The president is wrong: The NSA debate wouldn’t have happened without Snowden
By Timothy B. Lee, Published: August 9 at 3:54 pm
WASHINGTON POST
At Friday’s news conference, President Obama was asked by Chuck Todd whether the debate that has arisen in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations made Snowden a patriot. Obama disagreed.
“I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot,” the president said. “I called for a thorough review of our operations before Mr. Snowden made these leaks. My preference, and I think the American peoples’ preferences would have been for a lawful, orderly examination of these laws.”
Yet the Obama administration showed little interest in subjecting the NSA to meaningful oversight and public debate prior to Snowden’s actions. When Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked for a “ballpark figure” of the number of Americans whose information was being collected by the NSA last year, the agency refused to give the senator any information, arguing that doing so would violate the privacy of those whose information was collected.
In March, at a Congressional hearing, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper answered “no sir” when Wyden asked whether the NSA had collected “any type of data at all on millions of Americans.” We now know his statement was incorrect.
Wyden and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) had also been pressing for almost four years for access to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s legal opinions interpreting Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Until Snowden’s disclosures, the senators made no headway. Now, the Obama administration has announced it intends to release its legal interpretation of Section 215.
Whether or not Snowden is a patriot, it’s clear that his disclosures made possible a more vigorous and well-informed public debate about the NSA’s programs than would have happened otherwise.
Obama can say all that he wants about Snowden, the NSA and the fisa courts. Who is going to believe a word that he says?
ReplyDeleteMe.
DeleteAnd, I'm Not in the minority.
If I'm not mistaken, his "Favorability" (not "approval") Rating is still in the mid-fifties.
Delete.
DeleteLeviticus 29:14
And credulity runs rampant amongst the sheeple.
.
>>>>DeuceSat Aug 10, 09:17:00 AM EDT
DeleteObama can say all that he wants about Snowden, the NSA and the fisa courts. Who is going to believe a word that he says?
Rufus IISat Aug 10, 09:20:00 AM EDT
Me.<<<<
Good Lord, Rufus, talk about shooting one's self right in the head!
(saving this exchange for the future reference)
.
DeleteTo say you like Obama is one thing, to say you believe him is quite another.
.
Not even the unions that pushed hardest for Obamacare (but now lobby to be exempt) are drinking the kool aid Rufus is drinking.
Delete.
DeleteIt is easy to point out where Obama or his administration has lied. I just jotted down a dozen examples on a list that is easily expanded. However, the real problem comes from the instances where they claim 'confidentiality' or 'secrecy' or 'national security' and you are left with little opportunity to challenge.
We have already seen the Orwellian lengths this administration will go to hide their actions from the US public; however, here is one that will touch the heart of anyone pushing ethanol or the ethanol mandate.
Washington's Latest Special Favor
Of the nation's 143 refineries, one was exempted from the EPA's ethanol mandate. Why?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324522504579000792763966698.html
Why? Because it is 'confidential'?
At least they didn't have the gall to cite 'national security'; but then that one is running kinda thin already.
.
Because the army needs a stash of actual gasoline that ain't watered down with Rufus' joy juice?
DeleteObama also didn't say Snowden was a traitor, just a lawbreaker. How could he be a traitor? Only gun-totin' Bible-clinging right wingnuts are traitors.
ReplyDeleteSomebody called him a traitor.
DeleteAnybody know who somebody is?
A driver was stuck in a traffic jam on the highway outside Washington , DC . Nothing was moving. Suddenly, a man knocks on the window. The driver rolls down the window and asks, "What's going on?" "Terrorists have kidnapped Congress, and they're asking for a $100 million dollar ransom. Otherwise, they are going to douse them all in gasoline and set them on fire. We are going from car to car, collecting donations." "How much is everyone giving?" the driver asks. The man replies, "About a gallon"
ReplyDelete.
DeleteIn terribly poor taste.
(But kinda funny)
:)
.
Let's just hope the octane is boosted by ethanol, and not those dangerous carciagenic aromatic aliaphatics.
DeleteDon't want to miss that natural gas fired flavor.
"carcinogenic"
Delete"And by the way, don't worry about Obamacare. Libs will eventually do it in when they realize participation will involve photo ID." -- Dennis Miller.
ReplyDeleteNice thot, but Libs are not constrained by logic.
DeleteWhat applies to voting applies nowhere else in their "universe"
Teresita:
DeleteYou may have answered this already, but what is the best/easiest way to run DOS on modern hardware?
Doug, download DOSBOX, I use it to run Windows 3.1 inside Windows 7, it's the only solution for running 16 bit software under anything after Vista. You can mount any directory as a drive, just type mount c C:\DOS\C-DRIVE for example. http://www.cleanposts.com/index.php/DOSBox
DeleteGreat, thanks.
DeleteOne of the computers I use is running 7, and one Vista.
Got another/better/easier solution for the Vista Box?
I think I'm running Paint Shop 4 and Photoshop 4 on the 7 machine.
Delete...obviously 16 bit.
...maybe the first MSOS not to run DOS?
Photoshop 4, came out in 1996 for Windows 95. Same with Paint Shop 4. So they're 32 bit. The problem with Microsoft abandoning support for DOS is that there's millions of machines that still need DOS to run manufacturing equipment, retrievers, point-of-sale machines, etc, that get bit-banged out the parallel port. I've got a cable tester at work like that. We're not going to drop another $40,000 for a new tester just because Microsoft wants to sell a newer operating system. So they can take XP away from us when they can pry it out of our cold, dead fingers.
DeleteHas anyone here owned a Clapper?
ReplyDeleteYo mama has one arm and a clapper.
DeleteMugabe signs secret deal to sell uranium to Tehran
ReplyDeleteJerome Starkey, Jan Raath in Harare, Michael Evans and Hugh Tomlinson
Published at 12:02AM, August 10 2013
Zimbabwe’s Government has signed an agreement with Iran to sell raw materials for a nuclear weapon in direct breach of international sanctions, a senior government official has told The Times.
