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Obama satire About horses and Bayonets So an Internet sensation

Florida, the third round of presidential debates is over the United States. Incumbent candidate President Barack Obama won a great rated challenger, Mitt Romney. But there is one thing that became the subject of conversation in social media, the term 'horses and bayonets' Obama posed for insinuating that Romney complained about the small number of U.S. military vessels.

In a debate held in Florida on Monday (22/10) evening local time, Romney criticized Obama's military policy. Republican presidential candidate accused Obama gave a small budget for the U.S. military to strengthen its power. Specifically Romney even stressed that the U.S. Navy has a number of vessels less than previous decades.

Romney's criticism was directly addressed by Obama in a mocking tone. In essence, Obama called the idea of a foreign policy that was brought up Romney very out of date.

"You mention the Navy as an example, and that we have a number of vessels less than in 1916. Okay, Governor, we also do have horses and bayonets a little more, because we have changed the military system," Obama said in the debate, as reported by Reuters , Tuesday (23/10/2012).

"We have a thing called the mother ship, which can accommodate the aircraft. We have a boat that can dive into the water, nuclear submarines," said Obama.

It is known that horses and bayonets rapidly adopted by the military forces in the 16th century. But mostly no longer used by the military today, though some still use. Bayonet or bayonet mounted on the end of the regular rifle.

Not only that, when giving feedback about the criticism of Romney, Obama also touched on a game-style warships children called 'Battleship'. That is, Obama explained that at this time the focus is not on the large number of military ships owned by the state.

"The issue is not just like the game Battleship, where we calculate the ship," he said.

But again, Romney insisted his position, namely that the U.S. Navy needs more ships. "The Navy says it needs 313 ships to carry out their mission. Now we only have 285 ships .... I want to make sure that we have to have the ship as required by our Navy," said Romney.

Obama's taunts leveled instantly became the talk of the social media topic. Even the Twitter account, the hash tag 'horsesandbayonets' became a Trending Topic. In addition, there is also a Twitter user who create a new account with the name @ horsesandbayonettes. No lag, no caricature funny pictures on the internet that shows Obama and Romney. In the figure Obama says: "We also have a little bow and arrows and catapults." While Romney is seen drawing up the horse while carrying a rifle equipped with a bayonet on the end.

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American Indian activist Russell Means dead at 72

American Indian activist Russell Means poses for a portrait at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, in this October 28, 2011

American Indian activist Russell Means, whose lifelong campaign to assure the rights and dignity of his people grew to encompass Hollywood and indigenous populations worldwide, died on Monday at his South Dakota home, his family said. He was 72.

"Our dad and husband now walks among our ancestors," the family said in a statement.

The firebrand former leader of the American Indian Movement and one-time Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. president had been battling esophageal cancer.

Born in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of the Oglala Sioux, also known as the Oglala Lakota, Means participated in the 1964 American Indian occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, his first major act of civil disobedience.

He joined the American Indian Movement in 1968 and soon became one its prominent leaders.

He subsequently took part in an occupation of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington in 1972. But it was his leadership of an armed, 72-day standoff against federal authorities at Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge in 1973 that made him a national figure.

The siege at Wounded Knee, protesting what Means believed to be a corrupt tribal government and maltreatment of American Indians by federal authorities, left two demonstrators dead, a U.S. marshal paralyzed and numerous others injured.

Nearly 80 years earlier, Wounded Knee was the site of an 1890 massacre of scores of Lakota men, women and children by U.S. cavalry troops in what was the final major clash of the American Indian wars.

Beginning his activism in the early 1960s, at the height of the U.S. Civil Rights movement focused on ending racial segregation for blacks, Means first protested college and professional sports teams' use of Indian images as mascots. He said they were demeaning caricatures of his people.

Means was arrested numerous times throughout his life and spent several periods in jail. He ultimately expanded his efforts on behalf of American Indians - he disliked the term "Native American" - to rally support for indigenous people in other countries.

Means split with the national chapter of the American Indian Movement, or AIM, in the mid-1980s over the group's stance on the forced relocation of Miskito Indians at the hands of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, among other issues.

Means said AIM's left-leaning national leadership was hesitant to criticize Nicaragua's Marxist regime.

'SLAVE TRADER'

He then formed the American Indian Movement of Colorado, and was arrested multiple times for blocking the Columbus Day parade in Denver.

He called Christopher Columbus a "trans-Atlantic slave trader" whose life and explorations should not be celebrated because they launched hundreds of years of mistreatment of indigenous people by European settlers in the New World.

"No one in AIM was loved or hated as passionately as Russell Means," said Robert Allen Warrior, director of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois.

Warrior, co-author of "Like a Hurricane: The American Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee," called Means one of the most important Native Americans of the last 100 years.

