My dad sent me this link to an ABC News clip claiming that US cities are hiring Chinese instead of American workers for building projects. I’m pretty moderate in most ways, but in this one I’m a hard liner and I can’t believe the citizens are allowing this kind of pathetic decision making to take place.

YES! I blame the citizens! It is our own apathy that allows this to occur. Some decision maker somewhere is thinking about how to cover his ass and asking questions like:

• How fast can we get this job done? Because if it drags on and on, people are going to have my ass!
• How much is this going to cost? Because it it’s too much, people are going to have my ass!

It’s no wonder they choose a cheaper, faster workforce that is state-owned, who don’t pay workers very much, and without as much regard for their workforce’s safety! In every way the decision maker will be judged, it saves their ass!

Except one…

The citizens need to make it 100% clear in no uncertain terms that:

• They don’t care if it costs a little more.
• They don’t care if it takes a little longer.
• They are willing to do the work, and do it in a quality manner!

The economics are very simple, and by keeping these projects and jobs within our economy the money spent has a huge multiplier effect. On top of that, even if the US companies are slower and less efficient at the moment, after they complete one or two of these projects they’ll get more experience and be up to speed on the next ones!

The bottom line is, if you keep farming out our projects to people who might be better at them today, we’ll become entirely dependent on them, lose the skill set, and never be able to win one in the future!

The argument that we lack skilled workers is absolute crap! Even if that was the case all it takes is one special visa to allow them to come here from other countries and we’d solve it in about 1 week.

Does this piss you off as much as it does me?

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With all the of things that President Barack Obama has to take care of, you wonder how he can keep so calm. Well it likely has to do with the help of his anger translator.

Where’s My Mayo:

Obama Loses His SH*T:

Martin Luther King Day:

Michelle Calls Barack:

Key & Peele On Comedy Central. Great Duo!

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The PROTECT-IP Act is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It is scheduled to go before the Senate on January 24, 2012. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he plans to bring it up on the first day the Senate is back in session.

It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the net, in the name of protecting “creativity”. The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites – they just have to convince a judge that the site is “dedicated to copyright infringement.”

Additional Research

Rather than sit here and give you MY opinions, I want to refer you to external sources of verification so you can develop your own. For the record though, I believe this bill is the greatest threat to the Internet the world has ever seen.

• 130 Internet Founders Sign Letter Opposing PIPA
• Senator Wyden’s Call to Arms
• SOPATrack.com
• A Google Document List of SOPA/PIPA Supporters
• WordPress Official Position on SOPA/PIPA

These Bills Won’t Work!

I’m all for protection of copyrighted materials, I mean, I’ve written nearly 2,000 articles here on this very blog and I get frustrated when other sites blatantly mirror my content. But if you try and stop one, another will pop up instantly.

Mark my words, you’ll never stop piracy. NEVER! And, despite what uneducated executives and legislators think about the “losses”, even Bill Gates acknowledged that piracy isn’t all bad:

“Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don’t pay for the software. Someday they will, though,” Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. “And as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”

The only thing that will happen with a law like this is that it will create a new “Alter-Net” where tools are developed to service a black market of hosting, information, and illegal activity. (And by the way, it already exists! We’ll just make it more powerful.)

What YOU Can Do to Help!

It’s so simple. You NEED to contact your congressperson, AND you need to help spread the word to let others do so as well. Remember, ALL of the members of the House who are supporting PIPA are up for re-election, and 1/3 of the Senate is up for re-election.

Here is a list of congress people who are openly in support of this bill. (These are the people who are going to ruin the world as we know it.)

Congress Members Who Support PIPA

• Mark Amodei [NV2]
• Joe Baca [CA43]
• John Barrow [GA12]
• Karen Bass [CA33]
• Howard Berman [CA28]
• Marsha Blackburn [TN7]
• Mary Bono Mack [CA45]
• John Carter [TX31]
• Steven Chabot [OH1]
• Judy Chu [CA32]
• John Conyers [MI14]
• Jim Cooper [TN5]
• Ted Deutch [FL19]
• Elton Gallegly [CA24]
• Robert Goodlatte [VA6]
• Tim Griffin [AR2]
• Tim Holden [PA17]
• Peter King [NY3]
• John Larson [CT1]
• Ben Lujan [NM3]
• Thomas Marino [PA10]
• Alan Nunnelee [MS1]
• William Owens [NY23]
• Ben Quayle [AZ3]
• Dennis Ross [FL12]
• Steve Scalise [LA1]
• Adam Schiff [CA29]
• Brad Sherman [CA27]
• Lee Terry [NE2]
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz [FL20]
• Melvin Watt [NC12]

And here’s the list of Senators who are both supporters of PIPA and are up for re-election in 2012. Wikipedia lists who’s already registered to challenge them.

• Ben Cardin [Maryland]
• Bob Casey [Pennsylvania]
• Bob Corker [Tennessee]
• Dianne Feinstein [California]
• Kristen Gillibrand [New York]
• Orrin Hatch [Utah]
• Amy Klobuchar [Minnesota]
• Bob Menendez [New Jersey]
• Bill Nelson [Florida]
• Sheldon Whitehouse [Rhode Island]

You can see a list of people running against these folks in the Senate, and The House of Representatives in case you’d like to find out who to vote for in the next elections.

The Bottom Line

I can guarantee you that this bill will affect free speech on the Internet. Big companies with revenues to protect won’t stand up against it once its passed, they’ll comply with the law. Small sites who are willing to stand against it will be taken off line. It will create online wars, turn normal citizens into criminals, and destroy the Web as we know it. It is wrong. It must be stopped.

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If you are not already familiar, www.whitehouse.gov now allows any US citizen 13 years or older to create an online petition for pretty much anything in the hopes of drawing the attention of the President. As far as I have seen this has been much less a tool for the people and more a method of placation but, perhaps I am wrong.

Our Certain Doom

I should preface by saying that it is not clear whether this petition is just an inflammatory joke posting, or the real deal. Poe’s law is in full effect on this, but just for fun, I’m gonna take this one to be real. On to the stupid shit. It seems that on November 24th someone created a petition regarding the new hit videogame, Skyrim. Specifically, the person is claiming that it is widely known that videogames are destroying the moral fabric of society, are physically deadly to teens, encourage homosexuality, promote violent behaviour and are destroying the “Christian foundations on which this nation was built”. Well, one can only hope. I mean if you’ve played Skyrim then you have obviously by now watched the scene where the giant clubs another one repeatedly, forcibly bends him over one of his Mammoths and, rapes his ass unmercifully while simultaneously chanting Satanic rites and reading “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins, right? No. You haven’t and, sadly neither have I. I think we should petition the game’s creators to put that in the game somewhere.

Please, enjoy for a moment the full text of the petition:

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:

Immediately Ban the Deadly Videogame Known as “SkyRim” for The Safety of America’s Youths.

Whereas videogaming has proven to cause social, ethical and health problems in people of all ages,

Whereas sexual perversion and homosexuality are threatening to destroy the Christian foundations on which this nation was built,

Whereas a new video game has just been created that far exceeds any others in the psychological and spiritual damage it does to teens,

We, the American people, today ask you,

1) To enact an immediate ban on the videogame known as “SkyRim” produced by Blizzard Entertainment.

2) To seize and destroy all copies already in public hands and erase its presence on the internet.

3) To prosecute the players of “SkyRim” to the fullest extent of the law.

4) To create a national database of videogame avatars and “screen names” so that teenagers can be better monitored.

Homophobia and Lack of Evidence

So, allow me to begin tearing this fear-mongering, baseless, homophobic shit apart. To begin, this man’s entire premise is false. There are no conclusive studies linking videogames specifically to increased violent behavior or homosexuality. There are plenty that attempt to suggest it but, their results have as yet not been replicated. A solid example of this and, one that is used regularly by right wing pundits is the study “Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature” by Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2001). In this study, the researchers claim the following:

“Research on exposure to television and movie violence suggests that playing violent video games will increase aggressive behavior. A metaanalytic review of the video-game research literature reveals that violent video games increase aggressive behavior in children and young adults.Experimental and nonexperimental studies with males and females in laboratory and field settings support this conclusion. Analyses also reveal that exposure to violent video games increases physiological arousal and aggression-related thoughts and feelings. Playing violent video games also decreases prosocial behavior.”

