It's Bad-Ass

Neat little image at http://www.visualeconomics.com/military-spending-worldwide/

Is it a revolution? Or just hype on twitter? Any news junkies on the sift wanna update us?

[small update]

Some of the (few!) media outlets reporting on the protests:

http://www.memeorandum.com/
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/

Also, pajamasmedia has a list of the various crackdowns Ahmadinejad has made on the protests.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/

So this is my first post on sift talk, and I thought I would try and wait until I had something that I suspect would interest most of you. If you haven't seen it already, PBS and Frontline are putting together a pretty fascinating online series of documentaries centered around the idea that what will ultimately define our age is digital technology.

Frontline has done some docs like this one before, but this one is particularly cool because its content and its primary mode of exhibition are married.

So far they have released two "chapters." I guess they are going by country, because part one deals with Korea... specifically with video games and video game/internet addiction. The second chapter deals with America's emergent robotic military.

The other thing I wanted to bring up is actually a question for the veteran sifters and I guess Dag specifically. PBS video has embed codes; is it possible to post these? I couldn't get it to work. ;(

Cheers!

An extract from "Jesus Killed Mohammed" http://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488

As a whole, the military is actually slightly less religious than the general population: 20 percent of the roughly 1.4 million active-duty personnel checked off a box for a 2008 Department of Defense survey that says “no religious preference,” compared with the 16.1 percent of Americans who describe themselves as “unaffiliated.” These ambivalent soldiers should not be confused with the actively irreligious, though. Only half of one percent of the military accepts the label “atheist” or “agnostic.” (Jews are even scarcer, accounting for only one servicemember in three hundred; Muslims are just one in four hundred.) Around 22 percent, meanwhile, identify themselves as affiliated with evangelical or Pentecostal denominations. But that number is misleading. It leaves out those attached to the traditional mainline denominations—about 7 percent of the military—who describe themselves as evangelical; George W. Bush, for instance, is a Methodist. Among the 19 percent of military members who are Roman Catholics, meanwhile, there is a small but vocal subset who tend politically to affiliate with conservative evangelicals. And then there is the 20 percent of the military who describe themselves simply as “Christian,” a category that encompasses both those who give God little thought and the many evangelicals who reject denominational affiliation as divisive of the Body of Christ. “I don’t like ‘religion,’” a fundamentalist evangelical major told me. “That’s what put my savior on the cross. The Pharisees.”

Within the fundamentalist front in the officer corps, the best organized group is Officers’ Christian Fellowship, with 15,000 members active at 80 percent of military bases and an annual growth rate, in recent years, of 3 percent. Founded during World War II, OCF was for most of its history concerned mainly with the spiritual lives of those who sought it out, but since 9/11 it has moved in a more militant direction. According to the group’s current executive director, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Bruce L. Fister, the “global war on terror”—to which Obama has committed 17,000 new troops in Afghanistan—is “a spiritual battle of the highest magnitude.” As jihad has come to connote violence, so spiritual war has moved closer to actual conflict, “continually confronting an implacable, powerful foe who hates us and eagerly seeks to destroy us,” declares “The Source of Combat Readiness,” an OCF Scripture study prepared on the eve of the Iraq War.

But another OCF Bible study, “Mission Accomplished,” warns that victory abroad does not mean the war is won at home. “If Satan cannot succeed with threats from the outside, he will seek to destroy from within,” asserts the study, a reference to “fellow countrymen” both in biblical times and today who practice “spiritual adultery.” “Mission Accomplished” takes as its text Nehemiah 1–6, the story of the “wallbuilder” who rebuilt the fortifications around Jerusalem. An outsider might misinterpret the wall metaphor as a sign of respect for separation of church and state, but in contemporary fundamentalist thinking the story stands for just the opposite: a wall within which church and state are one. “With the wall completed the people could live an integrated life,” the study argues. “God was to be Lord of all or not Lord at all.” So it is today, “Mission Accomplished” continues, proposing that before military Christians can complete their wall, they must bring this “Lord of all” to the entire armed forces. “We will need to press ahead obediently,” the study concludes, “not allowing the opposition, all of which is spearheaded by Satan, to keep us from the mission of reclaiming territory for Christ in the military.”

I'm not one for lengthy discourse, so -- BWAH:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/14/content_11184581.htm

If I ever meet a dolphin I will make graven images and worship it.

