[NBC] "I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word, in that I lived and worked undercover overseas -- pretending to work in a job that I'm not -- and even being assigned a name that was not mine," Snowden said in the interview.
Snowden defended his expertise in portions of the interview that aired at 6:30 p.m. ET on Nightly News. The extended, wide-ranging interview with Williams, his first with a U.S. television network, airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on NBC.
#1
The problem now is, there are people who'll believe anything he says. Just because someone has inside info doesn't mean they're immune to lying, or that they understand what they think they know about.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/28/2014 7:24 Comments ||
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#2
He is one of them freaking robot ghouls dahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
#3
I lived and worked undercover overseas -- pretending to work in a job that I'm not -- and even being assigned a name that was not mine
And that is different from the storyline given out at a thousand bars in hundreds of urban areas on Friday and Saturday night, how? Yeah, babe, I'm Tom, that's it, Tom and I work as a mortgage banker.
#8
Glenn Greenwald. We watched a "monks debate" from Toronto where Greenwald and Ohanian (reddit) were opposing Dershowitz and Hayden. Greenwald mopped the floor with Hayden. Supposedly Greenwald is releasing a list of names of those 'sampled' b y the NSA. I hope he takes a lesson from Vince Foster. Aside, Gen Dempsey says that Snowden got a bunch of military secrets...What was the military doing putting military secrets on NSA servers?
[An Nahar] A 22-year-old Houston Astros prospect's first home run of the season was caught by a familiar fan: his father.
Quad Cities first baseman Conrad Gregor launched a three-run shot in the sixth inning of the Class-A River Bandits' 5-2 win over the Cedar Rapids Kernels at Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport, Iowa, on Saturday night. A fan beyond the fence in right-center field caught the ball and proudly waved his arms. It turned out it was Gregor's father, Marty.
The Quad City Times reported that Gregor's parents made the five-hour drive from Carmel, Indiana, to attend the River Bandits' weekend series.
"When I got back to the dugout," Gregor said, "I heard he made a pretty good catch."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/28/2014 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Dramatic election gains for anti-EU parties show the European Union has got "too big and too bossy" and should concentrate on what really matters, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday.
The vote "is a clear message that we cannot just shrug off ... and carry on as before," Cameron said, adding: "The EU has got too big, too bossy, too interfering and needs to concentrate on growth and jobs."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/28/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Now he changes his tune? Who's buying that one?
[An Nahar] British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg insisted Tuesday he would not step down as leader of the Liberal Democrat coalition partners despite a terrible performance in the European elections.
Pressure has been building on Clegg since the Lib Dems lost 11 of their 12 European Parliament seats, which came hot on the heels of the party losing hundreds of seats in local council elections.
Emerging for his first public appearance since the vote debacle, Clegg said during a low-key visit to a youth club that he wanted to "finish the job" and dismissed calls to dissolve the coalition or modify his party's pro-EU approach.
Voters appear set to inflict more pain on the centrist Lib Dems for their decision to enter a coalition with the center-right Conservatives after the inconclusive 2010 general election.
One new poll showed Clegg could even lose his own seat in next year's election to the center-left main opposition Labor Party.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/28/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
"we're just consolidating our appeal"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/28/2014 12:52 Comments ||
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#2
The one thing in the world that cannot ever change is: A liberal who believes he's doing the right thing. If you try to stop them, you're not merely wrong, you're evil, by definition.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/28/2014 19:32 Comments ||
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[TBO] A closed-door auction was being held Tuesday to determine the future of Philadelphia's two largest newspapers, which were being sold for the fifth time in eight years.
The latest sale of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News comes less than two years after wealthy city powerbrokers bought the struggling newspapers at the urging of former Gov. Ed Rendell.
Businessmen George Norcross and Lewis Katz led the $55 million purchase, but they soon became locked in a power struggle over newsroom leadership and coverage strategies. They are going head-to-head Tuesday to buy each other out, with the bidding starting at $77 million. That's a relatively high price given the company's recent earnings but is designed to repay the investing partners in full.
Norcross is one of the most powerful figures in Philadelphia's southern New Jersey suburbs, with interests in media, health care, education, banking, insurance and politics. He would steer coverage toward more local news and sports, according to his testimony at recent court hearings over the partnership dissolution.
Katz made his fortune investing in the Kinney Parking empire and the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network in New York. He supports the investigative reporting favored by current Inquirer editor Bill Marimow.
The increasingly bitter feud became public last fall when Marimow was fired. Katz sued, charging that Norcross needed his vote to make the move, and a judge agreed. Marimow returned to the newsroom, but his contract expired last month. He would likely be gone if Norcross prevails Tuesday.
The animus between Katz and Norcross could help push the sale price higher, given what takeover experts called "the testosterone effect" of live auctions.
