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Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, as the country chose him as its first African American chief executive.
Share your thoughts on this historic election.
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(24385 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 11:14 PM
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I can't get over an unknown entity breaching Centcom and stealing terabytes of info. holy shit!
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Posts:
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(24384 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 11:13 PM
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heya DaN 
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(24383 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 10:55 PM
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And "the Jane" chimes in. She's a Rainy!
DaN
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(24382 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 10:52 PM
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That's the biggest security breach I've ever heard of.
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Posts:
35,249
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(24381 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 10:52 PM
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Jason Linkins
jason@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting
On Bush's Watch, U.S. Suffered Its "Electronic Pearl Harbor"
First Posted: 11-10-09 10:44 AM | Updated: 11-10-09 05:31 PM
Sunday's 60 Minutes featured a pretty terrifying report on the potential threat the United States faces from cyberterrorism. It's territory that the show has mined before.
As Steve Kroft pointed out at the outset of the report, the show had "less than a decade ago" gone to the Pentagon to learn more about how computers could be used by hackers "as a weapon." "Much of it was still theory," Kroft related, "But we were told that before too long, it might be possible for a hacker with a computer to disable critical infrastructure in a major city, and disrupt essential services, to steal millions of dollars from banks all over the world, infiltrate defense systems, extort millions from public companies, even sabotage our weapons systems."
Eep! Sounds like someone better get on that, before something terrible happens! Except guess what, something terrible already did. "Plus a lot that we don't even know about," Kroft said. Great.
Enter Jim Lewis, who directs the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who says that the United States experienced its "electronic Pearl Harbor" in 2007:
LEWIS: Some unknown foreign power, and honestly, we don't know who it is, broke into the Department of Defense, to the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, probably the Department of Energy, probably NASA. They broke into all of the high tech agencies, all of the military agencies, and downloaded terabytes of information.
Lewis goes on to point out that the entire Library Of Congress is the equivalent of 12 terabytes, so that sort of puts things in perspective, doesn't it? And it's not like hackers were making off with William Faulkner novels!
And last November, according to Lewis, "someone was able to get past the firewall and encryption devices of one of the most sensitive U.S. military computer systems and stay inside for several days." That system? The CENTCOM network, which you might know as "the people who are fighting all of our wars." The hackers were able to sit inside the network, tracking information and documents "like they were part of military command."
This, Lewis said, is the "most significant" breach of security ever "acknowledged by the Pentagon." Not acknowledging this, however, is the Bush administration, on whose watch all of this happened. Asked why the public was never told about the extent to which the United States had already suffered significant cyber-casualties, Lewis said: "You know, I've been trying to figure out why that is. And some of it is the previous administration didn't want to admit that they had been rolled in 2007." Worse yet, in Lewis' estimation, the seriousness of the threat, even now, "doesn't seem to be sinking in."
Hopefully, Liz Cheney will find some way to waterboard the Internet!
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Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 9:44 PM
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rujok,
Actually, I'm HOPING one of those two will ascend to the throne. MY, WON'T THAT BE FUN!
DaN
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Posts:
364
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2/3/09
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(24379 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 9:41 PM
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> > Polls taken over the past week or so say that
> our
> > next President will be a Republican in 2012.
> Polls
> > also show PALIN, or Huckabee (I believe) would
> be the
> > two that people feel would beat Obama.
> >
> > Not even a year into his Presidency, and people
> are
> > already trying to figure out who will be in
> office in
> > 2012, when Obama is removed from office.
> >
>
> They might be able to beat him... at bowling or
> something.
If the Republicans are going to hang their hats on Huckabee or Palin they are going to virtually guarantee the Chosen One another 4 years. Please, God, not one of those two!
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Posts:
2,985
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10/22/06
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(24378 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 9:25 PM
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> Polls taken over the past week or so say that our
> next President will be a Republican in 2012. Polls
> also show PALIN, or Huckabee (I believe) would be the
> two that people feel would beat Obama.
