The Real News Network has the interview video and transcript of The Bennis Plan: Here Is a Real Strategy for Dealing with ISIS. On YouTube, the interview summary is merely:

Military strategies have failed, only a political and diplomatic solution will work

I would hope that Bennis’s understanding is more like the following:

Military strategies alone have failed, only with the addition of a political and diplomatic strategy will it work.

It is nice to see an interview that is more than just “That won’t work”, but an interview that includes “Here are some things that need to be done.”

I think that some of the “diplomatic” strategies that Obama has employed, have worked. Obama refused to help Iraq until the democratic process of electing a new, more inclusive government was allowed by the Iraqi holdouts to complete. This was a strategy that previous Presidents were not clever enough to use.

That is a demonstration of exactly what is wrong with the Hillary Clinton method she would have applied in Syria. Essentially, she just wanted Obama to go in and do something while the internal forces dithered. Unless the internal forces are made to understand the consequences of dithering (and corruption) will there be a hope that they will concentrate on helping the people rather than just line their own pockets and quarrel with potential allies.

The Daily Show has the video Tavis Smiley Extended Interview. The previous link is described as:

Tavis Smiley discusses his book “Death of a King” and describes the events leading up to Martin Luther King Jr.’s death in a hope to start an insightful conversation about race. (16:22)

The video clip below only includes the first part of that interview. If you want to see the whole thing, and I highly recommend that you should, use the link above.

The book Death of a King is something I am definitely going to read.

Does the content of the sermon that Dr. King never got to preach remind you of another Pastor who was unjustly vilified for telling us the truth? You may even think that that vilification was justified, but I maintain you would be wrong.

Here is Maura’s Primary Night Victory Speech.

This is for the 83% who didn’t vote. The 17% of us who made this decision, made the right one. Maura gave the hints that she understands that this is class warfare, and the Republicans are on the other side. I have already seen some ads, not from the Healey campaign, that shows that the Democrats are taking the gloves off, and calling this campaign exactly what it is. It is about time.

The Daily Kos has the blog post My fellow Americans, please stop being idiots.

You people have all been in the internet for awhile now. Haven’t you learned the first lesson? Don’t feed the trolls. That’s what a terrorist is at heart, an asshole playing you for a reaction. Someone who gets off, not on the things he is doing, but on seeing how badly those things upset you. And what does a troll do when you react? Something worse.

I think this fits in nicely with this anniversary date.  I don’t know why we keep picking at the scab of 9/11.  At least this year was a little less focused on those nasty terrorists and how they made us victims.  This year, what few words I listened to in the media seem to focus more on how we worked to recover.

There have been hundreds of thousands of people who have been killed in the wars because of the 3,000 that died on 9/11. I simply cannot understand why it takes the videotaped murder of two journalists to make us forget what we have learned about the futility of these wars.  We now want to make more death and destruction and spend billions of dollars to avenge the death of two people.  I don’t think any troll on the internet could ever hope to get such an overreaction.

If the John McCains, Lindsay Grahams, John Boners, CBSs, NBCs, NYTs of the world could just hold their tongues, we could quietly go about taking what action we need to take without feeding the trolls.

Naked Capitalism has the post Has Apple Pay Just Put Apple in the CFPB’s Crosshairs?

…Apple’s newly announced Apple Pay service puts Apple under the CFPB’s jurisdiction but[sic] virtue of having made itself a regulated financial institution. And Levitin means all of Apple’s consumer services, not just Apple Pay. He believes that Apple is now a “service provider” under the Consumer Financial Protection Act. That makes Apple subject to CFPB examination and UDAAP.

What, say you, is UDAAP? UDAAP stands for “unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices”. UDAAP is the CFPB’s most feared power.

Chalk up another win for Elizabeth Warren.  Somebody has to put the brakes on Apple taking over everything.  As Microsoft’s evil empire declines, there is Apple ready to move in.

YouTube has the President’s address. I presume the White house will eventually put up an edited version, but at the moment, this is the one I have.

Skip ahead to 31 minutes at which time the President walks in.

There is a web site www.battleforthenet.com that gives you the opportunity to send a message to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and to call your legislators to tell them what you want them to do about this issue.

Big ISPs want the power to slow (and break!) sites like ours. Tell lawmakers: “Protect Internet freedom. Defend net neutrality.”

Don’t let the profits and the power of the few overrule the voices of the many.

On the other hand, if you want to see revolution in the streets, let them cut off the only peaceful and powerful means of protest and dissemination of information that is available to the 99% of us.

The Empire News has the story Meteorologists Predict Record-Shattering Snowfall Coming Soon.

Chances are you will hear a lot about El Niño in the next month or two. Meteorologists and weather science experts at the National Weather Service (NWS) say that there is a 99% chance that the we will start to see a massive cold-front sooner in the year than has ever happened, which will produce not just record-breaking snowfall, but according to Dr. Boris Scvediok, a doctor of global weather sciences, record shattering snow storms across the board, affecting the entire United States.

I must admit that this story really had me worried about my plans for this winter, at least for as long as it took me to read the article. Of course, the first hint was right in the first paragraph.

The UK Guardian has the article Tech firms begin ‘go-slow’ protest in battle for the web.

Kickstarter on Wednesday morning made its point on how new rules would ‘destroy net neutrality’.

Much of the internet went on a “go-slow” protest Wednesday as some of the world’s largest tech companies began a protest over proposals that could create fast web lanes for some companies.

When asked what it’s going to take to change the way the country (and world) is headed toward complete oligarchy, recent gubernatorial candidate Don Berwick pinned his hopes on muckraking independent journalists.

Since the main stream media have pretty much given up on muckraking, we are increasingly depending on independent journalists. In today’s world, these independent journalists use the internet to carry their voice to the people.

For the oligarchy to sustain itself, they need to get control of this last avenue of communication. Let us not kid ourselves that this is about creating fast lanes for people willing to pay. The fastest lanes will always be as fast as technology allows. What we are talking about is putting most communicators in a special slow lane for the unwashed masses. The regular (fast) lane will be only for the information that the oligarchs want the rest of us to hear.

At 9:44PM, I received an email from the town of the unofficial tally sheet of the state primary vote in Sturbridge.

Tally Sheet STATE PRIMARY 09-09-2014 Unofficial.

Berwick managed 82 votes in Sturbridge, but Coakley won as Governor candidate on the Democratic ticket with 244 votes.

Maura Healey got 325 votes for the win as Attorney General candidate on the Democratic ticket.