Saturday, 8 October 2011
I do of course also hope that he was practising safe sex by wearing a helmet at the time and unfortunately 'auto-erotica' now brings up mental images of car exhausts :)
Terror shadow: US set to cut Pak ties
The United States has signaled that it is ready to part ways with Islamabad if Pakistan's military does not mend its ways of using terrorism as a policy tool.
Various US interlocutors have now gone public with allegations long suppressed about Pakistan's dalliance with terrorism, but president Obama himself led the charge at his White House press conference on Thursday with a public disquisition about Pakistani follies that reverberated across South Asia policy circles.
The US president stopped short of terming Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism but left no doubt about what he and his administration thought of a country only nominally regarded as an ally. After a token acknowledgement of its partnership and cooperation, Obama accused Pakistan of interaction with "unsavory characters" and "connection...with with certain individuals that we find troubling," - barely disguised euphemisms for consorting with terrorists.
The US president then delivered a telling message to Pakistan and its supporters who have long argued that Washington will never ditch Islamabad, saying, "there is no doubt that we're not going to feel comfortable with a long-term strategic relationship with Pakistan if we don't think that they're mindful of our interest as well."
The one caveat Obama laid down in the near future though was the US desire to "help the Pakistani people strengthen their own society and their own government" in the context of various crises facing the country". And so I'd be hesitant to punish aid for flood victims in Pakistan because of poor decisions by their intelligence services," he added.
The US president's brutally candid observations dissecting the Pakistani neuroses vis-a-vis India shocked US policy circles that have long been circumspect about Pakistani backing of terrorism because of US dependence on the country for a supply route to landlocked Afghanistan. But Obama showed that he was not going to be constrained by the logistical boondoggle.
Obama observed,"Part of what we want to do is actually get Pakistan to realize that a peaceful approach towards India would be in everybody's interests, and would help Pakistan actually develop, because one of the biggest problems we have in Pakistan right now is poverty, illiteracy, a lack of development, civil institutions that aren't strong enough to deliver for the Pakistani people."
Chidanand Rajghatta @'The Times of India'
Various US interlocutors have now gone public with allegations long suppressed about Pakistan's dalliance with terrorism, but president Obama himself led the charge at his White House press conference on Thursday with a public disquisition about Pakistani follies that reverberated across South Asia policy circles.
The US president stopped short of terming Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism but left no doubt about what he and his administration thought of a country only nominally regarded as an ally. After a token acknowledgement of its partnership and cooperation, Obama accused Pakistan of interaction with "unsavory characters" and "connection...with with certain individuals that we find troubling," - barely disguised euphemisms for consorting with terrorists.
The US president then delivered a telling message to Pakistan and its supporters who have long argued that Washington will never ditch Islamabad, saying, "there is no doubt that we're not going to feel comfortable with a long-term strategic relationship with Pakistan if we don't think that they're mindful of our interest as well."
The one caveat Obama laid down in the near future though was the US desire to "help the Pakistani people strengthen their own society and their own government" in the context of various crises facing the country". And so I'd be hesitant to punish aid for flood victims in Pakistan because of poor decisions by their intelligence services," he added.
The US president's brutally candid observations dissecting the Pakistani neuroses vis-a-vis India shocked US policy circles that have long been circumspect about Pakistani backing of terrorism because of US dependence on the country for a supply route to landlocked Afghanistan. But Obama showed that he was not going to be constrained by the logistical boondoggle.
Obama observed,"Part of what we want to do is actually get Pakistan to realize that a peaceful approach towards India would be in everybody's interests, and would help Pakistan actually develop, because one of the biggest problems we have in Pakistan right now is poverty, illiteracy, a lack of development, civil institutions that aren't strong enough to deliver for the Pakistani people."
Chidanand Rajghatta @'The Times of India'
Wishfull thinking?
Obama To Issue Executive Order On Classified Info, After WikiLeaks
The so-called "WikiLeaks" executive order has been long awaited by the national security establishment and by the privacy and civil liberties communities. It was provided by the White House to National Journal. The order creates a government-wide steering committee to create and assess information sharing policies across the government, as well as a mechanism to determine whether internal auditing procedures work properly.
PFC. Bradley Manning, who the government believes provided WikiLeaks with most of the classified cables and reports it released, was able to access State Department cables that were not germane to his work as a forward-deployed intelligence analyst in Iraq without being detected.
A new Insider Threat Task Force led by the Attorney General will develop a government-wide strategy to see whether agencies that handle classified information can weed out the malcontents and people whose behavior suggests they cannot handle sensitive information appropriately...
Continue reading
Marc Ambinder @'National Journal'
Twitter: ‘We Are Not Blocking Terms Related To #OccupyWallStreet In Any Way, Shape or Form’
Some protesters on Wall Street are chagrined to see that the protest, following an explosion of media coverage, still isn’t trending on Twitter. On Wednesday, “Foley Square”–the meeting place for the megamarch planned with students and labor unions–made it into the top ten trends in New York. “Truly, @twitter. Foley Square is trending but #occupywallstreet never has? #occupytwitter,” one user wrote.
But even “Foley Square” was quickly supplanted by terms related to the death of Steve Jobs. As one blogger representative of the Twitter censorchip theory wrote, “TrendsMap Proves Scary Twitter Censorship Of #OccupyWallStreet From Trending Topics.” And as Young Manhattanite Andrew Krucoff points out, JP Morgan Chase is an investor in Twitter.
Twitter faced similar accusations back in February over Wikileaks, as some users wondered if tweets related to the controversial hacktivist group were being censored. The precise algorithm for determining trends is private, but the basic thrust is that it’s not about volume–or else Justin Bieber, who dominates about three percent of tweets at any given time, would be constantly trending. “The bottom line is that trends on Twitter are NOT the most popular terms,” said Sean Garrett, head of communications at Twitter in an email. “They are the most ‘breaking’ and reward discussions that are new to Twitter. We are not blocking terms related to #occupywallstreet in any way, shape or form.”
And while it may look to a user like no one is talking about anything else, that’s a fallacy of self-selection due to the fact that users tend to follow other people who are similar to them. “With more than 100 million active users on Twitter and more than 230 million tweets a day, everyone’s timeline is vastly different,” Mr. Garrett wrote.
One hypothesis is that the protest is using too many different hashtags–#occupywallstreet, #occupywallst and #ows. “We used to correlate terms for search benefit, but we don’t anymore,” Mr. Garrett said. “Regardless, we do not associate different (but possibly related) terms in the calculation of trends. This means that #ows or a new related term could ‘break’ on its own and be a trending topic if its usage hit a required peak.”
Adrianne Jeffries @'BetaBeat'
But even “Foley Square” was quickly supplanted by terms related to the death of Steve Jobs. As one blogger representative of the Twitter censorchip theory wrote, “TrendsMap Proves Scary Twitter Censorship Of #OccupyWallStreet From Trending Topics.” And as Young Manhattanite Andrew Krucoff points out, JP Morgan Chase is an investor in Twitter.
Twitter faced similar accusations back in February over Wikileaks, as some users wondered if tweets related to the controversial hacktivist group were being censored. The precise algorithm for determining trends is private, but the basic thrust is that it’s not about volume–or else Justin Bieber, who dominates about three percent of tweets at any given time, would be constantly trending. “The bottom line is that trends on Twitter are NOT the most popular terms,” said Sean Garrett, head of communications at Twitter in an email. “They are the most ‘breaking’ and reward discussions that are new to Twitter. We are not blocking terms related to #occupywallstreet in any way, shape or form.”
And while it may look to a user like no one is talking about anything else, that’s a fallacy of self-selection due to the fact that users tend to follow other people who are similar to them. “With more than 100 million active users on Twitter and more than 230 million tweets a day, everyone’s timeline is vastly different,” Mr. Garrett wrote.
One hypothesis is that the protest is using too many different hashtags–#occupywallstreet, #occupywallst and #ows. “We used to correlate terms for search benefit, but we don’t anymore,” Mr. Garrett said. “Regardless, we do not associate different (but possibly related) terms in the calculation of trends. This means that #ows or a new related term could ‘break’ on its own and be a trending topic if its usage hit a required peak.”
Adrianne Jeffries @'BetaBeat'
Right Here All Over (Occupy Wall St.)
OccupyWallSt.org
A new angle on Occupy Wall Street reveals the strong micro community that has formed there.
Directed by Alex Mallis + Lily Henderson
Cinematography by Ed David
Edited by Lily Henderson + Alex Mallis
Assistant Camera: Andrew McMullen + Diana Eliavoz
Assistant Producers: Dana Salvatore + Jillian Mason
Titles by Jason Drakeford.
BrooklynFilmmakersCollective.com
twitter.com/AnalectFilms
A new angle on Occupy Wall Street reveals the strong micro community that has formed there.
Directed by Alex Mallis + Lily Henderson
Cinematography by Ed David
Edited by Lily Henderson + Alex Mallis
Assistant Camera: Andrew McMullen + Diana Eliavoz
Assistant Producers: Dana Salvatore + Jillian Mason
Titles by Jason Drakeford.
BrooklynFilmmakersCollective.com
twitter.com/AnalectFilms
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