Collapsing U.S. credibility
Two Op-Eds in The New York Times this morning both warn of the precipitous decline of American credibility on matters of human rights and peace ushered in by the Obama presidency. Taken together, they explain much of why I’ve been writing what I’ve been writing over the last three years. The first is from Columbia Professor and cyber expert Misha Glenny, who explains the significance of the first ever deployment of cyberwarfare — by the U.S. (first under Bush and accelerated under Obama), along with Israel, against Iran:,
The second is from former U.S. President Jimmy Carter an actually meritorious Nobel Peace Prize winner who describes the record of his fellow Nobel laureate the current President in an Op-Ed entitled “A Cruel and Unusual Record“:
The second is from former U.S. President Jimmy Carter an actually meritorious Nobel Peace Prize winner who describes the record of his fellow Nobel laureate the current President in an Op-Ed entitled “A Cruel and Unusual Record“:
MYSTERIOUS CIRCLE-SHAPED OBJECT IN THE BALTIC SEA
This sounds very interesting.
“During my 20-year diving career, including 6000 dives, I have never seen anything like this. Normally stones don’t burn. I can’t explain what we saw, and I went down there to answer questions, but I came up with even more questions “, says Stefan Hogeborn, one of the divers at Ocean X Team.
More details here:
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/12438930-baltic-sea-ufouso-disables-electronic-equipment-mystery-deepens
“During my 20-year diving career, including 6000 dives, I have never seen anything like this. Normally stones don’t burn. I can’t explain what we saw, and I went down there to answer questions, but I came up with even more questions “, says Stefan Hogeborn, one of the divers at Ocean X Team.
More details here:
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/12438930-baltic-sea-ufouso-disables-electronic-equipment-mystery-deepens
Hybrid grass linked to Texas cattle deaths
Weird.
See clarification here:
http://cryptogon.com/?p=30142
It's actually a hybrid grass.
See clarification here:
http://cryptogon.com/?p=30142
It's actually a hybrid grass.
DefCon: 20 Years of Hackers, Hijinks and Snooping Feds
Capture the Flag, a digital version of King of the Hill, is the core contest at DefCon, which pits teams of hackers against one another in a battle to gain root on a networked box and fight off adversaries who would unseat them. Teams often work round-the-clock throughout the conference, never leaving their computers for long.
Guest Post: The Economic Abuse Of Veterans In America | ZeroHedge
Volunteering to join the military has always been a process rife with internal and external conflictions. A vital aspect of one’s ultimate decision to do so often depends greatly upon the era in which one becomes eligible. U.S. citizens leaped at the chance to defend their country at the onset of World War II because the enemies were indeed a legitimate and obvious threat to the freedom and sovereignty of all nations. During Vietnam, the waters were muddied (at least in the view of millions of citizens), and many Americans did not see the fight as their own. The line between our system, and the enemies we were supposed to despise, had become progressively more foggy and disjointed. For any wise and honorable man to go out of his way to risk his life, the fight must be clearly just, otherwise, he may feel that his death will serve no purpose.
Obama Asserts Executive Privilege Over Fast And Furious Fiasco | ZeroHedge
President Obama has granted an 11th-hour request by Attorney General Eric Holder to exert executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents, a last-minute maneuver that appears unlikely to head off a contempt vote against Holder by Republicans in the House. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is expected to forge ahead with its meeting on the contempt resolution anyway.
Feds scrap traveller eavesdropping program at Ottawa airport
UPDATE:
The federal government has scrapped a plan to eavesdrop on travellers’ conversations at the Ottawa international airport pending further study after news of the program drew criticism from privacy watchdogs.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) installed microphones at the Macdonald-Cartier Airport to further screen travellers in a plan Public Safety Minister Vic Toews defended Monday as a way to prevent smuggling. Toews assured critics Canadians’ privacy would be respected. No conversations had been recorded, according to reports.
The federal government has scrapped a plan to eavesdrop on travellers’ conversations at the Ottawa international airport pending further study after news of the program drew criticism from privacy watchdogs.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) installed microphones at the Macdonald-Cartier Airport to further screen travellers in a plan Public Safety Minister Vic Toews defended Monday as a way to prevent smuggling. Toews assured critics Canadians’ privacy would be respected. No conversations had been recorded, according to reports.
