COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“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, February 24, 2008

Larry Sinclair Lied. Fails Lie Detector Test.

Deception Indicated in Both of Larry Sinclair's Polygraph Tests by First Polygraph Expert Whitehouse.com
2/24/2008 2:15 PM

Dr. Ed Gelb, Former President of the American Polygraph Association was the Polygraph expert selected by Whitehouse.com. He has done over 30,000 polygraph examinations over his long career. There were two polygraph tests administered by Dr. Gelb on Friday. the first polygraph asked Mr. Sinclair on his sex claims. The second polygraph test asked Mr. Sinclair on the drug use claims. There was deception indicated in both tests.
As mentioned yesterday Mr. Sinclair did pass his drug screen so there were no drugs in his system which could have interfered with the test. We have asked Mr. Sinclair on several occasions to put us in contact with the Limousine driver that he named for other news organizations earlier and for us on Friday that was supposed to corroborate his story. As of today he has still not put us in contact with the limousine driver whom he told us he stays in constant contact with.

It was our intention to get to the truth in this serious matter rather than have these allegations that were made almost a month ago drag on to election day. Due to the seriousness of this issue we made the results public today rather than waiting until Monday when we would have received the second expert's conclusions. When we receive the second expert's conclusions we will post those results as well.

We will have all of the written results posted on the site in the next week including video taken of the Polygraph testing so there will be full disclosure and transparency on our part and eliminate any suspicion of any wrongdoing or manipulations of the testing or the results by Whitehouse.com or the polygraph experts. Later this afternoon we will post the actual report by Dr. Gelb.




141 comments:

  1. Well, that's the end of that story. Made a good story, while it lasted.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As I commented to Doug on the previous post, this may end my career as a barkeep at the EB. I may have to take the Editor's job at The New York Times. I will advise.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Don't feel down, deuce, you never committed yourself one way or the other. Just put the info up, as a responsible barkeep would do.

    Some of the commenters at Whitehouse.com pointed out the very shady past of Sinclair. It's hard to know what to think sometimes, but this story is dead.

    A man's reputation is his most important possession.

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  4. Related Stories: Deception Indicated in Both of Larry Sinclair's Polygraph Tests by First Polygraph Expert
    ---
    I was going to damn you for no links and a lack of due diligence, commenting,
    "What is this, the Freaking MSM?"
    ---
    But you have vindicated yourself, as we knew you would, with your usual full disclosure and devotion to your readers, always putting us ahead of yourself.
    All is forgiven!
    ...Free Drinks?

    ReplyDelete
  5. This should be interesting. I am not sure that I believe it or just want to. Probably both. deuce

    As honest and forthright a statement as any barkeep is required to make.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Give me the two free ones, first.:)

    ReplyDelete
  7. fortunately they did not trash youporn.

    ReplyDelete
  8. What do you want to bet the story grows some legs, now, with the MSM? I'll bet in the next few days I can find mention of it, under 'false allegations against Obama exposed.'

    If Hillary was behind this, it's obvious she's not commander-in-chief material.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "fortunately they did not trash youporn."
    ---
    The Naive One wants to know:
    HUH?

    ReplyDelete
  10. At RCP today: A Bloody Stalemate in Afghanistan, by one Elizabeth Rubin

    (NYT Mag)

    Excellent piece of work.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I did a search to see if there were any other you tube related sites that were up or down. (Youtube stills seems to be under assault). There is in fact a site called "youporn.com" where you take sonia on the beach and post it for posterity. i kid you not.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Trish,
    Don't miss that cannoneer link.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Sonia and I are still making travel arrangements, and my posterior has a bruise/hole in it anyway from a bicycle accident, so the matter is at present, moot.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Don't be so fucking Selfish, Trish, you know how to copy and past the fucking url!
    Searched for bloody, and it didn't come up.
    Jeeze, what a PrinceAss!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Cntrl + C
    Cntrl + V

    there, no excuses!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I really hope this story dies a quick and quiet death. This is no way to do politics.

    ReplyDelete
  17. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  18. “Conservatives are stupid to defend McCain from this story,” Coulter told Politico. “Democrats are the party of adultery, not us.”

    I don't want to be judgmental (gee, especially not on Sunday!), but, according to the public record, here's the score:

    Since 1932, the adulterous presidents (who indulged during their terms of office) were: FDR, JFK, LBJ, Clinton.