The move by Harare and Tehran is expected to provoke international outrage because of the attempt to circumvent punitive Western sanctions imposed on the two regimes.
Gift Chimanikire, the Zimbabwean Deputy Mining Minister, said that a memorandum of understanding had been signed to export uranium.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/africa/article3839144.ece
Mugabe better keep an eye out for dronage.
ReplyDeleteTwo democracies and Jeffersonian democrats looking out for one another, Miss T.
DeleteIran's nuke program is peaceful, the mullahs? love the gays, jews and Sunni...
Deletelet's just let those persians live in peace.
E85 for $2.07, $2.09, and $2.12 in Illinois.
ReplyDeleteFree at last, Free at Last, Good Lord, Almighty, Free at Last (from stinking, polluting, terrorist-supporting gasoline)
Health rates to 'soar' in Ohio, Florida...
ReplyDeleteInsurance Co's Flee Exchanges...
RuiNation....drudge
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free.
Delete(Reuters) - Four Islamist militants in Egypt's North Sinai were killed by an air strike that their comrades said on Saturday had been done by an Israeli drone but which state media said was the work of an Egyptian army helicopter.
ReplyDeleteFive security sources had earlier told Reuters that Israel had carried out a missile strike that killed the militants as they prepared to launch rockets at Israel.
The Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group said on website: "Our heroes became martyrs during their jihadi duties against the Jews in a rocket attack on occupied lands."
Notice the interesting points.
1. that attacks were after the "jews" not the israelis
2. that attacks claimed they were going after "occupied lands", which lands? the lands pre-1967.
So according to these folks all of Israel is fair game to murder civilians.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, another off shoot of the Moslem Brotherhood
They were just militants? Is that kind of like activists or community organizers? Wake me up when you start calling them terrorists. Or cite news sources that do.
ReplyDeletemilitants, as a word, is the new PC for terrorists.
Deletethey were setting up rockets to shoot at civilians, randomly and or civilian aircraft.
I just call them dead.
Terrorist group takes responsibility for Eilat attackRemains of rockets fired on Thursday from the Sinai at southern city still not found
DeleteA terrorist organization belonging to the global Jihad assumed responsibility Friday for the firing of two rockets at Eilat on Thursday.
The organization, a Salafi group called “Jamaat Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis,” has been known to operate in the Sinai peninsula as well as the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s southernmost city has been subject to a number of missile attacks in recent years.
In April, Eilat was hit by two Grad rockets, apparently fired from the Sinai. One of the rockets fell in open ground, but the second landed in a residential area and caused light damage.
The airport in the city was closed briefly in the immediate aftermath of that attack.
Now mohammed is french kissing them in islamic heaven, 4 of them, dead to the world.
Terrorists to Jews, "Militants" to the rest of the word, as shooting rockets at civilians is fair game.
Terrorist is such a harsh term. I think they were just Islamic community organizers firing off some pyrotechnics to celebrate the end of Ramadan. At least that's the impression I get from the Reuters crap you posted.
Deletejust like Obama.
DeleteNice photo of Lady Ashton and Morsi included if you click the link-
ReplyDeleteThe Jerusalem Post
JPost.comMiddle East
Report: Egyptian prosecutors have evidence Morsi incited murder of protesters By JPOST.COM STAFF08/10/2013 15:30
▼
Egyptian paper: Attempted murder among charges Morsi faces. Now ousted Egypt president Morsi meets with EU chief Ashton back in November 2012.
Now ousted Egypt president Morsi meets with EU chief Ashton back in November 2012. Photo: REUTERS
Egyptian prosecutors have evidence that ousted president Mohamed Morsi incited the murder of protesters during the demonstrations that followed Morsi's controversial constitutional decree which gave him sweeping powers late last year, Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm quoted informed judicial sources as saying Saturday.
According to the report, East Cairo Prosecution, charged with investigating the clashes in which dozens were killed and hundreds were injured, called on the public prosecutor to designate a judge to question Morsi.
Al-Masry Al-Youm quoted sources as saying Morsi, who has been in custody since his July 3 ouster by the military, faces charges of "involvement in torture, intimidating citizens and attempted murder."
Egypt announced a criminal investigation against Morsi shortly after his ouster last month, with prosecutors saying they were examining complaints of spying, inciting violence and ruining the economy.
The public prosecutor's office issued a statement at the time saying it had received complaints against Morsi and eight other named Islamist figures including top Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, and others it did not identify.
Earlier this week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Egypt's interim authorities to release Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders currently in detention "or have their cases reviewed in full transparency."
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met Morsi last month, saying she found that he was well and had access to television and newspapers.
Ashton was speaking to journalists after meeting Morsi at an undisclosed location. "I've tried to make sure that his family know he is well," said Ashton.
Ashton, who is trying to mediate a resolution to Egypt's political crisis, added: "I said I wouldn't come unless I could see him (Morsi)." Asked about a media report that she had offered Morsi a "safe exit", she replied: "I did nothing of the kind."
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Egyptian-prosecutors-have-evidence-Morsi-incited-murder-of-protesters-322626
Maybe if something bad happens to Morsi in jail they can convict him post-humously, ala Russia.
DeleteLady Ashton is the perfect example of a Euro-nitwit.
DeleteWhat is your position on the great Barred versus Spotted Owl debate, Miss T? Do we need a human intervention? Do we have any responsibility to protect one or the other? Or should we let 'em fight it out to the last owl?
ReplyDeleteAugust 10, 2013
Barred versus Spotted Owls: Humans in No Position to Contradict Nature
By Noel S. Williams
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/barred_versus_spotted_owls_humans_in_no_position_to_contradict_nature.html#ixzz2bXI7JIvN
One time we cut a pod of whales out of a hole in the ice they found themselves trapped in. Seems the other whales were too smart to go there, but this pod thought it was good eatin', and what the hell, if anything happens, the monkeys with the big metal whales just come out and get 'em free, so they can do it again the next year. Now we got ourselves a class of dependent whales. But if I object to this, I'm a racist.
DeleteHmmmmm.....I see.....I think.......
DeleteYou're for lettin' 'em fight it out to the last surviving fittest owl......
