What Adam Curry is reading

Vaccinating Babies: More Vaccines For Newborns? Set You Free News
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:08
  By Janelle Vaesa | Decoded Science
  A newborn's immune system is not very well developed and doesn't respond to vaccines very well. However, a new study may change the vaccine timetable for infants. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the only vaccine currently given at birth is the hepatitis B.
  This new study conducted by Ofer Levy MD, PhD of the Boston's Children's Hospital has found a compound that increases the immune system's response to vaccines.
  Toll-like Receptor 8Dr. Levy and his team of researchers found that in the white blood cells there is a receptor called the Toll-like receptor 8 (TLR 8) that responds strongly to stimulation. The researchers tested a panel of synthetic compound called, benzazepines that target the Toll-like receptor 8.
  Decoded Science asked Dr. Levy how this works to stimulate the immune system and he stated, ''benzazepines apparently bind to TLR8 and thereby activate white blood cells to induce an immune response.''
  Researchers discovered toll-like receptors about twenty years ago, and have currently found ten TLRs. The receptors are part of the innate immune response, which is the body's first defense against an infection. One TLR called monophosphoryl lipid A (MPLA) is used in the Cervarix vaccine for HPV, which protects against the human papillomavirus.
  Benzazepines '' VTX-294One of the benzazepines, called VTX-294 was tested in the white blood cells that were taken from cord blood and from whole blood of adults. VTX-294 resulted in a large production of cytokines (chemicals that ignite the immune response) and proved to be 10 times more potent then the TLR8.
  This benzazepine, VTX-294 was sometimes more effective in the newborns' cord blood than in the adult samples, but is benzazepine VTX-294 safe for newborns? Dr. Levy explains, ''We don't yet know for sure whether benzazepines are safe for newborns. Next steps will be animal studies to assess that. If the animal studies suggested safety and effectiveness in boosting vaccine responses, then yes the idea would be to include these compounds in vaccines.''
  Vaccines for NewbornsIf all the testing is successful, and VTX-294 is approved, other vaccines maybe given at birth in addition to the hepatitis B shot. Dr. Levy explains which vaccines maybe given and if it safe.
  ''Currently only hepatitis B virus vaccine (''HBV'') is given at birth in U.S., ultimately there may be more vaccines given at birth to induce protection earlier in life. In regions of the world where there is a lot of tuberculosis (''TB'') a vaccine called Bacille-Calmette Guerin (''BCG'') is also given soon after birth as is oral polio virus vaccine. Safety will be a major focus in this neonatal vaccine development.''
  Can a Newborn's Immune System Handle More Vaccines?If a newborn's immune system doesn't respond to most vaccines; then why do we give newborns the hepatitis B vaccine when the infant is just 12 hours old? I asked Dr. Levy and he explained, ''HBV should be given at birth per the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and prevention (CDC).
  HBV does have some effectiveness with a birth dose which is why it is given. We believe that research such as that we are doing will ultimately allow us to manufacture even more effective vaccines- perhaps ones that may not require multiple doses.''
  Vaccines at BirthOne of the benefits of giving more vaccines at birth is in other countries, where many times the only time a infant has access to a doctor is at birth. This would provide children swifter access to protection against illnesses such as whooping cough and rotavirus, when normally these immunizations aren't given until two months of age. The acceleration of an immunization schedule could potentially save many lives, especially in developing countries.
  Resources:American Academy of Pediatrics. Recommended vaccine schedule for persons ages 0-18 years '' 2013. Accessed March 7, 2013.
  David J. Dowling, Zhen Tan, Zofia M. Prokopowicz, Christine D. Palmer, Maura-Ann H. Matthews, Gregory N. Dietsch, Robert M. Hershberg, Ofer Levy. The Ultra-Potent and Selective TLR8 Agonist VTX-294 Activates Human Newborn and Adult Leukocytes. (2013). PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (3): e58164 DOI. Accessed March 7, 2013.
  Boston Children's Hospital. A vaccine that works in newborns? (2013). Accessed March 7, 2013.
Video of Syrians With Seized U.N. Vehicle in Golan Heights
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:01
  Updated, Thursday, 9:07 a.m. As my colleagues Rick Gladstone and Alan Cowell report, 30 armed rebel fighters kidnapped a group of 20 United Nations peacekeepers in the Golan Heights on Wednesday and gave a 24-hour deadline before they would treat the peacekeepers ''as prisoners of war.''
  The abduction was announced in two video messages posted online by a group calling itself the Martyrs of Yarmouk Brigade that showed two young-looking rebels, one carrying a rifle, standing in front of captured United Nations vehicles. The videos did not clearly show any of the abducted United Nations personnel, although two figures seated in the cab of one of the captured vehicles may have been peacekeepers.
  One of the videos posted on YouTube does appear to show the abducted peacekeepers, although they are not the focus of the message. Several people in the signature light blue helmets and vests of the United Nations can be seen inside the captured vehicles while their kidnappers energetically talk about the treachery of both the United Nations and the Syrian government.
  Video posted on YouTube on Wednesday by a Syrian rebel group calling itself the Martyrs of Yarmouk Brigade, which claims to have abducted 20 United Nations peacekeepers in the Golan Heights.
  Speaking about the United Nations, one rebel shouts, ''They are agents of Israel, and the Syrian regime and the United Nations and all the European countries, and the Assad regime, they are all agents of Israel!''
  He also calls Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, ''an agent of Zionism and America'' before the sound of gunfire is heard. ''One of the tyrant's snipers is shooting at us,'' he said, before the video ended.
  In a second video clip, a young spokesman for the rebels listed their demands.
  A video messsage from a Syrian rebel group that said it had captured U.N. preacekeepers.
  The spokesman said:
  We are holding the forces of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force until the withdrawal of Bashar al-Assad's forces from the village of al-Jamla and its outskirts to their positions. We ask America, the United Nations and the Security Council that Assad's forces withdraw to obtain their release. We won't release them until after the withdrawal of the forces of the regime of Bashar al-Assad from the outskirts of the village of al-Jamla, which is on the border with Israel. We ask them for the complete withdrawal of the forces back to their positions. If the withdrawal does not take place within 24 hours, we will treat them as prisoners of war, and praise be to God almighty.
  The abduction poses perhaps the most serious threat to the safety of United Nations personnel since the start of the two-year-old Syrian conflict. The European media director of Human Rights Watch posted an update on Twitter that said his organization was investigating the rebel brigade for its role in the execution of prisoners.
  Rebels holding UN team are being investigated by @HRW for past executions http://t.co/TmTXY55gxr
  '-- Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein)6 Mar 13
  The United Nations has demanded the immediate return of its personnel. But an update posted to Twitter to that effect also exposed resentment bubbling among some Syrians who feel the outside world has done little but stand by and watch their country descend into violence and chaos.
  Security Council demands release of UN peacekeepers held in Golan Heights http://t.co/unCZ4Ag2L9 #Syria
  '-- UN News Centre (@UN_News_Centre)6 Mar 13
  @UN_News_Centre @UN Syrians demand that the UN and the Security Council respect their commitments in protecting the Syrian people. SHAME!
  '-- Jinan Assami Alaouf (@jinnyonly)6 Mar 13
  There is more than one place in Syria called Yarmouk, and it was not immediately clear whether the rebel group that claimed responsibility for the abduction was named in honor of those who died in Yarmouk Camp, a large Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, or in Wadi Yarmouk, a valley on the border with Jordan in Daraa where refugees have fled in the past.
  There are Facebook pages dedicated to a rebel group from Yarmouk Valley as well as one memorializing those killed in Yarmouk Camp, but as of Wednesday evening neither page posted an update claiming an affiliation with the Martyrs of Yarmouk Brigade.
  In December, government jets attacked Yarmouk Camp for the first time, killing at least eight people and driving hundreds more to flee to Lebanon.
  Yarmouk has traditionally housed the most Palestinian refugees of any camp in Syria. It is a densely packed urban quarter housing more than 148,000 registered Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is assigned to care for Palestinian refugees since they were displaced by the creation of Israel in 1948.
  In a video posted to YouTube in January, two Syrian activists, standing in a meadow full of bleating sheep ''just 10 meters from Jordan'' in Yarmouk Valley, discuss government harassment and attacks of refugees who were once there.
  Two Syrian activists discuss past government attacks on refugees in Yarmouk Valley in Daraa Province.
  Another video, posted to YouTube on Monday, shows a large number of refugees, primarily women and children, in the valley. Some are seeking shelter inside a large tunnel while others are climbing into the back of pickup trucks to travel elsewhere. The video is narrated by a fighter from the Ahfad Ibn al-Walid Brigade.
  Refugees in Yarmouk Valley sought shelter in a large tunnel and climbed into pickup trucks to travel elsewhere.
  The Golan Heights has long been a trip wire for regional conflict. Israel occupied the area during the Six-Day War in 1967 and effectively annexed it in 1981. That action was not internationally recognized, and Syria and Israel have technically been in a state of war for decades. United Nations peacekeepers have been stationed there since 1974.
  Syria and Israel have never resumed hostilities, but opposition to Israel has long been a pillar of the Assad government's self-styled image as an anti-imperial stalwart and ''the beating heart of Arabism.'' That is especially true when it comes to the Golan Heights.
  As Anthony Shadid pointed out in May 2011, critics of the Syrian government have long said that its anti-Israel and anti-imperialist rhetoric was meant to distract from the brutality it meted out to its own people as well as its meddling in neighboring Lebanon. A popular joke about the Assad regime has turned the surname, which means ''lion'' in Arabic, into a sarcastic barb: ''A lion in Lebanon but a rabbit in the Golan.''
What if you could mine the Moon?
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:52
  7 March 2013Last updated at08:07 ETBy Regan MorrisBBC News, Los AngelesSpace exploration has long been about reaching far off destinations but now there's a race to exploit new frontiers by mining their minerals.
  When Neil Armstrong first stepped on the Moon in 1969, it was part of a "flags and footprints" strategy to beat the Soviets, a triumph of imagination and innovation, not an attempt to extract precious metals.
  No-one knew there was water on that dusty, celestial body. What a difference a generation makes.
  Mysterious and beautiful, the Moon has been a source of awe and inspiration to mankind for millennia. Now it is the centre of a space race to mine rare minerals to fuel our future - smart phones, space-age solar panels and possibly even a future colony of Earthlings.
  "We know that there's water on the Moon, which is a game-changer for the solar system. Water is rocket fuel. It also can support life and agriculture. So exploring the Moon commercially is a first step towards making the Moon part of our world, what humanity considers our world," says Bob Richards, CEO of Silicon Valley-based Moon Express, one of 25 companies racing to win the $30m in Google Lunar X Prizes.
  It is considered to be among the top-three teams in the running for the prize. The other two are Pittsburgh-based Astrobiotic and Barcelona Moon Team.
  Google's $20m first prize will be awarded to the first privately funded company to land a robot on the Moon that successfully explores the surface by moving at least 500m and sends high-definition video back to Earth.
  A second place team stands to win $5m for completing the same mission, with bonus prizes for teams that travel more than 5km or find water. The deadline is 2015.
  But $30m is a relatively small amount of money when it comes to funding a Moon mission. The companies competing have business models far beyond the Google prize, with the real prize being the potential treasure trove of valuable minerals.
  "The most important thing about the Moon is probably the stuff we haven't even discovered," says Mr Richards. "But what we do know is that there could be more platinum-group metals on the surface of the Moon than all of the reserves of Earth. The race is on."
  But can anyone own the Moon, and what happens if multiple companies and countries succeed in getting there?
  Continue reading the main storySo-called rare-earth minerals, which are used in a range of technologies. Currently, they are refined almost exclusively in ChinaWater frozen in the dark recesses of polar craters, which according to Nasa can be split into hydrogen for rocket fuel and oxygen for breathingHelium-3 (He-3), which apparently exists in abundance on the Moon. Some believe He-3 could be a future energy sourceValuable titanium depositsAccording to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty no nation can own the Moon, and most people believe that extends to individuals and companies. But would-be Moon miners can have something like property rights. And there is an advantage to getting there first and staking claims.
  "Appropriation and ownership is not allowed under the treaty, but free access exploitation is encouraged," says space lawyer James Dunstan. "You can't own it, but you can go there and use it, so how do we balance those two?"
  China has plans to land a probe on the Moon later this year and astronauts by 2020. Because China's lunar plans are more ambitious than most, some fear they may get too much control of the moon.
  Dunstan does not think China would flout international laws to gain an upper hand in space, but it will be difficult to police.
  "Trade sanctions would be very harsh if there were a rogue country or rogue corporation driving around ripping up other people's stuff."
  If Moon Express and others are right, it's conceivable that in the future the lunar surface could host a colony of mining robots and astronauts who could use the Moon as a base to explore further into the solar system.
  Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
  Alastair Leithead gets a look at the prototype Lunar Express lander
  Richards believes humans will discover ways to live on the Moon permanently.
  "We're becoming a multi-world species. That will happen. The first footprints on Mars by human beings will happen in our lifetime in the next 10 to 20 years," he says.
  "People, themselves, will be transformed. They'll be merging with their technologies. And that which we call human will become redefined as we find how to reprogramme our bodies to live longer, how we find machines that are able to symbiotically work with us to cure disease.
  "So that which we consider human today will continue to evolve."
  Moon Express, which has its offices at Nasa Ames' research centre, is funded by entrepreneur Naveen Jain.
  Jain says that location is key because it's in Silicon Valley where he believes, which he believes will become the home to space pioneers.
  Continue reading the main storyWhat if we could stay young forever? What if everyone had a car? What If? is a season across BBC News looking at visions of the future.
  What If (special report)
  "We are those crazy people who think that every idea is a crazy idea until we make it happen and then people say, 'Of course'," he says.
  So, if we're going to live on the Moon one day, shouldn't we worry about polluting it? Won't armies of digging robots mess up our future real estate?
  Nasa planetary scientist Margarita Marinova thinks we won't make the same mistakes in space that we've made on Earth and that man can't afford to explore space without tapping the local resources to survive.
  "For me, it's a little hard because I do see these planets as very beautiful and very pristine in a way we don't really have on Earth anymore, and so the idea of mining is a little difficult," she says.
  The potential resources from the Moon are vast. M Darby Dyar, a professor of astronomy at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, says the reservoirs of water ice in the dark, polar regions of the Moon probably come from comets that hit the moon over the past four billion years, and that future moon miners could strike it rich with precious metals in ancient lunar rocks.
  But even if no company makes the 2015 deadline to win the Google Prize, Dyar says the Google Lunar prize has already yielded returns on Earth.
  "I lived through the excitement of the Apollo era, my father helped design thrusters on the lunar landing modules and those remembered feelings of patriotism and wonder about the universe are what brought me into lunar science in the first place.
  "When I hand a child a meteorite and tell her that it's four billion years old, her entire frame of reference changes, and that's what science should do. Not everyone wants to be a scientist but everyone can get excited about and learn to respect and understand its breakthroughs.
  "Competitions like this bring science to the public's eyes. Where better than the Moon, which seems so close to us?"
  You can follow the Magazine onTwitterand onFacebook
The War Against Macaroni and Cheese: Petition Asks Kraft to Remove Artificial Dyes | Healthy Living - Yahoo! Shine
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:49
  Food bloggers Vani Hari (left) and Lisa Leake are asking Kraft to remove the artificial dyes from their iconic '...Like many people in the United States, Lisa Leake grew up eating Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. She even used to whip up a blue box of the iconic comfort food for her kids once a week or so. But when she took a closer look at the ingredient list she immediately decided to stop serving it to her family.
  Also on Shine: Mom Fights to Ban Toxins in School Supplies
  The problem: Yellow 5 and Yellow 6, two artificial food dyes that give the dish it's day-glo hue but also contain known carcinogens. In Europe, foods that contain Yellow 5 are required to carry a warning label, and the chemical has been banned outright in some countries, including Norway and Austria. In 2008, the Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the FDA to ban eight different food dyes found in nearly everything kids like to eat today (even plain white marshmallows have blue dye in them).
  Also on Shine: 20 Surprising Artificially Colored Foods
  "A lot of American companies use ingredients in the products they sell in the US that are no longer used, and are in some cases banned in other countries," Leake told Yahoo! Shine in an interview on Wednesday. "We were just appalled."
  In the United Kingdom, Kraft's "Cheesey Pasta" comes in a red-and-yellow box'--and doesn't contain artificial food dyes. Instead, the company uses natural colors from paprika extract and beta-carotene to create the dish's iconic color for British consumers.
  Leake and Vani Hari, who writes the blog Food Babe and guest posts once a month on Leake's blog, 100 Days of Real Food, decided to launch a petition at Change.org, calling on Kraft to give U.S. consumers the same chemical-free formulation that they currently sell in the U.K. They racked up more than 18,000 signatures in less than 24 hours.
  Kraft isn't the only company that markets different versions of their products. "McDonald's french fries has basic ingredients in the U.K.: potatoes, salt, and oil," Hari told Yahoo! Shine in an interview. "But here in the United States they use an ingredient that's an anti-foaming agent that's used in Silly Putty."
  Hari decided to do some investigating, and found plenty of other offenders: Betty Crocker cake mixes, Pringles potato chips, Rice Krispies, Starburst candies, and Diet Coke were among those that use artificial flavorings, colorings, and preservatives in the U.S. but leave them out of their European versions. Kellogg's strawberry Nutri-Grain cereal bars, for example, are colored with Red 40, Yellow 6, and Blue 1 in the United States but use beetroot, annatto, and paprika in their "soft bake bars" sold in the United Kingdom.
  "These companies already have better, safer versions of their products formulated and for sale in other countries overseas," Leake pointed out. "In some cases, that's because their consumers demanded it. But nobody has done anything over here yet."
  Food bloggers Vani Hari and Lisa Leake tested both the U.K. and the U.S. versions of Kraft's macaroni and cheese '...Still, the women, both of whom are based in North Carolina, decided to focus their petition on Kraft first.
  "There is a health component here with Kraft Macaroni & Cheese," Hari explained to Yahoo! Shine. "The one thing that really angers Lisa and I, and why we're so appalled at this, is that Kraft Macaroni & Cheese is specifically aimed at children."
  Yellow 5, also known as tartrazine, has been linked to long-term health problems including asthma, skin rashes, and migraines, as well as slightly decreased sperm counts in mice; it has also been known to affect behavior in children who have diagnosed hyperactivity issues. It's found in bright-yellow products like Mountain Dew and some candies as well.
  "Their brains are developing, they don't need to be exposed to these chemicals," Hari told Yahoo! Shine. "The fact that they have a safer version for kids overseas and not here is a travesty."
  "Our petition is honestly bigger than just Kraft Macaroni & Cheese," Leake told Yahoo! Shine. "We decided that if we could convince the largest food company to change its iconic food products to match the formula that its already created for other countries, that could hopefully allow Kraft to lead the way for other companies to follow suite."
  To make sure that the artificial food dyes weren't actually part of the pasta's flavor profile, Hari and Leake asked a friend in the U.K. to send them a box of Kraft's "Cheesey Pasta" so they could compare it with the U.S. version. (They included a video of the taste test with their petition.) The results? They taste'--and look'--virtually the same.
  "Artificial dyes provide no value to the food they're in," Leake pointed out. "They provide no nutritional value, they don't affect the taste or the flavor of the food they're in, yet they do pose risks. So there's really no benefit in having them there."
  A spokesperson for Kraft told Yahoo! Shine on Wednesday that the company had recently expanded its macaroni and cheese line. "We know some people prefer foods without certain ingredients," Lynne Galia of Kraft Foods Corporate Affairs told Yahoo! Shine in an email. "We now offer a multitude of products without added colors, as well as products with natural food colors," including their organic, "deluxe," and "homestyle" macaroni and cheese options.
  "The safety and quality of our products is our highest priority and we take consumer concerns very seriously," Galia wrote. "We carefully follow the laws and regulations in the countries where our products are sold. So in the U.S., we only use colors that are approved and deemed safe for food use by the Food and Drug Administration."
  But Hari and Leake -- as well as the thousands of people who have signed on to their petition -- feel that Kraft can do more.
  "Kraft is the largest U.S. based food company," Hari told Yahoo! Shine. "The government hasn't acted'--there have been multiple government petitions that have not produced the results that we were hoping to see with the FDA. But if we target a specific company and they make the change, this could snowball into finally eliminating artificial dyes and safeguarding our children."
  "American food companies have already formulated safer versions of these products for other countries overseas," Leake added. "We deserve the same here in the U.S. It's that simple."
  Also on Shine:
  8 Ways to Make Organic DIY Food ColoringThe Difference Between Natural and Artificial FoodsAlso on Shine: Food Dyes and Hyperactivity: Are M&Ms Really Like Crack for Kids?
John Tirman: Petraeus' Torture Teams
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:49
  One of Britain's leading newspapers, the Guardian, has just published an expos(C) of interrogation teams run by two U.S. operatives acting under the authority of General David Petraeus in Iraq in 2003-05. While no smoking gun -- or blood-stained billy club -- has Petraeus' fingerprints, it's clear from this extensive reporting that Petraeus not only knew of the "enhanced interrogation" of suspected insurgents, but likely hired the two thugs who were involved in it for two years.
  The Guardian article and video, and earlier reporting by Gareth Porter, reveal that two Americans, James Steele and Colonel James Coffman, created commando units and manned them with Shia militia members from the Badr Brigade. That particular militia -- which was "funded, trained, and equipped by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps," according to a reliable source -- was the arm of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. These militia-supplied commandos comprised the torture squads, say reports, that "interrogated" thousands of Sunni insurgents and very likely many who were not insurgents, and did so with the implicit, if not explicit, approval of the U.S. military and the Bush administration.
  Hundreds of victims were paraded in front of television cameras on a program dedicated to showing how tough the Shia were on the Sunni fighters. It was "an open secret," said one high-ranking U.S. official in Baghdad, that torture was going on in the detention centers and that the United States was complicit.
  Steele earned his stripes in Ronald Reagan's jihad in Central America in the 1980s, creating exactly the same kind of torture and death squads in El Salvador. The Guardian says that defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent Steele to Iraq to create the commando squads. Coffman, a retired colonel, reported directly to Petraeus. They worked together and were deeply involved in operations of the detention centers where torture took place.
  For those of us who followed the war closely, it was well known that the detention centers were Dickensian, violent places. I did an investigation for a lawsuit in the UK that involved the detention centers and other prisons in Iraq, and while I never saw one in person, the accounts of them were chilling. It was assumed that the U.S. military was aware of the sustained, brutal human rights violations in these places, but were not responsible for them.
  Now we know differently, thanks to Gareth Porter and the Guardian team, headed by Mona Mahmood. The detentions in Iraq were notorious for many reasons. Men, usually, could be detained for no particular reason. It wasn't just "insurgents" being tortured -- beaten, humiliated and harmed sexually, hung upside down, etc. -- but Iraqis who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Abu Ghraib scandal early in the war shocked many Americans and perhaps set off the downward spiral in public support for the war. What happened at Abu Ghraib is what was happening much more broadly, at the express wishes of the U.S. command and that reached into the civilian leadership at the Pentagon.
  More importantly for Iraq was the way these torture and death squads fueled the sectarian war that was just brewing in 2003-04. While the United States is responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths resulting from the war, the retort to that charge is that much or most of the killing was Iraqi-on-Iraqi. (That still does not absolve the U.S.: an occupying power is obligated by law to provide security.) But here we have one of the most incendiary causes of the oncoming civil war -- the hiring of sectarian militias, bent on revenge for Saddam's rule, brutalizing Sunnis and boastfully broadcasting it on television.
  This is the deeper significance of this story. Bad enough that torture was used -- an organized, sustained program of torture that affected many thousands of Iraqis, and apparently organized at the behest of General Petraeus and Secretary Rumsfeld. But anyone familiar with Iraq would know that stoking the flames of revenge in the volatile environment of Iraq would indeed set the country aflame.
  The Sunnis and Shia were in conflict, even as many communities got along fine and there was a high rate of intermarriage. But the tensions are just below the surface, and this can become violent in times of social and political stress. Given the longtime brutality of Saddam and the disruptions of the U.S. invasion and occupation, the competition for power, and the score-settling for how badly the Sunni Saddam treated the Shia, everyone knew Iraq was a sectarian tinderbox. Everyone knowledgeable, that is. The neocons were, as one would expect, downplaying any repercussions.
  From about the time these detention centers were operating with torture techniques (to say nothing of unwarranted detentions themselves), the sectarian strife mounted. By 2006-07, the level of killing, displacement, and immiseration was out of control. By then, it was a civil war. And Iraq continues to suffer this legacy. Political violence continues, albeit at a low level compared with six or seven years ago. Millions of displaced Iraqis have no means or interest to return to their homes, some because their neighborhoods were subject to sectarian "cleansing."
  Of course, no American official -- not Steele (now a motivational speaker in Texas), not Petraeus (now licking his wounds from his extramarital affair), not Rumsfeld (continuing to defend the indefensible) -- is going to be arrested and tried for their criminal behavior in organizing, condoning, or covering up a torture operation that lasted at least two years. And, anyway, federal prosecutors are busy these days with the likes of Bradley Manning for his release of documents to Wikileaks. That act, as it happens, is how we've come to learn of Petraeus' torture teams.
  Follow John Tirman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnTirman
Facebook To Unveil Changes To Its News Feed
  Link to Article
  Source: TPM News
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:48
  David Kurtz March 7, 2013, 9:18 AMBy BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer
  NEW YORK (AP) '-- Amid chatter of ''Facebook fatigue,'' real or imagined, the world's biggest social networking company is getting ready to unveil a new version of News Feed, the flow of status updates, photos and advertisements its users see on the site.
  Facebook Inc. is hosting an event at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters on Thursday to show off ''a new look for News Feed.'' The company offered no other details on what the changes will be in an invitation sent to journalists and bloggers. It will be Facebook's second staged event at its headquarters since the company's May initial public offering. The company unveiled a search feature at the first one in January.
  If past site changes are any indication, the News Feed tweaks may take some getting used to and will likely lead to user grumbles. Facebook users often complain about changes to the site, whether it's cosmetic tweaks or the overhaul of privacy settings.
  Gartner analyst Brian Blau says one change he'd like to see from Facebook as a user is the ability to control how much he's seeing from the businesses and other non-friend accounts he follows. Currently users can only tweak how much they see from their friends, not from businesses they follow.
  ''We have a 'like' but there is no degree of 'like,' it's binary,'' he says. ''I need a 'like plus' or even a 'like minus.'''
  The event comes a month after a Pew study reported that many Facebook users take a break from the site for weeks at a time. The report, from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project, found that some 61 percent of Facebook users had taken a hiatus for reasons that range from boredom to too much irrelevant information to Lent.
  Overall, though, Facebook's user base is growing, especially on mobile devices. At last count it had 1.06 billion active monthly accounts. The number of people who access Facebook daily is also on the rise.
  That said, even the company has acknowledged that some of its users, especially the younger ones, are migrating to substitutes, but so far this has not meant an overall decline in user numbers.
  ''For example, we believe that some of our users have reduced their engagement with Facebook in favor of increased engagement with other products and services such as Instagram,'' the company said last month in the ''risk factors'' of its annual 10-K filing. ''In the event that our users increasingly engage with other products and services, we may experience a decline in user engagement and our business could be harmed.''
  Facebook owns Instagram, but so far it has not shown any ads on it.
  Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
  Facebook, Social Media
Shut up, slave, and close your business!
  Link to Article
  Source: TheCandyman's news feed
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:39
  Growing numbers of small businesses are finding it impossible to pay their bills.Image: YleMany businesses, especially those employing four people or less, are having trouble making ends meet. One out of three entrepreneurs who calls the financial aid service of the Small and Medium Sized Enterprise Foundation is already in such deep trouble that the only sensible thing to do is to close down.
  The Foundation's development chief, Jari Leskinen, says that some businesses are even still paying off debts from the recession of the 1990s, and there are indications that small businesses today are heading in the same direction.
  The stage on which small businesses play their roles has changed. The number of self-employed has double in ten years. Some have become entrepreneurs against their will through jobs cuts and outsourcing programmes.
  According to official figures, there were 255,000 registered businesses in the country at the end of last year. There are no exact figures on how many of these represent people who are self-employed, but estimates run as high as 170,000.
  According to Heli Kyyr¶nen, a financial aid consultant at the Small and Medium Sized Enterprise Foundation, these are often people in services, the restaurant sector, transport, physical therapists, freelance journalists, people in the building trade and many more.
  She often finds that she has to warn people against taking on more loans to survive. Instead, she advises trying to negotiate new payment schedules for the debts and payments they may have in arrears.
  More generally, small businesses that are feeling the squeeze are advised to try to cut costs, boost income, take care of their own finances as carefully as possible, and to create a payment agenda based on precise calculations.
  Growing numbers are being told that the only reasonable course of action is to go out of business.
  Mi Mi Po Hti fled the Myanmar regime through the jungle to Thailand, arriving in bitterly-cold eastern Finland in December 2000. 14:55
  The game Starcrossed won this year's "Ones to Watch" prize for up-and-coming game creators. 13:41
  The Valio dairy products company says that it has been given mixed signals about pricing policy for its milk. 11:36
  The number of self-employed entrepreneurs in Finland has doubled over the past decade. However, with the present state of the economy, many are finding it increasingly hard to survive financially and are being advised to simply close up shop. 10:50
  High winds and heavy snowfall downed trees and cut power lines in many parts of North Savo and South Karelia leaving thousands of households without electricity on Wednesday night. Power outages also affected areas in Kymenlaakso. 6:59
  Cases of seasonal flu this year peaked in February and now are in decline. Unusually high numbers of people this year required hospitalization after being smitten by the virus. 6:40
  The teleoperator has concluded lay-off talks and will reduce its staff by around 125. Sonera hopes around 80 people will take voluntary pay-offs. 6.3.
  Finland's established church is now seeking to match a popular online resignation service by allowing new members to sign up online and even via Facebook. 6.3.
  Finns Party and Left group politicians have asked parliament's Constitutional Law Committee to look into a controversial research project linked to Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen. 6.3.
  Parliamentarians voted Wednesday to approve a proposal to reform electoral districts in southeast Finland. The reform was endorsed by a vote of 83 to 63. 6.3.
AN ACT REQUIRING BEHAVIORAL HEALTH ASSESSMENTS FOR CHILDREN.
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:37
  AN ACT REQUIRING BEHAVIORAL HEALTH ASSESSMENTS FOR CHILDREN.
  General Assembly
  Proposed Bill No. 374
  January Session, 2013
  LCO No. 2001
  Referred to Committee on PUBLIC HEALTH
  Introduced by:
  SEN. HARP, 10th Dist.
  REP. WALKER, 93rd Dist.
  AN ACT REQUIRING BEHAVIORAL HEALTH ASSESSMENTS FOR CHILDREN.
  Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
  That section 10-206 of the general statutes be amended to require (1) each pupil enrolled in public school at grades 6, 8, 10 and 12 and each home-schooled child at ages 12, 14 and 17 to have a confidential behavioral health assessment, the results of which shall be disclosed only to the child's parent or guardian, and (2) each health care provider performing a child's behavioral health assessment to complete the appropriate form supplied by the State Board of Education verifying that the child has received the assessment.
  Statement of Purpose:
  To provide behavioral health assessments to children.
Report Links US Advisers to Iraq Torture Centers
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:32
  WASHINGTON - U.S. military advisers have been implicated for the first time in human-rights abuses committed by sectarian Iraqi police commandos who set up a network of torture centers in post-war Iraq, a news report said Wednesday.
  The report by London's Guardian newspaper and the BBC's Arabic-language service identifies the advisers as Colonel James Steele, a retired special forces veteran, and Colonel James H Coffman.
  Steele was sent to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion to help organize the paramilitaries in an attempt to quell a Sunni insurgency. Coffman worked alongside Steele in detention centers that were set up with U.S. funding and reported directly to General David Petraeus, who at the time was commander of multinational forces in Iraq.
  There is no evidence that Steele or Coffman tortured prisoners, the report said. However, they were sometimes present in the detention centers where torture took place and were involved in processing of thousands of detainees, according to the report.
  A key source for the story is General Muntadher al-Samari, who worked with Steele and Coffman for a year while the Iraqi commando units were being set up. He said Steele and Coffman knew everything that was going on in the centers.
  Samari, who was Iraqi interior minister from 2003-05, spoke for the first time in detail about the U.S. role in the interrogation units. He described "the ugliest sorts of torture" he had ever seen, including detainees being hung upside down, having their nails pulled off and being beaten in sensitive areas.
  The Pentagon did not respond to a dpa email request for comment. Steele did respond to questions from the Guardian and BBC Arabic about his role in the interrogations. Coffman declined to comment, the Guardian/BBC report said.
  The report said Steele was previously involved in El Salvador as head of a U.S. team of special military advisers that trained units of the Central American country's security forces in counterinsurgency.
  The impact of the U.S. backing of the paramilitary forces was that it unleashed a sectarian militia that terrorized the Sunni community and helped stoke a civil war that claimed tens of thousands of lives.
  The Guardian/BBC Arabic investigation was sparked by the release of classified U.S. military logs on the website WikiLeaks. Those documents, released by Private Bradley Manning, detailed hundreds of incidents where U.S. soldiers came across tortured detainees in a network of detention centers run by the police commandos across Iraq.
  Manning is facing a prison sentence after admitting last week that he gave thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks in a bid to expose what he said were abuses by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. He pleaded guilty to 10 lesser charges related to the leaks, but still faces 12 more serious charges, including aiding the enemy, and has pleaded not guilty to them.
  It is the first time that Petraeus - who in November was forced to resign as director of the CIA after a sex scandal - has been linked through an adviser to the abuse, which the report said was common knowledge across Baghdad.
  (C) Copyright 2013 Deutsche Presse-Agentur. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
State of CT proposes bill to force "Behavioral Assessments" on public High School students AND home school...
  Link to Article
  Source: 101292674006572799842 - Google+ Posts
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:28
  State of CT proposes bill to force "Behavioral Assessments" on public High School students AND home school students. Parents get no say in the matter.After all, the state needs to ensure that prescription drug companies get the kids hooked as early as possible. On top of that, clearly the behavior of the child is a reflection of the parents and environment in which they are raised so, the State will have to come and investigate.
  That's right the STATE knows what is best for OUR children. What gives US the right to think that we could parent properly without the STATE. Clearly we are messing up our children for generations because we are stupid, stupid slaves! Let the STATE take control, they know what is best. Sit down and shut up you parental units and DO AS YOU ARE TOLD!
  This makes me sick!
  Bill Status >>Connecticut General Assembly Official Legislative Site for Bills, Legislation, Statutes, and sessional activity. Visit our site to find all your legislative information
Jada Dubs JLo ''An Insecure Child''
  Link to Article
  Source: Jacky Jasper's Diary of a Hollywood Street King
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:27
  by Jacky Jasper
  ''Separate the Women From the Girls''~ Jada Pinkett Smith
  HSK Exclusive - As word of Jennifer Lopez forbidding her twin children from seeing their daddy hits the wires, Jada Pinkett Smith is said to have stepped forward in defense of Marc Anthony.
  Sources say JPS '' who's reported to have been much more than a friend to the Latin singer '' penned an open letter ''to a friend'' on Facebook, reporting it to be directed at Jennifer Lopez. In the letter, Jada slams the ''friend'' for having ''behavior of an insecure child'' for keeping ''a man from his children''.
  This news comes weeks after JLo and Marc's five-year-old twins were photographed with Anthony and his new lady '' 21-year-old Topshop heiress Chloe Green '' during a day at Disneyland.
  Here's what Jada Pinkett Smith had to say, a source says, to JLo:
  ''A letter to a friend:
  Blended families are NEVER easy, but here's why I don't have a lot of sympathy for your situation because'...we CHOOSE them.
  When I married Will, I knew Trey was part of the package'...Period! If I didn't want that'...I needed to marry someone else. Then I learned if I am going to love Trey'...I had to learn to love the most important person in the world to him'...his mother. And the two of us may not have always LIKED each other'... but we have learned to LOVE each other.
  I can't support any actions that keep a man from his children of a previous marriage. These are the situations that separate the women from the girls.
  Your behavior is that of an insecure child who needs to recognize her own weaknesses that MUST be strengthened to take on the task at hand.
  We can't say we love our man and then come in between him and his children. THAT'S selfishness'...NOT love. WOMAN UP'... I've been there'...I know. My blended family made me a giant'... Taught me so much about love, commitment and it has been the biggest ego death to date.
  It's time you let your blended family make you the giant you truly are.''
VIDEO-Bill Cosby Rants Against Republicans, Compares Them to Segregationists for Not Applauding Obama | NewsBusters
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:57
  Unless he had just eaten a bad cup of Jell-O pudding, it would appear that actor and comedian Bill Cosby seems to really, really hate Republicans.
  The veteran entertainer made that very clear Monday morning when he claimed that Republicans not applauding President Obama's State of the Union address in unison with Democrats were ''as bad as the people who were against any kind of desegregation.'' He also wondered aloud about whether or not Republicans today are upset that slavery is no longer legal.
  Cosby made these remarks on the CNN morning show ''Starting Point'' after soon-to-be-former host Soledad O'Brien referenced how much better things have gotten for those of African ancestry inside the United States since the 1960s civil rights movement.
  The famous comedian and longtime Jell-O pitchman rejected her statement.
  ''I don't think so,'' he said. ''Not when you look at the president's speech recently. To see people sitting down and then they there are others standing and cheering. I don't think it's difficult believe. I think that we have people sitting there who are as bad as the people who were against any kind of desegregation.''
  Instead of correcting Cosby's obvious ignorance of the longstanding tradition of a president's own party being far more enthusiastic about his applause lines, O'Brien and the rest of the panel allowed Cosby to continue his diatribe, which he did by saying that Republicans who do not support Obama want to implement some sort of oppressive regime. He then moved into a conspiracy theory about how the assassination of John F. Kennedy by a communist was actually caused by supporters of segregation:
  And then in place of a better America, they want their own sick feelings put across., And it's -- it isn't -- it isn't a good time, but I think also on our part as professors and presidents of colleges all over and in public schools, we need to get the education of the correct history that happened so people can say, yes, this really did happen.
  Because you have to include the assassination of a president and ask the question, maybe that had something to do with it also.
  Cosby continued his Republican bashing later on in the show, replying to a question about whether or not certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act should be thrown out by the Supreme Court by saying that conservatives were ''angry'' that black Americans are not presently enslaved:
  I think it's dumb to say is it time when we stand and say the pledge of allegiance, for which it stands. Where are you going with this? Where are you going with the promise of what the United States of America really is?
  It's also interesting that this Republican Party is not the Republican Party of 1863, of Abraham Lincoln, abolitionists and slavery, is not good. I think it's important for us to look at the underlying part of it. What is the value of it? Is it that some people are angry because my people no longer want to work for free?
  Hat tip: Mediaite.
To direct the Secretary of Defense to establish a task force on urotrauma. (H.R. 984)
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:45
  GovTrack's Bill SummaryWe don't have a summary available yet.
  Library of Congress SummaryThe summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress.
  No summary available.
  House Republican Conference SummaryThe summary below was written by the House Republican Conference, which is the caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives.
  No summary available.
  House Democratic Caucus SummaryThe House Democratic Caucus does not provide summaries of bills.
  So, yes, we display the House Republican Conference's summaries when available even if we do not have a Democratic summary available. That's because we feel it is better to give you as much information as possible, even if we cannot provide every viewpoint.
  We'll be looking for a source of summaries from the other side in the meanwhile.
There's a war on for your mind!
