Been Busy
While I’ve been involved in small maintenance jobs [changing door knobs, lamp sockets, etc.] not much has been going on in the US because Congress is running for reelection rather than working. They managed to pass a bill to fund arming Syrian rebels, which will blow back on the US at some point in the future, like arming Afghan rebels [can you say Al Qaeda?].
In addition to Scotland, New Zealand had an election and also voted for the status quo. People really need to be in pain before they will vote for a change, which just perpetuates the problems.
Mars has a couple of new arrivals, NASA’s MAVEN satellite, and India’s first Martian satellite. The MAVEN is designed to study the atmosphere to hopefully provide the answer as to why Mars has so little atmosphere left.
So far only two apps from Apple and one from Amazon have needed to be updated, but it’s early yet. Everything I’ve tried seems to be working as expected.
27 comments
The NZ result was even crazier than the Scottish result! Not as insane as our last election, but close. *shrug*
I came across this to pin on Pinterest, and thought you might like it. 🙂 Not all current LEO’s are rampaging nutters! 😉
I don’t actually care that he was a LEO. 🙂 He’s just a decent human! I wish there were a hell of a lot more like this guy (and I know there are others. Just not enough). 🙂
I also discovered this initiative of the UN being driven by Emma Watson (UN Women Goodwill Ambassador) called ‘HeForShe’. 🙂 I was happy to lend my support, because I think this is long, long overdue! 🙂 The reason I dos so, is because this is not about *feminism* (as many before have been). This is *simply* about equality. That’s something I totally agree with! And it goes both ways. 🙂
HeForShe
Sadly, news media tracked down the homeless guy and found that he was once again barefoot in the cold. Turned out he’d sold the new boots. :(.
John Key took his new, and a bit larger, plurality and announced he would address New Zealand biggest concern – a new flag. He apparently wants to adopt the flag used by the All Blacks sports teams, a black flag with a silver fern frond on it.
Keeping shoes and boots is a big problem for the homeless. Footware is probably only second to meds as items stolen from the homeless, especially in colder areas.
Most jurisdictions won’t let you build or operate boarding houses, and there aren’t enough homeless shelters, so they end up under the bridges. It’s a national disgrace that could be solved with dormitory or barracks buildings that no one wants ‘in their backyard’.
Republicans willingly spend billions of dollars blowing people up, but don’t want to spend a small fraction of that keeping Americans alive and healthy.
During the recession we had millions of square feet of empty office space here in the Silly Cone Valley — and homeless people dying of the cold under bridges.
We don’t lack the resources as a nation. We lack the will, because we are a vicious and vindictive people that enjoys the thought of other people who “aren’t like us” dying. Reading the comments on any newspaper web site or on YouTube is enough to make one despair of any hope for America, because no nation whose motto is “I got mine, and f you”: will long survive.
About 1 in 4 of the homeless have jobs, and another quarter have income sources, but it isn’t enough to rent in most areas. This is a relatively low cost area, but you need at least $500 for utility deposits, and usually three months rent [first, last, security] to move in to an unfurnished apartment. Since you can’t get a bank account without an address, how are they supposed to save up that kind of money? If you have a bad credit rating, like people who lost a good job and were forced onto the street usually do, most places won’t rent to you.
The system is rigged, and no one is willing to change it. There is money to be made in low cost housing, but people want to make large amounts of money quickly, not over the course of years. Greed is the real religion of a large number of Americans, and it’s destroying the country.
Yeah, you are right Bryan. The main reason I posted that pic, was about the LEO rather than the homeless guy. I dealt with a lot of homeless people working as a volunteer over the years for a (what we call) ‘Neighborhood House’. The last time was a couple years ago, before I went in for surgery. A place they can go and get food and temporary shelter. I found that a number of them you couldn’t help no matter how much you tried, and some just didn’t want anything other than some decent food and a place to get cleaned op now and than. I wouldn’t be surprised that the guy sold the boots, or they were stolen. The point is that the cop tried to do something good. 🙂
Yeah budtux. Sadly so I think. And we are going that way it seems.