What do you guys think of the actions made by these thousands of dolphins? I think I'd like to join their ranks and leave the human world behind, yes. Yes.

Yeah.

in Religious E-Mail Dissemination Case

http://digg.com/d1nkTk

By Jason Leopold

This story was updated Thursday afternoon based on a report stating that the Air Force concluded its investigation.

An Air Force investigation has found that a colonel who sent an e-mail to thousands of airmen in Europe directing them to visit a far-right, Catholic website, where President Barack Obama was compared to Adolf Hitler and the Antichrist, did not violate the military’s position on religious neutrality, according to a report published Thursday in Stars and Stripes.

In February, The Public Record broke the story about a Jan. 16 e-mail Air Force Col. Kimberly K. Toney, commander of the 501st Combat Support Wing at RAF Alconbury, sent to eight different Air Force installations in the United Kingdom and Norway which included the subject line: “Inspiration of the day - A Giant of a Man - Meet Nick Vujicic,” who was born without limbs.

“Every day, all around us, we meet people who make a difference in our lives,” said Col. Toney’s e-mail that directed personnel to the website 4marks.com. “Please take a few minutes to enjoy the attached video and meet a truly inspirational individual who will provide you with an opportunity to think about life and how we handle challenges in our personal and professional day-to-day lives. Keep doing the GREAT things you do and don't ever let the challenges get you down. Live, learn and enjoy! Thank you!”

The electronic communication pointed Air Force personnel toward a five-minute video clip about 25 year-old Vujicic whose story of hope and courage is rife with religious overtones. A synopsis of the video says, “God has given [Vujicic] the strength to surmount what others might call impossible. Along with that, the Lord has placed within him an unquenchable passion to share this same hope and genuine love that he's personally experienced with more than two million people all over the globe."

Using official government e-mail to endorse religion is a violation of longstanding military rules and regulations and the U.S. Constitution's 1st Amendment and Clause 3, Article 6 of the body of the Constitution completely prohibiting any "religious test.”

The New York Times followed up on the The Public Record’s Feb. 5 exclusive and reported last month that the Air Force opened a formal inquiry into the matter.

“The purpose of this process is to look at all of the information and make a determination as to whether there’s been any sort of violation of policy and, if so, what action is warranted,” Darlene Cowsert, a spokeswoman for the Air Force’s European command, told The New York Times.

On Monday, Stars and Stripes reported, the Air Force concluded its probe and found that Col. Toney acted inadvertently and unintentionally and did not willfully violate Air Force policy or (Equal Employment Opportunity) guidelines," according Lt. Col. Dave Honchul, 3rd Air Force’s director of public affairs.

The investigation, officially was referred to as an "equal opportunity treatment incident clarification."

"Lt. Gen. Philip Breedlove, Third Air Force commander, agreed with the findings of the EOTI, has taken appropriate action and considers the case closed, Honchul said. When asked what appropriate action was taken, Honchul did not offer specifics, citing privacy concerns," Stars and Stripes reported.

But one of the e-mail’s recipients, Master Sergeant Jeffrey L. Thompson, who said Col. Toney’s e-mail smacked of illegal proselytizing and was "hostile to our commander-in-chief" was blocked from filing a formal complaint by his superior.

MSgt. Thompson, who said he is a Roman Catholic, was told by an official with the Military Equal Opportunity office (MEO) in January that Col. Toney’s e-mail was not intended to come across as proselytizing and because he did not personally endure any suffering as a result of her widely distributed e-mail and therefore was prevented from filing a formal complaint.

But Mikey Weinstein, the founder and president of the watchdog group the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, predicted last month in an interview that the Air Force “investigation” would be a “sham.”

“What we’re faced with here is a fundamentalist Christian para-church –military-corporate-proselytizing-complex,” Weinstein said in an interview. “It is far easier to find 'happy clients' of Bernie Madoff than it is to find American servicemen and women who've been able to successfully solve the profound institutional command bias in order to even lodge complaints of unconstitutional religious intolerance within the Department of Defense. The Air Force should be ignominiously ashamed of itself and heads should roll.”

Weinstein said the “unconstitutional religious oppression is so out of control in the Department of Defense that MRFF is proposing publicly for the very first time that all Defense Department personnel be immediately required to swear out an additional oath besides the one they all swear to protect and defend the Constitution: "The Oath of Equal Character."

