EIA's August 2013 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) forecasts that China's net oil imports will exceed those of the United States by October 2013 on a monthly basis and by 2014 on an annual basis, making China the largest importer of oil in the world.
The imminent emergence of China as the world's largest net oil importer has been driven by steady growth in Chinese demand, increased oil production in the United States, and a flat level of demand for oil in the U.S. market.
U.S. total annual oil production is expected to rise by 28% between 2011 and 2014 to nearly 13 million barrels per day, primarily from shale oil, tight oil, and Gulf of Mexico deepwater plays. In the meantime, Chinese production increases at a much lower rate (6% over this period) and is forecast to be just a third of U.S. production in 2014.
Who will pay to protect the sea lanes & oil fields?
I think China gets it. They're building, slowly, a fleet carrier arm. They're building lots of frigate sized ships (per Feng at Information Dissemination). They're quietly getting fueling and visitation rights in the region.
[Chicago Tribune] If former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is ordered to spend time behind bars, he would like to go to either the federal prison camp in Montgomery, Ala., or the low-security portion of the federal correctional institution in Butner, N.C., one of his lawyers said Monday.
That's nice. I would like to go back to my pre-baby weight, and Fred misses his hair.
First, there was the delay of Obamacare's Medicare cuts until after the election. Then there was the delay of the law's employer mandate. Then there was the announcement, buried in the Federal Register, that the administration would delay enforcement of a number of key eligibility requirements for the law's health insurance subsidies, relying on the "honor system" instead. Now comes word that another costly provision of the health law--its caps on out-of-pocket insurance costs--will be delayed for one more year.
Obamacare contains a blizzard of mandates and regulations that will make health insurance more costly. One of the most significant is its caps on out-of-pocket insurance costs, such as co-pays and deductibles. Section 2707(b) of the Public Health Service Act, as added by Obamacare, requires that "a group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage may not establish lifetime limits on the dollar value of benefits for the any participant or beneficiary." Annual limits on cost-sharing are specified by Section 1302(c) of the Affordable Care Act; in addition, starting in 2014, deductibles are limited to $2,000 per year for individual plans, and $4,000 per year for family plans.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. If you ban lifetime limits, and mandate lower deductibles, and cap out-of-pocket costs, premiums have to go up to reflect these changes. And unlike a lot of the "rate shock" problems we've been discussing, these limits apply not only to individually-purchased health insurance, but also to employer-sponsored coverage. (Self-insured employers are exempted.)
These mandates have already had drastic effects on a number of colleges and universities, which offer inexpensive, defined-cap plans to their healthy, youthful students. Premiums at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, N.C., for example, rose from $245 per student in 2011-2012 to between $2,507 in 2012-2013. The University of Puget Sound paid $165 per student in 2011-2012; their rates rose to between $1,500 and $2,000 for 2012-2013. Other schools have been forced to drop coverage because they could no longer afford it.
According to the law, the limits on out-of-pocket costs for 2014 were $6,350 for individual policies and $12,700 for family ones. But in February, the Department of Labor published a little-noticed rule delaying the cap until 2015. The delay was described yesterday by Robert Pear in the New York Times.
Notes Pear, "Under the [one-year delay], many group health plans will be able to maintain separate out-of-pocket limits for benefits in 2014. As a result, a consumer may be required to pay $6,350 for doctors' services and hospital care, and an additional $6,350 for prescription drugs under a plan administered by a pharmacy benefit manager."
The reason for the delay? "Federal officials said that many insurers and employers needed more time to comply because they used separate companies to help administer major medical coverage and drug benefits, with separate limits on out-of-pocket costs. In many cases, the companies have separate computer systems that cannot communicate with one another."
The best part in Pear's story is when a "senior administration official" said that "we had to balance the interests of consumers with the concerns of health plan sponsors and carriers...They asked for more time to comply." Exactly how is it in consumers' interests to pay far more for health insurance than they do already?
It's not. Unless you have a serious, chronic condition, in which case you may benefit from the fact that law forces healthy people to subsidize your care. To progressives, this is the holy grail. But for economically rational individuals, it's yet another reason to drop out of the insurance market altogether. For economically rational businesses, it's a reason to self-insure, in order to get out from under these costly mandates.
#4
This is the kind of crap that really pisses me off.
For > 30 years this type of thing has beem my area of expertise.
Delay needed to align 'separate computer systems'
Any systems analyst worth his check knows from day one how hard or easy (well maybe) this key deliverable will be. ALL scheduling "should" be done with this in mind; also all testing plans should have this in mind. There is no legitimate reason for any of this to be "unexpected".
It is, however, a handy dandy excuse for the great unwashed to do whatever you want going forward.
#5
Yes Alan, clearly an excuse, and a week one at that. How often do we see computer systems blamed for malfeasance? Not certain how it can even be chirped with a straight face.
#8
One point: the ACA law may allow him (or the secretary of DHHS, which is the same thing) to issue delays. It allows him to issue waivers -- the Dems built that into the law. So before we declare this latest delay to be 'illegal', read the fine print. It may only be 'outrageous'.
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#9
Single pay system. That is what all this was for.
"IQ is a metric of such dubiousness that almost no serious educational researcher uses it anymore," the Guardian's Ana Marie Cox wrote back in May. It was a breathtakingly ignorant statement.
Ana Marie Cox is a breathtakingly ignorant journalist...
Like the New York Times, The Guardian hires journalists who write well.
That's one of your best periwinkle snarks yet...
Psychologist Jelte Wicherts noted in response that a search for "IQ test" in Google's academic database yielded more than 10,000 hits -- just for the year 2013.
But Cox's assertion is all too common. There is a large discrepancy between what educated laypeople believe about cognitive science and what experts actually know. Journalists are steeped in the lay wisdom, so they are repeatedly surprised when someone forthrightly discusses the real science of mental ability.
If that science happens to deal with group differences in average IQ, the journalists' surprise turns into shock and disdain. Experts who speak publicly about IQ differences end up portrayed as weird contrarians at best, and peddlers of racist pseudoscience at worst.
Instapundit's comment: FUNNY HOW PEOPLE WHO LIVE AND DIE BY S.A.T. SCORES MAINTAIN THAT I.Q. SCORES MEAN NOTHING.
#1
SAT and IQ along with all the other paper tests only measure how well you can take a test. Without being able to measure and test creativity along with knowledge, these are just weak attempts at best.
And if you don't agree with me then you're a big poo-poo head.
#3
Where positive performance outcomes are prevalent, such as in Kenyan marathon running, the results are celebrated, scrutinized, but seldom challenged. Diet, work ethic, altitude, BMI, cattle herding, tribal heritages, attitude and motivation are all fair game for discussion. When negative performance results are identified either in sports or knowledge testing, they tend to be ignored or blamed on a lack of access to inner-city olympic swimming pools or failed educational systems.
I certainly can't explain or identify the scientific reasons for the phenomenon of Kenyan running prowess. I can however, identify hypocrisy.
#4
the accepted belief of of a professional leftist is that homosexuality is 100% inherited but IQ is 0% inherited
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/13/2013 6:29
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besoeker.
Did the Bobby Crim Festival of Races--in Flint, MI--back in the day. It's been going on a long time and the signature run is a sanctioned 10-mile. There are others, 5k walks for kids and so forth, all in support of Special Olympics.
The Kenyan team is always there and they may as well have a two-mile head start.
Thing about East Africa is that it has altitude. Most Africans coming to the Americas were from the West Coast of Africa or the Congo basin. Once you pass the falls line, into the interior, the altitude is substantially higher. So the East Africans, trotting after cattle instead of doing bush farming, were doing so at a higher altitude than their lowland cousins.
Note that some endurance athletes train in Colorado Springs to get the same benefit, but they haven't been evolved for generations at that altitude. Still, it helps.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
08/13/2013 7:10
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#6
I ran from the car park to the 'Golden Bee' in the Springs once or twice Richard. Don't think it did a damn thing for me... long term. Yes, 'evolution' does take place, I believe both physical and mental. To deny the one and accept the other ?
