What Adam Curry is reading

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  Visually Impaired Protest At Amazon
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    Thu, 13 Dec 2012 09:37
  Newfound 120 Foot Wide Asteroid Buzzes Earth Inside Moon's Orbit TWO DAYS After First Noticed
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    Wed, 12 Dec 2012 11:35
  Local News Coverage Of Shooting At Clackamas Mall In Oregon
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    Wed, 12 Dec 2012 08:08
  Witnesses Describe Chaos As Shooter Opens Fire Inside Packed Shopping Mall
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    Wed, 12 Dec 2012 08:01
  How To Survive A Mass Shooting
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    Wed, 12 Dec 2012 07:58
  Are You Interested In PUBIC Schools?
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    Wed, 12 Dec 2012 05:56
  "There's No Purpose For People Outside The Police Force Or The Military To Have Weapons Like That"
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    Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:13
  Protesters Outside Egyptian Presidential Palace Demand Morsi Stepdown
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    Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:53
  International Push To End The Drug War Begins
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    Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:52
  Inner City Teacher Teaches Students How To Use Guns
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    Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:48
  Cop Kills Homeless Man After Yelling For Hours About The End Of The World
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    Tue, 11 Dec 2012 05:19
  Scientist To Map DNA Of 100000 Seriously Ill People
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    Tue, 11 Dec 2012 05:16
  Australian Radio Show Hosts Speak Out About Prank Call Gone Horribly Wrong
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    Mon, 10 Dec 2012 12:41
  Egyptian President Grants Military Power To Arrest Protesters
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    Mon, 10 Dec 2012 12:38
  Many Witness UFO In The Sky Across The State Of Texas
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    Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:44
  Senior US Official "Military Strike On Syria Could Be Carried Out With Ships & Aircraft In Region"
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    Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:42
  Alzheimer's Breakthrough: A Pacemaker For The Brain
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    Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:36
  VIDEO-Chinese buyers lead foreign investment in US housing market | Fox News
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    Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:39
    As the U.S. housing market slowly starts to recover, foreign investment is helping it along.
    According to the National Association of Realtors, non-American buyers accounted for $82 billion in home sales last year. More than $7 billion of that is by the Chinese, who are now the second largest foreign home purchasers after Canadians. They're buying high-end, multimillion-dollar homes from California to New York and paying cash.
    "They're probably the top 1 percent of the Mandarin speakers that are coming from China," said Brent Chang, a Coldwell Banker realtor in Southern California. "They're really the people who have their own businesses or maybe were part of the government."
    Some of these homes are specifically catered to Chinese buyers. Fox News visited a home listed at $8 million in Pasadena, Calif., that had two kitchens, the smaller one had ventilation for the cooking for aromatic or "stinky" foods like fish. It also has a lower level in-law suite and even a koi pond.
    "People from China do a lot more business in their homes so they want their homes to really scream that they've made it and they're successful, " said Chang.
    The Chinese like the U.S. because their money goes further. In Shanghai, $2 million might only get you a two-bedroom condo.
    "You get a huge bang for your buck, you get land, you get good schools, you get a safe environment, nice community life, " said Linda Chang, a realtor who works with her son, Brent, in the San Marino and Pasadena areas of California.
    Chang says while many other real estate markets have suffered, her area has flourished thanks to Chinese and other foreign buyers.
    "It's been fantastic for the U.S. housing market because we have not suffered as other communities have," said the elder Chang. "In fact, our property values have increased."
    While some of the Chinese buyers live in the U.S. full or part-time, realtors estimate about 40 percent of the homes are for investments. They're snapping up houses in states hit hard by foreclosures such as Nevada and Florida. Some are buying two or three homes at a time.
    According to Shanghai magazine Hurun Report, mainland China has almost 1 million millionaires and nearly half of them say they want to invest in the United States.
    "It's a sign of their status," said Betty Chan, who deals with Chinese buyers in Las Vegas. "You can show off to your friends and family that I can buy something overseas, not everybody can do it."
    Chan continued: "Most Chinese like to own a Mercedes ... it doesn't matter whether a Mercedes is a good car or not. It's just showing their status in the community, so owning a foreign house is pretty much a prestigious status in China, so they're proud to tell their friends: 'Hey, I own a house overseas.'"
    Buyers from China also invested almost $2 billion in commercial property in 2011, or quadruple what they spent several years ago.
  VIDEO-McClatchy: Experts Skeptical Syria Is Preparing To Use Chemical Weapons - YouTube
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    Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:31
  VIDEO-MSNBC: Critics of Foxx are Angry Because the President is Black | MRCTV
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    Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:27
    MSNBC contributor Goldie Taylor stated that the criticism of Jamie Foxx for his joke about the greatness of killing white people was merely anger over a black president. Taylor then argued that accurately quoting Foxx was catering to racists who wanted to kill President Obama.
  Sliming Fox & Friends Hosts As 'Ho's', Libs Air Twisted 'Chestnuts'
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    Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
    Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:46
    MRC TV is an online platform for people to share and view videos, articles and opinions on topics that are important to them -- from news to political issues and rip-roaring humor.
    MRC TV is brought to you by the Media Research Center, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit research and education organization. The MRC is located at: 325 South Patrick Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. For information about the MRC, please visit www.MRC.org.
    Copyright (C) 2012, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.
  Scarborough Urges Republicans to 'Punch' Conservative 'Bully' Talk Hosts 'In the Face'
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    Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
    Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:46
    Joe Scarborough on the December 10 Morning Joe on MSNBC:
    ''These type of people who have the ability to make what Bush called the compassionate conservative argument, they're thrown to the side because they don't sound enough like Glenn Beck or a blogger....What do you do to a schoolyard bully? You punch him in the face. You think any of these people in talk radio, if they're punched in the face by a Republican nominee, do you think they would push back? No, they're cowards, they're bullies. Punch them in the face and they back off.''
  Mandatory 'Black Boxes' in Cars Raise Privacy Concerns
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    Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
    Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:45
    Starting in September of 2014, every new car in the United States will be required to have a 'black box' installed.
    According to ABC News:
    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would like to make it mandatory for automakers to install a so-called "black box" in all new cars and light trucks.
    The devices, also known as event data recorders, have long been used by investigators to discover the root cause of commercial airplane crashes. In recent years however, automakers have quietly begun installing similar products in more and more cars.
  CNN Lauds Cory Booker's 'Pretty Extraordinary' 'Food Stamp Challenge'
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    Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
    Tue, 11 Dec 2012 05:21
    While Democratic Newark Mayor Cory Booker was attempting to live off food stamps for one week to draw publicity to SNAP funding, CNN's Piers Morgan praised it as "pretty extraordinary" and cast Republicans as villains trying to cut funding for the hungry at the expense of the rich.
  Matthews and Walsh: White, Christian, Conservatives are "Backwards"
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    Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
    Tue, 11 Dec 2012 05:20
    Hardball host Chris Matthews, and Salon Editor-at-Large (and author of What's the Matter With White People?) Joan Walsh criticized the Republican Party for pandering to its "backwards" base of white, Christian, conservatives. At least they didn't say "urban," then this would be predjudiced.
  NBC's 'Meet the Press' Hops Aboard Hillary in 2016 Bandwagon
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    Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
    Mon, 10 Dec 2012 22:47
    On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory eagerly touted the approval rating of outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and gushed over the prospect of her running for president in 2016: "...her popularity has soared to an all-time high. According to a new Washington Post/ABC poll out this week, 66 percent view the country's top diplomat favorably..."
Clackamas Town Center shooting: Killer was Jacob Tyler Roberts; fatalities were Steve Forsyth, Cindy Ann Yuille | OregonLive.com
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  Thu, 13 Dec 2012 07:53
  Police today identified a 22-year-old Southeast Portland man as the killer who strolled into the Clackamas Town Center shopping mall Tuesday and opened fire, killing two people and seriously wounding a third.Jacob Tyler Roberts, 22, was found dead inside the mall, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot. Authorities have not offered a motive, saying that Roberts appeared to have fired randomly as he made his way through the mall.
  Police identified the deceased victims as Steve Forsyth, 44, of West Linn and Cindy Ann Yuille, 54, of Northeast Portland. Authorities previously identified the injured victim as 15-year-old Kristina Shevchenko.Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said the gunman used an AR-15 rifle that was stolen earlier in the day from an associate. He did not know how many shots were fired, although Jacob Roberts carried several magazines.
  Sheriff Roberts thanked all the emergency responders who helped manage the chaotic scene, including those who tended to the injured teenager.
  Shevchenko has undergone surgery and is stabilized at OHSU Hospital. "She's doing better," said her oldest sister, Emiliya Shevchenko. "She was in serious condition and she is now stabilized."Kristina Shevchenko comes from a large family and lives with her parents in Portland, her sister said.
  Aviano Marconi, a former business associate, described Forsyth as a friend and mentor for nearly eight years when they both worked for Entercom Communications, which owns radio stations in Portland and across the country. "He was an amazingly talented and supportive person," Marconi wrote in an email. "I can't believe anyone could extinguish his life."
  The first 9-1-1 calls from the mall came about 3:25 p.m. Tuesday when Jacob Roberts, wearing a "Jason"-style hockey mask, entered the mall through Macy's department store. As the sound of rapid gunfire rang out, mall personnel rushed out the door, urging shoppers to leave.
  Clackamas Town Center shooting Wednesday news conferenceClackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts talks about the events at the Clackamas Town Center mall that left two shoppers dead, and the shooter dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.Watch videoAuthorities estimated that 10,000 workers and shoppers were at the Town Center when the shooting began, and the lockdown and evacuation was a massive logistical undertaking.An estimated 100 law enforcement personnel descended on the mall, including local police, state troopers and four tactical weapons teams, backed by members of the FBI and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
  Clackamas Fire District 1 dispatched 22 emergency vehicles. A fleet of ambulances arrived.
  Only hours later did it become clear that the number of casualties was fewer than initially feared.
  The shopping mall will remain closed today, and bus and light-rail service is disrupted. Authorities said belongings left behind during Tuesday's evacuation will be securely held until the mall reopens.
  '' Rick Bella
"12-12-12" The Concert for Sandy Relief
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  Thu, 13 Dec 2012 07:43
  ''12-12-12'', a fundraising concert to aid the victims of Hurricane Sandy, will take place on December 12 at Madison Square Garden. The concert will feature Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, Dave Grohl, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Chris Martin, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Eddie Vedder, Roger Waters, Kanye West, The Who, Paul McCartney plus more artists to be announced!
  The concert is being presented by Chase, and the proceeds will go to the Robin Hood Relief Fund. Robin Hood, the largest independent poverty fighting organization in the New York area, will insure that every cent raised will go to non-profit groups that are helping the tens of thousands of people throughout the tri-state area who have been affected by Hurricane Sandy.
  The concert is being produced by James Dolan, Executive Chairman of The Madison Square Garden Company; John Sykes, President of Clear Channel Entertainment Enterprises; and Harvey Weinstein, Co-Founder and Chairman of The Weinstein Company'¹the same group that produced and sponsored the historic 9/11 benefit ''The Concert for New York City''.
  Presenting PartnerDiamond PartnerPlatinum PartnersBlackrockSamsungState FarmGold PartnersOptimumTime Warner CableVerizon FoundationSilver PartnersBronze PartnersDuracell PowermatHyundaiNRGPepsiProduction PartnersDempsey ProductionsDiversified Production Services (DPS)Otto Printing & Entertainment GraphicsDigital PartnersFacebookFoursquareGetGlueGoogle+HD MADEMahayaPayPalPhase2 TechnologyShazamtheAudienceTwitterTwubsAdditional PartnersAAAcommunicationsAffinia HotelAkamaiAll Access Staging and ProductionsAll Mobile VideoAllen Kelman - KZ Video Consultants, Inc.AMC B&TAmerican CopyAmerican Furniture RentalsAMV GatewayAriston FlowersArnett DesignsAtomic DesignAtomic LightingAXS-TVAzzurro HDBMLB-freed PhotographyCAT Entertainment ServicesChirpifyControl FreakCourier Car RentalsDrape KingsEEG Enterprises Inc.Encompass MediaESPNEutelsat CommunicationsExtreme MusicFirehouse ProductionGayle De PoliGoogleG-Wizz ProductionsHTNHytone ProductionsInfinite Conferencing and Onstream MediaIMG MediaIndelibleIntelsatiStreamPlanetJim Flynn RentalsLevel 3Liman Video RentalLiz EsweinMeasatMeetupMersey MasalaMetrovision Production GroupMilford HotelMiraldi & MacLeodMSGMusic Mix MobileNational Basketball AssociationNY DecOn Slot CreativeParamount HotelPaul OctaviousPayPalPerformance EnvironmentDesign Group LLC LaborPRG Nocturne VideoProduction Staffing GroupRoyal FlushStage MattersStandard Highline HotelSony Media ApplicationSolutions & Professional Media ServicesStudio Instrument RentalsThe SwitchTait TowersTelefonica Audiovisual ServicesTheatrical ResourcesTV PromptTwitterUSI Strike ForceVitacVERWhose CateringWoods-TVY.E.II Inc - Richard YorkZoomari Films Ltd
Board of Directors | Hellenic Republic Assets Development Fund
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  Thu, 13 Dec 2012 06:56
  The HRADF is administered by the Board of Directors (BoD) consisting of five members and appointed by a decision at General Shareholder's Meeting decision, published in the Greek Government Gazette, for a three-year term, renewable for an equal period of time.
  In addition, two representatives appointed by the Eurozone member states and the European Commission are entitled to participate in the Fund's Board Meetings as observers, without voting rights.
  The Fund's operation is also supported by a Council of Experts, persons of wide acclaim, distinguished for their scientific training and professional experience in the technical, economic or legal sector. These are appointed by a decision of the company's BoD for a three-year term, renewable for an equal period of time.
  For an overview of the HRADF's organizational structure, see the chart at the end of the page.
  Board of DirectorsThe present Board of Directors consists of the following members:
  Takis Athanasopoulos, (President and Chairman of the Board)Industrial Engineer with post-graduate studies and Ph.D. in Business and Economics from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He taught at Universities in the USA as well as at the University of Piraeus where he served as Rector (1987-1990). Founding member, Chairman and CEO of Toyota Hellas (1989-2000), Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Europe (2001-2006) and Managing Officer of Toyota Motor Corporation (Japan) (2004-2006). Chairman & CEO of Public Power Corporation (2007-2009), Vice Chairman of the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (2010-to date). In September 2012 he joined the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund as Chairman.
  Yiannis Emiris, Chief Executive OfficerIoannis Emiris was born in Athens in 1963. He is a graduate of the Athens School of Economic Sciences and Business Administration and holds an MBA degree from Columbia Business School, as well as a degree of Certified Public Accounting in the United States. We has worked as a certified public accountant in Price Waterhouse in New York, while from 1991 he has been working in the field of Investment Banking in Alpha Bank. From 2004 till July 2012 he was heading the Investment Banking and Project Finance division of Alpha Bank. During his career, he has executed significant assignments in the fields of Mergers and Acquisitions, Capital Markets, Corporate and Debt Restructurings and Privatisations, as well as Project Financings for energy, infrastructure and real estate projects in Greece and internationally.
  Andreas Taprantzis, Executive DirectorDr. Andreas Taprantzis has more than 20 year of management experience both as management consultant and manager. He is the former Chief Operating Officer and Retail Banking Managing Director at Hellenic Postbank, while prior to this position he was the CEO at Hellenic Post. Dr Taprantzis holds a MSc degree in Chemical Engineering, a PhD degree in process control systems and artificial intelligence, as well as an MBA and an Advanced Management Certificate from INSEAD.
  Antonios Vartholomaios, Member of the BoardAntonios Vartholomaios has 25 years of experience mainly in the financial sector. He is the former CEO of EYDAP, the Water and Sewerage Company of Athens, and former General Director of the Euroholdings Capital & Investment S.A.
  Anna Zoirou, Member of the BoardAnna Zoirou is a Senior Scientific Adviser on European and Economic Affairs at the Hellenic Parliament as well as a Business Development Consultant with more than 10 years of European experience. She holds an MBA.
  Aris Kallipolitis, Member of the BoardAris Kallipolitis was born in Athens. He holds a Bachelor's Degree from the Department of Physics and Mathematics of the University of Athens, a Master's Degree from the Sorbonne University (Paris), a Ph.D. Doctoral Thesis from Athens University, Diploma in Business Administration from the Business Administration Institute of Paris. Scientific research for five years at the University of Paris and the Ecole Superieure de Chimie. Executive in enterprises in the private and public sector. Executive Director, AGET '' Heracles cement group. Managing Director, ''Agrotiki-Techniki SA''. President of the BoD, ''ATE-Karta SA''. Managing Director, ''Synergal SA''. Executive Diurector, ''AGNO SA''. Vice President of the BoD, ''E.P.A.S. SA''. Managing Director, ''Piraiki '' Patraiki SA''. Managing Director, ''Gavriil SA''. Managing Director, ''VIOELLAS SA''. Executive Director, ''Public Organisation for the Reconstruction of Enterprises''. Manager on the Organization Committee for Olympic Games 2004. Director, ''ATE-Bank''.
  ObserversMaarten VerweyHerv(C) Le Roy
The True Story Of 2013
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  Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:34
  "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."
  IronMountainApocalypse: The True Story Of 2013
  By Sorcha Faal
  Special Offer:$38.95 plus $4.50 Shipping and Handling [US Funds]
  ''War is not, as is widely assumed, primarily an instrument of policy utilized by nations to extend or defend their expressed political values or their economic interests. On the contrary, it is itself the principal basis of organization on which all modern societies are constructed. The common proximate cause of war is the apparent interference of one nation with the aspirations of another. But at the root of all ostensible differences of national interest lie the dynamic requirements of the war system itself for periodic armed conflict. Readiness for war characterizes contemporary social systems more broadly than their economic and political structures, which it subsumes.''
  IronMountainReport: SECTION 7 '' SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS, under the subheading THE NATURE OF WAR
  In 1962, President John F. Kennedy was presented with a detailed plan titled Operation Northwoods which called for US military and intelligence agencies to commit acts of terrorism on the American people that, in turn, would be blamed on Cuba thus justifying an invasion of that Caribbean island nation and its subjugation to the United States.
  A shocked President Kennedy outright rejected this plan, and in early 1963 ordered a Special Study Group of fifteen men, whose identities were to remain secret, to prepare for him a report on the feasibility of ending the Permanent War Economy the United States had begun in 1944 during World War II, and that his predecessor, President Dwight Eisenhower, warned the American people in his farewell address would eventually destroy their country if allowed to continue.
  During the early part of June, 1963, President Kennedy was presented with the results of his Special Study Group they had titled: Report From Iron Mountain On The Possibility And Desirability Of Peace.
  The essence of this report stated that before consideration of a peace scenario, ''it must be recognized that war is the foundation of our social systems. The nature of the war system, and the functions it performs for society must be explicitly understood, and replacements for those crucial functions must be ready before any abandonment of the war system is contemplated; before peace could ever work.''
  The Iron Mountain Report breaks the functions of war down into five categories; economic, political, sociological, ecological, cultural and scientific.
  Economically, war has throughout history stabilized and provided a system for controlling national economies.
  Politically, war, and the permanent possibility of war have been basic to stable government while propagating acceptance of political authority, maintaining ''necessary'' class distinctions, and subordinating citizens to the state. The Report claims that without sustaining credible threats of war, no modern rulers have been able to maintain proper control.
  Sociologically, war, and presence of military institutions have throughout history helped control social dissidence and antisocial behaviors while promoting binding social allegiance and social cohesion.
  Ecologically, war has been indispensable for balancing population with available supply of food and other essentials.
  Culturally and Scientifically, war culture has shaped values in the creative arts, as well as motivating advances in science and technology.
  Essentially, the Iron Mountain Report insists that without war, modern civilization would fall apart'--unless substitutes can be devised to replace the functions of war summarized above.
  Like his previous rejection of Operation Northwoods, President Kennedy, likewise, rejected the findings of the Iron Mountain Report, and on 10 June 1963 gave a commencement address to the graduating class of American University titled A Strategy For Peace wherein he rejected war and everything associated with it. To this day, A Strategy For Peace is remembered as one of Kennedy's finest and most important speeches of all time.
  Barely 20 weeks later, on 22 November 1963, President Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, Texas'...and America, nor the rest of the world, would ever know if his plan for peace would have succeeded.
  What is known is that in 1967 the Iron Mountain report became public when it was published and immediately became a New York Times bestseller. The American magazine US News and World Report further claimed in its 20 November 1967 issue to have confirmation of the reality of the Iron Mountain Report from an unnamed government official, who added that when President Johnson read the report, he ''hit the roof'' and ordered it to be suppressed for all time. Additionally, sources were said to have revealed that orders were sent to US embassies, instructing them to emphasize that the book had no relation to US Government policy.
  On 26 November 1967, the report was reviewed in the book section of The Washington Post by Herschel McLandress, supposedly the pen name for Harvard professor John Kenneth Galbraith. McLandress wrote that he knew firsthand of the report's authenticity because he had been invited to participate in its creation; that although he was unable to be part of the official group, he was consulted from time to time and had been asked to keep the project secret; and that while he doubted the wisdom of letting the public know about the report, he agreed totally with its conclusions.
  He wrote: ''As I would put my personal repute behind the authenticity of this document, so would I testify to the validity of its conclusions. My reservation relates only to the wisdom of releasing it to an obviously unconditioned public.''
  Six weeks later, in an Associated Press dispatch from London, Galbraith went even further and ''jokingly'' admitted that he was a member of the conspiracy. The following day, Galbraith backed off. When asked about his ''conspiracy'' statement, he replied: ''For the first time since Charles II The Times has been guilty of a misquotation... Nothing shakes my conviction that it was written by either Dean Rusk or Mrs. Clare Booth Luce''.
  Galbraith's, who was often called President Kennedy's ''Economist in Camelot'', bid to persuade Kennedy not to get more deeply embroiled in Vietnam is a standard feature in histories of the Kennedy presidency. But in a monumental 2005 biography, John Kenneth Galbraith, His Life, His Politics, His Economics, author Richard Parker tells the story in more depth and detail. He builds a powerful case, based on declassified US government documents, and access to Galbraith and his papers, that the economist was a more potent influence than previous accounts have suggested. Parker shows him using all his charm and incisive intelligence to counterbalance those trying to push Kennedy toward full-scale war.
  Galbraith's linking of one of the most important 20th Centuries literary and political scions, Clare Booth Luce, to the Iron Mountain Report, however, ''tipped the tide'' against it among the elite classes in America, thus insuring that it would remain the singly most important, yet at the same time vilified, document of its kind to ever exist.
  Clare Booth Luce, however, whowas related to the theatrical Booth family, (after the assassination of President Lincoln, in 1865, members of her family added the ''e'' to their last name in order to disassociate themselves from John Wilkes Booth) became associated with the Sisters of Sorcha Faal during her time as the United States Ambassador to Italy in the early 1950's, and after Galbraith linking her to the Iron Mountain Report, in 1967, confided to the Sisters the information relating to its authenticity.
  Even to this day, the Booth family remains committed to the goals of the Sisters, and in this seminal work, the Sorcha Faal is allowed, for the first time, to tell the entire story of the Iron Mountain Report, and its grave consequences for the entire world, especially America, as 2013 becomes the ''final year'' of the most draconian moves behind its recommendations that bodies be created to emulate the economic functions of war, ''blood games'' become commonplace, that the government create alternative foes that would scare the people with reports of alien life-forms out-of-control pollution and climate change, and its most cruel proposition for the reinstitution of slavery.
  For your most complete understanding of the shattering and horrific events soon to come, and your protection against them, this is a must have book for your survival library as it allows you to put all of the pieces in this most complex of puzzles together for yourself allowing the entire truth to be revealed.
  Click Below To Order Today! (Note: This is a Special Limited Edition)
CNN Unceremoniously Dumps Left-Wing Curmudgeon Jack Cafferty
  Link to Article
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:35
  by Tony Lee12 Dec 2012, 7:36 AM PDTpost a commentAccording to Media Bistro, CNN did not renew Cafferty's contract and his last day at the news network was on November 15, which was also the last time he appeared on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer," where he contributed commentary on a near-daily basis.
Europe's newspapers are dying too
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  Source: CJR
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:59
  The implosion of the newspaper industry, long a dreaded topic in the US, has finally hit the continent
  The staff of Financial Times Deutschland appeared on the back page of the newspaper on Friday, in a deep bow. Below the photo was an apology, translated here from German:
  Excuse us, dear company manager, that we burned through so many millions. Excuse us, dear advertiser, that we reported so critically on your company. Excuse us, dear company spokesman, that we did not often follow your proposed formulated texts. Excuse us, dear politician, that we did not always believe you. Excuse us, dear colleagues, that you had to work through so many nights and weekends. Excuse us, dear readers, that these are the last lines of the FTD. We are sorry. We beg your pardon unreservedly. However: If we could do it all over again'--we would do it exactly the same again.
  With these words, the FT Deutschland closed. The 12-year old newspaper launched at the height of an economic boom and crashed as the finances of so many of its readers collapsed.
  With its last edition'--in which they renamed the paperFinal Time Deutschland and announced ''finally in the black'''--the 309 employees join what may well be an unprecedented number of journalists who have been laid off in Europe this year. The implosion of the newspaper industry, long a dreaded topic in the US, has finally hit the continent. The dailies are being knocked out by the one-two punch of an economic crisis now in its fourth year and readers' attention being diverted to the digital realm.
  ''It's a very, very, very tough time for journalists right now,'' said Stephen Pearce, secretary general of the European Federation of Journalists. ''Unless organizations invest in journalists, you can't maintain the quality needed to keep readers engaged.''
  In Germany, Frankfurter Rundschau, the second publication to receive a license after World War II, announced its insolvency earlier this month and is fervently searching for a white knight to rescue its 500 employees. The news agency dapd, too, declared bankruptcy this fall. In September, the Nuremburger Abendzeitung laid off 35 employees. The Berlin Verlag, publisher of two papers in the nation's capital, laid off at least 40 workers. Scores of smaller, regional papers have quietly stopped hiring or offered voluntary leave packages.
  The announcements prompted the nation's Agency for Work to pronounce the wave the highest number of layoffs in the journalism branch since 1945.
  As European Journalist Union president, Arne K¶nig, points out, the job loss is not limited to full-time staffers; when newspapers fold, freelancers, who often contribute a large amount of content, also lose major revenue sources.
  The German layoffs have been headline news because Germany is considered economically the healthiest of all European nations. But ailing southern Mediterranean countries, like Greece, Portugal, and Spain, have been hit hard as well. No firm statistics exist, but anecdotally, journalists say it has been one of the worst years in memory.
  ''Grosse Kaka,'' (It's crap) is how one laid off FTD journalist put it.
  Spain's flagship paper, El Pais, said in October that it was laying off nearly one-third of its staff, or 464 people. Pearce, of the journalists' union, said it was impossible to gather accurate numbers, but that the high-profile trimming follows years of smaller, quiet layoffs and media companies simply not replacing staff that have left.
  Anecdotally, Ireland's regional papers have been hard hit; Greek papers, too, have been hurt. And Portugal has been hit particularly hard this year, said Francine Cunningham, executive director of the European Newspaper Publishers Association (ENPA).
  Circulation in Europe has fallen about 5.5 percent since 2008, when economies there began to unwind. Hungary, Poland, Italy, Spain, and Greece, however, were struck particularly hard. Circulation in these countries dropped 10 percent between 2008 and 2010, according to ENPA statistics.
  True, home circulation has never been as important in many European markets as it was in the US. European readers tend to pick up a paper to read on the tram during the morning commute. But hard times mean that once-loyal readers may skip buying the local broadsheet to economize, or they may opt for a free paper.
  (''It's very cultural,'' Cunningham explained. Scandinavians, on the other hand, prefer home delivery.)
syrian opposition council - Google Search
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  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:54
  WebImagesVideosNewsShoppingMoreShow search toolsNews for syrian opposition councilWill US recognition of Syrian opposition group open channels for weapons support?Christian Science Monitor- 1 hour ago- 4234 related articles >>The United States last night granted long-demanded recognition to a Syrianopposition council as the legitimate representative of Syrians ...
  US recognises Syrian Opposition CouncilThe Australian- 15 hours ago
  US poised to recognize Syria opposition council, as it blacklists powerful rebel groupCBS News- 18 hours ago
  Syrian National Council - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_National_Council- CachedIt formed as a Syrian opposition coalition in 2011 during the Syrian civil waragainst the government of Bashar al-Assad. After the formation, the council itself ...'ŽBackground - 'ŽMembership - 'ŽPolitical positions - 'ŽSupport and recognitionObama says U.S. will recognize Syrian oppositionwww.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/.../1760755/- Cached3 hours ago ... 2012 - WASHINGTON '-- President Obama announced Tuesday that he wasrecognizing the new Syrian opposition council as the sole ...U.S. poised to recognize Syria opposition council, as it blacklists ...www.cbsnews.com/.../u.s-poised-to-recognize-syria-opposition-council-as-it- blacklists-powerful-rebel-group/- Cached1 day ago ... Double diplomatic punch: U.S. to recognize Syrian opposition group, right afterrisky move labeling key rebel faction as terrorists.Obama recognizes Syrian opposition coalition - CNN.comwww.cnn.com/2012/12/11/world/us-syria-opposition/index.html
  4 hours ago ... "We've made a decision that the Syrian Opposition Coalition is now inclusive ...and the Gulf Cooperation Council in recognizing the opposition.U.S. Recognizes Syrian Opposition Council | Opinion - Conservativebeforeitsnews.com/.../u-s-recognizes-syrian-opposition-council-2540308. html
  3 hours ago ... WASHINGTON '' President Barack Obama says the U.S. now recognizes Syria'smain opposition group as the ''legitimate representative'' of the ...Russia Slams US for Recognizing Syrian Opposition - ABC Newsabcnews.go.com/.../russia-slams-us-recognizing-syrian-opposition-17940519
  7 hours ago ... President Barack Obama said Tuesday the newly-formed Syrian OppositionCouncil "is now inclusive enough" to be granted the elevated ...Kurdish Council Agrees to Join Syrian Opposition... - Rudaw.Netwww.rudaw.net/english/news/syria/5533.html
  9 hours ago ... AMSTERDAM, Netherlands '' Syria's Kurdish National Council (KNC) has agreedto join the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), the largest ...Moscow surprised by US recognition of Syrian opposition - Lavrov - RTrt.com/politics/russia-us-syria-opposition-lavrov-870/
  6 hours ago ... US President Barack Obama said the newly created Syrian Opposition Council "is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative ...Barack Obama recognises Syrian opposition - Telegraphwww.telegraph.co.uk/.../syria/.../Barack-Obama-recognises-Syrian-opposition .html
  15 hours ago ... The US President said that Syria's Opposition Council had become "inclusiveenough" to be formally recognised as its true leadership, even ...Searches related to syrian opposition council
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Morrissey blames royal family for nurse's death | Music | guardian.co.uk
  Link to Article
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 11:43
  'The arrogance of the British royals is absolutely staggering' '... Morrissey. Photograph: Marco Prosch/Getty Images
  Morrissey has blamed the royal family for the suspected suicide of Jacintha Saldanha. The singer accused the royals of "staggering arrogance" following the death of Saldanha, a nurse who was tricked by two Australian DJs into revealing details of the Duchess of Cambridge's pregnancy.
  "It wasn't because of two DJs in Australia that this woman took her own life, it was the pressure around her," Morrissey told New Zealand's 3News. While much of this stress can be blamed on the press, he said, or the "maximum pressure [of] '... the Palace and Clarence House," he called on the duchess to take direct responsibility.
  "[She] was in the hospital, as far as I could see, for absolutely no reason," the singer said. "She feels no shame about the death of this woman, she's saying nothing about the death of this poor woman. The arrogance of the British royals is absolutely staggering."
  Morrissey has even accused Kate Middleton of being in hospital for spurious reasons. "Does she have a health condition?" he asked. "Is it anorexia or is it pregnancy? '... I mean morning sickness already? So much hoo haw and then suddenly as bright as a button as soon as this poor woman dies she's out of hospital? It doesn't ring true."
  Buckingham Palace must receive "thousands" of prank calls every day, the 53-year-old said. Blaming the incident on the DJs, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, "is just a way of distracting people". "The fact they got so far probably astonished them beyond belief. But the pressure put on the woman who connected the callers was probably so enormous that she took her own life '... And we forget about that and of course the royals are exonerated as always."
  Morrissey is a long-time critic of the monarchy. "They're absolutely horrible people," he said last year, on American TV. "I think they're arrogant, horrible dictators."
  Greig and Christian have both apologised for their prank call, as has their employer, 2DayFM. According to the Associated Press, executives at the radio station could face criminal charges for airing the conversation without its participants' consent.
Power cheaper than coal '' thorium AND uranium make it possible
  Link to Article
  Source: Atomic Insights
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 11:40
  Bob Hargraves, the author of Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal, recently traveled to Shanghai to present a 30 minute talk summarizing the main points of discussion that he covered in his book. The occasion of the trip was Thorium Energy Conference 2012.
  Bob is a professor with a good facility for numbers and a talent for clear explanations. He provides reasonably accurate figures for most types of energy production systems available today using credible sources and showing his math. As he demonstrates, there is little hope of driving down the total cost of producing energy from unreliable, weather dependent sources because the capital investment in those sources will often be idle and not producing any revenue. That characteristic makes the revenue requirement for capital cost recovery impossibly uncompetitive.
  There are a few areas where Bob and I part ways. My major beef with his analysis is his acceptance of old cost estimates for vaguely defined thorium power plants and his method of adjusting those already unreliable cost estimates by applying a standard inflation adjustment factor. As Bob acknowledges later in his talk, there really is no basis for estimating the initial cost of any power plant until there is a pretty solid design concept that is not going to change. Without a design, any cost estimate has about the same chance of hitting a target as a dart from a blindfolded thrower who has been spun around a few times before letting loose.Bob also fails to apply his well explained learning curve logic to other forms of nuclear power. There is nothing that stops them from going smaller and adopting series production techniques. There is also no evidence that conventional nuclear plant builders have used up the potential gains from that technique already. Hargraves and I agree that the best way to reduce the cost of building nuclear power plants is to apply the same series production techniques and the same kind of factory-based quality control systems that enable economical commercial aircraft or large commercial ship production.
  During the Q&A session after Bob's talk, one of the conference attendees, Baroness Byrony Worthington, raised a question that I have often faced when discussing future energy systems. She seemed almost offended that Bob had revealed the true cost of weather dependent unreliables (aka renewables). She told Bob that he should be seeking a big tent with room for all ''low-carbon'' energy systems in the battle against coal.
  There was a time when I had essentially the same belief and enthusiasm for alternative energy systems. I used to think about effective ways to use the fallen logs I saw as I drove through forested land and about building solar collectors. Even during that stage in my energy thinking, I had already spent a lot of time as a competitive sailor, so I was pretty skeptical about the prospects for commercially using wind energy. I'd experienced too many becalmed days on the ocean and missed too many days of racing due to lack of wind to be very excited about wind as being anything but a challenging source of hobby power.
  The thing that opened my eyes to the limitations of biomass, solar, ocean thermal, and wave energy was taking a series of 400 level alternative energy engineering classes taught by Chih Wu, one of the men who wrote the book about Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). Chih (who told his colleagues to call him Bob) was a well-respected professor of mechanical engineering at the US Naval Academy, which is where I landed after my engineer officer tour on USS Von Steuben.
  As a member of the Naval Academy staff, I could audit courses for free; it was an employment benefit that few of my colleagues used. I However, I was motivated because I wanted to bulk up my engineering knowledge level: even though I had completed a successful assignment as an engineer officer, I recognized that my English undergraduate degree would be inadequate if I wanted to pursue a technical career outside of the Navy.
  After three semesters of pretty intensive study, I had convinced myself that there was no way that unreliable systems with capacity factors in the 18-40% could ever be made economical. The project assignment that I remember most clearly designing a solar heater for a swimming pool located on the coast of California. Even if I used very optimistic numbers for the solar energy input, the collectors still required a surface area that was larger than the pool. The pool also had to be covered for about 15 hours per day to prevent evaporative losses from cooling it below a moderately comfortable temperature of 72 degrees.
  Bob and I often conversed about his choice to become a renewable energy expert. It took some time, but he finally admitted to me that he would have preferred to pursue his initial interest in nuclear energy. Unfortunately, the money for research projects in that field had virtually disappeared by 1972. Even though Bob taught at the Naval Academy, a place where research success is less important than teaching performance, he wanted to pursue interesting intellectual projects, obtain grants that would support student research and find ways to fund experimental construction efforts.
  My motivation for learning more about energy options was to provide energy that is cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable than coal. That energy is also cheaper and more reliable than any form of energy that depends on the vagaries of the weather. I recognize that there is no hope for a big tent because successful pursuit of my goal will drastically reduce the market opportunities for all other forms of energy production.
  The people who stand to lose market share will never like the effect of enabling nuclear energy to succeed, so they are unlikely to invite nuclear energy into their tent unless their intention is to sabotage its prospects for success. People who talk or write about energy might see logic in trying to bring all supporters of low carbon energy together, but people who want to sell systems will have a different point of view.
  The most likely allies in the battle to make nuclear energy cheaper are energy consumers; they are motivated to ensure that their sources are the cleanest and cheapest available. Since nuclear energy is unlikely to ever power personal transportation or aviation, there is also a coalition possibility with coal, as unlikely as that might sound at first.
  Cheap nuclear energy could be used to upgrade coal into a clean hydrocarbon fuel that could compete directly against oil in the liquid fuel market. Burned directly, coal sells for about $1.50 '' $3.00 per million BTU. Crude oil, on the other hand, commands a market price of about $16.00 '' $24.00 per million BTU in the recent world price range of $90.00 to $135.00 per barrel.
