“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Healthcare .gov - 30 minutes - three attempts - the result:
Important: Your account couldn’t be created at this time. The system is unavailable. (01:15 am on Sunday)
But you have to figure with all the printing this administration has accomplished with quantitative easing the $683,000,000 is really only 476 million in 5 years ago dollars...
(Reuters) - Two months before the troubled October 1 launch of Obamacare exchanges, a key administration official overseeing the program assured a congressional oversight panel that work was on track to roll out a tested website that would make it easy for Americans to enroll in affordable health insurance coverage.
"This is a large and complicated endeavor that I am proud to lead, and every decision is being made by my prior work experience," Marilyn Tavenner testified on August 1 before the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, describing the launch of the Healthcare.gov website.
Come Tuesday, the former nurse who heads the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will again find herself before a House committee - this time, to explain how Healthcare.gov failed when the administration flipped the on switch. She will face Republicans eager to prove, thus far unsuccessfully, that the White House orchestrated decisions that may have stalled the system.
Lawmakers on both sides of the partisan aisle are growing increasingly impatient with website snafus that they say are frustrating the public and adding to taxpayer costs. The White House has scrambled to fix technical issues and disputes Republican allegations that political motives were behind changes in the website's function.
Tavenner's scheduled testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee is expected to offer insight into the decision-making. A key player, she was cleared to visit the White House 425 times between December 2009 and June 2013, including for several meetings with Obama himself, visitor logs show.
One Oval Office meeting with Obama in March would have occurred as some technology officials in her agency publicly fretted about the possibility that the complicated website would malfunction, telling an insurance forum they were working to avert problems.
Tavenner, 62, who was confirmed for her job by the Senate in May, was optimistic about the rollout when questioned by skeptical Republican senators at an April hearing.
Tavenner is expected to be a critical witness this week because "she's more responsible for decisions made at CMS that probably led to this disaster," said Joe Antos, a healthcare analyst with the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank.
A committee aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: "We expect her to be forthcoming. We think she'll be a very serious witness, and she's certainly integral."
Anyone that expected the "Roll Out" to go smoothly never had much to do with networks, software or people.
The FBI computer network roll out took most of a decade to complete ...
The $170 Million FBI Computer Upgrade That Never Was
It was late 2003, and a contractor, Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), had spent months writing 730,000 lines of computer code for the Virtual Case File (VCF), a networked system for tracking criminal cases that was designed to replace the bureau's antiquated paper files and, finally, shove J. Edgar Hoover's FBI into the 21st century.
It appeared to work beautifully. Until Azmi, now the FBI's technology chief, asked about the error rate.
Software problem reports, or SPRs, numbered in the hundreds, Azmi recalled in an interview. The problems were multiplying as engineers continued to run tests. Scores of basic functions had yet to be analyzed.
"A month before delivery, you don't have SPRs," said Azmi. "You're making things pretty. ... You're changing colors."
Within a few days, said Azmi, he warned FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that the $170 million system was in serious trouble. A year later, it was dead. The nation's premier law enforcement and counterterrorism agency, burdened with one of the government's most archaic computer systems, would have to start from scratch.
The collapse of the attempt to remake the FBI's filing system stemmed from failures of almost every kind, including poor conception and muddled execution of the steps needed to make the system work, according to outside reviews and interviews with people involved in the project.
The problems were not the FBI's alone. Because of an open-ended contract with few safeguards, SAIC reaped more than $100 million as the project became bigger and more complicated, even though its software never worked properly. The company continued to meet the bureau's requests, accepting payments despite clear signs that the FBI's approach to the project was badly flawed, according to people who were involved in the project or later reviewed it for the government. http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message280000/pg1 ///////////////////////
Four years and $170 million later, the FBI pulled the plug on the VCF. Some critics blamed contractor Science Applications International Corp., while others pointed to a lack of leadership as the bureau went through four chief information officers in just three years. Mueller himself shouldered some of the blame: “I did not do the things I should have done to make sure that [the VCF] was a success,” he said in 2006. The program was scrapped, and the government had to eat the costs and begin anew.
The FBI went back to the drawing board and began working on the next iteration of a case management system, called “Sentinel,” in March 2006. As with VCF, Sentinel was mostly designed by an outside firm – in this case, a $305 million contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin Corp.
Sentinel’s development was to be broken into four overlapping phases with a September 2009 deadline and a total cost of $425 million. The completion date was delayed until June 2010 as the cost bumped up to $451 million. http://www.publicintegrity.org/2011/05/17/4627/vote-confidence-mueller-same-old-computer-problems-fbi ////////////////////////////////////
The FBI spent $1.4 billion on IT in fiscal 2009, http://www.informationweek.com/government/leadership/the-fbis-challenge-collaborate-more-but/225702138
'We've reached the end of antibiotics': Top CDC expert declares that 'miracle drugs' that have saved millions are no match against 'superbugs' because people have overmedicated themselves
By SNEJANA FARBEROV PUBLISHED: 00:30 EST, 26 October 2013 | UPDATED: 01:17 EST, 26 October 2013 515 shares 541 View
Health crisis: Dr Arjun Srinivasan, the associate director of the CDC, told PBS' Frontline that misuse and overuse of antibiotics over the years have rendered them powerless to fight infections
Health crisis: Dr Arjun Srinivasan, the associate director of the CDC, told PBS' Frontline that misuse and overuse of antibiotics over the years have rendered them powerless to fight infections
A high-ranking official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declared in an interview with PBS that the age of antibiotics has come to an end.
'For a long time, there have been newspaper stories and covers of magazines that talked about "The end of antibiotics, question mark?"' said Dr Arjun Srinivasan. 'Well, now I would say you can change the title to "The end of antibiotics, period.”' The associate director of the CDC sat down with Frontline over the summer for a lengthy interview about the growing problem of antibacterial resistance.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2477273/Weve-reached-end-antibiotics-Top-CDC-expert-declares-miracle-drugs-saved-millions-match-superbugs-people-overmedicated-themselves.html#ixzz2iu0m6Jdb Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
You cannot get antibiotics with out a prescription.
... because people have overmedicated themselves ...
This borders on a pathology of social denial. A shifting of responsibility from the medical experts, the prescribing doctor, to the victim of malpractice, the patient, especially if the "Doc" is over prescribing antibiotics. The abuse of the insurance carriers, the patient and now, the entire population of the world by over prescribing antibiotic drugs, it has been "Systematic" and has been going on for years.
The responsibility, the blame for the medical and social fiasco cannot be laid upon the victims of this medical malpractice.
The Medical "Professionals" have to be held responsible for the mismanagement of the medical industry and the damage they have done to the entire human population of the planet. The responsible party is the Medical Industry, not their patients.
Last Thursday, General Alexander stated that the U.S. needs to 'find a way' to 'stop' news organizations from reporting on the Snowden releases. It looks like they have already made a pretty good start based on the stories of their prosecution of whistleblowers.
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I'm told by my daughter that her mother, and her very, geeky computer nerd husband bought insurance on the Obamacare website a couple of weeks ago. From what I gather, it took "quite awhile."
My daughter will be buying on the exchange, but, inasmuch as we're the polar opposite when it comes to computer geekiness, and not being into masochism, she'll wait until somewhere around Dec. 10th.
The new Obamacare Czar assures us the website will be pretty much ready for primetime by the end of November, but of course the tsunami on Thanksgiving will, undoubtably, crash it again.
A series of car bombs has caused chaos across Baghdad, targeting predominantly Shi’ite Muslim areas and killing at least 37 people.
Police said the attacks, thought to involve 10 distinct explosions, came at roughly the same time as the suicide bombing of a group of soldiers queuing up to be paid in northern Iraq.
Combined, the attacks killed 49 people in total and injured more than 100. As the sectarian violence in the country reaches its worst level since 2008, this morning’s coordinated attack in the capital was one of the biggest series of car bombs since 17 were detonated within one hour at the end of July.
There have been deadlier attacks in Baghdad recently – even last Sunday, 59 people were killed by a combination of suicide bombings, gunfire and IEDs (improvised explosive devices). The independent organisation keeping track of the violence, Iraq Body Count, said that as of yesterday there have been 904 civilian deaths in October alone.
After the attack which killed 12 troops in the city of Mosul, this morning’s worst violence was in the town of Nahrawan, just south of Baghdad itself. Two car bombs were reportedly detonated just moments apart at the town’s busy market, killing seven.
A single blast in Baladiyat killed another three. Suad Ahmed, a woman living nearby, told a Reuters reporter: “I was eating my breakfast when a powerful blast shook the building, shattering the window of my apartment and covering the dining table with pieces of glass.
“I was terrified, I heard women and children shouting next door. I started to cry. I was afraid of death.”
While there was no immediate claim of responsibility for any of this morning’s attacks, Shi’ite civilians and state troops are regular targets for Sunni militants, who are seeking to destabilise Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government.
Al Qa’ida was forced underground in 2007, but has been steadily on the rise in recent years – resulting in an “inexorable rise” in civilian deaths, Iraq Body Count said. Around 3,000 civilians have been killed so far this year.
Only a year ago, Nato action in Libya in 2011 in support of the rebels was being held up as a successful foreign military intervention that might usefully serve as an example of what the United States, Britain and France should do in Syria. Not many still believe this, but those who do might like to look at the latest FCO travel advisory for Libya last updated on 22 October, and accompanied by a useful map. This divides Libya into two zones, denoted by dark and light shades, to illustrate the different levels of insecurity.
The news is not good for potential travellers: the darker shade covers 85 per cent of Libya including the oilfields, the Sahara, and a large part of the coastline – areas where the FCO advises "against all travel". At the top right and top left corners of the map are areas marked in a lighter shade which include Tripoli and the coast road as far as Misratah in the west and the bulge of Cyrenaica in eastern Libya. Here the FCO merely advises "against all but essential travel". But travellers need to study the map and accompanying text very carefully because there is a brown smudge over Benghazi, the capital of Cyrenaica, indicating that the FCO regards the city as too dangerous to visit. In fact, anyone contemplating a tour of this part of Libya should note that the FCO map gives the impression that the whole of Cyrenaica is safe enough for "essential travel", but the text speaks less confidently stressing that the traveller should stick to "coastal areas from Ras Lanuf to the Egyptian border, with the exception of Benghazi and Derna". Derna holds the record for dispatching more foreign fighters and suicide bombers to the war in Iraq than any other town in the Muslim world.
There is no doubt that the FCO has got it right. Libya has become one of the most dangerous parts of the world: 10 days ago, assassins shot dead the commander of Libya's military police, Ahmad al-Barghathi, as he left a mosque in Benghazi. In the past year there have been 80 such assassinations of senior military and police commanders. The killing of al-Barghathi happened soon after Libya's Prime Minister, Ali Zeidan, was briefly kidnapped from his hotel in Tripoli without a shot being fired by his guards in his defence. Libya’s oil production is down to 600,000 barrels a day after almost ceasing during the summer because the militiamen who guard the oil facilities have seized the ports in the east.
Republicans might do well to get out of the way so the people can see the clay feet and start to laugh at the buffoons, the God that failed.
Even the Obama-worshipers in the media seem stunned by the depth and breadth of incompetence exposed.