As I stated previously the results of this study and many other similar studies have simply not been replicated in lab or public settings. As of 2010 the American Psychological Association was quoted as stating “Bad effects depend on certain personality traits; games can offer learning opportunities for others” regarding violence in videogames. I am unsure as to the source of the petition creators information but I would certainly hope to see some supporting research in a petition intended to reach the President of the United States of America. This isn’t the fucking PTA, you aren’t going to make your point with hyperbolic statements and conjecture.

Now let’s take a look at how this game supposedly promotes homosexuality and, how that is “… threatening to destroy the Christian foundations on which this nation was built”. The petition claims that Skyrim promotes this type of sexual behavior and that this is in itself a bad and destructive thing. So from the jump here, we are meant to understand that being gay is bad and that videogames are teaching teens to have sex with members of the same sex and, that this is an attempt to destroy Christianity in America. If it’s not clear by now I support gay marriage and I would consider anyone who feels to the contrary to be a bigoted and hateful person. As for the game itself, Skyrim allows a player character to marry an in-game character of the same sex, that is all. There are no depictions of sex between the player character and other characters at all. So not only is this claim bigoted, it is also without evidence. I will grant that the logical next step after marriage is sex but, if the argument is that by implying the act, the game has encouraged it, then I would have to disagree. It is safe to assume that most people know that homosexual sex acts occur between people but, this knowledge does not incite the act in those people. Knowledge of something or even seeing something occur does not predestine a person to do that same thing later.

Poor Research

Finally, on to my last issue with this petition; the citing of Blizzard Entertainment as the producer of Skyrim. This is quite possibly the best piece of evidence to suggest that this is a hoax petition as Skyrim is produced by Bethesda Softworks which is owned by Zenimax Media Inc. It has no direct relation to Blizzard Entertainment. If this petition is real and meant to be taken seriously I should hope that the creator would have been smart enough to point his finger at the people that he wanted punished. However, this is also written by a seemingly homophobic and clearly irate person so, perhaps it’s best that I not assume them to be rational or capable of researching their own viewpoints. Again, Poe’s Law is strong with this one.

Truth or Fiction?

It is tough to say whether this is the real deal or not but then such is the way with many similar posts on the internet. The reality of the fiery hatred, racism, sexism, fear-mongering and, flat-out lies of many religious nuts on the internet will always be hard to distinguish from the posts meant to incense and anger people for the enjoyment of the originator (i.e. trolling). There is much argument about whether this petition actually originated from a post on the religious fear parody site, Christwire or not. This has not been proven but I can certainly see the possibility. If it is indeed parody then I applaud them for helping draw attention to the absurdities of religious extremism, if it is real then please re-read my previous statement.

References: 

Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science, 12, 353-359

“Violent Video Games May Increase Aggression in Some But Not Others, Says New Research”. apa.org. American Psychological Association. Retrieved 28 November 2011.

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I’m neither for or against the “Occupy” movement, but I am definitely a supporter of the US Constitution which guarantees:

…the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances…

Yesterday, police at UC Davis demonstrated that they don’t value that particular edict established by the people when they turned a can of riot control pepper spray on a peaceful group of students sitting on the ground. The entire event was captured on video and in photos.

The man responsible for the attack on these citizens is UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike.

Take a look:

Here is a second angle on that event:

As Xeni Jardin from BoingBoing put it:

In the video above, you see a police officer [Update: UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike] walk down a line of those young people seated quietly on the ground in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience, and spray them all with pepper spray at very close range. He is clearing a path for fellow officers to walk through and arrest more students, but it’s as if he’s dousing a row of bugs with insecticide.

What I find most egregious is that after spraying the students, the police still had to handcuff, arrest, and move them. None appeared to be resisting in any way, and I’m sure there are lawyers lining up to represent them in what is sure to be a huge wave of lawsuits.

Also of note, the UC Davis professor who helped organize the protest is calling for the resignation of the Chancellor of the University. In his words, here’s why:

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

I have no problem with the police doing their job. If they need to clear the path, they have the power to do so. But they forget that their power is derived from the people, and we want to see it executed judiciously. There is case law which suggests these actions were in no way appropriate.

Here is a significant Ninth Circuit case regarding the constitutionality of pepper spraying peaceful protesters:

HEADWATERS FOREST DEFENSE v. COUNTY OF HUMBOLDT:
Characterizing the protestors’ activities as “active resistance” is contrary to the facts of the case, viewing them, as we must, in the light most favorable to the protestors:  the protestors were sitting peacefully, were easily moved by the police, and did not threaten or harm the officers. In sum, it would be clear to a reasonable officer that it was excessive to use pepper spray against the nonviolent protestors under these circumstances.

Here is a California law directly related to deployment of this kind of weapon:

California Penal Code Section 12403.7 (a) (8)
(g) Any person who uses tear gas or tear gas weapons except in self-defense is guilty of a public offense and is punishable byimprisonment in a state prison for 16 months, or two or three years or in a county jail not to exceed one year or by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment, except that, if the use is against a peace officer, as defined in Chapter 4.5 (commencing with Section 830) of Title 3 of Part 2, engaged in the performance of his or her official duties and the person committing the offense knows or reasonably should know that the victim is a peace officer, the offense is punishable by imprisonment in a state prison for 16 months or two or three years or by a fine of one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.

Thanks to Steve Garfield for bringing this to my attention, and Louise Macabitas for the photo.

What do you think about this?

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Yesterday Cenk Uygur, an attorney and host of the web-based political talk show The Young Turks announced the formation of a group called ‘Wolf-Pac’. In Zuccotti Park during the Occupy Wall Street protests Uygur explained that the organization was forming with the express intent of occupying each U.S. state and pushing for them to call a Constitutional Convention and instate a 28th Amendment to the Constitution that would read as follows:

Corporations are not people. They have none of the Constitutional rights of human beings. Corporations are not allowed to give money to any politician, directly or indirectly. No politician can raise over $100 from any person or entity. All elections must be publicly financed.

The video below was taped during the OWS protest. It shows Uygur’s announcement of the organization as well as their website where users can go to volunteer their skills to the movement and donate funds.

To explain, what WolfPAC is proposing here is to bypass the Federal Government altogether and organize all states to call a convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution. This is also known as an Article V convention, so-called for its derivation of plausibility via Article V of the Constitution itself. It’s worth noting that in the early 1890’s just the notion that an Article V convention would be called due to mounting pressure on the senate was the catalyst that helped pass the 17th Amendment. So there is precedent for a tactic like this working. It is also worth noting that a convention such as this has not occurred in our nation’s history but the threat of it has been sufficient for change.

If it is not clear by now I am not an unbiased third-party. I am in full support of this organization and am as of tonight a volunteer for it. I am speaking as my own person and my views do in no way reflect the views of any other person affiliated with this blog or any of its parent organizations. I am simply showing my support for the concept.

I have real hope that this can work. I have real hope that with a dedicated group of organized, strong willed, critically thinking, and courageous volunteers we can cut out a cancer from our political system. I do not believe that corporations in and of themselves are evil; I do believe that the corporate control of human progress and politics is. If you feel the same way then please do what you can to help, join a local #Occupy protest, or join WolfPAC, or just help relay information to others.

For more information you can visit the following link: http://www.wolf-pac.com/

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Recently I was asked in my law class to analyze this statement:

The strategy of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and other U.S. anti-monopoly legislation is to ensure that each company has meaningful competitors in every product market in which it participates. This strategy works to prevent monopoly pricing of products but, unfortunately, it is inadequate to prevent the development of quasi-political control of entire societies by oligopolies whose member corporations share a quasi-political agenda. Therefore, as the world becomes a single market, some new strategy must be developed to control the reach of the corporate oligopolies.

