What Adam Curry is reading

CNN: Spreading Virus Threatens Entire World!
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 23:29
Michigan State emergency alert error causes campus shooter scare | MLive.com
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 23:23
  EAST LANSING -- Thousands of Michigan State University students and community members received a scare Tuesday evening when the institution's emergency alert system incorrectly warned of a campus shooter.The university sent out the following message at 6:10 p.m. via text and email:"THIS IS AN EMERGENCY MESSAGE from MSU POLICE, DO NOT HANG UP. There has been a shooting incident at Wilson Hall. Take shelter in a locked room. Monitorwww.msu.edu; Public Media."At 6:45 p.m., a corrected alert was issued:"The MSU Police accidently sent a message of an active shooter on campus. THERE IS NO ACTIVE SHOOTER ON CAMPUS.....THERE IS NO DANGER ON CAMPUS"The MSU Police Department said on its Facebook about 7:10 p.m. that the episode was the result of a technical error:"An unknown computer issue during launching of the tornado warning caused an erroneous message reference a violent incident occuring on MSU's campus. There was no violent incident. We apologize for any undue worring this may have caused. We are investigating the computer glitch to ensure this does not occur again."The error appeared to coincide with alerts of a tornado warning that had been issued for Ingham County about the same time. Not all subscribers to MSU's emergency alert system received the erroneous message.The mix-up frightened and upset many.MSU Alerts is now confirming that the Active Shooter alert was a false alarm. Now I can walk out to my car without having to duck into cover
  '-- Aiman Farooq (@AimanFarooq) May 28, 2013Idc if it was a mistake, the fact that I didn't receive the #MSU alert regarding an on-campus shooter is disturbing. What if it was legit?
  '-- Colin Dilworth (@Dilworth269) May 28, 2013Also not sure if its a good or bad thing that I didn't receive the text about the shooter at MSU...even if it was false #ohwell
  '-- Mel Tenlen (@MelissaTenlen) May 28, 2013MSU police were not immediately available for comment.
Minority Media
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 23:20
  MSNBC
  "The Rachel Maddow Show"
  HLN's wall-to-wall coverage of the Jodi Arias trial has had substantial ratings legs. Surging around the time of the May 8 verdict, the network notched an extremely rare monthly victory: It topped MSNBC in total day and primetime. And with CNN posting its second consecutive month as a distant primetime runner-up to Fox News Channel, MSNBC is in a very precarious fourth place.
  Averaging 539,000 viewers in primetime and 175,000 viewers in the adults 25-54 demographic, MSNBC suffered double-digit drops from last May -- down a respective 20 and 19 percent. Losses were less substantial in total day, down 10 percent to an average 346,000 viewers and down 7 percent to 115,000 adults 25-54, while all other nets pulled growth in multiple categories.
  STORY: Cable News Rankings Shuffle in April as MSNBC Loses Demo to HLN
  The soft start for All In With Chris Hayes has not helped. Hayes, down 32 percent in total viewers from The Ed Show last May, has offered a poor lead-in for MSNBC's primetime flagship, The Rachel Maddow Show, at 9 p.m. The show delivered its lowest-rated month since it debuted in September 2008 (717,000 total viewers) and its second lowest with adults 25-54 (210,000). Maddow was topped by typical time slot victor Sean Hannity and CNN's Piers Morgan.
  Winner FNC, posting modest year-to-year losses in the key demo, was still number three across all of cable in both primetime and total day. Heavily covering White House woes like the Benghazi hearings, the network averaged 1,246,000 daily viewers (up 24 percent) and 236,000 adults 25-54 (down 5 percent) for the full day. Primetime saw 17 percent growth with 1,973,000 total viewers and a 6 percent dip with 308,000 in 25-54.
  CNN is in significantly better shape than it was last May when it hit 20-year lows. The network's year-to-year growth brought in a third-place 465,000 total viewers for total day and a second-place 660,000 total viewers in primetime, growth of 61 and 70 percent. CNN's demo jumps were more considerable, rising 92 percent to 161,000 adults 25-54 in total day and 97 percent to 225,000 adults 25-54 in primetime.
  PHOTOS: The Most Talked-About TV News Faces
  But the biggest percentage gains belong to HLN. The network posted its best May ever, coming in second in total day and third in primetime. Afternoon interest in Arias had the network up 111 percent to an average 494,000 viewers and up 90 percent to 175,000 in the demo during total day. Primetime saw total viewership climb 91 percent to 624,000 viewers and 97 percent to 209,000 adults 25-54.
  Year-to-year comparisons will get trickier as the summer wears on, as 2012 saw viewership jump as the presidential election approached. HLN is also poised for a significant drop when the eventual Arias sentencing puts an end to what has been a very good story for the network.
  Read the complete rankings, May 2013 versus May 2012, via Nielsen:
  Total DayFNC: 1,246,000 total viewers, up 24 percent (236,000 in 25-54, down 5 percent)CNN: 465,000 total viewers, up 61 percent (161,000 in 25-54, up 92 percent)MSNBC: 346,000 total viewers, down 10 percent (115,000 in 25-54, down 7 percent)HLN: 494,000 total viewers, up 111 percent (175,000 in 25-54, up 90 percent) PrimetimeFNC: 1,973,000 total viewers, up 17 percent (308,000 in 25-54, down 6 percent)CNN: 660,000 total viewers, up 70 percent (225,000 in 25-54, up 97 percent)MSNBC: 539,000 total viewers, down 20 percent (175,000 in 25-54, down 19 percent)HLN: 624,000 total viewers, up 91 percent (209,000 in 25-54, up 97 percent)
US Soldier to Plead Guilty to Afghan Massacre to Avoid Death
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 23:14
  MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti) - US soldier Robert Bales accused of massacring 16 people, nine of them children, in southern Afghanistan last year, will plead guilty to avoid death penalty, Al Jazeera reported citing his lawyer.
  According to investigators, Staff Sgt. Bales left his base in southern Afghanistan early on March 11, 2012. He attacked people in a nearby village, returned to his base and then left again to attack another village killing a total of 16 people, mostly women and children.
  John Browne, a lawyer for Bales, said his defendant will plead guilty to charges of premeditated murder on June 5 and will tell the court his account of the events. The prosecution demands a death penalty for Bales.
  Prosecutors said earlier that Bales, a decorated veteran of four combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, had demonstrated ''consciousness of wrong-doing.'' Army investigators said he tested positive for steroids three days after the killings and other soldiers testified he had been drinking the night of the killings.
  The killings sparked furious protests prompting the United States to temporarily halt combat operations in Afghanistan in the wake of the killings. It took US investigators three weeks to reach the crime scenes.
Unprecedented e-mail privacy bill sent to Texas governor's desk | Ars Technica
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 23:11
  Gov. Rick Perry is expected to sign the e-mail privacy bill, which passed both houses of the state legislature without a single "nay" vote.
  Assuming that Texas Governor Rick Perry does not veto it, the Lone Star State appears set to enact the nation's strongest e-mail privacy bill. The proposed legislation requires state law enforcement agencies to get a warrant for all e-mails regardless of the age of the e-mail.
  On Tuesday, the Texas bill (HB 2268) was sent to Gov. Perry's desk, and he has until June 16, 2013 to sign it or veto it. If he does neither, it will pass automatically and take effect on September 1, 2013. The bill would give Texans more privacy over their inbox to shield against state-level snooping, but the bill would not protect against federal investigations. The bill passed both houses of the state legislature earlier this year without a single "nay" vote.
  This new bill, if signed, will make Texas law more privacy-conscious than the much-maligned 1986-era Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). With the ECPA, federal law enforcement agencies are only required to get a warrant to access recent e-mails before they are opened by the recipient.
  As we've noted many times before, there are no such provisions in federal law once the e-mail has been opened or if it has sat in an inbox, unopened, for 180 days. In March 2013, the Department of Justice acknowledged in a Congressional hearing that this distinction no longer makes sense and the DOJ would support revisions to ECPA.
  A spokesperson for the governor, Courtney Ford, did not immediately respond to Ars' request to find out whether Gov. Perry plans on signing the bill. The bill reads in part:
  An authorized peace officer may require a provider of an electronic communications service or a provider of a remote computing service to disclose electronic customer data that is in electronic storage by obtaining a warrant under Section 5A.
  . . .
  [A] district judge may issue a search warrant under this section for electronic customer data held in electronic storage, including the contents of and records and other information related to a wire communication or electronic communication held in electronic storage, by a provider of an electronic communications service or a provider of a remote computing service described by Subsection (h), regardless of whether the customer data is held at a location in this state or at a location in another state. An application made under this subsection must demonstrate probable cause for the issuance of the warrant and must be supported by the oath or affirmation of the authorized peace officer.
  As if the ECPA wasn't complicated enough, one United States circuit court of appeals decided that federal authorities do need a warrant before accessing e-mail. The case, known as United States v. Warshak, has created a split as other circuits, including the United States Supreme Court, haven't yet taken up the issue. (Google has since taken the public stance that it will follow the Warshak standard.)
  Previously, Texas state law had language mirroring ECPA's existing 180-day requirement. Of course, ECPA remains federal law of the land in Texas and in all the other 49 states. But civil libertarians and legal experts hope that this may spur Washington, DC into passing much-needed ECPA reform, which has languished for some time now.
  ''Privacy is a special thing in Texas'--it goes to the core values of Texas,'' said Chris Soghoian, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union.
  ''It's always good to see states passing pro-privacy legislation because it sends a signal to Congress. It sends a signal to conservative members who might not yet be on board that this is something being supported in their own states and it helps the courts to see that this is a safe space to venture into. When cities and states start protecting e-mail, then judges may feel like there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.''
  Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), agreed.
  ''It is the first state legislature I'm aware of to change the law this way,'' he told Ars. ''Other states are currently considering similar legislation, including California'--where EFF sponsored SB 467 recently passed the Senate 33-1 and is now being considered in the Assembly."
  "It's significant proof that privacy reform is not only needed but also politically feasible with broad bipartisan support," Fakhoury said. "Hopefully that will impact federal ECPA reform efforts by getting people on both of sides of the political aisle to work together to make meaningful electronic privacy reform a reality. The more states that pass similar legislation, the more pressure it will put on Congress to keep up with the changing legal landscape.''
'Mars rat' spied by NASA's Curiosity rover | Fox News
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 23:08
  Is that a rat on Mars?
  A photo from the mast camera on NASA's Curiosity rover reveals the dusty orange, rock-strewn surface of the Red Planet -- and what starry-eyed enthusiasts claim is a dusty orange rodent hiding among the stones.
  The photo, taken Sept. 28, 2012, depicts the ''Rocknest'' site, where NASA's rover took a scoopful of sand, tasted it, and determined it was full of weathered basaltic materials -- not unlike Hawaii, the space agency's scientists said last year.
  'Note its lighter color upper and lower eyelids, its nose and cheek areas, its ear, its front leg and stomach.'
  - ScottCWaring on the blog UFO Sightings Daily
  No word on how the rodent tasted, however.
  The ''creature'' was identified on the UFO Sightings Daily website, where its finder, ScottCWaring, held tight to his opinion: That's one darn cute rodent on Mars.
  ''Note its lighter color upper and lower eyelids, its nose and cheek areas, its ear, its front leg and stomach. Looks similar to a squirrel camouflaged in the stones and sand by its colors," he wrote. "Hey, who doesn't love squirrels, right?''
  Others pointed out that the similarity in coloring and position mean it was most likely just a rock, fingering the psychology phenomenon known as pareidolia, a propensity to pick out faces from everyday objects and structures.
  To take advantage of this psychological phenomenon closer to home, designers at Berlin's Onformative studio developed an algorithm that scans the surface of the earth with Google Maps, picking out geographical structures that are likely to be construed as having face-like features, science blog iO9 recently pointed out.
  Their algorithm found faces in fields, mustaches in mountains, hills with actual eyes.
  Perhaps the algorithm should be turned loose on Mars?
Disneyland Employee Arrested In Connection With Dry Ice Bomb That Exploded In Toontown
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U.S. Drone Strike In Pakistan Kills Al Qaeda Most Wanted And At Least 6 More People
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Facebook Begins Censorship Of Pages With Violence Towards Women
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Monsanto website downed as Anonymous claims hack '-- RT USA
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  Hackers from the Anonymous collective claimed to have infiltrated the website for the biotech giant Monsanto, which has been the subject of recent international protests.
  The cyber-attack was carried out as part of #OpMonsanto, an attempt to demonstrate against Monsanto's reach into every aspect of the food industry, from nature to farmers to consumers. The corporation's main website, Monstanto.com, appeared to have been briefly disabled Wednesday night.
  It comes days after over two million people took part in rallies in 436 cities in 52 countries on May 25.
  The organizers of the May 25 rallies call for labeling of GMO foods and further scientific research on their health effects. They also urge supporters to ''vote with their dollar'' by buying only organic products and boycotting Monsanto-owned companies. Besides that, they are urging a repeal of the so-called Monsanto Protection Act passed in the US Congress, and that the company's executives and politicians who back them are held to account through ''through direct communication, grassroots journalism, and social media.''
Japan, Russia to jointly develop Magadan blocks | Business Line
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 21:09
  Tokyo, May 29:
  Japan and Russia today signed a deal that will see them jointly explore and develop a potentially lucrative oil and gas field off Russia's Far East coast.