    The non-qualifiers (on the public record, anyway): Truman, Ike, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Ford, Bush, Bush.

    Any corrections? Anybody? Anybody? .... Let's not always see the same hands ...

    URL IS THIS http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/019581.html

    And, you get to paste it wherever your black heart desires!
    or "Reasons" I should say!
    Paul '2012!

    ReplyDelete
  19. What isn't Mat, My bruised Ass?

    ReplyDelete
  20. The way to do politics would be for the worthless Pubs, and the Wimp in the WH, esp defend their freaking allies.
    The LA Times has posted more than enough on Harry Reid to have him indicted many years ago, but instead we read about the latest Pub prosecuted by
    BUSH's TRAITOROUS "JUSTICE" DEPT!

    Meanwhile Bergler runs free, and Jefferson keeps his money in the freezer.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Linked at Canoneer link:
    "Blasts damage two oil tankers in Chaman

    CHAMAN: Two blasts here damaged as many oil tankers supplying fuel to Nato forces in Afghanistan, police said on Friday.

    The first blast damaged the frame of a tanker carrying 36,000 litres of JP oil. The tanker was parked near a checkpost for security clearance. More than 8,000 litres of oil was burnt. Another oil tanker was partially damaged in a blast near the Zhara Band area. Police said they were investigating the nature of the blasts.

    When KAF goes Black on Cl III, good things stop happening. It gets eerily quiet. The C-17’s and Il-76’s don’t come. DHL doesn’t bring mail.

    People wonder why we put up with so much crap from Musharraf. It’s because he keeps the LOC open. ISAF and OEF can’t maintain themselves logistically in Afghanistan without Pak help.
    "

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  22. No windeed it does seem Larry was a stalking horse, a trap for pundits.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Turkey
    The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) shot down a Turkish helicopter inside Iraq; the Turkish military confirmed a helicopter was lost. The PKK claims to have the bodies of 15 Turkish soldiers.

    ReplyDelete
  24. According to the Hillary campaign, the delegates from Florida and Michigan should all be seated for her at the convention, but the superdelegates should not follow the popular vote for Obama, and should vote for Hillary, too.

    We used to call this Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

    Hillary set to win the nomination, her advisor predicts.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Yeah, Ickes made the Rules FOR Her.
    Now he's arguing they should be ignored.

    ReplyDelete
  26. From NYTimes link:
    "Dan Kearney was essentially lord of the Korengal Valley. A self-described Georgia army brat, he grew up idolizing his warrior dad, Frank Kearney, and wanted to move in his father’s world of covert and overt operations. (His father is now a lieutenant general in Special Operations command.) Kearney often calls himself a dumb jock, playing the crass, loudmouthed tough guy with his soldiers. He had been in Iraq and told me he had gone emotionally dead there with all the dying and killing, and stayed that way until the birth of his son a year ago. His hardest day in Iraq was when a close friend, Rob Shaw, was severely wounded by an improvised explosive device that killed his first sergeant and a bunch of their friends — and the next thing he knew their colonel was asking Kearney to step in for Shaw and lead the company.

    But as hard as Iraq was, he said, nothing was as tough as the Korengal. Unlike in Iraq, where the captains and lieutenants could let down their guard in a relatively safe, fortified operating base, swapping stories and ideas, here they had no one to talk to and were almost as vulnerable to enemy fire inside the wire as out. Last summer, insurgents stormed one of the bases in a nearby valley and wounded 16.

    And unlike every other place I’ve been in Afghanistan — even the Pech River valley, just an hour’s drive away — the Korengal had no Afghan police or district leaders for the Americans to work with. The Afghan government, and Afghans down the valley, seemed to have washed their hands of the Korengalis. As Kearney put it to me one day at the KOP, the Korengal is like a tough Los Angeles neighborhood, “and we’re the L.A.P.D. kicking in the door, arresting guys, demanding information about the gangs, and slowly the people say, ‘No, we don’t know anything, because that guy in the gang, he’s with my sister, and that other guy, he’s my uncle’s cousin.’ Now we’ve angered them for so many years that they’ve decided: ‘I’m gonna stick with the A.C.M.’ ” — anticoalition militants — “ ‘who are my brothers and I’m not gonna rat them out.’ ”
    "

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  27. I've gotta get started on a project, could somebody expand on this for the benefit of my Pea Brain?
    ---
    wretchardthecat@hotmail.com said...
    Doug,

    The Afghanistan - Korengal Valley story calls into question the strategy of pouring a lot of men into Afghanistan, which sputters off into the 'stans and into China as well.