My response was a bit long winded and took a while to circle back to the original question but I think explained my opinion as thoroughly as possible. Here it is:

Economic Organisms

It’s my opinion that this is a symptom of the spread of capitalism across the world. I like to look at this from an evolutionary standpoint. We can think of capitalism as an organism or rather the capitalist economies of the world as a species. As the species gains in dominance of the food chain that is the world economy, it has less need to compete with others. Eventually the weaker economic organisms that it preys upon dwindle in numbers and the population of capitalist economies reaches a critical mass. They run out of their given prey and must begin to feed on each other to sustain themselves. This would represent war profiteering.

This eventually results in a stalemate as the strongest economies in the world consolidate their wealth. Eventually they form a symbiotic relationship and feed off each other at a rate that maintains them all at nominal levels. Within the economies, the corporations that form and control these organisms require, by their capitalist nature to continue to grow. The plateau effect on their escalating force has stagnated this growth but too much aggressive action may destabilize the world economy. So they take minor actions where they can to reach the ultimate goal of any capitalist organism, be the alpha.

Consumed…

I am not insinuating that capitalism itself is evil or even greed driven. I am also not alluding to some global conspiracy by a cabal of bankers. I am stating that it is my opinion that through the actions of the richest and most powerful of our species, economic organisms have been created and function on their own.

I think that our economic issues themselves represent a function of human societies and cultures. We are consumed by consumption. I am not saying that consumption in and of itself is the problem, but consumption without production is.

What can be done about it?

I do not think that any particular form of regulation or political action can resolve this, short of completely reshaping the economies of the world and refocusing the goals of the human species. These issues are greater than simple economics. The economics again, only represent a symptom of a greater issue.

I am not entirely convinced that this would be possible as the ‘quasi-political’ corporate entities have such an interest in legislation in their respective markets that they would react as any animal in the wild would to defend its position in its local food chain. It would lash out in fear and confusion.

I do not think the situation hopeless, but I think that a resolution is unlikely based on human history. This may even simply be an inevitability of any species that reaches true dominance of an ecosystem. Life only functions to beget more life, irrespective of whether its rampant consumption may leave it with no ecosystem to survive in.

Your Opinions…

I’ve already completed the assignment by submitting my response so I’m not looking for help with my homework here. :) I’m genuinely interested in having as clear a picture of the world as possible and this is a subject where I can only draw conjecture as I am not an economist. 

I’d like anyone interested to give me your opinion. Am I wrong? Right? Is my assessment flawed? If so, how?

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That title may be upsetting to some but it gets my basic point across. We live in a world, not just the “first world” where our lives and destinies rely on our ability to communicate with each other. If you distill this concept, it’s really always been that way. Our ability to directly communicate via language, our concepts, thoughts, and emotions to one another was and is a defining factor in why we are the dominant species on the planet. It binds us, separates us and enables us to enact great feats. In short, communication IS our way of life.

Currently, the most widespread form of communication between people is the Internet. This covers a very broad spectrum of methods from actually speaking to each other via services like Skype and Google Voice to the use of social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, or Google Plus. In order to take part, to really have a voice that can be heard amongst the din in our worldwide conversations, one must have access to the Internet. I would argue that one must have unfettered access. That is, service that’s not throttled, shaped, blocked or filtered. To block a user from access to specific data is to limit their ability to speak and understand. This violates a basic human right free and open speech.

How the UN Defines Human Rights

Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights as written by the UN states:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

This would seem to state implicitly to me that no one recognized as a person under law should be deprived of their ability to communicate. The statement “… through any media and regardless of frontiers” does, very clearly cover the Internet. So if we are following these as a basic concept of Human Rights, logic dictates that unfettered Internet access must be available to all persons under law.

Government Censorship and Free Speech Restrictions

Currently governments around the world, in my case the US are considering enabling DNS blacklists. Previously in the US there was a bill known as COICA (Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act) that would have allowed our government the ability to deem any website (with great ambiguity) as infringing upon the law and would allow that the registrar of said domain be ordered to suspend operation of the domain. This would effectively block the site from most people as they would have no ready method of access.

The site would still exist on the net but would be unreachable by hosts affected. COICA was killed in the Senate after having never received a full Senate vote. Unfortunately it has now been resurrected as the Protect IP Act. All of this is being done in the name of anti-piracy. It is intended to protect corporate entities from “theft”. I can understand the argument for protecting copyrights, but this law would give our government too broad a control over what we can and cannot consume or say on the Internet.

This discussion of Internet censorship is where the new battle for our right to free speech will be waged. I urge anyone who has not at least skimmed the Protect IP Act to give it a read through. It is rather unsettling.

Global Censorship and Corporate Controls

The US is of course not the only country that is considering action like this and there are already quite a few that are in worse violation of this human right. The most obvious of these would be China. At the beginning of this year the Egyptian government virtually shut down Internet access in their country when civil unrest boiled over and revolution broke out. The intent was to stop any undesirable information from entering or leaving the country. I’m not going to step into tin foil hat territory and tell you that the US government is going to shut down our Internet access in the event of unrest, what I am saying is that it is a possibility and something that we should be wary of.

Even more recently AT&T has decided that it is going to stop providing unlimited data to its customers who paid for said service. More specifically it is going to throttle the connection speeds of its users who consume the most data. They will still technically have access but at a considerably slower rate than what their original plan dictated. The myriad of other legal questions this raises aside, this would violate Article 19 of the previously mentioned declaration of human rights. It would limit the rate at which a person can communicate on a service that they pay for.

We’ve seen similar censorship with ISP’s shutting off the connections of users utilizing the BitTorrent protocol. If a person steals something in this country, we don’t take the use of their hands other than to restrain them while in custody of the authorities. ISP’s in this situation are acting as judge and jury. They may own the service but they should have no legal authority to dictate our right to use.

I’d like to end by saying that I think this is one of the most important discussions of our time. Here and now is where we will define our rights to communication for our future. What do you think? Are you worried about access to your favorite sites disappearing? Are you concerned about your own ability to say what you want to say? Or do you even think it’s an issue? Let us know in the comments below!

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President Barack Obama's Birth Certificate

About a week ago President Barack Obama had his birth certificate shared on the White House blog. In addition, he went before the press to talk about the release of evidence regarding “the site of my birth”.

This following video is of President Obama addressing the nation regarding the release of his birth certificate. This preceded the blog post, but was presumably right around the same time.

This link is to the direct download of the PDF from the official WhiteHouse.GOV site:
http://whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf
And in case it gets taken down eventually, here is a copy of the file which I personally downloaded and then uploaded to my own server:
President Obama’s Birth Certificate.

After this was posted to the web, a YouTuber by the handle of orangegold1 posted a video walk through of an examination of the birth certificate in which he claims that it has been “faked”.

It does indeed appear to me that someone has gone in and heavily edited this document. Questions arise such as:

• Why would someone do this?
• Who did it?
• Was it done at the President’s order?
• Is the President even aware of the editing?

Some people will jump to the conclusion that there is some sort of conspiracy going on here. But what are some other alternatives? I could imagine the following scenario:

President Obama, wanting to put the matter of his citizenship to rest tells some staffer to go ahead and post his birth certificate.

They go and get it from whereever it is normally kept, but the document is 50 years old and faded. They discuss it with the President and he says, “Can you enhance the image a bit so people can read it better or something?” Because he’s just thinking they can use a really good scanner or something to make it look right.

The staffer decides to spend like 10 hours doing a crappy job of “cleaning up” the birth certificate in Adobe Illustrator, and then like a complete amateur posts a PDF of their work on the site with all of the layer information still present.

What do YOU think?

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Osama bin Laden is Dead

Just a few hours ago President Obama went on TV to tell the world that the US finally got Osama bin Laden.

After a 10 year hunt spanning two Presidents, Obama is finally able to lay claim to the death of America’s public enemy number one. The predictions about how this will change things have already begun.

People are already speculating that:

• This will help Obama during his re-election campaign
• The stock market will improve
• The world will be a safer place.

Whether or not hunting down bin Laden will really have these effects is yet to be seen…

President Obama’s Report of Osama bin Laden’s Death

Details About the Raid that Killed Osama Bin Laden

The complete White House press briefing after the President’s address can be found here. But the most interesting stuff follows.

