You guys really need to get out and experience life. Someday, you will learn you have a disease that will end your life and will regret all the time you wasted here. Or maybe you will drop dead and your relatives will just wonder why you never got anything done.

I think this is her best column, ever.

On Tuesday, a year after he murdered three Chardon High School students and injured three others, 18-year-old T.J. Lane walked into his sentencing hearing and made it virtually impossible for most of us to summon even a shred of sympathy for his condemned soul.

But summon we must. If we are good people — and most of us want to believe we are — we are called to dig deeper for compassion that eludes us, lest our own souls wither.

Bear with me, please. I've worked hard in the past 24 hours to find this patch of my heart. It's a tenuous grasp, and I'm trying to hold on tight.

On the morning of Feb. 27, 2012, Lane walked into the high school cafeteria in Chardon, Ohio, and started shooting.

By the time he was done, three students were dead: Daniel Parmertor and Demetrius Hewlin, who were 16, and 17-year-old Russell King Jr. Three other students were injured: Nate Mueller, 17, Joy Rickers, 19, and Nick Walczak, who is now in a wheelchair. One of the more heartbreaking video images of Tuesday's hearing — and there are so many — is of Walczak's shy smile as he rolled his chair into the courtroom. He later strained to catch a glimpse of his shooter.

...more...
http://www.creators.com/opinion/connie-schultz/resist-the-chardon-killer-s-taunts-13-03-20.html

...Who or what were the framers of our government, that they should dare confirm and authorise such high-handed villany—such flagrant robbery of the inalienable rights of man—such a glaring violation of all the precepts and injunctions of the gospel—such a savage war upon a sixth part of our whole population?—They were men, like ourselves—as fallible, as sinful, as weak, as ourselves.

By the infamous bargain which they made between themselves, they virtually dethroned the Most High God, and trampled beneath their feet their own solemn and heaven-attested Declaration, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights—among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They had no lawful power to bind themselves, or their posterity, for one hour—for one moment—by such an unholy alliance. It was not valid then—it is not valid now. Still they persisted in maintaining it—and still do their successors, the people of Massachusetts, of New-England, and of the twelve free States, persist in maintaining it. A sacred compact! A sacred compact! What, then, is wicked and ignominious?

William Lloyd Garrison

http://fair-use.org/the-liberator/1832/12/29/on-the-constitution-and-the-union

Mandiant says it felt compelled to expose this hack despite possibly compromising its ability to collect information. Here's why:

"The decision to publish a significant part of our intelligence about Unit 61398 was a painstaking one. What started as a “what if” discussion about our traditional non-disclosure policy quickly turned into the realization that the positive impact resulting from our decision to expose APT1 outweighed the risk to our ability to collect intelligence on this particular APT group.
It is time to acknowledge the threat is originating in China, and we wanted to do our part to arm and prepare security professionals to combat that threat effectively. The issue of attribution has always been a missing link in publicly understanding the landscape of APT cyber espionage. Without establishing a solid connection to China, there will always be room for observers to dismiss APT actions as uncoordinated, solely criminal in nature, or peripheral to larger national security and global economic concerns.

...MORE...



http://www.businessinsider.com/mandiant-report-chinese-hacking-explained-how-it-really-works-full-report-downloaded-highlights-2013-2

But the most troubling attack to date, security experts say, was a successful invasion of the Canadian arm of Telvent. The company, now owned by Schneider Electric, designs software that gives oil and gas pipeline companies and power grid operators remote access to valves, switches and security systems.

Telvent keeps detailed blueprints on more than half of all the oil and gas pipelines in North and South America, and has access to their systems. In September, Telvent Canada told customers that attackers had broken into its systems and taken project files. That access was immediately cut, so that the intruders could not take command of the systems.

Martin Hanna, a Schneider Electric spokesman, did not return requests for comment, but security researchers who studied the malware used in the attack, including Mr. Stewart at Dell SecureWorks and Mr. Blasco at AlienVault, confirmed that the perpetrators were the Comment Crew.

