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Photo by: joanneleon. July, 2013
Photo by: joanneleon. July, 2013
Photo by: joanneleon. July, 2013
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Grateful Dead - Second that Emotion (Filmore East)
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Crazy pants indeed. Finally, a statement from a U.S. official that makes some sense.
Broad U.S. terror alert mystifies experts; ‘It’s crazy pants,’ one says
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials insisted Tuesday that extraordinary security measures for nearly two dozen diplomatic posts were to thwart an “immediate, specific threat,” a claim questioned by counterterrorism experts, who note that the alert covers an incongruous set of nations from the Middle East to an island off the southern coast of Africa.
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But how, then, does it make sense for the State Department to close embassies as far afield as Mauritius or Madagascar, where there’s been no visible jihadist activity? And why is it that countries that weathered numerous terrorist attacks – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, for example – were excluded or allowed to reopen quickly?
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“It’s crazy pants – you can quote me,” said Will McCants, a former State Department adviser on counterterrorism who this month joins the Brookings Saban Center as the director of its project on U.S. relations with the Islamic world.
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“It’s not completely random, but most people are, like, ‘Whaaat?’ ” said Aaron Zelin, who researches militants for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and blogs about them at Jihadology.net
Stephen Colbert & Daft Punk: 'Colbert Report' Gets Stood Up By Band Because Of VMA Performance
One day before the show was set to tape, however, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk reportedly canceled their appearance. Colbert introduced the show, one that was "featuring the artist formally booked as Daft Punk."
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Colbert went on to claim he had been "Daft Punk'd," looking in the crowd for Ashton Kutcher to do his famed "Punk'd" reveal. Kutcher delivered, coming to the stage in a suit and a trucker hat from his "Punk'd" days. Colbert asked Kutcher if Daft Punk's cancelation did in fact mean he was getting "Punk'd," to which Kutcher responded, "No, you got f--k'd."
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With or without Daft Punk, Colbert still got lucky. He broke it down to Daft Punk's hit, lip syncing along to the track and dancing with the audience. He was soon joined by some famous faces [...]
StePhest Colbchella '013 - Time to Dance
Stephen and friends boogie to Daft Punk's hit, "Get Lucky." (05:01)
I don't even know what to say about this except maybe Obama sent McCain and Graham over to Egypt just to get them off his back for awhile, which isn't a bad idea, but the idea of McCain and Graham conducting any kind of foreign policy or diplomacy is a truly scary proposition.
In Egypt visit, McCain and Graham urge reconciliation between military, Islamists
CAIRO — Sens. John McCain and Lindsey O. Graham urged Egypt’s military and Islamists on Tuesday to reconcile and avoid further bloodshed or risk dragging Egypt toward civil war.
The two Republicans are frequent critics of the Obama administration on foreign policy but went to Egypt to reinforce the U.S. argument that the interim leadership must negotiate with backers of ousted president Mohamed Morsi and end a stalemate now in its second month.
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McCain (Ariz.) and Graham (S.C.) had earlier lobbied Congress to cut off Egypt’s $1.3 billion in annual military aid after the coup that ousted Morsi from power. But on Tuesday, the senators appeared to signal a shift in that position.
The articles and video grouped below are related to Glenn Greenwald's appearance before a foreign relations committee in Brazil's Senate on Tuesday.
Greenwald promises plenty more Snowden leaks to come
“I did not do an exact count, but he gave me 15,000, 20,000 documents. Very, very complete and very long,” adding “The stories we have published are a small portion. [" ...]
Many Brazilian senators have questioned whether a state visit by President Dilma Roussef to Washington in October should go ahead, and whether Brazil should continue with a billion-dollar purchase of fighter jets from the United States.
New revelations on US surveillance to be published
Glenn Greenwald has said the revelations on secret US surveillance of the internet would be made "within the next ten days or so".
He made the comments at a Brazilian congressional hearing that is investigating US internet surveillance in Brazil.
"The articles we have published so far are a very small part of the revelations that ought to be published," he said in Portuguese.
Terrorismo é pretexto; EUA quebram sigilo por causa dos negócios
[Title via Google Translate: Terrorism is an excuse; U.S. break confidentiality because of business]
[Video description via Google Translate: ] To Senator Roberto Requiao, more than the pursuit of terrorists, global espionage scheme operated by the United States, denounced by former CIA agent Edward Snowden, indiscriminately break the confidentiality of communications by economic interest. "The fight against terrorism is what counts less, the targets of espionage is business", said Senator at the public hearing of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate heard on Tuesday (6) the American journalist Glenn Greeenwald, that revealed to the world of global espionage scheme National Security Agency of the United denounced by former CIA agent Edward Snowden. At the hearing, the American journalist blurted out that Snowden has yet to reveal much more about the NSA spying in Brazil. See the intervention of Senator Roberto Requiao the meeting heard that the CRE columnist for the British newspaper "The Guardian", Glenn Greenwald.
Greenwald claims up to 20,000 Snowden documents are in his possession
“The pretext [given by Washington] for the spying is only one thing: terrorism and the need to protect the [American] people. But the reality is that there are many documents which have nothing to do with terrorism or national security, but have to do with competition with other countries, in the business, industrial and economic fields," Greenwald said on Tuesday.
