Hi there, !
Today Tue 10/29/2013 Mon 10/28/2013 Sun 10/27/2013 Sat 10/26/2013 Fri 10/25/2013 Thu 10/24/2013 Wed 10/23/2013 Archives
Rantburg
531701 articles and 1855983 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 71 articles and 181 comments as of 14:23.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT    Opinion       
Nigeria says kills 74 'Boko Haram' Islamists in ground, air assault
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 6: Politix
1 23:57 Redneck Jim [2] 
1 23:16 Uncle Phester [2] 
19 18:32 Pappy [2] 
5 22:05 Uncle Phester [4] 
2 13:01 Abu Uluque [2] 
2 11:55 Pappy [3] 
6 13:43 SteveS [2] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
0 [1]
1 00:35 JosephMendiola [1]
1 07:47 Frank G [1]
2 11:39 tu3031 [1]
0 [2]
1 02:02 Mikey Hunt [3]
0 [2]
0 [2]
1 11:11 DepotGuy [1]
0 [1]
0 [2]
1 08:37 Frank G [3]
0 [2]
0 [2]
0 [1]
0 [2]
2 05:30 g(r)omgoru [1]
0 [1]
3 08:46 Glenmore [1]
1 08:49 Glenmore [1]
0 [1]
Page 2: WoT Background
11 18:02 Thrans Splat1574 [2]
1 01:19 JosephMendiola [2]
0 [2]
0 [2]
1 00:42 JosephMendiola [3]
0 [2]
1 12:06 DepotGuy [2]
0 [3]
0 [2]
5 12:28 USN, Ret. [2]
0 [3]
0 [2]
0 [2]
0 [2]
2 00:46 CrazyFool [2]
0 [2]
0 [2]
3 16:46 Pappy [2]
0 [3]
0 [2]
1 22:40 Uncle Phester [2]
0 [3]
Page 3: Non-WoT
3 22:09 Alaska Paul [2]
0 [2]
3 16:57 Shipman [2]
14 19:34 gorb [4]
36 21:36 Barbara [2]
4 11:13 swksvolFF [2]
6 10:52 JohnQC [2]
1 22:34 Uncle Phester [2]
5 10:44 RandomJD [2]
8 17:18 Thing From Snowy Mountain [3]
2 08:46 Redneck Jim [3]
2 07:35 Procopius2k [2]
1 07:33 Procopius2k [2]
0 [3]
2 13:39 Frank G [2]
0 [2]
3 07:32 Procopius2k [2]
2 10:45 JohnQC [2]
Page 4: Opinion
3 17:28 Uncle Phester [2]
2 14:47 g(r)omgoru [3]
10 18:19 Pappy [2]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Morocco teen jailed for 3 months for Obama tweet threat
[Al Ahram] A Moroccan court on Friday tossed in the clink
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
a teenager for three months for threatening to kill US President Barack Obama
I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money...
on Twitter, judicial sources said.

The 17-year-old identified as Soufiane I. pleaded guilty at a Casablanca court to "electronic crimes" and "calling for violence via electronic media," after posting the death threat last year.

"I will kill your president and everyone in his company. It's what I'm going to do when I arrive in the United States next month," the youth wrote on his Twitter feed.

The teenager was nabbed
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
around two months ago in Casablanca.

He is due to serve his sentence at the city's Oukacha juvenile detention centre, the judicial sources told AFP.

The court hearing was closed to the media, and it was not immediately known whether the young Moroccan's lawyers planned to appeal.

Time spent in pre-trial detention is normally deducted from jail sentences in Morocco.
Posted by: Fred || 10/26/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Has the guy who is accused of making the schlocky movie that inspired Benghazi violence (sarc on) ever made it out of Obozo's jail?
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/26/2013 10:37 Comments || Top||

#2  He was released about a month ago.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/26/2013 11:55 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Obamacare glitches also plague paper and phone applications
Posted by: frozen Al || 10/26/2013 13:59 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Paper AND phone, sounds like its NOT a Glitch, but deliberate.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/26/2013 23:57 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Soros-connected Vote-counting Firm Expands in U.S.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/26/2013 06:46 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...as attributed to Stalin, "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."

...This aside, it's the programmers and SA's who serve at the clutch...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/26/2013 23:16 Comments || Top||


Oh REALLY?!: Michelle Obama's Princeton classmate is executive at company that built Obamacare
...no bid contract you say...

...Association of Black Princeton Alumni? When a race has it's own Princeton "Good Old Boy / Girl" network, can they still be identified as "disadvantaged..?"

