Author Archives: Reinold Keillor

This is What a Russian Invasion of Ukraine Looks Like

Mother Jones

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It has become quite hard for Vladimir Putin to deny that Russia’s activities in Eastern Europe are benign. On Thursday, Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, announced that “Russian forces have actually entered Ukraine.” And at a State Department briefing, spokeswoman Jen Psaki called Russia’s activities “an incursion and a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty.”

The most striking evidence comes from NATO, which has released satellite photos of what it calls “concrete examples of Russian activity inside Ukraine.”

Digital Globe/NATO

According to NATO, the image above depicts a Russian convoy carrying artillery in Krasnodon, an area of Ukraine currently controlled by pro-Russian separatists, on August 21.

Digital Globe/NATO

This shows artillery setting up in firing positions in Krasnodon. “This configuration is exactly how trained military professionals would arrange their assets on the ground, indicating that these are not unskilled amateurs, but Russian soldiers,” a NATO press release notes.

Digital Globe/NATO

This image shows side-by-side photos of Rostov-on-Don, about 31 miles from the Ukrainian border, taken two months apart. The photo on the left, taken on June 19, shows the area mostly empty. The photo on the right shows the same area on August 20 occupied with tanks and other armored vehicles, cargo trucks, and tents. These units “are capable of attacking with little warning, and could potentially overwhelm and push-back Ukrainian units,” according to NATO.

Digital Globe/NATO

According to NATO, this image shows Russian six artillery pieces, probably 6-inch howitzers, positioned six miles south of the Ukrainian border. The guns are pointed toward Ukraine.

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This is What a Russian Invasion of Ukraine Looks Like

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Green Zones: A Map of the US Military’s Golf Courses

Mother Jones

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The United States military is undeniably massive. In 2012, the Pentagon spent 4.4% of our GDP on defense, with hundreds of billions going to contractors for assorted weapons, equipment, and essentials. What is not known is exactly how much money funds the military’s international golf habit. Mother Jones has found that the Pentagon currently operates at least 194 golf courses and 2,874 holes of golf worldwide. Hover over any flag to tee up more information about the location, name, and size of these courses.

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Green Zones: A Map of the US Military’s Golf Courses

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Utah: Mass Shootings Caused a Surge in Gun Permit Applications

Mother Jones

Getting a concealed-carry permit for a firearm from the state of Utah is pretty easy. As I reported in our September/October issue, you don’t have to know how to fire a gun—or even set foot in Utah—to obtain one. That’s why more than 60 percent of the Beehive State’s 473,476 concealed-carry permits belong to non-residents, who take advantage of Utah’s reciprocity with 35 other states.

And they’re doing so in rising numbers: Over the last year, the Deseret News reports, the state has seen a boom in permit requests. The cause? Fear of mass shootings, as well as new gun restrictions, according to a Utah official:

Bureau of Criminal Investigations chief Alice Moffatt said the agency had “bins and bins” of applications in February, March and April when the numbers swelled to more than 18,000 per month. She attributed the surge to last year’s shootings in Connecticut and Colorado and gun control legislation.

“That seems to spur people getting their concealed weapons permits,” she told the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee on Wednesday.

Permit renewals will exceed 40,000 this year, a 42 percent increase, Moffat said.

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Utah: Mass Shootings Caused a Surge in Gun Permit Applications

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GOP Staffer on Vitter Amendment: "Congress Literally Threw Staff Under The Bus"

Mother Jones

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There’s a new front in the battle over Obamacare: Republican congressional staffers are angry at their bosses for trying to deprive them of affordable insurance.

Like many Americans, most Congressional staffers receive health insurance through their employer, the federal government. And like most employers, the government covers a big portion of the cost: 75 percent. The Affordable Care Act changed this, requiring members of Congress and their staff to obtain coverage via the the health insurance exchanges created by the law. But the language in the law was unclear as to whether lawmakers and their aides would be able to keep using government money to purchase heath insurance. To clear this up, the Obama administration issued a proposed rule in August stating that the government would continue to cover 75 percent of congressional health benefits. The GOP latched onto this new regulation as an “outrageous exemption for Congress” and a “big fat taxpayer funded subsidy.” Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), introduced bills that would strip out those employer contributions.

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GOP Staffer on Vitter Amendment: "Congress Literally Threw Staff Under The Bus"

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Breaking Bad, Narco Cultura, and the Ballad of Walter White

Mother Jones

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The hit TV series Breaking Bad, which, in case you hadn’t heard, concludes its incredible five-season run tonight, is known for its disorienting opening scenes—brief cryptic bits of foreshadowing before the first titles flash on screen with that now-iconic guitar and bass snippet. The technique has been employed in other shows, but never with such regularity and success as in Vince Gilligan’s Emmy-dominating opus.

But one of the teasers, appearing mid-way through Season 2, has stood out from all others: It’s a video of the Mexican band Los Cuates de Sinaloa performing a narcocorrido (drug anthem) honoring Heisenberg, Walter White’s drug-trafficking alter ego. (White is portrayed by the actor Bryan Cranston.)

If you don’t speak Spanish, the song sounds like an upbeat Mexican folk ditty. But the lyrics allude to Heisenberg’s blossoming meth business, which, at this point in the series, has left the Mexican cartels fuming over lost territory and profits. Shots of Heisenberg’s nonpareil blue meth, guns, fat stacks of cash, and a trail of bloodied bodies flashes over Los Cuates’ frenetic playing.

