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kpete
kpete's Journal
kpete's Journal
August 28, 2013
WH In Bubble-Don't They Know This Story Will Explode As Soon As They Nominate Summers?
Are they so in the bubble in the White House that they don’t think this story won’t explode as soon as they nominate Summers? I guess so. Well, the fireworks this Fall will certainly be interesting.
HERE:
http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/Article/1020662/How-Harvard-lost-Russia.html#.Uh4C29LBPHR
August 28, 2013
US rules out unilateral military action in Syria
Source: AFP
US rules out unilateral military action in Syria
(AFP) – 1 hour ago
WASHINGTON, District of Columbia — The United States has ruled out unilateral military action against Syria and is conferring with allies on potential punitive strikes that could last for more than a day, a senior US official said Wednesday.
"Any military action would not be unilateral. It would include international partners," the senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters.
The strikes against Syria, if ordered, could extend beyond a single day, the official said.
"The options are not limited just to one day."
Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hoeKc90VvJCEkSEZAw5n2N9DNp4Q?docId=CNG.c7f3d5d86e44e790c679886c2e48d055.ca1
August 28, 2013
By Gary Brecher
.......................
There are three factors that determine how much artificial world outrage a massacre sets off. First, the obvious one: Who committed it? Second: What technology did they use to commit it? Third: Who were the victims?
.........................
...................One constant for war news across my whole life is that nobody minds what you do as long as you do it from a fighter jet. It’s amazing. This isn’t as random as it might seem. Those jets are very, very expensive—not just to buy but to maintain, because they’re as fragile as racehorses. So only the big boys, the powers we consider legit, can use them. That’s absolution in advance for anything they do, above all because “opinion leaders” who spin the news know those jets will never be used against them.
.........................
.....................
Why would the West get so upset, so suddenly, about this chemical attack on the same people who’ve been dying in big batches for more than two years? Well, you have to stand back and realize it’s the same bad old world it always was. You know all those fairy tales where the husband, the legitimate ruler of the house, tells his wife she can go anywhere in the palace except that one room? So she goes into the room and he finds out and her head ends up on the mantelpiece or attached to a silverfish. The point is to teach the boys and girls—especially the girls—listening around the fireside that the man is the boss, and he can make any ridiculous rule he wants.
That’s pretty much what happened here. You’ve got a minority-sect regime faced with a very real existential crisis, facing a much bigger sect and running out of troops. This minority sect is nothing but trouble, and friends with other troublemakers, Iran and Russia and Hezbollah, but the other sect, the Sunni, is a way more serious global threat. So you balance your irritation at the little sect against the guilty pleasure of seeing the other sect, the really threatening one, get “bloodied,” as Michael Rubin puts it. But you also draw a line around one room in the house of horrors, the “chemical” room, and tell your Alawite bitch she can’t go in there, or there’ll be Hell to pay. And you know she will, of course, just like the guy in the fairy tale knows that as soon as he’s out of the house his wife will start picking the lock on the forbidden room.
And at that point you storm back in like God’s vengeance in a John Kerry disguise (which admittedly is about the unlikeliest disguise God’s vengeance could ever take) and announce that the Alawites are expelled from Purgatory, down into plain old Hell. The point is so much simpler than anyone will face. It’s not about chemicals, or death tolls, or even Syria. It’s about reminding two factions in an enemy tribe that you’re still in charge, and you control their death rates even when they think it’s them killing each other.
the rest:
(oh, dear, i feel flames...)
https://www.nsfwcorp.com/scribble/5707/79f1c70f9b125665da4dd87078175fb22f810d1f/
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/john-kerry-syria-chemical-attacks-moral-obscenity/68732/
Kerry’s Chem Speech: Old-School Empire: It’s not about chemicals, or death tolls, or even Syria.
Kerry’s Chem Speech: Old-School EmpireBy Gary Brecher
.......................
There are three factors that determine how much artificial world outrage a massacre sets off. First, the obvious one: Who committed it? Second: What technology did they use to commit it? Third: Who were the victims?
.........................
...................One constant for war news across my whole life is that nobody minds what you do as long as you do it from a fighter jet. It’s amazing. This isn’t as random as it might seem. Those jets are very, very expensive—not just to buy but to maintain, because they’re as fragile as racehorses. So only the big boys, the powers we consider legit, can use them. That’s absolution in advance for anything they do, above all because “opinion leaders” who spin the news know those jets will never be used against them.
.........................
.....................