You guys should check out my new Pinterest board “Media! The Good, The Bad!” It’s becoming popular! There are rants! LOL Like this:
“Paul Krugman Has Some Truly Shocking News About Climate Change – Hint: It’s good. But will deniers and despairers listen? “This just in: Saving the planet would be cheap; it might even be free,” the Nobel-prize winning economist announces right off the bat. — “Ahhh… No. No they won’t listen! because they are ignorant morons with a one track mind: “It’s all BS because my Corporate and GOP masters told me so!” Thinking is NOT their strong suit!”
Here’s a couple more I pinned:
“Americans’ Faulty Memory: Polls Show Majority Like GOP’s Discredited War Policies — Republicans have long styled themselves as the tough-guy “daddy party” and bamboozled much of the public with that image. — Seriously… Why are so many Americans so damned stupid and gullible? Really! I’d love to know! The amoral psychopath in the pic should be hung for crimes against all humanity! Even the morons who voted for him!”
(The pic was Dickhead Cheney, of course!) Story on Alternet:
Americans’ Faulty Memory: Polls Show Majority Like GOP’s Discredited War Policies
This was a good one (via HuffPo):
“Retired Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson Rips Dick Cheney: He Isn’t Immoral, He’s Amoral! — An excellent discussion of the difference between Immoral and Amoral! And how it applies to Cheney. A video worth watching (unless of course you are a Cheney ass-kisser!) ”
Retired Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson Rips Dick Cheney: He Isn’t Immoral, He’s Amoral
The video piece is quite good. Including the difference between ‘immoral’ and ‘amoral’, and why. The Colonel also says that the USA is now seen as the biggest hypocrite in the World.
I also have a popular pin about why Corp’s and Nations continue to pollute rather than using non-polluting systems:
“Simple answer? Because the greedy bastards don’t give a fuck about the environment, or what anyone thinks! They want to make money the easiest, cheapest and quickest way possible! It’s the ONLY thing they truly care about! Trying to appeal to their ‘better natures’ or ‘social responsibility’ or even ‘common sense’ is absolutely futile! They have none of those things! And THAT, is the truth!”
Hey Bryan, or anyone else who may be interested! 😀 I just saw my latest TigerDirect mailer, and it had a couple very good deals! I just ordered these:
PNY Optima Solid State Drive – 480GB SSD – 2.5″, SATA III, 6Gbps, Write 43,000 IOPS/ Read 60,000 IOPS for $169
TD: PNY Optima Solid State Drive
PNY 128GB Turbo Flash Drive – USB 3.0, Up To 190MB/s Read and 130MBs Write for $44.99
TD: PNY 128GB Turbo Flash Drive
And this one a friend wanted for his son:
ASUS Transformer Pad TF103 10.1″ Tablet – 1GB DDR3, 16GB eMMC, 10.1″ WXGA 1280×800, Intel Atom Z3745 1.33GHz, Android 4.4 KitKat, Keyboard Dock Bundle for $249.50
TD: ASUS Transformer Pad TF103 10.1″ Tablet
I’m actually thinking about that last one for myself! Been wanting to play with one of those ASUS Transformers, especially now the price is much better (used to be over $400!) But, I’ve pretty much killed my budget for the Month! LOL Maybe it will still be available in Oct. 😀
The cop did what he could with the resources he had, but he should have had more resources. Mental health facilities don’t exist, but should, because a lot of the homeless have mental health problems that could be treated in a low cost manner that would benefit the patients as well as the community. They don’t cease to exist just because they are ignored by too many ‘leaders’.
The entire neocon crowd should be on security cameras at Gitmo, not on Sunday talk shows.
The US bombed Cambodia to solve a problem, and we all know how well that worked out. The main problem with the Middle East is that it consists of ‘nations’ created by outsiders. The people who drew the maps didn’t bother to find commonality among the people in that region, they just drew arbitrary lines on a map, gave them names, and assigned rulers. That isn’t how you build a nation.
Well, there’s also the problem that people move around, and babies are born. For example, when the French got the Syria mandate after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, they had the common sense to break off the part of Syria where all the Christians lived and called it Lebanon. The majority of the people who lived there were Christians of various sects who’d fled persecution to the rugged hills of Lebanon, which were easier to defend, and the whole point of breaking off Lebanon was to give the Christians a state of their own. The Shiite minority and the Sunni minority were small, and of course the Druze minority to this day is tiny. The problem is that the Shia bred like rabbits while Christians moved away, so now Lebanon is probably around 60% Shia, 30% Christian, and 10% other. So lines that made sense on a map in 1921 no longer make any sense at all.