Norcross holds a 52 percent stake in the company. Katz holds a 26 percent stake and his ally H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, a local philanthropist, a 16 percent stake.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/28/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
"Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News up for auction"
Awwwwwww - ain't that just too bad.
You can't die soon enough, Lame Stream Media.
Posted by: Barbara ||
05/28/2014 20:14 Comments ||
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#2
Our roving purveyors of spectacle
Aren't getting a check to be skeptical.
That might put the kibosh
On pouring our eyewash
Into your unblinking receptacle.
[TVNZ.CO.NZ] Unidentified men have stormed Donetsk's main ice hockey arena and set it ablaze, according to the mayor's office. The arena, owned by a local Ukrainian politician, had been scheduled to host the 2015 World Championships.
This comes after Donetsk airport was recaptured by the Ukrainian military putting once again under full government control, Ukraine's acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said, adding that dozens of Death Eaters may have been killed but government forces did not suffer any casualties.
In the neighbouring Luhansk region, which like Donetsk has declared independence from the central government, the Ukrainian Border Guards Service said its officers repelled a group of gunnies from Russia who were trying to break through the border. It said one intruder was maimed and the border guards seized several vehicles loaded with Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket grenade launchers and explosives.
The interim government in Kiev has pledged to press ahead with the operation against myrmidons, which has angered residents, many of whom see the government as nationalists bent on repressing Russian speakers in the east.
Speaking at a televised government session today, Vitaly Yarema, a deputy prime minister, said the "anti-terrorist operation" in eastern Ukraine will go on "until all the Death Eaters are annihilated."
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov voiced strong concern about the decision to intensify the military operation in the east and called for an immediate end to fighting.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/28/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
When's this place getting trashed? It's a much bigger target, cost to build approx. $400M USD.
Someone has been reading the Rapid Action Battalion's encounter handbook.
[DAWN] KARACHI: Three suspects were bumped off in an encounter in the Yusuf Goth area in the early hours of Monday, police claimed.
SSP West Irfan Baloch said that a police party acting on a tip-off
That'd be Mahmoud the Weasel's Pakistani cousin calling in the tip -- he has many young Weasel mouths to feed...
raided a hideout of the gangsters in Yusuf Goth.
Somewhere suitable proletarian, one hopes, like a strawberry field or a brick factory...
On seeing the police, the suspects opened fire
"Mahmudullah, Belal, quickly open fire with your handcrafted Peshawar AK-47s!"
*bang! bang! bangetty-bang!*
and in ' retaliatory firing', the three suspects were rubbed out.
Each magically receiving one shot behind the right ear. Such is Allah's will for miscreants such as they.
The bodies were later shifted to the Civil Hospital Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... where two of them were identified as Irshad Ali, 30, and Mohammad Ali, 23.
Dr. Quincy immediately noted the deadness of the corpses, much to Jim's amazement.
The police alleged that the suspects were associated with the Faisal Pathan gang of Lyari.
Wanted on twelve planets, nobody loved them -- not even their mothers, rounds of bullet lovingly polished and returned to their velvet cases in the evidence room... The Pakistani police are new at this kind of thing, but they'll get there with practice.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/28/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
I short order RAB encounters at RantBurg will be like the olde prison joke.
[DAWN] A schoolteacher was jugged You have the right to remain silent... on Monday for allegedly raping a seven-year-old student at school, police said.
They added that the suspect allegedly subjected the Class III student to a criminal assault in the toilet of the government school in Memon Goth during recess.
The police arrested the teacher following a complaint by the girl's father and registered an FIR (86/2014) under Section 376 (rape) of the Pakistain Penal Code against him.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pie fight, Bella grabbed the cocoanut cream... another man was arrested in Shah Faisal Colony for allegedly raping his 13-year-old cousin.
The police said the girl was alone at her home when the suspect allegedly subjected her to a criminal assault.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/28/2014 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Myanmar is considering restrictions on religious conversion, according to a draft bill released in state media Tuesday, the first of several controversial proposals stemming from a rising tide of Buddhist nationalism.
The proposed legislation, put forward by the ministry of religion and yet to be debated in parliament, would require people who want to change their faith to get approval from a specially-created local authority.
"No one shall apply to convert religion with the intention to insult, defame, destroy or misuse any religion," said the report in the Myanmar-language newspaper The Mirror.
It added that under the proposed law any violation could attract a two-year prison sentence.
Religion has become a deeply sensitive issue in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where several outbreaks of anti-Mohammedan violence in the last two years have left around 250 people dead.
The proposals on religious conversion are part of a wider series of draft bills being considered by government ministries and suggested by President Thein Sein after a campaign by Death Eater monks.
A highly controversial plan to impose restrictions on interfaith marriage is also being considered but details have yet to be revealed.