Why would the West get so upset, so suddenly, about this chemical attack on the same people who’ve been dying in big batches for more than two years? Well, you have to stand back and realize it’s the same bad old world it always was. You know all those fairy tales where the husband, the legitimate ruler of the house, tells his wife she can go anywhere in the palace except that one room? So she goes into the room and he finds out and her head ends up on the mantelpiece or attached to a silverfish. The point is to teach the boys and girls—especially the girls—listening around the fireside that the man is the boss, and he can make any ridiculous rule he wants.
That’s pretty much what happened here. You’ve got a minority-sect regime faced with a very real existential crisis, facing a much bigger sect and running out of troops. This minority sect is nothing but trouble, and friends with other troublemakers, Iran and Russia and Hezbollah, but the other sect, the Sunni, is a way more serious global threat. So you balance your irritation at the little sect against the guilty pleasure of seeing the other sect, the really threatening one, get “bloodied,” as Michael Rubin puts it. But you also draw a line around one room in the house of horrors, the “chemical” room, and tell your Alawite bitch she can’t go in there, or there’ll be Hell to pay. And you know she will, of course, just like the guy in the fairy tale knows that as soon as he’s out of the house his wife will start picking the lock on the forbidden room.
And at that point you storm back in like God’s vengeance in a John Kerry disguise (which admittedly is about the unlikeliest disguise God’s vengeance could ever take) and announce that the Alawites are expelled from Purgatory, down into plain old Hell. The point is so much simpler than anyone will face. It’s not about chemicals, or death tolls, or even Syria. It’s about reminding two factions in an enemy tribe that you’re still in charge, and you control their death rates even when they think it’s them killing each other.
the rest:
(oh, dear, i feel flames...)
https://www.nsfwcorp.com/scribble/5707/79f1c70f9b125665da4dd87078175fb22f810d1f/
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/john-kerry-syria-chemical-attacks-moral-obscenity/68732/
August 28, 2013
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/CandidateQA/ObamaQA/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/27/1234291/-Briefing-with-White-House-Press-Secretary-Jay-Carney-Syria-edition
Is THAT So Mr. Carney?
Barack Obama's Q&A
By Charlie Savage
Globe Staff / December 20, 2007
“The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat,” Obama told the Boston Globe.
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/CandidateQA/ObamaQA/
MR. CARNEY: It is correct that the President is working with his national security team reviewing the options available to him to respond to the clear violation of an international norm by the Syrian regime with the use of, on a significant scale, chemical weapons against innocent civilians,
as I made clear, it is clearly in the United States' national security interests that that norm be maintained because the consequences of that standard dissolving are enormous and very detrimental to the interest of the United States and very detrimental to the international community, to our allies and partners in the region, and to the world at large.
Q But you're saying that's the standard today. But I'm saying the standard in 2007 to candidate Obama was an actual or imminent threat to the nation. Do you believe that exists right now, an actual imminent threat to the United States?
MR. CARNEY: I believe that absolutely allowing the use of chemical weapons on a significant scale to take place without a response would present a significant challenge to or threat to the United States' national security interests.
Q Not just to our allies in the region, but to the United States?
MR. CARNEY: Correct.
as I made clear, it is clearly in the United States' national security interests that that norm be maintained because the consequences of that standard dissolving are enormous and very detrimental to the interest of the United States and very detrimental to the international community, to our allies and partners in the region, and to the world at large.
Q But you're saying that's the standard today. But I'm saying the standard in 2007 to candidate Obama was an actual or imminent threat to the nation. Do you believe that exists right now, an actual imminent threat to the United States?
MR. CARNEY: I believe that absolutely allowing the use of chemical weapons on a significant scale to take place without a response would present a significant challenge to or threat to the United States' national security interests.
Q Not just to our allies in the region, but to the United States?
MR. CARNEY: Correct.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/27/1234291/-Briefing-with-White-House-Press-Secretary-Jay-Carney-Syria-edition
August 28, 2013
August 27, 2013
Researcher controls colleague’s motions in 1st human brain-to-brain interface
Doree Armstrong and Michelle Ma
News and Information
University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher."
http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/08/27/researcher-controls-colleagues-motions-in-1st-human-brain-to-brain-interface/
University of Washington researcher Rajesh Rao, left, plays a computer game with his mind. Across campus, researcher Andrea Stocco, right, wears a magnetic stimulation coil over the left motor cortex region of his brain. Stocco’s right index finger moved involuntarily to hit the “fire” button as part of the first human brain-to-brain interface demonstration.