    The real strategic gravity of al-Qaeda isn't in Pakistan. It's in the Middle East.

    ReplyDelete
  28. The old situation, the 'civilian' caught between a rock and a hard place.

    Which isn't an expansion on the comment, just another general meaningless observation.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Your comment lacks Strategic Gravity, Al-Bob!

    ReplyDelete
  30. Well, I think Wretchard is saying the strategy of pouring a lot of men into Afghanistan is called into question by the Afghanistan-Korengal story, and that the real strategic gravity of al-Qaeda is in the Middle East, not Pakistan. Like my hair, I have been slowly losing strtegic gravity for years.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Along with the ability to spell the word strategic, from which a letter or two often falls.

    ReplyDelete
  32. I read the Cannoneer link. Also saw Wretch's link to him.

    It's possible that the LOC could be bit into in a serious way. Won't happen, though. (Reminds me of Lang's very similar south Iraq nightmare scenario; a case where genuine vulnerabilities are recognized and one's own vanity encourages alarmism on the matter. Not saying that's Cannoneer's particular impulse, only that one reminds me of the other.)

    Re: Musharraf

    They'd have to threaten him with impeachment, and they don't have the votes to carry it out. He can be politically marginalized, but he'll stay on. He's not Prime Minister, after all.

    ReplyDelete
  33. "On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." — H. L. Mencken (1920)

    ReplyDelete
  34. "and that the real strategic gravity of al-Qaeda is in the Middle East, not Pakistan. Like my hair, I have "
    ---
    That's the part I don't, you Twit!
    ---
    (Certainly didn't EXPECT Help from PrinceAss Trish!)

    ReplyDelete
  35. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  36. "That's the part I don't GET, you Twit!"

    ReplyDelete
  37. That's the part I don't get, either, you twit!

    ReplyDelete
  38. Stop insulting me and I'll help you. Jackass.

    ReplyDelete
  39. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that McCain was unfaithful to his first wife.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Do me a favor, bob.

    Hop over there to BC and ask Wretch what (not where, but what) AQ's particular "strategic gravity" is.

    Do it for your "womenfriends." Hm?

    ReplyDelete
  41. Sun Feb 24, 03:08:00 PM EST

    At the risk of pointing out the obvious...skipped Eisenhower...who also cheated.

    ReplyDelete
  42. McCain, I believe, was a more or less notorious womanizer. Maybe someone (other than his first wife) could make the case for holding that against him, but any number of times in the past seven years I've wished we had a mere adulterer back in the Oval Office.

    ReplyDelete
  43. I agree with our amigo en Colombia, a little well-targeted lechery is not necessarily a bad thing.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Charles Gitout has posted explicit detail of the Senators interest in young males at BC.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Dear Trish,
    Please Paste URLs with your posts in the future.

    Thank you very much,

    Doug

    ReplyDelete
  46. In 1946, a DC-3 on a flight from Vienna to Pisa crashed into the top of the Rosenlaui Glacier in the Swiss Alps.

    The aircraft was not damaged and all the passengers were rescued, but it quickly began to disappear as a blinding snowstorm raged.

    Swiss engineers have calculated that it will take 600 years for it to slide down inside the glacier and emerge at the bottom.


    DC3 Grounded in UK

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  47. We have just received word that the second polygraph expert's results will be done in about an hour. We will just wait until then to post both results at the same time as we said we would do in the first place. It will be between 1:00 PM and 1:30 PM EST.

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  48. Ike didn't cheat in Office, Cutler, neither has McCain!

    ReplyDelete
  49. (office of the President that is)

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  50. Was it for 15 minutes of "infamy"?" Was it for the money?

    Or was it for something else?

    Whitehouse.com will be releasing more details on the polygraphs. Kudos to the site for their attempts to track down the truth.


    Failed the 2nd

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  51. Sam,
    Eldrige Cleaver's Soul is on Ice, but he ain't gonna re-appear.

    ReplyDelete
  52. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a statement shortly before parliament met, calling the developments a "significant moment in Cuba's history," but saying Cubans have a right "to choose their leaders in democratic elections."

