Current Events - Actual things on the News

[RocDoc]

ha-ha ghadaffi.

from his grave he's no doubt saying : 'ah, so you thought you were fucked before? not so. it is NOW that you're really fucked.'

that country's in for some shit, boy - i only hope his WMDs are relatively secure.

[RocDoc]

THIS is a gem for sure - barry obama EASILY as knuckled-headed as dubya in celebrating 'VICTORY" for a political heyday.
except obama makes shit up and THEN pisses away TONS of intelligence options in an eyeblink.

this being revealed - politically motivated? perhaps.
but if the implications here are true, hell yes he fucking DESERVES this.
especially when his 'holier-than-bush'-act is being exposed as BS more and more.

...but this navy seal sounds totally straight up:

<sub>Correcting the ¡®fairy tale¡¯: A SEAL¡¯s account of how Osama bin Laden really died

The Daily Caller ¨C 25 mins ago

Forget whatever you think you know about the night Osama bin Laden was killed. According to a former Navy SEAL who claims to have the inside track, the mangled tales told of that historic night have only now been corrected.

¡°It became obvious in the weeks evolving after the mission that the story that was getting put out there was not only untrue, but it was a really ugly farce of what did happen,¡± said Chuck Pfarrer, author of Seal Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden.

In an extensive interview with The Daily Caller, Pfarrer gave a detailed account of why he believes the record needed to be corrected, and why he set out to share the personal stories of the warriors who penetrated bin Laden¡¯s long-secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

In August the New Yorker delivered a riveting blow-by-blow of the SEALs¡¯ May 1, 2011 raid on bin Laden¡¯s hideaway. In that account, later reported to lack contributions from the SEALs involved, readers are taken through a mission that began with a top-secret helicopter crashing and led to a bottom-up assault of the Abbottabad compound.

Freelancer Nicholas Schmidle wrote that the SEALs had shot and blasted their way up floor-by-floor, finally cornering the bewildered Al-Qaida leader:

¡°The Al Qaeda chief, who was wearing a tan shalwar kameez and a prayer cap on his head, froze; he was unarmed. ¡®There was never any question of detaining or capturing him¡ªit wasn¡¯t a split-second decision. No one wanted detainees,¡¯ the special-operations officer told me. (The Administration maintains that had bin Laden immediately surrendered he could have been taken alive.) Nine years, seven months, and twenty days after September 11th, an American was a trigger pull from ending bin Laden¡¯s life. The first round, a 5.56-mm. bullet, struck bin Laden in the chest. As he fell backward, the SEAL fired a second round into his head, just above his left eye.¡±

Chuck Pfarrer rejects almost all of that story.

¡°The version of the 45-minute firefight, and the ground-up assault, and the cold-blooded murder on the third floor ¡ª that wasn¡¯t the mission,¡± Pfarrer told TheDC.

¡°I had to try and figure out, well, look: Why is this story not what I¡¯m hearing? Why is it so off and how is it so off?¡± he recounted. ¡°One of the things I sort of determined was, OK, somebody was told ¡®one of the insertion helicopters crashed.¡¯ OK, well that got muddled to ¡®a helicopter crashed on insertion.¡¯¡±

The helicopters, called ¡°Stealth Hawks,¡± are inconspicuous machines concealing cutting-edge technology. They entered the compound as planned, with ¡°Razor 1¡å disembarking its team of SEALs on the roof of the compound ¡ª not on the ground level. There was no crash landing. That wouldn¡¯t occur until after bin Laden was dead.

Meanwhile, ¡°Razor 2¡å took up a hovering position so that its on-board snipers, some of whom had also participated in the sea rescue of Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips, had a clear view of anyone fleeing the compound.

The SEALs then dropped down from the roof, immediately penetrated the third floor, and hastily encountered bin Laden in his room. He was not standing still.

¡°He dived across the king-size bed to get at the AKSU rifle he kept by the headboard,¡± wrote Pfarrer in his book. It was at that moment, a mere 90 seconds after the SEALs first set foot on the roof, that two American bullets shattered bin Laden¡¯s chest and head, killing a man who sought violence to the very end.

