World News Korner

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:

NSA leaker Edward Snowden instantly regretted asking Russian President Vladimir Putin a softball question on live television about the Kremlin’s mass surveillance effort, two sources close to the leaker tell The Daily Beast.

“It certainly didn’t go as he would’ve hoped,” one of these sources said. “I don’t think there’s any shame in saying that he made an error in judgment.” “He basically viewed the question as his first foray into criticizing Russia.

He was genuinely surprised that in reasonable corridors it was seen as the opposite,” added Ben Wizner, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney who serves as one of Snowden’s closest advisers. According to Wizner and others, Snowden hadn’t realized how much last week’s Q&A—with Putin blithely assuring Snowden that Moscow had no such eavesdropping programs—would appear to be a Kremlin propaganda victory to Western eyes.

Snowden’s camp wouldn’t get into the specifics of how his question made it onto the live broadcast on Russian state television. But it is worth noting that Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden’s Russian lawyer, has deep Kremlin ties and sits on the board that oversees the FSB, the successor to the KGB. Getting on state television wouldn’t have been much trouble.

The article goes on to quote Snowden's camp as claiming that Snowden genuinely thought he could catch Putin in a lie, and that he would prove to the western world that he was not a Russian stooge.

Now color me as a skeptic here, but this reads like damage control to me.

As the article pointed out, Snowden's Russian lawyer has deep ties to the KGB, just like Putin, and appears to me as more of a handler than a lawyer.

So if a former KGB operative is controlling the message read by an American defector, what in the world would make somebody supposedly as smart as Edward Snowden believe that he would be allowed to ask a question live and on the air that Putin had not been prepared to answer?

Which clearly he was:

Putin’s answer was predictable.

“Of course, we know that criminals and terrorists use technology for their criminal acts and of course the special services have to use technical means to respond to their crimes,” he said. “But we don’t have a mass-scale, uncontrollable efforts like that…Our special services…are strictly controlled by the society and the law, and are regulated by the law.”

As the Daily Beast article points out that is a blatant, and obvious lie.

Yet it was left to hang there, unchallenged by Snowden, or anybody else involved in the interview session.

That meant that to Russian and American ears, Edward Snowden, the man who revealed duplicity with the NSA here at home, had just provided Putin with a get out of domestic spying free card.

There is no goddamn way that he could not have seen that coming!

So I call bullshit on the Q and A, and I call bullshit on this attempt to cover his ass.

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Courtesy of something called Natural News:

The second American Revolution has begun. You are watching history unfold in real time now, and of course the lamestream media has intentionally decided U.S. history isn't worth covering because, frankly stated, the media is largely run by anti-American interests who absolutely do not want any victory by the People to be broadcast anywhere.

While the U.S. government claims to be supportive of freedom in Kiev or Iraq, it is absolutely terrified of freedom within U.S. borders.

Among big media, only Fox News has dared cover this story with anything resembling responsible reporting, as you can see in this video. The video text says "Govt backs down due to safety concerns." In reality, BLM backed down because they were grossly out-gunned and didn't want to die.

In this video, Fox Radio host Todd Starnes says, "For the past five years, we've seen the American people become increasingly frustrated with these government intrusions into their lives. [A tweet characterized this] as the 1st salvo of the American Revolution."

I couldn't agree more. This was the 1st salvo of the American Revolution, and the framework of the Revolution has now been cast. The People now realize they can defeat tyranny by merely showing up in huge numbers armed mostly with mobile phones and video cameras (plus lawfully-obtained firearms as needed).

The "BLM backed down because they were grossly out-gunned and didn't want to die." Imagine if this had been said by the supporter of a domestic terrorist, or hate group.

Oh wait, it was.

They are calling this the "Battle of Bunkerville." Sound familiar?

In their minds this is the beginning of a war against the federal government that they now feel emboldened to wage, and certain they will win.