First, a video alleged to be the compound where bin Laden was killed, engulfed in flames:

And here is the Google Map of what is alleged to be the location of the compound:

View Larger Map

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you. The bottom line of our collection and our analysis was that we had high confidence that the compound harbored a high-value terrorist target. The experts who worked this issue for years assessed that there was a strong probability that the terrorist that was hiding there was Osama bin Laden.

What I’d like to do is walk you through the key points in that intelligence trail that led us to that conclusion. From the time that we first recognized bin Laden as a threat, the CIA gathered leads on individuals in bin Laden’s inner circle, including his personal couriers. Detainees in the post-9/11 period flagged for us individuals who may have been providing direct support to bin Laden and his deputy, Zawahiri, after their escape from Afghanistan.

One courier in particular had our constant attention. Detainees gave us his nom de guerre or his nickname and identified him as both a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11th, and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the former number three of al Qaeda who was captured in 2005.

Detainees also identified this man as one of the few al Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden. They indicated he might be living with and protecting bin Laden. But for years, we were unable to identify his true name or his location.

Four years ago, we uncovered his identity, and for operational reasons, I can’t go into details about his name or how we identified him, but about two years ago, after months of persistent effort, we identified areas in Pakistan where the courier and his brother operated. Still we were unable to pinpoint exactly where they lived, due to extensive operational security on their part. The fact that they were being so careful reinforced our belief that we were on the right track.

Then in August 2010, we found their residence, a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a town about 35 miles north of Islamabad. The area is relatively affluent, with lots of retired military. It’s also insolated from the natural disasters and terrorist attacks that have afflicted other parts of Pakistan. When we saw the compound where the brothers lived, we were shocked by what we saw — an extraordinarily unique compound. The compound sits on a large plot of land in an area that was relatively secluded when it was built. It is roughly eight times larger than the other homes in the area.

When the compound was built in 2005, it was on the outskirts of the town center, at the end of a narrow dirt road. In the last six years, some residential homes have been built nearby. The physical security measures of the compound are extraordinary. It has 12- to 18-foot walls topped with barbed wire. Internal wall sections — internal walls sectioned off different portions of the compound to provide extra privacy. Access to the compound is restricted by two security gates, and the residents of the compound burn their trash, unlike their neighbors, who put the trash out for collection.

The main structure, a three-story building, has few windows facing the outside of the compound. A terrace on the third floor has a seven-foot wall privacy — has a seven-foot privacy wall.

It’s also noteworthy that the property is valued at approximately $1 million but has no telephone or Internet service connected to it. The brothers had no explainable source of wealth.

Intelligence analysts concluded that this compound was custom built to hide someone of significance. We soon learned that more people were living at the compound than the two brothers and their families. A third family lived there — one whose size and whose makeup matched the bin Laden family members that we believed most likely to be with Osama bin Laden. Our best assessment, based on a large body of reporting from multiple sources, was that bin Laden was living there with several family members, including his youngest wife.

Everything we saw — the extremely elaborate operational security, the brothers’ background and their behavior, and the location and the design of the compound itself was perfectly consistent with what our experts expected bin Laden’s hideout to look like. Keep in mind that two of bin Laden’s gatekeepers, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libbi, were arrested in the settled areas of Pakistan.

Our analysts looked at this from every angle, considering carefully who other than bin Laden could be at the compound. We conducted red team exercises and other forms of alternative analysis to check our work. No other candidate fit the bill as well as bin Laden did.

So the final conclusion, from an intelligence standpoint, was twofold. We had high confidence that a high-value target was being harbored by the brothers on the compound, and we assessed that there was a strong probability that that person was Osama bin Laden.

Now let me turn it over to my colleague.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you. Earlier this afternoon, a small U.S. team conducted a helicopter raid on the compound. Considerable planning helped prepare our operators for this very complex mission. Senior officials have been involved in the decision-making and planning for this operation for months, and briefed the President regularly. My colleague has already mentioned the unusual characteristics of this compound. Each of these, including the high walls, security features, suburban location, and proximity to Islamabad made this an especially dangerous operation.

The men who executed this mission accepted this risk, practiced to minimize those risks, and understood the importance of the target to the national security of the United States.

I know you understand that I can’t and won’t get into many details of this mission, but I’ll share what I can. This operation was a surgical raid by a small team designed to minimize collateral damage and to pose as little risk as possible to non-combatants on the compound or to Pakistani civilians in the neighborhood.

Our team was on the compound for under 40 minutes and did not encounter any local authorities while performing the raid. In addition to Osama bin Laden, three adult males were killed in the raid. We believe two were the couriers and the third was bin Laden’s adult son.

There were several women and children at the compound. One woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant. Two other women were injured.

During the raid, we lost one helicopter due to mechanical failure. The aircraft was destroyed by the crew and the assault force and crew members boarded the remaining aircraft to exit the compound. All non-combatants were moved safely away from the compound before the detonation.

What Are They Doing With Osama bin Laden’s Body?

According to the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. official says Osama bin Laden has been buried at sea.
After bin Laden was killed in a raid by U.S. forces in Pakistan, senior administration officials said the body would be handled according to Islamic practice and tradition.

That practice calls for the body to be buried within 24 hours, the official said. Finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world’s most wanted terrorist would have been difficult, the official said. So the U.S. decided to bury him at sea.

The official, who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters, did not immediately say where that occurred.

Transcript of President Obama’s Address on Osama bin Laden

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON OSAMA BIN LADEN
East Room
11:35 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory — hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction.

And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.

On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.

We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda — an organization headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.

Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in that effort. We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot.

Yet Osama bin Laden avoided capture and escaped across the Afghan border into Pakistan. Meanwhile, al Qaeda continued to operate from along that border and operate through its affiliates across the world.

And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.

Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.

Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.

For over two decades, bin Laden has been al Qaeda’s leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda.

Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must –- and we will — remain vigilant at home and abroad.

As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not –- and never will be -– at war with Islam. I’ve made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.

Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was. That is what we’ve done. But it’s important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding. Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and ordered attacks against the Pakistani people.

Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates.

The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores, and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens. After nearly 10 years of service, struggle, and sacrifice, we know well the costs of war. These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief, have to sign a letter to a family that has lost a loved one, or look into the eyes of a service member who’s been gravely wounded.

So Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done.

Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.

We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day.

Finally, let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores.

And tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.

The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it’s the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place.

Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

Man Unknowingly Live-Tweets Osama Bin Laden Raid

Sohaib Athar, or @ReallyVirtual on Twitter, live-tweeted the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed. The IT-consultant apparently found out hours later that he had been witnessing a super-secret mission by US troops. For more, go to this WebBeat.TV article.

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Cairo Egypt - Tahrir Square

However, today I received an email from Ossama Hassanein, Chairman of the Board for TechWadi – an organization that supports entrepreneurship in the middle east. Ossama was passing along the following letter from his daughter, which recounts her first hand experiences of what has transpired over the past week. I found the message eye-opening and it helped me gain an understanding of what has been going on.

Dear All,

Thank you all for your messages in the past few days. I was very touched by how many of you thought of me and reached out.

The past few days have been an emotional roller coaster. We have seen Egypt in all its glory and all its despair.

Egypt's Mubarak

Tuesday, January 25th, (Police Day – a national holiday) was the beginning of a revolution. That day, my friends and I for the most part, did not participate in any demonstrations. Wednesday and Thursday were normal working days, although some people continued to demonstrate, and huge demonstrations were planned for Friday. When we saw what happened that day, many of us became determined to participate in the demonstrations on Friday. (The weekend in Egypt is Friday and Saturday). Friday morning we woke up to find that all mobile telephony and Internet had been cut. Many of you probably do not know that since Mubarak came into power 30 years ago, the country has been operating under emergency law which makes any form of assembly illegal. Until last week, most people shied away from any anti-government demonstrations because the consequences were undoubtedly severe punishment by the brutal Egyptian Police Force.

