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."

Thursday, December 05, 2013

The Creepy House of Un-American Activities: The NSA, an abomination to freedom, an international embarrassment, a hapless waste of money and a criminal threat to ordinary people.



NSA gathering 5bn cell phone records daily, Snowden documents show

• Washington Post reveals details of location-tracking program
• NSA monitors data of individuals wherever they are in the world

Paul Lewis in Washington 

theguardian.com, Wednesday 4 December 2013 18.19 EST


The National Security Agency is reportedly collecting almost 5 billion cell phone records a day under a program that monitors and analyses highly personal data about the precise whereabouts of individuals, wherever they travel in the world.
Details of the giant database of location-tracking information, and the sophisticated ways in which the NSA uses the data to establish relationships between people, have been revealed by the Washington Post, which cited documents supplied by whistleblower Edward Snowden and intelligence officials.
The spy agency is said to be tracking the movements of “at least hundreds of millions of devices” in what amounts to a staggeringly powerful surveillance tool. It means the NSA can, through mobile phones, track individuals anywhere they travel – including into private homes – or retrace previously traveled journeys.
The data can also be used to study patterns of behaviour to reveal personal information and relationships between different users.
The NSA provided some input into the report, with one senior collection manager, granted permission to speak to the newspaper, admitting the agency is “getting vast volumes” of location data from around the planet by tapping into cables that connect mobile networks globally.
Civil liberties experts have long said that cell phone location data contains some of the most intrusive information about people in the digital age, leaving a kaleidoscopic footprint of a person’s life. Phones transmit location data whenever a phone is turned on, irrespective of whether they are being used to make calls or send text messages and emails.
According to the Post, the NSA is applying sophisticated mathematical techniques to map cell phone owners’ relationships, overlapping their patterns of movement with thousands or millions of other users who cross their paths.
These tools — known collectively as Co-Traveler — enable the NSA to search for possible associates of intelligence targets.
According to briefing slides cited in the report, the NSA draws location data from 10 so-called “sigads,” or signals intelligence activity designators, around the world, which in turn rely on data provided by corporate partners.
Defending the program, US officials told the Post that efforts to collect and analyze location data are lawful and intended strictly to develop intelligence about foreign targets, with information about the location of domestic cell phones only gathered “incidentally”.
Robert Litt, general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said: “There is no element of the intelligence community that under any authority is intentionally collecting bulk cell phone location information about cell phones in the United States.”
However, data is also gathered from the tens of millions of Americans who travel abroad with their cell phones every year, the Post reported.
“As with other surveillance activities, the NSA claims that its cell phone location program program is targeted at foreigners, and Americans' information is collected only ‘incidentally,’" said Elizabeth Goitein, a co-director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.
“But the scale of foreign surveillance has become so vast, the amount of information about Americans ‘incidentally’ captured may itself be approaching mass surveillance levels.”
Two months ago, the director of the NSA, General Keith Alexander, admitted to secret pilot programs to monitor the precise location of Americans through their cell phones, saying the highly intrusive tracking data “may be something that is a future requirement for the country”.
He said in evidence to the Senate judiciary committee that pilot programs from 2010 and 2011 were intended to test the compatibility of the location data with the agency’s databases, but were not used for any intelligence analysis purposes.
It is not known whether or to what extent domestic spy agencies have dragnet collection programs for cell phone data, although the FBI does obtain such information through warrants in criminal investigations.
The latest disclosure comes at a point during which Congress is considering three separate bills that would to varying extents clips the wings of the NSA or reform the secret courts that intended to hold the agency to account.
None of the proposed reforms substantially alter the NSA's ability to surveil ordinary foreigners living outside of the US. The issue of surveillance of foreigners has mostly been low among the priorities of lawmakers, including those critical of the NSA, although there has been considerable concern raised about the agency monitoring the calls of leaders of allied nations.
Zeke Johnson, director of Amnesty International USA’s Security & Human Rights Program, said the latest revelations emphasized the need for Congress to take swift action. “Today's news is the latest startling blow to the right to privacy,” he said. “Congress should wake up from its post-holiday food coma and get to work passing legislation to reform the program.”
Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's speech, privacy and technology project, had this said: “It is staggering that a location-tracking program on this scale could be implemented without any public debate, particularly given the substantial number of Americans having their movements recorded by the government.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

209 comments:

  1. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Edward Snowden. You have more guts, more patriotism and more courage than all the patriotic disgusting Neocon flag-waving pukes that brought us to what is a new normality of intrusion, spying and a darkening of our human spirit.

    The NSA needs to be defunded and dismantled, along with the entire corrupt military establishment and corporate leper colony on the Potomac. The US needs defense, but this isn’t it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. With this only Rufus and my wife would disagree.

    They dance to the tune of "If you have done nothing wrong.....you have nothing to fear...."

    If I were married to Rufus it would lead to a divorce, but my wife has other attractions...

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And why that utterly stupid word "Neocons"?

      Are you accusing Rufus of being a "NeoCon" ?

      Is Obama a "Neocon"?

      He has occupied the White House for the last five years.

      During a time when the Republicans have only lately had the House.

      bob

      Delete
    2. Rufus, are you a "NeoCon"?

      bob

      Delete
    3. Quirk is high on the good list on this subject.

      He doesn't want to be under surveillance, nor to have his each movement tracked by the NSA.

      He is after all just a con, a patriotic con.

      Nothing new about aging Quirk-O.

      bob

      Delete
    4. Quirk-O-Con.

      g'nite

      bob

      Delete
    5. Ifeanyi Enoch OnuohaThu Dec 05, 09:26:00 AM EST


      “In you is the ability that will move you from nonentity and mediocrity to an entity of meteority. Take responsiblity now!”

      Delete
  3. The folks on Fox are talking about "hate crimes". Is "thinking" I don't like that Olly (Swede) or the huk huk (Philippino) a hate crime?

    Will NSA soon be able to track this?

    Will Mrs Redinger and I share the same cell.?

    What if one really likes a particular Hindu but doesn't care for the generality of them, especially the men, what then?

    Food for thought, thinkers!

    bob

    now g'nite

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Racist Ramblings are not "food for thought."

      Delete
    2. What's it to you if I don't like much drunken half bred Cherokees?

      You already know I don't from the NSA computer chip in my brain.

      NSA knows you don't much like Peckerwoods of Swedish extraction.



      Delete
    3. NSA also has you on record as thinking:

      "Bible Thumping Christians are maggots."

      Delete
    4. I don't subject the people here to brain-dead, anti-Swedish, racist postings.

      Delete
  4. Leave your cell phones at home.

    Bike to work and recreation with a stolen bike.

    Booger is watching.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThu Dec 05, 09:27:00 AM EST


      “There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.”

      Delete
  5. It looks like Obamacare signups at the Federal website (doesn't include state sites such as California, NY, Kentucky, etc) are running something like this:

    Sunday 11,000

    Monday 18,000

    Tuesday 27,000

    see a pattern, here?

    In Massachusetts, the average number of visits per signup was 18.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 10's of thousands of "signups" 5 million cancellations: Do the math.

      Delete
    2. Your nonsensical comments on Obamacare lost all credibility a couple of threads ago, Doug.

      Delete
  6. What does this have to do with the subject at hand, your wonderful surveillance state?

    Which is only being enhanced by ObamaCare

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rufus in a NeoCon's NeoCon.

      "If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear."

      Perhaps the dumbest statement to be uttered by man.

      Delete
    2. RUFUS !!

      This is the NSA,

      Attention -

      Get that 32 once Bud off your hairy chest, button your shirt, and sit up straight like a REAL AMERICAN.

      Your public servants at your friendly NSA

      Delete
    3. What Israeli Historians Say About 1948 Ethnic Cleansing
      By Charley Reese


      In an article in the Ha’aretz newspaper, Danny Rabinovitz wrote,
      “What happened to the Palestinians in 1948 is Israel’s original sin...Between the 1950s and 1976, the state systematically confiscated most of the land of its remaining Palestinian citizens.”

      Shahak stated in his article,
      “In this context let me mention the pioneering work of Erskin Childers [Irish journalist].
      Childers was first to show that the Zionist claim that Arab propaganda had called on the Palestinians to run away from their homes was a gross lie.
      He inspected all broadcasts [the BBC recorded them and kept transcripts as did the American government] of the Arab radios of the time to find that no such call had ever been made.”

      
      Finally, this quote from the diary of Yitzhak Tabenkin, a charismatic leader of the kibbutz movement. In his diary, Tabenkin stated,
      “the ideals of Hitler which I like:
      ethnic homogeneity,
      the possibility of exchange of ethnic minorities;
      the transfers of ethnic groups for the sake of an international order which for me are a particularly valuable feature.”

      No wonder some people prefer myth to truth.

      Delete
    4. This thread is about the NSA and uncontrolled surveillance. Stow it.

      Delete
  7. In a surprise announcement the NSA, after analyzing millions of phone conversations, has stated Citizen of Ohio curse more than those in any other state. It was stated that in Ohio one in every one hundred and fifty phone conversations contained a nasty four letter word as defined by Health Secretary Sebelius.

    Most analysts had expect Mississippi to lead the nation's newtrend to "4 lettering".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Citizen Rufus 2, interviewed one the subject by reporters from Fox News Online, quoted Mr Rufus as saying:

      "I don''t give a fuck about that. I just want some else to pay for my grand kids health care. Do you know the price of Bud these days?"

      He added "After all I have saved uncounted lives by selling insurance, many of them undocumented democrats."

      Delete

    2. “Bigotry is an odd thing.
      To be bigoted you have to be absolutely sure you are right and nothing makes that surety and righteousness like continence.
      Continence is the foe of heresy.”

      Delete
    3. .

      It also keeps your pants dry.

      .

      Delete
  8. Maybe this will catch the attention of The Conga Line:

    Reuters) - Microsoft Corp pledged late Wednesday to fight in court against any attempt by U.S. intelligence agencies to seize its foreign customers' data under American surveillance laws, one of a series of steps aimed at reassuring nervous users abroad.

    The maker of the world's most popular computer operating system said it had never turned over any such data under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and did not believe that authorities are entitled to the information if it is stored abroad.

    "We are committing contractually to not turning it over without litigating that issue," Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said in an interview with Reuters.