President Obama stepped up to a podium in the East Room of the White House that night to announce bin Laden¡¯s death. That rapid announcement, explained Pfarrer, posed a major threat to U.S. national security.

¡°There was a choice that night,¡± Pfarrer told TheDC. ¡°There was a choice to keep the mission secret.¡± America, Pfarrer explained, could have left things alone for ¡°weeks or months ¡­ even though there was evidence left on the ground there ¡­ and use the intelligence and finish off al-Qaida.¡±

But Obama¡¯s announcement, he said, ¡°rendered moot all of the intelligence that was gathered from the nexus of al-Qaida. The computer drives, the hard drives, the videocasettes, the CDs, the thumb drives, everything. Before that could even be looked through, the political decision was made to take credit for the operation.¡±

And in the days that followed, as politicians sought to thrust their identities into the details of the bin Laden kill, the tale began to grow out of control, said Pfarrer.

¡°The president made a statement, and as far as that goes, that was fine, that was the mission statement,¡± he explained. ¡°But, soon after ¡­ politicians began leaking information from every orifice. And it was like a game of Chinese telephone. These guys didn¡¯t know what they were talking about. Very few of them had even seen the video feed.¡±

Pfarrer suggests that much of the misinformation was likely born out of operational ignorance, even among those sitting in the White House.

¡°One of the things that happened was that there were only a handful of people who know about this mission,¡± he said. ¡°On the civilian side, there were only a handful of people in the situation room who were watching the drone feed. They were looking at the roof of a building taken from a rotating aircraft at 35,000 feet.¡±

¡°None of those guys, not a single one of them, had a background in special operations, with the exception of General Webb who was sitting there running a laptop,¡± Pfarrer went on. ¡°No one knew or could even imagine what was going on inside the building. They didn¡¯t know.¡±

¡°There was an alternative feed going to CIA headquarters where Leon Panetta sat there with the communications brevity codes in his lap and a SEAL off-screen by his side to be able to tell him what was going on,¡± he said. ¡°But these guys, none of them, really knew what they were looking at.¡±

As the media raised more questions, officials gave more answers.

Whether or not bin Laden resisted ultimately developed into a barrage of murky official and unofficial explanations in the days following. And statements from as high as then-CIA Director Leon Panetta offered confirmation that the endeavor was a ¡°kill mission.¡±

Pfarrer dismisses that assertion.

¡°An order to go in and murder someone in their house is not a lawful order,¡± explained Pfarrer, who maintains that bin Laden would have been captured had he surrendered. ¡°Unlike the Germans in World War II, if you¡¯re a petty officer, a chief petty officer, a naval officer, and you¡¯re giving an order to murder somebody, that¡¯s an unlawful order.¡±

Pfarrer also suggests some of the emerging claims were simply self-aggrandizing ¡°fairy tales.¡±

¡°The story they tried to tell ¡ª it¡¯s preposterous. And the CIA tried to jump in. About mid-June the CIA tried to jump into the car and drive the victory lap. There¡¯s this whole stuff about the CIA guy joining the operation, the gallant interpreter ¡ª he couldn¡¯t even fast rope!¡± exclaimed Pfarrer, referring to a technique for descending from an airborne helicopter.

¡°There¡¯s this fairy tale about him walking out of the compound during the operation to tell crowds of Pakistanis to go home and everything¡¯s OK.¡±

Pfarrer tried to put this in perspective: ¡°Do you mean that during the middle of this military operation at night, with hovering helicopters over this odd house in this neighborhood, that people came out of their houses to ask what¡¯s going on, instead of [remaining] huddled in their basement?¡±

¡°And I think that there were so many of these leaks that were incorrect, the administration couldn¡¯t walk them all back,¡± Pfarrer explained. ¡°And so, in the middle of May, they froze everything.¡±

It was that freeze-out that left Chuck Pfarrer with nowhere to turn for the real story but the SEALs themselves.