HT: Drudge
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/26/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A look at the Statement of Work (SOW), contract mods, deliverables, number of personnel assigned to the contract, hours worked by each, invoices, ETF (electronic funds transfers) ...... details please, the details.

Testimony from the 'Government' Administrative Contacting officer (ACO), Procurement Contracting Officer (PCO), and Contracting Officer (CO) would likewise be helpful.

Could be high crimes and misdemeanors found here.
I hope someone runs the traps.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/26/2013 2:40 Comments || Top||

#2  Could be high crimes and misdemeanors found here.
I hope someone runs the traps.


That's the reason these people cannot afford to give up power.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/26/2013 6:48 Comments || Top||

#3  #2 Could be high crimes and misdemeanors found here.
I hope someone runs the traps.

That's the reason these people cannot afford to give up power.


The trouble is...I have been convinced for decades now that from the House on up, by the time you get that seat on Capitol Hill or further down the street you've compromised yourself so badly in one form or another that if anyone really applied the laws you'd have all but a handful being marched out the door in cuffs, and they'd be looking real close at the ones who were left. There will be no impeachments or prosecutions, not out of political partisanship but self preservation.

It's broke now. Beyond any possible question or argument. The only question left is if we'll have the courage to do anything about it, or if we'll just watch it happen.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 10/26/2013 7:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Besides being sole-source, I'll bet it's cost plus. Overruns are a feature, the big money is in the change orders.

And there appear to be lots of change orders.
Posted by: KBK || 10/26/2013 9:06 Comments || Top||

#5  During my 30+ years as a software geek I spent probably 5 years as a systems auditor. We found all sorts of funny business in the contracting process and it has been my belief from day 1 that this debacle would include everyone of them...plus a whole lot I've never seen before.

I was right.
Posted by: AlanC || 10/26/2013 10:01 Comments || Top||

#6  The giant sucking sound you hear is the Chicago-style vacuum cleaner that sucks up money and directs it towards cronys, friends, and fellow-travelers.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/26/2013 10:33 Comments || Top||

#7  Inbreeding.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/26/2013 10:58 Comments || Top||

#8  Strange, Mr. "Jerkface Killa" has nothing to say about this particular thread...
Posted by: Steve White || 10/26/2013 11:35 Comments || Top||

#9  ...Mr. "Jerkface Killa" should drop his last 'nym...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/26/2013 12:51 Comments || Top||

#10  This was all totally predictable and, in fact, it was predicted. The only thing we need here is a graphic of Gomer Pyle saying "Shazam!". Either that or the surprise meter.

It's a good bet that healthcare.gov was engineered to fail so the gummint would be compelled to throw even more money in Ms. Townes' direction. It's a gravy train and she be ridin' in style.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 10/26/2013 13:11 Comments || Top||

#11  typical Canuck troll
Posted by: Frank G || 10/26/2013 13:40 Comments || Top||

#12  Federal officials considered only one firm to design the Obamacare health insurance exchange website that has performed abysmally since its Oct. 1 debut.

Rather than open the contracting process to a competitive public solicitation with multiple bidders, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid accepted a sole bidder, CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company with an uneven record of IT pricing and contract performance.

CMS officials are tight-lipped about why CGI was chosen or how it happened. They also refuse to say if other firms competed with CGI, or if there was ever a public solicitation for building Healthcare.gov, the backbone of Obamacare’s problem-plagued web portal.

Instead, it appears they used what amounts to a federal procurement system loophole to award the work to the Canadian firm.

CGI was one of 16 companies that had been qualified by HHS during President George W. Bush's second term to deliver, without public competition, a variety of hardware, software and communication products and services.

In awarding the Healthcare.gov contract, CMS relied on a little-known federal contracting system called ID/IQ, which is government jargon for “Indefinite Delivery and Indefinite Quantity.”

CGI was a much smaller vendor when it was approved by HHS in 2007. With the approval, CGI became eligible for multiple awards without public notice and in circumvention of the normal competitive bidding procurement process.

The multiple awards were in the form of “task orders” for projects of widely varying size. Over the life of the CGI contract — which expires in 2017 — the IT firm can receive awards worth anywhere from the “$1,000 to $4 billion,” according to a contracting document provided by CGI to the Washington Examiner.

This is apparently the route chosen by CMS officials in awarding the Obamacare Healthcare.gov website design contract to CGI.

Between 2009 and 2013, CMS officials awarded 185 separate task orders to CGI totaling $678 million for work of all kinds, according to USAspending.gov, a federal spending database.The Obamacare website design contract was for $93 million.

