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by James Corbett
BoilingFrogsPost.com
October 15, 2013

The Local
October 15, 2013
Swedish soldiers to join Nato response force

Swedish JAS Gripen fighter jets
Swedish soldiers have been given the green light to take part next month in the Nato Response Force’s biggest training exercise in seven years, a project called Steadfast Jazz that will be carried out in Poland and Latvia.

Trend News Agency
October 15, 2013
Georgia discusses prospects of joining NATO alliance
N. Kirtzkhalia

Tbilisi: During his visit to Brussels, Georgian State Minister on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Alexi Petriashvili met with Deputy Secretary General of NATO Alexander Vershbow.

Itar-Tass
October 15, 2013
Russia’s lessons from Libya prevent same scenario in Syria
LONDON: Russia had learnt from Libya’s story and stopping Western intervention in Syria was the main achievement of Russian diplomats, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences Vitaliy Naumkin told Itar-Tass.

Whoever wins the Democratic primary in MA-05 today will be Congress' next member-- and they walk right into the dysfunctional mess in DC. Only one candidate is prepared to walk into that mess and take a significant role and that's Carl Sciortino. No way to be sure who's going to win today.

Voice of Russia
October 15, 2013
In many countries US imperialism operates by default – Viseslav Simic
Audio

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Erich Maria Remarque: Selections on war
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Erich Maria Remarque
From All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
Translated by A.W. Wheen

by Judith Curry China has no alternative to coal, with its domestic gas output limited and liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports more costly than coal. – William Durbin All of the desires and efforts to reduce carbon emissions are up … Continue reading →

Al-Manar | October 15, 2013

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reported that Israeli violations against detained Palestinian children are still ongoing, despite an alleged Israeli decision to improve their conditions, and the methods of interrogation.

Press TV – October 15, 2013

The US National Security Agency is collecting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal email and instant messaging accounts around the world, according to a new report.
Many of the contacts belong to American citizens, The Washington Post reports, citing senior intelligence officials and documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Almost five years ago, President Bush sat grasping the hand of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, flashbulbs from an army of photographers illuminating their smiling, faintly strained faces. As we know now, the agreement they had just signed and were shaking upon turned out to be a very public parting of ways. For Washington, […]

Darrell Issa's idea of a scandal for his House Oversight Committee to investigate is an entirely partisan witch hunt like "Benghazi!" Though the magnitude around 9-11 was a thousand times greater on any scale, there's never been a peep out of Issa or any of his right-wing colleagues about the dereliction of duty on the part of Cheney and his administration inherent in that catastrophe.

At least 13 people were killed and 12 more were wounded as Muslims began to observe the Eid al-Adha holiday.

RT | October 14, 2013

Germany’s largest telecom provider, Deutsche Telekom, is looking to introduce a “national routing” service which would keep German internet traffic out of the hands of foreign spies.
The former state-owned communications giant outlined the plans at a secret meeting in the Economy Ministry, business weekly Wirtschaftswoche reported.

Josh Moyo · September 27, 2013

RT
As debate over the merits of “stop and frisk” policing continues, a new YouTube video has added fuel to the fire by revealing the disturbing tactics of two Philadelphia officers.

by KenIt must have been in response to my pass-along of Andy Borowitz's bulletin "Hostage-Takers Call Comparisons to Tea Party 'Hurtful'" the oher day that our colleague Noah wrote,

RT | October 14, 2013

Lawmakers in Oakland intend to spend millions of dollars awarded to the California city in a federal grant to a police dragnet that promises to examine surveillance footage, riling critics who assert the intention of the grant was to stop terrorism.

October 14, 2013 — "Rome's archdiocese made it official Monday," the AP reports, saying Erich Priebke's lawyer could hold the funeral in his home "in strict privacy." The news agency adds that Pope Francis' vicar for Rome, Cardinal Agostino Vallini, forbade any church in Rome from holding the service.***

In an interview Jan Skoyles of the Real Asset Company and Koos Jensen who blogs on China and gold have said that the Chinese government  has to be co-operating with the Federal Reserve to manipulate the price of gold. China accepted its chosen role to replace America as the World center for manufacturing during Nixon’s historic visit of 1972.

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | October 14, 2013

Please watch the Bill Moyers video above. We're going to talk a little about it in a moment. But before we do, I want to remind you who Paul Ryan is. If you had just landed from Uranus or Neptune and perused the Beltway media, you would come away thinking Ryan is a "serious" and "thoughtful" mainstream political leader. He isn't.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
October 14, 2013
Sweden to join NATO Response Force and exercise Steadfast Jazz

Swedish Gripen warplane of the sort that participated in NATO’s six-month air war against Libya in 2011

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | October 14, 2013

Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal was celebrating a shady, little know right-wing ideologue and GOP operative for the glory the Republicans have heaped on themselves in recent weeks with the government shut down and impending default debacle.

By Nicola Nasser | People’s Voice | October 14, 2013 

More than two and a half years on, Israel’s purported neutrality in the Syrian conflict and the United State’s fanfare rhetoric urging a “regime change” in Damascus were abruptly cut short to unveil that the Israeli factor has been all throughout the conflict the main concern of both countries.