“This is terrifying because — forget about the country — if someone hired me and told me they wanted to have the offensive capability to take out as many critical systems as possible, I would be going after the vendors and do things like what happened to Telvent,“ Mr. Peterson of Digital Bond said. “It’s the holy grail.”

The neocons lumped Iran and Iraq's support of violent Palestinians with Al Qaeda and hence it became America's crusade to destroy all Moslem terrorists. We all know that Saddam was not helping Al Qaeda, but that real detail did not matter.

IIRC, Iran is still using Palestinians in a proxy war against Israel.

*Bombing: suicide bombers, rockets from Gaza, and whatever other means they can use to deliver nitroglycerin.

And, yes, I know about the illegal settlements in the West Bank.

IIRC, we have killed over 1000 people and 140 were innocent bystanders, including that unfortunate wedding party.

It is creating a lot of resentment that will likely cause locals to join any force fighting the USA. It is possible that those unintentional deaths are totally negating the gains we have from the successful killing of our enemies in that region.

There is skepticism even within the military community. I don't know how to gauge whether the net gains from the program are positive.

I don't think the drone attacks are done casually. The President supposedly reviews every attack in advance.

I don't have any sympathy for an American who is a militant who is working with people who are plotting attacks against our military or civilian. I wish we could use manned aircraft to drop the bomb; then the live pilot could use judgement while on the scene.

Five National Parks, and the Endangered Species Act, IIRC

They have blocked dozens of coal fired plants in the Ohio Valley, along with some partners.
*
All that you know about environmentalism is some crappy malaise you read at commondreams or counterpunch.

Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer

In a scathing 17-page ruling (Read the full ruling in the Document viewer below), U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley said a directive on counting provisional ballots that Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted issued on Nov. 2 was "a flagrant violation of a state elections law" that could disenfranchise voters.

"The surreptitious manner in which the secretary went about implementing this last minute change to the election rules casts serious doubt on his protestations of good faith," Marbley wrote.
...
Marbley noted numerous times that Husted, a Republican, set the new rules at 7 p.m. on a Friday.
"Ohio voters reasonably expect that the secretary of Ohio will abide by the General Assembly’s laws in administering a federal election," Marbley wrote. "For an executive of the state to (flout) state law in arbitrarily reassigning a poll worker’s statutory duty to a voter, with the result being disenfranchisement of the voter, is ‘fundamentally unfair and constitutionally impermissible.’"

Marbley, nominated to be federal judge by President Bill Clinton in 1997, has ruled on numerous issues regarding Ohio election laws in recent months. He has repeatedly stressed the importance of voting rights. "There’s nothing more important than the franchise and the right to vote," Marbley said during a hearing in June. "I grew up in the Jim Crow South and still remember the various mechanisms that were used to disenfranchise voters."
...

Read more: http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2012/11/federal_judge_rips_husted_for.html

---

Attorney Subodh Chandra chided Husted for wasting public money in an appeal of Judge Marbley's ruling. Chandra is representing the homeless. They are a group that needs political representation. Huge numbers of Ohioans have been displaced in the "mortgage crisis". Drivers license requirements are obviously designed to prevent them from voting.

I don't know if the federal Department of Justice can go after Jim Crow Husted.

The ruling is viewable at the link for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

SPENT more than $11.7 million against President Barack Obama - NRA defeated

SPENT more than $1 million against Sen. Sherrod Brown, OHIO - NRA defeated

SPENT more than $626,000 against Sen. Bill Nelson, FLORIDA - NRA defeated

SPENT more than $610,000 against Tim Kaine, Virginia (U.S. Senate) - NRA defeated

SPENT more than $341,000 against Sen. Claire McCaskill, MISSOURI - NRA defeated

SPENT more than $320,000 against Tammy Baldwin, WISCONSIN (U.S. Senate) - NRA defeated

SPENT more than $48,000 against Chris Murphy, Connecticut (U.S. Senate) - NRA defeated

What additional evidence is needed for elected officials and the media to finally discard the myth of the NRA's power to influence elections?

--Brady Campaign/Facebook feed