Alan C.
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Posts posted by Alan C.
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Pentagon: Guantanamo tab $5.2 billion and counting
...the Pentagon spends nearly a half-billion dollars a year - a whopping $2.7 million per prisoner - to operate its offshore prison complex in southeast Cuba.
The figure is by far the largest per-prisoner cost ever calculated and apparently, for the first time, includes troop costs. The ostensibly temporary Pentagon prison has, since it opened in 2002, been staffed largely by troops trained up on their way to Guantanamo for rotations of nine months to a year.
The cost for this year - $454.1 million to operate, staff and build at the prison complex - comes from a report by the Defense Department's Office of the Comptroller.
It was first provided to Congress on June 27 by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and made public last week.
The report says the Pentagon will have spent $5.242 billion by the end of 2014.
The total costs, however, are likely higher. The accounting does not appear to include the prison camps' state-of-the-art headquarters, built in 2004 for $13.5 million, or a secret lockup for ex-CIA prisoners, called Camp 7, the price tag of which is considered classified.
In addition, the Justice Department and FBI have devoted staff to detainee operations, and probably the CIA.
At Guantanamo, the prison camps spokesman, Navy Capt. Robert Durand, said the $2.7 million-per-prisoner figure apparently represents "fully loaded costs" of maintaining what is today a 2,000-strong staff at the sprawling detention center zone where 166 captives are confined to seven different lockups - including the hospital and psychiatric wards.
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Atheism isn't a religion. There is no established dogma, iconography, or messiah.I think that catfood's use of 'faith' and 'belief' is deliberate equivocation. Afterall, every thought is a belief and any expectation could be construed as faith. The difference is that some faith and belief is backed by compelling evidence and some is wishful thinking.Religion is blind faith because it's a belief without reason and evidence; it's simply wishes and fantasies. Atheism is not blind faith. Nobody has presented supernatural evidence in 10,000 years which would suggest that it's nothing but an imaginary figment.The reason why people become religious is because taking refuge in delusions is a means of avoidance to cope with unpleasant aspects of life.I couldn't care less if atheists are the most hated.
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TSA employees caught sleeping on the job, skipping work: report
The Transportation Security Administration investigated and closed 9,622 cases of employee misconduct between the years 2010 and 2012, according to a report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office.The figure marked a 26 percent increase in misconduct cases in a three-year period.Thirty-two percent of the cases involved problems with workers showing up for their jobs, according to the report, and 20 percent had to do with security and screening.. . .The agency is nearly 12 years old, and has 55,000 employees and a budget of more than $7.5 billion. -
Workers at ObamaCare call center angry after being offered jobs without health benefits
...the call center, which is set to be opened Oct. 1, attracted about 7,000 applicants for 200 jobs after the county won the right to operate it earlier this year. Many workers and local politicians say they believed that the majority of the positions at the center would be full-time with benefits.However, about half the workers were actually offered part-time positions with no benefits. Some say they only learned the positions were part-time after completing an orientation earlier this month.. . ."It is very disappointing. I was under the impression these were going to be well-paying, well-compensated positions," said County Supervisor Mary Piepho. "We were really hopeful these would be jobs meeting the unemployment needs in our county and offer them the ability to make a living and support their families."Millions of other people support their families by earning an honest living in the private sector rather than as public-sector parasites who only make life more difficult for everyone else.
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Many disability recipients admit they could work
Recipients of federal disability checks often admit that they are capable of working but cannot or will not find a job, that those closest to them tell them they should be working, and that working to get off the disability rolls is not among their goals.More baffling, most have never received significant medical treatment and not seen a doctor about their condition in the last year, even though medical problems are the official reason they don't work. Those who acknowledge they're on disability because they can't find a job say they make little effort to find one, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of federal survey results.Unearned disability, called SSI, is for individuals who have petitioned to be classified as disabled. Many of them have never worked and have never paid into Social Security. Earned disability, or SSDI, is for those who have held jobs for significant periods of time and paid at least partially into Social Security before becoming disabled.Those collecting government checks in the unearned program are in less pain than their counterparts who paid into the system, the analysis showed. They are typically overweight, uneducated and from broken homes.. . .The survey included responses from 2,300 disability benefits recipients. There are approximately 11 million SSDI recipients and approximately seven million SSI recipients.
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Deputies shoot man in his front yard
Middleton, 60, of the 200 block of Shadow Lawn Lane in Warrington, was shot in the leg about 2:42 a.m. Saturday while trying to retrieve a cigarette from his mother’s car in the driveway of their home.
A neighbor saw someone reaching into the car and called 911. While he was looking into the vehicle, deputies arrived in response to the burglary call.
Middleton said he was bent over in the car searching the interior for a loose cigarette when he heard a voice order him to, “Get your hands where I can see them.”
