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Posts Tagged 'toxic chemical'
Israel Getting F-35′s — BEFORE AMERICA?
Israel Getting F-35′s — BEFORE AMERICA?
Israel "First†to get New Generation F35 Jetfighter: Paid for by American Taxpayers. From: David Duke's site
The Israeli Air force will be one of the first in the world to be given the very latest Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth jet fighter—even before the aircraft becomes fully operational in the US Air Force.
In addition, the $2.75 billion price tag of the F35 shipment to Israel, is less than the annual aid subsidy of more than $3 billion, not including the recent special military budget allocated to the Zionist state.
The vice president of Lockheed Martin, Steve O'Bryan, announced Tuesday at the Paris Air Show that Israel will be the first country to receive the F-35 American-made stealth fighter jet, the Israeli news source Israel Hayom has reported.
The first of 20 F-35s are scheduled to arrive in Israel in "2016 at the earliest,†the Israeli newspaper said.
However, an article in the Examiner of May 2013, reported that the US Airforce will only be given 12 F35s by "December 2016†and that the US Navy "will have its first operational squadron ready by February 2019.â€
In other words, the Zionist Supremacists will not only get Americans to pay for the aircraft, but also get them before the American armed forces themselves.
Ultimately, the Israeli Air Force wants 75 F-35s, the Israeli news source continued.
The obvious question which all reasonable people will ask is why would Israel be the first to get these advanced aircraft even before the USAF?
The answer lies in the simple fact that the Jewish Supremacist lobby controls the US government so completely that they are able to openly manipulate the political and economic infrastructure in their own interests.
This in turn leads the rest of the world—and the Muslim world in particular—to regard America as nothing but a Jewish Supremacist puppet.
"Deals†such as the handing over of advanced weapons of war such as the F35 to Israel merely confirm this allegation to be true—and this in turn, causes hatred against America and Americans.
This US aid to Israel, then, is the true cause of terrorism against America and American citizens.
Can you believe it? The Israeli Zionist backstabbers will get the F-35′s pretty much before most of our country's military? And all of us taxpayers are paying for them, to boot.
This shows you what a stranglehold the stinking GD Jews have on America's head. Yep, these manipulative Jews know well any of "our†politicians won't dare say a damn thing publicly about it, let alone the media.
They know America is fully under the mental control of "PC†and they can quickly silence people by calling them "Nazi,†or simply keep the matter out of the mainstream in the first place. Practically everyone out there barely knows JACK about the accepted crap they allow you to know, anyway.
You need to tell everyone around you about all this Jew crap. You have got to grow a pair.
Press Release from CMR: "Pentagon Plans Will Increase Combat and Sexual Violence Against Women."
For Immediate Release                                                                                June 18, 2013
Contact: Elaine Donnelly, CMR President
or Tommy Sears CMR Executive Director
Pentagon Plans Will Increase Combat and
 Sexual Violence Against Women
Unresolved Problems To Be Extended Into Combat Arms
In response to expected Defense Department announcements regarding plans to order female personnel into direct ground combat battalions, Elaine Donnelly, President of theCenter for Military Readiness, issued the following statement:
"Department of Defense and military leaders are letting down the troops by moving ahead with ill-advised plans to order (not 'allow') women into physically-demanding direct ground combat (DGC) positions. These include Army and Marine infantry, artillery, armor, and Special Operations Forces, including Ranger and Navy SEAL battalions.
"Missions of these fighting teams, which attack the enemy with deliberate offensive action, are very different from the experiences of courageous military women who have served in harm's way while exposed to incident-related or contingent combat in war zones since 9/11.
"The phrase 'gender-neutral standards' has yet to be defined and no one has made the argument that such requirements would strengthen training or improve readiness in the combat arms. Due to physical differences that have been affirmed by more than thirty years of studies and reports on the subject, all possible options for implementing 'gender-neutral standards' would have the effect of lowering requirements.  For example, the services could:
"a) Omit or phase out without notice the toughest physical tests in infantry and Special Operations Forces training. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey has already signaled this would happen when he said in January that all standards will be 'questioned' if they are 'too high' for women to 'make it.' Regardless of what is said today, successors to current military leaders will implement the rest of the Obama Administration's "gender diversity" agenda.
"b) Use gender-specific requirements or scoring systems that treat men and women differently by recognizing 'equal effort' rather than equal performance. Gender-normed standards can be justified in entry-level military training, but not in 'tip of the spear' combat arms battalions that attack the enemy with deliberate offensive action.
"c) Accept into Navy SEAL and Army Ranger teams hundreds of men who would otherwise wash out. Over time this process would degrade tough, male-oriented standards − just to accept a few women under 'same' standards that would be reduced to 'minimum' levels.
"None of these options for achieving gender-based 'diversity' in the combat arms would sustain or improve combat training standards, which are necessarily high for survival and mission accomplishment in elite fighting teams and Special Operations Forces.
"The courage of our military women is not in question, but empirical evidence that is based on actual experience, not what amounts to "Amazon Warrior Myths," indicates that women are not interchangeable with men in direct ground combat. In that environment, women do not have an equal opportunity to survive, or help fellow soldiers survive.
"It defies common sense for Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Gen. Dempsey are extending unresolved issues of sexual misconduct into the combat arms. The unsupported idea that women will experience less violence if they serve in the infantry is a throwback to discredited theories first advanced after the 1991 Las Vegas Tailhook convention scandal. More than twenty years later, respect for military women is higher than ever, but rates of sexual assault and other forms of misconduct are soaring with no end in sight.
"It is regrettable that members of Congress are so distracted that they are failing to recognize a fundamental flaw in the argument for women in the infantry: Violence against women is wrong, say the proponents, unless it happens at the hands of the enemy. None of this is necessary, since the Pentagon's own data shows that for decades, military women have been promoted at rates equal to or faster than men.
"Furthermore, Congress is allowing the Obama Administration to lay the legal groundwork for concomitant Selective Service obligations for unsuspecting civilian women, including a possible future draft on the same basis as men.
"Detailed information on issues to be discussed today is available in these articles and CMR Policy Analyses:
To schedule an interview on this and related topics, call CMR President Elaine Donnelly at734/464-9430 or CMR Executive Director Tommy Sears at 202/330-1390.
The Center for Military Readiness is an independent public policy organization that specializes in military/social issues. Elaine Donnelly is a former member of the 1992Â Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces, which studied the issue of women in combat for a full year.
New from the INCOG Man… "White Soldiers Poster."
New from the INCOG Man…
"White Soldiers Poster."
After watching all the war movies they were running this past Memorial Day weekend and listening to the war veterans talk in the tired, accepted WWII history documentaries, I felt like I had to do up this poster art. Not only does it go for WWII, but present day conflicts to protect precious little IsraHELL — over which the anti-White and trouble-making jews back in the US are so loyal.
Believe me, I'm not coming down on our veterans. Hell, they really had no idea. But if you think about where America is going today for us White people, you'll get the enormous rip-off. Whether you know it or not, White Gentile men have borne the brunt of every single American war — by far. Seems like at the very least, we might get cut a little slack in the never-ending race and slavery bullcrap, huh?
Feel free to copy and use elsewhere.
– INCOG MAN
War on Afghanistan Lasts until 2014
War on Afghanistan Lasts until 2014
by Jack A. Smith / May 19th, 2013
Hamid Karzai has let the Pentagon's cat out of the bag — to the displeasure of the Obama Administration. The Afghan president revealed inside information about President Obama's war plans after all U.S. "combat troops†completely withdraw in 17 months at the end of 2014.
As was known in recent years, the Obama Administration actually plans to keep troops in Afghanistan after the "withdrawal†at least to 2024. They won't be "combat troops,†so Obama didn't actually mislead the American people. Instead they are to be Special Forces troops, who certainly engage in combat but are identified by a different military designation, as well as U.S. Army trainers for the Afghan military, CIA contingents, drone operators, and various other personnel.
The White House has kept other details secret, such as troop numbers and basing arrangements, until it is certain a final Strategic Partnership Declaration is worked out with the Kabul government. When that occurs, the White House expects to make the announcement itself at a time of its choosing, sculpting the information to convey the impression that another 10 years of fighting is not actually war but an act of compassion for a besieged ally who begs for help.
On May 9, however, during a speech at Kabul University, President Karzai decided to update the world on the progress he was making in his secret talks with the U.S., evidently without Washington's knowledge.
"We are in very serious and delicate negotiations with America,†Karzai said. "America has got its demands, Afghanistan too has its own demands, and its own interests…. They want nine bases across Afghanistan. We agree to give them the bases.
"Our conditions are that the U.S. intensify efforts in the peace process [i.e., talks with the Taliban], strengthen Afghanistan's security forces, provide concrete support to the economy — power, roads and dams — and provide assistance in governance. If these are met, we are ready to sign the security pact.â€
Washington evidently was taken aback by Karzai's unexpected public revelations that made it clear President Obama is anxious, not hesitant, to keep American troops in Afghanistan. Few analysts thought there would be as many as nine bases. Neither the White House nor State Department confirmed requesting them but both emphasized that any bases in question were not intended to be permanent, as though that's the principal factor.
