Is Current Events dead?

[JACkory]

You're like a porcupine, doc.

[RocDoc]

and you accomplish 'prick' in a bit of a different way, jac.



~

i LOVE this tribune editorial!

Snowstorm envy

<sub>December 22, 2009

The 4 inches of snow that fell on Chicago on Friday night were barely enough to qualify as a nuisance. OK, so we had to spend half an hour or so clearing the walks before we could get out and finish (or, ahem, start) the Christmas shopping. Big deal.

But friends in and around the nation's capital woke up to much worse and greeted it with wide-eyed wonder. Instead of reaching for the snow shovels -- yes, people in D.C. own snow shovels, but they don't know where they are -- they grabbed the cameras.

The snowy landscapes photographed from their back doors seemed more often than not to include a gas grill and a couple of deck chairs, with 8 or 10 or more inches of snow piled on top. (We even saw a few time-release sequences, with the chairs barely visible at the end.)

Yes, Mother Nature dumped a foot and a half of snow on a place where it's perfectly normal to leave the patio furniture outside all winter.

Other pictures featured bundled youngsters and bouncy dogs, frolicking in the white stuff. Cars immobilized under snow drifts. Grown men sliding down hills on food trays.

Our Beltway friends were a little sheepish about their enthusiasm. They assumed we would not be impressed. They were wrong.

We weren't feeling smug. We were jealous.

Snow on a weekday, especially if there was snow the day before and maybe the day before that, too, is not something we celebrate in the Midwest. There's always the expectation that we're going to get where we're supposed to go, even if it means a two-hour, 15 mph commute after we've cleared the driveway and chipped the ice off our cars. The buses and trains are running, but late. School closings? What school closings? Get up and get moving.

But deep snow on a weekend is another story, or ought to be. The sidewalk can wait till we've enjoyed an extra hour of sleep and a second cup of coffee. Then it's time to break out the sleds, the snowshoes and the cross-country skis. Forget about cleaning the basement or whatever awful indoor winter project you'd planned to tackle. Go outside and cavort with the short-legged and four-legged critters.

It's hard to hate the snow when the kids and dogs are so jazzed about it.

Those folks in D.C. got a rude awakening on Monday, of course. The transit system was still crippled. Schools that weren't already on holiday break were closed anyway. If you think your streets don't get plowed fast enough, think about what happens in a town with amateur snow-removal crews. We're hearing a lot of grumbling about neighbors who cleared themselves a path from the front door to the curb, period, leaving the rest of the sidewalk impassable. People can't get to the mall and they can't get a pizza delivered.OK, now we're feeling smug.

But we're still smiling at those photos, a little reminder that winter can be magic if you get buried at the right time. It's easy to miss, when you live in a place where the big dump comes along more than once or twice a decade, so watch for it. When was the last time you took a camera out into the snow?

Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune

www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-1222edit2dec22,0,2126145.story</sub>

the snow pussies of the world will scoff, but why give a fuck.
_{richard pryor said 'it's a black thang baby, you just don't understand!'
substitute 'chicago' for 'black'.}
this DOES nail it!

we walked the zoo til closing today...an hour past being dark, the LAST ones at the zoo.
closing time.
in the snow.

priceless!

[RocDoc]

Recession scarring a generation

<sub>By Gail MarksJarvis

December 23, 2009

After living through one of the most brutal recessions in U.S. history, many late teens and young adults could be scarred for life, adopting behaviors that could skew everything from their own careers to politics, corporate profits and the stock market.

Academics are beginning to study the implications of the recent recession on the current generation of Americans that age, suggesting it may have much the same effect as how the Great Depression changed so many of the youth of the 1930s into conservative spenders and investors.

Experts said people between 18 and 25 are the most likely to be affected for life as they internalize the struggles they've seen in family and friends and contemplate the power they will have over their own destiny.

Researchers Paola Giuliano of UCLA and Antonio Spilimbergo of the International Monetary Fund, in a National Bureau of Economic Research paper looking at recessions from 1963 to 2006, found that young people who live through downturns tend to doubt their control over their careers. Unlike people who have lived through sweeter economic circumstances, the youth of recessions tend to look at career success as luck rather than a result of personal action.

Long-term attitudes are soured most dramatically if individuals go through the stress of losing their own job, rather than simply taking in the broader angst amid a recession.

The current young generation has been hit hard directly and indirectly. In their homes, teens have likely seen parents worry about home values. In the workplace, there's the threat to jobs as the unemployment rate remains stuck at a high 10 percent.

In addition, households are trying to replenish savings after a huge decline in stocks savaged 401(k) plans, and banks are forcing credit card holders to pay off debt and are reluctant to provide high levels of new credit.