There is no evidence CMS issued any public solicitation for the Obamacare website contract. The Examiner asked both CMS and CGI for copies of any public solicitation notice for the Healthcare.gov task orders. Neither CMS nor CGI furnished any such public notice.
Posted by: KBK || 10/26/2013 13:57 Comments || Top||

#13  You might think that the Federal procurement process was designed for crony capitalism these days.
Posted by: KBK || 10/26/2013 13:59 Comments || Top||


#15  In awarding the Healthcare.gov contract, CMS relied on a little-known federal contracting system called ID/IQ, which is government jargon for "Indefinite Delivery and Indefinite Quantity."

also known as an As-Needed Contract, selected by RFP. Typically these are for small task orders, of unknown duration, cost. NOT a $400 Mil no-bid job. Think Mooch's Black Thug Amiga executive with CGI may have benefited?
Posted by: Frank G || 10/26/2013 14:16 Comments || Top||

#16  CGI got kicked off a health care project in Ontario last year for failing to deliver.
Posted by: SteveS || 10/26/2013 15:06 Comments || Top||

#17  CGI: "Ask us about our Canuck Gun Registry work!"
Posted by: Frank G || 10/26/2013 15:09 Comments || Top||

#18  LOL I love it when a troll stirs up Frank.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/26/2013 17:10 Comments || Top||

#19  You might think that the Federal procurement process was designed for crony capitalism these days.

It's actually designed with heavy social-engineering aspects that have been legally taken advantage of by entities it was not intended for.

For example, a large services provider can legally set up or enact an arrangement with a business given an advantage under the procurement process. Hence a woman-owned, minority-owned, disabled veteran-owned business providing IT services can receive a federal contract, and then subcontract those services out to a larger IT services provider. Said business may have a physical presence that is nothing more than a 'rented' office cubicle and a phone, or in the case of a business providing a physical item, also a drop-ship facility.

When a race has it's own Princeton "Good Old Boy / Girl" network, can they still be identified as "disadvantaged..?"

Yes, legally , it can.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/26/2013 18:32 Comments || Top||


Gore Urges U.S. to Stop Keystone 'Atrocity'
[An Nahar] Former U.S. vice president Al Gore on Thursday urged President Barack Obama
Because I won...
to block the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, likening the carbon-intense project to drug addiction.

Gore, who has championed action against climate change since his razor-thin loss for the White House in 2000, praised Obama's general views on climate change but said his fellow Democrat faced a key test on the proposed project.

"This should be vetoed. It is an atrocity and a threat to our future," Gore told a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.

"Junkies find veins in their toes when the ones in their arms and their legs give out. We are now at the point where we're going after these ridiculously dirty and dangerous carbon-based dirty fuels, and we've got to stop that," he said.

Obama has held off on a decision on the proposed 1,179-mile (1,897-km) pipeline, which would take oil from Alberta's tar sands to U.S. refineries, as he waits for a review on the environmental impact.

Opponents say that oil from Alberta's tar sands is among the dirtiest on the planet as it must be melted with steaming hot water before processing, further contributing to carbon emissions blamed for climate change.
Posted by: Fred || 10/26/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Does he use any carbon-based fuel? Or any food or products produced or transported by carbon-based fuel? Of course - much more than the average person, but he is much more important than the average person so it's ok.
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/26/2013 1:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Please spare us this bloviating, idiotic, unhinged, huckster.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/26/2013 10:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Keep expecting him to show up with long hair, beard, robes and a staff.
Posted by: Iblis || 10/26/2013 18:15 Comments || Top||

#4  ...when reading about this A$$clown, I cannot help but be reminded of Herold Hill...the "Think System" Herold Hill....
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/26/2013 22:04 Comments || Top||

#5  ... er Harold...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/26/2013 22:05 Comments || Top||


Rick Santorum calls Hollywood 'the devil's playground'
[THEGUARDIAN] Former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum
...unsuccessful candidate for president and former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. He was a lawyer before becoming the Representative for suburban Pittsburgh in 1991. He lost his Senate seat in 2006 to Bob Casey, a Democrat machine politician and political dynast. Santorum is a social conservative who thinks the rest of the country is, too...
called the film industry "the devil's playground" as he sought to promote his own film, The Christmas Candle.

Santorum, Republican senator for Pennsylvania between 1995 and 2007 attempted to gain the presidential nomination in 2012 but was defeated by Willard Mitt Romney
...former governor of Massachussetts, the Publican nominee for president in 2012. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals....
. He is now CEO of EchoLight Studios, who specifically aim to make family-oriented faith films, and The Christmas Candle, starring Clash of the Titans' Hans Matheson, is their latest release.

Santorum, a devout Catholic, was speaking on the Christian-oriented Trinity Broadcasting Network about the film, and said: "This is a tough business, this is something that we're stepping out ... and the devil, for a long, long time, has had this, these screens, for his playground. And he isn't going to give it up easily."