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change.”
¯ Leon C. Megginson
#7
Yes, 'evolution' does take place, I believe both physical and mental.
Evolution is just another way of saying specimens with one type of characteristic outbreed other specimens with characteristics less suited to the environment in question. Brawn outbred brains in sub-Saharan Africa. Brains outbred brawn in Europe. If I had to guess, I'd say the early development of civilization in Europe, relative to sub-Saharan Africa, led to the gradual marginalization of violent but dumb specimens (via execution for murder, theft, robbery and so on), whereas anarchy in sub-Saharan Africa meant the smart guys were wiped out. And that initial setback in Africa was probably just the result of a bad roll of the dice, just as Mesopotamians came up with a written language thousands of years before the Celts in the British Isles adopted the Roman alphabet as their own.
#8
Thing about East Africa is that it has altitude.
Gee, wonder why the U.S. Olympic training complex is in Colorado Springs, CO? /rhet question
As for IQ - back as early in the 70s the military came to the determination that the 'professional' educators where handing out certificates of attendance rather than validation of ability. When you are dealing with a true 'life or death' test, you need a better determination of ability. That's when the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery superseded high school graduation certificates as the means of validation of ability. It validates the piece of paper the high school hands out. You don't need DoE to come up with a CYAWP test to protect their own, DoD already has one to give you a fair measure of ability. If you want to see dodo hit the fan, make every senior take it to see the 'curve' that the school is sending out its doors.
#10
Besoeker.
the Springs is where you go for serious endurance training because you have less oxygen there and the body adjusts accordingly, giving you an advantage against guys who haven't.
If you've had generations doing that, the stronger survive, passing on the distance-running capacities.
So the Kenyans have both evolution as a group and high-altitude training for the individual, without having to go anyplace.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
08/13/2013 9:19
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#11
If you want to see dodo hit the fan, make every senior take it to see the 'curve' that the school is sending out its doors.
How about making all the teachers and administrators take it every year? It would be a real RIOT!
#12
Who said it? "Live like your enemy trains."
The strategy in CO is to live (sleep, eat) in places like Leadville (14000), Idaho Springs(9000) or Steamboat Springs (9000) then go down to Denver (6000) or Colorado Springs to train.
Is a carry over from the draft army era. It was a tool for pro pay and promotion. I recall having to do enlisted evals for E2-E4 during that time too. Someone finally figured out that since most of those promotions were local, the people they worked for knew better in determining promotion based upon performance. It was a time [still locked in too many Donk minds] of less than the best and brightest filling the ranks. Your typical senior NCO had a high school degree. So the MOS testing acted as a motivator for a few extra dollars a month when a few extra (pre-inflation) dollars actually meant something.
Today your E6-7 pretty much has to have an associates degree and 7-9 a bachelors to be competitive for promotion.
The eval reports for those 5 and above should be the discriminator in whether the individual knows his/her MOS skills. If the rater isn't lying then it should work. If the rater is lying, he/she should be among those being given the 'pink slip' for lack of integrity. Given the era of force reductions, that should be enough to separate the wheat from the chaff.
#14
Re: #12 - Camp Hale (Pando, CO) was the training base for the Tenth Mountain Division in The Big War and it's right at 9,200' high.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/13/2013 12:09
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#15
Thanks for your perspective P2k. As for "separating wheat from chaff", AR 600-9 might be a good place to start. A few of these people would have to make multiple trips if told to haul arse.
#16
Two things: First, I think it's doodoo not dodo and second; I saw an IQ test on line that was reputed to be culturally neutral.. First question started out, ""Jefferson has two pounds of hash and four friends.....
Posted by: Total War ||
08/13/2013 15:58
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#17
I certainly can't explain or identify the scientific reasons for the phenomenon of Kenyan running prowess.
It has been a topic of intense study by exercise physiologists. Genetics (influenced by environmental and evolutionary pressures) has a lot to do with it. Kenyans are smaller, and have disproportionately more slow-twitch muscle fibers - optimal for endurance running. West Africans are bigger, and have disproportionately more fast-twitch muscle fibers - optimal for sprinting.
Similarly, blacks are prone to sickle-cell anemia due to a single-gene mutation which confers resistance to malaria (prevalent in Africa); and whites are prone to cystic fibrosis due to a genetic mutation which confers resistance to cholera (prevalent in Europe).
Those who are heterozygous for the gene (one mutated, one normal) are healthy and also resistant to infection. Those who are homozygous (both genes have the mutation) are afflicted with chronic illness. Good examples of why it's best to have children with someone who is not from the same gene pool. (Explains a lot about the Muslim world too.)
In sum: environment influences genetics, which determines the make-up and function of our bodies. Including our brains.
#19
#18 Not everybody gets to be an astronaut when they grow up.
Apparently anyone can be president.
Heh. Reminds me of a favorite cartoon from many years ago (if it wasn't a Far Side, it should've been): A gorilla teacher tells her classroom full of gorilla kids, "And the really great thing about this jungle of ours is that any one of you can grow up to be King!" And there in the midst of the class sits skinny little Tarzan in his leopardskin. No offense intended to anyone. I don't have a racist bone in my nosecauldron body. But that frame always cracked me up.
The two armies have been exchanging fire on the front line since Tuesday, straining the cease-fire that has largely held for nearly a decade.
Clashes flared along the 740km LoC that divides Kashmir on August 6 when five Indian soldiers were killed in the Poonch region. New Delhi blamed the attack on the Pakistan army. Islamabad denied involvement.
While tit-for-tat shelling and machine gun fire are common along the LoC the current round of fighting is one of the most intense since a cease-fire signed in 2003. It has been linked to protests in both countries and rowdy scenes in India's parliament. Under pressure from opposition politicians, the government has hinted at retaliation.
While tit-for-tat shelling and machine gun fire are common along the LoC the current round of fighting is one of the most intense since a cease-fire signed in 2003.
On Monday, a Pakistani army official said a civilian was killed as a result of "unprovoked Indian shelling" in the Battal, Chirikot and Satwal sectors.
Islamabad summoned India's deputy high commissioner (ambassador) to Pakistan to register its concern over the death, the Pakistani foreign office said. It also called for strengthening military mechanisms to stop truce violations.
A spokesman for the Indian Defence Ministry offered a different version of events on the Kashmir frontier. He said Indian posts came under heavy mortar and automatic weapon fire overnight in the same area and that India "responded effectively." He said no damage or injuries were reported on the Indian side.
[An Nahar] President Michel Suleiman ...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too... on Monday called for supporting the army so that it can become the only force that possesses arms in Leb, stressing that the state must oversee the so-called army-people-resistance equation.
"Commitment to the Baabda Declaration is what can protect Leb's unity and stability, as well as to the defense strategy that we proposed in the wake of the Baabda Decalaration," Suleiman said in a speech on the occasion of moving to the summer presidential headquarters in Beiteddine.
"Commitment to the defense strategy would protect Leb from Israel and I stress that it would protect Leb and Leb's land exclusively," the president added.
He noted that the so-called army-people-resistance equation is capable of protecting Leb "on the condition that it is overseen by the Lebanese state."
"The resistance cannot act unilaterally concerning the domestic or foreign affairs. For the sake of the resistance and in order to immunize it, we must abide by the proper administration of this equation," Suleiman added.
"Let us all return to the interior, to our homeland, and let us devote our capabilities, strength and assets to defend our country," the president went on to say, referring to Hizbullah's military intervention in Syria.
Suleiman called for "supporting the army instead of stabbing it in the back, launching accusations against it and making its mission more difficult."
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[Dawn] Secretary-General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... is heading to Pakistain to attend Independence Day celebrations and promote education and disaster management as the monsoon season begins.
UN deputy front man Eduardo del Buey said Monday that Ban will meet President Asif Ali Ten Percent Zardari ... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in ... and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... and get an update on disaster risk reduction efforts.
In a follow-up to UN events last month featuring Pak teenager Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban for promoting education for girls, Ban will discuss efforts to expand education for all.
