Friday, January 31, 2014

Penguin down doesn't stay dry in the rain: It is only meant to be warm in the snow

Why baby Magellanic penguins are dying in the rain

Los Angeles Times
1 hour ago

Written by
Deborah Netburn
Magellanic penguin chicks in Argentina have a new killer to fear -- death by climate change. The downy chicks were already vulnerable to predation and starvation in the first few weeks of their lives, but now they are threatened by increasing rainstorms ...
Changing Climate In Argentina Is Killing Penguin Chicks
Climate change killing baby penguins

Why baby Magellanic penguins are dying in the rain



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January 31, 2014, 11:34 a.m.
Magellanic penguin chicks in Argentina have a new killer to fear -- death by climate change.
The downy chicks were already vulnerable to predation and starvation in the first few weeks of their lives, but now they are threatened by increasing rainstorms caused by changing weather patterns.
"Climate change is a new mortality factor," said Dee Boersma, a conservation biologist at the University of Washington. "It didn't use to kill these penguins and now it does."
Boersma and her team have been studying penguins for 28 years at Punta Tombo on the Atlantic side of Argentina -- home of the largest Magellanic penguin colony in the world. Each year 200,000 penguins stay there from September to February to incubate their eggs and raise their young. Boersma describes the gathering as "one of those spectacles of nature."
Over the course of the 28-year study, Boersma found that an average of 65% of the penguin chicks died per year. The most common killer was starvation, which was responsible for 40% of the total chick deaths. But in 1991 an unusual rainstorm in the normally arid area killed the same number of chicks as starvation and predation combined. In 1999, rain killed as many chicks as all other causes of death combined.
Not all rainfall is deadly to chicks, but prolonged, big storms can be. Baby penguins are covered in a soft down that keeps them warm, but only if it stays dry.
"You have to realize that most species of penguins live in deserts," Boersma told the Los Angeles Times. "As long as they are dry, they are nice and warm, but as soon as they get wet the down doesn't insulate them anymore. And then, just like humans, it doesn't need to be freezing for them to die of hypothermia."
Younger chicks actually have a better chance of surviving a rain than older chicks who have not yet fledged because they are still small enough to be protected from the rain by their mom or dad. The researchers found that chicks between the ages of 9 and 23 days were most likely die in a storm. As they get older, their waterproof feathers come in and they are no longer vulnerable.
On average, Punta Tombo gets about 4 inches of rain during the six month period of the Magellanic penguin breeding season. But that seems to be changing.
"Climate models show it is getting wetter, and we show it has gotten wetter," said Boersma. "Not every storm kills chicks, but the big storms do."
Boersma said she was not surprised by the findings in her study, published this week in the journal Plos One. "When you work on anything for 28 years there shouldn't be a lot of surprises," she said. But what does surprise her is that people feel there is no way to help these penguins.
"It is not all over and done," she said. "What these penguins need is a marine protected area so they can have more food close to their colony. The major cause of death of these chicks is still starvation."
Just a little background on the Magellanic penguins: They are a medium-sized penguin standing about 15 inches tall and weighing in at 10 pounds. The males sound like a braying donkey when they vocalize. You can see pictures of the penguins both wet and dry, and alive and dead, in our gallery above.
Follow me on Twitter for more cool science stories from around the world. 

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The potential problems to getting fast internet service

The first problem might be your computer is too clogged with cookies and other extraneous information that tracks whatever you do all the time to too many companies. The second layer is your actual connection to the internet. Do you have a password on your wifi so your neighbors aren't stealing your bandwidth or doing things through your wifi that are illegal?

The third level is are you getting for the service you are paying for. There are apps you can download to test the speed of the bandwidth you are getting. By testing periodically how fast you can upload and download information you can make sure what you are promised and are paying for you are actually getting.

Most of the time I have gotten sort of lazy around all this because I have been studying computer systems and interfaces and languages since 1966 when I was 18. So, after countless generations of computers and hardware and software to the point where I have to sort of forget most of what I know every 2 to 5 years at the most I get a little lazy and only learn the bare minimum of every new system now. I remember a doctor telling me when I was 17 that he had forgotten more than I presently knew. Though I was offended by this I can now say to you if you are under 40, "I have forgotten more about computers than you now know" and have this be a serious statement if you are under 40 years of age.

So anyway, if you are checking the speed of your computer at accessing information and the speed of your capacity to upload and download information and the speed of your modem and the Internet in general where you are the only way to maybe speed up is to go to another area of your country or world where there is faster service than you are presently getting where you are.