In World War II, FDR brought together the men who made things in America, dollar-a-year industrialists who swiftly took charge and met his immediate demand for 50,000 planes and 1,600 ships.
They built the most awesome military machine the world had ever seen, arming 12 million Americans, Russia and England as well, and smashing two mighty empires on opposite sides of the world.
And these men did it in about as long a time as it took Barack Obama’s regime, captained by Kathleen Sebelius, to flunk a test to create a website. There is something deeply wrong with our republic.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?”
It's just a website. Underpowered, incredibly complex, and, evidently, replete with horrible code.
But, it's just a website. An incredibly "high visibility" website. And, try as the Republicans will to starve the project of funding, The President is still The President, and the site will get fixed. It might not be "super-sweet," but they'll throw enough resources at it to make it workable.
In the meantime, you've spent a couple of months railing for nothing. Spare yourselves.
The American public, as a whole, got on board the "Victory" train. Since victory has not been the goal of American wars since, it hard to drum up a lot of long term enthusiasm for "Containment".
In the meantime, you've spent a couple of months railing for nothing. Spare yourselves.
Railing for nothing?
That's what we do here.
You mimic the tactics of the Obama administration. Benghazi was nothing. No one cares. IRS? Nothing there. They do it to everyone. The NSA? Bush did it too. The SEC. The DOJ. Forget about it.
Obama regarding every fuck-up: I wasn't aware of this. I found out about it the same time you did. I am metagrabolized. I can't comment on it right now as we investigate it but we will get back to you soon. We are running and internal audit, we have the appropriate people working on this, we have appointed an independent review board to come up with answers. We have the finest IT people available working on this problem 24/7 (one wonders why with a program this massive we didn't have the finest IT people working on it in the first place). Those responsible will be held accountible.
In Obama speak 'being held accountable' evidently means being given a long vacation with pay.
After five years of the same, does anyone actually believe the bullshit anymore?
Railing for nothing? When we are constantly having it stuck to us by this administration don't we at least have the right to grumble?
We spend a lot of time on stuff that "other" contributors tell us no one cares about.
As long as the contributor cares enough to contribute, someone cares.
"If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away." - Henry David Thoreau -
ObamaCare hysteria is much ado about nothing. An attempt to raise the shrinking streams flowing into the insurance pool to force everyone to participate in flooding hard-baked mud of the insurance market with cash. On the scale of things it amounts to less than a riffling wind caressing the drought-shriveled leaves of the tree of life.
Let alone the death of 600,000 American is a war that need not have occurred. Or the injustice of Jim Crow America, raising as the result of that war. Jim Crow America, the prize that was was bought with the blood and treasure.
600,000 dead Americans, more than a trifle, ... much more than a riffling wind caressing the drought-shriveled leaves of the tree of life.
As Ulysses S. Grant said about the Civil War ... “There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword.”
Or Robert E Lee . . . The war... was an unnecessary condition of affairs, ... and might have been avoided if forebearance and wisdom had been practiced on both sides.
Anyone that would describe the carnage of the American Civil War as a literary wind riffle ... Would have to agree that ObamaCare is much ado, about nothing.
Just another day at the beach Another day in paradise Winds are dead calm..
“It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But a half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.”
Israel has socialized medicine, so should the Homeland. It will make US all safer, more secure. No more roving bands of sick and infirm people searching out Emergency Rooms. They will be able to access doctor offices in the daylight.
Israel Quietly Feeding Syrian Refugees in Jordan Sunday, October 27, 2013 | Israel Today Staff
Over half a million refugees fleeing Syria's ongoing civil war have flooded into northern Jordan over the past year. Nearly half of them are living in a large UN refugee camp, but the rest are relying on care from various NGOs, including at least one from Israel.
Among the organizations funding and distributing physical and emotional aid to the hundreds of thousands of Syrians is IsraAid, an Israeli humanitarian group with years of experience in Africa and other regions.
In Jordan, the group is buying and putting together large sacks of essential goods that are passed out to Syrian refugees daily. But, they must do so discretely.
Both IsraAid and its Jordanian partners are careful to remove any labeling that would identify the aid packages as coming from or being paid for by Israelis. With Syria still officially at war with Israel, it is a precautionary step organizers feel is necessary to maintain order and security in the refugee areas.
"We don’t announce with trumpets that we’re Israeli,” one of the IsraAid workers told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “There’s no need for that. Once you let that cat out of the bag, everything starts to blow up."
Still, one of the aims of IsraAid is to demonstrate that the Jewish state is not the ruthless oppressor it is so often portrayed as in the media.
"My main agenda is to put Israelis on the ground around the world and show the world that Israel cares about them," explained IsraAid founding director Shachar Zahavi.
Indeed, many Israeli humanitarian organizations like IsraAid are active in the Middle East, and the recipients of their assistance often discover that the group is from Israel. More often than not, the beneficiaries might be surprised at receiving help from Israeli Jews, but they are appreciative, too.
Discretion is also necessary because some of the recipients would rather die than accept Jewish aid. Then, of course, there is Saudi Arabia, which would have a cow.
While little publicized, Israel has quietly treated many injured Syrians of all stripes.
>>>>"She said, 'I was all for Obamacare until I found out I was paying for it,'" Kehaly said.
Nearly 2 million Californians have individual insurance, and several hundred thousand of them are losing their health plans in a matter of weeks.
Blue Shield of California sent termination letters to 119,000 customers last month whose plans don't meet the new federal requirements. About two-thirds of those people will experience a rate increase from switching to a new health plan, according to the company.
HMO giant Kaiser Permanente is canceling coverage for about half of its individual customers, or 160,000 people, and offering to automatically enroll them in the most comparable health plan available<<<<
She was all for ObamaCare until she found she was paying for it.
:):)
Some health insurance gets pricier as Obamacare rolls out Many middle-class Californians with individual health plans are surprised they need policies that cover more — and cost more.
1 2 next | single page Jennifer Harris needs a new health insurance plan Jennifer Harris, a self-employed lawyer in Orange County, has been paying $98 a month for an individual health insurance plan that provides less coverage than the Affordable Care Act requires. The cheapest alternative she’s found so far costs more than twice as much. (Mark Boster, Los Angeles Times / October 24, 2013)
By Chad Terhune October 26, 2013, 7:42 p.m. Thousands of Californians are discovering what Obamacare will cost them — and many don't like what they see.
These middle-class consumers are staring at hefty increases on their insurance bills as the overhaul remakes the healthcare market. Their rates are rising in large part to help offset the higher costs of covering sicker, poorer people who have been shut out of the system for years.
Although recent criticism of the healthcare law has focused on website glitches and early enrollment snags, experts say sharp price increases for individual policies have the greatest potential to erode public support for President Obama's signature legislation.
"This is when the actual sticker shock comes into play for people," said Gerald Kominski, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. "There are winners and losers under the Affordable Care Act."
What We Saw At The Anti-NSA "Stop Watching Us" Rally Joshua Swain & Todd Krainin | October 26, 2013
On October 26, 2013, protesters from across the political spectrum gathered in Washington, D.C. to take part in the Stop Watching Us rally, a demonstration against the National Security Agency's domestic and international surveillance programs.
Reason TV spoke with protesters - including 2012 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson and former Congressman Dennis Kucinich - to discuss the rally, why people should worry about the erosion of privacy, and President Barack Obama's role in the growth of the surveillance state.
CORRECTION: Laura Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, was incorrectly identified as Susan N. Herman, ACLU President.
Produced by Joshua Swain, interviews by Todd Krainin.
About 3 minutes long.
Scroll down for downloadable versions of this video and subscribe to ReasonTV's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.
What the President and the Security Forces of the United States are doing, Farmer Fudd ... is keeping your fat fascist ass safe and secure.
Just as you have always wanted. You are seeing the results of your paranoid fear running rampant. A social pathology?
The Federals have perused the data, they know from where the threat to their government reside. It is not in Iran, Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq. The Federal government feels no fear of Islam.
Not even Communists or Nationalist Fascists in Europe or Asia shake the confidence of the Federal crew.
But bring on the "Students for a Democratic Society", the "Reform Party" or the "Tea Party" and the Federals take action. The Federals know where the threat to power resides.
You are getting your desires fulfilled, Farmer Fudd ... Safety and Security, assured.
Heh, the feds aren't keeping me safe and secure. They are coming after me. I'm Tea Party, a terrorist organization. Hadn't you heard? And I carried and passed out a sign designed mostly by you, calling Obama a pirate. Heh, rat you are hallucinating.
"We don’t announce with trumpets that we’re Israeli,” one of the IsraAid workers told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “There’s no need for that. Once you let that cat out of the bag, everything starts to blow up."
I do find it sick and sad. It's funny how being a libertarian with isolationist tendencies who wants to terminate all foreign aid doesn't automatically make me an SS guard on the female side of camp Ohrdruf Nord.
When the character expands beyond a simple sets of behavior, Farmer Fudd says he cannot follow or comprehend the storyline. The "Bigger" ideas and emotions flabbergast Farmer Fudd, overwhelm his cognizant capacity. Which leaves him confused. We do not want a confusion, we want an apology.
So the Editorial Board decided that content will aimed at satisfying the reader, keeping to the comprehension level of our lowest denominator, Farmer Fudd, rather than fully engaging the full width and breadth of the characters' capacity.
Teresita RedingerSun Oct 27, 04:33:00 PM EDT I do find it sick and sad. It's funny how being a libertarian with isolationist tendencies who wants to terminate all foreign aid doesn't automatically make me an SS guard on the female side of camp Ohrdruf Nord.
No, it's the hundreds of anti-Semitic posts, the hundreds of distorted mistranslations of the Torah, the hundreds of slams at Jews and Israel that give us pause. In fact the last time you lamented something very similar you had made a crude "Jew" joke just a few posts above on the same thread.
The NSA sought the Japanese government's cooperation to wiretap fiber-optic cables carrying phone and data across the Asia-Pacific region but the request was rejected. The NSA wanted to intercept personal information including Internet activity and phone calls passing through Japan from Asia including China. The Japanese government refused because it was illegal and would need to involve a massive number of private sector workers. Article 35 of the Japanese Constitution protects against illegal search and seizure.
If the Christians got 80 lashes for sipping communion wine, and this seems much more serious, attacking their version of Islam as it does, it might just be the ax.
I wouldn't bet against it.
I hope to read what the sentence actually turns out to be.
This probably gives an adequate description of what Jews could expect if the Arabs again gained control. Oh, by the way, this was long before the founding of the Zionist entity. It is just a single testimonial. A library could be filled with such histories.
Israel is ours. We are going to keep her. NEVER AGAIN!
http://www.hnn.us/article/134601 Remembering the Jewish Massacres in Mandate Palestine
Political science says Syria’s civil war will probably last at least another decade BY MAX FISHER October 23 at 1:39 pm Two Syrian rebels take sniper positions at the heavily contested neighborhood of Karmal Jabl in central Aleppo. (AFP PHOTO/JAVIER MANZANO) Two Syrian rebels take sniper positions at the heavily contested neighborhood of Karmal Jabl in central Aleppo. (Javier Manzano/AFP)
The Obama administration appears to be deadlocked over what to do in Syria, forcing a policy of inaction, according to a widely circulating New York Times story. But U.S. officials will likely have years more time to debate what to do about Syria's civil war, which could continue into and perhaps through the next presidential administration. According to a review of the political science on the duration of civil wars, Syria's conflict will most likely last through 2020 and perhaps well beyond.
