News Stories

[ganbaru]

@ Haak, he might not need one but why should we give him anyway ?

@ Anh Ming, beside those 6 SAS guy and thoses involved into the operation of evacuation their own civilians, I didn't hear about any SOF involved yet on Libya so where did you read about those ''Special Forces with enough gear to assassinate half of Tripoli', ?

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

@ Haak, he might not need one but why should we give him anyway ?

@ Anh Ming, beside those 6 SAS guy and thoses involved into the operation of evacuation their own civilians, I didn't hear about any SOF involved yet on Libya so where did you read about those ''Special Forces with enough gear to assassinate half of Tripoli', ?

From Roger Rambo's link:

Six members of the UK special forces have reportedly been detained in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. They were found carrying guns, explosives and passports from four countries, and had reportedly been trying to put UK diplomats in touch with the rebel leadership. British ministers have confirmed only that a diplomatic mission was sent to Benghazi

Yes, I was speaking hyperbolically. Though one could argue explosives go a bit beyond self-defense. My point is, when it comes to interfering in a revolution, soldiers, especially plain clothes soldiers, are more of a smoking gun than diplomats.

[Ithekro]

Unless they were also suppose to be providing arms to the rebels as well to gain favor towards the UK.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Unless they were also suppose to be providing arms to the rebels as well to gain favor towards the UK.

Harder to prove, unless it's right there in writing with Cameron's thumbprint.

I just hope those soldiers weren't caught with sniper rifles and plans of Khaddafi's palace. They should leave themselves something for an encore.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

@ Haak, he might not need one but why should we give him anyway ?

We? You mean you're a fellow Brit too? Yay! Ureshii!

Well anyway they've been freed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12660163

He said the UK was "obviously unaware of the reaction likely to be provoked in this tense situation by a group of armed men arriving on a helicopter, in the dead of night".

Sounds like the typical cock-up only Great Britain could achieve...

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by Haak

We? You mean you're a fellow Brit too? Yay! Ureshii!

Sorry, by ''we'' I was meanning ''' we westerner'' . I am not British, just Canadian...

Knives and petrol bombs return to Cairo streets
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...70O3UW20110306

[Asuras]

Not surprising that there's more violence to be had.

[MrTerrorist]

US Muslims protest over hearings
This is just a waste of money plus the Congressman is a bigot.

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Knives and petrol bombs return to Cairo streets
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...70O3UW20110306

The trainsition could never have been expected to go smoothly, and Mubarak's fall was still recent so there will be people who still hold some sense of longing for the old government.

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

US Muslims protest over hearings
This is just a waste of money plus the Congressman is a bigot.

It's amazing how congressmen like Mr. Kings can make such blunt generalizations about an entire muslim community in the US which number in the millions based on events that only two men did a few years ago, and both of them were actions "normal" Christian US citizens have done time and time again.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by Tsuyoshi

It's amazing how congressmen like Mr. Kings can make such blunt generalizations about an entire muslim community in the US which number in the millions based on events that only two men did a few years ago, and both of them were actions "normal" Christian US citizens have done time and time again.

Given the fact than the majority of the US population are Christian ( as himself) .A politician won't attack the majority unless he don't want to be reelected. Of course, ignorance and bigotery help a lot.

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Given the fact than the majority of the US population are Christian ( as himself) .A politician won't attack the majority unless he don't want to be reelected. Of course, ignorance and bigotery help a lot.

Politics: full of deviants and silver tongues

[AnimeFan188]

"A federal magistrate is granting Sony the right to acquire the internet IP
addresses of anybody who has visited PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz’s
website from January of 2009 to the present."

See:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...ite-unmasking/

[ganbaru]

UK diplomatic team leaves Libya after issues resolved
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7252EP20110307

So the SAS team was protecting a ''junior diplomat'' . That rather close of that was said first while making more sence to me.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

"A federal magistrate is granting Sony the right to acquire the internet IP
addresses of anybody who has visited PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz’s
website from January of 2009 to the present."

See:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...ite-unmasking/

The judge is clearly a retard. The subpoena is way too broad.....you don't manhandle those who espouse the freedom of invention and engineering.

Originally Posted by ganbaru

UK diplomatic team leaves Libya after issues resolved
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7252EP20110307

So the SAS team was protecting a ''junior diplomat'' . That rather close of that was said first while making more sence to me.

The joke is on the Libyan rebels. If you don't trust your zenga-zenga, what makes you think the Brits will?

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

From Roger Rambo's link:


Yes, I was speaking hyperbolically. Though one could argue explosives go a bit beyond self-defense. My point is, when it comes to interfering in a revolution, soldiers, especially plain clothes soldiers, are more of a smoking gun than diplomats.

The explosives probably meant hand-grenades. When they need to make a break, they surely have to toss one as a distraction - basic infantry combat doctrine.

[flying ^]

how symbolic.

guess who cleans up slob-a-torium (aka Wisconsin Capitol) after the protesters trashed that place...

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by flying ^

how symbolic.

guess who cleans up slob-a-torium (aka Wisconsin Capitol) after the protesters trashed that place...

Wisconsin is dead. It is going to be another factory state in China where the workers are worked to death without rights while their owners take all their profits.

Obama treads carefully on Libya, rebuffs pressure

(Reuters) - The White House pushed back on Monday against pressure from some lawmakers for direct intervention in Libya, saying it first wanted to figure out what various military options could achieve.

"It would be premature to send a bunch of weapons to a post office box in eastern Libya," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "We need to not get ahead of ourselves in terms of the options we're pursuing."

The Obama administration faces sharp criticism, especially from Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators, for its cautious approach to the turmoil in Libya but has signaled it will not be rushed into hasty decisions that could suck the military into a new war and fuel anti-American sentiment.

One major obstacle: officials are still trying to identify the main actors within the opposition groups fighting to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The aims of these groups are unclear, including what type of government they might set up if Gaddafi falls, the officials say.

President Barack Obama said on Monday he wanted to "send a very clear message to the Libyan people that we will stand with them in the face of unwarranted violence and the continuing suppression of democratic ideals that we've seen there."

The White House has long said all options are on the table over Libya but, on Monday for the first time, it gave a vague priority to the possible military steps being studied.

Bottom of the list is sending in ground troops, Carney told a briefing. A "no-fly" zone, an idea popular with lawmakers, is being "actively" discussed within NATO, while possibly arming the rebels is also in the mix, he said.

Brian Katulis, a Middle East expert who has informally advised the White House on the turmoil sweeping the region, said the Obama administration is constrained by its reluctance to act militarily without international support.

The calls from lawmakers for more action would create a "little bit of pressure" on the White House, he said, but not enough to force a course of action it sees as perilous.

CONSENSUS ELUSIVE

Defense Secretary Robert Gates reiterated on Monday that any intervention in Libya would require broad backing.

"At this point there is a sense that any action should be the result of international sanction," he said during a trip to Afghanistan.

Underscoring the lack of consensus, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow opposed military intervention. China, a fellow veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, has expressed similar misgivings.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Monday the alliance would intervene only if the U.N. Security Council called for it.

The United States has deployed two amphibious assault ships off the Libyan coast, ostensibly to help with any humanitarian emergencies, while dispatching military transport aircraft to airlift stranded Egyptian refugees from neighboring Tunisia.

Over the weekend, leading Republican and Democratic senators urged Obama to do more to help Libya's rebels, who have fought Gaddafi's security forces to a standstill in some areas but are facing repeated air strikes.

Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, said one option was "simply aiding and arming the insurgents," noting that the United States often did this during the Cold War.