And even this  you might want to think about. For example, in the U.S. some of the fastest speeds are going to be around Silicon valley or around universities in the U.S. because of all the techs and computer science students that would help make and keep it that way.

And the same likely would be true in other countries as well. Wherever universities are with computer science students and graduate students you are likely going to find the fastest general Internet speeds as well.
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How Drug Trafficking Worsens the Problem of Deforestation

How Drug Trafficking Worsens the Problem of Deforestation

io9 - ‎2 hours ago‎
The rainforests of the world are rapidly disappearing due to a range of issues, including illegal logging and cattle ranching. Now, researchers have pinpointed another surprising factor in the destruction of the rainforests in Central America: Drug trafficking.
Drug trafficking threatens Central American forests
Drug trafficking leads to deforestation in Central America
Drug trafficking is speeding deforestation in Central America

How Drug Trafficking Worsens the Problem of Deforestation

How Drug Trafficking Worsens the Problem of DeforestationExpand
The rainforests of the world are rapidly disappearing due to a range of issues, including illegal logging and cattle ranching. Now, researchers have pinpointed another surprising factor in the destruction of the rainforests in Central America: Drug trafficking.
Kendra McSweeney is a geographer at the Ohio State University, who is trained in human environment relations. For the last 20 years, she has worked in Honduras in Central America, trying to understand how indigenous people and rural populations interact with their environment and deal with various environmental stresses. Starting in 2007, she and other long-time researchers in the region began noticing something odd.
"We started seeing a pattern of deforestation at a pace that seemed unprecedented," McSweeney told io9. "We saw large areas of 100 to 500 hectares being cleared in a short amount of time." And it wasn't as if small-time farmers were nibbling at the edges of protected areas. The scientists found large clearings within UNESCO World Heritage sites — areas with important cultural or physical significance.
Specifically, the deforestation rate in Eastern Honduras more than quadrupled from 2007 to 2011. Deforestation has also spiked in Eastern Nicaragua and Northern Guatemala.
But who could actually clear such a large amount of protected land and get away with it? "The only people who have the impunity to do something so highly illegal are drug traffickers," McSweeney said. These people have the power and money to hire people to clear the land and pay off local authorities.
The scientists weren't the only ones who saw what was going on. When the researchers asked around why the rainforests were disappearing, locals said "los narcos" — drug traffickers. Indeed, when McSweeney and her colleagues looked at the data over the years, they found that the movement of cocaine through the country spiked in accordance with the spike in forest lost.

What's the Connection?

The researchers determined three interrelated mechanisms by which the drug trafficking organizations led to further deforestation in Central America.
The most direct and least impactful: The organizations cut down forests to make way for clandestine roads and airstrips.
Second, the drug activity amplified the ecologically harmful activities of certain powerful locals. In order to set up the operations, the organizations needed to get in touch with people in the rural, remote areas to help coordinate the activities. These people, McSweeney said, would have been well connected, understand how authorities work in the area and be knowledgeable about how to make quick getaways. These "middlemen" would likely have already been involved in small-scale illicit activities, such as hardwood trafficking, the illegal pet trade or ranching in protected areas.
To get these people on board, the organizations paid them — a lot. "They get paid incredibly well, about $20,000 per flight, and there are maybe 100 flights a year," McSweeney said. The new cash flow allowed the middlemen to ramp up their own activities and expand further into the rainforests, much at the expense of indigenous smallholders, who were the ones to usually defend the forest.
How Drug Trafficking Worsens the Problem of Deforestation
Sign from an indigenous farm in Eastern Honduras, which was overrun by narco-traffickers and narco-ranchers. It reads: "The entry of persons with violent intent is prohibited. Yes we are Christians and we avoid violence." Courtesy of Daniel Byers.
The final and arguably most ecologically destructive aspect of the trafficking involved money laundering. The activities made people incredibly — and conspicuously — wealthy, so they had to do something with that money. They ended up buying up forestland with cash to convert to cattle pastures and oil-palm plantations — these activities go unregistered. "They transformed their dirty money into assets," McSweeney said. These so-called "narco-estates" also allowed traffickers to monopolize territories against rival organizations and maximize the range of their activities.
Of course, the purchasing and conversion of land within protected forests and indigenous territories is illegal. But such rules don't always apply when you have the money to put authoritative figures into your pocket — people who will not only turn a blind eye to the activities, but also falsify land titles. What's more, the drug traffickers can profit from land speculation — in which real estate is purchased in hopes that its market value will quickly increase — when they sell to domestic and foreign criminal organizations. In the end, the forests may be permanently turned into agriculture when the criminal organizations sell the land to legitimate corporations that want to invest in Central American agriculture. "They are effectively creating a very profitable, speculative land market," McSweeney said.