I don’t think there are any magic lines on a map that can make people in that area get along long-term. What has to happen is that people decide they can live with each other in peace and relative harmony, regardless of lack of commonality. You can’t bomb that into existence.
I expect the U.S. bombing of Syria to be as spectacularly a success as the U.S. bombing of Cambodia was. Meanwhile, Obama is bringing peace to Syria. The peace of the grave, that is. But hey, what do you expect from a Nobel Peace Prize winner?
I certainly do know what the results were of the bombing of Cambodia. And the USA installing Saloth Sar (Pol Pot) as their *puppet*. The problem with human puppet’s is they need to be tightly controlled, something the USA always fails at! Given their absolutely abysmal track record at International affairs, the USA should stay the fuck out of it all! Luckily for the World, the USA is doing a great job of destroying the USA! So hopefully, in the not to distant future, that will cease to be a problem!
I have buried friends, and seen thousands of innocent’s die, thanks to the USA meddling. I can assure you, I’ll nether forgive nor forget!
Been reading this piece on Counterpunch:
The De-industrialization of America – The Making of a Third World Country
I thought our guy in Cambodia was Lon Nol? (Confused!). I never heard of any support for Pol Pot from the Americans, he was a Chinese creation. That said, I suspect that the US preferred Pol Pot to any Vietnamese-installed Cambodian government, because Nixon and his cronies considered the Chinese to be backwards animals who were no threat to America (thus Nixon going to China), while they thought the Soviets were a real threat that should not be allowed to control more countries. (And of course they were stupid enough to believe that the Soviets controlled Ho Chi Minh and his successors — a notion that defies any reading of the history, but the US has long been led by idiots).
But anyhow, clearly bombing the bajeezus out of Cambodia brought peace and democracy and freedom to the country, so it makes PERFECT sense to do the same to Syria, right? Right?! SIGH.
There is a hell of a lot most American’s don’t know about their Government. When my 35Y gag is lifted in a few years, I plan to say a lot! And provide proof. I’ve also been working on my book. 🙂
Here’s a few things about Cambodia:
From 1978-1989, the United States government, in a covert operation born of cynicism and hypocrisy, collaborated with the genocidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. More specifically, Washington covertly aided and abetted the Pol Potists’ guerrilla war to overthrow the Vietnamese backed government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, which replaced the Khmer Rouge regime.
The U.S. government’s secret partnership with the Khmer Rouge grew out of the U.S. defeat in the Vietnam War. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, the U.S. worried by the shift in the Southeast Asian balance of power-turned once again to geopolitical confrontation. It quickly formalized an anti-Vietnamese, anti-Soviet strategic alliance with China-an alliance whose disastrous effects have been most evident in Cambodia. For the U.S., playing the “China card” has meant sustaining the Khmer Rouge as a geopolitical counterweight capable of destabilizing the Hun Sen government in Cambodia and its Vietnamese allies.
When Vietnam intervened in Cambodia and drove the Pol Potists from power in January 1972, Washington took immediate steps to preserve the Khmer Rouge as a guerrilla movement. International relief agencies were pressured by the U.S. to provide humanitarian assistance to the Khmer Rouge guerrillas who fled into Thailand. For more than a decade, the Khmer Rouge have used the refugee camps they occupy as military bases to wage a contra-war in Cambodia. According to Linda Mason and Roger Brown, who studied the relief operations in Thailand for Cambodian refugees:
“… relief organizations supplied the Khmer Rouge resistance movement with food and medicines… In the Fall of 1979 the Khmer Rouge were the most desperate of all the refugees who came to the Thai-Kampuchean border. Throughout l900, however, their health rapidly improved, and relief organizations began questioning the legitimacy of feeding them. The Khmer Rouge, having regained strength, had begun actively fighting the Vietnamese. The relief organizations considered supporting the Khmer Rouge inconsistent with their humanitarian goals… Yet Thailand, the country that hosted the relief operation, and the U.S. government, which funded the bulk of the relief operations, insisted that the Khmer Rouge be fed. ”
During his reign as National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski played an important role in determining how the U.S. would support the Pol Pot guerrillas. Elizabeth Becker, an expert on Cambodia, recently wrote, “Brzezinski himself claims that he concocted the idea of persuading Thailand to cooperate fully with China in efforts to rebuild the Khmer Rouge. Brzezinski said, “I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the DK [Democratic Kampuchea]. The question was how to help the Cambodian people. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could not support him but China could.”
