By KYLE CHENEY | 10/1/12 10:19 AM EDT

That sure didn’t take long.

Renewed challenges to the Affordable Care Act landed on the Supreme Court’s radar Monday morning as the court kicked off its 2012-2013 session. In one of their first actions of the new term, the justices solicited the federal government’s input on a request by Virginia-based Liberty University to rehear its complaint against the health law.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/81860.html#ixzz284V3aiUx

When you click on one of the links,  target explains the basis:

The Supreme Court opened its new Term on Monday by asking the federal government to offer its views on whether the way should be cleared for new constitutional challenges to the federal health care law — including a new protest against the individual mandate that the Court had upheld last June. The request for the government’s views came in response to a rehearing request by a religious-oriented institution, Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. The university’s earlier petition was simply denied in June, so it asked the Court to reconsider and wipe out a lower court ruling in order to revive the university’s religious challenges to both the individual mandate and the separate insurance coverage mandate for employers. There is also another challenge to the employer mandate, which did not figure in the Court’s decision last Term.

By Jo Adetunji and agencies, guardian.co.uk, 29 September 2012   

A huge fire has destroyed parts of the medieval souks in Aleppo, Syria, following raging battles between rebels and government troops. The city is a Unesco world heritage site and the labyrinth of narrow alleys and shops was once a major tourist attraction and is one of Syria's largest commercial hubs.

Activists posted online videos which showed the fire around wooden doors and shops and a pall of smoke hanging over the city on Saturday.  Ahmad al-Halabi, an activist based in Aleppo, said residents were struggling to control the blaze with a limited number of fire extinguishers and low water supply: "It's a disaster. The fire is threatening to spread to remaining shops," he said. "It is a very difficult and tragic situation there [....]
 

Hey, its from BBC News so it's gotta be true.  Right?

Jews and "Christian Zionists" are not the only Americans who look with favor at the Jewish State.  Seventy percent of Americans view Israel with favor.

In short, that means that discussions about a small group of Americans having a stranglehold on American foreign policy is not only evil--it is factually incorrect, i.e. rightly or wrongly, the American People continue to love the Jewish State.

My friends, these are the facts.  The discussion should proceed accordingly. 

By Juergen Baetz, Associated Press, September 28, 2012

BERLIN — The road to heaven is paved with more than good intentions for Germany’s 24 million Catholics. If they don’t pay their religious taxes, they will be denied sacraments, including weddings, baptisms and funerals.

A decree issued last week by the country’s bishops cast a spotlight on the longstanding practice in Germany and a handful of other European countries in which governments tax registered believers and then hand over the money to the religious institutions.

In Germany, the cost for Catholics, Protestants and Jews is a surcharge of up to nine per cent on their income-tax bills — or about $75 a month for a single person earning a pre-tax monthly salary of about $4,500 [.....]

Kenya's assistant minister for water, Fedinard Waititu, faces charges of incitement to violence after a speech this week. Kenya is trying to avoid a repeat of the 2007 election violence.

By Fredrick Nzwili, Christian Science Monitor, September 28, 2012     

The last major elections in Kenya turned bloody: Hate speeches were widely viewed as contributing to the post election violence. The troubles began in December 2007 after President Mwai Kibaki, a member of the Kikuyu tribe, was declared the winner and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, a member of the Luo tribe, rejected the results as rigged. By the time the violence ended two months later, an estimated 1,300 people had died and more than 600,000 were displaced.

To avoid a repeat of election violence, Kenyan officials are clamping down on speeches that inflame ethnic animosities. Attorney General Githu Muigai told Parliament that the assistant minister's case will serve as an example of the government's resolve [....]
 

Associated Press, September 28, 2012

(MOGADISHU, Somalia) — Kenyan troops invaded al-Shabab’s last stronghold in Somalia, coming ashore in a predawn assault Friday. Other African Union forces were traveling overland to link up with the Kenyan forces in the port city of Kismayo.

Col. Cyrus Oguna, the Kenyan military’s top spokesman, said the surprise attack met minimal resistance but al-Shabab denied that the city had fallen and said fighting was taking place. Oguna said that al-Shabab has incurred “heavy losses” but that Kenyan forces have not yet had any injuries or deaths.

Residents in Kismayo contacted by The Associated Press said that Kenyan troops had taken control of the port but not the whole city.

“Al-Shabab fighters are on the streets and heading toward the front line in speeding cars. Their radio is still on the air and reporting the war,” resident Mohamed Haji told The Associated Press. Haji said that helicopters were hitting targets in the town in southeastern Somalia.

A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Cdr. Dave Hecht, said the U.S. Africa Command, known as AFRICOM, is closely monitoring the situation but that “we are not participating in Kenya’s military activities in the region.” [....]

Knees jerk on many issues, but nowhere as much as with respect to the voting habits of Americans who happen to be Jewish.  The assumption of some is that [some] Jews put another nation-state, the Jewish State, first, and then they put the United States second (or third, or whatever--even after derma and pickled herring).  From that springs the hateful allegation that [some] Jews are "Israel Firsters".  Even in the most progressive of salons, even in the year 2012, there is a presumption that some Jews put the interests of the Jewish State above the interests of the United States of America.  

Returning to reality,  the most recent survey results bring the heinous lie to this knee jerk notion--again--at least on an aggregate scale.  Jews, more than any other ethnic group except perhaps for African Americans and maybe Hispanics this year, support President Obama.   Let me repeat that, Jews more than any other ethnic group except perhaps for African Americans and maybe Hispanics this year, support President Obama.

