melch

pssst. Cameron. Wow, I'm retarded, was having flash backs to early 2000s. Promise I knew it was Cameron seeing as Tony has been out for a while now. The problem with waiting on the UN is that on the Security Council there are 2 permanent members who have veto Power (Russia & China) who will quickly veto any military action by the UN. Russia has to much invested economically and military (Mediterranean Naval Bases) to allow the US to use the UN as a way to to take action. Our best bet is a coalition through NATO. Someone mentioned that the stuff has already been moved and that we will make rubble out of rubble. If you think that our intelligence agencies do not have A) signals, imagery, a number of other technical based intelligence B) human intelligence from informants and agents on the ground then I would say you are naive my friend. They collected vast amounts of information from citizens they didn't even give a shit about just think about what they can do when it actually matters, will affect US foreign policy and has some severe consequences. There is a long way between war and taking action. Check out Libya and even more recently in Mali. US involvement with military action but we are not in a protracted war there are we? No.

I think the general misconception here is that getting involved in Syria is about furthering US interest in the Middle East rather than the fact that Syria used chemical weapons in violation of an accord signed by more than 150 nations regarding the disuse of these weapons. I'm a little disappointed in the international community (NATO, UN, etc.) who all think action should be taken but are all conditional on what that action should be. At this time the US & France are the only ones in position to take action and the US is really the only one that is seriously contemplating action. I would argue that the international community is acting like the little kid on the playground running his mouth but counting on his bigger friend (the US) to actually initiate the scrum. I'm intrigued to see how the debate in the House goes. I think Obama pulled a brilliant poitical move by seeking congressional approval. He saw Tony Blair get defeated in parliment and I think that he is secretly hoping for the same result on Capitol Hill. That way he can save face for his red line comment while recieving approval from the masses and on a diplomatic level by allowing congress to do its job. Although in his speech he made mention that he still holds the authority to launch a strike (he is allowed 90 days of military action without congressional approval) I doubt he ever uses it. I am starting to ramble but ultimately I think strikes against Syrian ability to mix the necessary chemicals, transport, and launch these weapons is a warrented response.

Thanks to trends in popular culture of getting rich quick by sueing someone, large institutions have become all about risk avoidance (instead of mitigation) and concerned with liability lawsuits. I think your best shot is to contact some of the other universities listed in previous posts and talk with the club managers and their faculty sponsers. Discuss their paths to recognition, talk directly with your university risk office or whatever the appropriate committee is. As someone mentioned earlier, walking in with a "the other schools do it"" presentation will be met with resistance while a well thought out presentation with facts, information and the anticipated answers of questions that may be asked will go a long way. Best of luck.

There was an article in USA Today? Or AP News explaining thy gender identity was listed by some organization or another as a disorder or something that technically requires it to be treated by the prison at the taxpayers expense. The justification was something along the lines of if a prisoner breaks his leg you have to treat it, if the prisoner has depression he gets help, etc. So much for the days of a prison being a place of rehabilitation through labor or 'hey, you fucked up so you deserve to live in squalor and suffer'. Weak spine and touchy geeky types keep developing a sense of entitlement in miscreants and morally decrepit people all in the name of percieved rights which are really privileges. *Remove soap box

There was an article in USA Today? Or AP News explaining thy gender identity was listed by some organization or another as a disorder or something that technically requires it to be treated by the prison at the taxpayers expense. The justification was something along the lines of if a prisoner breaks his leg you have to treat it, if the prisoner has depression he gets help, etc. So much for the days of a prison being a place of rehabilitation through labor or 'hey, you fucked up so you deserve to live in squalor and suffer'. Weak spine and touchy geeky types keep developing a sense of entitlement in miscreants and morally decrepit people all in the name of percieved rights which are really privileges. *Remove soap box

You mean OK is not putting all of their PDs on alert for possible riots??

I know this forum is supposed to be friendly (and sometimes not so friendly) banter about differing opinions but if you said to this to me in person or I saw you do it I would punch you in the face on principle. Regardless of your opinions of our national level leadership and opinions of war and its negativity, to laugh at one's misfortune who went to a war zone and suffered a life altering injury so you can stand up and say the things you are allowed to say is despicable and morally decrepid. Go f*ck yourself.

