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, August 25, 2013

An ABC report Thursday revealed that four members of a board designed to review NSA policies had spent much of their career working in presidential administrations. While at least one member of the review panel had previously criticized the NSA programs, others, including former CIA Director Michael Morrell, have long-standing ties with the intelligence community.







NSA analysts ‘willfully’ skirted policy to spy on Americans, agency admits
Published time: August 24, 2013 01:08 
Edited time: August 24, 2013 14:42

National Security Agency intelligence analysts knowingly and purposely broke rules meant to prevent against unlawful spying on US citizens, the agency said in an admission that contradicts President Obama's claim that violations were accidental.
A report from the NSA inspector general – an internal, independent watchdog – found that analysts ignored “minimization processes” meant to curb any violations. The incidents in question are expected to fuel current conversations about bolstering oversight of the NSA’s surveillance apparatus. 
Over the past decade, very rare instances of wilful violations of NSA’s authorities have been found,” the NSA confirmed to Bloomberg, which first published word of the inspector general report. “NSA takes very seriously any allegations of misconduct, and cooperates fully with any investigations – responding as appropriate. NSA has zero tolerance for wilful violations of the agency’s authorities.” 
Officials told The Wall Street Journal analysts have used their position to spy on lovers, although claimed such events were rare. Intelligence agents use a variety of suffixes when referring to their activity. 
Signal intelligence, for instance, is expressed by SIGINT. Analysts monitoring their lovers so often was apparently popular enough to be designated a code of its own: LOVEINT. Officials told WSJ that all employees discovered to have engaged in such activity were either reprimanded or terminated.
NSA Director General Keith Alexander told a New York conference on August 8 that “no one has wilfully or knowingly disobeyed the law or tried to invade your civil liberties or privacy.”
During an interview with CNN, Obama said he was comfortable telling Americans that the NSA surveillance has been “done the right way.” 
Because there are no allegations, and I am very confident – knowing the NSA and how they operate – that purposefully somebody is out there trying to abuse this program or listen in on people’s email,” he said. “I think there are legitimate concerns that people have that technology is so quick that, you know, at some point, does the technology outpace the laws that are in place and the protections that are in place? Do some of these systems end up being like a loaded gun out there that somebody at some future point could abuse?” 
The administration has been under harsh scrutiny because of a series of misleading statements regarding the surveillance programs that later turned out to be false. 
An ABC report Thursday revealed that four members of a board designed to review NSA policies had spent much of their career working in presidential administrations. While at least one member of the review panel had previously criticized the NSA programs, others, including former CIA Director Michael Morrell, have long-standing ties with the intelligence community.  
There’s a pattern of the administration making misleading statements about its surveillance activities,” Jameel Jaffer, a deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Bloomberg. “The government tells us one thing, and another thing is true.”

138 comments:

  1. Everything Obama has said about the extent of NSA illegal domestic activities has bee a lie.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Obama’s picks for “outsider” NSA review — looks like the fix is in


    White House Picks Panel to Review NSA Programs

    I don’t know whether ABC’s Mike Levine just rubber-stamped brief bios of the panel picks or if there were any degree of research done, but here’s what I’ve come up with regarding what President Obama refers to as “outside experts.”

    Right off the bat, let’s look at one detail fairly well buried in Levine’s blog post at ABC.

    In 60 days, the review panel will provide an interim report to the director of national intelligence, who will then brief the president on the panel’s findings.

    Note how Levine fails to mention James Clapper by name. Isn’t that just a touch odd in an article about such a momentous occasion, especially an article rife with names, especially when the name omitted is that of someone folks on both the left and right would like to see, by respectable majorities, prosecuted for perjury? That James Clapper will receive the interim report and brief the President. Feel better yet?

    So let’s take a closer look at these “outsider” panel picks.

    ----


    http://scholarsandrogues.com/2013/08/21/obamas-picks-for-outsider-nsa-review-looks-like-the-fix-is-in/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Obama Keeps Lying on NSA: Insists Violations ‘Inadvertent’
    NSA Inspector General Admits Analysts Deliberately Broke Rules


    by Jason Ditz, August 23, 2013

    On Wednesday, President Obama insisted there was no NSA spying on Americans, just hours after the government was forced to release documents showing broad, systematic spying on Americans had been going on for years. Today, President Obama insisted that all the violations were “inadvertent and accidental” and, well you can probably see where this is headed.

    Continuing the strategy of lying at the worst possible time, Obama’s claims were immediately followed by a report from the NSA Inspector General, which showed that there were several instances of “willful violations” in which the NSA deliberately broke rules so they could spy on Americans.

    President Obama’s latest flat out lie came during a CNN interview in which he insisted he was determined to “do a better job” convincing Americans that the NSA programs are being carried out legally and aren’t being abused.

    His efforts to sell the surveillance state to the American public have centered pretty much entirely on overt lying, which seems unlikely to be effective. At the same time, the truth about the surveillance program is so bad that leveling with the public is bound to fail just as badly.

    ----

    http://news.antiwar.com/2013/08/23/obama-keeps-lying-on-nsa-insists-violations-inadvertent/

    ReplyDelete
  4. White House Lies Underscore the NSA’s Indefensibility
    Posted: 08/22/2013 11:07 am

    Does everyone still remember when Edward Snowden leaked all that information about the NSA spying on ordinary Americans? The White House is sure hoping you don't.

    Despite repeated leaks showing the NSA programs routinely violated the privacy of ordinary Americans, including a series of revelations Wednesday that confirmed the practice was even broader than anyone had previously suggested, the White House is sticking to its story.

    "There is no spying on Americans." That's the official position, and White House spokesman Josh Earnest reiterated it on Wednesday, just a couple of hours after a new flurry of documents showing that they are most assuredly spying on Americans.

    The White House position is a flat out lie, and it's not the only one they've told in the past few weeks about the NSA. President Obama's press briefing on the matter centered on repeatedly claiming that the NSA surveillance is only carried out under intense, regular oversight from both Congress and the FISA courts.

    That's untrue on both fronts. Several people in Congress, including top members of the intelligence committees, say that they have long felt "in the dark" about the details of the NSA program. As for FISA, that late 2011 ruling that ongoing surveillance was "unconstitutional" covered operational abuses that had been ongoing since 2008, meaning it took them four solid years to even notice a huge, systematic abuse of constitutional protections.

    The abuses date back for many years, including a six-month span in the lead up to the 2002 Winter Olympics where the NSA just decided to collect everyone's emails in text messages in metro Salt Lake City because, why not? There was no plot, and no reason to think any of the people spied on were even theoretically involved in a plot, but they were spied on anyhow.

    The NSA's history of abuses is so appalling that it doesn't even seem fair to call it "checkered," because that would imply that there were a lot of times when they weren't overtly abusing the privacy of ordinary Americans and innocents abroad. It’s what they do, and presidents have always looked the other way.

    -----

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-ditz/white-house-lies-undersco_b_3793100.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. It looks like the President of the United States is a lying sack of shit.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Remember when Obama said the NSA wasn’t “actually abusing” its powers? He was wrong
    .
    By Andrea Peterson, Published: August 15 at 10:28 pmE-mail the writer



    At a news conference Friday, President Obama insisted that the threat of NSA abuses was mostly theoretical:
    If you look at the reports, even the disclosures that Mr. Snowden’s put forward, all the stories that have been written, what you’re not reading about is the government actually abusing these programs and, you know, listening in on people’s phone calls or inappropriately reading people’s e-mails.

    What you’re hearing about is the prospect that these could be abused. Now part of the reason they’re not abused is because they’re — these checks are in place, and those abuses would be against the law and would be against the orders of the FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court].