He will also highlight Pakistain's role as one of the largest troop and police contributing countries to UN peacekeeping at the inauguration of the Center for International Peace and Stability, del Buey said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the mall, Clarissa spent the day shopping for new underwear. Tonight was going to be a special occasion... in an interview given to Pak journalists prior to his two-day visit, Moon offered to play role of an arbitrator between India and Pakistain.
The offer from the UN chief came amid tensions have flared again in the heavily militarised Kashmire valley with the nuclear-armed neighbours both pointing the finger at each other.
Posted by: Fred ||
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An official with the Russian state company "Rosatom" declared that talks about building new units in the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant will begin after completion of the first unit, IRNA reported.
More targets for the Fly Ash Liberation Brigade...
The official told Ria-novosti on Monday "We are ready to talk with Iran about cooperation on peaceful nuclear energy". He added that the first priority now is delivering the first unit of the Bushehr Power Plant to the Iranian side.
The official reminded that primary consultations on construction of new units in the power plant have started by the Iranian side, but the real negotiation will be held after delivering the first unit. He underlined that the cooperation should not be against international law and it should be upon economic principles.
Head of Rosatom company Sergey Kiriyenko, contractor of Bushehr Power Plant, said last Thursday that delivering stages of the first nuclear power plant to Iranian side is on its final phase. He reminded that the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant has recently reached its 100 percent nominal capacity.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
Its on the coast. What would it take to make a Chernobyl on the Iranian coast? How big an area in diameter is contaminated by Chernobyl today?. And what is the radioactivity of the bird traffic in and around Chernobyl?
What would it take....is it an engineering problem? Sabotage? What would it take?
Don't tell me we can't do it. We CAN reach it can't we? What we lack is the will, not the capability.
Are we afraid Iran will declare War on us? What if they did?
#3
Didn't Iraq have a nuke, way back when? Osirak, maybe? Maybe they could talk the Chinese into rebuilding that! Or the Saudis. If Iran gets one, everybody's gonna want one!
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/13/2013 12:14
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[Al Ahram] International arrest warrants have been issued for former energy minister Chekib Khelil and eight others in connection with a corruption case at energy firm Sonatrach, Algeria's prosecutor general said Monday.
Khelil's wife, their two children and right-hand man Farid Bedjaoui also face arrest, Belkacem Zeghmati told a news conference in Algiers.
He said the warrants were issued two weeks ago.
Khelil is also wanted by Italy in connection with bribes paid to high-ranking Algerian officials, including in the Sonatrach hierarchy, to ensure markets in the North African country for the Italian oil service group Saipem.
The Italian justice authorities are trying to retrieve $123 million (92.6 million euros) which had been deposited in bank accounts belonging to Bedjaoui, who is said to be based in Dubai.
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SMUT noun 1. a particle of soot; sooty matter. 2. a black or dirty mark; smudge. 3. indecent language or publications; obscenity. 4. Plant Pathology . a. a disease of plants
Niak is a variant form of the name Nyack. The name's meaning is 'one who is persistent'
[Ynet] Egyptian authorities on Monday postponed plans to disperse two Cairo sit-ins by supporters of the country's ousted President Mohamed Morsi, saying they wanted to "avoid bloodshed," security officials said.
Judicial officials meanwhile said that a judge ordered that the deposed president, incarcerated Please don't kill me! since his July 3 ouster, should be held for 15 more days pending investigations into charges he conspired in 2011 with Paleostinian krazed killers.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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[Infowars] A high-ranking Yemeni security official has told McClatchy that the B.O. regime's recently announced terror threat which supposedly targeted US embassies had "no basis in fact" and was manufactured merely to dampen opposition to drone strikes.
In other words, possibly the above statement is true. Certainly it is possible. At any rate, it reminded the entire world what is out there, and the price of pretending otherwise.
[Ynet] Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's office denied on Monday reports he had been hospitalised for a stomach condition in the past week, dismissing what it called "baseless allegations".
Speculation about Erdogan's health has been rife since he had surgery to remove polyps from his intestines in late 2011. Polyps are abnormal growths of tissue which can be cancerous. However, a lie repeated often enough remains a lie... following the surgery, Turkish media cited Erdogan's doctor as saying the polyps had been harmless.
At least one rocket was fired towards the Israeli resort city of Eilat and was intercepted by Iron Dome, Arutz Sheva reported.
At least one rocket was fired towards the Israeli resort city of Eilat on Monday night. Sirens were heard throughout the city shortly before 1:00 a.m. Local residents reported hearing explosions following the sirens. The Iron Dome anti-missile system, which was just recently deployed near Eilat, reportedly intercepted the rocket before it could explode in a populated area. There were no reports of physical injuries or damages.
The IDF and the police are searching the area to determine whether any rockets exploded inside the city, but so far have not located any remains of rockets.
Last week, Israeli authorities shut down Eilat's airport for several hours over unspecified security concerns. An Egyptian source later said that the airport has been shut because Egypt sent a warning about an attack originating in the Sinai.
The Iron Dome battery was placed near Eilat in July, after several rockets had been fired at Israel's southernmost city from the restive Sinai. A few weeks earlier, Israeli security forces located the remains of a Grad missile that was fired towards Eilat.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
Can iron dome be modified so that it automatically sends a rocket back to the source of the one it intercepts (or detects)? That could be an effective deterrent to rocket attacks.
#2
Screw sending back a rocket. Send the launch coordinates to a MRLS battery and have them lay a full barrage on the area. Sure it'll trash the neighborhood, but it gets the point across. Once you're just bouncing the rubble and there's no where above ground to hide, targeting gets alot easier.
[An Nahar] The head of Syria's rebel Free Syrian Army visited the coastal province of Latakia, as opposition fighters battled regime forces in Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... 's heartland, an activist told Agence La Belle France Presse on Monday.
Assad's family hails from the coastal region of Latakia, which is also home to many members of the Alawite community he hails from, and has seen intense fighting in recent months.
General Selim Idriss "was in the Kafr Dalba area of Jabal al-Akrad" in the province on Sunday, Latakia-based activist Omar al-Jeblawi told AFP via the Internet.
Amateur video showed Idriss dressed in civilian clothing as he addressed a group of rebel fighters in the countryside.
In the video, Idriss said he was in Latakia to "look into the reality of the important successes and victories that our revolutionary brothers have achieved on the coastal front".
"We are here today to reassure everybody that the... (FSA) General Command is coordinating completely and continuously with the leaders of the coastal front," said Idriss.
"We will continue to work intensively on the coastal front," he added.
Jeblawi said the FSA's Turkey-based leadership supplied rebels fighting in Latakia with "some ammunition, but not enough".
Idriss' visit comes a week after rebels launched a "battle to liberate the coast". They have since progressed and taken control of 11 majority Alawite villages, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog.
The area is particularly sensitive because it is home to a mixed population of Sunni Musselmens, who make up the majority of Syria's population, and members of the Alawite community, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
The rebels have made limited progress in Latakia as the regime is firmly in control of the majority of the coastal province barring pockets of the Jabal al-Akrad and Jabal Turkman areas in the northeast.
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In a few days he'll say something else. Whatevs, dood.
[Ynet] US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... said on Monday that Israel's announcement of new settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem "were to some degree expected," and urged Israelis and Paleostinians to move head with peace talks due to resume this week.
"What this underscores is the importance of getting to the table, getting to the table quickly" and resolving disputes over settlements and other issues, said Kerry. He added that he had spoken on Monday with Israeli negotiator Tzipi Livni and had called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is recovering from surgery.
#3
Settlements WORK. That is WHY they are DOing settlements. Keep it up and there won't BE anyplace for the Palestinians to go or to live. THAT is why they are afraid of the settlements.
Winning = Settlements. Keep it up and the war is over. You do want Peace don't you?
Peace= somebody WINS and somebody loses.
[Al Ahram] Striking security guards reimposed a two-week-old shutdown at Libya's two biggest crude export terminals on Monday, hours after they had reopened, and more oilfields closed in a wave of protest that is propping up world oil prices.