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:39
  ''Senator Paul drones on'....and on'....and on.''
  Paul Joseph WatsonInfowars.com March 7, 2013
  Despite receiving acclaim from both sides of the political spectrum over his stance against unconstitutional drone strikes, CNN host Erin Burnett and one of her guests suggested Senator Rand Paul was ''wasting time'' by staging his marathon filibuster yesterday.
  Introducing the segment by remarking, ''Senator Paul drones on'....and on'....and on,'' Burnett asked former National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor if a drone strike could ever take place within the United States.
  Vietor, who personally worked alongside presumptive CIA director John Brennan, one of the key architects of the secret drone program, attempted to claim the issue was ''pretty simple'' and that Attorney General Holder and President Obama had clearly stated that drones would not be used against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, the opposite of what Holder and Obama have actually communicated by refusing to categorically deny that this would take place.
  Indeed, in his letter to Rand Paul, Holder said that it was ''possible'' under extraordinary circumstances that drones could be used to kill Americans domestically. This refusal to rule out drone strikes on U.S. soil completely was the very thing that prompted Paul to launch his 12 hour filibuster.
  In addition, a 16-page Justice Department document leaked last month outlines how Obama has the power to order drone strikes targeting American citizens abroad as part of the war on terror. Since under the National Defense Authorization Act the entirety of the United States has been declared a ''battlefield,'' the implication is obvious. Domestic spy drones are already being prepared to be used against gun owners domestically.
  Above all, the White House only emphasized its ambiguity on the issue by refusing to respond to questions about Rand Paul's filibuster.
  Noting how Paul's filibuster won't prevent Brennan from becoming CIA director, Burnett went on to complain, ''Isn't he just holding everybody up, he's made his point, move on, wasting valuable time.''
  Vietor then ludicrously claimed Rand Paul's filibuster of Brennan's CIA confirmation was ''harmful to national security,'' adding ''John Brennan does his job to save lives, whether they're Americans or someone living in Yemen who's threatened by Al-Qaeda, that's why John Brennan does his job and he does it extraordinarily well,'' complaining that Brennan was being ''held up'' by Paul's filibuster.
  The notion that John Brennan ''does his job to save lives'' of people living in countries like Yemen is like claiming that Christopher Dorner saved the lives of police officers by killing them.
  Although the Obama administration claims the drone program has been used to carry out targeted killings of known terrorists and militants, almost 5,000 people have been killed in total, many of them innocent bystanders, including at least 176 children.
  On average, 50 innocent people are killed for every suspected ''terrorist'' who dies in a drone strike. That means 98 per cent of people killed by the drone strikes overseen by Brennan are harmless civilians. According to Vietor, John Brennan is 'saving lives' by ordering drone strikes that kill thousands of innocent people.
  CNN's coverage of the event was typical of other network news organizations. Despite setting Twitter on fire, the mainstream media was noticeably less interested in Paul's mammoth filibuster. As one YouTube user explained, even as the Kentucky Senator was into his 12th hour, major news websites buried the story near the bottom of their front pages.
  *********************
  Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
  This article was posted: Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 6:07 am
  Tags: domestic news, mainstream media
Government email instructs department head to make sequestration as painful as possible
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:37
  (NaturalNews) Prior to the current budgetary sequestration, President Barack Obama went on the record publicly warning Americans of dire consequences should the planned cuts that he himself helped devise - and eventually signed into law - be allowed to go into effect."This work, along with hundreds of thousands of jobs, are currently in jeopardy because of politics in Washington. In a few days, Congress might allow a series of immediate, painful, arbitrary budget cuts to take place, known in Washington as the sequester," he said Feb. 19 at a shipyard in Newport News, Va. "These cuts are wrong. They're not smart, they're not fair."
  Continuing, Obama predicted more dire consequences:
  If the sequester goes into effect, more than 2,000 college students would lose their financial aid. Across the country these cuts will force federal prosecutors to close cases and potentially let criminals go. Air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks and that could cause delays at airports across the country.
  The president also warned that the cuts would lead to furloughs of 800,000 federal defense workers, as well as layoffs of local first responders, police and firefighters (all of whom, by the way, are paid with local funds, but I digress).
  Self-fulfilling prophecy?
  After the March 1 deadline passed and the sequestered cuts became mandatory, Obama eased off his dire warnings, though with far less fanfare, admitting that the cuts would not be as devastating as he claimed they would be.
  "We will get through this. This is not going to be an apocalypse, I think as some people have said," he said, following a nearly hour-long meeting with lawmakers March 1. As you have read, "some people" who have said the sequester was going to be apocalyptic includes, of course, the president.
  Apparently, however, Obama is set to make his initial claims that the sequester would be painful on Americans a self-fulfilling prophesy, according to government emails that have been publicized by the Washington Times:
  The Obama administration denied an appeal for flexibility in lessening the sequester's effects, with an email this week appearing to show officials in Washington that because they already had promised the cuts would be devastating, they now have to follow through on that.
  In the email sent Monday by Charles Brown, an official with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service office in Raleigh, N.C., Mr. Brown asked "if there was any latitude" in how to spread the sequester cuts across the region to lessen the impacts on fish inspections.
  The answer from the White House, quite simply, was...no.
  'The Obama administration is doing everything it can...'
  "We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that 'APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs.' So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be."
  In other words, agency officials are being told by the president - who is head of the Executive Branch and directly oversees the vast array of government agencies - to make pain so he can blame it on the sequester and, by default, the opposition party.
  "This email confirms what many Americans have suspected: The Obama administration is doing everything they can to make sure their worst predictions come true and to maximize the pain of the Sequester cuts for political gain," said Rep. Tim Griffin, a Republican lawmaker from Arkansas.
  APHIS is an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and on March 5, during a congressional hearing, agency head Tom Vilsack said he hadn't seen the email Brown referenced.
  "If we have flexibility, we're going to try to use it to make sure we use sequester in the most equitable and least disruptive way," Vilsack said in response to a question from Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D. "There are some circumstances, and we've talked a lot about the meat inspection, where we do not have that flexibility because there are so few accounts."
  Noem said the email made it sound as if the administration was attempting to use the sequester for political gain.
  "I'm hopeful that isn't an agenda that's been put forward," she said.
  Sources:
  http://www.washingtontimes.com
  http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3699345.htm
  http://thehill.com
  Popular on Natural News
  Have comments on this article? Post them here: people have commented on this article.
VIDEO: Moon mining race under way
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 07:42
  Space exploration has long been about reaching far off destinations but now there is a race to exploit new frontiers by mining their minerals.
  Google has offered a $20m grand prize to the first privately-funded company to land a robot on the moon and explore the surface by moving at least 500 metres and send high definition video back to Earth by 2015.
  A second-placed team stands to win $5m for completing the same mission, with bonus prizes for travelling more than 5km, finding water and discovering any traces of man's past on the moon, such as the Apollo site.
  Alastair Leithead visited the test laboratory of Moon Express, one of 25 companies vying to win the prize.
Insight: Beppe Grillo - Italian clown or political mastermind?
  Link to Article
  Source: Reuters: World News
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 07:41
  Five-Star Movement leader and comedian Beppe Grillo gestures during a rally in Turin February 16, 2013.
  Credit: Reuters/Giorgio Perottino
  By Gavin Jones
  ROME | Thu Mar 7, 2013 2:04am EST
  ROME (Reuters) - Beppe Grillo stirs strong feelings. His supporters believe he can clean up Italian politics and give ordinary people more say in decision-making. His opponents see a dangerous populist who evokes memories of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
  International media describe Grillo as a comic, which on one level he is, but the man who jointly created and leads the party that in just three years has become the largest in Italy is much more than that.
  Behind his tirades against the political and business elite is a shrewd mind, a hugely influential alter ego and the desire to win complete power in the euro zone's third largest economy.
  "The left and right will govern together on the ruins they've created, it will last a year at most, then our movement will change the world," Grillo said after his party's triumphant performance in last week's election.
  Grillo has made all the headlines since the vote, but he is only half the story of his anti-establishment 5-Star Movement. Most of the strategy is decided by Gianroberto Casaleggio, an Internet expert who seldom appears in public.
  "A single man in command is not democracy," said Pier Luigi Bersani after his Democratic Party (PD) was beaten into second place in the vote. "Behind Bersani is the PD, I want to know what is behind Grillo."
  The answer is Casaleggio, and his Milan-based firm Casaleggio Associates whose business is to create websites and web-based marketing campaigns for clients.
  The two men met in 2004 and the following year Casaleggio's company created Grillo's hugely successful blog. Casaleggio has been running Grillo's public activities ever since. They are joint founders of the 5-Star Movement.
  In one of the best debut performances by any party in Western Europe since World War Two, 5-Star took 26 percent of the vote, outstripping the PD and Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right People of Freedom.
  "Unless the other parties change their leaders and somehow get back in touch with ordinary people he can certainly keep on growing," said Elisabetta Gualmini, politics professor at Bologna University and a close observer of Grillo's movement.
  DEMOCRAT OR DESPOT?
  Grillo capitalized on popular despair over recession, unemployment and poverty with a campaign that convinced millions of Italians that he could offer them a break with the past.
  "Grillo was the only one who gave any hope of change," said Matteo Schiavetti, 22, a student at Rome University.
  Grillo and his mostly young followers present themselves as pioneers of a new, more egalitarian type of democracy, based on direct participation rather than delegation and hierarchies.
  Yet his critics say he is more of a despot than a democrat. They point out that in practice Grillo not only controls the movement but owns it, having obtained the rights to its brand when he founded it with Casaleggio in 2009.
  "The total dependence on Grillo is not sustainable, they will have to create a structure and he will have to allow mini-leaders to emerge or everything will implode," said Gualmini.
  Grillo showed his iron grip last year when he expelled two local councilors who had criticized a lack of internal democracy and flouted the party rule not to appear on talk shows with rival politicians from the "old" parties.
  "There is no transparency, Casaleggio created everything and the only structure is Casaleggio Associates," said Giovanni Favia, the councilor for the Emilia Romagna region who was thrown out of the party after falling out with Casaleggio.
  Casaleggio, 59, with his unruly, shoulder length hair and round wire-framed glasses, is an ardent believer in the power of the Internet to transform the world and is often caricatured as a dreamy visionary (here).
  But those who have met him say he is practical, single minded and determined. His hero is 13th century Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan and he has said his final goal is for Italy's parties to disappear altogether.
  "I am on the streets and Casaleggio is on-line, they are interlinked roles and neither of us is leader," Grillo said in a book he published with Casaleggio last month.
  MUSSOLINI
  Some commentators have compared Grillo to Mussolini, seeing similar personality cults, the same vitriolic attacks on opponents and their common rejection of traditional parties.
  While most of Grillo's policies are light years away from those of the wartime dictator he, like Mussolini, possesses a rare charisma and an energy that belies his 64 years.
  To launch his party's campaign for elections in Sicily last year he swam the Straits of Messina, a treacherous 3 km (2 mile) stretch of water that separates the island from mainland Italy.
  Grillo and Casaleggio understood Italians' need for something different. And everything about 5-Star is different.
  It is the only party that refuses state financing and its elected representatives have all voluntarily slashed their salaries. Its members never appear on television talk shows, it communicates almost exclusively through Grillo's blog (www.beppegrillo.it), and it refuses to form alliances with other parties.
  Grillo aims to appeal to left and right. He attacks the old "zombie" parties and business fat cats but also the trade unions who he says no longer represent workers' interests.
  And it's not all vitriol. He also offers the positive message that politics can be clean and different, constantly citing the movement's local councilors who have given up most of their salaries to provide cheap credit to small businesses.
  MANSLAUGHTER
  Grillo himself will not be in parliament because a conviction for manslaughter makes him ineligible under his movement's rules. The jeep he was driving with friends on a mountain road in 1981 skidded on ice, went over a cliff and killed three of his four passengers.
  There may be contradictions in Grillo and his movement, but the common claim that he has no policies is untrue, and the thrust of his ideas is clear.
  He is an ecologist with a largely left-wing platform based on attacking privilege, redistributing wealth, increasing public control of schools and healthcare, and cutting spending on defense. He believes in more direct democracy using referendums and the Internet and wants new laws to clean up politics.
  However, he has wavered on the crucial issue of Italy's membership of the euro zone, first calling for withdrawal, then only for a referendum and most recently saying he wanted merely an on-line, non-binding consultation.
  "Grillo is interested in economics and he has a sound grasp of it," Mauro Gallegati, an economics professor at Ancona University who has advised Grillo on economic policy for 20 years, told Reuters.
  Gallegati said a wealth tax on Italy's richest 1 percent would go a long way towards funding a minimum income for the unemployed, one of Grillo's main promises.
  A wealth tax would almost certainly hit Grillo himself, as one of the country's most successful performers for more than 30 years. In the 2005 tax year he earned 4.3 million euros, according to leaked official data.
  Grillo's own lifestyle has not always gelled with his environmentalist stands. He used to own a Ferrari and a speedboat, but now runs an ecological hybrid Toyota. He has two children by his Iranian wife and two by a previous marriage.
  While Grillo's policies are nearly all on the left, he also draws considerable support from conservative voters who are equally tired of discredited parties and want something new.
  Around 46 percent of his votes come from the left, 39 percent from the right and centre and the rest from previous non-voters. Unlike the other parties, his support is also evenly spread geographically and among social classes.
  He gets fewer votes from the elderly, who have less access to the Internet, but "totally cleans up among the young, who have lost all faith in traditional parties," said Gualmini.
  Remarkably, 5-Star's election result was achieved by a party which in many ways does not even exist.
  The whole movement is based on the Internet. Its candidates for parliament were picked in primaries held on-line. It has no headquarters, no local offices and no internal hierarchy other than that Grillo is its leader.
  The movement's lightweight organization allows it to be virtually self-financing. Grillo's blog carries some advertising and sympathizers can contribute funds on-line.
  ORIGINS
  Grillo and Casaleggio probably became aware of their political potential in 2007 when protest rallies they organized on Grillo's blog, held simultaneously in cities around Italy, drew an estimated 2 million participants.
  Grillo's burly frame, wrinkled face and white, shaggy hair were little known internationally before the election campaign, but he had been a household name in Italy since he emerged as a television comedian in the late 1970s.
  The son of the owner of a small welding company, he studied economics at the university of his home town of Genoa but never finished his degree. He then worked briefly as a clothing salesman before becoming a stand-up comic in cabaret.
  After breaking into television his popularity grew and his shows became increasingly pungent and satirical.
  In 1986 he took aim at the ruling Socialist party on a Saturday night show, a move that virtually ended his TV career but boosted his popularity. The rest is history. Grillo moved out of television into theatres and public squares, beginning his metamorphosis from comic to political leader.
  His act began to resemble the furious rallies seen in the election campaign, addressing subjects like renewable energy, greener cities and the corruption of the Italy's leaders. It was this final theme that resonated most with his audience.
  To quell growing outrage at the privileges of the political caste, Italy's parties have repeatedly vowed to curb their salaries, pensions and cut the number of national and local politicians. The promises have never been fulfilled.
  Most recently, the same parties failed to change an electoral law they all publicly decried, because they secretly thought it could benefit them. As a result the election failed to produce a majority and left the country ungovernable.
  Now the centre-left coalition which won most seats is trying to woo Grillo to form a government with them by promising the same reforms. Italy awaits his - and Casaleggio's - decision.
  (Additional reporting by Massimiliano Di Giorgio; Editing by Giles Elgood)
  Link thisShare thisDigg thisEmailReprints
Rand Paul's Grand Effort
  Link to Article
  Source: Weasel Zippers
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 07:39
  Rand Paul ended the filibuster about 20 minutes ago after 12 hours and 52 minutes. All of the filibuster argument is being uploaded here. From quoting Reagan, we are ''the last best hope on earth'' to Marco Rubio quoting the Godfather, they put on quite a study in the Constitution.
  We should tip our hats tonight to Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Pat Toomey (R-Penn.), John Thune (R-S.D.), John Barrasso (R-Wy.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.).
  The question was simple-do you, Mr. President, believe you and your administration have the authority to kill by drone an American citizen without due process on American soil?
  If a President cannot immediately answer that question ''no'' , there is a deep problem.
RE: FCC cleaning up 14.313?
  Link to Article
  Source: eHam
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 07:37
  FCC fines and orders, like putting IRS forms in post offices and libraries, only work if you are planning on being a good citizen. flashing a badge, with a US Marshal flashing his badge, and loading the equipment in the trunk of the government van is going to do a lot more.assuming... (1) they can spare the inspectors to confiscate, (2) they can spare the back-room staff to process the complaints or the observations, (3) they give a rip.
  when was the last time a radio raconteur got parked on the stainless steel bench/bed/table in the big house? taking the equipment and jailing the wackos will make a difference. FCC is not funded at the necessary level to do that until the bands are happy and healthy.
  just hope the babies stay in the crib...
British terror suspects quietly stripped of citizenship'... then killed by drones - Crime - UK
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 07:32
  The Government has secretly ramped up a controversial programme that strips people of their British citizenship on national security grounds '' with two of the men subsequently killed by American drone attacks.
  An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism for The Independent has established that since 2010, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, has revoked the passports of 16 individuals, many of whom are alleged to have had links to militant or terrorist groups.
  Critics of the programme warn that it allows ministers to ''wash their hands'' of British nationals suspected of terrorism who could be subject to torture and illegal detention abroad.
  They add that it also allows those stripped of their citizenship to be killed or ''rendered'' without any onus on the British Government to intervene.
  At least five of those deprived of their UK nationality by the Coalition were born in Britain, and one man had lived in the country for almost 50 years. Those affected have their passports cancelled, and lose their right to enter the UK '' making it very difficult to appeal against the Home Secretary's decision. Last night the Liberal Democrats' deputy leader Simon Hughes said he was writing to Ms May to call for an urgent review into how the law was being implemented.
  The leading human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce said the present situation ''smacked of mediaeval exile, just as cruel and just as arbitrary''.
  Ian Macdonald QC, the president of the Immigration Law Practitioners' Association, described the citizenship orders as ''sinister''.
  ''They're using executive powers and I think they're using them quite wrongly,'' he said. ''It's not open government; it's closed, and it needs to be exposed.''
  Laws were passed in 2002 enabling the Home Secretary to remove the citizenship of any dual nationals who had done something ''seriously prejudicial'' to the UK, but the power had rarely been used before the current government took office.
  The Bureau's investigation has established the identities of all but four of the 21 British passport holders who have lost their citizenship, and their subsequent fates. Only two have successfully appealed '' one of whom has since been extradited to the US.
  In many cases those involved cannot be named because of ongoing legal action. The Bureau has also found evidence that government officials act when people are out of the country '' on two occasions while on holiday '' before cancelling passports and revoking citizenships.
  Those targeted include Bilal al-Berjawi, a British-Lebanese citizen who came to the UK as a baby and grew up in London, but left for Somalia in 2009 with his close friend the British-born Mohamed Sakr, who also held Egyptian nationality.
  Both had been the subject of extensive surveillance by British intelligence, with the security services concerned they were involved in terrorist activities.
  Once in Somalia, the two reportedly became involved with al-Shabaab, the Islamist militant group with links to al-Qa'ida. Mr Berjawi was said to have risen to a senior position in the organisation, with Mr Sakr his ''right-hand man''.
  In 2010, Theresa May stripped both men of their British nationalities and they soon became targets in an ultimately lethal US manhunt.
  In June 2011 Mr Berjawi was wounded in the first known US drone strike in Somalia and last year he was killed by a drone strike '' within hours of calling his wife in London to congratulate her on the birth of their first son.
  His family have claimed that US forces were able to pinpoint his location by monitoring the call he made to his wife in the UK. Mr Sakr, too, was killed in a US airstrike in February 2012, although his British origins have not been revealed until now.
  Mr Sakr's former UK solicitor said there appeared to be a link between the Home Secretary removing citizenships and subsequent US actions.
  ''It appears that the process of deprivation of citizenship made it easier for the US to then designate Mr Sakr as an enemy combatant, to whom the UK owes no responsibility whatsoever,'' Saghir Hussain said.
  Mr Macdonald added that depriving people of their citizenship ''means that the British government can completely wash their hands if the security services give information to the Americans who use their drones to track someone and kill them.''
  The campaign group CagePrisoners is in touch with many families of those affected. Its executive director Asim Qureshi said the Bureau's findings were deeply troubling for Britons from an ethnic minority background.
  ''We all feel just as British as everybody else, and yet just because our parents came from another country, we can be subjected to an arbitrary process where we are no longer members of this country any more,'' he said.
  ''I think that's extremely dangerous because it will speak to people's fears about how they're viewed by their own government, especially when they come from certain areas of the world.''
  The Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes said that, while he accepted there were often real security concerns, he was worried that those who were innocent of Home Office charges against them and were trying to appeal risked finding themselves in a ''political and constitutional limbo''.
  ''There was clearly always a risk when the law was changed seven years ago that the executive could act to take citizenship away in circumstances that were more frequent or more extensive than those envisaged by ministers at the time,'' he said.
  ''I'm concerned at the growing number of people who appear to have lost their right to citizenship. I plan to write to the Home Secretary and the Home Affairs Select Committee to ask for their assessment of the situation, and for a review of whether the act is working as intended.''
  Ms Peirce, a leading immigration defence lawyer, said, ''British citizens are being banished from their own country, being stripped of a core part of their identity yet without a single word of explanation of why they have been singled out and dubbed a risk,'' she said.
  Families are sometimes affected by the Home Secretary's decisions. Parents may have to choose whether their British children remain in the UK, or join their father in exile abroad.
  In a case known only as L1, a Sudanese-British man took his four British children on holiday to Sudan, along with his wife, who had limited leave to remain in the UK. Four days after his departure, Theresa May decided to strip him of his citizenship.
  With their father excluded from the UK and their mother's lack of permanent right to remain, the order effectively blocks the children from growing up in Britain. At the time of the order the children were aged between eight and 13 months.
  The judge, despite recognising their right to be brought up in Britain, ruled that the grounds on which their father's citizenship was revoked ''outweighed'' the rights of the children.
  Mr Justice Mitting, sitting in the semi-secret Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac), said: ''We accept it is unlikely to be in the best interests of the appellant's children that he should be deprived of his British citizenship...
  ''They are British citizens, with a right of abode in the UK.
  ''They are of an age when that right cannot, in practice, be enjoyed if both of their parents cannot return to the United Kingdom.''
  Yet he added that Theresa May was ''unlikely to have made that decision without substantial and plausible grounds''.
  In another case, a man born in Newcastle in 1963 and three of his London-born sons all lost their citizenship two years ago while in Pakistan.
  An expert witness told Siac that those in the family's situation may be at risk from the country's government agencies and militant groups. Yet Siac recently ruled that the UK ''owed no obligation'' to those at risk of ''any subsequent act of the Pakistani state or of non-state actors [militant groups] in Pakistan''.
  The mother, herself a naturalised British citizen, now wants to return here in the interests of her youngest son, who has developmental needs. Although 15, he is said to be ''dependent upon [his mother and father] for emotional and practical support''.
  His mother claimed he ''has no hope of education in Pakistan'. But the mother has diabetes and mobility problems that mean she ''does not feel able to return on her own, with or without [her son].''
  Mr Justice Mitting ruled that the deprivation of citizenship of the family's father had ''undoubtedly had an impact on the private and family life of his wife and youngest son, both of whom remain British citizens''. But he added that the father posed such a threat to national security that the ''unavoidable incidental impact'' on his wife and youngest son was ''justifiable'', and dismissed the appeal.
  A Home Office spokeswoman said: ''Citizenship is a privilege not a right. The Home Secretary has the power to remove citizenship from individuals where she considers it is conducive to the public good. An individual subject to deprivation can appeal to the courts.''
  She added: ''We don't routinely comment on individual deprivation cases.''
  Asked whether intelligence was provided to foreign governments, she said: ''We don't comment on intelligence issues. Drone strikes are a matter for the states concerned.''
  Mahdi Hashi: From Camden care worker to US prisoner
  Mahdi Hashi, a former care worker from Camden in north London, was well known to Britain's security services '' in fact they tried to recruit him when he was 19.
  Now 23, Mr Hashi is in a high-security US prison having been secretly ''rendered'' from the African state of Djibouti last year.
  Mr Hashi claims that before being sent to the US on charges of working with the terrorist group al-Shabaab he witnessed torture in an African prison, before being handed over to the CIA and forced to sign a confession.
  Despite Mr Hashi being brought up in the UK, the British Government has washed its hands of him, having stripped him of his citizenship shortly before he disappeared in Somalia last summer.
  His UK family say that when they lost contact with their son they approached the Foreign Office for help. But they were told by officials that they could not provide assistance because the Home Secretary had issued an order depriving him of his British citizenship.
  It was only five months later, when he re-appeared in the US, that they were able to contact him again. The family's lawyer, Saghir Hussain, said at the time: ''The UK Government has a lot of explaining to do. What role did it play in getting him kidnapped, held in secret detention and renditioned to the US?''
  The case has led to allegations that Britain may have conspired with the US to strip Mr Hashi of his citizenship knowing he would be arrested in Africa. They have no further obligations towards him and can avoid potentially embarrassing questions about his treatment before his rendition.
  The case is all the more bizarre as Mr Hashi gave an interview to The Independent in 2009 when he alleged that MI5 had attempted to recruit him. He claimed that on a previous trip to Africa he was held for 16 hours in a cell at Djibouti airport, and that when he was returned to the UK he was met by an MI5 agent who told him his terror-suspect status would remain until he agreed to work for the Security Service. He alleges he was to be given the job of informing on his friends by encouraging them to talk about jihad.
  Mohamed Sakr: The British car valet killed by a drone strike
  In February last year, international agencies in Africa reported that ''four foreign Islamist militants'' had been killed in a drone strike south of Somalia's capital, a day after the country's Prime Minister called for foreign air strikes against the terror group al-Shabaab.
  At the time a senior Western intelligence officer was quoted as saying that a ''very senior Egyptian was killed'' in the raid, along with three Kenyans and a Somali.
  That was technically true '' but in reality the Egyptian had not even been born in the country for which he held a passport. It would have been more accurate to describe him as a British terror suspect who once ran a car valeting business in London.
  The Bureau has established that the victim of the February air strike was Mohamed Sakr, who was born and brought up in the UK before having his citizenship revoked in September 2010 by the Home Secretary, Theresa May.
  Sakr appears to have come to the attention of UK intelligence officials after he visited Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Dubai in 2007. He was then repeatedly targeted by counter-terrorism officers over a two-year period, according to reports.
  It was this, it is alleged, that drove Sakr out of the country; he left Britain in late 2009 for Somalia.
  The law allowing the Home Secretary to remove citizenship was in place when Sakr left the UK, but it was not until after the Coalition came to power that it was used in his case.
  It would be another year and a half before he was killed.
Sexy shoot Christina Curry
  Link to Article
  Source: Telegraaf.nl - prive
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 07:23
  Sexy shoot Christina Curry en Elle Bandita - Priv(C) | Het laatste Priv(C) nieuws leest u op Prive.nl van De Telegraaf [prive]Uw browser ondersteunt geen javascript of javascript staat uitgeschakeld. Hierdoor kunnen er cookies geplaatst worden waar u geen toestemming voor heeft gegeven.
  Uw browser ondersteunt geen javascript of javascript staat uitgeschakeld. Hierdoor kunnen er cookies geplaatst worden waar u geen toestemming voor heeft gegeven.
Gore sued over Current TV sale to Al-Jazeera - SFGate
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 07:15
  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) '-- A television consultant claims that former Vice President Al Gore and others at Current TV stole his idea to sell the struggling network to Al-Jazeera.
  Los Angeles resident John Terenzio is demanding more than $5 million in a lawsuit quietly filed in San Francisco Superior Court Tuesday.
  Al-Jazerra announced Jan. 3 that it would pay $500 million for San Francisco-based Current TV.
  Terenzio alleges he first brought the idea of the Qatar-owned Al-Jazeera's purchase of Current TV to board member Richard Blum in July, and he expected to be paid if his plan was used. The lawsuit claims Blum was open to the plan, which Terenzio laid out with a detailed PowerPoint presentation but feared Gore would find such a deal with the oil-rich government of Qatar "politically unappealing."
  Neither Gore or Blum, nor their representatives, could be reached for comment late Wednesday.
  Gore co-founded Current TV in 2005 with Joel Hyatt, with each receiving a 20 percent stakes in Current, a politically left leaning news and talk network. Comcast Corp. had less than a 10 percent stake. Another major investor in Current TV was supermarket magnate and entertainment industry investor Ron Burkle, according to information service Capital IQ.
  Blum, a venture capitalist and husband of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, is also an investor in Current TV.
  Terenzio claims he presented to Blum "a step-by-step approach for making the sale of the liberal media outlet to Al-Jazeera palatable to U.S. lawmakers, pro-Israel factions, cable operators and, most importantly, the American public."
  Terenzio claims he created the English version of China Central Television and reprogrammed it for American audiences. He said he planned to use the same strategies in rebranding Current TV into Al-Jazeera America.
  "Blum greeted Terenzio's proposal with enthusiasm, indicating that he and other investors were eager to salvage their multi-million investment in the floundering cable network," Terenzio claims in his lawsuit.
  Terenzio said he believes Gore did turn down the deal in July and was "adamant" in rejecting it.
  Terenzio's attorney, Ellyn Garofalo, said an "insider" told her client of Gore's rejection but refused to identify that person in a brief email interview Wednesday night. Garofalo represented Dr. Sandeep Kapoor when a jury acquitted him of illegally funneling prescription drugs to Anna Nicole Smith.
  Terenzio said Al-Jazeera's January announcement of the sale was the first he heard of it.
Casaleggio: who is he? | Tribune of the people
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 06:59
  La storia della Casaleggio Associati ¨ piena di ombre e pochissime luci. L'eminenza grigia del grillismo ¨ legato ai grandi trust economici mondiali tramite Enrico Sassoon. Il comico genovese ¨ complice o un burattino nelle mani dei gruppi finanziari internazionali?
  Beppe Grillo? Come Ges¹ con gli apostoli>>. Cos¬ secondo Gianroberto Casaleggio in un'intervista al The Guardian. E lui, Casaleggio, rientra tra gli apostoli? Secondo il quotidiano britannico no. Tutt'altro. Casaleggio ¨ descritto come l'eminenza grigia che tesse i fili del Movimento 5 Stelle. Guru dell'informazione via web, Casaleggio ¨, per il Guardian, una sorta di Assange italiano, uno che con la rete riesce a manipolare informazioni, sviscerarle, andare alla ricerca di segreti mai venuti alla luce.Ma al di l dell'aurea misterica che tentano di ricamargli addosso chi ¨ Gianroberto Casaleggio? Cosa fa realmente? Il suo nome viaggia in binomio con Grillo, ma sempre un passo indietro, come se Grillo fosse la bocca tramite la quale parla, in realt , Casaleggio stesso. Grillo pi¹ che Ges¹ ¨ una sorta di avatar dell'informatico. Ma a sua volta chi c'¨ dietro Casaleggio?
  La carriera di Casaleggio inizia nell'Olivetti, durante l'era Colaninno. All'epoca l'azienda informatica italiana stava entrando nel settore delle comunicazioni tramite la costituzione di Infostrada, ed alcune partecipazioni in Omnitel (ora Vodafone). Internet era un affare in via di sviluppo, e la branca Olivetti/Infostrada che si occupava della rete viene affidata proprio a Casaleggio, con la costituzione di Webbeg Joint Adventure, azienda che si occupava proprio dello sviluppo di internet in Italia. Ma Olivetti, quindi di conseguenza WJA, erano controllate da Lehmann Brothers, il tristemente noto gigante finanziario americano che fall¬ rovinosamente segnando una delle pagine pi¹ buie dell'economia americana. Nel 1999 Colaninno acquista Telecom, ma l'affare ¨ rovinoso, l'Olivetti non riesce a saldare i debiti della Telecom e nel 2001 vende l'azienda a Pirelli/Benetton e alla nuova propriet passa anche WJA che cambia nome in Netikos. Casaleggio resta sempre al comando fin quando Telecom non decidere di vendere Neitkos e Casaleggio crea una nuova societ : la Casaleggio Associati.
  Fondata nel 2004 la Casaleggio Associati ha nel suo c.d.a quattro quinti di quello che fu il c.d.a. Netikos (unico escluso Colaninno jr.) quindi tutti dipendenti Telecom, e, sar un caso, ma tutt'ora la domiciliazione tecnica del dominio di beppegrillo.it ¨ per conto di tale Emanuele Bottaro a Via Jervis 77 Ivrea. Indirizzo che ¨ anche la sede legale di Olivetti s.p.a. di propriet di Telecom Italia.
  Ma tra i nomi che spiccano tra gli attuali membri del c.d.a. della Casaleggio associati c'¨ quello di Enrico Sassoon, socio fondatore. Chi ¨ Sassoon? Economista di origine ebraiche (la famiglia ¨ imparentata con i Rotschild), dopo una brillante carriera nella Pirelli riceve due nomine, la prima di direttore della rivista Affari Internazionali, del cui comitato di redazione fanno parte: Mario Monti, Giorgio Napolitano, Fabrizio Saccomanni (direttore generale di Banca d'Italia), Domenico Fisichella, Enrico Letta, Giuseppe Zadra (direttore generale dell'Associazione Bancaria Italiana). La seconda nomina, ben pi¹ importante ¨ di Presidente del Comitato Affari Economici dell'American Chamber of Commerce in Italy, di cui presidente onorario ¨ il tanto odiato da Grillo, Cesare Romiti. In sostanza Sassoon ¨ l'uomo di tramite tra il nostro paese e le principali multinazionali americane. Infatti dell'American Chamber fanno parte Standard & Poor's, Philip Morris, Coca Cola, Pepsi, JP Morgan, Microsoft, Bank of America etc. Insomma tutte le societ della conferenza Bilderberg.
  La conferenza Bildeberg ¨ un incontro che si svolge una volta all'anno e alla quale partecipano i pi¹ influenti uomini d'affari e politici del mondo per discutere delle sorti dell'economia mondiale. lo stesso gruppo che Grillo accusa di complotto internazionale, di aver portato al governo prima Berlusconi e poi Monti e di controllare l'economia UE. Alla conferenza partecipa anche Sassoon, lo stesso uomo che controlla il gruppo web-editoriale che cura il blog di Grillo!
  Casaleggio ¨ uomo di Sassoon ed infatti, nel 2004, annuncia che la Casaleggio associati ¨ entrata in partnership con l'Enamics, una societ di gestione internet specializzata nel c.d. marketing virale, una tipologia di comunicazione ai limiti della legalit basata sullo screditare con accuse violente, linguaggio aggressivo e argomenti non totalmente dimostrati (e molto spesso creati ad hoc) gli avversari d'affari in blog, forum, social network, etc. Pensando al tipo di comunicazione proposta da Grillo e studiata a tavolino con Casaleggio, viene da riflettere. Inoltre l'Enamics (combinazione) ¨ controllata dall'American Chamber di cui sopra.
  Grillo come Ges¹ evidentemente non riconosce i Giuda tra i suoi amici, o forse fa finta di non riconoscerli. In entrambi i casi si guardi, il comico genovese, dal non finire, anche lui, crocifisso.
  Antonio Siniscalchi
Internment / Resettlement Specialist (31E) | GoArmy.com
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 06:51
  Internment/Resettlement Specialist (31E)
  OverviewInternment/resettlement specialists are primarily responsible for day-to-day operations in a military confinement/correctional facility or detention/internment facility.
  Job DutiesSupervision of confinement and detention operationsExternal security to facilitiesCounseling/guidance to individual prisoners within a rehabilitative programRecords of prisoners/internees and their programsRequirementsThose who want to serve must first take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, a series of tests that helps you better understand your strengths and identify which Army jobs are best for you.
  TrainingJob training for an internment/resettlement specialist requires 10 weeks of Basic Combat Training and eight weeks of Advanced Individual Training with on-the-job instruction. Part of this time is spent in the classroom and in the field.
  Some of the skills you'll learn are:
  Military laws and jurisdictionsSelf-defense and use of firearmsInterpersonal communications skillsSearch/restraint and custody/control proceduresHelpful SkillsInterest in law enforcementPhysically and mentally fitAbility to make quick decisionsRemain calm under heavy duressRequired ASVAB Score(s)Skilled Technical (ST) : 95Learn more about the ASVAB and see what jobs you could qualify for.
  CompensationTotal compensation includes housing, medical, food, special pay, and vacation time. Learn more about total compensation.
  Education BenefitsIn the Army, qualified students can earn full-tuition, merit-based scholarships, allowances for books and fees, plus an annual stipend for living expenses. Learn more about education benefits.
  Future Civilian CareersThe skills you learn will help prepare you for a career with federal, state and local law enforcement.
Orthokeratology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 06:45
  Orthokeratology (also referred to as Ortho-K, Overnight Vision Correction and Corneal Refractive Therapy), marketed under brand names like "OK Lens", "EyeDream", "MiracLens", "DreamLens", "i-GO OVC", "GOV", "Wake and See", "CRT", "Fargo/iSee", "Emerald" and "Wave Contact Lens System", is the use of rigid gas-permeable contact lenses, normally worn only at night, to improve vision through the reshaping of the cornea. This method can be used as an alternative to eyeglasses, refractive surgery, or for those who prefer not to wear contact lenses during the day. The latter may be due to discomfort from working in air-conditioned or dusty environments, from extended computer usage which reduces blink rates and tear film production or from displacement or loss during sports activities.
  [edit]HistoryDoctors discovered the reshaping phenomena of glass lenses as early as the 1940s. This history of orthokeratology includes contributions made by Jessen, Ziff, Nolan, Paige, Gates, May, Grant, Fontana, Tabb, Freeman, Shed, Kerns, and Binder to the use of contact lenses for myopia reduction.[1]
  George Jessen created what was probably the first orthokeratology design in the 1960s made from PMMA material, which he marketed as "Orthofocus". These early designs had generally unpredictable results, leading to the belief that applied orthokeratology was more art or luck than science. Many groups and individuals claim to have been the first to develop modern orthokeratology solutions. However, Dr. Richard Wlodyga and Nick Stoyan, in particular, are generally credited[2] with developing the first reverse zone lens design in the 1980s.[3]
  However, it was not until computerized corneal topography became available during the 1990s that it became possible to apply the theory to create designs with repeatable results through being able to accurately map the surface curvature of the cornea using a non-invasive, painless imaging procedure. Additionally, the development of new base materials for rigid gas permeable lenses which provided much higher levels of oxygen permeability opened up the possibility of orthokeratology becoming an overnight procedure rather than being used for daytime wear alone. Finally, the introduction of computer-controlled precision lathes meant that lens designs could be manufactured to sub-micron levels of accuracy thereby offering the prospect of high volume production becoming commercially viable.
  In the summer of 2000, at an educational meeting of optometrists in Toronto, the Orthokeratology Academy of America (OAA) was formed to support, promote and advance orthokeratology. By providing quality education and scientific information on the subject of ortho-k to all interested practitioners, the OAA provides an unbiased forum for the free exchange of ideas and concepts relating to all aspects of orthokeratology. Its membership has the opportunity to advance their role in the field by applying for and passing comprehensive exams in order to achieve Fellowship status in the Academy. In parallel, the British Orthokeratology Society (BOKS) was established in the UK with similar objectives to promote orthokeratology as a new procedure to correct myopia.