If American engagement lasts until 2024 it will mean the U.S. has been involved in Afghan wars for most of the previous 46 years. It began in 1978 when Washington (and Saudi Arabia) started to finance the right wing Islamist mujahedeen uprising against a left wing pro-Soviet government in Kabul. The left regime was finally defeated in 1992 and the Taliban emerged as the dominant force among several other fighting groups in the mid-90s.
The CIA remained active in Afghanistan and was joined by the rest of the U.S. war machine weeks after the Sept. 11, 2000, terror attacks in Washington and New York. The objective was to overthrow the Taliban and destroy al-Qaeda, which also emerged from the Washington-financed wars. The U.S. swiftly took control of Kabul and al-Qaeda fled to Pakistan. Since then, the American foreign legion has been fought to a stalemate by a much smaller poorly equipped guerrilla force, which is where the situation remains today.
The U.S. has engaged in secret talks with the Taliban off and on for a couple of years. The hope is that the Taliban will agree to stop fighting and subordinate itself to the Kabul government in return for money, and a certain amount of administrative and political power within the national and certain provincial governments.
The Taliban will agree to nothing at this stage but an immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. military forces and the closure of bases. The White House evidently thinks that a combination of U.S.-trained Afghan forces plus the remaining Americans might bring their opponents to the bargaining table. The nine bases also provide the U.S. with a strong bargaining chip to relinquish at the right time.
Washington has additional reasons for remaining in Afghanistan, as we wrote in the May 31, 2011, issue of the Activist Newsletter — and little has changed:
The U.S. has no desire to completely withdraw from its only foothold in Central Asia, militarily positioned close to what are perceived to be its two main enemies with nuclear weapons (China, Russia), and two volatile nuclear powers backed by the U.S. but not completely under its control by any means (Pakistan, India). Also, this fortuitous geography is flanking the extraordinary oil and natural gas wealth of the Caspian Basin and energy-endowed former Soviet Muslim republics such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Lastly, Iran — a possible future imperial prize — is situated directly across Afghanistan's western border.
The U.S. wants to keep troops nearby for any contingency. Washington's foothold in Central Asia is a potential geopolitical treasure, particularly as Obama, like Bush before him, seeks to prevent Beijing and Moscow from extending their influence in what is actually their own back yard, not America's.†Soon after this was written the Obama Administration revealed its "pivot†to Asia. Remaining in Central Asia is now part of what we have called America's "ring of fire†around China, singeing North Korea as well.
Karzai occasionally makes strong public statements that criticize the U.S. They seem mainly intended to bolster his position by showing the Afghan people he is not Uncle Sam's total puppet, but he's to be praised for these statements.
For example, he often complains openly when the U.S. commits war crimes in his country, which have been numerous. He has demanded the U.S. discontinue night raids on homes. In late February, according to the Guardian, he ordered "U.S. Special Forces to leave one of Afghanistan's most restive provinces, Maidan Wardak, after receiving reports from local officials claiming that the elite units had been involved in the torture and disappearance of Afghan civilians.†He recently charged that Washington was allowing the Taliban to increase its violence to make it necessary for him to approve the U.S. demand to remain until 2024.
Washington named Karzai acting president soon after the Bush Administration's aggressive invasion 12 years ago. His job was to serve the interests of the United States while governing Afghanistan. Karzai was elected president with decisive U.S. backing two years later. The Obama Administration maneuvered to oust him in the 2009 election, charging him with gross corruption, but its candidate withdrew just before the voting. Karzai legally cannot run for another term, but intends to continue playing a powerful role if he can pull it off.
Karzai is shrewd and realizes America's intentions are far more corrupt than his own because he only wants money, power and a somewhat better deal for Afghanistan, while the hypocritical U.S. wants everything there is to grab for its own geopolitical interests. He has long been on the CIA's generous payroll and also distributes payoffs to various warlords, some of whom are closer to the CIA than to the government. A week before the 2001 invasion the CIA was inside the country smuggling money to the warlords to join the impending war on the Taliban.
The White House dislikes the Afghan leader but he's all they have at the moment. They desperately need him now, particularly until signing a final agreement on having U.S. troops remain until 2024. President Obama well remembers his humiliation when Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki rejected demands to keep troops in Iraq after the "withdrawal†date, Dec. 30, 2011.
Obama pressured Maliki for years to permit up to 30,000 U.S. troops in Iraq after the "combat troops†pulled out. In mid-October 2011 the Iraqi leader finally accepted 3,000 to 5,000 troops in a training-only capacity. The Iraqis then insisted that they remain largely confined to their bases, and refused Washington's demand to grant legal immunity to the soldiers when they entered the larger society.
That was the deal-breaker. Washington routinely demands legal exemption for its foreign legions as a matter of imperial hubris, and would not compromise. The day after the deal collapsed, Obama issued a public statement intended to completely conceal his failure. "Today,†he said, "I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year.â€
Several important issues in the Washington-Kabul post-2014 negotiations seem to have been decided, including a U.S. payment of at least $10 billion a year to train and pay for some 400,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers. Among the remaining issues are two of considerable importance — troop strength and legal immunity for American personal (both for soldiers and tens of thousands of U.S. "contractors†who will remain in the country).
Reports circulated in the last few months that between 3,000 and 20,000 U.S. troops, mainly Special Forces, CIA contingents, drone operators and contractors of various kinds, will remain after 2014. The main air cover is expected to come from Navy aircraft carriers probably stationed in the Arabian Sea or Indian Ocean. Drones are expected to play a major role in battle as well as surveillance. Last year there were some 400 drone attacks in Afghanistan and that number is expected to continue increasing.
The New York Times reported Jan. 3 that "Gen. John R. Allen, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, has submitted military options to the Pentagon that would keep 6,000 to 20,000 American troops in Afghanistan after 2014…. With 6,000 troops, defense officials said, the American mission would largely be a counterterrorism fight of Special Operations commandos who would hunt down insurgents. There would be limited logistical support and training for Afghan security forces. With 10,000 troops, the United States would expand training of Afghan security forces. With 20,000 troops, the Obama administration would add some conventional Army forces to patrol in limited areas.â€
The May 11 New York Times reported that "The Obama administration has yet to decide how large a force it would like to keep in Afghanistan, but administration officials have signaled that it is unlikely to total more than 10,000 service members. They said it was more important now to hash out a range of issues, like whether American troops would continue to have legal immunity in Afghanistan after next year, than to talk about the specifics of where troops would be based.â€
The big remaining issue is immunity for U.S. personnel. Our guess is that, unlike in Iraq — where conditions are far different — Washington will find a way around the issue. It is difficult to see how the Kabul government of Karzai or his successor in next year's elections can survive for long without substantial American financial support for a prolonged period.
American forces are engaged in Obama's drone wars in western Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and soon Africa. Regime change in Libya would not have occurred had the Obama Administration refused to participate. President Obama has been fanning the flames of regime change in Syria for nearly two years, and now he's about to up the ante. He's strangling Iran with unjust sanctions and keeps warning that war is possible. He calls Hezbollah, the Shia self-defense organization in Lebanon, a terrorist organization, as he does Hamas in Gaza, the victim of overwhelming Israeli hatred and violence. And now Obama in moving more military power to East Asia to confront China.
If George W. Bush was in the White House today, a huge American peace movement would be out on the streets demanding an end to America's endless immoral wars. But now a Democrat officiates in the Oval Office, his Nobel Peace Prize wisely hidden in a dark closet lest his militarist propensities provoke an unseemly contrast.
Obama's many wars are but extensions of Bush's wars plus killer drones, but the great majority of Americans either seem to have forgotten or simply don't care about the wars, even though their tax money will amount to $80 billion for Afghanistan in fiscal 2014. Meanwhile, Pentagon generals anticipate various new wars of one kind or another well into the future. The battle against al-Qaeda is expected to last 20 more years. The world has become America's battlefield.
Afghanistan? Didn't we have a war there once? Oh, that's right, it ended when we got rid of Bush, didn't it?
Jack A. Smith is editor of the Activist Newsletter and a former editor of the Guardian (US) radical newsweekly. He may be reached at: firstname.lastname@example.com.
Crowded Indonesia Casting Covetous Eyes At Comparatively Empty Australia, And The Indonesian President Wants A Stronger Military Than Australia
Crowded Indonesia Casting Covetous Eyes At Comparatively Empty Australia, And The Indonesian President Wants A Stronger Military Than Australia
Indonesia comprises a group of relatively crowded islands teeming with over 242 million residents. In contrast, Australia to the south is comparatively empty, with less than 23 million people. Thus I was always concerned about the possibility that some Indonesian leader would look south and decide his country needed some "lebensraum". Politically-savvy Stormfronters have already picked up on the implications.