    Smith also said that Microsoft would dramatically increase the amount of encryption it uses for internal traffic, following similar moves by Google Inc and Yahoo Inc in the wake of reports that the National Security Agency had tapped into their facilities overseas without oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

    Smith said Microsoft was caught by surprise by reports in The Washington Post, based on documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden, that the NSA had successfully penetrated the other companies and perhaps targeted it as well.

    "That really was like an earthquake sending shock waves through our industry," Smith said. Past discussions with federal officials, he said, have always been based on working out what the law required, without any hint that the company might be subjected to attacks based on "technological brute force" instead of legal process.

    Addressing another concern, a spokeswoman said the company did not believe it could be ordered to install spyware on a user's machine and that Microsoft would fight any such directive in court.

    Microsoft said it would encrypt consumer data that it stores and would work with other email providers to make sure that messages stay secure when they move from a service such as Microsoft's Outlook.com, formerly Hotmail, to another, such as those from Google or Yahoo.

    Microsoft said it would also expand the use of regional centers that allow governments worried about U.S. "back doors" in its software to inspect the source code.

    ReplyDelete
  9. NSA Spying Risks $35 Billion in U.S. Technology Sales

    By Nicole Gaouette - Nov 26, 2013 4:20 PM ET

    Medea Benjamin of CodePink protests as Director of the National Security Agency Gen. Keith Alexander waits for the beginning of a hearing before the House (Select) Intelligence Committee on Oct. 29, 2013 on Capitol Hill.

    International anger over the National Security Agency’s Internet surveillance is hurting global sales by American technology companies and setting back U.S. efforts to promote Internet freedom.

    A protester marches with a piece of tape covering his mouth during the Stop Watching Us Rally protesting surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency, in front of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 26, 2013. Photographer: Allison Shelley/Getty Images
    Disclosures of spying abroad may cost U.S. companies as much as $35 billion in lost revenue through 2016 because of doubts about the security of information on their systems, according to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a policy research group in Washington whose board includes representatives of companies such as International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) and Intel Corp. (INTC)

    “The potential fallout is pretty huge given how much our economy depends on the information economy for its growth,” said Rebecca MacKinnon, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington policy group. “It’s increasingly where the U.S. advantage lies.”
    Any setback in the U.S. push to maintain an open Internet also could inflict indirect damage on companies such as Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG) that benefit from global networks with few national restrictions.

    Almost 40 percent of the world’s population, or 2.7 billion people, are online, according to the International Telecommunication Union, a Geneva-based United Nations agency.

    Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), the world’s largest maker of computer-networking equipment, said this month that the NSA disclosures are causing some hesitation among customers in emerging markets.

    Orders in China fell 18 percent in the three months ended Oct. 26. Elsewhere, Robert Lloyd, head of development and sales, said on a conference call Nov. 13, “it’s not having a material impact, but it’s certainly causing people to stop and then rethink decisions.”

    {...}

    ReplyDelete
  10. {...}

    ‘Serious Damage’

    News about U.S. surveillance disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has “the great potential for doing serious damage to the competitiveness” of U.S. companies such as Cupertino, California-based Apple, Facebook Inc., and Microsoft Corp., Richard Salgado, Google’s director for law enforcement and information security, told a U.S. Senate panel Nov. 13. “The trust that’s threatened is essential to these businesses.”

    The spying revelations have led governments around the world to consider “proposals that would limit the free flow of information,” Salgado said. “This could have severe unintended consequences, such as a reduction in data security, increased cost, decreased competitiveness, and harm to consumers.”

    Brazil, Germany

    Countries such as China and Russia that are seeking to impose more national controls on the Internet are finding their views gaining ground. Rising economic powers, including India, Mexico and South Korea, are weighing further limits. Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, a target of NSA surveillance, is calling for a new conversation about Internet governance with support from Germany, whose chancellor, Angela Merkel, also was an NSA target.

    The uproar in Germany will probably hurt Akamai Technologies Inc. (AKAM)’s business there, according to Tom Leighton, chief executive officer of the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company that helps corporate customers deliver online content faster.

    “It’s clearly bad for American companies,” Leighton said Nov. 20 at “The Year Ahead: 2014,” a two-day conference in Chicago hosted by Bloomberg LP. “It’s particularly bad now in Germany, where it’s really being played up, to whip up anti-American corporate sentiment. We’ll probably lose some business there.”

    {...}

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. {...}
      Data Flows
      Technology companies aren’t the only ones facing potential damage from disclosure of the NSA’s surveillance, said Myron Brilliant, an executive vice president with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. Studies show products and services that rely on cross-border data flows are expected to add an estimated $1 trillion in value to the U.S. economy annually over the next 10 years, he said.
      “This is a priority issue, not just for technology or Web-based companies, but also small- and medium-sized businesses,” Brilliant said, listing finance, manufacturing, health care, education, shipping “and other areas not commonly thought of as Internet companies.”
      Information technology companies were the first to see fallout after Snowden fled to Hong Kong in May and began releasing details of U.S. surveillance programs. Snowden is now living in Russia.

      Cisco in China

      Facing a backlash that’s already crimping sales in China, San Jose, California-based Cisco may be locked out of future purchases if the Chinese government cites security concerns to favor domestic companies in a projected surge of IT spending, to $520 billion in 2015, to increase urban broadband speeds and expand rural Internet access.
      The cloud computing market will be valued at $207 billion by 2016, according to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.

      A survey by the Cloud Security Alliance, an industry group, found that 10 percent of its non-U.S. members have canceled contracts with U.S.-based cloud providers since May. Fifty-six percent said they’d be less likely to use one.

      “People aren’t going to trust the U.S. and U.S. companies as much,” said Jason Healey, director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based policy group. “You’re going to see national boundaries begin in cyberspace.”
      Internet Regulation

      For years, the U.S. has lobbied against such an approach, advocated by countries including China and Russia. In 2011, they submitted a proposed “Internet code of conduct” to the United Nations. The U.S. has pushed back, “trying hard to get up-and-coming countries like Brazil to trust us, not the Chinese, about how the Internet should look,” Healey said.

      A top-down intergovernmental approach “would hamper the pace of innovation and hamper global economic development, and it could lead to unprecedented control over what people say and do online,” Daniel A. Sepulveda, the U.S. State Department’s coordinator for international communications and information policy, said in a Nov. 6 phone briefing.

      Today, a UN panel adopted a resolution sponsored by Brazil and Germany expressing concern over the “negative impact” of Internet surveillance. The 193-member General Assembly will vote next month on the document, which calls for a report by next year on privacy protections “in the context of domestic and extraterritorial surveillance and/or interception of digital communications and collection of personal data.”
      {...}

      Delete

    2. {...}
      ‘Political Message’
      The move sends a “political message” that “the right to privacy has to be protected” even though the resolution isn’t legally binding, Peter Wittig, Germany’s ambassador, told reporters after the resolution’s adoption.
      Since Snowden’s disclosures revealed that the NSA was monitoring exchanges between Rousseff and her top aides, the Brazilian president has led an effort to establish Internet protections.
      Brazil is considering legislation that would require companies such as Mountain View, California-based Google to use local data centers or equipment developed by the government. A preference for non-U.S. providers could hurt companies such as Sunnyvale, California-based Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR), which accounted for 10 percent of Brazil’s router revenue in the first half of the year, or Cisco, which holds 56 percent.

      German E-Mail

      In Germany, Bonn-based Deutsche Telekom AG (DTR) is part of an alliance of companies promoting a system to keep German e-mail and Web searches within the country.

      “The private sector is very worried about this because it messes with what might be most economic way to route message flows and traffic,” said Gene Kimmelman, project director for human rights and Internet policy at the New America Foundation, a Washington policy group. “If you’re forced to have equipment in a certain country, by law, it might add significant expense to an operation.”

      European Union legislators set to negotiate a trade agreement with the U.S. want to include strict rules for American companies handling EU citizens’ data and fine them heavily for violations.

      Some of the anger over the NSA is disingenuous, given that there’s “a substantial awareness that surveillance goes on” in many countries, Kimmelman said.

      Even so, Google’s Salgado said international reaction to the NSA’s surveillance risks changing the nature of the Internet.
      He said proposals being advanced could lead to the “creation of a splinter net, broken up into smaller national regional pieces with barriers around it to replace the global Internet that we know today.”

      To contact the reporter on this story: Nicole Gaouette in Washington at ngaouette@bloomberg.net

      Delete
    3. .

      If the big tech companies can get over the legal barriers, they have it in there power to defeat the NSA. The US just doesn't have the expertise or the technical manpower to fight against them. The NSA can steal the data right now but they obviously don't know what to do with it based on their performance or lack thereof. It reminds me of that story a few years back when they taking data from a company (Microsoft I believe) and then demanded that the company sort the data for them and give them what they were looking for.

      .

      Delete
  11. . . . . . . .

    It's all tied together, of course; those middle class folks are being fed that by the puppet masters.

    Make no mistake about it, the wealthy hate Obamacare. And it's got nothing to do with premiums.

    it's got to do with a single number:

    3.8%
    .



    Remember that number. Shout that number.

    You see, up until Obamacare, the truly wealthy in our society, that passive income crowd that dodged the top tax bracket by getting their compensation in capital gains and such, was EXEMPTED from the Medicare portion of FICA.

    This tax (2.9%) went up .9% for incomes over 250k under PPACA. .9%'s not that bad, of course, but for those living on passive income, the hit is much larger.

    Until now, this law, they were exempt from that tax.

    Now they're not.

    Take a guy like Romney - he makes $20,000,000 a year, most if not all of it in the form of passive income. So he was paying at the 15% rate, thanks to the special treatment for such "special" income.

    That went up to 20% when parts of hte Bush tax cuts expired in 2012.

    And now, to add insult to that injury, Romney's income is subjected to that dastardly Medicare tax (which, unlike the Social Security portion of FICA, doesn't cut off at $106,000, or $133,000, or whatever it is this year).

    3.8% of $20,000,000 is $760,000 dollars in taxes. That has to sting that generational wealth plan Romney was hatching.

    Imagine the hit the Kochs and the hedge fund guys are taking. The 25 top hedge fund guys in 2009 averaged $1Billion each...3.8% of a billion? Get your calculators out: mine says that means about $38,000,000 in new taxes for these guys.