The outages at ports and fields, caused by striking employees and jobless people demanding work, have brought the worst disruption to the North African OPEC member's oil industry since the civil war in 2011.
A source at Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO) said output at the state oil company subsidiary had dropped below 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) due to strikes, down from levels of 375,000 bpd before the disruption.
Meanwhile, ...back at the hoedown, the fiddler suddenly struck a sour note. The dancing stopped abruptly. Everyone looked at Bob... loadings halted again at the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf terminals, with a combined export capacity of 600,000 bpd, due to actions by the armed guards whose job is to protect them, trading and shipping sources said.
"The security guards have stopped the exports (from Es Sider)," said Mohammed El-Hattab, chairman of the federation of oil workers and an employee at the port's operator Waha Oil Company.
"We are having discussions now and hope to restart today or tomorrow," he added.
In total, around 15 crude and oil product tankers were waiting outside the two ports, according to Windward, a maritime analytics services company.
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[Dawn] THERE is a businessman in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... who lives in one of those manors with barbed wires atop high walls.
He generates his own electricity through solar technology, as none is available from the state. He harvests rainwater for domestic use, as none is provided by the state. He has employed private guards, as the state is not even pretending to take responsibility for his life and security. What he says with a chuckle reflects the painful reality of Pakistain: all I need to do is design my own flag and I can declare myself a state.
Continued on Page 49
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[Al Ahram] Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... will travel to Pakistain this month in the hope of breathing life into moribund grinding of the peace processor with the Taliban and mending a frayed relationship between the neighbors, Afghan officials said on Monday.
The role of Pakistain is seen as critical to efforts to get the Afghan Taliban to sit down to talks about ending the 12-year war as most foreign troops prepare to pull out of Afghanistan by the end of next year.
Peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in the capital of the Gulf State of Qatar, Doha, were announced in June only to be canceled following Karzai's anger over the Taliban displaying a banner and a flag, harking back to their repressive rule over Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
"I can confirm that President Karzai is travelling to Pakistain later this month," Afghanistan's ambassador to Islamabad, Omer Daudzai, told Rooters.
The trip will be Karzai's first visit to Pakistain since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... was elected.
Many had hoped Sharif's election would lead to a reset in the relationship. Those hopes were dashed after Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry accused Pakistain of having raised the idea of power-sharing between the Kabul government and the Taliban. Pakistain denied the accusation.
Karzai has made 19 trips to Pakistain since coming to power in 2002, and has come away with many promises, but few results.
Afghanistan has long accused Pakistain of playing a double game regarding the Taliban, with some Afghan officials saying their neighbor makes public pronouncements about peace but allows elements of its military and intelligence complex to play a spoiling role.
Karzai will visit Pakistain from August 26 - 28. The leadership of the High Peace Council, the body created by Karzai in 2010 to broker peace with the Taliban, will also attend, a front man said.
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[An Nahar] Supporters of Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier convicted of espionage for leaking secret files to WikiLeaks, presented a petition to the Nobel Institute on Monday backing his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The petition, launched by the online activist organization RootsAction, garnered more than 103,000 signatures.
Awarding Manning the prize would, the organization said, clear "the cloud (that) hovers over the Norwegian Nobel Committee" for awarding the prestigious honor to U.S. President Barack Obama My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it... in 2009. Two months after the announcement and one week before Obama accepted the award, he decided to intensify the war effort in Afghanistan.
"No individual has done more to push back against what Martin Luther King Jr. called 'the madness of militarism' than Bradley Manning," the petition read.
"And right now, remaining in prison and facing relentless prosecution by the U.S. government, no one is more in need of the Nobel Peace Prize," it said.
A U.S. military court found Manning, 25, guilty of 20 of the 22 charges of spying and disobeying orders lodged against him for having handed a large quantity of secret military reports and U.S. diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website founded by Julian Assange.
Manning faces up to 90 years in prison.
According to U.S. journalist Norman Solomon, one of the organizers of the petition, awarding the soldier the Nobel would underline the important role played by whistleblowers in promoting peace and democracy.
"Unless we can speak the truth, then peace-making becomes a hollow exercise of rhetoric rather than reality," Solomon told news hounds before handing over the 5,000-page document to the Nobel Institute.
The chairman of the Institute, Geir Lundestad, has in the past said that such campaigns do not influence the Nobel Committee in its choice.
The 2013 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on October 11 in Oslo.
Denouncing what he called "a normalization of perpetual war", Solomon, a former Obama supporter, said giving Manning the Nobel would restore some of the prize's cachet after it was awarded to the U.S. leader.
"The Nobel Peace Prize at this point needs Bradley Manning more than Bradley Manning needs the Nobel Peace Prize because there is no question of the firm commitment of Bradley Manning to human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... and peace," he said.
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#1
I wonder how many signatures are legitimate? Five? Ten?
#3
Given the drone kill orders signed by the Nobel Peace Prize holder in the White House, E0 Manning has a better record in the peace category. It's the consequences of his actions over the long run that make it questionable, sort of like the Rosenbergs. The judge at their trial pointed out that had the cabal not provided the Soviets the knowledge and means to achieve their bomb, the 'victims' of the Korean war may not have occurred because the incentive (versus the disincentive of being without a bomb) to engage in the war of opportunity provided by that possession would not have been there.
[WSJ] The Obama spending blitz is over and the deficit is heading below 4% of GDP.
Sample paragraphs:
The biggest underreported story out of Washington this year is that the federal budget is shrinking and much more than anyone in either party expected.
Consider the numbers: According to the Congressional Budget Office, annual outlays peaked at $3.598 trillion in fiscal 2011. After President Obama's first two years in office, many in Washington expected that number to hit $4 trillion by 2014. Instead, spending fell to $3.537 trillion in fiscal 2012, and is on pace to fall below $3.45 trillion by the end of this fiscal year (Sept. 30). The $150 billion budget decline of 4% is the first time federal expenditures have fallen for two consecutive years since the end of the Korean War.
This reversal from the spending binge in 2009 and 2010 began with the debt-ceiling agreement between Mr. Obama and House Speaker John Boehner in 2011. The agreement set $2 trillion in tight caps on spending over a decade and created this year's budget sequester, which will save more than $50 billion in fiscal 2013.
As long as Republicans don't foolishly undo this amazing progress by agreeing to Mr. Obama's demands for a "balanced approach" to the 2014 budget in exchange for calling off the sequester, additional expenditure cuts will continue automatically. Those cuts are built into the current budget law.
#2
All the goals set in a five-year plan were surpassed?
Yes, Citizen. Unfortunately, in order to make the next five year plan, we have to cancel SSI in order to pay for EPA programs to save a small, obscure fish in an Oregon pond. Priorities, eggs/omelette, all that.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/13/2013 6:37
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#3
Clever, gentlemen. But one suspects you did not read the article before commenting.
#4
Here's the gist of the negatives and doubtfuls (the latter in bold type):
If the country sees any normal acceleration of economic growth (from the anemic 1.4% growth rate so far this year), the deficit is on a path to drop steadily at least through 2015...
But the fiscal story isn't all rosy. The major entitlements remain on autopilot and are roaring toward insolvency. Thanks in large part to Mr. Obama's aversion to practical fixes, the Congressional Budget Office calculates that through July of this year Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending are up $73 billion from just last year. This doesn't include ObamaCare, which is scheduled to add $1 trillion of new costs over the next decade...
All Republicans need to do is enforce the budget laws Mr. Obama has already agreed to. Entitlement reforms will come when liberals realize that the unhappy alternative is to allow every program they cherish to keep shrinking.
North Korea has about 200 agents who spend their time posting comments online to undermine South Korean morale, while the whole contingent of 3,000 cyber warfare experts under the Reconnaissance General Bureau wage cyber terrorism against the South, a private South Korean think tank claims.
The think tank, which studies strategies against North Korea, made the claim in a seminar at the Seoul Press Center on Monday afternoon.