  If nuclear energy can be used to economically convert coal to a liquid hydrocarbon that could be piped to market, it would open a large range of new opportunities for coal miners and coal mine owners. Since the US has large domestic coal resources and since I like union laborers, I think that is a match worth pursuing.
  The key enabler of a vision of a cleaner, more abundant, less costly energy system is infusing nuclear technologists with a cost conscious culture that is as much a part of their decision process as their already important safety culture. That cost conscious culture must be well understood to discourage cheap, short-term thinking. It requires a full system view that recognizes the enormous cost that would be incurred from early failures due to using inadequate materials. It must also recognize the hazard and potential cost of taking short cuts that eliminate necessary steps or useful second checks. Experienced operators can help designers understand the value of simple, well-constructed equipment that lasts and lasts.
  However, the industry has some work to do to eliminate the ''cost is no object'' mentality that pervades the industry. We have to stop allowing people to cloak their cost-increasing demand for zero defects or perfection in low priority activities as motivated by a ''safety culture.'' True comprehension of the meaning of safety leads to recognition of the way that unreasonable expenditures of time or resources on unimportant matters will, by necessity, reduce the resources '' time and money '' that can be focused to solve more important issues.
  A true understanding of the importance of affordable energy will help people understand that absolutely, perfectly safe nuclear energy that costs too much to compete is actually a hazardous form of energy. It will be replaced in the market by something that is less safe and more dirty. I can testify from direct experience that infusing those thoughts into a nuclear workplace will not be easy or universally appreciated. It is, however, an activity worth pursuing with vigor and patience.
THE RAPE OF GREECE: How the other half live | A diary of deception and distortion
  Link to Article
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 11:37
  ''Oh sheeeeeeet'....''
  Yesterday, the Greek Parliament published the assets of 508 politicians for the financial year 2011 (2010). The so-called ''ÏÏŒÎ¸ÎµÎ½ Î­ÏƒÏ‡ÎµÏ‚'' (literally: whence did you acquire it?) contains the asset details of MPs and party leaders according to their declarations to tax offices. So it will without doubt be a massive understatement of what they've really got hidden offshore. But even so, some of the numbers are eye-popping:
  Prime Minister Antonis Samaras declared his MP's income of '‚¬66,499, and '‚¬78,669 from mysterious 'other income sources'. He owns 13 properties in Attica, Euboea, Messinia and two private cars, 3,800 shares in companies, as well as deposits in foreign banks. ('‚¬276,640, £25,119 British Pounds, and $12,925 USD). Clearly, he's hedging his bets on the fiat currencies.
  Evangelos Venizelos declared an income of '‚¬86,205, and an equally mysterious 'tax-exempted income' of '‚¬75,747. He has 23 real estate properties with apartments in Athens and Thessaloniki, and agricultural land. Bank deposits '‚¬2,155,811, 55,803 shares'...and two cars because he can't fit into one.
  Panos Kammenos and his wife declared '‚¬60,561 in MP's salary, '‚¬66,000 euro from rents, '‚¬5,400 euro from additional rents, and '‚¬29,444 euro from income as lawyer. Bank deposits '‚¬11,238 euro, plus 55,000 shares. He also has 8 properties in Athens and Samos, 3 cars and a boat.
  Fotis Kouvelis (Democratic left) declared a parliamentary income of '‚¬60,561 from the parliamentary allowance (Whatever that means) which with salary gave him a total income of '‚¬139,431, bank deposits totalling '‚¬172,299 euro, 5,637 shares. He has three private cars, and 14 properties in Attica, Trikala, Argolis and Euboea.
  But the award for honest frugality goes to these two:
  Alexis Tsipras (SYRIZA) declared an income from parliament of '‚¬60,561 euro. The messianic Left leader has one property in Attica '' and a motorcycle.
  Aleka Papariga (KKE '' Communist) declared an income of '‚¬119,541 euro, '‚¬832 euro in bank deposits'...and also has a property in Attica.
  So you might not like their politics, but you do know who to trust.
  Connected: What you think about Greece depends on whether you're buying or selling
  About these adsLike this:Be the first to like this.
NBC Los Angeles : California's Population Is Moving Out
  Link to Article
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 11:21
  About 100,000 more people moved away from California in 2011 than relocated to the Golden State, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
  The trend can be explained, in part, in monetary terms. Even in an economic boom, the cost of living in California has increased, prompting people to move out, and, in recent years, unemployment in the state has skyrocketed.
  So, where are these former Californians going?
  The Census Bureau calculates that the most popular destination is Texas (58,992), a state that is luring California companies. That's followed by Arizona (49,635), Nevada (40,114), Washington (38,421) and Oregon (34,214).
  Although in smaller numbers, people are still relocating to the Golden State.
  Texans make up the largest number of translates to California with 37,387 people, according to the report. That is followed by people from Washington (36,481), Nevada (36,159), Arizona (35,650), and New York (25,269).
  Economic experts are optimistic that California's economy has started picking up steam, and may reverse the movement out of the state.
Royal Prank Call DJs Accused Of 'Playing Dumb' | Stuff.co.nz
  Link to Article
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 09:19
  The Australian radio DJs linked to the death of the British nurse Jacintha Saldanha had been trained "not to air any prank calls without permission" and are now "playing dumb", a source from besieged Sydney station 2Day FM claims.
  The claim appears to contradict interviews given by DJs Michael Christian and Mel Greig where they said they were not aware of the approval process for prank calls.
  The source said all 2Day FM presenters, producers and content managers were compelled to undergo "decency and standards" training every six months, in compliance with a ruling from the industry watchdog.
  The training sessions, run by 2Day FM's in-house lawyer Tania Petsinis, include the specific instruction "not to air prank calls unless they get the subject's permission ... if there is doubt about a prank call, there is a clear chain of command in management that we have to escalate the call through".
  The training sessions also advised on "how to not cause distress to callers ... there is a lot of stuff about taste and decency."
  The claims about the training sessions - particularly the advice not to air prank calls without the subject's consent - appear to conflict with Christian's claim on A Current Affair that "[we were] not privy to what happens with this call ... I'm certainly not aware of what filters it needs to pass through. All we know is that it's passed on and then we're told either yay or nay."
  Greig added, "It's not up to us to make that decision. We just record it and then it goes to the other departments to work it out. I don't know what they then do with it. We just do what we do which is make those calls."
  The source said: "I find it hard to believe that if you scored the scoop of the year in entertainment radio, you'd be so flippant as to not be aware of the approval process. You'd be asking questions every step of the way because you'd be trying to get it approved as quickly as possible. You're hardly going to sit back and wait.
  "These two presenters are broadcast professionals. They can't play dumb now."
  The source added, "I do feel sorry for them, though. I think they're taking the fall for the whole thing. There are senior people above them who would have approved this and so far, none of them have admitted their involvement."
  The training sessions were introduced after the lie detector scandal of 2009, in which a 14-year-old girl revealed on air that she had been raped. The Australian Communications and Media Authority found the station had breached standards of decency and ordered it to implement a staff training program.
  It is understood around 150 staff from 2Day FM attend the programs every six months - including Christian and Greig, who tricked two British nurses into believing they were the Queen and Prince Charles.
  If employees are hired between the twice-yearly sessions, they must have one-on-one training before they start.
  "Even when we get people to do summer fill-in shows, they're not allowed on air until they've done the course," the source said. "And that training is very clear: you can't put any prank calls to air unless you get the subject's consent. It doesn't matter where [the subject] is from; this is a blanket rule.
  "There's no way that Michael and Mel would have been allowed behind a microphone if they had not done this training."
  Rhys Holleran, chief executive of 2Day FM owner Southern Cross Austereo, told 3AW's Neil Mitchell the station tried "at least five times" to contact the hospital at which Saldanha worked before airing the prank call. He has not explained why his employees then broadcast the call despite failing to get consent.
  The hospital has denied being contacted by 2Day FM and the station has not released phone records to prove the calls were made.
  It is understood the 2Day FM training sessions make no specific mention of how to deal with prank call subjects who are overseas. However, attendees are instructed to "escalate" potential issues to senior staff.
  "We're told that if we have any concerns about taste or decency, we have to take it up through the levels of management," the source said. "First, we have to take it to the content director, Derek Bargwanna, then to the legal team and the station manager, Jeremy Simpson."
  Another source has told Fairfax Media that Bargwanna, a former producer of Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O, approved the broadcast of the prank call.
  It is unclear whether Simpson, national content director Craig Bruce or metropolitan radio chief Guy Dobson also approved the segment.
  Austereo would not confirm which employees did approve the segment.
  A spokeswoman said, "We have conducted a review and found that all policies and procedures were adhered to."
  On Wednesday Petsinis refused to confirm she conducts the "decency and standards" training for 2Day FM employees, and whether she gave legal approval to air the prank call.
  In the wake of the scandal, Austereo suspended Christian and Greig and axed their national night program, Hot 30 Countdown.
  It has since emerged that Hot 30 producer Emily Mills and assistant producer Ben Harlum were involved in producing and airing the prank call.
  Both are reported to have "yapped like corgis" while the call was being made.
  Harlum hung up when contacted by Fairfax Media. Comment is also being sought from Mills.
  The scandal is the latest in a long line of controversies for 2Day FM, most of which involve breakfast hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O.
  Last year, Sandilands branded a female journalist who criticised his failed TV program a "fat slag" and threatened to "hunt her down".
  The duo are also responsible for a stunt in which a handful of women were lined up behind two panels, exposing only their vaginas. A man was then asked to identify which vagina belonged to his girlfriend.
  Another stunt involved flying in a woman from the United States, then forcing her to beg on her knees to see the aunt she had never met.
  Last year, they were scolded by police for a win-a-car competition that may have encouraged dangerous driving.
  Sandilands has also been criticised for making fun of a disabled baby and suggesting actor Magda Szubanski should be "put in a concentration camp" to lose weight.
  2Day FM was also embroiled in controversy when former presenters Judith Lucy, Kaz Cooke and Peter Helliar revealed they were asked to host a stunt called "celebrity sperm". The station intended to ask singer Guy Sebastian for his sperm, then encourage female listeners to compete for the chance to impregnate themselves with it.
  The trio refused to be part of the stunt.
  - Sydney Morning Herald
Royal Hoax Nurse Left 'Suicide Note', Family Still... | Stuff.co.nz
  Link to Article
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 09:10
  FAMILY: Jacintha Saldanha's daughter Lisha, husband Ben Barboza and son Junal at the British Houses of Parliament.
  It has been revealed the nurse who died in a suspected suicide after answering a prank call requesting information about the health of Duchess of Cambridge left a note for her family. The Daily Telegraph reports that 46-year-old nurse Jacintha Saldanha left a note for her husband and their two children.
  The family, who had no idea about the controversial hoax call, still believe there are "unexplained circumstances", the paper said
  The contents of the note have not yet been revealed.
  Keith Vaz, a British Labour MP who has offered to help the family, said: "What the family need are the full facts. There are unexplained circumstances. The family want to know everything.
  "The hospital needs to be more proactive, a full inquiry is needed and the family need to be included in that."
  Saldanha was found dead in a London apartment at the weekend, days after being caught in the Australian radio show's scam. She worked at King Edward VII Hospital where Prince William's pregnant wife Kate was being treated.
  An autopsy has been carried out and her death was being described by police as unexplained but not suspicious. It was suspected to have been suicide.
  The hospital has set up the Jacintha Saldanha Memorial Fund to help her family.
  Lord Glenarthur, the chairman of the hospital, said: "We would certainly welcome such a donation to the fund." He added that "many donations have already been made from around the world".
  - (C) Fairfax NZ News
NDAA Justifies Drone Use - Business Insider
  Link to Article
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 07:34
  We've covered how President Obama needs the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to justify detention powers he has used for the past four years, but there's another reason he needs it: drones.At the heart of both issues is the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), which gives the president authority "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those ... [who] aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 or harbored such organizations or persons."
  In May White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said that U.S. drone strikes are justified because America is "in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces, in response to the 9/11 attacks."
  But former George W. Bush-era attorney John Bellinger recently declared shenanigans on that claim:
  The Obama administration apparently continues to think that they have legal authority under [the AUMF] ... [T]hat it is questionable, because ... 11 years later, it's not at all clear that the drone strikes against ... people in Pakistan or Yemen or Somalia, young men who were in their 20s, who twelve years ago might have been 8 or 9 years old, were in fact part of the same organization that planned 9/11. So, the Obama administration continues to say that they have that authority under congressional authorization, but I think it's a fair question as to whether they really do.
  In the lawsuit challenging the NDAA's indefinite detention provisions, both the plaintiffs and Judge Katherine Forrest argued that '-- despite government claims that NDAA is simply a "reaffirmation" of the AUMF '-- the NDAA actually extends the president's authority to anyone who provides "substantial support" to the Taliban, al-Qaeda or "associated forces," including "any person who has committed a belligerent act" in the aid of enemy forces.
  In her ruling to block the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA, Judge Forrest said that the indefinite detention provisions appeared to be a retroactive legislative fix "to provide the President (in 2012) with broader detention authority than was provided in the AUMF in 2001 and to try to ratify past detentions which may have occurred under an overly-broad interpretation of the AUMF."
  Bruce Afran, a lawyer for the NDAA plaintiffs, tells BI that the same is true for drone strikes because the "use of drones as a generalized weapon [on those] who were only children at the time of the 9/11 attacks would likely go further than any court has previously interpreted the AUMF."
  Thusthe indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA could be critical to the Obama administration for justifying not only its detention policy, but also its use of drones for extrajudicial killings.
  As NDAA plaintiff Tangerine Bolen told BI, the government may have argued that a block of the NDAA would cause "irreparable harm" to the U.S. because it would possibly be "exposing illegal activities for the last decade. It could have a set of ripple consequences: we could see people in the Bush administration, Obama administration and security agencies be investigated for how they have applied the AUMF."
  SEE ALSO: Why Losing Indefinite Detention Powers Would Be A Disaster For Obama
The True Face Of Obama's America'...
  Link to Article
  Source: The Ulsterman Report
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 06:26
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UKIP Nigel Farage says the EU is the world's low-growth, economic disaster zone - Dec 2012
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  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 06:26
Daily Press Briefing - December 11, 2012
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  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 06:06
  12:55 p.m. EST
  MS. NULAND: All right, everybody. Happy Tuesday. I have one little thing at the top, and then we'll go to what's on your minds.
  You will have seen, yesterday, a statement from the President on the departure of Special Envoy Princeton Lyman, who is our envoy for Sudan and South Sudan. I just wanted to make clear that before we let Ambassador Lyman go, he's going to be making another trip in the coming days to Juba, South Sudan today for a series of high-level meetings with government officials, members of civil society, and representatives of international organizations there. He will engage South Sudan on the resolution of outstanding issues such as the disputed area of Abyei, implementation of the crucial agreements, including the creation of a safety militarized border zone. He'll also be working on our commitment to South Sudan's economic development and democratic principles underlying the government. He'll then travel to Addis, Ethiopia to attend the Joint Political and Security Mechanisms meeting on December 15th. And he '' we anticipate that the Administration will name a new special envoy soon and that Ambassador Lyman will be around until that time.
  So let's go to what's on your minds.
  QUESTION: Let's start with Syria. And Deputy Burns is on his way or has arrived?
  MS. NULAND: Deputy Secretary Burns, as you know, is covering for the Secretary at the Friends of the Syrian People meeting tomorrow. He is en route today. He'll arrive later this evening in Marrakesh --
  QUESTION: Okay.
  MS. NULAND: -- and will represent us there.
  QUESTION: So he's still en route. Do you know, does he '' the Secretary had planned to meet with the King apart from the Syrian People. Is he going to basically be following her exact schedule?
  MS. NULAND: I, frankly, don't know whether he's going to do the full bilateral program. I would expect that he will see the Moroccan Foreign Minister, but as you know, we had planned to go on Monday and have a separate program in Casablanca, which I don't think he's going to have time to do.
  QUESTION: Okay. But the rest of it '' he will do everything the Secretary was going to do with the Friends of Syria meeting?
  MS. NULAND: Yes.
  QUESTION: Would you like to tell us what that is? (Laughter.)
  MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, the Secretary would '' was planning to give a strong statement of support for the Syrian Opposition Council at the Friends of the Syrian People meeting, which is tomorrow morning, I believe, in Marrakesh. I think you will see the exact same statement come from Deputy Secretary Burns tomorrow, as the Secretary foreshadowed when we were on the road last week. We want to do what we can to support the coalition. I think you'll see that in the form of political support. You'll obviously see it in the form of increased humanitarian support, with a particular emphasis there on some of the winterization requirements.
  I think he'll also look forward to being able to meet with some of the opposition leaders as well, and hear directly from them, both in the larger meeting and in our bilateral meeting, about how they are doing in terms of organizing themselves. As a general matter, we are pleased with their continued efforts to organize themselves, to form these technical committees, to identify specific needs in terms of assistance, to make stronger linkages on the ground. But he will want to get, for all of us, their assessment of how they are doing and their assessment of where the international community can better support them.
  QUESTION: All right. And sorry to bog this down with logistics, but is he then going on to the Global Counterterrorism?
  MS. NULAND: That is the current plan. The current plan is for him to follow the Secretary's schedule.
  Jill.
  QUESTION: And in terms of our favorite subject of recognition '' however you want to call it '' how will that determination to upgrade the way the U.S. deals with these '' with the opposition happen? I mean, will there be a determination of timing on the ground? Or does he go there with the idea of some type of timing or even taking a step?
  MS. NULAND: Well, again, I'm not going to preempt what may be announced on the road to Marrakesh or at Marrakesh, but as the Secretary has said, we want to continue to support the opposition. So stay tuned. That was a good try, though, Jill. I like that a lot. (Laughter.)
  QUESTION: Connected with this morning's announcement on al-Nusrah Front, in the background call officials mentioned that this had been under discussion with some allies and that all partners were clear about our position on this. Is Deputy Secretary Burns going to bring this up specifically in any of his meetings, i.e., say, we've identified these guys as an FTO, whoever amongst you may be interested in helping them in the past will '' shouldn't do that anymore?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I think he will certainly, both in the multilateral meeting and in any bilateral meetings that he has with any of our other partners who are there, make clear the steps that we've taken, not only the steps we took vis-a-vis al-Nusrah, but also the steps that the Treasury Department announced today with regard to the pro-regime militias, the two Shabiha organizations, so that we are encouraging as many partners as possible to take similar steps to isolate any extremist groups, whether they are putatively supporting the opposition but actually trying to exploit the situation or whether they are pro-Iranian forces who are helping the regime. The goal here is not only to take steps ourselves but to encourage anybody else who is working with the opposition to make sure that their assistance doesn't go to these kinds of groups that are clearly al-Qaida fronts and that we are all calling out the Iranian-backed support for the regime on the other side it.
  QUESTION: Are there specific instances or concerns that you have that other elements of the Friends of Syria may in the past have supported al-Nusrah Front specifically?
  MS. NULAND: I think in general, as part of our conversation with all of our partners in the Friends of the Syrian People, there has been a conversation all the way through about knowing who's who, no matter what kind of support you are providing for the opposition, because we've been concerned all the way along that there could be this effort by extremists to exploit the violence that the Assad regime has wrought. So '' and in particular, al-Nusrah, as we talked about yesterday, is simply a renamed al-Qaida in Iraq trying to make inroads into Syria, so it's very important that everybody call it what it is. And as you heard in the background call this morning, we've also been very clear about our concerns about this with the Free Syrian Army. Ambassador Ford has had direct contact with them, basically saying watch out for this kind of infiltration.
  QUESTION: Toria, today in the background briefing --
  QUESTION: There are some --
  MS. NULAND: Can I call on Roz?
  QUESTION: Sure.
  MS. NULAND: Lady in pink, go for it.
  QUESTION: Some of the other armed groups are saying that this designation isn't helpful because, for better or worse, in the past 13 months al-Nusrah has essentially cleared the way for them to be able to take parts of the Syrian territory, whether it's in parts of Aleppo, in Latakia, or even in some fringes of Damascus. And they're saying that this is going to make it much more difficult for them now to actually try to depose the Assad regime. Did the U.S. consider their concerns about their ability to fight, especially given the U.S.'s reluctance to provide them with any sort of weapons itself?
  MS. NULAND: I think the concern is as countries provide outside support to the opposition, they need to be providing it to those opposition groups who truly have the best interest of Syria and Syrians in mind '' not groups coming from the outside who want to hijack what the Syrian people have started for their own means and have a very different future in mind, a future that is based in al-Qaida-based values and principles, not democratic-based principles and values. So just as we are speaking to those who are supporting and funding the Syrians, we're also speaking to the Syrian people and saying be sure that those who are fighting in your name have your '' have a democratic future in mind and are operating under the principles that we all want to see guide Syria in the future; don't trade one group of thugs for another group of thugs.
  QUESTION: Now given that --
  QUESTION: Toria, why now?
  QUESTION: Who is --
  QUESTION: If I may follow up.
  MS. NULAND: Let's go to Said, who was patient.
  QUESTION: Thank you.
  MS. NULAND: Go ahead.
  QUESTION: I listened in on the background briefing today, and I didn't get a chance to ask, now, are you placing any other group on the terror list? Because there are like 300 groups. Many of them are self-described jihadists. Many of them espouse al-Qaida dogma and ideology. But it seems that al-Nusrah are the only ones that you are placing. Is it the only group that you're aware of?
  MS. NULAND: Well, again, we've talked quite a bit here, Said, about the fact that there is a lot of morphing and changing within these militia groups. What we are saying is this is a false flag that we can identify and beware. We are certainly making the broader point, whether it's to the Free Syrian Army or whether it's to the Syrian opposition, that there may be other groups who don't have a democratic Syria in mind, who don't have the best interest of the Syrian people in mind, and one needs to be aware of them. And we will continue to watch this as we go forward so '' and continue to take steps as necessary.
  QUESTION: So with that in mind, we are likely to see more groups and you are also sending a message, let's say, Qatar and Saudi Arabia who have openly supported this group not '' to withhold their support, correct?
  MS. NULAND: Well, we're certainly sending a message, both, as I said, to Syrians and to our partners that this is a group that we think does not wish Syria well, does not have the same goals and aspirations that the Syrian people have. They have a very different agenda, and everybody should beware. With regard to our continued review of this situation, we're going to continue to be vigilant, and we're going to continue to call it like we see it.
  I do want to take this opportunity, though, to make it clear that we are being equal opportunity sanctioners, if you will, of extremists inside Syria. So in addition to the moves that we took with regard to al-Nusrah, which have been broadly covered, you will note that the Treasury Department also issued sanctions today against two pro-regime militias, the two Shabiha militias, and against the two Shabiha leaders who run them, Ayman Jaber and Mohammad Jaber. These militias have been absolutely instrumental in supporting and aiding the Assad regime's campaign of terror and violence. They are underwritten by Iran and by Hezbollah. They look very much like the Basij in Iran in terms of the tactics and techniques that they employ. And we have also sanctioned them.
  Please, Jill.
  QUESTION: Toria, also is there a '' some (inaudible) say that there's a political component to this as well, that not only are they terrorists who have carried out suicide attacks, et cetera, but that they also do not support the opposition, the political opposition, that they have a very different viewpoint. Was that determination then by the State Department made on strictly, let's say, military physical violence as well as a political determination?
  MS. NULAND: The political agenda is just as important. As you know, we have supported the aspirations of the Syrian people to have a truly pluralistic, unified, democratic state that supports and defends the human rights of all Syrians. These kinds of al-Qaida-affiliated groups have a very, very different vision about how people ought to live, and it's '' certainly, there's nothing democratic about it.
  Please.
  QUESTION: Victoria, why now? I mean, it took like a year or so to make this determination.
  QUESTION: Especially when you consider that the emir who was in charge of both AQI and the al-Nusrah Front was sanctioned a year ago November.
  MS. NULAND: Well, again, we have to always, in these sanctioning cases, build a case over time. I think the concern has been that their efforts to infiltrate the opposition have accelerated, and we have clear evidence of the violence that they espouse, et cetera. So as we can make a case, we do.
  QUESTION: Victoria, just a clarification on the two groups that you sanctioned. I know Jaysh al-Sha'bi is one. And the other group, which is also members of Shabiha. what are they called that are headed by Mohammad Jaber and his brother Ayman Jaber?
  MS. NULAND: I'm just trying to find the precise names of these two organizations. So the two militias are called Jaysh al-Sha'bi, and the Shabiha. And then the two brothers are the leaders of these two groups, and they've played leading roles in the regime's violence in Dara'a, in the direct killing of civilians, and they've also arranged transportation and other kinds of facilitation for weapons in ''
  QUESTION: And they take their orders directly from Maher al-Assad; is that what '' Assad's brother?
  MS. NULAND: Well, they support the regime forces, but they are very much, in terms of the form that they've taken, a reflection of Iranian tactics and Iranian methods and advice to the Syrian regime.
  Please.
  QUESTION: What do you expect for this designation to accomplish?
  MS. NULAND: I think I've spoken to that. We are ''
  QUESTION: Will they stop weapons and --
  MS. NULAND: -- first and foremost ensuring that nobody in the United States can provide support to these groups, but also it's designed to send a message to others supporting the opposition that they ought to be aware of them as well.
  QUESTION: This one they refer to as minority elements within the opposition rebels, do you have an indication of strength of numbers and where they're mainly located? And is it the American understanding that most of these '' of the rank of Syrians or have they actually been infiltrated by foreign fighters?
  MS. NULAND: Well, certainly there are foreigners primarily in the forefront of these groups. I think if you listened to the background call that we had this morning, you got a good sense of what we have to share about them, primarily that they are still a minority, a virulent minority, but a minority. And our goal is to call them out, isolate them, and ensure that it stays that way or that they are rolled back.
  QUESTION: Do you have any indication of numbers?
  MS. NULAND: I don't, not to share here.
  Please.
  QUESTION: Hey, Toria. Today Secretary Panetta said that there was some dying down of intelligence and concern in the immediate sense around some of the chemical weapons within Syria. Is it this building's view that there has been a material change or some reaction to events that has caused less concern about a threat?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I don't think our concern is any less about what a desperate regime might do. I'm not going to speak to the daily tick-tock of intelligence. I think Secretary Panetta spoke to our hope that our message is getting through about the kinds of '' about the ramifications and implications of any use of this or any loss of control of it. So I'm going to, beyond that, let Secretary Panetta's comments stand, obviously.
  QUESTION: About '' more about Jebhat al-Nusrah, if I may.
  MS. NULAND: Can you tell me who you are, please?
  QUESTION: Fadi Mansour with Al Jazeera channel. Thank you. So is the timing of that designation related in any way to the conference in Morocco? And then on the issue of isolating Jebhat al-Nusrah, is the '' is your Administration '' would the Administration be happy just by kind of if the opposition, different opposition groups stopped their cooperation with Jebhat al-Nusrah? Or you are encouraging them to maybe deal with them, crack down on them through force?
  And the third point, the Treasury today added Mr. Maysar al-Juburi and Anas Khattab to the list of terrorism. Do you know why Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani '' he's the emir of Jebhat al-Nusrah in Syria '' was not actually added?
  MS. NULAND: Well, certainly with regard to your first issue on the timing, yes, we are trying to strengthen the legitimate opposition, the political opposition, the Syrian Opposition Council, and the legitimate political opposition forces inside Syria. We are trying to make the point that those fighting in Syria's name ought to be doing so in a manner that reflects the Syria that they want to have, not reflecting a terrorist or al-Qaida-shaped future. So obviously, we're trying to do that.
  As I've said a number of times here just now, your second point with regard to a message to others, yes, we're trying to send the message to work with the legitimate opposition in Syria, those who have the best interests of Syria in mind, not those who are seeking to hijack the revolution.
  With regard to who we sanctioned, obviously as we can make cases, we do. This is always a rolling process and is not necessarily the end of the line.
  QUESTION: My question '' my second question wasn't about partners of the U.S.; it was about opposition groups on the ground, fighting opposition groups on the ground in Syria. Is it enough, from your point of view, to stop cooperating with Jebhat al-Nusrah, or other actions should be taken?
  MS. NULAND: Well, again, we want to see Syrians isolating these groups, calling them out, ensuring that they're not making inroads and being very, very careful about any support that they accept from groups that don't have Syria's best future in mind.
  QUESTION: I've got two related, brief. One, in answer to Margaret, you said that this reduction in concern, if there is one, is a sign '' I think you said this '' that the message is getting through, how that this would be a game-changing, very serious thing. Is that correct?
  MS. NULAND: I simply repeated what Secretary Panetta had said, that one hopes that our message is getting through. I wasn't evaluating it one way or the other.
  QUESTION: Okay. Well, is there concern at all that message, in fact, isn't the message that you think it might be, but rather that message '' or the message that the Assad regime might be getting is that go ahead, keep on slaughtering your people, we won't stop '' we don't do anything as long as you use conventional weapons to do it?
  MS. NULAND: If that's the message they're taking, then they are --
  QUESTION: Then they're wrong?
  MS. NULAND: They are vastly mistaken, in the sense that we are on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, working with all of our partners to try to tighten the pressure that this regime is under, whether it's through sanctions, whether it's through strengthening the opposition, in the way that we're talking about.
  QUESTION: Okay. And then the other thing is on the TQ that just came out, which was a question about social media and the FTO designation, I'd like to give an award for double-speak to whoever came up with that answer.
  MS. NULAND: I thought you would enjoy that one, Matt.
  QUESTION: Yeah. Well, I mean, it doesn't even come close to answering the question. So the answer that you give is that the FTO designation makes it illegal for a U.S. entity or entity subject to U.S. jurisdiction to provide material support to FTOs, and that's the extent of it. And then it '' so the question, I guess, let me make it perfectly clear so you can go back to the lawyers and tell them that they can't obfuscate on this. The question is whether giving a platform, a social media platform like a Twitter account, Twitter handle, Facebook account, a YouTube channel, whatever, does that constitute material support. I hope that is clear to whoever is listening in the legal world. And trying to brush it off and saying go ask Treasury how these things are enforced, or Justice, doesn't make any sense.
  MS. NULAND: Well, I appreciate your frustration with the lawyers. Let me simply say that there '' what we tried to do there were to cite the two clearest pieces in statute that are applicable in this case. Precisely how they are enforced are not a matter for this building. They are a matter for the Department of Justice and for the Treasury.
  QUESTION: Well --
  MS. NULAND: So I can't answer the question with regard to specific cases. I can't answer it with regard to a general category of Twitter or Facebook. You have to go to Justice with a specific case. I'm sorry, I'm frustrated too, but I can't --
  QUESTION: Well, the State Department doesn't have any '' doesn't take any position as to what material support constitutes? Surely this is an interagency --
  MS. NULAND: To the degree that the Justice Department or the Treasury Department wants to consult with us on specific cases having to do on the foreign policy implications of specific cases, we are available to them. But they are the enforcement agencies, we are not, with regard to U.S. law.
  QUESTION: So they're the ones who decide what material support is, and this building is not involved unless they ask you for your advice?
  MS. NULAND: If there are foreign policy issues of interpretation or implication, then we become involved. If there aren't, then it's their job to enforce.
  Yeah.
  QUESTION: All right. Well, can you '' can we get an answer from this building? I'll ask around town as well, but can we '' the question would be: Does the State Department consider social media platform or the provision thereof to be material support?
  MS. NULAND: And again --
  QUESTION: I think that this building will have an opinion. I mean, if the Justice Department came and asked you, ''What do you think about this,'' you would have an opinion. So --
  MS. NULAND: And again --
  QUESTION: Pretend that I'm the Justice Department. I'm coming to you and I'm saying, ''Do you have an opinion as to whether this social media platform is material support or not?'' Thank you.
  MS. NULAND: And you're looking for a one-size-fits-all answer, Matt, which I cannot give you. It's a case-by-case answer that has to be decided by the enforcement agencies, depending upon what we're talking about.
  Said.
  QUESTION: I want to go back to a point that you raised, on the foreign fighters, al-Nusrah bring basically from Iraq.
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: In fact, many of the fighters that are fighting the Syrian regime come from volunteers in the countries of the region, and they are relayed and trained and armed and so on by countries that you are quite allied with. Do you advise these countries not to do so, not to encourage volunteers, especially most of these volunteers are more than likely to be jihadist and Qaida types?
  MS. NULAND: Again, without getting too deeply into this, which I'm not going to do here, Said, I think, as we said in the background call, the external element in the fighting corps is relatively modest as compared to other things that we've seen. What we are saying here to Syrians and to those providing external support is to know who they are working with.
  Please.
  QUESTION: Can we go back to the question about al-Nusrah and the fighters in particular? The U.S. has said that up until now it is not providing any sort of weapons to the opposition because of its concerns about who makes up the opposition. Has the U.S. ever taken off the table the possibility of ever giving weapons to the Syrian opposition?
  MS. NULAND: The President has said on a number of occasions that we don't take anything off the table in this case or in other cases. But we are where we are right now in terms of our policy, which is to provide only nonlethal support.
  QUESTION: Was there any thought in issuing this decision to sanction al-Nusrah and the two Shabiha militias to, in essence, give the U.S. a little bit of breathing room from other countries that have wanted to see the U.S. provide weapons?
  MS. NULAND: This decision was not about our conversation with other partners about those issues. It was much more about trying to be clear about the dangers that we saw of infiltration by these al-Qaida-based groups.
  QUESTION: But couldn't you go back and say, ''See, we told you so''?
  MS. NULAND: I'm not sure where you're going with that one. But we obviously, as I have said a number of times here, are trying to help both Syrians and those supporting Syrians from the outside be clear about who's who.
  Please.
  QUESTION: Change for North Korea?
  MS. NULAND: Mm-hmm.
  QUESTION: Yeah. South Korean newspaper Kyunghyang daily has reported that U.S. citizen, a U.S. citizen named Kenneth Bae has been detained for over one month in North Korea and the negotiation to release him is going on. Could you confirm that?
  MS. NULAND: Well, we're obviously aware of these reports that a U.S. citizen has been detained in North Korea. We obviously have no higher priority than the welfare of our citizens. As you may know, we have no representation in Pyongyang. The Embassy of Sweden acts as our protecting power for issues involving U.S. citizens in North Korea. I, frankly, can't comment any further than that due to privacy considerations.
  QUESTION: A follow-up?
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: Let me ask this way. So did this building know about the case before those media reports?
  MS. NULAND: I don't think, Mr. Lee, I can go any further than I just have, given privacy considerations with regard to U.S. citizens.
  Please.
  QUESTION: Is the U.S. Embassy in Beijing involved in all of this?
  MS. NULAND: Again, Sweden is our protecting power. To the degree that we have issues with regard to U.S. citizens, we do it that way.
  QUESTION: Can I ask --
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: -- and this doesn't have to do with Privacy Act, I promise. I just '' this is --
  MS. NULAND: I'd be disappointed if it didn't, Matt.
  QUESTION: Well, you're going to be disappointed because it doesn't have to do with that. But it does have to do with protecting powers. It's a much broader question; maybe you can take it. Is there any '' in like Iran or in North Korea with the Swiss and the Swedes, is there a payment made by the government to these countries for the service of being a protecting power?
  MS. NULAND: I will take it to be sure that I get it right, but my understanding is that, in general, these are reciprocal arrangements that are done gratis. There are sometimes occasions where our allies and partners incur unique costs as a result of having to support us, whether it's having to have extra staff, having to have a bigger building, et cetera, and there are occasions when accommodations are made in those cases. But in general, this is something that's done as a matter of diplomatic comity, and we try to be supportive where we can in exchange.
  QUESTION: Toria --
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: -- President Putin yesterday responded to Secretary Clinton's comments that were quoted in the Financial Times, I guess last week, about dangers of Sovietization in the moves that were made to create among the (inaudible) countries economic cooperation, defense cooperation. He reiterated the right of Russia to deal with the countries in the region for common concerns. What do you say about the response, and what did the Secretary mean with the Sovietization? Putin said: We're not trying to recreate the Soviet Union, but we reserve the right to act in our own interest to bring together countries in the region around various issues. Why doesn't he have the right to do that?
  MS. NULAND: Well, frankly, I didn't see President Putin's comment. I did see something from his spokesperson. Nobody is taking issue with any legitimate commercial arrangements between Russia and neighbors. I think the concern is '' simply goes to the issue of coercion. The Secretary's been clear all the way through that when we talk about the reset in U.S.-Russian relations, we see two sides of that, both the ability to cooperate as much as we can on issues of mutual concern, but also the ability to call it straight when we don't necessarily agree.
  I would note that those particular comments were made in a private setting with some NGOs. They were not public comments. There did happen to be some reporting off of that meeting, but we are not going to be shy, whether it's directly with the Russians or in other settings, about expressing concerns when we have them.
  QUESTION: Was there anything in particular that set off the comments?
  MS. NULAND: She was clear about other concerns that she had in the remarks that she made at the OSCE. If you take a look at those, they were plenty hard-hitting.
  Samir.
  QUESTION: Was there any particular concern that she '' that set off that comment? Was there something specific that she was referring to?
  MS. NULAND: I think the comments speak very clearly for themselves.
  Samir.
  QUESTION: Yes. Turkey is negotiating, or already finished an oil deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq. Are you encouraging Turkey not to go along with this, since it will be a provocation to the central government in Baghdad?
  MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, let me say as a general matter, once again, Samir, that the United States supports a constitutional solution to the dispute over the management of Iraq's hydrocarbon resources. This is our longstanding position. We are continuing to urge the Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government to reach an agreement over legislation so that they can enhance investment so that everybody knows what the fair legal basis is for this.