The U.S. not only permitted the Khmer Rouge to use the refugee camps in Thailand as a base for its war against the new government in Phnom Penh but it also helped Prince Norodom Sihanouk and former Prime Minister Son Sann to organize their own guerrilla armies from the refugee population in the camps. These camps are an integral factor in the ability of the Khmer Rouge, the Sihanoukist National Army (ANS) and Son Sann’s Khmer People’s National Liberation Front (KPNLF) to wage war against the Hun Sen government.
In 1979, Washington began “a small program” of support for Sihanouk’s and Son Sann’s guerrillas by providing “travel expenses” for the “insurgent leaders” and funds “for the up keep of resistance camps near the Thai-Cambodian border.” In addition, since 1982, the U.S. has provided the ANS and KPNLF with covert and overt “humanitarian” and “non lethal” military aid. By 1989, the secret non lethal aid had grown to between $20 million and $24 million annually and the overt humanitarian aid had reached $5 million. The Bush administration requested $7 million more in humanitarian aid for 1990.
When Congress approved the $5 million aid package for the ANS and KPNLF in 1985, it prohibited use of the aid “…for the purpose or with the effect of promoting, sustaining or augmenting, directly or indirectly, the capacity of the Khmer Rouge to conduct military or paramilitary operations in Cambodia or elsewhere.” From the beginning, U.S. aid for the ANS and KPNLF has been a complimentary source of aid for the Khmer Rouge. According to a western diplomat stationed in Southeast Asia, “.. .two-thirds of the arms aid to the noncommunist forces appears to come from Peking [Beijing], along with more extensive aid to the communist fighters [the Khmer Rouge]…. China is estimated to spend $60 million to $100 million yearly in aid to all factions of the anti-Vietnamese resistance.”
In 1982, under pressure from the U.S., China, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Sihanouk and Son Sann joined forces with the Khmer Rouge to form the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK). The ANS and KPNLF, which were more politically respect able than the Khmer Rouge, gained military credibility from the guerrilla alliance. However, the Khmer Rouge gained considerable political legitimacy from the alliance and Khmer Rouge diplomats represented the CGDK at the United Nations.
The CGDK received large amounts of military aid from Singapore. When asked about the relationship between money from the U.S. and arms from Singapore, another U.S. diplomat in Southeast Asia replied, “Let’s put it this way. If the U.S. supplies [the guerrilla coalition] with food, then they can spend their food money on something else.”
But there are indications of direct U.S. Iinks to the Khmer Rouge. Former Deputy Director of the CIA, Ray Cline, visited a Khmer Rouge camp inside Cambodia in November 1980. When asked about the visit, the Thai Foreign Ministry denied that Cline had illegally crossed into Cambodian territory. However, privately, the Thai government admitted that the trip had occurred. Cline’s trip to the Pol Pot camp was originally revealed in a press statement released by Khmer Rouge diplomats at the United Nations.
Cline also went to Thailand as a representative of the Reagan-Bush transition team and briefed the Thai government on the new administration’s policy toward Southeast Asia. Cline told the Thais the Reagan administration planned to “strengthen its cooperation” with Thailand and the other ASEAN members opposed to the Phnom Penh government. There have been numerous other reports about direct links between the CIA and the Khmer Rouge. According to Jack Anderson, “through China, the CIA is even supporting the jungle forces of the murderous Pol Pot in Cambodia.” Sihanouk himself admitted that CIA advisers were present in Khmer Rouge camps in late 1989: “Just one month ago, I received intelligence informing me that there were U.S. advisers in the Khmer Rouge camps in Thailand, notably in Site B camp. The CIA men are teaching the Khmer Rouge human rights! The CIA wants to turn tigers into kittens!
By late 1989 the distinction between “direct or indirect” U.S. support for the Khmer Rouge was less clear. When CGDK forces launched an offensive in September 1989, Sihanouk’s and Son Sann’s armies openly cooperated with the Khmer Rouge. Moreover, by then the Khmer Rouge had infiltrated the military and political wings of the ANS and KPNLF.