It said the North's cyber warfare troops develop and distribute apps to subvert South Korean efforts to block pro-North Korean websites and conduct guerrilla-style hacking attacks by constantly changing IP addresses and connecting other sites with pro-North Korean sites.
Ryu Dong-ryul of the Police Policy Institute said, "The North has established a team of online trolls at the United Front Department and the Reconnaissance General Bureau." About 200 agents post comments on major South Korean portals and disguise their identity using personal information stolen from South Koreans, he added.
The United Front Department wages its cyber psychological warfare through some 140 sites with servers based in 19 countries. In 2011, North Korean agents posted 27,090 items of propaganda materials against the South, and in 2012 some 41,373, the seminar heard.
South Korea's cyber security capabilities are paltry in comparison. The regime teaches young computer whiz kids about basic hacking technologies at a couple of elite middle schools in Pyongyang. The best then go on to Kim Il-sung Military University, Mirim University or Kim Chaek University of Technology to train as cyber agents for about 10 years.
Lim Jong-in of Korea University said altogether some 30,000 North Koreans are engaged in cyber and psychological warfare against South Korea, and every year another 300 personnel are trained in the dark arts, compared to a mere 30 in South Korea.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
...by constantly changing IP addresses and connecting other sites with pro-North Korean sites.
So, someone's still using AOL accounts? Good to know!
[Al Ahram] The ruling Islamist party Ennahda called for rallies on Tuesday to mark Tunisian women's day, deepening the crisis with the opposition which has also called for anti-government protests.
In a statement published Monday Ennahda urged its supporters to gather from 1500 GMT on Habib Bourguiba avenue, epicentre of the 2011 Arab Spring born in Tunisia.
It said the rally would be held under the slogan: "Tunisia's women, pillars of the democratic transition and national unity" in the North African country mired in crisis sparked by the murder in July of an opposition politician.
The slogan reflects the position of the Islamists who insist that "transitional institutions" be kept in place in the absence of a consensus on the country's new constitution.
Last week National Constituent Assembly chief Mustapha Ben Jaafar announced the suspension of the assembly's work drawing up a new constitution while Ennahda and the opposition work out their differences.
Critics of the government are calling for demonstrations on Tuesday night to defend women's rights followed by a march outside parliament, where the opposition has held nightly demonstrations since the July 25 liquidation of opposition MP Mohamed Brahmi.
Brahmi's was the second political liquidation this year, coming after the February murder of Chokri Belaid, also in Tunis. Radical Salafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... have been blamed for the attacks.
The opposition coalition, made up of parties from across the political spectrum, has been calling for resignation of the government and the dissolution of the assembly.
The opposition hopes for a huge turnout on Tuesday, similar to an August 6 protest that drew tens of thousands of people demonstrating against the government.
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[WashingtonPost] The move is likely to touch off a major court battle over voting rights, and the Justice Department is weighing a challenge to the new law, which is the first to pass since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act.
Well done, NC! Now let's see how well Eric Holder's Justice Department does at fighting this under the new rules. (Really old rules, because it's the other clause or whatever, but not rules he or his people have ever been subject to before.)
Best part is that most of the new rules have been implemented, one way or another, by a majority of other states. Restrictions on early voting? Photo ID? Provisional ballots? All been done. If Holder is serious a lot of states are going to be filing amicus curiae briefs to defend their own laws.
[CSMONITOR] Bob Muggsy Mugabe Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... today told those challenging his July 31 re-election to get lost or worse, and not to waste his time with courts and the law.
"Those who can't stomach the defeat, you can commit suicide. Even dogs will not sniff their carcass," Mr. Mugabe piquantly told a Zim-bob-we veterans group, according to CNN.
Mugabe, a former liberation leader turned dictator, has held tight control of Zim-bob-we for 33 years and on the last day of July in a long delayed national vote, appeared to win a resounding 61 percent.
Today he swept aside court challenges that his election was fraudulent -- even as many in Zim-bob-we are bracing for a return of one-party rule in Zim-bob-we that could see banks, land, mines, churches, and other properties expropriated as in earlier periods of Mugabe rule.
Today is "Heroes Day," a kind of Fourth of July for Zimbabwe, and Mugabe told veterans of the 1970s independence struggle that his political rivals can "go hang."
"Those who were hurt by defeat can go hang if they so wish," he said, according to the BBC.
Last week Morgan Tsvangirai, Mugabe's chief political opponent, filed a case of voter fraud that centered partly on the fact that no voter rolls were given to the opposition until the day of the election, and that the rolls that were given were in paper, not digitized in a way that made checking their veracity possible.
Mr. Tsvangirai and his party cite the Zimbabwe Election Commission, the official agency that declared Mugabe the winner, which reports that some 300,000 people were turned away from voting, mostly in urban areas, and that more than 200,000 were "assisted" in voting.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a watchdog group, says more than 850,000 votes were not recorded.
It was unclear whether Tsvangirai will have enough traction in the courts in Harare for his election fraud claims.
Indeed, Mugabe can point to the African Union assessment that the vote was "free and peaceful," even though this was a revision of their earlier assessment of "free and fair."
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[Ynet] The US is providing $15 million to an international fund to help Syria's opposition govern territory under its control.
The B.O. regime says the money will finance reconstruction and provide civilians with water, energy, food and health care. The administration informed Congress of its intentions Aug. 6. The News Agency that Dare Not be Named obtained the notification Monday. Germany and the United Arab Emirates have pledged support; the U.S. expects the total fund to surpass $130 million.
We won't mention that money is fungible. Economics isn't them, after all.
#3
"...water, energy, food and health care." Sure. Like I tell my wife, everything that comes out O's mouth are lies, obfusication, or total bull shit.
[Dawn] IT may not be the most edifying of spectacles, but it nevertheless tells an interesting tale: the war of words between the JUI-F and PTI over the character and alleged foreign associations of their respective chiefs is rooted in the most cynical of politics. Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree... and Fazlur Rehman are no shrinking violets when it comes to taking on political opponents, but the gloves-off, tawdry accusations and recriminations appear to be a continuation of the acrimonious electoral campaign in KP. Context is everything in politics and in the run-up to the May 11 general election, conventional political wisdom had it that Fazlur Rehman was poised to make sweeping gains in KP and a virtual shoe-in for the provincial chief ministership -- an ascendancy that had long been attributed to the PTI and Imran Khan in KP. With the stakes so high, a fierce war of words ensued in which Mr Khan and his party leaders tore relentlessly into the politics, reputation and governance record of the JUI-F and Fazlur Rehman.
Of course, as the votes were counted on May 11, it became obvious that the winner of that war was Mr Khan. And the JUI-F's problems were compounded when the JUI-F chief failed in his bid to convince the PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... to block the PTI's rise to power in the KP assembly. Now on the outside and confronted by a hugely popular new political force in KP, the JUI-F boss has struggled to find a line of attack that will gain traction with the public. After all, the PTI in KP has out-right-winged the right-wing in the province: on drones, on the US presence in Afghanistan and on a distinctly religiously conservative approach to politics. That has left the old and tired ammunition against Mr Khan: his colourful past and his ex-wife's Jewish connections. Ugly as those tactics are, it is not as if Mr Khan has pulled any punches when attacking the Maulana. Perhaps the best advice to both is to cease and desist.
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[An Nahar] The families of the Aazaz hostages on Monday threatened to kidnap "any Turkish national on Beirut's streets," after the Internal Security Forces' Intelligence Bureau failed to release Mohammed Saleh, a relative of one of the abductees who has been tossed in the clink Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! over alleged ties to the kidnappers of two Turkish pilots.
The warning comes after the families held a meeting with caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel at his office over the arrest of Saleh and the ongoing negotiations in the case of the kidnapped pilgrims.
"Charbel said Mohammed Saleh is innocent and that he was held on suspicions but he has not been released until the moment and any Turkish national on Beirut's streets will be kidnapped," Hayat Awali, a spokeswoman for the families, said in an interview with al-Jadeed television.
