas oil to deal with.
  If you want the oil boom, it is going to be in Texas for the next five years.
  The signals in this all mark a change in the political machinations.
  North Dakota is now developed as much as the oil industry cares to in this phase, just as in the last phase when wells were drilled and capped until higher prices were created to make more money out of this area of the world.Oil in North Dakota is different from 1950's oil in Saudi Arabia, when oil was basically tapped and it flowed out without pumping so prices were lower in production.
  North America is this oil shale focus now. Canada has the poor oil sands which require high prices, water, heat to remove that oil from this sludge. It is possible to extract the oil from shale as there is a vast field thought as large as Saudi Arabia in Utah.The fact is though the people backing Mitt Romney are not going to allow oil to be dropped below the 2.50 dollar a gallon for gasoline. Barack Obama drove gas prices to 4 dollars per gallon to fund his expensive battery cars which no one wants.The fact is Alaska's reserves are three different oil fields as they pump at different pressures, and could be used in these greater than the Saudi fields to lower gas prices.
  The reality is Alaska is being reserved as much of the capped wells. A national policy was begun under George W. Bush to utilize bio fuels and to start oil production in America, withdrawing from the Middle East.The bio fuels came under attack from these oil interests and speculators like George Soros, and a national policy of making grain expensive to thwart oil payments to terrorists.
  This is not alone in natural gas is even being gathered in from North Dakota oil wells. It is not being burned off any longer, as the price has inflated that it is worth the investment to trap it. The Baaken field is also noted for producing oil, but as time progresses the gas production from these wells is going up.It is a matter that eastern states are drilling for natural gas from Ohio east, except for New York not allowing this, which would increase production and lower prices.
  The reality is America has immense deposits of natural gas. The price could be dropped by a dollar and it still would produce. This is a measure of Wall Street investors now driving these Obama inflated prices in their demand of dividends.
  The appearance is that gas production is being created not for US Citizen direct use, but for the reality of using it for electrical plants. That is why Mr. Obama has been destroying the coal industry as these clean gas burning plants are eating up this energy reserve in immense proportions.The point being is coal can be clean and can be utilized in electrical output. It can not be used in cars or home eating easily. Coal must be protected and that means shifting the use of gas, which will drop the prices to consumers which is not currently part of the system.
  It all comes to the reality that West Texas is going to be the frac'ing capital of the world. North Dakota with it's propaganda of jobs and expansion will just not fit the reality as once the pipelines are complete, the management of oil wells and trucking does not employ volumes of people, so he rural people there will begin to gain their prairies back as things begin to constrict there.
  Given the choice of frostbite North Dakota or hot Texas, the meandering worker will choose Texas for squatter boxes to reside in.
  Texas Drilling Observerwww.drillingobserver.com/The acquisition totals 109,000 acres in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Net production from the acquired properties is about 8,000 barrels of oil equivalent ...The reality is that the peon or beaner is about to be employed in this southwest region, for the slave trade in mysterious Social Security numbers for 100 Juan Rimeriz's who will never collect on the payments.It is the future in Dakota sweet crude will be mixed with crap Canada crude and resold at high prices, and that shell game will benefit the elite as it always does.
  This is where America will run to in an even greater influx of Mexicans in border areas and more revenues generated for the Texas billionaires. The shift has started from where the oil was to where it is. The pipeline will be built, so the expensive Canadian oil sands will be developed in more pollution and to enhance their mix with American crude.
  It is all for the best as Texas can use another 10 million people looking to get rich quick and not wanting to work. One has to put those California refugees some place.
  Oh you didn't know that was part of what this was engineered for?
  nuff said
  agtG 225Y
Why we should name hurricanes after fossil fuel corporations | Bill McKibben | Comment is free
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:42
  'The sea level in New York harbour has gone up a foot as the climate has warmed. Sandy had a big head start on flooding out the city.' Photograph: Nasa/Getty Images
  As gutsy New Yorkers begin the task of drying out the city, here's one thought that occurred to me last night watching the horrifying pictures from a distance. It's obviously not crucial right now '' but in the long run it might make a difference. Why don't we stop naming these storms for people, and start naming them after oil companies?
  Global warming didn't "cause" the hurricane, of course '' hurricanes are caused when a tropical wave washes off the coast of Africa and begins to spin in the far Atlantic. But this storm rode ocean waters five degrees warmer than normal, so it's no great shock that it turned into a monster. By the time it hit land, it had smashed every record for the lowest barometric pressure and the largest wind field.
  Most of its damage, of course, came from the savage storm surge, washing over the Rockaway, into Holland Tunnel. It was astonishing to watch on TV as the Lower East Side became a part of the East River. And one reason that surge was so high? The sea level in New York harbour has gone up a foot as the climate has warmed. Sandy had a big head start on flooding out the city.
  The fossil fuel companies have played the biggest role in making sure we don't slow global warming down. They've funded climate denial propagandists and helped pack Congress with anti-environmental extremists, making sure that commonsense steps to move toward renewable energy never happen. So maybe it's only right that we should honour their efforts by naming storms for them from now on. At the very least it's fun to imagine the newscasters announcing, "Exxon is coming ashore across New Jersey, leaving havoc in her wake", or "Chevron forces evacuation of 375,000".
