Today's Internets - "True patriotism..."

“True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.” ― Clarence Darrow

Afghanistan still a huge clusterfuck, btw - Afghanistan 12 Years In: Corruption, "Civil War," and the Release of a Taliban Commander For Peace - Hit & Run : Reason.com: 

"While the US improvs its way toward military intervention in Syria, the US war in Afghanistan is approaching its 12 year mark. There have been 2,144 US combat deaths since the start of military operations in 2001, with more than 70 percent coming under the Obama Administration. President Obama entered office campaigning on Afghanistan as the “good war,” and eventually dithered into a surge of 30,000 troops at the end of 2009. The Obama Administration failed to capitalize on any momentum created by the surge to seek a diplomatic solution. Indeed the White House team did its best to thwart attempts by diplomats like Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan at the beginning of Obama’s first term, to seek a diplomatic solution and political exit from Afghanistan.

...nearly $100 billion has been spent by the US on “development” in the country, yet US authorities haven’t even implemented the basic anti-corruption measures they themselves crafted. The US finally came aboard a peace process earlier this year, though it didn’t stop President Obama from pressuring the outgoing Afghan president Hamid Karzai to consent to the presence of US troops in Afghanistan past 2014, a date Obama’s set for “withdrawal” and the year Karzai is supposed to be replaced in elections. Pakistan agreed earlier this week to release the Afghan Taliban’s number two commander, who the CIA helped capture in 2010, something apparently seen by both Afghan and American officials as helpful to bring the Taliban on board peace talks.""

Really horrible Facebook messages : theCHIVE: 

These people were awesome - Paris Chanel:

I dig this.  Hat tip Dedroidify.

Wish the Syrians had the common decency to kill people with drone strikes and bombs, the way we do in the civilized world.

Sure.  Of course.  They planned it this way the whole time. - Obama Supporters Insist Diplomatic Breakthrough on Syria Was Part of the Plan All Along, Belied by President’s Words and Actions - Hit & Run : Reason.com: 

"After John Kerry told Syria it had one week to surrender its chemical weapons or face US airstrikes, Russia stepped in by proposing Syria transfer its chemical weapons to international control. Syria agreed, and the French are working on a UN resolution to formalize the arrangement. It looks like the diplomatic breakthrough could avoid a war, so Obama supporters have been quick to claim that that was the president’s plan all along...

It’s a convenient fiction that makes the Nobel Peace Prize recipient’s recent campaign for war seem like just another diplomatic tactic. While it’s certainly possible Syria and Russia would be less motivated to find a diplomatic solution to a problem that didn’t involve US military intervention, a diplomatic solution never appeared to be what the Obama Administration had in mind as an end game. The statement John Kerry made that got the diplomatic ball rolling, after all, was uttered sarcastically. Neither Kerry nor Obama expected Syria to respond to it in good faith—hardly the expectations of people making a good faith attempt at diplomacy.

...if the threat of military force were actually intended to secure a diplomatic breakthrough, then the president would  not have went to Congress for a vote on Syria. After all, Obama has consistently denied he needs Congressional authorization to act. Were the purpose of the threat of military force jumpstarting diplomacy, opening that threat of force to a Congressional vote far from guaranteed to be a success would be counterproductive.

...far more likely is that the president called for a vote in Congress after seeing reticence among his allies and the American people for war, and hoping a vote in Congress, if in the affirmative, would help him shift blame if things go wrong, and that a vote in the negative could be used as an excuse to blame inaction on others. "

Ashe Giles, #deadpool #supergirl #bane #catwoman #batgirl...: 

Redskull's Page: 

You're aware everything about everything about the "War on Drugs" is bullshit, right?  From Bryant Gumbel's Real Sports, on steroids - "Americans, when drugs are concerned, rarely choose logic when they can opt for hysteria."