"Any Turkish national on Beirut's streets is a target for us," she added.
Earlier on Monday, Charbel briefed the families on the latest developments related to the ongoing negotiations, state-run National News Agency reported.
"We will let the security agencies do their routine procedures but Mohammed Saleh will be released because the phone call he made was for congratulations," Daniel Shoaib, a front man for the families, said after the meeting.
Saleh was arrested on Sunday by the ISF Intelligence Bureau on charges of having links to the kidnappers of two Turkish pilots who were kidnapped on Friday near the Beirut Rafik Hariri International Airport.
For his part, Sheikh Abbas Zgheib, who has been tasked by the Higher Islamic Shiite Council to follow up the case of the kidnapped pilgrims, said the delegation discussed the "latest developments" with Charbel.
"He briefed us on the latest developments pertaining to the nine hostages and the atmosphere was positive," he added.
"The Turkish state is responsible for the return of the nine abductees to Leb," said Zgheib.
In an interview with LBCI television, the holy man said: "Charbel informed us that Mohammed Saleh has nothing to do with the kidnapping operation and that he is being interrogated over the congratulations phone call he had received."
But he warned: "If Mohammed Saleh is not released today, we will consider him to be kidnapped by the Intelligence Bureau and we'll act accordingly."
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[Al Ahram] Nearly 60 Syrian soldiers and jihadists have been killed in three days of fighting in Deir Ezzor, the largest city in eastern Syria, where rebels have made advances, an NGO said Monday.
At least 33 fighters of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and Al-Nusra Front have been killed since Saturday, according to the Syria Observatory for Human Rights.
The group, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers on the ground, said 25 regime forces were also killed in the festivities.
"The festivities are very intense, the fighters are using several tanks they have, while the army is shelling pockets" of jihadists, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The jihadist fighters are concentrating their efforts on the district of Huweika, home to several government buildings and security headquarters.
Syria's state news agency SANA said Monday the army had "killed faceless myrmidons in the Senaa neighbourhood and other bad boyz were potted when a car they rigged with explosives detonated."
On Saturday, jihadists seized the local headquarters of the ruling Baath party in Deir Ezzor, prompting regime shelling.
"They (rebel fighters) have advanced in various districts, but without taking anything completely," said Abdel Rahman.
Control of the city remains divided between rebels, most of them jihadist fighters, and the regime. But the front line is in flux, according to the Britannia-based Observatory.
Despite setbacks around the capital Damascus and in Homs province of central Syria, jihadist rebel fighters have made advances in Deir Ezzor and the coastal province of Latakia.
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#2
Could any of this be responsible for the recent chill between Vlad and the Champ? Was a "stand down" given as a result of a 'wave off' from the Russians? Do the Russians now have the MANPADS ?
examiner.com excerpt:
Did this American meddling in Syria unhinge Russia’s patience? And is it possible that Russians or their surrogates assisted al-Qaeda in the Benghazi consulate attack?
#3
I'm gonna call "caution" on "U.S. missiles". Sounds morelike journalistic laziness and amateurism.
Not saying there weren't MANPADS involved. To me "U.S. missiles" are Stingers and such.
Also, there are a few other theories or rather, allegations in the mix. I don't strongly subscribe to any of them at this point. And the list of possible suspects hasn't changed. I'm still working on a couple more articles on these.
Problem is that information is now flowing fast and furious (no pun intended.)
The way I'm seeing it is that it could fall out one of several ways.
1. The USG is covering-up or performing damage control for an operation or series of operations by an agency or combination of agencies with a possible range of legal... complications.
2. The actor(s) involved in the attack are ones that the USG doesn't (or didn't at the time) want to confront for various reasons.
3. The USG botched a response to the attack due to agency compartmentalization, intel failure, risk-management failure, response-asset failure, 'amateur hour' at the command level(s), or political expediency.
Even when the Soviets where in full force in Afghanistan, my estimate is far lower than that provided the resistance and the Syrian air capability is much less to be addressed than what the Soviets had in theater.
If we're dealing with 400, at best those are Libyan procured Russian SA-7s that were warehoused locally.
#9
Maybe they needed a figure to account for all the rockets they wasted, (Or never existed, except on paper)It's a nice round figure.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/13/2013 21:54
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#10
That too is possible. Then again it could have been more than that and the stocks were being destroyed and 400 were left when the attack came.
There is no publicly available data on the Qadaffi government's missile stocks. It could also be that stocks came from the black-market with the weapons sourced from places like the Balkans or Albania, or former Soviet Republics such as Ukraine, Bulgaria, and any of the 'stans.
[Al Ahram] The Salafist Nour Party released a statement on Monday demanding that the criteria for choosing the 50-member committee entitled to finalise amendments to the 2012 constitution be revised.
On 3 July, army chief Abdel Fattah El-Sisi unveiled a political transition roadmap outlining a timeline for early presidential elections following the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi.
The roadmap, announced in the presence of several political figures -- including a Nour Party member, the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar Ahmed El-Tayeb, and Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II -- includes the suspension of the Islamist-backed 2012 constitution pending amendment by a broadly-representative committee. Last week the presidency announced the criterea for selecting that committee.
The Nour Party stated its objections to the fact that political parties will make up only five of the 50 representatives in the committee, arguing that this follows "[ousted president Hosni] Mubarak's footsteps" in weakening the role of parties in political life.
Nevertheless, the statement assured that the Nour Party will participate in the 50-member committee despite its reservations regarding the committee make-up.
The statement argued that only those articles which "urgently" require amending should be addressed by the committee, including those dictating the president's and the prime minister's powers and those regarding election law. Further changes should be only carried out by elected bodies, the statement asserted.
The party also reiterated its stand against amending articles regarding Egypt's "Islamic identity."
On Thursday, Nour spokesperson Nader Bakkar said in a televised interview with CNN that his party will reconsider its support for the army-backed political roadmap if the constitutional committee changes Article 221 of the 2012 constitution.
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[CNSNews] Twelve years after the war began, General Joseph Dunford, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), says the American people "need to know exactly what we're trying to do" in Afghanistan.
He indicated that winning the war is no longer about defeating al Qaeda.
Although U.S.-led forces have "put extraordinary pressure on al-Qaeda and its associated networks in Afghanistan" and "disrupted al-Qaeda's ability to plan and conduct operations from within the country, Dunford said "al-Qaeda in the region remains resilient and determined to attack the West."
Dunford indicated that winning the war involves nation-building.
"I have a hard time standing in front of Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen that are in harm's way and talking about anything other than winning," Dunford said later in the speech. "And I want to make it clear that winning for us means setting the conditions for the Afghans to exploit the decade of opportunity that will come in 2015 and beyond."
Dunford talked about developing the capabilities of Afghan forces so they can support "credible and transparent elections" in Afghanistan. He also spoke about Afghan forces being able to "harden" Afghanistan -- "so that it can facilitate, you know, economic development and political processes that, quite admittedly, will take many years after 2015."
It sounds dreadfully noble -- Civilized Humanity's burden and all that. But will any of it survive a decade after we've left?
#1
They will be doing good if it lasts 10 minutes. Talking in terms of ten years is pipe dreams.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
08/13/2013 2:42
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#2
"He indicated that winning the war is no longer about defeating al Qaeda."
"These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Taliban must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate."
George W. Bush, Statement To Joint Session Of Congress September 20th 2001
"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. "
George W. Bush, September 11th 2001
Looking at this development, why would a rational, hostile and immoral international actor come to the conclusion that a mass fatality attack on the continental US is not a winning move but a suicidal mistake?
Precipitous withdrawal and an end to any aid to Afghanistan is a bad option which will have bad consequences. However all other politically viable options are even worse.
"It sounds dreadfully noble"
I disagree. Giving aid to liberated Afghanistan is enabling an evil entity.
There might be an argument for this policy based on realpolitik but I haven't heard one yet that was convincing.
The Afghans may be SOBs but they're definitely not our SOBs.
</rant>
Sounds to me that Obastard could solve three problems at once here.