  Japanese firm Inpex and Russia's Rosneft state oil giant agreed to work together on the reserve, estimated to hold around 3.4 billion barrels of oil, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun, off the Russian state of Magadan.
  That reserve equates to around three years' worth of oil imports for resource-strapped Japan.
  Under the agreement, the companies will establish joint ventures to carry out the exploration, with Inpex holding a third of each, a release from the Japanese company said.
  ''Inpex is pleased to announce that it has signed the cooperation agreement with Rosneft... to pursue the opportunity to jointly explore and develop exploration blocks, Magadan 2 and 3, in the Sea of Okhotsk'' the statement said.
  ''It is expected that the partnership with Rosneft could be developed through this particular project and enable Inpex to have an opportunity to expand its activities in Russia, a country with huge hydrocarbon reserves.''
  The deal comes after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to cooperate on projects in Russia's Far East when Abe visited Moscow last month.
  Also last month, Rosneft and Japan's Marubeni Corporation signed a deal on the possible construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in the Russian Far East.
  The Japanese Government will back the plan, with its Japan Oil, Gas, and Metals National Corp financing 50-75 per cent of exploration costs, the Yomiuri said.
  Exploration work will start as early as 2017 and development will begin sometime in the 2020s, it said.
  Tokyo is eager to tap Russia's vast natural resources because of Japan's own minimal energy supplies.
  The world's third-largest economy is already cooperating with Russia in natural gas production in various Sakhalin Island projects.
  Analysts say despite historical animosities that include a decades-long territorial row that has prevented the two sides from signing a World War II peace treaty, Tokyo and Moscow are groping for a closer partnership, in a region eyeing China's might with growing unease.
  Public nervousness over nuclear power in the aftermath of the tsunami-sparked disaster at Fukushima has pushed Japan back to a greater reliance on fossil fuels.
Hackers Are Spying On You: Inside the World of Digital Espionage - Newsweek and The Daily Beast
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 20:55
  Winding through corridors lined with poison-tipped umbrellas, pistols fashioned from lipstick tubes, and bulky button-hole cameras, visitors to Washington's International Spy Museum will soon be confronted by a modern, quotidian tool of the trade: a small black laptop. According to the computer's owner, it was employed over a three-year period to briefly knock WikiLeaks offline, disable almost 200 jihadist websites, and develop a handful of sophisticated hacking tools. The laptop, says International Spy Museum executive director Peter Earnest, will ''provide historical context to the ... world of espionage and the intelligence community, in this instance through the scope of cyberterrorism.''
  But the laptop's owner claims no affiliation with the intelligence community; nor can he, by any traditional definition, be classified as a spy. He's a freelancer, a ''patriotic hacktivist'' who goes by the nom de guerre ''the Jester'''--or, in hacker argot, ''th3j35t3r.'' Within certain cybercircles, he has achieved mythical status. According to security analyst T.J. O'Connor, the Jester has ''proved that a single individual is very capable of waging cyberwar at a level we previously attributed only to intelligence agencies or crime syndicates.''
  There exist countless blog posts and Twitter exchanges speculating on the Jester's identity, but we still know almost nothing about him. He implies that he's American, says he has a background in computer programming, and explains he was motivated to undertake offensive hacking operations against enemies of the United States after serving in the military. (He claims to have been affiliated with ''a rather famous unit'' in Afghanistan that was ''involved with supporting Special Forces.'') These are, of course, uncheckable assertions.
  Hundreds of hackers flock to the annual Chaos Computer Club.
  The Jester first surfaced on January 1, 2010, with a tweet announcing a ''sporadic cyber-attack'' on a Taliban website: ''OWNED. By me, Jester.'' He issues short epistles through Twitter, usually documenting websites he has disabled, and offers longer discussions of his work on his blog. But he jealously guards his anonymity, granting relatively few interviews to journalists. I first reached out to him for an interview last July, establishing contact through Twitter'--the only way he communicates with unknowns. After telling me he would reconnect after an online vetting process, he hesitantly agreed to answer questions in an encrypted chat room. And then disappeared. When I reestablished contact a few months later, he declined to talk.
  Hacking, the Jester tells me during our exchange, was merely 'a continuation of [military] service.'
  But last week, with fingers crossed, I made another approach and received a surprisingly quick response: ''Can I ping you with secure [connection] in a bit?''
  Hacking, the Jester tells me during our exchange, was merely ''a continuation of [military] service.'' Indeed, he believes that laptops will someday replace M-16s as the primary tool of warfare. Last year, in a rare live chat with computer science students at the University of Southern Maine, the Jester speculated that soon ''wars won't be fought with boots on the ground'' but in dark basements packed with glowing computer monitors.
  He claims ''no official relationship with law enforcement agencies,'' yet as members of the hacker collective Anonymous'--who take a dim view of the American government'--have been hauled into courtrooms around the globe, it's noteworthy that the Jester has been left untouched. Given that his targets tend to be hostile to American foreign policy, it seems at least plausible that he is operating with the tacit permission of the U.S. intelligence community. Both the Jester and U.S. intelligence officials are tight-lipped on these matters'--and there is no suggestion of an active working relationship'--but in the murky world of cyberwarfare, it certainly seems that the feds are unconcerned by his attacks on their common enemies.
  Chris Helgren / ReutersThe Jester has targeted Julian Assange's controversial WikiLeaks.
  So does he, or does he not, provide information to the authorities? ''I make my work available'--sometimes [publicly], sometimes privately'--but I have no official relationship with law enforcement agencies,'' he tells me. ''I just put things where certain people might 'find' them. It's an unsaid, unspoken nonrelationship.''
  The Jester's techniques have varied over the years. In 2010 after WikiLeaks posted a tranche of classified State Department cables online, he launched a denial of service (DoS) attack'--in which a server is flooded with junk data, rendering it unable to respond to legitimate queries'--and briefly took the site offline. The goal, he tells me, was to knock WikiLeaks off servers in Sweden and ''back onto U.S. servers, where I was hoping the legal peeps would shut that shit off now it was back in jurisdiction. But that didn't happen and we are where we are today.''
  In 2011 the Jester pummeled various Web properties of the Westboro Baptist Church (of ''God Hates Fags'' infamy) with DoS attacks in response to the group's picketing the funerals of American soldiers killed in action. This month he took a slightly different tack with Westboro: after the group celebrated the destructive tornado that hit Oklahoma as divine retribution for America's sins, the Jester took over their website, replaced it with an image of Jesus giving the middle finger, and then rerouted traffic to a Red Cross donation page.
  Chris Miller/Camera Press/ReduxThe popular Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta has become an Anonymous calling card.
  Last week, after the gruesome murder of a soldier by two lone-wolf jihadists in London, British Home Secretary Theresa May called for controversial new laws blocking extremist websites that ''can lead to radicalization.'' The previous day, the Jester'--unconstrained by the niceties of parliamentary debate and British law'--had knocked offline the website of the London-based radical Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary, who acknowledged that one of the accused killers had attended events organized by his (banned) group.
  During the war in Libya, the Jester hacked into The Tripoli Post, a Gaddafi-backed news site, and The Malta Independent, planting fake news stories claiming that regime loyalists were defecting en masse. (It was a modern take on an old espionage trick'--one perfected by the KGB during the Cold War.) He has also sought to expose the real identities of those he considers enemies of the United States'--for instance, revealing the names of jihadists who recruit and proselytize online, as well as the names of people affiliated with Anonymous. He points out that, soon after he published the identities of Anonymous members, ''there were some more Anonymous arrests. Just as a side note.''
  All of this online intrigue has created a lucrative role for private companies that help victims of hacking play defense.
  When we spoke about Stuxnet, the sophisticated malware developed by the United States and Israel that attacked Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz, the Jester argued that the highly publicized attack demonstrated that cyberwarfare is more than merely disabling websites and taunting your enemies online. ''It showed that one could, with absolute precision, and no boots on the ground, target assets in the physical world too,'' he says. ''I find the ability to 'touch' and adversely affect real-world targets from ... cyberspace very comforting.''
  Given his list of nasty targets'--jihadists, Gaddafi, the fanatics of Westboro'--it's hard for me not to find the Jester's work comforting as well. But the wider phenomenon that he typifies is disquieting. Around the world, independent hackers are increasingly engaged in work that looks a lot like espionage and cyberwarfare. Richard Bejtlich, chief security officer at Mandiant, an Alexandria, Virginia''based cybersecurity firm, sees these hackers as a ''return to history. If you look at espionage over thousands of years, for the most part it has been private individuals who were spies. It was only in the 20th century that governments took a real step forward in the creation of national industries around espionage.'' Now, he says, ''the private sector is getting back into the game as a result of the technology available to everyone.''
  Luke MacGregor/ReutersThe Jester knocked offline the website of Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary (center).
  THE EXISTENCE of both the Jester and his nemeses in Anonymous reflects the sea change that has occurred in hacking and cybersecurity over the past two decades. As Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of the Helsinki-based firm F-Secure, recently put it, in the 1990s hackers hacked for fun, but ''those happy days are behind us ... The happy hackers have disappeared.'' Today ''all hackers have motives for their actions.''
  A typical virus from the happy hacker days was ''Form,'' an annoyance that spread far and wide among computers running the DOS operating system in the early 1990s. Once a month, on a specific date, Form would produce a clicking sound in the computer's speaker when the user pressed a key'--but it did no real damage.
  The past two decades have seen a proliferation of hacking movies'--some pure fantasy and others a bit too close to home.
  At that time, the notion that hacking could be something more dangerous'--a tool of war or geopolitics'--was little more than spy novel fantasy. In April 1991, as the first Gulf War came to an end, tech journalist John Gantz perpetrated a hoax on his readers: he told them of a spectacularly successful virus developed by the National Security Agency, which had been smuggled from Jordan to Iraq in a printer chip. When the compromised printer chip was plugged into a network, it supposedly impregnated Saddam Hussein's anti-aircraft batteries with its destructive payload, rendering them useless against American air power. Gantz called the virus AF/91, a combination of the year the code was developed and ''April Fools.''
  AF/91 may have been fiction, but by the end of the decade Gantz's basic idea was no longer far-fetched. In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Bill Clinton greenlit a CIA campaign of cyberwarfare against Serbian targets, including an attempt to drain Serbian bank accounts associated with the government. It remains unclear whether this was ever carried out'--all relevant documents are still classified'--but it was the first time an American hacking operation had been approved as part of a hot war. (Newsweek reported at the time that the plan was ''criticized by some lawmakers who questioned the wisdom'--and legality'--of launching a risky covert action that, if discovered, could prolong the war, alienate other NATO countries'--and possibly blow back on the United States.'')
  More recently, the advent of the Stuxnet virus has made Gantz's hoax seem even more prescient: Iran's Natanz nuclear facility is not connected to the Internet, which means that, like the AF/91 virus of Gantz's imagination, Stuxnet was smuggled in through an infected piece of outside hardware.
  Oliver Morris/GettyChinese intruders gained access to email accounts on about 50 Times computers.
  While all this was happening'--that is, as governments were turning more and more to cyberwarfare'--another parallel trend was developing: the democratization of hacking among ordinary citizens. ''The Jester might be the highbrow guy'--what everyone pictures as 'the hacker''--at the very top of the pyramid,'' says Raj Samani, chief technical officer for security firm McAfee. ''But that broad bottom of the pyramid is getting bigger because everyone can do it.'' In a forthcoming paper on the proliferation of pay-to-hack tools, Samani points out that committing online crimes'--like purloining email passwords or attacking websites'--doesn't require technical expertise. Just a credit card will suffice. A distributed DoS attack against a website, he says, can be purchased online from freelance hackers for as little as $2 an hour.
  Given the ubiquity of hacking, it's little surprise that private individuals and groups have become players in the cyberwarfare arena. Sometimes, as with the Jester and Anonymous, the motive might be ideological. In other instances it may be profit. In October 2012, for instance, the Russian security firm Kaspersky Labs uncovered a massive cyber-espionage operation it dubbed ''Red October.'' The well-designed malware had been in the wild, infecting its quarry, since 2007. But Red October was unique in that it targeted the computers and mobile devices of diplomats, government agencies, and state-run scientific research institutions, allowing its creator to abscond with sensitive'--often classified'--information. The identity of the perpetrator remains unknown, but in January Kaspersky said it had ''no evidence linking this with a nation-state sponsored attack,'' and suggested that it could have been the work of freelance hackers-cum-spies interested in selling the material to governments.
  Iran's Natanz nuclear facility is not connected to the Internet, which means that it was infected by a piece of outside hardware.
  In some cases, hackers may be working more directly for the benefit of governments'--even as the extent of their connections to those governments remains uncertain. To take one example: no one knows whether the Syrian Electronic Army'--a pro-Assad hacking group once praised by the dictator as a ''virtual army in cyberspace'''--is part of the government it supports. (The organization recently claimed credit for using the Associated Press Twitter account to tweet that there had been an explosion at the White House, causing a brief plunge in the stock market. It has also hacked the Twitter accounts of The Onion'--which has regularly mocked the dictatorship in Damascus'--and Justin Bieber. And in Israel, government officials have alleged that the group tried unsuccessfully to penetrate a computer network controlling Haifa's water supply.)