He said he initially thought it was a neighbor joking with him, but when he turned his head he saw deputies standing halfway down his driveway.
He said he backed out of the vehicle with his hands raised, but when he turned to face the deputies, they immediately opened fire.
“It was like a firing squad,” he said. “Bullets were flying everywhere.” -
Mo. judge fires 34-year court employee for providing document that helped free innocent man
A longtime judge's assistant in Jackson County says she was fired for providing a public document that helped a wrongfully convicted inmate win his freedom.
But court officials say 70-year-old Sharon Snyder was sent packing four weeks ago because she violated court rules against inappropriately providing advice and discussing court matters with outsiders.
Snyder says she gave Robert Nelson's sister a copy of a motion last year from a different case in which a defendant successfully requested DNA testing. Nelson, who was convicted in 1984 of raping a woman and robbing her, previously filed two motions for DNA tests that were denied because they didn't meet technical requirements.
Nelson was freed June 12 after DNA tests ruled him out as one of the rapists in the 1983 attack. -
Second [Detroit] officer arrested in 'fake cop' robberies
The first incident took place at a Citgo gas station near French and I-94 on Detroit's east side last Sunday. The clerk says two white men in a black Ford F-150 with police lights allegedly pistol-whipped customers pumping gas. The men stole cash and cell phones from their victims. A warning went out to be on the lookout for "fake cops" but it turns out those officers were not fake after all. It appears the sergeant in this case was driving his personal vehicle.There were at least two reports of men posing as police officers and robbing unsuspecting drivers at gunpoint. The men had police badges, bullet proof vests and guns. They looked very official and police considered them armed and dangerous.A second incident happened near Harper and 3 Mile Drive. A man says he was pulled over by three men in a unmarked Crown Victoria. The man was searched and while he answered questions, his wallet and CDs were stolen.
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IRS employee union: We don’t want Obamacare
IRS employees have a prominent role in Obamacare, but their union wants no part of the law.
National Treasury Employees Union officials are urging members to write their congressional representatives in opposition to receiving coverage through President Obama’s health care law.
The union leaders are providing members with a form letter to send to the congressmen that says “I am very concerned about legislation that has been introduced by Congressman Dave Camp to push federal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and into the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act.”
The NTEU represents 150,000 federal employees overall, including most of the nearly 100,000 IRS workers.
Like most other federal workers, IRS employees currently get their health insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which also covers members of Congress. -
Angelina Jolie Speaks Out Against Rape in War
Movie star and director Angelina Jolie urged a Japanese audience Monday to join her fight to stop sexual violence in war zones.
Jolie said she hoped "In the Land of Blood and Honey," her first film as writer and director, would inspire viewers to think about rape in war.
In April, the Group of Eight leaders agreed to work to end rape and sexual violence in conflict and the United Nations Security Council adopted text urging sanctions against perpetrators of sexual violence during armed conflict.
"This is just a beginning," she said. "Our aim must be to shatter impunity, so that rape can no longer be used as a weapon of war anywhere in the world as it was in Bosnia, and as it is today from Congo to Syria."
Jolie, who serves as special envoy for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees...
Don't commit rape when you're bombing and killing people.
That would be wrong.
Incidentally, search online for "united nations sex scandal" and see what you find.
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City of Chicago’s cash cushion plummets, debt triples, arrests drop, water use rises
...Moody’s Investors ordered an unprecedented triple-drop in the city’s bond rating, citing Chicago’s “very large and growing” pension liabilities, "significant" debt service payments, “unrelenting public safety demands” and historic reluctance to raise local taxes that has continued under Emanuel.
The 2012 city audits explain why. They show that an unallocated balance that was $167 million a year ago because of Emanuel’s aggressive cost-cutting efforts has dropped to $33.4 million.
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The new round of borrowing brings Chicago’s total long-term debt to nearly $29 billion. That’s $10,780 for every one of the city’s nearly 2.69 million residents. More than a decade ago, the debt load was $9.6 billion or $3,338 per resident.A decrease in their bond rating will make it more costly for them to borrow money.
Like most municipalities, their bonds are junk which means that the likelihood of bondholders being paid back is essentially none, or they'll be paid back with depreciated currency. Either way, bondholders will take a loss.
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Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash
...the House voted 217 to 205 not to rein in the NSA’s phone-spying dragnet. It turns out that those 217 “no” voters received twice as much campaign financing from the defense and intelligence industry as the 205 “yes” voters.
...defense cash was a better predictor of a member’s vote on the Amash amendment than party affiliation. House members who voted to continue the massive phone-call-metadata spy program, on average, raked in 122 percent more money from defense contractors than those who voted to dismantle it.
