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POPSMore Obama Nuttiness – CIA Spying on Icebergs and Polar Bears Since CIA satellite data is secret, those opposing the Cap and Trade Tax and anthropomorphic climate change may have no access to any data quoted by the Democrats. The article by William J. Broad went on to say, Secrecy cloaks the monitoring effort, as well as the nation’s intelligence work, because the United States wants to keep foes and potential enemies in the dark about the abilities of its spy satellites and other sensors. The images that the scientific group has had declassified, for instance, have had their sharpness reduced to hide the abilities of the reconnaissance satellites. Controversy has often dogged the use of federal intelligence gear for environmental monitoring. In October, days after the C.I.A. opened a small unit to assess the security implications of climate change, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, Has President Obama reassigned CIA assets .....
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POPSDemocrats Cut National Counterterrorism Center Budget problems. So who would authorize such a dangerous change in national security priorities? President Obama and his national security advisor John Brennan, of course. No word on how much of the remaining funds were diverted to Global Warming and H1N1 (as dictated by the recent National Intelligence Strategy produced by Team Obama). Sort of puts the lie to the claims the current administration is doing all it can to defend this nation and its people. BTW, those cuts should have gone into effect on October 1, 2009. There is also this reporting out on how thin the staffing is at NCTC: President Obama is scheduled to meet on Tuesday afternoon with 20 of his security advisers to receive the results of two inquiries into how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab snuck a bomb onto Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day …
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POPSComputers Can't Show You the Monet A study in the journal Computers & Graphics finds that computer programs for identifying works of art fall far short of even nonexpert human judges, because of our ability to psychologically evaluate scenes.
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POPSObama Moves To Curb Federal Secrets, Encourage Declassification "Everything will depend on implementation," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. But the order "has tremendous potential to reduce the level of secrecy throughout the government." In a memo to agency heads, Obama said he expects that the order will produce "measurable progress" toward greater openness in government while also protecting the nation's most important secrets.
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POPSTiger Woods to be Deployed to Afghanistan Asked by one reporter how building golf courses would contribute towards US counterinsurgency strategy, Woods replied: 'It's about winning hearts and minds and connecting with the people. Most of the Taliban are not fighting for ideology, but out of sheer boredom. I believe the spiritual and healing qualities of golf can succeed where bullets and tanks have not. '
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POPSVegan Thumbprint Cookies 3. Roll dough into 3/4-inch balls. Place close together on baking sheets. Make a little dent in the top of each ball and fill them with 1/2 teaspoon (or less) of the jam. Bake for 15 minutes or until slightly brown. Do not over bake. Cool on a wire rack. Variation: You can replace 1/4 cup of the oil with 1/2 cup of peanut butter (applesause could likely be substituted also)
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POPSArmed Services Committee Members Haven't Read General McChrystal's Report “I have not read it,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who is wary of funding another troop increase. Brown would not commit to reading the report before making a decision on supplemental war funding and said he has talked to McChrystal in person. “I’m not going to commit to reading one thing or another.” Leadership aides point out that most of the document had already been leaked to the Washington Post, which posted a redacted version on the Internet. But the classified report includes six additional pages, plus material that was redacted from the leaked version, including the 500,000 troop figure initially reported by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “I can’t remember whether I read the classified or the declassified report. I can’t remember,” said Ike Skelton, D-Mo., Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, when I asked him about it last month.
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POPSOur Tax Dollars At Work-Blackwater
More from the article as follows: "The Nisour Square shooting was the bloodiest and most controversial episode involving Blackwater in the Iraq war. At midday on Sept. 16, 2007, a Blackwater convoy opened fire on Iraqi civilians in the crowded intersection, spraying automatic weapons fire in ways that investigators later claimed was indiscriminate, and even launching grenades into a nearby school. Seventeen Iraqis were killed and dozens more were wounded." "Those responses deeply worried Blackwater officials. Before the Nisour Square shootings, the company had operated in Iraq without a license largely because the Iraqi government had never enforced the rules. Being blocked from the country would have been costly — the State Department deal was Blackwater’s single biggest contract. From 2004 through today, the company has collected more than $1.5 billion for its work protecting American diplomats and providing air transportation for them inside Iraq." "
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POPSOfficials: U.S. Army Told of Hasan's Contacts with al Qaeda
The Associated Press reported Sunday that Major Hasan attended the Falls Church mosque when Awlaki was there. The Telegraph of London reported that Awlaki had made contact with two of the 9/11 hijackers when he was in San Diego. He denied any knowledge of the hijacking plot and was never charged with any crime. After an intensive investigation by the FBI , Awlaki moved to Yemen. People who knew or worked with Hasan say he seemed to have gradually become more radical in his disapproval of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Sunday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) called for an investigation into whether the Army missed signs as to whether Hasan was an Islamic extremist. "If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have a zero tolerance," Lieberman told Fox News Sunday. A fellow Army doctor who studied with Hasan, Val Finell, told ABC News, "He would frequently say he was a Muslim first and an American . .