Syria's conflict began with April 2011 protests and subsequent crackdowns. It's not clear the precise moment when it became a civil war, but many media organizations began referring to it as such around early or mid 2012. At most, you might say the war has been waging now for two years. According to studies of intra-state conflicts since 1945, civil wars tend to last an average of about seven to 12 years. That would put the end of the war somewhere between 2018 and 2023.
Worse, those studies have identified several factors that tend to make civil wars last even longer than the average. A number of those factors appear to apply to Syria, suggesting that this war could be an unusually long one. Of course, those are just estimates based on averages; by definition, half of all civil wars are shorter than the median length, and Syria's could be one of them. But, based on the political science, Syria has the right conditions to last through President Obama's tenure and perhaps most or all of his successor's. Here's what the research shows
(1) The average civil war was 10 years as of 2002: A 2002 study by James Fearon of Stanford University found the average length of ongoing civil wars to be about 10 years.
(2) That number has probably since increased: The length of civil wars has been increasing steadily since 1945. It hit an all-time high of 15.1 years in 1999, then dropped, perhaps owing to the resolution of conflicts sparked by the end of the Cold War. But it's been ticking back up; the trend suggests that Fearon's 2002 estimate of 10 years would have increased significantly since then. Here's a chart of his data on civil war length: The lower line shows the average duration of civil wars over time. It ends at 2002, with an average length of about 10 years. (James Fearon, Stanford University) The lower line shows the average duration of civil wars over time. It ends at 2002, with an average length of about 10 years. (James Fearon, Stanford University)
(3) Civil wars are longer and bloodier than average when foreign powers intervene: A 2008 study by Fearon and David Laitin reaffirmed previous research stating that civil wars tend to be significantly longer when foreign countries intervene decisively on one side. (To be clear, "intervene" here means more than just training a few rebels, as the United States is doing, but to support one faction in outright defeating its enemy.) A 2012 paper reached a similar conclusion, also finding that foreign interventions tends to make all sides more violent and to increase the death toll. Iran is very actively involved in directly aiding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, as is the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states are helping to fund and arm rebel groups; foreign jihadist groups are also involved in the fighting, particularly from Iraq. (4) Civil wars with lots of factions last longer than average. Barbara F. Walter of the University of California at San Diego points to a 2006 paper in the Journal of Political Science arguing that civil wars last longer when there are more competing factions. The number of rebel groups tends to change on a pretty regular basis, but Walter says there are 13. Whatever your count, there are a lot of them, their alliances and allegiances tend to change a lot and, most worrying, they're already fighting one another. (5) Civil wars are longer than average when no side can disarm the other. It's not just about seizing and holding territory: it's about taking away your opponent's ability to fight you. "Civil wars tend to last a long time when neither side can disarm the other, causing a military stalemate," Fearon concluded in his 2002 study. The Assad regime is actively armed by a foreign power, Iran, which suggests it would be really difficult for the rebels to disarm them. And it's hard to see how Assad could ever disarm the rebels, who come both from within the Syrian population and from across the border in Iraq, given both the popular outrage against his regime and the ease of acquiring weapons.
(6) Civil wars are longer than average when they don't end by negotiated settlement. When Fearon and others calculated the average length of civil wars, the lower end of their data was filled with countries that achieved peace through a negotiated settlement, also known as a peace deal. Walter says the odds of this happening are "probably close to zero." She explains that the research finds you need two things for a negotiated settlement: a third party willing to commit resources such as peacekeepers and an "divide political power amongst the combatants based on their position on the battlefield." Syria has neither. She adds that only one in four civil wars ends in negotiated settlement; most end in outright victory, which is made less likely by foreign intervention, as the foreign powers can keep supplying arms and money long after the stalemate would have otherwise exhausted both sides
You don't need all this research to see that, two years into Syria's civil war, there's no sign that the conflict is headed anywhere toward resolution. Syrian territory is split between regime forces, Arab rebels and Kurdish groups, all of whom appear deadlocked. Rebel factions are dividing and fighting among one another. Food insecurity is becoming a greater problem, as is access to medical care. Other Middle Eastern states are getting more involved, turning Syria into a proxy war between Iran and Arab Gulf states. And while Syria did agree to give up its chemical weapons, Russia is otherwise shielding the regime from much international action. That the research above seems to point to at least another 10 years is hardly surprising, particularly when we look at similar conflicts. Neighboring Lebanon had a civil war, also with sectarian divisions and foreign interventions, that lasted either 15 or 30 years, depending on how you count it. An even greater risk might be Syria's conflict following a model like Afghanistan's, which had its 1980s war followed by another civil war, in the 1990s, between the victorious rebel groups; Syria's rebels are already fighting one another, leading to fears that a rebel victory would spark a second war. Ten years, or 15 or however long it might be, is a very long time. It's not just that President Obama is likely to leave office with the war unsolved. His successor could serve most or all of two full terms while the killing continues. The next president could be winding down his or her second term, in 2023, with the war still raging, still unsolved. It's already killed over 100,000 Syrians and displaced over 1 million. There's no telling what it would cost after a full decade. Max Fisher Max Fisher is the Post's foreign affairs blogger. He has a master's degree in security studies from Johns Hopkins University. Sign up for his daily newsletter here. Also, follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
Yesterday, Kurdish forces captured territory in Syria bordering Kurdish territory in Turkey. The last thing the Turks want is a contiguous grouping of Kurdish land in Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. How long will Turkey tolerate such a threat, given that, demographically, Turkish Kurds will outnumber Turks by mid-century. I believe Turkey will have to take a more active role, certainly more aggressive than letting rebels transit Turkey to Syria.
I recall that, WiO. When I toyed with the idea of intervening to put an end to it by separating the parties and dividing the god forsaken place up, I was called a war monger. These days I'm just called a cowardly fucking fascist farmer named Fudd seeking 24/7 protection by the government.
In all these disputes my heart goes out to the helpless,the people caught in the middle, the women in Afghanistan for instance. Don't want to even think about it.
I'm out for the day now. Any anon postings from here this day are not The Real Anon.
A little inflation is like being a little pregnant. To think for a second that central bankers can pick a target with absolute precision is vanity of the highest order.
“The spectacle of American central bankers trying to press the inflation rate higher in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis is virtually without precedent,” Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chairman, wrote in a new book, “The Map and the Territory.” He said the effort could end in double-digit inflation."
“If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, ... it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.”
“Everything predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass. We are to be ruined now by the deluge of bank paper. It is cruel that such revolutions in private fortunes should be at the mercy of avaricious adventurers, who, ... instead of employing their capital, if any they have, in manufactures, commerce, and other useful pursuits, ... make it an instrument to burden all the interchanges of property with their swindling profits, ... profits which are the price of no useful industry of theirs.”
"Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States"
I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world.
No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, ... but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. - Woodrow Wilson
"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance."
"Issue of currency should be lodged with the government and be protected from domination by Wall Street. We are opposed to…provisions [which] would place our currency and credit system in private hands."
The real truth of the matter is,as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government ever s Franklin D. Roosevelt - (in a letter to Colonel House, dated November 21, 1933)
Re: Woodrow WilsonSun Oct 27, 08:10:00 PM EDT I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country.
Wikipedia:
Sorry, but as explained below, the material discussed above is part of some fakery that is chronically added to this article (and to the article on the Federal Reserve System), and is then removed. This kind of garbage is constantly swirling around on the internet. What has happened is that someone has pulled various accurate quotations from various places in Wilson's book, has then rearranged them without showing the fact that they have been rearranged, and then added the fake "I am a most unhappy man" verbiage -- which does not appear in the book at all. In the article, this combined hodgepodge has been attributed to Wilson's book. That kind of editing is not acceptable. Further, whether Wilson made the "unhappy man" statement at some other time or place, is irrelevant. It is simply not acceptable to pull quotations from different sources, change the wording (which is what has been done), and then present them as though they were presented a certain way in a book when they certainly were not presented that way. When we add a quote and attribute it to a source, the text has to actually be a quote from that source. The material is cookbooked fakery designed to give the false impression that Wilson was speaking of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Reserve Act. In reality, neither of those two things are even mentioned in the book. This kind of fakery violates at least two Wikipedia rules. First Verifiability. The source must actually say what the editor contends it says. Second, No Original Research. Moving sentences around without disclosing that this is what you're doing, and then trying to make it look like Wilson was referring to the Federal Reserve Act violates both of those rules. The way in which this material was corrupted (and the fake "unhappy man" verbiage was added) is discussed in more detail elsewhere on this talk page. Famspear (talk) 22:19, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
No, allen, look above, Jesus Saves, I think that was one a perused. As well as that Ron Paul site.
Catchy quote that fits into the trend. Stimulates discussion.
That you would start Jew Baiting, right off the bat. Just because you equate bankers and money lenders to Jews! That is down right anti-Judaic! Shall we say the comment was ... quotish, rather than laughable or comical.
Rat's crazy, and everybody knows it. He needs help. Don't pay any attention to him, except attending to him with a little sympathy, which is hard to do, admittedly.He does have this distinction:
He is the only person I've ever seen on the internet who forthrightly, and rightly, admitted to being a professional asshole.
Maybe it was the upbringing, maybe he was just born that way, Maybe a little of both.
Now, with regard to Mr Wison there is a site that has the source of his quoted remarks about the Federal Reserve.
"From Woodrow Wilson with Regrets"
In 1916, just three years after the Federal Reserve System went into operation, President Wilson seems to have suddenly realized what a virtually uncontrollable power monopoly had been vested in the nation's new Federal Reserve System. He wrote:
A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated [in the Federal Reserve System]. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men.... We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world- no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.
(Quoted in "National Economy and the Banking System," Senate Documents Co. 3, No. 23, Seventy-sixth Congress, First session, 1939.)
National Center for Constitutional Studies http://www.nccs.net/how-the-federal-reserve-system-operates-and-why-it-has-failed.php
By 1939, Wilson would have been dead for 20 years. "He wrote" where? This cut and paste tells me nothing as to a readily verifiable source of Wilson's having written anything of the sort. Now, some of the sentence fragments in the quote were taken from legitimate work, but sticking things from here, there, and everywhere while trying to make a point is dishonest.
"With the monetary system under its control, the Illuminati could now turn to greater goals of a one world governmen"
Yes, the dreaded Illuminati, controlled by Baron Rothschild who allegedly said: "Give me control over a nations currency, and I care not who makes its laws."
There is just one small problem with the Rothschild quote, he did not make it. There is not a shred of evidence to be found (Well, other than sites that get all hot and bothered about Jews, Masons, and the Illuminati taking over the world)
Woodrow, you must exercise some due diligence before posting ...
Syrian civil war spreads to Lebanese city of Tripoli Fighting enters 7th day in Tripoli leaving 16 dead, 80 injured; Syrian rebels claim they killed 15 Hezbollah fighters near Damascus.
