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."

Monday, October 07, 2013

The most depressing thing about this story is that most people will see nothing wrong with it: Paying off the government with your rights and money to achieve a new privilege


TSA’s new Pre-Check programs raises major privacy concerns

By Christopher Elliott, Published: October 3

When the Transportation Security Administration’s Pre-Check formally launches sometime this fall, its trusted-traveler program will already have the enthusiastic endorsement of frequent travelers — and an equally enthusiastic denouncement from privacy advocates.
Pre-Check offers an appealing shortcut past the often long airport security lines. After you pay an enrollment fee and submit to a background check and interview, the TSA promises to treat you like a VIP. You’ll be sent to a preferred line, where you can leave your shoes, light outerwear and belt on, leave your laptop in its case and keep your bag of liquids and gels in your carry-on.
“I can’t say enough about how much I love it,” says Ralph Velasco, a photographer based in Corona del Mar, Calif. “It’s saved me many, many hours. I’d highly recommend it.”
How do Velasco and others know about the benefits of Pre-Check?
Because the agency assigned to protect U.S. transportation systems has slowly rolled out the program in 40 airports since 2011.
Travelers could opt in to Pre-Check through their frequent-flier program or through another government trusted-traveler initiative, such as Global Entry, a similar program that allows travelers to cut the customs line when they return to the United States from overseas.
Velasco, for example, belongs to Global Entry, which is operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
But you might think twice before plunking down the $85 that a five-year Pre-Check membership is expected to cost. Privacy advocates and some consumers are uneasy about government trusted-traveler programs like this one. There’s no guarantee that you’ll be approved, and if you aren’t, you may never know why. And Pre-Check status is no guarantee that you can avoid a standard TSA screening, which includes a full-body scan or a so-called “enhanced” pat-down.
“If you sign up, you’ll want to keep your nose clean for the rest of your life,” says Gregory Nojeim, a director at the Center for Democracy & Technology. “Because that’s how long the FBI will keep your fingerprints.”
True, as part of the application process, TSA collects a cache of personal information about you, including your prints. They’re held in a database for 75 years, and the database is queried by the FBI and state and local law enforcement as needed to solve crimes at which fingerprints are lifted from crime scenes, according to Nojeim. The prints may also be used for background checks.
“What started as a criminal database to link arrestees to other crimes is being turned into an all-purpose database of fingerprint identifiers,” Nojeim says.
It isn’t what Pre-Check is now — we don’t really know that yet — but what it could someday become that worries privacy-watchers. In the future, it isn’t too difficult to imagine a faster line for pre-screened train passengers waiting to board. TSA’s roaming Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams already selectively screen Amtrak passengers and attendees at special events such as NFL games and political conventions. It also wouldn’t be much of a stretch to see the program requiring passengers to be pre-approved before they can fly.

98 comments:

  1. How about some special bathrooms?

    Government approved carry through water bottles and coffee carts would add a nice touch.

    Pre-check will allow the TSA to really get a better view up the asses of the masses who don’t pay to play.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A beautiful day in the neighborhood:

    Sunday was another bloody day in the Middle East. In Egypt, the establishment commemorated the success of the Egyptian army 40 years ago in crossing the Suez Canal and taking back most of the Sinai Peninsula, Egyptian territory occupied by Israel in 1967. But the commemorations, which were lively and joyous in Tahrir Square and other sanctioned demonstrations, were marred by smaller counter-demonstrations (still often in the thousands) by the Muslim Brotherhood against the army, complaining about the July 3 military coup that removed elected president Muhammad Morsi from power. The military effectively strangled these protests, sometimes with excessive use of force. The Brotherhood cadres sometimes deployed guns and violence. In some places, such as Ramsis Square, angry anti-Brotherhood crowds tried to attack the Muslim fundamentalists, and the army had to step in to protect the Brotherhood. Over 50 protesters were killed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The protests of June and July had over a ...
      ....... MILLION ......
      protestors on he streets of Cairo.

      The "Brotherhood' can now muster but a few thousand
      to protest the Transitional Government and the Army

      The Security Partner of the United States, in the region.

      Delete
    2. The hand wringers that announced the "End of Egypt" ...
      When Mr Morsai was elected, have been revealed....
      to be full of paranoia and groundless fear ....

      The forces of freedom have prevailed ....
      At least for now.

      As was predicted by the desert rat, back when other were fretting that ...
      a single election would change the course of history.
      Or challenge the power projected by the American Empire.

      errrr, .... let's revise and extend that statement ....