  In 1994 the FDA granted the first ever daily wear approval for a lens indicated for Orthokeratology to a type of lens called the Contex OK-Lens. A significant milestone for the United States market occurred in June 2002 when the FDA granted approval for overnight wear of a type of corneal reshaping called "Corneal Refractive Therapy" (CRT). This forms the basis of the "Paragon CRT" product backed by Paragon Vision Sciences Inc. Subsequently in 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a design from Euclid Systems Corporation ("Emerald"). Each FDA approval has a Premarket approval (PMA) number. The PMA number of the FDA approval for Paragon CRT is P870024; the PMA number of the FDA approval for Emerald is P010062.
  However, nightwear ortho-k solutions were available to consumers in many countries outside the US much earlier as a result of different regulatory controls and bodies.
  In 2005, Bausch & Lomb acquired the PMA for the Emerald lens design from Euclid (which is marketed in Europe as 'i-GO OVC') and created the "Vision Shaping Treatment" (VST) program to collectively market a number of ortho-k lens designs which were manufactured using Bausch & Lomb base material. This program currently comprises five lens designs in addition to Emerald.
  In 2006 and 2007, papers presented at the British Contact Lens Association and the Global Orthokeratology Symposium indicated the possibility of orthokeratology slowing or stopping myopic progression. This was found to be effective in children in Hong Kong[4] and is the subject of wider study to verify this data.[5] More recently, the first year results from the SMART Study (Stabilizing Myopia by Accelerated Reshaping Technique) '' a five-year longitudinal study currently underway in the Greater Chicago area '' show a statistically significant difference for children in the treatment group wearing orthokeratology lenses who exhibited no overall prescription change against children in the control group wearing conventional soft contact lenses for whom there was a mean increase in myopia of 0.40 diopters.[6]
  [edit]MechanismTissue growth and propagation studies indicate that epithelial cells adjust growth in response to presence of a foreign material. CRT lens proximity to the cells therefore is thought to stimulate cell growth where less proximity coincides with added growth and more proximity coincides with growth repression thereby creating a 'proximal pressure' on the epithelial cells.[7]
  [edit]IndicationsThe US FDA overnight orthokeratology approval for Paragon CRT is for procedures up to ''6.00 diopters of myopia and up to ''1.75 diopters of astigmatism whilst the approvals for Euclid (and thus for the other five lens designs offered under the Bausch & Lomb 'Vision Shaping Treatment' portfolio) cover procedures up to ''5.00 diopters of myopia and up to ''1.50 diopters of astigmatism.
  In the United Kingdom, the procedure is offered primarily for myopic correction up to ''5.00 diopters and up to ''1.50 diopters of astigmatism. Fitting evidence for the leading lens designs indicates that procedures undertaken within these parameters have the highest probability of success. Some patients with higher degrees of myopia are successfully treated by specialist practitioners with "off-label" uses of these same lenses.
  In countries such as South Africa, Australia and Taiwan, practitioners using the GOV orthokeratology system have achieved successful fits as high as ''10.00D of myopia and +5.00D of hyperopia. Not every patient within these parameters will be suitable for the procedure and conditions such as flat or steep corneas may result in the procedure being less successful.
  [edit]Types of lensesOrthokeratology lenses are made by a number of companies globally, primarily using one of the two FDA approved technologies. All use special gas permeable lenses to reshape the cornea. The lens material '' and especially its oxygen permeability measured by its 'Dk' rating (the higher the value, the greater the degree of oxygen permeability) '' is important for maintaining eye-health during the treatment.
  Paragon Vision Sciences manufactures a lens trademarked "Paragon CRT" (Paragon Corneal Refractive Therapy) and marketed as "Accelerated Orthokeratology" (AOK) using base material manufactured in-house. Also under the Paragon Vision Sciences FDA approval is the FARGO lens exclusively manufactured by GP Specialists in San Diego. The Euclid Systems and the other five overnight orthokeratology lens designs offered under the Bausch & Lomb "Vision Shaping Treatment" (VST) portfolio are manufactured by various contact lens laboratories in the US and internationally using Bausch & Lomb base materials and in North America may only be fitted by VST certified practitioners.
  The eight designs in the VST portfolio comprise (alphabetically):
  "BE Retainer" backed by BE Enterprises Inc"CKR" backed by Eye Care Associates"Contex OK-E System" backed by Contex Inc."DreamLens" backed by Dreimlens Inc"Emerald" designed and manufactured by Euclid Systems Corporation"MiracLens" designed and manufactured by MiracLens,LLC"NightMove" backed by Advanced Corneal Engineering Inc"Wave Ortho K" by Wave Contact Lens System, LLCNo other design of ortho-k lenses has been approved by the FDA for overnight wear and currently there are no other studies underway for any new lens designs.
  Non FDA approved designs are available, such as Menicon Z Night which uses fenestrations in the reverse curve to maximize fluid flow while maintaining centration with a high Dk material. Menicon Z material is FDA approved for up to 30 day wear in regular GP form.
  Some practitioners have also designed their own orthokeratology lenses typically by using various software packages which combine corneal topographical data with the practitioners' own knowledge and experience to determine the appropriate lens parameters for individual patient prescriptions. Wave/Z-Wave is one such software package which allows for a CNC lathe manufacturing method of lenses customized by the practitioner with a wide variety of material choices.
  [edit]ComfortRigid lenses are generally considered to be not as comfortable as soft contacts, and, if worn while the eyes are open, can feel similar to an eyelash trapped in the wearer's eye, especially during initial wear periods. This is due to the shape & size requirements of the lens and edge design which has to serve more purposes than a traditional lens. Generally the feeling is reduced as the eye becomes used to the lens, though it may never become as comfortable as soft contact lens designs which are designed to be used for active vision correction.
  However overnight Ortho-K is generally very well accepted, since the main cause of discomfort during waking hours is the feeling of the eyelids moving over the lens edges while blinking. Ortho-K lenses are worn when the eyes are closed for sleep, so there is no blinking and therefore generally no residual feeling of the lens after the adaptation period.
  [edit]CautionsDuring the first month of lens wear when the treatment zone on the surface of the cornea is in the process of becoming fully formed, some users may experience vision issues such as ghosting, double vision, contrast problems and/or starbursting, especially at night. These issues are generally resolved by the end of the first month of lens wear. If these issues persist beyond this initial period, the cause may be due to lack of centration of the lens on the eye and/or overly large pupil size (in light or dark). Resolution may be possible through redesign, material changes, better eye moisture retention (night eye masks, duct blocking, Restatis etc.) or other techniques. All issues should be immediately discussed with the Practitioner.
  Orthokeratology has rarely had severe side-effects, although this is confined to a March 2004 report of a very small sample of cases in China where supply of lenses at that time was not subject to any regulatory regime covering safety and efficacy.[8][9] More typically, complications can occur due to the patient's failure to follow appropriate hygiene recommendations when handling or cleaning the lenses including the use of tap water to rinse (although some systems allow for or suggest the use of "clean" tap water) or store.[10][11] Complications may also be due to relative corneal hypoxia (lack of oxygen) with prolonged or overnight contact lens wear in lenses made from the wrong material.[12] However, the use of high or hyper oxygen-permeable materials as approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and manufactured by leading contact lens companies such as Bausch and Lomb and Paragon Vision Sciences significantly reduces hypoxia, and these are the materials that are normally used in orthokeratology.
  An article in the January 2005 issue of "Eye & Contact Lens: Science & Clinical Practice" discusses two case reports of children who developed corneal ulcers when fit with Paragon CRT contact lenses, which were worn nightly.[13] Each patient presented with a bacterial corneal ulcer after wearing CRT contact lenses for less than 6 months. In the first patient, Pseudomonas aeruginosa was identified as the causative organism. In the second patient, Haemophilus influenza was cultured from the ulcer. Both patients were treated with antibiotics, resulting in a rapid resolution of the corneal ulcers and preservation of vision. The writers conclude that "Paragon CRT lenses have been approved for use in patients of all ages. When used in children, these lenses may present unique problems. The absolute incidence of bacterial corneal ulcers in patients with CRT lenses are unknown. Severe caution should be used before prescribing CRT lenses for children and informed consent should include potential sight-threatening corneal ulcers." In fact this advice applies generally to all modes of contact lens wear, and although sight threatening corneal ulcers are not common, informed consent should routinely be obtained for all new contact lens wearers, whether worn overnight or not.
  ^J Am Optom Assoc. 1982 Mar;53(3):187''95^Orthokeratology Principles and practice by John Mountford,David Ruston Trusit Dave^Orthokeratology Principles and practice by John Mountford,David Ruston Trusit Dave^Orthokeratology practice in children in a university clinic in Hong Kong '' Clinical and Experimental Optometry. March 2008.^Eye-shaping contacts may repair vision '' Cosmos Magazine. December 6, 2007.^Presentation to Global Specialty Lens Symposium by Dr S Barry Eiden OD FAAO, Las Vegas, January 2009.^Allen biometrics, 2011^Orthokeratology contact lenses cause permanent vision loss in children '' American Academy of Ophthalmology media release, 1 March 2004^Acanthamoeba keratitis and overnight orthokeratology Case presentation: Canadian Adverse Reaction Newsletter Volume 16, Issue 2, April 2006^Eye Contact Lens. 2005 Sep;31(5):201''8^Clinical and Experimental Optometry. 2007;90:3:182''189^Ophthalmology. 2001 Aug;108(8):1389''99^Macsai, M.D., Marian S. (January 2005). "Corneal Ulcers in Two Children Wearing Paragon Corneal Refractive Therapy Lenses". Eye & Contact Lens: Science & Clinical Practice. Issue 1 31: 9''11. http://journals.lww.com/claojournal/Abstract/2005/01000/Corneal_Ulcers_in_Two_Children_Wearing_Paragon.3.aspx. Retrieved 22 April 2011.[edit]References[edit]External links
VIDEO-School Shut Down Due To "Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air" Ringtone. - YouTube
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 06:39
VIDEO-Atty. Gen. Holder Faces Senators on Judiciary Cmte. | C-SPAN
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 06:23
  Washington, DCWednesday, March 6, 2013
  The Senate Judiciary Committee heard from Attorney General Eric Holder in a hearing entitled ''Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice.''
  The committee questioned Holder on a wide variety of issues including the effects from sequestration for Holder's agency. But lawmakers focused on the CIA drone bombing raids abroad.
  Last week, the Attorney General warned that budget cuts mandated through sequestration will have a ''profound'' effect on the Justice Department. He said that cuts to the FBI, ATF, U.S. Marshalls, & U.S. Attorneys will limit the department's capacity to investigate and solve crimes.
  Sequestration, the mandatory across-the-board budget cuts agreed to in the Budget Control Act of 2011, took effect last Friday. This year, the federal government will have to make $85 billion in cuts, split evenly between defense and discretionary spending.
  This was his ninth appearance before the Committee as Attorney General.
  Updated: 6 hr., 47 min. ago
VIDEO-UK To Supply Military Aid To Syria Opposition - YouTube
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 06:12
VIDEO-BBC News - UK to send armoured vehicles to Syrian opposition
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 06:12
  6 March 2013Last updated at11:28 ETPlease turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
  Foreign Secretary William Hague: "The cabinet is in no doubt that this is necessary"
  The UK is to provide armoured vehicles and body armour to opposition forces in Syria "to help save lives", Foreign Secretary William Hague has said.
  It will offer millions of pounds in "non-lethal" equipment, including search and rescue, communications, and disease-prevention materials.
  Mr Hague said it was a "necessary, proportionate and lawful" response to "extreme human suffering".
  But some MPs said they feared being drawn into a military intervention.
  Up to 70,000 people have been killed and a million refugees have fled since the crisis began two years ago.
  The latest UN figures show that two million have been internally displaced, while 400,000 have fled abroad since the start of the year, with the largest number seeking shelter in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.
  Iraq fearUN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres has warned that Syria was "spiralling towards a full-scale disaster" and that international response capacity was "dangerously stretched".
  Continue reading the main storyThe Foreign Secretary William Hague set out why the crisis in Syria mattered to Britain: The dangers of the growth of jihadist extremism; the risks to peace in the wider Middle East; and the scale of the humanitarian suffering.
  Britain though is still not ready to supply arms to the Syrian opposition. There will be assistance, advice and training to help maintain security in areas already controlled by the opposition.
  Four-wheel drive armoured vehicles might be supplied to help opposition leaders move around.
  This all marks a significant shift in British policy but one that, given the scale of the crisis on the ground, still falls far short of the weaponry that the Syrian opposition wants.
  But Mr Hague made it clear that Britain's policy was not static and the direction in which it is heading, he hopes, will send a clear message to the regime in Damascus.
  Mr Hague told Parliament the Syrian people were in "dire need" of help and the UK could not "look the other way" in the face of the escalating humanitarian crisis and what he said were human rights violations by the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
  As the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war approaches, Lib Dem Sir Menzies Campbell said many MPs were concerned "lest we might drift towards" military intervention in Syria.
  Although Mr Hague refused to rule out the possibility in the future, he said: "No Western government is advocating military intervention of Western nations into the conflict in Syria. The discussion is entirely focused on the degree of assistance that can and should be delivered to the opposition."
  He announced a £13m package of logistical and humanitarian support for areas under opposition control which he said was possible after changes to the terms of the EU's arms embargo - permitting the supply of a wider range of non-lethal assistance - last week.
  The UK will provide non-combat armoured vehicles to opposition forces to help them move around in safety, as well as body armour. Other material being provided includes communications and refuse collection equipment as well as support for the electricity grid and water supply.
  Testing equipment to provide evidence of any use of chemical weapons will also be supplied, Mr Hague added, as there was a risk that such weapons could be used against Syrian civilians.
  'Carefully monitored'"The Cabinet is in no doubt that this is a necessary, proportionate and lawful response to a situation of extreme humanitarian suffering, and that there is no practicable alternative," he said.
  "All our assistance will be carefully calibrated and monitored as well as legal, and will be aimed at saving life, alleviating this human catastrophe and supporting moderate groups."
  Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
  FSA commander Gen Selim Idriss says Syrian rebels need arms and ammunition
  The move follows the US government's pledge of £40m in non-lethal assistance last week and signs that the international community may be reconsidering its policy of not providing military support to groups opposed to the Assad government.
  The commander of the Free Syrian Army, General Idriss, who defected from forces loyal to President Assad last year, told the BBC opposition forces desperately needed weapons and ammunition and called for the EU arms embargo to be lifted.
  During a visit to the the European Parliament, he said fears that weapons supplied to the opposition would end up in the wrong hands were misplaced and insisted that jihadist groups had no chance and no role in the future of Syria.
  Mr Hague, who claimed Iran was increasing its support for the government, made clear the UK was not considering arming opposition forces but would provide "assistance, advice and training" to them and could not rule out further support if the situation worsened further.
  "In our view, if a political solution to the crisis in Syria is not found and the conflict continues, we and the rest of the EU will have to be ready to move further, and we should not rule out any option for saving lives."
  Several MPs expressed concerns that the UK was not putting enough effort into trying to secure a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
  'Neo-con policies'Former Conservative defence minster Sir Gerald Howarth said he feared the UK's "hand is being drawn ever closer into this mangle", while fellow Conservative Bob Stewart urged the foreign secretary to put all his efforts into securing a ceasefire so politics, not the military could solve the situation.
  Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
  Vitaly Churkin, current chairman of UN Security Council: "The situation is unacceptable"
  Labour's Peter Hain said there had been "a monumental failure of diplomacy" and accused Mr Hague of "making the situation worse". He called for President Assad's offer of negotiations to "be tested to destruction".
  Conservative Edward Leigh urged Mr Hague to reject the "neo-con policies" of those called for the UK to arm the rebels. "What is wrong with basing our policy on life and not death?" he asked.
  And some MPs expressed concerns that equipment could fall into the hands of extremist groups and jihadists whose interests were not aligned with the UK.
  Labour said the worsening situation was an indictment of the international community's failure to act collectively and decisively.
  Shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander said: "It is right that efforts must now intensify but the key issue is the breadth of these efforts, how these efforts are channelled and how likely they are to deliver some results.
  "There are some vital areas where the international community must better co-ordinate and target its efforts."
Filibuster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:38
  A filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure where debate is extended, allowing one or more members to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal. It is sometimes referred to as talking out a bill,[1] and characterized as a form of obstruction in a legislature or other decision-making body. The English term "filibuster" derives from the Spanishfilibustero, itself deriving originally from the Dutchvrijbuiter, "privateer, pirate, robber" (also the root of English "freebooter"[2]). The Spanish form entered the English language in the 1850s, as applied to military adventurers from the United States then operating in Central America and the Spanish West Indies such as William Walker.[3][4] (See Filibuster (military).)
  The term in its legislative sense was first used by Democratic congressman Albert G. Brown of Mississippi in 1853, referring to Abraham Watkins Venable's speech against "filibustering" intervention in Cuba.[5]
  [edit]Ancient RomeOne of the first known practitioners of the filibuster was the Roman senatorCato the Younger. In debates over legislation he especially opposed, Cato would often obstruct the measure by speaking continuously until nightfall.[6] As the Roman Senate had a rule requiring all business to conclude by dusk, Cato's purposefully long-winded speeches were an effective device to forestall a vote.
  Cato attempted to use the filibuster at least twice to frustrate the political objectives of Julius Caesar.[6] The first incident occurred during the summer of 60 B.C.E., when Caesar was returning home from his propraetorship in Hispania Ulterior. Caesar, by virtue of his military victories over the raiders and bandits in Hispania, had been awarded a triumph by the Senate. Having recently turned 40, Caesar had also become eligible to stand for consul. This posed a dilemma. Roman generals honored with a triumph were not allowed to enter the city prior to the ceremony, but candidates for the consulship were required, by law, to appear in person at the Forum.[6] The date of the election, which had already been set, made it impossible for Caesar to stand unless he crossed the pomerium and gave up the right to his triumph. Caesar petitioned the Senate to stand in absentia, but Cato employed a filibuster to block the proposal. Faced with a choice between a triumph and the consulship, Caesar chose the consulship and entered the city.
  Cato made use of the filibuster again in 59 B.C.E. in response to a land reform bill sponsored by Caesar, who was then consul.[6] When it was Cato's time to speak during the debate, he began one of his characteristically long-winded speeches. Caesar, who needed to pass the bill before his co-consul, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, took possession of the fasces at the end of the month, immediately recognized Cato's intent and ordered the lictors to jail him for the rest of the day. The move was unpopular with many senators and Caesar, realizing his mistake, soon ordered Cato's release. The day was wasted without the Senate ever getting to vote on a motion supporting the bill, but Caesar eventually circumvented Cato's opposition by taking the measure to the Tribal Assembly, where it passed.
  [edit]Westminster-style parliaments[edit]BritainIn the Parliament of the United Kingdom, a bill defeated by a filibustering manoeuvre may be said to have been "talked out". The procedures of the House of Commons require that members cover only points germane to the topic under consideration or the debate underway whilst speaking. Example filibusters in the Commons and Lords include:
  In 1874, Joseph Gillis Biggar started making long speeches in the House of Commons to delay the passage of Irish coercion acts. Charles Stewart Parnell, a young Irish nationalist Member of Parliament (MP), who in 1880 became leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, joined him in this tactic to obstruct the business of the House and force the Liberals and Conservatives to negotiate with him and his party. The tactic was enormously successful, and Parnell and his MPs succeeded in, for a time, forcing Parliament to take the Irish question of return to self-government seriously.In 1983, Labour MP John Golding talked for over 11 hours during an all-night sitting at the committee stage of the British Telecommunications Bill. However, as this was at a standing committee and not in the Commons chamber, he was also able to take breaks to eat.On July 3, 1998, Labour MP Michael Foster's Wild Mammals (Hunting with Dogs) Bill was blocked in parliament by opposition filibustering.In January 2000, filibustering orchestrated by Conservative MPs to oppose the Disqualifications Bill led to cancellation of the day's parliamentary business on Prime MinisterTony Blair's 1000th day in office. However, since this business included Prime Minister's Question Time, Conservative Leader, at the time, William Hague was deprived of the opportunity of a high-profile confrontation with the Prime Minister.On Friday 20 April 2007, a Private Member's Bill aimed at exempting Members of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act was 'talked out' by a collection of MPs, led by Liberal Democrats Simon Hughes and Norman Baker who debated for 5 hours, therefore running out of time for the parliamentary day and 'sending the bill to the bottom of the stack.' However, since there were no other Private Member's Bills to debate, it was resurrected the following Monday.[7]In January 2011, Labour peers were attempting to delay the passage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill 2010 until after 16 February, the deadline given by the Electoral Commission to allow the referendum on the Alternative Vote to take place on 5 May. On the eighth day of debate, staff in the House of Lords set up camp beds and refreshments to allow peers to rest, for the first time in eight years.[8]In January 2012, Conservative and Scottish National Party MPs used filibustering to successfully block the Daylight Savings Bill 2010-12, a Private Member's Bill that would put the UK on Central European Time. The filibustering included an attempt by Jacob Rees-Mogg to amend the bill to give the county of Somerset its own time zone, 15 minutes behind London.[9][10]The all-time Commons record for non-stop speaking, six hours, was set by Henry Brougham in 1828, though this was not a filibuster. The 21st century record was set on December 2, 2005 by Andrew Dismore, Labour MP for Hendon. Dismore spoke for three hours and 17 minutes to block a Conservative Private Member's Bill, the Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Property) Bill, which he claimed amounted to "vigilante law."[11] Although Dismore is credited with speaking for 197 minutes, he regularly accepted interventions from other MPs who wished to comment on points made in his speech. Taking multiple interventions artificially inflates the duration of a speech, and is seen by many as a tactic to prolong a speech.
  [edit]AustraliaBoth houses of the Australian parliament have strictly enforced rules on how long members may speak, so filibusters are generally not possible.[12][13]
  [edit]New ZealandIn 2009, several parties in New Zealand staged a filibuster of the Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill in opposition to the government setting up a new Auckland Council under urgency and without debate or review by select committee, by proposing thousands of wrecking amendments and voting in MÄori as each amendment had to be voted on and votes in MÄori translated into English. Amendments included renaming the council to "Auckland Katchafire Council" or "Rodney Hide Memorial Council" and replacing the phrase powers of a regional council with power and muscle.[14][15] These tactics were borrowed from the filibuster undertaken by National and ACT in August 2000 for the Employment Relations Bill.[16]
  [edit]IndiaLokPal Bill (People's Ombudsman Bill), was blocked (voting stalled) in Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) by an RJD (party) Member of Parliament Rajniti Prasad (also Rajneeti Prasad) in Collusion with the ruling Congress party led UPA (United Progressive Alliance) which didn't have majority in upper house. [1]
  [edit]Canada[edit]Canada - FederalA dramatic example of filibustering in the House of Commons of Canada took place between Thursday June 23, 2011 and Saturday June 25, 2011. In an attempt to prevent the passing of Bill C-6, which would legislate that locked out Canada Post employees return to work, the New Democratic Party (NDP) led a filibustering session which lasted for fifty-eight hours. The NDP argued that the current form of the legislation undermines collective bargaining. Specifically, the NDP opposed the salary provisions and the form of binding arbitration outlined in the bill.[17]
  The House was supposed to break for the summer Thursday June 23, but remained open in an extended session due to the filibuster. The 103 NDP MPs had been taking it in turn to deliver 20 minute speeches - plus 10 minutes of questions and comments - in order to delay the passing of the bill. MPs are allowed to give such speeches each time a vote takes place, and many votes were needed before the bill could be passed. As the Conservative Party of Canada holds a majority in the House, the bill passed.[17][18] This was the longest filibuster since the 1999 Reform Party of Canada filibuster, on native treaty issues in British Columbia. [19][20]
  Conservative Member of ParliamentTom Lukiwski is known for his ability to stall Parliamentary Committee business by filibustering.[21][22] One such example occurred October 26, 2006, when he spoke for almost 120 minutes to prevent the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development from studying a private member's bill to implement the Kyoto Accord.[23][24][25] He also spoke for about 6 hours during the February 5, 2008 and February 7, 2008 at the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs meetings to block inquiry into allegations that the Conservative Party spent over the maximum allowable campaign limits during the 2006 election.[26][27][28][29][30]
  [edit]Canada - ProvincialThe Legislature of the Province of Ontario has witnessed several significant filibusters,[31] although two are notable for the unusual manner by which they were undertaken.[32] The first was an effort on May 6, 1991, by Mike Harris, later premier but then leader of the opposition Progressive Conservatives, to derail the implementation of the budget tabled by the NDP government under premier Bob Rae. The tactic involved the introduction of Bill 95, the title of which contained the names of every lake, river and stream in the province.[33] Between the reading of the title by the proposing MPP, and the subsequent obligatory reading of the title by the clerk of the chamber, this filibuster occupied the entirety of the day's session until adjournment. To prevent this particular tactic to be used again, changes were eventually made to the Standing Orders to limit the time allocated each day to the introduction of bills to 30 minutes.[31]
  A second high-profile and uniquely implemented filibuster in the Ontario Legislature occurred in April, 1997, where the New Democratic Party, then in opposition, tried to prevent the governing Progressive Conservatives'Bill 103 from taking effect. These efforts set in motion one of the longest filibustering sessions Canada had ever seen[2]. To protest the Progressive Conservative government's legislation that would amalgamate the municipalities of Metro Toronto into the city of Toronto, the small New Democratic caucus introduced 11,500 amendments to the megacity bill, created on computers with mail merge functionality. Each amendment would name a street in the proposed city, and provide that public hearings be held into the megacity with residents of the street invited to participate. The Ontario Liberal Party also joined the filibuster with a smaller series of amendments; a typical Liberal amendment would give a historical designation to a named street. The NDP then added another series of over 700 amendments, each proposing a different date for the bill to come into force.
  The filibuster began on April 2 with the Abbeywood Trail amendment[34] and occupied the legislature day and night, the members alternating in shifts. On April 4, exhausted and often sleepy government members inadvertently let one of the NDP amendments pass, and the handful of residents of Cafon Court in Etobicoke were granted the right to a public consultation on the bill, although the government subsequently nullified this with an amendment of its own.[35] On April 6, with the alphabetical list of streets barely into the Es, SpeakerChris Stockwell ruled that there was no need for the 220 words identical in each amendment to be read aloud each time, only the street name.[36] With a vote still needed on each amendment, Zorra Street was not reached until April 8.[37] The Liberal amendments were then voted down one by one, eventually using a similar abbreviated process, and the filibuster finally ended on April 11.[38]
  [edit]OtherA notable filibuster took place in the Northern Ireland House of Commons in 1936 when Tommy Henderson (Independent Unionist MP for Shankill) spoke for nine and a half hours (ending just before 4 am) on the Appropriation Bill. As this Bill applied government spending to all departments, almost any topic was relevant to the debate, and Henderson used the opportunity to list all of his many criticisms of the Unionist government.
  In the Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly, the Independent member Dr Ahrn Palley staged a similar all-night filibuster against the Law and Order Maintenance Bill in 1960.
  On December 16, 2010 Werner Kogler of the Austrian Green Party held his speech before the budget committee, criticizing the failings of the budget and the governing parties (Social Democratic Party and Austrian People's Party) in the last years. The filibuster lasted for 12 hours and 42 minutes (starting at 13:18, and speaking until 2:00 in the morning),[39] thus breaking the previous record held by his party-colleague Madeleine Petrovic (10 hours and 35 minutes on March 11 in 1993),[40] after which the standing orders had been changed, so speaking time was limited to 20 minutes.[41] However, it didn't keep Kogler from holding his speech.
  [edit]United States[edit]SenateThe filibuster is a powerful parliamentary device in the United States Senate, which was strengthened in 1975 [42] and in the past decade has come to mean that most major legislation (apart from budgets) requires a 60% vote to bring a bill or nomination to the floor for a vote. In recent years the majority has preferred to avoid filibusters by moving to other business when a filibuster is threatened and attempts to achieve cloture have failed.[43] Defenders call the filibuster "The Soul of the Senate."[44]Senate rules permit a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they wish and on any topic they choose, unless "three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn"[45] (usually 60 out of 100 senators) brings debate to a close by invoking cloture under Senate Rule XXII. According to the Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Ballin (1892), changes to Senate rules could be achieved by a simple majority, but only on the 1st day of the session in January or March. The idea is that on this first day, the rules of the new legislative session are determined afresh, and rules do not automatically continue from one session to the next. This is called the constitutional option by proponents, and the nuclear option by opponents, who insist that rules do remain in force across sessions. Under current Senate rules, a rule change itself could be filibustered, with two-thirds of those senators present and voting (as opposed to the normal three-fifths of those sworn) needing to vote to break the filibuster.[45] Even if a filibuster attempt is unsuccessful, the process takes floor time.[46]
  [edit]House of RepresentativesIn the United States House of Representatives, the filibuster (the right to unlimited debate) was used until 1842, when a permanent rule limiting the duration of debate was created. The disappearing quorum was a tactic used by the minority until an 1890 rule eliminated it. As the membership of the House grew much larger than the Senate, the House has acted earlier to control floor debate and the delay and blocking of floor votes.
  [edit]FranceIn France, in August 2006, the left-wing opposition submitted 137,449 amendments[47] to the proposed law bringing the share in Gaz de France owned by the French state from 80% to 34% in order to allow for the merger between Gaz de France and Suez.[48] Normal parliamentary procedure would require 10 years to vote on all the amendments.
  The French constitution gives the government two options to defeat such a filibuster. The first one was originally the use of the article 49 paragraph 3 procedure, according to which the law was adopted except if a majority is reached on a non-confidence motion (reform July 2008 resulted in this power being restricted to budgetary measures only, plus one time each ordinary session - i.e. from October to June - on any bill. Before this reform, article 49, 3 was frequently used, especially when the government had short majority in the Assembl(C)e nationale to support the text but still enough to avoid a non-confidence vote). The second one is the article 44 paragraph 3 through which the government can force a global vote on all amendments it did not approve or submit itself.[49]
  In the end, the government did not have to use either of those procedures. As the parliamentary debate started, the left-wing opposition chose to withdraw all the amendments to allow for the vote to proceed. The "filibuster" was aborted because the opposition to the privatisation of Gaz de France appeared to lack support amongst the general population. It also appeared that this privatisation law could be used by the left-wing in the presidential election of 2007 as a political argument. Indeed, Nicolas Sarkozy, president of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP - the right wing party), Interior Minister, former Finance Minister and former President, had previously promised that the share owned by the French government in Gaz de France would never go below 70%.
  [edit]Hong KongAn example of filibuster in the Legislative Council (LegCo) after the Handover was the second reading of the Provision of Municipal Services (Reorganization) Bill 1999, which was to dissolve the partially democratically elected Urban Council and Regional Council. As the absence of some pro-Establishment legislators prohibited them from passing the bill, they filibustered along with Michael Suen, the then-Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, so that the absentees could cast their vote when the meeting was resumed on the next day. Facing criticism from the pro-democracy camp, Lau Kong-wah of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) defended their actions, saying "[i]t is totally acceptable in a parliamentary assembly."[50]
  Pro-democracy legislators filibustered against the financing for the constructions of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link by raising many questions on very specific issues, delaying the passing of the bill from 18 December 2009 to 16 January 2010.[51] On the evenings the meetings were held, the Legislative Council Building was surrounded by thousands of anti-high-speed rail protesters.
  In 2012, Albert Chan and Raymond Wong of People Power submitted 1306 amendments altogether to the Legislative Council (Amendment) Bill, by which the government attempted to forbid resigning lawmakers from participating in by-elections. The pro-democracy camp was strongly opposed to the bill, as it was seen as depriving citizens of their political rights. The LegCo carried on multiple overnight debates on the amendments with the support of the pro-Establishment camp. On morning of 17 May 2012, Jasper Tsang, President of the Legco terminated the debate, citing Article 92 of the Rules of Procedure, which allows the president to follow procedure of other legislatures. In the end, all motions to amend were defeated and the Bill was passed.
  To ban filibuster, Ip Kwok-him of the DAB sought to limit each member to move only one motion, by amending the procedures of the Finance Committee and its two subcommittees in 2013. All 27 members from pan-democracy camp submitted 1.9 million amendments.[52] The Secretariat estimated 408 man-months (each containing 156 working hours) were needed to vet the facts and accuracy of the motions, and, if all amendments were admitted by the Chairman, the voting time would take 23868 two-hour meetings.
  [edit]See also[edit]References[edit]Notes^"Talking it out" usage example: "MPs renew info exemption effort". BBC. 15 May 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6654675.stm. Retrieved 25 September 2010.^Oxford English Dictionary, "freebooter". Retrieved 2012-10-26.^Oxford English Dictionary, "filibuster". Retrieved 2012-10-26.^"Walker, William", in Webster's Biographical Dictionary (1960), Springfield: Merriam-Webster^William Safire, Safire's New Political Dictionary (2008) pp 244^ abcdGoldsworthy, Adrian (2006). Caesar: Life of a Colossus. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 583.^"MPs' info exemption bill revived". BBC News. 2007-04-24. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6586131.stm. Retrieved 2010-12-24.^Thomson, Ainsley (2011-01-17). "U.K. in Marathon Session on Voting Bill". The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703396604576087740260334576.html?mod=googlenews_wsj.^"Conservative backbenchers halt effort to move clocks forward". January 21, 2012. http://conservativehome.blogs.com/parliament/2012/01/conservative-backbenchers-halt-effort-to-move-the-clocks-forward.html. Retrieved July 12, 2012.^Jacob Rees-Mogg Proposes Somerset Time Zone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n58wr9FVzO0.^BBC News - "MP's marathon speech sinks bill." Retrieved February 14, 2007.^Parliament of Australia - Standing Orders and other orders of the Senate. Retrieved June 23, 2008.[dead link]^Parliament of Australia - House of Representatives Standing and Sessional Orders. Retrieved June 23, 2008.[dead link]^""Melissa Lee Memorial Council" mooted". Newstalk ZB. http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=157300. Retrieved 2010-12-24.^"Labour filibuster on Supercity bills". Stuff.co.nz. http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/2415569/Labour-filibuster-on-Supercity-bills. Retrieved 2010-12-24.^"Employment bill to drag on another day". Nzherald.co.nz. 2000-08-15. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=147835. Retrieved 2010-12-24.^ ab"Canada Post back-to-work bill passes key vote". CBC. June 25, 2011. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/06/25/canada-post.html?ref=rss.^"John Ivison: Time stands still in the House of Commons as NDP filibuster drags on". National Post. June 24, 2011. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/06/24/john-ivison-time-stands-still-in-the-house-of-commons-as-ndp-filibuster-drags-on/.^http://politics.canada.com/2011/06/ndp-filibuster-cost-canadians/^"Marathon Canada Post debate continues on Hill". Vancouver Sun. June 24, 2011. http://www.vancouversun.com/news/canada/Marathon+Canada+Post+debate+continues+Hill/4999680/story.html.^Alexander Panetta (2008-04-03). "Tory's loose lips an asset - until now". Toronto: The Canadian Press. http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/409983. Retrieved 2010-02-13.^Catherine Clark, Tom Lukiwski (July 27, 2009). "Beyond Politics interview (at 19:11)". CPAC. http://www.cpac.ca/forms/index.asp?dsp=template&act=view3&pagetype=vod&lang=e&clipID=2996.^"Parties trade blame for House logjam". Toronto: The Canadian Press. 2006-10-26. http://www.thestar.com/article/111918. Retrieved 2010-02-13.^"Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development". Parliament of Canada. October 26, 2006. http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=2440684&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=1#Int-1732248. Retrieved 2010-02-13.^Mike De Souza. "Tories accused of stalling their own green agenda". www.canada.com. http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=963fa80f-2996-46c4-8696-6df2034365f8&sponsor=. Retrieved 2010-02-13.^"Angry chairman suspends session". www.canada.com. http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/story.html?id=04f4ea3b-6cdd-4cca-8aba-78710c4a8733. Retrieved 2010-02-13.^"Tories accused of stalling ad scheme review". www.canada.com. http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=90e06005-f60c-4f46-b668-6015e7fffebc. Retrieved 2010-02-13.^Kady O'Malley. "Filibuster ahoy! Liveblogging the Procedure and House Affairs Committee for as long as it takes...". www.macleans.ca. http://forums.macleans.ca/advansis/?mod=for&act=dip&pid=104503&tid=104503&eid=48&so=1&ps=15&sb=1. Retrieved 2010-02-13.[dead link]^Kady O'Malley. "Liveblogging PROC: We'll stop blogging when he stops talking '' the return of the killer filibuster (From the archives)". www.macleans.ca. http://www2.macleans.ca/2008/02/07/liveblogging-proc-well-stop-blogging-when-he-stops-talking-the-return-of-the-killer-filibuster-from-the-archives/. Retrieved 2010-02-13.^Kady O'Malley. "Liveblogging the Procedure and House Affairs Committee for as long as it takes... (Part 3)". www.macleans.ca. http://forums.macleans.ca/advansis/?mod=for&act=dip&tt=&pid=104551&tid=104551&eid=48&so=&ps=&sb=&tso=&tps=&tsb=. Retrieved 2010-02-13.[dead link]^ ab"Obstruction in the Ontario Legislature: The struggle for power between the government and the opposition". http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2006/Locke.pdf. Retrieved 2012-08-07.^"On Filibusters". http://thoughtundermined.com/2011/01/26/on-filibusters/. Retrieved 2012-08-07.^"Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Hansard. Monday, 6 May 1991". http://hansardindex.ontla.on.ca/hansardeissue/35-1/l028.htm. Retrieved 2012-08-07.^"Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Hansard. Wednesday, 2 April 1997, volume B" (in (French)). Ontla.on.ca. http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings/house_detail.do?locale=en&Date=1997-04-02&Parl=36&Sess=1&detailPage=/house-proceedings/transcripts/files_html/1997-04-02_L176b.htm. Retrieved 2010-12-24.^"Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Hansard. Friday, 4 April 1997, volume H". Ontla.on.ca. http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings/house_detail.do?locale=en&Date=1997-04-04&Parl=36&Sess=1&detailPage=/house-proceedings/transcripts/files_html/1997-04-04_L176h.htm. Retrieved 2010-12-24.^"Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Hansard. Sunday, 6 April 1997, volume N". Ontla.on.ca. http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings/house_detail.do?locale=en&Date=1997-04-06&Parl=36&Sess=1&detailPage=/house-proceedings/transcripts/files_html/1997-04-06_L176n.htm. Retrieved 2010-12-24.^"Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Hansard. Tuesday, 8 April 1997, volume S". Ontla.on.ca. http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings/house_detail.do?locale=en&Date=1997-04-08&Parl=36&Sess=1&detailPage=/house-proceedings/transcripts/files_html/1997-04-08_L176s.htm. Retrieved 2010-12-24.^"Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Hansard. Friday, 11 April 1997, volume AE". Ontla.on.ca. http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings/house_detail.do?locale=en&Date=1997-04-11&Parl=36&Sess=1&detailPage=/house-proceedings/transcripts/files_html/1997-04-11_L176zae.htm. Retrieved 2010-12-24.^"Werner Kogler blocks budget with record filibuster", Presse, 16. Dezember 2010^"Stenographical Protokol of the 107th conference of the XVIII. legislature period (March 10th to 12th; 1993)" (in German) (PDF). http://www.parlinkom.gv.at/PG/DE/XVIII/NRSITZ/NRSITZ_00107/imfname_142170.pdf. Retrieved 2010-12-24.^Parlamentskorrespondenz/09/12.03.2007/Nr. 156, Die lange Nacht im Hohen Haus^Jonathan Backer. Brennan Center for Justice: A Short History on the Constitutional Option. http://fixthesenatenow.org/news/entry/brennan-center-for-justice-a-short-history-on-the-constitutional-option/#.UPXgdY44S21.^Gregory John Wawro; Eric Schickler (2006). Filibuster: Obstruction And Lawmaking in the U.S. Senate. Princeton U.P.. pp. 1''12. http://books.google.com/books?id=iCrtXipvJigC.^Richard A. Arenberg; Robert B. Dove (2012). Defending the Filibuster: The Soul of the Senate. Indiana U.P.. http://books.google.com/books?id=4W_fWklB_GkC&pg=PA1.^ ab"Precedence of motions (Rule XXII)". Rules of the Senate. United States Senate. http://rules.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=RuleXXII. Retrieved January 21, 2010.^Beth, Richard; Stanley Bach (March 28, 2003). Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate. Congressional Research Service. pp. 4, 9. http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RL30360.pdf.^"TIMELINE: Key dates in Gaz de France-Suez merger". Reuters. 2 September 2007. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL0257250120070902. Retrieved 2010-02-24.^Kanter, James (19 September 2006). "Plan for Gaz de France advances toward a vote". International Herald Tribune. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/business/worldbusiness/19iht-gdf.2868154.html. Retrieved 2010-02-24.^"France - Constitution". International Constitutional Law. http://servat.unibe.ch/icl/fr00000_.html. Retrieved 2010-02-24.^Official Record of Proceedings, Legislative Council, 1 December 1999, page 1875.^Hong Kong Opposition to Rail Holds Off Vote, Wall Street Journal^Paper for the Finance Committee Meeting on 22 February 2013: Members' motions that seek to amend the procedures of the Finance Committee and its two subcommittees, Legislative Council of Hong Kong[edit]Media[edit]Further readingBeth, Richard; Stanley Bach (2003-03-28). Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate. Congressional Research Service. http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%270E%2C%2APLW%3D%22P%20%20%0A.Sarah A. Binder and Steven S. Smith, Politics or Principle: Filibustering in the United States Senate. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8157-0952-8Eleanor Clift, "Filibuster: Not Like It Used to Be," Newsweek, 24 Nov. 2003.Bill Dauster, "It's Not Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: The Senate Filibuster Ain't What it Used To Be", The Washington Monthly, Nov. 1996, at 34-36.Alan S. Frumin, "Cloture Procedure," in Riddick's Senate Procedure, 282''334. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1992.Gregory Koger (2010). Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-44964-7. OCLC 455871593.Lazare, Daniel (1996). The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy. Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-15-100085-2. OCLC 32626734.Jessica Reaves, "The Filibuster Formula," Time, 25 Feb. 2003.U.S. Senate, "Filibuster and Cloture."U.S. Senate, "Filibuster Derails Supreme Court Appointment."[edit]External links
Lex islamitisch getrouwd
  Link to Article
  Source: Telegraaf.nl - prive
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:29
  Lex Harding islamitisch getrouwd - Nieuws | Altijd op de hoogte van het laatste nieuws met Telegraaf.nl [krant_prive]Uw browser ondersteunt geen javascript of javascript staat uitgeschakeld. Hierdoor kunnen er cookies geplaatst worden waar u geen toestemming voor heeft gegeven.