Do Not Track - Universal Web Tracking Opt Out
Do Not Track is a technology and policy proposal that enables users to opt out of tracking by websites they do not visit, including analytics services, advertising networks, and social platforms. At present few of these third parties offer a reliable tracking opt out, and tools for blocking them are neither user-friendly nor comprehensive. Much like the popular Do Not Call registry, Do Not Track provides users with a single, simple, persistent choice to opt out of third-party web tracking.
U.S. again bombs mourners
Note that there is no suggestion, even from the “officials” on which these media reports (as usual) rely, that the dead man was a Terrorist or even a “militant.” He was simply receiving condolences for his dead brother. But pursuant to the standards embraced by President Obama, the brother — without knowing anything about him — is inherently deemed a “combatant” and therefore a legitimate target for death solely by virtue of being a “military-age male in a strike zone.” Of course, killing family members of bombing targets is nothing new for this President: let’s recall the still-unresolved question of why Anwar Awlaki’s 16-year-old American son, Abdulrahman, was killed by a U.S. drone attack in Yemen two weeks after his father was killed.
Harvard Medical School to Face Trial for Research Fraud
Dr. Kenneth Jones, the chief statistician for the NIH grant, blew the whistle after realizing that measurements used to demonstrate the reliability of the study had been secretly altered. Without these alterations, Dr. Jones explained, there was no statistical significance to the major findings of the study. After Dr. Jones insisted that the altered measurements be subjected to a reliability study and that the results could not be presented as part of a $15 million federal grant extension application, he was terminated and his career came to an end.
The First Circuit overturned a lower court decision finding that the court had failed to consider substantial evidence of fraud. This evidence established that Harvard knew of the falsifications and failed to take action to correct or disavow the data.
The First Circuit overturned a lower court decision finding that the court had failed to consider substantial evidence of fraud. This evidence established that Harvard knew of the falsifications and failed to take action to correct or disavow the data.
Aurora Over Raufarhöfn
Seeing this image makes me want to start listening to Zeppelin's Immigrant Song at high volume! Here is a link to same said song and a portion of the lyrics:
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!
And here is more info about Arctic Henge:
http://sagatrail.is/index.php/en/22arctichenge
The Arctic Henge at Raufarhöfn is under construction. The Henge will harness the Midnight Sun at the Arctic Circle. It is inspired by the mythical world of eddic poem Völuspá (Prophecy of the Seeress). The Henge will be 52m in diameter, containing a Dwarf Path including the names of 72 dwarfs which form a year-circle in which each dwarf has five days. A crystal at the top of an 8-metre-high column will throw light all over the Henge. Each dwarf will have his name and character, and visitors can find their own Birthday Dwarf.
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!
And here is more info about Arctic Henge:
http://sagatrail.is/index.php/en/22arctichenge
The Arctic Henge at Raufarhöfn is under construction. The Henge will harness the Midnight Sun at the Arctic Circle. It is inspired by the mythical world of eddic poem Völuspá (Prophecy of the Seeress). The Henge will be 52m in diameter, containing a Dwarf Path including the names of 72 dwarfs which form a year-circle in which each dwarf has five days. A crystal at the top of an 8-metre-high column will throw light all over the Henge. Each dwarf will have his name and character, and visitors can find their own Birthday Dwarf.
From D.C. To Beijing In 2 Hours – Evacuated Tube Transport Could Revolutionize How We Travel
Holy time travel Batman!
ETT does the maglevs one better by sending its levitated capsules down guider tubes out of which the air has been sucked, creating a vacuum. Like maglev vehicles, linear electric motors in the track will use the attraction and repulsion between the track and the capsules in a coordinated manner to propel the capsules forward. But because there is virtually no resistance in the evacuated tube, once the train gets up to speed it can just coast. Not only does ETT lack an engine – and a need for fossil fuel propulsion – but because it can glide along almost indefinitely through the vacuum it takes full advantage of Newton’s age-old “an object in motion stays in motion.” That is, until someone hits the brakes.
