Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Those are some damn good ones. Let's see who does better. As for December 21st, @Boise_Lib - I predict that nothing will happen å la Y2K, but some people will still freak out and the media will fan the flames. There will be a big anti-climax let-down feeling when January 2013 rolls around. But there will be a large natural disaster in early 2013 that will be ascribed to the Mayans. By crazy people.>> ^longde:

1. The Koreans will start a kerfuffle that will define the 2012 elections like the Iranian Crisis defined the 1980 election.
2. The Chinese economy will contract, adding tension to the growing US/China trade war.
3. Putin will attempt to increase the autocratic controls in Russia, because next year's Russian elections will badly weaken his party.
4. To keep the Euro afloat, the EU countries will move closer to a federal system.
5. Mugabe will die. The western powers will attempt to install a figurehead and let foreigners confiscate the land.
6. There will be a major terrorist attack within the 3 months leading up to the US election. It will be instigated by domestic terrorists.
7. If the election starts to looks like a blowout weeks early, like last time, Obama or his family will be attacked on the campaign trail by domestic terrorists.
8. The Amazon tablet family will erode Apple's market share. Amazon will announce a smartphone.

1. The Koreans will start a kerfuffle that will define the 2012 elections like the Iranian Crisis defined the 1980 election.
2. The Chinese economy will contract, adding tension to the growing US/China trade war.
3. Putin will attempt to increase the autocratic controls in Russia, because next year's Russian elections will badly weaken his party.
4. To keep the Euro afloat, the EU countries will move closer to a federal system.
5. Mugabe will die. The western powers will attempt to install a figurehead and let foreigners confiscate the land.
6. There will be a major terrorist attack within the 3 months leading up to the US election. It will be instigated by domestic terrorists.
7. If the election starts to looks like a blowout weeks early, like last time, Obama or his family will be attacked on the campaign trail by domestic terrorists.
8. The Amazon tablet family will erode Apple's market share. Amazon will announce a smartphone.

>> ^grinter:

Taking control of the drone sounds pretty unlikely.. but I wonder if there is a kernel of truth to this. Maybe they just jammed it's guidance signal, autopilot kicked in, and when it ran out of fuel it glided to a, relatively, gentle landing?


I would take a wild guess that those things are designed to go kaboom if there is even the slightest hint of malfunction (malfunction meaning ANY undesired event). The interesting part was the fact that the CIA lead on that perhaps that exact sequence of events didn't quite occur correctly maybe.

Also yes, that is a fake airplane... The drones are MUCH bigger than that piece of crap, paper-mâché high school project. For example this is a bomber drone that is brand new, it's 65 to a possible 90 feet across (BTW, in the video you can see that they label it as the RQ-170, which is what I linked to)... Like I said it's a bomber, it needs to be pretty big. So unless the CIA has a stealth version that is 3/4 the size of the bomber, they are full of crap. I think what the CIA was worried about is maybe that the entirety of the drone wasn't destroyed leaving possible tidbits behind like it's stealth mesh and other composites to be reverse engineered--I think TDS had a bit on this a few days ago.

-Second Part
I did look around some more and there are some US officials taking this very seriously, so maybe they do in fact have their 45~ft drone. If you read at the bottom of the RQ-170 on Wikipedia (I linked it above), it has been updated with much more current information. So it may indeed be a small coup for the Iranian Military indirectly, as it seems to be a navigational flight error. Which asks the question: where the hell is it's self-destruction switch; are they really that stupid?

>> ^hpqp:

>> ^EMPIRE:
is it just me, or does that drone look fake as shit?

I felt that way too, but looks can sometimes be deceiving. I'm torn; I'd like to laugh at Iran trying to be all super-powery, but the day they drop a nuke on Israel and start WW3 I will not feel like laughing.


oh, the Iranian government is a threat alright. No doubt about it, but they are also terrible liars of a Comical Ali level.

Well, the Iranian authorities aren't exactly a reputable source of information. That said - and this is quite likely a red herring - there is the incident of the U.S. drone fleet getting infected with some form of malware a while back:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/virus-hits-drone-fleet/

Thanks for trying to at least provide some references Ghark. I'm curious how credible you honestly believe them to be though. All but 2 of them are to the same blog, the one is a very short piece by Ynet with nothing more to say than that SANA declares itself the victim and the other is a different blog reporting proof that America supports activists in authoritarian countries.