Why Now?

The drug traffickers' movement into Eastern Honduras, as well as Eastern Nicaragua and Northern Guatemala, was a result of strict drug policies, McSweeney explained. Militarized interdiction efforts that were funded by the U.S. pushed the illegal organizations out of their primary areas.
For a long time, most of the cocaine that reached the U.S. travelled through the Caribbean first. "They got from the source to the demand areas pretty efficiently with little interruption," McSweeney said. "But then the U.S. put a lot of money into breaking up the drug cartels."
Mexican drug trafficking organizations took over and started to reorient more drugs through Central American routes. The activity was able to remain mostly under the radar because of the diversity of routes the organizations utilized. But in 2006, the Mexican government began their war on Mexican drug trafficking, McSweeney said. So the illicit organizations increasingly moved their operations to countries in the south. "Rather than receiving drugs through multiple routes, they told their contacts to move virtually all of the drugs through Guatemala or Honduras," she said.
The flights that carried large drug shipments went directly to the remote forest areas. Here, the big transfers occurred — the traffickers broke the large shipments into much smaller ones, which they sent through overland routes. The traffickers paid local authority figures to look the other way, McSweeney said.
How Drug Trafficking Worsens the Problem of Deforestation
Region near the ranch of an alleged drug trafficker in Honduras. Image courtesy of David Wrathall.
This sordid history has great implications for future drug policies that seek to simply remove drug trafficking organizations from certain areas. "What 40 years of drug policy has taught us is that it might solve the problem in one place, but it's pushing it into another," McSweeney said. In 2012, interdiction efforts were able to effectively kick out many drug trafficking organizations from eastern Honduras — but they didn't give up, they just moved their operations to eastern Nicaragua.
It's not at all clear what can be done about this issue. But, McSweeney noted, the United States' approach of trying to prevent drugs from entering the country doesn't work — it actually makes the drugs more available and cheaper. Worse yet, this supply-side reduction approach has caused "spectacular human and ecological carnage in Latin America," she said.
Before authorities can sit down to work out alternatives, they have to be clear about the possible collateral damages of the different options. "We want to add ecological damage in trafficking zones to the list of collateral damages," McSweeney said. What was once a non-conservation issue has become one, so the researchers hope that conservation organizations will get involved to help figure it all out. "Drug policy is conservation policy," she said.
Top image via Robert Hyman.

end quote from:

How Drug Trafficking Worsens the Problem of Deforestation

io9 - ‎2 hours ago‎
The rainforests of the world are rapidly disappearing due to a range of issues, including illegal logging and cattle ranching. Now, researchers have pinpointed another surprising factor in the destruction of the rainforests in Central America: Drug trafficking.
Drug trafficking threatens Central American forests
Drug trafficking leads to deforestation in Central America
Drug trafficking is speeding deforestation in Central America


One of the reasons people in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California and many other states are legalizing Marijuana is it has been dangerous to go into the back country in National parks and forests in the Western STates and Hawaii for some time now because if you came across illegally grown marijuana you might disappear from people watching these sites. So, this is one of many reasons why legalizing this happened in many states.

However, I think it is important to note that even though this might save up to 50,000 lives from gang violence above and below the Mexican border and make it generally safer to walk into remote wilderness areas in the U.S. it also doesn't mean smoking marijuana is going to be good for people. It might keep people out of prison who are only users but the long term damage to society when cigarette companies and food and drink makers start down this road (which they are now in Colorado) won't be good for children or adults susceptible to psychological or physical addictions to marijuana based products. The problem as I see it is that Colorado is the most centrally located state in the lower 48 and you are going to have people coming in from other states to buy these products and to drive them to all the other states because an out of stater can buy about and ounce from each seller in Colorado since there is no limitation on this. The advantage to Colorado is that the tax on all marijuana products sold is about 33% I believe. So, though it is sold there a lot of it won't wind up there. And those schools and other facilities that benefit from this tax will only benefit Colorado and not other surrounding states.
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California begins to cut water delivery in worst drought ever in history there

 

California Water Officials Cut Delivery as State Drought Deepens

Businessweek - ‎1 hour ago‎
Officials in drought-stricken California said that for the first time in the state's history, they won't be able to provide any water to contractors that supply two-thirds of the population and a million acres of farmland.
State Water Project users won't get deliveries this year
Allocations of State Project water hit zero.

