The U.S. and Global Security Review - Blog by Michael Novakhov

CIA headed in the wrong general direction Agency should not be paramilitary force Roy A. Harrell Jr. San Angelo Standard Times Posted November 28, 2012 at 4:31 p.m. Photo by JEAN-MARC BOUJU, AP2004 Former CIA Director David Petraeus, who resigned this month following an extramarital affair, may not even be missed in Langley, assuming that no classified information has been disseminated to America's enemies. Associated Press file More than 50 years ago, my resignation from the Central Intelligence Agency was effectuated. The Company, as it had always been known, had become a bit too militarized and was not what some of its founders such as Allan Dulles envisioned. Intelligence was collected but rarely analyzed coherently so as to contribute to enlightened policies. Much of what was collected by the Company lay unused, some of us feeling it is too expensive to collect this data, not to mention the risk involved. Moreover the trend was in the direc...

Another First: CIA Recruits Gay Spies In what they say is a first-ever event, today the CIA is holding a recruitment event in association with the Miami-Dade Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Steve Rothaus has the story at the Miami Herald : “This is the first one ever,” said Michael Barber, the CIA’s LGBT Community Outreach and Liaison program manager. “This is the first of what I hope will be similarly networking events with LGBT chambers across the nation.” Barber — “a straight ally” — along with gay CIA employees Engineering Development Chief Bill French and Technical Information Officer Tracey Ballard, will speak to prospective employees about the benefits of joining the agency. “I look at my job as informing and educating about the CIA’s mission. And in the LGBT community, debunking those myths,” Barber said, referring to the widely held assumption that gay people are unwelcome. In 1989, a federal appeals court found evidence that the CIA routine...

Will the Supreme Court weigh in on same-sex marriage? - CBS News from Nation - Google News Will the Supreme Court weigh in on same-sex marriage? CBS News Update: The Supreme Court ended its day Friday without announcing whether it would take up any of the same-sex marriage cases. In what has already been a pivotal year in the debate over same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court may decide it should ... and more »     Gay couples, and wedding industry, await Supreme Court ruling on Prop. 8 - San Jose Mercury News from Nation - Google News Gay couples, and wedding industry, await Supreme Court ruling on Prop. 8 San Jose Mercury News They met and fell in love two months after California voters approved Proposition 8, the referendum banning same-sex marriage, so Megan Sainsbury and Katie Kinder knew from the beginning that their shared dream of a big wedding -- brides in gorgeous ... and more »   Same-sex marriag...

 “We suffer from an overabundance of Puritanism mixed with hypocrisy,” - Marina Ein On Friday, Mr. Petraeus walked in Hamilton’s footsteps, saying he “showed extremely poor judgment” and calling his behavior unacceptable. By resigning, he took what seems to be the preferred course of action after such revelations; most politicians either quit or are ousted by voters. Senator Vitter, who continues in Congress, is the rare exception. Whether resignation is always necessary — or even wise — is another matter. “We suffer from an overabundance of Puritanism mixed with hypocrisy,” Marina Ein, a publicist and observer of Washington life, wrote Friday in an e-mail interview. “Petraeus is an unbelievably talented and dedicated professional.” Ms. Ein once was press secretary to Representative Gary Condit of California, whose own relationship with an office intern who was later murdered led to his losing in a primary. Hamilton went on to be lionized as o...

Georgia PM Visits Europe to Dump 'Russia Stooge' Tag   http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/11/1 ...   Georgia's new prime minister starts a visit to Brussels on Monday intended to show that ties with NATO and Europe, rather than Russia, remain the former Soviet republic's top priority.

November 10, 2012 When a C.I.A. Director Had Scores of Affairs By STEPHEN KINZER       Allen Dulles   ( Operation Mockingbird: CIA Media Manipulation   http://www.citizenwars.com/operation-mockingbird-cia-media-manipulation/  )   WALKING through the lobby of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Va., after handing in his resignation on Friday, David H. Petraeus passed a bas-relief sculpture of Allen Dulles , who led the agency in the 1950s and early ’60s. Below it is the motto, “His Monument Is Around Us.” Both men ran the C.I.A. during some of its most active years, Dulles during the early cold war and Mr. Petraeus during the era of drone strikes and counterinsurgency operations. And both, it turns out, had high-profile extramarital affairs. But private life for a C.I.A. director today is apparently quite different from what it was in the Dulles era. Mr. Petraeus resigned after adm...

Smartphones Galaxy Note II Review: How Samsung Sold Me on Humongous Phones By Jared Newman Nov. 07, 2012 0 Share in Share 2 <img src="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/galaxynote2.jpg?w=720&h=480&crop=1" alt="galaxynote2" title="galaxynote2"/> Jared Newman / TIME.com Related Hands On with Samsung’s Galaxy Note II: Even Bigger Screen, Nicer Pen, More Refinement Samsung’s Galaxy Note II: U.S. Carriers Show the Phablet Some Love Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Review: This Tablet’s Mightier with a Pen How to Be a Frequent Smartphone Switcher Samsung’s Galaxy Note II Hits 3 Million Sales Email Print Share Facebook Twitter Tumblr LinkedIn StumbleUpon Reddit Digg Mixx Delicious Google+ Comment Follow @techland There was a time when I thought 4 to 4.3 inches was the ideal screen size for a smartphone. This was before Apple upsized its iPhone 5, but afte...