Syrian chemical weapons production facilities destroyed.

And one day ahead of time. Inspectors with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons made the confirmation. Syria no longer has the capability to manufacture chemical wmd.  What a wonderful beginning to the end of the "Syrian Crisis" that roiled the world just weeks ago. What a tribute to Bashar al-Asad, Sergey Lavrov, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama and John Kerry. In that order.

"A creepy state within a [creepy] state."

From The New York Times today:
-Transcripts of Merkel's phone calls!
-Obama knew or he was stuck in a sand trap since "it would be hard to miss."

WASHINGTON — It was not obvious to the National Security Agency a dozen years ago that Angela Merkel, a rising star as the leader of the Christian Democratic Union, was a future chancellor of Germany.

But that did not matter.

The N.S.A., in a practice that dates back to the depths of the Cold War and that has never ended, was recording her conversations and those of a range of leaders in Germany and elsewhere, storing them in databases that could be searched later, if the need arose. It is unclear how often they searched the databases for her conversations, if at all.
...
How the N.S.A. continued to track Ms. Merkel as she ascended to the top of Germany’s political apparatus illuminates previously undisclosed details about the way the secret spy agency casts a drift net to gather information from America’s closest allies. The phone monitoring is hardly limited to the leaders of countries like Germany, and also includes their top aides and the heads of opposing parties. It is all part of a comprehensive effort to gain an advantage over other nations, both friend and foe.
...

“They suck up every phone number they can in Germany,” said one former intelligence official.
...

At the N.S.A.’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Md., analysts pore over the transcripts of the phone calls and write reports, stamped “top secret,” that are distributed to officials across the government. The most intense interest in the reports is at the State Department, the Treasury, the other intelligence agencies and the National Security Council, former officials said.
...

...[Former] officials have said that the raw intercepts, if interesting, would have been included in large briefing books given regularly to Mr. Obama’s national security advisers — he is on his third — and their senior deputies, and other National Security Council officials with responsibility for Europe.

“It may not have jumped out at them,” said one former official who knows the process intimately. “But it’s the kind of thing that’s hard to miss.”

...

Helmut Schmidt, the German chancellor from 1974 to 1982, told the weekly Die Zeit he was certain that Ms. Merkel’s calls had been monitored, but that it was impossible to know what secrets might have been stolen.

"Beautiful Big Cocks."

Flower arrangements. Not...  From a friend in the PRC. Middle-aged woman. I thought it was spam at first. Jesus Christ. 

Omg, kids can't do scary faces to save themselves. Adorable. Love kids.

Boo!

Heh-heh-heh-heh. 
Arright, fine.

NSA statement.

That's a denial,
1. that they use the president's executive authority,
     A. which is used for foreign, not domestic, spying...
     B. which is just one of their "multiple authorities"...
2. to "get around" FISA, which governs domestic spying.
It is not a denial that they broke in, period. Nor is it a denial that they got the data, period. They could have broken in or gotten the data incidental to other authority, or incidental to the FISA authority itself as long as they didn't "get around" FISA. See?
3. that they got "vast quantities" of data...
     A. not medium-sized quantities of data...
     B. from U.S. citizens...
          i. not foreign citizens...
                 (1) which data from foreign citizens could have been vast, medium-sized or tiny like the size of Keith Alexander's penis.
     C. from the executive order authority.
4. that they did it on their own. Whatever they did, they got the approval of Eric Holder--who is the president's A.G.,--to do it.
5. that their "focus" is on U.S. citizens. Whatever they got on U.S. citizens they were not focusing on U.S. citizens. Their eyes were defocused on U.S. citizens. They only focused their eyes when a foreign citizen came within their field of vision because they're far-sighted and can't focus on close-range things like U.S. citizens because they have masturbated too much and it has affected their eyesight.
See?

NSA statement on breaking into Google, Yahoo data centers.

NSA has multiple authorities that it uses to accomplish its mission, which is centered on defending the nation. The Washington Post’s assertion that we use Executive Order 12333 collection to get around the limitations imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and FAA 702 is not true. The assertion that we collect vast quantities of U.S. persons’ data from this type of collection is also not true. NSA applies Attorney General-approved processes to protect the privacy of U.S. persons - minimizing the likelihood of their information in our targeting, collection, processing, exploitation, retention, and dissemination. NSA is a foreign intelligence agency. And we’re focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets only.”

"NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say."-Washington Post

By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.

According to a top secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, NSA’s acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from Yahoo and Google internal networks to data warehouses at the agency’s Fort Meade headquarters. In the preceding 30 days, the report said, field collectors had processed and sent back 181,280,466 new records — ranging from “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received e-mails and when, to content such as text, audio and video.
...
The NSA’s principal tool to exploit the data links is a project calledMUSCULAR...
...
The MUSCULAR project appears to be an unusually aggressive use of NSA tradecraft against flagship American companies. The agency is built for high-tech spying, with a wide range of digital tools, but it has not been known to use them routinely against U.S. companies.
...

In a statement, Google said it was “troubled by allegations of the government intercepting traffic between our data centers, and we are not aware of this activity.”