Seal Target Geronimo delivers an account of the night Osama bin Laden died with a level of detail unlike anything previously reported. Pfarrer bills the story as ¡°absolutely factual.¡±

¡°That¡¯s the other thing. I¡¯m prepared for the White House to say, you know, ¡®this is full of inaccuracies,¡¯ et cetera,¡± offered Pfarrer. He told TheDC that in order to protect American interests, his book is ¡°full of names that are made up, and it is full of bases that are not quite where they really should be.¡±

¡°But the timeline of my events,¡± he cautions, ¡°and the manner in which it happened is 100 percent accurate. And they¡¯ll know that.¡±</sub>


this is the thing that jumps out:

...

President Obama stepped up to a podium in the East Room of the White House that night to announce bin Laden¡¯s death. That rapid announcement, explained Pfarrer, posed a major threat to U.S. national security.

¡°There was a choice that night,¡± Pfarrer told TheDC. ¡°There was a choice to keep the mission secret.¡± America, Pfarrer explained, could have left things alone for ¡°weeks or months ¡­ even though there was evidence left on the ground there ¡­ and use the intelligence and finish off al-Qaida.¡±

But Obama¡¯s announcement, he said, ¡°rendered moot all of the intelligence that was gathered from the nexus of al-Qaida. The computer drives, the hard drives, the videocasettes, the CDs, the thumb drives, everything. Before that could even be looked through, the political decision was made to take credit for the operation.¡±

....

it's a whole freaking 'manhood'-thing, crowing about the touchdown throw:

'look what we did, standing tall, hard...and what limp-dick dubya couldn't...'

[RocDoc]

prefaced with 2 words - gloria allred.

the biggest question here is at whose urging did sharon bialek fly to washington for a face-to-face for 'help' from herman cain to find employment?

sharon bialek goes for a face to face with herman cain, flying in to washington from chicago, AFTER she had been fired from the organization he was the president of.
if SHE set it up, that's seriously ballsy.
not requesting a phone conference, not corresponding by mail, in all politeness asking that on her MERITS would cain consider helping her. or consider doing someone ELSE a favor by placing a person of HER great talents within THEIR company.

'no mister cain, i have to SEE you. and yes i will come to DC.'

...but to what sort of effect with a guy like herman cain, wondering 'well, whotf is she?'.
perhaps they tangentially somehow already knew one another.
but he also perhaps got the word that talent-wise (at her 'job') she's so-so and her firing was justified?
but she chose NOT a phone conference, not pleading her case in writing but she needed that face to face - in 1997 she was about 36, blonde and likely extremely good-looking (tho she looks sorta 'post-surgical' now at five-o)

IF she initiated this, then for sure she either

- overestimated the peer relationship which she thought she already maybe had had with herman cain

OR

- overestimated the positiveness of her 'work reputation', feeling she was going to talk to the president of the NRA on a peer level on the basis of great reviews from everyone (all of which cain apparently somehow missed/ignored)

OR

-she was trading on her appearance being the swaying factor

(which ironically also led cain directly into ignoring whatever great press she ma-a-aybe thought she had).

blame the attractive blonde for her looks, right?
but something WAS strongly implied by all the trouble she went through (albeit IMO with some bad judgement on her part) to set up the scenario!
SOMETHING was supposed to happen.
often a cigar IS a cigar, so to speak.

and as wild an exaggeration as it's accused of being, there still is that LARGE germ of truth in the stereotype of the black man + the blonde white woman - my feeling is that she totally knew what she was doing and what she was in for, and simply got cold feet - or developed a sudden conscience that 'no, i can't do this'.

'so now it's time to trade on that, regardless of the lure-factor. political correctness these days demands we ignore the lure-factor - so yeah, we've GOT him!'
- this ^ probably a direct quote from ms allred.

~

and today she's saying her 13 year old son 'advised' her to 'tell on him mommy!' so he would admire her.
what DID she tell a 13 year old, her own 13 year old, that herman cain did to her?

that the chairman of the organization she got fired from, fired possibly for good reasons, wanted a blowjob to get back the job she lost? after a night on the town in DC, of wining and dining set up by her 'special visit' to have him do her a favor.

and that she felt he was great friend of hers and that she should owe him nothing for the favor?

and that he STOPPED his advances when she said 'no'?

please ask that kid in 30 years what he thinks.