Overall, political action committees and employees from defense and intelligence firms such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, United Technologies, Honeywell International, and others ponied up $12.97 million in donations for a two-year period ending December 31, 2012... Lawmakers who voted to continue the NSA dragnet-surveillance program averaged $41,635 from the pot, whereas House members who voted to repeal authority averaged $18,765.
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The amendment was proposed by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan), who received a fraction of the money from the defense industry compared to top earners. For example, Amash got $1,400 — ranking him in the bottom 50 for the two-year period. On the flip side, Rep. Howard McKeon (R-California) scored $526,600 to lead the House in defense contributions. He voted against Amash.
As if this should surprise anyone.
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Superstitious dogmatists often engage in equivocation (using words like 'belief' and 'faith') to mislead people into thinking that their fatuous claims are as valid, or as deserving of consideration and respect, as any other kind of claim, and to put skeptics and non-believers on the defensive.
Skeptics and non-believers aren't obligated to prove the non-existence of a god, or the non-existence of Bugs Bunny, Superman, or Popeye.
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Unless you don't live in this universe or don't have dreams, catfood has shown you all that you require. He even told you so to make it easier for you. What else do you want? Moving the goal post?
That isn't what you said. You asked if a being appeared and shows that it could create a universe on a whim, if that would be convincing enough.
Then you wrote:
"I am catfood, your god. I show myself before you. I created this universe that which you occupy. I also create many other universes on a whim, some of which I let you see through your dreams."
You haven't shown anything. You've made a claim. You've moved the goalpost by changing the standard of proof mid-argument.
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Showing and claiming aren't the same thing.
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If you see a being that shows itself and claims to be god and shows you...that it creates universe on a whim, you will believe it to be god?
I'd consider that to be very compelling evidence.
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Public-facing institutions aren't the problem; they're just a symptom.
Abolishing an institution doesn't address the underlying problem.
If the Vatican suddenly vanished tomorrow, there would still be millions of credulous, feeble-minded people who would find another delusion to embrace.
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In 2011 the Army faced public scrutiny after the exposition of once mandatory "Spiritual Fitness" testing which assessed the resiliency of soldiers on such qualitative measures as frequency of prayer or attendance of religious services. When a soldier failed this religious test they were denigrated with the following:
"Spiritual fitness may be an area of difficulty... You may lack a sense of meaning and purpose in your life. At times, it is hard for you to make sense of what is happening to you and to others around you. You may not feel connected to something larger than yourself. You may question your beliefs, principles and values... Improving your spiritual fitness should be an important goal."
. . .
"Lack or loss of spiritual faith" is included as a "Guidance/moral compass issue" in both of these documents under a list of risk indicators for use by "leaders at all levels" to "identify and address risky behavior or events that may lead to risky behavior, as soon as possible." This apparent character flaw is juxtaposed with such things as "lack of courage," "history of psychiatric hospitalizations," "past or current substance abuse history," and being "anti-social." In the simplest terms, it is the current official position of the United States Marine Corps that those who do not profess a religious belief or choose to leave their religion are to be considered a potential hazard to themselves and the Corps and be placed under greater scrutiny than their peers.
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... the insistence by chaplains that non-believers make inferior warriors...Those chaplains are actually correct. Non-believers are probably less likely to follow orders without question, dehumanize others, and rationalize murder. Knowing that one is doing God's work helps ease a guilty conscience.
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Yemeni president pardons reporter Obama wanted kept in jail
Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye, whom President Barack Obama once personally lobbied to have remain in jail, has been pardoned and released, fulfilling a months-old pledge from Yemen’s president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
It was unclear whether Hadi had told American authorities in advance when Shaye would be released, but the White House said in an email Wednesday that it was “concerned and disappointed” by his release before the expiration of his five-year prison term for associating with al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
Shaye’s ability to gain access to high-ranking, deeply reclusive al Qaida-linked figures earned him international attention, allowing him to report for a number of Western news outlets. But he earned the ire of U.S. and Yemeni authorities for his reporting that revealed that a December 2009 bombing in the village of Majalla in the southern province of Abyan was an American cruise-missile attack that killed dozens of civilians, including 14 women and 21 children, rather than a Yemeni airstrike on an al Qaida training camp, as originally claimed.
After those reports, he was arrested in 2010 and held for more than a month without seeing an attorney. A Yemeni court found Shaye guilty in 2011 of assisting al Qaida, and sentenced him to five years in jail after a trial that international human rights groups described as a sham. -
She has courted international controversy by turning herself into a human doll using plastic surgery and thick layers of dramatic make-up, confessing she wishes to be considered 'the most perfect woman on the internet'.
With her pinched waist, skeletal arms, enormous coloured contact lenses and vacant expression, Ukraine's Valeria Lukyanova, 23, believes she has become a living, breathing Barbie, something she sees as the ultimate embodiment of perfection. But how well do we really know her?