That last bit seems to be the most veracious of all the claims, but I wouldn't call it 'news'. America(sadly, like virtually all governments) not only supports repressed activists but has also actively supported what can only be called terrorists and has on multiple occasions participated in the overthrow of foreign rulers through covert and even overt assassinations. Don't mistake my claims here as being based on the naive notion that America or the CIA would never do anything like this, as they have and without a doubt will again. My claim is much different, and so is Tarpley's.

The important nuance I think your missing in my disagreement with Tarpley here is that his claim is NOT CIA support for a Syrian uprising. His claim is that there is, in fact, no legitimate Syrian uprising and that it is all a facade orchestrated by the CIA, Mossad, or whomever else he thinks is the puppet master. The truth of the matter is that the Syrian people are now living under their second generation of brutal dictatorship. The truth of the matter is that the Syrian people have seen the difference between the free world and their own, and those people have taken to the streets. Importantly to our discussion here, one of the ways they have seen the difference between freedom and repression has been through social media, like facebook, twitter and to at least some extent our dear videosift here as well.

The sources you referenced supporting Tarpley's notions on Syria all point back to either SANA, the Syrian state media, Al-Alam, the Iranian state media or XinhuaNet, China's state media. For brevity I won't point out the massive number of articles from the NYtimes, the CBC and BBC all reporting on the Syrian protesters being brutally repressed and murdered by Syrian forces. If you wish, I can fill out a page with supporting links, but I hope you might be able to recognize that at the very minimum these sources balance out with equal support. I would go further and posit that state funded media like CBC and BBC are vastly more independent from the state message than SANA and Al-Alam, but it isn't necessary to my argument.

If you accept my generous notion that the above can be called a draw, and we throw them out as having a bias one way or the other, what are we left with?

We are left with Al Jazeera reporting an entirely different story than Tarpley's:
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Syria

If you want more links from Al Jazeera they have a wealth of stories from all manner of separate and independent sources all backing their overall view that there is a legitimate internal Syrian uprising independently demanding the basic freedoms of a democracy, and the Syrian government met them with deadly repression, over and over and over again.

Is Al Jazeera a pro American tool of the CIA?

I'm going to cite what I consider to be very basic, fundamental facts but if you want references for them I can provide them if you don't trust a 5 second google verification of them.

The UN human rights committee voted 122 in favor of condemning Syria's crackdown, are they a pro American tool of the CIA?

The Arab League has threatened to revoke Syria's membership and asked that Syria allow their monitors into the country as a path to reconciliation, which Syria rejected.

Is the Arab League a pro America tool of the CIA?

can't stand this guy...so biased and willfully misleading. Iranian elite force is too smart to get caught but the United States is too stupid to orchestrate a fake plot.

Its unbelievable that the Iranians would pick some alleged pot-smoking whore monger as an agent but its believable that America would pick the same person to be their patsy because they were 100% certain his story would hold up to scrutiny?

I love how he gets interview information of the guys ex-roomie and ex-business partner from some third-party source and he just believes it 100%.

Hey Iranian roomate. "Did you believe your roomate was capable of this?

---"Well duh...he was a bad ass. Like James bond."

"oh, ok...let me tell the cia 'bout this. NO, no.....just wait there."

Linky link

^

What a joke. Erich holder should resign.

I always got ads prompting me to meet Iranian girls in my area... (I wouldnt mind tbh ) I guess Iran/Ireland its easy for some adbot to confuse the Ir's, or the internets know something about me I dont!

>> ^BoneRemake:

Replace my old rant with a question.
Has this group done something noticeable yet ? I mean a measurable change in something, another way to phrase it would be "have they done anything they said they would "
I am most ignorant on this group.


Small stuff like the arrest of Chris Forcand, world-wide protesting against Scientology(Project Chanology), created a website during the Iran protests along with Pirate Bay and other hackers to subvert censorship of news and happenings in Iran to Iranians, they helped Wikileaks set up mirrors around the world when everyone was trying to censor the leaks that were being released, they were instrumental in taking down the websites of the Tunisian, Egyptian, and Libyan governments during their respective protests, they destroyed HBGary's credibility(a company competing for a government contract to create false identities online in order to subvert political movements), they attempted to boycott Koch Industries products because of the Koch brothers' history of donating money to political groups that try and destroy the middle class, retaliated against Sony (completely disabling the Playstation Network for over a month) after they prosecuted a fellow named George Hotz for his work on developing open-source software on the Plastation 3, organized protests against BART officers who disabled cell phone service to attempt to disrupt protestors from assembling violently after a police shooting.