    So if they spend a few million trying to kill it, who could blame them, right?

    3.8%.

    They hate Obamacare. They hate Obama. It's pretty simple, when you think about it.

    Make sure you . . . . . . . .

    3.8%

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      It's all tied together, of course; ...

      3.8%.



      Simplistic.

      Everyone who dislikes Obamacare has their own reasons for disliking Obamacare.

      We've all seen the stories lately of how the young are currently being turned by Obama and the ACA. They are hardly in the Romney/Koch class.

      .

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

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

      Delete
    4. But, Rufus, if you curse really loud and well, and say I'm wrong, data be damned, Deuce will declare you the winner. It works out like modern education.

      :-D)))

      Delete

    5. What Israeli Historians Say About 1948 Ethnic Cleansing
      By Charley Reese


      In an article in the Ha’aretz newspaper, Danny Rabinovitz wrote,
      “What happened to the Palestinians in 1948 is Israel’s original sin...Between the 1950s and 1976, the state systematically confiscated most of the land of its remaining Palestinian citizens.”

      Shahak stated in his article,
      “In this context let me mention the pioneering work of Erskin Childers [Irish journalist].
      Childers was first to show that the Zionist claim that Arab propaganda had called on the Palestinians to run away from their homes was a gross lie.
      He inspected all broadcasts [the BBC recorded them and kept transcripts as did the American government] of the Arab radios of the time to find that no such call had ever been made.”

      
      Finally, this quote from the diary of Yitzhak Tabenkin, a charismatic leader of the kibbutz movement. In his diary, Tabenkin stated,
      “the ideals of Hitler which I like:
      ethnic homogeneity,
      the possibility of exchange of ethnic minorities;
      the transfers of ethnic groups for the sake of an international order which for me are a particularly valuable feature.”

      No wonder some people prefer myth to truth.

      Delete
  12. 29,000 may have signed up for Obamacare, but as of Monday about 5.6 million Americans have had their health insurance canceled because of Obamacare. That means the administration is still in a deep, deep hole. If those people don’t find new insurance (either on the exchanges or elsewhere) soon, the White House is going end up having millions of newly un-insured Americans on January 1.

    But they're just white people, they don't count.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No they haven't. They've been given permission to keep those crappy plans if they want them.

      Haven't you noticed that that whole "I lost my insurance" story has died away since the website became operational?

      Delete
    2. Stories come and go, but there's $5.6 million people gonna pay MORE for LESS come Jan 1, and it is in tens of millions by next October.

      Delete
    3. That's just not true, Teresita. You're just parroting back Koch brothers bullshit. They're playing you for a sucker, and you're going for it.

      Delete
    4. Sure, and all those cancellations, Koch brothers did that. When they sign up to replace their plans and it costs $200 a month more, that's Koch brothers. Koch brothers caused peak oil.

      Delete
    5. There's nothing in the law that would cause those crappy plans to go up by $200.00.

      Delete
    6. Well, I won't post what's GONNA happen, I'll just post what happens, that way the Koch Brothers influence will be minimized.

      Delete
    7. .

      Obama said it was ok for the insurance companies to continue with their policies (for a year) until after the 2014 election but there is a major problem with that. He should have done it in March when they knew they might be having problems. In many cases, state laws have been changed to accommodate the ACA. Insurance companies have changed their policies and business plans to accommodate the ACA.

      Only about half the states have agreed to go along with the extensions. The others are stating they would need to change their laws back and are refusing to do so. And even if the states go along it matters little if the insurance companies refuse.

      That the law doesn't mandate that insurance premiums go up. Well, admittedly, that is a little surprising.

      .

      Delete
  13. Breaking:

    Milleninal Generation is Breaking Trust With Washington Saying Washington Is Breaking Trust With Them

    "What do you mean we have to pay" they say.

    Adding "What is pay? Isn't that for mummy and dad, or something? I'm only 28."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Another added "I"m only 32 and my wife is 45 and doesn't want another abortion. What do we do?"

      Delete
    2. The young are immortal, so they'll eat the fine. $95 next year. If they get cancer or something, they'll sign up, since the law commands insurance companies to ignore pre-existing conditions. No bankruptcy, all for the unbelievably low, low price of $95.

      Delete
    3. $95.00 Or, 1% of Income.

      Next year, 2%.

      The next year, 2.5%.

      Factor the subsidies in, and it might not end up exactly like you think it will

      If the young immortal gets cancer, or falls off his trail bike on Mar 2, he's in trouble. He will be bankrupt before the next enrollment period, in Oct.

      Delete
    4. So will all the older people who HAD insurance before Obamacare, if they get sick. Next election will be sweet.

      Delete
  14. Breaking:

    Two million online passwords stolen yesterday.

    Leggy Loveless said:

    "How can I now say to Quirk that which I know he wishes to hear?"

    ReplyDelete
  15. There's a LOT of this going around:


    I have a personal anecdote to share today that shows how hard we must press our liberal congressional representatives to constantly highlight the good stories and explain the "bad" stories that are going to come out in the next few months as the ACA adjusts certain things in Americans insurance policies.

    If we don't put pressure on congressional Democrats to both educate themselves and then strongly fight in the media to show the full story, then we risk the ACA turning into another "centrist conventional wisdom" where all the news stories start at a right-ward slant and we find ourselves stuck in a permanent disadvantage.
    .



    My Brother-in-Law is a blue-collar right winger. The kind of person that sends you chain emails of accusations so outlandish and fantastical that it is funny in a sad sort of way: "Obama spends billions on luxury week-long trip to India!" The kind of emails you can debunk in a 20 second Google search.

    So he told all his friends and extended family that his premiums for his family plan were going up 150% because of Obamacare. He was sure to add how Obama "lied" and Obamacare was destroying the country.

    All his friends nodded their heads and agreed this was awful and Obamacare is hurting people, and yet more people were turned off by the ACA. Just one problem though: It was a total fabrication.

    The real story: He lost his job and the COBRA coverage was too expensive, so he dropped it. He wanted to go into the individual market and buy a health insurance plan, but the private insurance companies told him his wife had a pre-existing medical condition (one that probably doesn't strike most people as a pre-existing medical condition) and thus they all refused to offer him any coverage plan.

    Now however, because of President Obama, they all have to offer him coverage! But he hates the President so much he'll never admit it.

    Also, because of his financial problems, he actually is eligible for free insurance via Medicaid, but he hates the government so much he is so far refusing to accept it.

    Recap: He has no health insurance for his family, can't get health insurance because of pre-existing conditions, and now Obamacare helps him get subsidized health insurance AND right now he has medicaid availability for his whole family. How does he tell this good news? By making up a story to everyone about how Obamacare is jacking up his non-existent premiums.

    And that is just in my small family! Imagine how often this is going to happen around the . . . . . .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      And how do we know old Draximum's story as outlined above isn't a total fabrication?

      .

      Delete
    2. “Someday, the realm of liberty and justice will encompass the planet.

      Freedom is not just the birthright of the few, it is the God-given right of all His children, in every country.

      It won't come by conquest.
      It will come, because freedom is right and freedom works.
      It will come, because cooperation and good will among free people will carry the day.”

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

      Delete

    4. "The so-called “Palestinian autonomous areas” are Bantustans.
      These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli Apartheid system."
      - N. Mandela

      The Palestinians are in their "Ghettos", on their "Reserves"

      Palestinian lackeys rule over the fractured and factionalized Palestinians, $100 million a month the Israeli pay their house boy Arabs in baksheesh.

      Just as the Germans used Ashkenazi guards in the Warsaw Ghetto.

      The first commander of the Warsaw ghetto was Józef Szeryński, a Polish-Jewish police colonel.

      Warsaw Ghetto archivist Emanuel Ringelblum has described the cruelty of the ghetto police as ...
      "at times greater than that of the Germans, the Ukrainians and the Latvians."

      Delete
    5. Listen, I thought I heard a termite.

      Delete
  16. A message from other Whistle-Blowers to Snowden: Never trust the US government and don’t fall for the “come home and face justice” bullshit.Every morning at 5:45 a.m., John Kiriakou wakes up. He pulls on green pants and a green button-down shirt with his name and number on the front. Breakfast is at 6 a.m. He watches the news from 6:30 to 7:30 a.m., then goes back to sleep. He wakes up again at 11 a.m. for lunch, after which he exercises until around 2:30 in the afternoon. Mail call is at 3:30 p.m. Dinner is at 5 p.m.

    Kiriakou, a former CIA agent, is serving 30 months in prison. He emailed a freelance reporter the name of a covert CIA officer, violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The name was never published, but Kiriakou became one of eight people charged by the Department of Justice since 2008 for leaking classified information under the Espionage Act.

    “Boredom is the toughest thing about prison,” Kiriakou writes Al Jazeera America in letters sent from the federal low-security penitentiary where he is incarcerated in western Pennsylvania. “I have never read so many books in my life.”

    The Obama administration has charged twice as many people as all the previous administrations combined under the almost 100-year-old Espionage Act. The latest among them is Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who revealed the existence of U.S. government surveillance programs.

    Snowden is in Russia, having sought asylum there as the U.S. attempts to extradite him to face a possible sentence of 30 years in jail, and more if other charges are brought.

    In interviews with others prosecuted under the Espionage Act, the message to Edward Snowden is clear: Don’t come home. Once the media attention has faded, those who have been investigated for leaking classified information speak of lives irreparably altered, finances depleted and lifelong career ambitions permanently scorched.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. {...}

      John Kiriakou’s career with the CIA reached its zenith when he was part of the team that captured Abu Zubaydah, the militant and suspected Al-Qaeda operative, in 2002. When he left the agency Kiriakou became a consultant for global firm Deloitte, and worked with Hollywood filmmakers.

      He was widely sought after as a national security and terrorism expert, attention that intensified after he shared with ABC News in 2007 more details about waterboarding Abu Zubaydah than had previously been released by a CIA officer. But his information was wrong. Kiriakou told ABC that by the 30-second mark of being doused with water in the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation technique,” Abu Zubaydah began to talk. In fact, the Guantanamo detainee had been waterboarded around 83 times before he was brought to Cuba.