  But even if a government doesn't have an organization like the Syrian Electronic Army to rely on, it can still purchase the services of hackers. ''Anybody, including a government without the offensive cyber capabilities, has this open marketplace,'' Samani told me. During a recent trip to the Oslo Freedom Forum, a conference for dissidents and human rights activists, I had breakfast with the Angolan dissident and anti-corruption campaigner Rafael Marques de Morais, who during the previous day's session on cybersecurity had offhandedly mentioned that his computer'--an Apple laptop'--had seen a significant drop in performance. It wasn't, he soon discovered, in need of routine maintenance. ''Jacob took a look at it,'' he told me gravely, ''and found something.''
  Jacob Appelbaum'--a veteran of WikiLeaks who is currently affiliated with the Tor project, which produces free anonymizing software'--had inspected Marques's computer the previous day and quickly discovered a piece of malware. The surreptitiously installed software was taking a screenshot of Marques's computer activity every 20 seconds and uploading the images to a server in India.
  Khaled Abdullah Ali Al Mahdi / ReutersAssad has hailed the Syrian Electronic Army as a ''virtual army in cyberspace.''
  The story of Appelbaum's discovery proliferated among tech journalists, but one important detail went largely unmentioned: when I emailed Marques last week, he said that, according to Appelbaum's research, ''the malware was custom designed for me.'' (Appelbaum confirmed to me that the infected email that had triggered the attack ''was crafted for him to read specifically.'') Moreover, Marques said digital fingerprints indicated that ''a multinational based in Portugal'' was behind the infection. ''Once [Appelbaum] mentioned the name of the multinational, it all made sense,'' Marques told me. ''It provides auditing services and IT security solutions to the government of Angola.''
  The Angolan government, an authoritarian regime flush with oil money, has the financial resources to pay a company to spy on dissidents, even if it probably does not have the technical ability to do so on its own. Of course, it's impossible to know who was truly behind the attack on Marques's computer. Cyber-espionage, after all, is hugely difficult to trace back to its original source. Indeed, for rogue governments, organizations, and individuals, that is part of the allure.
  BUT IT isn't just hackers whose political importance is on the rise; all of this online intrigue has also created a lucrative role for private companies that, for rather large fees, help victims of hacking play defense against their tormentors. In their own way, these people, too, have ended up as key players on the geopolitical stage.
  In October 2012, New York Times China correspondent David Barboza published a blockbuster expos(C)'--which would later win a Pulitzer'--detailing the vast personal wealth accrued by former prime minister Wen Jiabao. It was classic shoe-leather journalism: using publicly available ''corporate and regulatory records,'' Barboza painted a picture of an authoritarian kleptocracy, in which party grandees feathered their nests with massive bribes and kickbacks.
  From exploding pens to scramblers, these spy gadgets are what movies are made of.
  China's response to the story was swift: Beijing, which had previously been accused of infiltrating computers at Bloomberg and the Associated Press, hacked into the Times. The method was a simple'--but effective'--technique called spear-phishing, in which hackers send emails to a target organization containing an infected attachment or link. In the end, the Chinese intruders gained access to email accounts on about 50 Times computers and obtained the ''corporate passwords'' of every Times employee. (According to Times editor Jill Abramson, however, there was ''no evidence that sensitive emails or files from the reporting of our articles about the Wen family were accessed, downloaded or copied.'')
  In response to the breach, the Times notified the FBI, but federal investigators failed to expel the attackers. In its reporting on the subject, the Times obliquely noted the inadequacy of relying solely on the feds in such situations'--pointing out that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ''worked closely with the F.B.I. to seal its systems'' after a recent hack, but ''months later, the chamber discovered that Internet-connected devices '... were still communicating with computers in China.'' The Times would not repeat that mistake: it hired the cybersecurity firm Mandiant to help it defend itself.
  Mandiant was founded in 2004 by Kevin Mandia, a former U.S. Air Force cyberforensics investigator. It now has 330 employees'--many of whom (Mandiant won't say exactly how many) are former government computer security analysts and retired members of the intelligence community. After the Times discovered the intrusion, Mandiant allowed the hackers'--who it quickly identified as being affiliated with the Chinese government'--to skulk around the newspaper's networks, tracking and learning from their movements before ejecting them.
  ''The counterintelligence model is the best one for this,'' says Mandiant's Richard Bejtlich. ''In most cases, you are operating against the equivalent of a foreign intelligence agency.'' When Mandiant released a minutely detailed report on Chinese hacking of U.S. corporations in February, the Associated Press said the document was noteworthy because ''the extraordinary details ... came from a private security company without the official backing of the U.S. military or intelligence agencies that are responsible for protecting the nation from a cyberattack.''
  I used to have a harder time with my moral compass than I do now,'' the Jester says.
  Mandiant is not the only company operating in this space. CrowdStrike, a Mandiant competitor specializing in ''helping enterprises and governments protect their most sensitive intellectual property and national security information,'' takes a more aggressive'--yet still defensive'--approach, telling potential clients that they ''don't have a malware problem, they have an adversary problem.''
  Adam Meyers, CrowdStrike's director of intelligence, tells me that his company tries to ''raise the costs'' for those involved in electronic espionage and intellectual property theft, making it too expensive and time-consuming to target his clients. Meyers says that CrowdStrike ''conducts counterintelligence'' against hackers: ''For instance, we can make that network they've infiltrated hostile by making them collect bad or inaccurate information, therefore limiting the effectiveness of the attack.''
  Some believe that the intensity of attacks from hostile foreign intelligence agencies requires the offensive capability to ''hack back.'' A recent report by the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, a lobbying group led by former director of national intelligence Dennis Blair and former ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, urged the passage of laws allowing security companies to switch from defensive measures to offensive ones.
  Both experts and politicians have bristled at this idea. ''I get very, very concerned about an unleashed private sector doing active defense,'' House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers told a cybersecurity conference in February.
  The International Spy Museum has acquired the Jester's laptop.
  Of course, that kind of aggressive engagement with America's adversaries is something the Jester is already doing. To his credit, he appears to have struggled with the morality of his actions. Around the time he became the Jester, he told the website Infosec Island, ''I do wrestle with whether what I am doing is right.'' In his 2012 chat with University of Southern Maine students, he acknowledged that he violates ''the same laws the bad guys do. I am under no illusions that I am also a criminal.''
  But when I ask him whether he still has mixed feelings about his work, he says that his doubts have receded. ''I used to have a harder time with my moral compass than I do now,'' he replies, adding that ''the law is murky and unclear at the moment on cyber related issues [and] I am capitalizing on that fact while I can.''
  It's an unsurprising sentiment from someone who sees himself as a soldier in an ongoing war. As he puts it during our chat, ''Cyberspace is fast becoming a serious battle space, everyone is now taking notice, and I am proud to be on the right side of things (kinda).''
Baustin-FBI's Orlando fatal shooting spurs call for investigation - OrlandoSentinel.com
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 29 May 2013 20:49
  An Islamic group Wednesday called for a federal civil-rights investigation of last week's fatal shooting of an Orlando man by an FBI agent investigating his connection to the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.
  And the Tampa director of that group said not only was 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev unarmed when he was shot by the agent May 22, he was hit seven times, including once in the head.
  Initial reports in the wake of the shooting said Todashev might have been armed with a knife when, during questioning in an Orlando condo, he lunged toward the agent, who shot him.
  But the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Florida chapter on Wednesday cited unnamed sources within the FBI as saying Todashev was not armed at the time of the shooting.
  "We did confirm today with sources within the FBI that he was unarmed," CAIR-Tampa Executive Director Hassan Shibly told the Orlando Sentinel on Wednesday afternoon. Later, Shibly told reporters that CAIR has an "intermediary" who said the FBI told him Todashev was unarmed. Shibly did not identify the intermediary.
  At a news conference Wednesday evening, Shibly showed what he said were photos of Todashev's body after the shooting. The photos were taken at an Orlando funeral home after the Orange-Osceola County Medical Examiner's office released the body to Todashev's next of kin, he said.
  The photographer was Khusen Taramov '-- a friend of Todashev's who lives in Kissimmee '-- and photos show at least a dozen wounds, although some may have been exit wounds, Shibly said.
  Agent Dave Couvertier, FBI spokesman in Central Florida, would not comment Wednesday on the CAIR statements. A spokeswoman from the FBI's Boston division also would not discuss the report.
  CAIR's call for an independent investigation follows conflicting accounts by anonymous sources of the shooting '-- which happened while Todashev, a Chechen-born Muslim, was being questioned by FBI and Massachusetts State Police investigators about his connection to one of the Boston bombing suspects and his possible role in a triple killing near Boston.
  Though early accounts from unnamed federal law-enforcement sources claimed Todashev might have been armed with a knife, the latest version, released by a Fox affiliate in Boston, reported that Todashev lunged with a sword at the agent.
  Shibly said there was a sword at the apartment, but it was mounted on the wall, ornamental and had a dull blade and a broken handle.
  The shooting remains under investigation. The FBI has not released any official findings and would not comment on the case. Couvertier earlier told the Sentinel that Todashev initiated a "violent confrontation" during questioning.
  CAIR officials called the news conference, which included Todashev's widow, Reniya Manukyan, as well as Taramov, the friend who drove Todashev to the meeting with the FBI last week.
  "We want to know why it happened. '... We want to know what is the truth," Manukyan said.
  Todashev's friends and fellow Chechens living in Central Florida said the FBI had been following Todashev since just after the April 15 Boston bombings and had questioned him several times on a range of topics, but they were not aware of the possible homicide allegations.
  While living near Boston several years ago, Todashev met Tamerlan Tsarnaev through the area's small Chechen community and their mutual interest in mixed martial arts, his friends told the Sentinel.
  On the night he was shot, Todashev was "primarily" being questioned about a Sept. 11, 2011, triple slaying in Waltham, Mass., federal law-enforcement sources told the Tribune's Washington bureau last week. Officials suspected Todashev and Tsarnaev, the older of the two suspected Boston Marathon bombers, may have had a role in cutting the throats of the three men in Waltham.
  Todashev's widow said Wednesday that she has records proving her husband was with her in Atlanta on Sept. 11, 2011, so he could not have been in Massachusetts on the day of the triple killing. Manukyan was married to Todashev for about three years, she said.
  Myfoxboston.com reported Wednesday that Todashev was asked to write a confession about his role in the triple homicide, and after he began writing, he flipped a table over, knocking the FBI agent into a wall. Then Todashev began waving a "Banzai ceremonial sword," the Fox station said.
  Late Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that two law-enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity said Todashev lunged at the agent and overturned a table, but that he was unarmed.
  Little is publicly known about Todashev and how he ended up in Central Florida after living previously in Massachusetts and Georgia.
  Staff writer Susan Jacobson contributed to this report. hcurtis@tribune.com or 407-420-5257. apavuk@tribune.com or 407-420-5735.
Explosive: president of CBS News and WH Benghazi fiction-writer are blood brothers | Jon Rappoport's Blog
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 29 May 2013 20:47
  President of CBS News and WH Benghazi fiction-writer are blood brothers
  by Jon Rappoport
  May 23, 2013
  www.nomorefakenews.com
  Just a coincidence. Nothing to see. Move along.
  Remember the Benghazi attacks? Remember how the White House rewrote their talking points to scrub out mention of a terrorist attack?
  Well, here are some new talking points.
  Point one: Star CBS investigative reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, has been discussing leaving CBS since April. She can't get some of her Benghazi stories on the air. Attkisson was hot on the trail of figuring out who, at the White House, rewrote the Benghazi talking points.
  Point two: One sure candidate at the White House? Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser and ''mind-melding'' speechwriter.
  Point three: Who is Ben Rhodes' brother? He is David Rhodes, who happens to be Sharyl Attkisson's boss,the president of CBS News.
  Point four: Read point three again.
  Point five: Those White House Benghazi rewrites scrubbed prior mention of ''terror attacks.''
  Point six: Again, reporter Attkisson was hot on the trail of the White House fiction writers'--which could have led to her boss's brother.
  Point seven: Again, Attkisson got into hot water at CBS for her Benghazi coverage.
  Point eight: Again, the president of CBS News, her boss, is the brother of the man who helped organize the White House fiction writing on Benghazi.
  The Daily Caller broke this story.
  Point nine: Somebody has been fiddling with reporter Attkisson's computers. Attkisson has been assembling evidence on the what and the who for several months.
  You're welcome, CBS. I just wanted to arrange all this information so you could release it in coherent form.
  My question is: who at your network will do the rewrites on my talking points? I'd like to be in the room.
  The September 2012 Benghazi attacks killed US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, embassy information officer Sean Smith, and embassy security officers Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
  The White House, in their talking-points rewrites, wanted to avoid calling this a planned terrorist attack. Why? Because investigating the terrorists opens the door to the matter of their funding and support.
  That investigation, unimpeded, could lead to the fact that the US government has been recruiting, arming, and using thugs/terrorists/mercenaries from Libya to destabilize parts of Africa and the Middle East.
  And then we would come to the possibility that some of those US recruits attacked the Benghazi embassy in 2012.
  Thesetalking points, of course, aren't in the CBS or White House portfolio. They're buried deep under the White House, under CIA buildings in Langley, and under CBS News headquarters at Black Rock in New York.
  Jon Rappoport
  The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29thDistrict of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails atwww.nomorefakenews.com
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Drone reportedly kills top Pakistani Taliban figure as Pakistanis continue to decry drone program
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Activist Post
  Wed, 29 May 2013 18:25
  Madison RuppertActivist PostAccording to Pakistani officials and militants, a leader of the Pakistani Taliban was killed by a drone strike on Wednesday while the people of Pakistan continue to decry the U.S. drone program.