>
> Not even a year into his Presidency, and people are
> already trying to figure out who will be in office in
> 2012, when Obama is removed from office.
>
They might be able to beat him... at bowling or something.
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Posts:
2,985
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10/22/06
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(24377 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 9:23 PM
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> > > All other world leaders will be there, yet
> the
> > > President of the US will not.
> > >
> > > I wonder why that is?
> > >
> > > Could it be because Obama does not see the
> > greatness
> > > of his nation? The goodness of it?
> >
> > I think if that were the case, he wouldn't be
> here.
> > Or, if he didn't think the nation was a great
> one,
> > , why would he try to become its leader?
>
> He has said why MANY, MANY times. To CHANGE, what he
> sees America as. He doesn't like what America is or
> stands for and wants to change it. Destroying it, is
> just one of the perks.
>
There are many things about America that need to be changed. One of them is the insurance situation, which is arguably among the worst there is in the world... unless you're an insurance company. Another is the standard of education, which is laughed at by the rest of the world. They think it's a goddam joke. Having gone from an American school in NYC to a continental European one in Switzerland, and then back to an American system where I had to be jumped ahead two years because I was so far advanced (having been in the European school for about 6 months), and then a few years later transferred to a British one... where most schools wouldn't take me (because kids my age had been doing trigonometry and logarithms for three years already and I hadn't heard of them yet)... I know this first hand.
> > As for the goodness of it... there are plenty
> of
> > African Americans who have had to live through
> a
> > different reality. For them, much of that
> "goodness"
> > still remains in the future. What lies in the
> past,
> > is about 40 years of good, and more than 250
> years of
> > history before that when a black man had no
> more
> > rights than a horse. This was followed by about
> a
> > hundred years when he didn't yet have anything
> > equaling the rights of a white man, but had
> > definitely gained more rights than a horse, and
> was
> > expected to be very grateful for that much
> progress
> > and not ask for anything more, lest he be
> considered
> > "uppity".
> >
> > You think that all that time, he and Michelle
> should
> > have been very proud of how far they had
> progressed.
> > Would you have been, had you been in their
> skins?
>
> Of course, lets make this about race again. Cant come
> up with any other excuse, the race card is always the
> easiest thing to fall back on. Of course, in Liberals
> eyes, everybody is a victim somehow. The race card,
> is just one of the many victim cards that gets played
> the most.
>
And this is the crap people like you always pull whenever our racial history is mentioned. It's a good ploy, because it means you don't have to deal with it, you can just complain that "The race card is being played," as though that's something new since the Civil Rights years, and the race card was never played in America before that.
> How about instead of making it about race, you just
> make it about the things they both have said and
> done. Michelle is the one who said they were never
> proud of their country before then. You read into it
> what you like, and let others read into it what they
> feel is the truth. You playing the race card doesn't
> make anything any better.
It's called context. Looking beyond the words to what was meant by them, and the rest of the information they convey.
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Posts:
2,985
Registered:
10/22/06
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(24376 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 9:05 PM
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> > Actually, you really do have to plug the holes
> before
> > you can fill the bucket. There's little point
> to
> > creating new jobs, if there are more than that
> > disappearing.
>
> If that is so, then stop lying about the issue and
> just tell us the truth. Stop telling us how jobs have
> been created and saved, and just tell us that we are
> trying to slow down and stop the unemployment rate
> from going any higher. Fill up the holes, fine. But
> stop telling Americans that the bucket is filling up
> with no problems when we can see the water flowing
> out of the bucket.
>
But jobs are being created and saved. There are still jobs being lost, but the rate at which they are being lost is definitely slowing. First-time unemployment claims, which is the most obvious measure of that, are dropping steadily.
> They are constantly making up stats and numbers and
> hoping that nobody will notice, and when we do they
> have some other lame excuse waiting.
>
> > The stimulus bill has slowed unemployment, but
> not
> > fast enough. And the economy is turning
> around.