      .... scratch "Empire" - replace with Hegemony

      Delete
  3. The toxic fruit of American diplomacy and the War Department

    BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber detonated a truck filled with explosives on the playground of an elementary school in northern Iraq on Sunday morning, killing 13 children and the headmaster, the police said. Shortly afterward, another suicide truck bomb struck a police station in the same village, killing three officers.

    The two attacks in Qabak, a Shiite Turkmen village just outside Tal Afar in Mosul Province, also left 95 people wounded, 80 of them at the school.

    ReplyDelete
  4. But we saved the iraq from Saddam.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Protect the Brotherhood.

      ...all else is a non-issue.

      Delete
    2. I think, Deuce, you need to revise and extend your remark ....

      It was not Iraq we saved from Saddam.

      It was the Saudi Arabians and the Gulf state Wahhabi we saved from Saddam.
      Iraq was just where we did it.

      As that was where the primary threat to the Wahhabi Oil Hegemony emanated.

      It just took an attack upon NYCity and Washington DC, by the Wahhabi ....

      For US to realize the threat that Saddam posed ....
      To American interests.

      Delete
    3. We, and others, saved Kuwait from Saddam.

      Said they were going to ease up on the repression there, give democracy a little leeway, as thanks, but then seemed to forget about it.

      Delete
    4. Notice our House Historian has forgotten about the original troubles, which involved Kuwait. He gets wrapped up in his delusions and forgets what actually happened. This is why I sometimes call him SHITFULL.

      Delete
    5. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    6. Farmer Fudd, it is a pity he has become so mentally disoriented that he does not even comprehend the posts,
      even when he reads them..
      I had thought that he just failed to read, but know it is evident, he does not comprehend.

      Poor Robert is so geographically challenged that he does not realize that Kuwait is a Gulf state, ruled by the Wahhabi.
      That it WAS mentioned in the post.

      Robert, he really has slipped and is now sliding ever further away from any grasp of cognizant reality

      Delete
    7. "Little men with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds."

      Delete
    8. Maybe Robert cannot read a map, maybe he has no maps ...
      .... no world Atlas and does not know how to Google one up.

      Maybe he does not know anything about Islam, its sects and schisms....
      .... and does not know how to Google the information.

      Poor Robert, he is not even smart enough to read "Google for Dummies"

      So, instead he makes a fool of himself.

      Becoming the laughingstock of .The Libertarian.
      We can pity the fool that cannot even Google.

      But never let him "Off the Hook"

      Delete
  5. Hope against hope.

    ...for some.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Road To Uncovering ‘The First Computer’ – A Wartime Colossus

    That history had to be pried out of the archives because official efforts to cover up its success worked so well. Thousands of people worked in the huts at Bletchley Park during WWII on code-cracking but only a handful were involved with Colossus and fewer still knew everything about it. All those codebreakers signed the Official Secrets Act which demanded that they kept quiet about their wartime career.

    Almost all the machines were broken up once they ceased to be useful and design documents were burnt or destroyed at the same time.

    “I got to know more about it than they did,” Prof Randell told the BBC. “They were so compartmentalised that those who worked in one hut would not dream of talking to people in another hut.”

    Sensitive operation

    Prof Randell tripped over the story of Colossus in 1970 while preparing an academic paper on a little-known Irish computer pioneer Percy Ludgate who, in 1908, completed the design for a nascent computer.

    Because he had a lot of material left over after writing about Ludgate, Mr Randell decided to use it as the basis of a series of papers dealing with early computers.

    While putting those papers together, he was asked why he had written so little about Alan Turing. Prof Randell started to look into Turing’s war work and got tantalising glimpses of the electronic code-cracking machines that had been in use at Bletchley.

    One paper written by Jack Good, one of the engineers who helped create Colossus, and published in 1970 mentioned a “classified, electronic” machine that used 1,000 valves to calculate “complicated Boolean functions involving up to about 100 symbols” to crack codes.

    The link with Turing, said Prof Randell, was that Colossus drew on Turing’s seminal 1936 paper that laid down the basic specifications for a machine that can could carry out complicated calculations step by step.

    Finding a little out about this machine prompted Prof Randell to seek out and correspond with those named as being involved with Colossus even though he now knew that their work was covered by the Official Secrets Act.

    “A number of the people I wrote to wrote back in very guarded terms,” said Prof Randell. “We were very much more conscious about those things at that time.”

    The result of Prof Randell’s work was a paper in 1972 exploring Turing’s influence on early computers and making mention of the wartime machines.

