yes, it's satire Gaza City: Famed singer/songwriter/activist/dick Roger Waters is in serious but stable condition after getting caught in the collapse of a tunnel southeast of Gaza City earlier today. The Daily Freier was at the scene when a representative from the Palestinian Red Crescent briefed the assembled press. "It was approximately 3:00 PM when the Zionist Entity and its Egyptian lackeys triggered a cave-in of the tunnel, trapping 3 of our pious and motivated young tunnelers, as well as our bizarre but helpful friend Mister Roger Waters."
When asked by the Associated Press how rescue workers were able to find Mr. Waters, the spokesperson explained. "The tunnel was impassable to humans at this point, so we brought in Farfour the Mouse. He was able to find our friend by homing in on the intense scent of bitter self-righteousness that emanated from his body even when he was unconscious. Incidentally, this was exactly how we found Jimmy Carter after he accidentally wandered into the Sand Dunes last year during Ramadan." heh heh
For his part, Roger Waters was insistent that he had done nothing wrong. "I know that the Zionists and their friends in the press will try to spin this in some negative light, but I was merely in the tunnel for its acoustics. You see, I'm recording a new single "Indigenous Olive Oil Can Flow Through Any Wall", and I really needed just the right sound. But I think the vibrations from the snare drum may have set off a tremor and destroyed the tunnel."
When the Daily Freier pointed out that since the tunnels go under the border, that he may have inadvertently stepped into Israel, he got really upset and his catheter fell out.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/22/2016 10:22 ||
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#1
Not making new moon music? ;-)
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/22/2016 11:00 Comments ||
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#2
Sad that Waters showed his true anti-semite colors. It makes it hard to enjoy Pink Floyd music now.
#6
He was able to find our friend by homing in on the intense scent of bitter self-righteousness that emanated from his body even when he was unconscious.
More lyrical than anything Pink Floyd has ever come up with before Syd or since.
Posted by: regular joe ||
02/22/2016 16:33 Comments ||
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#7
I think some of their earlier work was pretty good - up until Animals.
Note I'm talking about their music. Roger's himself is a barking moonbat.
South Africa’s ruling party has accused US diplomats of “irregular activities”, claiming that Washington is trying to foment regime change inside the country.
Not yet. You aren't a big enough fish on the world stage right now...
A spokesman for the African National Congress on Sunday called on the US government to clarify the activities of some its diplomats.
“There seems to be irregular activities coming from the US Embassy,” said Keith Khoza. The ANC party will communicate their concerns to Washington through diplomatic channels, he said.
Khoza referred to accusations made last week by ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe that the US was planning regime change in South Africa, similar to the Arab Spring. Speaking on Friday at a march for non-racialism in the capital Pretoria, Mantashe said “regime change elements” similar to those in Libya and Egypt had crept into South Africa, the African News Agency reported.
“Those meetings in the American Embassy are about nothing else other than mobilisation for regime change,” said Mantashe, according to the agency. “We’re aware of a program that takes young people to the United States for six weeks, brings them back and plants them everywhere.”
Just a tad paranoid...
The US ambassador to South Africa Patrick Gaspard has strongly denied the allegations. Gaspard said the young people in question were part of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, an initiative started by president Barack Obama in 2014.
“I’m incredibly proud of the work my US embassy colleagues do every day to partner with South Africans on health, education and job growth,” Gaspard tweeted. “And I will defend their honor and non-partisan integrity.”
According to its website, the initiative’s aim is to support young African leaders, to help strengthen democratic governance and enhance peace and security across Africa.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/22/2016 00:00 ||
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The ANC has brought nothing but economic misery since the end of so-called Apartheid. If you sense a connection between power regimes blaming 'imperialist change agents' in South Africa and the Obama administration continually blaming economic woes on the republicans here at home, you'd be correct. The failure of communism must never be blamed on it's administrators, only it's adversaries.
For additional communist youth seed planting organizations like the 'Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders' see this link entitled 'The Peoples' Friendship University of Russia.'
