XIAM007 - Generation X I am
Saturday, 31 August 2013
Low-wage Facebook contractor leaks secret censorship list -
Low-wage Facebook contractor leaks secret censorship list -
A secret list curated by social network giant Facebook was published online recently after an employee for one of the company’s third-world contractors, upset at his poor working conditions and meager wage, decided to fight back.
The document reveals exactly what Facebook’s censorship brigade looks for on the social network, which boasts over 850 million users spanning the globe.
Referred to internally as the “bible,” the list prioritizes deletion of materials pertaining to Holocaust denial, graphic nudity, depictions of any sexual fetish, racial slurs and bullying — all of which are unsurprising — but a few of the other entries are raising eyebrows.
Namely, female nipples or even the impressions of nipples under clothing are unacceptable to Facebook censors, whereas male nipples are fine. Images of breast feeding, too, are forbidden if they show an exposed nipple. “Crushed heads” and mutilated limbs are also fine, so long as the person posting such images does not express delight and no internal organs are visible. The list specifically says that on this point, no exceptions would be made for news media.
Also verboten: images of bodily fluids, including ear wax and pus; dead animals; advocacy of violence; advocacy of eating disorders; racial jokes where “the humor is not evident”; and “any photoshopped images of people, whether negative, positive or neutral”; “pixelated or black-barred content showing nudity or sexual activity”; “digital/cartoon nudity”; and images of drunk or sleeping people with “things drawn on their faces.”
All that aside, images depicting marijuana use are fine, unless an individual appears to be growing, buying or selling the drug. “Art nudity” is okay, and so are videos of schoolyard fights — unless the video was posted with the intent to humiliate another user.
The list’s disclosure by gossip blog Gawker marks the first time that the public has been given a glimpse at the inner-workings of the planet’s largest social network.
Facebook has long been criticized by free speech activists for barring images of breast feeding and deleting accounts created by Palestinian resistance groups, but since it is a private company, Facebook is allowed to obstruct virtually any content it wishes.
The list also shines a light on Facebook’s darker underbelly: how it uses third-world laborers to police first-world content.
Amine Derkaoui, the 21-year-old Moroccan who leaked the document, claimed he was hired by a firm Facebook uses to outsource content policing, only to be paid $1 an hour for his efforts.
“They are just exploiting the third world,” he told Gawker.
Facebook’s media relations department did not respond to a request for comment.
Facebook’s application for an initial public offering (IPO) on the U.S. stock markets was valued earlier this month at somewhere between $75 billion and $100 billion, making it the largest IPO request ever. Shares in the company are expected to go up for sale later this year. Facebook said it made over $3.71 billion in 2011, largely from advertising fees.
Read more -
A secret list curated by social network giant Facebook was published online recently after an employee for one of the company’s third-world contractors, upset at his poor working conditions and meager wage, decided to fight back.
The document reveals exactly what Facebook’s censorship brigade looks for on the social network, which boasts over 850 million users spanning the globe.
Referred to internally as the “bible,” the list prioritizes deletion of materials pertaining to Holocaust denial, graphic nudity, depictions of any sexual fetish, racial slurs and bullying — all of which are unsurprising — but a few of the other entries are raising eyebrows.
Namely, female nipples or even the impressions of nipples under clothing are unacceptable to Facebook censors, whereas male nipples are fine. Images of breast feeding, too, are forbidden if they show an exposed nipple. “Crushed heads” and mutilated limbs are also fine, so long as the person posting such images does not express delight and no internal organs are visible. The list specifically says that on this point, no exceptions would be made for news media.
Also verboten: images of bodily fluids, including ear wax and pus; dead animals; advocacy of violence; advocacy of eating disorders; racial jokes where “the humor is not evident”; and “any photoshopped images of people, whether negative, positive or neutral”; “pixelated or black-barred content showing nudity or sexual activity”; “digital/cartoon nudity”; and images of drunk or sleeping people with “things drawn on their faces.”
All that aside, images depicting marijuana use are fine, unless an individual appears to be growing, buying or selling the drug. “Art nudity” is okay, and so are videos of schoolyard fights — unless the video was posted with the intent to humiliate another user.
The list’s disclosure by gossip blog Gawker marks the first time that the public has been given a glimpse at the inner-workings of the planet’s largest social network.
Facebook has long been criticized by free speech activists for barring images of breast feeding and deleting accounts created by Palestinian resistance groups, but since it is a private company, Facebook is allowed to obstruct virtually any content it wishes.
The list also shines a light on Facebook’s darker underbelly: how it uses third-world laborers to police first-world content.
Amine Derkaoui, the 21-year-old Moroccan who leaked the document, claimed he was hired by a firm Facebook uses to outsource content policing, only to be paid $1 an hour for his efforts.
“They are just exploiting the third world,” he told Gawker.
Facebook’s media relations department did not respond to a request for comment.
Facebook’s application for an initial public offering (IPO) on the U.S. stock markets was valued earlier this month at somewhere between $75 billion and $100 billion, making it the largest IPO request ever. Shares in the company are expected to go up for sale later this year. Facebook said it made over $3.71 billion in 2011, largely from advertising fees.
Read more -
Air National Guard Accidentally Drops 'Practice' Bomb Into Bar Parking Lot... -
Air National Guard Accidentally Drops 'Practice' Bomb Into Bar Parking Lot... -
A freak accident in the skies over Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A military plane drops a “practice” bomb into a Queen Anne’s County parking lot, narrowly missing cars and people.
The National Guard now admits—it could have been a disaster.
Monique Griego has the eyewitness accounts.
The practice bomb was part of a training exercise. But when it fell from the sky, patrons had no idea what it was or where it came from.
A run of the mill Thursday night at Darlene’s Tavern in Sudlersville—interrupted by a sudden impact.
“It is crazy. I never would have thought this,” said Lena Hartlove, co-owner.
Just after 9 p.m., surveillance video shows stunned patrons looking on as gray smoke billows from the parking lot.
“There was debris all over everybody’s vehicles and everything,” said Hartlove.
“We seen the big hole. And it was about two and a half feet deep and about two foot wide,” co-owner Darlene Hurley said.
Owner Darlene Hurley called police. Soon, the bomb squad was digging and she couldn’t believe what they found.
“They dug it they came to end of the bomb… the four little prongs,” she said.
That’s right—a bomb. But the Maryland National Guard soon confirmed it was a fake one.
“There was nothing on it that was explosive. It had metal fins. That’s pretty much it,” said Lt. Col. Charles S. Kohler, Md. National Guard.
The hole the bomb made has already been covered up. But according to military leaders, before it crash landed in the parking lot, it was on a jet on its way back from a training exercise out of Air National Guard base in Middle River.
“This was a night-time mission where they were dropping ordnances on a range. And unfortunately, this incident occurred,” said Kohler.
“I was just thanking God it wasn’t closer to the bar because there were people sitting up at the picnic tables when this happened,” Hartlove said.
But with the danger gone, the bomb is still the buzz around the small town.
“The bomb squad told us we should rename the bar the ‘Bulls-eye.’ It’s just non-stop,” said Hurley.
Military leaders say the pilots involved in the training exercise were extremely experienced,. And once they realized there may have been a malfunction, they avoided any densely populated areas.
The National Guard also says it’s still investigating what happened, but a mechanical malfunction may be to blame.
Read more -
A freak accident in the skies over Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A military plane drops a “practice” bomb into a Queen Anne’s County parking lot, narrowly missing cars and people.
The National Guard now admits—it could have been a disaster.
Monique Griego has the eyewitness accounts.
The practice bomb was part of a training exercise. But when it fell from the sky, patrons had no idea what it was or where it came from.
A run of the mill Thursday night at Darlene’s Tavern in Sudlersville—interrupted by a sudden impact.
“It is crazy. I never would have thought this,” said Lena Hartlove, co-owner.
Just after 9 p.m., surveillance video shows stunned patrons looking on as gray smoke billows from the parking lot.
“There was debris all over everybody’s vehicles and everything,” said Hartlove.
“We seen the big hole. And it was about two and a half feet deep and about two foot wide,” co-owner Darlene Hurley said.
Owner Darlene Hurley called police. Soon, the bomb squad was digging and she couldn’t believe what they found.
“They dug it they came to end of the bomb… the four little prongs,” she said.
That’s right—a bomb. But the Maryland National Guard soon confirmed it was a fake one.
“There was nothing on it that was explosive. It had metal fins. That’s pretty much it,” said Lt. Col. Charles S. Kohler, Md. National Guard.
The hole the bomb made has already been covered up. But according to military leaders, before it crash landed in the parking lot, it was on a jet on its way back from a training exercise out of Air National Guard base in Middle River.
“This was a night-time mission where they were dropping ordnances on a range. And unfortunately, this incident occurred,” said Kohler.
“I was just thanking God it wasn’t closer to the bar because there were people sitting up at the picnic tables when this happened,” Hartlove said.
But with the danger gone, the bomb is still the buzz around the small town.
“The bomb squad told us we should rename the bar the ‘Bulls-eye.’ It’s just non-stop,” said Hurley.
Military leaders say the pilots involved in the training exercise were extremely experienced,. And once they realized there may have been a malfunction, they avoided any densely populated areas.
The National Guard also says it’s still investigating what happened, but a mechanical malfunction may be to blame.
Read more -
To pee or not to pee: Women sell positive pregnancy tests on Craigslist for $25 each -
To pee or not to pee: Women sell positive pregnancy tests on Craigslist for $25 each -
A number of women across the country have listed their positive pregnancy tests for sale on Craigslist.
One expectant mother in the Buffalo, New York area is selling her used sticks for $25 each, The Daily Dot reports.
Another New Jersey mom writes: 'Wanna get your boyfriend to finally pop the question? Play a trick on mom, dad or one of your friends?
Scrolling through the site, there appears to be no shortage of sellers- and many are aware that their customers could be using the tests for dubious reasons.
'I'm pregnant and will sell you my positive pregnancy test for $20,' one woman on Manhattan's Lower East Side writes. 'I don't care what you need them for.'
One Los Angeles woman offers to buy a pregnancy test for $20 'to make a video on teen pregnancy' for her local boys and girls club, which commenters point out seems suspect.
Another Dallas-based buyer is motivated by revenge, because after five years and two children with her ex-boyfriend, he came home and told her that he got his receptionist pregnant.
'We had been trying for another [baby]' she writes.
'He texted and said he isn't sure who he wants to be with and I think I handled it well for what a cheating lying dog he is. I would like the last laugh out of this. I will give some girl $40.'