Perhaps you are forgetting the Iraq/Iran War and that one time (by one I mean several times) Saddam decided he was not a big fan of the Kurds and used chemical weapons on them. FYSA chemical weapons are classified as WMDs so while he may have never claimed to have WMD his use of them clearly demonstrates that he did have them at some point. Was this blown out of porportion for justification...yes...did Rumsfeld suck at life...yes.

+1 Maliki is a master juggler and had so many deals going on with so many groups of people it's a wonder he could keep it all straight. Unfortunately, in his efforts to stem sectarian violence in 2007/8 he decided not to sign the SOFA but I don't think he or his ministers did enough analysis on a post-US withdrawal Iraq. He should have realized it late 2010 and most of 2011 that there were significant indicators of rising tensions and potential for increased violence as US forces pulled back to Kuwait and re negotiated then. Oh well...

It does exist...and so do they.

True, it's only a nomination. Just sharing my initial WTF response. Now if he wins...then you will see a shit show of a reaction. lol

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/08/12/nobel-manning-petition/2643639/ I can't even find the words to express my disgust. I would love to have an extended dialogue with Mairead Maguire about the topic. "Maguire said his leaks of classified information helped end the war in Iraq by hastening foreign troop withdrawals". Yes, this kid clearly helped end the War in Iraq with his persistent and constant efforts to achieve the nomination requirement to "have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” It most definitely had nothing to do with the president who had been elected 2 years earlier and ran a campaign in which one of the major planks was to bring US forces home from Iraq. Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that same guy also won a NPP (huge controversy) for his new climate and out reach towards the Middle East. I am seriously loosing what little faith I had in the NPP committee. How can Ghandi and John Paul II get looked over but Manning manages to secure a nomination? In the grand scheme of things it matters little but I find it disheartening that men and women that have actually worked for something greater than themselves get upstaged by some punk who was looking for 15 minutes of fame and is a hot topic in the media right now. Sit on it and twirl.

Zombie apocolypse... On a serious note though, I agree that there is not a true 'need' for one. Times have changed since the writing of the constitution in which the right to bear arms by citizens was a form of defense in and of it self when the American army was a fledgling force. People have misconceptions about the birth of our Army and the history of the revolution in which Washington spent a vast amount of time getting his ass kicked until he finally got a trained army and some great assistance from the French. We didn't win many battles but we won the right ones. I own an AR-15 which is mostly custom built and an assortment of handguns. Personally I enjoy shooting because its something that does require skill (to accurately engage targets) and provides me with a level of comfort around firearms. I also practice reloading magazines, off hand shooting, etc etc but I have also used these skills overseas twice so in my mind it is a practical thing. There are plenty of gun competitions out there in which enthusiast participate in the require high capacity magaines (speed shooting, 3 gun competition, multiple engagements, etc). I think most of gun control arguments and feelings both pro and con come from misconceptions about guns and a general discomfort with firearms as a whole. My ex wife would never touch a gun because she felt they werent safe despite my numerous offers to teach her proper firearm safety and education. Personal defense: Handgun for concealed carry or shortbarreled shotgun at hom. AR15: Fun to shoot, easy to handle, relatively inexpensive compared to some other calibers out there. Banning them will do nothing to slow gun violence (most gun crimes are committed with handguns or shotguns anyway). I would have to read up on it because its been a long time since I've looked into it but I'm fairly certain that Columbine and the theater shooting were mostly hanguns (I may be wrong on this...too lazy to google this moment). Back to your OP, I agree that perhaps there is no real 'need' for firearms not tailored towards hunting or personal defense but I believe in the right to own them . (responsibly)

Fact. However, I disagree on doubting being in direct correlation with not thinking. There are several issues that I have no doubt on because I have done research, self educated and have a formed opinion about. There are certainly things that I am skeptic about and I try to read up on before prancing about waving un-informed opinions in peoples faces. I'd like to think others are the same but that is a naive statement at best and unfortunately too many people drink from the kool-aid bowl.