1. Draft all plumbers, electricians, carpenters etc. into the CBs and deploy them to A'stan.
2. Unemployment falls so the economy picks up.
3. Open up unlimited immigration (registering them as Demos at the border) to fill all the jobs in construction that lazy Americans won't/can't do.
#5
However all other politically viable options are even worse.
Screw nation building. The alternative would be to back a strong tribe. Should have trained them and equipped them to give hell to the tribe that is the relative main source of all the problems, to take the fight to their villages and headmen. To paraphrase - When they're up to their ass in Tajiks, its hard for the Pashtuns to remember to stick it to the Americans.
#6
"It sounds dreadfully noble"
I disagree. Giving aid to liberated Afghanistan is enabling an evil entity.
Precisely my point, Elmerert Hupens2660. Sounding noble and being noble are very often not at all related. Although the problem is dumping money on the government of Afghanistan as it is presently constituted, I think. Supplying schools, digging wells, training the locals to build gobar gas facilities, solar water disinfectors, and build roads... and generally move from the eighth century to the twelfth or so, with a concomitant awareness of the world beyond the next village, these are not bad things that might survive our leaving. Not all of Afghanistan is like the Pashtun provinces, according to what I've read.
Like giving aid vs, teaching skills, nations must be built by their inhabitants. What we did in Germany and Japan was to change the direction of nations that were already fully grown. Rebuilding, if you will, rather than building. There was a time when I thought differently, but I was wrong.
#9
message to future antagonist nation-states should be:
"No more nation-building. Pull the same shit and we'll come in, kill you all and break things, then leave."
Posted by: Frank G on the road ||
08/13/2013 12:36
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#10
We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. "
George W. Bush, September 11th 2001
Pakistan?
Posted by: Paul D ||
08/13/2013 12:42
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#11
Is that helicopter pad on top of the embassy ready yet?
[Israel] Sources say 26 prisoners will be released at night to minimize Paleostinian celebrations, but date not finalized yet. Paleostinians still to be notified
Buying with murdered blood the possibility that the PA will sit down at the table to talk about maybe making peace. Hamas, et al are completely uninterested, though they will get back some of the murders nonetheless.
[Al Ahram] Mohammedan leaders in the French city of Lyon said on Monday they feared a surge in attacks on mosques in the style of one averted last week in which a soldier was tossed in the slammer Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! on suspicion of planning a shooting during an Islamic feast holiday.
Anti-Mohammedan incidents have risen steadily in recent years in La Belle France, home to Europe's largest Islamic minority, according to the Committee against Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... in La Belle France (CCIF), which blames anti-Mohammedan rhetoric by far-right politicians.
A far-right activist said such violence had been provoked by government efforts to suppress "nationalist movements" that provided a legitimate outlet for discontent.
Kamel Kabtane, rector of the Grand Mosque of Lyon, called on local Mohammedans to gather for a show of solidarity at the suburban Minguettes Mosque, which police said the soldier arrested on Saturday planned to shoot at on the Mohammedan Eid al-Fitr holiday.
The 23-year-old, from an air force base near Lyon, was placed under formal investigation on Monday, accused of "possessing category 4 ammunitions in relation to a terrorist undertaking". Described by the interior ministry as holding extreme right-wing views, he was also accused of lobbing a Molotov cocktail at a mosque near Bordeaux last year.
"There is a clear will today to hurt the Mohammedan community," Kabtane said, adding that two minor acts had been carried out against mosques in southeastern La Belle France over the weekend.
"These are no longer isolated acts. It feels like there is a whole organization being put in place," he said.
RISING ANTI-MUSLIM VIOLENCE
French media say such incidents have increased by 50 percent in the first half of 2013. The presence of far-right bully boyz at anti-gay marriage protests highlighted half a dozen shadowy bad boy groups the government has since shut down.
Alexandre Gabriac, the young founder of a now banned far-right group called the Revolutionary Youths, blamed the rise in anti-Mohammedan attacks on the clampdown and said the government should take some responsibility.
"Dissolving nationalist movements drives people to carry out isolated, reckless acts," he said. "Our groups enabled the anger that is rising to be channelled and transformed into a political foundation. These isolated acts will be more and more frequent."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2013
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#1
These is, of course despicable, and I would like an opportunity to condemn such attacks in strongest terms possible---lots of opportunity!
#2
"There is a clear will today to hurt the Mohammedan community,"
Makes you want to go right out and rub something despicable on a Mooselimb doesn't it? Nothing like a dump truck full of slaughterhouse pig parts driven by the front steps and dumped on the Mosque front door curb.
No loss of life, easy to do. Just takes a minute.
Threater, you're getting really obnoxious again. Why don't you step away from the computer for a while?
#3
I think a truckload of thoroughly rotten pig intestines dumped on a mosque doorstep would be a good idea, Mince them first.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/13/2013 10:16
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#4
I notice they aren't handwringing about "why do they hate us?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/13/2013 12:49
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#5
Not to change the subject exactly, but how is anti-Jew violence doing in France these days? Mostof the time, if you look at the numbers rather than just the headlines, there a lot more attacks on Jews than there are on Muslims. (I don't count thinking nasty thoughts about Muslims as attacks.)
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/13/2013 14:04
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#6
"Muslim Leaders Fear Backlash in Wake of Tomorrow's Terrorist Attack"
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/13/2013 14:35
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how is anti-Jew violence doing in France these days?
I've mostly given up posting those stories, Rambler. They make me sad. And anyway, most attacks still aren't reported because that's just the way things are in the Old World, as far as I can tell. Many French Jews (where many is an undefined number) have moved to England -- though that may be as much for tax purposes -- and some have moved to Israel and elsewhere, or sent their children away to school, or whatever. Perhaps someone else can look into it,
Look, when we lived in Germany in the first half of the '90s it was unquestioned that the Jewish day school in Frankfurt needed a police guard provided by the city. And when we visited in 2010 my grandmother's home village had one Jewess, and she was a convert, while the leader of the Jewish community in my mother's home town spoke of his being the last generation despite the influx of Russian Jews over the previous two decades, for which a beautiful little Jewish community center/school/synagogue had been built.
North Korea on Sunday unveiled a homegrown touch mobile phone dubbed "Arirang," the official KCNA news agency reported.
It said leader Fat Boy Kim Jong-un offered "on-the-spot guidance" for the phone at an electronics factory.
"You must use Android operating system zero point nine. You MUST!"
"Yes, yes, your Corpulenceness!"
"The Arirang mobile phone looks nice and is light. It features various functions for learning as well as calls," Kim was quoted as saying. "It also has a high-pixel camera that people will find very convenient to use."
Just not in North Korea, where it's illegal to take pictures...
The number of mobile phone users in the North has exceeded two million. They can send text messages and make video calls but overseas calls are blocked.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/13/2013
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"In Kim Jong-un North Korea, phone makes call on you."
[An Nahar] Bombers killed 24 people in Iraq on Monday, 16 of them in a suicide kaboom on a cafe north of Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... , officials said.
The other bombings hit a football field and a market, the latest in a upsurge of violence that has killed more than 3,400 people so far this year, according to an Agence La Belle France Presse tally.
Militants have carried out a number of attacks on cafes in recent weeks, especially during the Mohammedan holy month of Ramadan, when many Iraqis went to cafes after breaking their daytime fast.
This Ramadan, which ended last week, was one of the deadliest for Iraq in years, with more than 800 people killed in attacks.
The jacket wallah struck a cafe in the town of Balad at around 6:30 pm (1530 GMT), also wounding more than 35 people, municipal council chief Faris Jaafar said.
In Muqdadiyah, also north of Storied Baghdad, a bomb went kaboom! near a football field, killing four people and wounding 14, among them three children.
And in the nearby Diyala placid provincial capital Baquba, a bomb went kaboom! in a market, killing four people and wounding 20.
The attacks came a day after al-Qaeda front group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed attacks that killed more than 70 people on Saturday.