That concern has now become public and much more overt. ABC News Australia is reporting that as 16,000 Indonesian troops prepare for joint military exercises in East Java, Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says his country should strive to have a more powerful military than Australia, Singapore, and Malaysia. And this isn't just talk; Indonesia has embarked on a military upgrade program, building warships and drones, as well buying fighter jets, helicopters and rockets. Currently, Indonesia's military boasts 470,000 active troops, while the Australian Defence Force has just over 80,000 full-time personnel and reservists, which means Indonesian troops outnumber Australian troops by a 5-to-1 margin. Traditional military doctrine holds that an invader must outnumber defenders by a 10-to-1 margin to successfully occupy an area.
One day after President Yudhoyono's speech, the Australian government responded by unveiling a 2013 White Paper outlining their defense roadmap. Without explicitly referring to Indonesia by name, it appears the Aussie government wants to use China and India to checkmate Indonesia, while still emphasizing the importance of close military ties with the United States. Australia's defense roadmap also includes a commitment of $1.53 billion to buy 12 specialized Super Hornets fighter jets and outlines plans for 12 submarines. However, the Canberra Times criticizes the new defense roadmap, saying that it should have done a better job of addressing the spiralling cost of Defence. The Times notes the procurement costs for each new generation of aircraft, ship or land vehicle far exceed those it replaces. For instance, it is estimated that Australia will pay around $134.5 million for each F-35 JSF. Allowing for inflation, this is roughly three times what we paid for each F-111C and 220 times the cost of each P-51 Mustang in 1945. To counter this, the Times advocates an even closer military relationship between the U.S. and Australia.
Undoubtedly, Australia's military is qualitatively superior to Indonesian forces. But at some point, quantitative superiority can become overwhelming, particularly if an invading commander is willing to throw bodies at an objective like Ulysses Simpson Grant did at Vicksburg. This explains why Josef Stalin once said that quantity has a quality all its own. If Indonesian forces swamped Australia's defenders, they could quite literally overwhelm them. The fact that Australia and Indonesia currently have economic, humanitarian and cultural ties and that some Indonesian officers have received their military education in Australia in the past might not necessarily serve as a deterrent to Indonesian imperialism; on the same day that the Wehrmacht launched Operation Barbarossa, Soviet trains and trucks were delivering goods to Germany.
Australia's government has been mindful of the population disparity between Indonesia and Australia, and one of their strategies has been to promote more immigration into the country. The problem is that much of the immigration is from non-White sources who might be immigrating solely for economic reasons. Australia has solicited immigrants from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, as well as from White countries. While a White immigrant from South Africa, the United Kingdom, or the United States might quickly identify with being an Australian, how quickly would a Chinese or Indian immigrant identify with the country? In fact, non-White immigrants tend to cause more social problems by their reluctance to assimilate; in 2005, about 5,000 mostly White Australians had to take direct action to run predatory Lebanese immigrants off Cronulla Beach. It's easier to assimilate when the people with whom you're assimilating look like you.
Australia would benefit by adopting a more overly pro-White immigration strategy. They should openly appeal to Whites living in nations under siege from multiculturalism to immigrate to Australia. Of course, this would have to be limited to quality immigrants; in an article entitled "Premature Populism", Dr. Greg Johnson writes "…we have to stop coddling every stray dog of humanity who shows up at our door because we are just so desperate to hear from new people who seem to understand. We have to stop counting the crazies in front of us and think instead of the legions of superior people they are keeping away". Australia may have been founded by convicts, but convicts cannot sustain a nation. Australia should become a large-scale continental version of Harold Covington's proposed Northwest American Republic; its isolation and existing White population would provide a solid foundation for success.
Of course, the first step White Australians would need to take is to replace whiggers like Julia Gillard with a racially-conscious White person like Pauline Hanson.
Gen. Paul K. Van Ripper, the Marine General who killed 20,000 Americans in the Middle East
Gen. Paul K. Van Ripper, the Marine General who killed 20,000 Americans in the Middle East
In 2002 the Pentagon created the "Millennium Challenge 2002â€, a massive wargame combining both live exercises and complex computer simulations. Costing $250million, the wargame was designed as a test of America's military forces and how it would fair in a hypothetical invasion of a rogue Middle Eastern power, such as Iran or Iraq for instance. The simulation was divided into two teams, "Blue†represented the United States, "Red†represented the unknown Middle Eastern rogue state. The Pentagon chose a retired Marine Corps commander, Lt. General Paul K. Van Ripper as the head of the Red team. A hardened combat veteran of Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War, Gen. Van Ripper was known as a tough but intelligent opponent. The Blue team expected fierce opposition from Van Ripper, they did not expect he was out to win and that he wasn't going to fight by the book.
The strategies of Van Ripper were brilliant to say in the least. Rather than attempt a muzzle to muzzle conventional war with the Blue team he used very unorthodox tactics. First and foremost he silenced all electronic communication among his forces. When the US strikes among their first targets are communication systems, as well the US has such complete technological supremacy that they can intercept and decrypt any electronic message whether radio or internet. Instead Van Ripper went back to traditional methods of communication, using men on motorcycles to relay messages as well as World War II era light signals to launch aircraft. Since this type of communication is very slow, Van Ripper abandoned the top down chain of command approach, instead giving regional commanders the power and initiative to conduct their own campaigns as they saw fit. Typically the start of an American attack usually begins with attacks on anti-aircraft defenses by stealth bombers, which are invisible to radar. Van Ripper turned off all his anti-aircraft missile units. An anti-aircraft system with active radar just makes a juicy target for stealth bombers to pick off, so he shut them down making them invisible to American forces.
As many can probably remember from the Gulf War and Second Iraq War, the United States likes to start an invasion by sending a massive naval task force to bomb the crap out of their opponents. The second Invasion of Iraq was preceded by a week long "shock and awe†campaign of cruise missiles and bombs. The first Gulf War was preceded by months of strategic bombing. Van Ripper understood this and planned to hit the Blue team before they could organize and conduct such a campaign. When Blue's task force made its ultimatum to surrender, Van Ripper responded with an all out assault by waves of aircraft, submarines, torpedo boats, suicide boats, suicide ships, suicide planes, and missiles. The assault was so massive and fierce that it overwhelmed the fleet's defenses. While the attack was very costly, it crippled Blue's task force, sinking an aircraft carrier, ten cruisers, and five of six amphibious ships. Overall Blue suffered 20,000 dead and it was only day 1 of 13, an American military disaster if it were real.
Let's just say that the Pentagon probably wasn't happy with the stunning defeat at the hands of Van Ripper. They paused the simulation, reset the clock, and "refloated†the sunken ships. The rules of engagement were changed where Van Ripper was forced to use electronic communications and forced to activate his anti-aircraft units. Furthermore he was discouraged from attacking the Americans, and instead was made to follow a scripted battle plan which involved him conveniently moving his forces so the US Marines could land unchallenged. At that point Gen. Van Ripper told the Pentagon to "go fudge themselves†and resigned from the simulation. He was replaced and in a stunning victory Blue swept the field of battle.
Fortunately for the real Blue team, the Iraq Invasion of 2003 was successful and the real Red team did not use Van Rippers strategies, though the nation building of Iraq afterwards was a bit more tenuous. After Millennium Challenge 2002 Gen. Van Ripper joined several retired generals calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. Currently he enjoys his retirement in Bethel, PA and mostly spends his time peacefully tending his championship prized rose garden.
Actually I don't know what he does with his free time.
(Source: pbs.org)
Why is the United States Really in Afghanistan?
Why is the United States Really in Afghanistan?
by Howard Uhal / April 17th, 2013
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
— Ernest Hemingway
Over the past twelve years we have been treated to a litany of reasons why the United States invaded Afghanistan. President Bush said we initially attacked that country "to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime.†His successor President Obama continued down that shining path to "achieve our objective of defeating the core of al Qaeda.†Along the way we hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden (who was hiding in neighboring Pakistan) and built schools, hospitals, and chicken processing factories in a mostly futile effort to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.
But alongside such publicized goals there is a list of things we also achieved by invading and occupying Afghanistan, most of which are not at all commendable. In the interest of fairness and understanding, we ought to ask ourselves what role these unstated reasons may have played in the decisions to attack Afghanistan and to (apparently) stay there indefinitely. They are, after all, a part of the lasting legacy of Operation Enduring Freedom. A list of these potential reasons, in no particular order, and a discussion of their possible impact follows.
Potential Reason #1: To protect and maintain the opium poppy crop
Afghanistan is by far the world's largest producer of opium. One of the few good things the Taliban did was to curtail the planting and harvesting of opium poppies.1 This no doubt angered the drug lords and their beneficiaries in the global ruling class. But not to worry! Team America soon came to the rescue and set the Taliban to flight. Now in spite of over ten more years of war, Afghanistan has been restored to its rightful place as the mother of all opium fields.2 And with US troops actually guarding the poppy crop, the world's supply of this vital resource should be guaranteed for generations to come.3
Potential Reason #2: To control the flow of heroin from the region
Apparently neighboring Pakistan harbors many of the factories which process Afghan opium into heroin, and business is booming. 4 From there and from other facilities in the region, heroin flows to the United States, Europe, and other addicted nations around the globe. 5 It is easy to imagine that the Pentagon's "full spectrum dominance†capabilities allow America's war lords to track and perhaps even control this flow of heroin, especially the part that comes into the United States. I have always been perplexed as to how a US intelligence apparatus that can track the path of every dime that goes to a Muslim charity (i.e., "terrorist cellâ€) cannot notice a tidal wave of drugs and drug money invading the country, but obviously in the bigger scheme of things this is not a great concern to the powers that be.