President Evo Morales of Bolivia has lost a referendum to allow him to stand for a fourth term in office, exit polls suggest. One poll suggests 52.3% voted against the proposal to amend the constitution, while another suggests it was 51%.
The change would have allowed Mr Morales to remain in power until 2025. He called the vote saying he needed more time to implement reforms. The opposition says the move would be undemocratic.
Mr Morales, an indigenous Aymara and former coca leaf producer, took office in January 2006. His current term ends in 2020 but he would be able to run again in 2019 and serve until 2025 if Sunday's referendum was approved.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/22/2016 00:00 ||
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Russia will ask permission on Monday to start flying surveillance planes equipped with high-powered digital cameras amid warnings from US intelligence and military officials that such overflights help Moscow collect intelligence on the US.
Russia and the US are signatories to the Open Skies Treaty, which allows unarmed observation flights over the entire territory of all 34 member nations to foster transparency about military activity and help monitor arms control and other agreements. Senior intelligence and military officials, however, worry that Russia is taking advantage of technological advances to violate the spirit of the treaty.
Russia will formally ask the Open Skies Consultative Commission, based in Vienna, to be allowed to fly an aircraft equipped with high-tech sensors over the US, according to a senior congressional staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the staff member wasn't authorized to discuss the issue publicly.
The request will put the Obama administration in the position of having to decide whether to let Russia use the high-powered equipment on its surveillance planes at a time when Moscow, according to the latest State Department compliance report, is failing to meet all its obligations under the treaty. And it comes at one of the most tension-filled times in US-Russia relations since the end of the Cold War, with the two countries at odds over Russian activity in Ukraine and Syria. Yes. Poor 0bean. Such a difficult decision to make. Lots of gray here. I wonder what Trump would do.
"The treaty has become a critical component of Russia's intelligence collection capability directed at the United States," Adm. Cecil D. Haney, commander of the US Strategic Command, wrote in a letter earlier this year to Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, chairman of a House subcommittee on strategic forces.
"In addition to overflying military installations, Russian Open Skies flights can overfly and collect on Department of Defense and national security or national critical infrastructure," Haney said. "The vulnerability exposed by exploitation of this data and costs of mitigation are increasingly difficult to characterize."
A State Department official said Sunday that treaty nations had not yet received notice of the Russian request, but that certification of the Russian plane with a "digital electro-optical sensor" could not occur until this summer because the treaty requires a 120-day advance notification. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue publicly.
The official also said the treaty, which was entered into force in 2002, established procedures for certifying digital sensors to confirm they are compliant with treaty requirements. The official said all signatories to the treaty agreed that "transition from film cameras to digital sensors is required for the long-term viability of the treaty."
In December, Rose Gottemoeller, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, sought to temper concerns about Russian overflights, saying that what Moscow gains from the observation flights is "incremental" to what they collect through other means.
"One of the advantages of the Open Skies Treaty is that information -- imagery -- that is taken is shared openly among all the treaty parties," she said at a joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees in December. "So one of the advantages with the Open Skies Treaty is that we know exactly what the Russians are imaging, because they must share the imagery with us."
Still, military and intelligence officials have expressed serious concern.
"The open skies construct was designed for a different era," Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told lawmakers when asked about the Russian overflights during a congressional hearing. "I'm very concerned about how it's applied today."
Robert Work, deputy secretary of defense, told Congress: "We think that they're going beyond the original intent of the treaty and we continue to look at this very, very closely."
Steve Rademaker, former assistant secretary of state for the bureau of arms control and the bureau of international security and nonproliferation, told Congress at a hearing on security cooperation in Europe in October that Russia complied with the Open Skies Treaty but had "adopted a number of measures that are inconsistent with the spirit" of the accord.
The treaty, for instance, obligates each member to make all of its territory available for aerial observation, yet Russia has imposed restrictions on surveillance over Moscow and Chechnya and near Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he said. Russian restrictions also make it hard to conduct observation in the Kaliningrad enclave, said Rademaker, who believes Russia is "selectively implementing" the treaty "in a way that suits its interests."
#1
Duuudes, they have this thing called Google Earth. It can do everything their plane can do, for a lot less money.