I knew this was bad when I first started watching it unfold, but it is so much worse than I could have imagined.

This means that every sovereign citizen type, militia member, and scofflaw out there, now feels that they have the right to resist arrest, brandish weapons against law enforcement, and openly threaten the federal government any time they feel like it.

People are going to die. And it could be a whole lot of people.

P.S. Here is the video that the wingnuts are claiming the MSM is keeping you from seeing. It is from Info Wars, that bullshit Alex Jones website so I refuse to embed it. However it does give some idea as to what has these lunatics all fired up.

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Courtesy of the Jerusalem Post:

A Ukrainian rabbi whose congregation was the target of an anti-Semitic leaflet that drew global media interest and condemnation from the US government believes it was a hoax and wants to put the matter to rest.

On Monday evening, as Jews left a synagogue after a Passover service, masked men handed out fliers purported to be from pro-Russian separatists who seized the regional authority building in Donetsk and styled themselves as its government.

In an echo of the Holocaust which devastated Ukraine's Jews, it ordered all Jews to register with them or face deportation.

Denis Pushilin, head of the separatist Donetsk People's Republic, said it was a fake, presumably by supporters of the Ukrainian government, that was meant to discredit his movement.

Pinchas Vishedski, chief rabbi of the Donetsk area's 15,000 Jews, told Reuters on Saturday that while it was initially shocking, he was now satisfied it was a political hoax - "a crude provocation" - though its authorship was still unclear.

This is why you wait to get all of the information before you make some ignorant statement about something that is way above your pay grade.

You would think that a professional troll might recognize when somebody else is trolling another group hoping to cause some friction.

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Courtesy of NPR:

What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, right? Well, not when it comes to bullying.

Some may still consider bullying a harmless part of growing up, but mounting evidence suggests that the adverse effects of being bullied aren't something kids can just shake off. The psychological and physical tolls, like anxiety and depression, can follow a person into early adulthood.

In fact, the damage doesn't stop there, a British study published this week in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests. It actually lasts well into the adults' 40s and 50s.

"Midlife ... is an important stage in life because that sets in place the process of aging," says Louise Arseneault, a developmental psychologist at King's College London and the study's senior author. "At age 50, if you have physical [and] mental health problems, it could be downhill from here."

And health isn't the only thing to worry about. Chronic bullying's effect on a person's socioeconomic status, social life and even cognitive function can persist decades later, too, Arseneault's research suggests.

I was a bully.

The thing was I did not realize it until I was in my early thirties.

I know that sounds a little hard to believe, but it's true.

When I was younger I was pretty passive, for the most part. A few scrapes here and there, nothing serious.

However when I hit my mid teens things took a turn.

Like a lot of teenagers I was full of testosterone driven energy, and conflicted emotions. And I did not know what to do with them.

So I started to workout every day with weights and practice martial arts for hours on end.

Instead of being an outlet for my energy, it instead turned me into a powder keg of aggression.

Though I felt no animosity towards those younger or weaker than myself, for those who I considered my physical equal all it took was one wrong move before fists would be flying.

How I justified that was by focusing on bullies.

My guidelines were if somebody hurt or intimidated others that made it open season on them. All I needed was to catch them in the act, or hear about it from somebody else, and I felt, not only justified, but obligated to "set things right."

By the time I made it to my senior year I got most of it out of my system, and simply coasted through the remainder on my reputation.

In fact my first two serious relationships after high school were somewhat based on this reputation, as the bad boy image I had cultivated was part of what attracted them to me. Even though after I graduated there were very few physical altercations.

It was my third serious relationship after high school where I received my reality check.

This was a thirty year old woman, trained in early childhood education, who was quite unimpressed with hearing about my exploits during my teen years, and after being regaled by my family with story after story, she seemed very pensive and quiet on the drive home.

Later when I asked what was wrong she said that she never knew I was a bully.

I became immediately defensive at that and told her she had it all wrong. I was a GOOD guy.