Rights groups have reacted with alarm to the proposed marriage curbs, saying they would threaten religious freedom and women's rights.
Thein Sein, who took power in 2011, has presided over the former junta-run country's opening to the world and ushered in sweeping political and economic changes that have spurred the West to lift most sanctions.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/28/2014 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Military Examining Magistrate Judge Fadi Sawan issued on Tuesday an arrest warrant against 40 civilians and military personnel for involvement in drug trafficking at Roumieh prison, the state-run National News Agency reported.
NNA said that Sawan accused in his indictment the 40 suspects, including two officers, of drug trafficking and abuse in Leb's largest prison.
The judge referred the suspects, who are all in jug, to the permanent military court for trial, the news agency added.
Earlier this month, two officers and 13 inmates were charged with smuggling drugs into the prison.
Roumieh is the largest and most overcrowded of Leb's prisons.
It has a capacity for 1,500 inmates, but over 4,000 are imprisoned there.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/28/2014 00:00 ||
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[TVNZ.CO.NZ] A judge in southern Iran has ordered Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to appear in court to answer complaints by individuals who say Facebook-owned applications Instagram and Whatsapp violate their privacy, semiofficial news agency ISNA reported today.
It quoted Ruhollah Momen Nasab, an official with the paramilitary Basij force, as saying that the judge also ordered the two apps blocked.
Another Iranian court last week had ordered Instagram blocked over privacy concerns. However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... users in the capital, Tehran, still could access both applications around noon Tuesday. In Iran, websites and Internet applications have sometimes been reported blocked but remained operational.
Facebook is already banned in the country, along with other social websites like Twitter and YouTube. However some big shots like Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are active on Twitter.
While brass hats have unfettered access to social media, Iran's youth and technological-savvy citizens use proxy servers or other workarounds to bypass the controls.
The administration of moderate President Hassan Rouhani is opposed to blocking such websites before authorities create local alternatives. Social media has offered a new way for him and his administration to reach out to the West as it negotiates with world powers over the country's contested nuclear program.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/28/2014 00:00 ||
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[11125 views]
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#1
What happens first - Zuckerberg showing up there or Kerry testifying before the House? My money's on Zuckerberg...
#2
While brass hats have unfettered access to social media, Iran's youth and technological-savvy citizens use proxy servers or other workarounds to bypass the controls
Good for them! The net considers censorship as damage and simply routes around it.
#4
I think he should be compelled to go.
Just for entertainment's sake.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/28/2014 7:25 Comments ||
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#5
Since we have an imperial presidency these days without constraints of law, maybe a good line for someone vying for the office would be to honor said extradition request. Given his backing of amnesty, such an act would generate a lot of 'thumps up' 'likes'.
The Nickelback of poets...
NEW YORK -- Maya Angelou was gratified, but not surprised by her extraordinary fortune.
"I'm not modest," she told The Associated Press in 2013. "I have no modesty. Modesty is a learned behavior. But I do pray for humility, because humility comes from the inside out."
Her story awed millions. The young single mother who worked at strip clubs to earn a living later danced and sang on stages around the world. A black woman born poor wrote and recited the most popular presidential inaugural poem in history. A childhood victim of rape, shamed into silence, eventually told her story through one of the most widely read memoirs of the past few decades. Nope, no racism here!
Angelou's musical style was clear in a passage about boxing great Joe Louis's defeat in 1936 against German fighter Max Schmeling:
"My race groaned," she wrote. "It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trail of a man running through slimy swamps. ... If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help." Etc...
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/28/2014 12:56 Comments ||
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#2
"My race groaned," she wrote. "It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trail of a man running through slimy swamps. ... If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help."
That seems very unhealthy attitude. I mean its a fair fight and all, if he loses he loses. Its not a setback for the entire race. Keep up that way of thinking and African Americans will end up less than successful, at the mercy of race mongers and scoundrals.
#3
"My race groaned," she wrote. "It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trail of a man running through slimy swamps. ... If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help."
She needed to get a life.
Too late now . . . .
Posted by: Barbara ||
05/28/2014 16:11 Comments ||
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#4
"My race groaned," she wrote. "It was our people falling.
I can feel your pain, Maya. When I passed Trigonometry, it was an incredible victory for the White race. In yer face, Pythagoras! (OK, so he was a white dude. Just shut up)
#7
Angelou's musical style was clear in a passage about basketball great Tim Duncan defeat in Oklahoma City against point guard Russel Westbrook.
"My Texans groaned, she wrote. "It was our playoff record falling, yet another shot blocker making like a tree in the lane. One more offense plan ambushed and tripped by Ibaka. The ball boy wept and moaned. It was their fast breaks running through tepid statues...if The Spurs lost we were back in San Antonio and needing help."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.