On Feb. 9, four days after The Public Record broke the story, Col. Toney apologized for disseminating the e-mail. She said she was unaware that the website she directed the 3,000 or so military personnel to visit contained offensive content.

"I recently sent an e-mail to our 501st Team that contained a link to what I believed was an inspirational message about hope and encouragement," Toney wrote, according to a copy of the e-mail obtained by The Public Record. "Regrettably, I was unaware at the time that the Web site hosting this link contains information and links to information, the content of which is inappropriate. I sincerely apologize for this oversight, especially to those individuals who may have been offended, and want to ensure all are aware that my intent was solely to provide a tool that might offer beneficial insight toward overcoming adversity."

From: Superpoop.com

There is a war going on just across the border and it gets hardly any air time in the MSM. In Juarez, Mexico just across the border from El Paso, TX over 1600 people were murdered last year. I have family in El Paso and New Mexico so this really hits home.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_11444354

It has come to my attention that someone who will remain nameless has gone into my comment history and summarily marked my most recent 5 pages or so as "spam." This is a violation of my rights as a loyal videosift contributor, as I have over 50 sifted videos. This is downright unacceptable and hateful.

I think the authorities should look into this, since we all know choggie was banned for similar actions. I frequently downvote comments based on political differences, but do so based on the comment itself.

My comments have been on my own sift talk posts, on peoples profiles and other places this person had no business disgracing my comments.

Thank you.

I'd just like to remind everyone that today is the 90th anniversary of signing of the armistice that ended World War I.

Please, take two minutes of silence today, to remember and honour those who have sacrificed for that which we all enjoy.

Lest we forget.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_day

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/14/friendly_fire/index.html

Military friendly fire cover up.

Graphic, warning these are real and some people may have been killed. Watch at your own discretion, and risk.

During the first part of the video they are excited about the tank back up, and then boom the guy with the camera is blown across the room from the pressure.

This is the story of a family that was lied too according to Salon.

During the video you can hear them creating fabrication stating that it is a Mortar, when there are reports of tank shells impacting the building.

As if that isnt worse what about this:

After the shell hit, those men on the roof who could still walk bounded toward the staircase at the northeast corner, shoving each other forward and down the stairs, at least one fleeing so quickly that he committed the cardinal sin of leaving his gun behind. The men regrouped on the second floor. Meanwhile the tank's M240 coaxial machine gun, mounted next to the turret, began firing into building #2. Instinctively, one of the soldiers who had fled to the second floor started firing back at the tank.

Rob began directing the effort to get the shooting to stop. " Make sure that tank knows where we're at!" he yelled into the radio, trying to reach the lieutenant in charge of the platoon, one of the refugees from the roof who was now on the second floor. "I think the tank fired at us." "Yeah, it just took out the fucking roof," marveled a soldier. "Who did?" demanded another. "That tank," replied the soldier. "I saw him fucking hit it."

- http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/14/friendly_fire/index1.html

Also reported that Pat Tillman died from an IED, or some other crap, but in fact he was killed standing next to a translator, they could not identify Blue on Blue.

I only cross posted this because, in this case I would like any one hitting the main sift talk page to see it.

http://www.getfreshminds.com/2008/10/baghdad-pups.html
http://www.spca.com/press/item/56

Apparently this woman who was 15 months over due to return to return from the dead is being punished for befriending an animal.

Baghdad Pups is an organization that brings the animals home for the soldiers. But, in this case US resources were used by the soldiers commanding officers to seize the dog as it was en route to the airport to be shipped home.

In my opinion, I think that who ever is pulling rank on this one had a botched affair with her or worse.

There have been many, many successful rescue operations by Baghdad Pups and to see some one take hostile action towards something so small is sickening.

Stationed in a desert, under the constant threat of maiming from explosives you would think the US army would like the soldiers to be happy. This is a clear cut case of some one above her playing the I have Rank Card.

In short, tell your friends, maybe something can be done.

By the way... they are trying to court martial her.