Potential Reason #3: To brutalize, punish, and/or kill our own troops
So far our fighting men and women in Afghanistan have sustained over 2,200 deaths and 12,300 wounded.6 Many of their wounds have been horrendous: horrible burns, multiple amputations, and the loss of genitals.7 In spite of successful, heroic efforts to save those wounded in battle, many war veterans die while waiting for care through the VA system.8 And the number of active duty military personnel and veterans committing suicide has risen to alarming levels. 9 Should any President ever declare Operation Enduring Freedom to be a "victoryâ€, it will have been a Pyrrhic victory at best. One might even suspect that the true purpose of this war was to destroy the US Army and the National Guard instead of our declared enemies the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Potential Reason # 4: To train our troops for nighttime, warrantless break-in-and-search operations anywhere in the world, including inside the US
The signature mission of our ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been nighttime break-in-and-search operations.10 As might be expected, such successful battlefield methods are now being employed by police departments to fight US gangs.11 The use of such methods and the militarization of our police, far from being of concern to just the "black helicopter crowdâ€, also has caught the attention of domestic and international civil rights groups. 12 The facts that the Department of Homeland Security is buying armored vehicles and billions of rounds of ammunition13, while the US Army is conducting unannounced urban warfare drills in Galveston and Houston, Texas, and in Miami, Florida, should cause everyone to ask just what the heck is going on. Is our government preparing to impose martial law?
Potential Reason #5: To keep the most patriotic Americans out of the US so they can't interfere with what the government is doing to the rest of us
In most countries the military is among the most influential and respected of institutions. The United States is no exception. And, in general, military personnel are among the most patriotic members of our society. In many countries, including America's client states, the military often intervenes directly (e.g., by staging a military coup) in times of national crisis. By keeping patriotic Americans who have military training engaged in endless conflict in a distant quagmire, the government prevents them from taking a direct role in any future domestic struggles. The other segment of the population which might be able to stage a coup of sorts, the militias, have been and are being discredited by entrapment, bad jacketing, and their own misguided attempts at domestic terrorism to ensure their concerns cannot gain traction with a discontented and disoriented public.
Potential Reason #6: To give the government an excuse for losing or not counting military ballots
Adding insult to physical injury, not only are our military patriots imprisoned and wounded in distant quagmires like Afghanistan, somehow their ballots are either lost or not counted in nearly every election.14 Since the government knows both the location of our troops and the dates on which elections occur, one would think that getting the ballots to them and back to the US in time would not be a problem. Somehow it always is. Is it because the government is intentionally disenfranchising this segment of the population to influence election results?
Potential Reason #7: To squander our national treasure
The cost of our war in Afghanistan and its companion in Iraq has been estimated to be between $4 trillion and $6 trillion.15 To pour that amount of money down those two figurative rat holes, especially in this time of fiscal upset, is nothing less than a national calamity. Even worse, we have squandered the good will the United States previously earned in 237 years as a global beacon of freedom. The loss of that national treasure may turn out to be even more costly than our monetary losses. The vanishingly low return on these expenditures suggests that our leaders may be intentionally trying to wreck this country.
We may never learn all the true reasons the United States invaded and occupied Afghanistan, but the consequences of Operation Enduring Freedom will be with us for a long time. Afghanistan has been called many things: the graveyard of empires, a highway of conquest, and a cradle of empire.16 For the United States it now appears to be all three: a potential graveyard of the republic, a highway of conquest of our enemies in the region, and a cradle of the growing empire apparently being crafted by the global ruling class.
Howard Uhal is a Vietnam era veteran of the US Army and a former nuclear submarine officer. He has held various positions in the nuclear and environmental industries and has degrees in Geology and Environmental Systems Engineering. He writes the satirical blog "The Apocalypse of Saint Howardâ€. He can be reached at email@example.com Read other articles by Howard, or visit Howard's website.
Iraq War Fatalities: The White Man's Burden
Iraq War Fatalities: The White Man's Burden
By Steve Sailer on March 21, 2013 at 7:00pm
With the most spectacular element of the Bush Administration's Invade the World – Invite the World grand strategy now a decade old, it's worth taking a look at the U.S. military death tolls by ethnicity and sex. This is an infrequently covered subject of scant interest to the press because women and minorities were not hit hardest.
In the mid 2000s, non-Hispanic whites made up about 61% of the 25-year-olds in the U.S. But through this 2009 report by Hannah Fischer of the Congressional Research Service, whites made up 74.7% of Iraq war fatalities, while minorities only accounted for 25.3%. So, whites gave the last full measure of devotion at an 89% higher per capita rate than nonwhites in Iraq.
The sacrifice gap was even larger in Afghanistan through 2009, with whites dying at a per capita rate 146% higher than nonwhites.
And, of course, the white man's rate was even higher compared to the rest of the population of young adults of both sexes: roughly 500% higher in Iraq, and over 650% higher in Afghanistan.
Take up the White Man's burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man's burden–
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden–
The savage wars of peace–
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
Next time, maybe not?
On Tenth Anniversary, Israel Partisans Behind Iraq War Still at Large
On Tenth Anniversary, Israel Partisans Behind Iraq War Still at Large
by Maidhc Ó Cathail / March 12th, 2013
Three years ago this month, I wrote a piece entitled "Who's to Blame for the Iraq War?†to mark the seventh anniversary of the US invasion. My sole purpose in compiling a by-no-means-exhaustive list of 20 Israel partisans who played key roles in inducing America into making that disastrous strategic blunder was to help dispel the widespread confusion — some of it sown under the guise of "progressive investigative journalism†by likely crypto-Zionists – about why the United States made that fateful decision. As the tenth anniversary approaches, there is no excuse for anyone genuinely interested in the facts to deny the ultimate responsibility of Tel Aviv and its foreign agents for the quagmire in Iraq. Nevertheless, it's an appropriate time to remind ourselves of some of the chief architects of the devastating Iraq War.
1. Ahmed Chalabi, the source of much of the false "intelligence†about Iraqi WMD, was introduced to his biggest boosters Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz by their mentor, a University of Chicago professor who had known the Iraqi con man since the 1960s. An influential Cold War hawk, Albert Wohlstetter fittingly has an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) conference centre named in his honor.
2. In 1982, Oded Yinon's seminal article, "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s†was published in Kivunim, a Hebrew-language journal affiliated with the World Zionist Organization. "Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets,†advised Yinon. "Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel.â€
3. "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,†a report prepared for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, recommended "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq—an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right.†Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board during the initial years of the George W. Bush administration, was the study group leader.
4, 5. A November 1997 Weekly Standard editorial entitled "Saddam Must Go†opined: "We know it seems unthinkable to propose another ground attack to take Baghdad. But it's time to start thinking the unthinkable.†The following year, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), an influential neoconservative group, published a letter to President Clinton urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein on the pretext that he was a "hazard†to "a significant portion of the world's supply of oil.†PNAC co-founders William Kristol and Robert Kagan also co-authored the "Saddam Must Go†editorial.
6. In Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, published by AEI Press in 1999, David Wurmser argued that President Clinton's policies in Iraq were failing to contain the country and proposed that the US use its military to redraw the map of the Middle East. He would go on to serve as Mideast adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2003 to mid-2007.
7. On September 15, 2001 at Camp David, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz attempted to justify a US attack on Iraq rather than Afghanistan because it was "doable.†In the lead-up to the war, he assured Americans that it was "wildly off the mark†to think hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to pacify a postwar Iraq; that the Iraqis "are going to welcome us as liberatorsâ€; and that "it is just wrong†to assume that the United States would have to fund the Iraq war.
8. On September 23, 2001, Senator Joe Lieberman, who had pushed for the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, told NBC's "Meet the Press†that there was evidence that "suggests Saddam Hussein may have had contact with bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network, perhaps [was] even involved in the September 11 attack.â€
9. A November 12, 2001 New York Times editorial called an alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague an "undisputed factâ€. Celebrated for his linguistic prowess, columnist William Safire was egregiously sloppy in his use of language here.
10. A November 20, 2001 Wall Street Journal op-ed argued that the US should continue to target regimes that sponsor terrorism, claiming, "Iraq is the obvious candidate, having not only helped al Qaeda, but attacked Americans directly (including an assassination attempt against the first President Bush) and developed weapons of mass destruction.†The professor of strategic studies at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University who made these spurious claims was Eliot Cohen.
11. George W. Bush's January 2002 State of the Union address infamously described Iraq as part of an "axis of evil.†It was David Frum, Bush's Canadian-born speechwriter, who coined the provocative phrase.