    ---

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Then, in 1975, a change of government brought a change in policy and Prof Randell was invited to the Cabinet Office to discuss the first official release of information about the Allies’ main codebreaking machine.

      The official release was a handful of pictures and a short statement which mentioned Colossus’ key designers: Max Newman and Tommy Flowers. More importantly, Prof Randell was asked by the government to interview the Colossus creators and publish what they said.

      Prof Randell gathered the information into a paper that he presented in 1976 at a conference on the history of computing.

      Attending was John Mauchly who, before Prof Randell took to the stage, thought that the machine he built, Eniac, was one of the first electronic computers.

      Jaws literally dropped as Prof Randell delivered his lecture, he told the BBC. They dropped again in the evening as Prof Randell had arranged for one of Colossus’s creators, Allen “Doc” Coombs, to attend and answer questions about the machine and what it did.

      Prof Randell’s lecture and Coombs’s comments meant the computer history books would have to be rewritten.

      “Eniac was not the first computer, it was the 11th,” he said.
      The door that Prof Randell first pushed at is now wide open, he said.

      “I’m sure that all of the technical details of Colossus are now well known,” said Prof Randell. “With the publication of the official history of the intelligence services we have a very full account of what was discovered by codebreaking and the significance it had.”

      It has also put the spotlight on the people who built Colossus and their achievements.
      “They were so modest and so bloody brilliant,” he said. “It was one of the best experiences of my life.”

      Delete
    2. Jeeze, Post after Post, the Swine will miss my Pearls.

      Delete
  7. Orwell Spins:

    " "Those barricades are filled with water, so someone had to unplug them to let the water out to move them out of the way of the entrance to get in here. That's a serious offense."

    ReplyDelete
  8. The Sorry Ignorance of Rufus and Millions of other Sheeple:

    wretchard said:

    The sad disillusionment of Greenpeace at their treatment in Russian jails recalls the shock of Oh Kil-nam the South Korean economist, who convinced by his leftist friends and professors that North Korea was a worker's paradise, defected there with his family (in part because they were promised "free health care") only to discover that it was all a lie.

    His wife, who went unwillingly in the first place, told him to escape when they took him abroad to lure other South Koreans to their doom. She told him he could not ruin the lives of others as he had ruined theirs. So the guy ran for it and left his wife and daughters to die in the Gulag and they have not been seen since. He keeps asking the UN to "help him" get his family out.

    If it weren't so tragic it would be funny. So Greenpeace actually thought they had nonsmoking sections in Russian jails and got fed vegan food. What planet are they on? And yet they "know better" than us all. They are more enlightened than us all. The fact is, they don't know squat, but they don't know they don't know squat. There's a moral in there somewhere.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The 'Rat can attest to the superiority of the SouthKor Women,
      ...and nightlife in the village.

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. None of the South Korean women I knew ...
      ....... Nor
      ..........Freedom
      ............ Were ever free

      Delete
  9. Lack of DEFICIT Spending by Big Govt. is the Problem!

    "From 2010 to 2013, real per capita government spending has fallen by about 8 percent, faster, according to the Center's Michael Linden, than any time since the demobilization after the Korean War. "The austerity that we have engaged in is quite real," he told reporters on a conference call Friday morning. Hersh added on the call: "To be clear, government spending is not a panacea to all the economic challenges facing the United States, [but] the economy would be in a much better place if we had not had nearly three years of economic austerity."

    Now, this isn't to suggest that the country doesn't have fiscal issues it needs to deal with in the medium and long term. But in the short term we've had more pressing economic issues, specifically a lack of jobs and growth. There are reasonable ways to deal with the longer-term issues without adversely affecting the short-term ones, but that's not the path the "austerians" have pushed us down."

    ReplyDelete
  10. "It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."

    ReplyDelete
  11. The National Park Service employees have all expressed to the Press ....

    Their Nuremberg defense - for the oppression they have wrought upon the People
    Claiming that they were "only following orders." ...


    ReplyDelete
  12. "Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory."

    ReplyDelete
  13. October 7, 2013
    White Soldier Killed By Black Thugs
    Taleeb Starkes


    This past weekend, twenty-year-old soldier, Tevin Geike, had just finished celebrating the completion of his military obligation with friends and fellow soldiers when the unthinkable happened. He was killed by terrorists.
    For the record, the terrorist attack that took his life didn't occur on foreign soil and the terrorists themselves weren't middle-easterners. Contrarily, the attack happened domestically in Lakewood, Washington and the terrorists were Black. In short, they were urban terrorists who apparently killed Tevin Geike after he didn't cower in their presence. This authentic soldier didn't yield to the toy soldiers.
    According to Komonews.com:
    "20-year-old Tevin Geike was walking with two other white soldiers along Pacific Highway SW when a group of black men drove by and shouted a racial comment toward the soldiers, the Lakewood Police Department said.