Read more: -
A number of women across the country have listed their positive pregnancy tests for sale on Craigslist.
One expectant mother in the Buffalo, New York area is selling her used sticks for $25 each, The Daily Dot reports.
Another New Jersey mom writes: 'Wanna get your boyfriend to finally pop the question? Play a trick on mom, dad or one of your friends?
Scrolling through the site, there appears to be no shortage of sellers- and many are aware that their customers could be using the tests for dubious reasons.
'I'm pregnant and will sell you my positive pregnancy test for $20,' one woman on Manhattan's Lower East Side writes. 'I don't care what you need them for.'
One Los Angeles woman offers to buy a pregnancy test for $20 'to make a video on teen pregnancy' for her local boys and girls club, which commenters point out seems suspect.
Another Dallas-based buyer is motivated by revenge, because after five years and two children with her ex-boyfriend, he came home and told her that he got his receptionist pregnant.
'We had been trying for another [baby]' she writes.
'He texted and said he isn't sure who he wants to be with and I think I handled it well for what a cheating lying dog he is. I would like the last laugh out of this. I will give some girl $40.'
Read more: -
First papal 'selfie' goes viral... -
First papal 'selfie' goes viral... -
Pope Francis has broken protocol once again, appearing with a puzzled look on his face in a "selfie" photo taken with a group of teenagers visiting the Vatican.
The picture appeared on the Facebook page of one of the youngsters, who used it as his profile picture, and was going viral on social media on Saturday.
The picture comes in the same week that the Oxford English Dictionary included the word "selfie" to denote a self-taken photograph on a smartphone.
The young believers were part of a church group from northern Italy who met with the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics on Wednesday and were seen going up to him afterwards to take their photo.
"There is no marketing behind these actions. The pope clearly likes being with people while his predecessor liked being with books," said Beppe Severgnini, columnist for the Corriere della Sera daily.
The 76-year-old pope, Latin America's first pontiff, has repeatedly broken with Vatican tradition since being elected in March, including regularly picking up the phone and calling ordinary people who write to him.
The photo prompted bemused reactions on Twitter, with one user saying "Now I've seen everything" and another quipping: "It's the end of the world as we know it."
Read more -
Pope Francis has broken protocol once again, appearing with a puzzled look on his face in a "selfie" photo taken with a group of teenagers visiting the Vatican.
The picture appeared on the Facebook page of one of the youngsters, who used it as his profile picture, and was going viral on social media on Saturday.
The picture comes in the same week that the Oxford English Dictionary included the word "selfie" to denote a self-taken photograph on a smartphone.
The young believers were part of a church group from northern Italy who met with the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics on Wednesday and were seen going up to him afterwards to take their photo.
"There is no marketing behind these actions. The pope clearly likes being with people while his predecessor liked being with books," said Beppe Severgnini, columnist for the Corriere della Sera daily.
The 76-year-old pope, Latin America's first pontiff, has repeatedly broken with Vatican tradition since being elected in March, including regularly picking up the phone and calling ordinary people who write to him.
The photo prompted bemused reactions on Twitter, with one user saying "Now I've seen everything" and another quipping: "It's the end of the world as we know it."
Read more -
Friday, 30 August 2013
Nothing Better to Do – The NSA Goes After Parody T-Shirts -
Nothing Better to Do – The NSA Goes After Parody T-Shirts -
Throughout history, one of the ways in which the human spirit has overcome or dealt with the brutish forces of authoritarian regimes has been through the use of humor. As such, it is no surprise that clever Americans from sea to shining sea have figured out ways to mock the NSA while also making a dollar or two. One of these folks is Dan McCall, founder of politically themed T-shirt company Liberty Maniacs. Several days after the spy scandal erupted, Dan created a shirt that read NSA: The only part of the government that actually listens.
Pretty hilarious right? Well, the NSA didn’t find it particularly funny and, in fact, according to the Daily Dot this is what happened:
“Within an hour or two,” as McCall told the Daily Dot, Zazzle emailed him to say the shirt had been removed from the Zazzle site. (Zazzle didn’t respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment, nor did the NSA.
Read more -
Throughout history, one of the ways in which the human spirit has overcome or dealt with the brutish forces of authoritarian regimes has been through the use of humor. As such, it is no surprise that clever Americans from sea to shining sea have figured out ways to mock the NSA while also making a dollar or two. One of these folks is Dan McCall, founder of politically themed T-shirt company Liberty Maniacs. Several days after the spy scandal erupted, Dan created a shirt that read NSA: The only part of the government that actually listens.
Pretty hilarious right? Well, the NSA didn’t find it particularly funny and, in fact, according to the Daily Dot this is what happened:
“Within an hour or two,” as McCall told the Daily Dot, Zazzle emailed him to say the shirt had been removed from the Zazzle site. (Zazzle didn’t respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment, nor did the NSA.
Read more -
25 Quotes About The Coming War With Syria That Every American Should See -
25 Quotes About The Coming War With Syria That Every American Should See -
If Barack Obama is going to attack Syria, he is going to do it without the support of the American people, without the approval of Congress, without the approval of the United Nations, and without the help of the British. Now that the British Parliamenthas voted against a military strike, the Obama administration is saying that it may take “unilateral action” against Syria. But what good would “a shot across Syria’s bow” actually do? A “limited strike” is not going to bring down the Assad regime and it is certainly not going to end the bloody civil war that has been raging inside Syria. Even if the U.S. eventually removed Assad, the al-Qaeda affiliated rebels that would take power would almost certainly be even worse than Assad. Even in the midst of this bloody civil war, the rebels have taken the time and the effort tomassacre entire Christian villages. Why is Barack Obama so obsessed with helping such monsters? There is no good outcome in Syria. The Assad regime is absolutely horrible and the rebels are even worse. Why would we want the U.S. military to get involved in such a mess?
It isn’t as if it is even possible for the U.S. military to resolve the conflict that is going on in that country. At the core, the Syrian civil war is about Sunni Islam vs. Shia Islam. It is a conflict that goes back well over a thousand years.
Assad is Shiite, but the majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been pouring billions of dollars into the conflict, because they would love to see the Assad regime eliminated and a Sunni government come to power in Syria. On the other side, Iran is absolutely determined to not allow that to happen.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have no problem with using Sunni terrorists (al-Qaeda) to achieve their political goals. And as a very important ally of the Saudis, the U.S. has been spending a lot of money to train and equip the “rebels” in Syria.
But there was a problem. The Syrian government has actually been defeating the rebels. So something had to be done.
If it could be made to look like the Assad regime was using chemical weapons, that would give the U.S. government the “moral justification” that it needed to intervene militarily on the side of the rebels. In essence, it would be a great excuse for the U.S. to be able to go in and do the dirty work of the Saudis for them.
So that is where we are today. The justification for attacking Syria that the Obama administration is giving us goes something like this…
-Chemical weapons were used in Syria.
-The rebels do not have the ability to use chemical weapons.
-Therefore it must have been the Assad regime that was responsible for using chemical weapons.
-The U.S. military must punish the use of chemical weapons to make sure that it never happens again.
Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the world is not buying it. In fact, people are seeing right through this charade.
The U.S. government spends $52,000,000,000 a year on “intelligence”, but apparently our intelligence community absolutely refuses to see the obvious. WND has been able to uncover compelling evidence that the rebels in Syria have used chemical weapons repeatedly, and yet government officials continue to insist over and over that no such evidence exists and that we need to strike Syria immediately.
Shouldn’t we at least take a little bit of time to figure out who is actually in the wrong before we start letting cruise missiles fly?
Because the potential downside of an attack against Syria is absolutely massive. As I wrote about the other day, if we attack Syria we have the potential of starting World War 3 in the Middle East.
We could find ourselves immersed in an endless war with Syria, Iran and Hezbollah which would be far more horrible than the Iraq war ever was. It would essentially be a war with Shia Islam itself, and that would be a total nightmare.
If you are going to pick a fight with those guys, you better pack a lunch. They fight dirty and they are absolutely relentless. They will never forget and they will never, ever forgive.
A full-blown war with Syria, Iran and Hezbollah would be a fight to the death, and they would not hesitate to strike soft targets all over the United States. I don’t think that most Americans have any conception of what that could possibly mean.
If the American people are going to stop this war, they need to do it now. The following are 25 quotes about the coming war with Syria that every American should see…
1. Barack Obama, during an interview with Charlie Savage on December 20, 2007: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
2. Joe Biden, during a television interview in 2007: “The president has no constitutional authority … to take this nation to war … unless we’re attacked or unless there is proof we are about to be attacked. And if he does, if he does, I would move to impeach him.”
3. U.S. Representative Ted Poe: “Mr. President, you must call Congress back from recess immediately to take a vote on a military strike on Syria. Assad may have crossed a red line but that does not give you the authority to redline the Constitution.”
4. U.S. Representative Kurt Schrader: “I see no convincing evidence that this is an imminent threat to the United States of America.”
5. U.S. Representative Barbara Lee: “While we understand that as commander-in-chief you have a constitutional obligation to protect our national interests from direct attack, Congress has the constitutional obligation and power to approve military force, even if the United States or its direct interests (such as its embassies) have not been attacked or threatened with an attack.”
6. The New York Times: “American officials said Wednesday there was no ‘smoking gun’ that directly links President Bashar al-Assad to the attack, and they tried to lower expectations about the public intelligence presentation.”
7. U.S. Senator Rand Paul: “The war in Syria has no clear national security connection to the United States and victory by either side will not necessarily bring in to power people friendly to the United States.”
8. U.S. Senator Tim Kaine: “I definitely believe there needs to be a vote.”
9. Donald Rumsfeld: “There really hasn’t been any indication from the administration as to what our national interest is with respect to this particular situation.”
10. Robert Fisk: “If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured – for the very first time in history – that the United States will be on the same side as al-Qa’ida.”
11. Former congressman Dennis Kucinich: “So what, we’re about to become al-Qaeda’s air force now?”
12. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem: “We have two options: either to surrender, or to defend ourselves with the means at our disposal. The second choice is the best: we will defend ourselves.”
13. A Syrian Army officer: “We have more than 8,000 suicide martyrs within the Syrian army, ready to carry out martyrdom operations at any moment to stop the Americans and the British. I myself am ready to blow myself up against US aircraft carriers to stop them attacking Syria and its people.”
14. Khalaf Muftah, a senior Ba’ath Party official: “We have strategic weapons and we’re capable of responding.”
15. An anonymous senior Hezbollah source: “A large-scale Western strike on Syria will plunge Lebanon virtually and immediately into the inferno of a war with Israel.”
