Open Thread - 1/16/2015

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Comments

[turcopolier]

All

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-solomon/scapegoating-cia-whistleb_b_6483914.html

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[William R. Cumming]

What is blasphyme [sic]?

[William R. Cumming]

Jeffery will be found innocent IMO!

[BabelFish]

You can actually have sane military procurement. The Navy fast attack subs (Virginia class) have been procured in a model program of speed, below cost delivery and superb weapons. The Navy decided to keep the LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) program, up armored/weaponed, to establish a more robust surface action capability in both littoral and blue water settings. No clean sheet of paper development needed.
Air Force, please take note.

http://news.usni.org/2015/01/15/sna-modified-littoral-combat-ship-class-changed-fast-frigate?utm_source=USNI+News&utm_campaign=98ceba2ace-USNI_NEWS_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0dd4a1450b-98ceba2ace-230407953&mc_cid=98ceba2ace&mc_eid=92be829f50

[Cee]

All:

Open thread...all praise to the authorities in Belgium for taking down the terrorists.
I think I said a while back on SST ( I've bitched to so many people) that people who travel to wage war on behalf of another nation (Israel included) shouldn't be allowed to freely travel back to the US, or anywhere else. Hopefully, that will become the case.
I've been fuming for years that Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar were able to come to the US and weren't watched even though they were known to US intelligence.

Jeffrey should walk. He told the truth

Also,

I've been a fan of Robert Baer since I had the chance to speak with him years ago. Get his books Sleeping With the Devil and See No Evil.

We don't agree on everything but I wanted to share this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rESr1FHuYrc

[Cee]

All,

Sorry for clogging up the thread.

A question: Wasn't James Risen the target of criticism for reporting that an Israel general told him that Israeli citizens on the border of Lebanon were being as collateral damage?
I can't locate the story now. Anyone?

[confusedponderer]

A typo.

[Anonymous]

News reached me that Mr. Walrus lighted up the quintessentially australian perimetral ring of bushes on fire (Jehovah™) he planted around his country property. Congratulations to him.

I also heard he got a gift from an undisclosed american fraternity house, to add yet more terror to his security apparatus. It was the fraternity's 2014 year-end party sign. It reads "Tonight Ebola Quarantine at the Animal House"

Looks like Optimax gave the slip on The Twelve Monkeys from Texas and went for some well-deserved seventies-inspired debauchery.

Guess this year end Walrus will get a "Nuclear Fallout at the Animal House" party sign.

By the way, it's 2015, but I'm still with that most laconic image of 2014 in my mind: Col. Lang riding a Cray XK7 cabinet falling from the skies of North Korea shouting "Release the Kraken!"

[robt willmann]

Here are some reports about the Jeffrey Sterling trial by the meticulous Marcy Wheeler.

6 January 2015

https://exposefacts.org/the-jeffrey-sterling-trial-a-preview/

9 January 2015

https://exposefacts.org/government-wants-to-know-potential-sterling-jurors-opinions-about-whistleblowers/

12 January 2015

https://exposefacts.org/government-declares-a-monopoly-on-the-right-to-call-james-risen-as-a-witness/

14 January 2015

https://exposefacts.org/jeffrey-sterling-the-governments-circumstantial-case/

https://exposefacts.org/operation-merlin-the-russians-case-officers/

15 January 2015

https://exposefacts.org/the-sterling-trial-merlin-meets-curveball/

At this same website, it appears as if the articles by Norman Solomon are there as well.

The reports and articles should be ongoing here--

https://exposefacts.org/blog/the-latest/

Condoleezza Rice was a witness yesterday, 15 January 2015.

[oofda]

Colonel,'
Very interesting- a couple more articles
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2015/01/15/sterling-trial-condoleezza-rice-testifies-bush-instructed-her-to-have-times-kill-story-on-operation-merlin/

On the jury make-up

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/14/blowing-the-whistle-on-operation-merlin/

[nick b]

All,

If anyone is interested, it's a great time to check out comet Lovejoy. The waning moon rises very early in the morning so the night skies are dark enough for the next week or so. I went out last night around 9:30 with the kids and even in our light polluted skies we found it just west of the Pleiades (M45). We were using a 150mm refractor telescope with a 32mm wide view eyepiece and got some very nice views. It also looked great through an 80mm spotting scope. The tail was not obvious, but the glow around it and the core were plainly visible. It's not everyday you get to see a comet.
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/wp-content/uploads/Lovejoy2_BW.pdf

[SteveG]

Any comments on faux,IMO, controversy on the
academy award nominations excluding minorities.
It seems the PC crowd is in full dungeon over this.
Of course it could be the talent was not apparent
to garner enough votes. A commenter on another
blog mentioned the short memory as last years
12 Years a Slave won many awards. Not a big
movie goer anymore but all the news formats
are hyping this. BlackLivesMatter overtones ?