    She also urged the Cuban government to "to begin a process of peaceful, democratic change by releasing all political prisoners, respecting human rights, and creating a clear pathway towards free and fair elections."

    In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, a close friend of Castro, said the leadership change in Havana was "occurring without any type of trauma."


    Cuban President

    ReplyDelete
  53. Trish, your wish, my command--

    I have been sent by Trish from the EB to ask Wretchard 'what a-Q's particular 'strategic gravity' is. Being a good hearted fellow, I comply.

    trish said...
    Do me a favor, bob.

    Hop over there to BC and ask Wretch what (not where, but what) AQ's particular "strategic gravity" is.

    Do it for your "womenfriends." Hm?

    Sun Feb 24, 05:25:00 PM EST

    ReplyDelete
  54. You're a dear.

    Now we'll see what comes up.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Dictionary: specific gravity

    n.
    The ratio of the mass of a solid or liquid to the mass of an equal volume of distilled water at 4°C (39°F) or of a gas to an equal volume of air or hydrogen under prescribed conditions of temperature and pressure. Also called relative density.


    It would seem to be the ratio of the mass of a-Q adherents to the mass of an equal volume of distilled water displaced by same at 4 degrees C.

    ReplyDelete
  56. The Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq is telling its followers to soften their tactics in order to regain popular support in the western province of Anbar, where Sunni tribes have turned against the organization and begun working with U.S. forces, according to group leaders and American intelligence officials.

    ...

    "We do not deny the difficulties we are facing right now," said Riyadh al-Ogaidi, a senior leader, or emir, of al-Qaeda in Iraq in the Garma region of eastern Anbar province. "The Americans have not defeated us, but the turnaround of the Sunnis against us had made us lose a lot and suffer very painfully."

    ...

    Al-Qaeda in Iraq's change in tactics comes in response to the turmoil and self-doubt that arose among its members as they lost the support of Sunni tribesmen, a process vividly described in a letter by an unnamed al-Qaeda in Iraq emir that the U.S. military said it seized last November.


    Struggling Insugency

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  57. I suspect he's going to say ideology, the money to spread it, and core leadership.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Somebody ought to ask these Predidential contenders who owns the Spratly Islands.

    China, and Taiwan, both claim the whole area, and every other nation in the area stakes claims, and we've got defense treaties with at least two of them. China claims it going back to the Tang Dynasty(618-907) but that's a fakaroo based on some old fishing trips. There have been shots fired in the aptly named area of Mischief Reef in the last decade. Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Taiwan, China, Japan, the Philippines and anybody else you can think of all claim part or all of it.

    There's oil and natural gas under those atolls.

    ReplyDelete
  59. taken from "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict" by Michael T. Klare

    ReplyDelete
  60. I'll bet if asked, where are the Spratly Islands, only McCain would know right off the bat.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Might be able to tell you about Subic Bay too.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian re-ignited passions over the South China Sea's Spratly Islands with his visit to disputed area earlier this month. Both Taiwan (ROC) and China (PRC) legally claim sovereign rights over the Spratly archipelago, composed of islets and reefs in the form of a U-shaped line based, on the same assertion that they are historically Chinese waters.

    ...

    Taiwan was the first of the claimant countries to establish a military presence and exercise effective jurisdiction over the Spratly Islands after World War II. The PRC, the latecomer in this island-grabbing race, started its first occupation of Yongshu Jiao (Fiery Cross) in 1988.

    ...

    Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Liu Jianchao avoided direct comments on President Chen's historic trip to Taiping Island, and only stated that "China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and adjacent waters. Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory.


    Spratly Initiative

    ReplyDelete
  63. You Lie!
    Worse, you Lie to Our Miss Trish!
    Shame!

    ReplyDelete
  64. He knows quite a bit about Pakistan too, going back a while.
    ---
    Only Biden, Hagel, and another Dem have recent on the ground experience in the Hinterlands, however, planned, or not!

    ReplyDelete
  65. President Bush, during his trip to Africa last week, said it is now time "for the newly elected folks to show up and form their government. The question now is, `Will they be friends of the United States?'

    I hope so." He also called Musharraf after his party lost in voting last Monday.

    Biden and Hutchison spoke on "This Week" on ABC. Hagel was on "Late Edition" on CNN.