  We don't support oil exports from any part of Iraq without the appropriate approval of the Iraqi Government, and we're calling on the Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government to continue to try to work through their differences. We also call on neighboring states to similarly avoid any action or comment that can contribute in any way to increasing tensions.
  Scott.
  QUESTION: Mali.
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: The interim Prime Minister is resigned after being picked up by some soldiers. Give us your thoughts about that and what it speaks to the political process in Mali right now.
  MS. NULAND: Well, as Scott has '' guys? Are we back on North Korea over there? Can we just keep on Mali for the moment? Yeah.
  Well, as Scott has made clear, last night Malian interim Prime Minister Diarra was abducted by security forces loyal to the junta leader, Captain Sanogo. He was forced to resign and to dissolve the cabinet. We understand that he has now been released and is currently with his family. We condemn this act by the military junta and insist that it halt its continued interference in Malian political affairs and government. We view this event as a setback for Mali's transition and its efforts to try to restore constitutional order and democratic government. The events of last night reinforce the need to get as quickly as possible to free and fair elections, ideally by April 23rd or as soon as it's technically feasible.
  A popularly elected Government of Mali is critical to restoring that country's ability to control and defend its territory. So that is a matter of extreme concern, and it speaks to why we've got to have a political solution in Mali going hand-in-hand with increased security.
  QUESTION: As you know, it took quite a while to come up with this interim government. So do you want Mr. Diarra reappointed, or do you say that someone else should take his place quickly?
  MS. NULAND: Well, that's a call for the interim President to make. He can either reinstate Mr. Diarra, or he can appoint a new prime minister and government. But there has to be an interim set of political authorities. And first and foremost, we need Sanogo and his brothers in arms to stay out of politics, because it's not helping.
  QUESTION: Do you think that this event may mean that any discussion that's underway on planning for potential intervention in the north should be frozen until this political situation in Bamako is resolved?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I think we see them as mutually reinforcing. We need to continue to move forward on what the security arrangements are going to be to enforce '' to reinforce the legitimate military authorities in Mali who clearly are going to need more help. I think the UNSC conversations probably will go into tomorrow now, as folks look to sort this through. But we also need to see the political track reinstated in an interim way. But the two things have to go hand-in-hand, as we've been saying for some time.
  QUESTION: The French appear to have a quite a bit quicker timeline in mind than the U.S. does as far as intervention plan goes, and they're saying that this arrest shows that the intervention should take place sooner rather than later. Do you agree? Are you at odds with France on a timeline here?
  MS. NULAND: I don't think so. We're working well in the Security Council now, and I think you'll see some decisions this week, probably.
  QUESTION: Decisions --
  MS. NULAND: Still on Mali?
  QUESTION: Decisions on --
  MS. NULAND: In New York.
  QUESTION: -- in the intervention '' on the intervention?
  MS. NULAND: Decisions in terms of the Council coming together on what needs to happen next.
  QUESTION: Because the French have been pretty vocal in saying that you're not on the same page on this, so I don't --
  MS. NULAND: We've had very good discussions over the last 24 hours, Matt. I think we're coming --
  QUESTION: So in other words, the differences that existed you think are now --
  MS. NULAND: I think we've been able to work things through, yeah. That's my --
  QUESTION: So there were differences?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I'm going to send you to New York for details. But my understanding from New York today is that we are working things through today; that obviously, given the events of last night, you may not see action today, but you'll probably see action this week.
  Still on Mali? No. Go ahead.
  QUESTION: Can I change the topic? Thank you. Ukraine. I know you can never comment --
  MS. NULAND: Can you tell me who you are, please?
  QUESTION: Dmitry Anopchenko, Inter Television channel, chief correspondent. I know you never comment on the U.S. entry visa issues on respect of individuals, however, I'd like to ask you about the (inaudible). First of all, following of the cancellation of the U.S. entry visa to First Deputy Prosecutor General of the Ukraine, is there any list of the Ukrainian officials whose entry visa has already been cancelled or whose entry visa application will be rejected?
  MS. NULAND: I don't know that I completely understood the question. As you know, we don't comment on individual visa cases. In the case of Mr. Kuzmin, he commented first, so we were able to confirm what he had to say. But I --
  QUESTION: Absolutely. And the question is: Do you generally have the list of the Ukrainian politicians whose U.S. entry visa has been already rejected or canceled?
  MS. NULAND: Well, we have the Immigration and Nationalization Act, which guides when we can issue visas and when we can't issue visas, but we don't keep lists of blacklisted people, if that's what you're talking about. It is purely, as it is around the world, a matter of whether they are eligible under U.S. law for a visa.
  QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
  QUESTION: Maybe talk here about the --
  MS. NULAND: And we now have the Magnitsky legislation. That's right.
  QUESTION: Pardon me. Yeah, maybe talk here about the (inaudible) --
  QUESTION: Hold on, hold on --
  QUESTION: -- for the Ukraine.
  QUESTION: Hold on one second. That's not correct. There are lists of people who are not eligible for visas.
  MS. NULAND: Well, they're not eligible for visas because they don't meet the criteria of the INA, but --
  QUESTION: Yes, but there are lists of people, lists of names of people who say '' that it says that the consular officer, with some '' that person comes in, they check the list.
  MS. NULAND: Right. But that it's '' if you're asking whether everybody applying for a visa has to be checked against whether they meet the criteria, the answer is yes. And I think the implication here was that we sort of arbitrarily say we don't like this person, we like this person. It's completely a matter of whether they meet the legal requirements for a visa.
  QUESTION: But taking into consideration the situation with Ms. Tymoshenko, might it be principally possible that the visa sanctions can be taken against the Ukraine? Has this issue discussed on the level of the U.S. Department of State?
  MS. NULAND: Well, our efforts to date with the Government of Ukraine have been to use our diplomatic engagement with them to urge them to change course, to stop political prosecutions, to release former Prime Minister Tymoshenko, and to better protect the democratic reputation of Ukraine, if you will. So that's the policy that we are following at the moment. Obviously, the kind of measures that you're proposing are possible, but that's not where we are right now.
  QUESTION: One short question: Speaking about the U.S. visa regulations, without any connection with the Ukraine, how often are the U.S. using such instrument as entry visa as sanctions toward officials in certain country to give a signal to a country?
  MS. NULAND: I don't have a sort of a scorecard for you on that. You've seen the recent legislation here.
  QUESTION: Belarus, Zimbabwe --
  MS. NULAND: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Matt can probably give you a full briefing on that.
  QUESTION: On this, though, you said that because the prosecutor general or whoever this guy is spoke, you had something to say about it. Can you --
  MS. NULAND: Yeah. Our --
  QUESTION: What is it that you have to say about it?
  MS. NULAND: We confirmed, as he himself had publicly --
  QUESTION: Right.
  MS. NULAND: -- that Mr. Kuzmin's visa was revoked. That was about all we had to say.
  QUESTION: But it was a revocation; it wasn't a denial?
  MS. NULAND: Correct.
  QUESTION: Okay.
  MS. NULAND: Okay. Please.
  QUESTION: Egypt?
  MS. NULAND: Egypt, yeah.
  QUESTION: The referendum is set to start tomorrow morning. Any worries and/or concerns that it's going to inflame the situation more?
  MS. NULAND: Tomorrow morning?
  QUESTION: Saturday.
  MS. NULAND: December 15th.
  QUESTION: Well, for the Egyptians that are abroad, it starts on Wednesday. Anyway, it's still '' I mean, without the judiciary supervising and everything.
  MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, we spoke about this quite a bit yesterday. We continue to have deep concerns about the situation in Egypt. Our Ambassador and our other officials there are talking to all of the different stakeholders. We again call on those who are demonstrating to do so peacefully. We call on Egypt's leaders and security forces to respect the right of peaceful expression and to exercise restraints.
  Look, as we've said for a number of days now, key stakeholders in Egypt are raising real and legitimate questions, both about the substance and about the process for moving to a constitutional referendum this weekend. And there are also concerns about public order surrounding the polling. So we want to see these issues resolved democratically, we want to see them resolved consensually, we want to see them resolved through a process of consultation without any preconditions that results in more national unity in Egypt, more democracy in Egypt, and a sense of belonging for all Egyptians. That said, we can't make these decisions for Egyptians. They're going to have to figure this out themselves.
  QUESTION: Toria, there is --
  QUESTION: You don't think the referendum should be postponed until some '' I see, just as we were coming in, there was '' there's '' they're going to have talks tomorrow. Would that not be perhaps an occasion to delay the referendum until some of these issues can be sorted out?
  MS. NULAND: Again, there are plenty of people on one side or the other that want the U.S. to declare itself. These are decisions that Egyptians have to make. We're setting forward the principles that are guiding our approach to this.
  QUESTION: But let me ask you on the role of the military. I mean, Mr. Morsi made statements in the last 24 hours that in essence allow the military far more latitude than it did, let's say, before this crisis. So are you concerned that the military may be garnering more power than it should?
  MS. NULAND: Well, we talked about this a little bit yesterday, too. We want to see security forces, in implementing and supporting public order, to exercise restraint, to respect the right of peaceful protest. I also made the comment yesterday that we don't want to see any return to the bad old days of the Mubarak era in terms of security practices. So those are the principles, again, that guide our approach to this.
  QUESTION: I know you keep saying that this is an Egyptian thing, but as an ally '' Egypt is an ally '' don't you advise them that perhaps it is best for the country and the future of the country to postpone the referendum and actually (inaudible)?
  MS. NULAND: Again, what we are saying is this is a decision that they have to make. But clearly, there are concerns. There are concerns on all sides.
  QUESTION: The IMF said that it's delaying its financial assistance package due to events on the ground and this change in promises on tax collection and so on. Do you have any view on whether or not that's a good thing, given Egypt's precarious financial situation? And secondly, does that '' in itself or separately '' is there any change in your attempts to push through more U.S. aid for Egypt?
  MS. NULAND: Well, we understand that Egypt and the IMF are talking now about resuming discussions about a standby agreement. They've obviously got to work this out together before the IMF can put anything forward to the board. We, as you know, continue to want to see economic reform in Egypt. It's standard when the IMF is in negotiation about these kinds of agreements with countries that they have a clear, agreed horizon with regard to the financial underpinnings of the country, with regard to the reform steps that are going to take place. And those conversations, as we understand it, continue and they're not yet finished.
  QUESTION: Could U.S. aid continue if there was no such agreement between the IMF and Egypt? Is the IMF package sort of essential to creating a viable economy that the U.S. can then assist with more help?
  MS. NULAND: Well, certainly, we want to see them come to agreement. Certainly, we want to be in a position to support an agreement. There are aspects of the U.S. support for Egypt that are tied to the IMF coming to agreement. We've talked about this before, Andy. And there are parts that aren't tied. So obviously, those parts that depend on the reform standards that the IMF and Egypt agree to can't move forward till after.
  QUESTION: Is there any concern that this sort of impasse of the IMF or the slowdown in their talks is going to affect the receptivity on the Hill for more U.S. aid?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I think the Hill is obviously, as they have been saying, are looking at lots of factors in Egypt before moving forward with the money that is pending up there. So again, this speaks to the whole democratic trajectory of Egypt both on the political front and on the economic front.
  Please, in the back. Can you tell me who you are?
  QUESTION: Yeah, Malcolm Brown, Feature Story News. On the Alan Gross case, NBC is reporting that a UN working group has concluded that his detention in Cuba is, in fact, arbitrary and is calling for his release. Is that something that you're aware of, is it something you've worked towards, and what's your general reaction?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I hadn't seen that, but it would comport, if it's accurate, with our own view that he should never have been picked up in the first place and he should be allowed to come home immediately.
  Jill, did you have something?
  QUESTION: Yeah, I just wanted to ask about the ARB. Do you have any just kind of an update about how much material they've gone through, how much progress they're making, any type of detail of their actual work?
  MS. NULAND: I don't. I think that they will give a better sense of the process that they went through when they're finished.
  QUESTION: What '' Toria, what are the plans for kind of releasing the '' are they going to release the report? Is the Department going to release the report? How do you '' have you decided how you're going to handle its publication?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I think that'll be clearer when they are finished. But traditionally, they have '' their report is due to the Secretary, so they have to give the report to the Secretary. Whether their chairman speaks to it publicly as well or whether she simply speaks to it publicly, I think we are still working out.
  QUESTION: Does it go to the Hill after that or is it --
  MS. NULAND: Yes, then she --
  QUESTION: So it goes to the Secretary first, then she forwards it?
  MS. NULAND: Correct.
  QUESTION: Okay.
  QUESTION: So did they jump the gun a little bit last week when they said they were expecting the report this week?
  MS. NULAND: I didn't see them say that. I'm not sure where you saw that, but --
  QUESTION: It was a statement from Ros-Lehtinen. She said that she was expecting the report to be out this week.
  MS. NULAND: You mean did the Hill jump the gun?
  QUESTION: Yes, yes.
  MS. NULAND: I thought you meant that the ARB had issued such a statement.
  QUESTION: No, no, sorry. The Hill. I beg your pardon. Did the Hill jump the gun by saying that they were expecting to see the report this week?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I can't speak to what motivated that statement, but we need to --
  QUESTION: So in other words, it's not right; we're not going to see it this week?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I don't have anything to announce. I think when we have something to announce, we'll let you know.
  QUESTION: Toria, can I just follow up on Andy's point --
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: -- about that this '' that the Hill will receive the report when the Secretary or the ARB feels that they're ready to '' they're not obligated to give this report to Congress? Is that '' I mean, I'm not saying that you wouldn't give it to them, but I mean, this isn't a report for Congress. This is a report for the Secretary, so it's not any kind of obligation to give the report to Congress before it's published. Is that right?
  MS. NULAND: Frankly, Elise, I don't know what the statute says about ARBs or '' but as the Secretary has made clear from the beginning of this process, she intends to be completely transparent with the Congress and to work with them on any recommendations that the ARB makes going forward.
  QUESTION: No, I understand that.
  MS. NULAND: So '' yeah.
  QUESTION: But what I'm saying is Congressman Ros-Lehtinen, others, are saying as if it's kind of a prerogative of the Congress that they will '' that the report is for them. I just want to be clear that this report was commissioned by the Secretary. And I'm not saying that she won't give it to Congress or that she won't be completely transparent with the recommendations.
  MS. NULAND: Under U.S. law, she is required, whenever we have lost Americans, to form an ARB. They are required then to report to her. It is certainly past practice that those reports go to the Congress and it's certainly our intention to ensure that this one --
  QUESTION: Before they're publicly released?
  MS. NULAND: -- to ensure that this one goes as well. With regard to whether it's in statute that they go the Congress, I frankly don't know, Elise. I can pull out the law and check for you, if you'd like.
  All right, anything else?
  QUESTION: Yeah, I've got a couple brief ones.
  MS. NULAND: Yep, thanks.
  QUESTION: One, just back to the Ukraine visa thing. What was the reason for the revocation?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I can't '' we never speak to such things.
  QUESTION: But you can speak to what the law was.
  MS. NULAND: What the --
  QUESTION: The provision in the law.
  MS. NULAND: It was 212(f), I think, but I can '' I'll look.
  QUESTION: Can you translate that into non-members of the --
  MS. NULAND: Let me take it and get it for you properly, Matt, so I don't mess it up legally.
  QUESTION: Okay. I mean, it's not necessarily the specific actual thing that he did to make himself ineligible under that section; it is the section that I'm interested in.
  MS. NULAND: Yeah. Let me see what I can do for you.
  QUESTION: All right. And then you may know that the ACLU has petitioning '' or is petitioning the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to do an investigation to determine whether the Administration or the United States Government violated the human rights or mistreated Jose Padilla. I'm wondering what you think of this, particularly given the fact that you've championed the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. You've been a strong supporter of it, especially when it's faced attack from Venezuela and another country, Nicaragua, in the hemisphere. So I'm assuming that you're going to welcome this inquiry or request for an inquiry or request for an inquiry because it will shine the light on the fact that the U.S. Government never mistreats anyone or doesn't violate their human rights.
  But I'm just wondering if we could make sure that this is something that you're going to welcome or whether it's something that you think the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights should keep its nose out of.
  MS. NULAND: I will check on that one for you, Matt, and get back to you.
  QUESTION: Thank you.
  MS. NULAND: All right, thank you.
  (The briefing was concluded at 1:48 p.m.)
  DPB # 210
State Department: Syrian Jihadist Group Al-Nusra Front An Alias For Al-Qaeda In Iraq'...
  Link to Article
  Source: Weasel Zippers
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 06:04
  The same al-Qaeda in Iraq that roared back to life after Obama hastily withdrew all American forces from Iraq.
  Via State.gov:
  The Department of State has amended the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Executive Order (E.O.) 13224 designations of al-Qa'ida in Iraq (AQI) to include the following new aliases: al-Nusrah Front, Jabhat al-Nusrah, Jabhet al-Nusra, The Victory Front, and Al-Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant. The Department of State previously designated AQI as an FTO under the Immigration and Nationality Act and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under E.O. 13224 on October 15, 2004. The consequences of adding al-Nusrah Front as a new alias for AQI include a prohibition against knowingly providing, or attempting or conspiring to provide, material support or resources to, or engaging in transactions with, al-Nusrah Front, and the freezing of all property and interests in property of the organization that are in the United States, or come within the United States or the control of U.S. persons.
  Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks '' ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations '' in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. During these attacks numerous innocent Syrians have been killed. Through these attacks, al-Nusrah has sought to portray itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition while it is, in fact, an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes. AQI emir Abu Du'a is in control of both AQI and al-Nusrah. Abu Du'a was designated by the State Department under E.O. 13224 on October 3, 2011, and by the United Nations under UN Security Council Resolution 1267 on October 5, 2011. Abu Du'a also issues strategic guidance to al-Nusrah's emir, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, and tasked him to begin operations in Syria.
EXCLUSIVE: President Obama Recognizes Syrian Opposition Group
  Link to Article
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 06:00
  In a diplomatic shift, President Obama said today his administration now formally recognizes the newly-formed, leading coalition of Syrian rebels who are fighting to topple Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad.
  "We've made a decision that the Syrian Opposition Coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in opposition to the Assad regime," Obama said.
  The announcement, made during an exclusive interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters, grants new legitimacy to the rebel group and marks a new phase in U.S. efforts to isolate the Assad regime.
  "It's a big step," Obama said of the decision. The United States follows Britain and the European Union, both of which last month recognized the Syrian opposition group.
  More of Barbara Walters' exclusive first joint, post-election interview with President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama airs Friday, Dec. 14, on "20/20" at 10 p.m. ET on ABC stations.
  The diplomatic designation will allow the United States to more closely support rebel efforts, including the organization of a future post-Assad government, administration officials said.
  "Obviously, with that recognition comes responsibilities," Obama said of the young coalition. "To make sure that they organize themselves effectively, that they are representative of all the parties, [and] that they commit themselves to a political transition that respects women's rights and minority rights."
  Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
  Former Syrian General Defects, Offers Insight Into Regime Watch VideoConcern Grows Syrian Regime Will Become Desperate Watch VideoThe move does not include the provision of weapons, but it opens the door for that possibility in the future.
  "Providing arms has to be done in a way that helps promote a political solution," one senior Obama administration official said today. "And until we understand how these arms promote a political solution, we do not see how provision of arms is a good idea."
  But the official added, "the president has never ruled out in the future providing arms."
  Obama expressed caution today about some Syrian factions involved with the coalition, warning that the United States will not support extremist elements.
  "Not everybody who's participating on the ground in fighting Assad are people who we are comfortable with," Obama told Walters. "There are some who, I think, have adopted an extremist agenda, an anti-U.S. agenda, and we are going to make clear to distinguish between those elements."
  The president specifically singled out the group Jabhat al-Nusrah for its alleged affiliation with Al Qaeda in Iraq. The State Department says the jihadist group is responsible for nearly 600 violent attacks in major Syrian cities in the past year.
  "Through these attacks, al-Nusrah has sought to portray itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition while it is, in fact, an attempt by [Al Qaeda in Iraq] to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
  The Obama administration blacklisted al-Nusrah earlier this week, imposing economic sanctions and branding it a terrorist organization.
  Recognition of the Syrian rebel group has been expected. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to formally announce the new relations with the United States during a meeting of international allies supporting Syria's rebels in Marrakech, Morocco, on Wednesday.
  She has since cancelled her trip because of an illness. Her deputy, Bill Burns, will attend in her place.
  President Obama also discussed the looming "fiscal cliff" and suggested a new flexibility on cuts to entitlement spending. Read that report here.
  ABC News' Martha Raddatz contributed to this report.
  More of Barbara Walters' exclusive first joint, post-election interview with President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama airs Friday, Dec. 14, on "20/20" at 10 p.m. ET on ABC stations.
Obama Recognizes Syrian Rebels As Legitimate Representatives Of Syrian People'...
  Link to Article
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 05:58
  Great, so now we recognize al-Qaeda as the legitimate representative of Syria?
  Via ABC News:
  In a diplomatic shift, President Obama said today his administration now formally recognizes the newly-formed, leading coalition of Syrian rebels who are fighting to topple Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad.
  ''We've made a decision that the Syrian Opposition Coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in opposition to the Assad regime,'' Obama said.
  The announcement, made during an exclusive interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters, grants new legitimacy to the rebel group and marks a new phase in U.S. efforts to isolate the Assad regime.
  ''It's a big step,'' Obama said of the decision. The United States follows Britain and the European Union, both of which last month recognized the Syrian opposition group.
UN Human Rights Council Marks Human Rights Day By Electing Islamic Country Where Practicing Christianity Is Illegal To Leadership Post'...
  Link to Article
  Source: Weasel Zippers
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 05:52
  Typical UN insanity.
  (CNSNews.com) '' The U.N.'s top human rights body marked Human Rights Day on Monday by electing three countries with poor human rights records as vice presidents for the coming year '' including one of the last remaining countries where slavery exists.
  At a meeting in Geneva, members of the U.N. Human Rights Council elected Mauritania, the Maldives and Ecuador as three of its four vice presidents for 2013. Switzerland got the fourth vice-presidential slot, while Poland was elected president.
  According to U.N. Watch, a non-governmental organization that monitors the HRC, none of the democracies on the HRC had ''said a word about the election of Mauritania or Ecuador.''
  The Obama administration last month won a new three-year term on the 47-member council, a centerpiece of its policy of deepening multilateralism through U.N. institutions. [...]
  Another of next year's HRC vice-presidents, the Maldives, is also an Islamic state where all citizens are required to be Sunni Muslims, and non-Muslim foreign workers may only practice their faith in private. Speech deemed ''contrary to the tenets of Islam'' is restricted.
  Under the Indian Ocean island nation's law, women may be flogged for extramarital sex and homosexual activity is a crime, punishable with banishment and flogging.
Syrian National Council - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Link to Article
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 05:24
  The Syrian National Council (Arabic: Ø§ÙÙ…Ø¬ÙØ" Ø§ÙÙØ·Ù†ÙŠ Ø§ÙØ"ÙØ±ÙŠ'Ž, al-Majlis al-Waá¹­anÄ as-SÅri; Kurdish: Enc>>mena N®ÅŸtiman® ya S>>r®; Syriac: ÜÜÜ¬Ü'Ü� Ü�ÜÜÜ¬ÜÜ'Ü� Ü•Ü£ÜÜªÜ'Ü�, Mawtbo umá¹¯onoyo d Suriya; Turkish: Suriye Ulusal Konseyi) sometimes known as SNC,[2][3] the Syrian National Transitional Council,[4] or the National Council of Syria is a coalition of Syrian opposition groups based in Istanbul, Turkey. It formed as a Syrian opposition coalition in 2011 during the Syrian civil war against the government of Bashar al-Assad.[5][6] After the formation, the council itself asked for international recognition, but denied seeking to play the role of a government in exile,[7] but this changed a few months later, when violence in Syria became increasingly intense.[8][9][10] The Syrian National Council seeks the end of Bashar al-Assad's rule and the establishment of a modern, civil, democratic state. The SNC National Charter lists human rights, judicial independence, press freedom, democracy and political pluralism as its guiding principles.[11] SNC has links with the Free Syrian Army, a paramilitary that is composed partly of defected Syrian Armed Forces personnel, who have been active during the Syrian civil war[citation needed]
  In November 2012, the council agreed to unify with several other opposition groups to form the Syrian National Coalition. The SNC has 22 out of 60 seats of the Syrian National Coalition.[12][13][14]
  [edit]BackgroundWhen the Arab Spring broke out, Syrian protesters began consolidating numerous opposition councils. The SNC's formation was announced in the city of Istanbul, Turkey on 23 August 2011, after a succession of meetings in Turkey and elsewhere. Its intended purpose is to "represent the concerns and demands of the Syrian people".[5][6] Though its members are not elected by the Syrian people themselves. The creation of the SNC was celebrated by the Syrian protestors since the Friday protest following its establishment was dubbed "The Syrian National Council Represents Me".[15][16]Yaser Tabbara, the council's spokesman at that time, said the membership of the council would include 115 to 120 members from all Syrian opposition groups, including the now defunct National Council of Syria. It has so far unveiled the names of 71 members, mostly living outside Syria. On 2 October 2011, the council formally declared its organizational affiliations and structure, to include a General Assembly, a General Secretariat and an Executive Board.[17][18]
  [edit]MembershipThe SNC's membership includes many members of the exiled Syrian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood,[19] and is supported by the Damascus Declaration's exile wing,[20] the Assyrian Democratic Organization,[citation needed] some Kurdish dissidents,[citation needed] and the Local Coordination Committees,[citation needed] a group involved in advertising and coordinating demonstrations. The SNC itself claims to represent approximately 60 percent of the Syrian opposition.[7] The only Kurdish party from inside Syria to have declared itself an affiliate of the SNC is the Kurdish Future Movement Party under the leadership of Mashaal Tammo, who was assassinated shortly after the announcement in the northeastern city of Qamishli.[21]Adib Shishakly is a founding member.
  Paris-based Syrian academic Burhan Ghalioun has served as its most prominent spokesperson and was named in September 2011 as chair of the council.[22][23] Former Muslim Brotherhood leader Ali Sadr el-Din Bayanouni stated that Ghalioun was chosen because he ''is accepted in the West and at home and, to prevent the regime from capitalizing on the presence of an Islamist at the top of the SNC.''[24][25]
  On 10 June 2012, a new leader for Syrian National council was elected. Swedish based Abdulbaset Sida of the Kurdish minority will take over for three months after Burhan Ghalioun was forced away.[26]
  Plagued with internal conflict, the SNC on March 13, 2012 saw three prominent members resigning, giving as their reason that the SNC "had not gotten very far in working to arm the rebels,". The three were Haitham al-Maleh, a former judge and long-standing dissident, Islamist leaning liberal and opposition leader Kamal al-Labwani and human rights lawyer Catherine al-Talli.[27][28] Their reasons for resigning were that the SNC is corrupt, a liberal front for the Muslim Brotherhood and had not made significant progress in arming the rebels.[27][29] One secular member of the SNC claimed that more than half of the council are Islamists.[30]
  On March 27, 2012, the recently resigned members, including Maleh and Labwani, agreed to rejoin the SNC, under the condition that SNC would agree to be more democratic and expand, although Labwani expressed doubts whether the opposition would be able to hold together, but said that for now their accord will help Arab and Western governments make Assad stop his brutal repression. Abdual al-Haj of the SNC said that ''now the international community no longer has an excuse to withhold support for the revolution, help arm the Free Syrian Army and establish safe zones to protect the civilian Syrian population.''[31] This happened at a meeting in Istanbul called by Turkey and Qatar. Despite the National Coordination Committee not attending and the Kurdish delegation as well as an unnamed senior dissident walking out, the BBC reported from the meeting that "[a]ll but one of Syria's disparate opposition groups have agreed to unite behind the Syrian National Council."[32]
  The SNC, despite having a Kurdish chairman, does not have Kurdish nationalist members. Abdulhakim Bashar, Secretary-General of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Syria, claims the SNC is too "much influenced by Turkey" and demanded guarantees for the Kurdish population in Syria by the SNC and says that Turkey would, in turn, be obliged to grant full rights to Turkey's Kurdish population.[33]
  [edit]Political positionsOn October 28, 2011, the SNC expressed worries about the Libyan scenario (with the violent overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi) being reiterated in Syria. It warned against a militarization of the conflict and insisted that the revolution was not sectarian but included all factions of the Syrian society. It also put its hopes in the multiplications of acts of civil disobedience as they ''can be generalized, developed and expanded. This is because they are peaceful. These will be supported by businesses and others who are afraid of the costs of war. Peaceful methods are generalizable.''[34]
  However, the SNC came to review its position on the peaceful nature of the uprising. According to the SNC, the opposition is now faced with two options: "greater militarization of local resistance or foreign intervention." With China and Russia veto impeding a Security Council resolution, the international intervention scenario is unlikely to unfold.[35] As a result, in the context of increasing defections in the military and the escalating violence in Syria, the SNC and the Free Syrian Army struck a deal in January 2012, recognizing the units of anti-government rebels fighting in Syria. The SNC said that it was the duty of the opposition "to assist the rebels." While the SNC asserted that it would not provide arms directly to the Free Syrian Army, it will provide funds to "keep the Free Syrian Army afloat." For this reason, donations can be made on the SNC website.[36]
  [edit]Support and recognitionPrior to joining the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the Syrian National Council had been recognised as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people by several UN member states.
  [edit]Syrian Patriotic GroupOn 27 February Haitham al-Maleh and Kamal al-Labwani along with 18 other members of the SNC formed a sub-group called the Syrian Patriotic Group. The leading activists of the SNC consider many of the SNC members to be too slow in taking action, and so the group is designed so that while still remaining SNC members, the 20 leading activists would speed up "backing the national effort to bring down the regime with all available resistance means including supporting the Free Syrian Army".[37]
  [edit]See also[edit]References^http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/11/201211919122020926.html^Skelton, Charlie (12 July 2012). "The Syrian opposition: who's doing the talking?". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-doing-the-talking. Retrieved 14 July 2012.^the CNN Wire Staff (23 August 2011). "Syrian activists form a 'national council'". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/08/23/syria.un.resolution/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn. Retrieved 24 August 2011.^"Arab League under pressure, resists freezing Syria membership". Al Ahram. 12 November 2011. http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/26347/World/Region/Arab-League-under-pressure,-resists-freezing-Syria.aspx. Retrieved 21 December 2011.^ abYezdani, Ipek (23 August 2011). "Syrian dissidents form national council". World Wires (Miami Herald Media). http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/23/2372099/syrian-dissidents-form-national.html. Retrieved 24 August 2011.[dead link]^ abYezdani, Ä°pek (2011-08-23). "Syrian dissidents form national council". The Edmond Sun. http://www.edmondsun.com/news_tab3/x2122765173/Syrian-dissidents-form-national-council. Retrieved 2011-11-19.^ ab"Syrian council wants recognition as voice of opposition". Reuters. 2011-10-10. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/10/us-syria-opposition-idUSTRE7993NF20111010. Retrieved 2011-11-19.^"Syrian National Council, Syria's rebel government, opens offices in Turkey". Global Post. 2011-12-15. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/111214/syrian-national-council-syria-rebel-government-turkey. Retrieved 2011-12-21.^"Syrian National Council Holds First Congress in Tunis". Tunisia Live. 2011-12-16. http://www.tunisia-live.net/2011/12/16/syrian-national-council-holds-first-congress-in-tunis/. Retrieved 2011-12-21.^"Why Syria's Kurds Will Determine the Fate of the Revolution". IKJNEWS. 2011-12-15. http://ikjnews.com/?p=2447. Retrieved 2011-12-21.^"Q&A: Syrian opposition alliance". BBC News. 16 November 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15155804.^http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/11/11/syrian-opposition-deal/1697693/^http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/11/20121111141834268537.html^http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/11/us-syria-crisis-doha-idUSBRE8AA0H320121111^Sarra Grira (13/01/2012) ''Cracks emerge in Syrian opposition amid ongoing anti-government protests'', France 24.^Amal Hanano (April 18, 2012) ''Any given Friday'', Foreign Policy.^Syrian National Council official website. "Executive Committee". Public Statement. http://www.syriancouncil.org/en/structure/executive-commitee.html.^"Syria opposition launches national council in Ä°stanbul". Todayszaman.com. http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?load=detay&newsId=258614&link=258614. Retrieved 2011-11-19.^http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/more-divisions-among-syrian-opposition^http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/fp_uploaded_documents/110916_About%20SNC.pdf^"Syrian Kurdish Activist Meshal Tammo killed in Qamishli". DayPress. 2011-10-07. http://www.dp-news.com/en/detail.aspx?articleid=99065. Retrieved 2011-11-19.^"Sorbonne professor appointed head of Syrian opposition council". RIA Novosti. 29 August 2011. http://en.rian.ru/world/20110829/166274819.html. Retrieved 29 August 2011.^"Syrian opposition launches joint National Council". BBC News. 2 October 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15143293. Retrieved 17 October 2011.^''Al-Bayanuni Unmasks the Syrian National Council and Burhan Ghalioun'', YouTube. Retrieved 2012-01-21.^http://m.yahoo.com/w/news_america/islamists-seek-influence-syria-uprising-193750923.html?orig_host_hdr=news.yahoo.com&.intl=us&.lang=en-us^Youcefi, Fouad (10 June 2012). "Assad st¥r p¥ sitt sista ben [Assad standing on his final leg]" (in Swedish). SVT Nyheter. Archived from the original on 10 June 2012. http://svt.se/nyheter/varlden/uppsalabo-leder-syrisk-opposition. Retrieved 10 June 2012.^ ab"Syrian army overruns Idlib as leading figures quit rebel council citing 'chaos'". Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Al-Arabiya. March 14, 2012. http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/03/14/200546.html. Retrieved March 15, 2012.^Balmer, Crispian; Evans, Dominic (March 15, 2012). "Pro-Assad rallies mark anniversary of Syria revolt". London: Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/15/us-syria-idUSBRE8280G820120315. Retrieved March 15, 2012.^http://news.yahoo.com/islamists-seek-influence-syria-uprising-193750923.html^"Syria opposition's SNC seeks backers but lacks leaders". Reuters. 17 February 2012. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/02/17/uk-syria-opposition-idUKTRE81G0VM20120217.^"Arab ministers to debate Syria draft at Baghdad meet; Assad opponents join forces". Al Arabiya. March 28, 2012. http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/03/28/203652.html. Retrieved March 28, 2012.^"Opposition unite behind Syrian National Council". BBC. March 28, 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17533651. Retrieved March 28, 2012.^Syrian Kurd Leader: Revolution Won't Succeed Without Minorities, The Atlantic, 20 January 2012^Blaser, Noah. "In fight against Assad, Syrian opposition looks for its own model of revolution". Article. Today's Zaman. http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=261271.^Marquand, Robert (27 January 2012). "Syria's opposition concerned about independent armed rebel groups". the Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2012/0127/Syria-s-opposition-concerned-about-independent-armed-rebel-groups.^Donations Page, Syrian National Council. Retrieved 2012-01-21.^http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/02/27/197219.html[edit]External links
U.S. now recognizes Syrian opposition coalition
  Link to Article
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 05:23
  Obama: U.S. now recognizes Syrian opposition coalitionTop News
  Obama: U.S. now recognizes Syrian opposition coalition
  Tue, Dec 11 18:57 PM EST
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that the United States now recognizes a newly formed coalition of Syrian opposition groups, a move aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
  "We've made a decision that the Syrian Opposition Coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population, that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in opposition to the Assad regime," Obama said in an interview with Barbara Walters of ABC News.
  The move, which was widely expected, could give new international legitimacy to the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad, but stops short of authorizing U.S. arming of the opposition, something Obama has steadfastly refused to do.
  (Reporting By Matt Spetalnick)
  Obama: U.S. now recognizes Syrian opposition coalitionTop News
  Obama: U.S. now recognizes Syrian opposition coalition
  Tue, Dec 11 18:57 PM EST
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that the United States now recognizes a newly formed coalition of Syrian opposition groups, a move aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
  "We've made a decision that the Syrian Opposition Coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population, that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in opposition to the Assad regime," Obama said in an interview with Barbara Walters of ABC News.
  The move, which was widely expected, could give new international legitimacy to the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad, but stops short of authorizing U.S. arming of the opposition, something Obama has steadfastly refused to do.
  (Reporting By Matt Spetalnick)
3 killed, including shooter, in Clackamas mall shooting
  Link to Article
  Wed, 12 Dec 2012 05:16
  CLACKAMAS, Ore. '' A gunman shot and killed two people and critically injured a third person at Clackamas Town Center mall on Tuesday afternoon.
  The shooter then turned the gun and killed himself, according Clackamas County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. James Rhodes.
  Deputies received a flurry of 9-1-1 calls around 3:30 p.m. about a shooter in the mall. They quickly responded and divided up into small teams to track down the shooter, Rhodes said.
  No deputies fired their weapons during the incident, Rhodes said.
  Investigators have not released any details about the two victims who were killed or the suspect, other than to say he is an adult man.
  The victim who survived is a female and in "serious" condition, according to Oregon Health and Science University, where she is being treated.
  After the shooter was killed, deputies searched the mall room-by-room looking for anyone else who might be injured or hiding. By 6:30 p.m. they had searched almost the entire building.
  "We will search this mall until we are certain it is secure and everyone has been removed," Rhodes said.
  Witnesses describe the scene
  Nadia Teleguz, who was in the mall at the time of the shooting, said a family friend was shot by the gunman.
  "My friend's sister got shot," Teleguz said. "She's on her way to OHSU. They're saying she got shot in her side and so it's not life-threatening, so she'll be OK."