Bloomberg News

California Water Officials Cut Delivery as State Drought Deepens

By Michael B. Marois January 31, 2014
Officials in drought-stricken California said that for the first time in the state’s history, they won’t be able to provide any water to contractors that supply two-thirds of the population and a million acres of farmland.
The California Department of Water Resources, which had predicted it would be able to supply about 5 percent of the amount requested, said it now projects that it won’t be able to provide any of the 4 million acre-feet of water sought by local agencies. An acre-foot is the volume needed to cover an acre of land one foot deep with water.
The reduction means that agencies will have to rely on existing water supplies such as ground water or what is in storage behind damns. The Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District, serving 19 million people in Southern California, and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which supplies much of the Bay Area, have built up water reserves and won’t be as hard hit as places such as Sacramento and the Central Valley farming region.
Story: How Israeli Snowmakers Are Saving Alpine Skiing
About two-thirds of Californians get at least part of their water from northern mountain rains and snow through a network of reservoirs and aqueducts known as the State Water Project, according to the Water Resources Department, the state’s largest water supplier.
The system serves households and businesses from the San Francisco Bay area to Southern California and irrigates crops in the San Joaquin Valley near the center of the state -- the world’s most productive agricultural region.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael B. Marois in Sacramento at mmarois@bloomberg.net
Story: The Waste and Corruption of Vladimir Putin's 2014 Winter Olympics
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Pete Young at pyoung13@bloomberg.net
Story: West Virginia Is Leaking Lawsuits, Too
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California Water Officials Cut Delivery as State Drought Deepens

 
 
 
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British and French leaders disagree on EU reform

British and French leaders disagree on EU reform

BBC News - ‎43 minutes ago‎
Differences have emerged between David Cameron and the French President, Francois Hollande, about the future of the European Union.
Entente Lethal: Britain, France to sign military drone development deal
Hollande warns over Cameron's EU plans
Hollande 'non' to Cameron's call for change in EU treaties
Should a statesman be a man of virtue? 

British and French leaders dsagree on EU reform

6 hours ago
Differences have emerged between David Cameron and the French President, Francois Hollande, about the future of the European Union.
The two men, who have been holding talks at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, disagree over whether to revise the EU treaties.
Mr Cameron wants changes to existing EU treaties by 2017, ahead of a referendum on Britain's membership.
Mr Hollande says he wants improvements in the way the EU is run, but sees no need to revise the treaties at present.
Carole Walker reports.

Read more

Cameron and Hollande differ over reforms to EU
No role for spouses at forthcoming Anglo-French summit

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British and French leaders disagree on EU reform

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Oblivion:2013

Oblivion (2013) - IMDb

www.imdb.com/title/tt1483013/‎
Internet Movie Database
Rating: 7/10 - ‎226,086 votes
Directed by Joseph Kosinski. With Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko. A veteran assigned to extract Earth's remaining ...
‎Poster - ‎User Reviews - ‎Full Cast & Crew - ‎Awards
 
There are elements I really like about this movie even though I don't care much for the ending. I added more here but realized if you haven't seen the movie yet I don't want to ruin it for you. 

My point of view is as you watch this movie imagine if this were just humans with armed drones. There would be the developed nations and developed corporations with drones and the poor (in the future being killed by lasers from these drones) and likely the population would be decimated in this way just like in this movie.

This is a scenario that the whole world needs to fight against so people still have rights 100 years from now. Otherwise, we may be viewing within 25 years, all developed nations with these drones murdering at random anyone (they want to) with no records kept unless people are witnessing these events. Also, if people are afraid of being terminated by drones themselves why would witnesses talk unless they want to be killed by drones too?