ETT does the maglevs one better by sending its levitated capsules down guider tubes out of which the air has been sucked, creating a vacuum. Like maglev vehicles, linear electric motors in the track will use the attraction and repulsion between the track and the capsules in a coordinated manner to propel the capsules forward. But because there is virtually no resistance in the evacuated tube, once the train gets up to speed it can just coast. Not only does ETT lack an engine – and a need for fossil fuel propulsion – but because it can glide along almost indefinitely through the vacuum it takes full advantage of Newton’s age-old “an object in motion stays in motion.” That is, until someone hits the brakes.
Regenokine: The Unproven Treatment That Professional Athletes Are Flying To Germany For
very interesting
The Regenokine treatment involves extracting the blood and then slightly heating it. The heat creates a kind of “fever” for the blood, inducing the inflammation that is a normal healing mechanism for the body. The blood is then put in a tube and spun in a centrifuge which separates the blood into its constituent parts. A layer of red blood cells collect at the bottom of the tube, a yellowish layer forms above it. The yellowish serum contains the good stuff, now-concentrated cytokines that fight inflammation and proteins that promote good health and block pain. After being injected back into the patient, the serum brings immediate pain relief to most patients. In others it can take several weeks. The feel good effects are effective in about 75 percent of patients and typically last two to four years.
All of this is according to the very small group of physicians that administer Regenokine.
Jon Corzine Is the Original George Zimmerman | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone
But these people stole over a billion dollars, right out in the open, and nobody is doing anything about it. Instead, we get a lot of chin-scratching legislative hearings, and an almost academic-style public discussion about whether or not a crime even took place. If there aren’t arrests in this case soon, ordinary people will correctly deduce that it simply isn’t a crime to steal in America, if the thefts are executed with a computer by white people in suits.
Rosetta Approaches Asteroid Lutitia
What would it look like to approach an asteroid in a spaceship? In 2010, ESA's robotic Rosetta spacecraft zipped past the asteroid 21 Lutetia taking data and snapping images in an effort to better determine the history of the asteroid and the origin of its unusual colors.
'Huge' water resource exists under Africa
Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater.
They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface.
The team have produced the most detailed map yet of the scale and potential of this hidden resource.
Google execs, director Cameron in space venture
Unobtainium, anyone?
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and billionaire co-founder Larry Page have teamed up with "Avatar" director James Cameron and other investors to back an ambitious space exploration and natural resources venture, details of which will be unveiled next week.
The fledgling company, called Planetary Resources, will be unveiled at a Tuesday news conference at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, according to a press release issued this week.
Aside from naming some of the company's high-profile backers, the press release disclosed tantalizingly few details, saying only that the company will combine the sectors of "space exploration and natural resources" in a venture that could add "trillions of dollars to the global GDP." The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Planetary Resources will explore the feasibility of mining natural resources from asteroids, a decades-old concept.
IBM creates breathing, high-density, light-weight lithium-air battery
Therein lies the crux of IBM’s Battery 500 project: Current battery tech simply cannot come close to gasoline, which is why we’re surrounded by electric cars that are lumbered down by massive batteries that can only go 100 miles — and why gas still rules supreme. Eventually (in another 10 years or so), li-ion batteries could be replaced with li-air batteries that are a tenth of the size and weight, and yet last just as long — or, of course, li-air could replace gasoline.
Neonicotinoid Pesticide Reduces Bumble Bee Colony Growth and Queen Production
Treated colonies had a significantly reduced growth rate and suffered an 85% reduction in production of new queens compared with control colonies. Given the scale of use of neonicotinoids, we suggest that they may be having a considerable negative impact on wild bumble bee populations across the developed world.
Synthetic Genetic Polymers Capable of Heredity and Evolution
Thus, heredity and evolution, two hallmarks of life, are not limited to DNA and RNA but are likely to be emergent properties of polymers capable of information storage.
Dual-focus contact lens prototypes ordered by Pentagon
this is pretty damn interesting.
"By wearing our contact lens you automatically have this multi-focus, or dual-focus, and you are doing something that humans don't usually do."
"By wearing our contact lens you automatically have this multi-focus, or dual-focus, and you are doing something that humans don't usually do."
Vermont Senate Votes to Overturn Citizens United
"I congratulate the Vermont Senate for this important vote. Citizens United was one of the worst decisions ever handed down by the Supreme Court. The people of Vermont and across America are totally disgusted with the huge amounts of money that billionaires and corporations are now throwing into the political process as a result of that misguided decision," Sanders said.
