http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-…
Yes, by god it looks all gone to me.
Thank you for your help, Mr Obama.
October 23, 2010 archive
Oct 23 2010
Dump Obama: time for a candidate
When I first proposed that it was time for a Dump Obama movement, I argued that the immediate task was to build a movement. I did not want to focus on organizational questions, did not want to get hung up on questions of who the candidate would be. Build the base of support and the candidate(s) would follow.
I was immediately assailed by supporters and detractors alike who insisted that I had to have a candidate. At that time, I restated my position on building the movement first. Without passing judgment whether my original assessment was correct or not, it is now time to find that candidate (or candidates).
Taking into account overt Dump Obama, third party, throw-them-all-out, write-in Public Option, and abandon the Democrats sentiment in the aggregate, I’ll say that Dump Obama sentiment was greater than even I had thought. The Dump Obama concept has gone viral, the movement exists in nascent form, a topic on Democratic Underground and MyDD, among Democratic Party sites. A topic of speculation in mainstream venues. Not because we’re so mighty (I’d be a liar to pretend otherwise) but because Obama is doing so badly. So to echo Robert Redford from The Candidate (1972), “What do we do now?”
We indeed have to move to tactics. So let’s talk candidates.
Oct 23 2010
US Wants MORE CIA in Pakistan, $ for Weapons, Using Wikileaks as Excuse
Like clockwork in being timed with the latest wikileaks release:
After increasing the number of drone attacks in September, now the US is pressuring Pakistan to let in more covert paramilitary and CIA forces to increase the unknown, classified number that are already there – to support the death by drones program that is killing an unknown number of militants and civilians. The story in the WSJ also says that Pakistan’s Inter – Services Intelligence agency, ISI, is currently doing most of the intelligence gathering and that CIA chief Leon Panetta has called them “very cooperative.”
Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/…The Obama administration has been ramping up pressure on Islamabad in recent weeks to attack militants after months of publicly praising Pakistani efforts. The CIA has intensified drone strikes in Pakistan, and the military in Afghanistan has carried out cross-border helicopter raids, underlining U.S. doubts Islamabad can be relied upon to be more aggressive. Officials have even said they were going to stop asking for Pakistani help with the U.S.’s most difficult adversary in the region, the North Waziristan-based Haqqani network, because it was unproductive.
Pakistani officials believe the CIA is better able to keep details of its operations largely out of the public eye, although the agency’s drone program has received widespread attention and is enormously unpopular with the Pakistani public.
U.S. military forces on the ground remain a red line for Islamabad. A senior Pakistani official said if the Pakistan public became aware of U.S. military forces conducting combat operations on Pakistani territory, it would wipe out popular support for fighting the militants in the tribal areas. Whether covert CIA forces would cross that line however, remains an open question.
Back in July, the public relationship wasn’t so cozy.
HuffPo, 7/6/10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/……. but the US – Pakistan relationship is at the heart of Washington’s counterterrorism efforts.
But the CIA became so concerned by a rash of cases involving suspected double agents in 2009, it re-examined the spies it had on the payroll in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. The internal investigation revealed about a dozen double agents, stretching back several years. Most of them were being run by Pakistan. Other cases were deemed suspicious. The CIA determined the efforts were part of an official offensive counterintelligence program being run by Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the ISI’s spy chief.
Recruiting agents to track down and kill terrorists and militants is a top priority for the CIA, and one of the clandestine service’s greatest challenges. The drones can’t hit their targets without help finding them. Such efforts would be impossible without Pakistan’s blessing, and the U.S. pays about $3 billion a year in military and economic aid to keep the country stable and cooperative.
Pakistan has its own worries about the Americans. During the first term of the Bush administration, Pakistan became enraged after it shared intelligence with the U.S., only to learn the CIA station chief passed that information to the British. The incident caused a serious row, one that threatened the CIA’s relationship with the ISI and deepened the levels of distrust between the two sides. Pakistan almost threw the CIA station chief out of the country.
July 2010 – HuffPo says 8 years after the war in Afghanistan, a very poor and not very large country, was not going so well, the Obama administration finally became “concerned” about their intelligence partners in the region. Three months after the first batch of wikileaks were released, April 5, 2010.