    Graceful Exit

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  66. DONE!
    A Twit, and a Cad, to boot.
    Jeeze.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Hey the Great War Leader Joins Barry's Campaign of Hope!
    Hurrah!

    ReplyDelete
  68. Kerry was the other Dem in the Unplanned Descent.
    Should get another Purple Heart.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Sunday Hillary Clinton was justified in her recent outburst against Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama.

    When asked about the New York senator's recent shame on you harangue of her Senate colleague from Illinois, Granholm told CBS's Face the Nation Sunday Clinton was simply defending her position on healthcare in the United States.

    I'm sure she is going to be very passionate about it, and I think rightly so, the Michigan official said of Clinton's comment Saturday.


    Clinton Outburst

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  70. "Only Biden, Hagel, and another Dem have recent on the ground experience in the Hinterlands, however, planned, or not!"

    I think you mean Kerry, who immediately applied for another purple heart.

    ReplyDelete
  71. God, I still think that guy was the worst major presidential candidate since McClellan.

    ReplyDelete
  72. (only a slight exaggeration)

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  73. After a long discussion of China's naval buildup--(or, have you ever wondered what happened to East Germany's Navy?)--

    "As recently as fifteen years ago, the nations of SE Asia possessed few deep sea warships. Since the late 1980's however these countries have engaged in costly efforts to equip their navies with modern vessels capable of operating on the high seas. Although intended for a variety of purposes, these ships are clearly designed to provide their owners with a capacity to protect vital sea-lanes and their extensive EEZ's(exclusive economic zones) in the South China Sea.

    Leading the way is Malaysia. An increasingly affluent nation of 24 million people, Malaysia has sought to develop the largest and most potent navy in SE Asia. In 1995, it purchased four fully equipped missile corvettes from Italy; originally built for Iraq these 750 ton vessels are armed with a 76mm gun and Otoman antisip missiles. Malysia has also acquired two F-2000 frigates from Yarrow Shipbuilders of Glasow and fitted them with a panoply of advanced European gun and missile systems. And, in its most ambitious project yet, Malaysia has contracted for the production, in domestic shipyards, of up to 27 Melo 100 patrol ships, making his the largest multiship naval construction program now under way in Asia.

    Thailand and Indonesia, in differing ways, have also endeavored to assemble a significant deep sea navy. Thailand has sought prominence by acquiring the region's first aircraft carrier. Built by Spain, the carrier is intended to carry up to twelve medium helicopters or fifteen vertical takeoff and landing planes. The Thais have also purchased two Knox class frigates from the United States and three patrol boats from Australia. Indonesia, meanwhile attempted to jump start its naval expansion plans by buying the entire navy of the former East Germany. Included in this thirty nine ship deal, concluded after German reunification in 1991, were 16 corvettes, nine minesweepers, and a variety of support ships. On top of this, Indonesia has purchased six surplus frigates from the Netherlands and three from the United Kingdom."

    Goes on to describe the smaller efforts by smaller countries in the area. Whoile area is getting armed up.

    "Resource Wars"

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  74. I think you mean Kerry, who immediately applied for another purple heart.

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  75. Paul Gigot is the editorial-page editor of The Wall Street Journal, and is also a Green Bay native. He says the region is a swing area, though it leans a little Republican.

    He says it's a heavy Catholic area, and Catholics nationwide are the ultimate swing group.

    Ken Goldstein teaches political science at UW-Madison. He calls the region the most evenly divided area in the most evenly divided state.


    National Politics Stage

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  76. In my life, I have yet to see Idaho described as a pivotal, swing state. Not even a state that swings, or a swinging state. Stolid and reliable we are, like a potato.

    ReplyDelete
  77. Wretchard is touchy as hell.

    ReplyDelete
  78. whit said...
    Compound low?
    What is Granny Gear?

    Sun Feb 24, 09:20:00 AM EST
    ---
    Doug said...
    It's stuff they advertise in Castro's Paper.
    ---
    Your answer is posted, Trish.
    No thanks to Al-Harb.

    ReplyDelete
  79. NahnCee said...
    "The real strategic gravity of al-Qaeda isn't in Pakistan. It's in the Middle East."

    AQ in Pakistan can't hurt anything.
    ---
    Yeah, what's a couple of smuggled Nukes, anyhow?
    ---
    But I ain't botherin the big N!
    THERE'S A TOUCHY ONE Al-Bob!