>
> Our economy is not turning around, we are just
> sliding down the side of the mountain slower. We are
> still falling, just not so rough.
That's the first sign that it is turning around.
And, if we are
> turning our economy around, then why would they even
> feel the need to bring another proposal for ANOTHER
> stimulus package up at all?
>
To accelerate the process. There are also a number of people who have stated very unambiguously that they want Obama's policies to fail. The surest way to fail, is to not try hard enough, to quit too soon, to slacken effort at the first sign that there's been any effect.
> > Sometimes. Such as, when the problem is likely
> to
> > right itself. But even in those cases, the
> situation
> > still has to be closely watched, and if it
> starts
> > getting worse, then corrective action must be
> taken.
>
> Our economy has ALWAYS turned around to correct
> itself. We go through periods of hardships and turn
> around to find a better day waiting for us.
No, it hasn't always corrected itself. It's always taken a massive effort by the people, with the backing of the government, because when the pump we call the economy loses its prime, the government is the only entity with the power and the means to start it back up again.
At one time, back in the day, the people made the effort themselves. That was when there was still a large undeveloped area of the country out west where people could go to make a fresh start, but they still needed government help, in one form or another, to make a go of it.
> Free-market, corrects the economy itself. Problem for
> most Liberals is that it doesn't correct itself to
> make the poor the rich, and the rich the poor. They
> don't care if the system works, just who is getting
> the most benefits out of it.
>
The free market still has to be regulated, else you get situations like we just had in the financial markets. What happens is, it doesn't "fix" itself. It gets rigged by those who have the means to rig it.
The stock market, for example, is supposed to be a free market where corporations go to raise the capital they need for expansion plans, etc., and investors could go to buy into corporations that were rising in fortune. But some who have the means and the expertise, turn it into their own private casino, where the prices of shares and commodities are driven by speculation. This is NOT good for the economy, but they don't care, because they're making money. They change things around so they can make money any time the market moves in any direction. If they have trouble picking winners, they change the rules so they can make even more money picking losers and calling them winners thereby getting other people to bet on them.
> > And sometimes, the correct action runs
> > counter-intuitive.
>
> And sometimes, we elect a President like Obama who
> does everything for the right reasons for his
> political party, his buddies, and the people he
> claims to represent, and he takes down the entire
> country along with it.
>
"he takes down the entire country along with it?" You mean, you think it was doing just fine before Jan 20, 2009? It may be more the other way round. Trying to save the country, but going down with it.
> > But there are also those times when even a
> badly
> > written bill and badly conceived and executed
> plan...
> > will still eventually accomplish what needs to
> be
> > e accomplished, albeit with more waste than
> there
> > would have been if people had used the
> hindsight
> > didn't have instead of the foresight they did
> have.
>
> Like most of what Obama is doing. Its an emergency,
> we must pass ANYTHING today, and it is jam packed
> with pork, doesnt create jobs, taxes small
> businesses, hurts the American people and families,
> and then doesnt kick in for 3-5-10 years from now
> while we are still forced to start funding it today.
Jobs are most often a lagging indicator. The money is being counted today because that's when the bill is passed, but it's not being spent quite yet. That is set to happen in stages, because shoveling that much money into the economy all at once can do some pretty dangerous things to inflation.
But you knew that, right?
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Posts:
1,888
Registered:
3/13/08
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(24375 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 9:02 PM
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OK,
My Playstion's FU'd. Someone bring me up to speed where we are here.
DaN
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Posts:
2,985
Registered:
10/22/06
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(24374 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 8:04 PM
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> Don17000
> > > So, Obama could fly to Denmark, yet he
> can't fly
> > to
> > > Germany to celebrate the most significant
> event
> > in
> > > the second half of the 20th century.
> > >
> > In what way is it "the most significant event in
> the
> > second half of the 20th century?"
> >
> > The wall by that time was little more than a
> symbol.
> > Thousand of people were already going from east
> to
> > o west Germany via Czechoslovakia.