Santorum also issued a call for the faithful to put their hands in their pockets and pay to see the film and help his business. He said: "I ask for your prayers for me, for our company, for TBN, for all of those involved in The Christmas Candle, and we just want to thank you in advance for everything that you are going to do to help in making this a successful venture."

The Christmas Candle, set in the fictional English village of Gladbury and billed as "a timeless holiday film for the entire family", is released in the US on 22 November.
Posted by: Fred || 10/26/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...I like RS, but he needs to work on his euphemisms...although appropriate for the venue at hand, the LSM will use his words to tar him as a whack-o and chew-toy him against all Conservatives...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/26/2013 10:58 Comments || Top||

#2  It's no good plunking down good money to see a movie just because somebody says it's "the right thing to do" or "it's for a good cause". Make a movie that people want to see and they'll come to see it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 10/26/2013 13:01 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Armed agents seize records of reporter, Washington Times prepares legal action
"Maryland state police and federal agents used a search warrant in an unrelated criminal investigation to seize the private reporting files of an award-winning former investigative journalist for The Washington Times who had exposed problems in the Homeland Security Department's Federal Air Marshal Service."
...hoping for the event horizon that will cause the Fourth Estate to become a little more objective...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/26/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So hopefully, this ends the practice of an investigative reporter, maintaining source related documents at one's residence. If it contains a classification marking of any type, leave it at the office in an approved storage container.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/26/2013 2:14 Comments || Top||

#2  May be the reporter should confess like Chen Yongzhou in China.

An imprisoned Chinese journalist whose newspaper has made front-page appeals for his release has confessed to wrongdoing on state TV

China reporter Chen Yongzhou 'confesses on TV

Posted by: Willy || 10/26/2013 5:28 Comments || Top||

#3  "...but we're not the droids you're looking for!"

Smug self important scribes who abuse those Tea Party rubes warning about 'government being too big'. Hoping to be the last one the crocodile eats?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/26/2013 7:28 Comments || Top||

#4  The Regime can't have investigative reporting in this country. Only the apparatchiks and MSM water carriers can report the Party message.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/26/2013 10:43 Comments || Top||

#5  Are you a registered journalist? Papers, your papers please.

Smug writers saying their pen is mightier than the sword, but the State considers swords dangerous but not their pens? You lazy cows of intellectualist wordsmithing who carried water trashing Booosh must understand that while you feel you may have humped your rucksack of progressivism, you committed the sin of talking bad about the State and you will be purged by the next generation of KU keyboard pounders, other than a handful of iconic drunkard pundits to hash stories of the good olde days under Clinton. No pun intended.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/26/2013 10:56 Comments || Top||

#6  swksvolFF just won Rant of the Day.
Posted by: SteveS || 10/26/2013 13:43 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
40[untagged]
11Govt of Pakistan
4Arab Spring
4Govt of Syria
3al-Shabaab
2Hezbollah
1Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant
1Palestinian Authority
1al-Qaeda
1Pirates
1Boko Haram
1al-Nusra
1Govt of Sudan

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Sat 2013-10-26
  Nigeria says kills 74 'Boko Haram' Islamists in ground, air assault
Fri 2013-10-25
  Algerian troops find huge arms cache on Libyan border
Thu 2013-10-24
  Iraq PM warns of 'war of genocide' as attacks kill 48
Wed 2013-10-23
  Kenya police officers raid nabs 50 Somali aliens
Tue 2013-10-22
  IDF soldiers kill planner of Tel Aviv bus bombing in a raid
Mon 2013-10-21
  Syria: Exploding truck murders 30 in Hama
Sun 2013-10-20
  Report: 400 arrested in Egyptian operation in Sinai
Sat 2013-10-19
  18 Palestinians Charged in Leb Terrorist Plot
Fri 2013-10-18
  At Least 60 Killed, Hundreds Wounded in Iraq Bombs
Thu 2013-10-17
  Logar Governor Killed By Blast in Mosque
Wed 2013-10-16
  Syria fighting rages on despite Muslim holiday
Tue 2013-10-15
  Boko Haram 'kills 24 Nigerian vigilantes in ambush'
Mon 2013-10-14
  Key Syria opposition group refuses Geneva peace talks
Sun 2013-10-13
  Tunisian Forces Clash with Jihadists
Sat 2013-10-12
  US troops capture a senior Pakistan Taliban leader in Afghanistan

Better than the average link...



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.
3.239.15.46
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (21)    WoT Background (22)    Non-WoT (18)    Opinion (3)    (0)