    ReplyDelete
  80. The cultural traditions and values of American society originate from the Judeo-Christian heritage of our Founding Fathers. They pledged allegiance to “one nation under God,” with the Creator as the source of our inalienable civil rights and liberties.

    ...

    Last week, Mohammed Khan, the imam of the Islamic Center of Des Moines, led the opening prayer in the Iowa legislature at the request of Iowa State Representative Ako Abdul-Samad, a former Iowa school board member who has worked as a counselor in the Iowa prison system, and has questionable associations with Islamic extremists.

    ...

    ...public expressions of Islamic support have increased dramatically:

    * Rep. Abdul-Samad is a former president of the Islamic Center in Des Moines, which first achieved notoriety in 2004 when it welcomed Muslim extremist Ibrahim Dremali as its new imam. Dremali came to Des Moines after a hasty departure from a position at the Islamic Center of Boca Raton, shortly after a local physician and congregant, Rafiq Sabir, was arrested and pled guilty for swearing allegiance to Al Qaeda.


    State House Proselytism

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  81. Korengal Valley:

    What a depressing and frustrating story.

    Christ.

    ReplyDelete
  82. President Bush enjoyed a friendly welcome throughout his African visit where he was able to highlight his Administration’s increased aid commitments. But his agenda in Washington has become more complex.

    Senior officials view the outcome of the parliamentary election in Pakistan as especially troubling. President Musharraf was never a perfect partner for the US.

    Nonetheless, as a Pentagon officials commented to us: “Our counter-terrorism and Afghan policies depend on his survival. This is now in doubt.”


    Complex Agenda

    ReplyDelete
  83. That Obama link covers just about every bad thing you can think of for this country.
    Wonder if the Liberal "Jews" will still vote Democratic?
    Maybe you could have a post on that one, Deuce?

    ReplyDelete
  84. Goddammit, bob.









    If the strategic centers of gravity are ideology and money, they can't be (centrally) geographically located (for instance, in either the ME or SA). There are nodes, but only nodes. (Wretch leaves out cult of personality as another strategic center; one which CAN be geographically located, but that's another debate.) And your counters are disruption and (dis)information at those nodes - fifty-some and counting, of greater and lesser importance, by off-hand reckoning.

    ReplyDelete
  85. But what if Pope Benedict XVI is inviting us to hold together in our consciousness what appears to be contradictory intuitions: a commitment to absolute truth and to genuine openness? We need to admit to ourselves that we do believe that the truth we ultimately stake our life on is deeper than what others possess, and at the same time we need to embrace that this is not incommensurate with a deep ecumenism.

    One might call this post-postmodern — neither a traditionalist understanding of the truth in the pre-modern sense, with its arrogant absolutism, nor a relativistic understanding of the truth in the postmodern sense, with its false humility that all truths are really equal except, of course, this truth. Call it a humble absolutism.

    Ultimately, the crucial measure for a religion is if its teachings and practices help us remove the veils from our own hearts — that is, become more humble and honest about our own lives and more compassionate and loving to all of God’s creatures. If returning to the Latin Mass and reasserting the hope that Jews find salvation in Jesus does this for Catholics, then all will be well.


    Mass Hysteria

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  86. Brother D, if you haven't read it, a book called "The Places In Between" by that English or Scot feller that hiked through Afghanistan. They have women there that have never been out of the village and down the road five miles to the next village. Whole place is an absolute disaster and always will be as long as they have that stupid book the koran.

    ReplyDelete
  87. Granny Gear of Santa Cruz I have a sis in Santa Cruz. U of Santa Crazy. Berkeley lite.

    I too wonder if American Jews will vote for Obama. That seems really pushing the outer edges.

    ReplyDelete
  88. "They have women there that have never been out of the village and down the road five miles to the next village."

    But they know Masoud.

    ReplyDelete
  89. Bob - thanks for the tip. I am on it.

    We are the insurgents in AFG.

    Trying to topple a thousand year rule of total fucking insanity with the doctrine of reason in a landlocked country surrounded by countries that have a vested interest in the continuation of total fucking insanity.

    ReplyDelete
  90. On a remote island near the North Pole the Norwegians are building an International Seed Bank inside a frozen Arctic mountain.

    Dag Brox, Site Manager, Doomsday Vault:

    It’s exciting, it’s a very special project - there’s a lot of interest.