  As of Tuesday evening, she was listed in stable condition at the hospital.
  An employee at a store in the mall, Evan Walters, was locked inside a store with about 10 others just a few feet away from where the shooting happened.
  Walters said at least 20 shots were fired.
  "It was kind of surreal because we hear pops and loud noises all the time because we're right here by the food court, but it's never been anything like that,'' he said. ''It was very definite gun shots. I think most all of us knew it was gunshots. There really was no rhyme or reason to them. There were many in a row."
  He saw two people who had been shot and killed. Walters and other store employees brought out sheets from the store to place over the victims.
  "Everyone's just trying to stick together and be as calm as possible for people ... I don't know what else to say,'' Walters said. ''It's just kind of scary. We're just trying to be as strong as we can and hopefully we'll be out of this as soon as possible."
  Sheriff's office spokesman Sgt. Adam Phillips said most people in the mall ran or found a place to hide when the shooting happened.
  A man who has played Santa at the mall for 11 years said he heard more than a dozen shots that were clearly from a semi-automatic weapon.
  "I hit the floor inside the set and fortunately there weren't too many kids or people in the set area," said the man, who would only give his name as Kris Kringle.
  Amber Tate said she was coming out of Macy's and standing by her car when she spotted a gunman, who was wearing a camo shirt and what looked like a bulletproof vest. Tate said he looked like a teenager.
  ''The parking lot was a mess,'' she said. ''It was just super scary.''
  Tate, who didn't hear any shots fired, said at first, she thought the gunman was wearing a paintball vest.
  "But then I saw all these people running out screaming and people grabbing their kids and crying and trying to get into their cars as fast as they could," she said.
  KATU reporter Anna Canzano said her husband, Oregonian sports columnist John Canzano, was pulling up to the mall when the shooting happened. He said people reported hearing around 60 shots from the food court.
  Hundreds of people were evacuated from the building.
  A man named Sam said he was at the mall shopping at GameStop when the shooting happened.
  "A bunch of people were screaming and running by and kind of in a panic and they were yelling that there was a shooting," he said.
  Rhodes said anyone who witnessed the shooting should get in contact with the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office by calling (503) 655-8211.
  Clackamas Town Center management said they plan to post information for stores, employees and shoppers on their website. They will also post information so people who left belongings in the mall can retrieve them.
  TriMet information:
  TriMet bus lines that have been detoured because of police activity: The lines being detoured are: 28, 29, 30, 31, 71, 72, 79, 152, 155 and 156.According to TriMet, the MAX Green Line is stopping at the Clackamas Town Center Transit Center.
  Because the mall parking lot is closed, buses are stopping on Monterey near the parking lot entrance by the movie theater before going to the Fuller Street MAX station to connect bus riders with the MAX, according to TriMet.
  This story will be updated
  Interior map of the Clackamas Town Center.
  "Our Experience during the Clackamas Mall Shooting," Marin Torres, Jr.
  Witness David Moran describes what he saw:
UPDATED: W.Va. gas line explodes
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 22:48
  SISSONVILLE, W.Va. '-- At least five homes went up in flames Tuesday afternoon and a badly burned section of Interstate 77 in West Virginia was closed after a natural gas line exploded in an hour-long inferno.
  No injuries were immediately reported, but firefighters had just begun to reach damaged structures late in the afternoon after the intense flames kept them at bay for several hours.
  Several people were treated for smoke inhalation, and a shelter was set up at Sissonville High School, where Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin planned a late-afternoon press conference
  State Police spokesman Sgt. Michael Baylous said a slight risk of a secondary explosion remained, but people were told to stay inside their homes rather than evacuate. The explosion occurred near Sissonville just before 1 p.m. in a 20-inch transmission line owned by NiSource Inc., parent of Columbia Gas.
  The gas flow was shut off, but 1st Sgt. James Lee said there was still pressure on the transmission line.
  ''The gas company is doing a check on it now,'' he said.
  Kent Carper, president of the Kanawha County Commission, said flames had been shooting 50 to 75 feet into the air before the fire was extinguished.
  ''It sounded like a Boeing 757. Just a roar,'' he said. ''It was huge. You just couldn't hear anything. It was like a space flight.''
  Trevor Goins lives about a half-mile from the explosion and was watching television in his apartment when he saw a ripple in his coffee cup and the floor shook.
  ''I thought possibly (it was) a plane crash,'' said Goins, who immediately went outside with several neighbors. ''It was so loud it sounded like a turbine engine. You almost had to put your hands over your ears.''
  He got in his car and drove closer, seeing fire that stretched as high as the hilltops.
  ''The flames were so high, they were so massive,'' he said. ''I could only imagine what had happened."
  Carper said the flames spanned about a quarter of a mile and ran through a culvert under the interstate.
  ''It actually cooked the interstate,'' he said. ''It looks like a tar pit.''
  The interstate will be shut down for two days while engineers and inspectors repair the damage and assess whether a bridge was compromised, said State Police Sgt. Chris Zerkle. Route 21 will also be closed until further notice, he said.
  Zerkle said a State Police helicopter team was going up to ascertain the extent of the damage while a command center was being set up nearby.
  Mike Banas, communications manager for NiSource, said the company was still gathering facts.
  ''Our first priority is the safety of our employees and the community,'' he said, adding that no impacts on customers are anticipated.
  Sissonville Fire Chief Tim Gooch said a nursing home is less than a mile from the site of the blast, but the patients are safe. Paramedics were sent to check on them as a precaution.
African Union to enter Mali to suppress Islamist uprising - English pravda.ru
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:48
  Military forces of the African Union are ready to enter the north of Mali to suppress Islamist uprisings. The plan of the operation aimed at restoration of legitimate authority must be submitted to the UN by November 27. So far, the West only promised to help with the logistics, but the strong army of Chad that has experience of conducting military actions in the desert and air force is ready to fight immediately.
  On November 11th at the summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), held in Nigeria with the leaders of the Maghreb and South Africa, it was decided to send 3.3 thousand soldiers to Mali for one year to resolve the crisis in the north of the country. It was assumed that the forces will be formed by Nigeria, Senegal, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Togo. The participation of Mauritania, Chad, and South Africa is not ruled out.
  The chairman of the African Union Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma arrived on Wednesday to Paris, where he met with President Francois Hollande to discuss the involvement of the West in the operation. Speaking at the press conference, both stressed that during the preparation for the invasion that is to last about six months, efforts will be made to resolve the issue peacefully. "We want the sound power to distance themselves from terrorists. Obviously, if we can return the territorial integrity of Mali peacefully, it would be the best case scenario," said Dlamini-Zuma. Hollande said that France would assist in logistics and had no intention to send troops or support aircraft to Mali. Germany, Italy and other western countries suggested sending military experts to Mali. The goal is to bring Mali's army to fighting condition. "This will take months, not weeks," said the U.S. General Carter Ham during his visits to Berlin and Paris.
  However, air support can play a decisive role in defeating the Islamists. This belief is shared by many African analysts, for example, the speaker of the National Assembly of C´te d'Ivoire, an expert on military matters, Guillaume Soro. If France provides assistance, it will be limited to satellite reconnaissance and unmanned aircraft, Soro said. He is counting on the participation of the powerful armies of South Africa and Chad.
  Chadian President Idriss Deby on November 14th confirmed that his country would take part in the formation of a contingent of African forces. Chadian armed forces that involve 30,000 people have high morale and are well trained to conduct military operations in a desert environment. They are equipped with modern small arms, combat helicopters Mi-17 and Mi-8, and aerial reconnaissance aircraft and SU fighters.
  The decisions of the African Union and the apparent activity in the West have caused a reaction in the rebel regions of Mali. The power in the region is shared between the following groups: the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) represented by "secular" Tuaregs and Islamist groups - "defenders of Islam" (Ansar Dine), "Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa" '‹'‹(MUJAO) and "Al- Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb "(AQMI).
  At a press conference held in Paris last week, the MNLA confirmed that they were in opposition to the Islamists but did not support military intervention, saying this was their internal matter. "We all agree that terrorists must be destroyed, but we question the effectiveness of the chosen form of intervention," said Hamma Ag Mahmud, chairman of the International Relations Department of the transitional State Council of the self-proclaimed state of Azavad, AFP reported.
  However, MNLA does not enjoy the greatest influence in Mali. The most influential group is the Islamist Ansar Dine that also consists of the Tuareg. Its leaders have announced that they would abandon their original plan to spread Sharia across the country, limiting it to Kidal region (north-east). Hamada Ag Bibi, a member of Ansar Dine delegation in Burkina Faso, told AFP that they would abandon the idea of enforcing Sharia law throughout Mali, except in their Kidal region, where Sharia is applied in accordance with their beliefs.
  Despite this retreat, the African contingent will probably still enter Mali in six months or earlier. In addition to the solid leadership position of Chad, this is reinforced by the change in the position of Algeria. Under pressure from the U.S., the government refused to support Ansar Dine and promised to "close the border" with Mali in case of the introduction of foreign troops.
  However, the outcome of the confrontation is not certain. Even if the Islamists are removed from power, the Tuareg Azavada would insist on holding a referendum on self-determination. Will the transitional government in Bamako counter these separatist sentiments? The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that this year the country will be in recession due to poor harvest and difficulties in the tourism sector that suffered because of the coup. The country's army is unreliable and weak both in technical and moral terms. Most likely, developments according to the Somali scenario can be expected where African troops have been fighting against the Islamists for years, but the weak central government does not help to consolidate the results.
  Lyuba Lulko
  Pravda.Ru
  Read the original in Russian
aangirfan: KATE NURSE MYSTERY
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:37
  The police said that her death is "unexplained."Police are treating the death as "unexplained." - CNN.com
  Yet, Jacintha Saldanha reportedly hanged herself in the nurses' quarters at King Edward VII Hospital in London, according to The SunAnd she left a suicide note, reportedly...
  .... writes:"The whole Suicide Nurse/Prank Call debacle stinks to high-heaven and NOT ONE news outlet/journo has questioned the statistical fact that women, never mind women who work in the medical field, rarely commit suicide by hanging - it's men that hang themselves (excuse the explicit nature of my comment but the truth must be stated) "The fact that Jacinta wasn't even the Nurse who gave out the medical details (allegedly) along with the mention by her own family that 'she was not the type to kill herself', just adds further stinking fuel to the fire."It is highly unlikely, improbable, and, statistically untenable, that a nurse with two children would do this to herself, for no other reason other than she thought she was in trouble with her job and was embarassed...
  "She either had psychological problems to begin with OR someone killed her - it's as simple as that.
  "It is bizarre fantasy to say she was so upset over the radio prank that she killed herself over it. Everyone knows this, yet no one is saying a word.
  "Clearly there is a cover up which is being nicely done with the use of thousands of tax payer pounds - What a parade, the children of the deceased being dragged around London yesterday in full view of the world's media! It's a sick joke!
  "The reasons for her death are far from clear - but what a lovely 'bloody' way to announce to the world the coming heir to the throne!
  Jacintha Saldanha's mother-in-law, Carmine Barboza: 'Benedict used to call every day but neither he nor Jacintha said anything about what had happened. Everything seemed normal.'
  Just before 9.30am on 7 December, Saldanha was found dead at her accommodation near the hospital in a suspected suicide.[17]Police said the death was being treated as "unexplained",[18]
  The relatives of nurse Jacintha Saldanha have revealed that she told no one in the family about the prank call that has been blamed for driving her to suicide.
  Jacintha Saldanha's family says she told them nothing about hoax ...
  Members of the family said that neither Saldanha nor her husband, Benedict Barboza, had talked of the hoax phone call or given any clue that she had been under any pressure or strain."Benedict used to call every day but neither he nor Jacintha said anything about what had happened. Everything seemed normal," said Carmine Barboza, 69.
  "We spoke to Benedict again this morning, and he said he hasn't been allowed to see her body yet because of legal formalities and she'll not be handed over before Monday."
  The recording in full:
  Michael Christian: Now Mel, today is a very special day, it's the day a lot of people have been waiting for for a very, very long time.
  Mel Greig: There has been speculation for months that Kate Middleton, married to Prince William, is pregnant. And it has been confirmed that she is pregnant, she is in hospital with severe morning sickness, poor little dear.
  Christian: The thing is, though, that this condition that she has is often attached to women that are having twins, so maybe not one but two royal babies.
  Greig: I would rather pump out a couple at a time. Makes it easier I think.
  Christian: You make it sound so special and emotional. (does an impression of Greig) I'd rather pump out a couple, that'd be all right wouldn't it? (Laughter) Have someone in the corner of the room with a baseball mit, catching them. Pump it out.
  (Laughter)
  Christian: Here's the thing. We've been handed a phone number and we have been told that this phone number is the hospital where Kate Middleton is currently staying. We thought we'd give it a call. We don't want to cause any trouble, we don't want to stress her out because she is doing it tough. But I reckon we could maybe get her on the radio tonight.
  Mel Greig: Look, I don't know. I mean everybody will be trying this.
  Christian: Well, this is why I've thought of a plan. We can't just ring up and go 'Hi it's MC and Mel from the Summer30, can we chat to Kate?' Hang up. Not gonna happen. You are going to be the Queen...
  Greig: This is awesome.
  Christian: I'm going to be Prince Charles.
  Greig (Queen voice): Hello, I'm the Queen.
  Christian: Ben and Em (off microphone) so you're involved in this as well, we thought that maybe you could be the royal corgis, if you're OK with that?
  [Barking noises]
  Em: over intercom: Sure we'll pop on in, in a sec.
  Christian: I'm going to dial this number.
  Greig: This is fun, I mean (adopts Queen voice), this is fun.
  Christian: So you're going to be the Queen.
  Greig: Hello, I'm the Queen.
  Christian (in a Prince Charles voice): Hello. Prince Charles over here, mummy.
  Greig: Oh, you're Prince Charles, I like your ears.
  Christian: Let's give this hospital a call and see if we can get Kate Middleton or maybe even Prince Wills on the phone tonight. So the number is going in ... oh Jeez, I hope this happens.
  (PHONE RINGS)
  Receptionist: Hello, good morning, King Edward VII Hospital.
  Greig (Queen voice): Oh hello there, could I please speak to Kate please, my granddaughter.
  Receptionist: Oh yes, just hold on ma'am.
  Greig: Thank you.
  Christian: Are they putting us through?
  Greig: Yes.
  (Laughter)
  Christian: If this has worked, it's the easiest prank call we have ever made. Your accent sucked, by the way, I just want you to know.
  (Laughter)
  Greig: I'm not used to playing 80-year-olds. (Phone connects) Kate, my darling, are you there?
  Nurse: Good morning, ma'am, this is the nurses station, how may I help you?
  Greig: Hello, I'm just after my granddaughter Kate. I wanted to see how her little tummy bug is going.
  Nurse: She's sleeping at the moment and has had an uneventful night, and sleep is good for her, as we speak. She's been given some fluids to re-hydrate her because she was quite dehydrated when she came in. But she's stable at the moment.
  Greig: OK. Well, I'll just feed my little corgis then (barking in the background). So when is a good time to come and visit her? Because I'm the Queen so I'll need a lift down there. Charles! When can you take me to the hospital, Charles?
  Christian (pretending to be Prince Charles): When will it be all right to come down and see her? Maybe in the morning or something? If that's OK?
  Nurse: I would suggest that any time after nine o'clock would be suitable, because the doctor will be in in the morning and we'll just be getting her freshened up in the morning. I would think any time after nine.
  Christian: Wonderful. Is Wills still there or has he gone home? I haven't spoken to him yet.
  Nurse: He went home at about half past nine last night. Actually, probably about nine o' clock last night.
  Christian: OK, Lovely. But they're all OK, everything's all right?
  Nurse: Yes, she's quite stable at the moment. She hasn't had any retching with me since I've been on duty. And she has been sleeping on and off.
  Christian: Wonderful.
  Nurse: I think it's difficult sleeping in a strange bed as well.
  Christian: Yes, of course, it's hardly the palace, is it!
  Greig: It's nothing like the palace is it, Charles? Oh, when are you going to walk those bloody corgis?
  Christian: Mumsy, I'll go and take the dogs outside.
  Greig: I need to go and visit Kate in the morning. My dear, thank you so much.
  Nurse: You're very welcome.
  Greig: Thank you, bye.
  Christian: Goodbye.
  (Hangs up)
  (Laughter)
  Greig: She was giving us real information!
  Christian (as Prince Charles): Mumsy, I think that they believed everything we said.
  Greig: I am the Queen: bow for me, bow for me.
  Christian: Bow for you and your terrible accent.
Nurse at centre of Kate Middleton phone call hoax tragedy left 'suicide note' to family - Home News - UK - The Independent
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:36
  The nurse at the centre of the royal hoax phone call scandal left a note for her family, it has been revealed.
  Jacintha Saldanha is thought to have committed suicide after transferring a prank phone call from radio DJs to the ward where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated for acute morning sickness.
  The 46-year-old was the senior duty nurse at the King Edward VII Hospital when two Australian radio presenters called pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles.
  The phone call was made at 5:30am last Tuesday, before the hospital's secretary had started work.
  Mrs Saldanha's family today demanded answers from the hospital over the circumstances that led to her death, saying an internal inquiry is not enough.
  Her husband Ben Barboza, 49, and their children Junal, 17 and Lisha, 14, have demanded to ''know everything''.
  Labour MP Keith Vaz, who is representing the family, met the hospital's chairman Lord Glenarthur to demand a full inquiry into her death.
  The chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, said: ''What the family need are the full facts.''
  Mr Vaz added: ''What the chairman of the hospital said to me was that there are inquiries going on in the hospital'...That is not sufficient for the family. There are unexplained circumstances. The family want to know everything. All the facts, fully and clearly.''
  He went on: ''The hospital needs to be more proactive, a full inquiry is needed and the family need to be included in that.''
  Mr Barboza, an NHS accountant, and his children live in Bristol, while Mrs Saldanha stayed in staff accommodation at the west London hospital.
  Mr Vaz said: ''They are a lovely close-knit family, a Catholic family, who will be spending their first Christmas without their mother, and for Ben, without his wife.''
  He added: ''They were in the dark about the hoax call. They hadn't watched the news or seen anything about it. They didn't know they were involved until after Jacintha's death.''
  Meanwhile, the radio station that employs the presenters that made the call came under increasing pressure explain why they gave the go-ahead.
  Southern Cross Austereo, the company which owns 2Day FM, said it would be donating £320,000 to a memorial fund set up in Mrs Saldanha's name by King Edward VII Hospital, and added it has cancelled its Christmas party.
  Rhys Holleran, Southern Cross Austereo's chief executive, said: ''We hope that by contributing to a memorial fund we can help to provide the Saldanha family with the support they need at this very difficult time.''
  The Duchess of Cambridge, who was discharged from hospital on Thursday is said to have suffered another bout of morning sickness since.
  She will not be joining Prince William at The Hobbit premiere in Leicester Square tomorrow evening and will ''continue to rest privately'', a royal official said.
Lame Cherry: Who tried to assassinate Hillary Clinton....
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:10
  I was wondering if Hillary Clinton shopped at the same grocery which sells D. W. Ulsterman "tummy pukers" recipes?You know the one where you are out and this sexy lipstick lezbo strolls by, with that intoxicating perfume, and nice heels, and of course, you never notice that other shadow putting the tummy knocker on your "thangs" and you go home and chow down, and next thing you know you are puking and crapping Charmin into a new stock market divedend.
  Sort of odd really in Newt Gingrich launches Hillary's 2016 campaign in hopes of being Sec. of State and not Harold Hamm oil, and suddenly Dame Hillary gets a bug.
  I'm sure it is just coincidence in Ulsterman hangs around with Hillary Clinton insiders and doing a bit too much dirty zombie laundry and he gives his girls a scare in almost turning into coffin material.
  Yes it is Hillary knows things and the Middle East is Obama's next mass homicide in the making with a Jewish sauce that looks allot like blood, but still in not wanting to go, it is certainly convenient that her swan song trip in embellishing all the things she has not done, has been cut short by a tummy and rectal ache.
  Now obviously if it was blood veins in eyes exploding........twice.
  Oh did I not tell you that, that over Thanksgiving I was tracked and hit with radar waves again and I got a blood explosion in a different part of my eye?
  Never mind as this is not about me, but about why Ulsterman and Hillary are both in the same circle of intelligence getting tummy and anal hurts, and they are not even Chris Stevens with no broom handles employed.It would appear for all the love for Hillary Clinton that someone just does not love Dame Hamrod, and sent her a message as I doubt she was sucking on Huma's baby poo fingers durning sex and got her condition that way.I don't believe that Ulsterman is having sex with Mrs. Wiener either, so.......well Huma and baby poo under the nails is out of the question.
  I wonder who it would be who would want to poison..........I mean new West Nile strain in new mosquitoes from Saddam's WMD's shipped out.........I mean who it would help if Hillary Clinton got the same tum tum trouble that Ulsterman did?Yes is just food poisoning and stomach influenza. Certainly that is all it is.
  I wonder if it is from the feudal lords in calling out, "RUN HILLARY RUN", but she thought it was for President and never heard them screaming, for your life.
  agtG 231
  Monday, December 10, 2012The Plasma's ConversingAs an addition, after posting that a certain Barry Chin might be in danger last evening, the Lame Cherry website links are all down at Google.Only lists stories today.Someone is paying attention to the blog who can adulterate the Google spiders and Baby.
  Impressive eh, one little post from the popular girl and the internet goes into meltdown and the brats can not figure it out with donations.
  Lame Cherry4 minutes ago '' Never mind as this is not about me, but about why Ulsterman and Hillary are both in the same circle of intelligence getting tummy and anal hurts ...ANALGATE: New York Times now proves Lame Cherry rightlamecherry.blogspot.com/.../analgate-new-york-times-now-proves-la...5 days ago '' There is a reality my children that the Obama regime is in criminal trouble over ANALGATE when the New York Times has confirmed the major ...Lame Cherry: Obama Weapons of Mass Destructionlamecherry.blogspot.com/.../obama-weapons-of-mass-destruction.ht...Dec 4, 2012 '' After the election theft by B. Hussein Obama in the 2008 election he sought to smash the Middle East and form it in his own image. After the ...Lame Cherry Addresses both "Insiders," Breitbart's death ...10 posts - 5 authors - Nov 8Lame Cherry Addresses both "Insiders," Breitbart's death & Election Stealing Committees of Correspondence.Most interesting the spiders are active and at play today.Search ResultsLame Cherry14 minutes ago '' In just beginning to work on this, the Lame Cherry blog plants is patent rights on .... I see it all now in Lame Cherry Industries, a full line of post ...
Unexplained Light Formation Spotted Above San Francisco's Mission Dist.
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:41
  These unexplained lights were spotted above the Mission District early Sunday (Enrique B)
  SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) '' A viewer told CBS 5 about some surprising video captured early Sunday morning in San Francisco's Mission District.
  In the video, a series of lights fly in formation above the city before appearing to take a diamond shape and eventually disappearing.
  Several commenters on the Mission Mission blog said that they had also noticed the aircraft.
  The video, which shows seven lights in a row, was shot by Enrique Barrios with his cellphone.
  Video Of Lights Above SF (Warning, language NSFW):
  ''Looked like flame, you know, fireballs in the sky,'' Barrios said in an interview with CBS 5.
  David Shelley took pictures as the lights hovered over him early Sunday Morning. ''Kind of looked like a fiery, floaty thing,'' he said.
  Witnesses said the lights flickered on and off, then took different shapes.
  ''So in the beginning they looked like flying candles, and then afterwards they started making formations, triangular formations,'' said Barrios.
  Bing Quock, assistant director of the Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences said, ''It's not a planet, it's not a constellation, it's not meteors, it's not the moon.''
  Quock said there is a plausible explanation. ''It looks to me like it could have been balloons, carrying lights,'' he said.
  When asked if it could be some alien starship, Quock said, ''That would not be my first guess, no.''
  ''I am 100 percent sure this was a UFO,'' Barrios said. But he admitted having a little Christmas cheer the night he took the video.
  ''Absolutely, tequila was maybe an influence here,'' he said, laughing.
  More Science & Technology Headlines>>Hundreds Of Squid Wash Ashore Near Santa Cruz>>SF Considers Smoking Labels For All Apartments>>Feds To Fund Free Cell Service For Homeless>>New Popemobile Delivered To Benedict XVI
  CBS 5 contacted federal aviation officials, and they said they have received no reports of strange lights in the sky, and aren't sure what the aircraft spotted in the video is. So for now, the flying objects remain unidentified.
  (Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Mali prime minister resigns hours after army arrest
  Link to Article
  Source: The Guardian World News
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:17
  Malian prime minister Cheik Modibo Diarra was arrested at his home in Bamako on the orders of army Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo Photograph: JASON SZENES/EPA
  Mali's prime minister resigned on state television in a broadcast at 4am local time on Tuesday, hours after soldiers who led a recent coup burst into his home and arrested him.
  Cheik Modibo Diarra appeared somber in his national address, saying: "Our country is living through a period of crisis. Men and women who are worried about the future of our nation are hoping for peace.
  "It's for this reason that I, Cheik Modibo Diarra, am resigning along with my entire government on this day, Tuesday, 11 December, 2012. I apologise before the entire population of Mali."
  A police officer and an intelligence official confirmed that the 60-year-old Diarra had been arrested at his private residence at around 10pm on Monday by soldiers loyal to Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, the leader of the country's recent coup.
  Diarra was getting ready to leave the country for Paris and the plane that was due to take him was already taxiing at the airport. It's unclear if the trip to France was planned, or if Diarra had gotten wind of the pending arrest and was trying to flee.
  France called on Tuesday for a new government to be formed quickly and said Diarra's arrest and resignation bolstered the case for foreign military intervention. "These developments underline the need for the rapid deployment of an African stabilisation force," French foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot told reporters.
  The security officials said the prime minister was forced into a car and driven to the Kati military camp, the military base where the 21 March coup was launched under the orders of Sanogo. For several weeks, tension has been mounting between the officers who led the coup and Diarra, the civilian prime minister they were forced to appoint when they handed back power to a transitional government.
  The police officer, who was on duty on Monday night at Bamako's international airport, said the plane that was to take the prime minister to France was stopped by members of the group Yerewoloton who had invaded the airport and were searching cars.
  Yerewoloton is a violent citizen's movement, which is believed to be backed by the junta. In May, they broke through the security cordon at the presidential palace. Once inside, they beat up the newly appointed interim president, 70-year-old Dioncounda Traore. The beating of Traore brought immediate international condemnation and it was after the 21 May incident that coup leader Sanogo was forced to retreat from public life. He has kept a low profile in recent months, emerging only occasionally to criticise a military plan by the nations neighbouring Mali, which want to send 3,300 troops to take back Mali's north from armed Islamist groups.
  Diarra, an astrophysicist who previously led one of Nasa's Mars exploration programs, was initially seen as in step with Sanogo. Critics lambasted him for frequently driving to the Kati barracks to see the coup leader, apparently to seek his advice long after Sanogo was supposed to have handed power to civilians. In recent weeks though, Diarra has appeared to be taking stances that sometimes conflict with Sanogo.
  Last weekend for example, Diarra helped organised a demonstration calling for a United Nations-backed military intervention to take back Mali's north, which fell to Islamic extremists in the chaos following the coup.
  On Monday at the United Nations, France circulated a UN Security Council resolution that would authorise the deployment of an African-led force to oust al-Qaida-linked militants who seized Mali's northern half. The United States, however, wants the troops to be trained first for desert warfare, UN diplomats said.
  Experts on Mali have voiced skepticism over the military intervention, specifically because the plan initially put forward by the African Union gives a central role to the Malian military, which is still in the hands of Sanogo. African diplomats who were involved in the negotiations with Sanogo earlier this year, leading to the creation of Diarra's transitional government, say the coup leader does not want foreign forces on Malian soil because it would dilute his power.
15 Signs That The Economy Is Rapidly Getting Worse As We Head Into 2013
  Link to Article
  Source: BlackListedNews.com
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:12
  How can the mainstream media claim that the U.S. economy is ''improving'' when it is painfully obvious to anyone with a brain that the middle class is being absolutely eviscerated? According to numbers that were just released, the number of Americans on food stamps rose by more than 600,000 in a single month to an all-time record high of 47.7 million. Youth unemployment in the U.S. is at a post-World War II high and large companies have announced the elimination of more than 100,000 jobs since Barack Obama won the election. Consumer debt just hit a new record high and the federal government is accumulating debt at a much faster pace than it was at this time last year. So where is the evidence that the economy is getting better? The mainstream media says that the decline of the unemployment rate to ''7.7 percent'' is evidence that things are improving, but I showed how fraudulent that number is yesterday. The percentage of working age Americans with a job today is exactly where it was back in September 2009 in the midst of the last major economic crisis. The mainstream media is desperate for any shred of evidence that it can use to make people feel good and show that the Obama administration has our economy on the right track, and so they jump on any number that even looks remotely promising and they ignore mountains of evidence to the contrary. They don't seem to care that poverty is absolutely exploding and that the number of Americans on food stamps has risen by nearly 50 percent while Obama has been in the White House. They don't seem to care that the U.S. share of global GDP has fallen from 31.8 percent in 2001 to 21.6 percentin 2011. They don't seem to care that more good paying jobs are being shipped overseas with each passing day. They don't seem to care that formerly great U.S. cities that were once the envy of the entire globe are now crime-infested hellholes. All they seem to care about is putting out news that makes people feel warm and fuzzy and making sure that Obama looks good. Unfortunately, the truth is that the U.S. economy is steadily getting worse, and 2013 is not looking very promising at all right now. Hopefully at some point the mainstream media will take a break from coverage of the royal pregnancy and the latest celebrity scandals to report on the real problems that we are facing right now.
  The following are 15 signs that the economy is rapidly getting worse as we head into 2013'...
  #1 According to numbers that were just released, the number of Americans on food stamps has risen to a new all-time record of 47.71 million. That is a huge increase of more than 600,000 over the previous reading of 47.10 million. After about a year of slow growth, it looks like the number of Americans on food stamps is starting to skyrocket once again. Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, about one out of every 6.5 Americans is on food stamps.
  #2 Youth unemployment in the United States is now at the highest level that we have seen since World War II.
  #3 According to Gallup, unemployment in the United States shot up very sharply during the month of November.
  #4 It looks like the unemployment numbers are likely to get even worse. Since the election, dozens of large companies have announced major layoffs. Overall, large companies have announced the elimination of more than 100,000 jobs since November 6th.
  #5 According to the Wall Street Journal, of the 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders, half of them plan to reduce capital expenditures over the coming months.
  #6 Small business owners all over America are declaring that Obamacare is going to force them to start replacing full-time workers with part-time workers during 2013.
  #7 One recent survey discovered that 40 percent of all Americans have $500 or less in savings.
  #8 A different recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.
  #9 62 percent of middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.
  #10 Many Americans are trying to make ends meet for their families by going into more debt. Consumer borrowing hit another brand new record high in October. It looks like the American people have not learned from their past mistakes and have decided to roll up consumer debt at a faster pace than ever before.
  #11 Median household income in America has fallen for four consecutive years. Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.
  #12 Wall Street bankers are expecting ''the worst bonus season'' since 2008. Not a lot of people are going to shed tears over this one, but this is a sign that there is trouble in the financial world.
  #13 Food banks all over America are reporting that more needy families than ever before are showing up to get food.
  #14 As I wrote about yesterday, the federal government has run a deficit of $292 billion dollars during the first two months of fiscal 2013. That figure is $57 billion higher than it was during the same period last year. Government debt continues to soar wildly out of control and at some point all of that debt is absolutely going to crush us.
  #15 I have written previously about how the once great city of Detroit has become a symbol of the downfall of the U.S. economy. Well, now the state of Michigan is laying the groundwork for a ''managed bankruptcy'' of Detroit. Sadly, many other large U.S. cities will likely follow suit over the next couple of years.
  We should truly mourn for what is happening to Detroit. At one time, it was one of the most beautiful cities on earth. But now it is on the cutting edge of America's economic decline. You can see some amazing before and after pictures of an abandoned Detroit school right here. Sadly, what is happening to Detroit will soon be happening to the rest of the country.
  A similar thing is happening over in Europe. Greece is on the cutting edge of Europe's economic decline, and people over there are becoming very desperate. The following is an excerpt from a Financial Post article about how the Greek middle class is turning to crime as the depression in that nation gets even worse'...
  In the once stable neighborhood of Kordelio, the unemployed and drug users gather in the parks, scaring away mothers and children, and crimes like chain snatching are on the rise. Many long-time residents have left, moving abroad or to their families' villages, leaving behind empty houses, said Evangelia Rombou, 58, who has lived in Kordelio for 22 years.
  But it is not just Greece that is grappling with these kinds of issues. Now even countries that had been thought to be ''stable'' are experiencing significant problems. For example, a massive crime wave has broken out in France. The crime wave in France is being blamed on ''austerity'', but the government of France still spends far more than it brings in.
  So how bad would things get in France if the French government actually did go to a balanced budget?
  And how bad would things get in the United States if the federal government was not stealing more than 100 million dollars an hour from our children and our grandchildren?
  Even in the midst of our debt-fueled prosperity we are starting to see glimpses of how desperate people will become when our country is someday forced to live within its means. For example, the following is from a report about an incident that happened in Columbus, Ohio the other day'...
  Columbus Police sprayed Mace on several people in a crowd that had gathered to sign up for a list to get subsidized housing at a northwest Columbus apartment complex.
  Police said the crowd started to gather Friday night for the Saturday morning event at The Heritage apartment complex on Gatewood Road near Sunbury Road in northeast Columbus.
  Authorities said that its highest number, the crowd reached 2,000 people.
  Our entire economy is a giant mirage. Our prosperity has been purchased by stealing from the future. A few people have been warning that we have completely destroyed our future in the process, but both major political parties just continue to do it and the mainstream media just continues to cheer them on.
  At some point this con game will end and this economic mirage will disappear. When that happens, millions of people all over this country are going to become very angry and very desperate.
  I hope that you have a plan for what you will do when that happens.
  >>
Bankster-Treasury Revolving Door
  Link to Article
  Source: EconomicPolicyJournal.com
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:04
  Former senior U.S. Treasury official Tim Adams will succeed Charles Dallara as the head of the Institute of International Finance, a bank lobbying group that represents more than 470 of the world's largest financial companies.
  Adams will take over the helm during a major rewrite of financial regulations across the globe and amid the continuing debt and banking crises in Europe.
  Adams served as Treasury undersecretary for international affairs in the administration of President George W. Bush.
  (ht WSJ)
No 10 to redraft 'web snoop' plan
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:03
  11 December 2012Last updated at08:02 ETPlease turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
  Lib Dem's Julian Huppert: "Data will leak out"
  No 10 says the PM remains committed to giving police and security services new powers to monitor internet activity, despite criticism of current plans.
  The prime minister's spokesman said he accepted the criticism from MPs and peers of the draft Communications Data Bill and would re-write it.
  Deputy PM Nick Clegg had threatened to block it unless there was a "rethink".
  No 10 said bringing in new powers was a "government commitment" and everyone was "committed to fixing this problem".
  He said: "We recognise this is a difficult issue. We will take account of what the committee said."
  The deputy prime minister had earlier said he would block the draft Communications Data Bill and push for plans ensuring "the balance between security and liberty".
  His comments came as a committee of MPs and peers criticised the bill's scope.
  Civil liberties campaigners have described the proposals as a "snoopers' charter", but Home Secretary Theresa May insists they are vital for countering paedophiles, extremists and fraudsters.
  The Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaderships agree on the need for new measures, but they disagree over their scope.
  The plans in the draft bill include:
  Internet service providers having to store for a year all details of online communication in the UK - such as the time, duration, originator and recipient of a communication and the location of the device from which it was made.They would also be having to store for the first time all Britons' web browsing history and details of messages sent on social media, webmail, voice calls over the internet and gaming, in addition to emails and phone callsPolice not having to seek permission to access details of these communications, if investigating a crimePolice having to get a warrant from the home secretary to be able to see the actual content of any messagesFour bodies having access to data: the police, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, the intelligence agencies and HM Revenue and CustomsA report from the Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Bill, made up of MPs and peers, accepted a new law was needed to help police fight crime and tackle security threats organised online.
  But it warned ministers would be able to demand "potentially limitless categories of data" unless the draft bill was amended.
  Continue reading the main storyThe Bill would extend the range of data telecoms firms have to store for up to 12 monthsIt would include, for the first time, details of messages sent on social media, webmail, voice calls over the internet and gaming, in addition to emails and phone callsThe data would include the time, duration, originator and recipient of a communication and the location of the device from which it was madeIt would not include the content of messages - what is being said. Officers would need a warrant to see thatBut they would not need the permission of a judge to see details of the time and place of messages, provided they were investigating a crime or protecting national securityFour bodies would have access to data: the police, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, the intelligence agencies and HM Revenue and CustomsLocal authorities would face restrictions on the kinds of data they can accessIt called for "safeguards" over the new powers to prevent abuse and accused the government of producing estimates of the cost of implementing the plans which were not "robust" enough.
  The "net benefit figure" was "fanciful and misleading", it said.
  The MPs and peers added that the draft bill paid "insufficient attention to the duty to respect the right to privacy" and went "much further than it need or should for the purpose of providing necessary and justifiable official access to communications data".
  Mr Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, said the committee had raised "a number of serious criticisms - not least on scope, proportionality, cost, checks and balances, and the need for much wider consultation".
  "It is for those reasons that I believe the coalition government needs to have a fundamental rethink about this legislation. We cannot proceed with this bill and we have to go back to the drawing board."
  But he added: "The committee did not, however, suggest that nothing needs to be done. They were very clear that there is a problem that must be addressed to give law enforcement agencies the powers they need to fight crime. I agree.