He ran unsuccessfully for president of his tribe and sought the Libertarian nomination for U.S. president, losing to Representative Ron Paul at the party's 1987 national convention.

"Given the mistreatment of American Indians by the U.S. government, I don't know why any of us would be anything but libertarians who mistrust the federal government," he told Reuters in an interview.

In a more baffling political turn, "Hustler" magazine publisher Larry Flynt tapped Means as his running mate in a long-shot 1984 bid for the Republican presidential nomination widely seen as an election-year stunt.

Means, who was married several times, was candid about his own foibles, including a struggle with alcohol. In 1997 he was arrested on suspicion of assault on his then-father-in-law.

"Despite his sometimes odd choices, personal failures and ethical lapses, he was central to giving voice to the radical vision of protest to American Indians of the late 20th century," Warrior said.

Means dabbled in acting, appearing in such films as "The Last of the Mohicans" and "Natural Born Killers." He was the voice of Pocahontas' father in the popular 1995 Disney film.

More recently, he was the public face of Lakota tribal members who sued the U.S. government over child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests at Indian boarding schools in South Dakota.

The federal government had contracted with the Catholic Church and other religious organizations to run the schools.

"The boarding schools were part of a century of torture by the federal government and their cultural genocide against American Indians," he said.

Means was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2011, and underwent a combination of traditional Native American and conventional modern medical therapies at an Arizona clinic. He died just weeks shy of his 73rd birthday.

Troy Lynn Yellow Wood, who knew Means for more than 40 years, said he put up "a valiant fight" against the cancer, but in the end decided to return home to die.

"This is a great loss to the Lakota people," she said. "Russell gave us the courage to stand up and be heard about the terrible injustices that were done to us."

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After years of denials, Armstrong's strategy collapses

Lance Armstrong, shown here competing in the 2004 Tour de France, had the title he won that year and six others officially stripped Monday, after the International Cycling Union declined to appeal sanctions imposed on Armstrong by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. USADA's evidence showed Armstrong was a key figure in "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

Yet Armstrong has never given ground. In June, when the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced its charges, Armstrong released a statement: "I have never doped, and, unlike many of my accusers, I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one."

If he had only handled the allegations differently, experts say he could have received lighter penalties and perhaps an easier path to public forgiveness.

"Whether it's a sports hero or a president, it's not the act that gets them in trouble, it's the lying about it afterward," said David Srere, branding expert at the firm Siegel Gale.

Marc Mukasey, an attorney who specializes in crisis management, questioned Armstrong's strategy. "There are so many ways to handle this other than absolute denial and going on a mission against all of your accusers," he said.

After years of siding with Armstrong, even the International Cycling Union (UCI) on Monday decided to uphold the sanctions against him. Shortly after UCI's announcement, Armstrong's last major sponsor – Oakley sunglasses – said it was severing its relationship with him based on the "overwhelming evidence" of his doping. Nike, Trek, Anheuser-Busch and several other sponsors dropped the cyclist last week.

"Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling, and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling," UCI president Pat McQuaid said at a news conference.

In what is likely to be the last official word on the Armstrong doping case, UCI's decision came in response to the evidence file released Oct. 10 by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. The file contains more than 1,000 pages, including 26 sworn statements from witnesses explaining how Armstrong led and enforced a team conspiracy to use banned drugs and blood transfusions to gain an edge – and methods that foiled drug testers.

After USADA posted its case online, the public could decide who was lying: all those witnesses or Armstrong.

The breadth of the evidence, including the stories riders told of Armstrong's tactics to conceal the doping, shook all but his most loyal backers, many of them cancer survivors inspired by Armstrong's successful battle against the disease and his work through Livestrong, the foundation he founded.

Armstrong stepped down as Livestrong chairman last week, but the charity could be his refuge going forward. He remains involved in Livestong events, as he was last weekend at the charity's 15th anniversary in Austin, Texas.

Livestrong CEO Doug Ulman said last week the organization received a "ton of messages from people saying they admire and respect Lance's decision" to step down as chairman. To many Livestrong supporters, Armstrong is a cancer survivor first.

"The most important thing for them is that the work continues," Ulman says. "It's been pretty humbling to see the outpouring of support from people."

It'll take time to gauge the impact of the doping case on the foundation, though the charity has shown it can separate its mission from its founder. Even as Armstrong's sponsors dropped him, several added they would continue working with Livestrong.

Since USADA stripped Armstrong of his titles in August, Ulman says the dollar amount of donations to Livestrong was up about 8 percent over the same period in 2011, to about $3.4 million. The number of donors was down 3 percent, he said.