~

this guy commented (chiTribune's comments section)on an interesting eyewitness account in the chicago sun-times today:


<sub>blueskyblue at 8:42 AM November 08, 2011
And then there's this from today's Sun Times:

"WIND radio co-host Amy Jacobson tells Sneed she witnessed the Cain/Bialek encounter a month ago while backstage at the AM 560 WIND sponsored TeaCon meeting in Schaumburg Sept. 30-Oct. 1 at the Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center.

"They hugged each other backstage in a full embrace like old friends. She grabbed his arm and whispered in his left ear. She kept talking as he bent to listen, and he kept saying “Uh, huh. Uh, huh.

“I don’t know if what she was giving him was a sucker punch, but he didn’t put his arm down while she was talking to him,” said Jacobson. “I had turned on TV to find out who was Cain’s accuser, and I almost fell over when I saw it was Sharon Bialek accusing Cain of groping her genitals.”

Hmmm.... how interesting. And toss in Gloria Allred and you have good, down home lynching of the successful black conservative who needs to be taught a lesson about running away from the Democrat farm.

Now back to the misery of Obama's America with 30 straight months of 9 percent or higher unemployement, record numbers of Americans on food stamps, the $535 million of our tax dollars that went to Obama's Solyndra pal and on and on.

Anyone could do a better job for America than Obama has done. Anyone Twenty/Twelve.</sub>


wow, politics.
more of a 'whore's business' than ever.
and 'whore' in the figurative sense.

[RocDoc]

once you get past the confusing syntax within how it's titled - my GOD is this guy an idiot:

<sub>American turned Ukrainian homeless to return home

By MARIA DANILOVA | AP – 20 hrs ago

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A former write-in candidate for Arizona governor who ended up homeless in Ukraine says he is flying back to Phoenix next week after being entangled in an online dating scam.

Cary Dolego, 53, ended up on the streets of a western Ukrainian city after a dating scam. He came in search of a Ukrainian bride but ran out of money. He said Thursday he will return to Phoenix thanks to a loan from the U.S. Embassy.

Social workers in Chernivtsi last week found Dolego among the homeless — hungry, unkempt and suffering from pneumonia.

Dolego, who ran for governor last year, sold his house and belongings in Queen Creek, Arizona to fund his trip to Ukraine. He says he had been planning to meet and settle with a Chernivtsi woman he had met online, but she never showed up.

The woman, Yulia, eventually showed up, but claimed someone had hacked into her account and had been exchanging e-mails with Dolego on her behalf. She refused to give her last name, citing privacy concerns.

"We've heard lots of stories of Americans using Ukrainian dating services and hoping to find their future wives," said U.S. Embassy spokesman Jim Wolf.

It was unclear why Dolego did not immediately seek help from the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, which offers loans and other support to destitute Americans abroad to help them return home.

Anastasia Beridze, a social worker whose charity spotted Dolego, suggested he was seeking unusual experiences.

"It was a fun adventure for him," Beridze said. "He likes this lifestyle, but now it's over and he is returning to America."

Dolego said he plans to live with one of his three adult children back in Arizona and find a job, but eventually would like to return to Ukraine, a country he fell in love with.

"The people in the Ukraine are the most hospitable you'd ever want to meet," Dolego said, speaking from the Chernivtsi hospital where he was being treated for pneumonia. "I need a special lady, a Ukrainian lady so that we can start a life together."</sub>

what the fuck was the timeframe in which he pissed away all his money, i wonder?
and WHAT praytell did he piss it away on?

so he never even MET his grifter un til 'Yulia' shows up and says she's been hacked?
he sent it all to some paypal account?
holy fuck he's an idiot.

and where did he get these hugely idealized notions of 'ukrainian women' anyway?
NOT over a pot of hot borscht i'll bet.

[JACkory]

The Republican presidential nominees are one sorry lot.

[skvorecky]

I don't think Ron Paul is pathetic, just the way the GOP treats him. There are some ideas that he has that I'm not fond of but I do like his views on monetary policy (like ending the Federal Reserve) and foreign policy.

