- From the “Interesting” Department – The Senate Intelligence Committee has put out its report on the Benghazi attack, and surprisingly, it’s critical of the Obama administration. It specifically singles out the departments of State and Defense for not doing more to prevent the attacks after being warned about them by intelligence agencies. I’m shocked that the Senate, which is dominated by a Democrat majority, would put out such a report on a Democrat administration. My political cynicism tells me that there’s something afoot here. From what I can tell, it’s starting to look like Vice-President Biden will square off with former Secretary of State Clinton in the 2016 primaries. Could this be one of the opening shots in that battle? Mrs. Clinton made a very public scene when she testified in front of the committee, and now the committee is on the record criticizing her department. I wonder if there might be a little positioning of Senator Feinstein and her Democrat colleagues to give a boost to Mr. Biden.
- From the “So What?” Department – The NSA apparently has the ability to use compromised hardware to gather intelligence from systems that aren’t connected to the Internet. It would appear that the agency has only used this capability against foreign targets, although some of them are our allies. For once, I’m going to have to side with Fort Meade on this one. Developing and exploiting advanced capabilities to gather information from foreign sources is what the NSA is for. So long as they are not used against American citizens, I can’t say much. I’m a bit uncomfortable with using them against allies, but that is what countries do. What the agency is doing to harm our civil liberties is bad enough. We don’t need to waste energy complaining about what they do to other countries.
- From the “Advocate” Department – The Obama administration is taking fire over the appointment of a new leader of a Department of Justice office. The appointee has gained notoriety for providing legal counsel to a convicted cop killer, and has some other troubling history in his legal career. This is a tough one for me. Even the most heinous of us deserves an attorney when we run afoul of the law, and that attorney is bound to put up as good a defense as they can. John Adams, one of our founding fathers, defended the British soldiers who took part in the Boston Massacre, and no-one would say that he held the same beliefs as his clients. Can we hold a lawyer responsible for who he represents?
- From the “Go Granny!” Department – A 100-year-old woman in Great Britain celebrated her birthday by hiring a male stripper. Reports are that she brought a bottle of baby oil with her to the pub that night as well. Apparently she has found the secret to long life: Looking life in the eye and saying “Forget it, I’m having fun.”
- From the “Blood Runs Red In The Aisles” Department – An elderly man in Florida has been arrested after attacking another older gentleman over having too many items in the express checkout. Apparently the alleged victim had 22 items instead of 20, and the other man took umbrage at that. I won’t condemn his motivations, just his methods. I’ve also been behind the person with 10 to the 5th power items in the “20 items or less” line. Then again, I’ve also been in the grocery store on seniors day, and let me tell you, those old people don’t like it when they’re crossed, annoyed, or talked to.
- From the “Stoolpigeon?” Department – A man in Mexico was arrested after his pet parrot told police that he was drunk during a traffic stop. I’m not going to go into why the police believed the parrot, because in our country a dog is a good enough witness to get you arrested and probulated. The man was arrested for drunk driving, and was allowed to take the parrot to jail with him because it would have stressed the bird to be away from him. So I guess that when he’s asked what he’s in for, he has a good shot of being believed when he answers “Piracy”.
- From the “Facepalm” Department – Secretary of State John Kerry, songwriter of that golden oldie “Cambodian Christmas”, recently presented his Russian colleague with a pair of large Idaho potatoes. Apparently the foreign secretary had mentioned the tubers before, so Mr. Kerry thought they’d make a good Christmas gift. This fits in with the iPod that President Obama presented to the Queen of England, as well as the glass beads Vice President Biden gave to the leaders of a Native American tribe in New York while he was there.
- From the “Tool User” Department – An 80-year-old Illinois man had a talking-to from the police after neighbors complained about his use of a .22 revolver to shoot icicles off of his house. I’m not sure this is the best method for de-icing the gutters, and I’m disappointed that he would waste rare .22 shells to do it. I would condemn him for this, but I’ve used a .22 to get mistletoe out of a tree, so I won’t cast the first stone here.
- From the “Plausible” Department – The Iranian news agency has reported that the documents leaked by Edward Snowden show that the United States government was taken over by extraterrestrials in 1945, and we are still under the thumb of our alien Nazi overlords. Apparently the aliens are based out of Nevada, which explains Harry Reid.
- From the “Insults” Department – National Guard advocates are vociferously disagreeing with statements by General Raymond Odierno that assert that the National Guard is not as good at soldiering as active duty units. I have to say that I disagree with the good general on this. Yes, National Guard units don’t train as often as some, not most, active duty units, but they do bring the experience of years of working together in the same job, while active soldiers have much more churn. Also, the Guard units I supported had a lot less rock painting and motor-pool sweeping than I saw with active duty units. When the Guard and Reserve units I’ve had experience with trained, they used every available hour, probably because they knew they only had a few days to get through a lot of tasks.
News Roundup
Posted by daddybear71 on January 15, 2014
https://daddybearsden.com/2014/01/15/news-roundup-209/
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