  "But that must be done in a proportionate way that gets the balance between security and liberty right."
  'Secret notices'In its report, the committee said the home secretary would be given "sweeping powers to issue secret notices to communications service providers, requiring them to retain and disclose potentially limitless categories of data".
  But it added: "We have been told that she has no intention of using the powers in this way. Our main recommendation is therefore that her powers should be limited to those categories of data for which a case can now be made."
  If these powers needed to be enhanced in future, this should be done with "effective parliamentary scrutiny", it said.
  The home secretary wants the bill in place next year.
  Continue reading the main storyThis bill wasn't dreamt up by Tory ministers in the coalition.
  The previous Labour government came up with the first plans after the intelligence and security community said it needed modern tools to combat modern threats - threats organised online rather than through invisible ink messages left under park benches.
  So the controversy is not about the bill's aim, but its scope - something we have seen in other pieces of security legislation since the coalition took office. Powers to hold terror suspects in their own home and the current bill to protect state secrets in courts were both cut back as part of coalition compromise. In each case ministers aimed to protect the primary purpose.
  The question is whether this particular bill will be able to do its job if it goes through the same exercise - and that's why Nick Clegg will face claims of playing politics with security.
  Security minister James Brokenshire told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there was a "legitimate debate" to be had.
  He added that he wanted to "rebalance" the bill, so that "it's properly reflecting the needs of the collective and the needs of the individual".
  Mr Brokenshire also said: "If there were to be any extension, that would have to be through the full scrutiny of Parliament. We are saying very clearly that we accept that."
  He added: "We know that we need to work this through the coalition."
  For Labour, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the government was "making a complete mess of a very important issue".
  "It is important that the police and security services can keep up to date with modern technology, but this bill is too widely drawn, is unworkable and gives far too much power to the home secretary without proper safeguards."
  She added: "It is astonishing that the Home Office have had so little discussion with the internet companies who need to deliver this legislation. The Government have been slipshod with this bill from the word go."
  Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
  A Home Office spokesman said: "This legislation is vital to help catch paedophiles, terrorists and other serious criminals and we are pleased both scrutiny committees have recognised the need for new laws.
  "We have now considered the committees' recommendations carefully and we will accept the substance of them all. But there can be no delay to this legislation. It is needed by law enforcement agencies now."
  The Intelligence and Security Committee, which has sent a classified report on its findings to Prime Minister David Cameron, after speaking to the security services, called for more detail to be included in the draft bill.
  It recommended that it be "future-proofed" to ensure extra powers are not added without scrutiny, adding that there had been "insufficient consultation" between ministers and internet providers.
Another Handcuffed Young Man Manages to Shoot Himself. (video)
  Link to Article
  Source: WT news feed
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:37
  A perturbing trend is emerging in the South. Twice in six months, young men have managed to shoot themselves in the head while in handcuffs in the back of police cars, after having been searched for weapons. For many critical observers, the circumstances beggar belief.
  In August of this year, police in Jonesboro, Ark. claimed that Chavis Carter, 21, committed suicide while in the back of a patrol car. He was handcuffed at the time and had already been searched for weapons. Somehow, according to the police report, the searh missed Carter's concealed handgun and the young man '-- found to be on a number of amphetamines and sedatives at the time '-- managed to reach around his back to shoot himself in the right side of his head, despite being left-handed. Dr. Isaac Richmond, national director of the Memphis-based Commission on Religion and Racism, called the police's account ''a cold-blooded calculated lie,'' but a state autopsy fell in line with the suicide narrative.
  Then on Wednesday in Texas, a police officer managed to overlook a very large gun when searching a high schooler he was taking in to custody. The 17-year-old, who was being detained by police after a friend reported him a suicide risk, reportedly shot himself in the back of the head while he was in the police cruiser in handcuffs. The young man did not die and is in a critical but stable condition in hospital. The police report in this latter case appears more credible than the Arkansas incident and investigators are probing why the student's gun was missed when he was searched. It remains unlikely, however that the plausibility of a suicide in this case will clear up lingering questions surrounding Chavis Carter's death in police custody.
  Video | News | Weather | SportsWed Dec 05 09:35:07 PST 2012
  A suicidal high school student taken into custody at North Shore Senior High School, sitting handcuffed in the back of a patrol car, apparently grabbed a gun hidden in his clothing and shot himself in the back of the head, authorities said. view full article
  Natasha Lennard is Brooklyn-based writer and a project officer for the International News Safety Institute '' North America. Visit INSI-NA's for more information.
Russia will not allow Libyan scenario in Syria: Lavrov.
  Link to Article
  Source: WT news feed
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:34
  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has expressed Moscow's strong opposition to repetition of the Libyan scenario in the conflict-stricken Syria, stressing that the Kremlin will not allow such a thing happen again.
  ''We'll not allow the Libyan experience to be reproduced in Syria. Unfortunately our Western partners have departed from the Geneva accords and are seeking the departure of [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad,'' RIA Novosti news agency quoted Lavrov as saying on Sunday.
  He went on to note that Russia had not been involved in any talks on Assad's future, dismissing speculation that Moscow was preparing for the Syrian leader's departure.
  "We are not holding any talks on the fate of Assad," Lavrov said. "All attempts to present the situation differently are rather shady, even for the diplomacy of those countries that are known for striving to distort facts in their own favor."
  He stressed that the priority was to end the unrest in Syria, not to discuss the fate of one man.The Russian foreign minister added that the Kremlin was not clinging to any individual leader in Syria, saying, "Our position on Syria is well-known. Moscow does not stick to Assad or to some other figure on the Syrian political scene."
  Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of security forces, have been killed in the turmoil.
  The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.
  MP/PKH/SS
Three men arrested in Libor probe
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:32
  11 December 2012Last updated at07:32 ETThree men have been arrested in connection with continuing investigations into the manipulation of the Libor inter-bank lending rate.
  The three men - aged 33, 41 and 47 - have been taken to a London police station for interview.
  The Serious Fraud Office has issued search warrants for three properties in the South East of England - one in Surrey and two in Essex.
  All three men are British nationals living in the UK, a statement said.
  In July, the SFO said it had formally launched a criminal investigation into the rigging of inter-bank lending rates.
  As well as individuals, a number of major banks are also being investigated by regulatory authorities in the UK and the US over attempts to manipulate the rate, one of the most important in the UK economy.
  The daily Libor rate is calculated from banks' estimates of how much it costs them to borrow from other banks, and is used as the basis for some retail bank and mortgage rates.
  In June, Barclays bank was fined £290m for attempting to manipulate the rate.
  A report written by the Financial Services Authority's managing director Martin Wheatley in September said the Libor system was broken and in need of a complete overhaul, including criminal prosecutions for those who try to manipulate it.
  Mr Wheatley said bankers guilty of fixing Libor in the future could be jailed.
Russia backtracks on net proposal
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Technology
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:23
  11 December 2012Last updated at06:44 ETRussian-backed proposals calling for 193 countries to be given "equal rights to manage the internet" have been pulled at a UN conference in Dubai.
  The US had threatened to block the suggested additions to an international communications treaty,
  It wants the treaty to make minimal reference to the internet, warning to do otherwise risks state interference.
  Russia and its partners are now redrafting their document and are expected to submit it later.
  Attendees at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (Wcit) have until Friday to renegotiate the 24-year-old treaty.
  Continue reading the main storyRegulators and other delegates have until 14 December to agree which proposals to adopt.
  More than 900 changes to the International Telecommunication Regulations have been put forward.
  The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) highlights proposals to block spam messages, cut mobile roaming fees and prioritise emergency calls as some of the event's key topics.
  There have been accusations of "secrecy" because the ITU had left it to individual countries to publish proposals rather than release them itself.
  Two sites - Wcitleaks and .nxt - have gathered together related documents from a variety of sources but many are still unpublished.
  The resulting treaty will become part of international law, however the ITU itself recognises that there is no legal mechanism to force countries to comply.
  The UN agency hosting the event - the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - had earlier pledged not to put any disputed changes to a majority vote, saying there had to be full consensus.
  Internet addressesRussia had first put forward its net governance proposal ahead of the conference, but it emerged on Friday that it had found support from other countries.
  The United Arab Emirates announced the details would be submitted to the ITU at the beginning of this week. But before that could happen a draft of the proposals was published by website Wcitleaks.
  It revealed that the UAE, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Sudan were the other countries signed up to the so-called "compromise document".
  Wcitleaks also named Egypt, but it issued a statement to say that it did not support the proposals.
  One of the most controversial suggestions was a call for member states to be given equal rights to manage "internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources".
  This would mark potentially mark a shift from the current system in which the US government decides who runs the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (Iana) - the body responsible for regulating the net's address system.
  It has this power as a legacy of its funding for Arpanet - a precursor to the internet which helped form its technical core.
  While some other countries see this as an anachronism, the US says it allows it to ensure that technical experts can make "agile, rapid-fire decisions" about the net's development as part of multi-stakeholder organisations, and to change this would risk the process getting slowed down by bureaucracy.
  It also makes a wider point that attempts to add sections to the treaty about the internet could later by used by governments to legitimise interference into the operations of internet service providers (ISPs) and cloud-based operations such as Google or Facebook, "opening the door to censorship".
  However, others says the references are needed to help countries co-ordinate cybersecurity and anti-spam efforts.
  Revised proposalsAfter the US made clear that it would oppose the document's proposals its backers subsequently decided not to file it in its current state.
  The ITU says it expects an amended version will be delivered later, but adds that it will not released it for public view until it has been translated into a range of other languages.
  The US gave a guarded response to the news.
  "While this is a welcome development, these issues will continue to be on the table for discussion in other forms during the remainder of the conference," said the US ambassador to Wcit, Terry Kramer.
  "The United States will continue to make the case that Wcit should maintain the scope of the international telecommunication regulations and resist proposals to extent that scope into internet governance or content."
  The Russia-backed group has not issued a statement at this time, however the ITU stresses that if the revised document is still opposed by the US, it will not be adopted.
  "If it contains text that doesn't have majority support it won't be acceptable to the conference," a spokeswoman told the BBC.
  "So they're trying to remove the bits that people won't agree to and see where people might be prepared to bend a little bit."
McCain to join Foreign Relations Committee just before Sec State hearing.
  Link to Article
  Source: WT news feed
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:21
  MANAMA - The committee that will soon vet the next secretary of statewill have a new Republican heavyweight next year: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the man leading the charge against potentialnominee U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice.
  McCain told The Cablehe will join the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) and also remain onthe Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) in an interview on the sidelines ofthe 2012 IISS Manama Security Dialogue.
  McCain, who finishes his six-year term as ranking Republicanon the SASC this year, will not challenge Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) for the leadership post on the SFRC, but hispresence will be felt, especially during the confirmation hearings, which couldbe especially contentious this time around if Rice is chosen as the nominee.Those nomination hearings would be chaired by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) -- that is, unless Kerry gets the nod himself.
  White House sources insist there's no way to know whoPresident Barack Obama willultimately choose, but the stakes are rising in the ongoing feud between the WhiteHouse and the anti-Rice crowd in the Senate, which is led by McCain. Neitherside is backing down, and McCain says he wants to expand his inquiry pastRice's Sept. 16 comments about the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission inBenghazi.
  "I have some concerns about what happened in Africa underher watch. All that has not been examined," he said, referring to Rice's rolein shaping U.S. policy during the Clinton administration. Her involvement indecisions relating to the Rwandan genocide and her close ties to severalAfrican leaders are now beingpoured over by journalists around the world.
  Rice is also facing scrutiny for her investments inTransCanada, a company involved in the Keystone Pipeline project, and herinvestments with several companies that do business in Iran. Her defender say she has properly disclosed her investment.
  The White House is convinced the whirlwind of negativecoverage is a coordinated effort by the Republican political machine to sinkthe Rice nomination before it even surfaces.
  "I would commend Republican opposition researchers for theintellectual bandwidth that is required to read a financial disclosure form,because this was all documented in a financial disclosure form, entirely,appropriately, legally and by the books," White House Press Secretary Jay CarneysaidNov. 29. "So what this represents I think in vivid fashion is whatI've been talking about for a while now, which is that none of this hasanything to do with the tragedy that occurred in Benghazi. This is aboutpolitics. And that's a shame."
  The fight is getting personal. After McCain called Rice "notvery bright," a group of African American congresswomen called McCain "sexistand racist" and House Minority Deputy Whip James Clyburn (D-MD) said McCain was using racialcode words.
  Democrats defending Rice also note that McCain madearguments in the past supporting the president's right to have his nomineesconfirmed.
  "I believe there are significant numbers of the American people who dotake into consideration the consequences of a presidential election, and thatis the earned right of a president, under anything other than unusualcircumstances, to pick his team," McCain said in 2005, during the fight overthe nomination of U.N. Ambassador JohnBolton.
  Bolton stoodaccused of pressuring State Department analysts and the CIA to alter theirintelligence assessments regarding Iraq's WMD capabilities in the run up to theIraq war. He ultimately was not confirmed and served for one year under arecess appointment.
  It's unclear whether the five or six Senate Republicans whohave come out against Rice's potential nomination would succeed in their effortto thwart her nomination, if it materializes. McCain said the Senate should usethe confirmation process to properly examine the president's choice, and he pointedto her SFRC hearing as the place for the final showdown.
  "I'll wait and see if she's nominated and we'll move on fromthere. She has the right to have hearings. We'll see what happens in thehearings," he said.
  When asked why he wanted to join the Foreign Relations Committee,McCain joked, "Because I want to spend more time with you, Josh."
  UPDATE: McCain spokesman Brian Rogers writes in to say that next year's committee assignements are not yet final and the leadership has the final say.
  "Senator McCain has expressed interest in joining the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but no final decisions on committee assignments have been made," Rogers said.
Few vote on Facebook data changes
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Technology
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 11:08
  11 December 2012Last updated at05:45 ETA poll on sweeping changes to how Facebook is governed has ended with only 660,000 of the social network's one billion plus users voting.
  That works out at about 0.06% and falls far short of the 30% of users needed to force a rethink.
  Of those who voted, nearly 90% were against the changes.
  Facebook wants to increase data-sharing between services, relax rules on who can message users as well as scrapping the voting system.
  It has promised to introduce new ways to allow users to offer feedback on how the site is governed, including a forum on its website.
  Privacy groups, which have opposed to the changes, have called for the setting up of a user council.
  In a post on the official Facebook Site Governance page the firm said: "We will be announcing the results and the next steps regarding the governance process shortly."
Familie verpleegster krijgt 590.000 euro van radio
  Link to Article
  Source: VK: Home
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 11:07
  11/12/12, 10:56 '' bron: ANP
  (C) afp. De aangeslagen dj's Michael Christian en Mel Greig
  Het Australische radiostation 2Day FM stelt tot eind december alle reclame-inkomsten beschikbaar aan de familie van de Britse verpleegkundige die vermoedelijk zelfmoord heeft gepleegd. Het gaat om een bedrag van omgerekend minimaal 590.000 euro.
  De verpleegster raakte vorige week betrokken bij een grap van de radiozender. Twee dj's deden zich in een telefoongesprek voor als koningin Elizabeth II en kroonprins Charles en probeerden zo de zwangere Kate Middleton aan de lijn te krijgen. Die lag in het ziekenhuis wegens zwangerschapsmisselijkheid. De verpleegster trapte in de grap en verbond de dj's door met de zuster die Kate behandelde. Drie dagen na het telefoontje werd de verpleegkundige dood gevonden in haar woning.
the tap: Woman dies in plane crash then sends text message
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:01
  Is Jenni Rivera Still Alive?Monday, December 10, 2012 15:13Rumors are that Jenni Rivera had some inside information on the Drug running done by the DEA.If people don't think the US government is involved in drug running, I suggest reading about theIran/Contra affair, or Google Clinton, Mena, Arkansas.The report is that the plane was scattered over a large area, but the pieces were so small nothing was reconizable. Also, the US NTSB is involved, even though the aircraft went down in Mexican airspace.
  The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team to help investigate the crash, and the board said Mexican authorities had informed them that Rivera had died in the accident.http://news.yahoo.com/ntsb-singer-rivera-dead-mexican-plane-crash-163257145.html?bcmt_s=m#ugccmt-container
  What's odd is that Jenni Rivera tweeted this message at 11:21 pm, after the plane had supposedly went down.Fortunately, someone captured a pic of it before it was removed from twitter.Translation: Thank God my cell phone is still working, but it doesn't have much battery left I am alive, but I don't know where I am. There are many dead, please send someone to help me.And even though supposedly the plane crash was so bad that everything was beyond recognition, her plastic drivers license managed to survive the crash?Now, you watch, there will be news reports that the plane wasn't safe to fly, or something along those lines.
The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say) | Threat Level | Wired.com
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:28
  Photo: Name Withheld; Digital Manipulation: Jesse Lenz
  The spring air in the small, sand-dusted town has a soft haze to it, and clumps of green-gray sagebrush rustle in the breeze. Bluffdale sits in a bowl-shaped valley in the shadow of Utah's Wasatch Range to the east and the Oquirrh Mountains to the west. It's the heart of Mormon country, where religious pioneers first arrived more than 160 years ago. They came to escape the rest of the world, to understand the mysterious words sent down from their god as revealed on buried golden plates, and to practice what has become known as ''the principle,'' marriage to multiple wives.
  Today Bluffdale is home to one of the nation's largest sects of polygamists, the Apostolic United Brethren, with upwards of 9,000 members. The brethren's complex includes a chapel, a school, a sports field, and an archive. Membership has doubled since 1978'--and the number of plural marriages has tripled'--so the sect has recently been looking for ways to purchase more land and expand throughout the town.
  But new pioneers have quietly begun moving into the area, secretive outsiders who say little and keep to themselves. Like the pious polygamists, they are focused on deciphering cryptic messages that only they have the power to understand. Just off Beef Hollow Road, less than a mile from brethren headquarters, thousands of hard-hatted construction workers in sweat-soaked T-shirts are laying the groundwork for the newcomers' own temple and archive, a massive complex so large that it necessitated expanding the town's boundaries. Once built, it will be more than five times the size of the US Capitol.
  Rather than Bibles, prophets, and worshippers, this temple will be filled with servers, computer intelligence experts, and armed guards. And instead of listening for words flowing down from heaven, these newcomers will be secretly capturing, storing, and analyzing vast quantities of words and images hurtling through the world's telecommunications networks. In the little town of Bluffdale, Big Love and Big Brother have become uneasy neighbors.
  The NSA has become the largest, most covert, and potentially most intrusive intelligence agency ever.
  Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world's communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails'--parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital ''pocket litter.'' It is, in some measure, the realization of the ''total information awareness'' program created during the first term of the Bush administration'--an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans' privacy.
  But ''this is more than just a data center,'' says one senior intelligence official who until recently was involved with the program. The mammoth Bluffdale center will have another important and far more secret role that until now has gone unrevealed. It is also critical, he says, for breaking codes. And code-breaking is crucial, because much of the data that the center will handle'--financial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents, confidential personal communications'--will be heavily encrypted. According to another top official also involved with the program, the NSA made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its ability to cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption systems employed by not only governments around the world but also many average computer users in the US. The upshot, according to this official: ''Everybody's a target; everybody with communication is a target.''
  For the NSA, overflowing with tens of billions of dollars in post-9/11 budget awards, the cryptanalysis breakthrough came at a time of explosive growth, in size as well as in power. Established as an arm of the Department of Defense following Pearl Harbor, with the primary purpose of preventing another surprise assault, the NSA suffered a series of humiliations in the post-Cold War years. Caught offguard by an escalating series of terrorist attacks'--the first World Trade Center bombing, the blowing up of US embassies in East Africa, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and finally the devastation of 9/11'--some began questioning the agency's very reason for being. In response, the NSA has quietly been reborn. And while there is little indication that its actual effectiveness has improved'--after all, despite numerous pieces of evidence and intelligence-gathering opportunities, it missed the near-disastrous attempted attacks by the underwear bomber on a flight to Detroit in 2009 and by the car bomber in Times Square in 2010'--there is no doubt that it has transformed itself into the largest, most covert, and potentially most intrusive intelligence agency ever created.
  In the process'--and for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration'--the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net. And, of course, it's all being done in secret. To those on the inside, the old adage that NSA stands for Never Say Anything applies more than ever.
  UTAH DATA CENTERWhen construction is completed in 2013, the heavily fortified $2 billion facility in Bluffdale will encompass 1 million square feet.
  1 Visitor control centerA $9.7 million facility for ensuring that only cleared personnel gain access.
  2 AdministrationDesignated space for technical support and administrative personnel.
  3 Data hallsFour 25,000-square-foot facilities house rows and rows of servers.
  4 Backup generators and fuel tanksCan power the center for at least three days.
  5 Water storage and pumpingAble to pump 1.7 million gallons of liquid per day.
  6 Chiller plantAbout 60,000 tons of cooling equipment to keep servers from overheating.
  7 Power substationAn electrical substation to meet the center's estimated 65-megawatt demand.
  8 SecurityVideo surveillance, intrusion detection, and other protection will cost more than $10 million.
  Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Conceptual Site plan
  A swath of freezing fog blanketed Salt Lake City on the morning of January 6, 2011, mixing with a weeklong coating of heavy gray smog. Red air alerts, warning people to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary, had become almost daily occurrences, and the temperature was in the bone-chilling twenties. ''What I smell and taste is like coal smoke,'' complained one local blogger that day. At the city's international airport, many inbound flights were delayed or diverted while outbound regional jets were grounded. But among those making it through the icy mist was a figure whose gray suit and tie made him almost disappear into the background. He was tall and thin, with the physique of an aging basketball player and dark caterpillar eyebrows beneath a shock of matching hair. Accompanied by a retinue of bodyguards, the man was NSA deputy director Chris Inglis, the agency's highest-ranking civilian and the person who ran its worldwide day-to-day operations.
  A short time later, Inglis arrived in Bluffdale at the site of the future data center, a flat, unpaved runway on a little-used part of Camp Williams, a National Guard training site. There, in a white tent set up for the occasion, Inglis joined Harvey Davis, the agency's associate director for installations and logistics, and Utah senator Orrin Hatch, along with a few generals and politicians in a surreal ceremony. Standing in an odd wooden sandbox and holding gold-painted shovels, they made awkward jabs at the sand and thus officially broke ground on what the local media had simply dubbed ''the spy center.'' Hoping for some details on what was about to be built, reporters turned to one of the invited guests, Lane Beattie of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce. Did he have any idea of the purpose behind the new facility in his backyard? ''Absolutely not,'' he said with a self-conscious half laugh. ''Nor do I want them spying on me.''
  For his part, Inglis simply engaged in a bit of double-talk, emphasizing the least threatening aspect of the center: ''It's a state-of-the-art facility designed to support the intelligence community in its mission to, in turn, enable and protect the nation's cybersecurity.'' While cybersecurity will certainly be among the areas focused on in Bluffdale, what is collected, how it's collected, and what is done with the material are far more important issues. Battling hackers makes for a nice cover'--it's easy to explain, and who could be against it? Then the reporters turned to Hatch, who proudly described the center as ''a great tribute to Utah,'' then added, ''I can't tell you a lot about what they're going to be doing, because it's highly classified.''
  And then there was this anomaly: Although this was supposedly the official ground-breaking for the nation's largest and most expensive cybersecurity project, no one from the Department of Homeland Security, the agency responsible for protecting civilian networks from cyberattack, spoke from the lectern. In fact, the official who'd originally introduced the data center, at a press conference in Salt Lake City in October 2009, had nothing to do with cybersecurity. It was Glenn A. Gaffney, deputy director of national intelligence for collection, a man who had spent almost his entire career at the CIA. As head of collection for the intelligence community, he managed the country's human and electronic spies.
  Within days, the tent and sandbox and gold shovels would be gone and Inglis and the generals would be replaced by some 10,000 construction workers. ''We've been asked not to talk about the project,'' Rob Moore, president of Big-D Construction, one of the three major contractors working on the project, told a local reporter. The plans for the center show an extensive security system: an elaborate $10 million antiterrorism protection program, including a fence designed to stop a 15,000-pound vehicle traveling 50 miles per hour, closed-circuit cameras, a biometric identification system, a vehicle inspection facility, and a visitor-control center.
  Inside, the facility will consist of four 25,000-square-foot halls filled with servers, complete with raised floor space for cables and storage. In addition, there will be more than 900,000 square feet for technical support and administration. The entire site will be self-sustaining, with fuel tanks large enough to power the backup generators for three days in an emergency, water storage with the capability of pumping 1.7 million gallons of liquid per day, as well as a sewage system and massive air-conditioning system to keep all those servers cool. Electricity will come from the center's own substation built by Rocky Mountain Power to satisfy the 65-megawatt power demand. Such a mammoth amount of energy comes with a mammoth price tag'--about $40 million a year, according to one estimate.
  Given the facility's scale and the fact that a terabyte of data can now be stored on a flash drive the size of a man's pinky, the potential amount of information that could be housed in Bluffdale is truly staggering. But so is the exponential growth in the amount of intelligence data being produced every day by the eavesdropping sensors of the NSA and other intelligence agencies. As a result of this ''expanding array of theater airborne and other sensor networks,'' as a 2007 Department of Defense report puts it, the Pentagon is attempting to expand its worldwide communications network, known as the Global Information Grid, to handle yottabytes (1024 bytes) of data. (A yottabyte is a septillion bytes'--so large that no one has yet coined a term for the next higher magnitude.)
  It needs that capacity because, according to a recent report by Cisco, global Internet traffic will quadruple from 2010 to 2015, reaching 966 exabytes per year. (A million exabytes equal a yottabyte.) In terms of scale, Eric Schmidt, Google's former CEO, once estimated that the total of all human knowledge created from the dawn of man to 2003 totaled 5 exabytes. And the data flow shows no sign of slowing. In 2011 more than 2 billion of the world's 6.9 billion people were connected to the Internet. By 2015, market research firm IDC estimates, there will be 2.7 billion users. Thus, the NSA's need for a 1-million-square-foot data storehouse. Should the agency ever fill the Utah center with a yottabyte of information, it would be equal to about 500 quintillion (500,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text.
  The data stored in Bluffdale will naturally go far beyond the world's billions of public web pages. The NSA is more interested in the so-called invisible web, also known as the deep web or deepnet'--data beyond the reach of the public. This includes password-protected data, US and foreign government communications, and noncommercial file-sharing between trusted peers. ''The deep web contains government reports, databases, and other sources of information of high value to DOD and the intelligence community,'' according to a 2010 Defense Science Board report. ''Alternative tools are needed to find and index data in the deep web '... Stealing the classified secrets of a potential adversary is where the [intelligence] community is most comfortable.'' With its new Utah Data Center, the NSA will at last have the technical capability to store, and rummage through, all those stolen secrets. The question, of course, is how the agency defines who is, and who is not, ''a potential adversary.''
  The NSA'S SPY NETWORKOnce it's operational, the Utah Data Center will become, in effect, the NSA's cloud. The center will be fed data collected by the agency's eavesdropping satellites, overseas listening posts, and secret monitoring rooms in telecom facilities throughout the US. All that data will then be accessible to the NSA's code breakers, data-miners, China analysts, counterterrorism specialists, and others working at its Fort Meade headquarters and around the world. Here's how the data center appears to fit into the NSA's global puzzle.'--J.B.
  1 Geostationary satellitesFour satellites positioned around the globe monitor frequencies carrying everything from walkie-talkies and cell phones in Libya to radar systems in North Korea. Onboard software acts as the first filter in the collection process, targeting only key regions, countries, cities, and phone numbers or email.
  2 Aerospace Data Facility, Buckley Air Force Base, ColoradoIntelligence collected from the geostationary satellites, as well as signals from other spacecraft and overseas listening posts, is relayed to this facility outside Denver. About 850 NSA employees track the satellites, transmit target information, and download the intelligence haul.
  3 NSA Georgia, Fort Gordon, Augusta, GeorgiaFocuses on intercepts from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Codenamed Sweet Tea, the facility has been massively expanded and now consists of a 604,000-square-foot operations building for up to 4,000 intercept operators, analysts, and other specialists.
  4 NSA Texas, Lackland Air Force Base, San AntonioFocuses on intercepts from Latin America and, since 9/11, the Middle East and Europe. Some 2,000 workers staff the operation. The NSA recently completed a $100 million renovation on a mega-data center here'--a backup storage facility for the Utah Data Center.
  5 NSA Hawaii, OahuFocuses on intercepts from Asia. Built to house an aircraft assembly plant during World War II, the 250,000-square-foot bunker is nicknamed the Hole. Like the other NSA operations centers, it has since been expanded: Its 2,700 employees now do their work aboveground from a new 234,000-square-foot facility.
  6 Domestic listening postsThe NSA has long been free to eavesdrop on international satellite communications. But after 9/11, it installed taps in US telecom ''switches,'' gaining access to domestic traffic. An ex-NSA official says there are 10 to 20 such installations.
  7 Overseas listening postsAccording to a knowledgeable intelligence source, the NSA has installed taps on at least a dozen of the major overseas communications links, each capable of eavesdropping on information passing by at a high data rate.
  8 Utah Data Center, Bluffdale, UtahAt a million square feet, this $2 billion digital storage facility outside Salt Lake City will be the centerpiece of the NSA's cloud-based data strategy and essential in its plans for decrypting previously uncrackable documents.
  9 Multiprogram Research Facility, Oak Ridge, TennesseeSome 300 scientists and computer engineers with top security clearance toil away here, building the world's fastest supercomputers and working on cryptanalytic applications and other secret projects.
  10 NSA headquarters, Fort Meade, MarylandAnalysts here will access material stored at Bluffdale to prepare reports and recommendations that are sent to policymakers. To handle the increased data load, the NSA is also building an $896 million supercomputer center here.
  Before yottabytes of data from the deep web and elsewhere can begin piling up inside the servers of the NSA's new center, they must be collected. To better accomplish that, the agency has undergone the largest building boom in its history, including installing secret electronic monitoring rooms in major US telecom facilities. Controlled by the NSA, these highly secured spaces are where the agency taps into the US communications networks, a practice that came to light during the Bush years but was never acknowledged by the agency. The broad outlines of the so-called warrantless-wiretapping program have long been exposed'--how the NSA secretly and illegally bypassed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was supposed to oversee and authorize highly targeted domestic eavesdropping; how the program allowed wholesale monitoring of millions of American phone calls and email. In the wake of the program's exposure, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which largely made the practices legal. Telecoms that had agreed to participate in the illegal activity were granted immunity from prosecution and lawsuits. What wasn't revealed until now, however, was the enormity of this ongoing domestic spying program.
  For the first time, a former NSA official has gone on the record to describe the program, codenamed Stellar Wind, in detail. William Binney was a senior NSA crypto-mathematician largely responsible for automating the agency's worldwide eavesdropping network. A tall man with strands of black hair across the front of his scalp and dark, determined eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses, the 68-year-old spent nearly four decades breaking codes and finding new ways to channel billions of private phone calls and email messages from around the world into the NSA's bulging databases. As chief and one of the two cofounders of the agency's Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center, Binney and his team designed much of the infrastructure that's still likely used to intercept international and foreign communications.
  He explains that the agency could have installed its tapping gear at the nation's cable landing stations'--the more than two dozen sites on the periphery of the US where fiber-optic cables come ashore. If it had taken that route, the NSA would have been able to limit its eavesdropping to just international communications, which at the time was all that was allowed under US law. Instead it chose to put the wiretapping rooms at key junction points throughout the country'--large, windowless buildings known as switches'--thus gaining access to not just international communications but also to most of the domestic traffic flowing through the US. The network of intercept stations goes far beyond the single room in an AT&T building in San Francisco exposed by a whistle-blower in 2006. ''I think there's 10 to 20 of them,'' Binney says. ''That's not just San Francisco; they have them in the middle of the country and also on the East Coast.''
  The eavesdropping on Americans doesn't stop at the telecom switches. To capture satellite communications in and out of the US, the agency also monitors AT&T's powerful earth stations, satellite receivers in locations that include Roaring Creek and Salt Creek. Tucked away on a back road in rural Catawissa, Pennsylvania, Roaring Creek's three 105-foot dishes handle much of the country's communications to and from Europe and the Middle East. And on an isolated stretch of land in remote Arbuckle, California, three similar dishes at the company's Salt Creek station service the Pacific Rim and Asia.
  The former NSA official held his thumb and forefinger close together: ''We are that far from a turnkey totalitarian state.''Binney left the NSA in late 2001, shortly after the agency launched its warrantless-wiretapping program. ''They violated the Constitution setting it up,'' he says bluntly. ''But they didn't care. They were going to do it anyway, and they were going to crucify anyone who stood in the way. When they started violating the Constitution, I couldn't stay.'' Binney says Stellar Wind was far larger than has been publicly disclosed and included not just eavesdropping on domestic phone calls but the inspection of domestic email. At the outset the program recorded 320 million calls a day, he says, which represented about 73 to 80 percent of the total volume of the agency's worldwide intercepts. The haul only grew from there. According to Binney'--who has maintained close contact with agency employees until a few years ago'--the taps in the secret rooms dotting the country are actually powered by highly sophisticated software programs that conduct ''deep packet inspection,'' examining Internet traffic as it passes through the 10-gigabit-per-second cables at the speed of light.
  The software, created by a company called Narus that's now part of Boeing, is controlled remotely from NSA headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland and searches US sources for target addresses, locations, countries, and phone numbers, as well as watch-listed names, keywords, and phrases in email. Any communication that arouses suspicion, especially those to or from the million or so people on agency watch lists, are automatically copied or recorded and then transmitted to the NSA.
  The scope of surveillance expands from there, Binney says. Once a name is entered into the Narus database, all phone calls and other communications to and from that person are automatically routed to the NSA's recorders. ''Anybody you want, route to a recorder,'' Binney says. ''If your number's in there? Routed and gets recorded.'' He adds, ''The Narus device allows you to take it all.'' And when Bluffdale is completed, whatever is collected will be routed there for storage and analysis.
  According to Binney, one of the deepest secrets of the Stellar Wind program'--again, never confirmed until now'--was that the NSA gained warrantless access to AT&T's vast trove of domestic and international billing records, detailed information about who called whom in the US and around the world. As of 2007, AT&T had more than 2.8 trillion records housed in a database at its Florham Park, New Jersey, complex.
  Verizon was also part of the program, Binney says, and that greatly expanded the volume of calls subject to the agency's domestic eavesdropping. ''That multiplies the call rate by at least a factor of five,'' he says. ''So you're over a billion and a half calls a day.'' (Spokespeople for Verizon and AT&T said their companies would not comment on matters of national security.)
  After he left the NSA, Binney suggested a system for monitoring people's communications according to how closely they are connected to an initial target. The further away from the target'--say you're just an acquaintance of a friend of the target'--the less the surveillance. But the agency rejected the idea, and, given the massive new storage facility in Utah, Binney suspects that it now simply collects everything. ''The whole idea was, how do you manage 20 terabytes of intercept a minute?'' he says. ''The way we proposed was to distinguish between things you want and things you don't want.'' Instead, he adds, ''they're storing everything they gather.'' And the agency is gathering as much as it can.
  Once the communications are intercepted and stored, the data-mining begins. ''You can watch everybody all the time with data- mining,'' Binney says. Everything a person does becomes charted on a graph, ''financial transactions or travel or anything,'' he says. Thus, as data like bookstore receipts, bank statements, and commuter toll records flow in, the NSA is able to paint a more and more detailed picture of someone's life.
  The NSA also has the ability to eavesdrop on phone calls directly and in real time. According to Adrienne J. Kinne, who worked both before and after 9/11 as a voice interceptor at the NSA facility in Georgia, in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks ''basically all rules were thrown out the window, and they would use any excuse to justify a waiver to spy on Americans.'' Even journalists calling home from overseas were included. ''A lot of time you could tell they were calling their families,'' she says, ''incredibly intimate, personal conversations.'' Kinne found the act of eavesdropping on innocent fellow citizens personally distressing. ''It's almost like going through and finding somebody's diary,'' she says.
  In secret listening rooms nationwide, NSA software examines every email, phone call, and tweet as they zip by.
  But there is, of course, reason for anyone to be distressed about the practice. Once the door is open for the government to spy on US citizens, there are often great temptations to abuse that power for political purposes, as when Richard Nixon eavesdropped on his political enemies during Watergate and ordered the NSA to spy on antiwar protesters. Those and other abuses prompted Congress to enact prohibitions in the mid-1970s against domestic spying.
  Before he gave up and left the NSA, Binney tried to persuade officials to create a more targeted system that could be authorized by a court. At the time, the agency had 72 hours to obtain a legal warrant, and Binney devised a method to computerize the system. ''I had proposed that we automate the process of requesting a warrant and automate approval so we could manage a couple of million intercepts a day, rather than subvert the whole process.'' But such a system would have required close coordination with the courts, and NSA officials weren't interested in that, Binney says. Instead they continued to haul in data on a grand scale. Asked how many communications'--''transactions,'' in NSA's lingo'--the agency has intercepted since 9/11, Binney estimates the number at ''between 15 and 20 trillion, the aggregate over 11 years.''
  When Barack Obama took office, Binney hoped the new administration might be open to reforming the program to address his constitutional concerns. He and another former senior NSA analyst, J. Kirk Wiebe, tried to bring the idea of an automated warrant-approval system to the attention of the Department of Justice's inspector general. They were given the brush-off. ''They said, oh, OK, we can't comment,'' Binney says.
  Sitting in a restaurant not far from NSA headquarters, the place where he spent nearly 40 years of his life, Binney held his thumb and forefinger close together. ''We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state,'' he says.