Beyond family pressures, unemployment among 16-to-19-year-olds is at an extraordinarily high level of more than 26 percent. Students finishing college face difficult prospects, with hiring of this year's graduates down 22 percent, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

The political discontent noted by researchers is showing up in a 25 percent approval rating for Congress and slippage in President Barack Obama's numbers, according to Gallup polls. The public's demand for action is fueling debate on how much business regulation is needed to protect people and how much would stymie profits, the economy and stock markets.

Meanwhile, investors pulled billions of dollars out of the stock market last year and this year have put a record amount, more than $300 billion, into bond mutual funds despite recent warnings that rising interest rates could cause bond values to fall.

If investors stay on the sidelines, the stock market won't receive the boost individual buyers provide. And if bond values fall, the individuals who fled stocks and think they are safe in bonds could get hurt again.

It is possible that a generation of preretirees, and possibly their children, have been scarred permanently by stock market losses. Research by University of California-Berkeley professor Ulrike Malmendier and Stanford University's Stefan Nagel shows that when individuals have had low stock market returns for many years, they don't want to take risks in stocks.

Fidelity Investments research shows that Americans 22 to 33 years old have shifted toward more conservative financial behavior too. It's influencing everything from investing to job choices: More are seeking job security and strong benefits rather than opting to jump from job to job to further their careers.

www.chicagotribune.com/business/yourmoney/chi-wed-biz-gail-1223dec23,0,461216.column</sub>


kinda depends what you mean by 'scarring'.

no, you DON'T continue to spend like a drunken sailor in a whorehouse.
stupidly, the way obama wishes the recovery-phase of his 'plan' would allow us to spend our way out of this 'problem'.

no, marksjarvis IS simply stating the obvious with the studies she cites being corroborating evidence.

yeah, see gail says that years of losing on the stock market makes you invest less in the not too distant future?
oooh! no shit, gail.

<sub>Meanwhile, investors pulled billions of dollars out of the stock market last year and this year have put a record amount, more than $300 billion, into bond mutual funds despite recent warnings that rising interest rates could cause bond values to fall.

...if bond values fall, the individuals who fled stocks and think they are safe in bonds could get hurt again.</sub>

this bit of 'danger doctor smith!' was useful however...

[RocDoc]

fuckin' A new york!

Woman fatally knifes thug in subway attack, then flees on F train

<sub>BY Kerry Burke and John Lauinger
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Friday, December 25th 2009, 1:33 AM

Several thugs tried to drag a woman off a Queens subway train Thursday night, but she fought back and fatally stabbed one of her tormenters before fleeing on another train, police said.

The large group of men - perhaps as many as eight - surrounded the woman outside a chicken restaurant above the 21st St.-Queensbridge station about 9 p.m., police and a witness said.

The harassment, which may have included unwanted sexual advances toward the woman and grabbing, continued as she entered the subway station.

The woman broke free from the men and frantically ran down to the platform and hopped on an F train, with the thugs right behind.

"They tried to physically drag her off the train, but she fights back," one cop said.

The struggle continued as the group pulled her off the train and dragged her up the stairs to the mezzanine level.

At one point, the woman stabbed one of her attackers - identified by family as Thomas Winston, 29 - multiple times in the chest.

The woman then sprinted back down to the platform - with the thugs in hot pursuit, said witness Ricardo Josephs, 41.

"Seven or eight of them were chasing the woman," said Josephs, an MTA employee.

"They all jumped over the turnstiles after her," he continued. "She got on the Queens [-bound F] train. They tried to grab her; they tried to hold the train - but she got away."

Winston, who lives in a nearby shelter and has a 10-month-old daughter, was pronounced dead at a Manhattan hospital.

The woman was still in the wind Thursday night, police said. One police source said investigators suspect the woman was acting in self-defense.

Winston has numerous prior arrests, including several raps for sale of narcotics, most recently in September.

Winston's aunt, Diane Greenspan, who has custody of his child, was stunned by his death.

"It's terrible, just terrible - on Christmas Eve!" she said, despairingly.

[e-mail]

www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/12/24/2009-12-24_woman_fatally_knifes_thug_in_subway_attack.html?r=ny_local&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nydnrss%2Fny_local+%28NY+Local%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo</sub>


THERE's lee ving's fucking new york, jac.

[JACkory]

Thursday, Dec. 24...

George Glenn Miller, 52, Marlow

Miller died Thursday as he tried to cross State Highway 29 to assist a stranded motorist in Stephens County, troopers said.