    Today our colleague Barton Gellman released new documents that contradicted Obama’s claims.

    Gellman obtained an audit of the NSA’s compliance record from NSA leaker Snowden earlier this summer. The audit, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months where the agency engaged in “unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications.” The audit only covered issues at NSA facilities in the D.C. and Fort Meade areas.
    Most of those incidents were unintended, involving either violations of standard operations or failures of due diligence. But others were more serious.

    And on at least one occasion, the NSA did not need to report unintended surveillance of Americans:
    A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.

    Obama said that wasn’t supposed to happen because it would be “against the orders of the FISC.” So why didn’t the judges on the court catch these abuses?

    In another story broken by The Post today, the chief of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court admits he doesn’t actually have the capability to investigate the compliance record of NSA surveillance programs:
    The FISC is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Court [...] The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government] compliance with its orders.

    Under the FISA regime, the government doesn’t have to seek permission for individual surveillance targets. Instead, it seeks FISC approval for broad schemes of surveillance like PRISM and the phone records program. But that makes it extremely difficult for the FISC to check the court’s work, since the NSA can — and, apparently, did — hide misconduct from the court that’s supposedly supervising its activities.

    -----------------

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/15/remember-when-obama-said-the-nsa-wasnt-actually-abusing-its-powers-he-was-wrong/

    ReplyDelete
  7. The President of the United States is a lying sack of shit.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Was Obama untruthful or just wrong about the NSA's spying?


    By Kyle Wingfield

    The Atlanta Journal

    At Salon, David Sirota asks a question about President Obama and the NSA spying program that is reminiscent of what I've been saying about the IRS scandal:
    “With the latest major revelation about National Security Agency surveillance, there's a huge taboo question that needs to be put out on the table: Has President Obama been deliberately lying about the NSA, or have his statements just been repeatedly 'wrong'?

    "After Barton Gellman's blockbuster story today about the NSA breaking 'privacy rules or overstepp(ing) its legal authority thousands of times each year,' the Washington Post published an attendant commentary with a headline declaring the president was merely 'wrong' in last week suggesting that the NSA wasn't 'actually abusing' its legal authority. The implication is that when Obama made that comment -- and then further insisted the surveillance programs 'are not abused' -- he may have been inaccurate, but he didn't necessarily deliberately lie because he may not have known he was not telling the truth."

    I can only guess Sirota is trying to give himself some cover among his fellow left-wingers by drawing a comparison to George W. Bush's statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It would be truly damning if Obama knew no more about what his own administration was doing inside our own country than Bush knew about what a dictator was doing in a country halfway around the world; I think it’s better to conclude Sirota merely drew a wildly inaccurate equivalence between two situations that just happened to involve the intelligence community.
    {…}

    ReplyDelete

  9. {…}

    But let’s move on to the heart of Sirota’s argument:
    "I guess it's possible Obama has merely been 'wrong' but has not been lying. But the implications of that would be just as bad --albeit in a different way -- as if he were deliberately lying. It would mean that he is making sweeping and wildly inaccurate statements without bothering to find out if they are actually true. Worse, for him merely to be wrong but not deliberately lying, it would mean that he didn't know the most basic facts about how his own administration runs. It would, in other words, mean he is so totally out of the loop on absolutely everything -- even the public news cycle -- that he has no idea what’s going on.


    "I, of course, don't buy that at all. I don't buy that a constitutional lawyer and legal scholar didn't know that the FISA court is secret -- aka the opposite of 'transparent.' I don't buy that he simply didn't see any of the news showing that spying is happening in the United States. And I don’t buy that he didn't know that there is evidence -- both public and inside his own administration -- of the NSA 'actually abusing' its power."

    This is becoming something of a theme with this administration:
    Did key members of the administration know the IRS was targeting conservative groups for years -- or can that kind of wrongdoing really go on, on that kind of scale, for such a long time, with the highest levels of the executive branch remaining ignorant about it? Neither answer is good.

    Did key members of the administration know from the beginning that there was no spontaneous demonstration in Benghazi, and that it certainly had nothing to do with an obscure YouTube video by an unknown filmmaker -- or did U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama himself make references to the video as a cause for the attack that left four Americans dead because they actually thought that was what happened? Neither answer is good.

    Now the NSA thing: As Sirota notes, the choices are either a) Obama really didn't know what was going on in this most sensitive and constitutionally debatable of intelligence practices, or b) he did know and he chose to mislead the public. Neither answer is good.

    There is a theory that top officials should be purposely kept in the dark on the details of morally and politically fraught endeavors, so as not to implicate them if said endeavors come to public light. But there's a fine line between this notion of "plausible deniability" and sheer incompetence and negligence when such sensitive matters are involved.

    And again: Neither is good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The same NSA that lies to Congress, they lie to Obama, too

      The idea that they tell Obama the truth, while lying to everyone else, why that is just ...

      ...comical

      Delete
    2. If I were king for a day, they would lie to once, but I’m not.

      Obama is.

      No, the truth is Obama wants them to lie to him. He knows exactly what is going on.

      Delete
  10. Is it possible that Obama is just a lazy , arrogant asshole?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Obama is either intentionally ignorant or has deliberately lied to us. Take your pick. Neither answer is good.

    ReplyDelete
  12. When it comes to failures, Obama can claim incompetence or complicity.

    Neither are something to brag about.

    Either he was in over his head from day one or his message of change was a lie.

    It's a simple as that.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Flash - This Just In:

    Handful of NSA Employees flunk Sainthood Test!!!

    President to be impeached.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In other news:

      All U.S. Skyscrapers still standing,

      and still no new U.S. Casualties in Iraq.

      Delete
    2. Troops continue to disengage in Afghanistan, and

      101st Airborne is Not deploying to Syria.

      Delete
    3. Poet-DSM is hiring full-time workers for their new cellulosic ethanol plant in Emmettsburg, Iowa.

      Delete
    4. This just in:

      (Reuters) - Gulf-based supporters have sent a 400-ton shipment of arms to Syria's outgunned rebels, one of the biggest to reach them in their two-year-old uprising, opposition sources said on Sunday.

      Delete
    5. U.S. warships move closer to Syria as Obama weighs military options

      The President will meet with his national security team Saturday to discuss possible responses to President Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons, White House officials said.

      AP

      Delete
    6. Drone industry drinks a toast to a liquid future

      American industry looking forward to a ‘gold-rush’ away from the war on terrorism

      By Raf Sanchez, Sunday Telegraph August 24, 2013


      Delete
    7. We need to understand one thing, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf Arabs will benefit, greatly, from any U.S. involvement in Syria, and Iran.

      Delete
  14. I spent more than a few years in the middle of various antenna fields in gated compounds and trailers without windows.

    You would drive to work on rotating shifts and everything would be normal.

    As you approached the security gate you put on your security badge. You never wore it outside of the compound area.

    Entering the gate, things began to change. You climbed aluminum steps into an office trailer that smelled of stale air conditioning, cigarette smoke and could have been a field office construction trailer.

    At the rear of the trailer was another door locked with a security key pad, followed by an eight foot hallway and a more robust door with an armored mirror, periscope size. You buzzed and waited to be buzzed back.

    Entering the darkened rear trailers you were greeted by panels of red, green and yellow lights, glowing radar screens, technicians and operators, scopes and dopes. Your world changed and you were in a culture reinforced by your others and surroundings and of course, the mission.

    That was with a crew of five. You and your crew united against them. It didn’t matter then who “they” were then and it doesn’t matter who “they” are now. The stagecraft overwhelms.