[JACkory]

I do agree with you about Paul. He's very obviously the brightest bulb in the bunch. He seems to have much better command of the issues. I've said it on facebook a couple of times, if I were a Republican I'd definitely put him in the ring. But I'm not, so as far as I'm concerned they might as well put Bachmann or Perry in, all the easier for Obama to whip their asses and win the election.

[RocDoc]

he's got a pretty well thought out group of stances on various issues, i will say.

but like a ton of other pundits smarter than me have already said, there's no ONE monolithic group of voters can take in all of what he stands for and say 'yeah! He's the guy for me!'...he's got a chance, but it's pretty infinitesimal.
he's GOT to get the large group of repubs/libertarians/conservatives to whom the current G.O.P. is over-concerned with religious and morality issues, plus he's got to somehow galvanize the apathetic non-voters (slash 'seldom- voters') to come out, support his practical no-nonsense approach to get partially out of this fucking hole.
something about which obama's completely lying to himself and the american public about, while he spends trillions more on temporary fixes.
hope and change, uh-huh, yeh sure.
*sigh*
of course this happens AFTER getting the repub nomination which'll be nearly impossible.

~

though he plays a shrewdly calculating idiot on his radio show, i like michael savage's publicity-shrewd try at trying to get newt to slither away.

[JACkory]

Pandering to the religious right is the first sign of political desperation.

[Thorngrub]

*tiptoes in quietly*






*looks left and right*







*tiptoes back out quietly*

[RocDoc]

so....would you care for an argument?
a modicum of knock down drag out?
an soupcon of a vicious mean-spirited tete a tete?

see, it's pret' much all that i'm known for roun' these here parts...go ahead, say you love putin.

[RocDoc]

rec'd in an e-mail:

<sub>Subject: Direct Deposit

'IN GOD WE TRUST'


Please take the time to contact your congressman on this one. And also forward the email.


ON JANUARY 1, 2012 , THE US GOVERNMENT IS REQUIRING

EVERYONE TO HAVE DIRECT DEPOSIT FOR SS CHECKS.

WONDER WHY?

Subject: HR 4646

Be sure to read the entire explanation

Watch for this AFTER November elections; remember this BEFORE you VOTE,

in case you think Obama is looking out for your best interest.

A 1% tax on all bank transactions is what HR 4646 calls for.

Do you receive a retirement check from Social Security or a pension fund and have

it direct deposit?? Well guess what ... it looks as if Obama wants to tax it 1% !!!

This bill was put forth by Rep.Chaka Fattah (D-PA).(observe the origin of

his name, could it be related to the branch of Arafat the PLO terrorist?)

YES, that is 1% tax on all bank transactions - HR 4646, every time it goes

in and every time money goes out.
Ask your congressperson to vote NO.

FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

1% tax on all bank transactions ~ HR 4646 - ANOTHER NEW OBAMA TAX

SLIPPED IN WHILE WE WERE ASLEEP . Checked this on snopes, it's true!

Check it out yourself ~ HR 4646.

President Obama's finance team is recommending a one percent (1%)

transaction fee (TAX). Obama's plan is to sneak it in after the November

elections to keep it under the radar.

This is a 1% tax on all transactions at any financial institution - banks, credit

unions, savings and loans, etc. Any deposit you make, or even a

transfer within your own bank from one account to another , will have

a 1% tax charged.

If your paycheck or your Social Security or whatever is direct deposit, it will

get a 1% tax charged for the transaction.

If your paycheck is $1000, then you will pay Obama $10 just for the privilege

of depositing your paycheck in your bank. Even if you hand carry your

paycheck or any check in to your bank for a deposit, 1% tax will be c harged.

You rece iv e a $5,000 stock dividend from your broker, Obama

takes $50 just to allow you to deposit that check in the bank.

If you take $1,000 cash to deposit at your bank, 1% tax will be charged.

Mind you, this is from the man who promised that, if you make under

$250,000 per year, you will not see one penny of new tax.


Keep your eyes and ears open, you will be amazed at what you learn about this

guy's under-the-table moves to increase the number of ways you are taxed.

Oh, and by the way, if you rece iv e a refund from the IRS next year and you have

it direct deposited or you walk in to deposit that check, you guessed it. You will pay

a 1% charge of that money just for putting it in your bank.