So, in places like the Middle East, Russia, China, and others this might already be happening. Who would know? No one is going to say anything or they would be terminated too? So, only the satellites around nations know for sure. (And their video feeds could easily be erased.) So, drones taking out people with missiles, lasers and low caliber machine gun fire is an ongoing threat to mankind. Because, eventually (we may already be there some places) it won't just be terrorists exploding from hellfire missiles. In the future it will be anyone considered a threat economically to any nation or corporation worldwide ongoing in a somewhat never ending way.
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The Shadow War

      This page contains articles going back to 2010 regarding the start of the Shadow War around this time. This article is related to the article:reprint: The Secret Assault on Terrorism
    that I just reprinted here at this site.
    begin quote:
    Friday, January 31, 2014

    The Shadow War

    Shadow War

    Articles in this series examine the secret expansion of the war against Al Qaeda and its allies.

    Articles in the Series

    Former Spy With Agenda Operates a Private C.I.A.
    Former Spy With Agenda Operates a Private C.I.A.
    By MARK MAZZETTI
    A network of spies run by Duane R. Clarridge shows how private citizens can exploit the chaos of rivalries inside the government to carry out their agenda.
    January 23, 2011worldNews
    Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents
    Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents
    By SCOTT SHANE, MARK MAZZETTI and ROBERT F. WORTH
    In a dozen countries — including in North Africa, Pakistan and former Soviet republics — the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations.
    August 15, 2010worldNews

    Related Articles

    Newest First | Oldest First
    Page: 1
    U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast
    A secret directive by Gen. David H. Petraeus is aimed at disrupting militant groups and countering other threats.
    May 25, 2010, Tuesday
    U.S. Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts
    Despite military concerns, a contractor network of spies is still operating and has become an important source of intelligence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
    May 16, 2010, Sunday
    Imam’s Path From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad
    Imam’s Path From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad
    Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born cleric, has become a central figure in the luring of Western Muslims to violent extremism.
    May 09, 2010, Sunday
    Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants
    Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants
    A Defense Department official set up a private network of spies in Pakistan and Afghanistan to gather intelligence on insurgents, according to officials.
    March 15, 2010, Monday
     
    end quote from:
    Series Page » 
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    reprint: The Secret Assault on Terrorism

    Note: I have noticed that many people appear to be rereading this article. So, I think it likely that around 2010 was when the U.S. and other nations decided a secret assault on terrorism with drones with hellfire missiles and Seal Assault teams and other secret assault teams worldwide secretly began to occur. This reduced public soldiers fighting against terrorism and began a secret worldwide war by many countries fighting terrorism together. By doing this (out of the limelight of the news for the most part) it remains hidden for the most part even today 4 years later. Whether this hidden nature is a good thing or a bad thing is for you to judge. However, it is important to note that no free nation likely can continue to long exist if certain kinds of terrorism are allowed to exist unchecked worldwide. So, it is possible that this secret war will continue ongoing for 25, 50, or 100 years on into the   future.

    Though for now it is mostly waged against terrorists who might be drug dealers or human traffickers riding in the guise of extreme religious principles like Al Qaeda does, it is important to note that maybe seeing these terrorists as criminals rather than religious radicals might be more appropriate if one studies these kinds of things and actually talks to people who have been in these situations like I have. Because Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have to commit crimes like drug running and human trafficking and other crimes in order to finance their activities ongoing. So, there is no way really to separate criminal activities from the terrorists in any way, shape or form in any realistic way. So, unless you subscribe to the saying, "Any means justify the ends" which is a Warlord credo there is no way at all to justify what Terrorists are actually doing on the ground around the world.

     

    Sunday, August 15, 2010

     

    The Secret Assault on Terrorism

     

    I was wandering around the New York Times online and found a very interesting article:

    Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents

    to read this article click on "Two Continents" above or read it at the bottom of this page.

    It talks about how public wars like in Iraq and Afghanistan cause more problems than solutions as far as publicity worldwide goes. So, there is a new attempt to use the CIA and soldiers in clandestine operations with the secret agreement of local governments and drones and hellfire missiles are now used on two continents, Asia (including middle east as in Yemen) and in Africa specifically in Somalia. It says the main problem with these kinds of operations is that American soldiers used in this way could be treated as spies if captured and this could interfere with them being treated correctly by the Geneva Conventions. It also leads to private armies (mercenaries worldwide) being hired as private contractors to assassinate terrorists anyway they can, and anyway they can manage it.

     

    However, dealing with Al Qaeda in Yemen is problematic as evidenced by the following quote from the same New York Times article:

    The tribes there tend to regularly switch sides, making it difficult to depend on them for information about Al Qaeda. “My state is anyone who fills my pocket with money,” goes one old tribal motto. end quote. 