12. In a February 2002 article entitled "How to win World War IV,†Norman Podhoretz, the longtime editor of Commentary magazine, asserted: "Yet whether or not Iraq becomes the second front in the war against terrorism, one thing is certain: there can be no victory in this war if it ends with Saddam Hussein still in power.â€
13. Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board member and PNAC signatory, predicted in a February 13, 2002 Washington Post op-ed: "I believe that demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.â€
14. On August 3, 2002, Charles Krauthammer, the psychiatrist-turned-Washington Post columnist, enticed Americans with this illusory carrot: "If we win the war, we are in control of Iraq, it is the single largest source of oil in the world…. We will have a bonanza, a financial one, at the other end, if the war is successful.â€
15. In a September 20, 2002 Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled "The Case for Toppling Saddam,†current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Saddam Hussein could be hiding nuclear material "in centrifuges the size of washing machines†throughout the country.
16. "Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990—it's the threat against Israel.†Despite this candid admission to a foreign policy conference at the University of Virginia on September 10, 2002, Philip Zelikow, a member of President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, authored the National Security Strategy of September 2002 that provided the justification for a preemptive war against Iraq.
17. According to a December 7, 2002 New York Times article, the role of convicted Iran-Contra conspirator Elliott Abrams during Colin Powell's efforts to negotiate a resolution on Iraq at the United Nations was "to make sure that Secretary Powell did not make too many concessions to the Europeans on the resolution's wording, pressing a hard-line view.†Abrams was senior director of Near East and North African affairs at the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration.
18. Lewis "Scooter†Libby, who was Vice President Cheney's chief of staff until he was indicted for lying to federal investigators in the Valerie Plame case, helped draft Colin Powell's fraudulent February 5, 2003 UN speech.
19. According to Julian Borger's July 17, 2003 Guardian article entitled "The spies who pushed for war,†the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans (OSP) "forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel†to provide the Bush administration with alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq. Douglas Feith was the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy who headed the OSP.
20. Bernard Lewis, a British-born professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University whose 1990 essay "The Roots of Muslim Rage†introduced the dubious concept of a "Clash of Civilizations,†has been called "perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq.â€
Maidhc Ó Cathail writes extensively on U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East.
Chuck Hagel And A Sense Of Humor
Chuck Hagel And A Sense Of Humor
By Steve Sailer on March 1, 2013 at 12:27am
In contrast to Bryan Caplan's advice to the GOP to make itself more popular by bending over backward to mollify the sensitivities of newcomers, the state of Israel, and Israel hobbyists in the U.S., follow a strategy of constant strident self-assertion.
As the Hagel debate showed, the essential problem for the GOP is this: You know how T. Boone Pickens has spent a couple of hundred million dollars building his alma mater, Oklahoma State, into a college football powerhouse? Does T. Boone Pickens want to negotiate peace on the football field, to sit down with Oklahoma's backers and call the whole game off? Of course not. What would be the fun of that? He wants to WIN.
Well, a lot of the big money behind the GOP (and behind the Democrats, too — e.g., Hillary's main money man Haim Saban) feels toward Israel the way Pickens feels toward the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Pickens doesn't want peace on the football field, he wants victory. Similarly, much of the big money and the big media don't really want peace in the Middle East. They want their favorite country to win, to crush its foes, or, at minimum, for the game of nations to go on and on to give them something to talk about. It's their hobby. It's a perfectly natural male rooting urge.
But, here's the GOP's problem: You can't mention this. You can joke about Pickens's obsession with OK St. winning, but you can't joke about, say, Sheldon Adelson's obsession with his wife's native country crushing their foes.
Poor Chuck Hagel vaguely alluded skeptically to this massive phenomenon a couple of times over the last couple of decades, and got roasted alive for it to, as Voltaire would say, "encourage the others."
The problem is that what goes unsaid, eventually goes unthought, enstupefying the Party.
So, the first thing Republicans need is the freedom to joke about the neocons' infatuation with Israel.
Is that too much to ask?
At present, yes.


text:
Maintain fresh-brewed flavor.
No matter how much you try, it's impossible to get freshly brewed flavor from coffee that's been sitting on a hot plate too long. That's why we created the Hamilton Beach BrewStation®, the only coffeemaker that keeps coffee tasting fresh for up to two hours. This best-selling coffee maker works just like a traditional, automatic drip brewer, but with a notable difference: it brews into an internal tank instead of a carafe. This innovation in brewing technology is what will make your last cup taste just as fresh as the first. An internal heater keeps coffee at the perfect temperature for up to two hours, so you can refuel with a fresh, hot cup throughout your morning.
And with no glass carafe, you have nothing fragile to break and replace. Instead, you can easily pour a cup with the one-handed simplicity of a dispensing bar. The BrewStation® lets you customize your cup with brewing options like bold, regular and small batches. The internal tank and brew basket both remove for easy fill-up and cleaning.
Brews Up to 10 Cups
Make coffee the way you always have - the BrewStation® works just like an automatic drip coffee maker. Add water, a standard filter, and ground coffee. Instead of brewing into a carafe, the coffee goes into an internal tank that's easy to remove.
Holds and Maintains Fresh-Brewed Flavor
The internal tank and gentle heater ensures coffee stays hot and tastes fresh for two hours. Plus, you can leave BrewStation on without worry with its two hour auto shut-off feature.
Dispenses One Fresh Cup at a Time
Simply press the dispensing bar with your cup or travel mug to fill the cup with hot, fresh coffee. There's no carafe to pour, spill or break, and no hot plate to scorch your coffee's flavor.
Programmable Controls & Brewing Options
This BrewStation® gives you brewing control. It's programmable 24-hours in advance for morning coffee and the keep-hot function keeps your coffee tasting fresh for two hours.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
CCF Dinner: An Evening to Conquer Cancer
Chicago, IL - 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting - Raj Mantena, RPh, Nancy Daly, MS, MPH, and Cliff Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, mingling at the cocktail reception during the Conquer Cancer Foundation Dinner at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting on Saturday, June 3, 2017. Approximately 40,000 physicians, researchers, and healthcare professionals from over 100 countries are attending the 53rd Annual Meeting, which is being held at McCormick Place. The ASCO Annual Meeting highlights the latest findings in all major areas of oncology, from basic to clinical and epidemiological studies. Photo by © ASCO/Brian Powers 2017 Technical Questions: email@example.com; ASCO Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com
From Conquer Cancer Foundation Dinner


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Woman Suffrage by Dianne Little, Little Quilts
Pieced, appliqued, embroidered and painted top, 2012-14.
78" x 112"
Dianne writes to say she has finished her sampler this week. The center was inspired by a Women's Suffrage poster painted by Evelyn Rumsey Cary (1855-1924) about 1905.
The painting for this poster is now in the collection of the Wolfsonian Museum at Florida International University. Click here: http://digital.wolfsonian.org/WOLF002830/00001?search=rumsey+=cary
Dianne stitched it all by hand and did some ripping, resewing and accidentally stitching it to her clothes before getting it done last Tuesday.
She asked friend Don Harris to paint the face.
She combined "William Morris prints, art nouveau, art deco, a collection of fabrics called Valley of the Kings to represent the archaeology going on at the time.... a damask fabric to represent all the damask tablecloths women have had to iron over the years, and the black framing is to represent the tracery in the stained glass that is so representative of the era,"
See Dianne's fabulous photo stream at Flickr for the Grandmother's Choice blocks here:
And do remember her striking Civil War Sampler quilt---she loves to embroider.


text:
"Enjoy your Life" is an exciting song that will get and keep your audience's attention till the end. The song hast three parts. A slow emotional beginning, a exciting build up in the middle and a powerful dynamic ending with an orchestra and guitars. It's perfect for advertising campaigns and commercial uses as for all kind of other videos that want to make a big impact and stay memorable.
Thanks for rating and your purchase! It's a great support for my work!
Finding the perfect song for your project can be difficult, especially when searching through thousands of songs! To make finding that perfect song quick and easy, I've sorted my portfolio
by MOOD, GENRE and USAGE! Now you can search the way that's easiest for you. If you're really in a rush, chech out my Top 10 best sellers of all time!
Hey, happy to have you on my profile page! My name is Joze and I'm a music composer and also a film director currently living in the great city of Berlin, Germany. I love being creative and working in the field of music for the last 15+ years. My last 10 years were really fruitfull and made me win a lot of awards in the film and music industry.
I believe that the right music is the one that inspires, creates an unforgetable emotional state and touches people in such a way that they will come back again and again to get more of the amazing feeling. Every song that I upload to AudioJungle is made with care, profesional composing, polishing and producing it to the highest quality. I've learned that projects that can deliver information while inspiring it's audience is a successful one.
I've been fascinated by music since my earliest memory. I started in as a band member in a rock band, moved to film music and music for commercials. So what are you still reading for? ... Go listen to some music already!
I can help you promote your video!
