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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was admitted to a New York City hospital on Sunday after doctors discovered that a blood clot had formed, the State Department said in a statement.

Philippe Reines, a deputy assistant secretary, said in the statement that the clot stems from a concussion Clinton sustained several weeks ago.

Reines said that Clinton, 65, is being treated with anti-coagulants at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. She will be monitored there for the next 48 hours, he said.

“Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion," he said. "They will determine if any further action is required.”

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My Comment: Our prayers are with her and her family.

Moscow officials have acknowledged that citizens will be pulled out of the country should Assad’s regime fall.

The Kremlin is sending another warship to the Syrian port of Tartus, where Russia has a naval base, Russian news agencies reported.

The reports Sunday by the ITAR-Tass and Interfax news agency cited an unidentified official in the military general staff as saying the Novocherkassk, a large landing ship, has set sail from the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. She was “accompanied by a combat ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” according to a Russian news source.

The Novocherkassk was the third vessel of its kind dispatched since Friday from Russia to Tartus, AFP reported, and was expected to arrive in the area in early January.

The reports gave no information on the ship’s intent. But Russian diplomats have said that Moscow is preparing a plan to evacuate thousands of Russians from Syria if necessary. The Defense Ministry announced two weeks ago that several ships were being dispatched to the Mediterranean.

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Update #1: Reports: Russia sends another naval ship to Syrian port -- Washington Post/AP
Update #2: Report: Russia Sends Landing Ships to Syria -- Defense News/AFP

My Comment: The U.N. special envoy is now predicting that 100,000 Syrians are going to die if this civil war continues for the rest of the year. If true .... that the situation is this dire .... I am surprised that the Russians are not evacuating right now.

WASHINGTON — In the final presidential debate, President Barack Obama declared to the American people with unflinching certainty that sequestration “will not happen.”

Two months later, the Jan. 1 deadline is looming, with no debt reduction deal in sight.

Now what?

How quickly and deeply will these automatic defense budget cuts totaling about $500 billion over the next decade hit troops, Defense Department civilians and contractors? And how much will they hurt?

Many experts agree: “The sky is not going to suddenly fall on Jan. 2,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank. “In fact, we are likely to see hardly any impacts in that first week.”

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My Comment: If I was working for the Pentagon or for a defense contractor .... times are going to be tough. This is the 'worst case scenario'.

President Obama says problems behind the Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, resulted from mistakes, not wrongdoing.

"There was just some sloppiness — not intentional — in terms of how we secure embassies in areas where you essentially don't have governments that have a lot of capacity to protect those embassies," Obama said on NBC's Meet The Press.

Obama also said that investigators "have some very good leads" on who carried out the attack that killed U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

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Obama on Benghazi: 'This was a huge problem' -- NBC
Benghazi security a 'huge problem': Obama -- The Australian
Obama: U.S. has good leads on who carried out Benghazi attacks -- Reuters
Obama: We've got 'very good leads' on Benghazi -- Politico
Obama says US has good leads on Benghazi attackers -- ITV
Obama Blames Benghazi Attack on 'Sloppiness,' Says Investigation Turned Up 'Some Very Good Leads' -- Weekly Standard
Obama admits 'security problem' at Benghazi mission -- AFP

My Comment: I do not know what he means when he stated that some US State Department employees have been held accountable for this "sloppiness" .... especially in view of this.

Being hooked by a fisherman is probably up there with the worst things that could happen to a shark. But what about becoming bait for an even bigger beast as you're being hauled into the boat?

This was the fate of a poor great white in New Zealand this week.

And a spectacular photograph of the encounter, which shows Charles Darwin's survival of the fittest - or perhaps biggest - theory in action, has taken the web by storm after it was posted on Reddit.

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My Comment: I know that this is not a war/defense/military related post .... but it is a cool pic. The moral of the story .... there is always someone out there that is bigger, stronger, and meaner. Hmmmm .... come to think of it .... I just described how some combat scenarios.

German officials have been training police in Afghanistan for a decade, but a visit to their training center in Mazar-e-Sharif creates major doubts about the effectiveness of the mission. Afghan police remain poorly prepared to tackle the mighty challenges they will face as Western forces withdraw.

The Afghan national sport is called buzkashi. It's a game in which horsemen battle over a goat carcass. There are no established teams.

During a match, the competitors forge brief, continuously shifting alliances. They only work together until they have gained a short-term advantage. The game can last for hours, even days. The winner is the rider who manages to carry the carcass to the goal. Buzkashi is a mirror of Afghan society.

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My Comment: No one said that this was going to be easy, but you would think that after 11 years of war and training Afghan's security forces .... we would have something more to show for it.

Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen is offering a bounty of gold worth $160,000 to anyone who kills Gerald M. Feierstein, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen.

According to the Associated Press, the group announced that it will pay tens of thousands of dollars to anyone who kills the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa or an American soldier in the country.

The group offered 3 kilograms of gold, worth about $160,000, for killing Feierstein, and said it will pay 5 million Yemeni riyals ($23,000) for anyone who kills an American soldier.

The offer is valid for six months, the AP reported.

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Update #1: Al Qaeda offers bounty for killing U.S. diplomat -- CBS/AP
Update #2: Al-Qaida offers bounty for US ambassador in Yemen -- RT

My Comment: I guess the U.S. and its Ambassador are having an impact against Al Qaeda in Yemen.