    I can hardly doubt the seductive power of NSA, superbowl sized operations rooms, staffed by thousands with their own language and culture, mutually reinforcing the paranoia designed into the spy mothership and architectural techno-stage of the NSA.

    It will matter little who is in charge and the mission. They will do as they are told and love it. There will be no overt challenge or open questioning of the importance and better yet, self-importance. The master manipulators know all about this.

    And then along comes an Edward Snowden, a lone figure standing on the bridge taking a piss on the parade.

    Oh dear!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Philly Confidential

    Man critically wounded in Frankford shooting

    POSTED: Friday, August 23, 2013, 10:44 AM

    An 18-year-old man is in critical condition following an overnight shooting in Frankford, police said. The shooting happened around midnight on Jackson Street near Pratt. Police said the victim was found on the street suffering from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. He was taken to Temple University Hospital where he is listed in critical condition. No arrests have been made.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This just in: An 18 yr. old man was shot last night in a country of 320 Million.

      Delete
    2. If you think it is so humorous I suggest you go live in the hood yourself, smart ass.

      Delete
    3. Rufus doesnt value anyone's life but his own coward's ass.

      Delete
    4. This from the boobie that advocates for abortion 'On Demand'!

      Talk about cowardly!

      Takes a brave boobie to kill a baby, in the name of Women's Rights

      Delete

  16. DECLARATIONS Updated August 23, 2013, 6:53 p.m. ET

    ’A Nation of Sullen Paranoids’ Too much security can produce a kind of madness.
    By PEGGY NOONAN

    Three items on the continuing National Security Agency controversy: the information that came out this week, a prescient warning from a veteran British intelligence hand, and a prophecy from an interesting source.

    Siobhan Gorman and Jennifer Valentino-DeVries reported in this newspaper that the NSA, which is supposed to have only limited authority to spy on U.S. citizens, has built a surveillance network that covers substantially more communications than had been disclosed. The system is able to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic: "In some cases it retains the written content of emails sent between citizens within the U.S. and also filters domestic phone call made with Internet technology." Sources on the story were current and former intelligence and government officials.

    Also this week, a finding was revealed that the NSA violated the Constitution for three years running by collecting as many as 56,000 purely domestic communications without appropriate privacy protections. The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court slammed the agency for "misrepresenting" its practices to the court, and noted it was the third time in less than three years the government misrepresented the scope of a collection program.

    All this in just the past few days. Makes you wonder what might be coming in a Labor Day weekend document dump, doesn't it?

    ***
    Readers of my columns and blog posts see an NSA theme: There are too many built-in dynamics that make the national-security state want to grow, from legitimate fears of terrorism, to bureaucratic pride, to the flaws in human nature. And there are too many dynamics that will allow it to grow. The aftermath of 9/11 happened to coincide with a new burst in American technological innovation and discovery: The government has the ways and means to do pretty much anything now, and if they can do it they will do it.

    {…}

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Police states kill innocents by the millions, don't think you are safer by being a good subject of a police state?

      Delete
    2. 55 million in the US, since 1977

      Israel around 20,000 a year.

      Innocents by the millions

      Delete
  17. {…}

    If the citizens of the United States don't put up a halting hand, the government can't be expected to. It is in the nature of security professionals to always want more, and since their mission is worthy they're less likely to have constitutional qualms, to dwell on such abstractions as abuse of the Fourth Amendment and the impact of that abuse on the First.

    If you assume all the information that can and will be gleaned will be confined to NSA and national security purposes, you are not sufficiently imaginative or informed. If you believe the information will never be used wrongly or recklessly, you are touchingly innocent.

    If you assume you can trust the administration on this issue you are not following the bouncing ball, from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who told Congress under oath the NSA didn't gather "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans" (he later had to apologize) to President Obama, who told Jay Leno: "We don't have a domestic program." What we do have, the president said, is "some mechanism that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack."

    Oh, we have more than that.

    Almost every politician in America lives in fear of one big thing: a terrorist attack they can later be accused of not having done everything to stop. And so they'll do anything. They are looking to preserve their political viability and historical standing. We, as citizens, must keep other things in mind, such as the rights we are born with as Americans, one of which is privacy.

    {…}

    ReplyDelete
  18. {..}


    I happened to pick up "Open Secret," the memoir of Stella Rimington, who in the early 1990s served as director-general of MI5, the British domestic spy agency. I knew a little of her. She was the agency's first female chief, she fell into spy work by accident, and she didn't come from a fancy English family, meaning she didn't proceed professionally with an air of entitlement or a crouch of guilt. So I thought she might have her head screwed on right regarding the surveillance state. She does.

    In the preface of the 2002 edition she is already concerned about a loss of civil liberties. Terrorism didn't begin on 9/11, she says, it has been with the modern world since at least the late 1960s, and it isn't going away anytime soon. We must commit ourselves to do everything we can, within the law and within our most valued traditions, to oppose and thwart it. But, she suggests, you don't want to lose your country—the thing you are so anxious to defend—in your effort to save your country.

    In a career in what she calls "the secret state," she learned that at the heart of countering terrorism is intelligence, and the most valuable sources against terrorism are human beings—long-term penetration efforts. This must be heavily supplemented by technical intelligence—phones, the Internet—and the more expert the better.

    But democratic nations must always balance "the citizens' right to live their lives in freedom, with minimum interference with their privacy from the security agencies" against the governments' responsibility "to protect their citizens from harm." That balance, she warned, had already begun to swing toward "more emphasis to our safety than our civil liberties." It has become more acceptable "for the government . . . to take more powers." She laments this. Pointedly: There is a danger, she observes, that "security can become an industry in itself and will not be protecting what is truly at risk."

    Terrorism will continue to appeal to extremists, to "weak minded" individuals drawn by passionate causes. But lack of attentiveness to our liberties will not help us succeed against them, and it can damage us. I wrote in the margins: "She's saying we can't become suicide bombers of our own rights."

    ***
    Finally, I heard this week from a respected former U.S. senator, a many-termed moderate conservative who was never known as the excitable type. He wrote in reaction to Nat Hentoff's warnings regarding the potentially corrosive effect of extreme surveillance on free speech. "All this scares me to death," the man wrote. "How many times do we have to watch government, with the best of intentions, I am sure (or almost so), do things 'for us'? Now 'security' and 'terrorism' argue for and justify the case for ever more intrusions—all in the name of protecting us. The truly frightening thing is that we are told we have to depend on government to police itself. Not a comforting thought, for we already have far too much evidence of the lack of such self-supervision. These actions, as Nat Hentoff said, will sooner than later curtail free speech.

    "If so, I am fearful that this will ultimately lead a nation of sullen paranoids, ever more dependent upon government, ever more fearful of it. A free society, it will not be."

    "A nation of sullen paranoids." Boy, is that it. This picks up on a point a friend, a veteran of Republican White Houses, said near the time the controversies were beginning. He told me of a sophisticated person he knew, experienced in journalism and the ways of government, who thought the U.S. government might have had the reporter Michael Hastings killed.

    He said, musingly, "The future is paranoia."

    Unless, of course, we stop it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Peggy Noonan writing about "sullen paranoids?" :)

      Really? :)

      Delete
    2. This is the same Peggy Noonan who once wrote an article about some horrible apocalyptic thing that was going to happen to the world just because she had a bad feeling...like undigested pizza or something.

      Delete
  19. Rufus isn't bright enough to be paranoid, sullen or otherwise. He thinks if you're innocent you've nothing to fear from having your entire life monitored. Idiot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. By the way, Obama is a lying sack of shit. And Rufus is either too dumb to see it, or, what is even worse, simply doesn't care.