At least 16 people were killed and 80 were wounded on Sunday as fighting continued, for the seventh day, between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.
The Lebanese army reinforced its presence in the city, setting up checkpoints. The streets were empty and shops remained closed, the Beirut-based Daily Star reported.
Sure it is not the Lebanese Civil War that was spread to Syria, now rebounding to its source? Or the battle against the establishment, on 23 May 1926 when the State of Greater Lebanon received a Constitution which transformed it into the Lebanese Republic continues.
From the Arab nationalist point of view, it was not permissible to accord the French-created Lebanese Republic ... recognition as a nation-state separate and distinct from Syria. Moreover, from the same point of view, the Syrian Republic itself was not acceptable ... as the final and immutable achievement of the aspirations of its people.
The Syrians, after all, were Arabs, and their territory, historicallv. which had alwavs included Palestine and Transjordan... along with Lebanon, was not a national territory on its own, but part of a greater Arab homeland: ... a homeland whose ancient heartlands were Syria, Iraq and Arabia, but which, since Islam, had also come to include ... Egypt and the countries of North Africa all the way to the Atlantic.
During the war years, the Allies had cheated the Arabs. The British had promised them national independence on their historical homelands, but they had failed to honour their promises. Instead, they had partitioned this Arab territory with the French, ... and committed themselves to hand over a particularly precious part of it, namely Palestine, to the Jews. To accept all this, or any part of it, would be nothing less than high treason. .
This is what emboldens the Palestinians and contributes to ongoing strife in the ME:
"Former British foreign secretary Jack Straw told a gathering in the House of Commons last week that AIPAC’s “unlimited” funding and intimidation of American politicians is one of the main barriers to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Straw, who has been sharply critical of Israeli foreign policy, also said Germany’s “obsession” with defending Israel was another impediment to peace..."
Let's deconstruct this statement objectively. First, AIPAC does NOT have "unlimited funding." By "unlimited funding", I think of the house of Saud and its next egg of about $700,000,000,000 dollars. With deliberate malice, the Saudi's have for years fomented strife around the world. For instance, Pakistan would not be nuclear were it not for the generosity of Saudi Arabia. With the use of straw men and institutions, Saudi Arabia has funded countless centers of learning where impressionable young men are taught the most vicious, puritanical form of Islam. It is the matter of record that they have been most kind to eager politicians across the globe. Yet, AIPAC, with its unlimited funding cannot get "intimidated" American politicians to move the American embassy to Jerusalem after nearly 50 years of trying. Even by the lavish greasing of palms, Israel cannot get the green light to smash, once for all, Hamas - a terrorist government that has been attacking Israel for years with impunity. I say impunity, because the US et al provide these war criminals with about $100 billion in annual aid. So, dear reader, there is a disconnect with Mr. Straw's evaluation and reality.
As to Germany's so-called "obsession" with "protecting" Israel, I do not see that and I doubt the Germans will either.
What the asinine statements of Mr. Straw have done over the years is to give the Palestinians false hope in a lost cause. Israel is not going to commit suicide to placate anyone. Had Mr. Straw from time to time demanded some cooperation from the Palestinians, say during the second intifada during which about 1500 innocent Israelis were murdered, whether peace might have advanced a step or two. One wonders how generous the house of Saud has been to Mr. Straw over the years of his bellyaching in the cause of fanaticism and "Zionism".
Decisive anti-Sharia step in Egypt: Constitution committee eliminates all barriers to building churches, stipulates "absolute freedom of belief" for Egyptians Oct 27, 2013 06:44 pm | Robert Islamic law forbids Christians to build new churches or repair old ones. This is, therefore, a strong and welcome rejection of Sharia. "UPDATE: Constitution committee eliminates all barriers to building churches in Egypt," from Ahram Online, October 27: Egypt's 50-member committee tasked with amending the suspended 2012 constitution adopted on...
Weather has changed here. Overnight it got a lot colder.
Ancient Music
by Ezra Pound (1912)
Winter is icumen in, Lhude sing Goddamm, Raineth drop and staineth slop, And how the wind doth ramm! Sing: Goddamm. Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us, An ague hath my ham Damm you; Sing: Goddamm. Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm, So ’gainst the winter’s balm. Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm, Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.
(This is Pound’s parody of the medieval lyric “Sumer Is Icumen In”)
He's been around Idaho winters......
Ezra was a little nuts towards the end. He was born here in Idaho. Hemingway helped get him out of trouble when he was charged with treason for broadcasting for the Italians during World War Two. He was against bank interest, and all sorts of other stuff too. Then he died and is mostly forgotten too.
LOL
ReplyDeleteJust tried to create an account, 1:21 am! "please wait" for 10 minutes so far...
DeleteLOL
I am so glad I pay $1475 a month for my family, I have a top tier private plan. it's set to go up to $2200 a month next year.
DeleteThen I will have to pay another 4k a year for a concierge doctor..
I am HAPPY to know that I will go private for my health care and leave the system for the rest of you all...
Create a Marketplace account
DeleteImportant: Your account couldn't be created at this time. The system is unavailable.
LOLOLOL
This cost $500 million?
Deleteno 683 million....
DeleteLOL
But you have to figure with all the printing this administration has accomplished with quantitative easing the $683,000,000 is really only 476 million in 5 years ago dollars...
DeleteLOL
Think of all the money this administration has redistributed...
DeleteIt boggles the mind.
BILLIONS and BILLIONS to all sorts of cronies, unfriendly nations and NGO's...
The good news?
1.4 trillion we owe to China? Is barely 2 years of deficit on the federal budget. Barely meaningful...
(Reuters) - Two months before the troubled October 1 launch of Obamacare exchanges, a key administration official overseeing the program assured a congressional oversight panel that work was on track to roll out a tested website that would make it easy for Americans to enroll in affordable health insurance coverage.
ReplyDelete"This is a large and complicated endeavor that I am proud to lead, and every decision is being made by my prior work experience," Marilyn Tavenner testified on August 1 before the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, describing the launch of the Healthcare.gov website.
Come Tuesday, the former nurse who heads the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will again find herself before a House committee - this time, to explain how Healthcare.gov failed when the administration flipped the on switch. She will face Republicans eager to prove, thus far unsuccessfully, that the White House orchestrated decisions that may have stalled the system.
Lawmakers on both sides of the partisan aisle are growing increasingly impatient with website snafus that they say are frustrating the public and adding to taxpayer costs. The White House has scrambled to fix technical issues and disputes Republican allegations that political motives were behind changes in the website's function.
Tavenner's scheduled testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee is expected to offer insight into the decision-making. A key player, she was cleared to visit the White House 425 times between December 2009 and June 2013, including for several meetings with Obama himself, visitor logs show.
One Oval Office meeting with Obama in March would have occurred as some technology officials in her agency publicly fretted about the possibility that the complicated website would malfunction, telling an insurance forum they were working to avert problems.
Tavenner, 62, who was confirmed for her job by the Senate in May, was optimistic about the rollout when questioned by skeptical Republican senators at an April hearing.
Tavenner is expected to be a critical witness this week because "she's more responsible for decisions made at CMS that probably led to this disaster," said Joe Antos, a healthcare analyst with the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank.
A committee aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: "We expect her to be forthcoming. We think she'll be a very serious witness, and she's certainly integral."
Under the bus with her!
ReplyDeleteAnyone that expected the "Roll Out" to go smoothly never had much to do with networks, software or people.
ReplyDeleteThe FBI computer network roll out took most of a decade to complete ...
The $170 Million FBI Computer Upgrade That Never Was
It was late 2003, and a contractor, Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), had spent months writing 730,000 lines of computer code for the Virtual Case File (VCF), a networked system for tracking criminal cases that was designed to replace the bureau's antiquated paper files and, finally, shove J. Edgar Hoover's FBI into the 21st century.
It appeared to work beautifully. Until Azmi, now the FBI's technology chief, asked about the error rate.
Software problem reports, or SPRs, numbered in the hundreds, Azmi recalled in an interview. The problems were multiplying as engineers continued to run tests. Scores of basic functions had yet to be analyzed.
"A month before delivery, you don't have SPRs," said Azmi. "You're making things pretty. ... You're changing colors."
Within a few days, said Azmi, he warned FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that the $170 million system was in serious trouble. A year later, it was dead. The nation's premier law enforcement and counterterrorism agency, burdened with one of the government's most archaic computer systems, would have to start from scratch.
The collapse of the attempt to remake the FBI's filing system stemmed from failures of almost every kind, including poor conception and muddled execution of the steps needed to make the system work, according to outside reviews and interviews with people involved in the project.
The problems were not the FBI's alone. Because of an open-ended contract with few safeguards, SAIC reaped more than $100 million as the project became bigger and more complicated, even though its software never worked properly. The company continued to meet the bureau's requests, accepting payments despite clear signs that the FBI's approach to the project was badly flawed, according to people who were involved in the project or later reviewed it for the government.
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message280000/pg1
///////////////////////
Four years and $170 million later, the FBI pulled the plug on the VCF. Some critics blamed contractor Science Applications International Corp., while others pointed to a lack of leadership as the bureau went through four chief information officers in just three years. Mueller himself shouldered some of the blame: “I did not do the things I should have done to make sure that [the VCF] was a success,” he said in 2006. The program was scrapped, and the government had to eat the costs and begin anew.
The FBI went back to the drawing board and began working on the next iteration of a case management system, called “Sentinel,” in March 2006. As with VCF, Sentinel was mostly designed by an outside firm – in this case, a $305 million contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin Corp.
Sentinel’s development was to be broken into four overlapping phases with a September 2009 deadline and a total cost of $425 million. The completion date was delayed until June 2010 as the cost bumped up to $451 million.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2011/05/17/4627/vote-confidence-mueller-same-old-computer-problems-fbi
////////////////////////////////////
The FBI spent $1.4 billion on IT in fiscal 2009,
http://www.informationweek.com/government/leadership/the-fbis-challenge-collaborate-more-but/225702138
The above shows rat is capable of making a sensible statement on a rare occasion, and posting a meaningful link.
Delete.
DeleteGood enough for government work.
.
'We've reached the end of antibiotics': Top CDC expert declares that 'miracle drugs' that have saved millions are no match against 'superbugs' because people have overmedicated themselves
ReplyDeleteBy SNEJANA FARBEROV
PUBLISHED: 00:30 EST, 26 October 2013 | UPDATED: 01:17 EST, 26 October 2013
515 shares 541 View
Health crisis: Dr Arjun Srinivasan, the associate director of the CDC, told PBS' Frontline that misuse and overuse of antibiotics over the years have rendered them powerless to fight infections
Health crisis: Dr Arjun Srinivasan, the associate director of the CDC, told PBS' Frontline that misuse and overuse of antibiotics over the years have rendered them powerless to fight infections
A high-ranking official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declared in an interview with PBS that the age of antibiotics has come to an end.
'For a long time, there have been newspaper stories and covers of magazines that talked about "The end of antibiotics, question mark?"' said Dr Arjun Srinivasan. 'Well, now I would say you can change the title to "The end of antibiotics, period.”'