Good damn racist bitch.....
Mother Nature is the bitch. She don't play fair.
Delete.
DeleteLet's see.
Dependent whale. Dead whale.
Dependent whale. Dead whale.
Good winter exercise. Sitting on your ass watching HSN.
Good winter exercise. Sitting on your as watching HSN.
It's a tough one.
Physically, morally, philosophically.
.
"Mother Nature is the bitch. She don't play fair."
DeleteWho says?
All that's real is rational, and all that's rational is real. If you don't believe me, ask rat, who has been reading Hegel in wikipedia.
The NSA has alleged it monitors only 1.6 percent of web traffic, contradicting claims of a sweeping spy network. A report released by the White House justifies NSA snooping as essential for national security, but neglects to expand on any details.
ReplyDeleteThe Obama Administration released a seven-page document on Friday intended to justify the NSA’s mass surveillance programs and correct media “inaccuracies.” A memo included in the report alleges that the National Security Agency only “touches” 1.6 percent of the internet and of that figure only 0.025 gets analyzed by the organization.
"If a standard basketball court represented the global communications environment, NSA's total collection would be represented by an area smaller than a dime on that basketball court," the memo says.
In a move to placate public suspicion in the wake of former CIA employee’s leak of classified information, the document claims the Obama Administration has done everything possible to keep the public informed.
“The administration has provided enhanced transparency on, and engaged in robust public discussion about, key intelligence collection programs undertaken by the NSA,” the memo reads.
The White House has been on the defensive since Edward Snowden released a trove of classified documents that blew the whistle on the NSA’s spying practices in May. At times the White House’s rhetoric has been confusing regarding the issue, with Obama claiming on US TV that there is no domestic spying program, while ex-Obama adviser Van Jones told CNN “we do have a domestic spying program.”
According to the documents released by Snowden, the NSA gathers troves of metadata through internet companies such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook using a program called PRISM. The leaks also allege that the NSA used eavesdropping programs to monitor internet traffic in the EU, provoking furor from the respective countries’ leaders.
Great, now the NSA knows I "like" this picture on Facebook of a baby hugging a puppy.
DeleteA wave of bomb attacks has hit Iraq as people celebrated the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of Ramadan, with more than 60 reported dead.
ReplyDeleteEleven bombs targeted both Shia and Sunni areas of the capital, Baghdad, hitting cafes, markets and restaurants in at least nine different districts.
A bomb also killed at least 10 people in Tuz Khurmato, north of the capital.
This Ramadan in Iraq is thought to have been one of the deadliest in years, with more than 670 people killed.
Most of the violence in the past six months has involved Sunni Islamist militant groups targeting Shia Muslim districts.
More than 4,000 people have died in such attacks this year. A further 9,865 have been injured, with Baghdad province the worst hit.
Maliki vow
More than 170 people were reported injured in the latest wave of violence.
The capital's deadliest car bomb attack on Saturday struck in the evening near an outdoor market in the south-eastern suburb of Jisr Diyala, police said, killing seven people and injuring 20.
Correspondents say the areas struck in the capital were both Shia and Sunni districts.
Among the areas struck were Amil, Abu Dashir, Khazimiya, Baiyaa, Shaab, Husseiniya and Dora.
Saif Mousa, the owner of a shoe store in the mainly Shia New Baghdad, said he was sitting in his shop when he heard an explosion outside.
He told the Associated Press news agency: "My shop's windows were smashed and smoke filled the whole area. I went outside of the shop and I could hardly see because of the smoke. We had a terrible day that was supposed to be nice."
At least another 10 people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack in Tuz Khurmato, 170km (105 miles) north of Baghdad.
Other attacks were reported in the Shia holy city of Karbala, 80km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, and Nasiriya, 375km (230 miles) south of the capital.
Another went off near a Shia mosque in the northern city of Kirkuk.
Last week Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed to continue operations against militants, saying: "We will not leave our children to these murderers and those standing behind them and supporting both inside and outside."
Many Sunnis accuse Mr Maliki's Shia-led government of marginalising them.
Joe Biden was right. Iraq should have been divided up into three parts. It would have been the humanitarian and politically sensible thing to do.
DeleteNever leave the hovel during the Eid al-Fitr festival.
DeleteThe important thing is they can't blame Americans. This is Muslim on Muslim. Get the popcorn.
Delete.
DeletePeople get testy when they haven't eaten for a while.
.
Maybe they should have thought about that when they destroyed the greenhouses when they took over Gaza.
DeleteBy Allah, I'm starving for some tomatoes.
DeleteAkmed bin Akmed bin Akmed bin Akmed III
Maybe the Iraqis can eat some of those Iranian missiles they're passing through to Assad.
Deleteaccording to deuce? there are no "iranian" arms going to assad or hezbollah...
Deleteiran? just a bunch of misunderstood peace nicks
The continuing fraud in the Big Ethanol, Big Green industry exposed -
ReplyDelete>>>So who is the lucky dog? Who could make this happen? That's the best part. The EPA won't say. The agency not only refused to name the refinery in its rule, but also obscured certain numbers in the document to hide the beneficiary's identity. An EPA press officer would not give me the name, citing "confidentiality restrictions."<<<
POTOMAC WATCH August 8, 2013, 7:14 p.m. ET
Washington's Latest Special Favor Of the nation's 143 refineries, one was exempted from the EPA's ethanol mandate. Why? By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
For a glimpse at the secret, special-favors factory that Washington has become under President Obama, check out this week's big news out of the Environmental Protection Agency. Or rather, look beyond the headlines to the corporate handout hidden within.
The big news was that the EPA issued—finally—its infamous annual quota for renewable fuels. That mandate tells the nation's refineries how much renewable fuel (ethanol) must be blended annually into gasoline, a quota that is becoming a pernicious driver of gas prices. The EPA was supposed to release the 2013 quota last November but decided to leave the industry in panicked uncertainty until now.