“We have long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping, which is why we continue to extend encryption across more and more Google services and links,” the company said.
...

In an NSA presentation slide on “Google Cloud Exploitation,” however, a sketch shows where the “Public Internet” meets the internal “Google Cloud” where their data resides. In hand-printed letters, the drawing notes that encryption is “added and removed here!” The artist adds a smiley face, a cheeky celebration of victory over Google security.

Two engineers with close ties to Google exploded in profanity when they saw the drawing. “I hope you publish this,” one of them said.

A Chinese-American friend and I emailed about the stabbing murders of five in Brooklyn, NY. 

I caught a little but was not clear about it. Nor did I know he is Chinese. Benjamin, it reminds me of something. From what I have read, heard, and witnessed about new immigrants and my own experiences, it's no secret, people from politically dark countries like Nazi Germany, China, N. Korean, other communist countries, etc. more or less brought psychological wounds with them. Remember "Sophie's Choice"? When stressed in a new environment of different culture and life, at some point those wounds will reopen in the form of new problems. Warm-hearted people like yourself who are passionate about social assistance should be aware of it and don't get hurt yourself.

A random act of kindness. So generous-spirited.

Liar.

"Evaluated." "Scrubbed thoroughly."

evaluated: "judged the value or condition of in a careful and thoughtful way."

scrubbed: "cleaned with hard rubbing."
thorough: "including every possible part or detail."

Liar?

“You know, I came in with a healthy skepticism about these programs,” Obama said. “My team evaluated them. We scrubbed them thoroughly."-President Obama, June 7, 2013.

NSA head Keith Alexander testified before Congress this afternoon and denied that the US had collected 70 million French phone records and 60 million Spanish. He said NATO had done that. 

There has been a spate of interest in Mr. Zhang Mu's writing here recently. On China, April 17, 2011 is fifth this month and first this week; Chinese Cultural Revolution, October 2, 2010 is eighth this month and second this week and Chapter Two of his book, June 7, 2011 is sixth this week. Very, very happy for Mr. Mu.

In Berlin that day [July 24, 2008] Obama pledged Change: "Allies who will listen to each other, who will learn from each other, who will, above all, trust each other." (Publocc, Oct. 24, '13).

We are listening to them, aren't we?

Good morning, Mr. President. Wanted you to be in the loop that the sun has risen.

Fool.

"He has often said that he didn't know what was going on with the (HealthCare.gov) website. ... He can't pretend he doesn't know and walk away from problems anymore, because he has been caught too many times out of the loop," said A.B. Stoddard, associate editor of The Hill. "He can't do his job that way."

Fool.

Ross Douthat, a CNN political commentator and a columnist for The New York Times, wondered whether some officials would lose their jobs if the President really wasn't informed.
"The question becomes, why do the people who failed to keep him in the loop still have their jobs?" he asked.

Liar or Fool?

"I would say if the President did not know, that raises very serious questions about what he's doing as chief executive. The fact he would be going into negotiations and discussions and meetings with Angela Merkel or French leaders -- or any leaders for that matter -- and not be aware that there was surveillance going on of the private phone calls, to me either something is definitely wrong in his administration or he just has a totally hands-off attitude. To me, this is unacceptable." (Congressman Peter King)

Liar or Fool?

No one should expect the President to know everything the NSA is doing, said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.
"But when you're talking about the surveillance of world leaders, and an issue that's been controversial for a while now, you would expect that there's some knowledge either by the President or people surrounding him. ... I do think there's surprise that this was off the radar in the inner circles of the White House."

Liar or Fool?

"There's really no good answer," said Republican strategist Kevin Madden. "If he knew, essentially we're being misled by different people in the administration about the extent of the President's knowledge. If he didn't know, it's an abdication of even the most basic responsibilities of the command and control over very important parts of his administration, and that becomes a problem."

Fool.

"It is my understanding that President Obama was not aware Chancellor Merkel's communications were being collected since 2002," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said. "That is a big problem."

Carpe diem.

Start without me, man. I'll be right witcha.

A paradigm shift has occurred. In a story published just six minutes before this post began, The Los Angeles Times headlined:
White House Ok'd Spying on Allies, US Intelligence Officials Say.

That means Obama lied. The story describes a "push-back" by the spooks who are livid that the Obamas hung them out to dry by trying, disingenuously, to distance themselves from NSA spying by claiming they didn't know. Erstwhile spook Protector-in-chief Senator Dianne Feinstein said,

"With respect to NSA collection of intelligence on leaders of U.S. allies — including France, Spain, Mexico and Germany — let me state unequivocally: I am totally opposed." Senator John McCain said the question posed here now has to be asked: 

"Obviously, we're going to want to know exactly what the president knew and when he knew it."

It is not clear to this idiot blogger what precisely caused this paradigm shift. The Times report says:

France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Sweden have all publicly complained about the NSA surveillance operations, which reportedly captured private cellphone conversations by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among other foreign leaders. On Monday, as Spain joined the protest, the fallout also spread to Capitol Hill.