The associate director of the CDC sat down with Frontline over the summer for a lengthy interview about the growing problem of antibacterial resistance.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2477273/Weve-reached-end-antibiotics-Top-CDC-expert-declares-miracle-drugs-saved-millions-match-superbugs-people-overmedicated-themselves.html#ixzz2iu0m6Jdb
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
You cannot get antibiotics with out a prescription.
Delete... because people have overmedicated themselves ...
This borders on a pathology of social denial.
A shifting of responsibility from the medical experts, the prescribing doctor, to the victim of malpractice, the patient, especially if the "Doc" is over prescribing antibiotics.
The abuse of the insurance carriers, the patient and now, the entire population of the world by over prescribing antibiotic drugs, it has been "Systematic" and has been going on for years.
The responsibility, the blame for the medical and social fiasco cannot be laid upon the victims of this medical malpractice.
The Medical "Professionals" have to be held responsible for the mismanagement of the medical industry and the damage they have done to the entire human population of the planet. The responsible party is the Medical Industry, not their patients.
You cannot get antibiotics without a prescription in the USA.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteLast Thursday, General Alexander stated that the U.S. needs to 'find a way' to 'stop' news organizations from reporting on the Snowden releases. It looks like they have already made a pretty good start based on the stories of their prosecution of whistleblowers.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131024/18093325010/keith-alexander-says-us-govt-needs-to-figure-out-way-to-stop-journalists-reporting-snowden-leaks.shtml
.
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ReplyDeleteBill Mayer on Christians vs Muslims.
I can honestly say it is one of the few times he makes sense. Note the libs he is arguing with.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/10/26/maher_vs_liberal_panel_liberals_worried_theyre_going_to_be_called_racist_if_they_criticize_muslims.html
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It looks like the time to sign-up is down to about an hour.
ReplyDeleteThat's a pretty small thing for someone that, due to a pre-existing condition, has been unable to get health insurance.
Also, the savings appear to be real. 50% to 60% seem not to be uncommon.
7:51 AM Sunday:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.healthcare.gov/marketplace/global/en_US/registration
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, root@localhost and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
It was not the government’s fault. It was my fault.
ReplyDelete:):):):):)
DeleteStep One:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.healthcare.gov
RESULT: Home page opens OOrah
Step Two: I will attempt to push the sign in button:
https://www.healthcare.gov/marketplace/global/en_US/registration
RESULT:
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, root@localhost and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
MY FAULT AGAIN
You can’t get past the login button.
DeleteSome real heavy shit to make the login button work.
DeleteIt's ALWAYS your fault.
DeleteShe said, she said.........
:):)
Did IBM bid this contract? Ebay? Amazon? SAP? Michelle Obama’s soul sister from Princeton?
ReplyDeleteBeuhler?
ReplyDeleteMaybe another speech will fix it:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.whitehouse.gov/a-better-bargain#health
I'm told by my daughter that her mother, and her very, geeky computer nerd husband bought insurance on the Obamacare website a couple of weeks ago. From what I gather, it took "quite awhile."
DeleteMy daughter will be buying on the exchange, but, inasmuch as we're the polar opposite when it comes to computer geekiness, and not being into masochism, she'll wait until somewhere around Dec. 10th.
The new Obamacare Czar assures us the website will be pretty much ready for primetime by the end of November, but of course the tsunami on Thanksgiving will, undoubtably, crash it again.
If you insist on torturing yourself, I'm reading that you really need to clean out all cookies, cache, etc, before trying to enroll.
Deletecould not get past login in last night..
DeleteLOL
obamacare? LOL
How can you fuck up the login button? I’m not talking about actually logging in. This thing cannot present NAME and PASSWORD.
DeleteWe don’t need the Republicans to shutdown the government? All it takes is a login button
DeleteI run a mac.
Delete1st time to attempt login there is nothing for that site in the cache or cookies.
It's a simply create a account.
A basic database/php function.
Hell even microsoft's sequel server could do that...
Face it. It sucks.
But that's the rub, it's great...
Obama and his affirmative action looters in action.....
Maybe they should have hired the Israelis...
LOL
I just logged on to "constant contact" created an email and emailed 20 thousand customers..
DeleteDid that faster than it took me to get my obamacare error...
LOL
Maybe the Iranians have taken it down like they took down our super secret drone.
DeleteJust another example of good old American Know How from the government, don’t you know. Lets check on another couple of recent projects
ReplyDeleteIraq, the trillion dollar plan
ReplyDeleteA series of car bombs has caused chaos across Baghdad, targeting predominantly Shi’ite Muslim areas and killing at least 37 people.
Police said the attacks, thought to involve 10 distinct explosions, came at roughly the same time as the suicide bombing of a group of soldiers queuing up to be paid in northern Iraq.
Combined, the attacks killed 49 people in total and injured more than 100. As the sectarian violence in the country reaches its worst level since 2008, this morning’s coordinated attack in the capital was one of the biggest series of car bombs since 17 were detonated within one hour at the end of July.
There have been deadlier attacks in Baghdad recently – even last Sunday, 59 people were killed by a combination of suicide bombings, gunfire and IEDs (improvised explosive devices). The independent organisation keeping track of the violence, Iraq Body Count, said that as of yesterday there have been 904 civilian deaths in October alone.
After the attack which killed 12 troops in the city of Mosul, this morning’s worst violence was in the town of Nahrawan, just south of Baghdad itself. Two car bombs were reportedly detonated just moments apart at the town’s busy market, killing seven.
A single blast in Baladiyat killed another three. Suad Ahmed, a woman living nearby, told a Reuters reporter: “I was eating my breakfast when a powerful blast shook the building, shattering the window of my apartment and covering the dining table with pieces of glass.
“I was terrified, I heard women and children shouting next door. I started to cry. I was afraid of death.”
While there was no immediate claim of responsibility for any of this morning’s attacks, Shi’ite civilians and state troops are regular targets for Sunni militants, who are seeking to destabilise Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government.
Al Qa’ida was forced underground in 2007, but has been steadily on the rise in recent years – resulting in an “inexorable rise” in civilian deaths, Iraq Body Count said. Around 3,000 civilians have been killed so far this year.
Libya after NATO FUKUS KNOWHOW
ReplyDeleteOnly a year ago, Nato action in Libya in 2011 in support of the rebels was being held up as a successful foreign military intervention that might usefully serve as an example of what the United States, Britain and France should do in Syria. Not many still believe this, but those who do might like to look at the latest FCO travel advisory for Libya last updated on 22 October, and accompanied by a useful map. This divides Libya into two zones, denoted by dark and light shades, to illustrate the different levels of insecurity.
The news is not good for potential travellers: the darker shade covers 85 per cent of Libya including the oilfields, the Sahara, and a large part of the coastline – areas where the FCO advises "against all travel". At the top right and top left corners of the map are areas marked in a lighter shade which include Tripoli and the coast road as far as Misratah in the west and the bulge of Cyrenaica in eastern Libya. Here the FCO merely advises "against all but essential travel". But travellers need to study the map and accompanying text very carefully because there is a brown smudge over Benghazi, the capital of Cyrenaica, indicating that the FCO regards the city as too dangerous to visit. In fact, anyone contemplating a tour of this part of Libya should note that the FCO map gives the impression that the whole of Cyrenaica is safe enough for "essential travel", but the text speaks less confidently stressing that the traveller should stick to "coastal areas from Ras Lanuf to the Egyptian border, with the exception of Benghazi and Derna". Derna holds the record for dispatching more foreign fighters and suicide bombers to the war in Iraq than any other town in the Muslim world.
There is no doubt that the FCO has got it right. Libya has become one of the most dangerous parts of the world: 10 days ago, assassins shot dead the commander of Libya's military police, Ahmad al-Barghathi, as he left a mosque in Benghazi. In the past year there have been 80 such assassinations of senior military and police commanders. The killing of al-Barghathi happened soon after Libya's Prime Minister, Ali Zeidan, was briefly kidnapped from his hotel in Tripoli without a shot being fired by his guards in his defence. Libya’s oil production is down to 600,000 barrels a day after almost ceasing during the summer because the militiamen who guard the oil facilities have seized the ports in the east.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/toppling-a-bad-regime-liberates-a-country--but-lets-not-go-there-8906269.html
What we need is a Logout Button.
ReplyDelete:):)
Delete…that works.
ReplyDeleteThat's the trick. It wouldn't.
Delete
ReplyDeleteBuchanan checks in :
Republicans might do well to get out of the way so the people can see the clay feet and start to laugh at the buffoons, the God that failed.
Even the Obama-worshipers in the media seem stunned by the depth and breadth of incompetence exposed.
In World War II, FDR brought together the men who made things in America, dollar-a-year industrialists who swiftly took charge and met his immediate demand for 50,000 planes and 1,600 ships.
They built the most awesome military machine the world had ever seen, arming 12 million Americans, Russia and England as well, and smashing two mighty empires on opposite sides of the world.
And these men did it in about as long a time as it took Barack Obama’s regime, captained by Kathleen Sebelius, to flunk a test to create a website. There is something deeply wrong with our republic.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?”
Gimmee a break. :)
DeleteLook, you're "wailing against the wind."
It's just a website. Underpowered, incredibly complex, and, evidently, replete with horrible code.
But, it's just a website. An incredibly "high visibility" website. And, try as the Republicans will to starve the project of funding, The President is still The President, and the site will get fixed. It might not be "super-sweet," but they'll throw enough resources at it to make it workable.
In the meantime, you've spent a couple of months railing for nothing. Spare yourselves.
Clearly the 21st Century is the snotty, underachieving, dope-smoking Xbox-playing gay little brother to the muscular 20th.
DeleteWe had a couple of years, there, that we ran deficits in excess of 100% of GDP, if I'm not mistaken
Delete(compared to 4% last year.)
We threw tremendous resources at that war. You, basically, couldn't buy a car, and if you could, you couldn't buy tires for it.
DeleteThe wages at those factories, and shipyards was very high (unionized,) and there was nothing to buy. The Savings Rate was "off the charts."
A whole 'nother deal.
The American public, as a whole, got on board the "Victory" train. Since victory has not been the goal of American wars since, it hard to drum up a lot of long term enthusiasm for "Containment".
Delete.
DeleteIn the meantime, you've spent a couple of months railing for nothing. Spare yourselves.
Railing for nothing?
That's what we do here.
You mimic the tactics of the Obama administration. Benghazi was nothing. No one cares. IRS? Nothing there. They do it to everyone. The NSA? Bush did it too. The SEC. The DOJ. Forget about it.
Obama regarding every fuck-up: I wasn't aware of this. I found out about it the same time you did. I am metagrabolized. I can't comment on it right now as we investigate it but we will get back to you soon. We are running and internal audit, we have the appropriate people working on this, we have appointed an independent review board to come up with answers. We have the finest IT people available working on this problem 24/7 (one wonders why with a program this massive we didn't have the finest IT people working on it in the first place). Those responsible will be held accountible.
In Obama speak 'being held accountable' evidently means being given a long vacation with pay.
After five years of the same, does anyone actually believe the bullshit anymore?
Railing for nothing? When we are constantly having it stuck to us by this administration don't we at least have the right to grumble?