Sihanouk confirmed ANS and KPNLF military collaboration with the Khmer Rouge in a radio message broadcast clandestinely in Cambodia. “I would particularly like to commend the fact that our three armies know how to cordially cooperate with one another. We assist each other in every circumstance and cooperate with one another on the battlefield of the Cambodian motherland, Sihanouk specifically mentioned military cooperation in battles at Battambang, Siem Reap, and Oddar Meanchey.
Evidence of increased involvement of U.S. military advisers in Cambodia has also surfaced. A report in the London Sunday Correspondent noted that “American advisers are reported to have been helping train guerrillas of the non communist Khmer resistance and may have recently gone into Cambodia with them. Reports of increased U.S. involvement also emerged from the northern town of Sisophon, where local officials say four westerners accompanied guerrillas in an attack on the town.”
Although the U.S. government denies supplying the ANS and KPNLF with military hardware, a recent report claimed that KPNLF forces had received a shipment of weapons from the U.S. including M-16s, grenade launchers, and recoilless rifles. It is also reported that the U.S. provided the KPNLF with high resolution satellite photographs and “several KPNLF commanders claim Americans were sent to train some 40 elite guerrillas in the use of sophisticated U.S. made Dragon anti-tank missiles in a four-month course.” When the KPNLF launched a major offensive on September 30 1989, a large number of U.S. officials were sighted in the border region, near the fighting.
Washington’s link to the anti-Phnom Penh guerrilla factions was formalized in 1989 when KPNLF diplomat Sichan Siv was appointed as a deputy assistant to President George Bush. Siv’s official assignment in the White House is the Public Liaison Office, where he works with different constituency groups, such as Khmer residents in the U.S. and other minority, foreign policy, youth, and education groups. Sives escaped from Cambodia in 1976 and immigrated to the U.S., where he joined the KPNLF. From 1983 to 1987, Siv served as a KPNLF representative at the United Nations as part of the CGDK delegation which was headed by Khmer Rouge diplomats.
As part of the Bush administration, Sichan Siv is significantly involved in the formulation and conduct of U.S. policy in Cambodia. He was a “senior adviser” to the U.S. delegation attending an international conference on Cambodia held last summer in Paris, where the U.S. demanded the dismantling of the Hun Sen government and the inclusion of the Khmer Rouge in an interim four-party government. He was also the moderator of a White House briefing on Cambodia in October 1989 for Khmer residents in the U.S.
Another one of Siv’s assignments has been to work as a liaison with far Right groups which provide political and material support for the KPNLF. He attended a World Anti Communist League (WACL) conference in Dallas, Texas in September 1985 along with other anti-communist “freedom fighters” from around the world. At the WACL conference, the KPNLF openly sought “outside training and support in intelligence and demolition.”
Siv has also worked with retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Theodore Mataxis, who heads up the North Carolina-based Committee for a Free Cambodia (CFC). Mataxis was approached by senior KPNLF generals in 1986 to set up the CFC to organize support in the U.S. for the KPNLF.
According to the Reagan doctrine, the goal of U.S. foreign policy was to “contain Soviet expansion” by supporting counterrevolutionary groups in Angola, Nicaragua, Cambodia, etc. and, in essence, “roll back” the “Soviet empire.” Many of the right wing groups which gained prominence after Reagan’s election immediately started programs to support contras across the globe. The World Anti-Communist League, the Heritage Foundation, the Freedom Research Foundation, as well as many others, all pressed hard for support of the “freedom fighters.”
In its 1984 policy report entitled, Mandate for Leadership II: Continuing the Conservative Revolution, the Heritage Foundation called on the Reagan administration to focus even more closely on these counterrevolutionary struggles and to: …employ paramilitary assets to weaken those communist and noncommunist regimes that may already be facing the early stages of insurgency within their borders and which threaten U.S. interests… Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam reflect such conditions, as do Angola, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Iran and Libya.
In 1984, right wing activist / adventurer Jack Wheeler stated that “There are eight anti-Soviet guerrilla wars being conducted in the third world at this moment. Sooner or later, one of these movements is going to win. The first successful overthrow of a Soviet puppet regime may, in fact, precipitate a ‘reverse domino effect,’ a toppling of Soviet dominos, one after the other.”