The 89-page rule is dull reading, until you get to page 11. Tucked on that page is one short sentence, which reads: "EPA has approved a single small refinery/small refiner exemption for 2013, so an adjustment has been made to the standards to account for this exemption." In English: Of the nation's 143 refineries, one (and only one) lucky player somehow had the pull to win itself a free pass from this government burden. Not only that, the rest of the industry gets to pick up its slack.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324522504579000792763966698.html
No mystique behind it, there's a kickback involved. No different under Grant and Harding.
Delete.
DeleteOnce again, anonymous-Bob is a day late and a dollar short but who's counting?
.
Better later than never like you, hahahahahhah teehee tee hee hee
Delete(in imitation of Ash)
But, not a dollar short! Not with this alpha alpha alfalfa crop. A dollar short. THAT'S pure Quirk.
Deletetee hee hee hee
.
DeleteThat's it? That's the best you can do?
Good lord. Truly pathetic.
I wouldn't even have pointed out your redundancy (that is your duplication of the link posted at 10:44 am rather than your personal redundancy) had it not been for that pathetic display you put on a few weeks back begging and whining for a h/t. As I recall, it went on for days with the nagging recalcitrance of a spoilt child.
And childlike is an apt description since it is extended in your childish comments(?) in the posts above. Then you further display your immaturity in trying to blame it all on poor Ash, typical but still sad. For shame.
You are a very bad boy. No casino for you.
.
You filched my hat tip. Took it out of my back pocket like you do of other folk's wallets. No more Skittles for you, and you can brew your own damn tea.
DeleteWhine? Whine is your middle name, Quirk 'Whine' Quirk. Always it's The Man, or the cops, or your partners, or the City, or the State, or the Feds, or the Imperialists, or Bobo, or even the mailman, but never Q'M'Q. Always Umatilla Jack, even Hamdoon for God's sake.
Always the other, never your ignoble self......
I'm thinking of asking my niece, based on your writings, to do a quick Quirk analysis. She is busy doing brain scans in Germany but might work you in as a favor to me.
But this may be the last time I offer help you........understand that..........
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DeleteAgain with the childish whining and threatening.
Filched your H/T? If you go back to that stream, you will see that I posted on the subject briefly farther upstream. I didn't mention it because I felt sorry for you. Unlike you, I do not need hat tips to massage my ego and help offset feelings of inadequacy. I, unlike you, do not need hat tips to buttress my self-worth.
To see a man begging for a h/t is a sad and pathetic thing, kind of like that ubiquitous guy on the corner in the bad part of Every-town, USA with his handwritten sign "Will work for Cough Syrup and Skittles." One can only turn away in embarrassment.
As for the rest of your tirade, pure nonsense. My mailman is a very nice lady who walks any large packages directly up to my door despite our dogs. We give her candy or some other nice gift every year at Christmas (and I'm talking good candy not a package of Chuckles either).
As for your niece, since she is in research, I would suggest rather than waste her time on someone normal like me that she instead begin and independent study on Brain Farts Emanating from a Double-wide in Idaho. She might win 'Intern of the Month' and a free parking space near the building.
.
The uk part of Fukus comes upon a startling revelation
ReplyDeleteBritain’s foreign aid has fallen into hands of al-Qaeda, DfiD admits
Almost half a million pounds of British taxpayer-funded aid and equipment has fallen into the hands of al-Qaeda, the Department for International Development has admitted.
Nothing like the 4 billion dollars in Benjamins we crated over there for al Qaeda in 2003.
DeleteThe criminals don't last long, not out here in Idaho.
ReplyDeleteHannah is safe, her abductor d e a d.
He made the mistake of camping out in 'a wilderness area'.
Would have been better off hiding out in the maze of abandoned houses in Detroit, Michigan, a real wilderness area.
Suicide by special agent.
DeleteGREEN ROOM
ReplyDeleteBehind the Great Eyeball-Licking Hoax of 2013
POSTED AT 4:21 PM ON AUGUST 10, 2013 BY ED MORRISSEY
Did you hear about the weird new fetish from Japan — eyeball-licking, sometimes called “oculolinctus”? See the pictures? Hear about the pink-eye epidemic arising from the practice? If you did, you got hoaxed, CNet’s Tim Hornyak explains, and gives the background as to how it happened (via Instapundit):
The trend was reported everywhere from Japan to the U.S., Europe, and Africa by sites first in The Quirk Report, followed by The Huffington Post, The Guardian, the Nigerian Tribune, and CNET sister site CBS News.
But all these sites, other than The Quirk Report, seem to have fallen for a hoax first perpetuated by The Quirk Report. And as other recent hoaxes have shown (remember the fake study claiming Internet Explorer users were stupid?), the situation is indicative of an enormous global media appetite for bizarre news from anywhere — even Detroit - and a digital culture in which information spreads almost instantaneously. But when the source is from Detroit and it's disfunctional culture, it’s practically a recipe for fake news.
As Tokyo-based journalist and translator Mark Schreiber notes in the Number 1 Shimbun magazine, the story was repeated with little to no fact-checking. The source? Detroit, Michigan.
Schreiber did something that few other publications bothered to do — follow up with experts.
Schreiber, a contributor to The Japan Times who has lived in Tokyo since 1966, contacted two ophthalmologic associations, a group of school clinicians, a professor of nursing, and a Yokohama-based ophthalmologist. None knew anything about eyeball licking or an outbreak of pinkeye.
He also contacted the editor, Quirk, who posted the original story from The Quirk Report on Bucchi News.
“Expressing astonishment at how the story had gone viral in the foreign media, he evaded my questions about the identity of the writer. ‘The story never claimed the problem was widespread,’ he said defensively, implying that readers of his site are looking for thrills, not facts, and anyone who read the story in Japanese would clearly recognize the story’s main purpose, which was to titillate.”
You can probably guess what happened from there, but suffice it to say that titillation is popular in more places than Japan alone. Be sure to read it all.
One Quirk W Quirk was recently arrested in Detroit for peddling an organic solution containing tea and chocolates as a 'remedy' for pink eye. This individual is facing state fraud charges, charges from the Food and Drug Administration and Federal charges for for implying he was a practitioner of ObamaCare, and all without a license too.
