BREAKING: Active Shooter At U.S. Navy Yard

From the Washington Post:

Park Police mobilized after reports of shooter at Navy Yard

U.S. Park Police confirmed that officers responded Thursday to reports of an active shooter at the Washington Navy Yard.

The call came in about 7:40 a.m.

The military installation was the site of a 2013 shooting in which a lone gunman shot and killed 12 workers and injured three others.

Few details were immediately available on the latest incident

Check the live feed at WTOP for updates.

Save Georgia

I am going to post this whole thing, because it summarizes quite nicely the situation in Georgia and the Pres Candidates. Specifically, how WRONG Obama is. Again it's his inability to give a straight right answer to begin with that is very worrisome. It's only after a few attempts, once he realizes what appears to be agreed upon, that he changes his mind. All the while McCain, like his view on the surge and domestic oil, already had the RIGHT answer. How much longer is Obama going to be given the free ride from not only the press, but from his own supporters? Stop lying to yourselves on account of skin color. Guilt = Destruction.

McCain, not Obama, was right about Georgia

STEVE HUNTLEY shuntley.cst@gmail.com

Mention Georgia a few days ago, and most of us would have thought of the state evoked so sweetly in "Georgia on My Mind," the classic tune sung by Ray Charles. Very few of us had heard of the South Ossetia province of Georgia, the nation with the misfortune to have Russia as its neighbor, until war broke out last week.

Like Kosovo, Bosnia, Kuwait and other unfamiliar places before, Ossetia reminds us that a small, remote corner of the globe can explode into an international crisis. One who was up to speed on Georgia and the menace it faced from Russia was veteran Sen. John McCain. He had visited the Caucasian nation three times in a dozen years. When fighting erupted, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate got on the phone to gather details and issued a statement Friday summarizing the situation, tagging Russia as the aggressor and demanding it withdraw its forces from the sovereign territory of Georgia.

It took first-term Sen. Barack Obama three tries to get it right. Headed for a vacation in Hawaii, the presumed Democratic candidate for commander in chief issued an even-handed statement, urging restraint by both sides. Later Friday, he again called for mutual restraint but blamed Russia for the fighting. The next day his language finally caught up with toughness of McCain's.

THE REST AT GENYCON.BLOGSPOT

March 11th bombings

Today the sentence to all the 28 accused of the bombings has been read.

The first thing I have to say is that I am perplexed, really surprised by the result. And that's why I'm surprised Zapatero is so happy about the sentence (or so he has said).

Three persons were considered as "masterminds" of the attacks: Mohammed the Egiptian (acquitted entirely), Youssef Belhadj (12 years for belonging to terrorist gang) and Hassan el Haski (15 years for being leader of a terrorist gang). None of them is considered to have taken part in the bombings.

Then Spanish schizophrenic and minor criminal Trashorras is considered as someone whose cooperation was needed for the bombings and is condemned to nearly 40.000 years in prison. Strickinly, he is, then, considered as an author of the bombings, according to Spanish penal code.

Only Jamal Zougam and Otman el Gnaoui are considered as "Jihadi" authors of the massacre and are condemned to the same amount of years as Trashorras.

Another stricking thing: Trashorras cousin's Toro, who was accused of being a police collaborator, has been acquitted, when it was nearly considered as the "clever" of the family and with direct implication in the traffic of explosives.

ETA, the Iraqi war and Bin Laden are not related with the bombings. But the sentence says:

Among the proved facts, the resolution underlines that these groups, "using the violence in any of its sides, pretend to destroy democratic regimes and eliminate the Christian-Western culture to substitute them with an Islamic State under the empire of the Islamic Law in its more radical, extreme and minoritary interpretation".

Well, the theory can be more or less well summarised. But how can we consider this as a Jihadi attack (according only to the sentence), when one out of three authors is non-Muslim, schizofrenic and haschich consumer with no relation with Jihadi networks and the three more important guys are acquitted of the massacre?

The rest of the people condemned are not authors nor collaborators of the massacre. They are condemned of belonging to terrorist Jihadi networks with no connection with the bombings, and of other minor crimes (falsification of public documents or having explosives).

It's curious to underline that, while Socialist Zapatero and Communist Llamazares have praised the sentence, the victims are all not very happy with it. The Spanish "Cindy Sheehan", Pilar Manjón, who has blamed directly Aznar and Bush of the bombings and has said the victims were killed because they were "workers" and not rich people "who go on their cars to work", has said she is appealing the sentence. Others have considered it to be very soft with the criminals.

But there are some problems: there is no data as to what the explosive was (there were no proofs...). Nothing about who was the leader. Nor even about who inspired the bombings. And only three people of all who were initially charged with the bombings did everything.