"Soldiers can face immediate court-marshal [for befriending animals] and some even see their animals brutally murdered by a direct gunshot to the head from commanding officers who will not bend the rules." - direct quote from http://www.getfreshminds.com/2008/10/baghdad-pups.html

http://theuptake.org/en/
http://tc.indymedia.org/
http://twitter.com/coldsnaplegal

Not just riot gear and horses and the usual paramilitary toys, but they actually have National Guard being called in.

iCasualties.com is a website that reports on and visually depicts Coalition deaths as well as reported Iraqi military/police and civilian deaths. Though the death count for Iraqis is markedly lower than that controversial paper that was released and later attacked for being overboard, the site admits that it is an unfortunately incomplete list as it reports "reported" deaths and doesn't extrapolate non-reported deaths.


Still, it is reported to be a significantly accurate measure of coalition/contractor deaths and injuries.


Of note is the stark and sudden decrease in coalition military deaths since the surge began. Iraqi civilian deaths seems to have also decreased if to a smaller extent. In fact, Coalition military deaths were the lowest this month since the beginning. Hostile deaths are also WAY down.
shown here:
http://icasualties.org/oif/CasualtyTrends.aspx
http://icasualties.org/oif/HostileNonHostile.aspx
The site also has other statistics that are interesting. Browse at your leisure.

Also,
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080731124350.si8k6wlc&show_article=1
for commentary on the new report.

Remember the horrible puppy-tossing incident?

Well, now the marines are being punished for it.

From http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/11/marine.puppy/index.html

"The U.S. Marine Corps has disciplined two Marines over a videotape that showed a Marine throwing a puppy over a cliff, the military said Wednesday.

Officials did not specify the role that each man played in the incident, which received international attention after a video of it appeared on YouTube.com March 3.

Lance Cpl. David Motari is being processed for removal for his role, the Marine Corps said, and Sgt. Crismarvin Banez Encarnacion also has been punished.

The video shows someone throwing a black-and-white puppy off a rocky cliff. The dog makes a yelping sound as it flies through the air.

"That's mean. That was mean," someone off-camera is heard saying.

YouTube removed the video about a day after it was posted, "due to terms of use violation," the site said.

The Marines were quick to condemn the video when it surfaced, calling it "shocking and deplorable."

Marine officials said the disciplinary action followed a thorough investigation, according to a statement that the Marine Corps Base Hawaii released Wednesday.
"The actions seen in the Internet video are contrary to the high standards we expect of every Marine and will not be tolerated," the statement said."

Yes, that's right. Arsenault185+100=Awesomesauce!
Craig has a new rank, come and salute or end up cleaning the officer's latrine!

Arsenault was first checked out on this equipment in November 'o7, and has contributed steadily since then, except for a breeding break:

http://blog.videosift.com/arsenault185/My-Brand-New-Daughter-and-the-reason-I-was-away

So if you want a taste of some of his new promote power, get on his good side now and work some stuff out of his Pq:

http://arsenault185.videosift.com/member/arsenault185/pqueued

And, being a wise sifter he's made sure his Queue is full, too...

http://arsenault185.videosift.com/member/arsenault185/queued

For a little more info, check his entry on MG's recent Sift Post: >> HERE:
In which he claims to be the "better half" of MarineGunrock. I'm sure that's up for debate.

Arsenault also has has a good comments to votes ratio, He's a hard wokin' Sifter who has probably voted for many of your posts.

So Thanks be to Arsenault! Keep up the good work!

From The Washington Post
Army Spc. Monica Brown was awarded the Silver Star for treating wounded soldiers under fire after their convoy was attacked in Afghanistan, and is only the second woman to receive the award since World War II. Despite her heroics, she was pulled from combat missions because of gender.
"We weren't supposed to take her out" on missions "but we had to because there was no other medic," said Lt. Martin Robbins, a platoon leader with Charlie Troop, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, whose men Brown saved. "By regulations you're not supposed to," he said, but Brown "was one of the guys, mixing it up, clearing rooms, doing everything that anybody else was doing…."
In addition to the article, here’s a CBS interview with Brown and Katie Couric.

DARPA is at it again with bugs that become bugs!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/06/scirobot106.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox

Sifters! AH-tennnnn-TION!

One of our soldiers had just been *promoted to the rank of gold! Arsenault185, with his massively dull and unoriginal screen name, has been a troubled sifter, what with no Whoopie pies in Korea and having to post videos during the U.S. night.
So why don't you all go over to his queue and help his wannabe Marine ass out.

Dismissed!