.
ReplyDeleteTraducement, sir.
Calumny and vilification, in a word, libel. This defamation will not stand. Our corporate lawyer, Mr. Nathan Thurm, Esq., will be contacting you.
Our intent is to prosecute our accusers in ever venue, in the USA under federal and state laws, and in every other country worldwide under Article 17 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which states
1. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Just as Albert Pujols has decided to sue Jack Clark over his outrageous, irresponsible, and defamatory remarks regarding PED usage by Pujols, I will turn Mr. Thurm and his legal bulldogs loose on all involved in this slanderous charade.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Thurm will also be representing Mr. Pujols just as he also represents many other well known players as can be seen in the following video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLBQxk72NY
This impungement of my character and good name will not stand. Justice will be served. This vile attack is unsettling. It makes me literally want to puke. In righteous anger, I will...I...I gotta go.
.
.
Number 1, or Number 2, Sir? Or just a puke? The whole world wants to know.
Delete............................................
AUGUST 9, 2013 5:45 PM
Know Thine Enemy
Major Hasan is honest about himself; why aren’t we?
By Mark Steyn
On December 7, 1941, the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked. Three years, eight months, and eight days later, the Japanese surrendered. These days, America’s military moves at a more leisurely pace. On November 5, 2009, another U.S. base, Fort Hood, was attacked — by one man standing on a table, screaming “Allahu akbar!” and opening fire. Three years, nine months, and one day later, his court-martial finally got under way.
The intervening third-of-a-decade-and-more has apparently been taken up by such vital legal questions as the fullness of beard Major Hasan is permitted to sport in court. This is not a joke: See “Judge Ousted in Fort Hood Shooting Case amid Beard Debacle” (CBS News). Army regulations require soldiers to be clean-shaven. The judge, Colonel Gregory Gross, ruled Hasan’s beard in contempt, fined him $1,000, and said he would be forcibly shaved if he showed up that hirsute next time. At which point Hasan went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, which ruled that Colonel Gross’s pogonophobia raised questions about his impartiality, and removed him. He’s the first judge in the history of American jurisprudence to be kicked off a trial because of a “beard debacle.” The new judge, Colonel Tara Osborn, agreed that Hasan’s beard was a violation of regulations, but “said she won’t hold it against him.”
The U.S. Army seems disinclined to hold anything against him, especially the 13 corpses plus an unborn baby. Major Hasan fired his lawyers, presumably because they were trying to get him off — on the grounds that he’d had a Twinkie beforehand, or his beard don’t fit so you must acquit, or some such. As a self-respecting jihadist, Major Hasan quite reasonably resented being portrayed as just another all-American loon gone postal. So he sacked his defense team, only to have the court appoint a standby defense team just in case there were any arcane precedents and obscure case law he needed clarification on. I know that’s the way your big-time F. Lee Bailey types would play it, but it doesn’t seem to be Major Hasan’s style. On the very first day of the trial, he stood up and told the jury that “the evidence will clearly show that I am the shooter.” Later, in one of his few courtroom interventions, he insisted that it be put on the record that “the alleged murder weapon” was, in fact, his. The trial then came to a halt when the standby defense team objected to the judge that Major Hasan’s defense strategy (yes, I did it; gimme a blindfold, cigarette, and tell the virgins here I come) would result in his conviction and execution.
Major Hasan is a Virginia-born army psychiatrist and a recipient of the Pentagon’s Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, which seems fair enough, since he certainly served in it, albeit for the other side. Most Americans think he’s nuts. He thinks Americans are nuts. It’s a closer call than you’d think. In the immediate aftermath of his attack, the U.S. media, following their iron-clad rule that “Allahu akbar” is Arabic for “Nothing to see here,” did their best to pass off Major Hasan as the first known victim of pre-Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. “It comes at a time when the stress of combat has affected so many soldiers,” fretted Andrew Bast in a report the now defunct Newsweek headlined, “A Symptom of a Military on the Brink.”
DeleteMajor Hasan has never been in combat. He is not, in fact, a soldier. He is a shrink. The soldiers in this story are the victims, some 45 of them. And the only reason a doctor can gun down nearly four dozen trained warriors (he was eventually interrupted by a civilian police officer, Sergeant Kimberly Munley, with a 9mm Beretta) is that soldiers on base are forbidden from carrying weapons. That’s to say, under a 1993 directive a U.S. military base is effectively a gun-free zone, just like a Connecticut grade school. That’s a useful tip: If you’re mentally ill and looking to shoot up a movie theater at the next Batman premiere, try the local barracks — there’s less chance of anyone firing back.
Maybe this Clinton-era directive merits reconsideration in the wake of Fort Hood? Don’t be ridiculous. Instead, nine months after Major Hasan’s killing spree, the Department of Defense put into place “a series of procedural and policy changes that focus on identifying, responding to, and preventing potential workplace violence.”
Major Hasan says he’s a soldier for the Taliban. Maybe if the Pentagon were to reclassify the entire Afghan theater as an unusually prolonged outburst of “workplace violence,” we wouldn’t have to worry about obsolescent concepts such as “victory” and “defeat.” The important thing is that the U.S. Army’s “workplace violence” is diverse. After Major Hasan’s pre-post-traumatic workplace wobbly, General George W. Casey Jr., the Army’s chief of staff, was at pains to assure us that it could have been a whole lot worse: “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty.” And you can’t get much more diverse than letting your military personnel pick which side of the war they want to be on.
Like I said, we think he’s nuts; he thinks we’re nuts. Right now, there’s a petition on the Internet seeking to persuade the United States government to reclassify Hasan’s “workplace violence” as an act of terror. There are practical consequences to this: The victims, shot by an avowed enemy combatant in an act of war, are currently ineligible for Purple Hearts. The Pentagon insists the dead and wounded must be dishonored in death because to give them any awards for their sacrifice would prejudice Major Hasan’s trial and make it less likely that he could be convicted.
