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The Pentagon thinks it’s killed a Taliban official (Akhtar Mansour) by drone. But what difference does it make to us to kill this man (meaning a positive difference, a gain, a benefit)? Whether or not some outfit in Pakistan applauds this or hates it, what difference does it make to Americans? Why is the U.S. still trying to kill off Taliban or stop them? Why is the U.S. still in Afghanistan 15 years after it went there to get bin Laden? Why did the U.S. start a war with the Taliban anyway? The humongous cost of this killing is already...

It is not only American generals who are irresponsible and declare on the basis of no evidence whatsoever that “Russia is an existential threat to the United States” and also to the Baltic states, Poland, Georgia, Ukraine, and all of Europe. British generals also participate in the warmongering. UK retired general and former NATO commander Sir Richard Shirreff, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe until 2014, has just declared that nuclear war with Russia is “entirely possible” within the year. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3596977/The-outbreak-nuclear-war-year-West-Putin-entirely-plausible-says-former-NATO-chief-promoting-novel-2017-war-Russia.html My loyal readers know that I, myself, have been warning for some time about the likelihood of nuclear war....

Distinguished law scholar Elizabeth Warren teaches contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law at Harvard Law School. She is an outspoken critic of America's credit economy, which she has linked to the continuing rise in bankruptcy among the middle-class. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Council Lectures" [6/2007] [Public Affairs] [Business] [Show ID: 12620]

Welcome to the Trump VP Game Rules: 1) Pick ONE name and one name ONLY 2) Only the first post for any given speculative VP counts - if someone else posted it first you'll need to think of a different name 3) Whoever picks the correct name wins!* *prize is valuable and coveted bragging rights

See source for the video.

Hundreds of supporters of a powerful Shia Muslim cleric camped outside parliament in Baghdad overnight a day after thousands stormed the Green Zone and entered the parliament building, prompting the declaration of a state of emergency. Hundreds of people gathered in protest at the failure of Iraqi MPs to convene for a vote to approve new ministers. The unrest comes after weeks of political turmoil in Baghdad over efforts by the prime minister Haider al-Abadi, to replace party-affiliated ministers with technocrats. MPs failed to reach a quorum to approve the measures on Saturday. On Saturday the protesters broke into the...

Ending the drought in the West will require rain—not too much rain—and smarter ways to collect and store that water. But something else that can keep things moist? Believe it or not: Beavers. According to a story in Water Deeply, a group of ecologists have a plan to help repopulate the Central Coast of California with Castor canadensis, the large beavers which once roamed the state in great numbers. (Not to be confused with their ancestors, giant beavers that were seven feet long.) The idea is that beavers are nature’s hydrologists, engineering the way that water travels through the landscape:

MADISON, Wis. — House Speaker Paul Ryan is being challenged in the Republican primary by a Wisconsin businessman who says he once volunteered for the congressman but now feels betrayed.

Associated Press (9/15/2006, 8:30 AM PST) OAKLAND , (CA)--Oakland Raiders football practice was delayed nearly two hours today after a player reported finding an unknown white powdery substance on the practice field. Head coach Art Shell immediately suspended practice and called the police and federal investigators. After a complete analysis, FBI forensic experts determined that the white substance unknown to Raider players was the GOAL LINE. Practice resumed after special agents decided the team was unlikely to encounter the substance again.

In light of Foleygate and NK nuke(?) testing, it seems we have lost sight of what is truly important... MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL!!!! The Baltimore Ravens visit Denver in what is sure to be a good game! May the best team win!

- If you wail and cry over Israel's treatment of Palestinians but are silent about the hundreds of thousands of blacks being systematically killed by the Muslim government of the Sudan, you are anti-Semitic. - If you think that if Israel killing more of its enemies than it suffers casualties itself is disproportionate, in willful blindness to or ignorance of the fact that it is outnumbered massively by those enemies and those enemies have more than demonstrated their willingness to kill their own people, even their own children, in order to kill Jews, you are anti-Semitic. - If you think...