I don't think this sentence has solutioned anything. For me it has complicated it even more.

(Just in case: Schizophrenia, from the Greek roots schizein (σχίζειν, "to split") and phrēn, phren- (φρήν, φρεν-, "mind"), is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental illness characterized by impairments in the perception or expression of reality, most commonly manifesting as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions or disorganized speech and thinking in the context of significant social or occupational dysfunction. Do you really believe a man like that can be an author of a planned massacre like this? I do not).

China hacking foreign Governments' computers (+)

I know that China is not the first and main objective of this blog, but nevertheless these news are fairly important to let them pass away.

Some weeks ago, German Government informed that the computers of several of their Ministries had been hacked by Chinese Army.

Two days ago, US Pentagon informed that their systems had also being hacked from China.

China denies hacking Pentagon’s computers but there are several worrying things. I copy some paragraphs of the link, you can read it entirely:

“Some people make groundless accusations against China” that its military attacked the Pentagon, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular news briefing.

“China has all along been opposed to and forbids criminal activities undermining computer networks, including hacking,” she said. “China is ready to strengthen cooperation with other countries, including the U.S., in countering Internet crimes.”

The Financial Times report said the Pentagon was still investigating how much information was stolen, but cited an unnamed person as saying that most of it was probably unclassified.

[…] The Pentagon warned earlier this year that China’s army is emphasizing hacking as an offensive weapon. It cited Chinese military exercises in 2005 that included hacking “primarily in first strikes against enemy networks.”

The Associated Press reported in July that the State Department was trying to recover from large-scale network break-ins affecting operations worldwide. The hackers appeared to target the department headquarters and offices dealing with China and North Korea, it was reported.

However, experts have said that China is home to a large number of insecure computers and networks that hackers in other countries could use to disguise their locations and launch attacks.

Well, it’s a good way to disguise an attack from other people, such as terrorists… BUT for China is a golden oportunity: not only they can claim they are innocent, but they can do it and blame others! AND they have been trained for that…

Also UK has complained because the caring and loving and peaceful Taliban are using Chinese-made weapons. This is the most laughable line in all the article: The authorities in Beijing have promised to carry out an investigation. Bet they will say they are sold without permission?

And a reader of my blog, Debbie, has also told me that UK has also complained about Chinese hackers on their computers:

Chinese attackers have launched online assaults against the network at Britain's Parliament and the Foreign Office, The Guardian said, citing unnamed government officials. It added that some of the hackers were believed to be from the Chinese military, without citing sources.

The British government refused to comment on the claim. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence referred questions to the Foreign Office, and a spokesperson there said he would not comment on security matters.

Worrying, isn't it?

(+) More about China supplying weapons to Talibans.

The South Korean hostages

I have gone through the news about the release of the 20 South Korean hostages who had been kidnapped by Talibans in Afghanistan. It's said that the South Korean Government has paid around $20 million that -a Taliban speaker has announced- will be used for buying more weapons and to carry suicide attacks.

They have also expressed their satisfaction about the way the kidnapping has resulted and announced they will carry more of them in the future against citizens who are nationals of countries which have troops in the country.

There are also reports that say that the women were sexualy assaulted by the Talibans and that all hostages were beaten when they rejected to convert to Islam.

Original post.

More On H.R. 2265: FAQ's

Christine of The Center for Vigilant Freedom has written an important post, about something serious which is afoot in our Congress: H.R. 2265. The bill is being presented as a compassionate attempt to rescue Iraqi refugees. But the bill is much more than that!

Christine's article is brilliant. Make time to read it!

IMPORTANT! H.R. 2265

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

From the Center for Vigilant Freedom, on August 3, 2007:

Grover Norquist’s Wednesday Group, Congressmen Blumenauer and Shays, and Senators Kennedy and Smith are trying to destroy the laws that protect us from terrorists entering the U.S., in the guise of rewriting refugee policy for friendly Iraqi translators. Their efforts are a significant and potentially deadly effort to undercut homeland security efforts.

Actually, there are two bills, one in the House and one in the Senate (H.R. 2265 and S. 1651):

Those bills are some of the most shocking anti-homeland security legislation yet suggested by the Islamist Lobby and their friends in Congress.

[...]

H.R. 2265...[is]...[a] bill that severely damages the rules keeping known terrorists from immigrating to the US.

And Grover Norquist, about whom I wrote some time ago, is pushing hard for this legislation.

You absolutely must read the article at the Center for Vigilant Freedom. Yes, I know that the article is lengthy. Fortify yourself with a cup of coffee or a brandy. Read it! Also read related articles at Refugee Resettlement Watch, especially THIS ONE. Contact your Representative and your Senators. Take action.