I believe that it is the combination of a stunning project with great music that really makes it attract attention and sales! If you would like to use my music, I ask that you add music credits in your project if possible (if it uses any text) -I understand that for some projects this will not work – I do ask that if it can flow with the project that you add "Music by ArtStation" somewhere.
Also please have a link (like usual) in the description on the project page as well. If you would like, let me know in advance before your project is released so that I may help to promote it as well when it hits the front page. I will re-send your work as well as post an icon of your file on my profile page here AND for projects I feel are exceptional, I will add a large banner to the song page itself. Thanks again for your interest, I look forward to working with you!
Joze – ArtStation


text:
Magic Carpet Thyme
Thymus serpyllum 'Magic Carpet'
Magic Carpet Thyme flowers
(Photo courtesy of NetPS Plant Finder)
Plant Height: 2 inches
Flower Height: 3 inches
Spacing: 10 inches
Hardiness Zone: 2a
Other Names: Mother Of Thyme, Wild Thyme, Creeping Thyme
A prostrate, woody based variety primarily grown as ornamental groundcover; lilac-pink flowers appear on short stalks in summer; a very low maintenance plant, excellent for the rock garden
Ornamental Features
Magic Carpet Thyme is smothered in stunning spikes of lilac purple flowers rising above the foliage from early to mid summer. Its attractive tiny fragrant oval leaves remain green in color throughout the year.
Landscape Attributes
Magic Carpet Thyme is a dense herbaceous evergreen perennial with a ground-hugging habit of growth. It brings an extremely fine and delicate texture to the garden composition and should be used to full effect.
This is a relatively low maintenance plant, and is best cleaned up in early spring before it resumes active growth for the season. Deer don't particularly care for this plant and will usually leave it alone in favor of tastier treats. It has no significant negative characteristics.
Magic Carpet Thyme is recommended for the following landscape applications;
- Rock/Alpine Gardens
- Border Edging
- General Garden Use
- Groundcover
Planting & Growing
Magic Carpet Thyme will grow to be only 2 inches tall at maturity extending to 3 inches tall with the flowers, with a spread of 12 inches. When grown in masses or used as a bedding plant, individual plants should be spaced approximately 10 inches apart. Its foliage tends to remain low and dense right to the ground. It grows at a slow rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 10 years. As an evegreen perennial, this plant will typically keep its form and foliage year-round.
This plant should only be grown in full sunlight. It prefers to grow in average to dry locations, and dislikes excessive moisture. It is considered to be drought-tolerant, and thus makes an ideal choice for a low-water garden or xeriscape application. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is highly tolerant of urban pollution and will even thrive in inner city environments. Consider covering it with a thick layer of mulch in winter to protect it in exposed locations or colder microclimates. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America. It can be propagated by division; however, as a cultivated variety, be aware that it may be subject to certain restrictions or prohibitions on propagation.


text:
I've posted a lot about the research around how to be happier. But being satisfied with your life is something a little different.
Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, gave a TED talk where he explained the two pretty well:
Happiness is being happy in your life. We experience it immediately and in the moment.
Life satisfaction is being happy about your life. It is the happiness that exists when we talk about the past and the big picture.
There's plenty of information about the former — but what about the latter?
What can we do to not just be happy in the moment, but to feel satisfied with our lives?
Here's are five things research says can make a difference for you:
Having a lot of close friends boosts life satisfaction by nearly 20%.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
Having more close friendships was associated with a 19 percent greater life satisfaction and a 23 percent greater sense of optimism. – Richburg 1998
In fact, having a better social life can be worth as much as an additional $131,232 a year in terms of life satisfaction.
Like your neighbors? That's a double digit boost in life satisfaction too.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
Positive feelings about neighbors have been found to be associated with a 16 percent greater life satisfaction and a 25 percent lower likelihood of experiencing feelings of loneliness. – Prezza et al. 2001
Why does religion — any religion — make people so much happier?
It's the friends that a religious community provides. A group of ten supportive friends seems to be the magic number.
Via The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More:
After examining studies of more than three thousand adults, Chaeyoon Lin and Robert Putnam found that what religion you practice or however close you feel to God makes no difference in your overall life satisfaction. What matters is the number of friends you have in your religious community. Ten is the magic number; if you have that many, you'll be happier. Religious people, in other words, are happier because they feel connected to a community of like-minded people.
But it's not all about what you get from friends; giving is extraordinarily powerful too.
Are you mentoring a young person? It's 4 times more predictive of happiness than your health or how much money you make.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
Age, income, and health are four times less likely to predict whether a person is happy than is whether the person feels he or she is having a positive effect on a younger person. – Azarow 2003
(More on how to make and keep friends here.)
Have A Life Story
Research shows that meaning in life comes from the stories we tell ourselves about our lives.
Ever tried writing that story down? People who do are more than 10% happier with their lives.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
People who wrote about the history of their lives were 11 percent more likely to feel happy with their lives and 17 percent more likely to feel optimistic about the future. – Yamada 2000
Knowing your family tree gets you a bump in satisfaction as well.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
People who were interested in their family and ethnic histories were 6 percent more likely to feel satisfied with their lives. – Mowrer and McCarver 2002
Children who know the stories of those who came before them have higher self-esteem and a sense of control over their lives.
Via The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More:
Marshall and Robyn asked those questions of four dozen families in the summer of 2001, and also taped several of their dinner table conversations. They then compared the children's results to a battery of psychological tests and reached some overwhelming conclusions. The more children knew about their family's history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem, and the more successfully they believed their families functioned.
(More on how to shape the story of your own life here.)
Have Goals
People with goals are nearly 20% more satisfied with their lives.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
People who could identify a goal they were pursuing were 19 percent more likely to feel satisfied with their lives and 26 percent more likely to feel positive about themselves. – Krueger 1998
Those who are passionate about something score higher across the board on positive psychological indicators.
Via Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined:
Elderly individuals who were harmoniously passionate scored higher on various indicators of psychological adjustment, such as life satisfaction, meaning in life, and vitality, while they reported lower levels of negative indicators of psychological adjustment such as anxiety and depression.
Goals doesn't mean you need to win an Oscar or make a million dollars.
A consistent amount of minor success produces much more satisfaction than occasionally bagging an elephant.
Via The 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People:
Life satisfaction is 22 percent more likely for those with a steady stream of minor accomplishments than those who express interest only in major accomplishments. – Orlick 1998
Not seeing the success you'd like? Don't give up. Having grit was associated with more life satisfaction.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
The capacity to continue trying despite repeated setbacks was associated with a more optimistic outlook on life in 31 percent of people studied, and with greater life satisfaction in 42 percent of them. – Meulemann 2001
(More about setting goals the right way here.)
Money Isn't The Answer
The more materialistic people are, the less satisfied they are with their lives.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
Among participants in one study, those whose values were the most materialistic rated their lives as the least satisfying. – Ryan and Dziurawiec 2001
Spending more money on gifts made holidays less enjoyable.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
Among parents studied, greater expenditures for family gifts actually reduced satisfaction with family holidays by 2 percent. – Kasser and Sheldon 2002
Having meaning in your life increases life satisfaction twice as much as wealth.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
Those with a modest income who felt there was meaning in their lives were twice as likely to experience life satisfaction as were those who were wealthier but who felt that their lives lacked a sense of meaning. – Debats 1999
(More on the things proven to increase happiness here.)
Keep Growing
No, I don't mean eat more cookies.
Have you seen changes in what you believe over the past few months? That's a good thing.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
People over forty who could identify at least one change in their viewpoints or behavior in recent months were 8 percent more likely to feel hopeful about the future and 5 percent more likely to say they were generally in a good mood. – Grossbaum and Bates 2002
Older people who continue to read and learn are much more satisfied with their lives.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
People over the age of fifty who said they continued to learn about topics that interested them were 18 percent more likely to feel satisfied with their lives and 43 percent more likely to feel vital. – Helterbran 1999
Keeping an open mind pays huge dividends as the years go by.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of Happy Families:
Studies focusing on the ability of people to maintain happiness as they age reveal that an openness to change in both family life and work life is associated with a 23 percent greater likelihood of maintaining high levels of life satisfaction. – Crosnoe and Elder 2002
But don't change everything — maintaining strong core values is important.
Via 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life:
A willingness to compromise on trivial matters was associated with 62 percent more positive social relations, but a willingness to compromise on matters of values and personal vision was associated with 34 percent less life satisfaction. – Bargdill 1998
(More on how to make sure you never stop growing and learning here.)
Sum Up
Keep in mind the 5 ways to increase life satisfaction:
- Friends
- Have Goals
- Have A Life Story
- Money Isn't The Answer
- Keep Growing
I really think that fifth one is key. If you can't learn, you can't improve.
As the Stoic philosopher Seneca once said:
As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
Join 45K+ readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.
Related posts:
Here are the things proven to make you happier
What 10 things should you do every day to improve your life?
4 Lifehacks From Ancient Philosophers That Will Make You Happier
This piece originally appeared on Barking Up the Wrong Tree.
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V-Neck sports bra - Dolphin grey
Recycled materials.
A sports bra is your best workout buddy. Here is why.