That is old news at this point. But something happened. Maybe Feinstein and McCain believe that the  President lied to Merkel and lied to them. That would probably do it, along with throwing NSA under the bus, in contemporary patois. For McCain to ask the Watergate question is serious indeed. This I.B. does not know if lying to foreign leaders, which this report concludes Obama did, is an impeachable offense, nor if lying to Congress is an impeachable offense, but it is not good and some powerful, reasonable Senators are now coming pretty close to saying somebody's head(s) are going to roll, maybe Obama's. It says here heads should roll, maybe Obama's, I don't know enough on this late story. Obama is the incredible shrinking president at least now.

Both Feinstein and McCain have promised to curtail NSA spying on foreign leaders. That is the best thing. If they bag the Great Pretender, this page will be in grief, but justice produces grief.

An important development, an important day. Perhaps America is beginning to regain its soul. If jettisoning Barack Obama does that, it is a "sacrifice" well worth making. 

Pennsylvania State University will pay 26 child sex victims of former assistant tackle football coach Jerry Sandusky $60 million. Which, if memory serves, is less than one year's "profit" the "university" makes from the football team. America's sports police had announced previously that they were giving Penn State time off for good behavior by restoring some of the "scholar-ships" it could award to future football scholars. More important than all this though, the current football scholars lost this past Saturday 63-14. That really hurts.

Abnormal (now):

Djibouti

First Google image, "Djibouti people."

早晨好。今天是你的余生的第一天。

On my internet connection "device " right now there are two prominent advertisements, the one, right below the first post:

Eavesdropping
Debugging

The other, in right sidebar:

Spy on
Cheating Spouses.

Google places ads here based on writing content and personal characteristics as revealed by your search history and interviews with your psychiatrist...so your ads may be different.

Google, that one really gets under my skin. I think any reasonable person would agree that that is a deeply, deeply offensive ad that can only lead to heartache and perhaps violence of a domestic nature which I am confident all, Google, all would agree must be avoided. No one, Google, can sanction spying on cheating spouses. It is just not cricket, Google. It is just not what gentlewomen and gentlemen do. Google. Schmoogle.

"Maybe the leaders of the European Union should have issued a communique at their summit in Brussels Friday, publicly thanking Edward Snowden for stealing U.S. secrets and thus giving them something to talk about other than their own economies."-Wall Street Journal editorial. 

How many times have you seen a person caught in wrong-doing and, desperately afraid of the consequences, arrogantly lash out in anger? The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are canaries in coal mines for the American people here. They are desperately afraid that they are going to lose some of what is most important to them in the whole world: money.

From the beginning of this foreign spying scandal the consent manufacturers at The New York Times have cockily dismissed the thought that the incipient trans-Atlantic trade negotiations could be effected. "Still, a deal is in everyone's interests" they editorialized back then. And Friday some woman wrote for them that any "threats" to the deal from these European "powerless" "bystanders" were "empty." They're probably right. Money is the most important thing to Americans; it's probably the most important thing to Germans, too. Germany today is "basically a creation of the United States" and its World War II allies. What can they do? So, stop bitching, Merkel, just bend over and take it.

Oh, I am not thinking like a lawyer. The Bild report could be wrong and Obama still be a liar. The gravaman of Merkel's phone call to Obama was that Obama said he hadn't known that he/U.S. was bugging her phone. The Bild report today was that Obama had lied to Merkel because he had known, Alexander had told him. NSA said Alexander never told Obama. That is a flat contradiction of Bild's Alexander-to-Obama report but it does not contradict the gravaman of the initial story. Obama could have known from a source other than Alexander. The question is "What did the President know and when did he know it"-to borrow from Watergate; not from whom he learned it. The answer still admits to only two conclusions about Obama that I can see: He lied; he's a disengaged fool. Tell me if I missed any other conclusions. 

Wait a minute...

If the Bild report is true, Obama lied directly to Merkel. If Alexander's denial is true, Obama is not a liar. He's ignorant, uninformed and disengaged. Whew, that's a load off.

Alexander denies that he told Obama in 2010 that Merkel's phone was being monitored.

President Obama told Chancellor Merkel on the phone that he did not know he/the U.S. was bugging her phone. Today, Bild am Sonntag reports that NSA head Keith Alexander personally told Obama in 2010 that NSA was bugging Merkel's phone.

“Obama did not stop the action at that time but allowed it to continue,” a US intelligence source close to the NSA operation told the Sunday newspaper.

The White House later commissioned an extensive NSA dossier about Mrs Merkel, according to Bild.

Information about Mrs Merkel was collated in the US Embassy beside the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and sent directly to the White House.

Good morning, normal people.

Extremely Abnormal:
Vietnam (14) :o
Malaysia (5)
Belarus (2)

pussyblogspot (1)
sexpussy.blogspot (1)

A day that will live in infamy.

The launch of Windows 8, October 26, 2012.

Seeking the Soul of America.

