Monday, January 12, 2015
Barker's Newsbites: Monday, January 12, 2015
Still suffering with this damned cold...
STILL have a sore throat...
PISSING ME OFF...
As to yesterday's stand-along linked via FB... my buddy Phil and I "addressed" our disagreement privately. We're all good. I'm not gonna tell folks not to jump in if they see fit - particular others "targeted" by my scatter-shot - but let's confine it to fighting humor with humor, not fire with fire. (Cyber etiquette is however an interesting topic in and of itself!)
And speaking of "cyber"... join me in my headache... "treat" yourselves to today's first newsbite via the comments section of this post!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/12/us-cybersecurity-centcom-hack-idUSKBN0KL1UZ20150112
The Twitter and YouTube accounts for the U.S. military command that oversees operations in the Middle East were hacked on Monday by people claiming to be sympathetic toward the Islamic State militant group being targeted in American bombing raids.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
* SO MUCH FOR OUR CRACKERJACK CYBER-DEFENSE WARRIORS!
U.S. officials acknowledged that the incident was embarrassing...
* "EMBARRASSING...?" THAT'S WHAT THEY CALL THIS...???
...but sought to downplay its importance.
* I'M... SURE... THEY... DID...
Pentagon spokesman Army Colonel Steve Warren said the Defense Department "views this as little more than a prank, or as vandalism."
* CASHEER THIS CLOWN. (AND HIS IMMEDIATE SUPERIORS.)
"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, the CyberCaliphate continues its CyberJihad," the Central Command Twitter feed said after being hacked.
* FUNNY... (NOT!)
In what proved to be a bit of bad timing, the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center chose earlier on Monday to join Twitter for the first time. It made a joke in its first tweet: "Up to 292 followers so far and not hacked yet."
* HALARIOUS...
(*HEADACHE*)
Central Command is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida and handles American military operations covering the Middle East and Central Asia. Central Command oversaw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is managing the U.S. air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/eric-holder-u-s-dignitaries-no-shows-paris-unity-rally-article-1.2073821
Eric Holder, the U.S. attorney general, in Paris for a terrorism summit with French President Francois Hollande, did not join world leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for the march and rally that drew a million people days after 12 were shot at satirical paper Charlie Hebdo.
Others such as Obama and Vice President Biden were also not in attendance.
More than 40 heads of state came together in Paris to denounce a wave of terrorism that defiled the City of Light last week — yet there was one glaring exception: The U.S. sent only a low-level official.
* YOU DISS THE FRENCH AND THE EUROPEANS WHEN THEY DESERVE IT... NOT WHEN THEY DESERVE OUR SUPPORT. FUCKING OBAMA...
Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas set aside their differences to march together on Boulevard Voltaire.
Obama and Biden had empty public schedules Sunday, but the White House declined to comment on why they didn’t go.
“It’s really shameful that Obama, or even Biden, didn’t go to France,” said Tim Green, 43, who attended a vigil at the Lincoln Square Synagogue on the Upper West Side on Sunday night. “It was a major terrorist attack. We know what that feels like. I hope the French know the American people stand with them, even if our President didn’t show it.”
Sunday’s rally brought out the biggest crowd in Paris’ history — even bigger than Liberation Day in World War II, local police said. Hundreds of thousands held up “Je Suis Charlie” signs or carried candles and flowers. The victims’ families wept as they walked along the boulevard named for the Enlightenment figure who helped define free speech.
One protester held a banner with Voltaire’s most famous line: “I do not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it.”
The official head count was more than 1.3 million — but French media estimated nearly 3 million. Nationally, nearly 4 million crammed into cities from Brittany to the Riviera.
“It will have a chilling effect that America did not show up (at the Paris rally),” said filmmaker Leo Herrera, 33, in front of the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn on Sunday. “This goes into the heart of what free speech is, so we should have a really visible reaction. I don’t think Obama sent any message, and that’s the problem.”
America’s only representative was its relatively unknown and low-profile ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, who raised more than $500,000 in campaign funds for President Obama [prior to her... er... appointment].
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/01/11/252671/us-airstrike-in-syria-may-have.html
A U.S.-led coalition airstrike killed at least 50 Syrian civilians late last month when it targeted a headquarters of Islamic State extremists in northern Syria, according to an eyewitness and a Syrian opposition human rights organization.
The civilians were being held in a makeshift jail in the town of Al Bab, close to the Turkish border, when the aircraft struck on the evening of Dec. 28, the witnesses said. The building, called the Al Saraya, a government center, was leveled in the airstrike. It was days before civil defense workers could dig out the victims’ bodies.
The U.S. Central Command, which had not previously announced the airstrike, confirmed the attack Saturday in response to repeated McClatchy inquiries. “Coalition aircraft did strike and destroy an ISIL headquarters building in Al Bab on Dec. 28,” Col. Patrick S. Ryder said in an email.
He said a review of the airstrike showed no evidence of civilian casualties but offered to examine any additional information, “since we take all allegations seriously.” ISIL is an alternative name for the Islamic State.
U.S. officials acknowledged for the first time last week that they are investigating “at least a few” claims of civilian casualties as a result of airstrikes on Syria.
A subsequent email from Central Command to reporters said the Pentagon had received nine reports of civilian deaths in Syria and that determinations were still to be made in four of those. No details of the incidents were provided.
But the Syrian Network for Human Rights, an independent opposition group that tracks casualties in Syria, said it has documented the deaths of at least 40 civilians in airstrikes in the months between the start of U.S. bombing in Syria Sept. 23 through the Dec. 28 strike on Al Bab. The deaths include 13 people killed in Idlib province on the first day of the strikes. Other deaths include 23 civilians killed in the eastern province of Deir el Zour, two in Raqqa province and two more in Idlib province.
The issue of civilian deaths in U.S. strikes is a critical one as the United States hopes to win support from average Syrians for its campaign against the Islamic State.
(The deaths are seen by U.S.-allied moderate rebel commanders as one reason support for their movement has eroded in northern Syria while support for radical forces such as al Qaida’s Nusra Front and the Islamic State has gained.)
McClatchy located two sources who confirmed a high civilian death toll from the strike. One witness, an activist in Al Bab, gave the death toll as 61 civilian prisoners and 13 Islamic State guards. The Syrian Network for Human Rights estimated the death toll at 80, and said 25 of those were Islamic State Guards and another 55 were either civilians or imprisoned fighters from non-Islamic State rebel groups. Either number would make the Al Bab strike the single worst case of civilian deaths since the U.S. began bombing targets in Syria.
Central Command spokesman Ryder said the failure to list the Dec. 28 airstrike was "an administrative oversight."
Post a Comment