  Despite President Obama's claims that there would be new restrictions on and transparency in the drone program, American officials refused to confirm the strike or any details about it, despite the news being reported in Pakistan, according to The New York Times.
  If this drone strike is officially confirmed, it would be the first strike since Obama gave his speech last week promising changes to the drone program.
  The strike reportedly killed Taliban deputy leader Wali ur-Rehman along with six others and injured an additional four in the North Waziristan tribal region, according to local tribesmen and Pakistani security officials.
  The New York Times interestingly points out that it is unclear if Rehman was considered to pose a ''continuing and imminent threat'' to the citizens of the United States, which is one of the guiding criteria for future strikes outlined by Obama in his speech.
  This was quite similar to what Attorney General Eric Holder wrote when admitting that the U.S. drone program has killed four American citizens. Unfortunately, the meaning of ''imminent'' is nowhere near what most people may think.
  ''But in the days since the president's speech, American officials have asserted behind the scenes that the new standards would not apply to the C.I.A. drone program in Pakistan as long as American troops remained next door in Afghanistan,'' the New York Times reported.
  This is hardly surprising, given that earlier this year it was reported that the CIA would not have to abide by the Obama administration's so-called drone playbook.During his briefing Wednesday afternoon, White House spokesman Jay Carney wouldn't confirm the strike, though he did mention a long list of accusations against Rehman leveled by the U.S.
  Rehman has been accused of organizing attacks on American troops in Afghanistan and has a $5 million bounty on his head placed by the U.S. government.
  Danger Room similarly notes that while the U.S. did blame him for a 2009 attack on a secret CIA base in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban's ''involvement in ongoing plots against the U.S. is less evident, however, and Obama explicitly said 'America does not take strikes to punish individuals.'''
  Spencer Ackerman points out that the Pakistani Taliban primarily poses a threat to Pakistan itself, not the United States.
  Indeed, the CIA drone program in Pakistan reportedly began in 2004 with the U.S. government agreeing to kill the Pakistani government's enemies.
  American officials have also called the killing of militant figures like Rehman ''good-will kills,'' hinting that some officials in Pakistan would appreciate them, according to the New York Times.
  While Obama seemed to say that the U.S. was no longer going to pursue and kill the enemies of countries like Pakistan and Yemen, it doesn't seem like that is the case.
  Interestingly, the strike results in quite varied reactions from Pakistanis, though much of it was negative as has been the trend in response to the U.S. drone program as a whole.
  Earlier this month a high court in Pakistan made this very clear in ruling that the strikes are illegal, inhumane and a violation of the UN charter on human rights. The court also directed the Pakistani government to use force to ''protect the right to life'' of Pakistanis.
  The Pakistani Foreign Ministry condemned the strike in a statement and Nawaz Sharif, the incoming prime minister, previously promised to restrict drone activity.
  ''Drone attacks are against the national sovereignty and a challenge for the country's autonomy and independence,'' Sharif said earlier this month.
  The foreign office spokesperson said the strikes ''are counterproductive, entail loss of innocent lives, and violate the principles of national sovereignty and international law,'' according to the Guardian.
  Senator Mushahid Hussain, the chairman of the Pakistani senate's defense committee, also said that Obama's statement was ''not good enough unless there is a cessation of drone attacks.''
  The people of Pakistan also seem to dislike the drone program as well, with an overwhelming number of the voters in the recent elections supporting the two parties condemning the U.S. drone attacks.
  Both Sharif and his political rival Imran Khan have spoke out against drones with Khan actually vowing to shoot down drones, according to the Guardian.
  The U.S. government is already moving to stem the increasingly strong anti-drone movement in Pakistan with Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Pakistan in early June.
  Kerry is reportedly going to ''rebuild this important partnership'' with Pakistan during his visit.
  ''Kerry's meetings with the new leadership will test Washington's 'willingness to work closely on issues of common interest,''' according to a report from the Asia Times.
  Will the new government in Pakistan take more radical steps to curtail the U.S. drone program? Will the Obama administration actually follow through with the statements Obama made in his speech?
  Let us know what you think by leaving a comment on this article, tweeting us or leaving a comment on our Facebook page.
  Please support our work and help us start to pay contributors by doing your shopping through our Amazon link or check out some must-have products at our store.
  This article first appeared at End the Lie.
  Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on UCYTV Monday nights 7 PM - 9 PM PT/10 PM - 12 AM ET. Show page link here: http://UCY.TV/EndtheLie. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com
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Letter Sent to Bloomberg Is Said to Test Positive for Ricin
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: NYT > Home Page
  Wed, 29 May 2013 18:25
  A letter addressed to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg that arrived late last week at a municipal building has tested positive for ricin, according to two people familiar with the matter.
  A second letter containing the poison arrived at a building in Washington that houses Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group Mr. Bloomberg helps run and finances, a person familiar with the matter said. Investigators believe both letters were sent by the same person.
  ''The writer, in letters, threatened Mayor Bloomberg, with references to the debate on gun laws,'' said Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the New York Police Department.
  Mr. Bloomberg never received the letter addressed to him, those familiar with the matter said.
  The letter sent to Mr. Bloomberg arrived at 100 Gold Street in Manhattan, which houses the offices of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
  Members of the police department's Emergency Service Unit who came in contact with the letter that was opened at the city's mail facility on Gold Street on Friday are being examined for minor symptoms of ricin exposure that they experienced on Saturday, but which have since abated.
  Ricin can be fatal if swallowed or inhaled.
  The F.B.I.'s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the police department's Intelligence Division, which is responsible for the Mayor's protection, are investigating the threats.
Amazon Greenlights 'Alpha House', 'Betas', 'Annebots', 'Creative Galaxy' and 'Tumbleaf' as its First-Ever Original Series, Available Exclusively on Prime Instant Video
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: TVbytheNumbers
  Wed, 29 May 2013 18:25
  via press release:
  Customers Have Spoken: Alpha House, Betas, Annebots, Creative Galaxy and Tumbleaf Chosen for Amazon's First-Ever Original Series, Available Exclusively on Prime Instant Video
  Amazon and LOVEFiLM customers weighed in to help decide which pilots will be made into series
  SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May. 29, 2013-- (NASDAQ: AMZN) '-- Four senators-turned-unlikely-roommates, four young entrepreneurs attempting to make it big in techland, a kid scientist and her robots, an alien artist, and a whimsical fox searching for adventure'--are all getting back into character. Comedy pilots Alpha House and Betas, along with kids pilots Annebots, Creative Galaxy and Tumbleaf, have been given the greenlight to begin production on a full series of episodes that will air exclusively on Prime Instant Video later this year and in early 2014. Amazon and LOVEFiLM customers gave feedback that Amazon Studios used to decide which comedy and kids pilots should be made into Amazon's first original series.
  ''We are thrilled at the enthusiastic customer response to our first original pilots,'' said Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios. ''We built Amazon Studios so that customers could help decide which stories would make the very best movies and TV shows. It's exciting to see the process in motion, doing exactly what we set out to do. The success of this first set of pilots has given us the push to try this approach with even more shows'--this is just the beginning.''
  ''We're thrilled to have emerged safely from this harrowing exercise in online democracy,'' said Garry Trudeau, Alpha House creator. ''All of us at Alpha House thank both Amazon and its wise and wonderful customer base for such a happy outcome. As the future of episodic TV packs up and moves to Seattle, we hope the audience will continue to have as much fun watching the show as we have making it.''
  ''After many sleepless nights scrutinizing the number of stars we were getting online, we're excited that both Amazon and the Amazon customers have given us a vote of confidence to move forward with a full season of Betas,'' said Michael London, Executive Producer of Betas. ''This is only the beginning for our young social media players and we are excited to push them out in the Big World to see if they sink or swim.''
  ''It's really rewarding to hear that customers loved Creative Galaxy. It has been a passion project for me to bring the best arts and creativity to kids with Amazon, and I'm so excited that kids are going to be able to enjoy a full season of the show early next year,'' said Angela C. Santomero, Creator of Creative Galaxy. ''We need more innovative kids programming that puts a strong emphasis on creativity and education. I'm proud and honored to be collaborating with Amazon to make these shows for kids.''
  ''Every time you put a child in front of a screen you have the opportunity to positively influence them which is why we focused on developing pilots that purposefully combined entertainment and learning,'' said Dr. Alice Wilder, Education Psychologist and Curriculum Advisor. ''Parents and kids have told us they loved Annebots, Creative Galaxy and Tumbleaf and it's going to be very exciting to see these pilots develop into shows that provide a unique and modern approach to education that will prepare children for a world that is rapidly changing.''
  What customers are saying about the pilots:
  Alpha House:
  ''A political comedy from the mind of Garry Trudeau starring John Goodman with a cameo from Bill Murray. Needless to say this show has a lot of potential and I can't wait for more episodes.''''John Goodman shines in this series. Love the supporting cast. The show is intelligent, funny and unique. Can't wait for more shows!''''This show was witty and fun. The actors are great and they are what initially drew me to the show. I would definitely watch if the pilot was given the green light.''Betas:
  ''If this show doesn't continue, I don't know what I will do. I was hooked from the very beginning! I need to know if the boys sell their app! I need them to beat Valet Me!''''The characters are great. The humor is witty, dry and hilarious. The premise for the show is not too complicated and when it ended, I immediately wished that I had another episode to watch. Can't wait for a full season. Great show!''''No laugh track. Believable characters. The very real awkwardness. No Cheesecake Factory jokes. And a surprising cameo by Moby. What's not to like?''Annebots:
  ''I think this could be a big hit. We always need top quality children's shows that inspire and teach in a fun and exciting way. I also like that the show will have its own web page. Could be the best idea in children's programing since Sesame Street.''''Both my five and seven-year-old girls loved this. When they watched the preview and saw that there would be apps to go along with the shows they flipped out and thought that was the best thing ever. I would surely pay for apps that go along with the show for their Kindles.''''Our family loved the pilot of Annebots. We have two girls, seven and 10, and they both were disappointed when the pilot ended. They wished it was longer and there were more episodes to watch. We discussed why a pigeon needs a rocket to fly and decided it was in order to fly fast. We also enjoyed the 'eyes' machine and discussed how cool it would be to have one. Please make more episodes.''Creative Galaxy:
  ''My three-year-old loves this episode. He has it completely memorized. We need more CreativeGalaxy as soon as possible! As a teacher, I love the vocabulary and the way it fosters imagination and ideas!''''My kids (six and three-years-old) LOVE this show! The show makes art and creativity very accessible and relevant to kids' everyday lives! Loved it and I can't wait to see it fully animated!''''Absolutely loved the idea of this show and the message it teaches kids. Refreshing to see a show that focuses on the importance of art as a problem solving tool. Very cute and would hope to see more!''Tumbleaf:
  Comedy Series
  Alpha House, which stars John Goodman and was written by Academy Award nominee and Pulitzer-Prize winner Garry Trudeau and produced by Elliot Webb and Jonathan Alter, is a comedy about four misfit senators turned unlikely roommates (Clark Johnson, Matt Malloy and Mark Consuelos) who rent a house together in Washington DC.
  Set in the land of Silicon Valley start-ups, Betas, written by Evan Endicott and Josh Stoddard, follows four friends as they attempt to strike it rich with a new mobile social networking app. Ed Begley Jr., Jon Daly, Joe Dinicol, Charlie Saxton and Karan Soni star in the show. Michael Lehmann will direct and produce the show along with Emmy Award winners Alan Freedland and Alan Cohen, and Academy Award nominee Michael London.
  Kids Series
  Annebots revolves around Anne, a young scientist, who creates three robot helpers to assist her scientific experiments in the back of her dad's junkyard. This science-based series from creator J.J. Johnson aims to introduce kids to science and technology in a fun, new way.
  Creative Galaxy is an animated interactive art adventure series, designed to inspire kids' creative thinking through crafts, story, music and dance. The series was created by Angela Santomero, creator of Blue's Clues and the Emmy-nominated literacy series, Super Why!
  Tumbleaf was created by Drew Hodges and Kelli Bixler of Bix Pix Entertainment, the award-winning stop motion studio. The series, aimed at preschoolers, is set in a whimsical land where a small blue fox named Fig plays each day and discovers adventure, friendship and love around every bend. Children will be enriched by narratives that promote play through exploration and scientific thinking.
  Comprehensive cast and crew information, including bios and filmographies, is available on Amazon's IMDb (http://www.imdb.com), the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content.
  About Amazon Studios
  Since its launch in November 2010, more than 15,000 movie scripts and 3,600 series pilot scripts have been submitted to Amazon Studios. There are currently 24 movies on the development slate and in the processes of being tested with audiences. The original series announced today are the first set of shows for Amazon Studios.
  Amazon Studios continues to invite series creators to upload their proposals for comedy and children's programming at http://studios.amazon.com/getting-started/series or submit them privately via Amazon Studios.