DeleteHence, the Internet petition. Linking to it from their homepage, my colleagues at National Review Online promoted it with the tag: “Thirteen people lost their lives with dozens of others wounded. And now the man responsible wants to claim it was workplace violence.”
That’s not true — and actually it’s grossly unfair to Major Hasan. He’s admirably upfront about who and what he is — a “Soldier of Allah,” as he put on his business card. On Tuesday, he admitted he was a traitor who had crossed over from “the bad side” (America’s) to “the good side” (Islam’s). He has renounced his U.S. citizenship and its effete protections such as workplace-violence disability leave. He professes loyalty to America’s enemies. He says, “I am the shooter.” He helpfully informs us that that’s his gun. In this week’s one-minute statement, he spoke more honestly and made more sense than Obama, Gates, Casey, the Armed Forces Court of Appeals, two judges, the prosecution and defense lawyers, and mountains of bureaucratic reports and media coverage put together.
But poor old Hasan can say “Yup, I did it” all he wants; what does he know?
Unlike the Zimmerman trial, Major Hasan’s has not excited the attention of the media. Yet it is far more symbolic of the state of America than the Trayvon Martin case, in which superannuated race hucksters attempted to impose a half-century-old moth-eaten Klan hood on a guy who’s a virtual one-man melting pot. The response to Nidal Hasan helps explain why, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, this war is being lost — because it cannot be won because, increasingly, it cannot even be acknowledged. Which helps explain why it now takes the U.S. military longer to prosecute a case of “workplace violence” than it did to win World War Two.
— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is the author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. © 2013 Mark Steyn
Jammu and Kashmir: Armed Muslim mob of 20,000 attacks Hindus, burns Hindu shops and homes
ReplyDeleteThe attacks began right after Eid prayers. The police came late, and did little or nothing to rein in the mob. Here is a press release from VHP International Working President Dr Pravin Togadia, "J&K Kishtwad Hindus Must get Justice, 1990 will not be allowed to repeat: Says VHP," slightly edited for clarity, from Sanghmarg, August 9 (thanks to Narain):
New Delhi, August 9, 2013: After today’s Eid Namaz, an armed mob of 20,000 Muslims marched toward Hindus & attacked them. Many Hindus were severely injured & some are critical. While this was happening, a big mob attacked & burnt shops & houses owned by Hindus. Serious arson, looting & murders went on for a long time, until the morning Namaz. Until the afternoon there was no help from the Government. Then came police, but they were of no use. Many Hindu youth are in hospitals with bullet injuries in their arms & abdomen. In the afternoon, the Government sent the Army there, but with no orders to shoot the killers on sight. The mob went on a rampage. The Army kept on doing a flag march & the info from there is that the 20,000-strong mob even looted army weapons.
VHP International Working President Dr Pravin Togadia said, “VHP demands immediate action on all 20,000 in the mob that attacked minority Hindus there. It also should be found out who really led such a big mob when there should have been security in the valley after Pakistan’s attacks on the LOC. Such big violence against Hindus continued all day long & how is it that nobody intervened to really protect the Hindus?”
VHP also demands resignation of the J&K Home Minister for his role in the Kishtwad attacks on Hindus. Those who are injured should immediately get adequate compensation. Those whose houses were burnt should be given compensation a the market rate of the house & all materials to rebuild their houses. Hindus whose shops were burnt should be compensated for the losses of their goods & shop establishments, as well as for the loss of probable business.
In 1990, similar violent tactics were followed by the Kashmiri Separatists to kill & chase away Hindus from Kashmir. Now they have advanced, & on the border of Jammu in Kishtwad, Rajauri, such attacks have been taking place. It is the sole responsibility of the state & the Union Govt to protect each Hindu in J&K, failing which the Hon. Supreme Court should take suo motto note & order the army to shoot at sight on those who attack Hindus there.
VHP & Hindu Human Rights Commission Team assisted by a retired police officer, an eminent lawyer, other Hindu organizations & a social worker will visit Kishtwad soon as soon as the curfew is lifted. The team should be given all cooperation as Minority Commission is supposed to get. The report will be made public.
VHP, Bajrang Dal in Jammu have protested today & demanded immediate action to protect Hindus & punish the attackers.
from Jihad Watch
August 11, 2013
ReplyDeleteThe Crusades Reconsidered
By Mike Konrad
One of the idiocies passed off for decades among Western historians is bemoaning the Crusades as evil. The Islamic world -- the Ummah -- has disseminated this imaginary charge against the West, and like fools, we have absorbed Arab lies and taken the blame to heart. But the most superficial reading of Western history should put that canard to rest.
Shortly before he died in June 632 AD, Mohammed ordered Muslims to prepare to wage war against the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.
Upon his death, Mohammed's successor, Abu Bakr, planned to fulfill those instructions. Plans were also made to conquer Zoroastrian Sassanid Persia.
This vainglorious troop of bandits should have been easily dispatched.
However. Persia and Byzantine Rome had just come out of a savagely vicious war which ended in 628 AD. Emperor Heraclius had finally imposed the total defeat over Persia that had eluded the earlier Roman Republic and the Caesars -- but Byzantine Rome, though victorious, was severely mauled. Persia was reduced to a state of anarchy; and forced to pay indemnities to Constantinople.
The Persian and Eastern Roman empires were attacked almost simultaneously around 633 AD, while both were still licking their wounds. So frightening were the Islamic advances that these former blood enemies made a sadly futile alliance. By 644, Persia fell anyway.
By 634 AD, Byzantine Palestine and Syria were being attacked. The Battle of Yarmouk in August 636 AD would see Eastern Roman forces beaten. Emperor Heraclius, the victorious warrior, a mere 8 years earlier, would have to sneak out back to Constantinople in a boat.
Farewell, a long farewell to Syria, my fair province. Thou art an infidel's (enemy's) now. Peace be with you, O' Syria -- what a beautiful land you will be for the enemy hands -- Emperor Heraclius, after the defeat at Yarmouk.
Roman-held Jerusalem was besieged in November 636 AD, and surrendered by the following April.