16. Ali Larjiani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament: “…the country which has been destroyed by the terrorists during the past two years will not sustain so much damage as the warmongers will receive in this war.”
17. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “Starting this fire will be like a spark in a large store of gunpowder, with unclear and unspecified outcomes and consequences”
18. General Mohammad Ali Jafari, chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards: (an attack on Syria) “means the immediate destruction of Israel.”
19. Israeli President Shimon Peres: “Israel is not and has not been involved in the civil war in Syria, but if they try to hurt us, we will respond with full force.”
20. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “We are not part of the civil war in Syria, but if we identify any attempt whatsoever to harm us, we will respond and we will respond in strength.”
21. The Jerusalem Post: “The lines between Hezbollah and the Syrian regime are so blurred that Israel will hold Damascus responsible if Hezbollah bombards Israel in the coming days, Israeli officials indicated on Wednesday.”
22. Ron Paul: “The danger of escalation with Russia is very high”
23. Pat Buchanan: “The sole beneficiary of this apparent use of poison gas against civilians in rebel-held territory appears to be the rebels, who have long sought to have us come in and fight their war.”
24. Retired U.S. General James Mattis: “We have no moral obligation to do the impossible and harm our children’s future because we think we just have to do something.”
25. Syrian refugee Um Ahmad: “Isn’t it enough, all the violence and fighting that we already have in the country, now America wants to bomb us, too?”
Read more -
If Barack Obama is going to attack Syria, he is going to do it without the support of the American people, without the approval of Congress, without the approval of the United Nations, and without the help of the British. Now that the British Parliamenthas voted against a military strike, the Obama administration is saying that it may take “unilateral action” against Syria. But what good would “a shot across Syria’s bow” actually do? A “limited strike” is not going to bring down the Assad regime and it is certainly not going to end the bloody civil war that has been raging inside Syria. Even if the U.S. eventually removed Assad, the al-Qaeda affiliated rebels that would take power would almost certainly be even worse than Assad. Even in the midst of this bloody civil war, the rebels have taken the time and the effort tomassacre entire Christian villages. Why is Barack Obama so obsessed with helping such monsters? There is no good outcome in Syria. The Assad regime is absolutely horrible and the rebels are even worse. Why would we want the U.S. military to get involved in such a mess?
It isn’t as if it is even possible for the U.S. military to resolve the conflict that is going on in that country. At the core, the Syrian civil war is about Sunni Islam vs. Shia Islam. It is a conflict that goes back well over a thousand years.
Assad is Shiite, but the majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been pouring billions of dollars into the conflict, because they would love to see the Assad regime eliminated and a Sunni government come to power in Syria. On the other side, Iran is absolutely determined to not allow that to happen.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have no problem with using Sunni terrorists (al-Qaeda) to achieve their political goals. And as a very important ally of the Saudis, the U.S. has been spending a lot of money to train and equip the “rebels” in Syria.
But there was a problem. The Syrian government has actually been defeating the rebels. So something had to be done.
If it could be made to look like the Assad regime was using chemical weapons, that would give the U.S. government the “moral justification” that it needed to intervene militarily on the side of the rebels. In essence, it would be a great excuse for the U.S. to be able to go in and do the dirty work of the Saudis for them.
So that is where we are today. The justification for attacking Syria that the Obama administration is giving us goes something like this…
-Chemical weapons were used in Syria.
-The rebels do not have the ability to use chemical weapons.
-Therefore it must have been the Assad regime that was responsible for using chemical weapons.
-The U.S. military must punish the use of chemical weapons to make sure that it never happens again.
Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the world is not buying it. In fact, people are seeing right through this charade.
The U.S. government spends $52,000,000,000 a year on “intelligence”, but apparently our intelligence community absolutely refuses to see the obvious. WND has been able to uncover compelling evidence that the rebels in Syria have used chemical weapons repeatedly, and yet government officials continue to insist over and over that no such evidence exists and that we need to strike Syria immediately.
Shouldn’t we at least take a little bit of time to figure out who is actually in the wrong before we start letting cruise missiles fly?
Because the potential downside of an attack against Syria is absolutely massive. As I wrote about the other day, if we attack Syria we have the potential of starting World War 3 in the Middle East.
We could find ourselves immersed in an endless war with Syria, Iran and Hezbollah which would be far more horrible than the Iraq war ever was. It would essentially be a war with Shia Islam itself, and that would be a total nightmare.
If you are going to pick a fight with those guys, you better pack a lunch. They fight dirty and they are absolutely relentless. They will never forget and they will never, ever forgive.
A full-blown war with Syria, Iran and Hezbollah would be a fight to the death, and they would not hesitate to strike soft targets all over the United States. I don’t think that most Americans have any conception of what that could possibly mean.
If the American people are going to stop this war, they need to do it now. The following are 25 quotes about the coming war with Syria that every American should see…
1. Barack Obama, during an interview with Charlie Savage on December 20, 2007: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
2. Joe Biden, during a television interview in 2007: “The president has no constitutional authority … to take this nation to war … unless we’re attacked or unless there is proof we are about to be attacked. And if he does, if he does, I would move to impeach him.”
3. U.S. Representative Ted Poe: “Mr. President, you must call Congress back from recess immediately to take a vote on a military strike on Syria. Assad may have crossed a red line but that does not give you the authority to redline the Constitution.”
4. U.S. Representative Kurt Schrader: “I see no convincing evidence that this is an imminent threat to the United States of America.”
5. U.S. Representative Barbara Lee: “While we understand that as commander-in-chief you have a constitutional obligation to protect our national interests from direct attack, Congress has the constitutional obligation and power to approve military force, even if the United States or its direct interests (such as its embassies) have not been attacked or threatened with an attack.”
6. The New York Times: “American officials said Wednesday there was no ‘smoking gun’ that directly links President Bashar al-Assad to the attack, and they tried to lower expectations about the public intelligence presentation.”
7. U.S. Senator Rand Paul: “The war in Syria has no clear national security connection to the United States and victory by either side will not necessarily bring in to power people friendly to the United States.”
8. U.S. Senator Tim Kaine: “I definitely believe there needs to be a vote.”
9. Donald Rumsfeld: “There really hasn’t been any indication from the administration as to what our national interest is with respect to this particular situation.”
10. Robert Fisk: “If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured – for the very first time in history – that the United States will be on the same side as al-Qa’ida.”
11. Former congressman Dennis Kucinich: “So what, we’re about to become al-Qaeda’s air force now?”
12. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem: “We have two options: either to surrender, or to defend ourselves with the means at our disposal. The second choice is the best: we will defend ourselves.”
13. A Syrian Army officer: “We have more than 8,000 suicide martyrs within the Syrian army, ready to carry out martyrdom operations at any moment to stop the Americans and the British. I myself am ready to blow myself up against US aircraft carriers to stop them attacking Syria and its people.”
14. Khalaf Muftah, a senior Ba’ath Party official: “We have strategic weapons and we’re capable of responding.”
15. An anonymous senior Hezbollah source: “A large-scale Western strike on Syria will plunge Lebanon virtually and immediately into the inferno of a war with Israel.”
16. Ali Larjiani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament: “…the country which has been destroyed by the terrorists during the past two years will not sustain so much damage as the warmongers will receive in this war.”
17. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “Starting this fire will be like a spark in a large store of gunpowder, with unclear and unspecified outcomes and consequences”
18. General Mohammad Ali Jafari, chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards: (an attack on Syria) “means the immediate destruction of Israel.”
19. Israeli President Shimon Peres: “Israel is not and has not been involved in the civil war in Syria, but if they try to hurt us, we will respond with full force.”
20. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “We are not part of the civil war in Syria, but if we identify any attempt whatsoever to harm us, we will respond and we will respond in strength.”
21. The Jerusalem Post: “The lines between Hezbollah and the Syrian regime are so blurred that Israel will hold Damascus responsible if Hezbollah bombards Israel in the coming days, Israeli officials indicated on Wednesday.”
22. Ron Paul: “The danger of escalation with Russia is very high”
23. Pat Buchanan: “The sole beneficiary of this apparent use of poison gas against civilians in rebel-held territory appears to be the rebels, who have long sought to have us come in and fight their war.”
24. Retired U.S. General James Mattis: “We have no moral obligation to do the impossible and harm our children’s future because we think we just have to do something.”
25. Syrian refugee Um Ahmad: “Isn’t it enough, all the violence and fighting that we already have in the country, now America wants to bomb us, too?”
Read more -
"Proof" Assad Used Chemical Weapons Is One Hundred YouTube Clips: Full Report Attached -
"Proof" Assad Used Chemical Weapons Is One Hundred YouTube Clips: Full Report Attached -
Below is the government's assessment of the "Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013." It is exactly as expected, putting the full blame on Assad.
What however is absolutely mindblowing is the following:
"We have identified one hundred videos attributed to the attack, many of which show large numbers of bodies exhibiting physical signs consistent with, but not unique to, nerve agent exposure. The reported symptoms of victims included unconsciousness, foaming from the nose and mouth, constricted pupils, rapid heartbeat, and difficulty breathing. Several of the videos show what appear to be numerous fatalities with no visible injuries, which is consistent with death from chemical weapons, and inconsistent with death from small-arms, high-explosive munitions or blister agents. At least 12 locations are portrayed in the publicly available videos, and a sampling of those videos confirmed that some were shot at the general times and locations described in the footage. We assess the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos, physical symptoms verified by medical personnel and NGOs, and other information associated with this chemical attack."
In other words, America may be about to launch World War III on the basis of one hundred videos, which it believes "the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate."
God help us all.
Full report (pdf): - http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2013/08-2/USGassessmentonSyria08302013.pdf
U.S. Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013
The United States Government assesses with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, 2013. We further assess that the regime used a nerve agent in the attack. These all-source assessments are based on human, signals, and geospatial intelligence as well as a significant body of open source reporting.Our classified assessments have been shared with the U.S. Congress and key international partners. To protect sources and methods, we cannot publicly release all available intelligence – but what follows is an unclassified summary of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s analysis of what took place.
Syrian Government Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21
A large body of independent sources indicates that a chemical weapons attack took place in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. In addition to U.S. intelligence information, there are accounts from international and Syrian medical personnel; videos; witness accounts; thousands of social media reports from at least 12 different locations in the Damascus area; journalist accounts; and reports from highly credible nongovernmental organizations.
A preliminary U.S. government assessment determined that 1,429 people were killed in the chemical weapons attack, including at least 426 children, though this assessment will certainly evolve as we obtain more information.
