(no subject)
Sep. 15th, 2004 03:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
heidiOh, this is just kind of ewwwy. I mean, obviously, they had to do something with the silver they found, but it should've just entered the general coinage circulation, anonymously. Not as this.
In other news, did anyone see the thing about the Bush administration's plan to cut Homeland Security's budget next year, when they get a new Director?
Between that and the testimony from Michael F. Scheuer, the former chief of the agency's bin Laden unit that, three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency has fewer experienced case officers assigned to its headquarters unit dealing with Osama bin Laden than it did at the time of the attacks, despite repeated pleas from the unit's leaders for reinforcements, and that there has been no "systematic effort to groom Al Qaeda expertise" among C.I.A. officers since Sept. 11, 2001, I now, officially, do not feel safer, thanks.
In other news, did anyone see the thing about the Bush administration's plan to cut Homeland Security's budget next year, when they get a new Director?
The White House put government agencies on notice this month that if Bush is reelected, his budget for 2006 may include $2.3 billion in spending cuts from virtually all domestic programs not mandated by law, including education, homeland security and others central to Bush's campaign.
Between that and the testimony from Michael F. Scheuer, the former chief of the agency's bin Laden unit that, three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency has fewer experienced case officers assigned to its headquarters unit dealing with Osama bin Laden than it did at the time of the attacks, despite repeated pleas from the unit's leaders for reinforcements, and that there has been no "systematic effort to groom Al Qaeda expertise" among C.I.A. officers since Sept. 11, 2001, I now, officially, do not feel safer, thanks.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 01:07 pm (UTC)How tacky can you BE? :p
Tacky!
Date: 2004-09-15 01:19 pm (UTC)/headbonk
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 01:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 01:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 01:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 07:35 pm (UTC)CIA
Date: 2004-09-15 01:28 pm (UTC)Re: CIA
Date: 2004-09-15 01:36 pm (UTC)Re: CIA
Date: 2004-09-15 02:41 pm (UTC)"Most of that money, perhaps three-fourths, goes to agencies under the Defense Department that are involved largely in the most expensive activities, electronic surveillance and reconnaissance -- not human intelligence gathering and covert operations, which many analysts say the agencies need to concentrate on more."
Interesting, to say the least.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 01:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 01:32 pm (UTC)Personally, I think the last thing this Administration wants anybody to feel is safe.
Those coins are really something. Verrry classy.
Words cannot express, btw, the way I hate the name "Patriot Day," since lately that word has come to mean, "Agree with us or you're a traitor."
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 03:29 pm (UTC)I didn't even know it'd been created until I turned my calendar on that day. Tore the page off right away even though it was still the 11th.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 04:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 01:34 pm (UTC)Do you have a link for the budget cuts? I hadn't seen that anywhere, and I'd like to show my dad to add fuel to his growing dislike of Bush. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 01:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 01:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-16 08:29 am (UTC)On the one hand, I can't find it in me to be too upset that they have the pieces.
On the other hand, yes, the commercial was just...just...ugh. Painful?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 01:38 pm (UTC)Disturbs me more than I can say. It's not even to raise money for the victims' families, is it? Pure profit out of death.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 01:51 pm (UTC)I didn't know what to say on September 11th. I wanted to say something in memory of the dead, but the sheer amount of tackiness and posturing made me feel sick.
Also, I couldn't help feeling very sad when someone pointed me to "We are all Americans now" headline from September 12, 2001, and it really clicked for me how quickly that united grieving was swept away by politics. September 11 isn't about remembering the dead, it seems, for so many people. It's either an occasion for political grandstanding or ghoulish souvenir selling.
What is Patriot Day? I'm a Canadian, of course, so I haven't heard 'Patriot Day' yet.
NM
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 02:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 02:03 pm (UTC)Oh for heaven's sake. And I was just saying to
But no, it's *Patriot* Day. For Americans.
Nice way to go closing the rest of the world out.
NM
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 02:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 06:31 pm (UTC)NM
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-16 07:10 am (UTC)~A
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 02:00 pm (UTC)and the testimony from Michael F. Scheuer, the former chief of the agency's bin Laden unit that, three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency has fewer experienced case officers assigned to its headquarters unit dealing with Osama bin Laden than it did at the time of the attacks, despite repeated pleas from the unit's leaders for reinforcements, and that there has been no "systematic effort to groom Al Qaeda expertise" among C.I.A. officers since Sept. 11, 2001,
WTF?
*re-reads paragraph*
So let me get this straight, the US government spends billions of dollars to create a Homeland Security Department, starts expensive wars with two countries "because of their ties to Al Qaeda" while assigning fewer CIA agents on the case of Osama Bin Laden and not even trying to groom some expertise on these terrorists????
*blink*
*blink*
No, the paragraph still says this.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 02:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 02:36 pm (UTC)Have only seen that ad on Fox News. I wonder why anyone would buy it???? Ghoulish!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 03:38 pm (UTC)How disgusting.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 07:41 pm (UTC)I wonder about my family sometimes. *sighs*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 04:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 05:47 pm (UTC)Also, the whole descimation of HomeLand security for some odd reason reminds me of what Stalin did right before WWII. (He killed or fired all the experienced army personel). I'm probably reminded of it because I just recently talked to my grandfather who fought in the WWII but in any case, it makes no sense.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 06:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 07:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-15 07:48 pm (UTC)(Doesn't make it any less tacky. They did Diana stuff, too.)