      Delete
    2. This, also, just in:

      Old White Racists jump over "sullen paranoia," and go straight to "Totally Batshit Crazy."

      Delete
    3. You can tell when Obama is about to lie, he precedes it with a nervous verbal tic that goes, "Let me be clear..."

      Delete
    4. For big whoppers, he uses, "Let me be perfectly clear..."

      Delete
  20. The owner of 4 Go-Kart Tracks reports 9,450,000 miles on E85 with No problems.

    Thunder road - Clean Air/No Problemos

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Go karts, fine. Minibikes, lawn mowers, drones, good to go. But keep that crap away from my 1996 Mustang and 2010 Focus.

      Delete
    2. It's your money; suit yourself.

      Delete
    3. That's right, it's my money, I like the idea of not voiding the powertrain warranty by running moonshine through the fuel injectors.

      Delete
    4. :) Do you have any idea what they use to "clean" fuel injectors?

      Delete
    5. The moonshine undoubtedly keeps the gut clean, but certainly dirties up the mind. Some people get, after a few decades of shine use, so they are continuously demanding sexual deeds from strangers, people they haven't even met, of a type not mentioned in polite company.

      Delete
  21. Now that US warships are under way, guess who woke up with a hard on:

    JPost.comMiddle East

    PM: Israel's 'finger on the pulse' of Syria developments, if necessary will also be 'on the trigger'

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Israel has been on the receiving end of thousands of missiles and rockets provided by the iranians and syrians.

      Whether it meets your approval or not? they have a RIGHT to protect themselves against jihadists and islamic nazis on their border. Sorry if that doesnt meet with your oh so holy standards.

      Delete
  22. The Syrian government accused rebels of using chemical weapons Saturday and warned the United States not to launch any military action against Damascus over an alleged chemical attack last week, saying such a move would set the Middle East ablaze.

    The accusations by the regime of President Bashar Assad against opposition forces came as an international aid group said it has tallied 355 deaths from a purported chemical weapons attack on Wednesday in a suburb of the Syrian capital known as Ghouta.

    Syria is intertwined in alliances with Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and Palestinian militant groups. The country also borders its longtime foe and U.S. ally Israel, making the fallout from military action unpredictable.

    Violence in Syria has already spilled over the past year to Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Battle-hardened Hezbollah fighters have joined the combat alongside Assad's forces.

    Meanwhile, U.S. naval units are moving closer to Syria as President Barack Obama considers a military response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Assad's government.

    U.S. defense officials told The Associated Press that the Navy had sent a fourth warship armed with ballistic missiles into the eastern Mediterranean Sea but without immediate orders for any missile launch into Syria. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss ship movements publicly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Syrian government accused rebels of using chemical weapons Saturday and warned the United States not to launch any military action against Damascus over an alleged chemical attack last week, saying such a move would set the Middle East ablaze.

      Yes, by god, besides Assad getting his ass blown to smitherines, the streets of Cairo and Baghdad and Bahrain will see sectarian violence, missiles will be fired from Gaza and Lebanon on Israel, Turkish planes will be shot down, and Coptic churches in Egypt will become bonfires. In short, nothing will change.

      Delete
    2. .


      Something will have changed. We will be all in and more involved than we are right now. A diversion from the scandals here at home and job security for the military industrial complex and the intelligence industry, bureaucracies like the CIA and NSA.


      .


      .

      Delete
  23. E85 selling at as much as $1.17/gal Discount to gasoline in Iowa.

    Iowa Prices

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ruins your mileage and your engine.

      Good for the farmers though, but no one else.

      Delete
    2. Microsoft knocked $150 off the price of their Surface RT also, and still no one is biting. There are other considerations besides price. E85 ain't available except at select gas stations, and they aren't building many more of them, because the adoption rate is very low. Same thing with the dearth of applications on the RT. No developers will code for them because there's no customers clamoring for them. So you have a demand death spiral.

      Delete
    3. You have no fucking clue what you're talking about, Teresita. They're adding E85 pumps right and left. Speedway, alone, is adding 3 or 4 a week. There have been over a hundred stations added in just the last couple of months.

      Delete
  24. O'blunder is going to do a little bombing, cruise missiles, drones, maybe even a few planes. He's got his excuse to help out his good buds the rebs a bit.

    Our true interest is in seeing that nobody wins.

    McCain with a hard on in the morning is not a pretty picture.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Another US foray into another ME country, Syria should cost us another decade of paranoia and three trillion in defense of the “Homeland”. No one is certain who killed those 355 people. The US killed more woman and children than that with two bunker busters on a defense shelter in an Iraq residential area.

    The US Navy nearly killed as many, 290 civilian persons, aboard an Iranian A300 Airbus over international waters. The dumb assholes on the Vincennes couldn’t tell the difference between a civilian airliner on a scheduled flight from an Iranian F14 jet fighter.

    We killed and wounded hundreds of thousands in Iraq over nothing.

    Our own civil war killed over 700,000.

    Now the genius and the red line muthafukrs are going to get ten of thousands more killed because of our moral indignation?

    Since Pol Pot slaughtered millions, no other country is responsible for the killing of more civilian, and woman and children the US government. For what?

    We are being served with another war, this time in Syria, because we want to save the children with missiles?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Deuce: Our own civil war killed over 700,000.

      Union deaths from wounds: 110,070.

      A similar number of the boys in blue died of malnutrition and disease in places like Andersonville.

      That's the total butcher's bill by my reckoning. If the traitors had similar numbers, that's their own fucking business.

      Delete
    2. The traitors and empire builders were in Washington, headed by one severely depressed man, Lincoln. The boys in blue were conscripts; the gray, volunteers fighting for their ”cause”. Had Lincoln been a competent politician, none of them need have died. Every American country, north and south ended slavery without mass slaughter, except one, Lincoln’s “United States”, united by canon, federal pillage and destruction.

      Delete
    3. The problem is, their "cause" was Slavery.

      The South declared war on the North, not vice versa.

      You're dreaming, Deuce; there's no way short of annihilation that these southern assholes were going to turn loose of their slaves. It weren't gonna happen.

      Delete
    4. I’ll do a post on it. : )

      Save your best stuff for then. Rest up. Relax. Have a cool can of Dixie.

      Delete
  26. It doesn't have to be that way.

    Wallace, a veteran of the .533-mile oval, has not only won at “Thunder Valley”, but has finished in the top ten in half of his Nationwide Series starts (18 of 36). Additionally, Wallace has two top-ten finishes and two laps led in Sprint Cup Series competition at Bristol Motor Speedway.

    “We (NASCAR drivers) have driven more than four million miles on American Ethanol. It’s been well accepted in the sport because it works. The transition was easy. We got more power and better performance,” said Wallace. “Unlike imported oil, ethanol is good for our economy and creates jobs in America both in ethanol plants and on family farms.”

    ReplyDelete
  27. Ethanol just ruined NASCAR, ruined it!

    Boobie is happiest with US buying oil from the Wahabbi

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Buying oil from the Wahabbi? The Euros and Chicoms do that. We get our oil from the Midwest.

      Delete
    2. The last number I saw for U.S. oil imports was $432 Billion, annually.

      ($1.2 Billion/day for math-challenged westerners)

      Delete
    3. They count Canada as a furrin country though.

      Delete
    4. U.S. Oil Imports were 8 Million Barrels/Day last week.

      EIA Weekly Report


      And, trust me, Canada is Not a state.

      Let me add, though, for the benefit of our "conservative" friends, Hawaii is.