"The Islamic State mobilized... in Storied Baghdad and the southern states and others to convey a quick message of deterrence on the third day of Eid al-Fitr," the group said, referring to the holiday marking the end of Ramadan.
"They (Shiites) will not dream of security during night or day, during Eid or other" days, it said.
The attacks came just weeks after assaults on prisons near Storied Baghdad, also claimed by the al-Qaeda front group, freed hundreds of prisoners including leading myrmidons.
The brazen assaults highlighted both the growing reach of forces of Evil in Iraq and the rapidly worsening security situation.
Analysts, as well as global police organization Interpol, had warned that the jailbreaks could lead to a rise in attacks, as the escapees were said to include senior al-Qaeda myrmidons.
Violence in Iraq has increased markedly this year, with analysts saying the upsurge is driven by anger among the Sunni Arab minority that the Shiite-led government has failed to address, despite months of protests.
With the latest violence, attacks in Iraq have killed 3,404 people since the beginning of the year, according to figures compiled by AFP -- an average of 15 people killed each day.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2013
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[Al Ahram] Twenty new governors will be sworn in on Tuesday in a new local-government reshuffle, Presidential media advisor Ahmed El-Musselmenani said on Monday.
Egypt's Interim President Adly Mansour is expected to replace 20 ouf of 27 governors, and to also name 11 deputy-governors.
In mid-June, days before he was ousted, then-president Mohamed Morsi appointed 17 governors, 11 of them supporters of the Brotherhood, to head local governments. These appointments triggered controversy nationwide as critics of Morsi charged that the move came as part of his attempt to 'brotherhoodise' the state apparatus.
Details on the political affiliations of the new governors are still to be announced.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2013
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[Ynet] The leader of the Yemen-based al-Qaeda offshoot vowed in a message posted Monday to free fellow forces of Evil from prisons and urged enjugged I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! fighters to remain faithful to the terror group's ideology.
The note by Nasser al-Wahishi, a onetime aide to the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now among the dear departed, though not among the dearest... , came after last week's closure of 19 US diplomatic missions in the Middle East and Africa. The shutdowns were triggered by the interception of a secret message between al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri and al-Wahishi about plans for a major attack.
[Al Ahram] Gazoo Strip rulers Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, on Monday said peace talks with Israel were "futile," repeating its rejection of negotiations that are due to resume between Paleostinians and Israelis this week.
"We renew our rejection of these futile talks, and consider them purely a means for the occupation (Israel) to look good to the international community," senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar told a news conference in Gazoo.
West Bank-based Paleostinian president the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... and his negotiating team "have no legitimacy" to represent the Paleostinian people in talks, Zahar said.
"We call on the Paleostinian people to unite in confronting the crime that is the peace talks," he added.
The Islamist movement last month rejected a return to Israeli-Paleostinian peace talks, after US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... announced a resumption of negotiations.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2013
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#1
Somebody get Kerry by his LEFT ear and have a camel spit in it.
#2
Kerry and Biden are but titular heads, or useful idiots. Their purpose and role is little more than convenient diversion, medial filler. All real decision making comes from the central committee of the shadow government.
[Dawn] Although the "war against terror" was imposed on the country after the attacks in the United States in Sept 2001, it had now turned into "a battle for survival of Pakistain", the interior minister said in Quetta on Sunday.
"The entire nation should be on the same page in the `war against terror' as it has now become a battle for survival of Pakistain even though it was imposed on us," Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said at a presser after chairing a meeting on law and order.
He said the fight against bully boyz would continue under a "comprehensive national security policy" to be unveiled soon.
The army would provide 5,000 sub-machine guns (SMGs) to Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... and start a training programme for police on an emergency basis, the minister added.He said that despite recent terrorist attacks, the morale of security forces was high and they were ready to take the fight to terrorists.
The meeting reviewed the law and order situation in the wake of recent terrorist attacks in the province.
Chief Minister Abdul Malik Baloch, Chief Secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh Mohammad, Home Secretary Akbar Durrani, IG Police Mushtaq Sukhera, IG Frontier Corps Obaidullah Khattak and other senior coppers attended the meeting.
The chief secretary and the home secretary briefed the interior minister about the law and order situation in the province and steps taken by the provincial government.
Chaudhry Nisar expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... over last week's attack in Police Lines, the killing of 13 passengers in Bolan district and the shooting near a mosque on Eid day, terming them an attempt to demoralise the security forces and police.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2013
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[Al Ahram] A court in China's Xinjiang has sentenced two people to death and another to life imprisonment over deadly violence in the far western region where the government often blames what it calls Musselmen separatists for causing unrest.
Twenty-one people were killed in a confrontation between police and residents in April that involved axes, knives and at least one gun and culminated in a house being burned down, in what authorities called a "terrorist attack".
In July 2009, Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, was the scene of festivities between majority Han Chinese and minority Uighurs that killed nearly 200 people. In late June, 35 people died in another outbreak of violence.
Many Uighurs, Musselmens who speak a Turkic language, complain of restrictions on their culture, language and religion. China says it grants them wide-ranging freedoms.
A court in the southern city of Kashgar found the five defendants, all of whom appeared to be Uighurs judging by their names, to be guilty of crimes including involvement in terrorism and intentional homicide, the Xinjiang government said in a statement on its news site (www.tianshannet.com).
Two defendants were given nine-year jail sentences.
The Xinjiang government did not name any group responsible for the violence, but China has blamed previous incidents in energy-rich Xinjiang - on the borders of Afghanistan, Pakistain, and India - on Islamic separatists who want to establish an independent East Turkestan.
Dilxat Raxit, front man for the exiled World Uyghur Congress, said previously that the violence was sparked by the shooting and killing of a young Uighur by "Chinese armed personnel", prompting the Uighurs to retaliate.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2013
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[Ynet] Suspected Islamic forces of Evil wearing army fatigues bumped off 44 people praying at a mosque in northeast Nigeria ... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border... , while another 12 civilians died in an apparently simultaneous attack, security agents said Monday.
The attacks were the latest in a slew of violence blamed on religious faceless myrmidons in this West African oil producer, where the radical Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... group, which wants to oust the government and impose Islamic law, poses the greatest security threat in years.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/13/2013
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[Al Ahram] Tunisian forces launched air strikes against Islamist militants in the Mount Chaambi area near the Algerian border on Monday, an army source said. The source also said several militants had been killed and four were arrested in the same region on Sunday. He gave no death toll.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2013
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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.
First, there was the delay of Obamacare's Medicare cuts until after the election. Then there was the delay of the law's employer mandate. Then there was the announcement, buried in the Federal Register, that the administration would delay enforcement of a number of key eligibility requirements for the law's health insurance subsidies, relying on the "honor system" instead. Now comes word that another costly provision of the health law--its caps on out-of-pocket insurance costs--will be delayed for one more year.
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
Nawaz Sharif
An official with the Russian state company "Rosatom" declared that talks about building new units in the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant will begin after completion of the first unit, IRNA reported.
At least one rocket was fired towards the Israeli resort city of Eilat and was intercepted by Iron Dome, Arutz Sheva reported.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
North Korea has about 200 agents who spend their time posting comments online to undermine South Korean morale, while the whole contingent of 3,000 cyber warfare experts under the Reconnaissance General Bureau wage cyber terrorism against the South, a private South Korean think tank claims.
[CSMONITOR] 
Of course, as the votes were counted on May 11, it became obvious that the winner of that war was Mr Khan. And the JUI-F's problems were compounded when the JUI-F chief failed in his bid to convince the PML-N supremo 
[Al Ahram] Nearly 60 Syrian soldiers and jihadists have been killed in three days of fighting in Deir Ezzor, the largest city in eastern Syria, where rebels have made advances, an NGO said Monday.
North Korea on Sunday unveiled a homegrown touch mobile phone dubbed "Arirang," the official KCNA news agency reported. 
[Dawn] Although the "war against terror" was imposed on the country after the attacks in the United States in Sept 2001, it had now turned into "a battle for survival of Pakistain", the interior minister said in Quetta on Sunday.