[obligatory objections about sensitive airspaces & elint] That is easy to solve. If they want the really important secrets, they just need to take some cash to washington d.c., hire a few lobbyists from gucci gulch. Better results with a lot less cost.
#4
That was my question; that is what could an aircraft accomplish better than a satellite? Radiological measurements? Infra-red? Doing donuts on the lawn?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/22/2016 15:25 Comments ||
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Loiter time over target?
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/22/2016 15:28 Comments ||
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A lot of Google Earth imagery in the local neighborhood already seems to be from non-sat aerial surveys.
What could a plane do better than a satellite? /me guesses:
It's closer for one thing. Closer means better images, although I've heard rumors of sats reading newspaper headlines in Red Square.
A plane is not limited to satellite orbital time of day restrictions.
A plane could carry ELINT sensors.
You could open the door and pee on the White House.
North Korean state media on Sunday confirmed the country has a new military chief following earlier reports in Seoul that the former holder of the post had been executed. Actually, he just had a really bad hair day and decided to call it quits.
Ri Myong-Su, former People's Security Minister, was referred to as "chief of the Korean People's Army General Staff" when the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on an army exercise guided by leader Kim Jong-Un. The latest to get volunteered to have their neck on the chopping block.
Ri Myong-Su was again mentioned in a separate KCNA report on Kim's inspection of an air force exercise.
His predecessor Ri Yong-Gil was reportedly executed early this month in what would be the latest in a series of purges and executions of top officials.
Ri Yong-Gil was accused of forming a political faction and corruption, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said, citing a source familiar with North Korean affairs.
In May last year South Korea's spy agency said Kim had his defence chief Hyon Yong-Chol executed -- reportedly with an anti-aircraft gun.
Hyon's fate was never confirmed by Pyongyang but he has never been seen or heard of since. Some analysts have suggested he was purged and imprisoned.
Reports -- some confirmed, some not -- of purges, executions and disappearances have been common since Kim took power following the death of his father Kim Jong-Il in December 2011.
A large number of senior officials, especially military cadres, were removed or demoted as the young leader sought to solidify his control over the powerful military.
In the most high-profile case, Kim had his influential uncle Jang Song-Thaek executed in December 2013 for charges including treason and corruption. Rumor has it he quit to go into the dog food business.
Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul said the new military chief was one of Kim's top three aides and was known to be well-versed in missile technology. "Congratulations" on your last new position.
North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test last month and launched a long-range rocket this month, sparking international outrage. Where everyone is stomping their tiny feet in fits of rage. Except for Syria and Iran.
Thousands of people surrounded Japan's parliament on Sunday to protest against government plans to relocate a U.S. military base on Okinawa island, local media reported.
Guam is looking pretty good about now...
Kyodo news agency said some 28,000 protesters had ringed parliament house in central Tokyo, holding hands and shouting: "Don't build the base". Hundreds more held similar protests across the country, it also reported.
Many residents of Okinawa there resent the fact that it hosts tens of thousands of U.S. troops and military. The United States and Japan agreed in 1996 to relocate the base, currently in a heavily populated area, to a new site in Henoko, but many residents of the island have rejected the proposal and want the base moved altogether. Many residents say they associate U.S. bases with noise, pollution and crime.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/22/2016 00:00 ||
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Sayonara. You deal with the Chinese expansionism on your own. Wait till you host thousands of Chinese troops and military on Okinawa.
#4
...In fairness, I'd point out that this protest took place some distance from Okinawa, and I doubt there were many native Okinawans in said protest. Most Okinawans know exactly what would happen if the US bailed, and so does the Japanese Government.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/22/2016 5:04 Comments ||
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#7
28,000 is a good number. Perhaps the Japanese government should put it to a vote in Okinawa and have them put their opinion down in black and white. Hopefully that'll shut folks up about US imperialism or signal that it's time for the US to step back.
#8
If Uncle Sam withdrew from every base that was the subject of organized protests, NATO would have been disbanded a long time ago. Japan is a nation of over 100m people. 28K protestors are a drop in the ocean.