Of course, some cynics might say that well, hey, supporting Obama doesn't mean that the Jews put America first like other Americans do, because of course Obama like all American leaders, is in the pocket of the Jewish Lobby and is no different that Romney on the issue of Israel.  But the survey I link to demonstrates that Jewish Americans put the economy and other issues way above Israel when it comes to issues that influence how they vote.  Imagine that. 

These are the facts.  The discussion should proceed accordingly.

By Monicef Marzouki, Tunisia's President, Guest Op-Ed, New York Times, September 27/28, 2012

[....] though these fears are understandable, such alarmism is misplaced. The Arab revolutions have not turned anti-Western. Nor are they pro-Western. They are simply not about the West. They remain fundamentally about social justice and democracy — not about religion or establishing Shariah law. The democratization of Tunisia, Egypt and other countries has allowed a number of extremist free riders into the political system. But it has also definitively refuted the myth that democracy and Islam are incompatible. Islamists are political actors like any others: they are no more pure, more united or more immune from criticism than anyone else [....]

Islamists span a wide ideological and political spectrum. [....] Radical Salafis who advocate violence and Shariah constitute a very small minority in Tunisia — and even in Egypt they are vastly outnumbered by more moderate Islamists.[....] The goal of these violent extremists is not political participation; it is to create chaos. We should not forget that before attacking American symbols, these extremists had degraded Tunisian symbols, like the flag and national anthem.

Despite their small numbers, the danger they pose cannot be dismissed. Tunisia’s economy depends on the millions of foreign tourists who visit each year. If Salafi extremists were to attack just two or three foreigners in Tunisia, it would destroy our tourism industry and ruin our country’s peaceful reputation. As a democratic government, we support the Salafis’ freedom of expression, but advocating violence is a red line. Those who cross it will be arrested.

The strength and importance of extremist groups have been unduly amplified by the news media. Images of angry Muslim mobs, like the one featured on a recent cover of Newsweek magazine, once again revived the old Orientalist trope of a backward and hysterical Muslim world, unable to engage in civilized and rational debate or undertake peaceful negotiations [....]

Special Correspondent, The Nation (of Pakistan,) September 28, 2012

NEW YORK - Pakistan does not disagree what the deadly drone attacks inside the Pakistani territory were trying to achieve, but opposes the way they are being conducted, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said Thursday.

Speaking at the Asia Society in New York, she called the strategy “illegal, unlawful and counterproductive” as well as short-sighted. Asked why polls find that anti-American sentiment in Pakistan is among the world’s highest, she answered with one word: “Drones.”

“What the drones are trying to achieve, we may not disagree. We do not disagree. If they’re going for terrorists... But we have to find ways which are lawful, which are legal... The use of unilateral strikes on Pakistani territory is illegal.”

According to Hina, Pakistan’s government needs to build popular support for its own efforts to crush armed militant groups, but this is impossible as long as the war is viewed as US interference.

“As the drones fly over the territory of Pakistan, it becomes an American war and the whole logic of this being our fight, in our own interest, is immediately put aside and again it is a war imposed on us,” she said. Ignoring Pakistani opposition to the drones, she said, is “about choosing to win the battle at the cost of the war. These are battles. You get one terrorist, two terrorists, fine. But are you winning the war?” [....]

By Rebecca Greenfield, The Atlantic Wire, September 24, 2012

[....] The service will link up the 70 million households worth of purchasing information that Datalogix has with Facebook profiles so they can see if the ads you see changes the stuff you buy and tell advertisers whether their ads are working [....]

Datalogix gets its information from retailers like grocery stores and drug stores who use loyalty discount programs to amass careful records of what their customers are buying [....]

As the Financial Times puts it, Facebook, after matching the email addresses and other identifying information in the Datalogix databases to Facebook accounts, will be using Datalogix to prepare reports for its advertisers about who, if anyone, bought more of their stuff after they ran ads on the social network. But by matching your Facebook profile with your CVS bill, this means that Facebook has the potential to know some of your most intimate details (my, that's a lot of bunion cream you're buying!), and the privacy concerns are enormous. When DoubleClick attempted something similar to this, user-backlash ultimately led them to cancel the project [....]

Also see:

Greenfield's How Much Data Can Facebook Collect Before the FTC Gets Involved?
 

By Joshua Foust (of Registan blog; bio here,) The Atlantic, September 26, 2012

A new report, "Living Under Drones," jointly authored by Stanford University and New York University -- and reviewed yesterday by Conor Friedersdorf here at The Atlantic -- is harshly critical of the drone campaign in Pakistan. The report argues that the U.S. narrative of drone strikes -- precise, accurate, and limited -- is false. Citing 130 interviews and a review of media reports, the authors argue that the civilian toll from drone strikes is far higher than acknowledged, that many problems with the drone campaign go unreported, and that more government transparency is essential to gaining a better understanding of the campaign and its consequences.

On that last point, the authors are absolutely right -- more transparency about targeting and effects would help everyone understand the consequences of drone strikes in Pakistan. And there are absolutely serious downsides to these strikes (some of which have been explored here already). But the report then makes some questionable claims based on incomplete data, and seems to argue that the drone campaign should be paused or radically altered. Those arguments are not well supported.

For starters [.....]

The Living Under Drones report, in other words, has some serious bias issues. But that doesn't mean it should be discarded: the section on social and political blowback from drone strikes is well documented and in line with other research [.....]