He was trying to reach the motorist, who was stuck in a snow drift, when a car driven by Chester L. Foster, 59, of Foster, struck him about 2:25 p.m. east of Scott Road near Marlow, the patrol reported.

Miller died at the scene, troopers said. Foster and a passenger were not hurt.

newsok.com/three-pedestrians-killed-in-storm-related-accidents-in-oklahoma/article/3427543
[/size]

THERE'S the "hick" Oklahoma you're always deriding, doc.

[RocDoc]

'always', jac?
heavens no.

only when it involves you.

[JACkory]

Now that's not a very mature thing to say, doc. For shame.

[RocDoc]

you blathering that i personally 'always deride' the entire great state of oklahoma...well, that's not exactly the pinnacle of maturity, seeing that it's a totally overblown distortion, because it IS just you.

yeah you're in OK, and you represent quite poorly, yes.
particularly to me.
that's going to happen when you apparently pay no heed to how stupid you've forever sounded in this neurotic need of yours to kvetch on my every comment.

not 'hatred' you said to maarts....what then?
some sort of reflex envy?
sneering at everything i put forth?
what is it then?

i don't know.
small town guy gotta cut the city guy down to size?
wow, THAT would be mature.
YOU be ashamed for once, eh?

[JACkory]

Oh.

[RocDoc]

Dec 27, 2009 19:10:46 GMT -5 JACkory said:

Oh.

minimalist.
confucian.

[JACkory]

vegetarian.

[RocDoc]

of course.

~

boy, as bad a call as it was for failing to put that (thankfully) incompetent detroit bomber on the 'no fly' list, THIS one is fucking horrible good faith they placed in this dbl agent...

CIA bomber coerced to work for Jordan spy agency

<sub>By JAMAL HALABY, Associated Press

2 hrs 30 mins ago

ZARQA, Jordan – The suspected Jordanian double agent who killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan was thrown into jail by Jordanian intelligence to coerce him to track down al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Mideast counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.

The 32-year-old doctor's allegiance was to al-Qaida from the start, however, and not to his Jordanian recruiters or their CIA friends — and it never wavered, a Middle East counterterrorism official told The Associated Press.

He and two other counterterrorism officials gave identical accounts of how and when Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi was recruited.

Jordanian intelligence believed the devout young Muslim had been persuaded to support U.S. efforts against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and wanted al-Balawi to help capture or kill Ayman al-Zawahri, a fellow doctor from Egypt who was Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, according to another counterterrorism official based in the Middle East.

All four spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on matters involving the CIA and Jordan's national security.

Family and friends said al-Balawi, a father of two young daughters, had practiced medicine in a clinic at a Palestinian refugee camp near Zarqa, the hometown of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. One high school classmate, Mohammed Yousef, described al-Balawi as "brilliant," well-spoken and well-mannered, though he kept mostly to himself and did not mingle much with relatives or friends.

The doctor also spoke openly about wanting to die in a holy war, Yousef said, adding that in Internet postings he called tirelessly for jihad against Israel and the United States.

"If the love of jihad entered a man's heart, it will not abandon him, even if he wanted so," al-Balawi said in an interview published by the Ana Al-Muslim, or "I, the Muslim," Web site.

Jordanian intelligence was aware of these provocative statements when they arrested al-Balawi last March after he signed up for a humanitarian mission to the Gaza Strip with a Jordanian field hospital in the wake of Israel's offensive there, the counterterrorism officials said.

Al-Balawi was jailed for three days and shortly after that, he secretly left his native Jordan for Afghanistan, they said, suggesting he had agreed to take on the mission against al-Qaida.

Once in Afghanistan, al-Balawi provided valuable intelligence information that helped foil al-Qaida terror plots on Jordan, the officials said. His Jordanian recruiters then offered al-Balawi to their CIA allies as someone who would help them capture or kill al-Zawahri.

On Dec. 30, the Jordanian was invited to Camp Chapman, a tightly secured CIA forward base in Khost province on the fractious Afghan-Pakistan frontier, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a foreign government official.

He was not closely searched, according to former and current U.S. intelligence officials, apparently because of his perceived value as someone who could lead American forces to senior al-Qaida leaders.

Shortly after the debriefing began, al-Balawi set off his explosives, a former U.S. intelligence official said. The blast killed seven CIA employees and Ali bin Zaid, a senior Jordanian intelligence officer and relative of Jordan's King Abdullah II.

Yousef, al-Balawi's high school friend, said the doctor had deceived family and friends, telling them in March he was going to Turkey for medical studies and to be with his wife, a Turkish journalist.

"He fooled us, saying he was going to continue his medical studies, but he embarked on a suicide mission," said a close relative, who requested anonymity, citing instructions from Jordanian authorities to the family not to talk to the media. "He never called us," the bearded relative said, weeping.

He said the family found out about al-Balawi's death in a telephone call last Thursday from a man who claimed to be from the Taliban.

A Jordanian official living abroad denied al-Balawi was a double agent, saying he was a sometime contact of the Jordanian intelligence who had no formal role as an intelligence officer.

The official said al-Balawi had been arrested by Jordanian authorities about a year ago and was investigated before being released for what the official said was a lack of evidence.

The official said al-Balawi then traveled to Pakistan, saying he planned to study there, and contacted Jordanian authorities by e-mail soon after. Al-Balawi claimed to have important information about al-Qaida plans to target Jordanian interests, the official said.

Jordan shared that information with the United States, and maintained contact with al-Balawi electronically, the official said, adding that Jordan has no confirmation that al-Balawi was the suicide bomber.

Still, the case raises uneasy questions about how the CIA could have been duped for so long.

A U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday the danger of using informants is inherent but unavoidable. He said intelligence agencies have to rely on unsavory individuals to penetrate terrorist groups because no one else has the access.

He said those hazards were neither denied nor ignored by the CIA officers. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Questions also remain about why the bomber was not searched for weapons or explosives prior to his meeting with CIA officers, which is standard protocol even for visiting dignitaries, said senior foreign government official and more than a dozen former CIA officers.

Also unclear is why so many people were present for the debriefing. For physical security reasons and to protect the identifies of both informants and CIA officers, debriefings are generally conducted with two or three people.

Former CIA officers said the large group and failure to screen for a bomb suggest a lapse in what the CIA calls "tradecraft" — standard operating procedures meant to maximize security, secrecy and intelligence gathering.

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed they used a turncoat CIA operative to carry out the attack, saying it was in revenge for a top militant leader's death in a U.S. missile strike.

It was impossible to verify the claim independently, but it is highly unusual for the Pakistani Taliban to claim credit for an attack in Afghanistan.

Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA unit that tracked bin Laden, said it's inconceivable that the bombing could have been carried out without the knowledge of the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network. The autonomous Afghan Taliban faction — whose leader was once a U.S. ally — is a serious threat to American and NATO troops in Afghanistan's east and operates on both sides of the border with Pakistan.

"There is no way this operation would have occurred in Khost without the knowledge and active support of Jalaluddin (Haqqani) and/or his son," Scheuer said. "They and their organization own the area — and especially right around Khost — and nothing occurs that would impact their tribe or its allies without their knowledge and OK. Both men, moreover, would be delighted to help bin Laden in any way they can."

The bombing — the worst attack against the CIA in decades — exposed the close cooperation between Jordanian intelligence and the CIA, which has for decades helped fund and train Jordanian operatives.

In return, Jordan has acted as a proxy jailer for the CIA, interrogating several al-Qaida militants who were flown in on rendition flights from Guantanamo Bay.

A key U.S. ally in the Middle East, Jordan has consistently offered intelligence to the United States on militants and helped track down Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in June 2006.

Jordan has a vested interest to fight al-Qaida, which has plotted several deadly attacks against the pro-U.S. Arab kingdom. The plots included a bungled attempt to bomb the U.S. Embassy and tourist attractions during Millennium celebrations in Jordan and a 2004 foiled attack using chemicals on the Amman headquarters of the Jordanian intelligence, which experts said would have killed thousands.

The bombing of the CIA base was an embarrassment for Jordan.

The country's pro-U.S. government has gone to great lengths to conceal its connection with the attack on the CIA to avoid angering Arabs already disgruntled with Washington's Mideast policy, which they regard as biased in favor of Israel.

Al-Balawi came from a nomadic Bedouin clan from Tabuk, in western Saudi Arabia, which has branches in Jordan and the West Bank. He was born in Kuwait in 1977 to a middle-class family of nine other children, including an identical twin brother. He lived there until Iraq's 1990 invasion of the rich Gulf nation when the family moved to Jordan. He graduated with honors from an Amman high school and studied medicine in Turkey.

AP writers Pamela Hess and Anne Gearan in Washington and Kathy Gannon in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100105/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_jordan_cia_afghan_attack</sub>

[JACkory]

Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but...

...then again, perhaps I should not say anything.

Sorry.

[RocDoc]

whatever it is, it's fine, jac.

[RocDoc]

chemical ali orders an attack in northern iraq, kills 5 THOUSAND kurds.
in just ONE attack mind you.
there were others.

chemical ali hung by the neck til he's dead.

so does 'rot in fucking hell' sound overstated?