#10
It's not the protestors per se. It's the local politicians who play it safe by saying nothing or issuing 'soothing' words. I've yet to hear a major leader say publicly - "Are you out of your f*****g minds?"
Yet they expect us to die for their defense. Sorry, but there's a lot of us who are tired of that old game.
The United States rejected a North Korean proposal to discuss a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War because it did not address denuclearization on the peninsula, the State Department said on Sunday.
The Guardian writes as if this is a problem...
Spokesman John Kirby made the comment in response to a Wall Street Journal report that the White House secretly agreed to peace talks just before Pyongyang’s latest nuclear bomb test. The newspaper, citing US officials familiar with the events, said the Obama administration dropped its condition that Pyongyang take steps to curtail its nuclear arsenal before any peace talks, instead calling for North Korea’s atomic weapons program to be just one part of the discussion.
That sounds like Obama the Appeaser alright...
Pyongyang declined the proposal, and its 6 January nuclear test ended the diplomatic plans, the newspaper reported.
Pudgy apparently is a Paleostinian deep down at heart: he never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity...
“To be clear, it was the North Koreans who proposed discussing a peace treaty,” Kirby said in an emailed statement.
“We carefully considered their proposal, and made clear that denuclearization had to be part of any such discussion. The North rejected our response,” he said.
Part of, not a pre-condition. You see, the Norks did get State to move...
“Our response to the NK proposal was consistent with our longstanding focus on denuclearization.“
North Korea said on 6 January it had tested a nuclear device it claimed was a hydrogen bomb, provoking condemnation from its neighbors and the US. Weeks later, it launched a long-range rocket carrying what it called a satellite, prompting renewed criticism.
On 16 January, Pyongyang had demanded the conclusion of a peace treaty with the US and a halt to US military exercises with South Korea to end its nuclear tests.
But US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said then that Pyongyang needed to demonstrate by its actions that it was serious about denuclearization before any dialogues could start.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/22/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
After that deal with Iran you have to wonder what was Pudgy thinking?
Army veteran Dennis Magnasco spent two days trying to get a doctor's appointment at his VA clinic in Bedford, Massachusetts, but he couldn't get through to anyone on the phone. So he and his boss, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), came up with another idea: filming.
They set up a camera, put the call on speakerphone and dialed in again. For nearly five straight minutes, their video shows Magnasco being swept up in a loop of automated voices telling him to press different numbers, which sent him to other automated voices, which sent him back to the beginning of the original recording. Over. And over. And over again.
Moulton, an Iraq War veteran himself who's introduced several bills aimed at fixing problems at VA, wanted to put a human face to the widespread problem vets have in accessing care. He posted their video on his Facebook page last week. It went viral.
More than 2.1 million people read Moulton's post and watched the video. More than 20,000 people shared it. Within a few days, the VA fixed the phone system at its Bedford facility and Magnasco was able to make an appointment. And Moulton suddenly had a dozen new co-sponsors on his bill, the Faster Care for Veterans Act, which would make it easier for vets to schedule their own VA appointments. He's up to 19 co-sponsors, both Democratic and Republican.
"We had a good number of co-sponsors before, but several of my colleagues said they heard from constituents about the video who encouraged them to get on the bill," Moulton told The Huffington Post on Friday. "We're just delighted."
His bill would require VA to run an 18-month pilot program that lets veterans in certain networks use an app on their phone to schedule or cancel VA appointments themselves. If it sounds simple enough, that's because it is: these apps already exist in the private sector and have been successful. Moulton said it makes way more sense for VA to adopt this technology than to do what he discovered the agency was preparing to do.
"They were planning to spend $623 million developing their own app," said Moulton. "This is available today. God knows how long it would take them to spend that."
VA has fallen short with its technology systems for years. A computer system glitch has been denying health care to tens of thousands of combat vets, who are entitled to free health care. A document leaked to HuffPost in July revealed that nearly one-third of 847,000 veterans with pending applications for health care had already died. More recently, a February report by the VA's Office of Inspector General found that a VA suicide hotline sent callers to voicemail and did not return some calls.