  About Amazon.com
  Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Kindle Paperwhite is the most-advanced e-reader ever constructed with 62% more pixels and 25% increased contrast, a patented built-in front light for reading in all lighting conditions, extra-long battery life, and a thin and light design. The new latest generation Kindle, the lightest and smallest Kindle, now features new, improved fonts and faster page turns. Kindle Fire HD features a stunning custom high-definition display, exclusive Dolby audio with dual stereo speakers, high-end, laptop-grade Wi-Fi with dual-band support, dual-antennas and MIMO for faster streaming and downloads, enough storage for HD content, and the latest generation processor and graphics engine'--and it is available in two display sizes'--7'' and 8.9''. The large-screen Kindle Fire HD is also available with 4G wireless, and comes with a groundbreaking $49.99 introductory 4G LTE data package. The all-new Kindle Fire features a 20% faster processor, 40% faster performance, twice the memory, and longer battery life.
  Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn, www.amazon.it, www.amazon.es and www.amazon.com.br. As used herein, ''Amazon.com,'' ''we,'' ''our'' and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.
VIDEO: Cellist recreates landmark broadcast
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Wed, 29 May 2013 18:24
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Brussels gives six states more time to fix budgets.
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: WT news feed
  Wed, 29 May 2013 18:22
  BRUSSELS - Six EU countries are to be given extra time to bring down their budget deficits, after the European Commission took a lenient stance on austerity measures taken by governments to balance their books.
  France, Spain, Poland and Slovenia have each been given an extra two years to bring their deficits below the 3 percent limit in the bloc's Stability and Growth Pact, while Belgium, Portugal and the Netherlands were given an extra year.
  Meanwhile, Belgium narrowly avoided a fine despite the commission judging that it had taken "no effective action" to correct its deficit over the past three years.
  Under the EU's economic governance framework, countries can be fined 0.2 percent of GDP if they fail to take measures to reduce their debt and deficit levels.
  Economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said the commission "had no choice but to say that Belgium did not take sufficient measures" although he blamed the inaction on the political crisis which left Belgium without a government for 18 months in 2010 and 2011.
  Fining Belgium "would be neither fair or legally sound" said Rehn.
  The EU executive has demanded a 1 percent reduction of Belgium's deficit in 2013 followed by 0.75 percent in 2014, alongside formal commitments to a 'balanced fiscal framework' to apply across all layers of government.
  The reports are the third annual set of country-specific recommendations under the EU's new economic governance framework.
  The country-specific recommendations go beyond the headline figures on debt and deficit levels, touching on sensitive areas of national policy such as wage-setting, social and welfare spending, which affect the state of public finances.
  Although governments remain responsible for these decisions, the EU executive now has sweeping new powers to influence budgetary policy-making.
  If the commission's recommendations are rubber-stamped by governments in June, 16 EU countries will be subject to an excessive deficit procedure (EDP) down from 24 in 2011, with Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania being taken off the EDP-list this year.
  However, the bloc's smallest member state, Malta, is set to fall back into the EDP fewer than six months after it left it, with the Mediterranean Island's deficit projected to balloon to 3.7 percent this year.
  Rehn singled out Italy for praise for having balanced its books "in a durable way". But those expecting stimulus measures and increased public spending will be disappointed.
  Commenting that new Prime Minister Enrico Letta's government had only "a very small window for manoeuvre," Rehn added that the commission had sought assurances that the new government would put in place "strong safeguards."
  But Rehn insisted that the commission's flexibility would not allow countries to escape their responsibilities, warning France that it was "crucial that it uses this extra time to overcome problems with its competitiveness".
  A more positive tone was struck for Spain, which is to be given until 2016 to hit the 3 percent target and was praised for forward "a convincing reform programme."
  For his part, employment commissioner Laszlo Andor said that nineteen member states had been told to reform their labour markets, while ten governments would receive instructions to take more action to reduce poverty.
  Describing youth unemployment as "one of the biggest crises facing the EU," Andor called on governments to implement youth guarantee schemes to offer training, education or a job, and to offer special incentives for companies to hire young people.
  All member states except for Finland and Denmark were given recommendations to revise their tax system.
  Ten governments were told to reduce tax on labour by targeting property and environmental taxation, while a total of 13 member states were urged to improve their own tax governance to combat tax evasion and avoidance.
  Setting out the state of the European economy, commission President Jose Manuel Barroso conceded that short-term recovery was still "handicapped by public and private debt," adding that "the current crisis is structural as well as cyclical."
Obama to Pick James B. Comey to Lead F.B.I.
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  Source: NYT > Home Page
  Wed, 29 May 2013 18:22
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  James Comey in 2005. Mr. Comey, who most recently served as the general counsel for the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, will be confronted by the F.B.I.'s budgetary shortfalls created by across-the-board cuts.
  WASHINGTON '-- President Obama plans to nominate James B. Comey, a former hedge fund executive and a former senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, to replace Robert S. Mueller III as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to a person with knowledge of the selection.
  Mr. Comey, 52, was chosen for the position over the other finalist for the job, Lisa O. Monaco, who has served as the White House's top counterterrorism adviser since January. By choosing Mr. Comey, a Republican, Mr. Obama made a strong statement about bipartisanship at a time when he faces renewed criticism from Republicans in Congress and has had difficulty confirming some important nominees.
  Some Democrats had feared that if the president nominated Ms. Monaco '-- who oversaw national security issues at the Justice Department during the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, last September '-- Republicans would use the confirmation process as a forum for criticism of the administration's handling of the attack.
  As deputy attorney general in the Bush administration, Mr. Comey was a critical player in 2004 in the dramatic hospital room episode in which the White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, and Mr. Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., tried to persuade Attorney General John Ashcroft '-- who was ill and disoriented '-- to reauthorize a warrantless eavesdropping program.
  Mr. Comey, who was serving as the acting attorney general and had been tipped off that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card were trying to go around him, rushed to Mr. Ashcroft's hospital room to thwart them. With Mr. Comey in the room, Mr. Ashcroft refused to reauthorize the program. After the episode, Mr. Bush agreed to make changes in the program, and Mr. Comey was widely praised for putting the law over politics.
  The Obama administration had initially hoped to announce the nomination several weeks ago, but delayed it after the Boston Marathon bombings. Senior F.B.I. officials believed that if a candidate had not been nominated by the end of May, there may not have been enough time to confirm the candidate before the departure of Mr. Mueller, 68. He is mandated by law to leave his post by Sept. 4.
  The bombings, which marked the worst attacks on United States soil since Sept. 11, 2001, have raised questions about Mr. Mueller's legacy and the bureau's counterterrorism efforts. While the F.B.I. has been praised for helping to catch one of the suspected bombers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Congressional Republicans have raised questions about whether the bureau missed a chance to avert the attack. In 2011, it closed a file it had opened on the other suspected bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with the police that ended with his being run over by a vehicle driven by his escaping brother.
  Mr. Comey will inherit a bureau that is far different from the one Mr. Mueller took over a week before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In the aftermath, Mr. Mueller undertook the task of remaking the bureau into an intelligence and counterterrorism agency from one that had concentrated on white-collar crime and drugs. The number of agents has grown to roughly 14,000 from 11,500 under Mr. Mueller, and the bureau has heavily invested in its facilities and capabilities, improving its computer systems, forensics analysis and intelligence sharing.
  In the year to come, Mr. Comey, who most recently served as the general counsel for the large Connecticut hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, will be confronted by the bureau's budgetary shortfalls created by across-the-board budget cuts. He will also be forced to expand his knowledge of cybersecurity, which Mr. Mueller made one of the bureau's chief priorities after counterterrorism.
  Mr. Comey graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1985, then had a meteoric rise at the Justice Department, culminating in his service as the department's second-ranking official from 2003 to 2005.
  His first job was as an assistant United States attorney in Manhattan trying criminal cases. He worked briefly in private practice and went on to oversee the United States attorney's office in Richmond, Va., where he made a name for himself as he pioneered Project Exile, a program that effectively cut the high homicide rate in the city by shifting firearm prosecutions from state court to federal court, where there were stiffer sentences.
  While working in Richmond, Mr. Ashcroft asked Mr. Comey in 2001 to take over the government's foundering investigation of the 1996 terrorist bombing at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American service members.
West Edmonton Mall puts tenants, shoppers through lockdown drill
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 18:16
  EDMONTON - Morning shoppers at West Edmonton Mall were summoned to take shelter in the backrooms of stores Wednesday as the shopping centre and police practised a lockdown drill.
  An announcement at about 10 a.m. notified patrons of the emergency rehearsal, and police and security officers encouraged them into shops, where staff locked the doors and moved them to secure areas for a few minutes.
  At the mall's Running Room store, an Edmonton Journal reporter was one of several visitors and employees who waited in the shop's stockroom.
  North America's largest mall launched the first of four such drills a year in March, said Gary McCartney, West Edmonton Mall director of safety and security.
  ''We ask our tenants to close their doors, seek shelter and usher in our guests in case of an emergency that would cause us to do that,'' McCartney said.
  The impetus for the drills, he said, was the number of shooting incidents that have occurred in public places in recent years, such as one at a Toronto shopping mall in March that left one dead, and the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn., where 27 died.
  ''West Edmonton Mall, being progressive, we just felt that it was wise to impart these programs to make sure our tenants, guests and employees are all safe should an incident like that ever happen here.''
  The mall purchased and installed emergency-notification software that sends alerts in case of an emergency to tenants' cellphones and email accounts.
  The mall's public address system would also be used during an emergency.
  A seminar was held for tenants to inform them of the procedures.
  Edmonton Police Service Sgt. Kelly Rosnau, who participated in the drill, said the mall is being proactive.
  ''This is an opportunity for them to practise a drill in the case where there was an emergency where people needed to seek safety, such as some of the active shooter things that we've seen throughout the world,'' he said.
  ''They're trying to get the businesses on board and, for the most part, they've got high compliance in that part, and it's also to educate the shoppers that are here.
  bmah@edmontonjournal.com
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Unapproved Monsanto crop found growing in Oregon
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  Source: USA RSS
  Wed, 29 May 2013 15:58
  A genetically modified strain of wheat that was never approved by the United States Department of Agriculture as been discovered growing in Oregon, triggering a federal probe that is now spanning several states.
  Investigators with the USDA want to know why the GMO crop, made by biotech company Monsanto but never approved for use, sprouted up in a field in the Pacific Northwest.
  America's wheat trade could be jeopardized if concerns grow among foreign consumers already weary of genetically engineered and modified organisms. Several countries across the European Union have banned thecultivation of GMO crops, and last weekend anti-Monsanto demonstrations were attended by millions of protesters on six continents.
  The USDA has yet to approve any GMO strain of wheat to be grown in the US, but Monsanto field tested a genetically engineered variety from 1998 through 2005 before withdrawing their application from the agency's regulatory approval process.
  The wheat, resistant to Monsanto's patented pesticide Roundup, is one of many GMO crops in the company's line of ''Roundup Ready'' products. After a farmer in Oregon noticed that wheat plants on his property were still growing despite dousing his field with the pesticide, he alerted Michael Firko, the deputy administrator of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday.
  ''We are taking this very seriously,'' Firko said. ''We have a very active investigation going on in several states in the western US.''
  According to a 2003 article in the Billings, Montana Gazette, Monsanto pledged that its GMO wheat crop resistant to strong pesticides would not be introduced commercially until proven complete safe and approved in the US, Canada and Japan.
  "We have to prove the safety of the gene, the food, the animal feed and the environment. That it is as safe as unmodified varieties and (nutritionally) is substantially equivalent to commercial varieties,'' Monsanto's then director of industry affairs, Michael Doane, told the Gazette at the time.
  So far, the USDA has determined that the wheat crop in question was the same variety tested by Monsanto up until eight years ago. The US Food and Drug Administration found no safety concerns with the crop after completing a test in 2004, but Monsanto suspended plans to follow through with the product the following year without receiving the USDA's stamp of approval.
  Despite growing criticism from agriculturalists, environmentalists and consumers over potential health risks, Monsanto continues to attest that GMOs could change the world's food landscape for the better.
  ''There is space in the supermarket shelf for all of us,'' Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant told a reporter for Bloomberg earlier this month.
  USDA Acting Deputy Secretary Michael Scuse confirmed to Agri-Pulse that state agriculture directors in Oregon, Washington and Idaho are now coordinating a multi-state investigation, and foreign trade representatives in Canada, Mexico and Asia have been contacted.
  ''Hopefully our trading partners will be very understanding,'' Scuse said, emphasizing ''this is not a food or feed issue.''
Stockholm riots leave Sweden's dreams of perfect society up in smoke
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 17:45
  The disturbances erupted in Husby last weekend, after police shot dead an elderly man brandishing a machete inside his house. Angered at what they saw as police heavyhandedness, youths torched cars and buildings and stoned police and firefighters. Police were then forced to draft in extra manpower from outside Stockholm as the trouble spread to other immigrant-dominated suburbs of the capital and towns such as Orebro in central Sweden, where 25 masked youths set fire to a school on Friday night.
  Up too in smoke has gone the notion that egalitarian Sweden, which has largely avoided the global recession, might be immune from the social problems blighting less affluent parts of Europe.
  Sweden's centre-right prime minister, Frederik Reinfeldt, blamed "hooligans" but also talked sympathatically of the difficult "transition period between different cultures". Meanwhile politicians from the Swedish Left, which ruled the country for most of the post-war period, blamed the trouble on social spending cuts introduced by Mr Reinfeldt, whose Moderate Party vowed to trim - though not slash - the welfare budget when he took office in 2006.