    "One of the soldiers yelled back something about the suspects treating combat soldiers with disrespect," Lt. Chris Lawler said.

    The car turned around and the men confronted the soldiers, according to reports. As the verbal confrontation ensued, the driver of the vehicle realized the men were actually combat veterans and called his friends off. While the men headed back to their vehicle, one of the suspects appeared to have bumped into Geike, witnesses say.

    The soldiers saw Geike fall to the ground as the car sped away. He was bleeding profusely from stab wounds and died at the scene."
    Glenn Zimmerman, a friend of Tevin, questioned, "What was it all over, just cause they were some white boys?"
    Police say that all five suspects are black males in their 20s. The main suspect is believed to be in his early 20's, about 6'1", medium build, and was wearing a blue zip-up hoodie.
    The police are also searching for a midnight blue BMW-type sedan or VW Jetta-type car with four doors, tinted windows and stock rims, and low profile tires.
    Citizens, such as Tevin, admirably join the military knowing that their service could potentially require the ultimate sacrifice. However, few recruits envision that death would occur stateside at the hands of the citizens that they protected abroad.
    Predictably, as with all Black-on-White violent crimes, the cloud of political-correctness will hover above this case and the police will be hesitant to call it a hate crime, even though it's evident. Arguably, it's more than a hate crime; it's a virtual war crime. This tragedy is another confirmation that a war of values is occurring in America.
    Read more about the criminal subculture that exists within the Black community here.

    Taleeb Starkes is the author of a controversial book that confronts the subculture within the BLACK community titled, "THE UN-CIVIL WAR: BLACKS vs NI**ERS." Find Taleeb on Twitter



    Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/10/white_soldier_killed_by_black_thugs.html#ixzz2h3PHxoLu
    Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Another hate filled rant, aimed at Americans.

      This feller, Anonymous, he must really hate America, its Constitution, its People.

      Such a little man, with a little brain, in a great big world.
      No wonder he is always afraid.

      Delete
    2. Rat has discovered how to impersonate names now..

      How quaint.

      Delete
    3. On the internet, now everybody knows you're not a dog

      Delete
    4. Robert Robertson, a Scottish actor and director, best known for playing Doctor Stephen Andrews in the television show Taggart.

      Born on July 3, 1930, in St Andrews, United Kingdom

      Delete
  14. The entire world, with the possible exception of maybe Russia, has an interest in the rational flow of oil from the middle east. It is not an American interest only. It is a world interest. And most nations have an interest in secure borders. That is why the US and so many others originally went into Iraq, under UN auspices.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Barack Hussein ObamaMon Oct 07, 01:16:00 PM EDT


      "All nations must come together to build a stronger global regime."

      It's good to see more Americans coming on board and joining the progressive movement to global government!
      Legitimizing it, ratifying it, joining with me, on the "Right" side of history.

      Delete

    2. I would support a presidential candidate who pledged to take the following steps…
      ... at the end of the war in the Persian Gulf, press for a comprehensive Middle East settlement and for a new world order based not upon a Pax Americana, but on peace through law with a stronger U.N. and World Court."

      Delete

    3. "The new world order that is in the making must focus on the creation of a world democracy, peace and prosperity for all."

      Delete
    4. “We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”

      Delete
    5. Henry A. KissingerMon Oct 07, 01:28:00 PM EDT

      “Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.”

      Delete
  15. Franklin D. RooseveltMon Oct 07, 01:35:00 PM EDT

    “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.”

    ReplyDelete
  16. But is this new world, where everybody knows your name, really a good thing?

    By Steve Ranger
    http://www.zdnet.com/on-the-internet-now-everybody-knows-youre-not-a-dog-7000011439/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. William ShakespeareMon Oct 07, 02:20:00 PM EDT

      "What's in a name?
      That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

      Delete
    2. Society of KabalariansMon Oct 07, 02:41:00 PM EDT

      The Energy In Your Name

      The power of a name and its value has long been immortalized in prose, poetry, and religious ceremony. Everyone recognizes himself or herself by name.

      The question is: What does my name mean and how does a name influence a person's character?