Agreed. Go back even further and read about the crusades, the Inquisition, numerous other examples of religion throughout history...some absolutely brutal stuff. It's not just Islam vs Christianity but religions throughout history have caused more trouble than can be measured. Hence why I think organized religion is crap. It doesn't take a book or a scholar of that book to educate me in simple human decency of be nice to others as you would want them to be with you, help the less fortunate, etc. I have severe qualms with this because it is a perfect example of how someone with charisma can tame weaker or uneducated mind through intangible beliefs and feelings...before you start, no I'm not calling religious people uneducated or weak minded. I'm saying that uneducated or weak minded people are easily sawyed and can be manipulated. Personal example; in Afghanistan the area I was located had an extremely low literacy rate (less than 5-6%). When we captured fighters fortunate enough to survive the fire fights we would ask them questions. Most of them were unable to read and fighting because their Imam told them that it was in the Koran to kill Americans and their families would be condemned to hell if they didn't fight us. Because they had never actually picked up the book themselves and made any type of interpretation of the words and applied it they took a corrupted guy's word who is supposed to be a religious leader (ultimately is the goal of religion not peace?) and went out for the normal fear of their families' well being. You see the same thing in Christianity and other types of religions. We like to refer to them as cults or any other number of words because it dissaccoicates them from our own belief system that at the foundation we share with them. Every group of people has its radicals. Even a normal functioning homogeneous socitey will have criminals, deliquents, etc. We could go from here into a long drawn out conversation about preconcieved notions, media sensationalism and its effects on the perception of other, and egocentricsm but at the end of the day the world will continue to have issues as long as society perpetuates itself. We could start thinning out the gene pool and getting rid of those that are different and undesirable but everytime someone starts doing that the world stands up and says no. You wan't a world at peace...kill everyone thats not like you. /pontification

Yea stopped reading right about here... If the author of this piece does not know the difference between 'insure' and 'ensure' then I doubt they have written anything intelligent enough to warrent a thorough reading, much less an analysis of their opinion.

Feel free to keep thinking that. From what I've been able to research they werent recording wholesale converations just numbers contacted but I could be wrong and will never know becuase I clearly dont' have access to the program. Regardless, as I stated earlier, all they need is suspcicion, mission and purpose Mission: To defend freedom, 'Merica, democracy, yada yada Purpose: Detect foreign terrorist group contacts within the US or whatever other monkey poo you wanna throw at the wall and it happens to stick It really is that easy with the right authority level, thank you fearmongering and the patriot act. You mistake me. I'm objectively defending it because of what is allowed by EOs, US Codes, Laws, FISA, etc. but I don't necessarily think that it is ok but I would be more concerned if it was affecting day to day life or being used as a political suppression tool but scanning phone records generating information to develop networks of people intending to do others harm hardly hurts my feelings.

Hadn't really thought about this. Interesting point, I'll have to do some research and get back to you.

You are correct, the Constitution prohibits objective illegal search and seirzures...unfortunately as I stated it is perfectly legal because of the sources I provided earlier and it does not violate the constitution. FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978) enacted after Watergate, outlines acceptable scenarios for electronic surveillance has been found constitutional in 2 supreme court cases...so it doesn't really matter what I think because the checks and balances already had their say.

Herein is the problem with Snowden's 'reason' for spilling secrets in the first place. Please find substantial proof that anything the NSA has done anything to violate the Constitutional rights of the American people. That is to say, substantial proof that is not a semantical argument by someone who has a strong but uninformed opinion. On the other hand feel free to utilize: Executive Order 12333 US Codes: Title 10, Title 18, Title 32, Title 50 Patriot Act (an abhoration of a law) Eric Holden's (THE US Attorney) address to Northwestern Law univerity (really scary when he starts talking about Due Process vs Judicial process) to understand that they have done nothing illegal because as long as they have a Purpose & a Mission they are allowed to collect information. Immoral, perhaps (its debatable), but not illegal. People want to bitch about it all but the first thing they should be doing is lobbying fellow constituents to write their representatives and senators to repeal some of these laws *cough*patriot act*cough*. If you feel that a letter or phone call won't do much and your democratic rights are being ignored then call up an activist group that has the money and power to lobby the correct people. Snowden, like Manning, was, is, and forever shall be a punk. I'm personally glad he's stuck in an airport (for now) and the fact that he has accepted the help of a man also seeking asylum due to accusations of child porn/molestation tells me all I need to know about his character.