Not surprisingly, Wheeler is a big supporter of the Cambodian contra movement and has openly solicited material and political support for the KPNLF. In August 1984 he wrote an article for the Moonie-owned Washington Times in which he said, “After spending a week with the KPNLF inside Cambodia…one is drawn inescapably to the conclusion that the KPNLF does indeed represent a real third noncommunist alternative for Cambodia… [But] the KPNLF is …running seriously low on weapons and ammunition. The lack of ammunition for rifles, rocket launchers, machine guns and mortars, is especially critical.”
Just how “private” the support Wheeler solicits for the KPNLF is open to question. Listed, along with Wheeler, on the Board of Directors of Freedom Research Foundation are Alex Alexiev and Mike Kelly. Alexiev is “with the National Security Division of the Rand Corporation… [and is] an expert on Soviet activities in the third world.” Kelly was Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower Resources and Military Personnel in the early 1980s. Kelly had earlier been a legislative assistant to the right wing Senators Bill Armstrong (Rep. Colo.) and John Tower(Rep. Tex.).
Soldier of Fortune (SOF) magazine also journeyed to Cambodia in support of the KPNLF. In an article written after their visit to the front, SOF authors David Mills and Dale Andrade appealed for readers to contribute to the KPNLF and to send their donations to a Bangkok address. “Any private citizen who wants to give more than just moral support to help the KPNLF rebels can send “Any private citizen who wants to give more than just moral support to help the KPNLF rebels can send money.” It doesn’t take much. Forty dollars will buy two uniforms, one pair of shoes, two pairs of socks, knapsack, plastic sheet and a scarf for one soldier. That’s not a bad deal.”
…
And there is a LOT more! I have several official documents I kept from my time in Mil/Int. We (Aus) didn’t trust the USA a mm after Vietnam, and especially when Reagan became Prez! Our focus shifted considerably with regard to the USSR and elsewhere. It’s part of the reason I was sent with a team to the USA. 🙂
Here’s another example. Why was Aus. the ONLY Nation allowed to buy FB-111 during the Vietnam War? And FYI… We didn’t ask for them!
You’ll have to wait for the book for that one, and several others! LOL
Lon Nol was a loose cannon who wanted US money but rejected any US ‘guidance’. After all this time no evidence has come to light about any CIA involvement in his coup that displaced Sihanouk. The CIA has never managed to keep a secret this long.
Lon was a Cambodian nationalist and right-winger. He opposed the ‘neutrality’ policy of Sihanouk that allowed the Vietnamese access to eastern Cambodia. He failed when the US cut aid while the Khmer Rouge was growing and advancing.
While I have made a few posts/comments about the loss of US manufacturing jobs, Badtux has been making this point for years at his place. Manufacturing is the only way you create real assets as opposed to paper assets. It is the only way that you can have meaningful exports. Exporting raw materials and agricultural products is the status of colonies not strong nations. Abbott seems to want to do this to Australia.
Actually, Lebanon was adjusting fairly well to changing conditions until they got masses of Palestinian refugees dumped on them. They might have found a way to live together if the rest of the world hadn’t decided to get involved in their domestic problems.
[Lebanon] may have found a way to live together if the rest of the world hadn’t decided to get involved in their domestic problems.
Pretty much. You had the PLO being dumped on them after being expelled from Jordan. The Israeli invasion. A Syrian invasion. Another Israeli invasion. More Syrian meddling. Every time they think they got it all figured out, someone else invades them! That said, Hizballah has (mostly) been a force for the good in terms of Lebanese politics. They let the Christians pretend they’re still the majority and still in charge while quietly rendering the Lebanese government irrelevant, but without pissing off any of the various power centers. Even the Druze on their mountain begrudgingly go along with the program. Israel did achieve their goal with their last invasion though, everybody pretty much agrees that the days of Hizballah poking the Israelis is over so they haven’t done it. But now you got frickin’ ISIS crossing over into Lebanon. Like I said, every time it seems like they got things figured out, somebody else comes in and upsets the apple cart…
Kryten, ah yes, the situation *after* the Vietnamese invasion, where the Khmer Rouge were mostly in Thailand. They certainly weren’t there in Thailand without US government intervention, that much is certain. I can’t imagine that the Thais were happy about their unwanted house guests, so clearly *someone* was twisting their arm… and the US was the only “someone” with the clout to do that.