Remember, any money, cash, check or whatever, no matter where it came from, you will pay a 1% fee if you put it in the bank.

Some will say, oh well, it's just 1%. Are you kidding me? It's a 1% tax increase across the board. Remember, once the tax is there, they can also raise it at will. And if anyone protests, they will just say, "Oh,that's notreally a tax, it's a user fee"!

Think this is no big deal? Go back and look at the transactions you made from last

year's banking statements. Then add the total of all those transactions and deduct

1%. Still think it's no big deal?


STOP THIS GUY! /STOP THIS GUY! /STOP THIS GUY! /STOP THIS GUY!</sub>

[RocDoc]

Obama's Awkward Steve Jobs Reference at the State of the Union

<sub>By Adam Clark Estes | The Atlantic Wire – Wed, Jan 25, 2012

In his State of the Union address, President Obama talked a lot about bringing back American jobs as well as American ingenuity as represented by Steve Jobs. But talking about them together somehow seems oxymoronic. "You see, an economy built to last is one where we encourage the talent and ingenuity of every person in this country," Obama said, bowing to Laurene Powell Jobs, who sat with Michelle Obama as an honored guest. "That means women should earn equal pay for equal work. It means we should support everyone who's willing to work; and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs."

There are several contradictions in this short passage worth pointing out. First of all, as America's most valuable company and an industrial powerhouse, Apple could very easily create a lot of jobs. Obama's speech happened to hit just a few minutes after Apple released it's fourth quarter earnings report, a bombshell of a document that showed not only that Apple's profits exceeded Google's entire revenue but also that the company remains flush with cash. They have almost a hundred billion dollars on hand and Apple executives says they're "actively discussing uses of our cash balance." Why not build some factories, as Obama's populist speech suggests is the way forward for America? Well, based on new information about Apple's manufacturing practices published in Sunday's New York Times, Obama tried that when Jobs was still alive:

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

Why can't that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs's reply was unambiguous. "Those jobs aren't coming back," he said, according to another dinner guest.

As The Times's Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher go on to explain, Apple doesn't want to manufacture its products in America because it would be more expensive -- God knows they can afford it -- but rather because factories abroad are more efficient.

This brings us to the second contradiction: Apple allows its manufacturers to treat its workers terribly. We've covered the many mind-boggling scandals at Foxconn, where iPhones are built. Most recently, there were reports of mass suicide threats, in which Foxconn workers would have rather killed themselves than continue working with the pay and under the extreme conditions at the company. While one could also make a point about Apple's lack of female leadership -- only one of Apple's eight board members is a woman -- it's becoming increasingly clear that Apple is making incomprehensible amounts of money by taking advantage of the loose labor laws in China. Of course, they're not the only company doing this, but as the recent earnings report made very clear, they're the richest. Apple is not sorry about this. "We shouldn't be criticized for using Chinese workers," a current Apple executive told The Times. "The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need." The U.S. also enforces labor laws.

It's difficult to criticize Obama for tipping his hat to Steve Jobs during the State of the Union. In the Republican response, Mitch Daniels did with a pretty horrible joke: "The late Steve Jobs -- what a fitting name he had -- created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew." Not the best joke, especially since It's been made before. But by invoking Jobs -- who no one doubts was an exceptional American -- Obama seemed to point out the elephant in the room (pun intended) that technology manufacturing jobs are not likely to return to America. Perhaps Obama is working with Apple to build green energy research labs with the company's boatload of cash. (We totally made that up, but it sounds like a good idea!) And surely we could use more visionaries like Jobs to create new companies. We could also use a president who doesn't take no for an answer.</sub>


too bad that no-one except those born in the british isles can appreciate irony.
the yanks won't get it.
or refuse to.
politics is ALWAYS the dog chewing up it's own tail and obama is NO different.

"We shouldn't be criticized for using Chinese workers," a current Apple executive told The Times. "The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need."

math, sciences and tech stuff have become too much work for so many of the coddled entitled little darlings...or they're just busy sharpening their mad skilz playing to the lucrative profession of 'rapper'.