Here you can find some more information if you'd like to read about it. I've been following them for a while now and this seems to be relatively accurate.

@Stormsinger of course 99% of them are script kiddies, but that 1% has a terryfing knowledge of 0day exploits and computers and is extremely proficient in doing whatever the hell they want to do.

In my experience, these guys want one thing more than most:

1. Freedom of information

If anything gets in the way of that, they will do what they can to try and destroy it.

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Steven Colbert: Constitution Not Relevant to Iranian Threat. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

@swedishfriend

1. "Compared to their native Swedish peers, immigrant students, on average, have weaker education outcomes at all levels of education. Nearing the end of compulsory education, at age 15, there are very significant performance disadvantages for immigrant students." Source.



2a. Generally, in the modern era, the achievement gap between the descendants of immigrants and the host population correlates with the achievement gap between the immigrants' nation of origin and the host nation. For example, expect US achievement gaps to be with us for the long-term:
NYT: "Triumph Fades on Racial Gap in City Schools"

2b. US school test scores are virtually the best in the world once you break down test scores by region of ancestry. Asian Americans do better than Asians in Asia; Latino Americans do better than Latinos in Latin America; African Americans do better than Africans in Africa; European Americans do better than Europeans in Europe. The illusion that US scores aren't the best in the world is caused by the demographic composition of the US, not by US school policy.

2c. Indeed, as expected from the US's dominance of international test scores (once broken down by country of origin), descendants of Swedes living in Minnesota significantly outperform Swedes living in Sweden. (Search that post for "achievement gap" to read more about the achievement gap in Sweden between natives and descendants of immigants.)



3. Exceptions: US Muslims, such as Iranian-Americans, significantly outperform other US groups, including the majority group, because they were drawn from high performers in their country of origin, such as scientists.

>> ^marbles:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^marbles:
>> ^bcglorf:
Snide comments have their place, but in this context your just sympathizing with a deposed tyrannical dictator.

Says the cheerleader for Western colonialism and imperialism.

You say that like Gaddafi's fall is a bad thing...
Oh right, you believe that. In case you haven't noticed, the world is wising up and rejecting your kind en mass. Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have already thrown your ilk out, and with any luck the Syrian and Iranian people will manage similar gains in the future.

You say that like NATO actually gives a damn about helping the Libyan people. You're a fool if you think that's the case.
Oil and Gold. Notice how they never targeted any of the oil infrastructure with the bombings? No, they targeted residential areas and civilian infrastructure. Lol, and you think they're there to help the people. They're there to help themselves! Bomb and pillage.


What's wrong with you?

I said Gaddafi's defeat is good for the Libyan people. Do you agree with that or not? It's a simple question.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^marbles:
>> ^bcglorf:
Snide comments have their place, but in this context your just sympathizing with a deposed tyrannical dictator.

Says the cheerleader for Western colonialism and imperialism.

You say that like Gaddafi's fall is a bad thing...
Oh right, you believe that. In case you haven't noticed, the world is wising up and rejecting your kind en mass. Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have already thrown your ilk out, and with any luck the Syrian and Iranian people will manage similar gains in the future.


You say that like NATO actually gives a damn about helping the Libyan people. You're a fool if you think that's the case.

Oil and Gold. Notice how they never targeted any of the oil infrastructure with the bombings? No, they targeted residential areas and civilian infrastructure. Lol, and you think they're there to help the people. They're there to help themselves! Bomb and pillage.

>> ^marbles:

>> ^bcglorf:
Snide comments have their place, but in this context your just sympathizing with a deposed tyrannical dictator.

Says the cheerleader for Western colonialism and imperialism.


You say that like Gaddafi's fall is a bad thing...

Oh right, you believe that. In case you haven't noticed, the world is wising up and rejecting your kind en mass. Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have already thrown your ilk out, and with any luck the Syrian and Iranian people will manage similar gains in the future.