The Sunni in Lebanon certainly don’t want any help from ISIS and Hezbollah will go after them with a vengeance, so the country will once again be involved in a war against invaders. Of course the US can’t provide any military assistance to the under-equipped Lebanese army because Israel wouldn’t approve. Once again the neocons and their Likud masters have provided no good options in a Middle East conflict that everyone will claim ‘we must take strong action to combat’.
Sooner or later people are going to have to admit that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the most important source of funding for these whackoes; and the basic problem is a lack of a state for the Palestinians.
Correct Bryan! That and the fact that Israel is the #1 Troublemaker in the region, if not the World.
And speaking of NSA and Contractors… It’s worse than you think. 😉
NSA Official Handing Off Contracts To Government Contractor Spouse
Whenever contracts are awarded corruption of one form or another always follows, which is a good reason not to privatize government functions and to monitor contracts closely. This contract is just egregious in its conflict of interest.
Exactly! The insane (though quite humorous for a few personal reasons) part is that the most important part of the NSA is using technology by an Italian subsidiary! And we all know that Italians can be trusted completely! LMAO
And nobody can see a problem. My Italian/Maltese Grandfather (and a some Uncles) would be salivating and rubbing his, erm… *entrepreneurial*, hands with glee! 😀
LOL
Privatization is bad, but giving core national security contracts to foreign corporations, even if they have a local subsidiary, is insane. It’s like having core weapons systems, something like your submarines for example, built by foreign corporations – you have jeopardized your national security. To the maximum extent possible, a nation needs to have total control over its core systems. Out-sourcing may be cheaper in dollar terms, but it is an obvious espionage risk.
Hah! 😀 I couldn’t agree more, as you know. 😀 Yeah… The whole World is insane! I’ve decided to ignore it and just enjoy whatever time I have. The World will go to hell anyway. *shrug* This kind of news no longer makes me angry. I just laugh now, you may have noticed! 😉 😀
F*ck ’em all! If they can’t be bothered, neither can I!
You point out the reality of life today and the damage caused by our current politicians who are running ‘government like a business’ and still people insist on voting for the clowns who caused the problems. I don’t see any way of breaking people out of their madness and make them realize that this is a simple case of cause and effect. The only way of changing things is to change the policies that caused them.
Yep! 🙂
Hell, most sheeple are only just starting to wonder if maybe the NSA might be going a bit far. Maybe. And then there is this:
FBI’s Biometric Program Blends Criminal And Non-Criminal Data For ‘Efficiency,’ Obsessed With Tracking Care Providers
I find these bits highly amusing! And you would understand why. 😉 😀
[bold mine]
What a surprise! [NOT!] I really am PMSL! Sorry… but I simply cannot help it!
Now the ‘authorities’ are complaining that the new encryption being used by Apple and Google is making it very difficult to intercept cell phone traffic. Excuse me, but that is the whole point of the encryption – Duh!
They aren’t using these new ‘tools’ for the War on Terror™, they are being used against dissenters. This is all security theater to deflect attention from the political uses to which the tools have been turned.
Even the Israeli spooks are starting to complain about the crap that is going on in the intel community. Almost nothing is being done to watch known threats, while they go looking for supposedly unknown threats. No one is willing to say that the new ‘threats’ are unknown because they don’t exist. Meanwhile everyone acts surprised by the success of ISIS. Standards no longer exist.
Yeah, TechDirt has a had a few great articles about that that I pinned (they have been popular).
From Sep. 19th:
Good News: Mobile Devices Now Competing To Be Much More Secure Against Prying Eyes
From Sep. 23rd:
Law Enforcement Freaks Out Over Apple & Google’s Decision To Encrypt Phone Info By Default
From Sep. 26th:
Nine Epic Failures Of Regulating Cryptography
May be if the authorities hadn’t violated privacy protections in wholesale numbers, people would feel the need to encrypt their data. People put their lives on their mobile devices and it doesn’t take too many stories about the results of identity theft to make people nervous. Then you have the wholesale ransacking of phone contents by the police, even if they don’t actually charge you with a crime, that causes people to be nervous.
There are very valid personal and business reasons not to want people to have too much access to all of the stuff you store on your phone. You don’t have to be a criminal or a terrorist to want some things to be kept secret.