U.S. filmmaker repeatedly detained at border
What is going on with this country? So depressing and frightening.
In an age of international travel — where large numbers of citizens, especially those involved in sensitive journalism and activism, frequently travel outside the country — this power renders the protections of the Fourth Amendment entirely illusory. By virtue of that amendment, if the government wants to search and seize the papers and effects of someone on U.S. soil, it must (with some exceptions) first convince a court that there is probable cause to believe that the objects to be searched relate to criminal activity and a search warrant must be obtained. But now, none of those obstacles — ones at the very heart of the design of the Constitution — hinders the U.S. government: now, they can just wait until you leave the country, and then, at will, search, seize and copy all of your electronic files on your return. That includes your emails, the websites you’ve visited, the online conversations you’ve had, the identities of those with whom you’ve communicated, your cell phone contacts, your credit card receipts, film you’ve taken, drafts of documents you’re writing, and anything else that you store electronically: which, these days, when it comes to privacy, means basically everything of worth.
5000+ Artists Line Up For a Pirate Bay Promotion
Record labels and Hollywood have described The Pirate Bay as one of the biggest threats to their business, but thousands of artists clearly disagree with this view. In recent weeks more than 5000 independent artists have signed up to be promoted by the world’s largest torrent site. Those who were lucky enough to be featured are overwhelmed by the career boost and the positive responses from the public.
For many independent artists obscurity is a bigger problem than piracy, but it’s a problem that The Pirate Bay is trying to solve.
Earlier this year the site rolled out a new promotion platform for filmmakers, musicians, writers and all other artists alike. To help them reach an audience of tens of millions of people, The Pirate Bay started offering the artists a prime advertising spot on the site’s homepage, replacing the iconic logo.
The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
The former NSA official held his thumb and forefinger close together: “We are that far from a turnkey totalitarian state.”
Arizona Passes Sweeping Law Criminalizing Internet Speech
In one of the most sweeping attacks on free speech in America, the Arizona legislature has passed a draconian bill that would criminalize speech on the Internet (“any electronic or digital device”) that prosecutors consider “obscene, lewd or profane language or . . . suggest[ing] a lewd or lascivious act if done with intent to ‘annoy, ’ ‘offend, ’ ‘harass’ or ‘terrify.’” The law is largely undefined and is in my view facially unconstitutional. The law would drive a stake in the heart of free speech. Yet, people like Bill Clinton have been calling for such a crackdown on Internet speech for years.
Early exposure to germs has lasting benefits
Exposure to germs in childhood is thought to help strengthen the immune system and protect children from developing allergies and asthma, but the pathways by which this occurs have been unclear. Now, researchers have identified a mechanism in mice that may explain the role of exposure to microbes in the development of asthma and ulcerative colitis, a common form of inflammatory bowel disease.
8,200+ Strong, Researchers Band Together To Force Science Journals To Open Access
Academic research is behind bars and an online boycott by 8, 209 researchers (and counting) is seeking to set it free…well, more free than it has been. The boycott targets Elsevier, the publisher of popular journals like Cell and The Lancet, for its aggressive business practices, but opposition was electrified by Elsevier’s backing of a Congressional bill titled the Research Works Act (RWA). Though lesser known than the other high-profile, privacy-related bills SOPA and PIPA, the act was slated to reverse the Open Access Policy enacted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2008 that granted the public free access to any article derived from NIH-funded research. Now, only a month after SOPA and PIPA were defeated thanks to the wave of online protests, the boycotting researchers can chalk up their first win: Elsevier has withdrawn its support of the RWA, although the company downplayed the role of the boycott in its decision, and the oversight committee killed it right away.
Human Birdwings | Building a semi human powered flying device
Wright brothers revisited?
Update: Turns out this was a hoax! http://tinyurl.com/c2q7mra
Update: Turns out this was a hoax! http://tinyurl.com/c2q7mra
Dennis Kucinich and “wackiness”
Last week, Rep. Dennis Kucinich was defeated in a Democratic primary by Rep. Marcy Kaptur after re-districting pitted the two long-term incumbents against each other. Kucinich’s fate was basically sealed when the new district contained far more of Kaptur’s district than his. His 18-year stint in the House will come to an end when the next Congress is installed at the beginning of 2013.