  Uw browser ondersteunt geen javascript of javascript staat uitgeschakeld. Hierdoor kunnen er cookies geplaatst worden waar u geen toestemming voor heeft gegeven.
US calls out UN diplomats for coming to budget meetings drunk | Fox News
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 03:38
  Sept. 24, 2012: Clouds are reflected off the Secretariat Building of the U.N. headquarters in New York.Reuters
  Jan. 11, 2011: U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle, right, and Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov drink champagne after exchanging diplomatic notes for a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement in Moscow.Reuters
  UNITED NATIONS --The United States thinks the United Nations has a drinking problem.
  Ambassador Joseph M. Torsella, who represents the U.S. on the U.N.'s budget committee, said Monday that the tense process of negotiating the world body's annual budget is made more complicated by the number of diplomats who turn up drunk.
  The U.N. budget is finalized in December, when holiday parties apparently lead to some revelry spilling over into budget negotiations.
  The U.S. is making "the modest proposal that the negotiating rooms should in future be an inebriation-free zone," Torsella said during a private meeting of the budget committee. The U.S. mission released a transcript of his remarks.
  Some tipsy negotiating partners have left the U.S. "truly grateful for the strategic opportunities," he said.
  But Torsella said the committee should "save the champagne for toasting the successful end of the session."
Curiousity Rover forced to pull over outside Albuquerque, call tow.
  Link to Article
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:13
  The Curiosity rover has been in an especially precarious position since late last week, when a memory glitch forced it into a safe mode while NASA prepared a backup and diagnosed the trouble. We're glad to report that the worst is over. Scientists have confirmed that the rover left safe mode later on Saturday and started using its high-gain antenna for communication a day later. However, it's not quite out of the woods yet -- if Mars had woods, that is. The backup is still taking on the information it needs to assume full responsibility, and NASA wants to evaluate the suitability of the one-time primary computer as the new backup. Nonetheless, all the early indicators point to Martian exploration going back on track within days.
DUNBLANE SHOOTINGS - PEDOPHILE RING
  Link to Article
  Source: aangirfan
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:13
  Dunblane Primary School. '16 children from this class were shot dead.'The official story is that, on 13 March 1996, a mad loner called Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 children at a primary school in Dunblane in Scotland.
  The Dunblane Primary SchoolThe unofficial story is that Thomas Hamilton was supplying pornography, and possibly young boys, to top people including policemen and politicians; and Thomas Hamilton may have been murdered, to shut him up.It has been suggested that Thomas Hamilton was a brainwashed patsy and that the real shooters were working for the security services. In the Dunblane shootings, "none of the survivors would have been able to obtain a good viewing of the gunman."
  The Murder of Thomas Hamilton | Dunblane Exposed
  Thomas Hamilton ran clubs and camps for boys and reportedly had access to the Queen Victoria School, in Dunblane, a boarding schoolrun by the Ministry of Defence.1. "Mr and Mrs Ogilvie know that the men who regularly turned up in large flashy cars to visit Hamilton continued doing so right up to 13 March 1996. They saw them."Another neighbour, Cathleen Kerr gave a statement to the police that she saw Hamilton getting out of a grey saloon car on that final fateful morning. He was cheerful, she said."
  Dunblane Murders Cover-up
  Queen Victoria School in Dunblane
  2.Glenn Harrison was a housemaster at Queen Victoria School, in Dunblane, between the summer of 1989 and December 1991.
  Harrison "told me of how, in about 1990, he believed boys from his then school were being ... sexually abused, both at the school and away from the school.
  "He told me the (sexual abuse) was done by a clique of paedophiles connected with the school (teachers etc. and their friends) and another group of 'toffs' who visited the school and took carefully targeted boys away for weekends.""Harrison and his wife ... would see big fancy cars (sometimes chauffeur driven and displaying pennants, and badges of office) arrive with well known faces of politicians, judges and other celebrities who, when he enquired as to who they were, and what they were doing, was given the answer that these people were 'Friends of QVS' who were taking certain boys out for a treat."
  Sir Fixed it for Jim
  3. Former housemaster Glenn Harrison told the News of the World how he even found Hamilton, 43, creeping around the dormitories, at Queen Victoria School, at night. He said Hamilton had close links to a top policeman. Glenn was never called to give evidence at the Cullen Inquiry.Cached4.Glenn Harrison had kept dozens of files from pupils alleging bullying and abuse while he was at the Queen Victoria School and wrote to parents warning of the dangers in 1991. It led to him being ousted from the school and just days before he left, police raided his home and confiscated the files.Cached
  Andy Murray and his elder brother, Jamie, attended the Dunblane Primary Schhol. They were on their way to the school gymnasium and survived by hiding under a desk in the headmaster's office.5. Glenn states that Hamilton had been a friend of Ben Philip, the senior housemaster at Queen Victoria School. Thomas Hamilton6.Former paramedic Sandra Uttley has written a book about the 1996 Dunblane tragedy.
  http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/
  Sandra Uttley claims that elements of the police were part of a paedophile ring and part of a cover-up.Uttley said: "Central Scotland Police should never have been involved in a so-called independent inquiry.
  "They were implicated in the events under scrutiny and continually provided Hamilton with renewals of his gun licence despite long-term and repeated warnings that this should not happen.
  "It was known that Hamilton had friends in the police force, including one highly placed officer.
  "I believe that Hamilton was a major provider of pornographic photographs and videos to a ring of men prominent in Central Scotland, including police officers who protected him from numerous allegations of physical abuse at boys' camps and clubs he ran.
  "They protected themselves after the massacre which conveniently ended in his suicide".
  7.The UK's George Robertson was Secretary General of NATO.Reportedly, on 13 March 1996, in Dunblane in Scotland, Thomas Hamilton, armed with four hand-guns, opened fire on a junior school class, killing 16 children.
  "Lord Robertson was the referee on Thomas Hamilton's shotgun licence."
  ('Blair covering up paedophile scandal?' www.tpuc.org)
  8. "Lord Cullen led inquiries into the Dunblane shootings, and in March 2002 led the five-judge tribunal which heard the failed appeal of the Lockerbie bomber." "In the large volume of correspondence which he (Hamilton) generated, a recurring theme is his assertion that the police were biased in favour of the 'brotherhood of masons' ." - Lord Cullen.10.According to journalist Marcello Mega, in The News of the World (Cached), 28 December 2003:1.A top Scottish Freemason, Former Grand Master Lord Burton, has said that Lord Cullen's inquiry into the Dunblane massacre was a cover-up.
  Lord Burton says Cullen's inquiry suppressed crucial information to protect high-profile legal figures.
  2. These high-profile legal figures may belong to a secretive 'Super-Mason' group called The Speculative Society.
  Lord Burton said: "I have learned of an apparent connection between prominent members of the legal establishment involved in the inquiry, and the secretive Speculative Society.
  "The society was formed in Edinburgh University through Masonic connections so I accept that there might be a link by that route." Reportedly, members of the Speculative Society have included Lord Cullen and a number of other judges, sheriffs and advocates.3. Some of these high-profile people had links to the Queen Victoria School 'where gunman Thomas Hamilton was allowed to roam free before the 1996 atrocity'.4.Reportedly the police are investigating claims that pupils at Queen Victoria School were regularly taken away and sexually abused.
  5. Former housemaster Glenn Harrison told the News of the World how he even found Hamilton, 43, creeping around the dormitories at night.
  He said Hamilton had close links to a top policeman. Glenn was never called to give evidence at the Cullen Inquiry.6. Lord Burton said: "I tried repeatedly to raise concerns about the inquiry during my time in the Lords, and I was bullied and threatened by powerful peers loyal to the Conservative Government of the day, who warned me of dire consequences if I continued to embarrass them."
  ( According to this source Cached - 'Malcolm Rifkind's friend and his then Chairman of his constituency party at Edinburgh Pentlands, Robert Bell, according to the front page lead of the Edinburgh Evening News on 23 March 1996, sold guns and ammunition to Thomas Hamilton only a few weeks before the Dunblane massacre, and it was reported he said he would sell him guns again.')7.Glenn Harrison had kept dozens of files from pupils alleging bullying and abuse while he was at the Queen Victoria School and wrote to parents warning of the dangers in 1991.
  It led to him being ousted from the school and just days before he left, police raided his home and confiscated the files.8. Glenn states that Hamilton had been a friend of Ben Philip, the senior housemaster at QVS.
  Mr Philip died in December 1993, aged 46, when he fell from a ladder while hanging decorations.aangirfan: Moira Anderson; child abuse; senior public figures ...
  Queen Victoria School, Dunblane
  11. "A Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Forsyth was, by virtue of office, on the Board of Directors of QVS, and was also responsible for the appointment of Cullen to conduct the Inquiry.
  "There is Prince Philip, a Freemason, the patron of the Board of Directors of QVS and is an honorary member of the exclusive, secretive and highly suspect Speculative Society of Edinburgh.
  "Then there is Lord (Donald McArthur) Ross, the then Lord Justice-Clerk and Cullen's superior in the judiciary, who was also on the Board of Directors, and is also a "Brother" of Cullen's in the Masonic Speculative Society of Edinburgh, numbered at 1642."
  "He was in debt. He was refused a loan. He was being refused access to premises to hold his boys clubs and fewer boys were attending the clubs. It may have been the case that, like many mass killers, he obtained feelings of power and mastery by fantasising his revenge on those whom he perceived as persecuting him. "It is likely that his fantasies became more complex and compelling after 'behavioural tryouts' when firing at his gun club. He believed that school staff were telling families not to send children to his clubs and that parents were spreading rumours that he was a pervert."Thomas Hamilton and the Dunblane Massacre
VIDEO-Chicago Anchor Loses It Over Report Woman Had Gun Hidden in Vagina | Video Cafe
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:08
  A news anchor at a Chicago television station lost her composure on Wednesday following a report about a woman who had hidden a handgun in her vagina.
  According to Oklahoma City's KFOR, police in Ada arrested Christie Dawn Harris at the Dairy Lou Drive Inn on drug charges, and soon discovered why she kept repeating that she needed to go to the bathroom.
  The female officer searching Harris noticed "something strange."
  "The officer observed the handle of a revolver sticking out from inside her body," Pontotoc County District Attorney Chris Ross told KFOR.
  A police property report described the item as a "gun located in suspect vagina."
  The report said that the weapon was "loaded with three live rounds and one spent shell."
  "It was a five shot," Ross explained. ''It was loaded and as she turned around, she noticed more plastic baggies, larger plastic baggies wedged in the crack of her buttocks.''
  ''It would seem to be a very dangerous place to carry a loaded firearm,'' he added. ''If it goes off it's only going one place.''
  Both the revolver and the baggies full of methamphetamine were removed from the woman's body.
  During a Wednesday news broadcast on Chicago's WGN-TV, the news team played a portion of the KFOR report.
  "What?" anchor Robin Baumgarten exclaimed.
  "The old caboose pistol, everybody has one," anchor Larry Potash quipped.
  At that point, Baumgarten lost control: "Did you just say, 'caboose pistol'?"
  "What are you getting all worked up over? Hey, don't knock it until you try it," an off-camera anchor replied.
  "I know some women that could hide a machine gun in there," Potash remarked. "I'm sorry, we're getting off track."
VIDEO-Eric Holder Admits Some Banks Are Just Too Big To Prosecute
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:06
  When the Attorney General of the United States admits some banks are simply too big to prosecute, it might be time to admit we have a problem -- and that goes for both the financial and justice systems.
  Eric Holder made this rather startling confession in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, The Hill reports. It could be a key moment in the debate over whether to do something about the size and complexity of our biggest banks, which have only gotten bigger and more systemically important since the financial crisis.
  "I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy," Holder said, according to The Hill. "And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large."
  Holder's comments don't come as a total surprise. His underlings had already made similar confessions to The New York Times last year, after they declined to prosecute HSBC for flagrant, years-long violations of money-laundering laws, out of fear that doing so would hurt the global economy. Lanny Breuer, formerly in charge of doling out the Justice Department's wrist slaps to banks, told Frontline as much in the documentary "The Untouchables," which aired in January.
  Some observers have defended the Justice Department, suggesting that prosecuting law-breaking banks would amount to a death penalty that could upset the financial system and trigger another recession -- although nobody really knows if it would do any such thing. But by not prosecuting law-breaking banks, and confessing to its terror of prosecuting those banks, the Justice Department has waved a big checkered flag to the biggest banks to go ahead and break all of the laws they want.
  Holder's confession comes after several weeks of criticism from lawmakers about the Justice Department's failure to prosecute banks not only for potentially hard-to-prove cases involving the financial crisis, but also for cases in which proof wasn't as hard to find, as in HSBC's case.
  It is significant that Holder's confession -- cry for help, really -- comes at the one place that could possibly help, the U.S. Congress. So now you have the Obama administration joining a growing, bipartisan group of lawmakers speaking out about the problem of banks being too big to fail and/or jail. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and David Vitter (R-La.) last week announced they were working together on bipartisan legislation to address it.
  That doesn't mean you should hold your breath for anything to be done about it right away, or ever. It is far easier to talk about breaking up the big banks than to do it, particularly given that they will lobby hard against it every step of the way. But the tide of public opinion is turning against them a little more every day.
  Also on HuffPost:
3/6/13 - I'm bug smashin'!
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Jones's SOPML work feed.
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:04
  By davejones. Posted Monday, June 25, 2012 at 7:09 AM.Clinton Meyer uncovered a bug in the way S3 buckets are being handled. Basically, we aren't handling different regions correctly. This hasn't been an issue until now since everything has been in the US. I'm still trying to figure the best way to fix it. I want to keep everything as close to the S3 api as possible.
  Julien Genestoux found 2 bugs with opml importing. The first related to using file_get_contents() on file uploads instead of fetchUrl(). The other dealt with encoding of urls. This had some wide ranging consequences in the rest of the code. I think it's handled now though. I'm always leary of touching the subscription code unless necessary.
  I'll push all the changes up when the S3 stuff is handled and tested properly.
Rand Paul Filibusters So Far 7 HOURS And Five Minutes With NO Bathroom Break!
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:02
Eric Holder defends prosecution of Aaron Swartz '-- RT USA
  Link to Article
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:00
  Published time: March 06, 2013 23:08
  United States Attorney General Eric Holder says that the Department of Justice never intended for computer hacker Aaron Swartz to serve a prison sentence longer than a couple of months.
  Reporting to the Senate Judiciary Committee for an oversight hearing Wednesday morning, Mr. Holder said Swartz's January suicide was ''a tragedy'' but that the Justice Department acted appropriately throughout the prosecution.
  The Obama administration pursuit of Swartz, said Holder, demonstrated ''a good use of prosecutorial discretion."
  Swartz, 26, took his own life earlier this year months before he was expected to stand trial in a controversial federal case that carried a potential 35 year sentence if a conviction was returned.
  Holder touched briefly on the hacktivist after Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked him on Wednesday to address allegations that the Justice Department harassed Swartz in order to have him plea to lesser offenses. The Obama administration has been accused of ''trying to bully someone into pleading guilty to something,'' Sen. Cornyn said, a claim to which the country's top attorney refuted.
  According to Holder, Swartz was presented with an option that would have left him escaping heavy sentencing in lieu of much more lenient punishment. Had Swartz accepted an offer from the Justice Department, Holder says he could have been sentenced to serve for no longer than a few months. The Justice Department never intended for Swartz to go to jail "for longer than a three, four, potentially five-month range," Holder said.
  Asked by Cornyn if he thought the Massachusetts district attorney demonstrated prosecutorial overreach or misconduct in the Swartz case, Holder said, "I don't look at what necessarily was charged as much as what was offered in terms of how the case might have been resolved.''
  Prosecutors say Swartz entered a utility closet at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and attempted to download millions of academic articles hosted on the website JSTOR. He was charged with gaining unauthorized access to a protected device under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and
  Following the activist's death, Massachusetts US Attorney Carmen Ortiz was accused of acting overzealously in prosecuting Swartz for merely accessing scholarly articles. She responded by saying that her office's conduct was appropriate in handling the case.
  ''As federal prosecutors, our mission includes protecting the use of computers and the Internet by enforcing the law as fairly and responsibly as possible. We strive to do our best to fulfill this mission every day,'' she wrote. ''The career prosecutors handling this matter took on the difficult task of enforcing a law they had taken an oath to uphold, and did so reasonably.''
  One month after Swartz passed away, the Huffington Post ran a report in which they claimed congressional staffers were told by the Justice Department that the activist's ''Guerilla Open Access Manifesto'' played a role in the prosecution. Swartz had co-authored the document and had posted it on his personal blog.
  ''I really need to know and Aaron's family needs to know who made the decisions here. Who decided to prosecute him like this and why,'' Swartz's partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, told RT. ''The testimony of these Justice Department officials to Congress points to the direction of this being a political prosecution because of his views on copyright and his views on political freedom.''
  Swartz co-founded the website Reddit and also started the advocacy group Demand Progress, an organization that was instrumental in garnering opposition against the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, in 2012.
VIDEO-Cranked-Up Earbuds Next On Mayor Bloomberg's Health Hit List CBS New York
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 04:58
  A man listens to an iPod player through earphones (Photo Illustration by Ian Waldie/Getty Images)
  Filed underHealth, Health, Heard On 1010 WINS, WCBS, WFAN, Local, News, NY News, Politics, Radio.com - News, Syndication, Watch + ListenRelated tagsAlex Silverman, audiologist, Dr. Won Choe, earphones, Hearing, Hearing loss, Hearing Loss Prevention Media Campaign, loud music, Marcia Kramer, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Soda, Trending, Wayne CabotFeatured Gallery
  For more trusted health
  news and information,
  visit CBS New York's
  NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) '-- After launching campaigns against the Big Gulp, ''big'' salt and ''big'' junk food, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is embarking on a new target.
  He wants to stop New Yorkers from going deaf, so he's put in motion an attack on ear buds, CBS 2's Marcia Kramer reported Wednesday.
  Now hear this '... there's a new enemy of the nanny state: people who choose to listen to loud music on their favorite devices.
  Bloomberg, who apparently has never met a health crusade he didn't think worthy of embarking on, is launching a campaign to warn people about the risks of losing their hearing from blasting music on their headphones.
  The initiative is aimed at the iPod generation, the people who were the first to put buds directly into their ears.
  Officials say an iPod reaches 115 decibels at maximum volume. Doctors say sound has to be below 85 decibels to be safe.
  One doctor told CBS 2's Kramer the mayor's initiative is a good one.
  ''There is a real threat for noise exposure ruining hearing. This will occur gradually over time. But what you're looking at is a series of young people that may be experiencing hearing loss and the need for hearing aids at a much earlier age than any of their family members,'' said Dr. Jayde Steckowych of New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia Presbyterian Center.
  ''I'm seeing a whole host of young teenagers who are coming in with early signs of noise-induced hearing loss,'' audiologist Dr. Won Choe of ENT& Allergy told WCBS 880'²s Wayne Cabot. ''These kids are bombarded by media.''
  Choe said earbuds like the ones that come with many Apple products seem to be most damaging.
  ''The thing is, it's hard to measure how much these kids are getting. So you want to generally keep it down below, I'd say, 70 or 80 decibels,'' Dr. Choe said. ''The thing is, how do you measure that? Especially with these ear buds, they don't have very good sound isolation so inevitably, they're trying to drown out the background noise with increased volume.''
  Audiologist Voices Support For Earbud CampaignWCBS 880's Wayne Cabot Speaks...Choe, who is not involved with the city effort, said the more expensive noise-cancelling headphones are better for the user's hearing and are recommended for those who are listening to personal music devices while commuting.
  The audiologist said people standing nearby should not be able to hear what you are listening to in your headphones.
  ''That's just incredible amounts of noise exposure,'' Choe said.
  Any effort to save young people's hearing is important, said the doctor.
  ''I support it fully,'' Choe said of the mayor's proposal.
  Experts say hearing loss increased 30 percent among teenagers and young adults between 1988 and 2006. But not everyone is thrilled about the mayor's get-rid-of-the-ear-buds health initiative.
  ''I mean I appreciate being looked out for, but I also think you control the volume of these, so it's up to personal responsibility for us to take care of our own ears,'' said Beth Kirkpatrick of Harlem.
  Kirkpatrick said her message to the mayor is simple: ''Stay out of my ears,'' she said.
  ''Mayor Bloomberg should 'bud' out,'' another New Yorker said.
  Some New Yorkers spoke with 1010 WINS about how they used their earbuds. Their comments seemed to indicate the problem may not be so rampant.
  ''I play them like not fully, like I put it all the way to the max and bring it down at least two times, that's it. Just enough to hear the beat. I just like it,'' Anthony Rivera said.
  Report: Cranked-Up Earbuds Next On Bloomberg's Health Hit ListWCBS 880's Al Jones reports''I use it on my iPhone so I can hear clearly like the movie and stuff, but I don't really blast my headphones like that. I keep it at a medium, that way I can hear everything that's going on around me,'' said Julian Lawrence.
  The mayor's campaign is being financed through a grant from the Fund for Public Health, the Department of Health's fund raising arm.
  CITY PREPS FOR NEW DRINK RULES
  Meanwhile, New Yorkers are gearing up to go without their super-sized sugary beverages starting March 12.
  New Yorkers Getting Ready For Soda BanWCBS 880's Alex Silverman reportsThe new regulation puts a 16-ounce limit on sugary drinks sold at city restaurants, movie theaters, sports venues and street carts and applies to both bottled and fountain drinks.
  Guides about the new rules were being handed out at Dunkin' Donuts locations on Wednesday.
  Guide To New Rules On Sugary Beverages (credit: Alex Silverman / WCBS 880)
  ''I don't understand it really,'' said a woman named Sandy at one on Sixth Avenue upon receiving her guide. ''I got a small coffee now, they just put sugar in for me. If I get a large one, they can't put it in for me. That's dumb.''
  At Movie World in Little Neck, Queens, Russell Evanson said the small size cup he sells is now too big and will have to find cups that are 16-ounces.
  ''I've actually tried to avoid thinking about it for quite a while,'' he told WCBS 880'²s Alex Silverman. ''My biggest concern with that is people actually carrying two sodas and a popcorn.''
  Evanson said Coca-Cola is providing them with 16-ounce bottles.
  ''We are just going to have to comply and live with it, but it will mean less revenue,'' he said.
  The ban does not include grocery or convenience stores that don't serve prepared food and would not apply to diet soda, other calorie-free drinks or anything that has at least 50 percent milk or milk substitute.
  A lawsuit has been filed against the proposal, with opponents arguing that the ban is an unfair burden on businesses. They say they shouldn't have to comply until the lawsuit over the matter is resolved.
  In January, city officials announced that soda sellers would get a three-month grace period from fines for violating the upcoming crackdown.
  Please share your thoughts below'...
The Return Of The Idiot
  Link to Article
  Source: Real Jew News
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 04:55
  Brother Nathanael Productions, BroVids
  The Return Of The IdiotCopyright 2013
  Watch On Vimeo!HERESupport The Brother Nathanael Foundation!
  Or Send Your Contribution To:The Brother Nathanael Foundation; PO Box 1242; Frisco CO 80443E-mail: brothernathanaelfoundation@yahoo.com__________________________________
  For More See:Beauty Will Save The WorldClick HereAnd:The Jews Who Murdered Tsar Nicholas IIClick Here
  And:Modern Man In A Jewish AgeClick Here
  And:Brother Nathanael's Amazing VideosClick Here
  Support Brother Nathanael!
  Send Your Donation To:Brother Nathanael Kapner; PO Box 1242; Frisco CO 80443E-mail: bronathanael@yahoo.com
  Scroll Down For Comments
  Brother Nathanael @ March 6, 2013
We Deserve Better: Tell Kraft To Stop Using Dangerous Artificial Colors in Our Mac & Cheese - 100 Days of Real Food
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 04:47
  By Lisa, on March 5th, 2013
  Hi there, this is Lisa Leake from 100DaysofRealFood.com and Vani Hari from FoodBabe.com. We recently discovered that several American food products contain harmful additives that are not used '' and in some cases banned '' in other countries. One of those products is an iconic staple that almost every American, us included, has had at one time or another: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.
  In the US, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese contains the artificial food dyes Yellow 5 and Yellow 6. These unnecessary '' yet potentially harmful - dyes are not in Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in other countries, including the UK, because they were removed due to consumer outcry. Kraft reformulated their product for the UK, but not for their fellow American citizens, and it's time we demand the same here in the US!-
  We are petitioning Kraft to remove all artificial food dyesfrom their line of macaroni and cheese products.
  Kraft Foods is the largest food company headquartered here in the United States. If Kraft changes their Macaroni and Cheese formula, we know this could inspire other US food companies to follow suit and finally eliminate dangerous artificial food dyes once and for all.
  Here are the reasons why Kraft needs to remove Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 from their entire line of Macaroni and Cheese:
  Artificial food dyes'...
  To prove this last point we personally tested both the US and UK versions of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and found little difference in color and virtually no difference in taste (see for yourself in the video below).
  Go to our petition page and sign your name.Share our petition with your family and friends!Watch our video below to learn more about our mission (and see us taste test the two different mac & cheese products ourselves).We both grew up eating this product '' I even used to feed it to my kids '' and it's available at almost every grocery store across the country. Our kids deserve the same safer version that our friends get overseas!
  Join us and demand this change by signing this petition now.
  Thank you for all your support '' together we can make a difference.
Rand Paul stops confirmation of CIA director due to drone killings of Americans '-- RT USA
  Link to Article
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 04:46
  Published time: March 07, 2013 02:36
  United States Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) began a filibuster on the floor of the US Capitol Building on Wednesday with the intention of halting President Barack Obama's nominee for the position of CIA director.
  Lawmakers in Washington were gathered to finalize plans to confirm John Brennan as the next head of the Central Intelligence Agency on Wednesday, but Sen. Paul took the floor just shy of 12 noon and told colleagues that he would speak out against the president's pick for as long as he had to in order to prevent the appointment from being finalized.
  The son of former presidential contender and congressman Ron Paul continued for hours, gaining support from members of both major political parties in opposing the president's nomination.
  ''This is not about partisanship,'' said the Republican senator, who claimed to have affirmed other choices made by the democratic president. Rather, Sen. Paul said that the matter at hand '-- the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to execute US citizens without a trial '-- was one that was so polarizing that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle couldn't help but align on his team.
  ''It's not partisan against partisan; it's bipartisan working for the power of the checks and balances to try to ensure a leveling,'' tweeted a member of the senator's social media team during his address as it stretched into the evening.
  Sen. Paul has sent two letters to Mr. Brennan's office asking for answers about the drone program operated overseas during Brennan's tenure as a White House counterterrorism official, asking specifically for information about how the aircraft are used to execute US citizens suspected of terrorism overseas and whether that justification can be used domestically.
  On Tuesday, US Attorney General Eric Holder responded to a similar letter sent by Sen. Paul, confirming in part that American citizens residing within the US mainland could be subjected to extrajudicial executions approved by the Obama administration behind closed doors and not a court of law.
  ''It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,'' wrote Holder.
  In a response from Mr. Brennan, the nominated CIA chief confirmed to Sen. Paul that drones were not being used on US soil, but did not say such an incident would be impossible. Dissatisfied with the reluctance of the White House to issue a formal answer to his precisely line of questioning, Sen. Paul on Wednesday said he would do everything in his power to stop the architect of the drone program from becoming the highest figure in the country's intelligence community.
  ''I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan's nomination for the CIA,'' Sen. Paul began his attempt to hold up the nomination. ''I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court.''
  Sen. Paul told his colleagues that he did not have a beef directly with Mr. Brennan, but was intent on making a point about the White House's insistency on making closed-door decisions that affect each and every American. It was like ''pulling teeth to get any answer from the president,'' the senator said, vowing the he would continue to critique the Obama administration until they answered his questions in full.
  ''In a democracy, you could someday elect someone who is very evil,'' said Paul. ''That's why we don't give the power to the government'--and it's not an accusation of this president or anybody in this body. It's a point to be made historically that, occasionally, even a democracy gets it wrong.''
  Paul also attacked the administration's reluctance in sharing intelligence with not the American public but politicians like himself who were elected to represent their constituents. Being able to be killed by the government with no explanation, said Paul, was reason enough for every person in America to be concerned. Even still, though, he said the White House has refused to share intelligence deemed relevant to his investigation.
  ''They treat the US Senate with disdain,'' said Paul. ''They won't respond to us, much less the American people.''
  Near hour five of his testimony, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) aligned himself with Paul and said, ''Every person has a right to know when their government is planning to kill them.''
  Paul said he had problems with not just the administration's justification to kill US citizens suspected of heinous crimes against the country, but the factors at hand in that decision making process. To some members of the intelligence community, said Paul, persons with pro-life bumper stickers and supporters of third-party candidates are deemed worthy of being investigated.
  Americans ''who are in the Constitution Party'' are considered threats to some, he said. ''Isn't there some irony there?''
  ''If the accusations are based on how many fingers you have on a hand, then I've got a problem,'' he said. ''No American should ever be killed in America who is sitting in a caf(C).''
  ''Sometimes accusations are made because people politically don't like your point of view,'' he added.
  Sen. Paul said the administration is arguing otherwise, though, and that people singled out by Holder, Brennan or another White House official as being a threat to the country could be brought to death without ever being judged in court. That's how the senator interpreted the White House's lackluster response to his inquiry, at least, and during the filibuster he demanded that the president speak honestly about when, where and who drones could attack.
  ''I can't understand the president's unwillingness to say he's not going to kill noncombatants. Think about that. He's unwilling to say publicly that he's not going to kill noncombatants,'' said the senator.
  Four hours into the filibuster, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) said in support of Paul's attempt to stop the nomination, ''Members of the senate have an important constitutional role to give advice and consent on these nominations.'' Earlier in the afternoon, Sen. Paul said, ''I withhold my consent today because I'm deeply concerned that the exec branch has not provided an answer: that the president refuses to say that he won't kill noncombatants.''
How-To: Managing services with update-rc.d | Debuntu
  Link to Article
  Thu, 07 Mar 2013 03:58
  Linux services can be started, stopped and reloaded with the use of scripts stocked in /etc/init.d/.
  However, during start up or when changing runlevel, those scripts are searched in /etc/rcX.d/ where X is the runlevel number.
  This tutorial will explain how one can activate, deactivate or modify a service start up.
  When installing a new service under debian, the default is to enable it. So for instance, if you just installed apache2 package, after you installed it, apache service will be started and so will it be upon the next reboots.
  If you do not use apache all the time, you might want to disable this service from starting up upon boot up and simply start it manually when you actually need it by running this command:
  # /etc/init.d/apache2 start
  You could either disable this service on boot up by removing any symbolic links in /etc/rcX.d/SYYapache2 or by using update-rc.d.
  The advantage of using update-rc.d is that it will take care of removing/adding any required links to /etc/init.d automatically.Taking apache2 as an example, let's examine how /etc/rcX.d is looking like:
  # ls -l /etc/rc?.d/*apache2lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 2007-07-05 22:51 /etc/rc0.d/K91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 2007-07-05 22:51 /etc/rc1.d/K91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 2007-07-05 22:51 /etc/rc2.d/S91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 2007-07-05 22:51 /etc/rc3.d/S91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 2007-07-05 22:51 /etc/rc4.d/S91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 2007-07-05 22:51 /etc/rc5.d/S91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 2007-07-05 22:51 /etc/rc6.d/K91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2
  As you can see, for runlevels 0, 1 and 6 there is a K at the beginning of the link, for runlevels 2, 3, 4 and 5, there is a S. Those two letters stands for Kill and Start.On Debian and Ubuntu, runlevels 2, 3, 4 and 5 are multi-users runlevels.Runlevel 0 is Halt.Runlevel 1 is single user modeRunlevel 6 is reboot
  1. Removing a ServiceIf you want to totally disable apache2 service by hand, you would need to delete every single link in /etc/rcX.d/. Using update-rc.d it is as simple as:
  # update-rc.d -f apache2 remove
  The use of -f is to force the removal of the symlinks even if there is still /etc/init.d/apache2.
  Note: This command will only disable the service until next time the service is upgraded. If you want to make sure the service won't be re-enabled upon upgrade, you should also type the following:# update-rc.d apache2 stop 80 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 .
  2. Adding a service2.1. Default prioritiesNow, if you want to re-add this service to be started on boot up, you can simply use:
  # update-rc.d apache2 defaultsAdding system startup for /etc/init.d/apache2 '.../etc/rc0.d/K20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc1.d/K20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc6.d/K20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc2.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc3.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc4.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc5.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2
  2.2. Custom prioritiesBut as you can see, the default value is 20 which is pretty different than 91 '... a S20 link is started before a S91 and and K91 is kill before K20.To force apache2 to be started with priorities 91 for both Start and Kill, we need to use the following command:
  # update-rc.d apache2 defaults 91Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/apache2 '.../etc/rc0.d/K91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc1.d/K91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc6.d/K91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc2.d/S91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc3.d/S91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc4.d/S91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc5.d/S91apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2
  2.3. Different priorities for Start and KillAlternatively, if you want to set different priorities for Start than for Kill, let say Start with 20 and Kill with 80, you will need to run:
  # update-rc.d apache2 defaults 20 80Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/apache2 '.../etc/rc0.d/K80apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc1.d/K80apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc6.d/K80apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc2.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc3.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc4.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc5.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2
  3. Specifying custom runlevelsFinally, if you only want to Start and Kill on specific runlevels, like for instance starting apache with priority 20 on runlevels 2, 3, 4 and 5 and Kill with priority 80 on runlevels 0, 1 and 6:
  # update-rc.d apache2 start 20 2 3 4 5 . stop 80 0 1 6 .Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/apache2 '.../etc/rc0.d/K80apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc1.d/K80apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc6.d/K80apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc2.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc3.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc4.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc5.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2
  Or, to start with priority 20 for runlevel 2, 3 and 4 and priority 30 for runlevel 5 and kill with priority 80 for runlevel 0, 1 and 6:
  # update-rc.d apache2 start 20 2 3 4 . start 30 5 . stop 80 0 1 6 .Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/apache2 '.../etc/rc0.d/K80apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc1.d/K80apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc6.d/K80apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc2.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc3.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc4.d/S20apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2/etc/rc5.d/S30apache2 -> ../init.d/apache2
Ubuntu 12.04 '' setting up my Wifi Hotspot | thenewbieblog
  Link to Article
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:37
  Please Note: As the Title suggests '' I am a newbie, Please do not expect in-depth computer support. I can only say that the setup below really does work on my netbook.Perhaps it will work on yours too!
  The first thing I wanted to do after installing Ubuntu 12.04 is setup a wifi hotspot. I have a Samsung Netbook N130. I use a usb-modem to connect to the internet. I have a single data contract with Vodacom and I want all my devices to use this data at the same time.
  Gathering information:Opening a terminal and typing the following command :
  #lspci
  Showed me that I have a :
  Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)
  #lsmod
  Shows that it uses the ath9k drivers (this information may help you to google for setup information specific to your machine.)
  Also
  #iwconfig
  will give you the name of your wireless adapter name for example:
  ''wlan0 ''or ''wlan1'' (note that the ''0'" and ''1'" are numbers not letters)
  Installing ProgramsI then installed 2 programs via apt. In a terminal enter the following command:
  #sudo apt-get install dhcp3-server
  #sudo apt-get install hostapd
  Editing Configuration FilesIn a terminal:
  #sudo gedit
  This will bring up the editor with root privileges so that you can edit system files. (WARNING '' editing system files can damage your system. Please do not edit system files unless you have made a backup of them first)
  Open / Create the following files editing:
  1. /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
  interface=wlan0driver=nl80211ssid=my_hotspotchannel=1hw_mode=gauth_algs=1wpa=3wpa_passphrase=1234567890wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSKwpa_pairwise=TKIP CCMPrsn_pairwise=CCMP
  Please note: the ''ssid'' in this case ''my_hotspot'' is the name of the network that will show up on the device or laptop that will connect to the hotspot. The passphrase is a password '' you can change this to any other 10 digit number. The device / laptop that wants to connect will have to enter this password.
  Save the file.
  2. /etc/default/isc-dhcp-server
  Edit the line that says
  INTERFACES=''"
  To
  INTERFACES=''wlan0'"
  Or change the ''wlan0'" to ''wlan1'" or whatever the wireless adapter name you have (see above section on gathering information.)