    The following is a definition for Salafi Jihadism that is mentioned on page 4 of the NY Times article. The definition is from  from Wikipedia:

    Salafist jihadism (also Salafi jihadism) is a school of thought of Salafi Muslims who support violent jihad. The term was coined by scholar Gilles Kepel[1][2] to describe Salafi who began developing an interest in violent jihad during the mid-1990s. Practitioners are often referred to as Salafi jihadis or Salafi jihadists. Journalist Bruce Livesey estimates Salafi jihadists constitute less than 1 percent of the world's 1.4 billion Muslims (c. 10 million). [1]

    end quote from wikipedia on Salafi jihadists. 

    If there are presently 10 million adherents worldwide to the concept of violent jihad and some or most of them have kids this jihad terrorism thing is likely to go on for hundreds of years the way things are presently going here on earth. 

    Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents

    By SCOTT SHANE, MARK MAZZETTI and ROBERT F. WORTH
    Published: August 14, 2010
    This article is by Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti and Robert F. Worth.
    Enlarge This Image
    Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
    White House officials worked to win support for their efforts in Yemen from President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

    Shadow War

    The Shadow War
    Expanding Battlefield
    Articles in this series will examine the secret expansion of the war against Al Qaeda and its allies.
    Series Page »
    Multimedia
    Graphic
    Attacking Al Qaeda in Yemen
    Graphic
    Counterterrorism Geography

    Related

    Enlarge This Image
    Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
    Yemeni tribesmen blew up a pipeline in June in Marib Province in retaliation for an attack.

    Readers’ Comments

    Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
    WASHINGTON — At first, the news from Yemen on May 25 sounded like a modest victory in the campaign against terrorists: an airstrike had hit a group suspected of being operatives for Al Qaeda in the remote desert of Marib Province, birthplace of the legendary queen of Sheba.
    But the strike, it turned out, had also killed the province’s deputy governor, a respected local leader who Yemeni officials said had been trying to talk Qaeda members into giving up their fight. Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, accepted responsibility for the death and paid blood money to the offended tribes.
    The strike, though, was not the work of Mr. Saleh’s decrepit Soviet-era air force. It was a secret mission by the United States military, according to American officials, at least the fourth such assault on Al Qaeda in the arid mountains and deserts of Yemen since December.
    The attack offered a glimpse of the Obama administration’s shadow war against Al Qaeda and its allies. In roughly a dozen countries — from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife — the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists.
    The White House has intensified the Central Intelligence Agency’s drone missile campaign in Pakistan, approved raids against Qaeda operatives in Somalia and launched clandestine operations from Kenya. The administration has worked with European allies to dismantle terrorist groups in North Africa, efforts that include a recent French and Mauritanian strike near the border between Mauritania and Mali. And the Pentagon tapped a network of private contractors to gather intelligence about things like militant hide-outs in Pakistan and the location of an American soldier currently in Taliban hands.
    While the stealth war began in the Bush administration, it has expanded under President Obama, who rose to prominence in part for his early opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Virtually none of the newly aggressive steps undertaken by the United States government have been publicly acknowledged. In contrast with the troop buildup in Afghanistan, which came after months of robust debate, for example, the American military campaign in Yemen began without notice in December and has never been officially confirmed.
    Obama administration officials point to the benefits of bringing the fight against Al Qaeda and other militants into the shadows. Afghanistan and Iraq, they said, have sobered American politicians and voters about the staggering costs of big wars that topple governments, require years of occupation and can be a catalyst for further radicalization throughout the Muslim world.
    Instead of “the hammer,” in the words of John O. Brennan, President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, America will rely on the “scalpel.” In a speech in May, Mr. Brennan, an architect of the White House strategy, used this analogy while pledging a “multigenerational” campaign against Al Qaeda and its extremist affiliates.
    Yet such wars come with many risks: the potential for botched operations that fuel anti-American rage; a blurring of the lines between soldiers and spies that could put troops at risk of being denied Geneva Convention protections; a weakening of the Congressional oversight system put in place to prevent abuses by America’s secret operatives; and a reliance on authoritarian foreign leaders and surrogates with sometimes murky loyalties.
    The May strike in Yemen, for example, provoked a revenge attack on an oil pipeline by local tribesmen and produced a propaganda bonanza for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It also left President Saleh privately furious about the death of the provincial official, Jabir al-Shabwani, and scrambling to prevent an anti-American backlash, according to Yemeni officials.
    The administration’s demands have accelerated a transformation of the C.I.A. into a paramilitary organization as much as a spying agency, which some critics worry could lower the threshold for future quasi-military operations. In Pakistan’s mountains, the agency had broadened its drone campaign beyond selective strikes against Qaeda leaders and now regularly obliterates suspected enemy compounds and logistics convoys, just as the military would grind down an enemy force.
    For its part, the Pentagon is becoming more like the C.I.A. Across the Middle East and elsewhere, Special Operations troops under secret “Execute Orders” have conducted spying missions that were once the preserve of civilian intelligence agencies. With code names like Eager Pawn and Indigo Spade, such programs typically operate with even less transparency and Congressional oversight than traditional covert actions by the C.I.A.
    And, as American counterterrorism operations spread beyond war zones into territory hostile to the military, private contractors have taken on a prominent role, raising concerns that the United States has outsourced some of its most important missions to a sometimes unaccountable private army.
    A Proving Ground