Letters of Note: 1984 v. Brave New World
In October of 1949, a few months after the release of George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four, he received a fascinating letter from fellow author Aldous Huxley — a man who, 17 years previous, had seen his own nightmarish vision of society published, in the form of Brave New World. What begins as a letter of praise soon becomes a brief comparison of the two novels, and an explanation as to why Huxley believes his own, earlier work to be a more realistic prediction.
Study of the genetic diversity of contemporary Basques
Our results clearly support the hypothesis of a partial genetic continuity of contemporary Basques with the preceding Paleolithic/Mesolithic settlers of their homeland.
If We Want to Bring Oil Prices Down, We Should Stop Beating the War Drums
Sage words from Reagan's former budget director David Stockman. Imagine that, me, touting a Reaganite!?
We are now at a historical inflection point at which the time has arrived for a classic post-war demobilization of the entire military establishment,” David Stockman said in an exclusive interview.
“The Cold War is long over,” he continued. “The wars of occupation are almost over and were complete failures — Afghanistan and Iraq. The American empire is done. There are no real seriously armed enemies left in the world that can possibly justify an $800 billion national defense and security establishment, including Homeland Security.”
Short of that, he suggested, the United States has “reached the point of no return” with its artificial creation of wealth, and will eventually face a sharp economic decline.
***
This is a profound disappointment that there’s not even a debate — a serious debate about dramatic change in our imperialist foreign policy and war-making establishment in this administration — allegedly the most left-wing administration that we’ve had in modern time.”
“I don’t have much hope that what needs to be done will be done until it’s finally forced on us by a world bond market crisis, which will happen sooner or later,” Stockman added.
FBI Turns Off Thousands of GPS Devices After Supreme Court Ruling - Digits - WSJ
unreal they had this many, but good they are being shutdown.
Should Corporations Have More Leeway to Kill Than People Do?
A decision affirming that Shell should go unpunished in the Niger Delta case would leave us with a Supreme Court that seems of two minds: in the words of Justice John Paul Stevens’s dissent from Citizens United, it threatens “to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation” by treating corporations as people to let them make unlimited political contributions, even as it treats corporations as if they are not people to immunize them from prosecution for the most grievous human rights violations.
A more startling paradox is difficult to imagine.
NYPD spying program aimed at Muslims
The hallmark of a Surveillance State is that police agencies secretly monitor and keep dossiers on not only those individuals suspected of lawbreaking, but on the society generally, including those individuals about whom there is no suspicion of wrongdoing. For the past year, the Associated Press has systematically exposed how the New York Police Department, often working in conjunction with the CIA, engaged in a sprawling spying campaign aimed at Muslim individuals, students, institutions and mosques in the United States, all without a whiff of any suspected wrongdoing. Yesterday, the four AP investigative reporters who have exposed this program won a well-deserved Polk Award for their “investigation that showed the NYPD had built one of the largest domestic intelligence agencies in the country.” In particular, the “reporters documented how the NYPD assigned ‘rakers’ and ‘mosque crawlers’ to ethnic neighborhoods, infiltrating everything from booksellers and cafes to Muslim places of worship.”
Den of antiquity: Flower reanimated from 30,000yo seeds — RT
Russian scientists have resurrected a flowering plant from 30, 000-year-old seeds found in an Ice Age squirrel’s treasure chamber in the Siberian permafrost. This pioneering experiment paves the way for the revival of other species.,
Silene stenophylla – the oldest plant ever to be regenerated – is fertile, producing white flowers and viable seeds. The plant is by far the oldest to be brought back from the dead. The previous record holder was a sacred lotus, dating back about 1, 200 years, according to the New Scientist magazine.
The Boy Who Played With Fusion
“Where does it come from?” Kenneth and his wife, Tiffany, have asked themselves many times. Kenneth is a Coca-Cola bottler, a skier, an ex-football player. Tiffany is a yoga instructor. “Neither of us knows a dang thing about science,” Kenneth says."
The Afghanistan Report the Pentagon Doesn't Want You to Read
Davis last month submitted the unclassified report –titled "Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leader’s Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort" – for an internal Army review. Such a report could then be released to the public. However, according to U.S. military officials familiar with the situation, the Pentagon is refusing to do so. Rolling Stone has now obtained a full copy of the 84-page unclassified version, which has been making the rounds within the U.S. government, including the White House. We've decided to publish it in full; it's well worth reading for yourself. It is, in my estimation, one of the most significant documents published by an active-duty officer in the past ten years.