Police Response to Egyptian Protests

Inspired by the events that took place in Tunis, and the sheer number of people who were moved through Facebook and other social media websites, people were no longer afraid to engage in peaceful demonstrations on Friday. As a girl, I was discouraged by my friends from participating on Friday. The protesters that day were brutally attacked by the Police with tear gas and rubber bullets. The Police used indiscriminate force to try to disperse the crowds, but the masses – who mostly have very little to lose, put up an enormous fight. The stories from that day are incredible. Many of the shops in the streets stayed open and provided water and juice for the protesters who were being attacked. The protesters were determined that it remain a peaceful demonstration. One man with a Dodge Ram took it upon himself to pick up injured protesters in his truck, drive them to safety, and then come back with drinks for the protesters. The army, who is very much loved and respected by the people moved in that evening, and all the Police in Egypt mysteriously disappeared. They were ordered by a higher force to leave so that chaos would ensue, and the people would call out for them to come back.

Friday evening, Mubarak addressed the nation. His speech was a slap in the face. No concessions were made except that he dissolved the Cabinet of Ministers, which was perhaps the only thing he had going for him. He even went so far as to say that he ‘made the demonstrations possible’ on Friday, and blamed the corruption in the government entirely on his cabinet. His speech added more fuel to the fire.

Egypt - Police and Protestors Clash

Saturday, the number of protesters grew as people became more determined to remove him from power. The newly appointed cabinet was a joke, and included many corrupt people from the ‘previous’ regime. Mubarak appointed Omar Suleiman as his first VP. This gave a certain amount of hope as he is generally respected and people would accept him as the leader of a transitional government. The mobile service was restored for phone calls, but no messages or instant messaging and no Internet. That day, it became known that thousands of prisoners were released from prison. Prisons and police stations were emptied of their fire arms by thugs. They began looting Friday night, and continued throughout Saturday. It is believed that many of the looters were actually members of the Police Force who were still MIA. Late Saturday evening, the military moved into the neighborhoods to start providing protection. Also on Saturday, a neighborhood watch began where all the men in the neighborhoods began working in shifts using any weapons they had, ranging from kitchen knives and golf clubs to fire arms, to protect our homes. Luckily, through the protection of the military, and our own brave men who patrolled the streets, safety and order were restored, and I believe the media played a major role in enlarging the magnitude of the threat. Thank God, no one I know was attacked or had their homes broken into.

Saturday-Tuesday were amazing days of hope for our country. In the neighborhoods, in addition to the neighborhood watch, people took it upon themselves to collect trash in the neighborhood, and direct the traffic. Demonstrations took place every single day. The message was clear, Mubarak and his regime should step down. I myself participated in demonstrations on Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday. People from every walk of life were there, rich, poor, old, young, Christians, Copts, Muslims, men, women, children. The atmosphere in the demonstrations was one of true camaraderie. Great emphasis was placed on the peaceful nature of the demonstrations. Civilians volunteered to search all entrants to the demonstrations to ensure no weapons entered. People passed out food and water to the people around them. We all felt our country was truly united. Tuesday, the million man march was planned. The turnout was outstanding. People were hopeful. It is important to note two things: 1) The demonstrations had no political or religious agenda – The only request was for Mubarak and his regime to step down. 2) No clear head or direction for leadership had emerged which worried many people, including myself, that we simply didn’t (and still don’t) know what will happen on the other end if and when Mubarak stepped down. We are fearful of chaos and any Islamist movement through the Muslim Brotherhood – long the boogey man used by the Egyptian government to discourage any shift of power.

Midan Tahrir (Liberation Square) in Cairo

Tuesday night Mubarak addressed the nation in a speech riddled with emotion. He announced he would not be running in the next elections, and that he never intended to (although just a few months ago he made a speech saying he would ‘serve’ Egypt until his dying breath). He also said that he would oversee amendments to articles 76 and 77 of the constitution which would 1) Limit the number of terms any President could stay in power, and 2) Change the terms that restrict pretty much anyone for becoming a presidential candidate. There were several holes in his speech. 1) The people overseeing these changes are all part of the old guard and no one trusts them. 2) He provided no guarantees of how the coming elections would be secured freely and fairly. 3) Nothing was mentioned regarding restricting his son from coming back to run for Presidency. 4) How can anyone trust a President who over the past few days allowed the Police to attack its own people in plain view, not to mention over the past 30 years? The same evening, the Opposition Parties formed a coalition and announced they were all in agreement about steps that should be taken, and were willing to engage in a dialogue with the Vice President, but they would only step in once Mubarak left. We were torn last night between relief that he had agreed to step down, and fear that, in fact, no change would take place, and no true concessions had actually been made. We thought that perhaps we should give him the benefit of the doubt.

I woke up this morning feeling hopeful. The Internet service was restored. I started thinking of ways to form groups with my friends to come up with our own agenda of things we could do to serve our country. I felt that we needed to quickly capitalize on the sense of unity that had been achieved in the past few days to bridge the gap between the haves and the have nots. It was no longer enough to sit idly on the sidelines and wait for things to improve in Egypt. Every single one of us had participated in this movement for change, and we needed to see it through to the end at every level.

Eyptian Police Fire Tear Gas at Crowds

Now, it is clear we have been deceived. This morning we went to Tahrir square to see what the word on the street is. People continued to demonstrate peacefully. On our way in, we were searched as usual to make sure that no weapons were coming in. However, aggressive ‘pro-Mubarak’ supporters began flowing in. Another demonstration with a large number of ‘pro-Mubarak’ supporters was happening nearby, and was resolved to march into Tahrir square and force the demonstrators out. We felt the situation would become dangerous and took a taxi to a friend parents’ house. Within half an hour, we saw on TV large crowds of ‘pro-Mubarak’ supporters storming Tahrir square with sticks and knives to attack the unarmed demonstrators. Men on camel and horseback rode into the square armed with clubs to attack.

We are now convinced that Mubarak and his regime did not intend to change anything. The scenes on TV now are of Molotov cocktails being thrown at the protesters. Tahrir square is turning into a blood bath. One of our friends was caught in the middle of Tahrir. The ‘pro-Mubarak’ supporters had closed off all exit points to the square. (Thank God he has since been able to escape.) There are reports that many of the ‘pro-Mubarak’ supporters were paid to attack the demonstrators, and also that many if not all of them are actually from the secret service. These attacks are clearly being perpetuated by Mubarak’s regime.

This is a very sad day for Egypt. Throughout the week, many people felt the need to leave the country for safety reasons. I felt the need to stay and show support. And I felt safer than ever because of the way everyone banded together. Now, I don’t know what will happen next. I feel truly betrayed. Who will save us?

I hope we are able to receive enough support and pressure from the United States and every other country to force this cruel regime to step down for good.

–
Dina Hassanein

As additional information to Dina’s first hand account, here are a couple of videos. This first one shows police firing indiscriminately into crowds.

This next one shows some of the chaos that is taking place within the mobs:

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On November 29, 2010 after Julian Assange posted some leaked sensitive documentation on WikiLeaks, Sarah Palin ripped him a new one – equating him to a terrorist and questioning why the US Government didn’t hunt him down like a dog.

Here is a quote taken directly from her Facebook page:

Assange is not a “journalist,” any more than the “editor” of al Qaeda’s new English-language magazine Inspire is a “journalist.” He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. His past posting of classified documents revealed the identity of more than 100 Afghan sources to the Taliban. Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?

Before I go on, let me say that I would also have posted the documents if they were given to me. And for one very good reason. Believe me when I tell you – if I can get my hands on them much, much worse people can too! So whatever the information is, it needs to be acted on immediately. But in fairness, I’d give those affected advance notice before posting it so they could take proactive steps to move people out of harms way.

Incidentally, this model works well in the realm of Cybersecurity. When ethical hackers discover holes in Microsoft or other system security they notify the company first and give them reasonable time to patch the problem before making it public. This ensures that companies have a chance to fix an issue before every amateur in the world is aware of the exploit, but keeps them honest by forcing them to actually fix it! Because it’s likely that some unethical criminals are already aware of the problem and taking advantage of it.