      Kiriakou hadn’t been present during the interrogation sessions. Later, he said he’d gotten that information from colleagues at the CIA. However, news outlets continued to court him. He joined the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee led by then Sen. John Kerry. In 2010 he released a memoir, “The Reluctant Spy.”

      Then in 2012, things began to fall apart.

      “In early January 2012, I received a call from an FBI agent asking if I could ‘help on a case’ — it was an hour and 20 minutes into the interview that I realized that the case was against ME,” Kiriakou writes in his letter from prison.

      “When I said that I wanted to speak to my attorney, the FBI agents said that as we were speaking, they were executing a search warrant on my house. An hour later, my attorney told me that the FBI intended to arrest me the following Monday and would charge me with multiple counts of espionage. I knew then that my life would never be the same.”

      Kiriakou was charged under the Espionage Act but was later sentenced under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for revealing the name of an undercover CIA agent to a reporter. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act is a separate law enacted in 1982 to prevent people from identifying or exposing intelligence officers, agents or informants and sources. Kiriakou told The New York Times in January that he “was simply trying to help a writer find a potential source and had no intention or expectation that the name would ever become public.” The paper added that the name of the agent did not actually emerge publicly until after Kiriakou was charged.

      He was sentenced in January of this year to 30 months in prison under a plea deal. He may be allowed to leave for a halfway house soon; otherwise he won’t be released until August 2014.

      For now, his roommates are “a drug dealer from Lansing, a pedophile from Indiana, a pedophile from Wisconsin, a drug dealer from Puerto Rico, and a guy who committed fraud from Virginia,” Kiriakou writes.

      He works as a janitor in the prison chapel. “It’s quiet in there because there are no public address speakers,” he writes. “There’s no mail on the weekend so there’s more time to read.”

      Kiriakou says he’s never read so many books. He’s currently partial to biographies, including those of Mao Zedong, Abraham Lincoln and Edward R. Murrow, and fiction by Cormac McCarthy, Jeffrey Eugenides and John Kennedy Toole.

      Delete
  17. {...}

    One of the most outspoken critics of the government’s prosecution of whistle-blowers is one of the most famous: Daniel Ellsberg. The former military analyst who released the top-secret Pentagon Papers in 1971 recalls going through similar isolation and ostracism within his intelligence community and among colleagues at the Rand Corporation, where he worked before the papers were published.

    “I was Typhoid Mary. I was a leper, with a bell around my neck,” Ellsberg says in a documentary about him called “The Most Dangerous Man in America.” “I’ve come to realize that the fear of being cut out from the group of people you respect and whose respect you want, and normally expect, that keeps people participating.”

    He too invokes the case of Manning when defending Snowden’s decision to leave the country, claiming that the circumstances that allowed Ellsberg to remain in the U.S. after releasing the Pentagon Papers are completely different than today’s.

    “There is zero chance that he would be allowed out on bail if he returned now and close to no chance that, had he not left the country, he would have been granted bail. Instead he would be in a prison cell like Manning, incommunicado,” Ellsberg wrote in a July column for The Washington Post this year. He declined interview requests for this article.

    “I hope Snowden’s revelations will spark a movement to rescue our democracy,” Ellsberg wrote, “but he could not be part of that movement had he stayed here.”

    Thomas Drake believes he is part of that new movement, and John Kiriakou, once he leaves prison, hopes to be too.

    “I will be out of prison in a year,” Kiriakou writes. He says he will embrace the opportunity to speak out against the government. “We are standing at the precipice and we can’t afford to relinquish our rights — the rights our forefathers and soldiers fought and died for — so that professional politicians can keep us living in fear of a terrorist attack that will never come. This will be my new life and I will embrace it.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As a former member of the Spook Community I can't get on board this crap, Deuce. You don't spill classified, ever.

      Delete
    2. .

      While I agree with T in this instance when an individual's name was specifically mentioned, I disagree entirely with her general comment.

      The tendency today is to 'classify' everything including what the president had for breakfast. A few years ago, Bush was attempting to 'reclassify' information that had been in the public domain for decades. 1984 redux, the Bureau of Truth. If you 'classify' enough info, we would never know what any of our elected officials were doing, we would merely be forced to do what we were told.

      The cry of the sheeple, "Do whatever it takes, just protect us."

      Makes me want to puke.

      .

      Delete
    3. You're not willing to puke in my defense?

      Delete
    4. .

      I am selective and parsimonious in the allocation and distribution of my puke. It can be had but it's not cheap.

      .

      Delete
    5. I haven’t had access to classified material in a long time. When I did, it related to Soviet missile technology and our countermeasures. It would have been inexcusable to reveal that and in general I supported the objectives in the classification process without question. That was fine when the enemy was well defined to all.

      I never considered the government spying on our own people. That conviction started melting on reading “A Bright Shining Lie": John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (1988) by Neil Sheehan.

      It reminded me of an afternoon at Clark Air Base when I was trying to catch a flight back to Bentwaters in the UK. I was sitting in the front row of a waiting area facing two double doors that opened simultaneously and was eye ball to eyeball with a parade of wounded on gurneys and wheel chairs. There were two plane loads and I made eye contact with everyone that still had eyes and faces that weren’t bandaged. I could not get up and could not avert their gaze. Not one smiled and none had anything to smile about.

      Bags of piss , IVs, blue hospital robes and gowns, the smell of iodine and the sound of wobbly wheels. I was stunned into submission by how un-tough or heroic they looked, probably one to two hundred diminished boys to men, broken and burned, wasted for what?

      Since then... I don’t even know anymore.

      Delete
    6. There has NEVER been a movie that faithfully reconstructed the screams of soldiers with a gut full of shrapnel. Never. Nowhere close. Nowhere within a hundred miles. And, they don't scream once. Or twice. Or for a couple of minutes. They scream for what seems to be hours.

      The SR-71, the SR-72, Stealth, Missile Defense - these are the things that We Do Well. The sonofabitch that wants to send your kids to Iran, or Iraq, or Syria is just a crook, looking for a buck.

      Delete
    7. They also cry to their mothers and G-d. A few curse. But mostly they just want mommy and G-d. Oh, the gut shot beg for water as well.

      Lackland AFB has had a Blackbird on display for years. When parked there are large gaps between the various parts. So much heat is created in flying that these gaps close fully in flight. Other than the cockpit, the plane is a flying fuel station, with every cubic inch utilized.

      Delete
    8. The NVA would leave them unmolested, knowing that eventually some Marine or Marines would try to make a dash to recover them, or that some Corpsman would try to get to the wounded with morphine. These errands of mercy rarely worked out well. Sometimes you wondered if a bullet would be more merciful, but I have never know that to happen.

      Delete
  18. What I noticed was Ruf's phrase above about people being "permitted" to keep their own lousy insurance.

    "They've been given permission...."

    6:22 AM EST above

    Well thanks Rufus.

    Thanks for giving people "permission" to make their own decisions exempt from your gas passing armchair.

    Perhaps we should never have given illiterates like you permission to vote?

    I did not say "Cherokee" illiterates.

    I said illiterates.

    Illiterate of what freedom is all about.

    Raise the tax on Budweiser to 500%.
    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. “Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”

      Delete
  19. Minus 40 in Montana.

    Global warming.

    At that temperature Rufus is no longer passing gas. He is passing stinky ice. As long as he is given "permission". If not he would just jave to suck it up out this way.

    Thankfully he lives in Mississippi.

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. “I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town;
      they may be the backbone of the nation,
      but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities.”

      Delete
    2. Your books don't sell, rat.

      Try the big cities for great homo activity.

      Spread AIDS, blame the medical system.

      bob

      Delete
    3. Go live with Rufus.

      Delete
    4. Gore Vidal was a really lousy writer.

      Sometimes he wore a nice sweater though.

      bob

      Delete

    5. Fifth columnists are traitors who act secretly and subversively out of sympathy with an enemy.

      I see one every time I look in the mirror, it is horrible.
      The depths of depravity in which I luxuriate

      bob

      Delete
    6. .

      Gore Vidal/William F. Buckley

      Does this subject sound familiar?


      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYymnxoQnf8

      :)

      .

      Delete
    7. .

      I watched that interview live. Good TV. Beats the Housewives of Ispeming.

      .

      Delete
  20. Anonymous website disappears with $100M in Bitcoin

    Summary: Illegal goods trading platform, Sheep Marketplace, shuts down with a Bitcoin haul estimated to be as large as US$100 million. It is unclear if hackers or the site owner absconded with the money, but signs point to a scam.


    http://www.zdnet.com/anonymous-website-disappears-with-100m-in-bitcoin-7000023963/

    ReplyDelete
  21. Rufus is basically a street beggar.

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ANONYMOUS: WARNING WE ARE IN AN OBAMA POLICE STATE

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN7KWZwqFw4

      bob

      Delete
    2. Wasn't bob.

      Just another groupie tent follower.

      Might have been rat.

      bob

      Delete

    3. a·non·y·mous (-nn-ms)
      adj.
      1. Having an unknown or unacknowledged name: an anonymous author.
      2. Having an unknown or withheld authorship or agency: an anonymous letter; an anonymous phone call.
      3. Having no distinctive character or recognition factor:

      bob

      Delete

    4. 4. Lacking individuality, unique character, or distinction:

      bob

      Delete

    5. anonymous
      adjective

      1. unnamed, unknown, unidentified, nameless, unacknowledged, incognito, unauthenticated, innominate
      2. unsigned, uncredited, unattributed, unattested
      3. nondescript, impersonal, faceless, colourless, undistinguished, unexceptional, characterless

      bob

      Delete
  22. It is rat !!

    Early too.

    Time to -

    sign

    out

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies


    1. “Who would you be but who you are?”

      ― Terry Brooks

      bob

      Delete
  23. Oh, Christ!

    Now Deuce has put Steve King ahead of me, when I AM THE KING!

    To advantage The Potatoee Head Farmer?

    Beyond the Pale!

    ...or beneath.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do what you will today, Deuce:

      Tomorrow put these posts in proper order!

      My wish is your command!

      Delete
    2. It is an exercise to feel the abuse of authority.

      Delete
  24. The tendency today is to 'classify' everything including what the president had for breakfast. A few years ago, Bush was attempting to 'reclassify' information that had been in the public domain for decades. 1984 redux, the Bureau of Truth. If you 'classify' enough info, we would never know what any of our elected officials were doing, we would merely be forced to do what we were told.