  3. /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf
  Make sure the follow lines are Commented out ( put a hash ''#'' sign at the beginning of the line ) the following lines:
  # option definitions common to all supported networks'...#option domain-name ''example.org'';#option domain-name-servers ns1.example.org, ns2.example.org;
  #default-lease-time 600;#max-lease-time 7200;
  Add the following lines to the file (copy and paste)
  subnet 10.10.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { range 10.10.0.2 10.10.0.16; option domain-name-servers 8.8.4.4, 208.67.222.222; option routers 10.10.0.1;}
  (Note: the only other line in this whole config file that is uncommented is :
  ddns-update-style none;)
  4. /etc/default/hostapd
  Add the following lines to the bottom of the file. Make sure similar lines are commented.
  RUN_DAEMON=''yes''DAEMON_CONF=''/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf''DAEMON_OPTS=''-dd''
  (Note: This file makes sure hostapd program starts on bootup with your edited configuration files loaded)
  5. /etc/network/interfaces
  This is how my interfaces file looks:
  auto loiface lo inet loopback
  auto wlan0iface wlan0 inet static address 10.10.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0
  (Note: Again you must change every ''wlan0'" to the name of your adapter. This file may have more entries for other network adapters. Just make sure you edit the section of the wireless adapter you want to use. This file will automatically configure the wireless network adapter's network address at bootup time.)
  At this stage you can reboot. And hopefully any device / laptop should connect to your wifi hotspots network via the network manager applet. On these devices search for the network ''my_hotspot'' and type in the password.
  At this stage however you cannot access the Internet. Which brings us to another important step:
  Internet connection Sharing.You will need to ask yourself the following information. How do I connect to the internet on my ubuntu computer / laptop? In my case I use a usb 3G modem. You need to know the name of the network adapter that you connect to the internet on. > This must be different from the network adapter you configured above. (ie wlan0)
  Connect to the internet, and in a terminal type:
  #ifconfig
  On my netbook, one of the entries is for adapter ''ppp0'" this is the network adapter for my usb modem and the connection to the internet. The following steps use ''ppp0'" however you can swap it for your adapter name:
  To share the internet connection we have to do a thing called ''ip masquerading''.
  First we have to allow ip forwarding:
  #sudo gedit
  edit /etc/sysctl.conf
  Make sure the following line is uncommented and reads
  net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
  Save and close gedit. (reboot)
  After reboot: Connect to the Internet and In a terminal type:
  # sudo iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.10.0.0/16 -o ppp0 -j MASQUERADE
  (Note the ''ppp0'" adapter name in the above line. The 10.10.0.0 is the ip address of your network that you configured in steps 3 and 5 above. Your wifi hotspot will thus share the internet with up to 15 machines that are given the ip addresses 10.10.0.2 to 10.10.0.16)
  All devices and laptops should now be able to browse the internet and download email. If this works we have to make this permanent:
  #sudo gedit
  edit /etc/rc.local
  add this line just before ''exit 0'"
  iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.10.0.0/16 -o ppp0 -j MASQUERADE
  Reboot / Connect to the internet and Enjoy your wifi hotspot.
  AcknowledgementsWhen configuring and setting up mine I used and adapted the following Howto's and forums:
  http://exain.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/making-a-wifi-hotspot-access-point-using-linux-wifi-lan-cardusb-adapter/
  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11890695#post11890695
  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11890408#post11890408
  Like this:LikeLoading...
WifiDocs/MasterMode - Community Ubuntu Documentation
  Link to Article
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:18
  What we need for a wireless "base-station" or "access-point" is a wireless network card that does "master mode", which allows our Linux box to behave just like products from the likes of Linksys, Netgear & Belkin - later sections of this HOWTO should be pretty much the same whether you can find a 802.11a, 802.11b or g card that does master mode in Linux.
  Purchasing a WiFi adapterSelect a card that supports "master mode". Be careful when buying a card for this project: - WLAN cards documented as Linux-supported often become no longer available. As a common cost-cutting measure, wireless adapter manufacturers will revise an existing product's specifications, substituting a different chipset (or other components) without changing the (formerly Linux-compatible product's) model number. Naturally, this is a common source of confusion for individuals attempting to purchase a compatible adapter, even when they think they know which adapter to buy. Manufacturers don't help matters much, often using strange naming conventions that produce numerous confusingly similar model names and numbers. Consider: At one point D-Link offered 3 different revisions (with 3 different chipsets) of its DWL-520 adapter, as well as the (completely different) DWL-520+, which was not to be confused with the entirely unrelated DWL-G520, DWL-A520, not to mention the 8 varieties of product offered under the "DWL-620" moniker. Thus it is crucially important to pay close attention not just to manufacturer/model names, but also revision numbers (if provided), chipsets, included drivers, etc, as well. (If uncertain, consider purchasing from a retailer who offers a "consumer friendly" return policy, so the product can be returned/exchanged if it turns out to be incompatible.)
  There are very few 802.11N USB adapters with chipsets that clearly support master mode on free software platforms. The situation is rapidly deteriorating as chipset manufacturers have not released source code or specifications in many years. One place to purchase a compatible adapter is http://www.thinkpenguin.com/. http://linuxwireless.org/ also maintains a list of adapters and information on master mode compatibility. This list can be very misleading as most adapters which had a compatible chipset have been long discontinued.
  When selecting a PCI adapter, cards based on Atheros chipsets tend to be compatible: http://madwifi.org/
  Determine wifi adapter chipsetDoing a Google search on the manufactures part number usually gets results e.g. "Cnet CWP-854 chipset" should give you the result of Ralink rt2561 or rt61. The other option is to plug the wifi adapter into a Linux box and type the commands:
  sudo lspcifor PCI adapters
  sudo lsusbfor USB adapters
  sudo iwconfigUsing these commands you should have enough clues to your wifi adapters chipset.
  Test an adapter for "master mode"To check if an adapter and driver can do master mode you can use a program called 'iwconfig'
  sudo iwconfigIn the terminal window should list all available wireless interfaces. Assuming your adapter is connected and its drivers are loaded, try the following.
  sudo iwconfig wlan1 mode masterReplace wlan1 with whatever Ubuntu is calling your adapter. If you don't get an error you're in business.
  mac80211 based driverMany newer drivers use the mac80211 framework. The iwconfig method of checking for master mode doesn't work with these drivers, because they use the new nl80211 interface for userspace communication.
  You have to install 'iw' the new wireless configuring tool at first.
  sudo aptitude install iw'iw list' shows all supported features of all installed wireless card supporting the new nl80211 interface.
  iw listIf there is 'AP' in the list of "Supported interface modes" your device will support the Access Point mode with hostapd.
  ...Supported interface modes: * IBSS * managed * AP * AP/VLAN * monitor * mesh point...Prism (HostAP)Note that cards using these drivers are 11MBPS only.
  Jason Boxman provides quite an excellent description of these drivers: HostAP enables 802.11b access point functionality utilizing the secondary (STA) firmware of Intersil's Prism2, Prism2.5, or Prism3 chipsets for time sensitive tasks. All other functionality is handled via the driver, including WEP and passing frames off to a port authenticator, like FreeRADIUS. Presently, HostAP works with Intersil's Prism chipset and cards utilizing PCI and PC Card interfaces to the host system. (PLX bridging is also supported)
  Atheros (Madwifi)Atheros card setup for routing resource =
  You have to install the Source to get the driver into Master mode for a WAP
  For "ubuntu server edition" do the following For other editions just enable restricted drivers wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/madwifi/madwifi-0.9.4.tar.gz tar -xvzf madwifi-0.9.4.tar.gzcd madwifi-0.9.4sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-server sudo makesudo make install# Edit your kernel modules loaded at boot time: sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/madwifiadd this to make sure the wireless card goes into Master mode:
  options ath_pci autocreate=apload the module without a reboot
  sudo modprobe ath_pcimac80211 based driversSome mac80211 based drivers are supporting access point or master modus. A good manual for then can be found at: http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Documentation/hostapd
  NDISwrapperNDISwrapper cards are NOT SUITABLE for base-station use - they don't do master mode. NDISwrapper is basically a layer of interfacing glue to use Windows drivers with Linux, and so it denies access to some of the more interesting &/or esoteric functions of the wireless card (because NDIS has no programming interface for them, I guess).
  If you have a wireless card that you're currently using with NDISwrapper then it's possible that there are native drivers for it - I've seen quite a few posters to the Ubuntu forums suggesting using NDISwrapper with Ralink cards, for instance - but it's more likely that you'll have to bin it (or put it in your sister's Windows PC) and get a card with native drivers that interface properly with the kernel. NOTE: You can accomplish a similar goal with an Ad-Hoc network; this might help.
  Prism54I wanted a card that supported the Prism54 drivers, as they seemed to be about the most mature ones for "54G" wireless cards under Linux at the time I was looking - my Powerbook has Airport Extreme, Apple's name for 802.11g, so I might as well make use of it. I took a good look through the supported cards and decided upon the Allnet ALL0271. It seemed to be fairly well-recommended on the Prism54.org forums - there are too many short comments saying "worked for me" for me to post all the individual links, so do a search & read all the threads for yourself.
  You can order the ALL0271 from the US, from Germany or if you're in the UK, I actually bought a handful, so email me if you'd like to buy one. I also recently got one of these cards working on a friend's SuSE 9.1 box, although the process isn't as brain-dead as it is under Gentoo - portage & the ebuilds automate the process so well.
  Ralink rt2400 / rt2500As I see on the rt2x00 project page, the new branch rt2x00 beta drivers support master mode and all advanced features, but legacy rt2400, rt2500, rt2570, rt61 drivers do not, but I have no way to test such setup.
  For more details on this driver see the project homepage.
  Broadcom 43xx cards (bcm43xx.ko)Broadcom cards support master mode using the reverse-engineered kernel driver. You need to enable (or make as a module) the Softmac wireless extensions and BCM43xx wireless driver.
  Realtek RTL8180 cards (rtl8180-sa2400 project)Master mode is working correctly together with promiscuous mode. Supports WEP open encryption and possibly TKIP/CCMP(not tested). Supports only 1/2/5.5/11M modes.
  Texas Instruments ACX100/ACX111In cards based on this chip (ex. D-Link DWL-520+) master mode is not fully implemented (as of 2007-01-01 driver) and there are some different problems like sometimes no beacons are broadcasted and card can't be properly initiated. Supports 1/2/5.5/11M(b) and 22M(b+) modes.
  Intel PRO/Wireless (ipwXXXX) seriesFor ipw2100/ipw2200, unfortunately there is no way to use them as AP, but this can be done for ipw3945 and ipw4965, maybe ipw2915 too, which are pretty good cards anyway, using fully open-source iwlwifi drivers, but it can't be done with old Intel drivers with closed microcode.
  ZyDAS ZD1211ZyDAS ZD1211 802.11b/g USB WLAN chipset Linux drivers Initially contributed by ZyDAS under the GPL license, the ZD1211 Linux driver is maintained by the open source community..
  zd1211 chipset supports master mode, but the drivers built into Ubuntu for the zd1211 chipset do not. Luckily another set of drivers exist and they work with master mode. http://zd1211.wiki.sourceforge.net/VendorBasedDriver
  If you're compiling and installing the zd1211 VendorBasedDriver for your wifi module (depending your chipset version) you may need to edit the Makefile to enable zd1211b mode. Also you'll likely need to blacklist the driver built-in to the kernel to let the new VendorBasedDriver load instead.
  sudo echo zd1211rw >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
Pilot reports mysterious drone that could have caused crash over JFK airport '-- RT USA
  Link to Article
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:33
  Published time: March 05, 2013 21:27
  The Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating a possible drone sighting reported over New York City by a commercial airline pilot on Monday.
  The operator of a Boeing 777 flown by Italy's Alitalia told air traffic controllers at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York that he encountered an unmanned aerial vehicle a few hundred feet in front of his aircraft while flying over Brooklyn, NY Monday afternoon.
  ''We saw a drone, a drone aircraft,'' the pilot is radioing to JFK airport's control tower in audio released Monday night.
  The unidentified flying object was described hovering around 1,500 feet off the ground around five miles outside of JFK. The pilot of Flight AZA 60 did not take any evasive action and managed to land the flight without further incident, although a near-collision could have jeopardized the safety of the passengers should the reported drone have caused the Alitalia pilot to erratically maneuver the aircraft.
  Now the Joint Terrorism Task Force says they are investigating in order to determine what exactly the Alitalia pilot spotted.
  Laura Brown, a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration, tells CNN that the FAA is also investigating the incident. One source speaking to the New York Post on condition of anonymity though says the pilot was certain it was a drone that he spotted.
  ''He was very clear as to what he saw,'' the source says. According to the Post's report, the pilot described the aircraft as ''a black drone about a meter square, with helicopter rotors on the corners.''
  ''In all the years I've been with the airport, I can't remember a similar incident,'' one investigator adds the paper.
  Earlier this year, New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly told Reuters editor-in-chief Stephen Adler that the NYPD has considered acquiring a drone for surveillance purposes, but claims to not have one in its arsenal just yet.
  ''The only thing we would do is maybe use the cheap $250 ones to take a look and see the size of the demonstration or something along those lines,'' Kelly said.
  As preliminary reports on this week's drone sighting continue to trickle in, some commentators have speculated that the aircraft spotted on Monday may have been just a hobbyist's drone not equipped with the space-age technology outfitted on high-tech drones. According to an airport shuttle driver that spoke with 1010 WINS Radio, remote-controlled aircraft are routinely flown in the area by amateurs.
  ''I see it many times,'' the driver, Fyezil, tells the radio station. ''Sometimes, I see them flying so high.''
  The US Department of Homeland Security keeps a fleet of drones for surveillance over the nation's borders, and military drones are regularly tested over select bases scattered across the nation. One of those exercises last year went awry when a 44-foot drone engaged in a routine maintenance flight crashed in the Chesapeake Bay around 100 miles outside of Washington, DC.
  ABC News claims that a second pilot caught on tape also reported seeing the drone Monday afternoon.
ABC Network Predicted 'Vaporizing' of America for Sequester Cuts, But Now Finds Fraud in Government
  Link to Article
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:33
  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) 2013, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.
A Drone Strike To Kill US Citizen On American Soil Would Be Legal! Atty Gen Holder Makes It Clear!
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:26
Democrat to 17 year old girl: "If you're bashful, I've got a snake sitting under my desk here"
  Link to Article
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:24
  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) 2013, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.
Maddow to Sandra Day O'Connor: So, How Did it Feel to Elect George W. Bush?
  Link to Article
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:24
  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) 2013, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.
8 Former Heads Of DEA Want Obama To Crackdown On Recreational Marijuana Use! "Time Is Running Out!"
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:23
"When You Say He Was Raising Questions About 911 And The Destruction Of The WTC By Planes"
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:23
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Dies
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:23
US to purchase fleet of enhanced drones despite budget cuts '' report '-- RT USA
  Link to Article
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:22
  Published time: March 05, 2013 14:22
  The sequester won't stop the US Air Force from acquiring new extended-range drones for overseas operations, a recent report says. Experts speculate why the US is so keen on advancing the drone program, allegedly pushing it to the 2014 budget.
  According to a report issued by Defense News, an extended-range (ER) version of the unmanned aerial vehicle MQ-9 Reaper is due to be purchased by the US Air Force. The new drone's design would allow it to operate for 42 hours, or 35 hours if loaded with a missile, significantly extending UAV's flying range.
  Although there has been no official comment on related budget submissions, a senior Defense Department source told the media that a request for funding the program will be considered by Congress as early as this March.
  ''The program is going to go forward,'' Chris Pehrson, Director for Strategic Development with Reaper builder General Atomics was quoted as saying. ''They've approved it; it's a matter of details now,'' he added, declining to comment further on budgetary expectations.
  Pehrson explained the demand for longer-range drones by the fading presence of the US military in Afghanistan, as well as by the US pivot to the Pacific and a renewed focus on Africa.
  Ultimately, the extended range model would allow the US to make incursions into Pakistan despite the loss of the Afghan bases. Afghanistan is where many US drones have been launched over the past decade, and the number of such launches has recently surged as the troops withdrawal from the country nears.
  Meanwhile, the US Air Force officials say that spending money on a new set of Reapers will help them economize on drone operations in the future, and even suggest the overall number of UAVs could be reduced as a result.
  ''Everyone has been working toward a normalized CAP [combat air patrol]. You have roughly between two and three per CAP, fleetwide right now. And if you've got an extended-range capability, you might be able to cut that down because your airplanes can stay aloft longer,'' Col. Bill Tart, director of the Air Force's Remotely Piloted Aircraft Capabilities Division, has recently said, as he commented on ''certain efficiencies'' his department was looking for.
  Another bonus for the US military would be the backward compatibility of the newly designed wings and fuel tanks to the old Reaper's fuselage. That means a set of new wings, winglets and tanks could easily be attached to the UAV's already in service.
  However, there was no mention of the upgraded drone's navigational system reliability, nor is it likely to change the notorious amount of collateral damage dealt by drone strikes.
  Recently, a senior US senator publicly announced that the number of drone strike victims has reached 4,700 people, which include innocent civilians.
  Having admitted that, the US will not hesitate to spend $500,000 to $1 million per unit for an advanced new drone, according to director Pehrson's rough estimates.
US bill would anoint Israel 'major strategic ally'
  Link to Article
  Source: USA RSS
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 02:50
  Published time: March 05, 2013 20:12
  Two US lawmakers have introduced a bill that would make Israel a 'major strategic ally'. The move is intended to solidify ties between the two states in the run-up to a potential strike against Iran despite US reluctance to use the military option.
  The bill sponsored by Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), was timed to coincide with the yearly American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports.
  The 'major strategic ally' bill '' which would grant Israel a one-of-a-kind designation '' would strengthen ties between the two nations on a range of issues, including annual defense assistance, and cooperation on missile defense, energy research and cyber security.
  It also invites Israel to join a program which waves pre-arranged visas for select foreign nationals entering the United States.
  Thirteen thousand activists at the conference are expected to lobby for the bill, as well as legislation targeting Israel's mortal enemy Iran. The Iran-related bills would tighten sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its uranium enrichment program and guarantee assurances that Washington would support Israel if it feels 'compelled' to launch a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
  "We need to recognize that military action against Iran may become necessary to protect America, Israel and our allies," house majority leader Eric Cantor told the conference during his speech Monday night.
  On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the AIPAC conference via satellite from his office in Israel that Iran was ''running out the clock'' on diplomatic efforts in order "to buy time to press ahead with its nuclear program." ''It's still not crossed the red line I drew with the United Nations last September'', Netanyahu said in reference to the point where Israel believes Iran would be able to build a nuclear weapon.
  ''But Iran is getting closer to that red line, and it is putting itself in a position to cross that line very quickly once it decides to do so.''
  Perceived reticence on the part of the Obama administration regarding a strike against Iran prompted Vice-President Joe Biden to reassure the conference on Monday that the White House is ''not bluffing'' when it comes to US resolve to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
  "The president of the United States cannot and does not bluff'...We're not looking for war. We're ready to negotiate peacefully. But all options including military force are on the table,"
  Biden assured the conference. "While that window is closing, we believe there is still time and space [for diplomacy]", he added.
  Despite public pronouncements from the White House, Obama has previously dissuaded Israel from launching a pre-emptive airstrike against Iranian facilities.
  Securing legal guarantees the US would back Israel in the event of such a strike could stymie Obama's efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian question.
  Despite the immense benefit the major strategic ally designation would grant Israel, political analyst Robert Naiman told RT that the move would have no tangible benefit for the US.
  ''This is about what you can get away with if you're lobbyist in Washington and the American people aren't paying attention'', he said. Codifying the United States' relationship with Israel would further be a means of sparing US aid to Israel from the $85 billion in budget cuts ordered by Obama on Friday, Naiman argues.
  ''Under this sequester'... there're supposed to be across-the-board cuts to the US budget. So that should mean that the US aid to Israel, which is substantial - billions of dollars a year - should also be cut, but the Israel lobby doesn't want the aid to Israel to be cut. So their long game is that with this designation of 'major strategic ally' they would move things that are currently paid out of the US aid to Israel into the base Pentagon budget. They'll argue, 'well, this is about the national security needs...''' Naiman concluded.
Department of Justice says White House can use 'lethal force' on American citizens on US soil '-- RT USA
  Link to Article
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:11
  Published time: March 06, 2013 02:23
  The US government has the right to use military force on American citizens, even at home - but only in "extraordinary circumstances," the attorney general has stated in a letter to Senator Rand Paul.
  Paul had threatened to filibuster the nomination of John Brennan, US President Barack Obama's pick for CIA director, "until [Obama] answers the question of whether or not the President can kill American citizens through the drone strike program on US soil."
  Brennan was confirmed by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, March 5, the same day Attorney General Eric Holder sent Paul the letter. Brennan now faces overall Senate approval.
  The CIA boss nominee told Paul Tuesday that "the agency I have been nominated to lead does not conduct lethal operations inside the United States'--nor does it have any authority to do so," advising the senator that the Justice Department would better suited to answer his inquiry regarding whether American citizens could be assassinated on home soil.
  In Holder's Tuesday letter to Paul, he explains that as the country's leadership has never carried out a drone strike at home and has no plans to.
  "The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no president will ever have to confront. It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States."
  For example, Holder says, "the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances like a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001."
  In a February Google+ Hangout, President Obama avoided the topic when asked to directly address whether he had the authority to assassinate Americans, leading observers to assume he did.
TSA Prohibited Items List Changing April 25th - Small Pocket Knives and Some Sporting Goods Items to be Permitted
  Link to Article
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:10
  TSA established a committee to review the prohibited items list based on an overall risk-based security approach. After the review, TSA Administrator John S. Pistole made the decision to start allowing the following items in carry-on bags beginning April 25th:Small Pocket Knives '' Small knives with non-locking blades smaller than 2.36 inches and less than 1/2 inch in width will be permittedSmall Novelty Bats and Toy BatsSki PolesHockey SticksLacrosse SticksBilliard CuesGolf Clubs (Limit Two)This is part of an overall Risk-Based Security approach, which allows Transportation Security Officers to better focus their efforts on finding higher threat items such as explosives. This decision aligns TSA more closely with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards.These similar items will still remain on the prohibited items list:
  Razor blades and box cutters will remain prohibited in carry-on luggage.Full-size baseball, softball and cricket bats are prohibited items in carry-on luggage.Visit TSA.gov for more information on small knives permitted in carry-on luggage and sporting equipment permitted in carry-ons. Again, please note these changes are effective April 25, 2013.Click on Images to Enlarge
Washington Post
  Link to Article
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:09
  By Eric Engleman and Bloomberg News, Published: MARCH 05, 9:30 AM ET Aa March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Telecommunications companies want President Barack Obama's administration to rethink a decision that may exempt Google Inc.'s Gmail, Apple Inc.'s iPhone software and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows from an executive order on cybersecurity.
  Obama's Feb. 12 order says the government can't designate ''commercial information technology products or consumer information technology services'' as critical U.S. infrastructure targeted for voluntary computer security standards.
  ''If e-mail went away this afternoon, we would all come to a stop,'' said Marcus Sachs, vice president of national security policy at Verizon Communications Inc., the second-largest U.S. phone company. ''Hell yeah, e-mail is critical.''
  Technologies used in personal computers, software and the Internet ''are the lifeblood of cyberspace,'' Sachs said. ''If you exclude that right up front, you take off the table the very people who are creating the products and services that are vulnerable.''
  Obama's order is aimed at areas such as power grids, telecommunications and pipelines. The goal is to protect ''systems and assets whose incapacitation from a cyber incident would have catastrophic national security and economic consequences,'' White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in an e-mail. ''It is not about Netflix, Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat.''
  Voluntary Standards
  Under the executive order, the Department of Homeland Security is to identify critical infrastructure, translating the order's broadly worded information technology exclusions into specific guidelines.
  The order expands a government program for sharing classified information about computer threats with defense contractors and Internet-service providers and calls for computer security standards for companies in critical industries. While adherence to the standards is to be voluntary, the executive order tells federal agencies that directly regulate affected industries to consider binding rules.
  Telecommunications and cable companies don't want to face regulatory burdens and costs that aren't shared by technology companies, David Kaut, a Washington-based analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co., said in an interview.
  ''The telecom community is concerned the tech industry is going to get a free pass here,'' Kaut said. ''You have an ecosystem and only the network guys are going to get submitted to government scrutiny.''
  Hacker Targets
  Critical infrastructure such as power grids rely on information technology, Verizon's Sachs said. Such technology should be part of the solution to U.S. cybersecurity, he said.
  Obama's order isn't meant to ''get down to the level of products and services and dictate how those products and services behave,'' said David LeDuc, senior director of public policy for the Software & Information Industry Association, a Washington trade group that lobbied for the exclusions.
  If countries impose differing security guidelines for technology products and services, such actions can amount to a type of trade barrier if rules are written to favor their own companies, LeDuc said.
  Samantha Smith, a Google spokeswoman, Michelle Hinrichs, a spokeswoman for Microsoft, Steve Dowling of Apple, and Jodi Seth of Facebook Inc. all declined to comment.
  'Shared Responsibility'
  ''The nation's cybersecurity policy framework should be structured in a way that takes into account the shared responsibility of the entire Internet ecosystem,'' Ed Amoroso, chief security officer at AT&T Inc., the biggest U.S. phone company, said in a Feb. 15 e-mail reacting to Obama's order.
  Telecommunications companies think the order's exclusions may leave out technologies that play a vital role in the total security picture, Stewart Baker, a former Homeland Security Department official, said in an interview.
  ''If you're attacking people, you go for the weakest link and the weakest link is often some commercial product,'' said Baker, a Washington-based partner at the law firm Steptoe & Johnson LLP.
  Twitter Inc. said Feb. 1 that hackers may have gotten access to data on 250,000 users of its microblogging site. Facebook, operator of the largest social network, said Feb. 15 that some of its employees' laptops were infected after visiting a mobile developer's site.
  Apple said Feb. 19 some of its internal Mac systems were affected by a malicious software attack. Microsoft, the largest software maker, said Feb. 22 a small number of its computers were infected by malware in an attack similar to those against Facebook and Apple.
  Swiping Secrets
  Obama, in announcing the executive order in his State of the Union speech, said the U.S. needs to boost cyber defenses for vital U.S. facilities.
  ''We know hackers steal people's identities and infiltrate private e-mail. We know foreign countries and companies swipe our corporate secrets,'' Obama said. ''Now our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, and our air-traffic-control systems.''
  Obama's executive order mirrors parts of a Senate bill that was blocked last year by Republicans who said the standards would be burdensome to industry. Lawmakers are working on new legislation.
  The Internet Association, a trade group whose members include Google, Facebook, and Amazon.com Inc., urged the White House and Congress to ''ensure that all Internet services are not subject to regulation,'' the group's president, Michael Beckerman, said in an e-mailed statement.
  The Obama administration and Google opposed revisions to an international telecommunications treaty negotiated at a United Nations conference in Dubai last year, saying new language related to cybersecurity and other topics could open the door to Internet regulation and censorship by other countries.
  (C) Copyright 1996-2013 The Washington Post
  View desktop site
Personal emails might fall under government inspection '-- RT USA
  Link to Article
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:07
  Published time: March 05, 2013 23:23
  Private emails and other personal correspondence could be collected and scoured by government officials if changes being considered to the recent White House cybersecurity executive order are honored.
  Under the cybersecurity directive signed last month by US President Barack Obama, ''commercial information technology products or consumer information technology services'' such as Gmail and Facebook aren't lumped in with the so-called ''critical infrastructure'' entities that are asked to share information with the federal government. Now some telecommunication companies disagree with that part of the order and say the White House should revamp the language so that these exemptions aren't exploited by hackers.
  Calls for changes in the president's draft come after a wave of reported cybercrimes have targeted all aspects of the Web, from social media sites to government property. Twitter.com was recently the victim of a massive security breach, and a highly-touted report released by Northern Virginia security firm Mandiant last month claimed that Chinese hackers have infiltrated a number of Defense Department computers. Even though commercial websites aren't included in the executive order's provision, some say they should.
  ''If e-mail went away this afternoon, we would all come to a stop,'' Marcus Sachs, vice president of national security policy at Verizon Communications Inc., tells Bloomberg News. ''Hell yeah, e-mail is critical.''
  The president, however, hasn't considered it as such. According to his order, ''critical infrastructure'' is defined by ''systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.''
  When Pres. Obama announced his directive during last month's State of the Union address, he said the threat of cyberattacks was growing rapidly and that hackers are stealing people's identities and infiltrating private emails. ''Now our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, and our air traffic control systems,'' he said. ''We cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our economy.''
  If telecoms have their say, the government will soon be scooping through those emails too. Verizon, the second largest telephone company in the United States, isn't alone in asking for reform only weeks after the president's directive was released.
  ''The nation's cybersecurity policy framework should be structured in a way that takes into account the shared responsibility of the entire Internet ecosystem,'' adds Ed Amoroso, chief security officer at AT&T Inc. '-- the biggest U.S. phone company.
  Currently, the president's plan requires only that the administration establishes a ''framework'' for privately owned entities deemed critical to the national infrastructure '-- such as defense contractors, utility companies and banks '-- to voluntarily share threat information with the government with ease. Although it does not outline a specific plan for putting that data in the hands of the government, the president has assigned a task force to determine how to do as much in the coming months. Now should telecoms intervene in the process, the info-sharing could span across all entities of the Web.
  ''If you're attacking people, you go for the weakest link and the weakest link is often some commercial product,'' attorney and former Homeland Security official Stewart Baker adds to Bloomberg.
  The Senate Commerce and Homeland Security Committees are scheduled to meet on Thursday this week to examine the president's executive order and consider their options with passing legislation that would mandate information sharing across the Web between businesses and Uncle Sam. And although the executive order does not require businesses to share threat information, lawmakers will examine another proposal this week that will make these interactions mandatory. Members of the two committees are also scheduled on Thursday to discuss the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, a bill that was introduced during the last congressional session but failed to gain footing.
  During last month's State of the Union, Pres. Obama said, ''Congress must act as well by passing legislation to give our government a greater capacity to secure our networks and deter attacks.'' CISPA was formally introduced only hours later.
PATRIOTS are NAZI RACISTS! (Says CNN and SPLC)
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by ARSONomics
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:06
Number Of Anti-Government Groups At An All Time Record High!
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:06
Bill Cosby says Republicans angry slavery is illegal
  Link to Article
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:05
  If the player does not load, please check that you are running the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.
  From 3/4/13 CNN "Starting Point"
  For info, see: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-sheffield/2013/03/05/bill-cosby-gopers-sitting-their-hands-during-obama-speech-equival
Pressure On Obama To Override The Legalization Of Marijuana In Washington State
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:05
Judge Rules Hookah Smoking Lounge Illegal
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:05
The Right Divided Against Itself
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:01
  As another Lame Cherry matter anti matter exclusive..
  If I were to inquire of you my children, what is the American Right Wing, what would be your thoughtful answer.......and I do mean think and not some leftist rant or some rightest dogma.
  The reason I inquire is among you my children there is a very bright Icelander who has very Inspired children whom I admire as they inquire of things in intelligent questions which appears here now in a dialogue to teach you things.I forget sometimes how much I know as living in the future the pat i something to be repeated, so as it will come again, sometimes it is better for deja vu to arrive at a horizon point and enjoy it all again.
  One such subject is one of those bight central Europeans whose name you will not recognize, but he was quite the brain toy moulding all those things Mockingbird in the right minds full of mush, and not realizing he was carrying out the Nazi task of his Paperclip masters when they came to sojourn in America.
  Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn was an interesting brain, and for those who think what appears here is in need of three deciphers, a dozen translators and an English dictionary, heir Erik was a bit too Cuddy in the details in he knew the facts, but lost sight of the forest of thought he was lost in.For some reason, he was pleased he discovered the Nazi was a leftist and not of the right. Amazing thing is he never convinced anyone, and it was only the work of this blog that cleared that propaganda up and silenced Mockingbird.The heir wrote a great deal about things he thought he understood like Dinesh D'Souza sometimes pissing in America, thinking he knows what it is like to be an American.
  The point in all of this being, a European intellectual is what formed the basis of a thought pattern so complex on something so simple, that it was used as cover for a generation in the overthrow of the Right.
  What I'm about to reveal is something never spoken of before, but it is going to stun most of you when you have this framed in what really was taking place.There was a young Irish Catholic thug whose family was made quite wealthy in oil, and while you might be thinking I'm speaking about David Rockefeller, the real titled person was William F. Buckley jr.
  Buckley was a patrician raised in Mexico, eastern America and France. It will surprise you that Buckley after serving in the military, doing his ivy league tour, ended up working as a Central Intelligence Agency operative.His superior on the Mexican tour, was none other than E. Howard Hunt. A wonderful creation who seems to appear in everything from the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy Assassination and the Coup against President Richard Nixon.
  Never were familiar with this William Buckley now were you my children.
  America at that time was in a position of the Olde Right, which is a Right which most of you will recognize in being Christian, Pro American, anti communist and advocating the Republican form of Government.The capitalist who organized this was a Mr. Welch, and with other wealthy people of that time, including Mr. Koch of the Koch's, started the John Birch Society, named after a military intelligence officer in China who was murdered by communists.
  The JBS was American, and at that, the order which was forming out of Europe in connection with the Soviet Union in an Eisenhower Sovietization of America, which just happened to have murdered Gen. George Patton and ruined Gen. Douglas MacArthur, they just could not in Mockingbird allow this anti New World Order group to lead the Right.
  Enter into this the reality of CIA operative William F. Buckley, who started his National Review from personal wealth, a magazine no one really read, but it was the bait in this as the Rockefellers started a take over of the John Birch Society.
  Buckley with the assistance of the Mockingbird left, decided in dictatorial fashion, what the Conservative movement now stood for and who would be allowed to speak for it.Ayn Rand a German frau was dismissed as she was not of Paperclips Nazi imports directing this. The John Birchers were targeted and while in the majority, deemed a "fringe" group in being smeared.
  The Birchers have been proven correct on all their observation from fluoride poison in water to communist infiltration, but Buckley in this CIA overthrow direction of America by the fascists and marxists in control via the Rothschild and Rockefeller financial mechanisms were removed from the advocacy of what the Right was.
  You will notice something in this about 1960, when Richard Nixon had the election stolen from him, that by 1964 when Barry Goldwater was destroyed by the left and Rockefeller Republicans of this order, that anti communism and American Patriotism were not something which was being promoted in the GOP.
  Buckley might champion Joe McCarthy, just as Mark Levin happens upon stances that are popular to keep the herd in line, but one notes a distinct trend that with the destruction of Richard Nixon for another soon to be appointed CIA director, George H. W. Bush, a patrician member of the same intelligence financier elite connected to the European order, that while Buckley was a "close" friend of Ronald Reagan, somehow the candle of Reagan on that shining city on a hill, turned into Bill Buckleys kinder and gentler George H. W. Bush.Buckley adored big spending programmes by the government. You will know this under other names as fascism or nazism. The control of spending in projects to enrich the powerful elite is what Buckley always adored. That had nothing to do with Ronald Reagan, but you will notice in that massive money transfer to mould Americans, a mirror image of Barack Hussein Obama in all of this.
  No coincidence that William Buckley's spoiled brat son, came out early for Barack Hussein Obama, a Kremlin intelligence asset run out of Peking and fused in that Jesuit Catholic order of latin and black communist liberation.
  Those are the facts in this, and it is why Americans who are in the Right feel like their brains are twisted around, as they keep going John Birch in being Americans, but the Mockingbird keeps slamming it left in feudal enslavement policies, when they are not either assassinating or coup attempting Nixon or Reagan.
  For those on the left, your head twisting is just as severe in what was done to your dogma. The reality is the Tea Party was divided and destroyed, exactly as the DC leaders said it would be in two years, because the mirror machine revealed that and that is exactly what was being orchestrated in the shadowlands to happen.
  The destruction of Sarah Palin to George Allen is all about what Buckley was doing for the CIA, but has now been handled by the Rovians. All of these "leaders" you witness are the work of Prescott Bush who took over Texas big oil for his own control and he did the same thing with Bill Casey's ABC Cap Cities group. The message all sounds the same and the policies are the same, because they are feudalcrat policies built in these intellectuals like Saul Alinsky and Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. They are all the same coin of two sides and when you flip it, you lose and they win.
  This was all an intelligence operation planned out to gain certain control of the American Right and Left in America, to meld them all into one feudal policy in the Soveitization of America, and it has been completed under B. Hussein Obama.
  Now my children, you can look so very bright, and muse to yourself as you see it operational in Limbaugh and that FOX group what took place and how the Left has it's own minders, as it has always been minded by conditioning.You do not rise in America, unless you have sold out to this group of feudal lords, and you do not keep what you have unless you grovel for it.
  That should be enough for you to menace your antagonists with as we do not want you shining too bright all at one time in the enigma that is Lame Cherry.
  In 1951, like some of his classmates in the Ivy League, Buckley was recruited into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); he served for two years including one year in Mexico City working as a political action specialist in the elite Special Activities Division for E. Howard Hunt.[28] These two officers remained lifelong friends.[29] In a November 1, 2005, column forNational Review, Buckley recounted that while he worked for the CIA, the only employee of the organization that he knew was Hunt, his immediate boss.
  agtG 270
The Opiate of Terrorism
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:56
  As another Lame Cherry matter anti matter exclusive.........
  This blog was the only source in breaking the neo international dope ring which Obama's Berlin and liberation backers in America had initiated in 2008, which set about a new order in the narco communist drug trade, by including the Islamocommunists as the "mules" in transporting these drugs for their own income, in exchange for not blowing up Obamerika in a quid pro quo.
  The English were cut out of this as Obama went to west Africa and set up the pipeline early cementing the deals, and starting shipping dope into Albania and Kosovo with the Slavic mafia signing off on it.Eventually Obama jetted the dope shipments directly into Spain as revealed here to keep the pipeline complete and refined.
  That was the western front of the coke shipments though, and a new group was being formed in the east, specifically Afghanistan as the opium trade started to flourish in the last years of George W. Bush.As only reported here, Obama set loose the US military early in drone strikes to murder the "bad terrorists" who were not going to go along with the new narco Islam rings that Obama was forming out of the central European cartel.As Obama murdered the Muslim leaders who are anti dope, that left the Muslims who were pro dope to earn their millions the old fashioned way.
  This though was a double edged sword and as further exclusives now only confirmed here, it was the early Brzezinski Doctrine against the Soviets which started all of this in creating the Muhajadeen to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. This was accomplished under Ronald Reagan using Stinger missiles to even the field and the Russians went home in humiliation and bankruptcy.Bill Clinton would use these tens of thousand of trained Taliban and Muhajadeen for his Kosovo oil pipeline wars, in blaming Serbians for mythical genocide against Muslims, and the Muslims from Afghanistan finding Europe to not be a desert waste like Asia, decided to stay.
  In that group of Brzezinski created "freedom fighters" was the foreigner Osama bin Laden. bin Laden was turned by Dr. Zawahiri, who by miracle is no longer a concern for Marxist Obama now that Islamofascist bin Laden's corpse is feeding fish in the sea after a stay on ice in a morgue for the October Surprise that had to come a bit early as Obama Birther issue almost drove the crook from office.
  The former Minister of Defense of Germany Andreas von Bulow said that the U.S. intelligence services have trained about 30,000 Muslim militants in Afghanistan, in particular, a group of fanatics who were prepared to defend their country and the idea to the end. One of them was Osama bin Laden.
  As the Muhajadeen was turned to communist control, it became al Qaeda which was utilized by the same European cartel in the 9 11 operation, which turned an Al Gore group operation to humiliate George W. Bush into a massive economic terrorist attack against America.So much for Jamie Gorelick's compartmentalized cover ups to protect Bill Clinton from his Saddam Hussein bribes among other criminal acts Bill Clinton was involved in.