      Delete
    5. I been to Canada before, and I can attest that if we get a chunk of our oil from that place, it's not going to be a problem. They won't use the money to fund terror training camps.

      Delete
    6. No, and they're not going to use a chunk of it to fund your Social Security/Medicare/Defense accounts, either.

      Delete
    7. Nor will they fund those National Parks that you and boobie are so fond of traipsing around in.

      Delete
    8. If you're going to waste taxpayers' dollars, THIS is a good way to do it.

      Delete
    9. damn the rat is back

      Was beginning to think he'd twisted his knee at the bowling alley, or gotten kicked by the horse, and we'd have peace for a month.

      My oil policy is drill baby drill.

      My overall energy policy would revolve around nuclear.

      First thing out of rat's mouth - another lie.

      Delete
  28. UN ‘CAMP JIHAD’ Being Funded By U.S Taxpayers To Teach Palestinian Children To Hate Israel

    Palestinian children as young as 5 are being taught to hate Jews, glorify martyrs and support jihad, and a U.S.-funded United Nations agency is helping to underwrite the effort, according to a controversial new documentary.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Fred Thompson: "New drilling rules aiming to dampen noise at oil/gas wells. So... when'll they address noise eagles make when they hit a wind turbine?"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fred Thompson? :)

      Really? :)

      Snake Oil, Fred?

      Of the "reverse mortgage" scam?

      Delete
    2. And, before you blabber on any more about "Midwestern oil," you might want to take a gander at

      This Chart

      Delete
    3. The US is still importing over a million barrels a day. 44 gallons pern

      The Brazilians have been running cars and trucks on ethanol for decades.

      Corn is not the fuel stock of choice, nor of the next generation of distilleries

      Delete
    4. Let's have a show of hands from everyone that believes that Ford makes one fuel system for their Brazilian Focus, another for their U.S. non-flexfuel focus, and still another for their U.S. Flexfuel Focus.

      Delete
    5. After that we'll vote on Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, and the Great Pumpkin. :)

      Delete
  30. AN ARTICLE WRITTEN JUST FOR RUFUS THE DIM --

    >>>>August 25, 2013
    Maybe I Do Have Something to Hide
    By Daren Jonescu

    The single most common, and most annoying, argument offered in defense of the democratic totalitarian surveillance state must be, "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide." This rhetorical argument has been around for generations, is used the world over, and is offered with equal boldness by progressives and conservatives alike.

    There is only one small problem with this ubiquitous argument for coerced transparency: it's a load of baloney. More specifically, it is utterly unsound, both logically and morally.

    As a logical matter, the argument as routinely stated is merely a major premise, leaving the hearer to supply the minor premise and draw his own conclusion. The argument, spelled out explicitly, would look like this:

    One who hasn't done anything wrong has nothing to hide.
    You haven't done anything wrong.
    Therefore, you have nothing to hide.

    The argument is meant as a kind of moral intimidation. The hearer is put in the position of incriminating himself by demanding his privacy, since this suggests that he has "something to hide," implying that he must have done something wrong. Sometimes only the conclusion of the argument is explicitly stated, thus: "I have nothing to hide." This version is even more directly accusatory, as it functions as a moral grenade tossed into the mind of one's opponent. As soon as the full implicit argument develops in the hearer's mind, his case for privacy is exploded in a burst of moral inferiority: "I must have done something wrong, or else why do I think I have something to hide?"

    This argument, however framed, is pure sophistry, built on equivocation and deliberate ambiguity. Specifically, the major premise, if properly explicated, reveals itself as simply false: it is patently untrue that people who have done nothing wrong necessarily have nothing to hide. Furthermore, it is a classic example of one of the most aggravating (and successful) sophistical techniques, namely shifting the terms of the argument, so that we are no longer trying to prove what actually needs to be proven. In this case, we have shifted the burden of justification from the intrusive government to the rights-bearing individual, as though it were the individual's responsibility to justify not having his life laid open to the state. ("What's the problem? Do you have something to hide?")

    Let's unpack this famous sophistry, and see how insidious it really is, and how contrary to the spirit of human freedom.<<<<

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/maybe_i_do_have_something_to_hide.html


    The length of the article will be a challenge to the attention span of Rufus so I don't expect him to plow through it. It convicts him of terminal stupidity, another reason he won't stick with it.

    All others are urged to read the whole devastating indictment against Rufus and his ilk.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. P.S. -- I do appreciate the humor of describing Rufus, who is as blunt as a sledgehammer, as a 'sophist'.

      "Sofa-ist', that would be more fitting. Either at home or at Doyle's.

      Delete
  31. Miss T and I seem to be the only two here that really appreciate Mother Nature and her lovely ways. Well, Doug too, but he's trapped over there on a rock.

    Sam, too, of course. Trying not to leave anyone out.

    Every one else - couch potatoes.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Every time I read some nonsense like "mother nature and her lovely ways" I know I'm reading something written by some moron that has spent very little time "up close and personal" with the bitch.

    The rest of us know that the whore spends 24/7 trying to come up with novel, and unexpected ways of killing our sorry, naive asses.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's not nice to fool Mother Nature.

      Delete
    2. Rufus' moronic comments continue to reach new lows. You don't know jack shit about Mother Nature (what ever that is) or what makes her tick.

      Delete
    3. Rufus IISun Aug 25, 12:34:00 PM EDT


      Rufus, moron, I spent 25 years and more struggling with Dear Mother, getting to know her ways, how to work with her, how to bend her slightly to more productive ways, thank you very much.

      "The rest of us know that the whore spends 24/7 trying to come up with novel, and unexpected ways of killing our sorry, naive asses."

      Idiot, this she whore brought you hither, and if you had a little insight you might even begin to think she might take you hence to something more.

      But alas, all you do is snore, like Rip van Winkle. Nothing to show for having been alive but the whiskers and the beer belly.



      ****Great Nature has another thing to do
      To you and me****

      The Waking
      BY THEODORE ROETHKE

      I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
      I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
      I learn by going where I have to go.

      We think by feeling. What is there to know?
      I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
      I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

      Of those so close beside me, which are you?
      God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
      And learn by going where I have to go.

      Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
      The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
      I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

      Great Nature has another thing to do
      To you and me; so take the lively air,
      And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

      This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
      What falls away is always. And is near.
      I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
      I learn by going where I have to go.



      In this little masterpiece death is equated with sleep, as is often done.

      In Whitman, which may be the ur-source for this poem, day = this life = one sun: but night = death the other side of life = the stars - 'I love the rich running day, with it's one sun, but best I love the night where you can see them all' -- that's not exact quote but that's the idea.

      Delete
    4. .


      Rufus takes his waking very, very, very slow but not in the sense Roethke meant.


      .

      Delete
  33. (Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency has bugged the United Nations' New York headquarters, Germany's Der Spiegel weekly said on Sunday in a report on U.S. spying that could further strain relations between Washington and its allies.

    Citing secret U.S. documents obtained by fugitive former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, Der Spiegel said the files showed how the United States systematically spied on other states and institutions.

    Der Spiegel said the European Union and the U.N.'s Vienna-based nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), were among those targeted by U.S. intelligence agents.

    In the summer of 2012, NSA experts succeeded in getting into the U.N. video conferencing system and cracking its coding system, according one of the documents cited by Der Spiegel.

    “The data traffic gives us internal video teleconferences of the United Nations (yay!),” Der Spiegel quoted one document as saying, adding that within three weeks the number of decoded communications rose to 458 from 12.