  At 350.org, the climate change campaign that I helped found, we're sending out an appeal to our worldwide mailing list today. It asks two things: that people send money to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts along the Atlantic seaboard, and that they send a message to the oil companies asking them to stop funding election campaigns and use the money for recovery efforts instead.
  That would help clear the air in DC, and it would also help New York: Chevron, for instance, donated $2.5m (£1.6m) to a GOP super-Pac last week, the largest single corporate donation since the supreme court cleared the way for such influence-buying. In the face of this tragedy, it would be the very least they could do, a tiny start toward repairing the damage they've caused. For a decade, anyone named Sandy is going to have to endure hurricane jokes. Seems much fairer to pin the blame where it belongs.
  This article first appeared on the Daily News website
9th EU-ASEM Summit - Day 2
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  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:42
Hillary Clinton talks about Love Life with Bill
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  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:31
MAVNI.INFO Forums - Pentagon Reopens Program Allowing Immigrants With Special Skills to Enlist
  Link to Article
  Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:27
  Thousands of immigrants were so eager to enlist in the American military during the last two years, despite the strong odds that they could be sent to combat zones, that they signed a petition on Facebook asking the Pentagon to let them join.Now they will have the chance. Late last month, the Pentagon reopened a program to recruit legal immigrants with special language and medical skills, which was active for a year in 2009 but was suspended in January 2010.
  The program is small; it will enlist a total of 1,500 recruits each year for two years, mainly in the Army. But military officials said the yearlong pilot program brought an unusually well-educated and skilled cohort of immigrants into the armed services.
  ''Their qualifications were really stellar,'' said Naomi Verdugo, assistant deputy for recruiting for the Army. ''And we have been very pleased about how these folks have been performing.''
  The program is open to immigrants on temporary visas, who otherwise would not be eligible to enlist. Its powerful lure is that it allows them to naturalize as United States citizens quickly, in most cases at the end of basic training, which lasts about 10 weeks. Most immigrants on temporary visas, whether they are students or workers with particular skills, must wait years '-- for some nationalities, more than a decade '-- to become citizens.
  Eileen Lainez, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the program was intended to fill ''some of our most critical readiness needs.'' This time around, the Army is looking for dentists and surgeons, and for psychology professionals to help with the severe emotional strains soldiers have undergone in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
  Officials are also looking for native speakers of 44 languages, including Azerbaijani, Cambodian-Khmer, Hausa and Igbo (both spoken in West Africa), Persian Dari (spoken in Afghanistan), Portuguese, and Tamil (spoken in South Asia). Spanish is not on the list of languages.
  Recruiting officers were quietly frustrated that Pentagon officials took more than two years to restart the program. The renewal became tangled in a broad security review after the shooting rampage in 2009 at Fort Hood, Tex., according to accounts from military officials. The background checks for the immigrants were scrutinized with added caution, even though the man charged in the killings, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, is a native-born American.
  In renewing the program, military officials added a new layer of security screenings, Ms. Lainez said.To make their case to the Pentagon, recruiting officers compiled dossiers on the first class of immigrants, of whom 943 out of 1,000 were in the Army. On average, immigrants who enlisted in the Army language program scored 17 points higher (on a scale of 99) than other applicants on an entrance test, said Capt. Carol Stahl, who manages the program for the Army. One-third of the first class of recruits had master's degrees or higher.One-third of the class went into the Special Forces, a highly selective assignment that can often lead to combat missions, Captain Stahl said. Attrition was one-quarter the rate of other soldiers who entered at the same time.A soldier from Nepal who entered with the first class, Sgt. Saral Shrestha, just won the Army's Soldier of the Year award after a grueling four-day competition involving fighting skills at Fort Lee, Va.
  ''This was a boost of very high quality people,'' said Margaret Stock, an immigration lawyer in Alaska who is a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and helped devise the program. Even before they enlist, she said, the immigrants have been screened because they have to pass background and occupational checks for their temporary visas.
  To qualify, immigrants must have been living in the United States legally for at least two years. They must be high school graduates and pass the entrance test.
  The program '-- known as Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest, or Mavni '-- is not open to illegal immigrants, who are barred by law from enlisting. In general, immigrants who are not citizens must have a permanent resident visa, known as a green card, to enlist.
  The first round filled up quickly, and the Army turned away thousands of people. Many of them signed the Facebook petition and were hoping the program would start again.
  Health care professionals, who enlist as officers, must serve either three years of active duty or six years in the Reserves. Immigrants who enlist based on their language skills must serve for a minimum of four years of active duty. Participants who fail to serve their term can lose their citizenship.
  One of the first temporary immigrants the Army accepted this year was Dr. Amen Dhyllon, 33, a dentist practicing in Philadelphia who was born in India and came to the United States in 2006. Dr. Dhyllon said he completed a postdoctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania in June combining two dental specialties.Dr. Dhyllon said he was eager to become an American citizen.
  ''Even in the position where I am today,'' he said, ''no one would appreciate me as much as people appreciate me here. This country does not differentiate between color or accent. Here, if you are good, people will put you to the front.''
  Dr. Dhyllon said he was not worried about the risks of service. He said he was attracted to the Army because of the wide range of patients he would see.
  ''I can be part of the culture,'' he said. ''I can learn everything about this country from the root.''
  Courtesy of New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/us...list.html?_r=2