We assess with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out the chemical weapons attack against opposition elements in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. We assess that the scenario in which the opposition executed the attack on August 21 is highly unlikely. The body of information used to make this assessment includes intelligence pertaining to the regime’s preparations for this attack and its means of delivery, multiple streams of intelligence about the attack itself and its effect, our post-attack observations, and the differences between the capabilities of the regime and the opposition. Our high confidence assessment is the strongest position that the U.S. Intelligence Community can take short of confirmation. We will continue to seek additional information to close gaps in our understanding of what took place.
Background:
The Syrian regime maintains a stockpile of numerous chemical agents, including mustard, sarin, and VX and has thousands of munitions that can be used to deliver chemical warfare agents.
Syrian President Bashar al-Asad is the ultimate decision maker for the chemical weapons program and members of the program are carefully vetted to ensure security and loyalty. The Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) – which is subordinate to the Syrian Ministry of Defense – manages Syria’s chemical weapons program.
We assess with high confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year, including in the Damascus suburbs. This assessment is based on multiple streams of information including reporting of Syrian officials planning and executing chemical weapons attacks and laboratory analysis of physiological samples obtained from a number of individuals, which revealed exposure to sarin. We assess that the opposition has not used chemical weapons.
The Syrian regime has the types of munitions that we assess were used to carry out the attack on August 21, and has the ability to strike simultaneously in multiple locations. We have seen no indication that the opposition has carried out a large-scale, coordinated rocket and artillery attack like the one that occurred on August 21.
We assess that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons over the last year primarily to gain the upper hand or break a stalemate in areas where it has struggled to seize and hold strategically valuable territory. In this regard, we continue to judge that the Syrian regime views chemical weapons as one of many tools in its arsenal, including air power and ballistic missiles, which they indiscriminately use against the opposition.
The Syrian regime has initiated an effort to rid the Damascus suburbs of opposition forces using the area as a base to stage attacks against regime targets in the capital. The regime has failed to clear dozens of Damascus neighborhoods of opposition elements, including neighborhoods targeted on August 21, despite employing nearly all of its conventional weapons systems. We assess that the regime’s frustration with its inability to secure large portions of Damascus may have contributed to its decision to use chemical weapons on August 21.
Preparation:
We have intelligence that leads us to assess that Syrian chemical weapons personnel – including personnel assessed to be associated with the SSRC – were preparing chemical munitions prior to the attack. In the three days prior to the attack, we collected streams of human, signals and geospatial intelligence that reveal regime activities that we assess were associated with preparations for a chemical weapons attack.
Syrian chemical weapons personnel were operating in the Damascus suburb of ‘Adra from Sunday, August 18 until early in the morning on Wednesday, August 21 near an area that the regime uses to mix chemical weapons, including sarin. On August 21, a Syrian regime element prepared for a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus area, including through the utilization of gas masks. Our intelligence sources in the Damascus area did not detect any indications in the days prior to the attack that opposition affiliates were planning to use chemical weapons.
The Attack:
Multiple streams of intelligence indicate that the regime executed a rocket and artillery attack against the Damascus suburbs in the early hours of August 21. Satellite detections corroborate that attacks from a regime-controlled area struck neighborhoods where the chemical attacks reportedly occurred – including Kafr Batna, Jawbar, ‘Ayn Tarma, Darayya, and Mu’addamiyah. This includes the detection of rocket launches from regime controlled territory early in the
morning, approximately 90 minutes before the first report of a chemical attack appeared in social media. The lack of flight activity or missile launches also leads us to conclude that the regime used rockets in the attack.
Local social media reports of a chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs began at 2:30 a.m. local time on August 21. Within the next four hours there were thousands of social media reports on this attack from at least 12 different locations in the Damascus area. Multiple accounts described chemical-filled rockets impacting opposition-controlled areas.
Three hospitals in the Damascus area received approximately 3,600 patients displaying symptoms consistent with nerve agent exposure in less than three hours on the morning of August 21, according to a highly credible international humanitarian organization. The reported symptoms, and the epidemiological pattern of events – characterized by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers – were consistent with mass exposure to a nerve agent. We also received reports from international and Syrian medical personnel on the ground.
We have identified one hundred videos attributed to the attack, many of which show large numbers of bodies exhibiting physical signs consistent with, but not unique to, nerve agent exposure. The reported symptoms of victims included unconsciousness, foaming from the nose and mouth, constricted pupils, rapid heartbeat, and difficulty breathing. Several of the videos show what appear to be numerous fatalities with no visible injuries, which is consistent with death from chemical weapons, and inconsistent with death from small-arms, high-explosive munitions or blister agents. At least 12 locations are portrayed in the publicly available videos, and a sampling of those videos confirmed that some were shot at the general times and locations described in the footage.
We assess the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos, physical symptoms verified by medical personnel and NGOs, and other information associated with this chemical attack.
We have a body of information, including past Syrian practice, that leads us to conclude that regime officials were witting of and directed the attack on August 21. We intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime on August 21 and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors obtaining evidence. On the afternoon of August 21, we have intelligence that Syrian chemical weapons personnel were directed to cease operations. At the same time, the regime intensified the artillery barrage targeting many of the neighborhoods where chemical attacks occurred. In the 24 hour period after the attack, we detected indications of artillery and rocket fire at a rate approximately four times higher than the ten preceding days. We continued to see indications of sustained shelling in the neighborhoods up until the morning of August 26.
To conclude, there is a substantial body of information that implicates the Syrian government’s responsibility in the chemical weapons attack that took place on August 21.As indicated, there is additional intelligence that remains classified because of sources and methods concerns that is being provided to Congress and international partners.
Read more -
Below is the government's assessment of the "Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013." It is exactly as expected, putting the full blame on Assad.
What however is absolutely mindblowing is the following:
"We have identified one hundred videos attributed to the attack, many of which show large numbers of bodies exhibiting physical signs consistent with, but not unique to, nerve agent exposure. The reported symptoms of victims included unconsciousness, foaming from the nose and mouth, constricted pupils, rapid heartbeat, and difficulty breathing. Several of the videos show what appear to be numerous fatalities with no visible injuries, which is consistent with death from chemical weapons, and inconsistent with death from small-arms, high-explosive munitions or blister agents. At least 12 locations are portrayed in the publicly available videos, and a sampling of those videos confirmed that some were shot at the general times and locations described in the footage. We assess the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos, physical symptoms verified by medical personnel and NGOs, and other information associated with this chemical attack."
In other words, America may be about to launch World War III on the basis of one hundred videos, which it believes "the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate."
God help us all.
Full report (pdf): - http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2013/08-2/USGassessmentonSyria08302013.pdf
U.S. Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013
The United States Government assesses with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, 2013. We further assess that the regime used a nerve agent in the attack. These all-source assessments are based on human, signals, and geospatial intelligence as well as a significant body of open source reporting.Our classified assessments have been shared with the U.S. Congress and key international partners. To protect sources and methods, we cannot publicly release all available intelligence – but what follows is an unclassified summary of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s analysis of what took place.
Syrian Government Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21
A large body of independent sources indicates that a chemical weapons attack took place in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. In addition to U.S. intelligence information, there are accounts from international and Syrian medical personnel; videos; witness accounts; thousands of social media reports from at least 12 different locations in the Damascus area; journalist accounts; and reports from highly credible nongovernmental organizations.
A preliminary U.S. government assessment determined that 1,429 people were killed in the chemical weapons attack, including at least 426 children, though this assessment will certainly evolve as we obtain more information.
We assess with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out the chemical weapons attack against opposition elements in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. We assess that the scenario in which the opposition executed the attack on August 21 is highly unlikely. The body of information used to make this assessment includes intelligence pertaining to the regime’s preparations for this attack and its means of delivery, multiple streams of intelligence about the attack itself and its effect, our post-attack observations, and the differences between the capabilities of the regime and the opposition. Our high confidence assessment is the strongest position that the U.S. Intelligence Community can take short of confirmation. We will continue to seek additional information to close gaps in our understanding of what took place.
Background:
The Syrian regime maintains a stockpile of numerous chemical agents, including mustard, sarin, and VX and has thousands of munitions that can be used to deliver chemical warfare agents.
Syrian President Bashar al-Asad is the ultimate decision maker for the chemical weapons program and members of the program are carefully vetted to ensure security and loyalty. The Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) – which is subordinate to the Syrian Ministry of Defense – manages Syria’s chemical weapons program.
We assess with high confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year, including in the Damascus suburbs. This assessment is based on multiple streams of information including reporting of Syrian officials planning and executing chemical weapons attacks and laboratory analysis of physiological samples obtained from a number of individuals, which revealed exposure to sarin. We assess that the opposition has not used chemical weapons.
The Syrian regime has the types of munitions that we assess were used to carry out the attack on August 21, and has the ability to strike simultaneously in multiple locations. We have seen no indication that the opposition has carried out a large-scale, coordinated rocket and artillery attack like the one that occurred on August 21.
We assess that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons over the last year primarily to gain the upper hand or break a stalemate in areas where it has struggled to seize and hold strategically valuable territory. In this regard, we continue to judge that the Syrian regime views chemical weapons as one of many tools in its arsenal, including air power and ballistic missiles, which they indiscriminately use against the opposition.
The Syrian regime has initiated an effort to rid the Damascus suburbs of opposition forces using the area as a base to stage attacks against regime targets in the capital. The regime has failed to clear dozens of Damascus neighborhoods of opposition elements, including neighborhoods targeted on August 21, despite employing nearly all of its conventional weapons systems. We assess that the regime’s frustration with its inability to secure large portions of Damascus may have contributed to its decision to use chemical weapons on August 21.
Preparation:
We have intelligence that leads us to assess that Syrian chemical weapons personnel – including personnel assessed to be associated with the SSRC – were preparing chemical munitions prior to the attack. In the three days prior to the attack, we collected streams of human, signals and geospatial intelligence that reveal regime activities that we assess were associated with preparations for a chemical weapons attack.
Syrian chemical weapons personnel were operating in the Damascus suburb of ‘Adra from Sunday, August 18 until early in the morning on Wednesday, August 21 near an area that the regime uses to mix chemical weapons, including sarin. On August 21, a Syrian regime element prepared for a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus area, including through the utilization of gas masks. Our intelligence sources in the Damascus area did not detect any indications in the days prior to the attack that opposition affiliates were planning to use chemical weapons.