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POPSRoss Perot Jr Haggling to Finish Off the Rhino He Shot That Got Away "White rhino (Ceratotherum simum) are considered a conservation-dependent species and are classified as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Intense efforts have increased the population from fewer than 100 in 1895 to approximately 17,500 today. Supporters of trophy hunting claim it is a viable method for “managing” the white rhino population. The practice also brings in tourism dollars and helps fund conservation efforts. Many others oppose the notion of trophy hunting, pointing out that killing an animal to get a thrill - and acquire a stuffed head for one’s wall - is not an acceptable “sport”." Apparently his son Hill Perot got his trophy, "white rhino head".
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POPSItaly Convicts 23 Americans In CIA Terrorist Kidnapping Case 
One of those convicted, former Milan consular official Sabrina De Sousa, accused Congress of turning a blind eye to the entire matter. "No one has investigated the fact that the U.S. government allegedly conducted a rendition of an individual who now walks free and the operation of which was so bungled," she said, speaking through her lawyer Mark Zaid. Despite the convictions capping the nearly three-year Italian trial, several Italian and American defendants – including the two alleged masterminds of the abduction – were acquitted due to either diplomatic immunity or because classified information was stricken by Italy's highest court. The case has been politically charged from the beginning, with attempts to mislead investigators looking into the cleric's disappearance and derail the judicial proceedings once the trial was under way. But the Italian-American relationship, conditioned on such issues as participation in the Afghan campaign, is unlikely to be hurt by the convic
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POPSSperm Whale Classified Carbon Neutral Prior analysis of whale carbon dioxide emissions attributes 25 percent of carbon dioxide emissions total to the animals in the Southern Ocean region. Subsequent computation lowers the whales’ carbon dioxide emissions estimate to 0.3 percent, which is equivalent to 17 million tons of carbon a year. Lavery and team explain that there are low levels of iron in the Southern Ocean, and the sperm whales each contribute about 10 grams of iron to the surface. Since the iron comes from the whales’ waste material, it takes the form of liquid plumes, effectively acting as a fertilizer and encouraging growth of plankton. Depending on the exact values and environmental conditions, sperm whales can then be classified “either a net carbon sink or as carbon-neutral,” Discovery writes.
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POPSNo One Tried To Help Assault Victim What is wrong with us? More from story "I wanted to understand why no one else came forward, why there was this crowd of people standing there watching. watching. There were plenty of people who could have moved forward in numbers. I didn't have to go alone. "We need to help each other, if someone needs help as a fellow citizen it's important for us to come forward and help, not to watch and let this happen,. to take action." Flavell, 40, was arraigned Friday in Boston Municipal Court. He is charged with assault with intent to rape and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Flavell has a long rap sheet and is classified as a Level 3 sex offender,
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POPSThe death of language? "What we lose is essentially an enormous cultural heritage, the way of expressing the relationship with nature, with the world, between themselves in the framework of their families, their kin people," says Mr Hagege. "Its also the way they express their humour, their love, their life. It is a testimony of human communities which is extremely precious, because it expresses what other communities than ours in the modern industrialized world are able to express." For linguists like Claude Hagege, languages are not simply a collection of words. They are a living, breathing organisms holding the connections and associations that define a culture. When a language becomes extinct, the culture in which it lived is lost too. ____ According to Ethnologue, a US organisation that compiles a global database of languages, 473 languages are currently classified as endangered. ____ "Most people are not at all interested in the death of languages," Claude Hagege says.
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