      Let us consider what a name is. It is the grouping of several letters of an alphabet, or other symbols, which represent the identification of a person or an object.

      You can change your life through the power of a Balanced Name. If you are already interested in making a name change, check the link for the various services the Society of Kabalarians can provide you for this very important decision.

      http://www.kabalarians.com/cfm/name-change.cfm

      Delete
  17. Below is a brief analysis of the desert rat.

    Your name of desert rat gives you self-assurance, independence, and confidence.

    You have depth of mind and the ability to concentrate and to follow a line of thought to a logical conclusion.

    Your love of challenging the concepts of others invariably leads you to create your own ideas and to pioneer new lines of thought.

    Your strong characteristic of individuality qualifies you as a leader.

    You must be independent and you do not brook interference in any way.

    Although you do not tolerate interference in your own affairs, this characteristic does not prevent you from interfering in the affairs of others.

    You are usually either telling or showing someone how to do something properly.

    Although you are good-natured and never intend offence, still your blunt, direct, and candid manner of expression strains friendships; your honesty and sincerity earn respect from others.

    You have to be your own boss as it is most difficult for you to submit to direction from others.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hahahaha

      You can get a better image of oneself through the opinions of others rather than one's own opinion of oneself.

      "Rat, there is something really wrong with you."

      Trish

      Delete
    2. "Why don't you take a hike?"

      Whit

      Delete
    3. The rat is the most revered member of the Chinese zodiac. I am a rat as was one of my ex-wives, except 12 years later.

      Delete
    4. Desert Rat is an ugly emotion, and that's all.

      Delete
    5. Twelve years later? Allen the poacher (which is a sort of male cougar).

      Delete
  18. A beautiful day in the mid-south: Cool, crisp October morning, when the cotton is about ready to pick, and You don't have to pick it. :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Nice day here too.

    Idaho is coming your way and is going to whup your ass in a couple of weeks.

    Best disconnect your TV at that time.

    ReplyDelete
  20. National Park Service promotes Islam -

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

    Since the National Parks are shut down due to the government's shutdown, I suggest the government remain shut down until Obama is out of office, to prevent any more of this nauseating kind of crap.

    ReplyDelete
  21. The "Obama Economy" sucks -

    Here's the cold hard facts in that regard. The labor force participation rate fell to 63.2% in August, its lowest level since 1978. Think about that for a moment and let it sink in. We have the lowest percent of people participating in the labor market in 35 years. Note also that this rate is has continued to decline since the recession supposedly ended in June 2009.
    So, here we are five and a half years into the Obama presidency and we have the lowest percent of Americans working since 1978. That is an undeniable fact.
    There is even more evidence pointing towards the atrocity that is the Obama-led and owned U.S. labor market. According to a report released September 30th by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, only about half of adults in their late 20s -- let me emphasize late 20s -- were working full-time as of 2012. That figure was derived from official U.S. census data.
    Let's put that in perspective. These are adults, if they went in the military, who would be halfway or more towards the minimum service time for retirement, yet half of these adults don't even have a full-time job.
    They could instead be theoretically college-educated with six or seven years of experience, yet half are jobless.


    Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/the_cold_hard_facts_of_obamas_economy.html#ixzz2h4LqOeFB


    Cold, hard facts and figures, folks.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Pre Check is very cool. Nice and fast. No hassles from the bubblebutts or Ethiopians. They did not ask me for any more info than I had already given for a Concealed Carry License.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Remember Larry "Toe Tapping" Craig -

    FEC wants $357K from former foot-tapping Senator
    POSTED AT 4:01 PM ON OCTOBER 7, 2013 BY ED MORRISSEY


    The Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport finds itself in the news twice today, although this story’s a little more indirect than the one about a 9-year-old outfoxing MSP security for a trip to Sin City. The Federal Elections Commission wants former Senator Larry Craig to reimburse his campaign for $217,000 used to pay lawyers not for campaign-related issues but to defend himself against charges arising from allegedly importuning an undercover officer in an MSP bathroom. They also want an additional $140,000 in fines:

    Federal election regulators want former U.S. Sen. Larry Craig to pay $140,000 in fines and return nearly $217,000 to his campaign, arguing he misused the money to fund his legal defense after his 2007 arrest in an airport bathroom sex sting.