    ------------------


    WHY?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The article goes on to say the NSA discovered the Chinese trying to do the same thing. The Chicom rats! I suppose this means diplomats will send couriers around, ala 1955. Back to the Future.

      Delete
  34. Replies
    1. Good, maybe they'll move the UN to a place that respects privacy, like Moscow, where Snowden was welcomed.

      Delete
    2. .


      Any port in a storm.

      Moscow and Snowden? Talk about a sophistic argument. It's like the ones you hear coming out of the NSA.


      .

      Delete
  35. It just shows you the level of paranoia and an agency gone wild.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Let's face it and be honest here - in this life you don't amount to squat unless you've been bugged by the NSA.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. While on a trip to another village, Nasrudin lost his favorite copy of the Qur'an. Several weeks later, a goat walked up to Nasrudin, carrying the Qur'an in its mouth. Nasrudin couldn't believe his eyes. He took the precious book out of the goat's mouth, raised his eyes heavenward and exclaimed, "It's a miracle!" "Not really," said the goat. "Your name is written inside the cover."

      Delete
  37. Ah, finally, here's a guy that agrees with uncle bob, geopolitical thinker, so he must be right -

    >>>WASHINGTON — ON Wednesday, reports surfaced of a mass chemical-weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs that human rights activists claim killed hundreds of civilians, bringing Syria’s continuing civil war back onto the White House’s foreign policy radar, even as the crisis in Egypt worsens.

    But the Obama administration should resist the temptation to intervene more forcefully in Syria’s civil war. A victory by either side would be equally undesirable for the United States.

    At this point, a prolonged stalemate is the only outcome that would not be damaging to American interests.

    Indeed, it would be disastrous if President Bashar al-Assad’s regime were to emerge victorious after fully suppressing the rebellion and restoring its control over the entire country. Iranian money, weapons and operatives and Hezbollah troops have become key factors in the fighting, and Mr. Assad’s triumph would dramatically affirm the power and prestige of Shiite Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanon-based proxy — posing a direct threat both to the Sunni Arab states and to Israel.

    But a rebel victory would also be extremely dangerous for the United States and for many of its allies in Europe and the Middle East. That’s because extremist groups, some identified with Al Qaeda, have become the most effective fighting force in Syria. If those rebel groups manage to win, they would almost certainly try to form a government hostile to the United States. Moreover, Israel could not expect tranquillity on its northern border if the jihadis were to triumph in Syria.<<<


    In Syria, America Loses if Either Side Wins

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/opinion/sunday/in-syria-america-loses-if-either-side-wins.html?_r=0

    Edward N. Luttwak is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the author of “Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace.”

    ReplyDelete
  38. (Reuters) - Russia warned the United States on Sunday against repeating past mistakes, saying that any unilateral military action in Syria would undermine efforts for peace and have a devastating impact on the security situation in the Middle East.

    The Russian Foreign Ministry said its statement was a response to U.S. actions to give it the option of an armed strike against Syria.

    It drew a parallel between reports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces had used chemical weapons and Washington's 2003 intervention in Iraq following accusations by then-President George Bush's administration that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction.

    "We once again decisively urge (the United States) not to repeat the mistakes of the past and not to allow actions that go against international law," the ministry said.

    "Any unilateral military action bypassing the United Nations will ... lead to further escalation (in Syria) and will affect the already explosive situation in the Middle East in the most devastating way."

    Moscow said any military action would severely hamper joint U.S.-Russian efforts for an international peace conference to end a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people.

    "The threat to use force against the Syrian regime sends the (Syrian) opposition conflicting signals," the ministry said. "All sponsors of the opposition, which have influence over it, must seek the fastest possible agreement from Bashar al-Assad's opponents to hold talks."

    U.S. President Barack Obama met his security advisers on Saturday to debate options following reports of the alleged chemical attack. U.S. naval forces have been repositioned in the Mediterranean to give Washington the option of an armed strike.

    Syria's opposition accused Assad's forces of gassing many hundreds of people - by one report as many as 1,300 - on Wednesday. Syria said earlier on Sunday it had agreed to let the experts visit the site.

    Russia, which has suggested that Syrian rebels may have carried out the attack, also said on Sunday that assigning blame too soon over the alleged poison gas strike would be a "tragic mistake", before a U.N. investigation on Monday.

    (Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Jon Boyle and Pravin Char)

    ReplyDelete
  39. Detroit is a jungle, no doubt about it now --

    >>>DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - Stray dogs are a common sight in Detroit. What about a big cat?

    According to reports, many residents on the city’s northeast side have seen what appears to be an exotic cat, perhaps as tall as four feet, roaming the streets.

    Officials with the Michigan Humane Society said they have received several calls about the animal and workers are out in the city, trying to find the feline.

    Antwaun Asberry, a 6-foot-5 Detroiter, told the Detroit Free Press the cat’s tail is longer than his arm.

    “I was like, what the (expletive) … I don’t know what it is. I just want it gone,” Asberry said. ”He walked like he ain’t scared of nothing… This thing is out here, bro.”

    Fourteen-year-old Paul Hatley said the cat, which apparently has large black spots and stripes, stared back at him when he saw it a few days ago.

    “It wasn’t normal,” he said. “It didn’t run away like a normal cat. It just stared at you. It was scary.”

    Just a few hours later a second big cat siting in the Warren area:

    Cynthia Hogan lives near 13 Mile and Van Dyke she told WWJ that the cat she saw laying down in her neighbors back yard was a long as her 85 pound Doberman (Pinscher):

    “My dog was barking and I looked – I thought it was a small deer – it had the spots on it, but it’s head didn’t look right and it didn’t have the big ears,” she said. “It was a large cat, it didn’t look like a bobcat – I was able to see if it had the tuffs on its ears and it wasn’t big like a cougar – it wasn’t as meaty as a cougar … I have no idea what this was,” said Hogan.

    Hogan said that when she and her dog got close to the cat it simply got up and walked toward the Run Run Drain.

    Officials say they aren’t sure where the cat came from, or if its exotic or domesticated. The Humane Society said if the animal is found, catching and subduing it will be quite the task.

    Neighborhood association leader Vondell Boyer said he and others are starting to wonder what will happen when the cat runs out of rabbits and other small animals to eat.



    ******RELATED: New Estimates: 50,000 Stray Dogs Roam Detroit*******

    The big cat can always eat the 50,000 dogs that run in packs there when the rabbits run out.

    Seems like a nice animal friendly environment there in Detroit.

    ReplyDelete
  40. While all the usual subjects are salivating to get the US into another war, over the dubious claim of the Syrian government using chemical weapons killing 355 people and wounding two thousand others, allow me to ask a couple of question.

    What is a bomb made of? Grass fed beef? Free range chicken? No, it is made of chemicals, chemicals that burn and hurl shrapnel that tear human flesh, melts off a face, ultra-hot gasses that cause terrible brain injuries and suffocate the life out of you.

    What has the most loathsome of the US government done lately that places it in such a virtuous position of moral superiority? You don’t have to go any further than Syria’s closest neighbor, Iraq.

    Let’s review the recent record:

    At least 116,000 Iraqi civilians and more than 4,800 coalition troops died in Iraq between the outbreak of war in 2003 and the US withdrawal in 2011, researchers estimate.

    Its involvement in Iraq has so far cost the United States $810 billion (625 billion euros) and could eventually reach $3 trillion, they added.

    The estimates come from two US professors of public health, reporting on Friday in the British peer-reviewed journal The Lancet.

    They base the figures on published studies in journals and on reports by government agencies, international organisations and the news media.