Repulsive progressive hypocrisy
excerpt from Glenn's recent piece:
Here is what Thomas Paine, in The Age of Reason, had to say about all of this:
[I]t is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.
It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
911 IS A JOKE -Detroit!
"Justifiable homicide in the city shot up 79 percent in 2011 from the previous year, as citizens in the long-suffering city armed themselves and took matters into their own hands. The local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average. Residents, unable to rely on a dwindling police force to keep them safe, are fighting back against the criminal scourge on their own. And they’re offering no apologies."
ACLU sues Obama administration over assassination secrecy - Salon.com
So Obama can go on TV shows and trigger applause for himself by boasting of the Awlaki killing. He can publicly accuse Awlaki of all sorts of crimes for which there has been no evidence presented. He can dispatch his aides to anonymously brag in newspapers about all the secret evidence showing Awlaki’s guilt and showing how resolute and tough the President is for ordering him executed. Justice Department and Pentagon officials scamper around in the dark flashing snippets of evidence about Awlaki to reporters like Temple-Raston so that they dutifully march forward to defend the government’s assassination program. Obama officials will anonymous insist in public that they have legal authority to target citizens for killing without trial.
But when it comes time to account in a court or under the law for the legal authority and factual basis for what they have done — in other words, when it comes time to demonstrate that they are actually acting legally when doing it — then, suddenly, everything changes. When they face the rule of law, then the program is so profoundly classified that it cannot be spoken of at all — indeed, the administration cannot even confirm or deny that it exists — and it therefore cannot be scrutinized by courts at all.
Video: Self-Guided Bullet Spots, Steers and Nails Its Target
The breakthrough comes courtesy of engineers at the government’s Sandia National Laboratories. They’ve successfully tested a prototype of the bullet at distances up to 2, 000 meters — more than a mile. The photo above is an actual image taken during one of those tests. A light-emitting diode was attached to the bullet, showing the amazing pathway that the munition made through the night sky.
Night in the cells accidentally became two years in solitary
Land of the free...
During the ordeal, he claims to have been denied access to basic washing facilities for months at a time. He'd lost a third of his body weight, grown a beard down to his chest and was suffering from bed sores. Prison officials had also ignored his pleas to see a dentist, forcing him to pull out his own tooth. They declined other requests for attention, including an audience with a mental health professional. He duly became delirious and says that by the time of his release he'd "been driven mad".
APOD: 2012 January 30 - Blue Marble Earth
Amazing image. Be sure to click on the image and see the enlarged version.
Leon Panetta’s explicitly authoritarian decree
ABC News‘ Jake Tapper pressed White House spokesman Jay Carney back in October about the evidence the administration possesses showing Awlaki’s guilt, and the same authoritarian decree issued: we have said he’s a Terrorist and that is all that is necessary.
Kucinich: Corporations can legally buy elections
“One of the biggest stumbling blocks to America’s economic recovery is corporations can legally buy elections and then influence policies which move millions of jobs out of America, which escape taxation by off shoring profits, which cash in on wars, which press military industrial spending through the roof,” he said on the House floor.
“While we pledge allegiance to the Red, White, and Blue, corporations, whose only allegiance is to green, are selling out America and they are becoming ever more powerful because of a Supreme Court decision in Citizens United which effectively turns this government into an auction where policies may go to the highest bidder.”
Opportunity Rover Spots Greeley Haven on Mars
Very cool.
Where on Mars should you spend the winter? As winter approached in the southern hemisphere of Mars last November, the Opportunity rover had just this problem -- it needed a place to go. The reduced amount of sunlight impacting Opportunity's solar panels combined with the extra power needed to keep equipment warm could drain Opportunity's batteries. Therefore Opportunity was instructed to climb onto the 15 degree incline of Greeley's Haven, shown as the rocky slope ahead. The incline increased power input as Opportunity's solar panels now have greater exposure to sunlight, while also giving the rolling robot some interesting landscape to explore. Visible in the distance, beyond Greeley Haven, lies expansive Endeavour Crater, the ancient impact basin that Opportunity will continue exploring as the Martian winter concludes in a few months, if it survives.
