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Mali's Tuareg rebels ready to sign peace deal
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Page 4: Opinion
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15 20:33 rjschwarz [] 
4 10:51 junkiron [] 
12 23:13 Dale [1] 
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Page 2: WoT Background
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5 16:45 Steve White []
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7 19:10 Uncle Phester []
7 20:08 Redneck Jim [1]
4 18:26 SteveS []
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2 01:18 JosephMendiola []
1 07:08 BernardZ []
1 19:27 Uncle Phester []
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2 21:49 trailing wife [2]
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1 01:27 JosephMendiola []
1 15:10 g(r)omgoru [1]
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1 19:59 Redneck Jim []
6 13:52 Glenmore []
3 11:37 Rambler in Virginia []
2 10:53 Pappy [1]
Page 3: Non-WoT
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Page 6: Politix
1 19:51 Redneck Jim []
6 14:50 Pappy []
6 21:19 trailing wife [2]
4 16:46 Bright Pebbles []
Home Front: Politix
Is Obama Starting A War With Syria Just A Distraction From All The Scandals?
Posted by: tipper || 06/15/2013 01:44 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Of course it is a calculated scandal distraction. Look at the media and broadcast air time the story is consuming. Some sort of "no fly zone" will eventually come as well, but it must be bled out over time, discussion, and much media debate. I'm waiting to learn that he's buying small arms ammunition from Vlad to give to the rebels.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/15/2013 4:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Yes
Posted by: Dale || 06/15/2013 5:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Yes. Next question?

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 06/15/2013 6:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Actually I am willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, in Syria there is no good side for the West. Although I will say that part of the reason for that is Obama policy. However using nerve gas is wrong and Obama is not alone in this view.

As far as this claim of being a distraction, this is a frequent claim is made of Britain in WW1, FDR foreign policy before WW2, etc. Its probably nonsense


Posted by: BernardZ || 06/15/2013 7:19 Comments || Top||

#5  Perhaps more of a 'not letting a good crisis go to waste'.

Or he's is trying to avoid making 'not doing anything' into another crisis.
Posted by: Bobby || 06/15/2013 8:35 Comments || Top||

#6  Squirrel!
Posted by: Frank G || 06/15/2013 8:41 Comments || Top||

#7  Everything Obama and this administrations says should be questioned; they are all habitual liars.
Posted by: JohnQC || 06/15/2013 9:29 Comments || Top||

#8  Lip movement.... the key.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/15/2013 9:36 Comments || Top||

#9  The timing of the statement, of course, was calculated. But if noticed it wasn’t the POTUS or even a Cabinet member making the announcement. It was late in the week and he used a lower advisor as his mouthpiece. Now, if the President actually takes ownership then people should start to question motivation. Until then this is classic Obama pretending to do something while really not doing anything.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 06/15/2013 11:04 Comments || Top||

#10  Is Obama Starting A War With Syria Just A Distraction From All The Scandals?

No. The scandals are a factor in that they've caused a loss of Mr. Obama's domestic and foreign political capital - especially the latter. That and his off-hand declaration of a 'red line' with Syria is forcing him to provide support the rebels.

As far as this claim of being a distraction, this is a frequent claim is made of Britain in WW1, FDR foreign policy before WW2, etc. Its probably nonsense

Well, it is Zerohedge.
Posted by: Pappy || 06/15/2013 11:14 Comments || Top||

#11  Yes, it's all in the line of "President Forever" And he;s good for it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 06/15/2013 11:24 Comments || Top||

#12  "in Syria there is no good side for the West"

All the more reason we should stay the hell out of it.
Posted by: Barbara || 06/15/2013 12:45 Comments || Top||

#13  I'm sure Champ's motivation has something to do with his "line in the sand" statement and creating yet another media distraction. The fella that I can't figure out is McShame. In spite of the obvious and quite bitter consequences, do we have the benevolent grace and understanding of an all mighty Gott to thank for McShame losing his bid for the presidency? Sometimes I wonder.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/15/2013 15:58 Comments || Top||

#14  > "in Syria there is no good side for the West"

> All the more reason we should stay the hell out of it.

Or arm both sides...
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 06/15/2013 18:55 Comments || Top||

#15  Like the Iran/Iraq war this was one we should have let played out. We have no responsibility to be the worlds police man as we have been told over and over again by our allies and enemies for the last decade. Those applauding our getting involved now will be the same calling us warmongers in a few years when we have no way to cleanly get out of the mess.

Bad call, very bad call, to get involved. Turkey stayed out of the Iraq war when we needed them. Let them deal with this mess on their border if they want to.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 06/15/2013 20:33 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
New Boston Police Anti-Terror Shortfalls Before Marathon Bombings Exposed
A case study on how useless NSA is especially since mosques, the foremost gift the jihadists have given us, have been excised from security overview.