.
We spend a lot of time on stuff that "other" contributors tell us no one cares about.
DeleteAs long as the contributor cares enough to contribute, someone cares.
"If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away."
- Henry David Thoreau -
"Railing for nothing, but the chicks are free!"
Rasmussen Reports
1500 Likely Voters
10/23 - 10/25
Approve . . . 51
Disapprove . . . 48
Spread . . . +3>
ObamaCare hysteria is much ado about nothing.
DeleteAn attempt to raise the shrinking streams flowing into the insurance pool
to force everyone to participate in flooding hard-baked mud of the insurance market with cash.
On the scale of things it amounts to less than a riffling wind caressing the drought-shriveled leaves of the tree of life.
Let alone the death of 600,000 American is a war that need not have occurred.
Or the injustice of Jim Crow America, raising as the result of that war.
Jim Crow America, the prize that was was bought with the blood and treasure.
600,000 dead Americans, more than a trifle, ...
much more than a riffling wind caressing the drought-shriveled leaves of the tree of life.
As Ulysses S. Grant said about the Civil War ...
“There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword.”
Or Robert E Lee . . .
The war... was an unnecessary condition of affairs, ...
and might have been avoided if forebearance and wisdom had been practiced on both sides.
Anyone that would describe the carnage of the American Civil War as a literary wind riffle ...
Would have to agree that ObamaCare is much ado, about nothing.
Just another day at the beach
Another day in paradise
Winds are dead calm..
And, as for "American" knowhow, the site was, basically, built in India.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete683 million dollars? you could have hired 683,000 top shelf indian IT gurus for that money...
DeleteSo did Michele Obama's gal pal KEEP $682.9 million and hire some guy who likes curry?
And, as for "American" knowhow, the site was, basically, built in India.
DeleteI take exception to that slander.
My niece could have put it together.
ReplyDelete“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”
ReplyDelete“It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes.
But a half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.”
.
ReplyDeleteDeuceSun Oct 27, 07:54:00 AM EDT
It was not the government’s fault. It was my fault.
In the last five years, have you ever seen Obama accept blame for anything? Anything at all?
Now, they even code that meme into their computer programs.
.
A reply is at hand:
Delete"I didn''t build that. Someone else built that."
Delete"In the last five years, have you ever seen Obama accept blame for anything? Anything at all?"
I cannot recall a single instance.
And it's all his fault!
Nor does he seem to ever fire anybody.
Obama is the worst President in our entire history.
And the most corrupt, too.
We've really been had.
What would expect from ...
Delete"The First Jewish President of the United States"
Israel has socialized medicine, so should the Homeland.
It will make US all safer, more secure.
No more roving bands of sick and infirm people searching out Emergency Rooms.
They will be able to access doctor offices in the daylight.
Abner, Grow up.
Delete.
ReplyDeleteThose who complain about WWII forget one thing. The effort was effective. Overnight, Detroit switched from building cars to building planes.
Sabelius was given three years to and in the end, butkus. Incompetence on a grand scale.
.
ReplyDeleteIsrael Quietly Feeding Syrian Refugees in Jordan
Sunday, October 27, 2013 | Israel Today Staff
Over half a million refugees fleeing Syria's ongoing civil war have flooded into northern Jordan over the past year. Nearly half of them are living in a large UN refugee camp, but the rest are relying on care from various NGOs, including at least one from Israel.
Among the organizations funding and distributing physical and emotional aid to the hundreds of thousands of Syrians is IsraAid, an Israeli humanitarian group with years of experience in Africa and other regions.
In Jordan, the group is buying and putting together large sacks of essential goods that are passed out to Syrian refugees daily. But, they must do so discretely.
Both IsraAid and its Jordanian partners are careful to remove any labeling that would identify the aid packages as coming from or being paid for by Israelis. With Syria still officially at war with Israel, it is a precautionary step organizers feel is necessary to maintain order and security in the refugee areas.
"We don’t announce with trumpets that we’re Israeli,” one of the IsraAid workers told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “There’s no need for that. Once you let that cat out of the bag, everything starts to blow up."
Still, one of the aims of IsraAid is to demonstrate that the Jewish state is not the ruthless oppressor it is so often portrayed as in the media.
"My main agenda is to put Israelis on the ground around the world and show the world that Israel cares about them," explained IsraAid founding director Shachar Zahavi.
Indeed, many Israeli humanitarian organizations like IsraAid are active in the Middle East, and the recipients of their assistance often discover that the group is from Israel. More often than not, the beneficiaries might be surprised at receiving help from Israeli Jews, but they are appreciative, too.
Those Israeli, feeding NAZIs ...
DeleteWhat is wrong with those Jews?
Maybe those Israeli are not Jews at all, could they be European pretenders?
Discretion is also necessary because some of the recipients would rather die than accept Jewish aid. Then, of course, there is Saudi Arabia, which would have a cow.
DeleteWhile little publicized, Israel has quietly treated many injured Syrians of all stripes.
>>>>"She said, 'I was all for Obamacare until I found out I was paying for it,'" Kehaly said.
ReplyDeleteNearly 2 million Californians have individual insurance, and several hundred thousand of them are losing their health plans in a matter of weeks.
Blue Shield of California sent termination letters to 119,000 customers last month whose plans don't meet the new federal requirements. About two-thirds of those people will experience a rate increase from switching to a new health plan, according to the company.
HMO giant Kaiser Permanente is canceling coverage for about half of its individual customers, or 160,000 people, and offering to automatically enroll them in the most comparable health plan available<<<<
She was all for ObamaCare until she found she was paying for it.
:):)
Some health insurance gets pricier as Obamacare rolls out
Many middle-class Californians with individual health plans are surprised they need policies that cover more — and cost more.
1 2 next | single page
Jennifer Harris needs a new health insurance plan
Jennifer Harris, a self-employed lawyer in Orange County, has been paying $98 a month for an individual health insurance plan that provides less coverage than the Affordable Care Act requires. The cheapest alternative she’s found so far costs more than twice as much. (Mark Boster, Los Angeles Times / October 24, 2013)
By Chad Terhune
October 26, 2013, 7:42 p.m.
Thousands of Californians are discovering what Obamacare will cost them — and many don't like what they see.
These middle-class consumers are staring at hefty increases on their insurance bills as the overhaul remakes the healthcare market. Their rates are rising in large part to help offset the higher costs of covering sicker, poorer people who have been shut out of the system for years.
Although recent criticism of the healthcare law has focused on website glitches and early enrollment snags, experts say sharp price increases for individual policies have the greatest potential to erode public support for President Obama's signature legislation.
"This is when the actual sticker shock comes into play for people," said Gerald Kominski, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. "There are winners and losers under the Affordable Care Act."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-health-sticker-shock-20131027,0,2756077.story#axzz2iwP7bj3O
What We Saw At The Anti-NSA "Stop Watching Us" Rally
ReplyDeleteJoshua Swain & Todd Krainin | October 26, 2013
On October 26, 2013, protesters from across the political spectrum gathered in Washington, D.C. to take part in the Stop Watching Us rally, a demonstration against the National Security Agency's domestic and international surveillance programs.
Reason TV spoke with protesters - including 2012 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson and former Congressman Dennis Kucinich - to discuss the rally, why people should worry about the erosion of privacy, and President Barack Obama's role in the growth of the surveillance state.
CORRECTION: Laura Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, was incorrectly identified as Susan N. Herman, ACLU President.
Produced by Joshua Swain, interviews by Todd Krainin.
About 3 minutes long.
Scroll down for downloadable versions of this video and subscribe to ReasonTV's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.
http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/10/26/what-we-saw-at-the-stop-watching-us-rall
Nice video covering the rally. Please watch the video.
It is criminal and absurd what Obama is doing to our nation.
STOP WATCHING US
Delete(if you've done nothing wrong you have plenty to fear)
What the President and the Security Forces of the United States are doing, Farmer Fudd ...
Deleteis keeping your fat fascist ass safe and secure.
Just as you have always wanted.
You are seeing the results of your paranoid fear running rampant.
A social pathology?
The Federals have perused the data, they know from where the threat to their government reside.
It is not in Iran, Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq. The Federal government feels no fear of Islam.
Not even Communists or Nationalist Fascists in Europe or Asia shake the confidence of the Federal crew.
But bring on the "Students for a Democratic Society", the "Reform Party" or the "Tea Party" and the Federals take action.
The Federals know where the threat to power resides.
You are getting your desires fulfilled, Farmer Fudd ...
Safety and Security, assured.
Enjoy.
Get the help you so obviously need.
DeleteYou are drooling, and spitting again.
Read Quirk's analysis.
Think about it.
Get help.
It really is disgusting listening to Desert Rat drool and spit and say nothing making any sense.
DeleteHeh, the feds aren't keeping me safe and secure. They are coming after me. I'm Tea Party, a terrorist organization. Hadn't you heard? And I carried and passed out a sign designed mostly by you, calling Obama a pirate. Heh, rat you are hallucinating.
Deletebob
:):):):)
ReplyDeleteA Doctor Sings The ObamaCare Blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S86P5ejdsqU
Health Care Reform Music For You
:):):):)
"We don’t announce with trumpets that we’re Israeli,” one of the IsraAid workers told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “There’s no need for that. Once you let that cat out of the bag, everything starts to blow up."
ReplyDeleteLiterally. Buses, pizza places...
Don't you find that to be both sick and sad? This is precisely why Israel can never surrender its sovereignty - madness on a Biblical scale.
DeleteI do find it sick and sad. It's funny how being a libertarian with isolationist tendencies who wants to terminate all foreign aid doesn't automatically make me an SS guard on the female side of camp Ohrdruf Nord.
DeleteAs if to withdraw US support of the Apartheid Regime means that all the Jews in Palestine would be disarmed and murdered by rampaging Muslims.
DeleteThe idea is laughable.
desert rat wrote, The idea is laughable.
DeleteI can only imagine. Keep holdin' the dream.
rat is cathected to an extremely simple set of 'ideas'/emotions.
DeleteWhen the character expands beyond a simple sets of behavior, Farmer Fudd says he cannot follow or comprehend the storyline. The "Bigger" ideas and emotions flabbergast Farmer Fudd, overwhelm his cognizant capacity.
DeleteWhich leaves him confused. We do not want a confusion, we want an apology.
So the Editorial Board decided that content will aimed at satisfying the reader, keeping to the comprehension level of our lowest denominator, Farmer Fudd, rather than fully engaging the full width and breadth of the characters' capacity.
Teresita RedingerSun Oct 27, 04:33:00 PM EDT
DeleteI do find it sick and sad. It's funny how being a libertarian with isolationist tendencies who wants to terminate all foreign aid doesn't automatically make me an SS guard on the female side of camp Ohrdruf Nord.
No, it's the hundreds of anti-Semitic posts, the hundreds of distorted mistranslations of the Torah, the hundreds of slams at Jews and Israel that give us pause. In fact the last time you lamented something very similar you had made a crude "Jew" joke just a few posts above on the same thread.