Israeli Perpetual Terrorism
Israel’s settlement building has been met with little protest by the so-called “international community”: The Israeli settlement of Har Homar near Jerusalem is expanded on land confiscated from Palestinian owners in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. (Magnus Johansson/MaanImages)

by Judith Curry Canadian researchers report people hold negative views of political and social activists, and their unwillingness to associate with such people dampens the likelihood of changing their behavior. The ironic impact of activists:  Negative stereotypes reduce social change … Continue reading →

Topic:Some disturbing updates from the world of Common Core, followed by a discussion about Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education. A listener wrote to express his concerns about the the lack of references included in the book.

Bumper Music:
Beat 239 by Jacob Levan

Topic:Some disturbing updates from the world of Common Core, followed by a discussion about Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education.

Topic:Some disturbing updates from the world of Common Core, followed by a discussion about Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education. A listener wrote to express his concerns about the the lack of references included in the book.

Bumper Music:
Beat 239 by Jacob Levan

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | October 14, 2013

The Israeli High Court is set to rule on the forced expulsion of all of the residents of the village of Khirbat Zanuta, southwest of Hebron in the southern West Bank on Monday.

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | October 14, 2013

The Palestinian Ministry Of Detainees issued a press release revealing that Israel is currently holding captive 5200 Palestinians in 17 prisons, detention camps, and interrogation facilities.
It said that this year witnessed a sharp escalation in arrests as the soldiers kidnapped 2450 Palestinians, including 476 children and 49 women since the beginning of the year.

By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | Going to Tehran | October 14th, 2013

As we move toward a new round of nuclear talks in Geneva this week between Iran and the P5+1, it is important to look soberly at each side’s approach to renewed nuclear diplomacy and what that implies about the prospects for real diplomatic progress.

Voice of Russia
October 14, 2013
‘The magniloquence of the US’ language is almost pharaonic’ – Rick Rozoff
John Robles
Audio

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Robert Graves: Recalling the last war, preparing for the next
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Robert Graves
A Dead Boche (1916)

To you who’d read my songs of War
And only hear of blood and fame,

Last week, MoveOn and PPP polled some of the swing districts where the DCCC protects Republican incumbents. The results were breathtaking, especially for media folks who only get their information from Cook and the DCCC. Blue America candidates are on target to beat long-time Republican incumbents and one of the strongest showings was from first-time candidate, Paul Clements, who's running against Fred Upton in western Michigan. Upton is underwater in terms of his constituents' approval.

The Founders were wary of establishing a standing army: they feared not only that it would become an instrument of domestic tyranny, as in Europe, but also that it would lead to … what we have today: a militarist caste that glories in – and profits from – war. As James Madison, the father of […]

In case you hadn’t noticed, Israel has been in the news a lot lately. After all, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the U.N. in the midst of an Iranian "charm offensive," just as presidents Obama and Rouhani were having the first conversation between Iranian and American heads of state since Jimmy Carter’s day, […]

Aside from Progressive Caucus leaders Alan Grayson, Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison, who are all relatively safe for reelection, Blue AMerica has only endorsed 2 House incumbents so far this cycle.

A series of multiple bombings across Baghdad and Shi'ite cities to the south of the capital killed at least 61 people and wounded 171 more.

U.S. Department of Defense
October 10, 2013
NATO Fosters Partnerships Key to Future Success
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON: NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen praised efforts that are expanding and strengthening the partnerships he called fundamental to the alliance’s ability to deal with modern security challenges.

Hurriyet Daily News
October 13, 2013
Dutch PM makes Patriot visit to NATO’s İncirlik airbase, speaks with Turkish PM

NATO Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile battery

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Emil Ludwig
From Genius and Character (1927)
Translated by Kenneth Burke

by Judith Curry Insights from Ed Lorenz, pioneer of chaos theory, on the detection of anthropogenic global warming. Ed Lorenz has been arguably the most influential meteorologist in history, having laid the foundations of chaos theory.  From his 2008 obituary: … Continue reading →

Bright lights in the void: I haven't watched this official trailer for Season 3 of Homeland, but you may want to. If the season turned out to be good, I didn't want it spoiled by the preview, and if it didn't, well, I didn't want to waste my time. So far, I'm happier than I could have imagined.

Someone posted this on Facebook, probably some random FB rant of mine:  WHY DO ANARCHISTS BOTHER YOU? By Stephan Kinsella “You are bothered that you are encountering a fellow American–peaceful, successful, intelligent, well-read–who is *unwilling to violate your rights*, unwilling to condone anyone aggressing against you. And this bugs you? WTF? How insane is that? […]

François Hollande’s Missteps put France on Levant sidelines
 
 
Franklin Lamb
Beirut
 

I have credits on a lot of films and albums but none thrill me as much as when the end credits on the 1984 documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk roll and I see my name. I wasn't in the movie and I was shocked to see my name in the credits. It was there because the filmmaker had used some stills I had taken of Harvey over the years.

By Anthony Watts | Watts Up With That? | October 13, 2013

From The End is Near department comes this video documentary from lefty talk radio guy Thom Hartmann that claims we are on the verge of a “mass extinction” due to climate change. Only one problem; the IPCC says “no” to his scenario. Ooops.
From the YouTube description, bold mine: