Was Obama trying to create a false flag with the Sony hack?

"Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania 

had always been at war with Eurasia."
George Orwell
1984

By Gary;

Be afraid, be very afraid.

That is the motto of modern imperial governments.  Keep the people in perpetual fear of the evil foreign Boogeyman of the moment.  Big Brother will keep you safe if you just stop worshiping that obsolete Bill of Rights and give more and more power to the Police State.

The latest fear mongering happened with the "North Korean" Internet hack of Sony.  Or was it North Korea after all?

Our government acted super fast to blame the evil Communists and stir up fear and hate in America.  Now it appears the FBI might have simply made up the story of North Korea's guilt.

Norse, one of the world’s leading cyber intelligence firms, has been researching the hack since it was made public just before Thanksgiving.

Norse’s senior vice president of market development said that just the quickness of the FBI’s conclusion that North Korea was responsible was a red flag reports Politico.

“When the FBI made the announcement so soon after the initial hack was unveiled, everyone in the [cyber] intelligence community kind of raised their eyebrows at it, because it’s really hard to pin this on anyone within days of the attack,” Kurt Stammberger said in an interview as his company briefed FBI investigators Monday afternoon.

But somehow our government, which cannot run the Obamacare website properly, instantly knew Korea was guilty of Internet crimes.  Bullshit.

I would like to know who told the FBI to blame North Korea?

While I am not a conspiracy nut, conspiracies do exist. Call it Dwight Eisenhower's Military Industrial Complex trying to cash in on war or hack politicians trying to boost their poll numbers.  The results are always the same.  Government grows and your rights are decreased in the name of safety.

But I am just a "crazy" Blogger.  Ignore these words and continue to believe your Masters in government if it makes your feel safe.

Election Season Again - Rep. Michael Grimm resigns seat after pleading guilty to tax evasion

GOP Congressman Michael Grimm
(AP file photo)

Question:

What is one Congressman in prison?  A good start.

GOP Congressman Michael Grimm said late Monday that he will resign his seat in Congress, one week after the Staten Island, New York Republican pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion.

Grimm, 44, is a former Marine and FBI agent who won reelection to the House in November after serving one term as congressman of New York’s 11th District, which covers all of Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn.

In April, Grimm was accused of concealing more than $1 million in revenue and failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in employee pay at his Manhattan restaurant Healthalicious. He was scheduled to go to trial in February and face a 20-count indictment for paying workers – some of them undocumented immigrants – off the books with cash, underpaying his taxes and committing perjury in running the Upper East Side restaurant. He reached an agreement with federal prosecutors last week and pled guilty to one count on Dec. 23.

"This decision is made with a heavy heart, as I have enjoyed a very special relationship and closeness with my constituents, whom I care about deeply," Grimm said Monday, in announcing his resignation.

"The events which led to this day did not break my spirit, nor the will of the voters. However, I do not believe that I can continue to be 100 percent effective in the next Congress, and therefore, out of respect for the office and the people I so proudly represent, it is time for me to start the next chapter of my life."

Under the plea agreement, Grimm could face up to three years in federal prison. His sentencing is scheduled for June 8.

“Although it was a little restaurant, I made some big mistakes,” he told reporters outside the Brooklyn federal courthouse following his guilty plea last week.

In January, Grimm made waves for threatening a local TV reporter on camera. The reporter was interviewing Grimm before President Barack Obama’s state of the union address when he asked about allegations concerning the federal inquiry into his campaign finances. Grimm, believing the question was an unfair ambush, said he would to throw the reporter over the balcony and “break [him] in half” if he ever asked about the federal investigation again.

Grimm’s resignation will take effect after the 114th Congress convenes January 6. His absence will reduce the GOP majority in the House from 247 seats to 246. A special election will eventually decide Grimm’s successor.

(RT News)

Let's Go To Prison

[hide]U.S. House, New York District 11 General Election, 2014
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Republican	Michael Grimm Incumbent	53.1%	58,886
	Democratic	Domenic Recchia	40.8%	45,244
	Green	Henry Bardel	2.4%	2,687
	N/A	Blank/Void/Scattering	3.8%	4,182
Total Votes				110,999
Source: New York State Board of Elections

11th Congressional District of New York

ISIS tortures woman for breast-feeding her child

Where are the Women's Libbers?

• The big brave Women's lib groups can't wait piss all over Christians, but they are strangely silent when faced with the real horrors of Islam. 

(UK Mirror)  -  Sadistic all-female Islamic State religious police tortured a screaming woman with a medieval-style spiked clamp - for breast-feeding her child in public.

The feared Al Khansa brigade, said to include Brits, use a gruesome torture instrument called the ‘biter’ to impose strict Sharia law on women in their capital Raqqa.

The giant device consists of two iron jaws covered in spikes that are clamped around the victim’s chest causing immense pain.

Residents in the beleaguered city say the Al Khansa force tortured the woman after they found nursing her child in the Syrian city’s bus station.

The reports emerged as a monitoring group reported at least 120 killings by the terror group of its own militants in the past three months.

Around 1,880 have murdered since the terrorist network declared a “Caliphate” or “Islamic state” in June this year. Over the past six months 1,177 civilians have been slain, including eight women and two children.

It is estimated that 930 civilians from the al-Shaitaat tribe, which is at war with Isis in eastern Syria, were killed in the countryside of Deir Ezzor

One woman, aged 24, was arrested for having see-through clothes.

Brave Batol revealed: “I was in the market buying a few items when the Khansa battalion came and arrested me on the grounds that the Niqab which I was wearing did not meet Sharia requirement.

“They arrested me and escorted me to the torture chamber. Then they asked me to choose between a whip and a biter. I did not know what a biter was and I thought it is a reduced sentence, I was afraid of whipping, so I choose the biter.

“Then they brought a sharp object that had a lot of teeth and held me, placing it on my chest and pressing it strongly. I screamed from the pain. They later took me to hospital.

“I felt then that my femininity had been destroyed completely. I was not the only one that was tortured with this instrument, there were a lot of women there and their situation was tragic.”

A man also told resistance movement website ‘Raqqa is being Slaughtered Silently’ that he was flogged for smoking, now banned by IS laws.

Sami, 25, revealed: “They arrested me on charges of smoking and they took me to their headquarters and then put me to the torture chamber.

“The room floor was full of blood and then they flogged me 40 times and threw me in a cell. There were a lot of detainees, when I looked at them I saw death in their eyes and their situation was pitiful.

“During the three nights I spent at the headquarters, I heard the screams of women and men who IS were torturing. To hear the screams of the people of my city when they are being tortured at the hands of strangers is a torture of another type, which has destroyed my dignity.”

China will be able to nuke all 50 states

A Special Greeting From China

China could soon target the United States with sea-based nuclear weapons as it is reinforcing its submarines with long-range nuclear ballistic missiles, a US congressional report has found.

China’s military is set to acquire a reliable, hard-to-destroy sea-based nuclear deterrent, with a dozen JL-2 missiles that are being mounted on its JIN class submarines, according to a report submitted to Congress by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

The missiles have a strike range of around 7,350 km, meaning they can reach all 50 US states if they are launched from waters west or east of Hawaii reports the Next Big Future.

Put your hands behind your head, put your head between
your knees and kiss your ass goodbye.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding China’s stockpiles of nuclear missiles and nuclear warheads, it is clear China’s nuclear forces over the next three to five years will expand considerably and become more lethal and survivable with the fielding of additional road-mobile nuclear missiles; as many as five JIN SSBNs,each of which can carry 12 JL–2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles; and intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs).

At the same time, China likely will continue to improve its silo-based nuclear force; harden its nuclear storage facilities, launch sites, and transportation networks; and expand its already extensive network of underground facilities.

China has commissioned three JIN SSBNs since 2007 and likely will introduce two additional units by 2020. The JIN SSBN’s intended weapon, the JL–2 submarine launched ballistic missile, appears to have reached initial operational capability after approximately ten years of R and D, giving China its first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent.*

The JL–2’s range of approximately 4,598 miles gives China the ability to conduct nuclear strikes against Alaska if launched from waters near China; against Alaska and Hawaii if launched from waters south of Japan; against Alaska, Hawaii, and the western portion of the continental United States if launched from waters west of Hawaii; and against all 50 U.S. states if launched from waters east of Hawaii.

Taliban claims victory as NATO leaves

US General John Campbell (L) rolls the flag of the NATO-led
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Bullshit Alert!

• The political liars will be telling us all about their hard work and their great "victory" in Afghanistan.  But we are leaving combat with the enemy intact and still attacking our allies.  In fact, the Taliban has declared victory.

(Al Arabiya News)  -  The Taliban responded scornfully Monday to the formal end of NATO's war in Afghanistan, describing the U.S.-led mission as a "fire of barbarism and cruelty" that had drowned the country "in a pool of blood".

The insurgent group issued the statement in English a day after NATO marked the closure of its combat mission with a low-key ceremony in Kabul, arranged in secret due to the threat of Taliban attack.

"We consider this step a clear indication of their defeat and disappointment," the Taliban said.

"America, its invading allies... along with all international arrogant organizations have been handed a clear-cut defeat in this lopsided war."

The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, have fought a resilient insurgency against NATO and Afghan forces for 13 years, with violence now at record levels nationwide.

The United Nations said civilian casualties hit a new high this year with about 10,000 non-combatants killed or wounded -- 75 percent of them by the Taliban.

On January 1 NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) combat mission will be replaced by a "training and support" mission.

About 12,500 NATO troops will stay on in Afghanistan.

The Taliban statement said the group would fight on "for the establishment of a pure Islamic system by expelling the remaining invading forces unconditionally".

President Ashraf Ghani has said he is open to peace talks, but the Taliban said it would "continue its Jihad and struggle so long as a single foreigner remains in Afghanistan in a military uniform".

Must See Video

Taliban Attack On NATO New 2014

 

Taliban Attacks on US & NATO Special Forces Base in Afghanistan ABC News

Afghan Police Die in Record Numbers

In Washington Speak this is called "victory".

(Military Times - AP)  -  As U.S. and international combat troops leave Afghanistan after more than 13 years fighting the Taliban, Afghan policemen are dying in record numbers as they perform dangerous tasks usually reserved for the military, according to the head of the European-funded mission to train the police force.

Afghanistan's war is as hot as it has been since the U.S.-led invasion following the Sept. 11 attacks overthrew the Taliban. The international combat mission ends on Dec. 31, leaving the Afghan security forces in charge after leading the fight since the middle of last year.

Afghan police at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul.

Some 5,000 members of Afghanistan's security forces — army, police and armed rural defense units — have died this year fighting the Taliban, according to Karl Ake Roghe, the outgoing head of EUPOL, the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan.

"The police have lost something like 3,200 this year, so most of the casualties belong to the Afghan National Police," Roghe, who has led the mission for two and a half years, told The Associated Press. By comparison, some 3,500 foreign forces, including at least 2,210 American soldiers, have been killed in the 13 years since the war began.

Afghanistan has 157,000 police in a force created, trained and funded by the European Union. Almost every day, Afghan authorities report the deaths of policemen in Taliban assaults on checkpoints around rural towns and on the outskirts of larger cities. The police receive little backup from the army and do not have air support, medical evacuation or dedicated hospitals that could help reduce deaths, Roghe said.

Many in the impoverished country join the police out of desperation. A policeman earns $200 a month, and the family continues to receive that amount if he is killed in the line of duty, as well as a one-time compensation payment of three times that amount. Officers get around $300 a month.

Defending Beards - Navy discriminated against Muslim over beard, suit says

Beards were common and approved of in the Civil War.

In Defense of Beards

If someone wants to serve and perhaps die for his country 

then him having a beard is fine with me.

A Muslim civil rights group has sued the government on behalf of a former Navy enlisted man from Northern California who says he was the target of ethnic slurs, was reassigned to a menial job, and was later denied re-enlistment after seeking permission to wear a beard for religious reasons.

Jonathan Berts of Fairfield applied to wear a beard in January 2011, but Defense Department policy did not allow religious exemptions from grooming requirements. The Pentagon relaxed its policy in January, allowing accommodations for an individual’s religious beliefs, but it came too late to help Berts, said his lawyers at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

After his request for a religious accommodation was turned down, Berts, an African American Muslim who had enlisted in 2002, was denied a previously recommended promotion and was subjected to “a barrage of derogatory terms, anti-Islamic slurs, and inappropriate lines of questions about his religious beliefs and loyalty to the United States,” said the lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Sacramento reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Real Men Wear Beards
A Marine Corps special-operations staff sergeant keeps watch as a U.S. helicopter lands in Kajaki, Afghanistan, on Oct. 13, 2013. Michael M. Phillips/The Wall Street Journal

The supervisor who had rejected Berts’ promotion to first class petty officer called him names like “camel jockey” and “towel head,” his lawyers said. They said Berts, a barracks instructor who taught military history and physical education to recruits at the Great Lakes naval base in Illinois, was soon transferred to an “abandoned, roach-infested building” where he spent his days in isolation guarding piles of old office equipment.

Berts, who had wanted to stay in the Navy, agreed to an honorable discharge in December 2011 and has applied unsuccessfully for re-enlistment several times since, the suit said. He manages low-income apartment buildings in Fairfield but still serves in the Naval Reserves with high evaluations, said attorney Brice Hamack, the Muslim group’s Northern California civil rights coordinator.

Hamack said Berts was allowed to wear a beard during his first four years in the Navy for medical reasons, because of a skin condition, and was turned down only when he later asked to wear one because of his Islamic faith.

“We appreciate that the Department of Defense has made strides in updating its stance on religious accommodations,” Hamack said, but it also needs to “remedy the harm caused” to people like Berts under the previous policy. The suit seeks court orders returning Berts to active duty and restoring the losses he suffered to his pension and other benefits because of his discharge.

A similar dispute has reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments in October in the case of a Muslim who was denied permission to grow a half-inch beard in a prison in Arkansas, one of 10 states that do not let inmates wear beards.

Navy officials were unavailable for comment on Berts’ suit.

US Army Captain Kamaljeet Singh Kalsi poses in Times Square, New York, on September 14, 2010 , wearing his US Army ACU Digital Camouflage turban along with his ACU uniform. Kalsi, who is the first Sikh in the US Army, is an emergency room doctor and emergency medical services (EMS) Director stationed at Ft. Bragg. In what appears to be a quiet shift, the US military since last year has allowed Sikhs to serve while retaining their turbans and beards, which are required by their faith.

Now a major, Kalsi, a bronze star medal recipient, testified before Congress defending beards.  ”The time has come and passed for our military to openly embrace those Sikhs who want to serve our country by removing the rules that exclude them,” said Major Kalsi.
Sikh Net.com

A U.S. Soldier in Afghanistan.
Why not Beards?
Shaving - Why would you deliberately want
to look like a 12 year old boy?

Soldiers forced to move wedding so Obama could play golf

Asshole Alert!

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute 

power corrupts absolutely."

President Obama’s golf game forced the dream Hawaii wedding of two Army captains to be moved at the last moment.

Army lovebirds Natalie Heimel and Edward Mallue Jr. weren’t told until Saturday afternoon that their Sunday ceremony at Kaneophe Klipper Golf Course had to be uprooted because the commander-in-chief would be playing through.

The couple had sent a tongue-in-cheek invite to Obama to attend their golf-club wedding and received his response on Saturday, regretting that he couldn’t make it.

Hours later, they got another official White House message, this time telling them to move their ceremony.

“It was kind of ironic they got the letter from them and then, within hours, they were told they had to be moved due to him,” Mallue’s sister Jamie McCarthy told Bloomberg news service. “It was emotional, especially for her — she’s the bride and in less than 24 hours they had to change everything they had planned.”

The golf course, which is on Marine Base Hawaii, is a popular wedding spot because of its spectacular Pacific Ocean views.

Naile Brennan, manager of K Bay Catering, which planned the wedding, said it’s understood that all events in the area could be moved at the last moment to accommodate the president.

The wedding was moved to a green lawn at the home of Col. Eric Schaefer, commanding officer of the base, which also offered a picturesque Pacific background.

(New York Post)

Are You Ready For Another Bush Dynasty?

How is your gag reflex doing?  I am getting lots of practice these days with all the pro-Bush polls and drum beating.

Personally I believe Jeb Bush fully represents the Big Government loving Republican Party.

Supreme Court blows hole in 4th Amendment

Standing for the Bill of Rights

Justice Sotomayor was the lone judge to oppose 

watering down the 4th Amendment.

In a blow to the constitutional rights of citizens, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Heien v. State of North Carolina that police officers are permitted to violate American citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights if the violation results from a “reasonable” mistake about the law on the part of police.

Acting contrary to the venerable principle that “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” the Court ruled that evidence obtained by police during a traffic stop that was not legally justified can be used to prosecute the person if police were reasonably mistaken that the person had violated the law. The Rutherford Institute had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hold law enforcement officials accountable to knowing and abiding by the rule of law. 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Court’s lone dissenter, warned that the court’s ruling “means further eroding the Fourth Amendment’s protection of civil liberties in a context where that protection has already been worn down,” reports Infowars News.

“By refusing to hold police accountable to knowing and abiding by the rule of law, the Supreme Court has given government officials a green light to routinely violate the law,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of the award-winning book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State. “This case may have started out with an improper traffic stop, but where it will end—given the turbulence of our age, with its police overreach, military training drills on American soil, domestic surveillance, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, wrongful convictions, and corporate corruption—is not hard to predict. This ruling is what I would call a one-way, nonrefundable ticket to the police state.”

Say goodbye to your freedom
In a Bipartisan ruling Liberal Democrat and Conservative Republican judges locked arms to water down your freedoms and give even more power to the police.

Obama bans ice cream sprinkles

Notes From The Food Police State

Not even Stalin’s tyranny would have banned the sprinkles kids like on ice cream (assuming you could find any sprinkles or any ice cream in a communist country). But Obama’s tyranny would. Sprinkles, you see, contain politically incorrect trans fats:

Early next year, the FDA is expected to finalize a new regulation intended to eradicate even trace amounts of partially hydrogenated oils, known as trans fats, from our diets.

Even sprinkles will be included. Never mind that there is zero evidence that trans fats have any negative impact on the health unless consumed in excessive quantities.

Food producers and restaurants have already cut down on trans fats to the point that they no longer pose even a slight risk to public health. But this isn’t about our health; it is about control as an end in itself.

At this juncture, it bears repeating that a large reason trans fats used to be so prevalent in our diets was due to the activism of the food nannies at Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The left-wing food scolds, most famous for its reports on “calorie bomb” food entrees, pushed restaurants and food companies to switch to trans fats in the 1980s and 1990s.

The CSPI now lobbies to ban the very trans fats it wanted to impose. As with global cooling/global warming/climate change, the “experts” have no clue. All they know is they like bossing people around.

Via Moonbattery.

Russia Builds a New Air Force to Dominate Arctic Skies

The Russian Su-35

Follow The Money Trail

The Russian Arctic military buildup is to assert ownership of oil and gas deposits under the ice cap. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin last year announced an ambitious plan to dominate a wider Arctic Ocean. Calling the Arctic a "top defense priority," Putin said he will add 40 warships to the Russian navy, including:

• a Borey-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine
• a Varshavyanka-class diesel-electric submarine
• the advanced search-and-rescue ship Igor Belousov
• the refurbished Kirov-class nuclear-powered missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov, and three refurbished nuclear-powered attack submarines

Russia even floated plans to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier for Arctic duty -- all in the interests of asserting ownership of oil and gas deposits under the ice cap. But, as it turns out, that's not all reports the Motley Fool.

Russia is building an Arctic air force as well.

Look! Up in the sky! That's not Superman -- it's a Su-35!

As reported on DefenseNews.com, Col. Igor Klimov of the Russian Air Force announced plans earlier this month for the service to invest billions of dollars to buy 150 new aircraft for Russia's Arctic forces. According to Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, these will include:

• Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bombers
• Su-30SM and Su-35S fighter jets
• Kamov and Mil combat helicopters
• Yak-130 advanced jet trainers
• Ilyushin Il-76MD-90 transports

Already, NORAD has noted increased activity by Russian warplanes in the Arctic. In September, the Canadian press reported that Canadian and U.S. fighter jets scrambled twice to intercept Russian patrols near Canadian and American airspace.

Four NATO nations -- the U.S., Canada, Norway, and Denmark (via Greenland) have interests in the Arctic that could collide with Russia's. All four are also current or potential buyers of Lockheed's F-35 stealth fighter jet (Canada is evaluating a plan to buy 65 F-35s at a total cost of up to $30 billion, Denmark 30 F-35s, and Norway 52 more). The F-35's high price tag has spurred Canada and Denmark to consider cheaper aircraft such as Boeing's F/A-18 -- but at the cost of stealth.

Su-35 'UFO' fighter rocks Paris Air Show

Iranian General Killed by ISIS

Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi of the The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Photo: ABNA

Hmmm . . . Who do you cheer for?

A General of Iran's Revolutionary Guard 

was killed by an ISIS sniper.

An Islamic State sniper gunned down a general in Iran's Qods Force who was advising Iraqi troops and Shiite militias in the battleground city of Samarra in central Iraq.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced that Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi was "martyred" while serving in Samara, close to the "shrine of Imam Hassan Askari" on Dec. 27, 2014, Jahan News, a hard-line Iranian media outlet reported. Taqavi was killed by an Islamic State "sniper," ABNA noted.

The Iranian General was killed
at Samarra in central Iraq.

Taqavi served as an "adviser to the [Iraqi] Army and the popular mobilization of the Iraqi people," a reference to the Shiite militias that fight alongside the Iraqi military. Iran's Qods Force, the expeditionary special operations arm of the IRGC, is tasked with supporting the Iraqi military and Shiite militias, including the Badr Brigade, Hezbollah Brigades, Asaib al Haq (League of the Righteous), and Muqtada al Sadr's Promised Day Brigade (or Peace Brigade). The Shiite militias have been instrumental in reinforcing beleaguered and demoralized Iraqi forces, and have helped retake some areas in Iraq, including Jurf al Sakhar and Amerli.

The IRGC said that Taqavi was "one of the commanders of the Ramazan Base, during the sacred defense," of Iran during the Iran-Iraqi war from 1980-88. The Ramazan Base "was important" to the the Iranians, said Ali Alfoneh, a Senior Fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies who specializes on Iran.

"During the war with Iraq, they [the Iranians] directed operations behind enemy lines" in Iraq from the Ramazan Base, Alfoneh said.

Samarra is a key front in Iraq's current war against the Islamic State, and Iran has placed considerable importance on supporting Iraq's military and the Shiite militias operating there. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Qods Force, has been spotted in Samarra directing military operations. As recently as last month, he was photographed alongside Shiite militiamen in Samarra. The Qods Force commander has also been spotted on other key fronts as Shiite militias continue to battle the Islamic State.

The Al Askari shrine in Samarra is one of the most important in Shiite Islam, and its fall to the Islamic State would be a major blow to Iran. Additionally, Samarra is the linchpin in securing the northern Baghdad Belt. The Islamic State seeks to control the city and others north of Baghdad in order to encircle the capital and lay siege to the Shiite-led government. [For more details on the jihadist group's strategy in Iraq, see LWJ report, ISIS, allies reviving 'Baghdad belts' battle plan.]

The Islamic State has been active in Samarra and in towns north and south of the city. Two weeks ago, the jihadist group routed a Hezbollah Brigades unit near the towns of Yathrib and Tal Gold, just south of Samarra. And in the first week of December, an Islamic State unit overran a Badr Brigade force near Samarra.

Read more: Long War Journal.org

Are Iraq and Iran Merging?
Iranian troops are now in Iraq just as they have been for thousands
of years.  The real question is will they ever leave?

The Persian Empire in 1722.
If you lay the map of the followers of Shia Islam over this map of Persia in 1722 they come close to a perfect match.  That is not an accident.  Lands in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Caucasus Mountains were all part of the Persian Empire for thousands of years.  There is no reason on earth that they could not re-join a Greater Iran.

Sunday Concert - Songs of Nature and the Sea

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

To relax after all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season I turned to Gordon Lightfoot, my favorite strolling troubadour and master poet.

Over the years Gord has successfully taken on in song the wonders of the great outdoors as well as ships on the high seas.  Music like this takes you a special place where you recharge your mental batteries.

As Gord said in another song:  "Listen to the pictures flow.  Across the room into your mind they go."

Enjoy.

Whispers of the North

Whispers of the wind
I will feel it sting
I will see it rise and fall
I will hear it sing
The sound is like a song to me
It takes away the pain
The river is the melody
And sky is the refrain

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald

Pussywillows Cat-tails

Harsh nights and candlelights wood fires a-blazin'
Soft lips and fingertips resting in my soul
Treasuring remembering the promise of spring
Pussywillows cat-tails soft winds and roses

Ballad of the Yarmouth Castle

Deep within the Yarmouth Castle
The fire begins to glow
It leaps into the hallways 
And climbs and twists and grows

And the paint she wore to keep her young
Oh Lord, how well it burns
And soon that old fire is a-ragin'

Restless

There's a kind of a restless feeling and it pulls me from within
It sets my senses reeling and my wheels begin to spin
In the quietude of winter you can hear the wild geese cry
And I will always love that sound until the day I die 

The Ghosts of Cape Horn

Come all of you rustic old sea dogs
Who follow the bright Southern Cross
You were rounding the Horn
In the eye of a storm
When you lost her one day
And you read all your letters
From oceans away
Then you took them to the bottom of the sea 

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Gordon Lightfoot (left) and Bob Dylan about 1974.
.
“I can't think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don't like. Everytime I hear a song of his, it's like I wish it would last forever. " - Bob Dylan