     

     

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    With Obama, CEOs Pledge to Stop Ignoring the Long-Term Unemployed

    With Obama, CEOs Pledge to Stop Ignoring the Long-Term Unemployed

    Businessweek
    38 minutes ago

    Written by
    Nick Summers
    Five years after the collapse of Wall Street, almost 4 million Americans are caught in a terrible spiral: they're unemployed because they can't get a job, and they can't get a job because they are unemployed.
    On immigration, Obama doesn't rule out legal path
    President Obama Looks to CEO's for Help With Long Term Jobless
    CNN Exclusive: President Obama says he's not recalibrating ambitions - by Jake Tapper
    CEOs Pledge Help to White House for Long-Term Unemployed

    Labor

    With Obama, CEOs Pledge to Stop Ignoring the Long-Term Unemployed

    By
    President Barack Obama meets with chief executive officers in Washington on Jan. 31
    Photograph by Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg
    President Barack Obama meets with chief executive officers in Washington on Jan. 31
    Five years after the collapse of Wall Street, almost 4 million Americans are caught in a terrible spiral: they’re unemployed because they can’t get a job, and they can’t get a job because they are unemployed. The long-term unemployed now make up 37.7 percent of the total jobless population, according to a White House report out today on “the worst legacy of the Great Recession,” including 2.6 million people who have been looking for work for a year or more.
    Part of the reason for this is active discrimination by some employers, who automatically screen out applicants who aren’t currently working. President Barack Obama, as part of a set of actions following his Jan. 28 State of the Union address, issued an order to federal agencies to end such practices after a meeting today at the White House with 23 private-sector executives, who pledged to do more to hire the long-term unemployed.
    “It’s a cruel Catch-22,” Obama said from the White House after the meeting. “The longer you’re unemployed, the more unemployable you may seem. This is an illusion, but it’s one that, unfortunately, we know statistically is happening out there.”
    Video: Will Long-Term Jobless Stop Looking for Work?
    More than 300 companies have signed on, including Apple and General Motors. Chief executives listed as attending today’s meeting include several from the finance world—such as BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman, Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan, and U.S. Bancorp’s Richard Davis—as well as from Boeing, Marriott, and Walgreen.
    Corporate profits are at record levels, having soared 178 percent since their 2008 trough, as this chart shows:




    Meanwhile, the national unemployment rate has only ebbed to a still-elevated 6.7 percent. That figure does not include Americans determined to not be actively searching for jobs—many of them discouraged by the pernicious psychological loop of not working. “Over time you can have negative feedback where it gets hard and harder for folks to get back in the game,” Obama said “That can have a long-term impact, especially if it’s early on in a young person’s career.”
    Blog: The Case for Extending Jobless Benefits in Seven Charts
    Long-term unemployed Americans are defined as those who have gone 27 weeks without a job. The category is improving unbearably slowly, Bloomberg Businessweek’s Matthew Philips wrote Jan. 30, with the average duration of unemployment now at 37.1 weeks, down from 38 weeks at end of 2012. It’s not a pretty picture:
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    Nick Summers covers Wall Street and finance for Bloomberg Businessweek. Twitter: @nicksummers.

    With Obama, CEOs Pledge to Stop Ignoring the Long-Term Unemployed

    I think I remember JFK and LBJ doing something like this regarding employing the congenital poor here in the U.S. also. It is likely very important (multi-generationally) to lift the long time unemployed out of the dole so they don't disempower whole generations of people (their children and grandchildren) on into the future.

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