From The New York Times:

BERLIN — ...[T]his week’s disclosures about the extent of America’s spying on its European allies have added to a series of issues that have sharply eroded confidence in the United States’ leadership at a particularly difficult moment.
...
...the broader perception that President Obama himself — for all his promises to rebuild relations with allies after the presidency of George W. Bush — is an unreliable partner.
...
This American administration is “misreading and miscalculating the effects” of its deeds in a Europe that is less ready than it once was to heed the United States...
...
The disclosures contained in the documents leaked by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden have crystallized a growing sense in Europe that post-Sept. 11 America has lost some of the values of privacy and accountability that have been the source of the world’s admiration for its version of democracy.
...
...Elmar Brok of Germany, the chairman of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a pillar of trans-Atlantic exchanges since 1984, spoke Friday of America’s security establishment as a creepy “state within a state.” Since Sept. 11, 2001, he said, “the balance between freedom and security has been lost.”
...

After this week, the older European generation is wondering about the marriage, too. “America has always been about freedom and a guarantor for freedom,” said Mr. Brok, bitterly. “Perhaps we were too naïve.”... “In China, I expect such behavior,” he said. But, from America, “this is real disappointment.”

"Such behavior" as "in China:"  "unreliable," "misreading," "miscalculating,"  "creepy,"  "lost privacy and accountability."  

Dead Man Walking.

Isolated, clueless.

I didn't see how he could survive politically the initial spate of NSA revelations. He said he had cleansed the programs upon assuming office. He owns this scandal. He has owned it for five years now. He gets along with nobody. He couldn't lead a tick onto a dog. Nobody trusts him now. European leaders say he must re-earn trust, leaving a reasonable chance that his reviews of the spy programs could result in a drastic scale-back. Is that plausible? He is said to feel "not in a good place" with the personal spying on foreign leaders so maybe he'll eliminate them. And the spying on private citizens of foreign countries? ? The industrial espionage? The bugging to learn trade negotiation strategy? Spying to make the worldwide web free for Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and others to make more money? No, it is not plausible he will propose all of that. He will not feel it "pragmatic" to do all of that. All that is necessary. He has no moral compunctions about any of this. The American people who he represents have no moral compunctions about this. It is more plausible he will somnambulate through the remaining three years alone and shunned by other world leaders. The American people alone and shunned with him. A rogue leader of a rogue nation of rogues.

"Obama Left Increasingly Isolated as Anger Builds Among Key U.S. Allies."-The Guardian.

The furious call that German chancellor Angela Merkel made to the White House on Wednesday to ask if her phone had been tapped was the latest in a string of diplomatic rebukes by allies including France, Brazil and Mexico, all of which have distanced themselves from the US following revelations of spying by the National Security Agency.
...

"The [NSA] revelations have clearly caused tension in our relationships with some countries and we are dealing with that through diplomatic channels," said White House spokesman Jay Carney on Thursday.
...

...[T]he Guardian has spoken with several diplomats and foreign government officials – all of whom agreed to talk only on the condition of anonymity – who say the White House is still underestimating the anger felt over recent disclosures. They argue that US officials are being deliberately disingenuous when they claim that all countries engage in similar forms of espionage, even against allies. While it is widely accepted that the US, Britain, France, Russia and China engage in counter-espionage, other countries do not have the tools to conduct surveillance on the scale of the NSA.

A European diplomat said that the White House had presented a false comparison by claiming all countries were engaged in the same tactics.

"How would the US respond if it discovered a friendly country was covertly listening to the calls of thousands of US citizens – including Obama?" the diplomat said.

...

Speaking before Wednesday's revelation about Merkel's phone, a senior western diplomat speculated that the tenor of debate would be transformed if it emerged that an elected European politician had been targeted – as occurred in Brazil and Mexico.

"If that happened, there would be a huge uproar," the diplomat said. "This is not an issue that will go away.

"The surveillance debate in the US is focused on the constitution – and whether the privacy of US citizens is compromised. There seems to be minimal acknowledgement about the concern other countries have about the rights of their citizens."

It is Friday and they are gathering at the Zayed Grand Mosque and the chitlins is running around and I am not gathering at the Zayed Grand Mosque but I wish them chitlins a happy sabbath and I hope they grow up and out of Islam and grow into atheists, secular humanists, Epicureans, Christians or anything other than Muslims. 

"Officials Alert Foreign Services That Snowden Has Documents On Their Cooperation With U.S."-Washington Post.

U.S. officials are alerting some foreign intelligence services that documents detailing their secret cooperation with the United States have been obtained by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, according to government officials.
...
The process of informing officials in capital after capital about the risk of disclosure is delicate. In some cases, one part of the cooperating government may know about the collaboration while others — such as the foreign ministry — may not, the officials said. The documents, if disclosed, could compromise operations, officials said.
...

In one case, for instance, the files contain information about a program run from a NATO country against Russia that provides valuable intelligence for the U.S. Air Force and Navy, said one U.S. official, who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation. Snowden faces theft and espionage charges.

“If the Russians knew about it, it wouldn’t be hard for them to take appropriate measures to put a stop to it,” the official said.

This is different. This is more espionage, not Snowden's purpose, than transparency, Snowden's purpose, and I do not support the release of these documents. I am not sure I support the publication of this story. I don't know. Have to think about this more.