  This al Qaeda required one of their own to lead it, and Barack Obama was installed into the White House in America for serveral reasons, in the implementation of the global feudal order, and the thugs to enforce it would be these terrorists who had to be brought under control again, and Obama literally did that in bribing them in promises of oil nations and hiring them with the dope trade to keep them from other 9 11 events.
  The reality is though the Obama run dope trade out of Afghanistan. Afghansitan as this blog noted was set up to murder Americans, and bloody them so that the terrorists would be appeased in that mauling of Americans and to teach Americans to never get involved in wars of freedom again.
  This blog predicted that Obama would lose Afganistan deliberately and he has, for freedom. Richard Holbrooke was assassinated over this in screaming from his death bed to stop the damn war and get out of Afghanistan as he knew it was a failed cause.Obama in mandates that Soldiers from America could not fight back, and allowing NATO to lose the war there slowly to turn Afghansitan over to the Taliban groomed drug lords was complete.
  The part of the story exclusively told here now is that the opium trade was a step in the Brzezinski Opium Wars Doctrine as was long ago initiated in China.Pravda might be a commical outlet at times, but in propaganda they do leach out certain facts that tell the story of what is taking place when Matt Drudge seems to not be able to ever see these realities like all in the United States.
  Opium production in Afghanistan after the entry of NATO troops has increased 40 times. According to the Federal Drug Control Service, about 40 percent of Afghan heroin goes to Russia. Many experts believe that the deployment of troops in Afghanistan served as a good opportunity to arrange full heroin aggression against Russia. According to the UN, selling drugs Taliban annually earns $2.8 billion. Also, the UN released information that in the past 10 years in Europe and Russia about 1 million people died from Afghan heroin. Note that Afghan drugs do not get to the U.S. and do not harm their people
  That is the damning evidence in this, in just as the Rothschilds hired the writing that Karl Marx took credit for in the Communist Manfiesto, Marx's observation that religion was the opiate of the masses in both beating people into submission and teaching people to suffer under oppression, found a new mullah in Barack Obama, in his heroin trade was the war front meant to destroy Russia and to pacify other segments of Europe in this continued destruction of the Christian nations from within.Opium is wonderful in it makes people sedate, yet functional. It is the perfect sleeping pill for a nation to happily go to their ends.Think of it in 3 billion dollars for the Taliban. Now you see why terrorists stopped doing terror with Obama around, as he raised their pay and made them all rich, gave them control of nations and they could buy as many children to rape in male and female as they desired all in Muhammed's name.Terrorism is bad for business, so the terrorists all became Obama feudal traders which was good for business.3 billion dollars in Russian and central Europe is equivlent to 3 trillion in the American economy in those poor Slavs do not have the money to begin with. This is the overthrow of Russia to her death and the drug induced coma to the Slavic states, as key high strung segments in the western nations become pacified and ready to accept whatever the old order in the Neo Romans demand.
  With Obama US funded "assistance" the Taliban has made over 12 billion dollars in a few short Obama years, and that number is going to boom in the years ahead.
  Narcotics trade is an olde trade. It is how nations conducted policy and created comerce. For a reality, the olde Boston money was funded in the opium trade. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in the Delano line made it's fortune in Asian dope as the history goes.It was though in a period when it was legal and not monopolized like now, so that only the terrorists are making the billions of dollars and anyone else who tries it ends up in prison or dead.It was a time of national purposes in being for America, but in the past generation the narcotics trade in the west was created to implode America from within so the select few would rule.
  That is the case for mother Russia now in Vladamir Putin is fighting a death clock on Russia. His people are not breeding and China is at the door to eat them. What is left is Muslims who have loyalties to the dope traders and not Russian Orthodoxy.Putin will be forced to wage war over this eventually to try and save Russia. It is all part of the Brzezinski chessboard that includes these feudal lords posing and pitting peoples against each other after nation rape, so the mobs slaugher each other, and final control is achieved as Albert Pike's demonic oracle predicted to him in the order.
  All of this is Lame Cherry exclusive in matter and anti matter. You will not get this from any place else regrettably. If one waits around a few moments the predictions in archives appear again as this cycles in circles and the information appears to prove what is posted here is always spot on.
  It is by design and it continues on.......
  agtG 243
  The Narco Islamoterror Obama Contractors
To protect individual privacy against unwarranted governmental intrusion through the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles commonly called drones, and for other purposes. (H.R. 972)
  Link to Article
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:55
  GovTrack's Bill SummaryWe don't have a summary available yet.
  Library of Congress SummaryThe summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress.
  No summary available.
  House Republican Conference SummaryThe summary below was written by the House Republican Conference, which is the caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives.
  No summary available.
  House Democratic Caucus SummaryThe House Democratic Caucus does not provide summaries of bills.
  So, yes, we display the House Republican Conference's summaries when available even if we do not have a Democratic summary available. That's because we feel it is better to give you as much information as possible, even if we cannot provide every viewpoint.
  We'll be looking for a source of summaries from the other side in the meanwhile.
To amend the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 to authorize activities for support of networking and information technology research, and for other purposes. (H.R. 967)
  Link to Article
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:52
  GovTrack's Bill SummaryWe don't have a summary available yet.
  Library of Congress SummaryThe summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress.
  No summary available.
  House Republican Conference SummaryThe summary below was written by the House Republican Conference, which is the caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives.
  No summary available.
  House Democratic Caucus SummaryThe House Democratic Caucus does not provide summaries of bills.
  So, yes, we display the House Republican Conference's summaries when available even if we do not have a Democratic summary available. That's because we feel it is better to give you as much information as possible, even if we cannot provide every viewpoint.
  We'll be looking for a source of summaries from the other side in the meanwhile.
White House Says They Will Save Money By Cancelling White House Tours
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:49
SEX IN THE PRIESTHOOD
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:49
Part of Backdoor Gun Control?
  Link to Article
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:48
  by AWR Hawkins6 Mar 2013, 2:51 AM PDTpost a commentWhy the 9mm ammo shortage?
  The quick answer is that demand is so high, but the thorough answer is that a large portion of the Department of Homeland Security's1.6 billion round stockpile is 9mm--as are many of the 20 million additional rounds DHS has ordered. And when you take these millions upon millions of rounds of ammo out of the market at a time when private demand is high, you get the dearth we are now experiencing.
  As I wrote on Feb. 10, gun owners are up against a perfect storm. Private gun owners are buying up every box of 9mm they can find while some of the most popular ammo brands--like Federal Ammunition--are stretched to the limit because they are not only trying to fill Wal-Mart shelves, but also produce the millions upon millions of rounds DHS is ordering.
  The difference between now and Feb. 10 is that I was buying 9mm online for about $18 a box at that time. In less than a month the price for the same box of ammo at the same online store has risen to $34.59.
  While many of the conspiracy theories that have been propounded to explain DHS ammo purchases ought to be rejected out of hand, it seems increasingly reasonable to believe these multiple, massive ammo orders have been placed one upon the other to exasperate the already low supplies in the private market.
  It continues to sound like gun control by another name.
Flight Attendants Outraged TSA Is Changing Rules To Allow Pocket Knives & Baseball Bats On Planes
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:38
Senator McCain Calls On Obama To Give A Posthumous Pardon For Heavyweight Boxer Jack Johnson
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:38
It's The Nightly Invasion Of Crows
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:38
"I Don't Have A Gun Because I Live In Fear! I Don't Live In Fear Because I Have A Gun!"
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:37
Holder: Drone strike against Americans in the U.S. possible '' CNN Security Clearance
  Link to Article
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:36
  Attorney General Eric Holder Tuesday stopped short of entirely ruling out a drone strike against an American citizen on U.S. soil'--without trial.
  Holder's comment came in a letter to Sen. Rand Paul. Paul had sent a letter to President Obama's CIA director nominee John Brennan asking for the administration's views on the president's power to authorize lethal force.
  In the letter, Holder said ''It is possible I suppose to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States. ''
  In a separate letter, Brennan told Paul that the CIA has no such authority.
  The nomination passed its first hurdle Tuesday with the Senate intelligence committee voting to approve the nomination in a 12-3 vote. Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said he voted against the nomination because of inconsistencies in Brennan's testimony.
  Earlier in the day, the White House agreed to provide legal documents written by Justice Department officials explaining the legal rationale for targeting Americans overseas who are involved in terror-related activities that threatened America or American interests.
ISAF to stop counting Taliban attacks amid data scandal '-- RT News
  Link to Article
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:34
  Published time: March 06, 2013 06:57
  US-led forces in Afghanistan are set to stop counting the number of Taliban attacks they encounter, after an investigation found their calculations severely flawed, providing incorrect data for 2012.
  The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) made the decision to not keep track of further attacks after announcing that it had been mistaken when reporting a 7 per cent drop in Taliban attacks in 2012 compared with the previous year. The about turn came on the back of an Associated Press investigation into the figured reported, with ISAF officials later confirming that there was actually no decline in attacks.
  The error was said to be clerical, but nevertheless cast a shadow on repeated statements by ISAF officials that the Taliban was on its last legs.
  ''Over the last year it has become clearer and clearer that not only was the measurement meaningless, but it became embarrassing because there weren't any [ISAF and Afghan] gains,'' war analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told AP, noting that there were more Taliban attacks in 2012 than in 2009 - that is, before the Obama administration sent an additional 30,000 troops into combat in Afghanistan.
  The ISAF has acknowledged that its system is seriously flawed, stating Tuesday that coalition officials have lost faith in reporting those which are solely deemed "enemy-initiated" attacks.
  ''We have come to realize that a simple tally of [attacks] is not the most complete measure of the campaign's progress,'' said ISAF spokesman Jamie Graybeal in the Tuesday statement. ''At a time when more than 80 per cent of the [attacks] are happening in areas where less than 20 per cent of Afghans live, this single facet of the campaign is not particularly accurate in describing the complete effect of the insurgency's violence on the people of Afghanistan.''
  After the 'clerical error' came to light, the ISAF initially stated that it would correct its numbers and post them to its website. However, Graybeal said, the corrected 2012 statistics will not be published.
  Coalition forces are scheduled to leave Afghanistan in 2014, with the Taliban expected to pose a serious test to Afghan security forces.
Chavez: Another CIA assassination victim?
  Link to Article
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:32
  Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez died of cancer at a military hospital in Caracas on March 5, 2013.
  The Venezuelan president himself, before he died yesterday, wondered aloud whether the US government - or the banksters who own it - gave him, and its other leading Latin American enemies, cancer.
  A little over a year ago, Chavez went on Venezuelan national radio and said: ''I don't know but'... it is very odd that we have seen Lugo affected by cancer, Dilma when she was a candidate, me, going into an election year, not long ago Lula and now Cristina'... It is very hard to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some leaders in Latin America. It's at the very least strange, very strange.''
  Strange indeed'... so strange that if you think Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Paraguayan Fernando Lugo, and former Brazilian leader Luiz Incio Lula da Silva - Latin America's top anti-US empire leaders - all just happened to contract cancer around the same time by sheer chance, you must be some kind of crazy coincidence theorist.
  Am I 100% certain that the CIA killed Hugo Chavez? Absolutely not.
  It could have been non-governmental assassins working for the bankers.
  But any way you slice it, the masters of the US empire are undoubtedly responsible for giving Chavez and other Latin American leaders cancer. How do we know that? Just examine the Empire's track record.
  Fidel Castro's bodyguard, Fabian Escalante, estimates that the CIA attempted to kill the Cuban president an astonishing 638 times. The CIA's methods included exploding cigars, biological warfare agents painted on Castro's diving suit, deadly pills, toxic bacteria in coffee, an exploding speaker's podium, snipers, poison-wielding female friends, and explosive underwater sea shells.
  The CIA's assassination attempts against Castro were like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, with the CIA as the murderously inept cat, and the Cuban president as a clever and very lucky mouse. Some might even argue that Castro's survival, in the face of 638 assassination attempts by the world's greatest power, is evidence that El Presidente's communist atheism was incorrect, and that God, or at least a guardian angel, must have been watching over ''Infidel Castro'' all along.Theology aside, the CIA's endless attempts on Castro's life provide ample evidence that US authorities will stop at nothing in their efforts to murder their Latin American enemies.
  John Perkins, in his bestselling book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, supplies more evidence that the bankers that own the US government routinely murder heads of state, using private assassins as well as CIA killers.
  Perkins, during his career as an ''economic hit man,'' gained first-hand knowledge about how the big international bankers maintain their empire in Latin America and elsewhere. Perkins' job was to visit leaders of foreign countries and convince them to accept loans that could never be paid back. Why? The bankers want to force these nations into debt slavery. When the country goes bankrupt, the bankers seize the nation's natural resources and establish complete control over its government and economy.
  Perkins would meet with a targeted nation's leader and say: ''I have a fist-full of hundred dollar bills in one hand, and a bullet in the other. Which do you want?'' If the leader accepted the loans, thereby enslaving his country, he got the payoff. If he angrily chased Perkins out of his office, the bankers would call in the ''asteroids'' to assassinate the uncooperative head of state.
  The ''asteroids'' are the world's most expensive and accomplished professional killers. They work on contract - sometimes to the CIA, sometimes to the bankers, and sometimes to wealthy private individuals. And though their specialty is causing plane crashes, they are capable of killing people, including heads of state, in any number of ways.
  This isn't just speculation. John Perkins actually knows some of these CIA-linked professional killers personally. And he has testified about their murders of Latin American leaders. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is dedicated to Perkins' murdered friends Gen. Torrijos of Panama and President Jaime Roldos of Ecuador. Both were killed by CIA-linked ''asteroids'' in engineered plane crashes.Do CIA-linked killers sometimes induce cancer in their victims? Apparently they do. One notable victim: Jack Ruby (n(C)e Jack Rubenstein), a mobster who was himself a professional killer, and whose last hit was the choreographed murder of JFK-assassination patsy Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the Dallas Police Department. Ruby begged to be taken to Washington to tell the real story of the JFK murder, but instead died in prison, of a sudden and mysterious cancer, before he could reveal what he knew.
  Have the CIA-bankster ''asteroids'' ever tried to kill Latin American leaders with cancer? The answer is an unequivocal ''yes.''Edward Haslam's book Dr. Mary's Monkey proves what JFK assassination prosecutor Jim Garrison had earlier alleged: Child-molesting CIA agent David Ferrie, one of President Kennedy's killers, had experimented extensively with cancer-causing viruses for the CIA in his huge home laboratory. The purpose: To give Fidel Castro and other Latin American leaders cancer. (Ferrie himself was killed by the CIA shortly before he was scheduled to testify in court about his role in the JFK assassination.)
  To summarize: We know that the bankers who own the US government routinely try to kill any Latin American leader who refuses to be their puppet. We know that they have mounted thousands of assassination attempts against Latin American leaders, including more than 600 against Castro alone. We know that they have been experimenting with cancer viruses, and killing people with cancer, since the 1960s.
  So if you think Hugo Chavez died a natural death, I am afraid that you are terminally na¯ve.
  KB/HSN
Chinezen zorgen voor tekort aan babymelkpoeder in Nederland :: nrc.nl
  Link to Article
  Wed, 06 Mar 2013 05:04
  EconomieChinese ouders hebben voor een tekort aan melkpoeder in Nederlandse winkels gezorgd, omdat ze hun eigen babyvoeding niet meer vertrouwen. Dat meldt NRC Handelsblad vanmiddag. Er is een levendige handel in babymelk van met name Nutrilon en Friso ontstaan tussen Nederland en China, en winkelketens in heel Nederland plaatsen bordjes bij de schappen met maximale aantallen te kopen producten.
  De producent van Nutrilon, Nutricia, zegt dat de productie inmiddels met ''tientallen procenten'' verhoogd is en verkoopdirecteur Niels Bontje vermoedt dat de pakken melkpoeder ook op illegale wijze via groothandels naar China verdwijnen. ''Er zijn handelaren actief die denken hier geld aan te kunnen verdienen.''
  Drogisterijketen DA constateert sinds het najaar een grotere vraag naar babyvoeding, aldus een woordvoerder:
  ''We krijgen minder Nutrilon en Friso aangeleverd van de fabrikant dan we zouden willen. Wat we binnenkrijgen verdelen we over de winkels.''
  De keten heeft de winkels bordjes geleverd om aan de schappen te hangen. Daarop worden klanten gemaand niet meer dan drie verpakkingen tegelijk te kopen. Bij Etos is het landelijke beleid dat klanten maximaal vier pakken mogen kopen, in sommige steden is dat zelfs teruggebracht tot (C)(C)n. Bij Albert Heijn geldt sinds twee weken een maximum van drie, net zoals bij Kruidvat. Een baby heeft ongeveer (C)(C)n pak per week nodig.
  'Soms nemen ze alles mee uit de schappen'''Het zijn groepen Chinezen'', vertelt Brenda Neelen, bedrijfsleider bij een Amsterdamse Etos-vestiging. Bijna elke dag komen in haar winkel Chinezen vragen om pakken Nutrilon. ''Soms nemen ze alles mee uit de schappen en vragen ze of we nog meer in het magazijn hebben liggen.'' Sinds kort is het maximum in deze winkel beperkt tot (C)(C)n pak per persoon. ''Ik heb wel eens gevraagd wat ze met die pakken doen. Doorverkopen, zeiden ze. Voor vijftig, zestig euro per pak. Hier kost een pak elf euro.''
  De Chinese klanten kopen in het bijzonder deze merken omdat ze ze kennen. Chinese ouders wantrouwen na eerdere voedingsschandalen met babypoeder binnenlandse fabrikanten. Er zouden minstens zes kinderen zijn overleden. Vrijdag werden in China nieuwe regels van kracht voor import van babymelkpoeder. Op de import van meer dan 1,8 kilo '' twee Nederlandse pakken '' staat een geldboete van 49.000 euro en maximaal twee jaar gevangenisstraf.
  Product niet gelukkig met ontwikkelingOndanks de grotere afzet is Nutricia ongelukkig met de ontwikkeling. ''Het product is bestemd voor de Nederlandse markt. Chinezen kunnen het etiket niet lezen'', zegt Bontje. Daar staat de juiste bereidingswijze en dosering op, die luistert soms nauw. ''Bovendien is de samenstelling anders dan wat de Chinese overheid voorschrijft. Vorig jaar dachten we het onder controle te hebben maar nu is de vraag weer hoger dan wij aankunnen.'', zegt Bontje. De productie wordt nu nogmaals uitgebreid.
Pilot Reports Spotting 'Drone' Over Brooklyn
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 19:01
  (CNN) '-- Was there a drone flying over Brooklyn Monday afternoon?
  The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a report from a pilot of an Alitalia passenger jet who says he saw an unmanned aircraft while landing at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
  ''We saw a drone, a drone aircraft,'' the pilot can be heard telling controllers on radio calls captured by the website LiveATC.net.
  ''The FAA is investigating a report'... he saw a small, unmanned or remote-controlled aircraft while on final approach to Runway 31 Right,'' according a statement sent to CNN by FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown. ''The sighting was approximately four to five miles west of the airport at an altitude of approximately 1,500 feet,'' she said.
  That description puts the aircraft somewhere over Brooklyn and on the other side of the airport from where the plane was coming in for a landing.
  The Alitalia aircraft did not have to take any evasive action and landed safely at JFK.Air traffic controllers warned other planes approaching the runway of the drone report, but at least two other pilots radioed they did not see it.
  A spokesman for the New York Police Department was not aware of the incident and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, referred CNN to the FAA.
  Unmanned aerial systems, sometimes called drones, and other remote-controlled planes could pose a risk to larger passenger aircraft if they collided or were sucked into an engine.
  For recreational hobbyists, flying remote-controlled planes is only allowed by the FAA up to 400 feet in the air, and within sight of the operator. If they are going to fly within three miles of an airport, they have to let air traffic controllers know.
  Flying unmanned aerial vehicles is illegal for most business purposes; however, governments and public entities such as police departments can apply for permission to operate them.
  The FAA has been working to setup new rules and to safely integrate the use of unmanned aircraft into the national air space, and last year opened an ''unmanned aircraft systems integration'' office.
ABC's Bianna Golodryga: Isn't It 'Kind of Sad' That Investors Are Shrugging Off Sequester?
  Link to Article
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:59
  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) 2013, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.
Sharpton Co-Host STUNNED To Discover 30% Of Blacks Own Guns Legally
  Link to Article
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:59
  If the player does not load, please check that you are running the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.
  [So much for the bitter white guy theory, as Sharpton & friends abruptly discover]
  EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON (04 March 2013): Now, we know a few things about the NRA in terms of their overall make-up, even though they say they don't keep any statistics any figures on race or ethnicity. Their whole thing is if you believe in the Second Amendment you want to protect gun ownership the rights of gun owners, that's all we ask in being a member a bonafide member of the NRA, however a couple things Rev. Al, one thing I was surprised to find, typically when you think of the NRA, typically you know we think of a bunch of conservative white guys that pretty much run the outfit, but also when you think of gun owners in America gun ownership in America you tend to think basically kind of rural southern white male, but what I was stunned to find looking at a poll from Gallup when they looked at gun ownership as of 2011, 45% and this really is what caught my eye 45% of gun owners in America are non-white and even more interesting almost thirty percent, were talking legally owning guns, 30% of gun owners in America are African-American.
Donald Trump Likes Dennis Rodman's Diplomacy More Than America Does - Philip Bump
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:58
  Dennis Rodman's sojourn to North Korea may have displeased those who take issue with Kim Jong-Un's commitment to prison camps and expressed desire to destroy America, but he's found support from at least one sympathetic countryman: Donald Trump.
  Trump's enthusiasm came, of course, in the form of a promotion tour for The Celebrity Apprentice on Fox and Friends this morning. Politico notes the key exchange:
  ''You look at the world, the world is blowing up around us. Maybe Dennis is a lot better than what we have,'' Trump said of Rodman, who is also a contestant on Trumps' ''Celebrity Apprentice'' on NBC, on Fox News on Monday.
  He continued: ''It's not an act. but he's a much different guy and this year on the apprentice '-- it's amazing how sharp and smart. Dennis is not a stupid guy. He's smart in many ways, he's very street wise.''
  If there's anyone who knows and respects the code of the streets, it's Donald Trump.
  By "what we have", it's safe to assume, Trump is referring to President Obama. He's never been a fan of the president, even suggesting that the president's reelection was "a total sham and a travesty" '-- on election night, on Twitter, he said that opponents of Obama should "fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice!" It's a sentiment that would be appreciated by Kim Jong-Un's grandfather Kim Il-Sung, who fought like hell to establish a communist North Korea.
  The State Department has been more pessimistic about Rodman's newfound role as statesman. As The Times reported this weekend, the government isn't interested in debriefing Rodman '-- the only American to have met the new North Korean leader face-to-face.
  Despite questions about the trip and whether the government would debrief Mr. Rodman on his return, a department spokesman, Patrick Ventrell, did not suggest a visit to Foggy Bottom was in the offing.
  ''We haven't been in touch with this party at all,'' he told reporters Thursday, leaving out Mr. Rodman's name. ''If there are Americans who after traveling in North Korea want to get in touch with us or have something to share with us, we take the phone calls.''
  Kim takes phone calls, too, according to Rodman. In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Rodman indicated that Kim asked him to suggest to the president that he pick up the phone.
  Bloomberg cites the relevant portion:
  Rodman '... quoted Kim as saying ''If you can, Dennis -- I don't want to do war.''
  Kim, Rodman said, ''loves basketball. And I said the same thing, I said 'Obama loves basketball.' Let's start there.''
  "Hello, Jong-Un? Barack. I heard you like basketball."
  Trump thinks this makes sense. Again from Politico:
  ''Maybe that is not the worst thing, folks, instead of going through this whole charade we do every year,'' Trump said on Fox News. ''Maybe it's not the worst thing that somebody actually calls, because you look at this world '-- this world is just blowing up around us.''
  He added: ''We are doing nothing. you know, maybe it's not such a bad idea. It's not a very big deal to make a phone call.''
  As this random person on Twitter noted (earning Trump's retweet) the mogul's demonstrable political savvy may help with his future ambitions.
  Rodman's role as interlocutor and peacemaker, meanwhile, is a new one. While in the NBA, he was known for his aggression, and in 2011 indicated that he'd never had a conversation with teammates Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen. Sometimes picking up that phone is hard, even with basketball in common.
  Watch Trump's full exchange on Rodman here:
  Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at pbump at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
Email tells feds to make sequester as painful as promised
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:57
  The Obama administration denied an appeal for flexibility in lessening the sequester's effects, with an email this week appearing to show officials in Washington that because they already had promised the cuts would be devastating, they now have to follow through on that.
  In the email sent Monday by Charles Brown, an official with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service office in Raleigh, N.C., Mr. Brown asked ''if there was any latitude'' in how to spread the sequester cuts across the region to lessen the impacts on fish inspections.
  He said he was discouraged by officials in Washington, who gave him this reply: ''We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that 'APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs.' So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be.''
  ''This email confirms what many Americans have suspected: The Obama administration is doing everything they can to make sure their worst predictions come true and to maximize the pain of the Sequester cuts for political gain,'' said Rep. Tim Griffin, Arkansas Republican.
  Mr. Brown, the official who sent the email and who is eastern regional director for wildlife services at APHIS, didn't immediately return a call Tuesday afternoon seeking comment.
  APHIS is an agency within the Agriculture Department, and on Tuesday department Secretary Tom Vilsack was challenged on the email at a House committee hearing by Rep. Kristi Noem, who said she hoped the department wouldn't tie agencies' hands.
  Mr. Vilsack said he hadn't seen the email, but said agencies are supposed to be trying to find ways to manage the impact of the cuts.
  ''If we have flexibility, we're going to try to use it to make sure we use sequester in the most equitable and least disruptive way,'' the secretary testified. ''There are some circumstances, and we've talked a lot about the meat inspection, where we do not have that flexibility because there are so few accounts.''
  The administration earlier had warned that supplies of beef, pork and poultry could drop this year because slaughterhouse inspectors will have to be furloughed, and under federal law meat can't be processed without inspectors present.
  The $85 billion in sequesters began Friday, and have hit most of the federal government, where employees will face furloughs.
  But even amid the cuts, APHIS is still hiring new employees and interns.
  Since Sunday the agency has posted 24 help-wanted ads including 22 student internships, one ad seeking a clerk in a New York office, and one ad seeking three ''insect production workers'' to grow bollworms in Phoenix.
Scripting News: Have you met your users?
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:56
  Last summer I went back to Madison, and part of the trip was a tour of the Computer Science building, where I had been a graduate student many years ago. The building had changed in many ways, and in others, not at all.
  1. The outside was exactly the same.
  2. The mainframes were gone, replaced by labs of personal computers.
  3. The basement was divided up in a totally different way than it was before. The two rooms I spent most of my time in were gone.
  4. And most important, the most exciting idea -- there's now a computer store in the front of the building.
  I was excited because I assumed that this meant that computer science students were actually meeting users, and learning how they think. But no, they staff the store with employees, just like any other store. My guide looked at me with what I imagined was puzzlement. Why would they want their students to work with users.
  Me, I'm always thinking about users, what I can and can't get them to do. What I can get away with, and how can I make them tell other people about my software, and even better, get them to get others to use it. ;-)
  There are frustrations, both ways. But if you see software development as a performing art, as I do, inevitably you're going to be judged by them. They will determine your success or failure.
  And over the years, I've found this is the hardest point to make to the developers I work with.
VIDEO-Pat Robertson On Mac And Cheese: 'Is That A Black Thing?'
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:38
  Pat Robertson appeared confused about macaroni and cheese while hosting "The 700 Club" Wednesday on the Christian Broadcasting Network following a clip of host Kristi Watts interviewing former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In the clip, Watts asked Rice what dish she had to have at Thanksgiving. "It's mac and cheese," Rice said.
  Watts clapped. "Sister, that is my dish, that is the one thing I can rock," she said.
  "But only once, once a year," said Rice.
  Following the clip, Robertson asked, "What is this mac and cheese? Is that a black thing?"
  "It is a black thing Pat. Listen: and you guys, other people, the world needs to get on board with macaroni and cheese," said Watts. "Christmas and Thanksgiving -- we have to have macaroni and cheese, and it trips me out that you don't."
  "I really don't, I don't, and I have never," said Robertson while the two laughed.
  Robertson, 81, said recently that President Barack Obama has a Muslim "inclination" because of his upbringing in Indonesia. He also recently said that divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer's disease is justifiable because the disease is "a kind of death."
  Subscribe to the HuffPost Hill newsletter!
Russia Moves To Label US As Plutocracy, Warns Of War
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:29
  World's Largest English Language News Service with Over 500 Articles Updated Daily
  "The News You Need Today'...For The World You'll Live In Tomorrow."
  What You Aren't Being Told About The World You Live In
  IronMountainApocalypse: The True Story Of 2013
  A ''must have'' book for those seeking to understand the true events surrounding the most troubled years of our modern times. (Continued)
  Picking up the Pieces: Practical Guide for Surviving Economic Crashes, Internal Unrest and Military SuppressionBy: Sorcha Faal ''In the span of less than 3 months gasoline prices will rise 500%. The prices of both food and shelter rise over 300%. (Continued)
  Partisans Handbook:By: Sorcha Faal ''Essential Survival Guide For Resisting Foreign Military Occupation, Escape And Evasion Techniques, Surviving Interrogation, Facing Execution, Wilderness Survival (Continued)
  March 4, 2013
  RussiaMoves To Label US As Plutocracy, Warns Of War
  By:Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
  A stunning report prepared for President Putin by Deputy Foreign Minister Gennadiy Gatilov circulating in the Kremlin today states that ''for all practical purposes'' the United States has become a ''plutocracy'' and should no longer be registered, or referred to, by the Russian government as an ''open and free democracy.''
  Even worse, Minister Gatilov further recommends in his report that the plans put forth by General Colonel Leonid Ivashov, who warned this past week that ''America must be kept at gunpoint,'' should be ''immediately implemented'' as war with the United States should be expected to occur no later than 2014.
  General Colonel Ivashov (Ret.), who is currently a professor at the prestigious International Academy of Geopolitical Problems (IAGP), warned that the planetary forecast is catastrophic and that Russian tactical nuclear weapons constantly threatening the United States must become the factor that will deter large-scale aggression from this rogue regime.
  Important to note is that in 2010, Konstantin Sivkov, former Vice President of the IAGP, had warned that ''World War III will start 100 years after WWI (2014) and will take lives of hundreds of millions people worldwide''.
  In his gloomy assessment, Sivkov forecasts that World War III will be of ''coalitional nature''. Countries will form coalitions based on their loyalty to one of the two ''models of world order''. The first model is ''the world of civilized hierarchies'' where a select few ''brutally exploit the rest of humanity''. The second model defined by Sivkov is ''civilized mutual support or civilized harmony''.
  ''In other words, the war will be waged to define the spiritual basis of the new world order. It will be either based on individualism, selfishness and suppression or based on community, domination of mutual interests to survive and develop and support each other,'' says Sivkov.
  Leading the ''coalition of exploitation'' into World War III, Minister Gatilov says in his report, will be the plutocracy-led United States whose subjugation of its own citizens has no known modern counterpart with the speed and ruthlessness it has radically changed its once globally admired democracy and enslaved its once free peoples.
  The evidence for labeling the United States as a plutocracy (rule by the wealthy) laid out in Minister Gatilov's report note that the insane levels of inequality currently existing in America have been made more worse under Obama than under Bush.
  He further notes that the Obama regime is prosecuting fewer financial crimes than Bush, or his father or Ronald Reagan and that the richest Americans captured more than 100% of all recent income gains leaving nothing for any of the other classes.
  The recently revised (February, 2013) report ''Who Rules America?'' written by University of Southern California professor G. William Domhoff further confirms Minister Gatilov's conclusions and states:
  ''As of 2010, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 35.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 53.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 89%, leaving only 11% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers).''
  With those richest Americans capturing all the wealth, this report continues, personal income for the rest of those citizens plunged 3.6 percent in January, which the US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported was the biggest such drop in 20 years.
  Against this catastrophic destruction of wealth to the American lower and middle classes, Minister Gatilov says, US Federal Government revenue for 2013 will hit a record $2.7 trillion of which over $155 billion has already been paid out to the richest Americans in the form of interest payments, and over $5 trillion is slated to be paid out to these plutocrats in the next 10 years.
  Most curious to note about the US economy, Minister Gatilov says, is that even though it ended 2012 with a Gross National Product (GDP) ratio to debt of 103.8%, that amount comes no where close to the years following World War II when America rebuilt nearly the entire global economy single-handedly incurring the highest GDP-to-debt ratios in its entire history including, 1945 at 116.65%, 1946 at 121.96%, and 1947 at 105.35%.
  By contrast, Minister Gatilov points out in his report, the United States, during the height of World War II, didn't even approach 100% of its GDP-to-debt ratio (1942 at 48.92%, 1943 at 71.83% and 1944 at 92.84) and that the United Kingdom, in 1820, and as it built the British Empire to such a global extent the sun never sat upon it, incurred a staggering 250% GDP-to-debt ratio.
  These historic US and UK GDP-to-debt ratios, and as compared to the present ones, Minister Gatilov says, are critical to note as evidence of an entrenched plutocracy, where in the past these monies were used for the advancement of a nation, but in today's world are only being used to enrich the elite classes.
  With the United States being home to just 4.52% of the Earth's population, Minister Gatilov says, it is, also, home to the world's largest number of billionaires with its having 442 of them, which is another extreme example of how plutocratic America has become.
  And in a shocking statement, Minister Gatilov points out that these American billionaires are dumping their stocks at never before seen levels over fears of a US stock market crash many experts believe will amount to over 90% of its value.
  With Western bankers recently admitting at a UK conference that they ''engineered the 2008 global financial crisis'', Minister Gatilov further warns in this report that the ratio of US insider selling to buying of stocks is now 50-to-1 - a monthly record '' shows that a new economic collapse is ''clearly'' being planned by these plutocrats as a further means to consolidate their power over the American people, and, according to a recently released US Department of Justice memo, includes the outright confiscation of all the American peoples guns.
  With other new warnings coming from US warning that the Obama regime is planning for ''Soviet style purges of the American people'', and the US Supreme Court this past week putting the Obama regimes expanded terror surveillance program beyond legal challenge, and the Obama regime imprisoning a number of activists in Seattle for refusing to answer questions about the political activities of people they know, Minister Gatilov ironically notes in his reports summation that the present day United States is ''more plutocratic than even the Soviets even tried to be.''
  With many prominent American journalists now openly questioning if the Obama regime is able to kill them on American soil with drone strikes, and their ''mainstream'' media accused of acting not as conduits of information for the American people, but rather adjuncts of the state, censoring and vetting information in order to shape public opinion, it stands to reason that the masses of these people remain totally ignorant as the cruel fate that awaits them'....but one which they will see evidenced much sooner than later.
  March 4, 2012 (C) EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com. Freebase content licensed under CC-BY and GFDL.
  [Ed. Note: Western governments and their intelligence services actively campaign against the information found in these reports so as not to alarm their citizens about the many catastrophic Earth changes and events to come, a stance that the Sisters of Sorcha Faal strongly disagrees with in believing that it is every human beings right to know the truth. Due to our missions conflicts with that of those governments, the responses of their 'agents' against us has been a longstanding misinformation/misdirection campaign designed to discredit and which is addressed in the report ''Who Is Sorcha Faal?''.]
  You May Already Be To Late'...But It Has Begun!
  They Are Going To Come For You'...Why Are You Helping Them?
  Return To Main Page
French Lights to Be Dimmed to Save Energy - NYTimes.com
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:22
  Mehdi Fedouach/Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images
  The Champs-‰lys(C)es. The lights of Paris add to its magic for tourists, but new rules may make French cities a little less bright.
  PARIS '-- The City of Light is about to get dimmer.
  As of July, all shops and offices in France will have to shut off their lights at night, under a government decree issued on Wednesday.
  The decree, from the Environment Ministry, is intended to save energy and ''reduce the print of artificial lighting on the nocturnal environment.''
  France is proud of its lights. Tourists cherish the Christmas illuminations on the Champs-‰lys(C)es, the 20,000 flashing bulbs on the Eiffel Tower and the bright, imaginative shop windows of large department stores like Printemps and Galeries Lafayette.
  Major attractions like the Eiffel Tower will remain lighted, and local authorities can make exceptions for Christmas lighting and other celebrations. But France has decided to be ''a pioneer'' in preventing light pollution, said Delphine Batho, the environment minister.
  The new law, she said in a statement, will also cut carbon dioxide emissions by 250,000 tons a year and save the equivalent of the annual consumption of 750,000 households. It is part of a series of government measures announced in December to improve energy efficiency and reduce waste.
  Under the new law, the interior lights of nonresidential buildings will have to be turned off an hour after the last worker leaves, and lights on building facades and in shop windows will have to be extinguished by 1 a.m.
  Ms. Batho also presented the decree as a matter of public health. Artificial lighting can damage sleep patterns, she said, and also ''cause significant disruptions on ecosystems by changing communication between species, migrations, reproduction cycles or even the prey-predator relationships.''
  From the context, it seemed as if she was referring to city wildlife, not to muggers and victims.
VIDEO-Trevor Loudon's New Zeal Blog >> Prepping Idaho: Zombie Apocalypse '' UFO Alien Invasion Exercises Conducted by FEMA
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:21
  NoisyRoomBy: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
  I just want to know if Idaho has lost her ever-freaking mind. I would laugh at this except I know it is not a joke and in reality what they are practicing for is societal collapse and civil unrest. Gee, I wonder whose bright idea this was? Surely it has the approval of Governor Otter who seems to have shifted to the dark side. He is signing Idaho up (along with the majority of Republicans in this state I might add) to accept Obama's health care exchange and in return, Idaho gets millions. I am sure Otter's 30 [million] pieces of silver seem a great boon to him; to the patriots of Idaho, it is more like treason. Once the state door is open to these Progressive vampires, they go all out. The latest invited in is evidently FEMA.
  Yes folks, FEMA will hold a Zombie Apocalypse/Alien Invasion drill in Moscow, Idaho on April 27th, from 9 am to 5 pm with 100 goons and/or dupes participating. This is a full-scale exercise. Guess what? I may go see this for myself. Moscow is full of good people. I almost moved there. I know they don't condone this farce of a pretense. I wonder why they picked Moscow? There's a university there, but it is a small town. Boise would have been the logical choice, but I don't think logic has anything to do with this.
  There are 2 scenarios: mass casualty and a rope rescue. All Latah Co first responders and nearby counties will be participating. CERT will be assisting in the EOC and other duties as deemed necessary.
  Mass casualties? From what? A blizzard? Flooding? Neither of those are likely at all. More likely, mass casualties from civil unrest and the Obama administration clamping down hard on the area. I find this very disturbing. Maybe there's a ''logic'' to it after all: Moscow is a small town, off the beaten path, with a pool of willing, uh, ''participants'' to recruit for such an exercise. Doing this in a larger venue might attract press, remote small-town Idaho, not so much.
  Hey, any excuse to practice shooting at unarmed citizens, right? The government is using citizen target profiles to practice with as well, while buying up all the arms and ammo they can get their evil hands on. They are also stockpiling food and medicine. I'm sure this is all just a coincidence '' not. If FEMA and the CDC were truly concerned in prepping for emergencies to 'protect' civilians, they would go about it seriously. Instead, they are practicing on how to take us down in case of an emergency, while trying to sell it as humorous. Look at the funny government! Don't pay attention to what they are really practicing for. I seriously doubt it is Zombies or Aliens. The government thugs and our local leaders make it seem sooo silly, that no one will take it seriously (at least they hope that is the case). They want everyone to view it as entertainment, like a movie and not real. Do they really think we are that stupid? Why, yes they do. It's like reality TV, without the reality or the TV.