Arizona has actually done a pretty good job of this. UAS monitoring high traffic routes, increase in the Border patrol personnel, and building of 'the wall' have had a significant impact on illegal crossing between the Sonoita and Naco areas. In 2002 there were over 900k apprehensions by BP. in 2011 that number was down to 11k. Still alot but HUGE numbers drop. Its been so effective that Texas and New Mexico are reporting increased numbers along their borders. Source: Border Patrol Station Manager @ Naco

The real question that needs to be asked; Was it leaked with malicious intent or was it spillage? Also where in the timeline did the information provided by Gen Cartwright occur. If it was after the STUX was identified by foreign entities then it was probably spillage rather than malicious intent. Jury is still out for me. I will form an opinion after more research.

Ryoder...wrong thread I think. I only checked out the headline so I could be wrong. One final point. Bill of rights protects against OBJECTIVELY unreasonable searches not SUBJECTIVE unreasonable searches. The objective bar and precedence was set pretty high following the passing of the Patriot act when everyone was riding the wave of 'Merica righteousness. Also Exec order 12333 which was laid down by Reagan in 81 as a reult of Watergate which are PERMISSIVE laws regarding intelligence gathering versus RESTRICTIVE. My point in all this is it doesnt matter if you agree with it or not collection on people both citizens and non citizens are the US are legally able to be collected on as long as its done by the right agencies in respect to US title codes as long as their is a mission and a purpose.

+1

Excellent example. Gets flagged because of key words which are checked out by an analyst that runs it agains known code words and does what they get paid to do. Concludes that some dude had a great night in NY and discards the Information. There is a huge debate over what the US is doing about the Syrian rebels for numerious reasons which in my opinion should be nothing. I think its disgusting that the governemtn feels the need to support them because of the rather old school notion of giving democracy a fighting chance. The main issue I have with this is that the Syrian rebels are working along side foregin fighters and Al Queda affiliated groups (Part of the reason Hezbollah decided to join the fight and prevent influence in the region). In essence, the US gov is funding the rebels that has affiliatins with a designated terrorist group that we've been fighitng for the last 12 years O_o WTF. Unfortunately, short of petitioning my congressman and senator as a concerned constituient I can't do much else to affect US Policy makers. People's privacy in other parts of the world awaiting on a resolution by American supreme court...I could care less about your privacy. You don't have American constitutional rights (4th & 5th Amendments) so I don't care if the NSA or CIA is collecting your informations....that's their purpose. Sorry. Unfortunately they are that dumb. Simply because international communitcation is made quick and easy by the internet. I'm not a computer scientist but I know there are plenty of 'hidden' websites and communication platforms that are not simple to find that allow for communication. How do you think these radicals are getting into contact with some of these groups initially before making trips to recieve training and instructions. Do some research and you will find a lot of these people are disconcerted individuals put in contact with extremist for this group or that via internet or online forums and then make trips to meet. Following indoctrination they return later, hang out for a while, then try to carry out whatever it is they have planned. Numerous examples of this. Hiding the responsible man: the NSA was able to track Bin laden via a satellite phone until about 2003 (thats how they knew he was at Tora Bora) until a Snowden like individual notified OBL that he was being tracked and he went dark which led to an 8 year man hunt. Took a little longer to find him but not impossible because we know how that one ended. Dont get me wrong FastRod, I agree that individual privacy is a priority and should be respected. If they cops were knocking on my door and interupting my daily life just to look around I'd be upset and voicing outrage. The occassional scan of my files which A)Doesn't suppress my right to voice disagreement with the gov B) Doesnt influence my day to day life C) Allows officials to detect threats against other citiizens...I'm not going to lose sleep over that. Just my .02 We can keep going round and round on the opinion of whats ok and whats not but we will continue to make examples and disagree. In the meantime the intel agencies will keep doing what they do, national policy makers will continue to be idiots, and life will go on without too much of a noticible day to day change.