    The Federal Election Commission proposed the penalties this week in filings to U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C. In March, Jackson refused to dismiss the FEC’s lawsuit against Craig alleging he illegally tapped campaign funds.
    So far, Craig has refused — claiming that his travel through MSP was on official business, and therefore a legitimate campaign expense:

    The Idaho Republican has been fighting the FEC’s demands for more than a year, arguing his stop at the airport bathroom in Minneapolis fell under his official duties as a senator because he was traveling between Idaho and Washington for work, and therefore the legal fees could be paid with campaign cash.

    The FEC doesn’t see it that way. In fact, they see it as fraud:

    The FEC argues Craig unjustly enriched himself by siphoning money from his campaign, rather than his personal bank accounts, to pay for lawyers in the case. Misusing campaign money for an illegitimate purpose is not unlike fraud, commission lawyers wrote, adding Craig’s actions “undermine confidence in government.”

    Maybe this is the wrong week to make that argument.


    :):):)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The "Toe Tapper" tapped his campaign funds :) and now the government is tapping on his door.

      :)

      Delete
    2. The Tapper might take up tap dancing to pay his bills.

      Delete
    3. This is what Quirk would do in similar circumstances.

      ;)

      Delete
    4. Quirk, with cup out, slowly paying off that campaign debt -

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

      Delete
  24. Israel's Final Warning To Iran

    http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2013/10/07/israels_final_warning_to_iran_105500.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anything after that and Iran crosses a red line, yadda yadda yadda.

      Delete
  25. .

    Two years ago, federal agent John Dodson turned whistleblower and exposed a botched gun operation in Phoenix that led to senior-level resignations, 18 months of congressional investigations and the first vote in history by the House of Representatives to hold a sitting attorney general in contempt of Congress.

    Now, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, where Dodson works, is preventing him from publishing a book about the failed gun investigation, dubbed “Fast and Furious,” because the agency says it will hurt morale inside the ATF.


    http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/atf-rejects-agents-fast-and-furious-book/2013/10/07/2d367b2c-2f63-11e3-bbed-a8a60c601153_story.html?hpid=z3

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Dodson will get to publish is book.

      I'm still waiting the President's promised report on Benghazi.

      Delete
    2. Wonder what the death toll is from those Fast and Furious guns by now......hundreds, or thousands?

      Delete
  26. The administration knows what the ObamaCare enrollment numbers are, and they must suck, or they would be telling us. If they were great they would be shouting it from the roof tops. Even if they were only good, they would mention it. The numbers must suck.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jay Carney on ObamaCare enrollment numbers: Uh, we’ll get back to you next month
      POSTED AT 6:41 PM ON OCTOBER 7, 2013 BY ALLAHPUNDIT


      If they’re able and willing to release the website’s traffic data, as Carney does here, why can’t they can’t release the number of people who managed to complete the application process successfully? Any website that requires users to register has a way of counting the number of registrants. Carney doesn’t even deny that they have the number; he just says that they’ll release the data monthly like other agencies do, as if there’s no special public interest in the first-day enrollment numbers for ObamaCare. Show of hands: If the site was working like a dream and 500,000 people had signed up successfully in the first 24 hours, who thinks President Bashful would insist on sitting on those numbers for a month?

      By the way, per this morning’s post about the real causes of the Healthcare.gov glitchapalooza, O’s team continues to lie their collective ass off in claiming that it’s all due to heavy traffic, not freakishly amateurish coding:

      The Obama administration is not planning on releasing enrollment numbers on Obamacare until November, senior administration officials said Monday, as they continued to insist that delays with the healthcare.gov website were entirely the result of high volume…

      The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, “Information technology experts who examined the healthcare.gov website at the request of The Wall Street Journal said the site appeared to be built on a sloppy software foundation. Such a hastily constructed website may not have been able to withstand the online demand last week, they said. Engineers at Web-hosting company Media Temple Inc. found a glut of stray software code that served no purpose they could identify. They also said basic Web-efficiency techniques weren’t used, such as saving parts of the website that change infrequently so they can be loaded more quickly. Those factors clog the website’s plumbing, Media Temple said.”

      But the senior administration official rejected suggestions from internet technology experts that the website is poorly designed and flawed.

      “Volume is the problem,” the official said.
      Watch the second clip below, via RCP, and you’ll find Carney kinda sorta repeating this lie himself, insisting that their “top issue” when it comes to the glitches is high volume. In the unlikely event that Carney and the White House actually believe that, it’s good news for O-Care’s opponents: If they’re not aggressively addressing the coding issues on the assumption that more servers will straighten most of this out, the rollout failures will crawl on for months. In the meantime, the solution is — wait for it — “waiting rooms”:

      “CMS has put up a gate at the front end of the system that places visitors in a waiting room and lets them in at a particular pace so that the surge in volume does not cause the problems that it caused in the past,” Carney said during Monday’s White House press briefing.