    “We conclude that at least 116,903 Iraqi non-combatants and more than 4,800 coalition military personnel died over the eight-year course” of the war from 2003 to 2011, they said.

    “Many Iraqi civilians were injured or became ill because of damage to the health-supporting infrastructure of the country, and about five million were displaced.

    “More than 31,000 US military personnel were injured and a substantial percentage of those deployed suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and other neuropsychological disorders and their concomitant psychosocial problems.”

    Citing figures from the website costofwar.com, which looks at funding allocated by Congress, the study said that as of January 15 this year, the Iraq War had cost the United States about $810 billion, “not including interest on debt.”

    “The ultimate cost of the war to the USA could be $3 trillion,” it said.

    ReplyDelete
  41. 116,000 civilians killed in our name. For what?

    ReplyDelete
  42. Dead is dead.

    Which weapon is not a chemical weapon?

    ReplyDelete
  43. Are we really that stupid that every news agency is running around frothing “chemical weapons” as if it makes any difference which elements of the periodic table combine to make a gas, some designed to burn or tear human flesh, others to destroy the brain and respiratory systems?



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What irony if Obama sends the army into Syria looking for weapons of mass destruction.

      Delete
  44. The Media loves War. The Generals love War. The Defense Contractors love War. The politicians love contributions from Defense Contractors.

    Only one man in Washington seems to Not love War. And, you beat up on him every day. Make up your mind.

    ReplyDelete
  45. What Commander, who should have the well being of those under his command in mind, would not opt for lobbing a few shells of gas into a rebellious section of town to clear out the rats rather than fighting it out house to house?

    Compassionate Commanders opt for gas.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That had an element of tongue in cheek.

      Another option is to level the entire area with artillery, like the Russians did in Chechnya.

      Gas, artillery, house to house.....without tongue in cheek it does get a little hard to make all that much distinction.

      ......

      >>>Syria chemical attack evidence may have been destroyed: Hague

      British Foreign Secretary William Hague speaks in Simi Valley, California June 25, 2013. Hague on Sunday warned that any evidence of a chemical attack by the Syrian may regime may have already been destroyed.

      British Foreign Secretary William Hague speaks in Simi Valley, California June 25, 2013. Hague on Sunday warned that any evidence of a chemical attack by the Syrian may regime may have already been destroyed.


      "The fact is that much of the evidence could have been destroyed by that artillery bombardment," he cautioned during a press conference after Damascus gave its green light to a mission by UN inspectors.<<<

      Right, they got the EPA in there first thing in an Environmental Cleanup Operation, like up at Kellogg and Wallace where they cleaned up the soil over a period of, oh, maybe twenty years.

      Granted, gas or its residue probably doesn't last forever, but from what I've read soil samples, among other thinkgs, are taken when looking for it.

      .....

      "Only one man in Washington seems to Not love War. And, you beat up on him every day. Make up your mind."

      It all depends. Obama seems mostly to look out for the MB/sunni interest. He was arming the rebs via Libya, not really the action of a man of peace. We are still awaiting his promised "full report" on this. He could take a week off from golfing and get to it......

      I've given up on the promised report. "Nobody wants to get to the bottom of this more than myself", he said.

      He was backing the MB in Egypt.

      One of his half brothers is reported to be an MB big wig.

      CAIR hangs out at the White House, AIPAC sadly out in the cold.

      The list goes on and on.

      I've concluded, reluctantly, that he's a lying sack of shit.

      Delete
    2. That had an element of tongue in cheek.

      Another option is to level the entire area with artillery, like the Russians did in Chechnya.

      Gas, artillery, house to house.....without tongue in cheek it does get a little hard to make all that much distinction.

      ......

      >>>Syria chemical attack evidence may have been destroyed: Hague

      British Foreign Secretary William Hague speaks in Simi Valley, California June 25, 2013. Hague on Sunday warned that any evidence of a chemical attack by the Syrian may regime may have already been destroyed.

      British Foreign Secretary William Hague speaks in Simi Valley, California June 25, 2013. Hague on Sunday warned that any evidence of a chemical attack by the Syrian may regime may have already been destroyed.


      "The fact is that much of the evidence could have been destroyed by that artillery bombardment," he cautioned during a press conference after Damascus gave its green light to a mission by UN inspectors.<<<

      Right, they got the EPA in there first thing in an Environmental Cleanup Operation, like up at Kellogg and Wallace where they cleaned up the soil over a period of, oh, maybe twenty years.

      Granted, gas or its residue probably doesn't last forever, but from what I've read soil samples, among other thinkgs, are taken when looking for it.

      .....

      "Only one man in Washington seems to Not love War. And, you beat up on him every day. Make up your mind."

      It all depends. Obama seems mostly to look out for the MB/sunni interest. He was arming the rebs via Libya, not really the action of a man of peace. We are still awaiting his promised "full report" on this. He could take a week off from golfing and get to it......

      I've given up on the promised report. "Nobody wants to get to the bottom of this more than myself", he said.

      He was backing the MB in Egypt.

      One of his half brothers is reported to be an MB big wig.

      CAIR hangs out at the White House, AIPAC sadly out in the cold.

      The list goes on and on.

      I've concluded, reluctantly, that he's a lying sack of shit.

      Delete
    3. I must feel strongly about it and the computer read my feelings and printed it twice.

      Delete
  46. To keep up on the depressing news from the inner cities from a police perspective, go here -

    http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/

    Second City Cop blog

    ReplyDelete
  47. STRIKE FORCE Miesha Tate vs. Ronda Rousey.mp4

    MMA Title Cat Fight!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEwwfDjrvjs

    ReplyDelete
  48. Rio Tinto,

    Big old Computer-operated Mining Trucks in Australian Iron Mines.

    The Pentagon likes'em, too

    ReplyDelete
  49. 25 AUGUST 2013 - 20H40
    Syria chemical attack evidence may have been destroyed: Hague- AFP - British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Sunday warned that any evidence of a chemical attack by the Syrian regime may have already been destroyed.

    British Foreign Secretary William Hague speaks in Simi Valley, California June 25, 2013. Hague on Sunday warned that any evidence of a chemical attack by the Syrian may regime may have already been destroyed.


    “The fact is that much of the evidence could have been destroyed by that artillery bombardment," he cautioned during a press conference after Damascus gave its green light to a mission by UN inspectors.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Do they really think we are that stupid? Probably not, they know it.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Replies
    1. Nobel Peace Prize Winner.

      Delete
    2. What else should one expect from Swedes?

      They have so little regard for reality, living, as they do, in a world all their own.

      Delete
  52. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention in Syria's civil war and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria's government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed, a Reuters/Ipsos poll says.

    About 60 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should not intervene in Syria's civil war, while just 9 percent thought President Barack Obama should act.

    More Americans would back intervention if it is established that chemical weapons have been used, but even that support has dipped in recent days - just as Syria's civil war has escalated and the images of hundreds of civilians allegedly killed by chemicals appeared on television screens and the Internet.

    The Reuters/Ipsos poll, taken August 19-23, found that 25 percent of Americans would support U.S. intervention if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces used chemicals to attack civilians, while 46 percent would oppose it. That represented a decline in backing for U.S. action since August 13, when Reuters/Ipsos tracking polls found that 30.2 percent of Americans supported intervention in Syria if chemicals had been used, while 41.6 percent did not.

    ReplyDelete
  53. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10265765/Navy-ready-to-launch-first-strike-on-Syria.html

    >>>>Navy ready to launch first strike on Syria

    Britain is planning to join forces with America and launch military action against Syria within days in response to the gas attack believed to have been carried out by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against his own people.<<<<

    Barky and Britain ready to launch ASAP. Only the targeting remains to be done.