The release of the USADA evidence file against Armstrong hit with blasting force last week, yet it was Armstrong's decision not to cooperate with investigators that triggered it being compiled and forwarded to UCI, and also released to the public. He accused USADA of having a personal vendetta against him. He declined to fight the charges in arbitration because he said the process was unfair.

In August, USADA CEO Travis Tygart told USA TODAY Sports that Armstrong could have been part of the "solution."

"Instead of coming in, (Armstrong and his attorneys) launched their attacks on us, but really a lot of this could have been avoided to some measure as provided for under the rules if he would have been truthful and willing to meet to help the sport move forward for the good," Tygart said then.

Tygart said at the time that Armstrong would have faced lighter penalties and might only have lost two of his seven Tour de France titles, because the statute of limitations of eight years would've have applied if he had not concealed evidence.

But now it's probably too late.

"The way it's supposed to work is you come in (to cooperate) before somebody has gone to all the trouble of investigating it," said Richard Young, an attorney for USADA and the firm Bryan Cave LLP. "You can't say, 'I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. But now you've got me, so I'll come in and admit it and get a break.' That doesn't work."

Still, America loves a comeback story. If Armstrong admitted mistakes, experts say he could improve his public stature, much like Tiger Woods did in the face of personal scandal in 2010.

A problem for Armstrong might be that he has much invested in his denials, and legal experts say a confession could make him more vulnerable to civil or criminal actions. Earlier this year, federal authorities halted a criminal investigation into whether Armstrong and others on the U.S. Postal Service cycling team committed fraud, but gave no reason for dropping the case. An insurance company in Texas is demanding the return of $7.5 million in bonuses for Armstrong's Tour wins.

Having overcome cancer to win the Tour de France, Armstrong might have felt "indestructible," Mukasey said. So it's probably not in his is nature to surrender, even now.

"The guy has raised zillions of dollars to fight cancer, and he might be able to find his way back into the hearts of America," Mukasey says. "But I don't know it's in his best interest to admit the allegations."

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Taylor Swift's 'Red' burns with confidence

A platinum artist many times over, singer Taylor Swift at 22 seems to be on top of the world. She’s dating a Kennedy, earning millions, and has touched the lives of generations with her delicate lyrical sensibility and songs of love. She’s a near-constant hot topic on the Internet whose existence is more closely watched than just about anyone’s on the planet. And on “Red,” she’s easing into this role.

“Red” is Swift’s fourth album since her breakout debut in 2006, and it’s the most consistently surprising of the lot -- even if it reveals an artist whose success has most definitely gone to her head. Completely aware of the scope of her fame, Swift is more often the teacher than the student in her new songs, and in this role she’s offering lessons on the importance of musical versatility while continuing her laser-beam focus on the emotional workings of her heart.

This versatility is the album’s most striking characteristic. Beginning with the aspirational rock song “State of Grace,” which sounds like a U2 cover circa “The Joshua Tree,” and moving through dance pop of the Max Martin-produced “I Knew You Were Trouble” to the soft-rock gem “The Lucky One,” Swift seems to have crossed some sort of emotional threshold.

Absent are the tentative questions of a young woman trying to process life and love through song, and in their place are the assured words and music of a star who feels like she has learned a lot about life and wants to share her knowledge. It’s no accident that she name-drops Pablo Neruda in the first sentence of an introductory “Prologue" in the record's liner notes.

This two-paragraph essay sets the tone for the sentiments to come. “This album is about the other kinds of love that I’ve recently fallen in and out of," Swift writes. "Love that was treacherous, sad, beautiful, and tragic. But most of all, this record is about love that was red.”

“Red” is a big record that reaches for Importance and occasionally touches it, filled with well-constructed pop songs Taylor-made for bedroom duets. If “Everything Has Changed," a powerful collaboration with British singer Ed Sheeran, or the mandolin-driven romance “Treacherous,” were automobiles, they’d be parked in an Audi or BMW showroom -- sleek, solid and built for comfort. There are no bumps on “Red.” Only clean, perfectly rendered American popular music.

But to toss one of Swift’s better similes back at her, the pop fodder on “Red” at its worst feels “like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street.” Much of the record's expansion is in sound rather than structure -- even if half of "Red" will still work perfectly well on commercial country radio playlists. Whether it's the harder rock of “State of Grace” or the Hallmark-ready treacle of “I Almost Do,” at times Swift feels like a mere cypher for the music that surrounds her. To mix metaphors, she occasionally resembles a flawless mannequin upon which any number of fashions look fabulous.

In this context, to call Swift’s sonic expansion a brave move is to credit her with accomplishing something more artistically significant than simply shifting toward the center of her demographic. By setting rural music alongside more “urban” sounds of the moment, Swift is arguably just responding to a pop world in which country singles might please her base, but certainly doesn’t expand it.

But that’s the cynic’s view, and Swift on “Red” has little time for cynicism. Rather, she's striving for something much more grand and accomplished.