> >
> > I'm interested to know: How do you rate the
> tearing
> > down of the wall as more significant than the
> > complete political dismantling of the Soviet
> Union?
> > Or with China's adoption of Deng's Four
> Reforms?
>
> The President could have made an Appearance he found
> time for other important staff like "fund raisers"
> but hey.
> However it iratest me when people talk about topics
> they are not fully familiar with.
> So "Let me spell it out for you"
> Tearing down Berlin symbolized the end or Russia
> controlling Eastern Europe. which is not a big deal
> to America because it's too far away I guess, but a
> whole different story for countries like
> Czechoslovakia because they like socialistic
> government that USSR has put in place that they
> celebrated it with 1968 riot
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring
> the "Communist Era (1948?1989)" ended in 1989 what a
> coincidence
> also there are couple of other country which adored
> soviet presents
>
Czechoslovakia by that time had already opened its borders with West Germany, and by the time the wall came down, about 13000 East Germans had already crossed into West Germany via that route.
So tearing down the wall wasn't really that big a deal. The dismantling of the USSR was. The reunification of Germany was also a bigger deal than tearing down the wall.
> (The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was the first tear in
> the Iron Curtain
> Thousands died fighting, others tortured and
> executed, while 200,000 were forced to flee. 2006
> marks the 50th Anniversary of the Hungarian
> Revolution.)
> http://www.hungary1956.com/
>
Actually, that tear in the curtain was quickly patched. The first tear was probably more like Tito in Yugoslavia who retained a modicum of independence, although still mostly under their boot. The first REAL tear, would be Poland, Lech Walesa's "Solidarity" movement.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
>
> on the next issue Soviet Union " political
> dismantling" did not bring much change into the
> politics.
> Kazakhstan is a totalitarian country Belorussian is
> as far from democratic country as Venezuela, and
> Russia of course is the mother of democracy just ask
> Khodorkovsky
Yes, but it put nukes in the hands of some of these corrupt regimes. It put a permanent end to the USSR's foreign incursions, such as the one into Afghanistan (which had been just about ten years earlier!), and the earlier ones into Hungary and Czech that you mentioned. It did give self rule to areas like Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were able to reestablish their independence, and have now joined the EU.
> http://www.khodorkovskycenter.com/
> BTW Obama was in Russia and asked to meet with the
> support group. he listened to them but did not say
> anything against Putin or Russia.
>
> So it might seem like a couple of bricks to you, but
> for people in Europe it was the lift of the "Iron
> Curtain"
>
The iron curtain had rusted away to nothing in several places already.
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Posts:
4,935
Registered:
3/19/05
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(24373 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 4:14 PM
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> > Some people just never catch onto things.
> > Prettywitty, I still have you on ignore. When
> you can
> > act like an adult, then maybe we can talk.
> Until
> > then, on ignore is where you will stay. Being
> > ignored, is the only thing you deserve.
>
> Is this what you call ignoring me?
>
> 
>
> Still funny as ever, free...in the laugh at
> you kinda way.
prettywitty,
If he Ignored you any harder you'd be getting flowers & candy.
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Posts:
4,935
Registered:
3/19/05
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(24372 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 4:09 PM
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If I took a poll on this website asking,
"Is freestinker fucking bat shit crazy?" about 98% would say YES. Depends on your sample audience.
Ask the same question on Fox Views & the answer would probably only be 95% YES.
--
Edited by s2grand at 11/10/2009 1:54 PM PST
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Posts:
2,714
Registered:
6/8/09
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(24371 of 24745)
Re: President Barack Obama
Nov 10, 2009 3:59 PM
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Yeallowbird:
> Polls taken over the past week or so say that our
> next President will be a Republican in 2012. Polls
> also show PALIN, or Huckabee (I believe) would be the
> two that people feel would beat Obama.
>
Hey, you can always dream. But of course you are wrong just as you were wrong about EVERYTHING last year.
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