Moulton said he hasn't been able to get an answer from VA on why they would spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing an app to let vets schedule their doctors' appointments when these kinds of apps already exist. He said it seems like VA just prefers to have its own proprietary systems.
"They gave a variety of silly excuses," he said. "None of it makes sense."
A VA spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Still rooting around the barnyard for an excuse, I'm guessing.
Moulton's legislation may be one of the few bipartisan bills that moves this year in an otherwise gridlocked Congress. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), who is a member of GOP leadership, is an original co-sponsor of the legislation. The bill is on track for a hearing in a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee soon.
Moulton and Magnasco both emphasized that despite problems they've faced in getting VA appointments, once they're in, the care is excellent. To that point, Moulton says he still gets his health care at VA, even as a member of Congress.
Asked how he didn't smash his phone into tiny bits during the two days that he couldn't get anyone to answer at VA, Magnasco said it was "aggravating" but he tried to stay focused on the bigger picture.
"I was thinking about all the other vets dealing with the same issue," he said.
#1
Use an already existing, off-the-shelf app to schedule VA appointments?
Where's the graft in that?
Back when I was fiddling around with Asterisk (open source phone system) I head of someone intentionally designing a phone menu system for telemarketers - it would lead them around and around ever deeper into the phone menu system always promising to lead to a human person, after about 8 layers it would dump them back on the original menu again. Sounds like this guy found a job at the VA.
[DAWN] Ten people have died in caste protests which triggered widespread arson and looting in a north Indian state, police said Sunday, as New Delhi faced a water crisis after mobs shut down a key supply.
Thousands of troops with shoot-on-sight orders were deployed on Saturday in Haryana state, a day after week-long protests turned violent with rioters setting fire to homes and railway stations and blocking highways.
Ten people have been killed and about 150 injured in the state since Friday when officers fired on rioters, Haryana police chief Yash Pal Singal told a presser, updating earlier estimates of five dead.
Television images showed mobs wielding sticks rampaging through the streets in Haryana state, setting fire to a local government minister's house and railway stations, damaging train tracks and blocking two key highways.
"There were festivities during the night across the district. Over a dozen buildings were set on fire by protesters, with incidents of looting of shops and ATMs at two places," an officer said on condition of anonymity.
A local police officer in Jhajjar, whose district borders that of Rohtak, earlier told AFP that five people were killed on Saturday "when the army opened fire on a mob".
A week-long protest by members of the state's dominant Jat caste, who are demanding quotas for government jobs and in education, turned violent on Friday as police fired on protesters.
India sets aside a proportion of jobs and educational places to people from so-called lower and backward castes -- measures intended to bring victims of the worst discrimination into the mainstream.
The Jats, a comparatively affluent group, want the same special allowances to put them on an equal footing with lower castes.
The Jats make up 29 per cent of Haryana's population and are traditionally a farming community. The latest protests echo caste violence that swept the western state of Gujarat ...where rioting seems to be a traditional passtime... in August last year, leaving several dead.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/22/2016 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The ANC has brought nothing but economic misery since the end of so-called Apartheid. If you sense a connection between power regimes blaming 'imperialist change agents' in South Africa and the Obama administration continually blaming economic woes on the republicans here at home, you'd be correct. The failure of communism must never be blamed on it's administrators, only it's adversaries. 
President Evo Morales of Bolivia has lost a referendum to allow him to stand for a fourth term in office, exit polls suggest. One poll suggests 52.3% voted against the proposal to amend the constitution, while another suggests it was 51%.
Russia will ask permission on Monday to start flying surveillance planes equipped with high-powered digital cameras amid warnings from US intelligence and military officials that such overflights help Moscow collect intelligence on the US.
North Korean state media on Sunday confirmed the country has a new military chief following earlier reports in Seoul that the former holder of the post had been executed.
Army veteran Dennis Magnasco spent two days trying to get a doctor's appointment at his VA clinic in Bedford, Massachusetts, but he couldn't get through to anyone on the phone. So he and his boss, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), came up with another idea: filming.