From Reuters:

Germany's foreign minister summoned the U.S. ambassador to Berlin to discuss the issue, an event diplomats said was almost unprecedented in the past 60 years.
...

The revelations could have an impact on major legislative and trade initiatives between the United States and the European Union, with some German lawmakers saying negotiations over an EU-U.S. free-trade agreement should be suspended.

...

DATA PRIVACY RULES

The most immediate impact of the furor could be to encourage member states to back tougher data privacy rules currently being drafted by the European Union. The European Parliament this week backed legislation that would greatly toughen EU data protection rules that date from 1995. The new rules would restrict how data collected in Europe by firms such as Google and Facebook is shared with non-EU countries, introduce the right of EU citizens to request that their digital traces be erased, and impose fines of 100 million euros ($138 million) or more on rule breakers.

The United States is concerned that the regulations, if they enter into law, will raise the cost of handling data in Europe. Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and others have lobbied hard against the proposals. [Here, Public Occurrences wishes to add to these reports by the Post and Reuters. We wish to add the following remarks: FUCK THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! FUCK GOOGLE! FUCK YAHOO!...! and FUCK MICROSOFT!] [AND FUCK "OTHERS!"]

From the Washington Post:

BRUSSELS — European leaders united in anger as they attended a summit overshadowed by reports of widespread U.S. spying on its allies...
...
Merkel’s unusually stern remarks Thursday as she arrived at the European Union gathering indicated she wasn’t placated by a phone conversation she had Wednesday with President Barack Obama...
...
The White House may soon face other irked heads of state and government. The British newspaper The Guardian said Thursday it obtained a confidential memo suggesting the NSA was able to monitor 35 world leaders’ communications in 2006.
...

Other European leaders... Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt called it “completely unacceptable” for a country to eavesdrop on an allied leader..."it is exceptionally serious,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte..."We want the truth,” Italian Premier Enrico Letta told reporters. “It is not in the least bit conceivable that activity of this type could be acceptable."...Austria’s foreign minister, Michael Spindelegger, said, “We need to re-establish with the U.S. a relationship of trust, which has certainly suffered from this.”...“I think we are all outraged, across party lines,” Wolfgang Bosbach, a prominent German lawmaker..."This cannot be justified from any point of view by the fight against international terrorism or by averting danger,” Bosbach said.

...

[T]here has been a new discernible vein of anger in Europe as the scale of the NSA’s reported operations became known, as well as the possible targeting of a prominent leader like Merkel, presumably for inside political or economic information.

...

“Nobody in Germany will be able to say any longer that NSA surveillance — which is apparently happening worldwide and millions of times — is serving solely intelligence-gathering or defense against Islamic terror or weapons proliferation,” said Hans-Christian Strobele, a member of the German parliamentary oversight committee. “Because, if you tap the cellphone or the phone connection of the presidents of France or Brazil, or the cellphone of the chancellor, then this is no longer about collecting intelligence about international terrorism, but then that is about competition, about getting advantages in this competition and winning. That’s why today is a watershed moment.”

Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, said Europe’s undermined confidence in the U.S. meant it should suspend negotiations for a two-way free-trade agreement that would account for almost half of the global economy. The Americans, Schulz said, now must prove they can be trusted.

“Let’s be honest. If we go to the negotiations and we have the feeling those people with whom we negotiate know everything that we want to deal with in advance, how can we trust each other?” Schulz said.

...

Germany’s defense minister said his country and Europe can’t return “to business as usual” with Washington, given the number of reports that the United States has eavesdropped on allied nations.

...

A German parliamentary committee that oversees the country’s intelligence service met to discuss the spying allegations. Its head, Thomas Oppermann, recalled previous reports to the panel that U.S. authorities had denied violating German interests, and said, “we were apparently deceived by the American side.”

Quite a change from 2008: Germans greeting Obama, back at Brandenburg, in June 2013.

"Obama, in Berlin, Calls for Renewal of Ties with Allies."-New York Times, July 25, 2008.

BERLIN — Senator Barack Obama stood before a sea of cheering admirers on Thursday and sought to inspire fresh cooperation among American allies to defeat terrorism and other threats, introducing himself as a leader who could summon other nations to join the United States in confronting the world’s next challenges.

On a perch steeped in history, Mr. Obama said it was time to reprise the spirit that conquered communism, and use it to heal divisions and forge closer partnerships...
...
“The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand,” Mr. Obama said...
...
...a candidate who could restore the world’s faith in strong American leadership and idealism.
...
Bratwurst-and-beer stands shared space with vendors who were selling an array of Obama products, including a T-shirt that declared, “The World For Obama ’08.” [Ouch.]
...

The address received overwhelmingly positive attention from the German news media, which has frequently gushed over Mr. Obama for his aura, or as the large-circulation Bild daily put it on Wednesday, the “political pop star."

In Berlin that day Obama pledged Change: "Allies who will listen to each other, who will learn from each other, who will, above all, trust each other."

"The End of Hypocrisy," Henry Farrell, Martha Finnemore. Foreign Affairs, November/December 2013.