Anyway, getting back to the story at hand, after Sarah Palin essentially advocated using US Government resources to commit crimes in order to silence Assange, on December 21, 2010 she turned around and used information from the very documents she wants to hunt him down for as evidence in a USA Today column that she was allowed to publish:

We suspected this before, but now we know for sure because of leaked diplomatic cables. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia “frequently exhorted the U.S. to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons program,” according to these communications.

What’s the point? Its quite simple. In the US we have a legal doctrine often referred to as “fruit from the poison tree“. It essentially prevents the government from using illegally obtained information to prosecute people. So since Palin is so interested in defending individual liberties I think she’s got to choose a side:

• Skewer Assange for leaking documents that were obtained illegally and make some sort of a moral stand for protecting them, then refuse to read them or use anything contained within for any reason whatsoever.
• Applaud Assange for enlightening the world with the documents he posted, and then go through them with a fine toothed comb and use the information contained within them in any way you see fit.

I just find it incredibly hypocritical for her to viscously attack him, and then turn around and use what he provided to help her further her own points in later arguments. Don’t you?

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Islamic clerics never cease to amaze me with their dazzling intellect and incredible application of truly dizzying logic. Here we have an interview from some TV station in the Middle East where a reporter (and I use that term very loosly) has a cleic explaining the proper ways to beat your wife (or wives as the case may be)!

I’ve captioned all of the content below, because after you watch this video you are probably going to need to read it again since you aren’t going to believe your eyes the first time around.

Reporter: Would you believe that the European women in our times yearns for a husband who would be like a guardian to her. I would like to provide the viewers with some statistics.

90% of British women do not want to marry a weak man, who sits down and cries the moment there is a problem. They say: No, such a man looks more like a woman. We want a manly man.

Wife beating is a serious accusation (leveled against Islam). Let us examine this matter bit by bit.

Cleric: Allah honored wives by instating the punishment of beatings.

Reporter: Honored them with beatings? How is this possible?!

Cleric: The Prophet Muhammad said: “Don’t beat her in the face, and do not make her ugly.

See how she is honored? If the husband beats his wife, he must not beat her in the face!”

Even when he beats her, he must not curse her. This is incredible! He beats her in order to discipline her. In addition, there must not be more than ten beatings, and he must not break her bones, injure her, break her teeth, or poke her in the eye. There is a beating etiquette. If he beats to discipline her, he must not raise his hand high. He must beat her from chest level.

All these things honor the woman!

She is in need of discipline! How should the husband discipline her? Through admonishment. If she is not deterred, he should refuse to share the bed with her. If she is not repentant, he should beat her, but there are rules to the beating.

It is forbidden to beat her in the face or make her ugly.
When you beat her you must not curse her.
Islam forbids this.

Reporter: With what should he beat her? With his bare hand? With a rod?

Cleric: If he beats her, the beatings should not be hard, so that they do not leave a mark.

He can beat her with a short rod. He must avoid beating her in the face or in places in the head where it hurts.

The beatings should be on the body and should not come one right after the other. These are all choices made during the process, but beatings are allowed only as a last resort.

The honoring of the wife in Islam is also evident in the fact that the punishment of beating is permissible in one case only: when she refuses to sleep with him.

Reporter: When she refuses to sleep with him?

Cleric: Yes, because where else could the husband go? He wants her, but she refuses. He should begin with admonishment and threats…

Reporter: Allow me to repeat this. A man cannot beat his wife… over food or drink.

Cleric: Beatings are permitted only in this case, which the husband cannot do without.

So, what do you think? Do all of you non-muslim women YEARN for a man who will beat you and instill some discipline in you? And by “discipline”, of course, I mean sexual desire – because the only time it’s acceptable to beat a woman is when she doesn’t want to have sex.

I mean personally I have found that the best way to warm a girl up to amorous advances is with a little punching bag foreplay, but I’m sure you already knew that, right?

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Ahhh, this is a strange story. It begins as the tale of a “church” in Amarillo that wants to get rid of a swingers club. But after peering a little deeper it seems evident to me that the religious group in this case is really just the thin disguise for a hate group led by their “pastor” David Grisham,”…a security guard at nuclear-weapons facility Pantex who moonlights as a pastor.”

By the end of this story you are going to be wondering if you want David Grisham guarding the nation’s nuclear weapons facility. More importantly you are going to wonder how many of the people running that facility are just like David Grisham! But I digress…

The “church” is called Repent Amarillo, and it comes complete with a military style website modeled after the US Army, and a hate map of all of their current targets including not only sex establishments but businesses, churches, masonic lodges, Islamic centers, Buddhist temples….

In their own words:

“…we cannot stand by and watch 67,000 of our neighbors walking through the gates of hell.”

So they intend to target and harass anyone who does not believe as they do until they either drive them out of Amarillo or force them to capitulate. Ruining lives, and stripping people of their constitutional right to freedom of religion. You know, whatever it takes to save you from yourself! (Or run you out of town if you don’t come around eventually.)

Here is a short video covering the tactics employed by Repent Amarillo:

And here is a nice little sit-down with David Grisham. He will dazzle you wish his ability to recall a quote from the bible! And it’s a good thing that he explains to us that the fact there is a church on every corner is no reason to feel spiritually safe!

I love the way he really gets stuck on the “sexual morality” issue. I mean, coming from a guy who has been married four times, and in his own words admits:

“I was a sexual sinner before I got saved. I got saved seven years ago. Prior to that‚ yeah, I’ve been to strip joints and porn shops. I’ve done all kinds of things” he says. “We understand the destructive power of sin firsthand. We’ve lived it. We’ve walked in those shoes.” These days he’s celebrating Repent’s victory over the swinger’s club. “We felt it was like the tip of the spear for sexual immorality for the devil in Amarillo,” he says. “So we went after that specifically, and we exposed it so it would wither and die. And it has.”

I love it when someone has partied enough for a lifetime and really, really lived it up till they get it all out of their system, and THEN decide they are going to prevent anyone else from doing what they just did!

By the way, I do have a small question. If these psychos are doing all of this in the name of Jesus and love, can someone explain the purpose of harassing people, making them miserable, causing them to lose their jobs, etc? I mean really, where in the bible did Jesus say, “I am the light, the way, and if you don’t follow me then my minions will make your life a living hell! Until you die and go to the real one…” I guess all that stuff about just ignoring non-believers and moving on was a bunch of crap, right?

Anyway, if you want to chime in and try to help the folks in Lubbock you can join a facebook group called Amarillo Citizens Against Repent Amarillo. Even if you aren’t from Amarillo just knowing there is external support could provide encouragement to those who are stuck there feeling like they have no one on their side.

In my opinion, it is pathetic that Repent Amarillo enjoys the very freedom that comes from being an American only to abuse it in order to disrupt the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of those around them. And the more they continue to push, the greater the likelihood that violence will erupt. And when it does, God help Amarillo.

You can read more about this issue from The Texas Observer. And by the way, just because these guys are freaks doesn’t mean they represent Texas. It’s a big state. And 99% of us would gladly kick their asses and not think twice about it.

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Today, October 28, marks the anniversary of one of the most important days in the history of the world, yet few people remember it’s significance. But the Greeks do, and they celebrate OXI day, every year.

The day was October 28, 1940. At dawn that morning (4:00am), after a party in the German embassy in Athens, Mussolini (through Emanuele Grazzi, the Italian ambassador in Greece) issued an ultimatum to Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas to surrender, or face open war with Italy.

Metaxas, a career military officer and more importantly a proud Greek, was not inclined to acquiesce to Mussolini’s demands (surprise!), thus touching off the beginning of the Greco-Italian War and a series of unbelievable events that would eventually neutralize Italy, cripple Germany, and cost 1,000,000 Greek lives.

The Video Montage

Here is the story of Greek resistance as told through a short video. Heroic, yet sad.

For the Record

What happened next was nicely summed up by Congressman Mike Bilirakis (R-FL), Co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Hellenic Issues, in a special order speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to commemorate the anniversary of OXI Day (pronounced “O-hee”). It comes straight from the Congressional Record in Washington, D.C., October 29, 2003.