The NSA sought the Japanese government's cooperation to wiretap fiber-optic cables carrying phone and data across the Asia-Pacific region but the request was rejected. The NSA wanted to intercept personal information including Internet activity and phone calls passing through Japan from Asia including China. The Japanese government refused because it was illegal and would need to involve a massive number of private sector workers. Article 35 of the Japanese Constitution protects against illegal search and seizure.
ReplyDeleteFUCK THE PESKY JAPS AND THEIR RULE OF LAW!
http://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/no-woman--no-drive--saudi-comedian-releases-musical-protest-on-women-driving-ban-170757345.html?vp=1
ReplyDeleteNo Woman, No Drive: Saudi comedian releases musical protest on women driving ban
It's the whipping block for that poor soul. He best get to Europe pronto.
DeleteThat's what I thought. How many lashes is that worth and how much jail time. Could he get the ax?
DeleteIf the Christians got 80 lashes for sipping communion wine, and this seems much more serious, attacking their version of Islam as it does, it might just be the ax.
DeleteI wouldn't bet against it.
I hope to read what the sentence actually turns out to be.
Driving while intoxicated with communion wine is 150 lashes.
DeleteThis probably gives an adequate description of what Jews could expect if the Arabs again gained control. Oh, by the way, this was long before the founding of the Zionist entity. It is just a single testimonial. A library could be filled with such histories.
ReplyDeleteIsrael is ours. We are going to keep her. NEVER AGAIN!
http://www.hnn.us/article/134601
Remembering the Jewish Massacres in Mandate Palestine
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteExcellent - and may G-D be with you in your attempt!
Delete
DeleteThat was an excellent comment Allen. Wish you had left it up.
What I wrote was too close to blasphemy. But thank you anyway.
DeleteWas something about a golem broke bad and Allen was going to research incantations.....
DeleteLaughed my ass.....
OK, I understand then.
Delete
ReplyDeleteWorldViews
Political science says Syria’s civil war will probably last at least another decade
BY MAX FISHER
October 23 at 1:39 pm
Two Syrian rebels take sniper positions at the heavily contested neighborhood of Karmal Jabl in central Aleppo. (AFP PHOTO/JAVIER MANZANO)
Two Syrian rebels take sniper positions at the heavily contested neighborhood of Karmal Jabl in central Aleppo. (Javier Manzano/AFP)
The Obama administration appears to be deadlocked over what to do in Syria, forcing a policy of inaction, according to a widely circulating New York Times story. But U.S. officials will likely have years more time to debate what to do about Syria's civil war, which could continue into and perhaps through the next presidential administration. According to a review of the political science on the duration of civil wars, Syria's conflict will most likely last through 2020 and perhaps well beyond.
Syria's conflict began with April 2011 protests and subsequent crackdowns. It's not clear the precise moment when it became a civil war, but many media organizations began referring to it as such around early or mid 2012. At most, you might say the war has been waging now for two years. According to studies of intra-state conflicts since 1945, civil wars tend to last an average of about seven to 12 years. That would put the end of the war somewhere between 2018 and 2023.
Worse, those studies have identified several factors that tend to make civil wars last even longer than the average. A number of those factors appear to apply to Syria, suggesting that this war could be an unusually long one. Of course, those are just estimates based on averages; by definition, half of all civil wars are shorter than the median length, and Syria's could be one of them. But, based on the political science, Syria has the right conditions to last through President Obama's tenure and perhaps most or all of his successor's.
Here's what the research shows
(1) The average civil war was 10 years as of 2002: A 2002 study by James Fearon of Stanford University found the average length of ongoing civil wars to be about 10 years.
Delete(2) That number has probably since increased: The length of civil wars has been increasing steadily since 1945. It hit an all-time high of 15.1 years in 1999, then dropped, perhaps owing to the resolution of conflicts sparked by the end of the Cold War. But it's been ticking back up; the trend suggests that Fearon's 2002 estimate of 10 years would have increased significantly since then. Here's a chart of his data on civil war length:
The lower line shows the average duration of civil wars over time. It ends at 2002, with an average length of about 10 years. (James Fearon, Stanford University)
The lower line shows the average duration of civil wars over time. It ends at 2002, with an average length of about 10 years. (James Fearon, Stanford University)
(3) Civil wars are longer and bloodier than average when foreign powers intervene: A 2008 study by Fearon and David Laitin reaffirmed previous research stating that civil wars tend to be significantly longer when foreign countries intervene decisively on one side. (To be clear, "intervene" here means more than just training a few rebels, as the United States is doing, but to support one faction in outright defeating its enemy.) A 2012 paper reached a similar conclusion, also finding that foreign interventions tends to make all sides more violent and to increase the death toll. Iran is very actively involved in directly aiding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, as is the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states are helping to fund and arm rebel groups; foreign jihadist groups are also involved in the fighting, particularly from Iraq.
(4) Civil wars with lots of factions last longer than average. Barbara F. Walter of the University of California at San Diego points to a 2006 paper in the Journal of Political Science arguing that civil wars last longer when there are more competing factions. The number of rebel groups tends to change on a pretty regular basis, but Walter says there are 13. Whatever your count, there are a lot of them, their alliances and allegiances tend to change a lot and, most worrying, they're already fighting one another.
(5) Civil wars are longer than average when no side can disarm the other. It's not just about seizing and holding territory: it's about taking away your opponent's ability to fight you. "Civil wars tend to last a long time when neither side can disarm the other, causing a military stalemate," Fearon concluded in his 2002 study. The Assad regime is actively armed by a foreign power, Iran, which suggests it would be really difficult for the rebels to disarm them. And it's hard to see how Assad could ever disarm the rebels, who come both from within the Syrian population and from across the border in Iraq, given both the popular outrage against his regime and the ease of acquiring weapons.
(6) Civil wars are longer than average when they don't end by negotiated settlement. When Fearon and others calculated the average length of civil wars, the lower end of their data was filled with countries that achieved peace through a negotiated settlement, also known as a peace deal. Walter says the odds of this happening are "probably close to zero." She explains that the research finds you need two things for a negotiated settlement: a third party willing to commit resources such as peacekeepers and an "divide political power amongst the combatants based on their position on the battlefield." Syria has neither. She adds that only one in four civil wars ends in negotiated settlement; most end in outright victory, which is made less likely by foreign intervention, as the foreign powers can keep supplying arms and money long after the stalemate would have otherwise exhausted both sides
You don't need all this research to see that, two years into Syria's civil war, there's no sign that the conflict is headed anywhere toward resolution. Syrian territory is split between regime forces, Arab rebels and Kurdish groups, all of whom appear deadlocked. Rebel factions are dividing and fighting among one another. Food insecurity is becoming a greater problem, as is access to medical care. Other Middle Eastern states are getting more involved, turning Syria into a proxy war between Iran and Arab Gulf states. And while Syria did agree to give up its chemical weapons, Russia is otherwise shielding the regime from much international action.
DeleteThat the research above seems to point to at least another 10 years is hardly surprising, particularly when we look at similar conflicts. Neighboring Lebanon had a civil war, also with sectarian divisions and foreign interventions, that lasted either 15 or 30 years, depending on how you count it. An even greater risk might be Syria's conflict following a model like Afghanistan's, which had its 1980s war followed by another civil war, in the 1990s, between the victorious rebel groups; Syria's rebels are already fighting one another, leading to fears that a rebel victory would spark a second war.
Ten years, or 15 or however long it might be, is a very long time. It's not just that President Obama is likely to leave office with the war unsolved. His successor could serve most or all of two full terms while the killing continues. The next president could be winding down his or her second term, in 2023, with the war still raging, still unsolved. It's already killed over 100,000 Syrians and displaced over 1 million. There's no telling what it would cost after a full decade.
Max Fisher
Max Fisher is the Post's foreign affairs blogger. He has a master's degree in security studies from Johns Hopkins University. Sign up for his daily newsletter here. Also, follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
Muslim on Muslim, that's a lot of popcorn to eat while watching from over here.
DeleteAnon, excellent review, thanks
DeleteYesterday, Kurdish forces captured territory in Syria bordering Kurdish territory in Turkey. The last thing the Turks want is a contiguous grouping of Kurdish land in Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. How long will Turkey tolerate such a threat, given that, demographically, Turkish Kurds will outnumber Turks by mid-century. I believe Turkey will have to take a more active role, certainly more aggressive than letting rebels transit Turkey to Syria.
And to think Mohammed came to unify the tribes. Not working so well in Libya right now either.
DeleteNeed to plant a popping corn garden to see this through.
Teresita RedingerSun Oct 27, 05:57:00 PM EDT
DeleteMuslim on Muslim, that's a lot of popcorn to eat while watching from over here.
When I suggested that I was called a killer, lover of murder.
I recall that, WiO. When I toyed with the idea of intervening to put an end to it by separating the parties and dividing the god forsaken place up, I was called a war monger. These days I'm just called a cowardly fucking fascist farmer named Fudd seeking 24/7 protection by the government.
DeleteIn all these disputes my heart goes out to the helpless,the people caught in the middle, the women in Afghanistan for instance. Don't want to even think about it.
I'm out for the day now. Any anon postings from here this day are not The Real Anon.
What do you call 115,000 Muslims dead at the hands of their brother Muslims? A damn good start.
Delete
DeleteWe are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Arab boys ought to be doing for themselves.
The Real Anon, the Authentic Fudd, bobbo, the list is endless.
DeleteAll Anonymous is, all Anonymous ever will be ...
is Anonymous.
No one from no where.
The Fornicating Fudd.
Authentic.
Really, truly, no kidding ..
DeleteThe Fornicating Fudd - Authenticated by the Authenticator.
A little inflation is like being a little pregnant. To think for a second that central bankers can pick a target with absolute precision is vanity of the highest order.
ReplyDelete“The spectacle of American central bankers trying to press the inflation rate higher in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis is virtually without precedent,” Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chairman, wrote in a new book, “The Map and the Territory.” He said the effort could end in double-digit inflation."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/business/economy/in-fed-and-out-many-now-think-inflation-helps.html?_r=0
Delete“If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, ...
it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.”
“Everything predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass.
DeleteWe are to be ruined now by the deluge of bank paper.
It is cruel that such revolutions in private fortunes should be at the mercy of avaricious adventurers, who, ...
instead of employing their capital, if any they have, in manufactures, commerce, and other useful pursuits, ...
make it an instrument to burden all the interchanges of property with their swindling profits, ...
profits which are the price of no useful industry of theirs.”
"Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States"
DeleteI am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country.
ReplyDeleteA great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated.
The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men.
We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world.
No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, ...
but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.
- Woodrow Wilson
Delete"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance."
Isn't it true that you have socialized medicine in Canada and you're too brainwashed to hate it?
Delete"Issue of currency should be lodged with the government and be protected from domination by Wall Street. We are opposed to…provisions [which] would place our currency and credit system in private hands."
Delete
DeleteThe real truth of the matter is,as you and I know, that a financial
element in the large centers has owned the government ever s
Franklin D. Roosevelt - (in a letter to Colonel House, dated November 21, 1933)
Re: Wilson quote, "I am a most unhappy man..."
DeleteThis is an urban legend. There is no source or date for attribution. In short, Wilson neither said nor wrote such.