The U.S. government seems outraged that people are leaking classified materials about its less attractive behavior. It certainly acts that way: three years ago, after Chelsea Manning, an army private then known as Bradley Manning, turned over hundreds of thousands of classified cables to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, U.S. authorities imprisoned the soldier under conditions that the UN special rapporteur on torture deemed cruel and inhumane. The Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, appearing on Meet the Press shortly thereafter, called WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange, “a high-tech terrorist.”

More recently, following the disclosures about U.S. spying programs by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency analyst, U.S. officials spent a great deal of diplomatic capital trying to convince other countries to deny Snowden refuge. And U.S. President Barack Obama canceled a long-anticipated summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin when he refused to comply.

Despite such efforts, however, the U.S. establishment has often struggled to explain exactly why these leakers pose such an enormous threat.

...

The deeper threat that leakers such as Manning and Snowden pose is more subtle than a direct assault on U.S. national security: they undermine Washington’s ability to act hypocritically and get away with it.

"Europe Falls Out of Love With Obama Over NSA Spying Claims."-CNN.

Obama in Berlin as a candidate, July 2008. I want to die.

The United States government "is" not eavesdropping on German chancellor Angela Merkel's personal cell phone. It "was."

Barack Obama does not do personal diplomacy, or does not do it well if he attempts it.  His personal relationship with Merkel is as good as it gets. Right now, it's not good.

Obama did not do well at the G20 meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, perhaps because there were other persons there. Vladimir Putin was "strong" to other foreign leaders; Obama was "weak."

Susan Rice has a bone in her brain; In St. Petersburg she tried to bully the Germans into signing a pledge of support for U.S. military intervention against the Asad regime in Syria. The Germans urged waiting for the UN report and refused.

Obama's pledge to "review" U.S. intelligence activities plays poorly with heads of state who the U.S. is bugging.

Obama and his spokespeople are lying when they say the sweep of their spying is directed at terrorism. Their lies are transparent to foreign leaders whose personal communications are being swept up. The sweep of U.S. spying abroad is directed at money. The U.S. learns trade and negotiation secrets and uses them as leverage in international business deals.

The Snowden revelations of U.S. spying activities have hurt U.S. "interests." To official and quasi-official Washington it is the revelations not the activities that have hurt.

Merkel's comment on the Snowden revelations in July, that “Not everything which is technically doable should be done” was normative. Obama does not do norms, either. Obama, official Washington and quasi-official Washington operate in a moral vacuum on this. When the revelations of foreign spying broke Obama's reaction was pragmatic: the revelations were going to hurt. He approved of the spying until he got caught. His "review" of spy activities is amoral. Changes will be made only if in America's interests. Morality doesn't enter into it.The cat burglar got nabbed and promises to reflect on how he can do better in the future.

Barack Obama is a pragmatic, amoral president. Lawrence Summers said Obama does not seem to have deep feelings about issues. Obama is weak. Senator Lindsey Graham said Obama is a "pathetic leader."
Obama does not lead, he reacts.

So, the day ended with 228 pageviews and one less in the top ten: five fours, four threes, and one dos. There is a bird in the air pump. Google, did somebody give Publocc the clap?

Something's going on here. There have been 226 total pageviews today with less than one-half hour to go and the most read post today is a five-way tie with four pageviews each. The rest of the top-ten posts have three each. So that's...35 pageviews for the top ten most read posts today. So if Google's stats are right, there were 191 pageviews of posts that had two or one pageview each. That's impossible. Something is not right here. Googly-poo?

"Obama tells German Leader The U.S. is Not Monitoring Her Cellphone."-Voice of America.

Following a report in Der Spiegel. Sometimes there are headlines on this that hit you like a 2x4. The president of the United States has to tell the German chancellor he's not bugging her phone. SMACK. That's the kind of president Obama is, the kind of country America has become, the kind of people we have become. SMACK.

A Thousand Points of Remorse.

Our man in Beijing-and in Fuzhou-has sent his first dispatch. A former Red Guard apologized to his teacher who he beat during the Cultural Revolution. The apology received prominent play on state media. Apology. This wonderful phenomenon began, to my knowledge, a few years ago. Dr. Youqin Wang first made me aware of it and she wrote about it. My friend and former Red Guard Zhou Jineng tearfully apologized in Red Art and Songie her own self made a general apology. What makes this so compelling is that the Cultural Revolution is a verboten subject in the PRC. They are apologizing from the heart.

Highly Abnormal
Iraq (2)
teenases (?)

France Spy Allegations False: Clapper.

James Clapper, the American Director of National Intelligence, has issued a statement saying that the allegations that America collected 70 million phone and data records on French citizens from December, 2012 to January, 2013 "is false." No such denials came after any other Snowden revelation involving any other country. 

What do you mean he's gay? Why do you say that? Oh, he "looks" gay, huh? How do gay people "look?" They look like that. He's gay. Is that just an observation? Yes, it's just an observation. It's an observation of the obvious. He's gay. Does it matter to you that he's gay? No, it's just an observation of the obvious. He's gay.

The "Bishop of Bling," oh my God. That is wonderful.

The love (of God) pad.

The love of God buggie.