'what do i do? oh, i rap'

that guy...that duke ellington coulda been one sick muthafukkin' rapper i tell ya!
why he waste so much time learning music, reading, practicing...i don't git it...we all could hang on tha corner, drain some 40s, some blunts...we make him fergit all that music bullshit.
he just be's hangin' with tha wrong peeps.

[skvorecky]

What exactly are you trying to say here? Rap music and Rap musicians probably make up maybe 8% of the population and to say that we're not producing people with math and science skills is ludicrous. As someone who actually still actively works in the tech industry, I can tell you that the real deal here is this: People want a cheap product so the tech companies will go out and hire engineers from oversees and pay them a paltry sum while dangling the carrot of a green card in front of their face. Usually these guys never actually get the green card and it keeps the tech companies from having to shell out massive amounts of money to employees. As a matter of fact, a lot of American engineers are actually ex-patriating to locations all over the world. There is also a log of bipartisan regulation that makes creating factories for these products almost impossible.

I don't think a lot of people actually really want to be rappers anymore. I think what's going on is that the Robber Barons of the 21st Century are actually Tech companies who hide behind ridiculously low tax rates and fudging facts to tip the profits over in their favor.

[RocDoc]

Feb 10, 2012 11:27:39 GMT -5 skvorecky said:

What exactly are you trying to say here? Rap music and Rap musicians probably make up maybe 8% of the population and to say that we're not producing people with math and science skills is ludicrous.
...

what?
i'm seeing two completely unrelated statement separated by an 'and' there.
and fuck yes, math and hard sciences have WAY fallen off of american students' radar.
the 'current apple executive' who said "The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need." - certainly infers that math and the sciences relating to their types of engineering AND manufacture are in too short a supply here.

and what % of rap 'artistes' graduate berklee or juilliard?

or even 'joe's music school' in bayonne?

~

<sub>Penn Judge: Muslims Allowed to Attack People for Insulting Mohammad

By Mark Whittington | Yahoo! Contributor Network – Fri, Feb 24, 2012

COMMENTARY | Jonathon Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, reports on a disturbing case in which a state judge in Pennsylvania threw out an assault case involving a Muslim attacking an atheist for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Judge Mark Martin, an Iraq war veteran and a convert to Islam, threw the case out in what appears to be an invocation of Sharia law.

The incident occurred at the Mechanicsburg, Pa., Halloween parade where Ernie Perce, an atheist activist, marched as a zombie Muhammad. Talaag Elbayomy, a Muslim, attacked Perce, and he was arrested by police.

Judge Martin threw the case out on the grounds that Elbayomy was obligated to attack Perce because of his culture and religion. Judge Martin stated that the First Amendment of the Constitution does not permit people to provoke other people. He also called Perce, the plaintiff in the case, a "doofus." In effect, Perce was the perpetrator of the assault, in Judge Martin's view, and Elbayomy the innocent. The Sharia law that the Muslim attacker followed trumped the First Amendment.

Words almost fail.

The Washington Post recently reported on an appeals court decision to maintain an injunction to stop the implementation of an amendment to the Oklahoma state constitution that bans the use of Sharia law in state courts. The excuse the court gave was that there was no documented case of Sharia law being invoked in an American court. Judge Martin would seem to have provided that example, which should provide fodder for the argument as the case goes through the federal courts.

The text of the First Amendment could not be clearer. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof-" It does not say "unless somebody, especially a Muslim, is angered." Indeed Judge Martin specifically decided to respect the establishment of a religion, in this case Islam.

That Judge Martin should be removed from the bench and severely sanctioned goes almost without saying. He clearly had no business hearing the case in the first place, since he seems to carry an emotional bias. He also needs to retake a constitutional law course. Otherwise, a real can of worms has been opened up, permitting violence against people exercising free speech.

It should be noted that another atheist, dressed as a Zombie Pope, was marching beside the Zombie Muhammad. No outraged Catholics attacked him.

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this judge better be gone very quickly.
the lawyers for the people convicted in every one of his cases are going to file motions against this guy lickety split.

and for that matter, fuck ANYbody freaking out over their blessed 'holy book' being treated shabbily. morons.