Women's breast health is one of the most important issues.👩🏾🤝👩🏽 No matter which size you have and how intensive your workout is, you should always wear the right sports bra that gives you the needed support.
As the breast has no muscles and is not connected to any muscles in the body, the breast moves independently of the rest of a woman's body. It can bounce from 4 to 14cm depending on your size. Continuous and repetitive movements can result in soreness and pain. A proper sports bra gives you the right support, prevents breast pain and limits movement when exercising.
Moreover, without proper support, the skin and Cooper's ligaments can break down and cause sagging. Once your Cooper's ligaments stretch out, they do not bounce back.
And last, but not least, the right sports bra increases your performance, makes your workout pleasant and makes you feel confident.
Isn't it a time to treat yourself with a beautiful sports bra?
High support sports bra with a curved V neckline & slim straps, which you can easily adjust. Combine it with ankle-biter leggings or biker shorts. Add a sustainable scrunchie to finish the look.
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BUST. Measure the fullest area of your bustline.
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When will I receive my order?
From 25/9 all the orders are shipped as usual. Apologies for the previous delay!
Free worldwide shipping on all orders above 85 EUR. For orders below this amount, prices will be calculated at the checkout. From the moment we have received your order it takes us 1-2 business days to process it. After your order has been processed and passed to the shipping company, the delivery time within The Netherlands is 1 business day if you choose for standard carbon neutral delivery. With Homerr it will take a little longer (5 to 7 working days). At the same time, this saves us up to 79% CO2 and a lot of vans on the road. It takes about 2-7 business days to deliver to other countries within the EU. For the rest of the world, it can take up to 10 days to deliver the parcel.
We offer standard shipping and ask you to wait just a few days to receive your order. We want to avoid "Express shipping", which is especially damaging. Because some of the stores are offering extremely fast shipping services, carbon emissions and other less known gases, like nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide rapidly increase, causing irreparable damage to our Earth.
We provide only climate-neutral shipping solutions and choose the most efficient and sustainable partners, which offer different ways to reduce carbon footprint, using tailor-made customer supply chain analytics, identifying potential to make supply chains more carbon-efficient and replacing Heavy Fuel Oil with biofuels.
BREXIT UPDATE* (30.01.2021) Unfortunately, due to the last measurements, related to Brexit we put on hold shipments to the UK. When the situation is solved we will do our best to resume the delivery to the UK.
How can I track my order?
While your order is being dispatched, we send you a confirmation email with shipping details, which includes a tracking link. By clicking this link, you will be able to see the journey of your parcel to you. If you experience any trouble entering the link, please send us an email to email@example.com or fill the contact form and we will solve the issue for you.
What if I provided you with the wrong shipping details?
Please check, check, double-check the address you provide. Make sure your data is correct. In case your address is incorrect, please email firstname.lastname@example.com or use a contact form as soon as possible, so we can correct your information. If the parcel was passed to a shipping company, we are no longer in control and you will need to contact them directly. No worries, our customer support will assist you if you have any difficulties contacting the shipping company.
Can I change or cancel my order?
You have the right to cancel your order within 14 calendar days. If you need to change or cancel your order, please contact us directly. We do our best to process orders as quickly as possible for you. That means, once our warehouse has processed your order, we will not be able to make further changes. That's why, once your order has been confirmed by our shop, it cannot be cancelled without payment occurring. You are welcome to email us a cancellation request, so we can assist you and start the cancellation process.
My parcel is being delayed. What can I do?
The moment we dispatch the parcel, the shipping company takes control and responsibility to deliver your order to you in time. Please, contact a delivery company, using your order tracking number and they will be glad to assist you and provide you with the latest information about your parcel. Still have a question? Get in touch with us and we will take a look at it together.
My parcel is lost, what can I do?
We are very sorry to hear you have to experience this issue. Don't worry, there is always a solution. Please, get in touch with the delivery partner and provide them with your tracking number. They will take a look for you and let you know what could have happened and how they can help you to solve the issue. Moreover, you can always contact us for extra assistance.
What are the taxes, duties, that I have to pay?
Orders within the EU are not a subject of customs/ taxes duties. For other international orders, please, check your local regulations if there are extra fees.
I got a promo code, how can I use it?
How cool, that you got a discount to use at our store. Just enter your code at the checkout in the related box "Discount code" and your discount will be automatically reduced from the total price of your order. Experience any issue? Just contact us and we will assist you with adding your code to your purchase.


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I'm still enjoying the heck out of Last Resort, the show about a submarine docked on a small island after a nuclear holocaust. And it's becoming even clearer that this show at least aims to address the same core question as George R.R. Martin goes into in his Song of Ice and Fire books and TV series. Where does authority come from? What makes you obey the orders of kings and generals?
Spoilers ahead...
The chain of command is a sturdy thing — as long as every link remains intact. Break even one link in the chain, though, and the integrity of the whole thing comes into question. So when Marcus Chaplain disobeys a direct order from Washington, and effectively goes AWOL, do his men still have to obey him? Where does Marcus' authority come from, if not the government he serves?
That's not a question that this show can answer in one episode — and I'm guessing we're going to keep seeing variations of it, week after week. This time around, Marcus is still dealing with the fallout from the T-1000 turning against him last week. He's locked the T-1000 in a cell, but the men guarding the T-1000 aren't entirely loyal, and when Sam and Grace go off to fight an incursion of Special Forces (who turn out to be Russians, not Americans), those two men tag along and scheme to shoot Grace in the confusion.
Marcus has to reassert his authority twice in this episode — once when his troops have returned with two Russian prisoners, and want to execute them. He makes it simple, as you can see in the clip above: they're still American sailors, and they still follow the rules. They salute the person above them and get saluted by the person below them, and when the captain says jump, they ask how high. And then the T-1000 makes a bid to undermine Marcus again, revealing that Marcus' son died by friendly fire in Afghanistan just two weeks ago and maybe Marcus is just looking for payback against the United States. To that, Marcus only responds: "You know me." As if knowing what sort of man Marcus is will give him legitimacy as a commander.
Elsewhere, the T-1000 says that the uniforms these men are wearing are just "borrowed glory," and they're basically just doing naval officer cosplay. As if in response, Chaplin and his officers raise an American flag to show that they're still part of the U.S. military, even if they're at odds with their leaders right now.
And meanwhile, Grace is dealing with multiple challenges to her authority as a lieutenant — people already thought she only attained that rank because her father's an admiral, and some of her men already didn't respect her because she's a woman. But now, she's also shot one of her own men as he was attempting to mutiny against the XO. (Although Nutella Girl helpfully points out that everybody would be dead if Grace hadn't done that.)
It gets bad enough that Grace asks Sam to relieve her, and he refuses to do that — saying that they're all basically on the edge of falling apart, and it's up to her to show that she's still in charge. She needs to figure out how to do that immediately, so the men under her will keep following her. Luckily, she gets caught in a huge clusterfuck when Sam decides to try and parlay with some Russian attackers by saying "We're all Americans," and nearly gets everybody killed. Grace winds up winning a bit more respect by fighting the Russians hand to hand, but she's still facing an uphill battle.
Of course you could always receive authority direct from the source (however dubious), as James King does when the barmaid (Dichen Lachman) anoints him with a face swoosh and tells him that in her island traditions, that means it's his responsibility to heal all of the divisions and make peace between brothers, or something. Fortified by his magic Nike symbol, James goes off and kills a bunch of Russians, thus proving, as he puts it, that "I've run out of people to kill."
Meanwhile, back in D.C., the feds try to break Sam's wife Christine (Karen from Falling Skies!) but it doesn't work out that well at first — she tells Sam not to trust the feds, or believe anything she says from here on out. So they show Christine a video of Sam talking about being a POW in North Korea, an incident he never told his wife about. They leave out the part of the video where explains that he won't tell his wife about this because he doesn't want to lose her — and hope that the result will tarnish him a little in her eyes. Then they assign an old "friend" of Sam's to discredit her husband further in her eyes, because destroying her faith and love are the only way to be able to use her as a weapon.
Also, the U.S.S. Colorado uses its next-gen cloaking device when U.S. warships invade the perimeter around the island. And it works great, to the point where the Indiana doesn't even see the Colorado when they're right next to each other. Afterwards, though, the creator of that cloaking device realizes the feds are probably going to steal it from her, unless she proves what's been going on. So she blackmails her nebbishy DoD mole into giving her the info on the secret order that saw the Indiana shooting down the Colorado, an act which was blamed on the Pakistanis. Too bad it costs her source his life.
So far, this show is still feeling pretty fun and interesting — it's definitely at its best whenever Andre Braugher is on screen being badass and making people respect his authority. They could rename this show The Andre Braugher Swagger Hour and I would watch every episode five times. But also — apart from the central question of "What are the ramifications of nuking Pakistan, people?" — the biggest and most interesting question on this show is, "Why do people keep following a commanding officer who's disobeyed orders from his higher ups?" And as long as the show finds new ways to keep asking and answering that question, I'll keep watching.