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Lebanese intelligence chief among the dead in Beirut car bombing

BEIRUT -- A top Lebanese intelligence official was among the eight people killed by a car bomb that exploded Friday in a bustling central district of the Lebanese capital -- igniting fears that spillover violence from neighboring Syria may inflame sectarian tensions in Lebanon.

Hours after the midafternoon blast, which also left scores injured, authorities confirmed to the press that the dead included Col. Wissam al-Hassan, intelligence chief for the Internal Security Forces. Hassan was allied with a political bloc that is a fierce opponent of the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

News of Hassan’s killing immediately signaled that the blast was a well-planned, professional assassination -- not a random bombing or a “message” attack, as some had initially speculated.

His killing signals a potentially perilous moment for Lebanon, with its weak central government and deep sectarian fissures. Many feared the attack could trigger new violence across Lebanon's sectarian fault line.

Lebanese protesting the attack took to the streets of several areas, burning tires and blocking roads. Gunfire was reported in the flashpoint northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, site of frequent clashes between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Assad.

Hassan was a loyalist of Lebanon’s adamantly anti-Assad “March 14” coalition, a leading Sunni Muslim-led faction said to have close ties to Washington. The March 14 grouping stands in opposition to the current Lebanese government, which is backed by Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group and loyal ally of Assad. Leaders of March 14 have publicly accused Assad of trying to sow violence in Lebanon in a bid to shift attention away from his military campaign against armed opponents inside Syria.

Rumors swirled Friday that Hassan worked closely with the Syrian opposition, which has a strong presence in Lebanon. But there was no immediate confirmation that Hassan had any direct role with the Syrian armed groups seeking to oust Assad.

The assassinated security official did play a central role in the incendiary, Syria-linked case of former Lebanese Information Minister Michel Samaha. The former Lebanese parliamentarian was arrested in August on charges of colluding with Syria to conduct terror attacks in Lebanon. Samaha is reported to have a close personal relationship with Syrian President Assad. Allies of Samaha condemned the arrest as political in nature.

In his security role, Hassan also gave evidence to a tribunal investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, killed in a massive 2005 truck bombing in Beirut. Last year, the tribunal indicted four Hezbollah operatives in Hariri’s killing. Hezbollah and its Syrian allies have denied any involvement in the killing of the prime minister and said evidence against its members was fabricated.

Following Friday’s explosion, several opposition politicians in Lebanon immediately blamed Syria, and the Lebanese government vowed a thorough investigation. But many Lebanese were skeptical that the killers would ever be brought to justice in a nation where so many political killings have never been resolved.

The assassinated security chief, who had reportedly survived earlier attempts on his life, was said to have taken extraordinary safety measures, including keeping his movements secret and traveling in the company of a trusted security contingent. Hassan was also said to be intimately involved in security arrangements for Lebanese opposition figures opposed to Assad’s rule in Syria.

Friday’s explosion stunned the Lebanese capital, which witnessed a bloody civil war that ended in 1990, and immediately stoked new fears that the attack could be linked to the ongoing violence in neighboring Syria. Beirut has mostly been peaceful in recent years and massive redevelopment projects are underway to reconstruct areas destroyed in the civil war.

There has been some spillover violence into Lebanon, but such incidents have mostly been limited to Lebanese-Syrian border areas, where shelling, kidnappings and gunfights have occurred, and to Tripoli.

Lebanon's punishing, sectarian-tinged civil war lasted for 15 years until a peace plan was put into place. Syrian troops remained in Lebanon until 2005, when outrage about the assassination of Hariri prompted Syria to withdraw its forces after almost 30 years. But Syria retains many supporters in Lebanon and Syrian secret police are widely believed to operate in the country.

Lebanon's government remains a fragile mixture of often rival groups linked to religious and political factions. Still, the country has been relatively stable and last month hosted a visit from Pope Benedict XVI, an event that went off without incident and drew massive crowds.

Video from the scene of Friday’s bombing showed a panorama of chaos, as the injured were led away and people tried to determine the fate of loved ones. In one clip, a man carried a young girl covered in blood away from the scene.

Black smoke hung over the district and thick flames arose from the site of the explosion. Firefighters with hoses tried to douse the blaze. Police cordoned off the area, making access difficult for journalists.

Damaged cars and blown-out storefronts were evident in the video from the scene, near Sassine Square in the Achrafiyeh district, the city’s signature Christian neighborhood. Lebanese Christians, like other Lebanese groups, have been split into camps opposing and supporting the government of Syrian President Assad.

Sassine square is the site of many cafes, shops and residential buildings, and is a popular meeting spot. The blast occurred at a time of day when the zone was filled with pedestrians, motorists and students leaving their schools.

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