  But amid the soulsearching last week, perhaps the most telling comment was the one from Kjell Lindgren, the spokesman for Stockholm Police. "We don't know why they are doing this," he said, when asked for a cause for the riots. "There is no answer to it."
  Certainly, wandering around Husby last week, it was hard at first glance to see quite what the problem was. Built in the 1970s as part of the "Million Programme" that aimed to give affordable housing for all Swedes, the estate is one of dozens on Stockholm's outskirts that now house mainly immigrant populations, including large numbers from Somalia, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Iraq.
  However, comparisons to the Paris "banlieus", or indeed riot-hit Tottenham or Salford, are limited. Between the rows of clean-looking housing blocks are well-tended flowerbeds and neatly- kept public gardens, and in the shopping precinct, where an ornamental fountain still bubbles away, there are bars, shops, and a smart cafe-bakery that would not look too out of place in an IKEA catalogue. At eight per cent, Husby's joblessness rate is three times the Swedish average, but only slightly higher than that in the UK.
  Likewise, although the rioting has been large scale by Swedish standards, seen up close it has less of the ferocity of the 2011 disturbances in Britain. When The Sunday Telegraph visited Husby late on Wednesday night, the highlight was a hit-and-run arson attack on two parked cars. Police were hardly to be seen, and when they did arrive, it was purely to protect the firefighters dealing with the car blaze rather than make arrests.
  Instead, teams of well-intentioned volunteers from local community groups and Islamic associations mingled with the crowds of excited onlookers, politely suggesting that they expressed their grievances peacefully.
  Among a large group gathered on an overhead walkway was Mohammed Abdu, 27, whose family came to Sweden from Eritrea when he was aged three, and who now works as a security guard. While he condemned the violence as "hooliganism", he claimed that many Husby residents still suffered from discrimination from the police and employers. Besides, he added, living in such a prosperous, advanced country offered no real satisfaction for those so conspicuously at the bottom of the heap.
  "It's true that the welfare system here is an example to the rest of the world, so if you fall here you do not fall all the way to the bottom," he said. "But people don't like being dependent on social welfare, and there is hidden racism."
  Not so, argued Yusuf Carlos, 32, a construction worker from Palestine. "It is just kids causing this trouble, that is why the police are not doing much about it," he said. "Sweden is fair towards immigrants and it isn't hard to find work, or not before these riots anyway. The problem is that the Swedish people are angry now. They don't know why people here in Husby are doing this, only that they come from this neighbourhood."
  Certainly, claims of racism upset many Swedes, who have little colonial history, and whose decision to admit large numbers of Third World migrants from the 1980s onwards was born of no particular political obligation, more just a very Swedish sense of humanitarian duty to the wider world. From the very start, the government also sought to avoid creating a German-style "guest worker" class by promoting immigrants' rights and introducing a plethora of programmes to promote racial integratkion.
  Yet despite Swedish language education being offered free to all long-term immigrants, ghettos of foreigners have flourished in recent years. So too have Far Right parties challinging the political class's long-standing pro-immigration consensus, who now command up to 10 per cent of the vote and may increase their share in next year's elections.
  "We have tried harder than any other European country to integrate, spending billions on a welfare system that is designed to help jobless immigrants and guarantee them a good quality of life," said Marc Abramsson, leader of the National Democrats Party. "Yet we have areas where there are ethnic groups that just don't identify with Swedish society. They see the police and even the fire brigade as part of the state, and they attack them. We have tried everything, anything, to improve things, but it hasn't worked. It's not about racism, it's just that multi-culturalism doesn't recognise how humans actually function."
  Aje Carlbom, a Swedish academic and author of a critical study into Swedish immigration policy, added that despite the increasing appeal of Far Right parties, mainstream Swedish politicians were still reluctant to even ask the kind of questions that the likes of Mr Abramsson was already offering answers to.
  "Anyone who wants to regulate immigration is immediately classified as a nationalist, which also implies a racist as well," he said. "It is still almost impossible to debate this question."
  Still, some of Husby's younger generation argue that it is unreasonable of Swedes to expect them to be perennially "grateful" for taking them in, even from the dire circumstances in their homelands.
  Among them is local youth worker Rami al Khamisi, 25, whose family escaped to Sweden from Saddam Hussein's Iraq back in 1994, smuggling themselves first through Turkey and Russia and then across the Baltic in a fishing boat commandeered by a people smuggler. "I was six years old and the boat was packed with about 60 people," he said. "An old man died, and they threw him in the water because his body was smelling a lot."
  That, though, he says, is his only real memory of the hardships of his early life, and as such, he finds it hard to be as thankful as his parents still are to his adopted homeland. "They compare it to Baghdad or Somalia," he said. "But we younger immigrants only really know Sweden, and we just compare our situation to the one around us."
  With Stockholm still burning this weekend, though, that may be asking for just a little too much understanding - even in compassionate, generous Sweden.
How drinking too much coffee can induce a mental disorder, according to latest psychiatrist bible
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 17:44
  By Daily Mail Reporter
  PUBLISHED: 22:39 EST, 28 May 2013 | UPDATED: 22:41 EST, 28 May 2013
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  Psychiatrists are warning of the dangerous physiological impact of caffeine intoxication.
  An overdose of caffeine is among the mental disorders included in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) released on May 22.
  Symptoms of the disorder include restlessness, nervousness, excitement, red face, gastrointestinal upset, muscle twitching, rambling speech, sleeplessness, rapid and irregular heartbeat, according to Live Science.
  Help: Psychiatrists are warning of the dangerous physiological impact of caffeine intoxication (stock photo)
  The findings about the mental impacts of a caffeine overdose come from the list of mental disorders compiled by the American Psychiatric Association.
  The DSM is the go-to guide for a myriad of professionals seeking to understand mental disorders including physicians, psychologists, social workers, nurses, occupational and rehabilitation therapists, and counselors, according to the APA website.
  Caffeine intoxication had previously been listed as a disorder but in the latest edition of the DSM, it also includes the disorder associated with caffeine withdrawal.
  Symptoms of caffeine withdrawal are described as including headache, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, depressed mood and other issues.
  'Caffeine is invading our society more and more,' Alan Budney, who served on the DSM-5 working group for substance-use disorders, previously told Medscape Medical News in 2011 about why caffeine withdrawal was an important disorder to investigate.
  'There's concern enough to consider this topic seriously, even though it's probably one of the more controversial issues faced by our work group,' he added.
  Caffeine is considered the most widely used, behaviorally active drug in the world, alongside other chemicals that can prompt mental disorders.
  The other powerful chemicals include alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, hallucinogens and other mind-altering substances.
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Northern Ireland Town Fakes Prosperity for G8 Summit
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 15:46
  A town in Northern Ireland is getting spruced up for the arrival of some special guests.
  World leaders are gathering in the town of Enniskillen for the G8 summit next month.
  And to get ready, the town is putting up fake storefronts on shuttered businesses.
  Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Irish Times reporter Dan Keenan about the efforts to make the town look prosperous.
AP Exclusive: Rise of al-Qaida Sahara terrorist
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 12:02
  DAKAR, Senegal (AP) '-- After years of trying to discipline him, the leaders of al-Qaida's North African branch sent one final letter to their most difficult employee. In page after scathing page, they described how he didn't answer his phone when they called, failed to turn in his expense reports, ignored meetings and refused time and again to carry out orders.
  Most of all, they claimed he had failed to carry out a single spectacular operation, despite the resources at his disposal.
  The employee, international terrorist Moktar Belmoktar, responded the way talented employees with bruised egos have in corporations the world over: He quit and formed his own competing group. And within months, he carried out two lethal operations that killed 101 people in all: one of the largest hostage-takings in history at a BP-operated gas plant in Algeria in January, and simultaneous bombings at a military base and a French uranium mine in Niger just last week.
  The al-Qaida letter, found by The Associated Press inside a building formerly occupied by their fighters in Mali, is an intimate window into the ascent of an extremely ambitious terrorist leader, who split off from regional command because he wanted to be directly in touch with al-Qaida central. It's a glimpse into both the inner workings of a highly structured terrorist organization that requires its commanders to file monthly expense reports, and the internal dissent that led to his rise. And it foreshadows a terrorism landscape where charismatic jihadists can carry out attacks directly in al-Qaida's name, regardless of whether they are under its command.
  Rudolph Atallah, the former head of counterterrorism for Africa at the Pentagon and one of three experts who authenticated the 10-page letter dated Oct. 3, said it helps explain what happened in Algeria and Niger, both attacks that Belmoktar claimed credit for on jihadist forums.
  "He's sending a message directly north to his former bosses in Algeria saying, 'I'm a jihadi. I deserve to be separate from you.' And he's also sending a message to al-Qaida, saying, 'See, those bozos in the north are incompetent. You can talk to me directly.' And in these attacks, he drew a lot of attention to himself," says Atallah, who recently testified before Congress on Belmoktar's tactics.
  Born in northern Algeria, the 40-something Belmoktar, who is known in Pentagon circles by his initials MBM, traveled to Afghanistan at the age of 19, according to his online biography. He claims he lost an eye in battle and trained in al-Qaida's camps, forging ties that would allow him two decades later to split off from its regional chapter.
  Over the years, there have been numerous reports of Belmoktar being sidelined or expelled by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. The letter recovered in Timbuktu, one of thousands of pages of internal documents in Arabic found by the AP earlier this year, shows he stayed loyal to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, until last year, and traces the history of their difficult relationship.
  The letter, signed by the group's 14-member Shura Council, or governing body, describes its relationship with Belmoktar as "a bleeding wound," and criticizes his proposal to resign and start his own group.
  "Your letter ... contained some amount of backbiting, name-calling and sneering," they write. "We refrained from wading into this battle in the past out of a hope that the crooked could be straightened by the easiest and softest means. ... But the wound continued to bleed, and in fact increasingly bled, until your last letter arrived, ending any hope of stanching the wound and healing it."
  They go on to compare their group to a towering mountain before raging storms and pounding waves, and say Belmoktar's plan "threatens to fragment the being of the organization and tear it apart limb by limb."
  They then begin enumerating their complaints against Belmoktar in 30 successive bullet points.
  "Abu Abbas is not willing to follow anyone," they add, referring to him by his nom de guerre, Khaled Abu Abbas. "He is only willing to be followed and obeyed."
  First and foremost, they quibble over the amount of money raised by the 2008 kidnapping of Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler, the highest-ranking United Nations official in Niger, and his colleague. Belmoktar's men held both for four months, and in a book he later published, Fowler said he did not know if a ransom was paid.
  The letter says they referred the case to al-Qaida central to force concessions in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, a plan stymied when Belmoktar struck his own deal for 700,000 euros (about $900,000) for both men. That's far below the $3 million per hostage that European governments were normally paying, according to global intelligence unit Stratfor.
  "Rather than walking alongside us in the plan we outlined, he managed the case as he liked," they write indignantly. "Here we must ask, who handled this important abduction poorly? ... Does it come from the unilateral behavior along the lines of our brother Abu Abbas, which produced a blatant inadequacy: Trading the weightiest case (Canadian diplomats!!) for the most meager price (700,000 euros)!!"
  The complaint reflects how al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, initially considered one of the group's weaker wings, rose to prominence by bankrolling its operation with an estimated $89 million raised by kidnapping-for-ransom foreign aid workers and tourists. No less than Osama bin Laden endorsed their business model, according to documents retrieved in the terror leader's hideout in Pakistan.
  The letter also confirms for the first time that payments from European governments went directly toward buying arms to carry out attacks against Western targets, as long speculated by experts. The council chides Belmoktar for not following this practice.
  "(The chapter) gave Abu Abbas a considerable amount of money to buy military material, despite its own great need for money at the time. ... Abu Abbas didn't participate in stepping up to buy weapons," the letter says. "So whose performance deserves to be called poor in this case, I wonder?"
  The list of slights is long: He would not take their phone calls. He refused to send administrative and financial reports. He ignored a meeting in Timbuktu, calling it "useless." He even ordered his men to refuse to meet with al-Qaida emissaries. And he aired the organization's dirty laundry in online jihadist forums, even while refusing to communicate with the chapter via the Internet, claiming it was insecure.
  Sounding like managers in any company, the Shura leaders accuse Belmoktar of not being able to get along with his peers. They charge that he recently went to Libya without permission from the chapter, which had assigned the "Libya dossier" to a rival commander called Abou Zeid. And they complain that the last unit they sent Belmoktar for backup in the Sahara spent a full three years trying to contact him before giving up.
  "Why do the successive emirs of the region only have difficulties with you? You in particular every time? Or are all of them wrong and brother Khaled is right?" they charge.
  The letter reveals the rifts not only between Belmoktar and his superiors, but also the distance between the local chapter and al-Qaida central. The local leaders were infuriated that Belmoktar was essentially going over their heads, saying that even AQIM has had few interactions with the mother brand in Pakistan and Afghanistan, a region they refer to by the ancient name of Khorasan.
  "The great obstacles between us and the central leadership are not unknown to you. ... For example, since we vowed our allegiance, up until this very day, we have only gotten from our emirs in Khorasan just a few messages, from the two sheiks, bin Laden (God rest his soul) and Ayman (al-Zawahri)," they write. "All this, despite our multiple letters to them."
  Belmoktar's ambition comes through clearly not only in the bitter responses of his bosses, but also in his own words: "Despite great financial resources ... our works were limited to the routine of abductions, which the mujahedeen got bored with."