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A long-time Maple Ridge family is grieving the loss of their son and grandson Jordan McIldoon, 23, killed in the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Sunday.
A total of 59 people were killed and more than 500 injured when a gunman with automatic weapons set up in the 32nd-storey window of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and shot at the crowd attending the Route 91 Music Festival.
His parents, Alan and Angela McIldoon, are expected to return to Maple Ridge today with the body of their son. Friends and family are grieving the loss of someone who always helped out.
I stood in the House to acknowledge those impacted by the senseless tragedy that happened in Las Vegas on Sunday evening. My heart goes out to all those affected. pic.twitter.com/OJv4nO0zgE
— Dan Ruimy (@DanRuimyMP) October 4, 2017
Jordan was to turn 24 on Friday and was just a few weeks away from completing his apprenticeship as a heavy duty mechanic.
His grandmother, Ann Norman, said Jordan was a young man who was doing well and loved his family and girlfriend.
"And he loved Amber. And he just loved us all."
Jordan's keys and truck are still at the house, said Norman.
"I'm just expecting him to come up the driveway."
She added it was unbelievable that the gunman had so many firearms, "and took all those young people's lives and destroyed families all over."
Alan and Angela McIldoon put out a statement Tuesday, thanking people for their support.
They said Jordan was at his happiest while at the family's cabin at Missezula Lake.
"There he spent countless hours riding dirt bikes, wakeboarding, snowmobiling and hanging with his friends from the community who were like his family.
"Our son, Jordan, was a compassionate young man who lived a life full of adventures," they said.
"From a young age, he was fearless. From finding him perched on the roof of the barn at age two or having him leap into the deep end of the lake before he could swim, he was always on the go. He grew up on our acreage in Maple Ridge and so a love of the outdoors was born within him."
Jordan's parents were also grateful to everyone who helped.
"From the people who stayed with Jordan that night and held his hand, to the first responders who had to rush in to an unimaginable scene, we would like to thank everyone for their incredible love and support.
"Jordan did his best to make sure Amber was safe and we know he would have helped others had he not been injured himself. His was a life well lived. He was our only child and no words can describe our pain in losing him," they said.
Dana Nugent has been a neighbour of the family for years.
"Jordan was an incredible guy. He would give you the shirt off his back," she said.
On one occasion, Nugent showed up at her house with her pickup truck full of furniture and Jordan just marched over and started unloading it. When her truck was making a funny noise, Jordan quickly checked it out.
"They're the best neighbours you could ever dream of, the whole family."
Jordan's dad Al just mowed her lawn without being asked. Following a storm, they both showed up to clean Nugent's yard.
Mayor Nicole Read called the violence "unbelievable" and said Maple Ridge hadn't even responded to the truck attack in Edmonton Saturday, which injured five, when the mass shooting in Las Vegas occurred.
She extended her sympathies to Jordan's parents.
"To lose a child over this kind of senseless rage and violence … it's just unbelievable. Maple Ridge, though, is good at wrapping love around people after such tragedies, she added.


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I suggested that online versions of newspaper and magazine articles include footnotes.
I conceded that footnotes in the paper version of publications would be distracting and costly, but the major impediment to including them in online editions would probably simply be resistance by the writers themselves. Footnotes are a hassle for writers -- but they do have a way if helping to keep writers honest.
Blogger and Washington Examiner editorial page editor Mark Tapscott had a few thoughts in response:
1) Mark says: "...reporting assertions of the "most right-thinking people are liberals on this issue" sort would likely continue unless the regimen included all assertions subject to verification."Consider this: If even one paper, one news organization, started footnoting, the public would start wondering why the others aren't doing it.
I agree and for that reason believe they should.
Consider editorialist Margaret Carlson's Tuesday Bloomberg column regarding Rush Limbaugh and Michael J. Fox. I believe it could have been a much stronger piece -- to the benefit of the reader, Carlson, and the ideologies Carlson expouses -- had a footnote requirement imposed upon her the discipline of checking the reliability of her assertions.
Like many writers, Carlson (apparently) uses her memory as a source. Her memory is not as good as she supposes:Carlson says: "There was a time when politics wasn't a blood sport. At the end of the day, Tip O'Neill shared a whiskey with Ronald Reagan..." Bonhomme for the cameras aside, Reagan and O'Neill were not in the habit of unwinding together at the end of their workdays, with a whiskey or without. (For that matter, which experts don't believe politics in the Iran-Contra era was as much a blood sport as it is today?)If the editorial policy of Bloomberg News included footnotes, Carlson would have had to track down citations for each of these and other assertions in her op-ed. Presumably, her effort to do so would have resulted in a self-correction process as invisible to the reader as it would be valuable to everybody.
Carlson says: "After Limbaugh suggested that Fox enjoyed being a victim..." Having heard much of Limbaugh's show the past week and a half, I believe Limbaugh said no such thing, but if Carlson heard something I missed, it is reasonable for her to provide a precise quotation (the broadcast is archived on RushLimbaugh.com) or, at least, tell us where she learned this (Daily Kos?) so readers can evaluate her source's reliability.
Carlson says: "...the Republican Party sped up production of an ad that began airing on Tuesday. It features actress Patricia Heaton and James Caviezel... as well as several sports figures." It didn't. The group "Missourians Against Human Cloning," not the GOP, created and ran the ad.
Carlson says: "Imagine if Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine, were deprived of federal funds because a minority of Americans said scientific research was against their religious beliefs. There would still be kids in iron lungs today." The Virus Research Laboratory in Pittsburgh where Jonas Salk worked was supported by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (known today as the March of Dimes) and a lady named Sarah Scaife. As the Washington Post put it, "Sarah Scaife's... most famous gifts, in the late 1940s, were to the University of Pittsburgh -- $35,000 to equip a virus research lab. In that lab, Jonas Salk discovered his polio vaccine."
There's also the little matter of a scientist named Albert Sabin and his live-virus oral polio vaccine.
Carlson says: "One ad ran in Missouri, where Republican Senator Jim Talent is locked in an unexpectedly close race with challenger Claire McCaskill..." Unexpectedly close? The St. Louis Post-Dispatch on January 22, 2006, said: "With the election 10 months away, state Auditor Claire McCaskill is in a statistical dead heat with the man she hopes to replace in the U.S. Senate, incumbent Jim Talent." Associated Press, January 22, 2006: "The St. Louis Post-Dispatch/KMOV-TV poll released Saturday found no clear leader in the race for the U.S. Senate between State Auditor Claire McCaskill and incumbent Sen. Jim Talent." Kansas City Star, April 18, 2006: "Early polls show the race should be close." Roll Call, June 14, 2006: [Jim Talent] and Missouri Auditor Claire McCaskill (D) are duking it out in possibly the most evenly matched Senate race this cycle..." Associated Press, July 9, 2006: "...Missouri Republican Jim Talent, who appears to be locked in a tight race with Democratic state auditor Claire McCaskill..." Roll Call, July 27, 2006: "Polls have shown McCaskill and Talent running neck and neck." AP, August 8, 2006: "...polls show a tight race."
Yes, providing footnotes would have been a hassle for Carlson, but in weighing accuracy against convenience, I have to give the edge to accuracy.
But this isn't about Margaret Carlson. It's about sloppy writers and editors everywhere. And I do mean everywhere.
2) Mark also points out: "Footnoting would also present a problem when sources insist on anonymity. Yes, there has been vastly too much anonymous sourcing in the MSM for decades, but the fact is there are some stories that cannot be done without such sources. Possible alternative - Instead of an identifying footnote, the reporter could describe the grounds for granting the source anonymity, as a means of reassuring readers of the veracity of the information provided."
If bona fide reasons existed and were described, and all other assertions of fact in an article were footnoted, it would be a huge improvement over the present situation. When it comes to "the reporter could describe the grounds for granting the source anonymity," however, I'd hold out for a lot more specificity than what we get now (for example, reporters write "a source who requested anonymity due to the sensistive nature of the inquiry." What the heck does that even mean? How about something like: "Because he is the lawyer for a person potentially under investigation and any comments he makes could be attributed to the client by law enforcement." Or: "Because he is not supposed to talk to the press but enjoys the feeling of self-importance he gets from seeing his words in the newspaper.")
3) Mark says: "But while I'm not holding my breath, it would be a worthwhile exercise for bloggers to begin campaigning for MSM footnoting - and practicing it themselves as well." I take it, then, that, on balance, Mark agrees with my idea. I agree that most media outlets will be reluctant to do this. Partly its the production hassle; mostly, I think, it will be the response of journalists who would be personally offended that they should be held to the same standard as academics and scientists and other mortals.
Nonetheless, it is always possible that a newspaper owner or two might be open to the idea. With newspaper circulation down 2.8 percent from last year, some members of management may be willing to consider product improvements.
As to bloggers, would I be wrong in thinking that the standard blogger practice of providing a link in support of nearly all significant factual assertions in blog posts serves as a de facto footnoting process?
What publication will go first?
Back to you, Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor of the Washington Examiner.