On Monday, foreign ministers of the South American trade bloc Mercosur raised the issue of alleged NSA surveillance throughout Latin America with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The ministers discussed with Ban a statement adopted by the bloc on July 12 following a summit in Montevideo, Uruguay. The statement called for UN members to propose ways to halt spying and potentially pursue sanctions against the United States.
But doing so would be impossible under the current framework, as only the Security Council can impose legally binding sanctions and the US holds veto privilege over any such resolution as a permanent member of the council.
The exception to this theory that women are less inclined to start wars are the three major female influences in the Democratic party and the Obama administration: Samantha Power, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice. But then again, maybe the reason they have achieved positions of power in a warmongering era is because they're considered to be "badass" women who will argue for violent intervention in a party that argued vehemently for less war for nearly a decade before they simultaneously took control of the White House, the House and the Senate and then continued the Bush/Cheney warmongering. And no, Obama didn't end the war in Iraq. It had been ended for him by, ironically, Bush/Cheney and the only thing left to do was to carry out the SOFA agreement. The Obama administration tried to negotiate a longer stay in Iraq for our troops but the Iraqi government would not agree to immunity. And we have subsequently deployed special forces and CIA years later. From Micah Zenko (who agrees with me that women should rule the world, lol, just kidding, sort of). I've been seeing a rise in women warrior types, which concerns me because I wonder if, as the country has less and less appetite for war, and as the D party wants to maintain some semblance of a leftist tint to distinguish them from the hard right conservatives, I wonder if women are being put forward to try to convince the country to stomach yet another war, or another "intervention", in the never ending task of justifying more war for one reason or another and propagandizing the people who have to fund it, when what's really going on is that our military fights the wars for the corps and the 1%, not for real national security purposes. But seriously, Zenko assembles a massive amount of data here and in a very readable manner and then winds up in with a thoughtful discussion. Well worth reading.
Walking Loudly and Carrying a Big Stick
Why women are less inclined to start wars
The Pew Research Center recently released a new Global Attitudes Project survey based on polling conducted in 39 countries. News headlines derived from the polling echoed the Pew survey's title: "America's Global Image Remains More Positive than China's." However, buried within the top-line results was another revelation: "Wide Gender Divide on Drone Strikes." Of the 12 countries for which Pew provided corresponding data, the female-male gap approving of U.S. drone strikes ranged from 31 percent in Japan to 13 percent in Uganda. When the same question was asked in 2012, the female-male gap similarly ran from 30 percent in Germany to 12 percent in Poland. Within the United States, the divide was 23 percent in 2012, and 17 percent this year. American women are also between 11 percent and 14 percent more likely than men to show concern that drones harm civilians, cause blowback from extremists, are illegal, and damage the reputation of the United States.
This female-male divergence of opinions is an enduring characteristic of polls on the use of military force and generally persists regardless of the weapons system employed, military mission undertaken, whether the intervening force is unilateral or multilateral, and the strategic objective proposed. The gap is also one that is sustained over time and is consistently found whenever or wherever comparable questions are posed regarding prospective military options. Richard Eichenberg of Tufts University, who has written several essential works on gender differences in security attitudes, found: "There are many commonalities in the views of men and women, but the direction of gender differences is always and everywhere that women are less supportive of using military force than men."
Indeed, it is an overwhelmingly global phenomenon found in almost every single country where such questions are asked -- though there are less foreign data as the United States is comparatively over-polled. Nevertheless, for example, 13.5 percent more Australian men than women approved of joining the U.S.-led coalition to depose Saddam Hussein in 2003, 14 percent more French men than women supported the intervention in Mali earlier this year, and 20 percent more German men than women think force is sometimes needed to maintain order in the world.
Paul Rosenzweig at Lawfare.
Encryption Keys and Surveillance
But even here an important distinction needs to be made between end-point encryption and intermediate or service-provider encryption. [...] Google, Microsoft, Dropbox and other cloud service providers use forms of intermediate encryption. When, for example, you store data in Dropbox or leave your email in your Gmail folder on the web, that data is encrypted by the service provider. [...] But if Microsoft does the encryption for you … then Microsoft holds the encryption key.
By contrast, for end-point encryption the user holds the encryption key. If, for example, you use a strong encryption program like TrueCrypt locally on your own hard drive and then upload the encrypted file to Dropbox, the fact that Dropbox further encrypts the data is good but, with respect to the government’s demands, irrelevant. Even if Dropbox were compelled by a lawful order to give the government its decryption key (as the news story suggests it might) all that it could turn over is your encrypted file – which would still be encrypted gibberish to the government.
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So that’s the architectural issue. Sometimes the user – YOU – hold the encryption keys and sometimes your service provider – Google, etc. – does. Who does makes a world of legal difference.
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To begin with, as Orin Kerr has noted, third party data holders generally cannot assert a Constitutional protection on behalf of their customers. No Fifth Amendment claim arise when the government tries to compel passwords from third parties. [...] Of course, we might argue that a password is “content” of a communication, and therefore subject to the 4th Amendment’s warrant requirement. But that seems highly unlikely. [...]