Pulitzer-winner’s 96-second NDAA cartoon
2010 Pulitzer-winner Mark Fiore‘s 96-second animated cartoon shows the removal of Constitutional Civil Rights. When “rights” are no longer absolute, they are no longer rights. This changes the definition of the US from defending unalienable rights and limited government under a constitution, to having control over what liberties people receive and unlimited government and no restraining law, at least in these areas of the Bill of Rights.
The chips that are good for your health
An American biomedical company has signed up with a British healthcare firm to sell digestible sensors, each smaller than a grain of sand, that can trigger the transmission of medical information from a patient's body to the mobile phone of a relative or carer.
The aim is to develop a suite of "intelligent medicines" that can help patients and their carers keep track of which pills are taken at what time of day, in order to ensure that complex regimes of drugs are given the best possible chance of working effectively.
It’s a girl: The three deadliest words in the world
It’s a girl, a film being released this year, documents the practice of killing unwanted baby girls in South Asia. The trailer’s most chilling scene is one with an Indian woman who, unable to contain her laughter, confesses to having killed eight infant daughters.
The statistics are sickening. The UN reports approximately 200 million girls in the world today are ‘missing’. India and China are said to eliminate more female infants than the number of girls born in the US each year. Lianyungang in China has the worst infant gender ratio on record with 163 boys born for every 100 girls. Taiwan, South Korea and Pakistan are also countries in which unwanted female babies are aborted, killed or abandoned.
Dr. King family’s civil trial verdict: US government assassinated Martin - Washington's Blog
“I can hardly believe the fact that, apart from the courtroom participants, only Memphis TV reporter Wendell Stacy and I attended from beginning to end this historic three-and-one-half week trial. Because of journalistic neglect scarcely anyone else in this land of ours even knows what went on in it. After critical testimony was given in the trial’s second week before an almost empty gallery, Barbara Reis, U.S. correspondent for the Lisbon daily Publico who was there several days, turned to me and said, “Everything in the U.S. is the trial of the century. O.J. Simpson’s trial was the trial of the century. Clinton’s trial was the trial of the century. But this is the trial of the century, and who’s here?” ”
Why 308,127,404 Americans Are Going To Get Hosed | ZeroHedge
A Suspicious Activity Report, or SAR, includes details of any transaction that may be deemed ‘suspicious’. Naturally, there’s no clear guidance on what is/is not considered suspicious. Banks, brokerages, money service businesses, precious metals dealers… even casinos are required by law to fill them out.
If you withdraw an unusual amount of cash from your bank account, that could be deemed suspicious. If you set up a new payee in your billpay service, that could be deemed suspicious. Anything and everything is fair game.
Banks and other businesses who do not fill out SARs face hefty penalties, including imprisonment. If they disclose to a customer that s/he is the subject of a SAR, they have hefty penalties, including imprisonment.
When push comes to shove and they have to choose between a nasty penalty, or submitting a SAR about your unusual cash withdrawal, which option do you think they’ll pick?
Grand Central Terminal Arrests - YouTube
what is wrong with this country?
Two protesters mic check about the loss of freedom brought about by the passage of the NDAA and both are promptly arrested and whisked out of public sight
Hyperinflation Comes To Iran | ZeroHedge
An EA source reports that a relative in Tehran ordered a washing machine for 400,000 Toman (about $240) this week. When he went to the shop the next day, he was told that --- amidst the currency crisis and rising import costs --- the price was now 800,000 Toman (about $480). Another EA source says that the price of an item of software for a laptop computer has tripled from 50,000 Toman to 150,000 Toman within days.
The US schools with their own police
WTF!!??
2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later.
The Stranglers-Nice N Sleazy
awesome for so many reasons not least of which is the keyboard player Dave Greenfield looking a bit Anton Chirgurh-like!
My Guantánamo Nightmare
unfrickinbelievable!
ON Wednesday, America’s detention camp at Guantánamo Bay will have been open for 10 years. For seven of them, I was held there without explanation or charge. During that time my daughters grew up without me. They were toddlers when I was imprisoned, and were never allowed to visit or speak to me by phone. Most of their letters were returned as “undeliverable,” and the few that I received were so thoroughly and thoughtlessly censored that their messages of love and support were lost.
