Random News Stories

[Jenne]

Not sure if anyone's posted this yet:

http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/live/articles/us-troops-get-youtube-ban.asp/3756/

US troops get YouTube banUS Pentagon officials have revealed they are set to ban overseas soldiers from accessing social networking sites and video sites.

The Department of Defence (DoD) has revealed that 13 sites, including YouTube, MySpace and Photobucket, slow down the military computer network.

It is also thought that the DoD has moved to protect information, after the recent announcement that the US military will censor the content of soldiers' electronic communication.

US Korea Forces general B.B Bell said in an army memo: "This recreational traffic impacts our official DoD network and bandwidth ability, while posing a significant operational security challenge."

Service men will be able to visit the sites on their own personal computers, but access in areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan is limited mainly to Defence Department machines.

[Cain]

I'm not sure why that is a big story.  Our government has banned YouTube from its offices and buildings, down to local libraries, because its a bandwidth intensive site and someone (*cough*UK Army troops in Basra*cough*) managed to crash the entire MoD computer system with just one joke video.

[LMNO]

Yeah, the sites they've blocked are basically bandwidth killers. 

I mean, they could have done a China-esque lockdown, but they basically said, "dudes, stop posting videos of you shooting camel spiders."

[DJRubberducky]

Yeah, this vaguely affects my cousin Danny, since he keeps a blog and it's probably on MySpace rather than something like LiveJournal.

But srsly, even if he wants to keep updating, all he needs to do is give someone else the keys and email entries.  Email sites aren't blocked.

[Cramulus]

Yeah, the sites they've blocked are basically bandwidth killers. 

I mean, they could have done a China-esque lockdown, but they basically said, "dudes, stop posting videos of you shooting camel spiders."

holy shit camel spiders scare the hell out of me.

I've got a buddy who was in iraq for a while. He said that there's a lot of camel spider talk to soldiers who just came over. The people who've been there a while have all sorts of stories about how they can survive getting shot, how they can jump 4 feet in the air, how they can run as fast as a tank, etc etc

Most of it is just trying to scare the newbie, but it's created significant panic. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_spider

My buddy did actually shoot one though. Said doing so really helped him sleep that night.

[Suu]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070519/ap_on_fe_st/odd_phone_number_fight

Florida isn't the only FUCKED up place for news stories.

And if you think the phone number gag is funnay, you should hear their commercials. 

"Call Gem, we smell great!"

[Thurnez Isa]

http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2007/05/canadaas_dirty.php


"CANADA’S DIRTY HANDS


Eric S. Margolis - 4 May 2007


Canada is one of the world’s most respected, law-abiding nations. Yet recent shocking revelations show it has become a party to the torture of prisoners in Afghanistan and a violator of the Geneva Conventions?

The story begins in 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Soviet KGB created a mirror -image secret police for its Afghan puppet government, KhAD. Having been pursued by KhAD agents, I can speak with personal knowledge of this subject.

KhAD sought to eradicate all opposition to the Communists. It also ran the education system and religious establishment. KhAD quickly became notorious, even in a famously brutal society, for its cruelties.

All political prisoners – that is, anyone who opposed the Communists – were subjected to systematic tortures. These ranged from garden variety beatings, pulling of finger nails, near-drowning and electric shocks to more refined cruelties. Prisoners were flayed alive, thrown into vats of sulphuric acid, blinded, buried alive, burned with gasoline, or slowly frozen in refrigerated rooms.

Psychological tortures - sleep deprivation, long isolation in darkness, sound assault, mock executions and psychotropic drugs were also used by KhAD under KGB supervision. The same tortures, known as `enhanced interrogation,’ are routinely used today by the CIA.

The Communists killed 2 million Afghans. Canada turned its back and refused to aid the mujahidin battling Soviet occupation. After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the newborn Taliban movement drove the remaining Afghan Communists – rebranded the Northern Alliance – into the far northeast.

In 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan, allied itself to the Northern Alliance, and overthrew Taliban. A figurehead, Hamid Karzai, was put in power. Real power, however, was held by the Communist-dominated Northern Alliance.

Once the Northern Alliance took Kabul, the KhAD, rechristened NDS, was quickly reestablished. The old Communist torturers and war criminals went back into business.

Today, an estimated 60% of NDS personnel are former KhAD agents. US and Canadian forces fighting to pacify southern Afghanistan have been routinely handing captives and suspects over to the NDS secret police– in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Canada’s conservative government, reeling from public outrage, feebly claimed to have assurances from the Afghan Communist secret police - which had murdered or maimed tens of thousands of victims - to treat prisoners humanely.

How did Canada get into this mess? Conservative politicians in Ottawa saw a chance to win new voters by whipping up false patriotism in a jolly little war against `evil’ Muslims that was supposed to be….a slam dunk. They sought to curry favor with their ideological mentor, the Bush Administration.

No one in Ottawa had any knowledge whatsoever about Afghanistan, its tribal politics, or history. Even so, they dispatched 2,500 combat troops and $1 billion in aid to Afghanistan.

Senior Canadian officers and politicians who claim not to have known they were handing over prisoners to the Afghan secret police for torture are either stunningly ignorant or lying. I guess they never read Rudyard Kipling’s famous admonition to British soldiers fallen wounded in Afghanistan, `save your last bullet for yourself.’