The guy in the background is holding his left hand to his face as if he doesn't want to be in the photograph. It's probably just a mannerism.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) rules the People's Republic exclusively. One might think everyone who was anyone would belong to the party. Not so. Then there are those, like the man referred to in the redacted email below sent by a relative, who became disillusioned. Others have too. Wang Jingao wants the inscription on his ash box to read, "Born of a dream; Died of a dream." Having your spouse murdered will do that. But others have not lost faith. Last year some of those who publicly protested state demolition of their homes carried banners proclaiming their pride in their country and their loyalty to the CPC notwithstanding.

from:
reply-to:
to:
cc:		BENJAMIN HARRIS ,
date:		Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 6:47 PM
subject:		Fw: 转发：缅怀叶笃正院士

---------------,

Since our 3 cousins (--------- children) firmly refused to place a flag of CPC on his father's body, his unit dared not inform CCTV to report the ceremony though, as you may know, all the current and the retired government leaders sent condolence to his family and his unit, Graduate School of --------------------, soon after learning about his death, and on 20th in the condolence hall we also found their wreaths.

The reason why our cousins did so is due to their father's intention: he had long wished to withdraw from CPC organization. More than once we heard him express that wish and he regretted so much that he was finally talked into joining the Party in 1979 for doing his work.

On the 20th, I got a disk about ----------------------- life and work based on CCTV's several visits to him.

Mother

The Bishop of Limburg has been put on leave by the Bishop of Rome. Franz Peter Tebartz-van Elst was having a new house built for his own self for $43 million. It seemed excessive to Pope Francis and to Limburg's parishioners, who protested. Tv-E, does he have any American blood in him? German with American characteristics at least.

It seems to me the American people do not know what is ahead. I think that's right. It seems to me the American people have changed, that they got off one road and are now confused which way to go. Some want to go one way, some a different way. The American people seem a bit hollowed out to me. What was in their soul, unquestioned devotion to the values of the Constitution, that soul has been eaten from within, like what cancer does and the body (politic) is vaguely, if at all, aware of the cancer and what it has eaten away. There was also a vague notion of a...Oh, maybe it doesn't arise to a "social compact"...maybe just a value, fairness, I think Americans, not too far distant, took being fair as one of their defining characteristics. "We are a fair people." I, at least, can hear us say that, believe that. There are certain things we just did not do, like take other people's territory. We weren't imperialistic. We just didn't do that. Vietnam was not about American imperialism, we didn't want Vietnam's rice paddies. We didn't want Middle Eastern oil enough to invade and seize the oil wells. It just wouldn't have been fair to do that. And we still don't do territorial imperialism. But there is not a consensus that the invasion of other countries electronically is either imperialist or unfair. We are seizing other countries property just as surely as if we physically invaded, but we don't see it that way. Electronic seizure is abstract to most Americans. We are getting more queasy about it, maybe, the polls seem to indicate that, but there is hardly a consensus. I don't think most Americans think what Edward Snowden revealed America was doing was so wrong. Edward Snowden was wrong, there's much more consensus on that. Americans are more concerned with the economic unfairness of the last forty or so years, since the "Me Decade" of the 1980's...but they revered, still revere, President Reagan, the architect of Me Decade economics. Economic fairness was turned on its head: it was no longer about fairness to the un-wealthy, it was about not "soaking the rich." The poor, not just the un-wealthy, could "vote with their feet" and move. It used to be in America you didn't demonize the poor so much, we did demonize them some, welfare has never had a good name but it wasn't fair to be contemptuous of them, at least not publicly. Now look at where we've taken it. We had a presidential candidate who demonized 47% of us as "takers!" That was a first. "To be rich is glorious," was Deng Xiaoping's maxim. He drifted a fair piece from communist China's notions of fairness, huh? Whooo-doggie. To be rich is glorious fits the 1980's and since in America quite well. It was never unfair to be rich in America as it was in China but we really bought into "a rising tide lifts all boats" maxim. It wasn't unfair to be rich if the bottom 99% improved some. But that wasn't happening. The rising tide was lifting only the yachts. And the 47% of us were written off as takers. So yeah, I think all of that adds up to the American people have changed. And that road ahead is beclouded and we're not even sure that we're on the right road or if we inadvertently missed a turn back there and are on the wrong road entirely. Some of us want to keep going, some of us want to turn back but none of us trust our inner compasses now. They got damaged, maybe destroyed entirely, by the cancer. 

Moments take so very long

who has time to fear?

Trust to set no precedent;

why should it be accompli?

Giving you a little less

is taking what I need.

Everything is never quite enough.

Let machinery fake my face

who has time to chase?

Digital is where it is;

love can always be replaced.

Welcome to my consciousness

welcome to our race.

Everything is never quite enough.

Can't see my face

what are you thinking?

Fill in the space, please

oh let me hear you

Sterilize behind these gates,

locked behind the green.

Even if I had you here

what we had was never clear

No more words to say to you;

no more thoughts appear

Love was taking way too long

who had breath to waste?

Tired of disappointing you;

bored with everything I do.

Every day there's less of you.

Me, I've been erased.