[...] And so, my first conclusion is that service providers like Google and Microsoft may well resist the government’s pressure – and they would be wise to do so for business reasons – but in the end they will not succeed.
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By contrast the end point user who holds his own encryption key has a much stronger argument to make. The courts have yet to definitively determine whether or not an effort to compel that individual to disclose the decryption key constitutes a violation of his Fifth Amendment privilege, but the trend is in favor of the individual’s protection.
A really excellent interview with Robert Naiman on The Real News.
US & UK Pull Out Yemen Embassy Staff After Series of Drone Strikes
Gregory Johnsen, from Princeton.
Yemen Scholar Says U.S. Drone Strikes May Boost al-Qaida
For more on the threat posed by Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, Gregory Johnsen from Princeton University, a former Fulbright scholar in Yemen, joins Margaret Warner to discuss U.S.-Yemeni government relations and possible unintended consequences of drone strikes in that country.
Here are some messages and musings from people who live in Yemen, mostly in Sanaa, mostly journalists. Today begins the holiday, Eid.
Eid al-Fitr signals the end of Ramadan when people fast every day from dawn to dusk, for a month. It appears to be a happy, celebratory occasion where unity around the world is shown, and there are prayer gatherings, supplications for peace, large, communal meals and celebrations, and acts of charity. Gifts are given.
There was another drone strike today, the third in three days and I believe that is the fifth strike in one week. They've been living under drones for days and you can hear the frustration and stress from that in their comments about it -- the same kind of stress that we heard from journalists in Gaza some months ago when they were reporting on the Israeli attacks and it was apparent from their tweets that they were driven to distraction by the sound of the drones and the anticipation of the next missile strike. These people in Yemen are also frustrated with the international news coverage and mischaracterization of Yemen. And more.
I keep hoping there's a good side to all of this, but it doesn't look good. Well, the media has been changing radically in recent years. The media companies continue to consolidate but more people get their news from the internet, and journalists are all over Twitter, sometimes getting their news and tips there, information which is available to everyone. Things could continue to change and maybe the WaPo just won't be that important anymore, which will reduce the impact of Bezos buying it. All the traditional media are rushing to form "digital media" organizations, etc.
How The Washington Post's New Owner Aided the CIA, Blocked WikiLeaks & Decimated Book Industry
David Dayen prior to the president's housing chat yesterday and post-housing speech. It's a must read. I can only excerpt a small portion of it. Go read all the questions for the president.
20 urgent questions Jay Leno should have asked Obama
President Obama is hosting a live chat today on housing at 1:00 p.m. ET. Here’s what we should ask him instead
President Obama spoke Tuesday in Phoenix and outlined his second-term housing agenda, highlighted mainly by his vision for a replacement for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed giants that currently own or guarantee over 80 percent of the nation’s mortgages. Today, he’s doing a live chat at 1:00 p.m. ET moderated by Spencer Rascoff, the CEO of Zillow.
1. Four years ago, you also gave a speech in the Phoenix area, outlining your foreclosure mitigation program called HAMP. You said it would help up to 4 million borrowers; as of May, less than one-fifth of the money allocated has been spent, and only 880,000 still pay on permanent modifications. Moreover, nearly half of borrowers receiving permanent mods have re-defaulted, as the HAMP modifications servicers granted at their discretion were not sustainable. And servicers used HAMP to trap borrowers, forcing them into either foreclosure or a more lucrative alternative modification. Do you think HAMP succeeded for homeowners, not just for banks who got to delay their foreclosures until they could absorb them?
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3. Credible allegations from Bank of America whistle-blowers allege that they were – and still are – deliberately told by superiors to lie to homeowners and block loan modifications, as well as being offered bonuses like Target gift cards to push people into foreclosure. Why are these revelations coming in the context of a class-action lawsuit, where some lawyers and named plaintiffs might get rewarded but nobody else, instead of through a thorough federal law enforcement investigation, which you promised?
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5. Why do you continually distinguish between what you call “responsible” and “irresponsible” homeowners (your fact sheet on the second-term housing agenda references “responsible” borrowers 10 times)? Do you use the same language to single out “irresponsible” welfare or food stamp recipients or natural disaster victims? Isn’t it the job of the lender to check a borrower’s credit-worthiness, and subsequently how “responsible” their decision is to take out the loan? Haven’t banks admitted to preying on communities with low incomes and poor financial literacy, steering them into risky, higher-cost loans? Why aren’t you talking about “irresponsible” banks?
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8. You say that homeowners have seen $50 billion from the consumer relief elements of the National Mortgage Settlement. But the majority of that figure comes from facilitating short sales, where the homeowner negotiates a way to leave the home by selling it for less than they owe on the mortgage. Wasn’t the goal of the settlement to find a way to help keep borrowers in their homes, not the other way around?
Via Aravosis at Americablog.
Brilliant 14 y.o. anti-GMO activist smacks down TV host (video)
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Grateful Dead - Uncle John's Band (Radio City, 1980)