This writer, who has covered many guerilla wars in Asia, Africa and Central America repeatedly warned in recent years that the longer Canadian troops stayed in Afghanistan, the more they would become brutalized and involved in war crimes. Such is the nature of all guerilla wars.

Canadians who still believe the fairy tale their forces in Afghanistan are `nation building’ or doing social work should reflect on the grim fate of prisoners their soldiers handed over to the mercies of the Afghan secret police.

Ottawa’s deal this week with Kabul for inspection of NDS prisoners is a sham. The KhAD had the same empty `agreement’ with human rights groups in the 1980’s.

It’s bad enough Canadian and other NATO troops are defending Afghanistan’s warlords who run its booming heroin industry. Now Canada is hand in glove with the Communist Party’s veteran torturers. "

[Cain]

No shit.  You keep your troops in those sort of conditions long enough and they turn into throat-slitting, nasty business types themselves.

[Fredfredly ⊂(◉‿◉)つ]

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH DONT POST PICS OF SPIDERS

[P3nT4gR4m]

Only pics of Ziggy ITT!
                      \\

[Triple Zero]

Hundreds Click on 'Click Here to Get Infected' Ad

[Thurnez Isa]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/international_palestinians_israel_dc

srael pounds Gaza, Palestinian attack kills 1

GAZA (Reuters) - At least five Palestinians and an Israeli woman were killed on Monday in fresh attacks by both sides and a senior Israeli cabinet minister said all Hamas leaders involved in cross-border rocket fire could be targeted.

The woman's death in the southern Israeli town of Sderot marked the first fatality in a Palestinian rocket attack since November and is likely to stoke further Israeli anger at what Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called an "intolerable" situation.

Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged in recent days, while Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction and the militant Hamas group have struggled to maintain calm between their own fighters following weeks of internal fighting.

Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and Hamas all claimed responsibility for the rocket attack. Hamas had avoided such strikes after most militant groups declared a truce months ago but had renewed them following Israeli violence.

Abbas said Israel's attacks would have "grave consequences for the entire region" and that militants should stop their rocket fire "so as not to give the Israelis the excuse they use to justify their attacks that have killed innocent victims," said the Palestinian president's spokesman, Nabil Amr.

Israel's security cabinet decided on Sunday to escalate military action in response to some 150 rockets fired from Gaza since last week, which have put political pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

"It is our obligation to harm the rocket launchers and our obligation is to continue to harm Hamas," Livni said during a news conference in Sderot with European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana.

Dozens of Israelis burned tires on a street in Sderot following the deadly rocket attack. The crowd scattered when a siren wailed that signals incoming rocket attacks.

Palestinians fear Israel may soon raid Gaza should the violence continue. Several vehicles and artillery batteries have been stationed near the northern border for days.

FEMALE WOULD-BE BOMBERS READY

In Gaza, Palestinian women dressed in black, donning masks with the words "al-Aqsa Brigades," which is part of Fatah, and clutching rifles told reporters they were ready to commit suicide bombings against any Israeli troops who entered Gaza.

An Israeli air strike killed at least four members of Islamic Jihad on their way to launch rockets at the Jewish state. Israeli National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Israel should target all militant leaders.

"I don't distinguish between those who carry out the (rocket) attacks and those who give the orders. I say we have to put them all in the crosshairs," he told Israel Radio.

Israel's internal security minister, Avi Dichter, said Hamas's leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal, whom Israel tried to assassinate in Jordan in 1997, and Haniyeh, who lives in Gaza, could be targeted.

Thousands of Hamas supporters had earlier taken to the streets of Gaza City and gunmen fired into the air, vowing revenge, one day after an Israeli air strike on the home of Hamas politician Khalil al-Hayya.

"We will keep to the same path until we win one of two goals: victory or martyrdom," Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, said at the funeral service.

One man was killed in an earlier Israeli air strike on what the Jewish state called a rocket manufacturing facility and Palestinians described as a stonemason's shop. The air strikes also cut electricity to about 50,000 people.

Abbas will go to Gaza on Tuesday to speak to leaders about maintaining law and order, following weeks of internal fighting, and perhaps renewing a truce with Israel, Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr said.

(Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Corinne Heller in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah)

[Thurnez Isa]

No shit.  You keep your troops in those sort of conditions long enough and they turn into throat-slitting, nasty business types themselves.

I really wish I could record and stream some of the early morning phone in shows for you...
there is this impression, and I would say the majority or close to, that our troops, not only can do no wrong, but they are the carriers of cvilization to the oppressed ignorant masses
I could only imagine that there are some places in the states that are probably worse

[Jenne]

Only "some" places in the states? 

[Cain]

No shit.  You keep your troops in those sort of conditions long enough and they turn into throat-slitting, nasty business types themselves.

I really wish I could record and stream some of the early morning phone in shows for you...
there is this impression, and I would say the majority or close to, that our troops, not only can do no wrong, but they are the carriers of cvilization to the oppressed ignorant masses
I could only imagine that there are some places in the states that are probably worse

Thats because everyone knows that since WWI the fighting gene has been removed from the Canadian population, via natural selection.