  In another quote, he calls bin Laden and al-Zawahri "the leaders of the Islamic nation, not the leaders of an organization alone. We love them and we were convinced by their program. ... So it's even more now that we are swords in their hands."
  To which AQIM replies with more than a hint of sarcasm: "Very lovely words. ... Do you consider it loyalty to them to revolt against their emirs and threaten to tear apart the organization?"
  Belmoktar's defection was a long time in the making, and dates back to his time as a commander of Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC. When the Iraq war started in 2003, his ambition created friction between younger Algerian fighters like himself, who wanted to join the global jihad, and an older generation whose only goal was to create an Islamic state in Algeria, according to Islamic scholar Mathieu Guidere, a professor at the University of Toulouse.
  The younger faction won, but Belmoktar felt slighted because his contemporary, Abdelmalek Droukdel, was named emir of the GSPC, instead of him.
  Soon after, the group petitioned to join al-Qaida. The terror network announced a "blessed union" on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2006.
  Both Belmoktar and Droukdel wrote "candidacy letters" to bin Laden asking to be emir, according to Guidere's book on the subject. Again, Droukdel won.
  Frustrated, Belmoktar drifted farther south. He set up in the ungoverned dunes of neighboring Mali, took a Malian wife and tapped into the smuggling routes that crisscrossed the Sahara, amassing arms and fiercely loyal fighters who called themselves, "The Masked Brigade."
  His fighters killed more than a dozen soldiers at a military garrison in Mauritania in 2005 and gunned down four French tourists there in 2007. On multiple occasions Belmoktar was declared dead, including most recently in March, and each time, he re-emerged to strike again.
  The sharpest blow in the council's letter may have been the accusation that, despite this history of terrorism, Belmoktar and his unit had not pulled off any attack worthy of mention in the Sahara.
  "Any observer of the armed actions (carried out) in the Sahara will clearly notice the failure of The Masked Brigade to carry out spectacular operations, despite the region's vast possibilities '-- there are plenty of mujahedeen, funding is available, weapons are widespread and strategic targets are within reach," the letter says. "Your brigade did not achieve a single spectacular operation targeting the crusader alliance."
  In December, just weeks after receiving the letter, Belmoktar declared in a recorded message that he was leaving the al-Qaida chapter to form his own group. He baptized it, "Those Who Sign in Blood."
  With that name, he announced his global ambition. "Those Who Sign in Blood" was also the name of an Algerian extremist unit that hijacked an Air France flight leaving Algiers in 1994. Though their goal to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower in Paris was thwarted, the unit foreshadowed the terrorist vision that led to the fall of the Twin Towers in New York.
  On Jan. 11, French warplanes began bombarding northern Mali, the start of a now 5-month-old offensive to flush out the jihadists, including Belmoktar's brigade. Five days later, suicide bombers took more than 600 hostages in Ain Amenas in far eastern Algeria and killed 37, all but one foreigners, including American, French and British nationals. Belmoktar claimed responsibility in a triumphant recording.
  It was no accident that he chose Ain Amenas, Guidere said. The area is in the home province of Abou Zeid, Belmoktar's longtime rival who commanded a different Saharan brigade and was always in step with the Algeria-based emirate.
  "It's a punch in the gut," Guidere said. "It's saying, 'You've never been able to do anything even in your native region. Watch me. I'll carry out the biggest hostage operation ever in that very region. ... Ain Amenas is the illustration of his ability to do a quality operation, when he is under no authority other than his own, when he doesn't have to turn in expense reports or answer to anybody."
  As if to turn the knife even further, last week Belmoktar also claimed responsibility for a May 23 attack at a French-owned uranium mine in Arlit, Niger. It was in Arlit in 2010 that Abou Zeid carried out his boldest operation and seized seven foreign hostages, including four French nationals who are still in the hands of AQIM.
  In an apparent attempt to raise the stakes, Belmoktar's men slipped past a truck entering the mine and detonated explosives inside. More than 100 miles to the south, a different unit of fighters under his command killed 24 soldiers at a military camp, with help from another local al-Qaida off-shoot, called the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa.
  Jean-Paul Rouiller, the director of the Geneva Center for Training and Analysis of Terrorism, compared the escalation in attacks to a quarrel between a man and a woman in which each tries to have the last word. "They accused him of not doing something," Rouiller said. "His response is, 'I'll show you what I can do.'"
  Belmoktar might have seen a certain justice in the coverage of the last week's attack in Niger in the leading French daily, Le Monde. Among the adjectives used to describe the event: "Spectacular."
  ___
  Rukmini Callimachi, AP's West Africa bureau chief, reported this article in Dakar, Senegal and Timbuktu, Mali. Lee Keath, AP's Mideast enterprise editor in Cairo, translated the Arabic letter into English. The letter can be found in Arabic and English at:
  http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_international/_pdfs/al-qaida...
  http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_international/_pdfs/al-qaida...
  ___
  Callimachi can be reached at www.twitter.com/rcallimachi
Pentagon and CIA in the octagon.
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  Archived Version
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Wed, 29 May 2013 10:07
  Colin Powell, the former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the U.S. Defense Department and not the Central Intelligence Agency should run the drone program that kills suspected terrorists abroad.
  Powell, a Republican who served in top positions in both the George Bush and George W. Bush administrations, said the CIA only began taking greater responsibility for targeted assassinations after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
  ''The application of the state's military force should be done by the military leaders and the Department of Defense,'' he said during a May 26 interview with Bloomberg Television. ''This doesn't mean the CIA has nothing to do with it. The intelligence will come from the CIA and other sources and then be fed into the Department of Defense.''
  Powell praised President Barack Obama's speech last week that defended the use of drone strikes in part for their precision, even though newly declassified information revealed that three of the four Americans who died in such attacks since 2009 were killed accidentally.
  ''It was a very balanced speech,'' Powell said. ''He made it clear that there are still enemies out there that we have to deal with but we have to be more careful in the use of force, especially with respect to drones. Drones are a very, very effective weapon and we will continue to use them but in a more circumscribed manner to make sure that we are going after high-value targets that present a real immediate threat to us.''
  Obama called for tighter criteria for using drones. Before any strike, ''there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured,'' he said in the remarks.
  During a background briefing with reporters before the address, senior administration officials said some of the changes Obama discussed included a preference for the U.S. military rather than the CIA to take the lead on strikes involving unmanned aircraft.
  Congress should review criteria for the use of lethal force, Powell said.
  ''One of the problems with using drones too widely was sort of laid out to me by a Pakistani senior officer,'' he said. ''He said if you make a mistake and you end up killing 10 or 15 villagers or 20 villagers, in addition to the person you were after, you have created 20 new enemies for the United States of America. Their families will seek revenge. And, he said, the Pakistani Army gets blamed for being complicit in all of this.''
  May 28th, 2013 | Drones | 2044017 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fdefensetech.org%2F2013%2F05%2F28%2Fpowell-pentagon-should-run-drone-program%2FPowell%3A+Pentagon+Should+Run+Drone+Program2013-05-28+22%3A55%3A24Brendan+McGarryhttp%3A%2F%2Fdefensetech.org%2F%3Fp%3D20440
  Tagged as: Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Pakistan
Federal Register | In the Matter of the Designation of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group aka Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain (GICM) and All Associated Aliases as a Foreign Terrorist Organization Pursuant to Section 219 of the Immigration and Natio
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 22:22
  Based upon a review of the Administrative Record assembled in this matter, and in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, I conclude that the circumstances that were the basis for the designation of Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group as foreign terrorist organization have changed in such a manner as to warrant revocation of the designation.
  Therefore, I hereby determine that the designation of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group as a foreign terrorist organization, pursuant to Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended (8 U.S.C. 1189), shall be revoked.
  This determination shall be published in the Federal Register.
  Dated: May 13, 2013.
  John F. Kerry,
  Secretary of State.
  [FR Doc. 2013-12611 Filed 5-24-13; 8:45 am]
  BILLING CODE 4710-10-P
Russia Ready For War, Orders Thousands Of Troops To Border
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 09:51
  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)
  May 29, 2013
  RussiaReady For War, Orders Thousands Of Troops To Border
  By:Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
  As has been expected since President Putin on 17 May ordered Russian military forces to ''immediately move'' from Local War to Regional War operational status and to be ''fully prepared'' to expand to Large-Scale War should either the US or EU enter into the Syrian Civil War, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) is reporting today that thousands of Russian troops have been deployed in ''full war mode'' and that Israel is now a ''major likely target'' too.
  According to this report, the ''surprise alert exercise'' Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered last Thursday (24 May) for the Southern Military District involving four regiments of S-300 air defense systems troops combining 8,700 personnel, 185 warplanes and 240 armored vehicles are now positioned to enter into the Syrian War Zone ''within hours'' to begin offensive and defensive operations.
  Even worse, this report continues, Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) troops have likewise been ordered into the Syrian War Zone, including the much feared Zaslon Special Forces units, in order to prepare for the widening of this conflict into what could turn into World War III.
  According to all global military experts, this report says, Russia's Zaslon Special Forces are ''so shadowy they make ninjas look like amateurs'' and their introduction into this conflict has shifted the balance of power to the point where the European Union (EU) lifted their long standing arms embargo for the radical Islamic rebels (who just hours ago pleaded with the West for immediate weapons shipments) and US President Obama ordered his military commanders to quickly give him a no-fly plan for Syria.
  Even though Russia slammed the EU's plan to arm these Islamic rebels, it also stated that it will not cancel plans to deliver its advanced S-300 air-defence system to Syria despite Western opposition, thus enraging Israel which earlier today threatened an attack on Russian forces attempting to move them into the conflict zone.
  To how truly grim the situation has become for the Sunni-Western backed Islamic rebels attempting to overthrow the Assad regime was noted earlier today by a senior Israeli officer interviewed by the Debka File Intelligence News Service who put all these forebodings into words when he said: ''A military and strategic catastrophe for the West and Israel is in full flight in Syria, and no one in Washington or Jerusalem is lifting a finger. Israel's government and military heads never imagined that the Syrian war would take this turn. But we had better wake up at this eleventh hour - before it is too late.''
  As we had previously reported about this conflict, the true intentions of this war are being kept from the Western peoples who mistakenly believe it is about ''freedom and democracy,'' but is, instead, a strategic plan to capture Syria, destroy its Shiite leadership, and then use its territory to build a massive natural gas pipeline from the Gulf States to the EU thus destroying Russia's stranglehold on European energy supplies.
  Qatar, which has the world's biggest gasfield, has been working since 2009 to build their proposed pipeline through Syria to Turkey and has, in fact, turned the Syrian War into its own conflict, and as we can, in part, read as reported by the Financial Times News Service:
  ''In the shell-blasted areas of rebel-held Syria, few appear to be aware of the vast sums that Qatar has contributed '' estimated by rebel and diplomatic sources to be about $1bn, but put by people close to the Qatar government at as much as $3bn.
  However, a perception is taking root among growing numbers of Syrians that Qatar is using its financial muscle to develop networks of loyalty among rebels and set the stage for influence in a post-Assad era. ''Qatar has a lot of money and buys everything with money, and it can put its fingerprints on it,'' says a rebel officer from the northern province of Idlib interviewed by the FT.''
  Also being kept from the Western peoples about this conflict are Russia's true intentions and aims, and which were recently articulated by Fiona Hill who is senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and who said:
  "...this is a prism that [Putin] brought to looking at most conflicts like the conflict in Syria that threaten the sanctity of a state. Mr. Putin actually came in to the presidency, if you can recall, back in '99-2000 in Russia, just as the second war in Chechnya was starting off. And he saw that as his biggest challenge of keeping the Russian state together, so it didn't fall down the same path as the Soviet Union into collapse. And Putin was really brutal in pursuing the war in Chechnya. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the whole course of the conflict, including many civilians.
  The capital city of Grozny in Chechnya was reduced completely to rubble, and Putin thought this was worthwhile because it kept the state together. And over the course of the conflict in Chechnya it morphed in the same way that we've actually seen in the war in Syria. It went from a conflict that was mostly focused on political secession from, Chechnya from the Russian Federation, and over time, really took on more of an extremist element, more of Sunni extremist groups who moved in to exploit the conflict and also many people who came from outside, including from Syria, to fight in Chechnya.
  And Putin is now pretty much concerned that we're going to see a repetition, the collapse of the state in Syria, knock-on effect for conflicts at home for him as well as more broadly across the whole of the Middle East. And yet again, another collapse of the state, that is something that he would like to see avoided at all costs.
  ...these all add to Mr. Putin's interest in Syria itself, but his overwhelming fear is of the collapse of the state. In addition, in fact, to the two elements that you've mentioned in terms of weapon sales and also access to this naval facility at Tartus, there's also a quite sizeable Russian population, 30,000 people roughly, people who are married to Syrians. There's also a Russian Orthodox Church interest in the Christian communities inside of Syria. And also, Assad did help Putin in the case of Chechnya.
  He prevented a number of groups who were supporting the Chechens, including from a broader ethnic group in Syria that originated in the Russian North Caucasus from collecting money and sending recruits there. But overall, the biggest concern for Putin, having seen what happened in Libya with the fall of Gadhafi and the chaos that's originated there, as he looks across the rest of the Middle East, he looks at Iraq, he looks at the prospects of Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal, he looks at what's happening in Egypt and across North Africa now, Putin thinks this is just going to be yet another state collapse that's going to have very negative knock-on effects for Russia, that has also, from his point of view, been battling with extremism now for several decades.