John Kerry, the influential chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who is close to Obama, repeated his call for a no-fly zone and floated another idea -- bombing Libyan runways to ground Gaddafi's warplanes.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan cautioned that a limited strike on runways would not stop helicopter gunships from taking off. Helicopters were reported to have been involved in air strikes against rebels at the weekend.

Senator John McCain said he favored providing intelligence and technical assistance to the rebels and declaring U.S. support for a provisional Libyan government.

I did like to see the next idiot who opposes US intervention and complains about high pump prices.

Damn dumbasses can't see that there isn't much of an option for this because the rebels couldn't fight their way through Gaddafi's gunships and jet bombers. And these are the things preventing a sizable supply of oil returning to the world economy and keeping prices affordable since Libya is the No.4 world's oil supplier.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by flying ^

how symbolic.

guess who cleans up slob-a-torium (aka Wisconsin Capitol) after the protesters trashed that place...

Actually.. that link provides a story that is full of baloney. The protesters were cooperating and assisting in the cleanup - they're taxpayers too (police, firefighters, teachers, nurses, electricians, plumbers, you know -- the middle class). The estimates from the administrative bureau are just that... estimates. Initial estimates are always NTE to cover the bases (not-to-exceed), much of that "cleanup estimate" is due to people taping posters on marble who weren't aware that there would be any problem. Did *you* know that tape and marble don't always mix nicely before this?

[EDIT: as it turns out, this is an utter piece of tripe - the administrative people actually responsible for the Capital building have disavowed the outlandish estimates being theirs and the Governor's office backed off of the claim... after the FOX news cameras danced off to the next bit of tabloid. The entire news piece is a puppet-charade remouthing lies from the governor's political aides. This is why quoting FOX is the best way to zero your credibility when even the least bit of crosschecking blows FOX out of the water.]

This is just another piece of FOX news tripe that derails the topic, misleads the viewer, and is a Murdoch specialty. Why do you keep linking to this crap? Maybe I should start burying the thread in links to the World Weekly News or the National Enquirer - they have as much/more credibility and as little relevance.

Meanwhile the *bill* that Gov. Walker wants to force into law still contains:
1) loss of all collective bargaining rights
2) provisions to sell all public utilities to private concerns with no oversight (e.g. the Koch Brothers)
3) provisions to eliminate safe water drinking laws with no oversight
4) provisions to install voter ID requirements that will reduce the votes from the poor and middle class (where's your papers? how much is that ID card?)
5) provisions to weaken various government agencies designed to protect the public from misdeeds by corporations (mini-Bush evisceration of public protections)
6) special tort reform that shields corporations from the sort of lawsuits that might make them accountable for misdeeds.
... and then there's still all those tax cuts, subsidies, and wormholes he has enacted that *put* the state into budgetary crisis.

None of Walker's decisions, choices, or agenda actually make any pragmatic sense unless you understand he's the bitchboy of Koch Industries and their friends. Wisconsin is their test case for trying to complete the reformation of the US into a feudal/lord society with little or no middle class. Most of the people supporting these Walker-types don't seem to grasp that THEY are not part of the country club and won't be invited in. Supporters are just serfs with slightly less shit on them to the plutocrats (the 400 people who have accumulated more wealth than 50% of the entire population.. and no most of them didn't "work" for it, they *acquired* it through a variety of means. Even the Wall Street Journal has to cough and stammer on that one )

[Bri]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Wisconsin is their test case for trying to complete the reformation of the US into a feudal/lord society with little or no middle class.

I don't know if the decline of the middle class is part of a conscious effort of the superrich or just a side effect of their lobbying to get a bigger piece of the pie, but the effect is worrisome in any case:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/16/news.../middle_class/

[flying ^]

The state of USA's unofficial 3rd front (fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!)

ATF actually encouraging sales of firearms to dubious customers

US ATF secretly arming Mex. drug cartels

this one takes the cake

[Rising Dragon]

Looking at the direction the world's going, I think it's high time I moved to a deserted island. Or space.