The full text of Congressman Bilirakis’ remarks follow:

Mr. Speaker, I rise proudly to celebrate “oxi” day. The historical significance of this day and what it meant to the outcome of World War II cannot be overstated. The outcome of a decision made on a day in 1940, had a profound impact on the conducting of the war by Nazi Germany. We’re talking about a stand made by a small, battered and courageous nation, namely Greece, against the larger, more powerful aggressors Italy and Germany.

By October of 1940, World War II had begun, and the Nazi war machine was already in high gear. Along with Hitler’s ally, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the German and Italian forces were threatening the whole of Europe. European nations were bowing to tyranny and destruction as the Germans and the Italians marched through Europe.

Great Britain endured Germany’s aerial bombardment, forcing Hitler to seek another avenue to subdue the British. Hitler intended to eliminate British operations in the Mediterranean in order to weaken their ability to deter German advances.

To achieve this, Hitler needed the Axis powers to strike at British forces in Greece. By conquering Greece, Hitler would gain access to an important connecting link with Italian bases in the Dodecanese islands. This would give the Italians a strangle hold on British positions in Egypt, where British forces were already facing attack from the Italian army in north Africa. The British considered the defense of Egypt vital to allied positions in the oil rich Middle East.

On October 28, 1940, the Italian Ambassador in Athens presented an insulting ultimatum to Greek Prime Minister Metaxas, demanding the unconditional surrender of Greece or Italy would declare war and invade Greece. Mussolini had given the Greek Prime Minister Metaxas three hours to reply.

Prime Minister Metaxas responded with the now historic word “oxi”, which means “no” in Greek. His statement embodied the true spirit of the Greek people. His words of defiance echoed the same devotion and love of country that Greek patriots exhibited during their war of independence against the Ottoman empire when they shouted the defiant words “liberty or death.” Prime Minister Metaxas’ actions marked the beginning of one of the world’s most heroic efforts against tyranny and oppression. Italy then invaded.

It is important to note that in addition to Greece having a population seven times smaller than Italy, the disparity in their armed forces was even greater: Italy had close to ten times the firepower of Greece in its army and navy and seven times the troops. Italy’s large air force had total air superiority since Greece had a very small defensive air force. However, despite their lack of equipment, the Greek army proved to be well-trained and resourceful. Within a week of the invasion, it was clear that Italian forces were suffering serious setbacks despite having control of the air and fielding superior armored vehicles.

On November 14th, the Greek army launched a counter-offensive and quickly drove the Italian forces back into Albania. By the next month, the Greeks had captured the town of Pogradec in eastern Albania. The fighting continued for a few more months…it was clear that the Greeks were not going to stand for defeat. In a last ditch effort to bring the war to a close before the Italians would be forced to ask Hitler to intervene, they launched another assault on March 12, 1941. After six days of fighting, the Italians had made only insignificant gains, and it became clear that German intervention was necessary.

On April 6, 1941, Hitler ordered the German invasion of Greece. It took the Germans five weeks to finally end the conflict. This delay proved to be critical to the outcome of the war. Italy’s inability to capture Greece enabled the British to win major victories against Mussolini’s forces in north Africa. This solidified British positions in the region as well as in Cyprus. In addition, it contributed to the failure of the German Barbarossa campaign to conquer Russia.

Due to Mussolini’s humiliating defeat by the Greeks in Albania and Greece, Hitler was compelled to capture the Balkans, mainly Yugoslavia and Greece, thus, delaying his Barbarossa plan to invade and capture the Soviet Union before the winter of 1941. The Greek resistance, both in Albania, and in the other famous battle in Crete, altered, favorably for the allies, his Barbarossa time table by at least six months.

Perhaps most importantly, the Germans never gained the advantage against the British. Although Germany had conquered much of Europe, its inability to decimate British and Russian forces early in the war would eventually prove to be fatal. Thanks to the heroic Greek resistance and their countless sacrifices, the war tide had been permanently changed for Hitler due to the delay of this critical time table.

Nearly one million Hellenes died during that time. That was 14% of the population in 1940. That is equivalent to losing 39 million people in this country TODAY in the case of a war to defend our country.

The entire Western world, discouraged and fearful of the Axis powers and the growing ugly war, took hope from these incredible victories. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said of the Greeks: “Today we say that Greeks fight like heroes, from now on we will say that heroes fight like Greeks.”

A very small number of those Greeks who fought like heroes are still alive today – some now are American citizens. One of those heroes lives in my congressional district – Mr. Demetrios Palaskas who, along with others, has shared those traumatic stories of the mountain fighting by the rag-tag Greeks against such a powerfully equipped invader. We all salute you Mr. Palaskas – you and your many fellow heroes for helping to keep the world free.

Mr. Speaker, “oxi” day is an inspiration to all those who cherish democracy and freedom. It marks defiance against terrible odds. As an American of Greek descent, I am proud to honor the memory of those brave patriots who fought for freedom for themselves and ultimately for all the free world on this important day.

I’m extremely proud to say that my grandfather, Nickolas Pozadzides, was one of those Greek heroes who fought and survived in World War II. And I’m also extremely proud to say that my other grandfather Cranford W. Gordon served our country proudly in the US Air Force.

Consequences of Resistance

• Greece was eventually forced to confront four different armies: Albania, Bulgaria, Germany, and Italy.
• Greece resisted the Axis powers for over 185 days from Oct 28, 1940 – April 31, 1941
• The Greek victory over the initial Italian offensive of October 1940 was the first Allied land victory of the Second World War, and helped raise morale in occupied Europe.
• The Greek resistance influenced the course of the entire war by forcing Germany to postpone the invasion of the Soviet Union in order to assist Italy.
• By one estimate 311,000 people, or 4.3% of the Greek population, were killed (reference). Among them 140,000 died from starvation during occupation.
• Other estimates put the death toll much higher. For example claims that “over 300,000 civilians died from starvation, thousands more through reprisals”.
• The Greek Resistance, one of the most effective resistance movements in Occupied Europe, was formed. These resistance groups launched guerrilla attacks against the occupying powers and set up large espionage networks.
• Hundreds of villages were systematically torched and almost one million Greeks left homeless.

One of the most touching episodes of the early resistance took place just after the Germans reached the Acropolis on April 27. The Germans ordered the flag guard, Evzone Konstandinos Koukidis, to retire the Greek flag. The Greek soldier obeyed, but when he was done, he wrapped himself in the flag and threw himself off of the plateau where he met death.

Quotes About the Greeks in World War II

“For the sake of historical truth i must verify that only the Greeks, of all the adversaries who confronted us fought with bold courage and highest disregard of death.”
- Adolph Hitler (From speech he delieverd to Reichstagon May 4th 1941)

“I am sorry because I am getting old and I shall not live long to thank the Greek people whose resistance decided WW2.”
– Joseph Stalin (From speech broadcast over radio after victory of Stalingrad January 31 1943)

You fought unarmed and won, small against big. We owe you gratitude because you gave us time to defend ourselves. As Russians and as people we thank you.
- Joseph Stalin

“The war with Greece proved that nothing is firm in the military and that surprises always await us.”
-Benito Mussolini 10/5/1941

“Until now we used to say that Greeks fight like heroes. Now we shall say heroes fight like Greeks.”
-Winston Churchill 1941)

Greek Photos from World War II

More Resources

• Military history of Greece during World War II
• Flickr search for Greece WWII
• Oxi Day on Wikipedia

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This little gem comes courtesy of Elie El Khoury.

At 11 o’clock on Thursday 15 January around 350 people broke into a choreographed dance routine in London’s Liverpool Street Station for the shooting of a new advertising campaign by T-Mobile based on the them Life’s For Sharing.

The event was covered by the Daily Mail in London if you want to read all about it. Also, Nik Rawlinson, the editor of MacUser magazine, happened to catch the prelude.

And here was a little bit of the rehearsal:

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According to an exiled member of the Iraqi Gay and Lesbian community, the Iraqi government (which is currently propped up by the US military) is about to begin a string of executions of 128 men who are guilty solely of the “crime” of homosexuality.