Makeup transformation of a woman
very interesting video. watch how makeup and photoshop transforms this woman.
Is Ron Paul 2012's Black Swan? | ZeroHedge
For five years, the writing on the wall has been crystal clear. As 2007 began, the US Foreclosure Market Report for 2006 showed that foreclosures for the year had reached 1.2 million, an increase of 42 percent over the 2005 figure. In early February 2007, in the midst of a growing rash of bankruptcies among small US sub-prime mortgage issuers, New Century Financial announced that it was “recalculating” its “profits for the previous three quarters. New Century was one of the three biggest mortgage brokers in the US. In two days, its stock price dropped 40 percent. Six months later, President Bush was calling the now obvious collapse in the US real estate market a “blip” on the US economy. Two months after that, the stock market peaked. A year after that, in September/October 2008, the global economy froze solid and was only thawed by the biggest explosion of money creation in history. Now, here we are at the start of 2012. Nothing has changed. No positive steps have been made. The symptoms have been disguised under an avalanche of palliatives but the disease continues to eat away at the substance of the system on which it feeds. The major effort of government and “mainstream” analysts everywhere has been to avoid, deflect and actively silence any nascent discussion of the root of the problem.
Number of homeless students surges, putting strain on schools
unreal statistic. 10,000+ kids are homeless!
‘Wild Old Women’ Close San Francisco Bank Of America Branch « CBS San Francisco
power to the people!
Democratic Party priorities
The chances that any of these issues will be debated in an Obama/Romney presidential contest are exactly zero. On all of these issues — Endless War, empire, steadfast devotion to the Israeli government, due-process-free assassinations, multiple-nation drone assaults, escalating confrontation with Iran, the secretive, unchecked Surveillance and National Security States, the sadistic and racist Drug War, the full-scale capture of the political process by bankers and oligarchs — Romney is fully supportive of President Obama’s actions (except to the extent he argues they don’t go far enough: and those critiques will almost certainly be modulated once the primary is over, resulting in ever greater convergence between the two). As National Journal‘s Michael Hirsh put it yesterday: “In truth, Obama and Romney are far closer in mindset and philosophy than anyone is willing to acknowledge just now.”
Iowa: The Meaningless Sideshow Begins
nice piece by Taibbi at Rolling Stone
The campaign is still a gigantic ritual and it will still be attended by all the usual pomp and spectacle, but it’s empty. In fact, because it’s really a contest between 1%-approved candidates, it’s worse than empty – it’s obnoxious.
Final Curtain: Obama Signs Indefinite Detention of Citizens Into Law As Final Act of 2011
Obama insisted that he signed the bill simply to keep funding for the troops. It was a continuation of the dishonest treatment of the issue by the White House since the law first came to light. As discussed earlier, the White House told citizens that the President would not sign the NDAA because of the provision. That spin ended after sponsor Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) went to the floor and disclosed that it was the White House and insisted that there be no exception for citizens in the indefinite detention provision.
Civilian Contractors in the Kill Chain
About 168 people are needed to keep a single Predator aloft for 24 hours, according to the Air Force. The larger Global Hawk surveillance drone requires 300 people. In contrast, an F-16 fighter aircraft needs fewer than 100 people per mission.
With a fleet of about 230 Predators, Reapers and Global Hawks, the Air Force flies more than 50 drones around the clock over Afghanistan and other target areas. The Pentagon plans to add 730 medium and large drones in the next decade, requiring thousands more personnel.
The Air Force is rushing to meet the demand. Under a new program, drone pilots get 44 hours of cockpit training before they are sent to a squadron to be certified and allowed to command missions. That compares with a minimum of 200 hours’ training for pilots flying traditional warplanes.
Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops
W..T..F..
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.
Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies
If you’re someone who is content with the Obama presidency and the numerous actions listed above; if you’re someone who believes that things like Endless War, the Surveillance State, the Drug War, the sprawling secrecy regime, and the vast power of the Fed are merely minor, side issues that don’t merit much concern (sure, like a stopped clock, Paul is right about a couple things); if you’re someone who believes that the primary need for American politics is just to have some more Democrats in power, then lock-step marching behind Barack Obama for the next full year makes sense.
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