    IF, Assad is using chemical weapons, which would seem to give him a distinct advantage, this 'might' not be such a bad move, if it prevents Assad from overwhelming to rebs, a continuing stalemate being in the best interests of everyone but the warring parties.

    On the other hand what will the Russians do? Ship in those new super efficient anti air missiles?

    Create a Russian enforced no fly zone? :)

    Barky is a child playing in a sandbox.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Barky is 'like' a child playing in a sandbox.

      Delete
  54. >>>>Gollakota’s world has been tested on a small scale. Consider walking into a supermarket, picking up a can of soup, and deciding while shopping later that you did not want the soup after all and then put it back on the wrong shelf. Happens all the time. The Washington researchers tested a system in a store in which the soup can talks to neighboring cans, decides it is in the wrong place, and tells the humans so it can be moved.<<<<

    Imagine a Coors Light Quart purchased by Rufus by mistake, outnumbered and talking to all the other Budweiser Quarts in the fridge and saying "What am I doing here?" and getting the reply "It's all a mistake. We're calling 'Big Mouth now."

    August 24, 2013
    Devices Power Electronics Using Wireless Signals
    By Joel Shurkin
    Editor's Note: This article was provided by Inside Science. The original is here.

    (ISNS) -- In Shyamnath Gollakota’s dream world, every object can talk to every other object, which is particularly useful if you have misplaced your keys.


    Imagine that your keys dropped out of your pocket and fell between the cushions of a couch. You ask your cellphone to find them. The keys tell the couch where they are, and the couch relays the information to your cellphone. If you also have misplaced your cellphone, your computer will find them both.

    http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2013/08/24/devices_power_electronics_using_ambient_wireless_signals_106639.html

    And best of all it has no power source other than the electronic buzz that surrounds us all the time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Really, Miss T, those folks at the University of Washington surely have something better to do.

      Delete
    2. "What the hell am I doing on the Condom Shelf, when I should be over in Suppositories?" said the anal insert to the pecker covers.

      Delete
  55. Poor boobie, he supports 'Drill baby drill', which means he supports the current status que of buying Wahabbi oil.

    Despite his protestations to the contrary, that is the reality.

    To bad he has lost the cognizant capacity to realize it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. "There's something really wrong with you, Rat"

      Trish

      Delete
  56. Becoming 'Elderly' does have that effect.

    There is some 'slippage', it becomes apparent with each passing day that boobie is leaving us.

    Sail on, sailor!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Or was it -

      "Rat, there's something really wrong with you"?

      Slippage!

      Delete
    2. No, boobie, it was not.

      That you incessently reference trish, the Den Mother, of the old EB, just exemplifies how you insist on living in the past.

      I did not allow for your dimwitted attitude then, I still won't. She thought you were the boobie, in need of protection, even then. That we should cut you some slack, 'cause you're a tad sow.

      Still looking to hide behind the Den Mother's skirt, aren't you?

      Delete
  57. Moving along now to something meaningful -

    >>>>At first glance, Hindu-majority India, with approximately 1.2 billion people and an entire subcontinent, would seem to have little in common with Jewish-majority Israel, which has only about eight million people living on territory that’s just roughly 15 times the size of India’s capital city. While full diplomatic relations were established between Jerusalem and New Delhi only in 1992, the two countries actually have much in common.

    Both countries are homelands for ancient peoples who gained their independence from the British in the 1940s. Both states have gone on to create vibrant, multicultural democracies that have experienced dynamic, technology-driven economic growth. India and Israel each also has a large Muslim minority population, and each faces an ongoing terrorism threat from foreign and domestic Islamic extremists; indeed, both Israelis and Indians were targeted and killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Even more serious, India and Israel each faces ballistic missile threats from at least one close, hostile Muslim state. India already faces the nuclear threat posed by Pakistan, and Israel may soon confront the same threat from Iran, if Iranian nukes aren’t stopped.<<<<

    India and Israel: The Ties That Bind

    August 26, 2013 By Noah Beck


    http://frontpagemag.com/2013/noah-beck/india-and-israel-the-ties-that-bind/


    We should have more formal defense/trade/cultural ties with both countries than we currently do now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Also of interest -

      End of an Era for the Muslim Brotherhood? »
      by Wael Nawara

      Has the jihadist group done themselves in?
      August 23 2013 / Read More »


      http://frontpagemag.com/2013/wael-nawara/end-of-an-era-for-the-muslim-brotherhood/

      One can only hope.

      Delete
  58. >>>>It would not be difficult at all to post pictures and tell stories of degenerate predators like this ad nauseam. There is an explosion of black mob violence. If you doubt that, read "White Girl Bleed A Lot" by Colin Flaherty. Across the country, degenerate people are violently attacking strangers in "the knockout game" ... just for 'fun'. Flash mobs swarm stores to plunder and pillage. They are eliminating the government middle-man and taking what they want directly.

    Even though we don't speak much about this violence, and even though the press works to cover it up, we all understand that we have a huge problem with a violent, racist, uncivilized underclass. We are taught, incorrectly, that it is not appropriate to talk honestly about it. But ignoring or denying the problem is the most foolish approach of all. We must acknowledge it and we must talk about it.<<<<

    August 26, 2013
    Faces of Evil in a Violent Underclass
    By Bryce Buchanan

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/the_rise_of_a_violent_underclass.html



    The good news is one of the killers of Shorty is in custody.


    >>>"Shorty" Belton died yesterday. He was 88. He fought for our country in Okinawa and was wounded there.

    Shorty had been brutally beaten by two 'unarmed children'.

    I sure hope Shorty didn't try to defend himself, because, as we all now know, it is just wrong to defend yourself when black teenagers decide to pound on you.

    The alleged savages are Demetrius Glenn, 16, who is now in custody (above), and Keenan Adams-Kinard (below)

    pictures


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. >>>>We should ignore the criticism and steadfastly pursue Martin Luther King's dream of living in a nation where people "will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." This dream strikes fear in the hearts of current civil rights 'leaders' who abhor the idea of character judgments. They live in the past. For them, it is all about skin color.
      In my view, no one has done more to impede the progress of black people than black 'leaders" and other leftists in the racial grievance industry. They sell exactly the wrong message of victimhood, telling blacks on the dependency plantation that none of their problems are their fault and nothing is their responsibility. Could you find a better formula for creating an angry, dependent population than to tell them that all of their problems are caused by others and all of their needs are someone else's job to fill. From Sharpton to Obama, the message is destructive, though it does maintain the desired voting block.

      Accepting lower standards of behavior for black people is a form of racism. Only a racist would say that black people are not capable of joining civilized society on an equal footing. Do blacks need lower standards because they are inferior people? This is the soft bigotry of low expectations. Violent, ignorant, parasitic thug culture is not a built- in defect. It comes from bad values which are created and supported by bad social policy. The violent subculture persists because of an absurd level of tolerance on our part.<<<<

      Bryce Buchanan blogs at Reality Bats Last.

      Delete
  59. In the 6 months ending in Dec, 2011, you got 184 bbls/day for every new well added in the Bakken.

    In the 6 months ending on June 30th, the bakken achieved 63 bbls/day for every new well drilled.

    Bakken production chart

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sometime next year, probably in the late Fall, the Bakken production will start declining.

      A year or so later, the Eagle Ford will follow.

      We have been given a brief respite, but, unfortunately, we haven't used it very well.

      Delete
  60. Speedway is rocking it in Illinois. 30+ percent spreads, everywhere.

    E85 Spreads, Illinois

    ReplyDelete