  While the nut cases and the conspiracy theorists will thrill to this, you should be thinking in real terms. For instance, if the economy tanks, which is VERY likely, the government knows there will be riots and violence. They are preparing for how to quell these events. Which is why the choice of Moscow, Idaho has me confused. The Coeur d'Alene/Post Falls/Hayden area is close and much bigger in population. So, I will have to keep noodling on their choice of cities. Perhaps it is a county/regional thing. In which case, those in Moscow need to be asking some hard questions of their leaders.
  I would really like to know what Senators Mike Crapo and Jim Risch have to say about this. I would also like to know what Congressmen Raul Labrador and Mike Simpson have to say. I don't care if it is their area of the state or not '' this affects all of us.
  The person organizing this at FEMA is Sandy Rollins. Here is her contact info at Citizen Corps (that creeps me out all by itself '' or as Obama would say: 'Citizen Corpse'):
  County CoordinatorLatah CountyPO Box 8068Moscow, ID 83843
  (208) 883-2265srollins@latah.id.us
  Nothing makes much sense anymore. We cuddle with the Muslim Brotherhood and support terrorists and tyrants. The US is broke and we are gutting our military, but we can send fighter jets to Egypt. We are supposedly protecting the homeland, but we release over 2000 illegal immigrants, many with violent records with a promise that they will check in. We leave our borders wide open. We are redistributing our wealth to nations all over the planet, while running FEMA drills across the country for reasons that just don't make sense. Unless of course you include civil unrest and martial law in the equation. And possibly war. All this while our leaders are trying to disarm us and nullify the Second Amendment and the Constitution itself. Do the revolutionary math.
  Believe it or not, most people aren't bothered by all this. They just think it is the government running drills and is normal. It is not normal folks. Not at all. And the costs have to run into the many millions if not billions. How can we afford this, especially since it is unnecessary?
  There are military drills being run all over the country now. Tammy Bruce reports there have been drills in LA. I've seen reports on Houston, Miami, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Phoenix and the list goes on and on. These drills included helicopters and repelling military into the heart of cities. All I can say, is trust your gut. This will not end well.
  The government is prepping Idaho '-- maybe reminding us we're not out of reach? '-- as part of its overall plan for the US and her citizens. Believe me when I say that it has nothing to do with Zombies or Aliens (well, maybe illegal aliens). Something wicked this way comes, folks. And it's not cute. And it's not theater. It will be very real. Life-and-death real.
  Note: The web page has now been taken down from the FEMA web site, citing that this post (on a Sunday) caused so much negative response, it had to be removed. I'm just a blogger on a backwater blog asking questions about stuff that doesn't seem right. You never know what question is going to start a storm.
Napolitano promises to release more illegals | The Daily Caller
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:20
  WASHINGTON '-- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano promised to release more illegal immigrants into the United States, saying the budget sequester has left her no choice.
  Several hundred detainees have already released because of the sequester, she insisted. They were released on bail, or because their legal status had changed, she said.
  ''We're going to continue to do that '... for the foreseeable future,'' Napolitano said at a March 4 breakfast meeting hosted by Politico. ''We are going to manage our way through this by identifying the lowest risk detainees, and putting them into some kind of alternative to release.''
  However, Napolitano's statement clashed with a March 1 report by The Associated Press, which said that internal agency documents show that her managers had already released 2,000 detainees, and planned to release 3,000 more detainees.
  Napolitano's threat reflects the White House's determination to ramp up public distress until the GOP agrees to another tax increase.
  Under the sequester, budgets at the Pentagon and the numerous civilian agencies are being cut by roughly 8 percent from March to September. The cuts will trim roughly 1 percent from federal spending in 2013.
  President Barack Obama suggested the sequester plan in 2011, and is now refusing any changes until the GOP agrees to tax increases.
  There are roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, of whom roughly 7 million are working, mostly in low-skill jobs. However, roughly 20 million Americans are without jobs, including several million Americans with few job skills.
  In the run-up to the 2012 election, Obama offered work permits to more than 750,000 illegals, and rolled back enforcement of immigration law.
  Napolitano's threat to release more illegals was not criticized by Tom Ridge, a former secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush, who was also interviewed at the Politico breakfast.
  Instead, Ridge complained that the controversy over the illegals' release threatened passage of the draft immigration rewrite.
  Progress towards a legislative success ''gets sidelined '-- well, did you release 2,000? Didn't you release 2,000? What about this, what about that?'' Ridge complained.
  The pending rewrite would offer immediate work permits to roughly 11 million illegal immigrants, a path for their relatives to join them in the United States, plus a ramped-up flow of foreign workers into the United States, despite the high unemployment rate.
  ''The job of the secretary of Homeland Security '... with regard to securing the border would be a heck of a lot easier if the U.S. Congress would forget about the partisanship and come up with a broad-based, comprehensive immigration plan,'' Ridge complained.
  ''Story ends right there,'' said Ridge, who is now a consultant to various business groups, and a board member of the American Action Forum.
  The forum is a business-linked advocacy group that is promoting the pending immigration rewrite. It is chaired by Fred Malek, a GOP donor and activist, who owns the Thayer Lodging Group. The group owns several hotels, some in partnership with a Chinese hotel firm.
  Ridge's complaint was backed by Napolitano. ''Ditto, absolutely,'' she said.
  Napolitano's promise to release more prisoners was indirectly criticized by Michael Cherthoff, who also served as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
  To win passage of an immigration revamp, the public needs to be reassured that immigration enforcement will continue after the law is passed, said Cherthoff, who led President George W. Bush's effort in 2006 to push through a controversial amnesty law. The effort was backed by business Republicans and progressives, but was derailed by a wave of public protests.
  ''Making people confident there will be continued enforcement and security, and it won't go away once you have some kind of amnesty'' is vital, he said.
  He also warned Napolitano that legislators need to rush the draft rewrite through Congress before the opposition can mobilize.
  In 2006, ''the time between agreement and getting it to the floor really allowed a lot of erosion from both the right and let '... [so] you've got to move it it quickly,'' said Chertoff, who is now employed by Covington & Burling, a large legal and lobbying firm.
  Follow Neil on Twitter
Gold's Regular Morning Mugging | Peak Prosperity
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:13
  Not everyone is a morning person. And few people like Mondays.
  But if you're a precious metals investor, mornings '' especially Mondays '' are brutal.
  The EvidenceThe precious metals are routinely sold off at or soon after the 8:20am EST morning open of the New York NYMEX exchange.
  Below are the daily gold price charts (source: Kitco) for each Monday (or Tuesday, if Monday was a holiday) since early this year. The current day's gold price is noted by the bright green line. The morning takedown is highlighted by the orange oval.
  Monday, January 7Gold is taken down $10 immediately after the 8am NYMEX open
  Monday, January 14A late breaking rally begun on the London exchange is quickly contained at the NYMEX open, and then beaten down nearly $10. Notice that the previous Friday's gold price action (the bright blue line) also showed the same behavior at the same time, but with an even more severe response once the NYMEX opened.
  Monday, January 21The 8am sell-off is smaller here (only a few $), but still noticeable.
  Monday, January 28Again, a sell-off happens after the 8am open. Note again how the previous Friday's action was similar, but even more severe.
  Monday, February 4Finally, an outlier. While there was an initial dip in the first hour of the NYMEX, the price took off soon after. So let's not count this one.
  Monday, February 11An immediate $14 drop at the 8am open. The downward momentum started in London, but the vertical downdraft once the NYMEX opened is unmistakable.
  Tuesday, February 19While less sharp, the steady selling clearly begins at 8am, beating gold down $12 to the technically significant $1,600 threshold.
  Volume & TimingRunning the above data by Chris, he noted two additional observations.
  The first is that the price suppression is commencing increasingly in advance of the start of the NYMEX's open outcry process at 8:20am EST (i.e., how trading happens at the NYMEX). This suggests that it's being done on behalf of powerful players granted permission to circumvent the rules.
  The second is that the volume levels in this pre-open trading is similar to that seen during active hours. That is very unusual in markets, and exceptionally high.
  SilverFor those wondering, the daily price charts for silver indicate measurably similar action during these gold takedowns. Not in exact lockstep, but directionally similar both in degree and timing.
  [Update: after initially writing this, I noticed Zero Hedge posted a related analysis today of the takedowns in silver for the month of February so far. Like gold, the selling is concentrated in the first few hours of the day on the NYMEX]
  ...they appear to be strangely collected in a brief four hour window at the start of the day... the black line is the average of the day's performance in February across the dates selected.
  Charts: Bloomberg
  The ConundrumIt's hard to swallow that these charts are evidence of a free and efficient market. Otherwise, a pattern this predictable would be quickly removed as traders and HFT algos piled in to a "sure" bet.
  Instead, this is behavior one would expect to see if powerful interests wanted to suppress the price of gold: hit the price hard and early at the start of the trading week to prevent the price from building upward momentum, as well as to make capital think twice before entering the gold market.
  Who is doing this selling at the market open? Is it TBTF ("too big to fail") banks making profit on large short positions? Is it the Fed, through proxies, keeping the gold price contained so as not to signal how badly QE is devaluing the dollar? Allegations swarm across the Internet that it's one of these '' or both. But we don't know for certain. The exchanges don't make that information available to the public.
  But while these charts above are not enough evidence to prove that the gold price is being manipulated, they sure exhibit the symptoms one would expect to see if it is.
  So, the big question is: if the precious metals market is being manipulated, is it wise to be in it?
  History is littered with the bodies of investors whose investment thesis was right, but whose timing was wrong. Even though precious metals investors may be correct in their fundamental rationale for buying gold, can the precious metals markets remain held in check (or driven further down) for long enough that it's not worth the risk of owning the metals at all right now?
  The DecisionAs I laid out in Time To Choose, investors are facing a junction where they need to make a decision. Since rising markets and fiscal policy have divorced themselves from fundamentals, the gap between "what is" and "what should be" is widening. The weighting of your capital allocation needs to be based on which side you see winning out here.
  From our perspective here at Peak Prosperity, for all of the reasons explored in the Crash Course and discussed here daily, we firmly believe that fundamentals will ultimately matter most. And when they fully express themselves, there will be a tremendous re-pricing of assets '' largely higher for tangible assets that require energy to obtain, and markedly lower for paper claims on wealth (stocks, bonds, and their derivatives).
  But as we've often said, the corrective process may very well take much longer than we ever expected to arrive. Frankly, we're amazed that the system has held together so well over the past 5 years with all of the thin-air money printing, trillion-dollar deficits, and $100 oil. If you are playing to the fundamentals, as we are, you need to be eyes-wide-open that you may be frustrated for far longer than you'd like to be.
  So, if you decide to bet on the continued success of the status quo, your choices are easy: Get in the paper markets and go long. The Fed will be adding $85 billion of liquidity rocket fuel each month for the rest of the year to push the prices of your paper investments even higher.
  But if you choose the fundamentals, here are a few important guidelines to keep in mind:
  Build your core position in allocated (or better, personally held) physical bullion. It will never go to $0, you've removed or minimized counter-party risk, it can't be rehypothecated, and is often the most anonymous way to acquire PMs.If you invest in "paper" gold, do it with money you can afford to lose. Risks of all sorts (price manipulation, counter-party risks, market shortages, rule changes, trackability, etc.) are all much higher. Read the prospectuses carefully, and make sure to only invest in those funds that fully back their shares with bullion (vs. futures contracts).Don't use leverage. Don't let your enthusiasm make you vulnerable. Many leveraged ETFs lose money over time due to transaction costs even if the metals rise. And when the markets stay flat for prolonged times '' or worse, go down '' they can be widowmakers.A Time to 'Hold Fast'It's only human to have your confidence shaken when the market acts so completely differently than you think it should for so prolonged a time. Chris and I feel the same pain, both constitutionally as well as in our wallets, as much of our net worth is invested in the PMs.
  But every time we go through the exercise of challenging our assumptions, we walk away feeling certain that our charted course is the correct one '' and that at some point, fundamentals will prevail.
  As for what those fundamentals are, there's a seminal piece Chris wrote back in 2011 called The Screaming Fundamentals for Owning Gold and Silver that is even more true today. I highly recommend revisiting it.
  Chris has mentioned many times that this market feels an awful lot like 2007, when asset prices powered ever higher month after month, even though the underlying data was deteriorating fast. As then, he sees a high and rising potential for a violent correction that will take the market by surprise and vaporize a lot of wealth before players are able to react.
  It's times like these when you need to have the courage of your convictions and hold fast to whatever course of action you have decided upon after careful, considered analysis. During these trying periods, it's helpful to converse with a community of like-minded thinkers who can help remind you of the facts underlying your rationale '' which is why I recommend joining PeakProsperity.com's Gold & Silver Group if you own PMs. It's a great source of both informational and emotional support.
  Chris and I will continue to closely track the developments in the precious metals markets and report back on any material changes to our outlook as they develop. In the meantime, we'll be holding fast. We hope you'll be doing the same, too.
  (click on image if in need of dramatic inspiration)
  ~ Adam Taggart
Obama DHS Purchases 2,700 Light-Armored Tanks to Go With Their 1.6 Billion Bullet Stockpile | The Gateway Pundit
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:12
  Let's see'...According to one estimate, since last year the Department of Homeland Security has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm. DHS also reportedly purchased 2,700 Mine Resistant Armor Protected Vehicles (MRAPs) to go with their bullet stockpile.
  Now this'...DHS has customized its drone fleet to include domestic surveillance capabilities that would help government identify civilians carrying guns and track their cell phones.Homeland Security required that this Predator drone, built by General Atomics, be capable of detecting whether a standing human at night is ''armed or not.'' (CNet '' U.S. Department of Homeland Security)
  DHS customizes drone fleet to include domestic surveillance capabilities.CNET reported:
  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones, government documents show.
  The documents provide more details about the surveillance capabilities of the department's unmanned Predator B drones, which are primarily used to patrol the United States' northern and southern borders but have been pressed into service on behalf of a growing number of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police.
  Homeland Security's specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, say they ''shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not,'' meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They also specify ''signals interception'' technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and ''direction finding'' technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.
  Concern about domestic use of drones is growing, with federal legislation introduced last month that would establish legal safeguards, in addition to parallel efforts underway from state and local lawmakers. The Federal Aviation Administration recently said that it will ''address privacy-related data collection'' by drones.
  The prospect of identifying armed Americans concerns Second Amendment advocates, who say that technology billed as securing the United States' land and maritime borders should not be used domestically. Michael Kostelnik, the Homeland Security official who created the program, told Congress that the drone fleet would be available to ''respond to emergency missions across the country,'' and a Predator drone was dispatched to the tiny town of Lakota, N.D., to aid local police in a dispute that began with reimbursement for feeding six cows. The defendant, arrested with the help of Predator surveillance, lost a preliminary bid to dismiss the charges.
Dozens of Syrian troops killed in Iraq ambush
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 14:40
  Dozens of Syrian troops killed in Iraq ambush
  Last updated: 17 hours ago
  At least 48 Syrians and nine Iraqis are killed in Anbar by an attack on a convoy carrying troops who crossed into Iraq.Armed men from Syria have carried out an ambush in western Iraq killing 48 unarmed Syrian soldiers and nine Iraqi guards, the Iraqi defence ministry said.
  The soldiers crossed into Iraq from the Yaarabiya border crossing, the scene of heavy fighting on Saturday between rebels and troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, said Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Khalaf al-Dulaimi of the border protection forces on Monday.
  Ali Mussawi, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's spokesman, said the ambush "confirms our fears of the attempt of some to move the conflict to Iraq, but we will face these attempts by all sides with all of our power".
  The defence ministry said in an online statement that the ambush was carried out "by a terrorist group that infiltrated into Iraqi territory coming from Syria," and put the death toll at 48 Syrian soldiers and nine Iraqi guards.
  It said a number of unarmed Syrian soldiers wounded in fighting had fled to Iraq for medical treatment and were being transferred to Al-Walid border crossing to be returned to Syria through "official channels".
  But they were ambushed on the way, in what the ministry termed "an attack against the sovereignty of Iraq, its land, and its dignity, and a clear violation of human rights, as [the soldiers] were wounded and unarmed".
  The ministry also issued a warning to all sides in the conflict in Syria, where Assad is locked in a bloody, prolonged civil war with rebels, "against moving their armed conflict to Iraqi territory and violating Iraq's borders".
  The past week has seen clashes between the Syrian army and rebels at the borders, which have brought the conflict close to Iraq.
  Opposition fighters seized control of half of the northeastern Syrian border town of Yaarabiya, including a shared crossing with Iraq, in a battle with forces loyal to Assad on Saturday.
  Earlier on Friday, A Scud missile fired from Syrian territory landed near a village opposite Yaarabiya, causing no damage but terrifying locals, according to the mayor of Telefar.
  The conflict in Syria has previously spilled into Iraq. In September, a five-year-old girl was killed when three rockets struck a border town in the al Qaim area.
  Iraq's precarious sectarian and ethnic balance has also come under strain from the conflict next door, where mainly Sunni Muslim insurgents are fighting to overthrow Assad, who is backed by Shia Iran.
  Earlier this week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shia Muslim, warned that a victory for rebels in the Syrian civil war will spark a sectarian war in his own country, a civil war in Lebanon and a division in Jordan.
The Putin Response to B. Hussein
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 09:05
  "Tactical nuclear weapons that are constantly threatening the United States must become the factor that will deter large-scale aggression. Holding it at gunpoint - this is the deterrent," General Colonel in reserve, MGIMO Professor, Leonid Ivashov.
  The gauge of American foreign policy or the Barry Chin foreign cartel policy of American hijacked foreign policy is how does a nation like Russia react to what Obama has initiated for four years.
  One can look at the east coast of America and find Russian nuclear armed submarines patrolling constantly. For some reason, the Russians are feeling threatened with Mr. Chin blowing the hell out of all of the Russian Muslim allies on it's border, even with bribes from Obama of all the Slavic lands in Europe and all the American oil in the Gulf tapped from Cuba.
  General Ivashov, is the geo strategic voice of the Russian policy movement, and his ideas are simply put in Russia can not compete with conventional arms, nor nuclear arms, and all that Russia is left with are smart nuclear arms to tactically eradicate America.
  Most Americans will have to be reminded that under Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, that detente, SALT and Cooperation were what Russia and America were engaged in, in a trusting and verified working together for security.That all vanished with the usurpation of the White House in 2009. Soon enough Putin had assassinated the entire Polish nationalist government, and soon Obama was turning over all of eastern Europe to Kremlin oversight, as a new feudal order was engaged.
  The Russians watching the destruction of key allies in Libya, Syria, Yemen and with Afghanistan threatened knew they were on the chopping block. Literally only this blog has stated that Obama and the cartel have offered up to China the Russian wilderness to expand into as Russia dies out in population to appease the Chinese resource glut.
  This is what the Russian military is facing and they are trigger ready as they have been backed into Crazy Ivan mode to terrorize the Obama terror structure he is running out of 1600 Penn Avenue.
  "To attack China or Russia, cruise missiles will be used. A third of them come with nuclear warheads. Nowadays, four-class "Ohio" submarines, the largest American subs, that had 24 intercontinental ballistic missiles on board, are being reequipped. They remove the ICBMs and replace them with 158 cruise missiles on each sub. The same thing happens to "Virginia" subs. They develop a strategic cruise missile, the range of which will be not less than 5,000 kilometers. Its speed will be equal to two sonic speeds. It will be the type of arms that no one will be able to destroy - neither Russia, nor China or anyone else."
  The General's quote is what the Kremlin views as American policy in Obama will attack Eurasia, and not IF he will attack, but when.You will notice in the General's tactical assessment of the situation that Obama has "disarming" America with, in while the Russian does not mention Star Wars, it shows the Obama machinations of removing ICBM's from the Ohio class subs and replacing them with super sonic cruise missiles which can carry 158 to numbers of MERV tactical nuclear warheads, upping the strike force.Global Strike as this blog noted was correct under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the process was about the miniaturization of nuclear warheads to erradicate the Asian hordes, as there is not enough conventional firepower to kill 200 million PLA soldiers.
  "In America, it is all vice versa. On October 18, 2003, Bush signed a directive on the concept of Prompt Global Strike. A priority was not a first massive nuclear strike, but a strike with the use of high precision technologies. Glide bombs then finish it off and a country is presented with an ultimatum. If this country does not agree, it will repeat all over again. It is clear that the first target for this potential attack is Russia. But Russia - accidentally or not - may launch its strategic nuclear arsenal. To avoid this, nuclear facilities need to be destroyed first. In 2011-2012, the concept was amended."
  What was an American superiority under George W. Bush, has now devolved under B. Hussein Obama to an American threat in which Russians have now moved to a first tactical strike of nuclear weapons on America as they conclude Obama will attack Russia.As an exclusive only here to the Lame Cherry in matter anti matter, the Russians conclude after Obama cements Syria and Iran, that the next Obama assault will take out Russia in like bloody revolution and intervention.Putin's doctrines are pointed in a counter spear, that when Obama bombs Iran or causes the Marxist overthrow of the old communist Baathists there, that Putin will invade Iran, install a leader of their choice, and sweep into the Gulf and annex US Naval bases and the main weapon's depots in Saudi Arabia.These Russian war plans are on the books and Vladamir Putin is upgrading his military for such a rapid response push that America can not stop, as the Russian tactical nuclear submarines are patrolling off America with no Obama protest, as Russia is moving to engage in a military structure in Cuba to protect it's oil operations that Obama traded to them for blowing up the Muslim lands on Russia's borders.
  Today we lag behind them, therefore, to deter large-scale aggression, tactical nuclear weapons will have to play the role of the deterrent. These weapons should constantly be aimed at the United States, because it is the most vulnerable territory in the world. Keeping this territory at gunpoint - this will be a deterrent."
  As only this blog has warned, there is only so much that Vladamir Putin and his Generals will take in being vulnerable. Their last stand is the United Nations in a competing Order to the Obama order, which of course can not co exist. "For the General Assembly of the United Nations, we propose to change the structure of the Security Council. The time, when the victors in World War II were playing the first fiddle, has passed. In the renewed council, representatives of the world's ethnic and cultural civilizations should act as permanent members. They are ambassadors from North America, Europe, Latin America, China, India, the Islamic world, the African Union and, of course, Russia. This is how we see it. We need to have powerful allies today in the face of world civilizations. And the next step is to develop the Euro-Asian continental union, which includes Russia, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mongolia within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization."
  According to what B. Hussein Obama has been accomplishing for the cartels, Russia will be backed into the same situation Germany and Japan were in 1940, and then blamed for their attacking the rest of the world when attempting to survive as sovereign nations.None of this is to champion Russia, but it is a reality that Russia is facing due to the destructive policies of this foreign agent Barack Hussein Obama. You have been distracted and not paying any attention to any of this. It is though the reality that America has Russian, Chinese, North Korean and Persian nuclear weapons, terror weapons and tactical nukes aimed at the Continental United States, and you are not hearing one damn word of this from the frauds in Congress from Feinstein on her gun control to McCain on his border busters.
  No one on the right has uttered a word on this either, save this blog.
  This is the Witness against all and for the reckoning as my only apparent wage, I take that with reveling.
  The world is positioning for World War IV. It will come as Obama for the cartel has weakened America to that point and made vulnerable competitors that the only solution is war.
  nuff saidagtG 224
ifconfig wlan
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 06:47
  Connecting to an Open or WEP enabled WLAN (DHCP)
  Connecting to an Open or WEP enabled WLAN (Manual IP Setup)
  iwconfig commands
  ifconfig commands
  iwpriv commands
  iwlist commands
  madwifi-ng commands
  NOTE: NOT ALL CARDS/FIRMWARE SUPPORT ALL OF THE COMMANDS LISTED BELOW.
  Note: To connect your Linux machine to a WLAN using WPA, WPA2 or 802.1X you will need to use WPA Supplicant
  Note: replace [interface] with your interface name as required (e.g. eth1, wlan0, ath0 etc.)
  iwconfig [interface] mode managed key [WEP key] (128 bit WEP use 26 hex characters, 64 bit WEP uses 10)
  iwconfig [Interface] essid "[ESSID]" (Specify ESSID for the WLAN)
  dhclient [interface] (to receive an IP address, netmask, DNS server and default gateway from the Access Point)
  ping www.bbc.co.uk (if you receive a reply you have access)
  Note: replace [interface] with your interface name as required (e.g. eth1, wlan0, ath0 etc.)
  It may be necessary to run some packet capture software (e.g. Ethereal) to determine the IP addresses of both the Default Gateway and DNS servers.
  iwconfig [interface] mode managed key [WEP key] (128 bit WEP use 26 hex characters, 64 bit WEP uses 10)
  iwconfig [interface] essid "[ESSID]"
  ifconfig [interface] [IP address] netmask [subnetmask]
  route add default gw [IP of default gateway] (Configure your default gateway; usually the IP of the Access Point)
  echo nameserver [IP address of DNS server] >> /etc/resolve.conf (Configure your DNS server)
  ping www.bbc.co.uk (if you receive a reply you have access)
  Note: replace [interface] with your interface name as required (e.g. eth1, wlan0, ath0 etc.)
  iwconfig [interface] mode master (set the card to act as an access point mode)
  iwconfig [interface]mode managed (set card to client mode on a network with an access point)
  iwconfig [interface]mode ad-hoc (set card to peer to peer networking or no access point mode)
  iwconfig [interface] mode monitor (set card to RFMON mode our favourite)
  iwconfig [interface] essid any (with some cards you may disable the ESSID checking)
  iwconfig [interface] essid ½your ssid_here½ (configure ESSID for network)
  iwconfig [interface]key1111-1111-1111-1111 (set 128 bit WEP key)
  iwconfig [interface]key 11111111 (set 64 bit WEP key)
  iwconfig [interface] key s:mykey (set key as an ASCII string)
  iwconfig [interface]key off (disable WEP key)
  iwconfig [interface] key open (sets open mode, no authentication is used and card may accept non-encrypted sessions)
  iwconfig [interface] channel [channel no.] (set a channel 1-14)
  iwconfig [interface] channel auto (automatic channel selection)
  iwconfig [interface] freq 2.422G (channels can also be specified in GHz)
  iwconfig [interface] ap 11:11:11:11:11:11(Force card to register AP address)
  iwconfig [interface]rate 11M (card will use the rate specified)
  iwconfig [interface]rate auto (select automatic rate)
  iwconfig [interface]rate auto 5.5M (card will use the rate specified and any rate below as required)
  Note: replace [interface] with your interface name as required (e.g. eth1, wlan0, ath0 etc.)
  ifconfig [interface] up (bring up specified interface)
  ifconfig [interface] down (take down specified interface)
  ifconfig [interface] [IP address] netmask [subnet-mask] (manually set IP and subnet-mask details)
  ifconfig [interface] hw ether [MAC] (Change the wireless cards MAC address, specify in format 11:11:11:11:11:11)
  Note: replace [interface] with your interface name as required (e.g. eth1, wlan0, ath0 etc.)
  iwpriv [interface] hostapd 1 (used to set card mode to hostapd e.g. for void11)
  When the monitor mode patch is installed as per the Wireless Build HOWTO the following commands may be used to set the card into monitor mode.
  iwpriv [interface] monitor [A] [B]
  0 = disable monitor mode
  1 = enable monitor mode with Prism2 header
  2 = enable monitor mode with no Prism2
  Channel to monitor (1-14)
  Note: replace [interface] with your interface name as required (e.g. eth1, wlan0, ath0 etc.)
  iwlist is used to display some large chunk of information from a wireless network interface that is not displayed by iwconfig.
  iwlist [interface] scan (Give the list of Access Points and Ad-Hoc cells in range (ESSID, Quality, Frequency, Mode etc.) Note: In tests only worked with Atheros cards).
  iwlist [interface] channel (Give the list of available frequencies in the device and the number of channels).
  iwlist [interface] rate (List the bit-rates supported by the device).
  iwlist [interface] key (List the encryption key sizes supported and display all the encryption keys available in the device).
  iwlist [interface] power (List the various Power Management attributes and modes of the device).
  iwlist [interface] txpower (List the various Transmit Power available on the device).
  iwlist [interface] retry (List the transmit retry limits and retry lifetime on the device).
  iwlist [interface] ap (Give the list of Access Points in range, and optionally the quality of link to them. Deprecated in favour of scan)
  iwlist [interface] peers (Give the list of Peers associated/registered with this card).
  iwlist [interface] event (List the wireless events supported by this card).
  MADWiFi supports virtual access points (VAPS), which means you can create more than one wireless device per wireless card (the host wireless card = wifi0).
  By default, a sta mode VAP is created by, which is MadWifi talk for a 'managed mode wireless interface'.
  Note: replace athx with your interface name as required (e.g. ath0, ath1)
  wlanconfig athx destroy (Destroy VAP, athx)
  wlanconfig athx create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta (Create a managed mode VAP, athx)
  wlanconfig athx create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode ap (Create an Access Point VAP, athx)
  wlanconfig athx create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode adhoc (Create an Ad-Hoc VAP, athx)
  wlanconfig athx create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode monitor (Create a Monitor mode VAP, athx)
  Changing modes:
  ifconfig athx down (Take the VAP down)
  wlanconfig athx destroy (Destroy the VAP, athx)
  wlanconfig athx create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode [sta|adhoc|ap|monitor] (Create a new sta, adhoc, ap or monitor VAP)
  Scan for Access Points (requires both steps):
  modprobe wlan_scan_sta (To insert the scanning module)
  wlanconfig athx list scan (To list the APs)
  For more detailed information, see Madwifi Docs
  Logicallysecure have produced an A4 leaflet of the above commands that can be downloaded here.
How do you really start JACK server before X?(+ my own ugly solution) (Page 1) / Multimedia and Games / Arch Linux Forums
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 06:34
  Hello!
  I've decided to install the 'jack2' package from [community] because of the following:
  1. I can't seem to get dmix to work2. I don't have any understanding of how dmix is supposed to work3. I need JACK, as a backend (is that it ?) to the low-latency Steinberg ASIO plugin for WINE4. A sound server seems like a good thing to have anyway (can probably do stuff that dmix can't)5. I have a dual core CPU, so going for jack2 (multi-core) seems logical.
  I would like to keep things as simple as possible, and according to the wiki page on JACK, jack2 pretty much shares syntax with the original jack, which I used some time ago, while the jack2-dbus package offers some 'jack_control' voodoo that I don't *think* I need.
  Now, I would like to start the server daemon "early", that is, before X. This is mostly to have it as system-wide as possible (although single-user), but also to be able to handle multiple sound applications in VT, should I need to.
  If you already know the solution to this (I would have expected no complications at all or, at the most, an extra flag to jackd), please don't bother reading below. It is ugliness and lack of understanding, but it sort of works.____________________________________________________________________
  I first wrote a line in /etc/rc.local (to have it "fire-and-forget" during boot):
  su -c 'jackd -d alsa &' userjackd refuses to start this way, as evident by running the command in a VT after login:
  $ jackd -d alsa [...]Failed to connect to session bus for device reservation [b]Unable to autolaunch a dbus-daemon without a $DISPLAY for X11[/b]Failed to acquire device name : Audio0 error : Invalid argumentAudio device hw:0 cannot be acquired...Jack: ~JackDriverCannot initialize driverJack: no message buffer overrunsJack: JackPosixThread::StopJack: ThreadHandler: exitJackServer::Open() failed with -1Jack: Succeeded in unlocking 82245916 byte memory areaJack: JackShmMem::delete size = 0 index = 0Jack: ~JackDriverJack: Succeeded in unlocking 1012 byte memory areaJack: JackShmMem::delete size = 0 index = 1Jack: cleaning up shared memoryJack: cleaning up filesJack: unregistering server `default'Failed to open serverSo things don't seem as simple as I thought. Why would DISPLAY need to be set? What's this about dbus-launch (I thought this was independent of dbus)?
  Anyway, I'm a little blind from this stage on, but jackd seems to start without errors if I supply some variables before launching jackd (I do this in a script called jackstart):
  #! /bin/bash# file: /home/user/data/script/jackstart## This is ridiculous:export DISPLAY=:0# dbus-launch started, DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS exported:export `dbus-launch | grep ADDRESS` # dbus-launch started, DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID exportedexport `dbus-launch | grep PID` jackd -d alsa > ~/Desktop/jack.log 2>&1 Furthermore, everything works fine when I run all this from .bash_profile...
  ## ~/.bash_profile#[[ -f ~/.bashrc ]] && . ~/.bashrc# run jackstart iff jackd is not already running:ps -e | grep jack > /dev/null 2>&1 || /home/user/data/script/jackstart... but not when run from rc.local (via su -c '/path/to/jackstart' user) It then crashes when any second application wants to output sound.
  Is this something to pursue, or should I start over? Should the final solution be a run-once command in /etc/rc.local or a run-every-login command in ~/.bash_profile?
  That's all I've got. I'm thankful for any suggestions on how to do this properly (this obviously isn't correct), and if you're just desperate to get something like this to work yourself, I hope this might help you in some way.
Officials break ground on Heartland Preparedness Center
  Link to Article
  Tue, 05 Mar 2013 01:28
  The intersection of Interstate 135 and K-96 highway in Wichita before long will be home to a slew of public safety officers '-- everyone from members of the Wichita Police Department to 330 Kansas Army National Guard personnel.
  City, county and state officials broke ground Tuesday on the Kansas National Guard Heartland Preparedness Center, a joint facility they say will improve safety and homeland security for the state.
  According to the Kansas Adjutant General's Office, the 45-acre complex will consist of a 121,000-square-foot Army National Guard Readiness Center containing classrooms, administrative and common-use space, plus a 62,000-square-foot field maintenance shop with maintenance bays, supply storage and administrative areas.
  The facility is budgeted at $43 million for the readiness center and $25 million for the field maintenance shop, both of which are being covered by federal funds.
  In addition, the city of Wichita and Sedgwick County are partnering on a law enforcement training center. Together the entities have committed $29.5 million to the project.
  The Kansas Highway Patrol also could end up at the site. The patrol is seeking federal funds to construct its new Troop F Headquarters there, replacing its current headquarters at 3200 E. 45th N.
  Adjutant General Tod Bunting said at the groundbreaking that having guardsmen working side by side with law enforcement will be beneficial to Kansans' safety.
  When disaster strikes, whether it be a tornado or a homeland security threat, the organizations already will be used to working together and their lines of communication will be strong, he said.
  ''There has been a lot of value of having the cross pollination of those first responders actually working towards a common goal and the mere fact that if and when a disaster happens, they aren't meeting for the first time at the disaster site,'' Col. Cliff Silsby, director of facilities engineering for the Kansas National Guard, said in a press release.
  Gov. Mark Parkinson said at the groundbreaking that he's hoping another benefit will be a boost to the local economy as workers construct the multi-million dollar facility.
  ''This should create some jobs,'' he said.
  HTK Architects PA, of Overland Park, is the architect. Bids have not been let for a general contractor.
  The construction timeline is dependent on the release of federal funds, but organizers say they hope to have a contractor chosen in time to begin construction in June.
  That economic boost should last beyond the construction phase, according to Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer.
  He said 330 National Guard members will be working at the site, along with members of the police department, sheriff's department and possibly the Kansas Highway Patrol. They will need supplies and services, and they will need places to eat, he said.
  ''Just for their everyday use, they will use the businesses in this area,'' he said.
Carney: Yes, Obama Proposed Sequester Cuts, But It's ''Pretty Irrelevant'''...
  Link to Article
  Source: Weasel Zippers
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:11
  Irrelevant? Obama went out on the campaign trail to try and convince America the sequester was a GOP creation.
  Via Washington Examiner:
  President Obama's team proposed sequestration, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney acknowledged, but he also said that the origin of the automatic spending cuts is ''pretty irrelevant'' to the debate about the issue.
  ''Well, Senators Gramm and Rudman came up with the idea back in the 1980s,'' Carney initially told reporters when asked if Obama regrets coming up with the idea. '''Let's do it the way they did it back under Reagan,' our team said to Republicans, thinking that might be appealing, and it was . . . This is all pretty irrelevant. What is relevant is that it was never supposed to be policy.''
Biden: Obama Not 'Bluffing' With Iran; Would Use Military Action To Prevent Them From Acquiring A Nuclear Weapon
  Link to Article
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:09
  Today, Vice President Joe Biden told AIPAC that President Obama is not "bluffing" when it comes to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and would even use military force if need be.
  "Presidents of the United States cannot and do not bluff, and President Barack Obama is not bluffing. He is not bluffing. We are not looking for war, we are looking and ready to negotiate peacefully- but all options, including military force, are on the table," Biden said.
  (h/t The Right Scoop)
Brian Williams Claims His Reporting is 'Cleansed of Political Opinions,' 'Down the Middle'
  Link to Article
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:08
  Appearing on left-wing actor Alec Baldwin's weekly WNYC talk radio show, Here's The Thing, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams laughably asserted that his reporting was void of any political bias: "My work has been so cleansed, as I see it, and as I've tried, of political opinions over 27 years....I can try to call it down the middle, and try to be fair about it, and do a 'just the facts'..."
Michel Bauwens: Facebook Corrupt Arbitrage '-- Blocking Popular Subscriptions as Extortion Tool
  Link to Article
  Source: Public Intelligence Blog
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:46
  Michel Bauwens
  Precisely the behavior an Autonomous Internet is intended to prevent.
  How Facebook's bait-and-switch dupes users
  Facebook appears to be suppressing posts unless users pay hefty fees, writes Nick Bilton.
  Nick Bilton
  Sydney Morning Herald, 4 March 2013
  Something is puzzling on Facebook.
  Early last year, soon after Facebook instituted a feature that let people subscribe to others' feeds without being friends, I quickly amassed a healthy ''subscriber'' list of about 25,000 people.
  Every Sunday morning, I started sharing my weekly column with this newfound entourage. Those garnered a good response. For example, a column about my 2012 New Year's resolution to take a break from electronics gathered 535 ''likes'' and 53 ''reshares.'' Another, about Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and chief executive, owing me $50 after the company's public offering, quickly drew 323 likes and 88 reshares.
  Since then, my subscribers have grown to number 400,000. Yet now, when I share my column, something different happens. Guess how many people like and reshare the links I post?
  If your answer was more than two digits long, you're wrong.
  From the four columns I shared in January, I have averaged 30 likes and two shares a post. Some attract as few as 11 likes. Photo interaction has plummeted, too. A year ago, pictures would receive thousands of likes each; now, they average 100. I checked the feeds of other tech bloggers, including MG Siegler of TechCrunch, and reporters from The New York Times, and the same drop in interaction has occurred.
  What changed? I recently tried a little experiment. I gave Facebook $7 to promote my column to my friends using the company's sponsored advertising tool.
  To my surprise, I saw a 1,000 percent increase in the interaction on a link I posted, which had 130 likes and 30 reshares in just a few hours. It seems as if Facebook is not only promoting my links on news feeds when I pay for them, but also possibly suppressing the ones I do not pay for.
  Facebook proudly informed me in a message that 5.2 times as many people had seen my post because I had paid the company to show it to them. Gee whiz. Thanks, Facebook.