  There is still one technology preventing untrammeled government access to private digital data: strong encryption. Anyone'--from terrorists and weapons dealers to corporations, financial institutions, and ordinary email senders'--can use it to seal their messages, plans, photos, and documents in hardened data shells. For years, one of the hardest shells has been the Advanced Encryption Standard, one of several algorithms used by much of the world to encrypt data. Available in three different strengths'--128 bits, 192 bits, and 256 bits'--it's incorporated in most commercial email programs and web browsers and is considered so strong that the NSA has even approved its use for top-secret US government communications. Most experts say that a so-called brute-force computer attack on the algorithm'--trying one combination after another to unlock the encryption'--would likely take longer than the age of the universe. For a 128-bit cipher, the number of trial-and-error attempts would be 340 undecillion (1036).
  Breaking into those complex mathematical shells like the AES is one of the key reasons for the construction going on in Bluffdale. That kind of cryptanalysis requires two major ingredients: super-fast computers to conduct brute-force attacks on encrypted messages and a massive number of those messages for the computers to analyze. The more messages from a given target, the more likely it is for the computers to detect telltale patterns, and Bluffdale will be able to hold a great many messages. ''We questioned it one time,'' says another source, a senior intelligence manager who was also involved with the planning. ''Why were we building this NSA facility? And, boy, they rolled out all the old guys'--the crypto guys.'' According to the official, these experts told then-director of national intelligence Dennis Blair, ''You've got to build this thing because we just don't have the capability of doing the code-breaking.'' It was a candid admission. In the long war between the code breakers and the code makers'--the tens of thousands of cryptographers in the worldwide computer security industry'--the code breakers were admitting defeat.
  So the agency had one major ingredient'--a massive data storage facility'--under way. Meanwhile, across the country in Tennessee, the government was working in utmost secrecy on the other vital element: the most powerful computer the world has ever known.
  The plan was launched in 2004 as a modern-day Manhattan Project. Dubbed the High Productivity Computing Systems program, its goal was to advance computer speed a thousandfold, creating a machine that could execute a quadrillion (1015) operations a second, known as a petaflop'--the computer equivalent of breaking the land speed record. And as with the Manhattan Project, the venue chosen for the supercomputing program was the town of Oak Ridge in eastern Tennessee, a rural area where sharp ridges give way to low, scattered hills, and the southwestward-flowing Clinch River bends sharply to the southeast. About 25 miles from Knoxville, it is the ''secret city'' where uranium- 235 was extracted for the first atomic bomb. A sign near the exit read: what you see here, what you do here, what you hear here, when you leave here, let it stay here. Today, not far from where that sign stood, Oak Ridge is home to the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and it's engaged in a new secret war. But this time, instead of a bomb of almost unimaginable power, the weapon is a computer of almost unimaginable speed.
  In 2004, as part of the supercomputing program, the Department of Energy established its Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility for multiple agencies to join forces on the project. But in reality there would be two tracks, one unclassified, in which all of the scientific work would be public, and another top-secret, in which the NSA could pursue its own computer covertly. ''For our purposes, they had to create a separate facility,'' says a former senior NSA computer expert who worked on the project and is still associated with the agency. (He is one of three sources who described the program.) It was an expensive undertaking, but one the NSA was desperate to launch.
  Known as the Multiprogram Research Facility, or Building 5300, the $41 million, five-story, 214,000-square-foot structure was built on a plot of land on the lab's East Campus and completed in 2006. Behind the brick walls and green-tinted windows, 318 scientists, computer engineers, and other staff work in secret on the cryptanalytic applications of high-speed computing and other classified projects. The supercomputer center was named in honor of George R. Cotter, the NSA's now-retired chief scientist and head of its information technology program. Not that you'd know it. ''There's no sign on the door,'' says the ex-NSA computer expert.
  At the DOE's unclassified center at Oak Ridge, work progressed at a furious pace, although it was a one-way street when it came to cooperation with the closemouthed people in Building 5300. Nevertheless, the unclassified team had its Cray XT4 supercomputer upgraded to a warehouse-sized XT5. Named Jaguar for its speed, it clocked in at 1.75 petaflops, officially becoming the world's fastest computer in 2009.
  Meanwhile, over in Building 5300, the NSA succeeded in building an even faster supercomputer. ''They made a big breakthrough,'' says another former senior intelligence official, who helped oversee the program. The NSA's machine was likely similar to the unclassified Jaguar, but it was much faster out of the gate, modified specifically for cryptanalysis and targeted against one or more specific algorithms, like the AES. In other words, they were moving from the research and development phase to actually attacking extremely difficult encryption systems. The code-breaking effort was up and running.
  The breakthrough was enormous, says the former official, and soon afterward the agency pulled the shade down tight on the project, even within the intelligence community and Congress. ''Only the chairman and vice chairman and the two staff directors of each intelligence committee were told about it,'' he says. The reason? ''They were thinking that this computing breakthrough was going to give them the ability to crack current public encryption.''
  In addition to giving the NSA access to a tremendous amount of Americans' personal data, such an advance would also open a window on a trove of foreign secrets. While today most sensitive communications use the strongest encryption, much of the older data stored by the NSA, including a great deal of what will be transferred to Bluffdale once the center is complete, is encrypted with more vulnerable ciphers. ''Remember,'' says the former intelligence official, ''a lot of foreign government stuff we've never been able to break is 128 or less. Break all that and you'll find out a lot more of what you didn't know'--stuff we've already stored'--so there's an enormous amount of information still in there.''
  The NSA believes it's on the verge of breaking a key encryption algorithm'--opening up hoards of data.
  That, he notes, is where the value of Bluffdale, and its mountains of long-stored data, will come in. What can't be broken today may be broken tomorrow. ''Then you can see what they were saying in the past,'' he says. ''By extrapolating the way they did business, it gives us an indication of how they may do things now.'' The danger, the former official says, is that it's not only foreign government information that is locked in weaker algorithms, it's also a great deal of personal domestic communications, such as Americans' email intercepted by the NSA in the past decade.
  But first the supercomputer must break the encryption, and to do that, speed is everything. The faster the computer, the faster it can break codes. The Data Encryption Standard, the 56-bit predecessor to the AES, debuted in 1976 and lasted about 25 years. The AES made its first appearance in 2001 and is expected to remain strong and durable for at least a decade. But if the NSA has secretly built a computer that is considerably faster than machines in the unclassified arena, then the agency has a chance of breaking the AES in a much shorter time. And with Bluffdale in operation, the NSA will have the luxury of storing an ever-expanding archive of intercepts until that breakthrough comes along.
  But despite its progress, the agency has not finished building at Oak Ridge, nor is it satisfied with breaking the petaflop barrier. Its next goal is to reach exaflop speed, one quintillion (1018) operations a second, and eventually zettaflop (1021) and yottaflop.
  These goals have considerable support in Congress. Last November a bipartisan group of 24 senators sent a letter to President Obama urging him to approve continued funding through 2013 for the Department of Energy's exascale computing initiative (the NSA's budget requests are classified). They cited the necessity to keep up with and surpass China and Japan. ''The race is on to develop exascale computing capabilities,'' the senators noted. The reason was clear: By late 2011 the Jaguar (now with a peak speed of 2.33 petaflops) ranked third behind Japan's ''K Computer,'' with an impressive 10.51 petaflops, and the Chinese Tianhe-1A system, with 2.57 petaflops.
  But the real competition will take place in the classified realm. To secretly develop the new exaflop (or higher) machine by 2018, the NSA has proposed constructing two connecting buildings, totaling 260,000 square feet, near its current facility on the East Campus of Oak Ridge. Called the Multiprogram Computational Data Center, the buildings will be low and wide like giant warehouses, a design necessary for the dozens of computer cabinets that will compose an exaflop-scale machine, possibly arranged in a cluster to minimize the distance between circuits. According to a presentation delivered to DOE employees in 2009, it will be an ''unassuming facility with limited view from roads,'' in keeping with the NSA's desire for secrecy. And it will have an extraordinary appetite for electricity, eventually using about 200 megawatts, enough to power 200,000 homes. The computer will also produce a gargantuan amount of heat, requiring 60,000 tons of cooling equipment, the same amount that was needed to serve both of the World Trade Center towers.
  In the meantime Cray is working on the next step for the NSA, funded in part by a $250 million contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It's a massively parallel supercomputer called Cascade, a prototype of which is due at the end of 2012. Its development will run largely in parallel with the unclassified effort for the DOE and other partner agencies. That project, due in 2013, will upgrade the Jaguar XT5 into an XK6, codenamed Titan, upping its speed to 10 to 20 petaflops.
  Yottabytes and exaflops, septillions and undecillions'--the race for computing speed and data storage goes on. In his 1941 story ''The Library of Babel,'' Jorge Luis Borges imagined a collection of information where the entire world's knowledge is stored but barely a single word is understood. In Bluffdale the NSA is constructing a library on a scale that even Borges might not have contemplated. And to hear the masters of the agency tell it, it's only a matter of time until every word is illuminated.
  James Bamford (washwriter@gmail.com) is the author of The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America.
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WantToKnow.nl '' Medvedev over buitenaardsen 'buiten beeld''...!?
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:26
  xMedvedev over buitenaardsen 'buiten beeld''...!?2012 WantToKnow.nl/.be
  x
  Een verhaal dat voor zichzelf spreekt..! Is het zo simpel dat -zoals altijd beweerd is- de grote naties ter wereld w(C)ten dat buitenaardsen hier al lang rondhangen..? Is het z" simpel dat de premier van (C)(C)n van de grootste landen ter wereld zich verspreekt op zo'n simpele wijze..? Misschien is het antwoord h(C)(C)l simpel.. Inderdaad.. Premier Dmitri Medvedev is gewoon een mens'...! We horen wat jij ervan vindt!!
  Mr Medvedev answered:''Along with the briefcase with nuclear codes, the president of the country is given a special 'top secret' folder. This folder in its entirety contains information about aliens who visited our planet.Along with this, you are given a report of the absolutely secret special service that exercises control over aliens on the territory of our country '... More detailed information on this topic you can get from a well-known movie called 'Men In Black' '... I will not tell you how many of them are among us because it may cause panic,''
  vertaling:
  ''Samen met het koffertje met de codes om atoomwapens af te vuren, krijgt de president van dit land ook een speciale 'TOP SECRET'-map. Deze map gaat over de complete informatie rondom buitenaardsen die onze Aarde hebben bezocht. Samen met deze map krijg je als president ook nog een absoluut geheim rapport over een speciale overheidsdienst, die de controle uitoefent over de buitenaardsen die op ons grondgebied verblijven'... Meer gedetailleerde informatie kun je vinden in een film die getiteld is 'Men in Black'.. Ik zal je niet vertellen hoeveel van hen onder ons verblijven, want dat zou alleen maar paniek veroorzaken..'''...
  x
Cigar-Shaped UFO in Pike County, Kentucky October 16, 2012 - YouTube
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  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:11
European Parliament to Debate Own Database for Flight Passengers - SPIEGEL ONLINE
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:09
  REUTERS
  Passengers stand under a flight information display board at Munich's international airport.
  A proposal to require European Union members to store huge amounts of data on flight passengers entering or leaving the EU will soon be up for debate, and the discussion is likely be fierce. Critics say the measure violates travelers' right to privacy.
  European parliamentarians next week are to debate a controversial draft law that would create massive national police databases of flight passengers entering or leaving the 27-nation European Union, including everything from addresses to meal preferences.
  The proposal for a "passenger name record" (PNR) would require airlines and booking agencies to hand over passenger data to national authorities, which would then routinely search for anything conspicuous. The data would be saved for five years and would include names, seat assignments, travel destinations, phone numbers, hired travel agencies and potential re-bookings, among other details.
  In order to process the enormous amount of information, each individual member state would be required to delegate a national police unit to gather, save, evaluate and, when appropriate, forward the information onto other relevant authorities. The bill states that its purpose is to root out not just known terrorists, but also people "previously unsuspected of involvement in serious crime and terrorism" whose data suggests they "may be involved in such crime," like human trafficking or the drug trade.
  The law would apply exclusively to flights entering and leaving the EU, not within its borders. However the European Commission said an inclusion of intra-EU flights remains a possibility.
  The proposal cites the aborted terrorist attack in December 2009, when a Nigerian national attempted to detonate explosives sewn into his underwear while on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, as evidence that existing laws are not enough to prevent such crimes. It also cites a 2009 Standard Eurobarometer, the European Commission's biannual public opinion survey, which found that four out of five EU citizens want to see stronger EU action against organized crime and terrorism.
  Plans Based on US Model
  European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstr¶m developed the plans a year and a half ago based on a similar existing database in the United States. Earlier this year, the European Parliament, despite objections from some EU member states, approved a renegotiated treaty with the US that hands over data to American authorities on flight passengers going from Europe to the United States.
  That treaty was supported on the argument that it was necessary to combat terrorism and serious transnational crime. Commissioner Malmstr¶m also argued it provides greater privacy safeguards for passengers than a previous agreement that had already been in effect for years. But opponents said those privacy safeguards did not go far enough, and that the law was passed in part because of a threat from the US to eliminate visa-free travel for EU citizens.
  The debate next Monday in the European Parliament's committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs is likely to be heated, as sensitivities to state surveillance run high among Europeans. Jan Philipp Albrecht, a Green member of the European Parliament who specializes in home affairs, warns of a "paradigm shift" in European police policy.
  "The methods of screening for terrorists are becoming an everyday business," he says.
  Privacy Concerns
  German data protection authorities and privacy advocates have argued that the five-year time span for saving EU passenger data contradicts the German constitution. The German Constitutional Court in 2010 voided a law that required telecommunications companies to store all citizens' phone and internet data for six months. It also placed strict limits on the state's ability to access such data.
  The ruling did not, however, address the EU law on which the German law was based. The 2006 EU legislation requires member states to store citizens' telecommunications data for six to 24 months.
  The committee's rapporteur on the draft law, British Conservative and former airport board member Timothy Kirkhope, has lent his full support to the bill, saying it would protect the safety of EU citizens while not impeding their free movement or right to entry.
  The committee is equally split between parties typically more sympathetic to civil liberties, like greens, libertarians and social democrats, and those that tend to place a greater value on security issues, like conservatives and Christian democrats.
  Keep track of the news
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  (C) SPIEGEL ONLINE 2012All Rights ReservedReproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH
121212 Concert
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:54
  NationalSiriusXM RadioNew York City, NY106.7 Lite fmNew York City, NY103.5 KTUNew York City, NYZ100New York City, NYQ104.3New York City, NYPower 105.1 FMLos Angeles, CA987-FMChicago, IL93.9 The Holiday LiteDallas, TXLONE STAR 92.5Philadelphia, PARadio 104.5San Francisco, CA103.7Washington, DCBIG 100.3Houston, TX937 The ArrowMinneapolis, MNCITIES 97Saint Louis, MOOldiesSeattle, WA95.7 SeattleDetroit, MI106.7 The DPittsburgh, PA102.5 WDVEPhoenix, AZEva 95.5Cleveland, OHWHLK-FMDenver, CO103.5 The FoxMilwaukee, WIOLDIES 95.7Baltimore, MD102.7 JACK-FMMiami, FLWSHE-FMTampa, FL98ROCKSan Diego, CAKGB-FMCharlotte, NC99.7 The FoxPortland, OR105.9 The BrewGreensboro, NC99.5 WMAGSalt Lake City, UTOldies 94.1Providence, RI94HJYCincinnati, OHWEBNNashville, TN1059 The RockRaleigh, NC93.9 Kiss FMColumbus, OHWODC-FMSan Antonio, TXKZEP-FMIndianapolis, INQ95Sacramento, CA93.7 JACK-FMLas Vegas, NVMy 93.1Hartford, CTThe River 105.9Boston, MA101.7 The HarborAustin, TX98.1 KVET-FMJacksonville, FL107.3 JACK-FMOklahoma City, OKKJYOWest Palm Beach, FLGater 98.7New Orleans, LA101.1 WNOETucson, AZ93.7 KRQAtlanta, GAESPN DeportesMemphis, TNROCK 103Norfolk, VAWVMA-FMHonolulu, HIKSSK-FMDayton, OH104.7 WTUETulsa, OK97.5 KMODRochester, NY95.1 The Brew
  El Paso, TXSunny 99.9Birmingham, ALMagic 96.5Louisville, KY95.7 QMFNew Haven, CTKC101Omaha, NEKGOR-FMDes Moines,IA 100.3 The BusAlbany, NYCAPITALAND'S ONLY CLASSIC ROCK STATIONFort Myers Naples, FL95.3 The RiverAlbuquerque, NM100.3 The PeakAllentown, PAWZZO-FMRichmond, VAXL102Harrisburg, PATHE RIVER 97.3Springfield, MAMix 93.1Toledo, OH104-7 WIOTReading, PAWRFY-FMSpokane, WA98.9 KKZXCorpus Christi, TXKMXR-FMSyracuse, NYWSYRColumbia, SCSTEVE-FMFresno, CAAlice 96.7Portsmouth, NHWHEB-FMCharleston, SCQ104.5Madison, WI101.5 WIBA FMMobile, AL96.1 The RocketAugusta, GAEagle 105-7Lexington, KYMy Mix 94.5Fayetteville, AR93.3 The EagleYoungstown, OH93.3 The WolfFort Pierce Stuart Vero Beach, FL103.7 WQOLRoanoke Lynchburg, VAThe Rock Of VirginiaColorado Springs, COZ107.9Grand Rapids, MI101.3 The FOX ROCKSHuntsville, AL100.3 The RiverMontgomery, ALWWMG-FMBaton Rouge, LA96.1 The RiverBakersfield, CA98.5 THE FOXMcAllen, TXKQXX-FMMonterey, CAKOCN-FMMelbourne, FLLite Rock 99.3Orlando, FL101one WJRRFort Collins, CO107.9 THE BEARLittle Rock, AR94.9 TOM FMSpringfield, MOUS97Canton, OH Rock106.9 WRQKSalisbury, MDWKZP-FMJackson, MSWSTZ-FMBeaumont, TXKIOC-FMWichita, KS107.3 The BrewBiloxi, MSWMJY-FMDavenport, IAQ106.5Manchester, NHWGIR-FMLaurel, MSWNSL-FM
  Chattanooga, TN98.1 The LakeNew Orleans, LAKVDU-FMFort Smith, ARKKBD-FMRiverside, CAQ103.3Asheville, NCRock 104.9Parkersburg, WV102.1 The RiverBryan, TXKNFX-FMRochester, MNLaser 101.7Wheeling, WVWVKF-FMEau Claire, WIClassic Rock 92.1Waco, TXKBRQ-FMPanama City, FLSunny 98.5Muskegon, MIRock 101.7 WMRRHuntington, WVX 106.3Savannah, GAWYKZ-FMSussex, NJ103.7 NNJWinchester, VA99.3 The FoxAnchorage, AK100.5 The FoxTallahassee, FLX101.5Modesto Stockton, CAKOSO-FMPoughkeepsie, NYRock 93.3Sarasota Bradenton, FL105.9 the BuzzWilliamsport, PAV97Columbus, GAROCK 103Cedar Rapids Iowa City, IAKiss CountryLima, OHWZRX-FMGreenville, SC96.7 The ROADSioux City, IAZ-98Macon, GAPeach 96.5Bismarck, NDRock 101Grand Forks, ND96.1 The FoxBinghamton, NYBig 107.5Harrisonburg, VA98 RockAlbany, GAWGEX-FM - 97.3Wilmington, DE92.9 TOM-FMTuscaloosa, ALWACT-AMDickinson, NDKZRX-FMFairbanks, AKKKED-FMFarmington, NM96.9 the Dog Rocks!Gallup, NMKFXR-FMGallup, NMKGLX-FMMinot, NDKZPR-FMOgallala, NE99.7 The LakePueblo, COKPHT 95.5Gadsden, ALWGMZ-FMKilleen, TXKLFX-FMSomerset, KYWKEQ-FMThe Florida Keys, FLSun FMChillicothe, OHToday's Mix WQLXDefiance, OH105.7 The BullMansfield, OHWXXF-FMMarion, OHMajic 95.9Syracuse, NYWSYR
Microphone surveillance on the rise in public buses throughout US
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:28
  Bus commuters in cities across the US have likely grown used to surveillance cameras recording their every move, but may not realize that microphones are also becoming more prevalent. An increasing number of transit companies are investing in security systems capable of recording passenger conversations, and in doing so have raised significant privacy concerns. Wired is today reporting on one popular choice, the RoadRecorder 7000, which combines both audio and video recording in one package.
  You're being watched (and listened to)
  Fears of eavesdropping have surrounded this particular IP-connected system since it's remotely accessible via the web. Typically between four and six camera/mic combinations are installed in each bus, giving transit authorities the ability to closely monitor passengers seated virtually anywhere. In one instance, Oregon officials even asked for microphones capable of separating individual conversations while cutting out wind, traffic noise, and other environmental distractions.
  From the perspective of bus companies, these advanced surveillance systems offer passengers (and drivers) a greater level of security. Yet they've met fierce resistance from civil liberty and privacy-minded groups who insist such recordings violate wiretapping laws. According to Wired, similar microphone-based security systems are currently in use in seven cities in the US, a number destined to climb in the months ahead.
Are all men pedophiles? Wint NVVS Seksuologie Mediaprijs 2012
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:21
  P E R S B E R I C H T
  Amsterdam, 6 december 2012
  Are all men pedophiles? Wint NVVS Seksuologie Mediaprijs 2012
  Vanmiddag heeft de Nederlandse Vereniging van Seksuologie (NVVS) de Seksuologie Mediaprijs 2012 uitgereikt aan de jonge documentairemaker Jan Willem Breure voor zijn documentaire Are All Men Pedophiles? Met deze prijs '' die voor het derde achtereenvolgend jaar is uitgebracht - spoort de NVVS mediaprofessionals aan tot het verstrekken van kleurrijke, degelijke en gebalanceerde informatie over seksualiteit.
  Vele facetten van pedofilie
  In Are All Men Pedophiles? zoekt Breure uit waar de grens ligt tussen het als man aangetrokken worden door tienermeiden en een pedofiele seksuele voorkeur. Verschillende facetten van pedofilie worden in historisch, cultureel, juridisch, psychisch en neurobiologisch perspectief belicht.
  Wetenschappelijke benadering ingekleurd met persoonlijke ervaringen
  Breure interviewt behandelaars en andere deskundigen, religieuze leiders, mannen en vrouwen met een pedofiele voorkeur en mensen die als kind tot seks zijn gedwongen door pedoseksuelen. Daarbij neemt hij de rol van de media onder de loep en houdt zich al vragen stellend ver van een eigen oordeel. Daarmee brengt Breure volgens de jury nuance aan in de hetze die de samenleving momenteel ook lijkt te voeren tegen mensen met een pedofiele voorkeur die niet aan hun gevoelens toegeven en zich laten behandelen om te voorkomen dat ze een (pedo)seksueel delict plegen.
  Confrontatie met vastgeroeste conventies en dogma's
  De twee andere genomineerden voor NVVS Seksuologie Mediaprijs 2012 waren de website Love Matters van Wereldomroep Nederland en de VPRO documentaire The Sunny Side of Sex gemaakt door Sunny Bergman. De site Love Matters '' gemaakt met partners van WNL in Afrika en Azie, geeft volgens de jury op een ludieke manier veel en brede info geeft over relaties en seks met aandacht voor communicatie tussen partners. Sunny Bergman doet op verfrissende en open wijze verslag van een mooie antropologische zoektocht naar seksuele gewoonten. Daarmee maakt ze de kijkers bewust van seksuele diversiteit en confronteert hen met vastgeroeste conventies en dogma's.
  Meer kleur dan Vijftig Tinten Grijs
  'Seksualiteit is veel kleurrijker dan de vijftig tinten grijs waarin de meeste media haar afschilderen. De genomineerden voor de derde NVVS Mediaprijs erkennen dit in hun gedegen en veelkleurige berichtgeving over seksualiteit'', aldus de jury, bestaande uit vier NVVS -seksuologen en een communicatiedeskundige. Zie het complete juryrapport in de bijlage. Meer informatie over de winnende documentaire is te vinden op www.areallmenpedophiles.com
  Lees het juryrapport.
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Noot voor de redactie: Voor meer informatie over de NVVS Seksuologie Mediaprijs 2012 kunt u contact opnemen met Yuri Ohlrichs, seksuoloog NVVS en media-contactpersoon van de NVVS via 06 '' 435 425 34 0f persinfo@nvvs.info
Monti plays down fear Italy will stop reforms
  Link to Article
  Source: euronews
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:14
  The European Union's three presidents have celebrated receiving the Nobel peace Prize on behalf of their 55-year-old organisation. Herman Van Romuy, President of the European Council, Jose Manuel Barroso, Commission President and Martin Schultz, President of the European'...
The Obama-Phone Is Back - But This Time It's Real
  Link to Article
  Source: Zero Hedge
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:10
  While some saw the clip of the lady implying 'victory for Obama means phones for everyone' as perhaps exaggerated out-of-context right-wing propaganda - as that would be preposterous right? - it appears San Francisco took it a little more serious. As SFGate reports, the California Public Utilities Commission is expected to approve (within a couple of weeks) a plan to offer homeless and other poor people in California 'virtually free cell phones and service'. The plan is funded through the federal LifeLine program and is designed to enable these individuals to 'keep in touch with family, potential employers and others crucial to improving their lives'. "This is great - it is transformative for homeless and low-income people," said San Francisco's head of homeless initiatives, adding that, fundamentally, to be in the mainstream of our society you have to have a phone." Setting up the program in California has been no easy task, officials said. "I would prefer it to be free..." said Dufty, and said he would explore other funding sources.Perhaps worth remembering the cost of kidding ourselves once again.
  Via SFGate:
  Homeless and other poor people in California are on track to soon get virtually free cell phones and service so they can keep in touch with family, potential employers and others crucial to improving their lives.
  The cell phones would be handed out through a federally funded Lifeline program - already operated by service provider Assurance Wireless in 36 other states - that is likely to win final approval in the next couple of weeks from the California Public Utilities Commission.
  State PUC officials have been reviewing the Lifeline proposal from Assurance Wireless for three years. Word came Thursday that all but a minor detail had been approved, ending years of effort by advocates for homeless people.
  "This is great - it is transformative for homeless and low-income people," said Bevan Dufty, San Francisco's head of homeless initiatives,
  ...
  "Fundamentally, to be in the mainstream of our society you have to have a phone," he said. "And really, for the homeless population, you need a cell phone because they don't have a home to hard-wire one into. We really need this plan."
  ...
  The state's decades-old Lifeline program, like those all over the country, pays for all but a few dollars of the monthly phone bill for poor people, generally meaning those whose annual income is below $14,702. But until now, California's PUC rules only authorized Lifeline service for "wireline" phones, meaning traditional phones wired into residences - and those rules didn't authorize anything for free.
  Getting set up not easy
  Setting up the program in California has been no easy task, officials said.
  ...
  Approval of the cell phone program came Thursday from the telecommunications specialists at the CPUC, which oversees the state's Lifeline plans.
  ...
  "We're very excited," said Jayne Wallace, an Assurance Wireless spokeswoman. "We know from experience this can make a big difference in people's lives."
  ...
  Cost of program
  ...
  Assurance Wireless first offered its free cell phone proposal to the CPUC in 2009 and got tentative clearance in 2011. It has been a slow process since.
  ...
  Immediately, however, the customer will be rolled into Assurance Wireless' Lifeline plan, which will provide 250 free minutes of talk time and 250 free text messages per month. The customer will then get the initial $20 back as a credit to be used whenever he or she exceeds the talk and text limits.
  "I would prefer it to be free, but this at least opens the door," said Dufty. He said he would explore if other funding sources could backfill the up-front $20 charge.
  Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 3.6(7 votes)
OVERDOSE: The Next Financial Crisis
  Link to Article
  Source: The Daily Bail
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:08
  Winner - Best Documentary - San Francisco Frozen Film Festival
  Bring on the debt.
  Documentary film starring Gerald Celente, Peter Schiff, David Walker, Vernon Smith, Karen Horn, and Robert Van Order.
  In times of crisis people seek strong leaders and simple solutions. But what if the solutions are identical to the mistakes that caused the crisis? Overdose is the story of the greatest economic crisis of our age, the one that awaits us.
  When the world's financial bubble blew, the solution was to lower interest rates and pump trillions of dollars into the sick banking system. "The solution is the problem, that's why we had a problem in the first place." For Economics Nobel laureate Vernon Smith, the Catch 22 is self-evident. But interest rates have been at rock bottom for years, and governments are running out of fuel to feed the economy. "The governments can save the banks, but who can save the governments?"
  The storm that would rock the world, began brewing in the US as the housing bubble exploded. "Want that vacation? Wanna buy some new clothes? Use your house as a piggie bank!" Why earn money to pay for your home when you can make money just living in it? With the government covering all losses, you'd have been a fool not to borrow.
  The years of growth had been a continuous party. But when the punchbowl ran dry, instead of letting investors go home to nurse their hangovers as usual, the Federal Reserve just filled it up again with phoney money. For analyst Peter Schiff, the consequence of the spending binge was crystal clear: "we're in so much trouble now because we got drunk on all that Fed alcohol." Yet along with other worried experts, he was mocked and derided during the boom.
  Governments promised decisive action, the biggest financial stimulus packages in history, gargantuan bailouts: but what crazed logic is this, propping up debt with...more debt?
  OVERDOSE Director's Page...
  ---
  Version on Vimeo for foreign viewers who are blocked from Youtube videos.
Police Drone Runs Amok
  Link to Article
  Source: LewRockwell.com
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:07
  by Natasha LennardAlterNet
  Editor's note: this incident occurred in March. Sorry for the confusion.
  In a recent investigative report by the Center for Responsive Politics and Hearst newspapers, the authors expressed concern that drones were being pushed into the domestic market before safety and ethics issues had been sufficiently addressed. Such fears were confirmed this week when the first police department in the country to acquire an aerial drone crashed the $300,000 aircraft into its own SWAT team.
  The Montgomery County sheriff's office in Texas had planned a big photo opportunity with their newly acquired surveillance drone. It all went horrible wrong when, according to the Examiner, ''[The] prototype drone was flying about 18 feet off the ground [and] it lost contact with the controller's console on the ground. It's designed to go into an auto shutdown mode '... but when it was coming down, the drone crashed into the SWAT team's armored vehicle.'' (The SWAT team had suited up, armored vehicle on hand, for the purpose of the photo.)
  Read the rest of the article
  December 11, 2012
  Copyright (C) 2012 AlterNet
You're the Guinea Pig
  Link to Article
  Source: LewRockwell.com
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:04
  Bionic Mosquito
  Five years ago, around the time that the visible signs of the current financial mess were becoming painfully obvious for even the most uninformed observer, the Federal Reserve held assets of something under $900 million dollars. In the intervening time, the balance has grown to $2.8 trillion, with most of that growth occurring in the fall of 2008, and a second growth spurt occurring in the first half of 2011. This balance sheet depicts the Federal Reserve form of money printing, as the Fed has acquired assets using digital cash balances created from nothing. The beneficiaries of these purchases are the system banks, receiving these digital balances. During this crisis, the banks have, for the most part, held these balances as excess reserves '' reserves over and above the minimum necessary for regulatory requirements. The excess reserves, historically always at or near zero (meaning credit was provided to the maximum extent) have grown from this negligible amount to $1.6 trillion earlier this year, and now stand at $1.4 trillion.Thus, out of a $1.9 trillion growth in the Fed balance sheet, $1.4 trillion is still held by the banks, with $500 billion lent out and circulating in the system.
  I have speculated that the reason the banks hold excess reserves when this had not been the case previously is because, in fact, these aren't excess. The banks needed the liquidity and perhaps the solvency. Underperforming assets (meaning little or no cash flow relative to balance sheet mark) are held by the banks at values above current market, therefore depicting an excess of assets when in reality this does not exist.
  It appears that the banks are now growing more comfortable with lending these excess reserves, as recent trends show a decrease in these balances. In fact, since the Fed recently announced QE to infinity, it hasn't been the Fed balance sheet that has grown, but instead a reduction of excess reserves. In the meantime, the Fed's stated policy remains '' that of increasing its purchases to the tune of up to $85 billion per month of treasury and agency securities, although it remains to be seen if they act on this policy.
  All of this is background for the issue of withdrawing, one day, the monetary stimulus (money-printing) provided by the Fed over this time. This issue has been raised by inflation hawks from the beginning of this Fed experiment, and was addressed formally by the Fed at times in the past.
  A recent story in Bloomberg addresses this issue:A decision by the Federal Reserve to expand its bond buying next week is likely to prompt policy makers to rewrite their 18-month-old blueprint for an exit from record monetary stimulus.
  Not only has the Fed not removed the increase of $1.9 trillion, it is planning further asset purchases thus further compounding the problem of removing this stimulus in the future. Further, as banks reduce the excess balances by lending these out (to the tune of $500 billion so far), removing the stimulus becomes exponentially more complicated.
  ''There is certainly an issue about unwinding the balance sheet'' in a way that ''is effective and continues to support the recovery without creating inflation,'' St. Louis Fed Bank President James Bullard said in an interview in October.
  There are two issues, 1) the stimulus provided that is held as excess reserves, and 2) the stimulus provided that has been lent out into the economy. Neither can be unwound without slowing down the economy, but the second would be especially problematic.
  The Fed can reduce its balance sheet by selling securities into the market, and retiring the acquired digits to the same place from which they came '' into thin air. To the extent these securities represent excess reserve balances, this will not directly harm bank credit provided to customers.
  However, any such selling program by the Fed will drive prices of the securities down and drive interest rates up, thus removing support from the economy. Further, removing the stimulus that has found its way into bank lending will directly shrink credit provided to the general market, also removing support from the economy.
  As to unwinding without creating inflation, I don't get this statement by Bullard. Everything I understand about monetary policy and economics suggests that it is the risk of deflation that stands in the way of such a policy of unwinding.
  The goal is to return the balance sheet to a pre-crisis size in two to three years and eliminate holdings of housing debt ''over a period of three to five years.''
  This grows ever more difficult if the Fed finally makes good on its QE to infinity pledge, and compounds as the banks reduce their excess reserve balance via lending into the market. There is direct evidence of the latter, and so far only lip-service to the former.
  ''The exit is going to take a long time,'' said Stephen Oliner, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and former Fed Board senior adviser.
  Not just a long time. The Fed is five years into this gamble-the-civilized-world-and-potentially-destroy-the-division-of-labor experiment, and so far every indication and action continues to move against an exit.
  ''We are deep into experimentation at this point,'' Oliner said. ''It's understandable that people are worried.''
  It is quackery. They don't know what they are doing and they have even less idea of how to get out of the mess they made.Reprinted with permission from the Bionic Mosquito.
  December 11, 2012
  Copyright (C) 2012 Bionic Mosquito
Post-mortem due after nurse death
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:03
  11 December 2012Last updated at00:02 ETA post-mortem examination is due to take place later on the nurse who was found dead after taking a hoax call about the Duchess of Cambridge.
  Jacintha Saldanha was found dead on Friday, three days after taking the call from Australian radio presenters Michael Christian and Mel Greig.
  Mrs Saldanha's family made a private visit to King Edward VII's Hospital in London, where she worked, on Monday.
  The hospital has launched a memorial fund to support the nurse's family.
  A memorial service in her honour will be held later this week.
  John Lofthouse, chief executive of King Edward VII's Hospital, said: "A senior member of staff is comforting the family and offering assistance and will continue to do so for as long as needed.
  "We have also established the Jacintha Saldanha Memorial Fund. There has been an overwhelming outpouring of support for the family from around the world, and this fund will enable people to make a donation.
  "The fund will go to helping Jacintha's husband and children at this terrible time."
  Continue reading the main storyPhil MercerBBC News, Sydney
  Millions of Australians watched the prime-time royal hoax tragedy interviews. While DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian have been subjected to intense hostility online, the temper of the traditional media is far more conciliatory and sympathetic to the embattled duo following their tearful TV apology.
  "It's the station management that should take the responsibility," insists Mike Carlton, a former radio broadcaster. "They were kids rushing in where rather wiser and older angels might have feared to tread."
  As the fallout continues, the Sydney Morning Herald is urging the authorities here not to overreact. "The tragedy should not be used by the regulators in our midst to introduce even more controls over the media," writes columnist Gerard Henderson.
  Commenting on the castigation of Greig and Christian on social media, Sydney's Daily Telegraph says "the orgy of abuse, posturing and cant'... is completely unsurprising given the modern enthusiasm for joining the lynch mob".
  He added: "I know that the family have received huge support from their local community and church. We will be holding a memorial service for Jacintha later this week.
  "We understand that the family are distraught and need time to reflect on the assistance they require. King Edward VII's Hospital will remain here for them whenever, wherever and however they need us."
  The Duchess of Cambridge was taken to King Edward VII's Hospital last Monday suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, an extreme form of morning sickness.
  In the early hours of Tuesday, Mrs Saldanha answered the Australian presenters' call and, believing they were members of the Royal Family, put them through to another nurse, who gave an update on the duchess's condition in detail.
  Mrs Saldanha, 46, was pronounced dead on Friday morning at staff accommodation close to the hospital. An inquest into her apparent suicide is due to be opened in the next few days.
  The family of Mrs Saldanha said in a statement that "we as a family are deeply saddened by the loss of our beloved Jacintha".
  Labour MP Keith Vaz, who has visited Mrs Saldanha's husband Benedict Barboza and their two children at their home in Bristol, said: "They will love her and cherish her and take her to India for burial."
  Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
  Michael Christian and Mel Greig's emotional interview with Australian TV
  He said Mrs Saldanha's family were Mangalorean Catholics - originating from the city of Mangalore in India - and he said they were a "small, strong family".