http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/08/27/researcher-controls-colleagues-motions-in-1st-human-brain-to-brain-interface/
Researcher controls colleague’s motions in 1st human brain-to-brain interface
&feature=youtu.beAugust 27, 2013
Researcher controls colleague’s motions in 1st human brain-to-brain interface
Doree Armstrong and Michelle Ma
News and Information
University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher."
http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/08/27/researcher-controls-colleagues-motions-in-1st-human-brain-to-brain-interface/
University of Washington researcher Rajesh Rao, left, plays a computer game with his mind. Across campus, researcher Andrea Stocco, right, wears a magnetic stimulation coil over the left motor cortex region of his brain. Stocco’s right index finger moved involuntarily to hit the “fire” button as part of the first human brain-to-brain interface demonstration.
http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/08/27/researcher-controls-colleagues-motions-in-1st-human-brain-to-brain-interface/
August 27, 2013
http://gawker.com/cbn-covers-up-pat-robertons-claim-that-gays-spread-hiv-1209996528
UPDATE: CBN has also removed the YouTube video of the exchange.
UPDATE II: Robertson issued a non-apology to The Atlantic, saying that he "regret[s] that my remarks had been misunderstood, but this often happens because people do not listen to the context of remarks which are being said."
Of course, unlike CBN, we provided the entire exchange:
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-gay-people-deliberately-spread-hivaids-cutting-people-special-rings#sthash.3X4Dkphf.dpuf
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-gay-people-deliberately-spread-hivaids-cutting-people-special-rings
CBN Covers Up Pat Robertson's Claim That Gays Spread AIDS on Purpose
These were his exact words to co-host Terry Meeuwsen, made during today's episode of the 700 Club:
You know what they do in San Francisco, some in the gay community there they want to get people so if they got (AIDS) they’ll have a ring, you shake hands, and the ring’s got a little thing where you cut your finger. Really. It’s that kind of vicious stuff, which would be the equivalent of murder.
http://gawker.com/cbn-covers-up-pat-robertons-claim-that-gays-spread-hiv-1209996528
UPDATE: CBN has also removed the YouTube video of the exchange.
UPDATE II: Robertson issued a non-apology to The Atlantic, saying that he "regret[s] that my remarks had been misunderstood, but this often happens because people do not listen to the context of remarks which are being said."
Of course, unlike CBN, we provided the entire exchange:
I was asked by a viewer whether she had a right to leave her church because she had been asked to transport an elderly man who had AIDS and about whose condition she had not been informed. My advice was that the risk of contagion in those circumstances was quite low and that she should continue to attend the church and not worry about the incident.
In my own experience, our organization sponsored a meeting years ago in San Francisco where trained security officers warned me about shaking hands because, in those days, certain AIDS-infected activists were deliberately trying to infect people like me by virtue of rings which would cut fingers and transfer blood.
I regret that my remarks had been misunderstood, but this often happens because people do not listen to the context of remarks which are being said. In no wise (sic) were my remarks meant as an indictment of the homosexual community or, for that fact, to those infected with this dreadful disease.
In my own experience, our organization sponsored a meeting years ago in San Francisco where trained security officers warned me about shaking hands because, in those days, certain AIDS-infected activists were deliberately trying to infect people like me by virtue of rings which would cut fingers and transfer blood.
I regret that my remarks had been misunderstood, but this often happens because people do not listen to the context of remarks which are being said. In no wise (sic) were my remarks meant as an indictment of the homosexual community or, for that fact, to those infected with this dreadful disease.
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-gay-people-deliberately-spread-hivaids-cutting-people-special-rings#sthash.3X4Dkphf.dpuf
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-gay-people-deliberately-spread-hivaids-cutting-people-special-rings
August 27, 2013
Two new paintings by former president George W. Bush, published for the first time here on Gawker, give us a new window into the ongoing development of the tortured artist/torture advocate—and opens the possibility for a new phase in his oeuvre: cats.
http://gawker.com/these-new-george-w-bush-paintings-may-herald-a-cat-pe-1209373403
New Works By Tortured Artist/Torture Advocate - George W. Bush
while the world burns:Two new paintings by former president George W. Bush, published for the first time here on Gawker, give us a new window into the ongoing development of the tortured artist/torture advocate—and opens the possibility for a new phase in his oeuvre: cats.
http://gawker.com/these-new-george-w-bush-paintings-may-herald-a-cat-pe-1209373403
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