The tragedy is that I haven’t seen or heard anything about this unbelievable human rights violation from any of the mainstream media. And we must have hundreds of reporters in Iraq, so what the hell are they doing?

Lest we believe it’s a fabrication, CNN has previously reported and cited a UN study which clearly shows that the problem is well known:

A U.N. report on human rights in Iraq reinforces the accusations of violence. Although gays are supposed to be protected by law in Iraq, it says, they face extreme brutality.

“Armed Islamic groups and militias have been known to be particularly hostile toward homosexuals, frequently and openly engaging in violent campaigns against them,” the report said, adding that homosexuals have been murdered.

“Militias are reportedly threatening families of men believed to be homosexual, stating that they will begin killing family members unless the men are handed over or killed by the family,” it said.

The report was issued at the end of 2006 and is the last U.N. study to touch on the subject.

The following is the report from the Iraqi LGBT Web site. I would encourage all of you to go and sign the petition to help save these lives. I did.

STOP EXECUTIONS OF GAY IRAQIS MEMBERS OF IRAQI LGBT GROUP ON DEATH ROW
ACTION NEEDED TO HALT JUDICIAL EXECUTIONS
London, 30 March 2009

Urgent action is needed to halt the execution of 128 prisoners on death row in Iraq. Many of those awaiting execution were convicted for the ‘crime’ of homosexuality, according to IRAQI-LGBT, a UK based organisation of Iraqis supporting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in Iraq.

According to Ali Hili of IRAQI-LGBT, the Iraqi authorities plan to start executing them in batches of 20 from this week.

IRAQI-LGBT urgently requests that the UK Government, Human Rights Groups and the United Nations Human Rights Commission intervene with due speed to prevent this tragic miscarriage of justice from going ahead.

“We have information and reports on members of our community whom been arrested and waiting for execution for the crimes of homosexuality,’’ said Mr Hili. “Iraqi lgbt has been a banned from running our activities on Iraqi soil.”

“Raids by the Iraqi police and ministry of interior forces cost our group the disappearing and killing of 17 members working for Iraqi lgbt since 2005,” added Mr Hili.

“Death penalty has been increasing at an alarming rate in Iraq since the new Iraqi regime reintroduced it in August 2004.
In 2008 at least 285 people were sentenced to death, and at least 34 executed. In 2007 at least 199 people were sentenced to death and 33 were executed, while in 2006 at least 65 people were put to death. The actual figures could be much higher as there are no official statistics for the number of prisoners facing execution,” he said.

IRAQI LGBT is concerned that the Iraqi authorities have not disclosed the identities of those facing imminent execution, stoking fears that many of them may have been sentenced to death after trials that failed to satisfy international standards for fair trial.

Most are likely to have been sentenced to death by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI), whose proceedings consistently fall short of international standards for fair trial. Some are likely to have. Allegations of torture are not being investigated adequately or at all by the CCCI. Torture of detainees held by Iraqi security forces remains rife.

Iraq’s creaking judicial system is simply unable to guarantee fair trials in ordinary criminal cases, and even less so in capital cases, with the result, we fear, that numerous people have gone to their death after unfair trials.

The Iraqi government must order an immediate halt to these executions and establish a moratorium on all further executions in Iraq, particularly since due process cannot be guaranteed. The state executing people for ‘morals’ crimes is also obviously unacceptable and deplorable.

Amnesty International has called on the Iraqi authorities to make public all information pertaining to the 128 people, including their full names, details of the charges against them, the dates of their arrest, trial and appeal and their current places of detention.

The immediate urgent priority is to Support and Donate Money to LGBT activists in Iraq in order to assist their efforts to help other Lesbians, Gay, Bisexuals and Trans gender Iraqi’s facing death, persecution and systematic Targeting by the Iraqi Police and Badr and Sadr Militia and to raise awareness about the wave of homophobic murders in Iraq to the outside world.

Funds raised will also help provide LGBTs under threat of killing with refuge in the safer parts of Iraq (including safe houses, food, electricity, medical help) and assist efforts help them seek refuge in neighboring countries.

Iraqi Lgbt
22 Notting Hill Gate
Unit # 111
London , W11 3JE
United Kingdom
Mob: ++44 798 1959 453
Website : http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/

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Much love to my boy Philly D for this little gem.

This is the best little cartoon I’ve seen about the new Obama administration yet. We’ve got all your favorite characters in here… Hillary, Holder, Biden, Emmanuel, Geitner – take your pick.

So, after you take a look at this, let me know if it restores your faith in government and Wall Street!

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My father forwarded this message to me via e-mail from a friend of his (not sure of the origin). I’m not taking sides here, but I think it’s interesting enough that it deserves examination. Would love to hear opinions on this before I share my own.

Henry Markopolos (JP Edit: actually Harry Markopolous… but it’s OK), the man who waged a decade-long campaign to warn regulators about the operations of money manager Bernard Madoff, told a congressional panel yesterday that the Securities and Exchange Commission (a government agency with nearly 3,800 employees and a salary budget of $620 million taxpayer dollars) is incompetent and that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the securities industry’s own policing organization, is corrupt.

Markopolos said the SEC is “captive to the industry it regulates and is afraid to bring big cases against prominent individuals.” He also said that “the SEC was never capable of catching Mr. Madoff. He (Madoff) could have scammed up to $100 billion” if he chose.

The SEC “roars like a lion and bites like a flea” and “is busy protecting the big financial predators from investors,” Markopolis told the panel.

While the SEC is incompetent, the securities industry’s self-policing organization, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (with nearly 3,000 employees and an annual budget of $500 million dollars), is “very corrupt,” Markopolos testified.

In 2008 the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority levied fines against financial firms totaling $40 million. 2008 was the third straight annual decline in fines levied by the authority. The total was 73% below the $148.5 million in fines collected in 2005.

And who was heading the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority? None other than Mary Schapiro, who is now the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. She was nominated by President Obama and unanimously confirmed by the Senate.

So the head of a very corrupt authority is now the head of an incompetent authority. Nominated by an inexperienced President and confirmed by an inept Congress. Is it any wonder the economy is in trouble?

Thoughts?

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Wow! I’m not sure if the letter below is legitimate or fabricated. It sounds like it could be from a real Marine, and so I’m going to publish it just in case. Either way, it gives you a lot to think about…

It’s freezing here. I’m sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains along the Dar ‘yoi Pomir River watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.

I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I’ve actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but them scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a bastard. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.

The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water. That requires couriers and that’s where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware, we bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement.

It’s all about intelligence. We haven’t even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they’re in for. We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin.

I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot on his throat as I spit into his face and plunge my nickel plated Bowie knife through his frontal lobe. But you know me. I’m a romantic. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This country blows, man. It’s not even a country. There are no roads, there’s no infrastructure, there’s no government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit shit hole ruled by eleventh century warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.

Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army. That’s it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu if that’s your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those ‘tent cities of the walking dead’ is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day.

I’ve been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtins for over a month and a half now and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of ‘em, are Huns…actual, living Huns. They LIVE to fight. It’s what they do. It’s ALL they do. They have no respect for anything, not for their families or for each other or for themselves.

They claw at one another as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other’s barbarism. Cavemen with AK47′s. Then again, maybe I’m just cranky.

I’m freezing my ass off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice and I can’t recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours.

Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write a letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban ‘smart.’ They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is ‘cunning.’ The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines. They are sneaky and ruthless and, when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else. Smart. Pfft. Yeah, they’re real smart.

They’ve spent their entire lives reading only one book(and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil. They’re still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.

OK, enough. Snuffle will be up soon so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice but I’m good at it. Please, I tell you and my fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and move on with your lives.

The story line you are getting from CNN and other news agencies is utter bullshit and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials. We’ve got this one under control. The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we’re doing over here because you have no idea what we’re doing and, really, you don’t want to know. We are your military and we are doing what you sent us here to do.

You wanna help? Buy Bonds America.

Saucy Jack

Recon Marine in Afghanistan
Semper Fi

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