Oct 23 2010
Arguing Teeth
Now, I’ll bet the first thing you think, when confronted with this image is: “Well, how many teeth does that shark have anyway?” Now picture that smile inches away from your face in the water. Are you still prepared to argue about it’s teeth? |
Oct 23 2010
Docudharma Times Saturday October 23
News organizations look at leak with different eyes
Times handles WikiLeaks disclosures more cautiously than Guardian, Al-Jazeera
By Alex Johnson
Reporter
WikiLeaks.org tried to coordinate coverage of its highly anticipated release of secret U.S. documents from the war in Iraq by sharing the material with a select group of news organizations weeks in advance, but it couldn’t coordinate what they actually said.
In the end, the shadowy, decentralized organization couldn’t even coordinate the release of its own documents.
Al-Jazeera, one of the news organizations that it had given the documents weeks ago, broke WikiLeaks’ embargo by publishing a six-minute video on its website late Friday afternoon. The New York Times, The Guardian of Britain and Le Monde, which also received the material under the embargo, followed swiftly with their extensive prepared reports.
Oct 23 2010
INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY…
INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY WAS YESTERDAY, THE SAME DAY AS THE FULL MOON, OCTOBER 22, 2010. UNFORTUNATELY WE ALL MISSED IT. BUT MAYBE NOTHING IN OUR WORLD IS IMPORTANT ENOUGH FOR CAPS LOCK ANYWAY RIGHT NOW. YA THINK?
SO I PUT THIS OUT NOW, 13 MINUTES TOO LATE, IN ORDER TO GET US READY FOR NEXT YEARS’ INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY, JUST IN CASE THERE IS SOMETHING TRULY DIRE BY THEN, SOMETHING WE REALLY NEED TO KNOW RIGHT THEN AND THERE, RIGHT THEN-NOW, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.
IF IMPORTANT THINGS HAVEN’T ALREADY HAPPENED BY THEN AND WE ARE ALL STILL HERE FOR INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY 2011.
AND, IF NOT, REMEMBER WE CAN ALL USE THE INTERNATIONAL CODE COMMEMORATED IN WITR AS A PONY/REC OPTION:
KHAQQ TO ITASCA
IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT ANY OF THIS MEANS, IT REALLY DOESN’T MATTER. BUT YOU CAN ASK, IF CURIOUS.
IN THE MEANTIME, STAY WELL, HEALTHY, AND ALIVE UNTIL NEXT INTERNATIONAL CAPS DAY, UNLESS YOU CAN THINK OF SOMETHING BETTER TO DO.
Oct 23 2010
TGIF – Which is Your Favorite War Movie?
Crossposted at Daily Kos
A scene from For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943):: ::
War Films often acknowledge the horror and heartbreak of war, letting the actual combat fighting or conflict provide the primary plot or background for the action of the film. Typical elements in the action-oriented war plots include POW camp experiences and escapes, espionage, personal heroism, “war is hell” brutalities… tough trench/infantry experiences, or male-bonding buddy adventures during wartime. Themes explored in war films include combat, survivor and escape stories, tales of gallant sacrifice and struggle, studies of the futility and inhumanity of battle, the effects of war on society, and intelligent and profound explorations of the moral and human issues.
Oct 23 2010
TGIF – Which is Your Favorite War Movie?
Crossposted at Daily Kos
|
|
|
|
Oct 23 2010
TGIF – Which is Your Favorite War Movie?
Crossposted at Daily Kos
|
|
|
|
Oct 23 2010
Random Japan
KAWAII DIPLOMACY
Officials in Hikone, Shiga Prefecture, were beaming after Hikonyan, a “samurai cat” that serves as the city’s mascot, was chosen as the favorite character at the Japan Expo in France.A Japanese woman was one of six people selected to become a temporary panda keeper in China’s Sichuan province.
A Toyama-based NPO called Dream of the Earth has embarked on an 18-month project to teach fishermen in southern Sri Lanka “a traditional Japanese fishing method using fixed nets.”
In an unusually poetic turn of phrase, a Fuji TV newscaster described the scene at last week’s rescue of miners in Copiapo, Chile, as kisu no arashi-“a storm of kisses.”
Meanwhile, Japan’s space agency revealed it had sent the miners a care package that included “antibacterial underwear” and brown-sugar candies that are used for “space food.”
- 1
- 2