A 101 primer on how to do it here.
Posted by: tipper || 06/15/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sorry, the communications and data-sharing "shortfalls" theory has....shortfalls. There is a well established national agency process for documenting and reporting meets with non-US persons with the placement and access, contacts, and travel history of persons like Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

“We have access to all the databases, but we were not in fact informed of that particular development,” the police commissioner told a congressional committee in May, according to a CNN transcript. He added that his officers on the task force “tell me they received no word about that individual prior to the bombing,” the Associated Press reported.

Simply throwing the Tsarnaev information into a data-base and not tipping local law enforcement is indeed telling. Quickly picking out the Tsarnaev bros. foto's from the thousands of Boston Marathon attendees is equally as telling. Immediately posting the foto's on teevee and requesting assistance from the public before contacting the Boston PD is well....beyond belief. Flushing potential suspects can produce useful communications data but can also produce grave consequences. In this case it provided both.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/15/2013 5:31 Comments || Top||

#2  The testy dialog between FBI Director Mueller and Rep. Louie Gohmart, TX said a great deal about the failure to pay attention to the signals that were readily available prior to the Boston bombings. Here. Seems no one is minding the store.
Posted by: JohnQC || 06/15/2013 9:19 Comments || Top||

#3  Mueller knows, he's simply not saying. He's an old man, backstopping the investigative effort. 'Taking one for the team' so to speak.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/15/2013 9:25 Comments || Top||

#4 
Posted by: junkiron || 06/15/2013 10:51 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Jerry Pournelle on O & Syria
Go back a few years. Imagine a CIA plot to get Iran which considers us the Great Satan and hates us, to declare war on al Qaeda and expend blood and treasure on exterminating al Qaeda – which long ago declared war on us, and which is the most easily defined enemy in our War of Terror. Imagine that al Qaeda might be induced to expend its resources fighting Hezbollah and Iran. Imagine that we could get our enemies to fight each other using whatever weapons they could muster, and expend their blood and treasure on exterminating each other, so that neither had very much to spend on killing Americans.

Come to the present, where that is happening. Israel after careful consideration has stayed out of the Syrian civil war on the grounds that the Assad Family has kept the peace with Israel for decades, while al Qaeda attacks Israelis. Imagine that somehow the trick has been made to work, and our enemies fight each other in a war in which the United States has no describable national interest.

Now imagine that having achieved that result we decide to enter the war.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 06/15/2013 10:38 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That would be the Assad family that provided a base of operations for the terrorists who infiltrated from Syria to Iraq resulting in the deaths of hundreds and wounding of thousands of Americans.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 06/15/2013 11:59 Comments || Top||

#2  the terrorists who infiltrated from Syria to Iraq

And who are now waging war against both Assad and the successor Iraqi government.
Posted by: Pappy || 06/15/2013 14:46 Comments || Top||

#3  You would think that Iran would have learned after the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).

Why would O get involved? Perhaps Hezbollah is making too much of a difference on the ground.

I still don't see how the US can keep its arms out of the hands of Al Qaeda. AlQaeda fighter will just attack the pro western fighters and take them; no honor there.
Posted by: Large Lover of the Weak2766 || 06/15/2013 17:05 Comments || Top||

#4  How will they tell the 'good' rebels from the 'bad' rebels? Take their word for it?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 06/15/2013 17:43 Comments || Top||

#5  As long as they're not Tea Party rebels, this administration will.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 06/15/2013 20:07 Comments || Top||

#6  After all the Dem railing about a lack of a UN-authorized coalition in Iraq 2, where is Obama's UN coalition?
Posted by: KBK || 06/15/2013 22:46 Comments || Top||

#7  We already gave them the contents of the Bengazi warehouse, Large.
Posted by: Skidmark || 06/15/2013 23:32 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
NSA Whistle Blower Edward Snowden - The Children of the Internet Coming of Age
Most of the people he used to interact with are long gone -- like Snowden, they grew up, and receded back into the real world. But he took with him the set of values he either learned or became comfortable expressing online: A keen interest in rights and speech, particularly where they concern the internet and privacy, suspicion of government and authority, a belief in both free markets and free-flowing information, and a set of cultural and aesthetic values that both set him apart from the mainstream and endear him to his people -- the internet people. [BuzzFeed]

A whole group of people out there are just like Snowden, says BuzzFeed's Herman, and that should make the NSA, and any organization with secrets, a little nervous. Because when you move from how to why, the answer is a little unsettling, Herman says: "This isn't about 'hacktivism' or some kind of unified cause. This is about the children of the internet coming of age."
Posted by: Winky Sproing5899 || 06/15/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We have our hippies running things now. So now educated youth in politically correct thought.
Somehow I don't think these youth will be as bad as drug brain fried hippies. Gene pool errors accumulate. I do see more of a zombie like behavior or group thought.
Posted by: Dale || 06/15/2013 6:12 Comments || Top||

#2  "Really tough not to hire a non leaking hacker"
Posted by: Dale || 06/15/2013 8:32 Comments || Top||

#3  http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2013/06/12/an-open-of-course-letter-to-my-friend-the-nsa/ideas/nexus/

There
Posted by: Dale || 06/15/2013 8:33 Comments || Top||

#4  Thumb drives don't kill people. People kill people.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/15/2013 9:13 Comments || Top||

#5  A nice "Nothing to see here, move along." story....
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 06/15/2013 16:08 Comments || Top||

#6  Snowden is a narcissistic little buffoon, like most of the self-described libertarian programmer-types who think the world is an extension of a multiplayer online video game and that all information, everywhere, should belong to everyone and no one.