  This may be great news for advertisers, but I felt slightly duped. I've stayed on Facebook after its repeated privacy violations partly because I foolishly believed there was some sort of democratic approach to sharing freely with others. I feel as if the company persuaded us to share under that premise and is now turning it inside out by requiring us to pay for people to see what we post.
John Kerry's Jew-Ridden State Department
  Link to Article
  Source: Real Jew News
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:43
  America In Decline Articles
  John Kerry's Jew-RiddenState DepartmentBy Brother Nathanael KapnerCopyright 2013March 3, 2013
  Articles May Be Reproduced Only With Authorship of Br Nathanael Kapner& Link To Real Jew News (SM)
  Support The Brother Nathanael Foundation!
  Or Send Your Contribution To:The Brother Nathanael Foundation, PO Box 1242, Frisco CO 80443E-mail: brothernathanaelfoundation@yahoo.com___________________________________
  WITH JOHN KERRY'Splan to aid Syrian terrorists, it's time we exposed the State Department as a Jew-ridden organ of the Jewish Lobby.It's a well-known fact that the Syrian 'revolution' is a dire threat to the centuries-old Christian population. But when it comes to pleasing the Jews, Kerry couldn't care less.
  Added to Kerry's Jew-pleasing diplomacy, he recently demanded that Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey, apologize for calling Zionism a ''crime against humanity'''...which it most certainly is.
  What's behind Kerry's Jew-loving actions?
  Does he owe the Jews so that off to work for the Jews he goes? Yes indeed.
  First of all, Kerry's paternal grandparents were Jews named Ida Lowe and Fritz Kohn, who like many Jews in order to hide their identity, changed their surname to Kerry.
  John Kerry's father, Richard, (son of Ida and Fritz) was born in the Jewish area of Boston known as Brookline where John Kerry studied law at Boston College.
  JEW WAY TO THE WHITE HOUSE
  IN HIS 2004 PRESIDENTIAL BID, Kerry placed some high-powered Jews on his campaign staff to drive his Jewish 'money-go-to' machine.
  Alan Solomont, Board member of the Boston Private Bank & Trust Company and Chairman of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, was an ardent supporter of Kerry and a key member of his finance team.
  Eric Lynn, a veteran AIPAC agent, acted as Kerry's 'Jewish Vote Director.'
  Lynn will always be around to remind Kerry of the Jewish dollars invested in his political advancement since he now hangs out in the Jew-ridden State Department where he serves as Senior Policy Adviser.
  Then we have John Kerry's brother, ''Cam'' Kerry, who in 1993 converted to Judaism from Catholicism before marrying Kathy Weinman. (Most converts are women who want to marry Jewish men and not vice versa. Shame on him!)
  Cam was awarded for his apostasy by being granted an all-expense paid vacation to Israel by AIPAC in 1994.
  Cam soon became a partner of Mintz, Levin, Kohn, a major Boston law firm which represents Israeli business interests and afterwards appointed Vice-Chair of the National Jewish Democratic Council. He now serves as General Counsel for the US Department of Commerce.
  Isn't it nice that John has a 'Jewish' brother with ties to lots of Jewish dollars to pay his way?
  No wonder our new Secretary of State loves the terrorists in Syria in his drive to topple Assad who is a protector of Syrian Christians.
  For when it comes to pleasing the Jews, Christians get the royal shaft and even wiped out of existence. But what does Kerry care, his main purpose in life is to see that Jews get their bidding done.
  JEW-RIDDEN STATE DEPARTMENT
  CALL IT LITTLE ISRAEL and you're not off the mark seeing that the US State Department is infested with Jews.
  While Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry knew all too well that the way to keep his job was to keep his Jewish-enablers and the Jewish Lobby happy.
  And now as Secretary of State he has lots of Jews looking over his shoulder making sure he tows the Jewish line.
  Here's the Jewish Lineup at State:
  ' Victoria Nuland - Spokeswoman for the State Department. Daughter of Sherwin Nudelman who changed his surname to the Gentile-sounding 'Nuland.' Married Robert Kagan, neocon Jewish warmonger.
  ' Wendy Sherman - Under Secretary for Political Affairs. Recently met with Shimon Peres assuring him of Jewmerica's loyalty to Israeli genocide of the Palestinians.
  ' Hannah Rosenthal - Special Envoy to combat Anti-Semitism. (Your tax dollars hard at work forbidding you to criticize those who rule over you.)
  ' Philip Goldberg - Under Secretary for Intelligence and Research. (Big Brother Jew is watching and getting background checks on you.)
  ' Daniel Rubenstein - Principal Deputy Assistant for Intelligence and Research. (Big Brother Jew #2 is watching and getting background checks on you.)
  ' Jerry Lanier/Anne Witkowsky - Coordinators for Counter-Terrorism. (Big Brother Jew #3 and Big Sister Jew are watching and getting background checks on you.)
  ' Michael Posner - Assistant Secretary for Democracy and Human Rights. (Bringing Jewish 'democracy' and Jewish-inspired bombs to hapless nations around the globe. All at the cost of 7000 dead Gentile American soldiers. NO 'Posners' among the dead.)
  ' Daniel Shapiro - US Ambassador to Israel. Has a GREAT LOVE for the Palestinian people! (Yet not a peep out of him protesting the illegal Israeli settlements'...simply not in a 'Shapiro's' blood.)
  AND THE LIST'...I mean the BEATING of Americans into the drum of Jewish-enabled bloodshed around the world goes on.
  And John Kerry will make sure that not one drop of Jewish blood is ever shed.
  Support The Brother Nathanael Foundation!
  Or Send Your Contribution To:The Brother Nathanael Foundation, PO Box 1242, Frisco CO 80443E-mail: brothernathanaelfoundation@yahoo.com___________________________________
  For More See:When Jews Rule The WorldClick HereAnd:Trends To Watch In 2013Click Here
  And:Political Judaism As A World ThreatClick Here
  Support Brother Nathanael!
  Send Your Donation To:Brother Nathanael Kapner; PO Box 1242; Frisco CO 80443E-mail: bronathanael@yahoo.com
  Scroll Down For Comments
  Brother Nathanael @ March 3, 2013
Female Iranian communists organize topless protest against hijabs in Swedish capital '-- RT News
  Link to Article
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 04:28
  Published time: March 04, 2013 03:30
  The Iranian female activists have followed the footsteps of the scandalous Ukrainian FEMEN movement, flashing their breasts in protest against the hijab headscarf, women wear in the Islamic world.
  The action performed by members of the Iranian Communist Party and the Organization Against Violence on Women in Iran took place in the center of the Swedish capital, Stockholm on Sunday, and was dedicated to International Women's Day, which is celebrated on March 8.
  The women painted their bodies with slogans such as ''My nudity is my protest'' and ''No to hijab'' and displayed pictures from anti-Islamic demonstrations by FEMEN.
  The topless photos from Stockholm first appeared on FEMEN's official website, with members of the ''sextremist'' movement expressing their confidence that ''in the historical battle 'woman v. Islam' women will win!''
  The Ukrainian topless protesters have recently teamed up with Egyptian activist, Alia Al Mahdi, to attract public attention to ''the threat of Islamization of the Egyptian constitution and the introduction of [Mohamed] Morsi's Shariah Law'', with the action being staged in front of the Egyptian embassy in the Swedish capital.
  The FEMEN activists have become famous for organizing topless protests at major international public events in different countries against sex tourism, religious institutions, international marriage agencies, sexism and other social and international issues.
  The movement quickly spread across the Ukrainian border as the group recently opened their new headquarter in Paris, promising offices in New York, Montreal and Sao Paulo as well.
Obama sold the Southeastern USA to Russia
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:42
  When this blog informed you of the Obama deals in the new more profitable feudal order in marketing dope, terrorism, humans and whatever in the Neo Roman, New Asian and Caliph empires for the cartels, no one believed it.Few cared when Obama sold the Slavic peoples to Vladamir Putin's Russian interests either, but now a new Lame Cherry matter anti matter exclusive reveals something that Americans might be interested in.
  When it was reported here that Fidel Castro was set aside as Cuba was not profitable enough in just running dope into America, and brother Raul replaced him, new machinations were in order, as Raul started implementing capitalist reforms to increase money output for the cartel, and into this stepped Vladamir Putin in the American sphere.
  What was Putin up to? Putin on the heals of Medvedev agreements with Cuba, forgave 30 billion dollars in loans that the latin island owed Moscow.This was not in the least about being charitable, but it was a further deal of Obama sold out eastern Europe and with his blowing up Putin's money sources in the Middle East, a new agreement in Obama flexibilty had to be worked out.The new sale was for Putin to take American oil on the "Cuban shelf" which Obama has closed down after his deliberate sabotage of the Gulf Gusher.
  Yes Russian oil is now drilling all around Cuba in this new agreement in which for 30 billion in quid pro quo which Russia never would be repaid, Russia is now drilling for oil and other mineral reserves there.The deal is for Americans to buy that oil from Cuba, which in reality should be American companies drilling that oil, and pumping it cheaply for America.
  Literally, America is going to be funding because of Barack Obama, the butchers of Cuba turned capitalists by the cartel. The very murderous mob which has sown upheaval all through South America and into Africa. The very liberation dogma out of Moscow that Jeremiah Wright was spewing to a willing Obama and wife in Chicago.
  If you want the reality of it all......Obama took Libya from the Russians for the Caliph in the Muslim Brotherhood. In exchange for giving Russian Libyan assets to terrorists, Obama to appease Putin gave Cuba oil, which for the 90% part is THE AMERICAN SHELF, to Russia to sell, back to America.
  You will notice in this a reality that Matt Drudge and no one on the right or left bothered to inform you of this. Obama just gave away the acre in Cuba in which Russian drillers will plunge pipe into the continent of American oil.
  No Americans can not drill for oil in America, but Russia can drill American oil from Cuba into the same reserve.
  This is beyond criminal in what Obama has done, it is a foreign agent dividing up America and selling her to Russia, so Obama can build the cartel's empires of influence in Eurasia.
  Once again..........a Lame Cherry matter anti matter exclusive.
  I'm really pissed off at the majority of you. I get lectured at by God in having to do this thankless job in being a slave in warning you, because if I do not warn you, then I will be subject for your sins. That I will not do, so I'm stuck doing this chained here and I hate and detest it.Good people are rare, and I pray God saves you out of what is coming, but I hope and pray this all comes quickly as I will appreciate lawlessness and the absolute reality of watching all at the same level of destitution. The we will see how green the pasture grows in a drought of the Lord's Word.
  agtG 265
White House: there no "set price" for donor access to Obama, but donors do get access
  Link to Article
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:40
  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) 2013, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.
Is Michelle Malkin's Twitchy Site Fabricating A Story Here?
  Link to Article
  Source: Crooks and Liars
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:39
  Twitchy, the right wing site created by Michelle Malkin to "debunk" tweets, has an interesting story up accusing MSNBC of using spambot accounts on Twitter to promote their shows. You can view the post here.
  Now Twitchy is saying they have investigated these accounts and this is their finding:
  Twitchy looked at about a dozen of these accounts and noted some common characteristics. First, most (not all) have small numbers of tweets and small numbers of followers, suggesting that they probably are not bona fide Twitter users.
  Second, most (not all) of the profiles link to a service called Followers Delivery. The service claims to sell 100,000 Twitter followers for $320. It also sells Facebook likes and YouTube views.
  So who is Followers Delivery? Well, if you go to their webpage, you are taken to a HostGator suspended account page. So that avenue of investigation is dead. Now let's go to another one. I asked "who is" Followers Delivery, so I will do a whois on followersdelivery.com:
  Registered through: GoDaddy.com, LLC (http://www.godaddy.com)Domain Name: FOLLOWERSDELIVERY.COMCreated on: 26-Feb-13Expires on: 26-Feb-14Last Updated on: 04-Mar-13
  Registrant:FOLLOWERS DELIVERYP.P. 226, HRZagreb, - 10002Croatia/Hrvatska
  So this domain was just created last Tuesday and already got business from MSNBC? Damn, they are quick! Must have been someone in the MSNBC Croatia bureau.
  But there are other interesting things in this post. Let's look at the first few tweets they highlight.
  That user has 7 tweets, 0 followers and following 0 people. The first tweet was on 3/2.
  This account has 10 tweets ,following 278 people and has 5 followers. The first tweet was on 3/1.
  Again, 6 tweets, 0 followers, 0 following and created on 3/2.
  And finally:
  9 tweets, 315 following and 3 followers. This account was also created on 3/1.
  So the first few tweets the article mentions were all created since last Friday and appear in Twitchy's article that came out yesterday.
  I know this may be getting confusing, so let me put together a quick timeline:
  Tuesday (2/26/13) - followersdelivery.com is registered.Friday (3/1/13) - Saturday (3/2/13) - Tweets are published by new accounts pushing MSNBC shows. These accounts link to followersdelivery.com.Sunday (3/3/13) - Twitchy embeds these tweets and accuses MSNBC of spamming Twitter.Something in this timing seems very curious, almost like those accounts and that domain could have all been created just to go after MSNBC.
  So, here's what I'm wondering. Twitchy is owned by right-wing darling Michelle Malkin. As we all know, Malkin is also a contributor to Fox News. Also, Fox News has seen a huge loss in ratings to (you guessed it) MSNBC over the past couple of months.
  I think of that and I can't help but wonder if Malkin went out and had her people create some fake twitter accounts, use them to spam for MSNBC shows and create a fake company just so she could help out one of her employers?
  The evidence is there to suggest that, as much as there is evidence to say that MSNBC paid a spam service to promote their shows. Maybe someone should ask Fox about their possible involvement in this as well.
Mika 'Angry' Stephanopoulos Invited Rodman On 'This Week'
  Link to Article
  Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 20:56
  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) 2013, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.
Skull and Bones Blueblood John Forbes Kerry Seeks Quick Destruction of Syria, Italy
  Link to Article
  Source: TARPLEY.net
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 20:44
  Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.PressTVMarch 4, 2013
  John Forbes Kerry, the current United States Secretary of State, is a blue-blooded patrician oligarch and member of the infamous Yale Skull and Bones secret society.
  Kerry has already signaled that he will be more aggressive and ruthless than his predecessor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, when it comes to implementing the US program of destroying the sovereign and independent nation states of the world, and replacing them with micro states, mini states, rump states, failed states, warlords, and chaos. Accordingly, Kerry wants to increase aid to the Syrian rebels, whom his own department has branded as terrorists.
  Even in a millionaire's club like the United States Senate, Kerry stood out as the richest senator. His father, Richard Kerry, was a foreign service officer for the US State Department involved in United Nations affairs. Kerry's paternal grandparents, the Silesian Fritz Kohn and the Budapest-born Ida L¶we were Jews from a suburb of Vienna, Austria-Hungary who came to the United States and converted to Roman Catholicism at the beginning of the 20th century, changing their name to Kerry after selecting it at random from a map of Ireland. Fritz Kohn/Kerry had a shoe business which went bankrupt during the crash of 1921, leading to his suicide. Today's John Forbes Kerry was raised as a Roman Catholic, which he says he has remained.
  John Kerry's pedigree and the initial money for his education come from his mother, who was born Rosemary Isabel Forbes. The Forbes family had arrived in Massachusetts in the mid-18th century, much later than many of the Boston Brahmins, but Ralph Bennett Forbes soon married Margaret Perkins, a daughter of the notorious family controlling Perkins & Co., one of the selected American firms partnering with the British East India Company in shipping opium from India to China, and tea from China to Europe and North America. Thanks to this strategic marriage, the Forbes were directly allied to families like the Cabots, the Cushings, and others. Ralph Bennett Forbes worked for the Perkins syndicate as an opium-runner. His son, John Murray Forbes, was for a time one of the dominant personalities of the foreign clique controlling the Chinese emperor.
  Publications
  Select a book to review and purchase on Amazon.com Most are also available at:
Scripting News: Why Windows lost to Mac.
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 20:34
  First, understand that this is a blog post, a highly prejudiced thing, completely determined by one self-important person's experiences.
  I'm a hypocrite too. :-)
  Anyway, I lived through this.
  I was a Windows user in 2005, when I had to get a Mac because I was supporting people who used my OPML Editor app on the Mac, as well as Windows. It didn't seem right that I couldn't see what the updates looked like on the Mac, even if it was open source software, and not generating any money for me. So I bought a $1000 white plastic laptop in the Apple store in Toronto. It was the first time I had been in an Apple store.
  It's a long story why I was so uninterested in using Apple products at the time. I had been an early Mac developer, shipping a product in 1984, and continuing to develop through the mid-90s. But when my product, Frontier, became available on Windows in 1998, I switched to Windows. Windows machines performed much better than the Macs of the day, and Apple had a new strategy every four months. I was very happy to get onto the safe ground that Windows offered.
  Back to 2005, the first thing I noticed about the white Mac laptop, that aside from being a really nice computer, there was no malware. In 2005, Windows was a horror. Once a virus got on your machine, that was pretty much it. And Microsoft wasn't doing much to stop the infestation. For a long time they didn't even see it as their problem. In retrospect, it was the computer equivalent of Three Mile Island or Chernobyl.
  Anyway, that's why when I read Gruber's and Arrington's discussion about why the Mac won, I was once again amazed about what a fog we all live in, and how little grasp there is of other people's experiences. I don't doubt that for these guys malware didn't make a big difference. Maybe I was the outlier, maybe not many other people thought it would be nice to take a vacation from fighting the viruses. And then the vaction became permanent. (As it did for me. I dabbled in PCs after getting the white laptop. But I bought basically every bit of hardware Apple has offered since then. And I made most of my friends do so too.)
  We don't do well at sharing experiences on the net about these subjects. The flamers pretty much control discourse, or have in the past. I think that's one reason our grasp of history is so hazy. A lot like the great movie, Fog of War. See it if you want to understand more about the tech industry.
12 Things That Just Happened That Show The Next Wave Of The Economic Collapse Is Almost Here
  Link to Article
  Source: What Jamie Flarity is reading.
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 20:32
  Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,
  Are we running out of time? For the last several years, we have been living in a false bubble of hope that has been fueled by massive amounts of debt and bailout money. This illusion of economic stability has convinced most people that the great economic crisis of 2008 was just an "aberration" and that now things are back to normal. Unfortunately, that is not the case at all. The truth is that the financial crash of 2008 was just the first wave of our economic troubles. We have not even come close to recovering from that wave, and the next wave of the economic collapse is rapidly approaching. Our economy is like a giant sand castle that has been built on a foundation of debt and toilet paper currency. As each wave of the crisis hits us, the solutions that our leaders will present to us will involve even more debt and even more money printing. And each time, those "solutions" will only make our problems even worse. Right now, events are unfolding in Europe and in the United States that are pushing us toward the next major crisis moment. I sincerely hope that we have some more time before the next crisis overwhelms us, but as you will see, time is rapidly running out.
  The following are 12 things that just happened that show the next wave of the economic collapse is almost here...
  #1 According to TrimTab's CEO Charles Biderman, corporate insider purchases of stock have hit an all-time low, and the ratio of corporate insider selling to corporate insider buying has now reached an astounding 50 to 1....
  While retail is being told to buy-buy-buy, Biderman exclaims that "insiders at U.S. companies have bought the least amount of shares in any one month," and that the ratio of insider selling to buying is now 50-to-1 - a monthly record.
  #2 On Friday we learned that personal income in the United States experienced its largest one month decline in 20 years...
  Personal income decreased by $505.5 billion in January, or 3.6%, compared to December (on a seasonally adjusted and annualized basis). That's the most dramatic decline since January 1993, according to the Commerce Department.
  #3 In a stunning move, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder says that he will appoint an emergency financial manager to take care of Detroit's financial affairs...
  Snyder, 54, took a step he avoided a year ago, empowering an emergency financial manager who can sweep aside union contracts, sell municipal assets, restructure services and reorder finances. He announced the move yesterday at a public meeting in Detroit.
  If this does not work, Detroit will almost certainly have to declare bankruptcy. If that happens, it will be the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
  #4 On Friday it was announced that the unemployment rate in Italy had risen to 11.7 percent. That was a huge jump from 11.3 percent the previous month, and Italy now has the highest unemployment rate that it has experienced in 21 years.
  #5 The youth unemployment rate in Italy has risen to a new all-time record high of 38.7 percent.
  #6 On Friday it was announced that the unemployment rate in the eurozone as a whole had just hit a brand new record high of 11.9 percent.
  #7 On Friday it was announced that the unemployment rate in Greece has now reached 27 percent, and it is being projected that it will reach 30 percent by the end of the year.
  #8 The youth unemployment rate in Greece is now an almost unbelievable 59.4 percent.
  #9 On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Lisbon and other Portuguese cities to protest the austerity measures that are being imposed upon them. It was reportedly the largest protest in the history of Portugal.
  #10 According to Goldman Sachs, bank deposits declined all over Europe during the month of January.
  #11 Over the weekend, the deputy governor of China's central bank declared that China is prepared for a "currency war"...
  A top Chinese banker said Beijing is "fully prepared" for a currency war as he urged the world to abide by a consensus reached by the G20 to avert confrontation, state media reported on Saturday.
  Yi Gang, deputy governor of China's central bank, issued the call after G20 finance ministers last month moved to calm fears of a looming war on the currency markets at a meeting in Moscow.
  Those fears have largely been fuelled by the recent steep decline in the Japanese yen, which critics have accused Tokyo of manipulating to give its manufacturers a competitive edge in key export markets over Asian rivals.
  #12 Italy is an economic basket case at this point, and the political gridlock in Italy is certainly not helping matters. Former comedian Beppe Grillo's party could potentially tip the balance of power one way or the other in Italy, and over the weekend he made some comments that are really shaking things up over in Europe. For one thing, he is suggesting that Italy should hold a referendum on the euro...
  "I am a strong advocate of Europe. I am in favor of an online referendum on the euro," Beppe Grillo told Bild am Sonntag.
  Such a vote would not be legally binding in Italy, where referendums can only be used to repeal laws or parts of laws, but would carry political weight. Grillo has said in the past that membership of the euro should be up to the Italian people.
  In addition, Grillo is also suggesting that Italy's debt has gotten so large that renegotiation is the only option...
  In an interview with a German magazine published on Saturday, Mr Grillo said that ''if conditions do not change'' Italy ''will want'' to leave the euro and return to its former national currency.
  The 64-year-old comic-turned-political activist also said Italy needs to renegotiate its '‚¬2 trillion debt.
  At 127 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), it is the highest in the euro zone after Greece.
  ''Right now we are being crushed, not by the euro, but by our debt. When the interest payments reach '‚¬100 billion a year, we're dead. There's no alternative,'' he told Focus, a weekly news magazine.
  He said Italy was in such dire economic straits that ''in six months, we will no longer be able to pay pensions and the wages of public employees.''
  And of course government debt has taken center stage in the United States as well.
  The sequester cuts have now gone into effect, and they will definitely have an effect on the U.S. economy. Of course that effect will not be nearly as dramatic as many Democrats are suggesting, but without a doubt those cuts will cause the U.S. economy to slow down a bit.
  And of course the U.S. economy has already been showing plenty of signs of slowing down lately. If you doubt this, please see my previous article entitled "Consumer Spending Drought: 16 Signs That The Middle Class Is Running Out Of Money".
  So what comes next?
  Well, everyone should keep watching Europe very closely, and it will also be important to keep an eye on Wall Street. There are a whole bunch of indications that the stock market is at or near a peak. For example, just check out what one prominent stock market analyst recently had to say...
  "Every reliable technical tool is warning of major peaking action," said Walter Zimmerman, the senior technical analyst at United-ICAP. "This includes sentiment, momentum, classical chart patterns, and Elliott wave analysis.
  "Most of the rally in the stock market since 2009 can be chalked up to the Federal Reserve's attempt to create a 'wealth effect' through higher stock market prices. This only exacerbates the downside risk. Why? The stock market no is longer a lead indicator for the economy. It is instead reflecting Fed manipulation. Pushing the stock market higher while the real economy languishes has resulted in another bubble.
  "The next leg down will not be a partial correction of the advance since the 2009 lows. It will be another major financial crisis. The worst is yet to come."
  Sadly, most people will continue to deny that anything is wrong until it is far too late.
  Many areas of Europe are already experiencing economic depression, and it is only a matter of time before the U.S. follows suit.
  Time is running out, and I hope that you are getting ready.
  So what do you think?
  How much time do you believe that we have left before the next wave of the economic collapse strikes?
  Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below...
  - See more at: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/12-things-that-just-happened...
  Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 4(40 votes)
Wayback Machine | 67 Books Every Geek Should Read to Their Kids Before Age 10
  Link to Article
  Source: What Jamie Flarity is reading.
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 18:15
  Photo: Flickr Neeta Lind
  At GeekDad we are committed to helping you raise geek generation 2.0, and we believe few things that you do are more important than reading to your kids early and often. The social science is in, vocabulary is a major predictor of cognitive development in your children. Reading to them is a great way to get them using the language centers of their brain. Plus some of the best times we have had with our children have come while watching their eyes glisten as Harry looks in the Mirror of Erised or listening to their giggles as they discover the joys and absurdities of Shel Silverstein's poetry. Reading aloud to your kids can be a blast.
  So what books should geeks be reading to their kids? What books are essential to the geek experience? Well, that depends on the parent, and that depends on the kid. Some kids can handle the long slog to get Frodo to Rivendell where The Lord of the Rings finally takes off and becomes a rollicking adventure; many kids (and adults) cannot. So rather than creating a single list of recommended books, we decided to let members of the GeekDad team create the list of books which they enjoyed reading to their hatchlings as they progressed through their beta period. Consider these the staff picks at your own personal geek library:
  The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a lovely homage to early French film making and a most creative book. Part novel and part picture book, the story lends to reading aloud while discovering together how Brian Selznick uses images to tell the story. Erik Wecks
Congressional Hearing On The Targeted Assassination Of Americans By Obama
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by MOXNEWSd0tC0M
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:43
'Privilege, not a right': UK on secret passport-revoking crusade '-- RT News
  Link to Article
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:00
  Published time: March 04, 2013 14:32
  British biometric European Union passport (AFP Photo/Alex Wong/Getty Images)
  As the number of those stripped of British citizenship on national security grounds grows, Chris Woods from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has told RT that the whole process is highly secretive, and unaccountable to the rule of law.
  ''Neither of these individuals had been charged with any offense in the UK. We know they were accused of serious terrorist offenses, but no charges were ever laid against them,'' Woods said, arguing that the process is highly secretive.
  ''We don't know the evidence that has been laid against these men and even if they are able to get an appeal which is very very difficult that appeal would mostly be heard in secret,'' he said. ''The government`s response so far has been that citizenship here in the UK is a privilege, not a right.''
  The London-based bureau has revealed that since 2010, Home Secretary Theresa May has revoked the passports of 16 individuals over alleged links to militant or terrorist groups. Two of those sixteen were subsequently killed in US drone strikes.
  In many cases, they were stripped of their citizenship while abroad. A Sudanese-British man took his four children on holiday to Sudan. Four days after leaving, he was stripped of his passport and his children were banned from returning the UK.
  At least five of those whose British passport has been revoked were born in Britain; one man had lived in the country for almost 50 years, the bureau reported.
  Mohamed Sakr, who was born in Newham and raised in west London, had dual nationality as his parents were Egyptian. His British citizenship was revoked in September 2010, and 17 months later he was killed in a US drone strike in Somalia.
  According to Woods, the US drone strike killings of those stripped of British citizenship raise questions of a possible connection between the two. The US was also apparently involved in the case of another man kicked out of the UK.
  A dual British-Somali national, Mahdi Hashi was stripped of his UK citizenship while in Somalia caring for his grandmother. He went missing shortly after the incident, and later appeared before a US court on charges of"providing material support" to Somali militant group al-Shabaab, and ''unlawful use of high-powered firearms.''
  Hashi's family has claimed he was stripped of British citizenship after he refused to become an informant for the UK's MI5 intelligence service.
(Via Cult of Android)
  Link to Article
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 15:37
  Apple has demonstrated muted contempt for podcasting, with its passive-aggressive stewardship of the content and its apathy about the low quality of its own Podcasts app.
  I believe podcasting is the future of all audio and video media '-- the future of radio and television '-- and I'll tell you why below.
  So if Apple doesn't want to own the future of TV and radio, maybe Google should take over the leadership role from Apple?
  Who's ready for Droidcasting?
  I slammed Apple yesterday on Cult of Mac for treating podcasting like an unwanted stepchild.
  Besides the requisite dissing of Apple's pathetically bad Podcasts app, I pointed out that podcasting is an enormous opportunity '-- the media opportunity of the decade, really '-- and Apple apparently couldn't care less.
  People who make giant sacks of money making, distributing and broadcasting TV shows are very, VERY interested in maintaining a massive distance between TV on the one hand, which is supposed to be high-quality, professionally produced audio-visual entertainment, and podcasting on the other, which is imagined as some shirtless loser in his mother's basement talking into the plastic microphone that came with his Gateway PC.
  (People who make much smaller sacks of money on radio are even more interested in maintaining this mental separation in the minds of the public because radio budgets are much more easily achieved by podcasters.)
  Apple, apparently wants to help Hollywood maintain this fiction by keeping the podcasters in their place.
  Hollywood and Apple, I suspect, want to maintain the fiction of separation between studio-produced content and independently produced content because they believe there's far more money to be made with monopoly and control.
  Apple used to talk a lot about changing the world. But when it comes to TV, radio and podcasting, Apple is working hard to prevent the world from changing.
  If you even mention the P word in Hollywood, a van will pull up, and hooded men will throw a sack over your head, take you to a deserted studio lot in Sherman Oaks and torture you by forcing you to watch Glee.
  Here's the stark truth the media industrial complex does NOT want you to even think about: All radio and television will soon become podcasts.
  A podcast is nothing more than either an audio or a video program that may or may not be streamed live over the Internet, which can be made available for download and which can be subscribed to.
  House of Cards, for example, is a podcast TV show, although a limited one from a distribution standpoint. Like everybody else in the media distribution business, everybody knows podcasting is the future of TV. So Netflix is producing its own TV show and distributing it online. But they're trying to maintain control of it by not using existing podcasting channels, such as iTunes or the Play Store.
  House of Cards is an interim step between studio control and zero-control podcasting. It's all moving in the direction of open podcasting.
  Podcasting will radically improve both radio and TV, too. Rather than being prisoners to the time slots, the cable operators and the dribbling out of seasonal shows, we'll all eventually be able to simply subscribe to shows and watch them in any order we want.
  Hollywood must, and will, figure out how to monetize podcasting. Because if they don't, they will be run out of business by podcasts that do figure it out.
  The truth is that there is a lot of truly crappy podcasts out there. But it's also true that the best podcasts are vastly superior to the average TV and radio shows.
  In fact, podcasts can do things network-produced shows can't do.
  Leo Laporte's TWiT shows, for example, are better than Leo Laporte's Tech TV shows, precisely because TWiT doesn't have a bunch of corporate suits mucking with the creative process.
  No Agenda is better in some ways than any recurring political talk radio show precisely because by deliberately rejecting advertising they can tell the truth about how politics and the media really work without worrying about politically connected studio chiefs telling them what they can and cannot say '-- something that happens constantly at major media news organizations.
  Slate's Culture Gabfest is smarter than anything you can find on TV or radio because there's no studio telling them to dumb it down to attract a bigger and more mainstream audience, or telling them they need to go after urban males between the ages of 18 to 24 to boost advertising revenue.
  In all three of these cases, the content is better but the production budgets are far smaller with the podcasts. Over the past five years, the ability for low budgets to approximate high budgets with the quality of equipment, including cameras and microphones, has gotten far higher. This trend will continue until it's trivially easy to match the production values of Hollywood studios at very low cost.
  Some of the best content produced these days is done for the web only, whether they're explicitly podcasting or not '-- House of Cards, for example, or some of the content produced for Funny or Die.
  And, in any event, what does it matter? The quality of the content and production is totally unrelated to how programming is delivered. And podcasting is just a delivery method for audio and video files, and the one with by far the most potential, in my opinion.
  How Droidcasting Could Work
  I believe Apple doesn't care about podcasting, and really wants to help Hollywood maintain the fiction that streaming, downloadable and subscribable TV programming isn't podcasting.
  So how about Google?
  Google is in a unique position to take leadership in podcasting away from Apple.
  First, Google can provide a podcasting solution that's for everybody, not just Apple users.
  Second, some of the most innovative content in the world is being created for YouTube, which has podcast-like subscriptions but doesn't quite yet deliver the full power and convenience of real podcasting.
  The reason is that podcasting unites audio and video media with the web and mobile media players. YouTube is nice, but what's needed is unity '-- for the audio and the video and the streaming and the conversation to happen in one place both on the web and on mobile devices. With YouTube, I can't even turn off the screen on my phone without stopping the program.
  Third, Google has Google+, which is the perfect place for podcasters to set up a Page for each show. Google Plus podcasting pages could offer the ability to subscribe, maintain live chat during shows, post YouTube video and audio of the shows, and enable downloads. (Right now, podcasters can use Google+ to basically promote their podcast, but ultimate they have to provide links to an external web site to get the content '-- it should all happen right there on the page.) This would make Hangouts the default medium for talk-related podcasts, as it should be. Google Droidcasts should explicitly support audio and audio-based subscriptions, rather than YouTube's approach to audio, which is video with a blank screen.
  Fourth, Google has Google TV, which could use video podcasting as a killer way to deliver TV shows by subscription or a la carte.
  And fifth, Google has Android and the Play Store. Google should work with third-party developers to build killer apps for delivering both live-streaming and downloadable and subscribable content to phones and tablets and, eventually, car dashboards.
  Google should create central, one-stop shopping for Droidcasts and place them on the home page on par with ''Music,'' ''Books,'' ''Movies,'' ''Android Apps'' and ''Devices.''
  Podcasting is '-- and should be '-- the future of audio and video content.
  Right now, the industry in general and Apple in particular, can't seem to design whether to embrace the disruptive future or cling to the controlling, exclusionary past.
  Google is the perfect company to step up and wrench podcasting leadership from Apple.
  They've got all the publishing, content, community and mobile products in place. They've just go to bring it all together on Google+ and explicitly facilitate podcasting.
  So who's ready for a new world of Droidcasting?
  (Via Cult of Android.)
DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones | Politics and Law
  Link to Article
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 14:31
  Homeland Security's specifications say drones must be able to detect whether a civilian is armed. Also specified: "signals interception" and "direction finding" for electronic surveillance.
  Homeland Security required that this Predator drone, built by General Atomics, be capable of detecting whether a standing human at night is "armed or not."
  (Credit: U.S. Department of Homeland Security)The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones, government documents show.
  The documents provide more details about the surveillance capabilities of the department's unmanned Predator B drones, which are primarily used to patrol the United States' northern and southern borders but have been pressed into service on behalf of a growing number of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police.
  Homeland Security's specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, say they "shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not," meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They also specify "signals interception" technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and "direction finding" technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.
  The Electronic Privacy Information Center obtained a partially redacted copy of Homeland Security's requirements for its drone fleet through the Freedom of Information Act and published it this week. CNET unearthed an unredacted copy of the requirements that provides additional information about the aircraft's surveillance capabilities.
  Homeland Security's Predator B drone can stay aloft conducting surveillance for 20 hours.
  (Credit: U.S. Department of Homeland Security)Concern about domestic use of drones is growing, with federal legislation introduced last month that would establish legal safeguards, in addition to parallel efforts underway from state and local lawmakers. The Federal Aviation Administration recently said that it will "address privacy-related data collection" by drones.
  The prospect of identifying armed Americans concerns Second Amendment advocates, who say that technology billed as securing the United States' land and maritime borders should not be used domestically. Michael Kostelnik, the Homeland Security official who created the program, told Congress that the drone fleet would be available to "respond to emergency missions across the country," and a Predator drone was dispatched to the tiny town of Lakota, N.D., to aid local police in a dispute that began with reimbursement for feeding six cows. The defendant, arrested with the help of Predator surveillance, lost a preliminary bid to dismiss the charges.
  "I am very concerned that this technology will be used against law-abiding American firearms owners," says Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation. "This could violate Fourth Amendment rights as well as Second Amendment rights."
  Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection agency declined to answer questions about whether direction-finding technology is currently in use on its drone fleet. A representative provided CNET with a statement about the agency's unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) that said signals interception capability is not currently used:
  U.S. Customs and Border Protection is not deploying signals interception capabilities on its UAS fleet. Any potential deployment of such technology in the future would be implemented in full consideration of civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy interests and in a manner consistent with the law and long-standing law enforcement practices.
  CBP's UAS program is a vital border security asset. Equipped with state-of-the-art sensors and day-and-night cameras, the UAS provides real-time images to frontline agents to more effectively and efficiently secure the nation's borders. As a force multiplier, the UAS operates for extended periods of time and allows CBP to safely conduct missions over tough-to-reach terrain. The UAS also provides agents on the ground with added situational awareness to more safely resolve dangerous situations.
  During his appearance before the House Homeland Security committee, Kostelnik, a retired Air Force major general who recently left the agency, testified that the drones' direction-finding ability is part of a set of "DOD capabilities that are being tested or adopted by CBP to enhance UAS performance for homeland security." CBP currently has 10 Predator drones and is considering buying up to 14 more.
  If the Predator drones were used only to identify smugglers or illegal immigrants crossing the Mexican and Canadian borders, or for disaster relief, they might not be especially controversial. But their use domestically by other government agencies has become routine enough -- and expensive enough -- that Homeland Security's inspector general said (PDF) last year that CBP needs to sign agreements "for reimbursement of expenses incurred fulfilling mission requests."
  "The documents clearly evidence that the Department of Homeland Security is developing drones with signals interception technology and the capability to identify people on the ground," says Ginger McCall, director of the Open Government Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "This allows for invasive surveillance, including potential communications surveillance, that could run afoul of federal privacy laws."
  A Homeland Security official, who did not want to be identified by name, said the drones are able to identify whether movement on the ground comes from a human or an animal, but that they do not perform facial recognition. The official also said that because the unarmed drones have a long anticipated life span, the department tries to plan ahead for future uses to support its border security mission, and that aerial surveillance would comply with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and other applicable federal laws.
  The documents show that CBP specified that the "tracking accuracy should be sufficient to allow target designation," and the agency notes on its Web site that its Predator B series is capable of "targeting and weapons delivery" (the military version carries multiple 100-pound Hellfire missiles). CBP says, however, that its Predator aircraft are unarmed.
  Gene Hoffman, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who's the chairman of the Calguns Foundation, said CBP "needs to be very careful with attempts to identify armed individuals in the border area" when aerial surveillance touches on a constitutional right.
  "In the border area of California and Arizona, it may be actively dangerous for the law-abiding to not carry firearms precisely due to the illegal flow of drugs and immigrants across the border in those areas," Hoffman says.
  CBP's specifications say that signals interception and direction-finding technology must work from 30MHz to 3GHz in the radio spectrum. That sweeps in the GSM and CDMA frequencies used by mobile phones, which are in the 300MHz to 2.7GHz range, as well as many two-way radios.
  The specifications say: "The system shall provide automatic and manual DF of multiple signals simultaneously. Automatic DF should be able to separate out individual communication links." Automated direction-finding for cell phones has become an off-the-shelf technology: one company sells a unit that its literature says is "capable of taking the bearing of every mobile phone active in a channel."
  Although CBP's unmanned Predator aircraft are commonly called drones, they're remotely piloted by FAA-licensed operators on the ground. They can fly for up to 20 hours and carry a payload of about 500 lbs.
A Place At The Table - Official Trailer [HD]
  Link to Article
  Mon, 04 Mar 2013 14:28