The Attack:
Multiple streams of intelligence indicate that the regime executed a rocket and artillery attack against the Damascus suburbs in the early hours of August 21. Satellite detections corroborate that attacks from a regime-controlled area struck neighborhoods where the chemical attacks reportedly occurred – including Kafr Batna, Jawbar, ‘Ayn Tarma, Darayya, and Mu’addamiyah. This includes the detection of rocket launches from regime controlled territory early in the
morning, approximately 90 minutes before the first report of a chemical attack appeared in social media. The lack of flight activity or missile launches also leads us to conclude that the regime used rockets in the attack.
Local social media reports of a chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs began at 2:30 a.m. local time on August 21. Within the next four hours there were thousands of social media reports on this attack from at least 12 different locations in the Damascus area. Multiple accounts described chemical-filled rockets impacting opposition-controlled areas.
Three hospitals in the Damascus area received approximately 3,600 patients displaying symptoms consistent with nerve agent exposure in less than three hours on the morning of August 21, according to a highly credible international humanitarian organization. The reported symptoms, and the epidemiological pattern of events – characterized by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers – were consistent with mass exposure to a nerve agent. We also received reports from international and Syrian medical personnel on the ground.
We have identified one hundred videos attributed to the attack, many of which show large numbers of bodies exhibiting physical signs consistent with, but not unique to, nerve agent exposure. The reported symptoms of victims included unconsciousness, foaming from the nose and mouth, constricted pupils, rapid heartbeat, and difficulty breathing. Several of the videos show what appear to be numerous fatalities with no visible injuries, which is consistent with death from chemical weapons, and inconsistent with death from small-arms, high-explosive munitions or blister agents. At least 12 locations are portrayed in the publicly available videos, and a sampling of those videos confirmed that some were shot at the general times and locations described in the footage.
We assess the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos, physical symptoms verified by medical personnel and NGOs, and other information associated with this chemical attack.
We have a body of information, including past Syrian practice, that leads us to conclude that regime officials were witting of and directed the attack on August 21. We intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime on August 21 and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors obtaining evidence. On the afternoon of August 21, we have intelligence that Syrian chemical weapons personnel were directed to cease operations. At the same time, the regime intensified the artillery barrage targeting many of the neighborhoods where chemical attacks occurred. In the 24 hour period after the attack, we detected indications of artillery and rocket fire at a rate approximately four times higher than the ten preceding days. We continued to see indications of sustained shelling in the neighborhoods up until the morning of August 26.
To conclude, there is a substantial body of information that implicates the Syrian government’s responsibility in the chemical weapons attack that took place on August 21.As indicated, there is additional intelligence that remains classified because of sources and methods concerns that is being provided to Congress and international partners.
Read more -
New boss at Immigration and Customs Enforcement ineligible for job -
New boss at Immigration and Customs Enforcement ineligible for job -
The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement—who oversees the nation's second-largest federal investigative agency—may not be eligible for the permanent position under laws set up to keep politics out of the agency, according to one former high-level employee.
When John Sandweg, a former Arizona criminal defense attorney and associate of outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, was named acting director of ICE, several critics questioned his credentials. Some told FoxNews.com his appointment seemed to be political, and others said the agency needed a leader who had come up through the ranks.
“Given that there are literally dozens of people within ICE who have more experience in management/law enforcement and meet these qualifications, there is no excuse for placing Mr. Sandweg as acting director of ICE,” said Anthony Ho, who was assistant special agent in charge of ICE’s San Francisco division before retiring in December.
Ho noted that the 2002 law which established the agency, then known as Bureau of Border Security, explicitly requires that the director “shall have a minimum of 5 years professional experience in law enforcement, and a minimum of 5 years of management experience.” The law was designed specifically to prevent the agency from becoming politicized, Ho said.
Read more: -
The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement—who oversees the nation's second-largest federal investigative agency—may not be eligible for the permanent position under laws set up to keep politics out of the agency, according to one former high-level employee.
When John Sandweg, a former Arizona criminal defense attorney and associate of outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, was named acting director of ICE, several critics questioned his credentials. Some told FoxNews.com his appointment seemed to be political, and others said the agency needed a leader who had come up through the ranks.
“Given that there are literally dozens of people within ICE who have more experience in management/law enforcement and meet these qualifications, there is no excuse for placing Mr. Sandweg as acting director of ICE,” said Anthony Ho, who was assistant special agent in charge of ICE’s San Francisco division before retiring in December.
Ho noted that the 2002 law which established the agency, then known as Bureau of Border Security, explicitly requires that the director “shall have a minimum of 5 years professional experience in law enforcement, and a minimum of 5 years of management experience.” The law was designed specifically to prevent the agency from becoming politicized, Ho said.
Read more: -
DUNKIN' DONUTS Under Fire for 'Blackface' Advertisement... - for its new "Charcoal Donut" -
DUNKIN' DONUTS Under Fire for 'Blackface' Advertisement... - for its new "Charcoal Donut" -
A leading human rights group has called on Dunkin' Donuts to withdraw a "bizarre and racist" advertisement for chocolate doughnuts in Thailand that shows a smiling woman with bright pink lips in blackface makeup.
The Dunkin' Donuts franchise in Thailand launched a campaign earlier this month for its new "Charcoal Donut" featuring the image, which is reminiscent of 19th and early 20th century American stereotypes for black people that are now considered offensive symbols of a racist era.
In posters and TV commercials, the campaign shows the woman with a shiny jet black, 1950s-style beehive hairdo holding a bitten black doughnut alongside the slogan: "Break every rule of deliciousness."
Human Rights Watch said it was shocked to see an American brand name running an advertising campaign that would draw "howls of outrage" if released in the United States.
"It's both bizarre and racist that Dunkin' Donuts thinks that it must color a woman's skin black and accentuate her lips with bright pink lipstick to sell a chocolate doughnut," said Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch. "Dunkin' Donuts should immediately withdraw this ad, publicly apologize to those it's offended and ensure this never happens again."
The campaign hasn't ruffled many in Thailand, where it's common for advertisements to inexplicably use racial stereotypes. A Thai brand of household mops and dustpans called "Black Man" uses a logo with a smiling black man in a tuxedo and bow tie. One Thai skin whitening cream runs TV commercials that say white-skinned people have better job prospects than those with dark skin. An herbal Thai toothpaste says its dark-colored product "is black, but it's good."
The CEO for Dunkin' Donuts in Thailand dismissed the criticism as "paranoid American thinking."
"It's absolutely ridiculous," said CEO Nadim Salhani. "We're not allowed to use black to promote our doughnuts? I don't get it. What's the big fuss? What if the product was white and I painted someone white, would that be racist?"
Salhani said that the Thai franchise of Dunkin' Donuts operates independently of the American operation and that doughnut sales have increased about 50 percent since the campaign was launched around two weeks ago, which he attributed to curiosity about the new advertisements.
"Not everybody in the world is paranoid about racism," said Salhani, a Lebanese expatriate in Thailand who said his teenage daughter was the model featured in the campaign. "I'm sorry, but this is a marketing campaign, and it's working very well for us."
Read more: -
A leading human rights group has called on Dunkin' Donuts to withdraw a "bizarre and racist" advertisement for chocolate doughnuts in Thailand that shows a smiling woman with bright pink lips in blackface makeup.
The Dunkin' Donuts franchise in Thailand launched a campaign earlier this month for its new "Charcoal Donut" featuring the image, which is reminiscent of 19th and early 20th century American stereotypes for black people that are now considered offensive symbols of a racist era.
In posters and TV commercials, the campaign shows the woman with a shiny jet black, 1950s-style beehive hairdo holding a bitten black doughnut alongside the slogan: "Break every rule of deliciousness."
Human Rights Watch said it was shocked to see an American brand name running an advertising campaign that would draw "howls of outrage" if released in the United States.
"It's both bizarre and racist that Dunkin' Donuts thinks that it must color a woman's skin black and accentuate her lips with bright pink lipstick to sell a chocolate doughnut," said Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch. "Dunkin' Donuts should immediately withdraw this ad, publicly apologize to those it's offended and ensure this never happens again."
The campaign hasn't ruffled many in Thailand, where it's common for advertisements to inexplicably use racial stereotypes. A Thai brand of household mops and dustpans called "Black Man" uses a logo with a smiling black man in a tuxedo and bow tie. One Thai skin whitening cream runs TV commercials that say white-skinned people have better job prospects than those with dark skin. An herbal Thai toothpaste says its dark-colored product "is black, but it's good."
The CEO for Dunkin' Donuts in Thailand dismissed the criticism as "paranoid American thinking."
"It's absolutely ridiculous," said CEO Nadim Salhani. "We're not allowed to use black to promote our doughnuts? I don't get it. What's the big fuss? What if the product was white and I painted someone white, would that be racist?"
Salhani said that the Thai franchise of Dunkin' Donuts operates independently of the American operation and that doughnut sales have increased about 50 percent since the campaign was launched around two weeks ago, which he attributed to curiosity about the new advertisements.
"Not everybody in the world is paranoid about racism," said Salhani, a Lebanese expatriate in Thailand who said his teenage daughter was the model featured in the campaign. "I'm sorry, but this is a marketing campaign, and it's working very well for us."
Read more: -
Scared Residents Call Police After 'Aliens' Take Over Radio Station... -
Scared Residents Call Police After 'Aliens' Take Over Radio Station... -
A gimmicky promotion about an alien takeover at a radio station wound up scaring some residents of a north Alabama community.
Star 94.9 is changing formats in Tuscumbia, so it used a marketing ploy in which aliens take over the station to figure out what type of music appeals to humans.
But the promotion apparently scared some people.
The TimesDaily reports that concerned parents and students called police and schools, and the station says it received phone calls, too.
Tuscumbia school superintendent Mary Kate Smith says absenteeism was up slightly Thursday, and she fielded a call from a worried parent. Police increased patrols at schools to ease concerns.
Station programming director Brian Rickman is apologizing for the confusion. He says the station didn’t foresee any problems with the promotion.
Read more -
A gimmicky promotion about an alien takeover at a radio station wound up scaring some residents of a north Alabama community.
Star 94.9 is changing formats in Tuscumbia, so it used a marketing ploy in which aliens take over the station to figure out what type of music appeals to humans.
But the promotion apparently scared some people.
The TimesDaily reports that concerned parents and students called police and schools, and the station says it received phone calls, too.
Tuscumbia school superintendent Mary Kate Smith says absenteeism was up slightly Thursday, and she fielded a call from a worried parent. Police increased patrols at schools to ease concerns.
Station programming director Brian Rickman is apologizing for the confusion. He says the station didn’t foresee any problems with the promotion.