    Hey, I got an idea, let's take all our classified information, like the cryptography boomers use to verify a nuclear fire order is legit, air it out, and put them up to a vote on whether it should remain secret or not. It's more Democratic that way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      As with many ideologues, sheep, and nincompoops you offer us reductio ad absurdum and the false dilemma as argument.

      You should be ashamed of yourself.

      .

      Delete
  25. I suspect that This might have been the final result of many (most?) of those "cancellation" letters.


    Meanwhile, Alice was one of those on the individual market who had received a note saying that she would soon be losing her insurance. She suspected she would be uninsured by Jan. 1.


    Alice then decided to try a different route; she tried to sign up via a paper application, which led to a more old-fashioned experience with Pony Express wait times. (It took three weeks for her just to get the starter paperwork.) Another three weeks after returning her paperwork, she called each day to find out if her forms had been processed. They had not.


    Monday, I asked her if she had tried the new and improved website. She said she'd give it another try, just for kicks. This is the response I received:








    Hi! I just completed the application part of the process on healthcare.gov and it went perfectly!! I have also found out my exact amount for my eligible tax credit $468.00 per mo (YAY!). And the policy that I want Blue Cross Gold PPO will be $388.78 per month with a $0 deductible and a $5,500 maximum out of pocket. (YAY!) The full price of the plan is $856.78. My current premium is $694.98, so with the new premium of $388.68, that's a savings of $306.20 a month (DOUBLE-YAY!!).

    Oooh, what's this?

    ReplyDelete
  26. The SR-71 Spy Plane Was So Fast, It Outran Every Missile Fired at It

    Speed has always been as powerful as stealth

    Until Lockheed Martin finally builds the SR-72 Mach-6 spy plane it announced in November, the iconic SR-71 Blackbird, capable of flying three times the speed of sound, remains the fastest warplane ever flown operationally.

    So fast that no missiles fired at it had a chance of hitting.

    When the U-2 spy plane was built in the 1950s, its designer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson already knew that it would be vulnerable to enemy defenses.

    So to gather intelligence in foreign skies, in 1964 U.S. Pres. Lyndon Johnson announced that the Lockheed Advance Development Projects, also known as the Skunk Works, would build another strategic reconnaissance aircraft—one so fast that no other airplane could reach it.

    The Blackbird’s flight characteristics were incredible: it was able to fly at more than three and a half times the speed of sound at 88,000 feet. To give you an idea of what that altitude means, the SR-71 took photos from three times the height of Mount Everest and its pilots dressed in full pressure suits like astronauts.

    During its more than three-decade career, which ended on Oct. 9, 1999, no SR-71 was lost to hostile action. But not for a lack of trying on the part of America’s enemies. Neither enemy fighters nor surface-to-air missiles were ever able to shoot down or damage an SR-71.

    High speed was one factor. But the Blackbird was also hard to detected by radar, being the first aircraft to feature stealth technology. A special paint was used on the SR-71’s wings, tail and fuselage. Containing iron ferrite, this paint absorbed radar energy instead of returning it to the sender.

    With a Radar Cross Section equivalent to a small light aircraft, the SR-71 appeared on enemy radar screens too late for a missile computer to estimate its direction for a successful shoot-down. The Blackbird also masked its range and bearing by jamming enemy listening devices with sophisticated electronic countermeasures.

    ReplyDelete
  27. ACUNA, Mexico, nov. 24, 2013 - State Police arrested Friday night November 22 an individual identified as Jesus Coronado Salvador Rosales, also known as 'el Negro', age 33.  The suspect allegedly confessed to the charge of 'transfer' of drugs at the border of Coahuila and the United States and distributing narcotics in Acuña.
    Salvador Rosales admitted to being part of the criminal group Zetas, that allegedly charged fees for 'protection' to the owners of bars, clubs, restaurants and other businesses where alcoholic beverages are sold.

    Inside the SUV he was driving, were found five black caps that read 'Cartel Z' on the front, and on the side the flag of Mexico. Also in the vehicle were an AK-47 rifle type NORINCO brand, with its own ammunition clip supplied with 24 rounds of ammunition, 3 additional clips with 25 rounds of ammunition each. Also found was a suitcase with 20 packages wrapped in masking tape with what could be marijuana.


    http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2013/11/arrest-alledged-plaza-boss-zeta-in.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Acuña: Major Operation by Mexican Navy

      Thursday, April 25, 2013
      Over a hundred elements of marine Navy of Mexico and Mexican Army secured drugs, weapons, vehicles and suspects, during raids that took place in different parts of the city during Tuesday morning.

      Federal sources confirmed that since the early hours of Tuesday, the Marines arrived in Ciudad Acuña aboard armored vehicles and artillery units, proceeding to besiege residences and properties in the process of detaining criminal suspects.
      The Marines were supported by helicopter gunships that were kept carrying out reconnaissance flights, as scores of elements raided properties, and “safe houses” used by drug traffickers.

      Although the details and results of the operation have not been made public, information leaked that an indeterminate amount of drugs, weapons, grenades, cartridges, vehicles of recent model and suspects were seized.

      The previous week, in Piedras Negras elite troops managed to confiscate 7 tons of marijuana, as well as grenades, weapons and vehicles.

      Piedras Negras is the base operation for the Marina of Mexico (navy) as it continues air and ground operations in the municipalities of Acuña, Jimenez and Piedras Negras in search of members of organized crime.

      There have been rumors from Acuña since the weekend. One rumor was that two Zetas leaders had been captured one in Acuña and one in Monterrey as he flew in from Cancun. The Zeta captured at the airport was supposedly Alfredo Andrade [in photo above left]. Andrade’s second in command was said to have been captured in Tuesday’s operation in Acuña.

      I have received several communications over the past few days from enough people that gives me a sense that the rumors probably have some truth in them. Today when Vanguardia reported about the Marina and Army operation on Tuesday that gave further support to the reports from people on the ground in Acuña.

      http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2013/04/acuna-major-operation-by-mexican-navy.html

      Delete
    2. Paul Rexton Kan / Small Wars Journal

      Clearly, Anonymous FreeAcuña does not believe that it is crossing a “red line” nor does it believe that since 2011 Los Zetas have been able to develop the technological prowess to uncover the identities of a new group of hacktivists and target them.
      The group also believes it has adequate safeguards in place.
      According to its blog:

      Upon entering FREEACUNA ANONYMOUS, we never cease to be ANONYMOUS, because wherever we are, 24 hours a day we are monitoring our environment. T

      hat is why personal safety becomes a habit of life.

      We teach our collective members the importance of not revealing that they belong to ANONYMOUS even to their closest loved ones. We train our group on how to stay anonymous while on the Internet being that Organized Crime as well as the Government have specialized teams whose sole duty it is to try to locate members of groups like ours since they afraid that their corruption will be brought to the light of truth.

      This is why ANONYMOUS FREEACUNA only has one official voice, that of member FREEACUNA @freeacuna on TWITTER.
      Why? So that only that person is the target of government, political parties and organized crime.


      All others within the collective spread the ‘voice’ of FREEACUNA within social networks and media. @FREEACUNA PRESS is the alternate voice of @freeacuna in case an emergency or special situation warrants it.

      Moreover, it is apparent that the Mexican government has not increased its capacity to reform and strengthen law enforcement to a level that would preclude the formation of an extralegal group like Anonymous FreeAcuna. I

      f the police in Acuna or in the state of Coahuila were up to the task, Los Zetas would have been unable to strengthen their grip on the town.

      Without strong law enforcement institutions, individuals in insecure areas will at times take matters into their own hands.

      This sort of environment is ripe for the emergence of an Anonymous group.
      Anonymous is “a classic ‘do-ocracy’”. The term “means rule by sheer doing:

      Individuals propose actions, others join in (or not), and the Anonymous flag is flown over the result. There’s no one to grant permission, no promise of praise or credit, so every action must be its own reward.”


      Anonymous FreeAcuña started in this very fashion

      Delete
    3. Paul Rexton Kan / Small Wars Journal


      The founders of Anonymous FreeAcuña have clearly embraced the ethos of internet freedom espoused by the larger Anonymous collective.
      In one of its blog postings that identifies a ranch used by the cartel in Coahuila, there is the following preface,

      The main slogan of ANONYMOUS is “KNOWLEDGE IS FREE” this means that all that is hidden, all that is corrupt, all that is done to keep the people ignorant must come to light. All knowledge must be free, which brings us to today’s topic – NARCO RANCHES outside of Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila but whose owners not only live in Acuña but are involved in the political circles of the city with friendly ties to the spheres of power in Saltillo, Coahuila.

      The publishing of information about property and other features of Los Zetas’ network by individuals previously unaffiliated with Anonymous demonstrates that Anonymous is now a movement, not merely an organization.

      While the original Anonymous group began as a way to promote internet freedom,
      a split emerged over whether to pursue “morals motivated” operations to take on groups who were abusive of human rights and freedom or to stay dedicated to operations that promoted the hacktivist creed of
      “privacy for individuals, transparency for the powerful”.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous vs. Los Zetas: The Revenge of the Hacktivists

      by Paul Rexton Kan / Small Wars Journal

      http://www.drugwar101.com/blog/archives/8576

      Delete
  28. As with many ideologues, sheep, and nincompoops you offer us reductio ad absurdum and the false dilemma as argument. You should be ashamed of yourself.

    Master Sun said all warfare is based on deception, and to defeat the enemy, one must remain mysterious to the enemy. So stay home and be content bitching about Obamacare on blogs or posting YouTubes of The Who and leave the OPDEC and OPSEC to pros. Pitted against Putin and Kim Il-Jung and the ChiComs in the actual theater of operations, Democracy wouldn't stand a foreskin's chance in Haifa.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      I think you know what you can do with Master Sun.

      You have the credulity of a three year old. Have they told you yet that neither Santa nor the Easter Bunny actually exist?

      We are not talking about spying on Putin, Kim Il-Jung, or the ChiComs. We are talking about spying on every phone call, e-mail, and blog post initiated by any American citizen anywhere. That you can't see the difference? Amazing.

