Keeping Yemenis from knowing about drone attacks on innocent civilians is the best way of keeping them from falling into the hands of Al Qaeda who would mercilessly kill innocent civilians.

Thankfully, a phone call from the prez is enough to keep fellow-travling terrorist-supporting liberal journalists locked up for a few years more. Unfortunately not enough for a 5 year sentence. If this Al Qaeda-loving journalist had been in the US, we could have charged him with giving secret information to the enemy, which now includes Al Qaeda, the press and thus himself.

At at time when only 28% of Americans think the Afghanistan War worth it, it's important to stay the course and at least make sure the *tactics* we use in these wars aren't diluted by those seeking a de-escalation of tensions. Retreat doesn't have to be defeat after all - as long as we can keep drones and residual forces at work protecting America's freedoms, we might not need armed gunships and massive boots on the ground.

But when journalists take the law and international security into their own hands, reporting unfortunate incidents as if they were our purpose all along, just to make us look bad, it's asymmetric warfare and we should respond assertively, just as we have with the forcefeedings for massive Gitmo hunger strikes counter-measures for the small disruptions at our terrorist detention center.

While some think the press is owed special allowances by way of the Constitution, we view it as a group with special responsibilities in cooperation with the war on terror. But as long as they can fulfill their duties in dispensing the truth in modest approved amounts, we're happy to provide them with a bit more access to assist their important mission.

By Declan McCullagh, CNET, July 25, 2013

Secret demands mark escalation in Internet surveillance by the federal government through gaining access to user passwords, which are typically stored in encrypted form.

One needs to read the whole article; it's complicated. A lot of the major companies contacted by the reporter denied any such thing going on or implied it is rare and fought it.

This line from it basically sums it up:

Whether the National Security Agency or FBI has the legal authority to demand that an Internet company divulge a hashed password, salt, and algorithm remains murky.

Once again, mostly sounds like things are "murky" because our lawmakers haven't much of clue about what is going on.

Believing they are losing the messaging war with progressives, a group of prominent conservatives in Washington—including the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and journalists from Breitbart News and the Washington Examiner—has been meeting privately since early this year to concoct talking points, coordinate messaging, and hatch plans for "a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation," according to documents obtained by Mother Jones. 

It's important to remember that this sort of events happen because people in this country choose to live like this.

Reuters, July 24, 2013

About 80 percent of tunnels used to smuggle goods and arms into the Gaza Strip from Egypt are "no longer functioning" due to a crackdown by the Egyptian military after it ousted President Mohamed Morsy this month, a U.N. official said on Tuesday.

U.N. Middle East peace envoy Robert Serry told the U.N. Security Council that the Gaza Strip was experiencing "some serious shortages of fuel and basic building materials for which the tunnels had become the primary entry point due to severe restrictions on imports via the official crossings and the higher cost of fuel available from the West Bank and Israel."

Cairo moved to close the tunnels after militants in the Egyptian Sinai desert killed 16 of its soldiers a year ago [....]

In closing arguments, US government lawyers say Manning 'had a general evil intent' and was 'a traitor, not a whistleblower'

By Ed Pilkington at Ft. Meade, The Guardian, July 25, 2013

[....] Major Ashden Fein, the lead prosecutor, unleashed a wave of rhetoric against the army private at the conclusion of his closing arguments in Fort Meade, Maryland, where the trial is in its eighth week. At the culmination of almost four hours in front of the judge, Fein sought to press home the most serious and contentious charge against Manning – that he knowingly "aided the enemy" by transmitting state secrets to WikiLeaks [....]

By Anahad O'Connor, Well blog @ nytimes.com, July 25, 2013

Around the world, Australia may be known for its rugged outdoor lifestyles. But recent statistics suggest a different reality. Australia and its equally outdoorsy neighbor, New Zealand, are now two of the fattest countries in the developed world.

Obesity rates in the two countries have tripled in the last three decades, mirroring the sharp rise that occurred in the United States during roughly the same period. In Australia, at least 60 percent of adults and roughly a quarter of children are overweight or obese.

A United Nations report this month showed that Mexico and the United States, in that order, lead the developed world in obesity. But Australia and New Zealand were only slightly behind [....]

Outlining how much is being hidden from Congress, how permissive the FISA court is, how there's nothing stopping the government from using phones as location, wiretap, secret camera, entrapment record.

And Wyden has been on this since 2000, though as he notes, left in the dark by the Bush Administration for years, only getting news via NY Times.

But shut down one unconstitutional surveillance program another pops up zombie-like.

Happy reading.

But how does one get to be the best CEO, rather than second best? Here’s where luck comes in. Of course, luck is pervasive in life and it’s hard to beat the importance of being lucky enough to have the right parents. Nonetheless, there are features of the modern market that accentuate the role of luck through the self-fulfilling nature of popularity...

Oops, much higher than we stated, and leaked doc ends in 2009. Brennan wouldn't lie to Congress everyone, would he? I'd recommend the leakers be punished with treason, except they seem to not be Americans. Can we do it anyway?