I have a friend who is going to China for the first time next June. He emailed me asking for tips. "The smog is awful," I wrote back. The first time I went was also in June, of ought-six. Above is today in Harbin in the north.

"This sort of practice between partners that invades privacy is totally unacceptable and we have to make sure, very quickly, that this no longer happens," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said. 
...


"I can understand the anger in France," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. "You don't do that among partners. You don't do that among friends."

...

“In a relationship between neighbors and partners, there’s no room for the practices that allegedly took place,” according to an e-mailed statement. (Mexico)

...

The U.S. intelligence community has discussed bringing France into the Five Eyes alliance because of its close cooperation with U.S. troops and intelligence against al-Qaida in such as Afghanistan and Mali, according to two current U.S. intelligence officials. But the trust between both countries has never reached the level needed for that, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the relationship publicly.

The American people cannot be trusted. Americans lie, cheat and steal. They cannot be trusted in international diplomacy or international trade. They don't consider anybody a "partner" or a "friend." You're all just competitors and all Americans care about is getting as much as they can. A new trans-Atlantic trade deal? Just open your wallets and let the American people pick you clean. It will save time.

The United Rogue States of America.

Add France to the list of friendly countries (Germany, Mexico, Brazil) whose ordinary citizens NSA has abused. Over 70 million phone calls in France were spied on in 30 days between mid-December 2012 and mid-January 2013. France has summoned the US ambassador. US ambassadors have been summoned by so many other countries US ambassadors worldwide are now on continual standby for summoning; it appears as a recurring appointment on their calendars. Really. Why don't you believe me?

The United States people don't care. This is the kind of country they want.

"Yeah, happy Monday to you too, man. Glad to be sharing it with ya."

Dr. Bob Carlson is on his way back to the PRC. Among other things he will be interviewing documentary film maker Hu Jie: Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul, Though I am Gone, Red Art. Bob has promised dispatches from the front. 

It could be a terrorist pigeon. I think it is a terrorist pigeon. It only does this under very narrow circumstances:

1. I have just shaved my pubis.
2. I'm walking...
3. Naked...
4. In a park.

When I have not shaved my pubis and go walking naked in a park, no pigeons land on my head. I have had it where they land on my unshaved pubis but not on my head. If I have shaved my pubis and go running naked through a park, no pigeons. If I am clothed and walking or running in a park-regardless of the condition of my pubis-no pigeons. Now, interestingly the condition of my pubis does come into play if I am walking or running, clothed or naked, on the street. In that scenario, if I have shaved my pubis, I get a pigeon on my head; If I have not shaved my pubis, no pigeons anywhere!

So, yeah.

It really embarrasses me when I go walking naked in a park after just shaving my pubis and a pigeon sits on my head. 

Normal:
miniskirt and boots
lebron james sold soul to devil
i wish you enough
kiribati

Abnormal
mao zedong
Azerbaijan
josue dupon religion, humanity and... (cut off)

Who amongst us are cardiologists? If a cardiologist says it's possible to hack into a defibrillator then it's possible. Might we get confirmation of this from other cardiologists? Possible. You can't even ask "Is it possible..." in court because anything is possible. You have to ask a more reasonable question, "Is it likely/plausible..."

So, cardiologists, is it plausible that a terrorist could hack into a vice president's defibrillator and kill him? Give us some plausible scenarios. Cheney's doctor mentioned rope lines, rooms next door and somebody downstairs. Plausible? Reasonable? Assess for us the comparative risk to, say, a terrorist in the room next door with a powerful magnet and the steel plate in Cheney's head.

A public occurrence in America today is that Dick Cheney had the wireless feature to his heart defibrillator disabled when he was vice-president to foil a potential terrorist hacking into the device and killing him. This was done with the concurrence of Cheney's cardiologist.

Ohhh! Ohhh! Dipsy-doo, dunkaroo baby!! T'ain't never been no painter like Jan Van Eyck. Look at the detail this man painted.  From the Ghent Altarpiece.

Happy Saturday morning to all boys and gurls, close-to-the-ground and big.

That was by Paulus Bor. No date given on Tumblr. You never heard of Paulus Bor? Me neither.

Look at that! That's the greatest Annunciation painting in the history of Annunciation paintings. Look at the expression on Mary's face. Ha! "I'm what? No, it is impossible." The face of the of angel is so gentle as she explains: "Mary, you are going to have a son." But Mary's face is hilarious. Love this one.

No, I'm not Muslim. You? I didn't think so, no hockey mask. Mormon?
Well then! Let me pour you a wee bit here,lass.
My God, your hair is the same color as the scotch...Why are you laughing?...Well, it's a good line, isn't it?
It'd be one thing if we were drinking absinthe...You know, if you keep laughing you're going to spill your drink...Laughing is good, no?
Now...Would you like to dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?...How about by dim bar light since there's no moon?... See, you're encouraging me, you're an enabler, you keep laughing at my lame witticisms...Let's go.
I am dancing. Grade me on a curve. It's like what Dr. Johnson said about the dancing three-legged dog, "It's not that it's done well, it's that it's done at all."