      Democracy? Libya is a democracy. So are Iran, Egypt, and Afghanistan. Screw democracy. What about individual rights? Have you any clue as what the Constitution says about our rights? The First Amendment? The Fourth Amendment? The checks and balances that restrict the executive from denying us common law rights that have been defined for centuries such as habeas corpus?

      The sheeple baas, "Ooooo 9/11 changed everything, screw rights, just protect me from those bad terrorists."

      Eventually, there will be another major terrorist attack in the US, and people like you will say "I told you so" and when you do I will ask you the same question, "Is it worth giving up everything it means to be an American in order to try to infinitesimally increase the chance you won't be affected?"

      A lot of people didn't think so in the past. A lot of people don't think so now.

      .

      Delete
    2. .

      So stay home and be content bitching about Obamacare on blogs or posting YouTubes of The Who and leave the OPDEC and OPSEC to pros.

      To the pros?

      Lord, you amaze.

      The underwear bomber? Guy's sweaty balls set off the explosives and he blows himself up. Passengers take him down.

      Fort Hood killings? A known Islamist sympathizer kills 13. Where were the pros? Oh, forgot. Just workplace violence. Tell that to the 13 dead and their families.

      Boston Marathon bombers? Known to authorities, kill and maim numerous people, shut down a major US city. The pros?

      The Times Square bomber? An incompetent leaves a car in times square with a defective bomb that doesn't go off. The pros?

      These are the pros you want it left to. Hilarious. I have to laugh at your parsimonious objections to providing a few billion to Israel when you are perfectly willing to waste $85 billion a year on an intelligence industry that has so far proved impotent.

      .

      Delete
    3. .

      Did you even bother watching the intelligence hearings, you know, the one where the DNI lied, was forced to admit he lied, and over the next week came back with four or five reasons why he lied, the same DNI that is still there after lying to Congress on national TV? Or, were you too busy adjusting a doodad on a widget?

      .

      Delete
  29. "The Washington Post reports that the carjackers who set off international alarm bells by absconding with a truckload of highly radioactive cobalt-60, used in hospital radiotherapy machines, most likely had no idea what they were stealing and will die soon from exposure.

    But a sufficiently motivated jihadi could fuck up the Superbowl with something like that. Murder-suicide.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Not a clit's chance in Riyadh that's for sure.

    I saw the Buckley/Vidal go to that Quirk mentioned. Whole circus gave me heartburn or indigestion. Had its moments though. A thrown fist may not have been out of the question. Certainly a lot of high dudgeon.

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. “The basis of all reasoning is the mind's awareness of itself.
      What we think, the external objects we perceive, are all like actors that come on and off stage.
      But our consciousness, the stage itself, is always present to us.”

      Delete
  31. SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - An 11-year-old boy was killed and four more children injured on Thursday when a bus carrying elementary school students in Idaho collided with a dump truck at a rural intersection, a state police spokeswoman said.

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So says Abraham Gancwajch who was a prominent Jewish Nazi collaborator in Warsaw Ghetto during Second World War.
      Described as the "kingpin" of the ghetto underworld.

      bob

      Delete

    2. Alfred Nossig was a Polish Jewish sculptor.

      Following the Nazi German invasion of Poland, Nossig co-operated with the Abwehr.
      While living in the Warsaw Ghetto, Al would provide regular reports to the Nazis.
      This done during the deportation of Jewish residents to concentration camps.

      Alfred Nossig was a Fifth Columnist.

      bob

      Delete
    3. ...YAWN...STRETCH...YAWN... Mares eat oats and does eat oats...

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski was a Polish Jew and businessman appointed as the German Nazi-nominated head
      of the Ältestenrat ("Council of Elders"), or Jewish authorities in the Łódź Ghetto.

      Some remember him for his haunting and tragic speech,
      Give Me Your Children,
      in 1942, when the Germans insisted on deporting 20,000 children to death camps.

      He was also remembered as an autocrat and tyrant who built a personal empire within the ghetto.
      He made work the basis of survival and created profit for the Germans

      bob

      Delete
    2. YAWN...STRETCH...YAWN...Jack climbed up the beanstalk.

      Delete
  34. http://news.yahoo.com/cold-cold-war-putin-talks-tough-over-us-170914283--abc-news-topstories.html

    ReplyDelete
  35. Rat, our internet bully, is posting in my name again, so I am out for the day.

    I apologize to any who may be offended by his remarks.

    There is nothing I can do to remedy this bullying about until I see my daughter and get a new setup on things.

    bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. anonymous
      adjective

      1. unnamed, unknown, unidentified, nameless, unacknowledged, incognito, unauthenticated, innominate
      2. unsigned, uncredited, unattributed, unattested
      3. nondescript, impersonal, faceless, colourless, undistinguished, unexceptional, characterless

      bob

      Delete

    2. “You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!”

      Delete


  36. This year, the rabbis cited “the extreme seriousness involved in killing fetuses, which is like actual murder.”


    Celebrate Life!

    bob

    ReplyDelete
  37. Replies
    1. Those that continually post using another's name have a serious problem. Not only are they trying to ruin another's reputation but ruin their own reputation and have a serious identity problem of some odd kind. Pay him not attention.

      Delete

    2. “Cheer the bull, or cheer the bear; cheer both, and you will be trampled and eaten.”

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski was a Polish Jew and businessman who was appointed as the German Nazi-nominated head of the Ältestenrat ("Council of Elders"), or Jewish authorities in the Łódź Ghetto.

      Some remember him for his haunting and tragic speech,
      Give Me Your Children,
      in 1942, when the Germans insisted on deporting 20,000 children to death camps.

      He was also remembered as an autocrat and tyrant who built a personal empire within the ghetto.
      He made work the basis of survival and created profit for the Germans

      Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski was a Fifth Columnist

      bob

      Delete
    2. Sorry, it is me, rat, posting in bob's name.

      I am a sicko.

      rat

      Delete

    3. bob synonyms: unnamed, of unknown name, nameless, incognito, unidentified, unknown, unsourced, secret

      Delete
    4. Anonymous is not bob - bob is not Anonymous

      Anonymous is without any name acknowledged, as that of author, contributor, or the like:
      an anonymous letter to the editor; an anonymous donation.

      Anonymous is of unknown name ...

      Delete
    5. Deuce should gain some control over this poster, whose original name here is rat, like a lawyer over his client, or a doctor over his sick patient.

      No one cares what he says anymore, no one credits him, but he does clog up the blog.

      Nelson Mandela has died.

      It is so obvious he had so many truly remarkable qualities.

      Delete

    6. You seem to be surprised to hear that there are still problems of 1948 to be solved, the most important component of which is the right to return of Palestinian refugees.

      The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not just an issue of military occupation and Israel is not a country that was established “normally” and happened to occupy another country in 1967.

      Palestinians are not struggling for a “state” but for freedom, liberation and equality, just like we were struggling for freedom in South Africa.

      Delete
  39. IRS lawyer at the center of tea-party targeting scandal told Congress 'I don't recall' – a whopping 80 times!

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518191/Government-lawyer-center-IRS-tea-party-targeting-scandal-told-Congress-I-dont-recall--whopping-80-times.html#ixzz2mbAYnTWr

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Henric Ştefan Streitman was a Romanian Jew, a journalist, translator and political figure,
      who traversed the political spectrum from socialism to the far right.

      He was a physicist, social commentator and publisher, known for both his polemical stances and his erudition.
      Streitman turned to Nazi collaborationism during World War II, becoming president of the Central Jewish Office.

      Henric Ştefan Streitman was a Fifth Columnist

      bob

      Delete
    2. You are truly sick, rat.

      No one here can stand you any longer.

      Delete
    3. “Widespread criticisms of jihad in Islam and the so-called sword verses in the Quran have unearthed
      for fair-minded Christians difficult questions about Christianity's own traditions of holy war and 'texts of terror.'

      Like Hinduism's Mahabharata epic,
      the Bible devotes entire books to war and rumors thereof.

      Unlike the Quran, however, it contains hardly any rules for how to conduct a just war.”

      ― Stephen R. Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter

      Delete
  40. Only 80? !

    :)

    And some want the IRS to enforce ObamaCare.........

    ReplyDelete
  41. One of History's truly Great Men has died.

    R.I.P. Nelson Mandela

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

      Delete
    2. He had some wonderful qualities.

      We should also remember South African President de Klerk, who was just as vital in making all that 'reconsiliation'; possible.

      S. Africa has many problems, and Mandela didn't have a clue how to economically solve any of them,

      Whether the reconciliation will last is anyone's guess at this point.

      The whites are fleeing.

      But today belongs to Mandela.

      Delete
    3. In one hundred years, when the whites are all gone, the blacks may be fighting among themselves.

      Many of the blacks coming to S. Africa were late comers compared to the Dutch.

      Many came to S. Africa for the jobs, like the 'Palestinians" to Israel.

      I think the Judeo/Christian influence in S. Africa has been very positive.

      Mandela's speeches, so political as they are, are steeped in that language.

      May it last, but I doubt it will.

      Delete
    4. S. Africa has had a considerable Hindu community. Many are fleeing as well. They were mostly merchants I believe.

      If you believe 'apartheid' has been abolished in S. Africa you are an naive as Rufus.

      Delete
    5. I will ask my niece what the situation of her type people is there now for them and report.

      Delete
    6. Israel, a secular and socialist state that was built upon ...
      ... the Three Pillars of Apartheid

      The first pillar “derives from Israeli laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law and afford a preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews over non-Jews.”

      The second pillar is reflected in
      “Israel’s ‘grand’ policy to fragment the OPT [and] ...
      ... ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them ...
      ... while Israeli Jews are prohibited from entering those reserves but enjoy freedom of movement...
      ... throughout the rest of the Palestinian territory.

      This policy is evidenced by Israel’s extensive appropriation of Palestinian land,
      which continues to shrink the territorial space available to Palestinians;
      the hermetic closure and isolation of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the OPT;
      the deliberate severing of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank;

      and the appropriation and construction policies serving to carve up the West Bank ...
      ... into an intricate and well-serviced network of connected settlements for Jewish-Israelis ...
      ... and an archipelago of besieged and non-contiguous enclaves for Palestinians.”


      The third pillar is
      “Israel’s invocation of ‘security’ to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian freedom of ...
      ... opinion, expression, assembly, association and movement [to] mask a true underlying intent ...