  In the hoax call, Mr Christian and Ms Greig had pretended to be Prince Charles and the Queen asking about the duchess in hospital, who has since been allowed home.
  They said in a tearful interview with Australian television broadcast on Monday that they were "gutted and heartbroken" over the death of Mrs Saldanha.
Young-adult readers may have abandoned print, but they'll take news in their pockets
  Link to Article
  Source: Nieman Journalism Lab
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:01
  Dec. 11, 2012, 12:01 a.m.
  A new study from Pew also finds that men, the college-educated, and those with higher incomes are more likely to engage with news on smartphones and tablets.
  Since the rise of the Internet, print media '-- most notably newspapers '-- have faced a big problem with younger readers. But according to a new study released today by the Pew Research Center, when you look specifically at the devices they love '-- the smartphones in their pockets '-- young adults rival or even surpass their parents and grandparents as news consumers.
  According to the report from Pew's Project in Excellence in Journalism, 37 percent of smartphone owners between the ages of 18 and 29 get news on their devices daily, along with 40 percent of smartphone owners aged 30 to 49. Those are slightly higher than the equivalent rates for 50-64 (31 percent) and 65-plus (25 percent). Among tablet owners, news consumption numbers were broadly similar across age groups, with 50- to 64-year-olds being the peak news consumers.
  There's more good news for media companies hoping to reach younger readers: They are more likely to share the news they read on mobile devices and to engage with ads on smartphones and tablets. For ads in particular, readers 18-29 were twice as likely to ''at least sometimes'' touch an ad on a tablet than people 30-49.
  Use of mobile devices has been on the rise for some time, as has growing use of phones and tablets as the main method of going online. Pew's new findings again reinforce the importance of mobile to the future of journalism, but it also points to new opportunities for media companies.
  The data comes from a survey of 9,513 adults, 4,638 of whom owned a mobile device, between June and August of this year.
  Pew found many positive signs when it comes to reading on mobile devices: Over a third of the survey respondents said they got news daily on tablet or smartphone. A quarter of 18-29 year-olds tablet owners surveyed said they read ebooks on them daily, higher than people in any other age group. Almost one third of users under 50 said they ''sometimes'' read archived magazine articles on their tablet. Overall, Pew found young men were the most active news consumers on tablets and smartphones, reading in-depth articles, watching video, and checking news back with the news multiple times during the day.
  One thing the report makes clear is paying for news remains a tough sell for many readers. As more newspapers incorporate digital subscription plans, readers are facing a number of options for paying for news:
  Our survey found that even among mobile news users, print-only subscriptions outweigh digital. But, 19% of these mobile news users have paid for some form of digital subscription '-- 14% bundled with print and 9% digital only.
  As for subscriptions, the survey reinforces some things we already know: Older people are more likely to pay for news. According to Pew, people over 50 were almost twice as likely as those under 50 to have a print-only subscription. The 50-plus crowd were also more likely to have a print/digital combo: 20 percent of those surveyed said they have bundled subscriptions, compared to only 12 percent of people under 50. A minor bright spot? People under 50 were more likely to go digital only '-- but only 9 percent said they had digital subscriptions, compared to 8 percent of those over 50.
  A sign that may not bode well for the idea of young people's habits changing in a pro-news direction:
  The survey also asked whether the tablet is mostly replacing news that consumers would have gotten elsewhere or is adding to the overall amount of news consumed. Again, one might expect the younger generation, whose news habits are still developing, to be adding to its news consumption more so than older generations. Actually, the reverse is true. Fully 61% of those 65 and older say the news they get on their tablet is adding to their news consumption compared with less than 45% for all other age groups.
  There was an area of agreement across all age groups in the report on the reading experience and design of tablet apps. The survey found that both people over 40 and under 40 preferred a ''print-like'' experience rather than a more interactive layout. (Interesting data in the final week of The Daily's existence.)
  Similar to previous surveys from Pew, readers said they preferred reading on mobile browsers to native apps. But there was good news for fans of native apps as well.
  Roughly 60% of tablet news users and smartphone news users mostly use the browser for news while about a quarter mostly use apps (the rest use a mix). But, the survey also found that app users tend to be more active mobile news consumers, carrying special appeal for news organizations.
  Finally, as in other surveys, Pew found that iPad owners engaged with their devices at a significantly higher rate than owners of Android tablets did. Those with iPads were more likely to use their devices multiple times per day (54 percent to 33 percent for Android) and to use them to consume news daily (48 percent vs. 35 percent).
  Image from Steve Rhodes used under a Creative Commons license.
Tests Call Mislabeled Fish a Widespread Problem in New York
  Link to Article
  Source: NYT > Home Page
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:00
  Fish is frequently misidentified on menus and grocery store counters in New York City, even at expensive restaurants and specialty shops, DNA testing for a new study found. National supermarket chains had the best record for accuracy in seafood labeling, the researchers reported.
  The researchers, from the conservation group Oceana, said that genetic analyses showed that 39 percent of nearly 150 samples of fresh seafood collected from 81 establishments in the city this summer were mislabeled. The study did not identify any of the restaurants or stores, although it noted that most were in Manhattan.
  In some cases, cheaper types of fish were substituted for expensive species. In others, fish that consumers have been urged to avoid because stocks are depleted, putting the species or a fishery at risk, was identified as a type of fish that is not threatened. Although such mislabeling violates laws protecting consumers, it is hard to detect.
  Some of the findings present public health concerns. Thirteen types of fish, including tilapia and tilefish, were falsely identified as red snapper. Tilefish contains such high mercury levels that the federal Food and Drug Administration advises women who are pregnant or nursing and young children not to eat it.
  Ninety-four percent of fish sold as white tuna was not tuna at all but in many cases a fish known as snake mackerel, or escolar, which contains a toxin that can cause severe diarrhea if more than a few ounces of meat are ingested.
  ''There are a lot of flummoxed people out there who are trying to buy fish carefully and trying to shop their conscience, but they can't if this kind of fraud is happening,'' said Kimberly Warner, a senior scientist at Oceana, who led the study.
  She said that Oceana's study might underestimate the prevalence of the problem because researchers primarily solicited samples by asking its New York-area supporters to send in tiny slices of the fish they were eating.
  Andrew Moesel, a spokesman for the New York State Restaurant Association, said that restaurants were victims, too, when it came to fish fraud. ''Restaurants would be very concerned that a high percentage of fish are not what they had ordered,'' he said. ''Unless you're very sophisticated, you may not be able to tell the difference between certain species of fish when you receive them.''
  Seafood is increasingly sold on a global market with a long and complicated supply chain. Experts suggest that much of the mislabeling occurs at sea or where distributors cut up a fish hundreds to thousands of miles away, making a filet's provenance hard to verify.
  But Abigail Lootens, a spokeswoman for the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, said that stores could nonetheless be held accountable, adding, ''Retailers are under an obligation to correctly identify and label what they sell,'' she said.
  The Food and Drug Administration, which is charged with ensuring food safety and setting labeling standards, has been working to curb seafood fraud in recent years, developing new programs to combat such fraud in the past year. It has outfitted its field labs with DNA sequencing equipment and has collected hundreds of fillets from wholesalers for testing to determine the frequency of mislabeling and where to aim enforcement efforts.
  Among the 142 samples collected, tuna and snapper were the most commonly mislabeled fishes, the Oceana study said. Instances of mislabeling were found in samples from all 16 sushi restaurants from which tested fish was obtained.
  The findings are broadly similar to those of studies Oceana has conducted in Los Angeles, Boston and Miami, where 55, 48 and 31 percent of samples, respectively, were mislabeled.
  One finding that surprised the research team was that national chain supermarkets offered less mislabeled seafood than regional chains or small specialty markets. High prices were no guarantee of accurate labeling: one restaurant in the highest price range offered red snapper on its menu but, according to Oceana, was serving up lowly tilapia.
@southern__bread: Reading... Transforming Anger, Part 1 - http://t.co/N7d6SzZz http://t.co/R43Ibybu
  Link to Article
  Source: Twitter / southern__bread
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:59
  Introducing EnjoyParenting.com...
  That's the conclusion I've come to after years of studying the best available information on alternative, holistic, and natural parenting '-- applying it with my own family, and coaching like-minded parents.
  Are you saying it doesn't matter how I parent, so long as I enjoy it???
  I'm saying that enjoying IS how you parent when your parenting is most successful.
  Practices that are in harmony with our deeper nature do make a huge difference. I'm a big fan of The Continuum Concept, attachment parenting, and similar approaches. But think about the last time you had an exceptionally "good parenting day"... Weren't you enjoying yourself?
  Well, sure... I enjoyed myself because it was a good parenting day!
  Or maybe it was a good parenting day because you enjoyed it!
  What does the word enjoy really mean? It's something you do, not something done to you. You don't say, "That ice cream enjoyed me!" You say, "I enjoyed it." :)
  Someone else can eat the exact same food that you love... or read the same book that changed your life... or hear the same song that inspires you... and not enjoy it at all. Why? Because to enjoy means to create joy.
  (And by "joy" I mean any feeling of well-being, such as peace, enthusiasm, pleasure, gratitude, love, etc.)
  The more you enjoy parenting, the more joy you are creating! And since children learn best by example (modeling), you're effectively teaching them how to enjoy life. They're developing the active skill of enjoying, which will serve them for a lifetime.
  That sounds wonderful, but sometimes I don't enjoy doing things that my children need me to do. Should I force myself to enjoy these things or just not do them?
  There is a third way that doesn't require any coercion or sacrifice. It's called creating joy unconditionally.
  You've heard of unconditional love, which means loving regardless of external conditions and behaviors. Well, unconditional joy is like that '-- it's loving life unconditionally.
  And it's a skill that anyone can develop!
  Unfortunately, our culture leads us to believe that love and joy are conditional '-- that other people and circumstances have the power to make us feel one way or another.
  But with a little practice, you can learn to create joy for no other reason than your desire to feel good!
  (And true unconditional joy is expansive enough to embrace your deepest hurts and darkest shadows. This is not about "putting on a happy face" and denying so-called "negative" emotions.)
  Almost like magic, when you learn to enjoy parenting unconditionally, you disengage from the conditional mindset and reverse the apparent order of cause and effect! You no longer feel like a victim of circumstances. Difficult behavior, unsupportive people, and other adverse conditions no longer cause you to suffer.
  Rather, when you "put the cart before the horse" and deliberately enjoy parenting despite adverse conditions, the effect is that conditions gradually improve:
  You become more relaxed and creative, easily finding new ways for both you and your kids to have what you want.Your children's behavior changes over time as they follow your lead and begin creating their own joy unconditionally.Unsupportive people either change or leave, and you begin to attract more supportive and satisfying relationships into your life.What if my child is upset, hurt, or acting out? Am I supposed to enjoy that?
  Only in the sense that you intend to bring joy to the situation. When you can connect with your intrinsic well-being no matter what, you will always be able to help your child find a way back to his or her own well-being.
  And when your joy is truly unconditional, there is no pressure on your child to move through the process faster than he or she is able. But it probably will go faster because authentic joy is profoundly attractive '-- your child will want to be where you are!
  Okay... I'm starting to see how it could work, but it seems like it would be hard to enjoy myself with all the problems I face every day.
  Believe me, I know what you mean! I learned the hard way that creating joy unconditionally is EASY... once you have the kind of mindset that allows it.
  There's the rub: establishing a new mindset while you're immersed in the culture that created the old one. That takes an extraordinary level of desire and commitment to achieve.
  Getting out of an old rut and into a "new groove" is a lot easier if you have a supportive environment. It's like learning a new language: you're more likely to succeed if you immerse yourself in an environment where the language is spoken.
  So how do I immerse myself in this new way of thinking? How can I learn to enjoy parenting under any conditions?
  By looking for opportunities to interact with others who are on the same path.
  I created EnjoyParenting.com to attract like-minded parents and make it easy and fun to get immersed in the mindset of unconditionality. And you'll feel at home because everything here is grounded in the principles of natural, holistic parenting.
  Currently, the most popular resource here is The Daily Groove mailing list '-- a brief, practical, inspiring message sent to you every weekday by email. To subscribe, click here '-- it's FREE!
  If you want more personalized support, I offer private coaching sessions by telephone. Personal coaching is a powerful way to accelerate your progress. (Some of my clients shared their experiences here.)
  I also offer an affordable online support program that includes group coaching, private coaching, and tons of useful resources, including an extensive library of audio recordings and writings on a wide variety of parenting topics. It's called the PATH Program, and besides being a treasure trove of resources, it's a vibrant online community of leading-edge parents with whom you can share inspiration and feel a sense of belonging that's difficult to find in the mainstream world.
  That's a lot to choose from! Where do I begin?
  I recommend you begin HERE...
  Enjoy!
  ~Scott Noelle
Acteur G(C)rard Depardieu, nu in de rol van 'belastingbelg'
  Link to Article
  Source: VK: Home
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:58
  Door: Ariejan Korteweg '' 11/12/12, 06:00
  (C) ap. G(C)rard Depardieu
  Obelix bij de Belgen! Al maanden ging het gerucht dat acteur G(C)rard Depardieu (63) van zins zou zijn zich in Belgi te vestigen. Sinds dit weekeinde is het zeker. Daniel Senesael, burgemeester van Estaimpuis, vertelde dat Frankrijks meest geliefde acteur zich in het gehucht N(C)chin heeft gevestigd, op (C)(C)n kilometer van de Franse grens.
  (C) afp.
  (C) afp.
  Volgens de burgemeester is G(C)g(C) - zoals de Fransen hem noemen - gevallen voor de charmes van het kasteel, de buurtbakker en het dorpscaf(C) van N(C)chin. Anderen beweren dat de acteur op de vlucht is geslagen voor de plannen van de regering-Hollande, die over inkomens boven (C)(C)n miljoen euro per jaar 75 procent belasting gaat heffen.
  Ongeveer vijfduizend vermogende Fransen namen al de wijk naar Belgi, waar bezit en nalatenschap niet extra worden aangeslagen. Onlangs nog was er sprake van dat Bernard Arnault, eigenaar van luxeconcern LVMH en op drie na rijkste man ter wereld, 'belastingbelg' zou worden.
  Bakstenen gevaarteDepardieu zou het vroegere douanehuis van N(C)chin hebben gekocht, een imposant bakstenen gevaarte, dat met zijn dichtgemetselde ramen en deuren nog niet direct aan het optrekje van een filmster doet denken.
  Om in aanmerking te komen voor het Belgische belastingregime hoeft Depardieu niet de Belgische nationaliteit aan te nemen, mits hij minstens 180 dagen per jaar in zijn nieuwe vaderland verblijft. Hij liet zich vrijdag in het dorpshuis van N(C)chin op de foto zetten, de armen om de schouders van zijn nieuwe dorpsgenoten geslagen. Het tgv-station van Lille en het vliegveld van Lesquin zijn er binnen handbereik, 24 procent van de inwoners van N(C)chin heeft de Franse nationaliteit.
  DrankDepardieu leidt een turbulent leven. Vorige week nog werd hij in Parijs gearresteerd omdat hij met zijn scooter een botsing had veroorzaakt, en naar later bleek te veel gedronken had. Drank speelt sowieso een grote rol in zijn leven. Een tijdje terug plaste hij op een trans-Atlantische vlucht tot ontsteltenis van zijn medepassagiers in het gangpad van het vliegtuig.
  Ook politiek is hij onorthodox. Zijn 63ste verjaardag vierde hij met de Tsjetsjeense dictator Kadyrov. Onlangs nam hij een duet op met GooGoosha, de schatrijke dochter van Islam Karimov, alleenheerser over Oezbekistan; hij fluistert haar lieve Franse woordjes in het oor.
  Tijdens de Franse presidentscampagne was hij een van de zeldzame artiesten die openlijk Sarkozy steunden. Bij dat alles is hij zeer productief als acteur. Hij speelde in 170 films, waarvan er veel succesvol waren. Zijn recentste rol is die van Obelix in Asterix, in dienst van Hare Majesteit. Binnenkort vertolkt hij Dominique Strauss-Kahn in een speelfilm van Abel Ferrara.
Royal nurse's suicide: is there something we're not being told here?
  Link to Article
  Source: A diary of deception and distortion
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:54
  The Slog asks what many of us may be thinking: was Jacintha Saldanha corporately abused after the hoax call?
  This may be yet another of those posts that leaves people baffled by my apparent heartlessness, but I need to ask a question:
  Why did King Edward VII's Hospital nurse Jacintha Saldanha feelthe need to kill herself?
  She obviously felt humiliated by falling for the Aussie radio station 2Day FM's prank, but was it really something worth getting suicidal about?
  Let's just analyse closely and forensically the total fallout from her error:
  1. She answered some questions about Catherine Windsor's state of health. This information was already in the public domain.
  That's it.
  Now take a look at the exact statement the hospital released immediately after Mrs Saldanha's suicide: it said that the nurse who died was the person who first took the hoax call and transferred it through to Catherine's ward, adding that she had worked there for more than four years as an ''excellent nurse,'' who was well respected by co-workers.
  The hospital ''had been supporting her throughout this difficult time,'' the statement said.
  This statement came from the hospital's public relations agency. Ah, right. Not that unusual in this odd age we inhabit I suppose: but I'm left wondering why an excellent nurse admired by her colleagues would be suffering such rock-bottom self-esteem, she would feel the need to kill herself.
  Also concerning was the release from St James Palace. A spokesman there said: ''The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Jacintha Saldanha. Their Royal Highnesses were looked after so wonderfully well at all times by everybody at King Edward VII Hospital, and their thoughts and prayers are with Jacintha Saldanha's family, friends and colleagues at this very sad time.''
  Separately, a palace spokesman told CNN: ''At no point did the palace complain to the hospital about the incident. On the contrary, we offered our full and heartfelt support to the nurses involved and hospital staff at all times.''
  It seems to me there's an awful lot of protesting going on here. We supported her, we didn't complain'....who accused you of doing either thing? At no time has any media title or contractor asked:
  1. Was Jacintha suffering from depression?
  2. Who spoke to her professionally after the incident, and why?
  3. Were the Royals upset enough to have made their feelings clear to either the management or the nurse?
  Yet this would be the obvious thing to do. Imagine what the media response might be if a Cup Final referee gave a free kick of no great import, the replay showed he was wrong, and the guy killed himself?
  As far as I can see, almost nothing in the vilification of the Aussie DJs and the death of this obviously skilled lady makes any sense at all when you hold it up to the light. If I burst a balloon behind a snooker player during practice, and he takes out a gun and shoots himself, do I deserve the world's press on my case?
  But overnight, I note from Sky News, ''Police in London have contacted their Australian counterparts with a view to interviewing the pair [of DJs] ahead of an inquest into Ms Saldanha's death.'' I'm sorry, but this is absolutely ridiculous. And now, God help us, we have the oily Keith Vaz bleeding all over the late Ms Saldanha's presumably bewildered family.
  The main media obsession appears to be why on earth do DJs do this sort of thing, and why did Hospital procedures not preclude something like this happening. This in itself is a reflection of the abiding attitude in our elite's culture: everything must be legislated for, and anyone or anything getting in the way of that must be castigated. It seems fine for politicians to create totally foreseeable disasters, but failing to see the unimaginable consequences of an everyday prank must be severely punished.
  I would be genuinely interested in all reasonable thread comments. Without doubt, this is a tragedy, and I'm not trying to make light of it. But my water tells me more elements of this case may yet come to light.
  About these adsLike this:Be the first to like this.
Christmas Story
  Link to Article
  Source: Clusterfuck Nation
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:49
  On Saturday, the town next to us, Cambridge, New York, put on its annual Christmas breakfast in the main theater of its old opera house, Hubbard Hall. Cambridge is a farming town in a farming economy that died and is just beginning to be re-born. The town occupies a landscape of tender hollows and gentle hills that rise toward the Green Mountains of Vermont twenty miles east. This topography allowed a specialty economy of seed husbandry to thrive. Each little hollow, like a little isolation ward, could be used to cultivate pure seed strains of a vegetable untainted by other varieties. The modest red-brick factory in the center of town was never a smokestack industry. It was a seed-sorting and packing operation. Today, the "re-purposed" building occupies a very mixed assortment of activities: a specialty woodworking shop, a health club full of cardio machines, and artist's studios. The town - indeed, much of Washington County - has attracted bohemians over the years. It is just a little too distant from New York City to have been taken over by weekenders, and my guess is that the way things are going the danger of that is now past. Of course, bohemian artists are generally not wealthy and a glance down Main Street shows all the usual signs of distress visible in the shattered economies of small towns around the region. Many of the operating storefronts are antique shops - an effort to wring residual value from emptying the attics and barns of homesteads under-occupied and under utilized, the strip-mining of history. Many of the big wooden houses, typical of the 19th century when large inter-generational families were the norm, are slowly decrepitating. They require a lot of expensive maintenance, which has been impossible for decades now, and it shows. Hubbard Hall, a big wooden heap with its Second Empire mansardic tower, was erected in 1878 for the traveling shows and vaudevilles of the day and shuttered in the 1920s. It was rescued from oblivion in the 1970s and has evolved into a very busy center for the lively arts, which now includes two other buildings, freight barns adjacent to the defunct railroad station. There's a ballet studio, a music rehearsal room, a room for kids' art classes, and a separate building for contra dances. The programming is very rich. The old theater, where at least four plays and sometimes operas are performed by a capable local troupe each year, is the heart of the operation and that is where last week's Christmas breakfast was held. It is the kind of gathering place for people that could never be built now under the absurd burden of our construction codes. And that is finally what I want to talk about here: the magnificence of the room itself and how it affects the beating life of this struggling community. Unlike the depressing "facilities" most of our festivals take place in around the USA - the gymnasiums and Holiday Inn "function rooms" with their extraneous furnishings, acoustical ceilings studded with fire-prevention shower heads, off-gassing carpets, and atrocious fluorescent lighting - Hubbard Hall has a lofty painted ceiling and a graceful swooping wooden balcony in the rear. The proscenium arch is decorated in floral motifs out of the William Morris pattern book. The big room smells like old wood and history and the stairs to it creak musically. For seventeen years, the town has put on a Christmas breakfast devised to celebrate the culture of a foreign land, mostly for the sake of the children who grow up in a town that is, in the language of social services, ethnically un-diverse. This year it was Poland. Now, it happens that I joined a string band about a year ago that practices every week and plays for the monthly contra dance. I play fiddle, an instrument that is easy to play badly. We practiced four Polish folk dance tunes for the month preceding and rehearsed with the dancers, a troupe of middle school girls, once. I was not prepared for how splendid the event turned to be. The theater walls were decorated with pine boughs. Little electric lights and swags of pine edged the apron of the stage and the balcony rail. Many tables were set where the audience usually sits (the chairs are movable), covered with table-cloths, with a big platter of Christmas cookies at the center of each. Children about ten or eleven circulated with platters of pirogies and strudels. The bustle of life in that room was enchanting. There were two seatings at the breakfast, nine and eleven, both of them very full. The program on stage was a mixed bag of dance, story-telling, puppetry, and musical performance, all done surprisingly well and with the wonderful (C)lan of people who know and care about each other. When both seatings were over, our little band broke spontaneously into Christmas carols, which we hadn't practiced at all, and somehow managed to play pretty well as the townspeople drifted toward the exits. I maintain that there is something about the room itself, its small-scale magnificence, that honored the presence of the people in it, and amplified all the pleasures of being together for the purpose of festivity. America these days is mostly composed of places that are not neutral as they seem, but positively hostile and antagonistic to what is most human in us - the mechanism that produces love. To quote myself from a book published some time ago, we built a nation of scary places and became a land of scary people. Thus, we are truly fortunate that the long emergency is upon us, because now circumstances will compel us to do things differently.____________________________________
GENERAL AQUINO, PAUL BONACCI, DUTROUX, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL...
  Link to Article
  Source: aangirfan
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:44
  In Belgium, Member of Parliament Laurent Louis publicised a list of names that an 'anonymous' group sent to all parliamentarians in Belgium.The list was of all the people ALLEGEDLY involved in the Dutroux affair.
Was Jacintha Saldanha killed? | EU
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:30
  UPDATE '' Ben Fellows has submitted a post which gives crucial information as to what's going on behind the scenes this weekend with the Leveson Enquiry.
  http://the-tap.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/breaking-leveson-is-going-to-set-you-up.html
  Leveson is going to use Jacintha Saldanha's death as a pretext for ending press freedom in Britain, he suggests. Now there's a motive for arranging an unlikely suicide.Julia writes - I have had something on Facebook which I cannot yet verify, and may need further investigation.
  Jacintha Saldanha
  Mail '' Jacintha Saldanha, 46, was pronounced dead at an address near the private King Edward VII Hospital, where the Duchess of Cambridge was treated, at around 9.30am yesterday.
  Julia - Apparently a nurse has committed suicide because she divulged information about Kate's medical care. My Facebook link says Kate was implanted with twins.This fits quite well. Why was Kate in hospital? Surely the only reason she was in hospital, and not visited at home, would be for some sort of surgery?
  Why was the nurse hounded so much that she took her own life, or was she bumped off? The fact that she is now dead seems to highlight the seriousness of the information that she knew.
  The people that tricked her into giving the information, some Aussie news presenters, are getting the blame for the Nurse's death. Spotlight moved to wrong place, as usual, away from the real criminals.
  distraught nurses after hearing of their colleague's deathUPDATE - Was the nurse given a Royal telling off? Why did she have to take calls anyway? It's all just beyond belief. The Independent wrote earlier -
  Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge were reported to be angry at the intrusion TAP - maybe it's time one tried not to take oneself so seriously.WASP -
  On checking what new stuff is in the papers I saw this.
  Kate and William 'deeply saddened' to hear 'excellent' nurse who put through Australian DJs' hoax call has been found dead in suspected suicide
  Sound Highly Dodgy don't you think.
  GORDON too -
  Hi Tap,
  Nurse on the switchboard found dead 2 days after revealing information
  about Kate's condition to DJs from Aus. Sounds mighty suspicious to
  me. What did she reveal? Mmm, the mind boggles. Could this be a
  warning to the DJs that if they blow the whistle they'll get the same.
  Kind regards,
  TAP - Did she arrange the call with the Aussie radio station and set up the call in advance? Was she regarded as a risk that might reveal something else to the media about the patient's treatment? Would a mature trained nurse commit suicide over putting through a call by chance? Would such a person commit suicide at all?
  More likely someone decided to stop her revealing some other information.
  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244608/Kate-Middleton-hospital-receptionist-duped-Australian-DJs-prank-dies-suspected-suicide.htmlTAP - this post won't edit for some reason and keeps losing its spacings.
  The nurse who died yesterday in a suspected suicide was described as a 'lovely lady' who was committed to her family.
  Jacintha Saldanha was found dead at King Edward VII hospital's staff lodgings.
  Only three days before her death, the 46-year-old nurse had transferred a hoax call from two Australian DJs who obtained intimate details about Kate Middelton while she was staying at the hospital.
  Tributes poured in for the mother of two today, as her Indian family talked about their heartbreak.
  Mrs Saldanha lived in Bristol with her partner Benedict Barboza, a 49-year-old hospital accountant, also known as Ben.
  Jacintha's mother-in-law Carmine Barboza, 69, said she was told about the death when Benedict called her last night.
  Speaking from her home in Udupi, Karnataka, south west India, she said: 'We got a call last night from Benedict informing us that Jacintha had died. He was crying and couldn't speak much.
  'We don't know whether we'll be able to bring her dead body back to India but we desperately hope so.
  'We spoke to Benedict again this morning and he said he hasn't been allowed to see her body yet because of legal formalities and she'll not be handed over before Monday.
  'We want to bring her dead body to India to perform her last rites.'
  She said that the couple spent last new year with the family in Udupi along with their son Junal, 16, and 14-year-old daughter.
  Talking about her daughter-in-law, Mrs Barboza said: 'Jacintha was a very caring woman. She used to call us every Sunday without fail. We just cannot believe what has happened.'
  Scroll down for video
  Family grief: Jacintha Saldanha's Indian family, pictured, was informed about her death last night when her partner Benedict called in tears
  Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244999/Tributes-nurse-Jacintha-Saldanha-committed-suicide-transferring-prank-Australian-DJs.html#ixzz2EU56CFsb Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Who killed Jacintha Saldanha? | Independent Australia
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:25
  British arrows are trained on scapegoat Australian radio presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian for the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha, but Tess Lawrence says the real culprits are much closer to home.
  By contributing editor-at-large Tess Lawrence
  AN OPEN LETTER TO LORD GLENARTHUR AND ROYAL SECURITY PERSONNELWho 'killed' nurse Jacintha Saldanha?
  Was it an apparent 'assisted suicide', in the sense that she was tipped over the edge because she couldn't cope with the ridicule, ignominy and aftermath of being duped into thinking it was really the Queen who called the King Edward VII Hospital at 5.30am on Tuesday morning to enquire after the health of the Duchess of Cambridge?
  It seems that all arrows British are now trained on scapegoat 2DayFM radio presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian.
  I'm going to take some hits for them on this one.
  It is as utterly disingenuous and malicious to blame them for any collateral damage as it is to blame Bradley Manning, Wikileaks and Julian Assange for exposing the truth. Such claims are ultimately hypocritical opprobrium.
  If anyone is to 'blame' '' and such a dangerous and prejudicial judgement cannot be made at this stage, since few of us are in possession of the material facts '' such blame does not fall upon Greig and Christian. And on this latter point, evidence has already been tendered.
  The digital lynch mob is on the march. And we are not far enough from the madding cloud.
  The hysteria and outrage from the British media, hospital executives, including the Lord Glenarthur and now the UK constabularly, is nothing more than a carefully orchestrated campaign designed to deflect attention offshore (and where better than the uncouth Antipodes, a former colony and still under the royal warrant) to protect the real culprits, whose incompetence and dereliction of both duty and care led to the prank's success and was compounded by the subsequent inept management of the scenario.
  The late Jacintha Saldanha and her boss Lord Glenarthurs
  Remember that The King Edward VII Hospital Sister Agnes, named for Queen Victoria's least liked (by her) child, has for decades since taken care of various members of the Royal Family, as well as military veterans.
  Thus, the hospital is familiar with royal protocols and the need for absolute discretion and officially sanctioned medical updates.
  Their royal patients have included the Queen and her sister Princess Margaret, Prince Philip, Kate's father-in-law Prince Charles, and the Queen Mother.
  Whilst the hospital has little jurisdiction over incoming calls '• it certainly has absolute authority, responsibility and control, over whomsoever answers those calls.
  There are a number of disturbing aspects to this horrible tragedy that should be included in public discourse.
  That a former Thatcher Government minister, the hospital's Governor, Lord (Simon) Glenarthur should publicly admonish his counterpart on 2Day FM radio is offensive and irresponsible.
  The Tenterfield Star was one of many media outlets around the world that reproduced the text of the Lord's letter to Max Moore-Wilton, chairman of 2DayFM's parent company Southern Cross Austereo.
  I am writing to protest in the strongest possible terms about the hoax call made from your radio station, 2Day FM, to this hospital last Tuesday.
  King Edward VII's Hospital cares for sick people, and it was extremely foolish of your presenters even to consider trying to lie their way through to one of our patients, let alone actually make the call.
  Then to discover that, not only had this happened, but that the call had been pre-recorded and the decision to transmit approved by your station's management, was truly appalling.
  The immediate consequence of these premeditated and ill-considered actions was the humiliation of two dedicated and caring nurses who were simply doing their job tending to their patients.
  The longer term consequence has been reported around the world and is, frankly, tragic beyond words.
  I appreciate that you cannot undo the damage which has been done but I would urge you to take steps to ensure that such an incident could never be repeated.
  Note that he makes no such undertaking in relation to his own organisation.
  That this is a contrived and well-spun letter is patently obvious. Glenarthur avoids mentioning poor Jacintha Saldanha by name, or the fact she is now dead. He sheets all the blame to 2DayFM and apportions none to himself. Nice one m'Lord.
  Given that this same hereditary peer was once Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, his accusatory bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired '• especially since it was his Lordship's hospital and the Royal Security detail of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge who unequivocably remain at fault.
  QUESTIONS FOR LORD GLENARTHURSSome questions, your Lordship, to which I presume you already have the answers, otherwise you surely would not have been so confident in blaming 2DayFM.
  Did Jacintha Saldanha commit suicide?How and why do you know/presume this?If so, how did she commit suicide?Did she take an overdose or take poison?Had she discussed suicide with her colleagues?Had Jacintha Saldanha been suspended and/or relieved of her duties?Had she been suspended without pay?What shifts had Jacintha Saldanha been working, leading up to the phone call?Had she been working a succession of nights?Is it true that Indian/foreign nurses work the worst shifts at your hospital and that those with particular visa issues are particularly vulnerable and compromised in terms of long hours?Has the King Edward VII Hospital been engaged in severe cost cutting and staff cutbacks?Given that a phalanx of international print and electronic media were keeping a 24/7 vigil outside the hospital why wasn't a briefed receptionist on duty ?How much money did you save by not having a receptionist on duty, Lord Glenarthur? Enough to stack up favourably against the life of a human being?Is it true that Jacintha Saldanha and the other nurse who spoke to the radio hosts received a humiliating and severe reprimand from hospital management for their gaffe and gullibility?Is it true that they were accused of bringing the hospital into disrepute and subjecting it to ridicule?Is it true that they were told that in a single day they had trashed the noble heritage of the hospital?Is it true that both nurses were told their behaviour, conduct and ''stupidity'' made it doubtful that the hospital would ever again enjoy royal patronage?What was the extent of counselling offered to the nurses?What was the level of expertise of such counsel?What steps did the hospital take to cocoon, debrief and protect the nurses from the burgeoning media and political fallout?What instructions, protocols and briefings had hospital management put in place with staff in relation to any enquiries and access to the Duchess of Cambridge?Were all/any staff contacted by text and/or email by hospital management prior to or during the stay by the Duchess of Cambridge ?Were all staff contacted by text and/or email by hospital management after the prank call?Have all staff been counselled after the death of Jacintha Saldanha?Why wasn't a suicide watch placed on both nurses?Can you confirm that any counsellors you provided for the two nurses deemed both women not to be a suicide risk?Why did hospital management allow Jacintha Saldanha to go home alone after the prank phone call and all the fallout, to the empty nurses accommodation block, knowing that her family were living miles away in Bristol.Is it true that you contacted hospital CEO John Lofthouse and gave him a blast?Is it true that you then took over management of the situation and insisted on appearing at the Press Conference with Lofthouse?Is it true that you were annoyed at a statement Lofthouse issued after the hoax call, where he was pretty relaxed about the whole thing and that the video he recorded annoyed you even more ?This from The Guardian:
  King Edward VII's Hospital Sister Agnes can confirm that an Australian radio station made a hoax call to the hospital in the early hours of Tuesday morning. This call was transferred through to a ward and a short conversation was held with one of the nursing staff. King Edward VII's hospital deeply regrets this incident.
  John Lofthouse, chief executive, said: ''This was a foolish prank call that we all deplore. We take patient confidentiality extremely seriously and we are now reviewing our telephone protocols.
  He later filmed a video message in which he said: ''Our nurses are caring and professional, and not used to coping with this sort of journalistic trickery.
  Admitting that ''technically it is a breach of patient confidentiality'', he maintained that the information given in the hoax call was ''already in the public domain.
  ''I've received advice that what the Australian broadcasters did may well have broken the law. On the other hand they've apologised for it so we're going to have a long and careful think about what, if anything, we do,'' Lofthouse said.
  Did hospital management and/or Lord Glenarthur contact 2DayFM before the death of Jacintha Saldanha to complain about the broadcast of the prank call?
  Are you aware that according toThe Age online (also part of the Fairfax group), Austereo CEO Rhys Holleran told 2Day FM's Melbourne sister station, 3AW that what had happened was ''a deeply tragic, unforseen circumstance'', but that he was satisfied that the appropriate checks were conducted before the pre-recorded segment was broadcast.
  ''It is absolutely true to say that we actually did attempt to contact those people on multiple occasions. We rang them up to discuss what we had recorded. We attempted to contact them on no less than five occasions. We did want to speak to them about it'...''
  Lord Glenarthur made what is known in crisis management as a pre-emptive strike.
  And the helpful presence of Lord (Brian) Leveson on Terra Australis, relatively fresh from completing the Leveson Inquiry, provided a contemporary news/legal gravitas to the public debate.
  Given Glenarthur's s own expertise in selling telecommunications and radio security, what happened on his watch at the hospital was not a good advertisement for his business interests.
  The hospital had the dead body of one of its nurses on its fumbling hands.
  Among his many titles and entitlements, Glenarthur is Lieutenant of the Royal Company of Archers.
  But few readers will be aware that Lord Glenarthur is also a non-executive director of Audax Global Solutions, that has a presence in Australia via its partnership with 'ewitness', whose head-cams have been featured on Channel Nine's the Today Show.
  Under its International Telecommunications Gateways heading it boasts [IA emphasis]:
  The second is an International Telecom Supervision Platform which allows volume control; and manages the resource ''Destination Country''. Depending upon the tariff agreed for incoming calls, a Gateway can provide a new and very significant source of revenue for governments. It allows governments to tax local operators on verified traffic figures and controls the ''grey'' market. It also enables the state to supervise and monitor calls.
  Under the heading 'Secure Radio Communications Equipment':
  Audax works with a US-based communications equipment group which supplies specialised radio equipment allowing secure communicationsto take place in country or from country to country. The company is the world's leading supplier of integrated communications systems including secure digital HF, VHF, UHF and multiband radios with extensive networking and data transfer capabilities.