Read more -
Hubble telescope spots 'cosmic caterpillar' SIX Trillion miles long... -
Hubble telescope spots 'cosmic caterpillar' SIX Trillion miles long... -
A stellar ‘caterpillar’ in the midst of a metamorphosis has been spotted by astronomers.
The light-year-long cosmic squiggle is currently collecting material from an envelope of gas surrounding it.
Astronomers are now keen to see what will emerge from the protostar, which is in a very early evolutionary stage.
A previous study has called the object, which lies 4,500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, a ‘tadpole in an interstellar pond.’
Harsh winds from extremely bright stars are blasting ultraviolet radiation at this 'wanna-be' star, named IRAS 20324+4057, and sculpting the gas and dust into its long shape.
The culprits are 65 of the hottest, brightest known stars, classified as O-type stars, located 15 light-years away from the knot, towards the right edge of the image.
These stars, along with 500 highly luminous B-type stars, make up what is called the Cygnus OB2 association.
However, astronomers believe that the envelope of gas surrounding the protostar is being eroded by the radiation from Cygnus OB2.
Protostars in this region should eventually become young stars with final masses about one to ten times that of our sun.
If the eroding radiation from the nearby bright stars destroys the gas envelope before the protostars finish collecting mass, their final masses could be cut.
According to spectroscopic observations of the central star within IRAS 20324+4057, the protostar is still collecting material quite heavily from its outer envelope, hoping to bulk up in mass.
What will emerge from this metamorphosis remains to be seen. ‘Only time will tell if the formed star will be a “heavyweight” or a “lightweight” with respect to its mass,’ said the Hubble team.
This image, released this week the Hubble’s Space Telescope Science Institute, is based on data in green and infrared wavelengths gathered by the Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2006.
It also combines data from ground-based hydrogen data collected by the Isaac Newton Telescope in 2003 as part of the IPHAS H-alpha survey.
Read more: -
A stellar ‘caterpillar’ in the midst of a metamorphosis has been spotted by astronomers.
The light-year-long cosmic squiggle is currently collecting material from an envelope of gas surrounding it.
Astronomers are now keen to see what will emerge from the protostar, which is in a very early evolutionary stage.
A previous study has called the object, which lies 4,500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, a ‘tadpole in an interstellar pond.’
Harsh winds from extremely bright stars are blasting ultraviolet radiation at this 'wanna-be' star, named IRAS 20324+4057, and sculpting the gas and dust into its long shape.
The culprits are 65 of the hottest, brightest known stars, classified as O-type stars, located 15 light-years away from the knot, towards the right edge of the image.
These stars, along with 500 highly luminous B-type stars, make up what is called the Cygnus OB2 association.
However, astronomers believe that the envelope of gas surrounding the protostar is being eroded by the radiation from Cygnus OB2.
Protostars in this region should eventually become young stars with final masses about one to ten times that of our sun.
If the eroding radiation from the nearby bright stars destroys the gas envelope before the protostars finish collecting mass, their final masses could be cut.
According to spectroscopic observations of the central star within IRAS 20324+4057, the protostar is still collecting material quite heavily from its outer envelope, hoping to bulk up in mass.
What will emerge from this metamorphosis remains to be seen. ‘Only time will tell if the formed star will be a “heavyweight” or a “lightweight” with respect to its mass,’ said the Hubble team.
This image, released this week the Hubble’s Space Telescope Science Institute, is based on data in green and infrared wavelengths gathered by the Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2006.
It also combines data from ground-based hydrogen data collected by the Isaac Newton Telescope in 2003 as part of the IPHAS H-alpha survey.
Read more: -
Thursday, 29 August 2013
Largest Rocket Ever Launched From Vandenberg AFB Makes Lift-Off -
Largest Rocket Ever Launched From Vandenberg AFB Makes Lift-Off -
The largest rocket ever to be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base had a succesful lift-off Wednesday.
The Delta IV Heavy rocket was launched with a $1 billion spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) “in support of national defense,” according to aerospace engineering firm United Launch Alliance (ULA).
Once it reaches orbit in about two days, the classified payload is expected to be able to distinguish details back on Earth as minute as the make and model of an automobile
ULA officials alerted the public about the launch through its Facebook and Twitter pages “so they wouldn’t be concerned when they felt their windows rattle and felt the vibrations,” Hennigan added.
The official launch time was initially scheduled for 10:52 a.m., but the actual launch did not take place until 11:03 PDT.
Los Angeles Times aerospace reporter Bill Hennigan told KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO residents up and down the California coastline may have heard — or even felt — the 235-foot rocket following the launch.
“It’s the largest rocket ever to be launched from Vandenberg,” Hennigan said. “They launched the same rocket in January of 2011, and it was so big, it caused such a stir, people were pulling off the road to see this and some people reported hearing it about 50 miles away.”
Read more -
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/08/28/vandenberg-set-for-launch-of-largest-rocket-ever/
The largest rocket ever to be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base had a succesful lift-off Wednesday.
The Delta IV Heavy rocket was launched with a $1 billion spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) “in support of national defense,” according to aerospace engineering firm United Launch Alliance (ULA).
Once it reaches orbit in about two days, the classified payload is expected to be able to distinguish details back on Earth as minute as the make and model of an automobile
ULA officials alerted the public about the launch through its Facebook and Twitter pages “so they wouldn’t be concerned when they felt their windows rattle and felt the vibrations,” Hennigan added.
The official launch time was initially scheduled for 10:52 a.m., but the actual launch did not take place until 11:03 PDT.
Los Angeles Times aerospace reporter Bill Hennigan told KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO residents up and down the California coastline may have heard — or even felt — the 235-foot rocket following the launch.
“It’s the largest rocket ever to be launched from Vandenberg,” Hennigan said. “They launched the same rocket in January of 2011, and it was so big, it caused such a stir, people were pulling off the road to see this and some people reported hearing it about 50 miles away.”
Read more -
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/08/28/vandenberg-set-for-launch-of-largest-rocket-ever/
Detroit stopped issuing death, birth certificates after bankruptcy... - vendor wanted cash to supply paper -
Detroit stopped issuing death, birth certificates after bankruptcy... - vendor wanted cash to supply paper -
Detroit’s funeral directors received this unusual text message last month. “FYI, city of Detroit can’t process death certificates because they have no paper and don’t have money to buy any.”
The message, from a fellow funeral director, was mostly true: The city did stop issuing certified copies of birth and death certificates on July 23, days after the July 18 bankruptcy filing. That day, a nervous paper vendor demanded cash — and the city wanted to do business as usual, on credit.
FYI: In bankrupt and frequently bizarre Detroit, dying is easy. It’s proving you are dead that’s hard.
Cutbacks in hours, balky vendors, and the news that Herman Kiefer Complex will close Oct. 1 are all affecting the city’s death and dying business. The city’s vital records department will close and Wayne County will assume responsibility for issuing birth and death certificates, according to Bill Nowling, spokesman for Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr.
“Have you ever heard such a crock?” asked Wallace Williams, president of the Michigan Select Funeral Directors Association, when asked about the paper shortage. “They told us they ran out of paper and it might take five days to get some.” Williams, who texted his 20 or so funeral director members, says the potential impact of a death certificate shortage was dire.
Without certified copies of death certificates, families couldn’t access bank accounts, file insurance claims, or access probate court. The families are often struggling financially, grieving and frustrated by any bureaucratic delay. And although funeral homes provide copies as a service to families, they wind up taking the heat.
While funeral homes and hospitals could file birth and death certificates on July 23, the city requires a special embossed paper for certified copies. Because the forms are unique to each jurisdiction, the paper couldn’t be borrowed — although some funeral directors tried to lend paper to the records department.
“Employees (at the vital records department) were sitting outside because they didn’t have anything to do,” says the Rev. Gleo Wade, Stinson Funeral Home director, who drove to the vital records department that day to see what was going on. “I’ve never seen the employees just sitting outside like that before.”
Funeral directors and employees had never witnessed a death certificate system collapse, either. Funeral home officials say the department is already understaffed and stretched thin. “People don’t understand that families become very upset when they can’t get the certificate.”
Read more -
Detroit’s funeral directors received this unusual text message last month. “FYI, city of Detroit can’t process death certificates because they have no paper and don’t have money to buy any.”
The message, from a fellow funeral director, was mostly true: The city did stop issuing certified copies of birth and death certificates on July 23, days after the July 18 bankruptcy filing. That day, a nervous paper vendor demanded cash — and the city wanted to do business as usual, on credit.
FYI: In bankrupt and frequently bizarre Detroit, dying is easy. It’s proving you are dead that’s hard.
Cutbacks in hours, balky vendors, and the news that Herman Kiefer Complex will close Oct. 1 are all affecting the city’s death and dying business. The city’s vital records department will close and Wayne County will assume responsibility for issuing birth and death certificates, according to Bill Nowling, spokesman for Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr.
“Have you ever heard such a crock?” asked Wallace Williams, president of the Michigan Select Funeral Directors Association, when asked about the paper shortage. “They told us they ran out of paper and it might take five days to get some.” Williams, who texted his 20 or so funeral director members, says the potential impact of a death certificate shortage was dire.
Without certified copies of death certificates, families couldn’t access bank accounts, file insurance claims, or access probate court. The families are often struggling financially, grieving and frustrated by any bureaucratic delay. And although funeral homes provide copies as a service to families, they wind up taking the heat.
While funeral homes and hospitals could file birth and death certificates on July 23, the city requires a special embossed paper for certified copies. Because the forms are unique to each jurisdiction, the paper couldn’t be borrowed — although some funeral directors tried to lend paper to the records department.
“Employees (at the vital records department) were sitting outside because they didn’t have anything to do,” says the Rev. Gleo Wade, Stinson Funeral Home director, who drove to the vital records department that day to see what was going on. “I’ve never seen the employees just sitting outside like that before.”
Funeral directors and employees had never witnessed a death certificate system collapse, either. Funeral home officials say the department is already understaffed and stretched thin. “People don’t understand that families become very upset when they can’t get the certificate.”
Read more -
Life On Earth -- Started On Mars? -
Life On Earth -- Started On Mars? -
Life on Earth may have started millions of miles away on Mars, according to scientists.
An element believed to be crucial to the origin of life would only have been available on the surface of the Red Planet.
These "seeds" of life probably arrived on Earth in meteorites blasted off Mars by impacts or volcanic eruptions, Geochemist Professor Steven Benner claims.
Prof Benner, from The Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology in the US, said: "The evidence seems to be building that we are actually all Martians; that life started on Mars and came to Earth on a rock."