"Did you beat people up?"

"Well yes sometimes, but.."

"Were students in your school frightened of you?"

"Well maybe a few, but they....."

"Do you think that their fear of you had an effect on their school work, their self esteem, and their emotional health?"

"Well they were bad guys so..."

"If they were bad guys for intimidating those who could not defend themselves, and they could not defend themselves from you, then what does that make you?"

"Well I was...I mean they were....I only....."

Well fuck.

She was right. I HAD actively intimidated people who I identified as bullies, even IF what they had done was fairly minor, and would have sorted itself out with no involvement from me whatsoever.

I simply used their anti-social behaviors as an excuse for MY anti-social behaviors.

To be honest, I was angry at her for making me face that about myself. It meant that I had to go back and reevaluate everything I thought I knew about me.

But in the end I had to recognize the inconvenient truth, I was in fact a bully.

So though I have done a number of good, and selfless things, with my life since then, there is a group of men in their mid fifties who are, right now, walking around with emotional scars that I inflicted.

And you know what? That kind of sucks.

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Courtesy of Raw Story:

A new study published in The Journals of Gerontology suggests that Internet use can reduce the probability of depression among retirees who live alone by 33 percent.

The study was authored by Shelia Cotten of Michigan State University, George Ford of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies, Sherry Ford of the University of Montevallo, and Timothy Hale of Harvard Medical School. They used information gathered during the Health and Retirement Study, a longitudinal survey collecting data from more than 20,000 older and retired Americans.

The authors noted “[r]etired persons are a population of interest, particularly because one mechanism by which Internet use may affect depression is to counter the effects of isolation and loneliness, which are more common among older adults.”

They found “that for retired older adults in the United States, Internet use was found to reduce the probability of a depressed state by about 33 percent.”

Makes sense. After all hanging out here with all of you always brightens my day.




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Courtesy of the You Tube page:

Rev. Franklin Graham on Sunday said that he stood by earlier comments agreeing with so-called gay "propaganda" bans in Russia because President Vladimir Putin was doing "what's right" for the country. During a March interview with the Charlotte Observer, Graham had asserted that LGBT people were trying to "recruit" children by adopting them, and suggested that it was "exploitation."

He also said that he "agreed" with Putin because "protecting his nation's children was a pretty smart thing to do."

Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Graham doubled down on his praise of the Russian president.

"Putin is going to do what's right for Russia, and not what's right for America, but for Russia," he opined. "We used to have a president in this country that did what's right for this country, but we don't seem to have that right now."

"Putin is going to make these decisions that he thinks is best for the Russian people, and he thinks that taking advantage of children — exploiting children — is wrong for any group so they passed a law," Graham added. "So, I do agree with him."

When asked about his father, Rev. Billy Graham, he again brought the discussion back around to the issue of same-sex parents.

"When we talk about families, when we talk about gay people, many people, maybe gays that are watching want to know, 'Can God forgive me or can I go to Heaven as a gay person?' Absolutely," he declared. "But the same for any of us, we have to repent of our sins and turn."

"A person cannot stay in adultery and be accepted by God," Graham continued. "You have to repent."

It is kind of hard to believe that anybody would suggest that what Putin is doing right now is "good for Russia" but I guess when you are a fellow homophobe you tend to give your fellow hate mongers the benefit of the doubt.

As for this idea that gay adoption is about recruiting children into homosexuality, that could not be farther from the truth.

I have known, and worked with, several gay adoptive parents and essentially I can think of only one family where a child they had adopted turned out to be gay.

The rest were quite heterosexual, though to be honest they seemed to lack the gene which inspired them to call every kid they did not like a "faggot." Unless of course that is NOT a heterosexual feature and instead a learned behavior.

Franklin Graham is a POS and really should serve as an embarrassment to Christians everywhere, as well as to Americans who find Vladimir Putin to be a chest thumping megalomaniacal bully.

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