Global
Leaders provide vision. They help people understand where they are, how they got there and what they must do to go forward. They help calm nerves and strengthen courage. They are steady in times of trouble, inspiring in times of demoralization.
Donald Trump’s reaction to the terrorist acts in Egypt, Lebanon, Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., both divides and weakens us. And for the most part, his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination have allowed him to lead the Republican Party and its run to the White House to ignominy.
Americans are understandably worried. We have been fighting wars in the Middle East for over a decade. We lost thousands of lives and spent literally trillions of dollars in a wrong-headed war of choice in Iraq. We toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, producing failed states and generating more terrorists. Now we are trying to take out Assad in Syria even as his mortal enemy ISIS takes credit for terrorist horrors in Paris and Beirut. The violence keeps spreading; the terrorists keep reviving. And Americans grow more and more worried.
“…and the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame;
And on each end of the rifle we're the same” -- John McCutcheon
101years ago this Christmas season one of the most unusual aberrations in the bloody history of the organized mass slaughter that is war occurred. It was so profound – and so disturbing to the professional war-makers - that it was never to be repeated again. “Christian” Europe was in the fifth month of the 1914 – 1918, so-called Great War that finally ground to a mutually suicidal halt after four years, with all of the original participants financially, spiritually and morally bankrupted.
Leaders provide vision. They help people understand where they are, how they got there and what they must do to go forward. They help calm nerves and strengthen courage. They are steady in times of trouble, inspiring in times of demoralization.
Donald Trump’s reaction to the terrorist acts in Egypt, Lebanon, Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., both divides and weakens us. And for the most part, his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination have allowed him to lead the Republican Party and its run to the White House to ignominy.
Americans are understandably worried. We have been fighting wars in the Middle East for over a decade. We lost thousands of lives and spent literally trillions of dollars in a wrong-headed war of choice in Iraq. We toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, producing failed states and generating more terrorists. Now we are trying to take out Assad in Syria even as his mortal enemy ISIS takes credit for terrorist horrors in Paris and Beirut. The violence keeps spreading; the terrorists keep reviving. And Americans grow more and more worried.
resident Obama’s oval office talk on terrorism promises more of the same failed strategy based on no serious reconsideration of changed reality. From the top, by focusing on 14 Americans killed in San Bernardino, the President plays into the terrorists’ hands. President Obama, like the rest of the US establishment, appears to have learned nothing since President Bush played the fear card after 9/11, then used it to terrorize the Muslim world with ever more disastrous results (carried on by President Obama).
Thanks to Glenn Greenwald for pointing out that the U.S. media is acting as though Donald Trump just invented bigotry this week (one of those ugly details I'm happy to miss by never watching television). But not only is explicit bigotry toward Muslims not new, implicit bigotry toward Muslims has been the foundation of the largest public project in the United States for the past quarter century.
Justifiable suspicions about what happened surfaced straightaway after the incident.
The alleged perpetrators, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, appear to have been used as convenient patsies – the same way April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Dzhokhar were unjustly framed for a crime they didn’t commit.
False flag attacks are used to stoke fear, to enlist public support for planned domestic and foreign horrors. Events post-9/11 are well-documented. What’s unfolding now looks like more of the same – the phony pretext of combating ISIS, state-sponsored high crimes at home and abroad.
Eyewitnesses to the San Bernardino shooting said three white gunmen in black military attire, armed with assault rifles, were responsible.
Sally Abdelmageed working at the Inland Regional Center described them this way, saying “(a)s soon as they opened up the doors to building three…one of them (began) shoot(ing) into the room.”
BANGKOK, Thailand -- U.S. officials announced the arrest of Roger
Clark in Thailand for extradition to New York for alleged narcotics
and money laundering conspiracies when he worked at Silk Road, "a
secret online marketplace for illegal drugs, hacking services, and a
whole host of other criminal activity."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) along with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) and others led Thai police to arrest Clark
on December 3.
They nabbed Clark where he was residing on Thailand's touristy
tropical island of Koh Chang near the Cambodian border, according to
the Justice Department's announcement on December 4 which included
investigators' statements.
"Clark may have thought residing in Thailand would keep him out of
reach of U.S. authorities, but our international partnerships have
proven him wrong," FBI Assistant Director Diego Rodriguez said.
Clark, a Canadian, was being held in Thailand pending extradition to
It’s been a busy month for me, saving the Commonwealth. Preston Garvey has had me running around founding, building and then defending new settlements so people can finally have a place to call home in the post-nuclear wasteland. Robotic gumshoe Nick Valentine has been helping me figure out who kidnapped my son and shot my husband in cryogenically-frozen blood while being frustratingly unromanceable for a guy named “Valentine.” And Paladin Danse and the Brotherhood of Steel have… been told to take their power-armored bigotry and bugger off, mostly.
The more things change, the more things stay the same for Wil Trapp.
For some, playing for a championship is a once in a lifetime experience. For Trapp, a midfielder for the Columbus Crew SC, playing in the MLS Cup championship on Dec. 6 was more like a case of déjà vu.
Six years ago, Trapp led his school, Gahanna Lincoln High School, to a Division I state title and a national title. Trapp scored the game-clinching goal as Gahanna defeated Cleveland St. Ignatius 1-0 (4-3 shootout) for the title in what is now Mapfre Stadium.
Trapp headed into the MLS Cup showdown with the Portland Timbers on Dec. 6 hoping to recapture the same kind of magical feeling.
“It’s exciting,” Trapp said. “It has been a long season but we kind of are firing on all cylinders at the right time of the year. Our guys are confident, guys are excited. The club is excited. The city is excited.”
What do the Pyrenean ibex, St. Helena olive, Baiji dolphin, Liverpool pigeon, Eastern cougar, West African black rhinoceros, Formosan clouded leopard, Chinese Paddlefish, the Golden Toad and the Rockland grass skipper butterfly all have in common but which is different from the Dodo?
The answer is that these species all became extinct since the year 2000, that is, in the last fifteen years. The Dodo became extinct in 1662.
The one thing that all of these species have in common is that the cause of their extinction was human beings.
If you would like to watch a video which evocatively showcases some of the extinct species of planet Earth, you can do so here: 'Toll a bell on Remembrance Day for Lost Species 30th November 2015'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT1vp5HfBq4