Speaking at the Goldschmidt 2013 conference in Florence, Italy, he said: "It's lucky that we ended up here nevertheless, as certainly Earth has been the better of the two planets for sustaining life.
"If our hypothetical Martian ancestors had remained on Mars, there might not have been a story to tell."
Prof Benner said the element molybdenum was thought to be a catalyst that helped organic molecules develop into the first living things.
"This form of molybdenum couldn't have been available on Earth at the time life first began, because three billion years ago the surface of the Earth had very little oxygen, but Mars did.
"It's yet another piece of evidence which makes it more likely life came to Earth on a Martian meteorite, rather than starting on this planet."
He added: "Analysis of a Martian meteorite recently showed that there was boron on Mars; we now believe that the oxidised form of molybdenum was there too."
Another reason why life would have struggled to start on early Earth was that it was likely to have been covered by water, said Prof Benner.
Read more -
Life on Earth may have started millions of miles away on Mars, according to scientists.
An element believed to be crucial to the origin of life would only have been available on the surface of the Red Planet.
These "seeds" of life probably arrived on Earth in meteorites blasted off Mars by impacts or volcanic eruptions, Geochemist Professor Steven Benner claims.
Prof Benner, from The Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology in the US, said: "The evidence seems to be building that we are actually all Martians; that life started on Mars and came to Earth on a rock."
Speaking at the Goldschmidt 2013 conference in Florence, Italy, he said: "It's lucky that we ended up here nevertheless, as certainly Earth has been the better of the two planets for sustaining life.
"If our hypothetical Martian ancestors had remained on Mars, there might not have been a story to tell."
Prof Benner said the element molybdenum was thought to be a catalyst that helped organic molecules develop into the first living things.
"This form of molybdenum couldn't have been available on Earth at the time life first began, because three billion years ago the surface of the Earth had very little oxygen, but Mars did.
"It's yet another piece of evidence which makes it more likely life came to Earth on a Martian meteorite, rather than starting on this planet."
He added: "Analysis of a Martian meteorite recently showed that there was boron on Mars; we now believe that the oxidised form of molybdenum was there too."
Another reason why life would have struggled to start on early Earth was that it was likely to have been covered by water, said Prof Benner.
Read more -
Kim Jong-un's ex-girlfriend reportedly executed by firing squad -
Kim Jong-un's ex-girlfriend reportedly executed by firing squad -
The ex-girlfriend of North Korean leader Kim-Jong-un was one of a dozen people reportedly executed by a firing squad last week.
The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reports that singer Hyon Song-wol and 11 others had been arrested on August 17 for violating North Korea's laws against pornography and was executed three days later.
The paper reported that the condemned, all members of the performing groups Unhasu Orchestra and Wangjaesan Light Music Band, were accused of making videos of themselves having sex and selling the videos, which the paper reported were available in China.
"They were executed with machine guns while the key members of the Unhasu Orchestra, Wangjaesan Light Band and Moranbong Band as well as the families of the victims looked on," a source told the paper. The source added that the victim's families appear to have all been sent to prison camps.
Kim Jong-un reportedly met Hyon Song-wol approximately 10 years ago, before he was married. The relationship between the two is believed to have ended after interference from Kim's father, Kim Jong-il, though the two had been rumored to be having an affair. Kim Jong-un's wife, Ri Sol-ju, was also a member of the Unhasu Orchestra before their marriage. It is not clear if she had any role in the executions.
Read more: -
The ex-girlfriend of North Korean leader Kim-Jong-un was one of a dozen people reportedly executed by a firing squad last week.
The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reports that singer Hyon Song-wol and 11 others had been arrested on August 17 for violating North Korea's laws against pornography and was executed three days later.
The paper reported that the condemned, all members of the performing groups Unhasu Orchestra and Wangjaesan Light Music Band, were accused of making videos of themselves having sex and selling the videos, which the paper reported were available in China.
"They were executed with machine guns while the key members of the Unhasu Orchestra, Wangjaesan Light Band and Moranbong Band as well as the families of the victims looked on," a source told the paper. The source added that the victim's families appear to have all been sent to prison camps.
Kim Jong-un reportedly met Hyon Song-wol approximately 10 years ago, before he was married. The relationship between the two is believed to have ended after interference from Kim's father, Kim Jong-il, though the two had been rumored to be having an affair. Kim Jong-un's wife, Ri Sol-ju, was also a member of the Unhasu Orchestra before their marriage. It is not clear if she had any role in the executions.
Read more: -
U.S. Facing Test on Data to Back Action on Syria -
U.S. Facing Test on Data to Back Action on Syria -
The evidence of a massacre is undeniable: the bodies of the dead lined up on hospital floors, those of the living convulsing and writhing in pain and a declaration from a respected international aid group that thousands of Syrians were gassed with chemical weapons last week.
And yet the White House faces steep hurdles as it prepares to make the most important public intelligence presentation since February 2003, when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made a dramatic and detailed case for war to the United Nations Security Council using intelligence — later discredited — about Iraq’s weapons programs.
More than a decade later, the Obama administration says the information it will make public, most likely on Thursday, will show proof of a large-scale chemical attack perpetrated by Syrian forces, bolstering its case for a retaliatory military strike on Syria.
But with the botched intelligence about Iraq still casting a long shadow over decisions about waging war in the Middle East, the White House faces an American public deeply skeptical about being drawn into the Syrian conflict and a growing chorus of lawmakers from both parties angry about the prospect of an American president once again going to war without Congressional consultation or approval.
American officials said Wednesday there was no “smoking gun” that directly links President Bashar al-Assad to the attack, and they tried to lower expectations about the public intelligence presentation. They said it will not contain specific electronic intercepts of communications between Syrian commanders or detailed reporting from spies and sources on the ground.
But even without hard evidence tying Mr. Assad to the attack, administration officials asserted, the Syrian leader bears ultimate responsibility for the actions of his troops and should be held accountable.
“The commander in chief of any military is ultimately responsible for decisions made under their leadership,” said the State Department’s deputy spokeswoman, Marie Harf — even if, she added, “He’s not the one who pushes the button or says ‘go’ on this.”
Administration officials said that communications between military commanders intercepted after Wednesday’s attack provided proof that the assault was not the result of a rogue unit acting against orders. It is unclear how much detail about these communications, if any, will be made public.
In an interview on Wednesday with the PBS program “NewsHour,” President Obama said he still had not made a decision about military action. But he said that a military strike could be a “shot across the bow, saying ‘stop doing this,’ that can have a positive impact on our national security over the long term.”
The bellicose talk coming from the administration is unnerving some lawmakers from Mr. Obama’s party, who are angry that the White House seems to have no inclination to seek Congress’s approval before launching a strike in Syria.
“I am still waiting to see what specifically the administration and other involved partners have to say about a potential military strike, but I am concerned about how effective such an action could be,” said Representative Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat who is the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “I am worried that such action could drag the United States into a broader direct involvement in the conflict.”
Despite the Obama administration’s insistence that the graphic images of the attack go far in making a case for military action in Syria, some experts said that the White House had its own burden of proof.
Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that whatever evidence the administration put forward would be the American intelligence community’s “most important single document in a decade.”
The Obama administration, Mr. Cordesman said, needs to use intelligence about the attack “as a key way of informing the world, of building up trust in U.S. policy and intelligence statements, and in moving U.S. strategic communications from spin to convincing truth.”
And yet it appears that the public presentation of the Syria evidence will be limited. Instead of the theater of Mr. Powell’s 2003 speech — which included satellite photographs, scratchy recordings of conversations between Iraqi officials and a vial of white powder meant to symbolize anthrax — American officials said the intelligence assessment they are preparing to make public will be similar to a modest news release that the White House issued in June to announce that the Assad government had used chemical weapons “on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year.”
Read more -
The evidence of a massacre is undeniable: the bodies of the dead lined up on hospital floors, those of the living convulsing and writhing in pain and a declaration from a respected international aid group that thousands of Syrians were gassed with chemical weapons last week.
And yet the White House faces steep hurdles as it prepares to make the most important public intelligence presentation since February 2003, when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made a dramatic and detailed case for war to the United Nations Security Council using intelligence — later discredited — about Iraq’s weapons programs.
More than a decade later, the Obama administration says the information it will make public, most likely on Thursday, will show proof of a large-scale chemical attack perpetrated by Syrian forces, bolstering its case for a retaliatory military strike on Syria.
But with the botched intelligence about Iraq still casting a long shadow over decisions about waging war in the Middle East, the White House faces an American public deeply skeptical about being drawn into the Syrian conflict and a growing chorus of lawmakers from both parties angry about the prospect of an American president once again going to war without Congressional consultation or approval.
American officials said Wednesday there was no “smoking gun” that directly links President Bashar al-Assad to the attack, and they tried to lower expectations about the public intelligence presentation. They said it will not contain specific electronic intercepts of communications between Syrian commanders or detailed reporting from spies and sources on the ground.
But even without hard evidence tying Mr. Assad to the attack, administration officials asserted, the Syrian leader bears ultimate responsibility for the actions of his troops and should be held accountable.
“The commander in chief of any military is ultimately responsible for decisions made under their leadership,” said the State Department’s deputy spokeswoman, Marie Harf — even if, she added, “He’s not the one who pushes the button or says ‘go’ on this.”
Administration officials said that communications between military commanders intercepted after Wednesday’s attack provided proof that the assault was not the result of a rogue unit acting against orders. It is unclear how much detail about these communications, if any, will be made public.
In an interview on Wednesday with the PBS program “NewsHour,” President Obama said he still had not made a decision about military action. But he said that a military strike could be a “shot across the bow, saying ‘stop doing this,’ that can have a positive impact on our national security over the long term.”
The bellicose talk coming from the administration is unnerving some lawmakers from Mr. Obama’s party, who are angry that the White House seems to have no inclination to seek Congress’s approval before launching a strike in Syria.
“I am still waiting to see what specifically the administration and other involved partners have to say about a potential military strike, but I am concerned about how effective such an action could be,” said Representative Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat who is the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “I am worried that such action could drag the United States into a broader direct involvement in the conflict.”
Despite the Obama administration’s insistence that the graphic images of the attack go far in making a case for military action in Syria, some experts said that the White House had its own burden of proof.
Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that whatever evidence the administration put forward would be the American intelligence community’s “most important single document in a decade.”
The Obama administration, Mr. Cordesman said, needs to use intelligence about the attack “as a key way of informing the world, of building up trust in U.S. policy and intelligence statements, and in moving U.S. strategic communications from spin to convincing truth.”