  Audax likes its partners. Another one is Nautic Africa. They build what is described as 'Fast Patrol Boats':
  Nautic Africa specialises in the design and construction of highly customised ships for diverse sectors including Defence, Oil and Gas, fishery protection, Coast Guard, police services, Port Authorities and other commercial sectors.
  '....It designs vessels for any application be they anti-piracy, coast guard, fishery protection, crew transfers to offshore platforms or ferrying of equipment.
  But there's more and, as I'm reading through my research, I'm thinking this company is sounding more like Blackwater or Xx or whatever it's called these days.
  Audax can supply personnel and it can supply gamma ray equipment that it says is so sensitive that it can detect weapons, explosives or drugs through moving vehicles, even when 'working at a distance from the control point.
  And what about detecting radioactive material? No problem. They have a system that is
  'capable of analysing neutrons and gamma rays typically associated with radioactive fissile or dirty bombmaterials. Wireless-enabled, crane-mounted devices ensure that port authorities can identifyimmediately any container which is carrying declared or undeclared nuclear material.'
  The bottom line is, with his extensive military and commercial background, Glenarthur and the King Edward hospital should have been able to properly handle any enquiries or pranks and have had an effective system in place.
  It is clear that if it had been one of Osama bin Laden's wives who called that morning, or someone with malicious intent '' or Dame Edna '' they would have been put through to get an update and find out that Kate's dry-retching had stopped, or whatever.
  Ditto any of the waiting media, loitering with intent.
  And if the hospital was at fault in the second instance, then the Royal Security detail, communications and minders were all at fault in the first.
  They should have overseen and cleared the hospital's protocols.
  It is untenable for the Duchess to have been rendered vulnerable to such a breach of security and invasion of privacy.
  She was let down by the royal and hospital apparatus.
  More importantly, Jacintha Saldanha was let down by her hospital and its management.
  It clearly failed to implement protocols and failed to provide a receptionist.
  The bitter ironies of life cannot escape us. Hundreds of African babies have died in the time since Kate was admitted to hospital with hypermesis gravidarum. I wish we could give all women and their babies equal care and compassion.
  Dyson's poignant cartoon in The Age said it all (see below):
  Much has been written about Jacintha's extended family on her husband's side and I hope the same courtesies and contact have been extended to her own immediate family in India.
  I would like to hear more from them about their daughter.
  It is all a mess of rolling tragedies and ill-writ tales told by we fools.
  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
Washington Post
  Link to Article
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 05:58
  By Delia Lloyd, Published: DECEMBER 08, 6:52 PM ET Aa LONDON -- It's the million-dollar question, and not only here in the U.K. Jacintha Saldanha -- one of the nurses taken in by the prank phone call to the hospital where Catherine, duchess of Cambridge, was being treated for acute morning sickness -- killed herself early Friday. And we are all left scratching our heads. Why did she do it?
  Of course, the first thing we all wonder is about her mental stability. We'd all desperately like to believe that this hard-working mother of two, who commuted 140 miles to her day job, often working double shifts so that she could spend more time with her family -- must have some deep, dark secret to hide. Because then the rest of us could at least explain away an event that is, as the chairman of King Edward VII Hospital put it, ''tragic beyond words.''
  But from what we know, there is no sign that Saldanha was suicidal, unstable or psychologically frail before she took her own life this week. Shy and nervous? Yes. But so depressed she was suicidal? Doesn't sound right, at least according to those who knew Saldanha, who was described at work as ''an excellent nurse, well-respected and popular with all of her colleagues.''
  Maybe she faced some kind of severe sanction from the hospital where she worked? Maybe the hospital blamed her for falling for a hoax in which two Australian DJs masquerading as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles managed to fool the diligent but non-native English speaker, who subsequently passed the phone call on to the Duchess's private nurse, who then revealed details about the duchess's condition?
  WiIliam and Kate leave London's King Edward VII hospital. (Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images)
  Wrong again. According to the BBC, the hospital neither disciplined nor suspended Saldanha. Nor did Buckingham Palace place any pressure on the hospital to do so. Rather, BBC correspondent Nicholas Witchell said that it had been suggested to him by hospital staff that Saldanha felt ''lonely and confused'' as a result of what had happened.
  Which brings us to another explanation -- which seem outlandish, but is widely considered possible: Jacintha Saldanha killed herself because she couldn't live with the guilt of having violated the royal family's privacy.
  To understand why this might be plausible, you need to appreciate just what hallowed ground the royal family holds in this country -- and within it, William and Kate in particular. When the young couple wed two years ago, the event was a nonstop mediathon from the moment they announced their engagement, not to mention on the day itself, when the entire country took a national holiday to take in the spectacle.
  With her gracious manner, middle-class origins and girl-next-door beauty, Catherine has captured the British public's imagination in a way that even her elegant, much-loved, would-have-been mother-in-law, the late Princess Diana, didn't quite manage. And that's because, unlike Lady Di, Kate Middleton is one of us.
  So when the fairy tale princess goes into the hospital with acute morning sickness, we're all on the edge of our seats, because there's so very much riding on her being okay, not to mention the third-in-line-to-the-throne inside her womb.
  Which is a heckuva lot to carry on your shoulders if you're an immigrant nurse who happens to make the wrong decision on a phone call when you're tired and trying too hard and haven't quite mastered the language of the country you live in.
  None of which is to suggest that the royal family is to blame for Jacintha Saldanha's death. Nor do I think it's fair to blame the two Australian DJs, though many people do.
  But perhaps this tragic event will remind all of us to invest a tiny bit less in the private affairs of the royals going forward.
  Doing so won't bring Jacintha Saldanha back. But it will perhaps render her needless death a tiny bit less mysterious.
  Delia Lloyd is an American journalist based in London who was previously the London correspondent for Politics Daily. She blogs about adulthood atwww.realdelia.com, and you can follow her on Twitter@realdelia.
  (C) Copyright 1996-2012 The Washington Post
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Torture Apologist Joe Scarborough Claims 'Zero Dark Thirty' Proves Waterboarding Works
  Link to Article
  Source: Crooks and Liars
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 05:18
  Joe Scarborough is back at it again, apologizing for torture and telling lies about whether it works. Every time I think this show can't get much worse, I turn it on like I did this morning and realize I'm wrong. This had to be one of the more disgusting segments I've watched in a while, and that's saying a lot for this show. Scarborough and his panel members, David Ignatius and Jon Meacham, did their best to help revise history and help Scarborough play torture apologist while discussing the new film coming out this month, Zero Dark Thirty.
  Glenn Greenwald has more on the problems with the premise of this movie: Zero Dark Thirty: new torture-glorifying film wins raves:
  Earlier this year, the film "Zero Dark Thirty", which purports to dramatize the hunt for and killing of Osama bin Laden, generated substantial political controversy. It was discovered that CIA and White House officials had met with its filmmakers and passed non-public information to them - at exactly the same time that DOJ officials were in federal court resisting transparency requests from media outlets and activist groups on the ground that it was all classified.
  With its release imminent, the film is now garnering a pile of top awards and virtually uniform rave reviews. What makes this so remarkable is that, by most accounts, the film glorifies torture by claiming - falsely - that waterboarding and other forms of coercive interrogation tactics were crucial, even indispensable in finding bin Laden.In the New York Times on Sunday, Frank Bruni wrote: "I'm betting that Dick Cheney will love the new movie 'Zero Dark Thirty.'" That's because "'enhanced interrogation techniques' like waterboarding are presented as crucial" to finding America's most hated terrorist. [...]
  The claim that waterboarding and other torture techniques were necessary in finding bin Laden was first made earlier this year by Jose Rodriguez, the CIA agent who illegally destroyed the agency's torture tapes, got protected from prosecution by the DOJ, and then profited off this behavior by writing a book. He made the same claim as "Zero Dark Thirty" regarding the role played by torture in finding bin Laden.
  That caused two Senators who are steadfast loyalists of the CIA - Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein and Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin - to issue statements definitively debunking this assertion. Even the CIA's then-Director, Leon Panetta, made clear that those techniques played no role in finding bin Laden. An FBI agent central to the bin Laden hunt said the same.
  What this film does, then, is uncritically presents as fact the highly self-serving, and factually false, claims by the CIA that its torture techniques were crucial in finding bin Laden. Put another way, it propagandizes the public to favorably view clear war crimes by the US government, based on pure falsehoods.
  And Mediaite's Tommy Christopher did a nice job of breaking down just how dishonest this Morning Joe segment was: Joe Scarborough Claims Zero Dark Thirty Torture Scene True, Screenwriter And Facts Disagree:
  In textbook Morning Joe fashion, the assembled panel debated some of the finer points of Bruni's piece, but none of them challenged Scarborough's assertion that the film proves that torture works, and was crucial to the killing of Osama bin Laden, an assertion that the film's screenwriter admits, and that the facts demonstrate, is false.
  Co-host Mika Brzezinski began with a selective reading of Bruni's piece, in which he describes the depiction of torture:
  It's about finding a needle in a uniquely messy and menacing haystack. ''Enhanced interrogation techniques'' like waterboarding are presented as crucial to that search, and it's hard not to focus on them, because the first extended sequence in the movie shows a detainee being strung up by his wrists, sexually humiliated, deprived of sleep, made to feel as if he's drowning and shoved into a box smaller than a coffin.
  Scarborough then told the panel that Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty ''presents a narrative that is going to make a lot of people in the mainstream media, in the Democratic party and in the administration uncomfortable, and that is the truth that Barack Obama learned, the first briefing that he got after after he won the election, and that is that the CIA program, whether you find it repugnant or not, actually was effective with KSM and other people getting actionable intelligence that led to couriers, that led, eventually, years later, to the killing of Osama bin Laden.''
  Guest panelist David Ignatius added that ''There's no question in the record that the film shows, and in other research that I've done, that the name of the courier who led us to bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad emerged in these harsh interrogations,'' which, as you'll see, is not the same thing as saying we learned his name through torture. We did not.
  Scarborough went on to complain about the years he's had to endure people telling him that torture doesn't work (yeah, that must have been torture), but ''I knew that was just not true. It did get information, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorists, that eventually led to not just the killing of Osama bin Laden, but a lot of victories.''
  He also joked about prisoners being tortured by having to watch three hours of Morning Joe a day, because torture is now hilarious, because Joe Scarborough says this movie proves it works. Except it doesn't, as Zero Dark Thirty screenwriter Mark Boal blithely admits. Read on...
  And last but not least, here's more from Andrew Sullivan on the torture apologists from back in May of 2011: The Big Lie: Torture Got Bin Laden.
Eurozone crisis live: Mario Monti's resignation pledge spooks markets
  Link to Article
  Source: The Guardian World News
  Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:38
  Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti. Photograph: Lionel Cironneau/APGood morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the eurozone financial crisis.
  Mario Monti's pledge to resign as Italy's prime minister is sending shivers through the financial markets already today.
  Italian sovereign debt is being sold off in early trading, pushing up the yield (the measure of borrowing costs) sharply. The yield on Italian 10-year bonds has jumped to 4.79% already, from 4.54% on Friday night.
  That's a significant move (although still a long way from the ' 7% danger zone' where a country's borrowing costs become unaffordable).
  Spanish bonds are also falling in value as the political uncertainty in Italy reverberates across the Eurozone periphery.
  The trigger for the sell-off is Monti's decision to resign following the loss of support from SIlvio Berlusconi's Freedom People party.
  Monti declared over the weekend that he will tender his resignation as soon as the 2013 Italian budget has been approved by parliament.
  As my colleague Tom Kingtonwrote from Rome:
  In a pointed reference to Berlusconi's previous government, Monti warned on Saturday that Italy needed to avoid becoming, once again, "the detonator that could blow up the eurozone".When the Freedom People party withdrew parliamentary support from Monti on Thursday, the difference between German and Italian benchmark bonds rose by 30 points.
  Berlusconi will now launch an aggressive election campaign as he seeks to build his party's popularity back up from 15 per cent, which sees it far behind the centre-left Democratic party and in third place behind the Five Star movement led by comic Beppe Grillo.
  I'll be tracking reaction and latest developments in Italy through the day, along with other key events across the eurozone and the wider economy.
Oil giant says August cyber attack targeted all Saudi
  Link to Article
  Source: Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories
  Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:38
  A flame from a Saudi Aramco oil installion is seen in the desert near the oil-rich area of Khouris in 2008. Saudi Aramco said on Sunday that an August cyber attack on its computer network targeted not just the company but the kingdom's economy as a whole.
  Oil giant Saudi Aramco said on Sunday that an August cyber attack on its computer network targeted not just the company but the kingdom's economy as a whole.
  The interior ministry, which joined Aramco's investigation into the attack that affected some 30,000 of the firm's computers, said it was carried out by organised hackers from several different foreign countries.
  "The attack targeted the whole economy of the country, not just Aramco as an entity," said Abdullah al-Saadan, who headed the company's inquiry team.
  "The aim was to stop pumping oil and gas to domestic and international markets," he told reporters.
  Interior ministry spokesman General Mansur al-Turki said the joint investigation had established that an "organised group launched the attack from outside the kingdom and from different countries."
  "It is in the interest of the investigation not to reveal any results," he told reporters, stressing that "no Aramco employees or contractors were involved in the hacking."
  On August 27, Aramco said it had restored its main internal network after the August 15 attack, which it described as a "malicious virus that originated from external sources."
  The state-owned group which runs all Saudi Arabia's oil production said at the time that its oil exploration and production were unaffected "as they operate on isolated network systems."
  (c) 2012 AFP
Een echt Brussels probleem: wie haalt de Nobelprijs op? - Europese Unie - VK
  Link to Article
  Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:24
  Door: Marc Peeperkorn '' 10/12/12, 06:03
  (C) reuters. Jose Manuel Barroso, Herman van Rompuy en Martin Schulz
  De Nobelprijs voor de Vrede winnen is niet eenvoudig, hem vervolgens in ontvangst nemen evenmin. Althans, voor de Europese Unie. De politieke choreografie die ze hiervoor heeft uitgedacht, is tekenend voor haar politieke cultuur.
  De vreugde en trots over de toekenning van de prijs werd vrijwel onmiddellijk na de bekendmaking al overschaduwd door de vraag: wie gaat het geld en de eremedaille in Oslo ophalen? Een delicate vraag, want eentje naar haar bestaansreden en bestaansrecht: wie is de EU? Is het de Europese Commissie, de brenger van alle Brusselse plannen? Zijn het de lidstaten, die ze opperen en goedkeuren? Het Europees Parlement, dat meebeslist en de burgers vertegenwoordigt? Of zijn het de burgers zelf, in alle landen?
  Geheel conform de Brusselse mores is er stevig onderhandeld met een even evenwichtig als voorspelbaar compromis als resultaat: drie mensen nemen de prijs in ontvangst. EU-president Herman Van Rompuy, voorzitter Jos(C) Manuel Barroso van de Europese Commissie en voorzitter Martin Schulz doen dat vandaag namens alle 500 miljoen EU-burgers.
  DankredeE(C)n probleem getackeld, nog drie te gaan. Wie mag - onder het oog van de internationale media - de dankrede uitspreken? Ook hier is lang over beraadslaagd, met wederom een mooie oplossing: Van Rompuy en Barroso doen dat samen. De EU-president begint, Barroso sluit het af. Hun beider speechschrijvers zijn al weken bezig om er (C)(C)n goedlopend en inspirerend betoog van te maken.
  Dan was er de kwestie: wat met het prijzengeld (bijna 1 miljoen euro) te doen? Hierover werden de onderhandelaars het sneller eens: het gaat naar projecten voor kinderen in oorlogsgebieden. De EU verdubbelt het bedrag tot 2 miljoen. Dat zal via de normale EU-regels voor humanitaire hulp worden besteed.
  RegeringsleidersTot slot was er de vraag: wie gaan er nog meer naar Oslo? Op de laatste EU-top in oktober riep bondskanselier Merkel alle regeringsleiders op aanwezig te zijn. De Britse, Finse en Deense premiers waren juist gecharmeerd van het idee om 27 kinderen ((C)(C)n uit elke lidstaat) te sturen. De leiders kwamen er niet uit met als gevolg dat er vandaag circa 20 EU-leiders in het publiek zitten, onder wie premier Rutte. Niet toevallig blijven de Britse premier Cameron en zijn Tsjechische collega Necas - twee eurosceptici - thuis.
Sheik Khalid Bin Abdel Rehman Al-Hussainan Dead: Al Qaeda Leader Killed By U.S. Drone In Pakistan's Tribal Regions Stuff Ain't Right
  Link to Article
  Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:23
  ~~Yeah, that's a household name. Everyone's talking about that guy down at the plant. The guys are all glad they got that douche bag. Who says there's not room for promotion in that organization????~~
  A U.S. drone strike has killed a senior al-Qaida leader in Pakistan's tribal region near the Afghan border, Pakistani intelligence officials said, in the latest blow to the Islamic militant network.
  Sheik Khalid bin Abdel Rehman al-Hussainan, who was also known as Abu Zaid al-Kuwaiti, was killed when missiles slammed into a house Thursday near Mir Ali, one of the main towns in the North Waziristan tribal area, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
  Al-Kuwaiti appeared in many videos released by al-Qaida's media wing, Al-Sahab, and was presented as a religious scholar for the group.
  Earlier this year, he replaced Abu Yahya al-Libi, al-Qaida's second in command, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan in June, the intelligence officials said. Al-Libi was a key religious figure within al-Qaida and also a prominent militant commander.
  Al-Kuwaiti appeared to be a less prominent figure and was not part of the U.S. State Department's list of most wanted terrorist suspects, as al-Libi had been.
  Covert CIA drone strikes have killed a series of senior al-Qaida and Taliban leaders in Pakistan's tribal region over the past few years. The attacks are controversial because the secret nature of the program makes it difficult to determine how many civilians are being killed.
  via Sheik Khalid Bin Abdel Rehman Al-Hussainan Dead: Al Qaeda Leader Killed By U.S. Drone In Pakistan's Tribal Regions.
  Like this:Be the first to like this.
'Vanuit disco het voetbalveld op'
  Link to Article
  Source: VK: Home
  Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:18
  10/12/12, 06:17 '' bron: Spits
  (C) Thinkstock.
  Mede door de verruiming van sluitingstijden in de horeca en de afterparty's, komen veel jongeren vrijwel rechtstreeks uit de kroeg of discotheek het voetbalveld op. Dat beweren verschillende trainers en spelers uit het amateurvoetbal, schrijft Sp!ts.
  'Als je de hele avond hebt gedronken en je moet voetballen, kan een pilletje wonderen doen. Spelers worden er hyperactief van, maar helaas ook vaak erg agressief', zegt een assistent-trainer. Grensrechter Richard Nieuwenhuizen werd vorige week zaterdag doodgeschopt na een wedstrijd.
  Volgens de stichting tegen Zinloos Geweld spelen drank en drugs zeker een rol, maar is het ook groepsgedrag en corrigeert niemand elkaar meer. De stichting hekelt de instelling van de KNVB. 'We hebben zo vaak aan de bel getrokken om iets te doen, maar ze willen niks.'
INSIDER vs INSIDER: And Shepherds We Shall Be '' For Thee Lord For Thee'...
  Link to Article
  Source: The Ulsterman Report
  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 05:33
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  rW6 #=Mq"@)h4$ewBPV !xÞ‰{x_K|dZUInlË-UW^<<7)ÕƒÝ‡Û�NySly'Qoo<6&E1=Ï›n3'GVÇ­d3,�{4NÛ'qGLg>5-cx&Ilx|Qw6ZL,7W'v7Zkv=;|~|;[~z3,Ì½×†q=0iLYé�>>në¶·oÞ8/L6Ò¬-;+Þ'8JzÌŒS&2nlK;&OM%yM3 /3 S jk;vxV3Z4~z9_pÞŽLBNf8jDSlnY|, }~mÎ'ÞÊ£Ì­voÎ>>lj{Þ¤{;IgnGn.7sEÞ¤tK7,9-^u)ORsIJ3Y=0?<@+)-v!G?aw7NqC>2&v1}(]eR6l,'tsP^Dr^x#k/yENd~O} Z_Ì£$Lqc'( SAPxwW[^Û¸h=jt_4L#d<7Ñ--ZÍ£bQS?/D_É½,.Q[lv]":,cfx`;76d~&'Mdl(!É¶N-')Ä--æ†¾SQmQfyogxM>yGé--¶YÎ‡2l&lb^Ý'!3'š›rS{hGO(K/t|Fc{Nn)Ki75aÝ¤nN1kuhmBl 0Mn(=spH6WØ...g?Û²?)osj^K,j|0AOyAUF[nSTÝ'ë�¾_Mq{{%Nf]4gm_:Í'yAÏ‡[ BbÙs=8­µ$K,G&7}p8rHMb2HBDx`,.n.95Û"hx2&_.N{qwo$f="{'Ñ--?>Vk!0ñ£¤Ì"8È‹fAUfC?7YJhe_8\qkk;S0W^'J<o8+MMÅ£XzVwd1lx~qpmÊ"zQ1*uz/Ä�yO1/smZ^›h<)NcVm%_\jf&,{_ÜŠZ@SW0$ V~qgJG2.mF#[M^ß£05UWIhJNGwqGJ{Ô"H H:gÊ‘;rDWK9.GÚ>>H=x[wÎ¶Uw7VÇ�_`ì½ß¼omNw NoMÛ >^mO*P_AÐ§7w×>>`fÚ¼&'VyCG4mLse0ky{u_L8M10Þ¸OIZ_iP&5}M%jzY=nCYnec{I$Zwv{OAiw+G'TTni2Ô¾ç­›<;q_jG;:K >0eÓ²Z(5P-VÝ·dë†EÑ®_7vJ~+4Ó¹*GW<Ë²É7<Ó...nÑIg~zË(C)I6?^wmw6=0Ý±{Æ–1a2KtmA|Æ½r24Ð°2+;tf".Í/e68YgB2looJ &ÒªmB rm+~q+uw`zDÕ®5`v.3^M;;CMw{1Ë¾VR`b9Ì/:8Ð--b!Ä°rnw=f*wiN;04[xAI7)^mI`e*?7yNÔ'Ë‚.mR <VL9]nQ27#c[R:?+ta]*46hm<_;3`rbn(XIz4|=$6Y~ml Ó‚hq;3Þ--aa~MP9mn"/4È®+Pqwg.o&r^V8ÚÅ'UBA|x<-@<\\"VYLÒ¬B&IN=w]##p`p;w:9>%kRnÜ¾~j$6uáŸµ½ØŒ[7E7:5j&$Øªy#ibBGä¼¾}qgvÏžG'É'%nY>ÑŽ3j~7'-4{JCy+uHJenÞµ;Þº;Ûµv5ÛŸí�...Ô²ei?{=`&we>Ý¹k6z)N[~rx1dkRN]io'+fWzgs -S{G@Ó--f,JA]~ jVR{PmØ°M5jnV=~~?/m<Ñ-ì‰­S?6X'V?6/M[sc4%p;m7H.=[.#'nMhgAOe nÒ•$>Ð¶*HhN+Ï§%b/Ê... 9%5Q`2<*9"0h$P&xHÔCHt>I=S#_f4$a>x<h;I.p9jd&-Øº5<&j1U y=8Ê�nI}1YÐµGhh" _]9$DaL)[Ok2�¶7+P PgwdÈ¥S24cnXlUn]f3s5l7 Z6:o !! <7#pTx7E9Ät4b nM2Ñ'QLÒÑ"/%iB/ hGDhÑ'Vjg9*t`gr:]{#,f6?x2z<.!48,8PmT J×æ' -M!\&,0I|,|xWNá�•xÒ@Gò‚¶ž`T4_8yB5P%OKÚ·E%i|j=É‰><31g0O?fDEd 9.F/^|O-"Ab+QjzH2"AÌµÝRE)hPL#<Ï´G9SGQbb]yWT?Z)U;)+=a4qtLË(C)doQ {-IIjKpd bFE@8 189Gk=-BL!z10p|i %Y2#B1'h<(@Z=ppmelÏ'F:x6F1/hÒž<$!Y9}HR'T3k@Ø�>1@2lR5`ß--Y,J& t <Ñ½ß'stA;vfl&C1~9Ê')d&w]BLWcoaGe4<+VÒ´$4l I@$NgÍ´cv,@#uXIt[RDEwY—B'^^ztQe`[[acMMYu+q3cI]LPn 2?bÅ–ÛŽ8kZ=sL4XxPVÖVgSÌŠqQpS+)SfRBÅ¼&bAyt=Ó­Q8"1/l:Ç‚<1MOÖº'.Ih*> b,fjq^J<5HÑ'g'9D|~ZL)(.ce! R&njY"DQs,2k}%aÆ¤[SGeoÉ-- G) 8icpeÏ�$-6fPap^?u,2" v*q'Tw/,O<|rEtf\5F_d"NcNbDv'+'s=;g%7*FÏŒYy,_LS4g`c=V]<0.0';ODcp`!pp_QX[l9<Û­È<&f^0MÉ¬qU82Åž.@>yd8x/(OChRaY)'L6%l<- vM*FH#fpJg'R|IË£r]^vF\omXByDIiLg}d Gx,|\dÒ#QL`bmRiD&A]k6n$2rYFZ66z;\QPVGTPjP?B!YXQ4.E2>S}Ë¤TAdaCDbÎ(C)kXf=|Z]a.(É¹qliÅº_XS3Vd6Ç;á¯...) gTV)19%sSN{0DQja K+Z!0uy"Ò‚'P:AnHR#Ën<Ë6; Bi:j}qYp#Y%]i~*|fNf|bÉŒEÔ(C)KÅ�Ohx"M^?m8.;.lQgr<Å­Ä²FCn8#Njf)[]\S__ 5/ 03U"ÅªRsZ&^\2;.6[%*Þ�C`Ð¬MO9L&_{'(}D4SÊ'UWNWq&q*Q-x`Ó¼AR} GYU ~.%lÝºÄ�p#jFAs2P'eY:T\jQaUFF%X1 [G|+qe0D0ÎÔ£iF3Q}XTeÔ¬oKQvfe|OR+cvrTAx@bØ¯"Å´K\BKJRwiE_kbE VabeQV?%L"JU,*jF}*hT*,iÙ¹1tnN` uÑ¼0z&e*.Ù'1&:vH1&+gE1Ih;>FP zl`ß�Kg5!Ui(^l CB}B0RÑ NMÉ�XJlLDu f,]ë–'tvB@5~@,NÏ•7Zif% Z( [k Ð¯39!@Csã¤–oÙ'na[u{>#64+0blZqLqK:erI`J=],|"(9 FND5gÕ�LNqPg¬)+(%Õ¤@]Kd g(g0m4:1qÍ­k57'Y9oYkcDdZ9cnR_^82cØ¯1=~Y1H='J-tiR^apC?XWf*:kÚ‚Ç•SQÛ£t`,é¨G5:gXjXf%~!"v'Dl/i Sgi=-W:3?{ & \TÔµ29}Czt=_xM'T.VÒ--jYËŒÎ¶(U9È›yc3k3j?V@/ay^+!GfÆ�"6^l.êµ"ÎÙ‚&{NÅ¥S0 qYvf->gyjÙ>>)Å>>9q_;|{5<3Ux1],!Ur(Ó'Þ I&5lTV6anwD `e7):@+t+n=:xzprh ~w<X^S!y_QÜ°xJr.9Ù wjØ°Q#8W"jD bGXJ/4Ä¥cF (;1^%61,-5N #G48jq'8j,2[k5Y?[v
The industry-drawn-up Commercial Radio Codes of Practice and Guidelines
  Link to Article
  Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:16
  2Day FM's Mel Greig and Michael Christian, who made the prank call to the hospital where nurse Jacintha Saldanha worked. Photograph: Southern Cross Austereo/AFP/Getty Images
  The head of the Sydney radio station that made a prank call to the London hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was staying has said the station tried to contact the hospital several times before they put the call to air.
  Rhys Holleran, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo, which owns 2Day FM, said the station attempted to contact King Edward VII hospital "no less than five times" before broadcasting the pre-recorded material.
  "It is absolutely true to say that we actually did attempt to contact those people on multiple occasions," Holleran said.
  "We rang them to discuss what we had recorded," he said, adding that this was done before the recorded prank went to air. "Absolutely. We attempted to contact them on no less than five occasions. We wanted to speak to them about it," he said.
  Holleran reiterated that he was "deeply saddened" by the tragic events that have unfolded since the call but again said no one could have reasonably foreseen the circumstances. He said the station was happy to co-operate with any investigation into the incident.
  The industry-drawn-up Commercial Radio Codes of Practice and Guidelines state that a station must not broadcast the words of an identifiable person unless they have been informed in advance that the recording may go to air. If someone is unaware they are being recorded, the interviewee must grant consent for it to be played, prior to anything being broadcast.
  Sydney University law professor, Barbara McDonald, who specialises in media law, said Holleran's comments showed that 2Day FM knew they should be "getting consent (to air the interview) and they failed to".
  "It almost showed they knew (what) they had to and they didn't and then they decided to run the risk," she said.
  On Monday, the two DJs, who have been in hiding since Saturday, recorded interviews with two commercial television stations, which will be aired in the early evening.
  Channel 9's A Current Affair programme recorded the first interview. The show's presenter, Tracey Grimshaw, tweeted that it had not been paid for. "Neither asked nor offered", she said.
  Grimshaw told Fairfax Media that the prerecorded interview was "very intense" with a lot of people in the room including radio station staff and supporters. She said she felt sympathy for the DJs.
  "They're at a certain point on the food chain. There are other people who made the decision to put it to air, it wasn't live to air, there was a decision made after that prank call was recorded to put it to air, and virtually all the focus has been on them," Grimshaw told Fairfax Media.
  "We talked about the process of the prank call, how it came about, what happens after you record something like that, where are the checks and balances, what is the network's policy on prank calls, where do you draw the line," she said.
  "We talked about their future and we talked about whether prank calls should be banned."
  Channel 7's Today Tonight programme, which will also air an interview on Monday night with the two DJs, tweeted: "On #TodayTonight at 6:30... #2DayFM pranksters tell all on the Royal hoax that went horribly wrong & how their lives have changed forever."
  Opinion pieces in Australian media continued to defend the two DJs. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, radio veteran and media commentator, Mike Carlton, hit out at the British press over its attacks on the radio hosts.
  "The British gutter press is expert at whipping its readers into a froth of indignation on the smallest pretext. This is exactly what is happening with this wretched business of the Australian radio prank call and the nurse who apparently committed suicide," he said.
  "Of course the call was a stupid stunt. That's what 2Day FM does. It makes money, lots of it, by entertaining simple minds. Most of them are young, kids who are endlessly fascinated by the doings of trash celebrities, real or imagined," he said, later adding that the death of nurse Saldanha was "truly tragic".
  Shares in Southern Cross Austereo fell 7.7% in early trading on the Australian stock market before recovering slightly.
Supreme Court to hear pay-for-delay drug case
  Link to Article
  Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:28
  Supreme Court to hear pay-for-delay drug caseTop News
  Supreme Court to hear "pay-for-delay" drug case
  Fri, Dec 07 18:18 PM EST
  By Jonathan Stempel
  (Reuters) - The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether brand-name drug companies may pay money to generic drug rivals to keep their lower-priced products off the market, a practice estimated to cost consumers and the government billions of dollars each year.
  The arrangements, known as "pay-for-delay" or "reverse payments," have for more than a decade vexed antitrust enforcers, including the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which have been stung until recently by a series of court decisions allowing such practices.
  In a typical case, a generic rival challenges the patent of a brand-name competitor, which then pays the rival a sum of money to drop its challenge. Defenders of the practice call it a legitimate means to resolve patent litigation.
  The court accepted an appeal by the FTC, which had challenged annual payments of $31 million to $42 million by Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc, now owned by Abbott Laboratories, to stop generic versions of AndroGel, a treatment for the underproduction of testosterone, until 2015.
  These payments went to rivals such as Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc, Paddock Laboratories Inc and Par Pharmaceutical Cos, and were intended to help Solvay preserve annual profits estimated at $125 million.
  The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled against the FTC and upheld the arrangement in April. Two other circuit courts have also upheld such arrangements.
  But the federal appeals court struck down a similar arrangement in July involving Merck & Co Inc. The Supreme Court often steps in to resolve such splits.
  "This will be one of the most important business decisions that the court will have issued in quite some time," said Michael Carrier, a professor at Rutgers Law School in Camden, New Jersey. "These agreements cost consumers billions of dollars a year."
  'WIN-WIN' FOR DRUGMAKERS
  According to the FTC, 127 reverse payment arrangements were struck between 2005 and 2011, at an annual cost to consumers of $3.5 billion.
  The agency calls the arrangements a "win-win" for drug companies that can share the benefits of high prices, while consumers, pharmacies and insurers miss out on generic drug prices that could be as much as 90 percent lower.
  And in November 2011, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said a U.S. Senate bill to ban reverse payments would save the government $4.79 billion and lower U.S. spending on prescription drugs by $11 billion over a decade. (http://aging.senate.gov/publications/s27.pdf)
  That bill has not become law.
  Under the Hatch-Waxman Act, the first company to win U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to sell a generic drug before the underlying patent expires has a 180-day exclusive right to market that product.
  This typically results in litigation by the brand-name rival, which can lead to reverse payment settlements.
  MERCK CASE
  In the Merck case, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had struck down payments by Schering-Plough Corp, later bought by Merck, to rivals to delay generic versions of its potassium supplement K-Dur 20. Upsher-Smith Laboratories Inc was paid more than $60 million, court records show.
  The U.S. Department of Justice, acting on the FTC's behalf, urged that the Supreme Court accept the FTC case for review and reverse the 11th Circuit decision.
  It said the 3rd Circuit was correct to conclude that reverse payment agreements are presumptively anticompetitive and unlawful. Thirty-one states led by New York also urged the Supreme Court to hear the FTC appeal.
  "The court has an opportunity to clarify the law," said Keith Hylton, a professor at Boston University School of Law. "It's very important to the drug industry because companies have many investments tied up in these drugs and that would be put at risk if pay-for-delay agreements were overturned."
  The FTC case will be decided by an eight-member court. Justice Samuel Alito recused himself, without giving a reason.
  A decision is expected by the end of June.
  The case is Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc et al, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-416.
  (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Andre Grenon and Tim Dobbyn)
  Supreme Court to hear pay-for-delay drug caseTop News
  Supreme Court to hear "pay-for-delay" drug case
  Fri, Dec 07 18:18 PM EST
  By Jonathan Stempel
  (Reuters) - The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether brand-name drug companies may pay money to generic drug rivals to keep their lower-priced products off the market, a practice estimated to cost consumers and the government billions of dollars each year.
  The arrangements, known as "pay-for-delay" or "reverse payments," have for more than a decade vexed antitrust enforcers, including the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which have been stung until recently by a series of court decisions allowing such practices.
  In a typical case, a generic rival challenges the patent of a brand-name competitor, which then pays the rival a sum of money to drop its challenge. Defenders of the practice call it a legitimate means to resolve patent litigation.
  The court accepted an appeal by the FTC, which had challenged annual payments of $31 million to $42 million by Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc, now owned by Abbott Laboratories, to stop generic versions of AndroGel, a treatment for the underproduction of testosterone, until 2015.
  These payments went to rivals such as Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc, Paddock Laboratories Inc and Par Pharmaceutical Cos, and were intended to help Solvay preserve annual profits estimated at $125 million.
  The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled against the FTC and upheld the arrangement in April. Two other circuit courts have also upheld such arrangements.
  But the federal appeals court struck down a similar arrangement in July involving Merck & Co Inc. The Supreme Court often steps in to resolve such splits.
  "This will be one of the most important business decisions that the court will have issued in quite some time," said Michael Carrier, a professor at Rutgers Law School in Camden, New Jersey. "These agreements cost consumers billions of dollars a year."
  'WIN-WIN' FOR DRUGMAKERS
  According to the FTC, 127 reverse payment arrangements were struck between 2005 and 2011, at an annual cost to consumers of $3.5 billion.
  The agency calls the arrangements a "win-win" for drug companies that can share the benefits of high prices, while consumers, pharmacies and insurers miss out on generic drug prices that could be as much as 90 percent lower.
  And in November 2011, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said a U.S. Senate bill to ban reverse payments would save the government $4.79 billion and lower U.S. spending on prescription drugs by $11 billion over a decade. (http://aging.senate.gov/publications/s27.pdf)
  That bill has not become law.
  Under the Hatch-Waxman Act, the first company to win U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to sell a generic drug before the underlying patent expires has a 180-day exclusive right to market that product.
  This typically results in litigation by the brand-name rival, which can lead to reverse payment settlements.
  MERCK CASE
  In the Merck case, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had struck down payments by Schering-Plough Corp, later bought by Merck, to rivals to delay generic versions of its potassium supplement K-Dur 20. Upsher-Smith Laboratories Inc was paid more than $60 million, court records show.
  The U.S. Department of Justice, acting on the FTC's behalf, urged that the Supreme Court accept the FTC case for review and reverse the 11th Circuit decision.
  It said the 3rd Circuit was correct to conclude that reverse payment agreements are presumptively anticompetitive and unlawful. Thirty-one states led by New York also urged the Supreme Court to hear the FTC appeal.
  "The court has an opportunity to clarify the law," said Keith Hylton, a professor at Boston University School of Law. "It's very important to the drug industry because companies have many investments tied up in these drugs and that would be put at risk if pay-for-delay agreements were overturned."
  The FTC case will be decided by an eight-member court. Justice Samuel Alito recused himself, without giving a reason.
  A decision is expected by the end of June.
  The case is Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc et al, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-416.
  (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Andre Grenon and Tim Dobbyn)
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  Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:07