[Poul]

Is this worth the cost?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/11344116/Revealed-Saudi-Arabias-Great-Wall-to-keep-out-Isil.html

[Allen Thomson]

I'd be interested in your opinions of the Der Spiegel report of a new nuclear site in Syria: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/evidence-points-to-syria-still-working-on-a-nuclear-weapon-a-1012209.html

I'm maintaining a scrapbook of information at least vaguely related to the topic that FAS is kindly hosting at www.fas.org/man/eprint/spiegel.pdf

[Fred]

I'm sure if Jerry Sandusky had been raping female athletes his defender and his employer would not be getting his reputation back:

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/joe-paterno-wins-restored-penn-state-ncaa-deal-article-1.2081396

[Tyler]

Some photos of myself and a fellow agent clearing hilltops of scouts at work.

http://imgur.com/LHqQVQh
http://imgur.com/ZFkht59
http://imgur.com/es2Mor9
http://imgur.com/lqSlunH
http://imgur.com/6PAPVS1
http://imgur.com/AhI9GHA
http://imgur.com/FQubqup

[Bobo]

After spending some time looking at the Sterling case file (motions, replies, orders etc.) you have to come to the opinion that it is immaterial whether Sterling leaked or not as this is a witch hunt to keep all the other Indians in line. The government organization has been embarrassed, is embarrassed and will continue to be embarrassed throuout this trial but that is immaterial as their EGO has been assaulted and they cannot allow that to occur. Now if they were the Mafia it would of been over with long ago but they are not.
The best part was all the crying about being "GreyMailed" by someone we know. It was like there was a Fox in the Hen House.
Best of Luck to Mr. Sterling and that government organization should be ashamed of itself as they are spending millions when this could of been resolved for a small amount, possibly.

[William R. Cumming]

YUP!

[Cee]

Steve G,

I never watch those award shows but what some friends have said is that, too bad we want or rely on praise from people who don't look like us.
I may travel to walk across the bridge in Selma tomorrow with some folks. I'll ask for more opinion then.

[Cee]

Poul,

No. Blowback is a bitch!

[SAC Brat]

Ages ago I read a comparison of performance between Navy shipyards and private shipyards, and the conclusion was the Government yards made the ships closer to budget and schedule than the private sector could. Probably why the war profiteers, er, patriotic weapons systems suppliers lobbied to have them shut down after WW2.

Similar to this are the anecdotes of WPA bridges performing better than other bridges.

[Bobo]

http://fas.org/sgp/jud/sterling/

[robt willmann]

LeaNder,

Federal court documents are available electronically...but for more than a nominal fee, as you might unfortunately expect these days.

It all started with bankruptcy court, which is part of the federal court system. All bankruptcy cases, from a large corporation to an impoverished individual, consisted mostly of forms that the parties would fill out. Computers permit "forms" to be filled in by the nature of how bits and bytes are stored electronically. So bankruptcy courts started using electronic forms and then electronic filing of them. It more or less worked in bankruptcy court because of the unique nature of the documents -- mostly pre-printed forms -- used in a bankruptcy case.

Unfortunately, the idea then spread to the regular federal trial courts, known as federal district courts. But civil and criminal cases do not use forms. Most documents are created from scratch or have many unique parts to them, plus, you will often attach exhibits, including affidavits that are supposed to be sworn to and notarized, to a paper you file in court. So you had to buy a scanner, and scanning software, and software that would do optical character recognition to make the scanned documents "searchable", and software that would make all the electronic documents in the pdf document format, and software that could assemble the separate pdf files, usually attachments or exhibits or appendices, into one pdf document. But the final electronic file for filing could not be more than a certain size, and on and on. But it eventually became mandatory for federal courts, and then the federal courts of appeals.

Like any bad virus, it spread into the state court system, first in the big cities, and now, even in Texas, the attempt is being made to force all court clerks and courts, even in small towns and counties, to go to electronic filing, with all its added expense.

This is a continuation of a bad practice started in the 1980's called, "Make a Law, Make a Business." If you can get Congress or the state legislature to pass a law with a section in it that says the function can be done by a "private vendor", or that sets up regulations that force smaller competitors out of business, or force the public to pay money directly to a private company, as in car liability insurance, or, of course, the Obamacare health law, the private company and its executives and those providing it financing will make a lot of money, that you will pay.

For example, in the Texas electronic filing "system", after you go to the expense to get the computer software to do all the required document creation, and pay for a fast enough Internet connection to upload and download electronic files, you have to first send the electronic document to a private electronic filing company, which hands it off to a state electronic filing department (most probably with that computer system owned and run by a private company), which then hands it off to the local court clerk, all of which adds cost to the filing of the electronic document. And do not be naive and think that the banksters are not making money on this setup; the rules say (illegally) that you cannot use cash or a check to pay for the mandatory electronic filing, you have to use a credit card to pay for it all! So every filing fee for every document that requires one, plus the fee for the "private electronic filing provider", plus the the fee for the state electronic filing department, all have to be paid using a credit card.

Benito Mussolini called this "corporatism" and "fascism". It is also called "crony capitalism".

But to get off of the soapbox and back to your question, you have to set up an account with the "Pacer" system, which will let you use your computer over the Internet to look at the clerk's files in their electronic form. There is a fee for searching, there is a fee for displaying the docket sheet, and there is a fee of 10 cents per page, up to a cap of $3 dollars for one document.

Now if the "foreign aid" was cut back just a little from the amount of your tax money that goes into the pockets of the Egyptian military, or that goes to Israel, you could access and download documents in the federal courts at no charge.

These Internet websites can get you started--

http://www.uscourts.gov/CourtRecords.aspx

http://www.pacer.gov

[bth]

This is reportedly aerial drone footage posted on Jan 15 which now has (1.2 million hits). Video is of area around Donetsk Airport. Pretty extraordinary amount of destruction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2dsVMpyL40

[Poul]

Not to forget. Religious strife is still alive in Western Europe.

The Orange Order's most beloved marching song. To play it in front of St. Patrick's Church in Belfast is the height of the Marching Season.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My5cf2zlkpo

To "The Famine Song" one can add "Billy Boys" both with Scottish origins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_Song
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Boys