Yes, I know Wiki quotes has it, but there is a long, unresolved on that site as to authenticity. No author of repute has used it.
If you can provide a biographical source for the quote, giving date and page number, I will gladly stand corrected. Good luck.
DeleteLou Reed dead at 71.
ReplyDeleteAnd the colored girls sing do do do do do do do....
Barack Obama 'approved tapping Angela Merkel's phone 3 years ago'
ReplyDeleteAnd he just told her that if he knew about it he would have stopped it. Talk about a lying sack...
Everybody's too poor to have much inflation.
ReplyDeleteRe: Woodrow WilsonSun Oct 27, 08:10:00 PM EDT
ReplyDeleteI am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country.
Wikipedia:
Sorry, but as explained below, the material discussed above is part of some fakery that is chronically added to this article (and to the article on the Federal Reserve System), and is then removed. This kind of garbage is constantly swirling around on the internet. What has happened is that someone has pulled various accurate quotations from various places in Wilson's book, has then rearranged them without showing the fact that they have been rearranged, and then added the fake "I am a most unhappy man" verbiage -- which does not appear in the book at all. In the article, this combined hodgepodge has been attributed to Wilson's book. That kind of editing is not acceptable.
Further, whether Wilson made the "unhappy man" statement at some other time or place, is irrelevant. It is simply not acceptable to pull quotations from different sources, change the wording (which is what has been done), and then present them as though they were presented a certain way in a book when they certainly were not presented that way. When we add a quote and attribute it to a source, the text has to actually be a quote from that source.
The material is cookbooked fakery designed to give the false impression that Wilson was speaking of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Reserve Act. In reality, neither of those two things are even mentioned in the book.
This kind of fakery violates at least two Wikipedia rules. First Verifiability. The source must actually say what the editor contends it says. Second, No Original Research. Moving sentences around without disclosing that this is what you're doing, and then trying to make it look like Wilson was referring to the Federal Reserve Act violates both of those rules.
The way in which this material was corrupted (and the fake "unhappy man" verbiage was added) is discussed in more detail elsewhere on this talk page. Famspear (talk) 22:19, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Woodrow Wilson,
ReplyDeleteDid you find your alleged quote here:
"Did Woodrow Wilson REALLY REGRET Handing AMERICA To The Rothschild BANKSTERS?"
Hmm...ROTHSCHILD...JEW...BAD MONKEY, BAD MONKEY
No, allen, look above, Jesus Saves, I think that was one a perused.
DeleteAs well as that Ron Paul site.
Catchy quote that fits into the trend. Stimulates discussion.
That you would start Jew Baiting, right off the bat.
Just because you equate bankers and money lenders to Jews!
That is down right anti-Judaic!
Shall we say the comment was ...
quotish, rather than laughable or comical.
I think of the Rockefeller crew, first and foremost, when I think of bankers, not 19th century Ashkenazi from Europe.
DeleteMust be my upbringing.
I did not start the Jew baiting. Your anti-Semitic web-meisters did, with your help.
DeleteEither quote honestly, or don't quote at all.
Rat's crazy, and everybody knows it. He needs help. Don't pay any attention to him, except attending to him with a little sympathy, which is hard to do, admittedly.He does have this distinction:
DeleteHe is the only person I've ever seen on the internet who forthrightly, and rightly, admitted to being a professional asshole.
Maybe it was the upbringing, maybe he was just born that way, Maybe a little of both.
Now, with regard to Mr Wison there is a site that has the source of his quoted remarks about the Federal Reserve.
ReplyDelete"From Woodrow Wilson with Regrets"
In 1916, just three years after the Federal Reserve System went into operation, President Wilson seems to have suddenly realized what a virtually uncontrollable power monopoly had been vested in the nation's new Federal Reserve System. He wrote:
A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated [in the Federal Reserve System].
The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men....
We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world-
no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.
(Quoted in "National Economy and the Banking System," Senate Documents Co. 3, No. 23, Seventy-sixth Congress, First session, 1939.)
National Center for Constitutional Studies
http://www.nccs.net/how-the-federal-reserve-system-operates-and-why-it-has-failed.php
By 1939, Wilson would have been dead for 20 years. "He wrote" where? This cut and paste tells me nothing as to a readily verifiable source of Wilson's having written anything of the sort. Now, some of the sentence fragments in the quote were taken from legitimate work, but sticking things from here, there, and everywhere while trying to make a point is dishonest.
DeleteTake it up with the ...
DeleteNational Center for Constitutional Studies
http://www.nccs.net/how-the-federal-reserve-system-operates-and-why-it-has-failed.php
They may care more than I do.
I don't care at all.
This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
DeleteLOL...
Wormtongue speaks the truth. There is no truth, just bullshit.
That's what you get from a proud self confessed professional asshole.
DeleteHe carries the title like a laurel wreath.
Most people would be ashamed.
But not our professional asshole.
Woodrow Wilson,
ReplyDeleteThe plot thickens:
"With the monetary system under its control, the Illuminati could now turn to greater goals of a one world governmen"
Yes, the dreaded Illuminati, controlled by Baron Rothschild who allegedly said:
"Give me control over a nations currency, and I care not who makes its laws."
There is just one small problem with the Rothschild quote, he did not make it. There is not a shred of evidence to be found (Well, other than sites that get all hot and bothered about Jews, Masons, and the Illuminati taking over the world)
Woodrow, you must exercise some due diligence before posting ...
Nah, we leave that to the editors and fact checkers, allen.
DeleteYou are doing splendidly in the role.
Carry On!
:-)
DeleteSyrian civil war spreads to Lebanese city of Tripoli
ReplyDeleteFighting enters 7th day in Tripoli leaving 16 dead, 80 injured; Syrian rebels claim they killed 15 Hezbollah fighters near Damascus.
At least 16 people were killed and 80 were wounded on Sunday as fighting continued, for the seventh day, between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.
The Lebanese army reinforced its presence in the city, setting up checkpoints. The streets were empty and shops remained closed, the Beirut-based Daily Star reported.
Interesting...
Sure it is not the Lebanese Civil War that was spread to Syria, now rebounding to its source?
DeleteOr the battle against the establishment, on 23 May 1926 when the State of Greater Lebanon received a Constitution which transformed it into the Lebanese Republic continues.
From the Arab nationalist point of view, it was not permissible to accord the French-created Lebanese Republic ...
recognition as a nation-state separate and distinct from Syria.
Moreover, from the same point of view, the Syrian Republic itself was not acceptable ...
as the final and immutable achievement of the aspirations of its people.
The Syrians, after all, were Arabs, and their territory, historicallv. which had alwavs included Palestine and Transjordan...
along with Lebanon, was not a national territory on its own, but part of a greater Arab homeland: ...
a homeland whose ancient heartlands were Syria, Iraq and Arabia, but which, since Islam, had also come to include ...
Egypt and the countries of North Africa all the way to the Atlantic.
During the war years, the Allies had cheated the Arabs.
The British had promised them national independence on their historical homelands, but they had failed to honour their promises. Instead, they had partitioned this Arab territory with the French, ...
and committed themselves to hand over a particularly precious part of it, namely Palestine, to the Jews.
To accept all this, or any part of it, would be nothing less than high treason. .
http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/900/902/Kamal-Salibi/
This is what emboldens the Palestinians and contributes to ongoing strife in the ME:
ReplyDelete"Former British foreign secretary Jack Straw told a gathering in the House of Commons last week that AIPAC’s “unlimited” funding and intimidation of American politicians is one of the main barriers to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Straw, who has been sharply critical of Israeli foreign policy, also said Germany’s “obsession” with defending Israel was another impediment to peace..."
Let's deconstruct this statement objectively. First, AIPAC does NOT have "unlimited funding." By "unlimited funding", I think of the house of Saud and its next egg of about $700,000,000,000 dollars. With deliberate malice, the Saudi's have for years fomented strife around the world. For instance, Pakistan would not be nuclear were it not for the generosity of Saudi Arabia. With the use of straw men and institutions, Saudi Arabia has funded countless centers of learning where impressionable young men are taught the most vicious, puritanical form of Islam. It is the matter of record that they have been most kind to eager politicians across the globe. Yet, AIPAC, with its unlimited funding cannot get "intimidated" American politicians to move the American embassy to Jerusalem after nearly 50 years of trying. Even by the lavish greasing of palms, Israel cannot get the green light to smash, once for all, Hamas - a terrorist government that has been attacking Israel for years with impunity. I say impunity, because the US et al provide these war criminals with about $100 billion in annual aid. So, dear reader, there is a disconnect with Mr. Straw's evaluation and reality.
As to Germany's so-called "obsession" with "protecting" Israel, I do not see that and I doubt the Germans will either.
What the asinine statements of Mr. Straw have done over the years is to give the Palestinians false hope in a lost cause. Israel is not going to commit suicide to placate anyone. Had Mr. Straw from time to time demanded some cooperation from the Palestinians, say during the second intifada during which about 1500 innocent Israelis were murdered, whether peace might have advanced a step or two. One wonders how generous the house of Saud has been to Mr. Straw over the years of his bellyaching in the cause of fanaticism and "Zionism".
You attempt to "deconstruct Israeli participation in AIPAC, but commence to discuss Saudi Arabia. An unrelated issue, entirely, to AIPAC.
DeleteThen you chose to make the Embassey the litmus test, of US support, not te $4 billion in US Aid Israel has recieved each year for decades.
A totally dishonest presentation.
Was not worth perusing further.
DeleteIt is comparative analysis. It is not dishonest. It does take the air out of anti-Semitic agitprop.
DeleteRat's a moron.
ReplyDeleteOne time he had the 'idea' of minting up a hatbox full of platinum trillion dollars coins to save the economy, for instance.
DeleteAnd that the third building at the World Trade Center was brought down by explosives.
And that........ o, what's the use.
He's nuts.
Hey, look at this -
ReplyDeleteDecisive anti-Sharia step in Egypt: Constitution committee eliminates all barriers to building churches, stipulates "absolute freedom of belief" for Egyptians
Oct 27, 2013 06:44 pm | Robert
Islamic law forbids Christians to build new churches or repair old ones. This is, therefore, a strong and welcome rejection of Sharia. "UPDATE: Constitution committee eliminates all barriers to building churches in Egypt," from Ahram Online, October 27: Egypt's 50-member committee tasked with amending the suspended 2012 constitution adopted on...
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/10/decisive-anti-sharia-step-in-egypt-constitution-committee-eliminates-all-barriers-to-building-church.html
If sustainable, that is a powerful first step in bringing sanity to that part of the world.
DeleteWeather has changed here. Overnight it got a lot colder.
ReplyDeleteAncient Music
by Ezra Pound (1912)
Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham
Damm you; Sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
So ’gainst the winter’s balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.
(This is Pound’s parody of the medieval lyric “Sumer Is Icumen In”)
He's been around Idaho winters......
Ezra was a little nuts towards the end. He was born here in Idaho. Hemingway helped get him out of trouble when he was charged with treason for broadcasting for the Italians during World War Two. He was against bank interest, and all sorts of other stuff too. Then he died and is mostly forgotten too.
Cold in Coeur d'Alene, that's for sure.
g'nite
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ReplyDelete