. . .
'I think she was probably protection herself,' said Will. 'She'd appeared on various talk shows in the past and they were mainly trying to do one on her, so there was a lot of back and forth. We finally secured coming over when we said we'd focus on her spiritual and astral theories.'
Valeria believes she is from another planet - possibly Venus, but she isn't quite sure - so isn't really human like the rest of us.
'She's not a fraud,' clarified Will. 'She genuinely believes she's from another planet. 100 per cent. She's not making any money from her life - not even from the seminars she gives - which is originally why I thought she was doing this.'
Valeria, who is supported by her construction-working husband who also acts as her manager, spends the film discussing theories about her pre-Earth space life, and how she has become an object of hatred within some internet communities.
'I come from a place where only love and joy exist,' she says. 'But I noticed the media is only interested in negativity: show someone in a bad light, show someone's mistakes.
'There are hate blogs and communities about me who post bad pictures about me and try and worsen my mood.
'Perhaps at some point I was an energy vampire, because I constantly received their negative reactions and enjoyed it. Specifically for them I created posts that would make them angry.
'But people who think badly of me just aren't happy in their own lives. When they are happy they will forget about me.'
Valeria, who says she has a 'small group of friends who accept me for who I am', also admits she has visited a psychiatrist about the voices in her head. But just the once. She is not in therapy.
She said: 'I asked myself if everything was alright with my head. I hear voices all the time and see different beings. One day I decided to visit a psychiatrist. I told him everything.
'He listened to me carefully and said it was very lucky it was him because with another doctor I definitely would have been taken to a special place.
But he said, "I've been studying esoterism for years and can see you are psychic".'
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'And she is paranoid about not looking perfect. I don't know exactly where it comes from, but I suspect really it's down to... she seems to have a quite a lot of issues about her physical self, and is incredibly fixated with her image. -
Bush Presidential Library Misleads Visitors On WMDs In Iraq
In at least eight separate instances, the library offers displays, audio, or video designed to give the impression that Saddam Hussein either possessed weapons of mass destruction, or was on the verge of getting them.
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For example, the museum has a big display detailing the “Threat Assessment” of Saddam Hussein, followed by the “Status by the end of Bush presidency”. One curt sentence among the 44 lines notes that “No stockpiles of WMD were found.” Meanwhile, twelve lines are devoted to the possible presence of WMDs in Iraq before the war and how we never have to worry about that now post-war, including that Saddam “refused to account for his chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs” and that “post-invasion inspections confirmed that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to resume production of WMD.”
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Even in the instances where the museum concedes that WMDs didn’t exist in Iraq, it still uses an asterisk approach to leave visitors with the impression they did, or were about to. One interactive panel tells users that, although there were “no WMD found,” the chief U.S. weapons inspector found that Hussein “had a large number of WMD program-related activities” and “never gave up its ambition to obtain WMD”.
Similarly, it later tells users that “no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction are found, although Iraq’s WMD-related program activities are still a threat.”
Finally, a document in the interactive detailed the WMD situation in Iraq, telling users that “Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability” because he saw significant “value” in possessing WMDs.
An audio tour also underscored the idea that Saddam would have gotten WMD were it not for Bush’s decision to invade.
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Later, a choose-your-own-adventure style interactive features advisers who link Saddam and 9/11: “The world changed on 9/11. Saddam shows every signs he wants to give terrorists weapons of mass destruction to attack the US, a risk we cannot afford.” Another unequivocally declares that “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. And don’t forget, during the Gulf War, we also discovered Saddam was much further along in developing nuclear weapons than anyone believed.” -
Christie goes after libertarians — hard
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ® on Thursday offered a clear broadside against Republicans drifting toward a more libertarian view of foreign policy, lumping Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in with them and suggesting they explain their position to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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“As a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think, is a very dangerous thought,” Christie said.
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“I want to say that I think both the way President Bush conducted himself and the way President Obama has conducted himself in the main on those types of decisions hasn’t been different because they were right and because we haven’t had another one of those attacks that cost thousands and thousands of lives,” Christie said.For those who don't know who this guy is, he's the asshole who sent his thugs after businesses for "price gouging," which caused long gas lines, and imposed rationing gimmicks.
See previous thread.
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New $444 million hockey arena is still a go in Detroit
The arena will be paid for with a $450 million bond issue that will be repaid over the next 30 years. Taxpayers will be paying almost two-thirds of the cost of the arena -- $283 million -- and private developers will cover the rest. Including interest, it's projected that there will be a total of $444 million in taxpayer funds spent on the project.
Congressman Mike Rogers' staffers say criticism is "defamation"
in Current Events
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NSA-loving, Internet-hating Rep Mike Rogers' staffers say criticism is "defamation"