    Magnus Tveiten, Project Manager, Doomsday Vault:

    Everyone thinks that this is a very exciting project and it’s a once in a lifetime project. But I’ve never been responsible for something like this.

    ...

    Dr. Cary Fowler, Exec. Dir. Global Crop Diversity Trust:

    A lot of people today are concerned about extinction and we’re going to end that process of the extinction of agricultural crop varieties because we will have a safety backup and it’s going to be in a safe place.

    Doomsday Vault

    ReplyDelete
  91. Reasons Not To Vote For Obama If You Are Jewish

    Masoud seemed like a decent guy, if you mean the Lion of wherever. Exceptions to every rule.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Sam, I knew a guy once that was in Ag Sciences, he told a story about some Russians during the war, that starved to death, or at least nearly so, rather than eat their stash of different kinds of crop seeds. True story, I quess.

    ReplyDelete
  93. Congress returns from recess this week. As we go to press, Speaker Pelosi continues to indicate she will not allow a vote on the bipartisan Senate surveillance bill.

    This demonstrates a fundamental lack of seriousness about national security on the part of congressional Democrats. Newsflash: The United States faces a persistent threat of attack from a terrorist organization with global reach and the desire to massacre as many innocent people as possible.

    Do House Democrats really want to make the terrorists' jobs any easier?


    Hear No Evil

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  94. Vavilov wasn't the only Russian scientist who died in the name of crop diversity. During the 872-day Nazi blockade of Leningrad, Vavilov's colleagues holed up inside the gene bank he founded, determined to protect the seed collection from the Germans and the city's hungry residents. There, locked inside a building filled with seeds, roughly a dozen scientists died of starvation.

    Seeds To Save A Species

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  95. They chose to starve rather than eat? Weird.

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  96. Beats dying for the Fuhrer, or the Communist Party, in my view.

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  97. Do you know this man? Are you this man? D.B.Cooper

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  98. The Hope Of All The World If Obama is the Messiah, maybe that makes Farrakhan John the Baptist, though it doesn't seem to fit, in either case.

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  99. Some of the $20 bills recovered from the legendary 1971 “D.B. Cooper” skyjacking were displayed at the show by PCGS Currency for the public to see in person for the first time. Brian Ingram of Arkansas, who was 8tyears old when he found the bills along the Columbia River near Vancouver, Wash., in 1980, attended the opening of the show to see the historic notes on display.

    Long Beach Expo

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  100. The larger the mob, the harder the test.
    In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality.
    But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

    The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.
    We move toward a lofty ideal.
    On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

    HL Mencken
    Baltimore Evening Sun
    26 July 1920

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  101. It may have been weird, Sam, but that was the Begining of the Valvoline Dynasty.
    Even then, it was all about Oil.

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  102. Is your sis on Speaking Terms with Angela Davis, AlBob?

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  103. Sam,
    Thanks,
    I aim to please,
    but most often miss.

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  104. Crap, I thot you meant my 11:01







    1

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  105. Ra¿l has also offered to initiate dialogue with the United States, which, along with international human rights groups, accuses the Castro regime of political repression and the jailing of dissidents. Assembly member Nieves L¿pez, who was 9 when Fidel took power, said in an interview that "Cuba does not have a single political prisoner."

    The talk outside the legislative chamber Sunday was not about change -- it was about preserving Fidel Castro's policies.

    "Our political project must stay the same," L¿pez said. "Our system is well-defined, and it will not change."


    Raul Named President

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  106. Is Angela Davis at Santa Cruz? That would explain some of it.

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  107. "If the strategic centers of gravity are ideology and money, they can't be (centrally) geographically located (for instance, in either the ME or SA)."

    I think you're wrong about this. It depends on context.

    If I rely on money, and that money comes from a specific gold mine, that gold mine, geographically located, is my center of gravity. The parallel is that, though not entirely limited to it, Al Qaeda’s many donators in the Gulf States benefit primarily from their oil wealth.

    And ideology can be geographically located to an extent, if a certain area is more naturally receptive to it. Originally, Al Qaeda’s core ideology was most attractive, for a number of reasons, to Arabs in the Middle East. Unfortunately, now it’s obviously gone global to some extent, but originally it could have been located. The extent to which it can be today is, I think, an open question.

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  108. We once talked of the horrors of Clinton leaving a training camp intact.
    Now that there are many, they are no longer a problem.
    Times Change.

