California Attack Has US Rethinking Strategy On Homegrown Terror (nytimes.com)
JoeyRox writes: The recent terror attack in California reflects "an evolution of the terrorist threat that Mr. Obama and federal officials have long dreaded: homegrown, self-radicalized individuals operating undetected before striking one of many soft targets that can never be fully protected in a country as sprawling as the United States." With this new type of terror risk, authorities may begin relying more heavily on citizens reporting suspicious behavior of others. The attack is also expected to renew the debate over privacy versus security for software encryption. President Obama will be addressing the nation tonight to discuss the attack.
She was in college there. He went there to get her, not for vacation. I'm convinced that Saudi Arabia is the epicenter of problem creation in the middle east.
In this very relevant prank, some jokers put a Koran cover on a bible, then read out various passages and asked random passers-by to comment on them.
As I'm sure you can imagine, hilarity ensues
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Marksmanship and firearm safety should be a part of the curriculum at all K-12 schools.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
The military is a broadsword, not a scalpel.
Military-scale violence cannot be done in half-measures -- one should only draw one's sword if he's going to use it, and then one is committed, forget all bullshit so-called "rules" -- fight to win and utterly crush and humiliate the enemy. In this sense, laws of war are counterproductive; it lowers the threshold of organised violence way too far, and we end up with a long list of pointless scuffles and police actions, and with a lot of the backwards parts of the world just hating us.
(Laws of war were invented by fucking-idiot country gentlemen in 1945, when we had just come out of a no-holds-barred mechanized, industrialized war, and it was disciplined Western armies fighting disciplined Western armies. The fact is, many of the people we fight, fight like animals, and they do not fight Marquis of Queensbury Rules...) These men were not men of vision -- they were fools who just like Versailles, sowed the seeds of future conflict.
If I were president of the world, we would have not gone into Iraq or even Afghanistan, but I certainly would have had IS cut to pieces, if they existed. Thanks to 9/11, we have the perverse situation where the Americans invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, riled up the Muslim world; yet we now can't act decisively against the biggest bunch of fascists since the Nazis.
*facepalm*
I think we have something to learn from the Russians in this sense. They understand these aspects of using organised violence way better than the West does. I would be comparing notes with them -- they have good experience of losing, then winning spectacularly against Islamist opponents.
If you're going to have blood on your hands -- it'd better be for a damned good reason. I wish our so-called leaders would think way harder before resorting to force. There IS a time and place for force (human nature being the way it is), but it's getting used way too often.
The Islamic practice of slavery has been whitewashed out of history, not just the white slave trade.
Thanks to letting the left run our schools for decades, now we have at least one generation of people that think that white Christians from Europe were running around Africa with nets capturing peaceful blacks to ship to the new world.
The generation before them is aware that most of the capturing and selling was done by other blacks, but they think it was entrepreneurship, rather than something the Muslims organized and industrialized as they spread across Africa.
Virtually no one under 50 years of age knows that the crusades were a response to 400 years of Muslim war, piracy, slavery and harassment of Christendom and Christian pilgrims in the holy lands. Hell, most of the people reading this are going to need to google "Christendom".
See that "Preview" button?
LA times
Claims the woman was in contact with two foreign terrorist groups. Of course they immediately then say there was no outside influence (because politically that would be damaging to Obama). But yes, they were contacting outside, should have been picked by by NSA legally for contacting foreign known terrorists, should have been under watch, etc. etc. etc.
The NSA spying doesn't work, even when people contact known terrorists they are not looked at. If you are a journalist that is critical of the administration, say like John Rosen, you will be spyed on, your parents will be spyed on, your friends will be spyed on. It has become apparent that Obama does not consider foreign terrorists with weapons and intent to kill US citizens a threat or a problem worth dealing with. His real threat are US citizens that disagree with his policies, own guns, or who might vote for someone like Trump.
They claimed allegiance to ISIL, so what are you on about?
Today I learned that a crackpot can claim anything and someone will take them at their word.
I trust my neighbors to not go on a shooting rampage. Or run me down with their SUV either.
And I live in a place where it's pretty much guaranteed that everyone within a mile owns gun(s).
Now, do I trust YOUR neighbor? Well, no so much as I do my own, but prolly more than you might expect.
Seriously, I'm not sure I've ever been anywhere that people were quite that paranoid. Though you wouldn't know that from the news, would you?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"