      ... to suppress dissent to its system of domination and thereby maintain control over Palestinians as a group.”


      bob

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Stella {Goldschlag} Kübler Isaacksohn was a Jewish woman born in Germany who collaborated with the Gestapo during World War II, exposing and denouncing Berlin's underground Jews.

      Kübler was very successful at finding her former schoolmates and handing their information over to the Gestapo.
      The data concerning the number of her victims varies from between 600 to 3,000 Jews.
      Kübler's charisma and striking good looks were a great advantage in her pursuit of underground Jews.
      The Nazis called her "blonde poison".

      Stella {Goldschlag} Kübler Isaacksohn was a Fifth Columnist.

      bob

      Delete
    2. I am so sorry again.

      I have again forgotten my name is rat, not bob.

      rat

      Delete

    3. In fact, we should all drink rat poison and then wait for the rat to die.

      Delete

    4. The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.

      Delete
    5. ..."YAWN...STRETCH...YAWN...

      Delete
  43. Have emailed niece to ask what the situation is with the Hindus is S. Africa.

    Specifically, are many Hindus fleeing as many 'white' S. African Christians are doing to escape the 'end of apartheid'?

    Are they being forced out, etc?

    Or is all a multiracial paradise as in Detroit? Or Mumbai, where the moslems blow up shopping malls?

    I will report what she says though she is slow replying as she is working 10 hrs a day in science to help with the blindness problem as none of us here could do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. “I was the walrus, but now I am Anonymous
      ...and so my friends, you'll just have to carry on. The dream is over.”

      ― Anonymous John

      Delete
  44. U.S. stocks fell again, after third-quarter GDP came in far stronger than expected. Combined with a strong report on weekly jobless claims, that raised some impressions that the economy is strengthening and that tapering might be around the corner.

    ...

    A thin calendar Friday leaves all signs pointing to another cautious session in Asia as investors await Friday’s U.S. payrolls report. A stronger-than-expected private payrolls reading on Wednesday is giving some market watchers pause, however.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Christian Science Monitor sez: "The National Security Agency vacuums up about 5 billion cell phone records each day that it uses to map locations and associations of foreigners - but also inevitably some Americans as well..."

    Quirk sez: "We are not talking about spying on Putin, Kim Il-Jung, or the ChiComs. We are talking about spying on every phone call, e-mail, and blog post initiated by any American citizen anywhere. That you can't see the difference? Amazing."

    Quirk also sez: "You have the credulity of a three year old. Have they told you yet that neither Santa nor the Easter Bunny actually exist?"

    We report, you decide.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      I guess I would have to go with the Quirkster on this one.

      .

      Delete
  46. Do white people have a future in South Africa?

    By John Simpson

    Apartheid South Africa looked after white people and nobody else. Now some of its white communities face a level of deprivation, or of violence, which threatens their future in the country.

    Everyone here, regardless of colour, tells you that white people are still riding high.

    They run the economy. They have a disproportionate amount of influence in politics and the media. They still have the best houses and most of the best jobs.

    All of this is true but it is not the only picture.

    Look below the surface and you will find poverty and a sense of growing vulnerability.

    The question I have come to South Africa to answer is whether white people genuinely have a future here.

    The answer, as with so many similar existential questions, is "Yes - but…"

    Average annual black income in 2011: $2,300
    Mixed-race (coloured): $4,300
    Asian: $7.700
    White: $17,500

    Source: South African Institute of Race Relations


    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22554709?

    The Asians are gaining in south fica, a the expense of he whites.
    The graph does not lie, take a look

    bob - rat - peckerwood

    The Anonymous Collective

    ReplyDelete
  47. George Orwell’s Letter on Why He Wrote ‘1984’
    George OrwellBy George OrwellAugust 12th 20134:45 AM
    More Stories by George Orwell
    In 1944, three years before writing and five years before publishing 1984, George Orwell penned a letter detailing the thesis of his great novel. The letter, warning of the rise of totalitarian police states that will ‘say that two and two are five,’ is reprinted from George Orwell: A Life in Letters, edited by Peter Davison and published today by Liveright. Plus, Orwell's advice to Arthur Koestler on how to review books.
    To Noel Willmett

    18 May 1944
    10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6

    Dear Mr Willmett,

    Many thanks for your letter. You ask whether totalitarianism, leader-worship etc. are really on the up-grade and instance the fact that they are not apparently growing in this country and the USA.

    ReplyDelete
  48. I must say I believe, or fear, that taking the world as a whole these things are on the increase. Hitler, no doubt, will soon disappear, but only at the expense of strengthening (a) Stalin, (b) the Anglo-American millionaires and (c) all sorts of petty fuhrers° of the type of de Gaulle. All the national movements everywhere, even those that originate in resistance to German domination, seem to take non-democratic forms, to group themselves round some superhuman fuhrer (Hitler, Stalin, Salazar, Franco, Gandhi, De Valera are all varying examples) and to adopt the theory that the end justifies the means. Everywhere the world movement seems to be in the direction of centralised economies which can be made to ‘work’ in an economic sense but which are not democratically organised and which tend to establish a caste system. With this go the horrors of emotional nationalism and a tendency to disbelieve in the existence of objective truth because all the facts have to fit in with the words and prophecies of some infallible fuhrer. Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark. Hitler can say that the Jews started the war, and if he survives that will become official history. He can’t say that two and two are five, because for the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make four. But if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it.1 That, so far as I can see, is the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the process is reversible.

    Two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it.
    As to the comparative immunity of Britain and the USA. Whatever the pacifists etc. may say, we have not gone totalitarian yet and this is a very hopeful symptom. I believe very deeply, as I explained in my book The Lion and the Unicorn, in the English people and in their capacity to centralise their economy without destroying freedom in doing so. But one must remember that Britain and the USA haven’t been really tried, they haven’t known defeat or severe suffering, and there are some bad symptoms to balance the good ones. To begin with there is the general indifference to the decay of democracy. Do you realise, for instance, that no one in England under 26 now has a vote and that so far as one can see the great mass of people of that age don’t give a damn for this? Secondly there is the fact that the intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people. On the whole the English intelligentsia have opposed Hitler, but only at the price of accepting Stalin. Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history2 etc. so long as they feel that it is on ‘our’ side. Indeed the statement that we haven’t a Fascist movement in England largely means that the young, at this moment, look for their fuhrer elsewhere. One can’t be sure that that won’t change, nor can one be sure that the common people won’t think ten years hence as the intellectuals do now. I hope 3 they won’t, I even trust they won’t, but if so it will be at the cost of a struggle. If one simply proclaims that all is for the best and doesn’t point to the sinister symptoms, one is merely helping to bring totalitarianism nearer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Henric Ştefan Streitman was a Romanian Jew, a journalist, translator and political figure, who traversed the political spectrum from socialism to the far right. He was a physicist, social commentator and publisher, known for both his polemical stances and his erudition.
      Streitman turned to Nazi collaborationism during World War II, becoming president of the Central Jewish Office.

      Henric Ştefan Streitman was a Fifth Columnist


      bob - rat - peckerwood
      The Anonymous Collective

      Delete
    2. "Fuck the Jews, they didn't vote for us anyway." (GOP Sec of State James Baker, New York Post, 3/6/92)

      Delete
  49. You also ask, if I think the world tendency is towards Fascism, why do I support the war. It is a choice of evils—I fancy nearly every war is that. I know enough of British imperialism not to like it, but I would support it against Nazism or Japanese imperialism, as the lesser evil. Similarly I would support the USSR against Germany because I think the USSR cannot altogether escape its past and retains enough of the original ideas of the Revolution to make it a more hopeful phenomenon than Nazi Germany. I think, and have thought ever since the war began, in 1936 or thereabouts, that our cause is the better, but we have to keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism.

    Yours sincerely,
    Geo. Orwell

    [XVI, 2471, pp. 190—2; typewritten]

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. “To me the Zionists ,...are just as offensive as the Nazis.

      With their nosing after blood, their ancient "cultural roots," ...
      their partly canting, partly obtuse winding back of the world they are altogether a match for the National Socialists.


      That is the fantastic thing about the National Socialists,...
      that they simultaneously share in a community of ideas with Soviet Russia and with Zion.”

      ― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941

      Delete
  50. 3rd quarter GDP strong = stocks fall.

    We live in bizarro world.

    ReplyDelete
  51. The city of Córdoba turned into a lawless Wild West town from days gone by for nearly 24 hours earlier this week, with residents taking up arms to defend themselves against rampaging looters. Police officers were nowhere to be seen, for one simple reason: they had gone on strike.

    ...

    From Tuesday evening to Wednesday afternoon, the city’s approximately 3,000 police officers stayed in their offices while looters ran riot in the streets.

    ReplyDelete
  52. On this day in 1933, at 5:32 p.m. EST, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which repealed the 18th Amendment and ended the Prohibition era. It would be another 33 years, though, until the last dry state, Mississippi, would end Prohibition, in 1966.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Now, Ruf is trying to make up for that fact.

      .

      Delete
  53. Two rednecks, Bubba and Cooter, decided that they weren't going anywhere in life and thought they should go to college to get ahead.

    Bubba goes in first, and the professor advises him to take math, history, and logic.

    "What's logic?" asked Bubba.

    The professor answered, "Let me give you an example. Do you own a weed eater?"

    "I sure do," answered the redneck.

    "Then I can assume, using logic, that you have a yard," replied the professor.

    "That's real good," the redneck responded in awe.

    The professor continued, "Logic also tells me that since you have a yard, you also have a house."

    Impressed, the redneck shouted, "GAWL-LEEE!!"

    "And since you own a house, and a house is tough to take care of by yourself, logic dictates that you have a wife."

    "Betty Mae! This is incredible!" (Bubba is obviously catching on.)

    "Finally, since you have a wife, logically I can assume that you are heterosexual rather than homosexual," said the professor.

    "You're absolutely right! Why that's the most fascinatin' thang I ever heard of. I can't wait to take this here logic class."

    Bubba, proud of the new world opening up to him, walked back into the hallway where Cooter is still waiting.

    "So what classes are ya takin?" he asks.

    "Math, history, and logic," replies Bubba.

    "What in tarnation is logic?"

    "Let me give you an example. Do ya own a weed-eater?"