By 674 AD, the Muslims had taken Egypt and much of Anatolian Turkey, and were besieging Constantinople. The Byzantine Romans, unlike the Persians, still had some fight left and managed to lift the siege using Greek fire, a fearsome weapon similar to a flamethrower.
By 709 AD, all of Christian North Africa had fallen to Islam. Though it took the Muslims centuries, eventually all of Christianity was eliminated in the Maghreb.
In 711 AD, the Muslims invaded Spain, again taking advantage of weakness caused by internecine wars. It would be 781 years before Spain would be free. Among Islamic Andalusia's contributions to civilization were the demanded tribute of 100 white virgins every year to staff their harems. Every other contribution was plagiarized from other civilizations the Muslims had plundered.
By 732, the Muslims had advanced to central France, where they were finally repelled by Franks at the battle of Tours. Western Europe had been temporarily spared.
Sicily fell under Islamic rule for almost two centuries, until finally liberated by Norman Franks around 1091 AD.
According to tradition, Malta fell to Islam in 870 AD. Islam's contribution's to local culture was piracy. Malta became a staging point for predatory raids on Southern Europe.
After two centuries, Malta was finally retaken in 1091 AD.
Later on, historians would blame the Dark Ages on the Germanic Tribes, but the Goths and Vikings readily Christianized and embraced the higher civilization of the lands they conquered. The reality is that Islamic raiding is what produced the Dark Ages. Trade and the economy collapsed under the Muslim threat, plunging Europe into stagnation.
In 1095, after centuries of Muslim aggression, Pope Urban II finally had enough, and called Christians to war. He did so after the Byzantine Empire, now broken away from Roman Catholicism, appealed for fraternal help from the Western Christians to save them from Islam. After over 4 centuries of war with Islam, the Byzantines were on the verge of collapse. Most of Spain was still under Islamic tyranny. Malta and Sicily had only been recently freed.
DeleteOne may condemn the atrocities of the Crusaders, but what infuriates the objective student of history is that the far greater crimes of Islam are ignored.
The Crusades was Christendom finally fighting back, not always honorably, but against a foe which had plunged Europe into darkness for centuries.
Instead we allowed our students to be brainwashed, and force fed an Islamic line that we have to feel guilty. The Muslims invaded Southern Europe, yet somehow we Westerners are labeled the imperialists.
Islamic aggression did not end with the Crusades.
The reason Columbus headed West was because the Muslims had blocked all trade routes to the East. Yet, we are never told this.
Up until the 16th century, Italy was regularly invaded by Islam. Otranto was taken by the Turks in 1480, and held for only 10 months. Yet, it was time enough to behead over 800 Christians who refused to convert.
Piracy and kidnapping was so common that Catholic Churches in Southern Europe had donation boxes where the faithful could contribute to ransom hostages.
One could go on and on. The Islamic subjugation of Greece and the Balkans. The kidnapping of hundreds of thousands of Christian boys, over the centuries, to be forcibly converted to Islam, and compelled to serve in the Ottoman Army as Janissaries.
The Islamic attempt to take Vienna. Twice! In 1529 and 1683.
A half million or more slaves from the British Isles were kidnapped on the high seas by the religion of peace.
It was not until the U.S. Marines took on the Barbary Pirates and the French razed Algeria that Islamic predation finally stopped in the 19th century; but all of this is forgotten. Somehow, white Christians are the only villains now.
We hear the Muslims bewail about British imperialism; but the British do not want to go back to Egypt. The Muslim do want Andulasia back. We hear about French crimes in Algeria -- which were real -- but do we remember that Islamic predation that was the real agent which caused the Dark Ages. Europeans were in North Africa for only a century, but Islam pounded Europe for 1200 years. Yet, it is the Arabs who claim victim status.
But what do our politicians do, but apologize for the Crusades. Why?! Have the Muslims apologized for 1400 years of their crimes?!
Part of this idiocy stems from a hyper-liberal view of history which views European Christianity as inherently evil. It permeates the culture of academia; and refuses to see the real evil of Islam.
DeleteSadly, a second cause is an ancillary residue of historiography which has a tradition of exaggerating the real crimes of Catholicism out of all proportion. The Spanish call this exaggeration the Black Legend of the Inquisition; and it results in a pseudo-acquittal of Islam, by blaming the Crusades on Catholicism.
Let us not forget that it was Catholic Europe which insulated Northwest European Protestants from Islam's full fury. It was Catholic Spain which eventually broke the Turkish fleet at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. It was Catholic Poland's Jan Sobieski who saved Northwest Europe at Vienna in 1683 AD. It was the Catholic French who tamed Algeria in 1830
.
Let us not forget either that it was Catholic France which saved the Christians of Lebanon in 1860 while the Protestant British were arming the Druze.
The time for apologizing to Islam must end.
Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who is neither Jewish, Latin, nor Arab. He runs a website, http://latinarabia.com/, where he discusses the subculture of Arabs in Latin America. He wishes his Spanish were better.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/the_crusades_reconsidered.html#ixzz2babq0YEE
A pet peeve of mine, all this moaning and groaning and whining and apologizing for the Crusades.
DeleteThe World's 10th largest economy obtained 21% of its electricity from Non-Large Hydro Renewables, yesterday.
ReplyDeleteCa ISO
HEEeeres Another Johnnie,
ReplyDeleteE85 for $2.24/gal in Downers Grove, Il.
Illinois Prices
Average Price Spread in Illinois - 27.8%
DeleteAverage Price Spread in Ohio - 27.8%27.3%
The 27.3% is Indiana
DeleteRamadan Bombathon - 2013 Scorecard
ReplyDeleteBecause, if you think all religions are the same, then you haven't been paying attention
2013
In the name of
The Religion
of Peace
In the name of
ANY Other
Religion
By
'Islamo-
Phobes'
Terror Attacks
310
0
1*
Suicide Bombings
28
0
0
Dead Bodies
1651
0
0
Wounded
3048
0
0
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/the_continuing_brutal_legacy_of_the_religion_of_peace.html#ixzz2bbOLPqyE
August 11, 2013
DeleteThe Continuing Brutal Legacy of the Religion of Peace
By Eileen F. Toplansky
As Barack Hussein Obama enjoys his vacation, he should ponder the brutality of Muslims against so many groups in the world, including other Muslims. Instead of his fawning at the recent White House iftar dinner, he should remind these co-religionists that their religion defies the imagination for the sheer ferocity against those who dare to resist.