      Charlie Spiering describes that, not inaptly, as “rationing” online users. Exit question via a Twitter buddy: Why doesn’t Carney revive ye olde “created or saved” metric for this? Eight million people viewed or enrolled on the ObamaCare website!

      Delete
    2. http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/07/jay-carney-on-obamacare-enrollment-numbers-uh-well-get-back-to-you-next-month/

      "it's all part of a cynical political game"

      Delete
  27. They did call him a cracker -

    Three black soldiers arrested for stabbing white comrade to death 'called him a cracker' - so why are police now so sure it was NOT a hate crime?

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2449133/Three-African-American-soldiers-arrested-stabbing-white-comrade-calling-cracker--police-away-hate-crime-charges.html#ixzz2h5BqDlY3

    ReplyDelete
  28. http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Turkeys-Erdogan-says-Syrias-Assad-is-a-terrorist-not-a-politician-328095

    ReplyDelete
  29. Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE plan to introduce medical testing on travelers to 'detect' gay people and stop them from entering. It's illegal to be gay in 78 countries, with lesbianism banned in 49. Five countries mete out the death penalty to gay people in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and Mauritania. Most of these countries are happy to accept aid from the US, however.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Almost afraid to ask, but how is this 'testing' to work, procedure wise?

      Delete
    2. It can't possibly work, but some entrepreneur (scam artiste) is going to make a killing. Lots of petrodollars there.

      Delete
    3. Half the Muslim World is so deep in the closet they can see Narnia.

      Delete
    4. :)

      But what are they going to DO, put your pecker in the wind and see if it points to Mecca?

      Delete
    5. My pecker? Channeling WiO today, Bob?

      Delete
  30. There seems to be an 'emergency doctrine' that may apply to this SUV/biker case. Thus, if you feel you are in an emergency, and your wife and child particularly are in your car too, and you find yourself surrounded by drunk and drugged bikers, and are afraid for yourself and your others. you can gun that SUV and get the hell out of there, which is just what he did. You are held to a different standard than if you find yourself surrounded by a bunch of Amish buggies, for instance. Taken from the legal scholars just on Fox News. The Law is often a wonderful thing.

    The biker that got run over had a rap sheet longer than Quirk's.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gloria Allred, ambulance chaser, is going to be the attorney for the biker.

      She would be wasting her precious time, except that she might force a settlement from the insurance company. I hope they don't cave.

      Delete
    2. I was recently called a Fucking Fascist, by sewer rat, for suggesting these bikers weren't really peacefully assembling, and for suggesting a limit of some kind on the number of bikes that can ride in close proximity on our highways, for traffic safety's sake.

      It was only a short time ago that he called me a Christian Liberationist, and a commie.

      I am neither.

      Delete
    3. But you like Huck Finn, who showed a communistic disregard for that wad of cash he shared with Tom Sawyer, unlike his dad the town drunk, who ordered him to shell it out, and helped get it back into the local economy via the tavern.

      Delete
    4. Well, yes, never said I was perfect.

      Pap was an economist.

      I'm a farmer.

      Delete
    5. Farmers make damn good economists, since they know you can't "print" fertilizer or rain.

      Delete
  31. Britain’s intellectual elites see Anglosphere values as an impediment to assimilation into a European polity. Their equivalents in Australia see them as a distraction from their country’s supposed Asian destiny. In the United States, especially under the present administration, Anglosphere identity is seen as a colonial hangover, the patrimony of dead white European males. In every English-speaking country, a multiculturalist establishment hangs back from teaching children that they are heirs to a unique political heritage.

    Consequently, in most Anglosphere states, the “principles of the Whigs before the Revolution,” are being slowly abandoned. Laws are now regularly made without parliamentary approval, taking the form of executive decrees. Taxes are levied without popular consent, as during the bank bailouts. Power is shifting from local, provincial, or state level to national capitals, and from elected representatives to standing bureaucracies. State spending has grown to a level which earlier Anglosphere populations would have regarded as a cause for popular revolt. If we want to understand why the Anglosphere hegemony is failing, we need look no further.

    http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Anglosphere-miracle-7709#comments

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The body and soul of every hegemony meets the same fate as all other bodies and all other souls.

      Delete
    2. Do you mean that the Soul of Hegemony (this sounds like a Cascade Mountains wild flower) once created cannot be destroyed, as Catholic Theology teaches, or can it be 'deleted', to use modern lingo, an opinion I read by a Jewish writer lately?