These are child-men. Their understanding of the social contract is a ridiculous cartoon borrowed from Ayn Rand's crackpot novels and the paranoid literary genres.

Outside of his deyond his delusions of grandeur, Snowden has no connection or loyalties - not to his employers, whom he's cheated and screwed, or to a wife or family (he has none), or to a community of any kind - least of all to his nation.

He is now a pathetic pawn of Chinese intel, hostage to a chess match that far exceeds the cunning and subtlety of him or his foolish admirers.

Clue: the information gathered by the likes of Axciom is orders of magnitude more intrusive and damaging than the metadata stuff scooped up by the NSA....
Posted by: lex || 06/15/2013 19:43 Comments || Top||

#7  Lex:

Not certain of the Sino-Snowden connection, but I'd certainly like to borrow your term "child-men". Excellent !
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/15/2013 20:07 Comments || Top||

#8  "Children of the Internet coming of age" my ASS!

The 'internet' has nothing to do with what he did - he appears to be a traitor and (as lex mentioned) a "narcissistic little buffoon" with an inflated idea of his own skills who goes around calling himself a 'hacker' - much like a script kiddie would.

There isn't anything 'special' about what he did and he's really no different than someone who stuffs secret documents down his pants or takes photographs and he should be treated no differently. The 'NSA' stuff is simply a smokescreen to cover his treason IMHO.

It is especially difficult to hire a non-leaking 'hacker' when your first hiring criteria is "Is he part of the right ethnic group?" and little things like loyalty and character are down around number 47 on the list.

Posted by: CrazyFool || 06/15/2013 21:13 Comments || Top||

#9  someone who stuffs secret documents down his pants

That would be the Sandy Berger approach.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 06/15/2013 21:22 Comments || Top||

#10  Gov't hiring brings this little story to mind. I do hope no one is offended ;-)

A guy goes to the Post Office to apply for a job. The interviewer asks him, "Are you allergic to anything?" He replies, "Yes, caffeine. I can't drink coffee."

"OK, have you ever been in the military service?"
"Yes," he says, "I was in Iraq for one tour."
The interviewer says, "That will give you 5 extra points toward employment."

Then he asks, "Are you disabled in any way?"
The guy says, "Yes. A bomb exploded near me and I lost both my testicles."

The interviewer grimaces and then says, "Okay. You've got enough points for me to hire you right now. Our normal hours are from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm.

You can start tomorrow at 10:00 am, and plan on starting at 10:00 am every day."

The guy is puzzled and asks, "If the work hours are from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, why don't you want me here until 10:00 am?"

"This is a government job", the interviewer says. "For the first two hours, we just stand around drinking coffee and scratching our balls.
No point in you coming in for that .....


Posted by: Besoeker || 06/15/2013 21:47 Comments || Top||

#11  *giggle* That's some story, Besoeker.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/15/2013 21:51 Comments || Top||

#12  Mr. B that is a keeper.
Posted by: Dale || 06/15/2013 23:13 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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1Govt of Iran

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Two weeks of WOT
Sat 2013-06-15
  Mali's Tuareg rebels ready to sign peace deal
Fri 2013-06-14
  Mortars Fired at Damascus Airport, Delay 3 Flights
Thu 2013-06-13
  60 Boko Haram members killed in Maiduguri
Wed 2013-06-12
  Thousands Throng Istanbul Protest Square
Tue 2013-06-11
  Bombs and battles hit northern Iraq, more than 70 dead
Mon 2013-06-10
  Syria Islamists Execute Youth in Front of Family
Sun 2013-06-09
  Pak police recovers 15,000 kilos of explosive material
Sat 2013-06-08
  Tunisia Turns Away 8 Gulf Muslim Preachers
Fri 2013-06-07
  Seven killed in suspected U.S. drone strike in Pakistan
Thu 2013-06-06
  Nawaz Sharif elected as Pakistan PM
Wed 2013-06-05
  Locks Cut To Boston Water Supply Aqueduct
Tue 2013-06-04
  Missile Kills 26, including 8 Youths, in Syria Village
Mon 2013-06-03
  Damascus car bombing kills 9 security forces members
Sun 2013-06-02
  Second Muslim Convert Charged with London Soldier Murder
Sat 2013-06-01
  Turkey Finds Sarin Gas In Homes Of Suspected Syrian Islamists

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