OURJ AL-MULOUK, Lebanon — Israel poured up to 10,000 armored troops into south Lebanon Tuesday, and commandos raided a Hezbollah-run hospital and captured guerrillas during pitched battles deep in the eastern Bekaa Valley, a major escalation of the three-week-old war. In the attack on the ancient city of Baalbek, about 80 miles north of Israel, commandos ferried in by helicopters fought Hezbollah guerrillas inside and around the hospital under cover of heavy airstrikes, witnesses said. At least seven people were killed in the city, they said. Israel said an unspecified number of guerrillas were captured and no soldiers were hurt.

Campaigners demonstrated in east London over recent anti-terror raids, calling for a full police apology. Hundreds of people took to the streets near Forest Gate, east London, scene of a massive police raid on 2 June. Brothers Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, and Abul Koyair, 20, spent several days in custody following the raid. They were later released without charge. Muddassar Ahmad, a spokesman for the organisers, said: "We clearly, clearly want an apology - unqualified." Mr Kahar was shot in the shoulder during the raid. Mr Koyair helped lead the march, which ended with a rally in a local park....

ANGER at police treatment of British Muslims is growing in London where they held a protest rally last weekend with some even urging the community to stop cooperating with the authorities, according to Reuters and AFP reports. Britain's Muslim community voiced "unease" at the protest on Saturday after last week's huge anti-terror raid in which the London police arrested two Muslim brothers of Bangladesh origin as suspects for chemical bomb - one was shot - now being released without charge. The massive police raid last week on a house in London's Forest Gate deploying more than 250 officers created the...

Basra: An angry crowd of demonstrators attacked the Iranian consulate in the Iraqi city of Basra on Wednesday. Hundreds of protesters gathered to protest against an Iranian satellite station which they said had insulted a Shiite cleric in Iraq. A cleric addressing the crowd demanded a public apology from Iran. "If our demand is not met we will not be able to hold back these angry crowds," he told the demonstrators. The protesters set fire to a reception area of the building and burned tyres outside the building.

Populations of feral cats, if uncontrolled, expand quickly, overwhelming sources of food supply, resulting in starvation and malnourishment, and an early and painful death for these wild felines. The practice of ear-tipping is a common method of managing colonies of feral cats; when a cat is spayed or neutered, and thus unable to produce more felines to overwhelm the food supply, it is marked by removing the top portion of one ear. This way, it is not subject to dangerous surgery to alter it when it has already been altered. Properly done, ear tipping allows the caretaker to easily spot...

HOW THE GOP CAN SURVIVE THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE By DICK MORRIS March 29, 2006 - The immigration bill pending in Congress poses as crucial a test for GOP efforts to reach out to Hispanic voters as the 1964 Civil Rights Act did in determining the future partisan preferences of America's African-Americans. In 1964, the Republican Party, led by Barry Goldwater, was painted as sacrificing the interests of civil rights to its goal of attracting Southern support, although Republicans backed the bill in far greater numbers than Democrats did. But when Goldwater ran for president rejecting civil rights legislation, it doomed...

VOTERS LOVE HILLARY BEST WHEN SHE SAYS THE LEAST By DICK MORRIS February 2, 2006 -- Throughout Hillary Clinton's political career, she has done much better when she has shut up. After the "tea and cookies" comment in the 1992 campaign, she lapsed into relative silence and let her husband win the election. But when she took center stage trying to reform healthcare, she screwed it up. There followed three years of relative silence during which she confined her impact to the feature pages of the papers, writing a book about education, journeying to China for a human-rights conference and...

NFL Wild Card weekend! Carolina Panthers at NY Giants - 1 PM ET Pittsburgh Steelers at Cincinati Bengals - 4:30 PM ET

PHILADELPHIA -- Donovan McNabb is still taking shots -- the latest from an NAACP leader who criticized the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback's leadership skills and said he "played the race card" in explaining why he no longer runs the ball. J. Whyatt Mondesire, who publishes a newspaper for blacks and is the president of the Philadelphia branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, recently wrote that the Eagles' star quarterback failed as a team leader and choked in the Super Bowl. McNabb responded sharply, but Mondesire hasn't changed his stance. "He doesn't get it," Mondesire said Wednesday....