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Breaking Bad, Narco Cultura, and the Ballad of Walter White

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Reuters: NSA Secretly Helping Drug Agencies Target US Persons

Mother Jones

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Yesterday, the New York Times informed us that the Drug Enforcement Agency wants greater access to the NSA’s treasure trove of surveillance, but so far they haven’t gotten it. Today, Reuters tells us that this isn’t really true:

A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.

….The unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security.

….”Remember that the utilization of SOD cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function,” a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD’s involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use “normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD.”

….A former federal agent in the northeastern United States who received such tips from SOD described the process. “You’d be told only, ‘Be at a certain truck stop at a certain time and look for a certain vehicle.’ And so we’d alert the state police to find an excuse to stop that vehicle, and then have a drug dog search it,” the agent said.

This is not surprising. As you may recall, NSA is allowed to surveil foreign nationals but not US persons. If US persons are “inadvertently” caught up in the surveillance net, their communications have to be discarded. However, there are exceptions for domestic communications that “contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity.” Drug offenses are criminal activity, so presumably NSA is allowed to keep any drug-related conversations it collects and pass them along to the relevant law enforcement agencies.

Does this give NSA an incentive to “accidentally” collect communications on US persons, so that they can trawl through them to find stuff they’re allowed to keep? Perhaps. Either way, though, it appears that NSA is more involved in drug investigations—and more eager to keep it a secret—than we’ve been lead to believe.

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Reuters: NSA Secretly Helping Drug Agencies Target US Persons

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Friday Cat Blogging – 14 June 2013

Mother Jones

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Today’s catblogging photo shows Domino in pretty much the same place as last week. But a small change in position and camera focal length makes all the difference.

I wish I could have gotten a better version of this. But even though I was 20 feet away and Domino’s back was to me, as soon as she heard the shutter button she immediately turned and trotted over to see me. I suppose I was lucky even to get one picture. She can be a real catblogging pain sometimes.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 14 June 2013

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Today’s Chin Scratcher: Why Are People So Distrustful of Big Government?

Mother Jones

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In his column today, Charles Krauthammer summarizes a talking point about the NSA’s spying programs that’s already getting a lot of air time on the right:

The object is not to abolish these vital programs. It’s to fix them. Not exactly easy to do amid the current state of national agitation — provoked largely because such intrusive programs require a measure of trust in government, and this administration has forfeited that trust amid an unfolding series of scandals and a basic problem with truth-telling.

To summarize: People are groundlessly suspicious of vital panopticonish surveillance programs, and this is all due to Barack Obama’s weaselly ways, not to the Republican Party’s relentless 30-year campaign to destroy the public’s faith in domestic programs of all sorts, mock the very idea that government accomplishes anything useful, and pander to the black-helicopter conspiracy theories of the Glenn Beck crowd.

Sorry Charlie, that’s not going to fly. If you spend decades inventing scandals out of whole cloth and insisting that big government is a menace to liberty, don’t be surprised when it turns out that an awful lot of people no longer have any trust in government. You reap what you sow.

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Today’s Chin Scratcher: Why Are People So Distrustful of Big Government?

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Top 3 Advantages Of Having Electric Solar Panels

Solar panels are showing up on increasingly more household homes, and for good explanation. Solar panels provide three main perks any kind of homeowner would cherish. Everyone suches as to preserve money, and saving on electricity costs is a powerful inspiration to have solar panels put up. Around the world, individuals are expanding much more worried concerning the state of the environment and trying to find methods to help. Solar panels are a tidy, eco-friendly resource of electrical power. Electrical power is something most homeowners in the established globe take for granted. When the power heads out, it’s greater than inconvenient.

Today’s solar equipments are much better compared to ever before, and the three crucial benefits – preserving cash, securing the environment and having electrical power when the power lines are down – make having electric solar panels quite hard to resist.

Why Obtain Solar Panels Installed?

1. Save cash: Whether the panels are the only source of electrical power so the house is totally off the grid or whether the system is created to use solar electrical power when possible and change to power from the utility business at various other times, the electric bill will certainly decrease. The bottom line is that homes with solar power use less power from utility firms, meanings lower utilities costs. In time, the solar power will spend for themselves.

2. Shield the atmosphere: Environmental problems join the information every day, and it seems like most of the means people have created to give power have some unfavorable influence on the environment. Solar panels are just one of the few exceptions. They do not utilize nonrenewable fuel sources or gush smog into the air. They don’t depend on timber or charcoal or anything else extracted from the earth. By making using of the sunlight that is currently there, solar panels have a marginal impact and help shield the earth’s ecological communities, shielding the environment.

3. Have electrical power when the power lines are down: Losing power is a discomfort, at any time of the day and at any moment of the year. In the winter season, it can be actually miserable awaiting the utility company to get the high-voltage line back up, yet even in summer season a power blackout that lasts greater than a couple hours makes standard jobs such as cooking an ordeal. While it holds true that an intense hurricane could possibly harm solar system, it is not likely to take place extremely usually. Power lines are commonly harmed by dropping plants and branches during hurricanes. A lot of house owners do not have big trees ideal beside their houses due to the threat to the roofing system in a storm, and solar equipments normally go on the roofing, so the danger is very little.

The perks of going solar are sizable, and it is less complicated than ever to do. Preserving cash, protecting the environment and having electricity when the cable are down makes an actual distinction to any family, so it only makes good sense to obtain electric solar panels.

If you are based in Irvine and you intend to change in to solar power, you can explore the following site:build own solar panels

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