    Cooter replies "no."

    "You're a homosexual, ain't ya?"

    ReplyDelete
  54. It’s been a rough day for Bitcoin. China slapped a ban on it, Bank of America said it is “at risk of running ahead of its fundamentals” claiming it has little short-term upside, and Alan Greenspan laughed at it. In response, investors in the cryptocurrency sent it under the $900 mark.

    Bitcoin, buoyed by the endless optimism of its acolytes, bounced back over the $1,000 mark on the Mt.Gox exchange in short order. The market turbulence also hit rival coins, including Litecoin, which saw its trading range ease by up to 25 percent.

    Adding somewhat to Bitcoin’s woes was Alan Greenspan, who recently mocked its value: ”You really have to stretch your imagination to infer what the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is. I haven’t been able to do it. But if you ask me, ‘Is this a bubble in Bitcoin?’ ‘Yeah, it’s a bubble.” The Independent notes that “[when] asked if Bitcoin is the new gold, Greenspan laughed out loud.”

    So it’s not really a time of irrational exuberance among all sets.

    The move by China to ban its banks from using Bitcoin in any sort of transaction could greatly hamper its ability to grow. As Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research reported recently (via Barron’s), Chinese Bitcoin volume has become the vast majority of total transactions:

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alan Greenspan, one of the people who brought us the GFC.

      Delete
    2. China's banks may be banned from using Bitcoin, but the Chinese people, the ones parking their money in empty cities, are going like gangbusters. It's peer-to-peer, like Bittorrent, with cash instead of pirated movies.

      Delete
  55. Anonymous ‘PayPal 14’ hackers enter guilty plea in case surrounding pro-WikiLeaks DDoS attack

    Accused members of the amorphous hacktivist group Anonymous appeared in federal court in California on Thursday to enter pleas pertaining to a nearly three-year-old digital protest against the website PayPal.

    The defendants — who admitted to participating in an Anonymous-led operation that momentarily took PayPal.com offline in late 2010 — entered guilty pleas before a judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California early Thursday and will be formally sentenced in one year.

    Eleven of the so-called “PayPal 14” members each pleaded guilty in court to one felony count of conspiracy and one misdemeanor count of damaging a computer as a result of their involvement in a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack waged by Anonymous in late 2010 shortly after PayPal stopped processing donations to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. Prosecutors say the defendants used a free computer program called the Low Ion Orbit Cannon, or LOIC, to collectively flood PayPal’s servers with tremendous amounts of illegitimate internet traffic for one week that winter, at moments knocking the website offline as a result and causing what PayPal estimated to be roughly $5.5 million in damages.

    WikiLeaks had started to release a trove of classified US State Department diplomatic cables that November, prompting PayPal to revoke the whistleblowing group’s account due to an alleged terms-of-service violation. On their part, WikiLeaks claims PayPal installed the equivalent of an illegal financial blockade by refusing to process contributions. Combined with similar actions taken by Visa and Mastercard at the time, the transparency organization said the blockade cost an estimated $250 million in losses in the years since.

    ReplyDelete
  56. American blacks generally hate Africans, mostly because the Africans have a better success rate in this culture (probably because they do not spend any energy in being victims).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. “If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.”

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Józef Andrzej Szeryński was a Polish-Jewish police-colonel inspector for the Lublin district and a commander of the Jewish Ghetto Police during the Second World War. Born Józef Szenkman to a Jewish family, becoming a collaborator with the Nazis following the invasion of Poland. In August 1942, Szeryński survived being shot twice in an assassination attemptS

      Józef Andrzej Szeryński was a Fifth Columnist


      Delete
  58. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight

    South Africa



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dinesen is good. So is Joseph Conrad.

      Delete
  59. What if It’s All True?
    http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013/12/04/what-if-its-all-true/?singlepage=true

    Not likely. Great damage has been done. Consider for a moment that whatever theories we have about Obama, whatever prevarications and deceptions of which we are aware or unaware, are known equally to our adversaries — the intelligence agencies of China, Russia and Iran. Even if they were too dumb to figure it out for themselves, which they’re not, they read our newspapers and blogs.

    "These totalitarian — or near totalitarian, depending on how you want to parse it — states depend on lies for their existence. In Obama they have found a partner in crime, a semblable, as Baudelaire would say. They are currently exploiting this. In all likelihood our world will never be the same. This is no cause for celebration by any American.".

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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Abraham Gancwajch who was a prominent Jewish Nazi collaborator in Warsaw Ghetto during Second World War.
      Described as the "kingpin" of the ghetto underworld.

      Abraham Gancwajch who was a Fifth Columnist

      Delete
  61. When an organism dies, its DNA breaks down into smaller and smaller fragments, while also becoming contaminated with the DNA of other species like soil bacteria. So piecing the fossil DNA together is a bit like putting together a jigsaw puzzle created by a sadist.

    In 1997, Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute and his colleagues, who had pioneered the techniques for retrieving DNA fragments, published a snippet of DNA from a Neanderthal fossil dating back about 40,000 years. They and other scientists then built on this success by searching for bits of DNA from other Neanderthals.

    In 2006, a team of French and Belgian researchers obtained a fragment of Neanderthal DNA dating back 100,000 years, which until now held the record for the oldest human DNA ever found.

    ReplyDelete
  62. This is what is wrong with the news. Summer temperatures were so low in the Arctic that the ice pack already has grown 29.5% larger than last year. The real freeze begins now. That 29.5% represents over 500,000 sq. mi.

    "Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that U.S. military capabilities in the Arctic Circle leave his government little choice but to maintain a strong foothold in the frigid north, where tensions between the former Cold War adversaries in recent years have heated up as the polar ice thawed"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alfred Nossig was a Polish Jewish sculptor.

      Following the Nazi German invasion of Poland, Nossig co-operated with the Abwehr.
      While living in the Warsaw Ghetto, Al would provide regular reports to the Nazis.
      This done during the deportation of Jewish residents to concentration camps.


      Alfred Nossig was a Fifth Columnist.

      Delete
  63. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/12/04/turley_obamas_become_the_very_danger_the_constitution_was_designed_to_avoid.html
    Turley: Obama's "Become The Very Danger The Constitution Was Designed To Avoid"

    ReplyDelete
  64. This guy thinks that, despite all the happy smiles, the Saudis are going to cut oil production. Look at the price of Brent when the Iranian deal was struck and look at it now. The video is short and provides the Brent graph.

    The Saudis Still Hate Iran, Watch for Higher Crude: Dan Dicker
    http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/the-saudis-still-hate-iran--watch-for-higher-crude--dan-dicker-123452535.html

    ReplyDelete
  65. A recent survey shows that about 51% of young folk want Obama recalled (they must have missed the day the Constitution was taught). 57 percent of millennials disapprove of Obamacare [ObamaCare?]. This demographic had strongly supported Obama previously.

    ReplyDelete
  66. Deuce,

    That silly old book is issued to every Marine from the Commandant down. It is our Bible. You have a question, you go to the Bible first. As to the other references I gave, say, on padlocking your rifle to your rack when not in use, came from three reputable sources other than the Manual. They proved me right and others wrong. Their beauty is their power to turn a he said-he said into an evidentiary finding. Sorry you detest evidence that makes a lie of your prejudices.

    You say you trained with the M1. Let's try something simple to test your old memory banks. 1) how many rounds does an M1 hold; 2) what caliber round does the M1 hold; and 3) what is the most common cause of injury to troops using the M1?

    By the way, habu probably did qualify with the M1. It was the standard issue in basic infantry training. The reason for its use was to familiarize troops with a weapon found commonly in SE Asia. The US distributed them from Burma onward to groups fighting the Japanese.

    Qualification was not on a standard range. It was done in the field on a 1/4 mile course with pop-up target, ranging from 3 yards to 50 yards, the distances common in jungle warfare.. You were issued more than enough ammo to make one hundred hits. There was no special decoration awarded, you just had to pass the course.

    ReplyDelete
  67. You really need to learn that when you misplay a hand, it is better to go onto the next.

    Your response is preposterous, rambling on about his enlistment process. No one remembers those kind of details. Rufus’ comments are credible. I have no memory about what, where and how I enlisted. I remember being at 401 N. Broad Street, lined up with drawers dropped waiting for the mass anal. I remember taking a flight to San Antonio and being in a blur for eight weeks with bits and pieces, some names, most forgotten, some faces, in an open barracks, jogging in formation with combat boots and shorts.

    Half the time doing double time, needing sleep, mail call and qualifying with an M-1. I don’t know what kind of ammo, or how many yards away from target. July and August in Lackland, you prayed for a red flag during the day and an extra blanket at night.

    All that you wrote is pedantic paperback bullshit, that is not from memory of almost fifty years ago. You think you are several moves ahead. It is obvious to me and others that you stumbled into checkmate a couple of days ago.

    ReplyDelete
  68. And you need to learn how to do research for the sake of intellectual honesty.
    By the way most of the research was not from that bad old Marine Corps manual. It came from other reliable sources.
    I am sure there are any number of things that are obvious to you that are not shared by the vast majority of Americans.

    :-)

    ReplyDelete
  69. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  70. The M1 holds eight (8) .30 rounds. The "M1 thumb" was the most common injury in using the weapon.

    ReplyDelete
  71. If one is genuinely concerned about the fate of much of Africa one should be worried about the white flight from much of that area.

    On the other hand clothing will become cheaper because most will no longer be wearing clothes, as was the case in the past.

    ReplyDelete
  72. And many will be dying of polio as the white man's polio vaccine is a work of the devil. Let's not talk about AIDS, which one can prevent by screwing a virgin.
    *****

    I feel Deuce working up to a thread on Nelson Mandela.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It could have been prevented by hitting the right hole.

      Delete
  73. Through the first two months of enrollment, Healthplanfinder, the state’s health-care exchange, has enrolled 176,468 Washingtonians in coverage. Over 91,000 are newly eligible for expanded Medicaid and more than 66,000 were currently eligible but were not enrolled. That leaves only 18,131 residents who purchased private policies.

    Washington Has Enrolled Almost Nine Times as Many People in Medicaid as in Private Plans
    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/365607/washington-has-enrolled-almost-nine-times-many-people-medicaid-private-plans-sterling

    ReplyDelete