      Delete
  32. Japan's finance minister said Tuesday that the country needs to consider the risk of a possible decline in U.S. Treasury prices amid the continued stalemate over the U.S. debt ceiling.

    ...

    Among foreign holders, Japan owns $1.135 trillion of U.S. Treasurys, second only to China's $1.277 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. Fears are growing that the U.S. government may encounter trouble meeting its debt servicing obligations if Congress doesn't ...

    ReplyDelete
  33. Bikers Constitutionally and peacefully assembling for redress of grievances here -

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INfElroIKO0

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Constitutional Scholars, each and every one.

      And they know the law, too, as most have criminal records.

      Delete
  34. London Odd Fact #15:

    Animals whose bones have been excavated in London:

    1. A crocodile in Islington.
    2. A hippo in Trafalgar Square.
    3. A wolf in Cheapside.
    4. A mammoth in King's Cross.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Replies
    1. Heh, better rig than an F-250 4x4.

      Delete
  36. On this day in 1849, American author and poet Edgar Allan Poe passed away at age 40.

    ReplyDelete
  37. She did say things were better in India -


    India: Muslim women defy Muslim clerics' ban on photography as un-Islamic
    And in the course of their defiance take a photo of a man beating his wife. No wonder Darul Uloom Deoband thinks photography is un-Islamic! "Lens on liberty: Muslim women with camera in hand defy fatwa," by Mohammed Wajihuddin for the Times of India, October 7:

    A group of six women are seated in a spacious hall, their sights trained at a bunch of photographs adorning a wall. The photographs were shot during various field trips these women undertook over the last few years. "They tell stories of women's emancipation, their struggle to find their space in society," explains Ayesha Shaikh.
    Shaikh is part of 16 women whom Kurla-based Aawaaz-e-Niswaan, a women's advocacy group, helped train as photographers. Though Darul Uloom Deoband's recent fatwa calling photography unIslamic rattled rationalists, it has pained these women photographers more. "The fatwa reeks of the medieval mindset. Just as writing brings catharsis to writers, photography is a way of feeling liberated," says Aawaaz-e-Niswaan's founder Haseena Khan.

    Women are surprised that the seminary's fatwa department, replying to an engineering student's query on whether he should choose photography as a career, said: "Photography is unIslamic. Do not do this. You should search any suitable job based on your engineering course." The women collectively ask a question: "What do they tell some of India's leading clerics who attend sessions of All India Muslim Personal Law Board and happily get captured on videos and cameras?"

    Khan adds her centre decided to encourage Muslim women to take up photography as a career also to explode the myth that it is a "man's job". "A camera is almost always associated with men. Why don't we hear of camerawomen more often?" asks Reshma Pawaskar, a volunteer at the centre who too trained as a photographer. In 2008, Aawaz-e-Niswaan had organized a workshop at Khandala. During discussions it emerged that the participants should do something liberating yet not popular among traditional Muslim women. Significantly, many of the women were divorcees and had to look for vocations. Choosing photography as a vocation was something they hadnot dreamed of. Luckily, senior photographer Sudharak Olwe agreed to volunteer as a trainer.

    Most of the women had not held a camera before and had seen a photographer only during wedding ceremonies. One of the conditions to be part of the team was that they would have to shoot outdoors. So sharing one camera between two, these women shot choked, open drains, women selling fish and vegetables, and a man beating his wife.

    "I was scared to step out of home before I learnt photography. I was shy. Now, I confidently commute to work," says Shabina Shaikh, who works at a photo studio. Like all photographers, these women too have had memorable moments. During training, many of them would move in burqas by choice. "We wanted to know the reaction to burqa-clad photographers," says Khan. A couple of years ago, Pawaskar went to cover the annual LGBT rally. Actor Celina Jaitly was among the celebrities who addressed the rally.

    Holding her camera, Pawaskar scaled a wall for a better view. "Seeing a woman photographer in burqa, other photographers turned to me and feverishly started clicking. For a moment I overshadowed Celina," recalls Pawaskar, whose family was apprehensive initially but are now proud of her passion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. from JihadWatch, which isn't much liked around here

      Delete
  38. Let me get this straight.... We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don't, which purportedly covers at least ten million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, who have recently demonstrated their objective and professional integrity; written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that didn't read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a Dumbo President who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, for which we'll be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and the Post Office all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke!!!!!

    ReplyDelete