Story here.

"Nov 29 (Reuters) - Syria's international Internet connections were shut off at 12:26 p.m. local time (1026 GMT) on Thursday and remained down throughout the afternoon, U.S. web tracking firm Renesys said.

'In the global routing table, all 84 of Syria's IP address blocks have become unreachable, effectively removing the country from the Internet,' Renesys said in its blog.

Syrian rebels battled forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad just outside Damascus on Thursday, forcing the closure of the main airport road and residents reported Internet connections in the capital were down.

Residents also said mobile and land telephone lines worked only sporadically in what appeared to be the worst disruption to communications in Syria since an uprising began 20 months ago.

Syria saw last major Internet outages in July and August this year, which lasted less than an hour at a time, and did not cut the country completely off from the web."

[QUOTE="Capitan_Kid"]

Is it luck? Hardwork and determination? Family status? What's the secret to the good life?

shadowchronicle

People in engineering careers may make the most in aggregate, but if the goal is to find the best chance to make a lot of money in a relatively short period of time, that opportunity is definitely found in high stakes finance/speculation/investment with some measure of leverage.

I think you would have something to say in regards to the children casualties of Assad's own war in both the air and on the ground over in Syria, given your tendency to so feverishly defend Arab despots.

I was at a party. A prankster temporarily made us believe the Y2K bug happened by cutting the power as soon as the clock hit 12:00 A.M.

I really do not like regulatory agencies with so much power. These decisions should be made by elected officials.DaBrainz

The whole point of the structure of the fed's power and decision making process is to make it impartial to any one particular political group's interests or pressure, at least in theory. Many are of the opinion that it doesn't work out so cleanly in practice, but if you look at the current state of elected federal government officials, it could very well be worse.

Well, well.

"BEIRUT, Oct 19 (Reuters) - A top Lebanese security official was killed in the car bombing in Beirut on Friday, Lebanon's al-Jadeed television said.

Wissam al-Hassan, who was in charge of a top intelligence unit, was the brain behind uncovering a recent bomb plot that led to the arrest of a pro-Syrian Lebanese politician."

This is just too convenient if true.

Another day another IED.

ScorpionTroll

But the first in about 4 years in Beirut proper.

What's with your sig TC? I've always been curious.

Storm_Marine

Here.

I'm not Vietnamese and it's not supposed to have any overt political connotation. I just like the look.

Story here.

"BEIRUT, Oct 19 (Reuters) - A huge car bomb exploded in central Beirut during rush hour on Friday, killing eight people, wounding about 80 and raising fears of renewed sectarian violence in a country still scarred from a long civil war.

The explosion did not appear to target any political figure in Lebanon's divided community but it occurred at a time of heightened tension between Lebanese factions on opposite sides of the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

It ripped through the street where the office of the anti-Damascus Christian Phalange Party is located near Sassine Square in Ashrafiyeh, a mostly Christian area...

...Lebanon's religious communities are divided between those supporting Assad and those backing the rebels trying to overthrow him.

The blast occurred during rush hour, when many parents were picking up children from school, and sent black smoke billowing into the sky.

Eight people were killed and at least 78 were wounded, the state news agency said, quoting civil defence officials...

...Tension between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Christians in Lebanon has continued after the civil war but has increased since the Syria conflict erupted.

Sunni-Shi'te rivalry hit a peak when former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, a Sunni, was killed in 2005. Hariri supporters accused Syria and then Hezbollah of killing him - a charge they both deny. An international tribunal accused several Hezbollah members of involvement in the murder.

Hezbollah's political opponents, who have for months accused it of aiding Assad's forces, have warned that its involvement in Syria could reignite the sectarian tension of the civil war.

The last bombing in Beirut was in 2008 when three people were killed in an explosion which damaged a U.S. diplomatic car."

[QUOTE="General_X"]Probably depends a lot on where they were fighting and who was invading who.gamerguru100

I once asked a similar question about what would have happened if the U.S. was on the receiving end of Operation Barbarossa. Kind of hard to say since the sea invasion is completely untenable as you point out and if the U.S. and Germany were next to each other, they would probably both be very different places.