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  109. Lee Myung-Bak took the oath of office as South Korean's new president Monday, promising economic revival for his nation and a better life for impoverished North Korea if it scraps its nuclear drive.

    "We must move from the age of ideology into the age of pragmatism," the conservative former business chief announced as he began his five-year term following a decade of left-leaning rule.

    The colourful inauguration was attended by some 50,000 guests, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.


    Businessman President

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  110. Yeah, Albob,
    Leading the Lesbos since way back when she was a looker, not an Old Commie Hag.

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  111. A Young Commie Bitch, she was!

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  112. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez reaffirmed his economic and political support of Cuba when he took a telephone call from Raul Castro after the session. Chavez also sent a message to his ally Fidel, whom he visited numerous times during his illness.

    "Fidel, comrade," Chavez said, "I send you a hug. You continue to be El Comandante."

    Earlier Sunday, Chavez scoffed at the idea of a transition in Cuba, saying "the transition occurred 49 years ago," from U.S.-dominated capitalism to socialism.


    Cuba's President

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  113. Free and fair elections ain't happenin'.

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  114. BRYAN WHITMAN (Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense For Public Affairs): Well, good morning and welcome. Today our briefer is Colonel Chip Preysler, commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team.

    ...

    COL. PREYSLER: Thanks, Bryan, and I appreciate you guys letting me rehearse a couple weeks ago. Hopefully I can get this right today.

    Good morning from Forward Operating Base Fenty in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. On behalf of all those serving in Task Force Bayonet and our partners in the Afghan National Security Forces, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

    Task Force Bayonet is built around the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team based in Italy and Germany. The 173rd is an organization with a vast amount of experience, having deployed previously to both Iraq and more recently Afghanistan. Rounding out the task force are elements of the Arizona National Guard, individual augmentees from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and all areas of Reserve and National Guard forces.

    ...

    At this time, I'd be happy to take any questions.

    MR. WHITMAN: All right. We'll get started here with Kristin.

    Q Sir, it's Kristin Roberts with Reuters. I'm hoping you can give us an idea of the levels of violence you're seeing now, compared with perhaps when you began there on your latest tour in Afghanistan.

    COL. PREYSLER: Yeah. Good question. We came in during a tough period in June when, of course, the harvest is in and the fighting season, because of weather, is definitely permissive.

    It's hard to compare from year to year specifically in our area, because we've never had this much force in this particular area of operation.

    ...

    Q Can you tell me if, since June, you've seen an increase in suicide attacks particularly?

    COL. PREYSLER: Yes, there has been an increase in suicide attacks across the country. Again, drawing back from my first tour, there was very few if any suicide attacks.

    ...

    Q Colonel, Jeff Schogol with Stars and Stripes.

    I understand that in the 173rd's last combat tour to Afghanistan, it suffered a total of 18 fatalities: 17 from the 173rd and one from SETAF. So far this year, in the last four months, I understand the unit has suffered 16 fatalities. Please let me know if that figure is incorrect. Does that mean Afghanistan has become a more dangerous place for soldiers since your last tour?

    COL. PREYSLER: No, I believe those numbers are accurate. I would not make that assessment, that things are more dangerous just because of certain casualty comparisons from one year to another.


    Oct. '07 Interview

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  115. "Al Qaeda’s many donators in the Gulf States benefit primarily from their oil wealth."

    To a great extent they do. And what to do about this? Until alternative fuels give fossil fuels a run for their money, I sincerely don't know.

    "Originally, Al Qaeda’s core ideology was most attractive, for a number of reasons, to Arabs in the Middle East. Unfortunately, now it’s obviously gone global to some extent, but originally it could have been located. The extent to which it can be today is, I think, an open question."

    The last point at which a handful of take-downs could have delivered a sucking chest wound to al Qaeda was the late 90s, and none of them would have been in the Gulf.

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  116. AQ was attractive where the absence of gov authority lent them specious credibility and room to maneuver.

    Kinda like today.

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  117. Quick, can you name the Christian denomination of which Hillary Rodham Clinton has been a member all her life? Now check your answer HERE

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  118. Why is Trish afraid to post at Belmont? This curious mind wants to know.

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  119. Fair enough.



    But this time Occam is wrong.

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  120. You can start by posting your usual vacant witticism on the top 5 threads.

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