Obama speaks of the "tradition of celebrating the sacred days of [America's] various faiths." But somehow he avoids the trail of blood associated with Ramadan celebrations across the world, as documented at the Religion of Peace site.
The 44th president, who finds the Muslim call to prayer one of the prettiest sounds on Earth, remains mute in the face of all those screams of terror of the victims of Muslim barbarity in the world. Is it because Obama's deepest affinities echo this cleric's statement that "the flag of Islam will fly over the White House very soon"?
Obama speaks of how "Islam has contributed to the character of [America]." May I remind the president that when Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met Tripoli's ambassador to London in March 1785 to deal with the Barbary pirate attacks on American ships, they were informed that:
... it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.
John Adams favored paying tribute to the pirates because he believed that America "ought not to fight them at all unless we determine to fight them forever." But the "cruelty, exorbitance, and intransigence of the Barbary states" and the level of tribute which "began to reach 10 percent of the American national budget" made it clear that war was the necessary action.
Obama needs to recall the words of Francis Scott Key's "And pale beamed the Crescent, its splendor obscur'd. By the light of the star-bangled flag of our nation" as he continues to degrade our military strength against the jihadists of the world today.
What exactly has the Muslim world done for humanity? Richard Dawkins, a controversial critic of Christianity, recently stated that "[a]ll the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge."
On the other hand, the evidence of Islamic depravity cannot be denied. We are privy to the terror of this four-year-old Syrian child being chained to a fence and forced to watch her parents being murdered because they are Shia. The murderers were Sunni jihadis.
DeleteAnne Marie Waters in her article entitled "Stoning -- the true horror" emphasizes that while stoning is not in the Quran, it is in the "ahadith and for that reason, is part of sharia law." Waters publicizes a how-to manual from an Amnesty International document entitled "How to stone someone to death." Allegedly removed from the Iranian Penal Code, stoning continues in full force. Stoning has occurred in Somalia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. In all these instances, Islamic sharia law is cited. The movie The Stoning of Soraya M, which is based on true events, also "displays the true terror of this crime."
Islam's tentacles continue to expand; in Thailand even though "Muslims account for a mere 4.6% of population, [they] have been spreading fear among the indigenous Buddhists of the region, using violence and brutality. They have resorted to the random killing of Buddhists, including school teachers and Buddhist monks." The reader is warned that this site contains extremely gruesome pictures of the exquisite brutality committed in the name of Allah. Additionally, the systematic torture and brutal executions of innocent Christians in Indonesia are rarely publicized by the Western media.
In Britain, a young soldier is hacked to death in the middle of the street in the daytime. Yet Anjem Choudary continues to spill his bile in the streets of London under the protection of the British government. But speakers like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, who speak out against the ravages of Islam, are banned from entering the country. Furthermore, at this site, dedicated to the belief that "silence can be tantamount to being an accomplice to a crime," authors Y.K. Cherson and Rachel Molschky assert that:
Delete... contrary to British law, the Qur'an sanctions the following: misogyny, wife-beating and polygamy. So are these now acceptable? Do we turn our moral compass off because it is Islamic? Misogyny, wife-beating and polygamy are illegal under British law, but the Equality Act on the other hand effectively sanctions them because it enshrines the rights of religion to be practiced without discrimination.
Christians have been suffering for centuries under Muslim rule. This list highlights the murder "on Christian civilians and church workers by religious Muslims since September 11th, 2001. These attacks have nothing to do with war, combat or insurgency. The victims are innocent Christians who were specifically targeted and abused solely on account of their faith by those who claim their own religion as a motive."
The president of the United States refuses to admit that the carnage at Fort Hood was an act of a jihadist, even though the perpetrator admits as much. In the meanwhile, those murdered military men and women are denied the Purple Heart.
Allegedly concerned with women's rights, does Obama consider the horror of 140 Bangladeshi Christian girls who were rescued from Islamic sex slavery in May 2013? Why does Obama ignore the fact that "slavery is explicitly permitted in the Koran"? In fact, Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, a Saudi religious leader, wants slavery to be re-legalized throughout the kingdom. Slavery in Mauritania, Senegal, Nigeria, Mali, the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Niger, Libya, and Morocco is a thriving trade. More than 75% of the population in these countries is Islamic. Slavery in the Sudan has been well documented and is a result of the historic hostilities of the Islamic world toward the black African peoples, many of whom are Christian converts.
DeleteSHAME on this president, who, when he visited Africa, never spoke about the historical Arab slave trade, which continues to this day. He could not utter a denunciation of the "inhuman Arab slave trade that currently plagues Africa." The president needs to be told that it was the Christian world, not the Muslim world, that pressured pro-slavery regimes to end this horror. Abolitionist movements within the Islamic world are constantly stifled.
Violent Islamic militancy continues to this day against Jews worldwide. It is mind-numbing to hear the exhortations of murder against Israelis and Jews across the globe as MEMRI chronicles them on a regular basis. Itamar Marcus at Palestinian Media Watch documents the hate spewing from the Palestinian world.
Christopher Hitchens writes that despite the "stupendous expense" of the long series of Barbary wars in the early 1800s, "many Americans saw a radical incompatibility between the Barbary system and their own." James Madison understood this incompatibility when he stated that "[i]t is a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute. The United States, while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none."
But each time this president and the Department of Defense, supported by law enforcement, politicians, journalists, and academics, denies the brutality of the Islamic world, they pay tribute to the purveyors of evil. Eventually, the price will be oppression and shame, and the nation that pays it is lost!
Written in memory of the author's father, who fought in World War II and who passed away 34 years ago. Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/the_continuing_brutal_legacy_of_the_religion_of_peace.html#ixzz2bbQTgQJc