And yet it appears that the public presentation of the Syria evidence will be limited. Instead of the theater of Mr. Powell’s 2003 speech — which included satellite photographs, scratchy recordings of conversations between Iraqi officials and a vial of white powder meant to symbolize anthrax — American officials said the intelligence assessment they are preparing to make public will be similar to a modest news release that the White House issued in June to announce that the Assad government had used chemical weapons “on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year.”
Read more -
Wednesday, 28 August 2013
Age-Related Forgetfulness Tied to Diminished Brain Protein... -
Age-Related Forgetfulness Tied to Diminished Brain Protein... -
Age-related forgetfulness may be due to a deficiency in a brain protein that helps form memories, a study found. Targeting the gene that produces that protein could lead to new therapies, the researchers said.
Scientists identified the protein, called RbAp48, in human brain cells and showed that inhibiting it in mice made the animals forgetful while raising the protein improved their memories. That suggests that age-related memory loss may be reversible, researchers said.
“All of us are living longer, and we want to stay engaged in a cognitively complex world,” said Scott Small, a study author and neurologist at Columbia University in New York. The mouse studies show that that too little of the protein is causing memory loss, he said.
The findings also confirm that age-related memory loss is different from the deficits seen in Alzheimer’s disease. The research is published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The researchers took the postmortem brains of eight people ages 33 to 88 who were disease-free, and examined the function of 17 genes in a part of the hippocampus, an area that is involved in memory. That section, called the dentate gyrus, has been shown before to change with age. The strongest changes were found in a gene that expressed RbAp48, which declines in function as brains age.
When the researchers suppressed that gene in healthy young mice, the mice performed worse on object recognition and water maze tests. When the researchers allowed the gene to go back to normal function, the mice’s memory improved.
Older Mice
In another group of older mice, researchers used a virus to put extra copies of the RbAp48 gene in the animals’ brains. That led them to produce more of the associated protein in their dentate gyruses. Their performance on cognitive tests improved to the levels seen in young mice.
The results suggest that changes in RbAp48 in humans may be a cause of memory loss, Small said. The mouse models here are significant than in other brain disease, since most mammals undergo similar decreases in that gene level naturally as they age, he said.
Read more -
Age-related forgetfulness may be due to a deficiency in a brain protein that helps form memories, a study found. Targeting the gene that produces that protein could lead to new therapies, the researchers said.
Scientists identified the protein, called RbAp48, in human brain cells and showed that inhibiting it in mice made the animals forgetful while raising the protein improved their memories. That suggests that age-related memory loss may be reversible, researchers said.
“All of us are living longer, and we want to stay engaged in a cognitively complex world,” said Scott Small, a study author and neurologist at Columbia University in New York. The mouse studies show that that too little of the protein is causing memory loss, he said.
The findings also confirm that age-related memory loss is different from the deficits seen in Alzheimer’s disease. The research is published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The researchers took the postmortem brains of eight people ages 33 to 88 who were disease-free, and examined the function of 17 genes in a part of the hippocampus, an area that is involved in memory. That section, called the dentate gyrus, has been shown before to change with age. The strongest changes were found in a gene that expressed RbAp48, which declines in function as brains age.
When the researchers suppressed that gene in healthy young mice, the mice performed worse on object recognition and water maze tests. When the researchers allowed the gene to go back to normal function, the mice’s memory improved.
Older Mice
In another group of older mice, researchers used a virus to put extra copies of the RbAp48 gene in the animals’ brains. That led them to produce more of the associated protein in their dentate gyruses. Their performance on cognitive tests improved to the levels seen in young mice.
The results suggest that changes in RbAp48 in humans may be a cause of memory loss, Small said. The mouse models here are significant than in other brain disease, since most mammals undergo similar decreases in that gene level naturally as they age, he said.
Read more -
Amazing How 1 Common Denominator in the Middle East Wars is Only nations left with Own Central Banks are Syria & Iran -
Amazing How 1 Common Denominator in the Middle East Wars is Only nations left with Own Central Banks are Syria & Iran -
It is common knowledge that the entire western world is as near as dammit to total bankruptcy, with only two other political entities still operating with their own central banks (and in the black) the US State of North Dakota and South Africa.
It’s also common knowledge that “only a war” can get us out of the current global debt trap…
An internal, publicly-owned central bank issues the nation’s currency, sets the repo and interest rates and monitors the money supply needed to drive the economy, which is the ease of access of product from manufacturers to consumers using ‘money’ as a medium of exchange.
Both the nation’s businesses and government borrow from the central bank, and any interest incurred is returned to the national fiscus and spent on service delivery and the business of government, which is the well being of its citizens.
A central bank can also issue asset-backed scrip to raise emergency funds or sell long-term investment funds as Treasury Bonds.
One of the largest financial ‘trading assets’ is the mortgage bond.
A mortgage is a long-term financial commitment and the 20 or 30 year debt incurred can be sold at a discount to investors willing to wait that time for their money to yield returns as mortgages are paid off.
Meantime, the mortgage lender has new cash in hand (although much less that the total 20 or 30 year mortgage yield) for further lending into or investing in the economy.
If on the other hand, a nation’s money supply is ‘fiat’ or paper currency borrowed at interest from a foreign bank and further, that paper is not backed by gold or other ‘hard’ assets, a part of the nation’s GDP is spent ‘servicing’ the debt incurred over the interest and not on service delivery or infrastructure maintenance.
What has happened in the world is a repetition of several other debt-based economic collapses over the centuries, all the result of many fraudulent financial practices like securitizing ‘troubled assets’ by pooling them with Triple-A Mortgage securities, but particularly by interest rates called usury.
Once anyone, including a nation, has fallen into the ‘debt trap’ a ‘modern’ false economy kicks in – borrowing more money to pay off the interest – called Keynesian economics, which only ‘works’ up to the point where the consumer base stops growing.
You can’t get more money from for the same products from the same number of people unless you raise your prices, in which case the consumer will turn to his employer for higher wages and the ‘push-pull’ inflationary cycle starts.
There are many other factors involved if an economy strays from the basic rule of income “more must come in than goes out”, but the most common is fraud that government turns a blind eye to like the sub-prime fraud that the Bush Administration actively supported to the point of ‘politically assassinating’ the governor of New York, Elliott Spitzer, for attempting to rally the nation’s other governors to legislate against the practice.
Once that ‘borrowing to pay interest’ mistake is made, the “Debt-to-GDP Ratio” must increase until all GDP revenue is being used to service debt and basic infrastructure collapses…
Or we have a war.
This is literally the deadliest economic flaw of all – to deliberately waste huge mineral and human ‘assets’ only to destroy them as quickly as possible in order to build or hire more of them, employing more people and thus generating a ‘recovery’ – because the money to fight a war has to be borrowed and a nation drops further into debt.
By the end of a major war and for a few decades after, the populations on both sides have been stripped of their savings and property and are offered credit with which to ‘rebuild’… starting the ‘Boom-Bust-cycle’ all over again along with the new debt incurred by the war – America is still paying war debts from the beginning of the last century.
The only respite in the current situation is that the world is now aware of the system’s total inadequacies and will hopefully write a true history of these events, pass it to the next generation and thus prevent another wave of robbery, depression, destruction and ‘recovery’ only to repeat it again.
Read more -
It is common knowledge that the entire western world is as near as dammit to total bankruptcy, with only two other political entities still operating with their own central banks (and in the black) the US State of North Dakota and South Africa.
It’s also common knowledge that “only a war” can get us out of the current global debt trap…
An internal, publicly-owned central bank issues the nation’s currency, sets the repo and interest rates and monitors the money supply needed to drive the economy, which is the ease of access of product from manufacturers to consumers using ‘money’ as a medium of exchange.
Both the nation’s businesses and government borrow from the central bank, and any interest incurred is returned to the national fiscus and spent on service delivery and the business of government, which is the well being of its citizens.
A central bank can also issue asset-backed scrip to raise emergency funds or sell long-term investment funds as Treasury Bonds.
One of the largest financial ‘trading assets’ is the mortgage bond.
A mortgage is a long-term financial commitment and the 20 or 30 year debt incurred can be sold at a discount to investors willing to wait that time for their money to yield returns as mortgages are paid off.
Meantime, the mortgage lender has new cash in hand (although much less that the total 20 or 30 year mortgage yield) for further lending into or investing in the economy.
If on the other hand, a nation’s money supply is ‘fiat’ or paper currency borrowed at interest from a foreign bank and further, that paper is not backed by gold or other ‘hard’ assets, a part of the nation’s GDP is spent ‘servicing’ the debt incurred over the interest and not on service delivery or infrastructure maintenance.
What has happened in the world is a repetition of several other debt-based economic collapses over the centuries, all the result of many fraudulent financial practices like securitizing ‘troubled assets’ by pooling them with Triple-A Mortgage securities, but particularly by interest rates called usury.
Once anyone, including a nation, has fallen into the ‘debt trap’ a ‘modern’ false economy kicks in – borrowing more money to pay off the interest – called Keynesian economics, which only ‘works’ up to the point where the consumer base stops growing.
You can’t get more money from for the same products from the same number of people unless you raise your prices, in which case the consumer will turn to his employer for higher wages and the ‘push-pull’ inflationary cycle starts.
There are many other factors involved if an economy strays from the basic rule of income “more must come in than goes out”, but the most common is fraud that government turns a blind eye to like the sub-prime fraud that the Bush Administration actively supported to the point of ‘politically assassinating’ the governor of New York, Elliott Spitzer, for attempting to rally the nation’s other governors to legislate against the practice.
Once that ‘borrowing to pay interest’ mistake is made, the “Debt-to-GDP Ratio” must increase until all GDP revenue is being used to service debt and basic infrastructure collapses…
Or we have a war.
This is literally the deadliest economic flaw of all – to deliberately waste huge mineral and human ‘assets’ only to destroy them as quickly as possible in order to build or hire more of them, employing more people and thus generating a ‘recovery’ – because the money to fight a war has to be borrowed and a nation drops further into debt.
By the end of a major war and for a few decades after, the populations on both sides have been stripped of their savings and property and are offered credit with which to ‘rebuild’… starting the ‘Boom-Bust-cycle’ all over again along with the new debt incurred by the war – America is still paying war debts from the beginning of the last century.
The only respite in the current situation is that the world is now aware of the system’s total inadequacies and will hopefully write a true history of these events, pass it to the next generation and thus prevent another wave of robbery, depression, destruction and ‘recovery’ only to repeat it again.
Read more -
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)