  ...it seems that their biggest concern is of the chemical weapons falling into the hands of the opposition, not that they would be actually used by Assad himself. Of course at this particular point, given what seems to be the inevitable collapse of the state structures, this has ratcheted to the top of our agenda, and I think we should be really pushing the Russians on what then they determine to do if there is evidence - there's already been speculation about the use of chemical weapons, but if there is evidence there that chemical weapons have been used by either side."
  As Russia has moved its naval fleets into the Mediterranean to warn the West and Israel not to intervene in Syria's bloody civil war, and as it prepares to send its most advanced S-300 missiles to protect the Assad regime from ''hotheads'' intent on intervention, there appears to be no letup in Western capitols as the push for all-out war from these bankster elites continues unabated.
  May 29, 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?''.]
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NBC Renew/Cancel Wrap: 'Smash,' 'Go On,' 'The New Normal,' 'Whitney,' 'Guys With Kids' Canceled; 'Community,' 'Parks & Recreation' Renewed - Ratings
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 29 May 2013 09:43
  Click this link for the latest NBC renewal / cancellation information:
  Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts the network's decision on renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows by the end of the 2012-13 season in May, 2013. (includes results from December 31, 2012- May 12, 2013):
  -The Cancellation Bear went 15-2 on his NBC predictions for the 2012-13 season. (vs. 20-0 in the 2011-12 season)
  His Hannibal cancellation prediction is still hanging in the balance as NBC makes up its mind.
  The bear's two NBC misses were exactly where he feared they'd be, in the marginal sitcoms. He figured that one or two of Community, Whitney and Go On would be renewed, but predicted them all marginally towards renewal. In the end, only Community survived (along, of course, with Parks & Recreation) among NBC sitcoms.
  With that the cancellation bear bids the 2012-13 season adieu and begins his summer hibernation. The bear and his Renew/Cancel Index posts will return in September. Happy Summer!
  Better to Follow The Bear, Than Be Chased By Him. This season you can follow the Cancellation Bear on Twitter via @TheCancelBear. The Cancellation Bear will retweet all the Renew/Cancel Index post titles and links as well as engage in a little more back and forth banter than we do on our standard @TVbytheNumbers Twitter feed.-
  *shows no longer on the air have their Renew/Cancel Index "frozen" at the point they left the schedule.
  From now through the end of the broadcast season in May, the Renew/Cancel Index values will only be calculated using new episodes airing during 2013. However, until new episodes of a show air in 2013, I will keep the "old" Fall predictions in the table.
  Want to know what the NBC Renew/Cancel Index table looked like at the end of the Fall season? Click here.
  Notes:
  -The Renew/Cancel Index is the ratio of a scripted show's new episode adults 18-49 ratings relative to the new episode ratings of the other scripted shows on its own network. It's calculated by dividing a show's new episode Live+Same Day adults 18-49 average rating by the Live+Same Day new episode average of all the new scripted show episodes on the show's own network. The network's average ratings in the calculation are not time weighted (ie. hour long shows are not weighted twice what 30 minute shows are).
  (F) -Fridays: Shows airing on Fridays were renewed with significantly lower than average Indexes.
  How would the Renew / Cancel Index Have Done Predicting Last Season's Scripted Show Fates? Check out how the Renew / Cancel Index predicted renewals and cancellations from past television seasons.
Know your chemical weapons - Boing Boing
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 29 May 2013 09:40
  These know-your-chemical-weapon posters were produced by the Medical Training Replacement Center at Camp Barkeley near Abilene, Texas as training materials for soldiers being sent to fight in WWII. They're a weird mix of cheerfulness and atrocity:
  Of the four chemicals mentioned here'--phosgene, lewisite, mustard gas, and chlorpicrin'--three were used in World War I. (Lewisite was produced beginning in 1918, but the war ended before it could be used.) Phosgene, which irritates the lungs and mucus membranes and causes a person to choke to death, caused the largest number of deaths among people killed by chemical weapons in the First World War. (Elsewhere on Slate: A firsthand account of what it felt like to be hit by mustard gas.)
  The smells that these posters warn soldiers-in-training to be wary of are the everyday scents of home: flypaper, musty hay, green corn, geraniums, garlic. The choice of analogies seems particularly appropriate for soldiers raised on farms­'--a population that would become increasingly small in every war to follow.
  Four WWII Posters That Taught Soldiers to Identify Chemical Weapons by Smell (via Kadrey)(Images: National Museum of Health and Medicine)
Israel warns Russia against giving Syria missiles
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 29 May 2013 09:34
  JERUSALEM (AP) '-- Israel's defense chief said Tuesday a Russian plan to supply sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to Syria was a "threat" and signaled that Israel is prepared to use force to stop the delivery.
  The warning by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon ratcheted up tensions with Moscow over the planned sale of S-300 air-defense missiles to Syria. Earlier in the day, a top Russian official said his government remained committed to the deal.
  Israel has been lobbying Moscow to halt the sale, fearing the missiles would upset the balance of power in the region and could slip into the hands of hostile groups, including the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, a close ally of the Syrian regime.
  Israel has carried out several airstrikes in Syria in recent months that are believed to have destroyed weapons shipments bound for Hezbollah. Israel has not confirmed carrying out the attacks.
  The delivery of the Russian missiles to Syria could limit the Israeli air force's ability to act. It is not clear whether Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace in these attacks.
  Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Russia to discuss the Syrian situation with President Vladimir Putin. The sides have said little about the talks, but the S-300s were believed to have been on the agenda.
  "Clearly this move is a threat to us," Yaalon told reporters Tuesday when asked about the planned Russian sale.
  "At this stage I can't say there is an escalation. The shipments have not been sent on their way yet. And I hope that they will not be sent," he said. But "if God forbid they do reach Syria, we will know what to do."
  Since the Syrian conflict erupted in March 2011, Israel repeatedly has voiced concerns that Syria's sophisticated arsenal, including chemical weapons, could either be transferred to Hezbollah, a bitter enemy of Israel, or fall into the hands of rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Assad. The rebels include al-Qaida-affiliated groups that Israel believes could turn their attention toward Israel if they topple Assad.
  Syria already possesses Russian-made air defenses, and Israel is believed to have used long-distance bombs fired from Israeli or Lebanese airspace. The S-300s would expand Syria's capabilities, allowing it to counter airstrikes launched from foreign airspace as well.
  In Moscow, Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, wouldn't say whether Russia has shipped any of the S-300s, which have a range of up to 200 kilometers (125 miles) and the capability to track and strike multiple targets simultaneously. But he insisted that Moscow isn't going to abandon the deal despite strong Western and Israeli criticism.
  "We understand the concerns and signals sent to us from different capitals. We realize that many of our partners are concerned about the issue," Ryabkov said. "We have no reason to revise our stance."
  He said the missiles could be a deterrent against foreign intervention in Syria and would not be used against Syrian rebels, who do not have an air force.
  "We believe that such steps to a large extent help restrain some 'hotheads' considering a scenario to give an international dimension to this conflict," he said.
  Russia has been the key ally of the Syrian regime, protecting it from United Nations sanctions and providing it with weapons despite the civil war there that has claimed over 70,000 lives.
  In any case, an open confrontation between Israel and Russia would seem to be months away. Russian military analysts say it would take at least one year for Syrian crews to learn how to operate the S-300s, and the training will involve a live drill with real ammunition at a Russian shooting range. There has been no evidence that any such training has begun.
  If Russia were to deliver the missiles to Syria, Israeli and Western intelligence would likely detect the shipment, and Israel would have ample time to strike before the system is deployed.
  Ryabkov's statement came a day after European Union's decision to lift an arms embargo against Syrian rebels. He criticized the EU decision, saying it would help fuel the conflict.
  Israel's defense chief spoke at an annual civil defense drill to prepare for missile attacks on Israel. This year's exercise comes at a time of heightened concerns that Israel could be dragged into the Syrian civil war.
  A number of mortar shells from the fighting in Syria have landed in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. While Israel believes most of the fire has been errant, it has accused Syria of firing intentionally at Israeli targets on several occasions, and last week the sides briefly exchanged fire.
  Israel's civil defense chief, Home Front Minister Gilad Erdan, said this week's drill was not specifically connected to the tensions with Syria.
  "But of course we must take into consideration that something like that might happen in the near future because of what we see in Syria, and because we know that chemical weapons exist in Syria and might fall to the hands of radical Muslim terror groups," he said.
  ___
  Associated Press writer Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.
Obama Asks Pentagon For Syria No-Fly Zone Plan
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 09:33
  The White House has asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for a no-fly zone inside Syria that would be enforced by the U.S. and other countries such as France and Great Britain, two administration officials told The Daily Beast.
  A Syrian army soldier holds a machine gun during a battle against opposition fighters in the city of Qusayr, in Syria's central Homs province on May 23, 2013. (AFP/Getty)
  The request was made shortly before Secretary of State John Kerry toured the Middle East last week to try and finalize plans for an early June conference between the Syrian regime and rebel leaders in Geneva. The opposition, however, has yet to confirm its attendance and is demanding that the end of Syrian President Bashar al Assad's rule be a precondition for negotiations, a condition Assad is unlikely to accept.
  President Obama's dual-track strategy of continuing to pursue a political solution to the two-year-old uprising in Syria while also preparing for more direct U.S. military involvement includes authorizing the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the first time to plan for multilateral military actions inside Syria, the two officials said. They added that no decisions on actually using force have yet been made.
  ''The White House is still in contemplation mode but the planning is moving forward and it's more advanced than it's ever been,'' one administration official told The Daily Beast. ''All this effort to pressure the regime is part of the overall effort to find a political solution, but what happens if Geneva fails? It's only prudent to plan for other options.''
  In a May 8 meeting of the National Security Council Principals Committee, the White House tasked several agencies with reporting on the pros and cons of two additional potential courses of action: arming vetted and moderate elements of the Syrian opposition, such as the Free Syrian Army, and formally recognizing the Syrian opposition council as the government of Syria, which would mean removing formal U.S. recognition of the Assad regime.
  Sen. John McCain '' who's advocated for more aggressive U.S. support of the Syrian rebels and who traveled secretly into the country Monday to meet with the leaders of the Free Syrian Army '' told The Daily Beast last week that despite the request for plans he doubts the White House will decide to implement a no-fly zone in Syria. The Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs are opposed to the idea, he said.
  ''One thing about the Pentagon, if they don't want to do something, they will tell you all sorts of reasons why they can't do it. It's going to take significant pressure for them to come up with realistic plans,'' McCain said. ''They will invent ways for us not to do it until the president of the United States says we've got to do it.''
  McCain said a realistic plan for a no-fly zone would include hundreds of planes, and would be most effective if it included destroying Syrian airplanes on runways, bombing those runways, and moving U.S. Patriot missile batteries in Turkey close to the border so they could protect airspace inside northern Syria.
  In April, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that the military was planning for a range of options in Syria but that he did not necessarily support using those options.
  "It's only prudent to plan for other options.''
  "We're prepared with options, should military force be called upon and assuming it can be effectively used to secure our interests without making matters worse,'' he said. ''We must also be ready for options for an uncertain and dangerous future. That is a future we have not yet identified."
  The administration probably won't make any decisions about greater intervention in Syria until after the Geneva conference, McCain said.
  ''I think they're moving towards the planning because the pressure is so great, but we're in a full-court stall until this conference in Geneva,'' he said.
  U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region Phil Gordon traveled to Turkey from May 9 to 11 and met there with leaders of the Syrian opposition to encourage them to attend the Geneva conference. A White House official told The Daily Beast that the administration agrees that Assad should step down but does not agree that this should be a precondition to moving forward with the Geneva plan.
  ''In meetings with Syrian opposition leaders to discuss the implementation of the Geneva Communiqu(C) we underscored our support for the Syrian Council (SC) as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, reaffirmed our support for a political transition based on the framework of the Geneva Communiqu(C), and reiterated that Assad must go,'' the official said.
  Critics of the administration, including McCain, doubt that the new Geneva conference '' coming a year after the earlier summit produced the Communiqu(C) that called for an end to violence and democratic transition ''will produce any progress toward a political solution. They also doubt that the Russians are committed to such a solution, considering that they continue to provide arms to the Assad regime. But Kerry has continued to endorse and push for the conference as a way to begin real negotiations between the regime and the opposition.
  ''This is a Kerry initiative,'' an administration official said. ''It's also a test of the veracity of the Russian claims that they are committed to a peaceful outcome that reflects the will of the Syrian people.''
  The Geneva conference will happen at about the same time as a huge set of military exercises conducted in Jordan called ''Eager Lion,'' which will include 15,000 troops from 18 countries, including the United States. The U.S. could leave military assets in Jordan following the exercise that might be useful for a no-fly zone, such as F-16 fighter aircraft.
  Caitlin Hayden, the spokesperson for the White House's National Security Staff, told The Daily Beast that the White House is considering a range of possible actions in Syria.
  ''As the president reiterated last week, all options are on the table with regard to Syria, though a scenario involving American boots on the ground is not likely,'' she said. ''We are prepared for all contingencies,'' she said. ''We will continue to urgently work to support the opposition. We are consulting with the Syrian Opposition Coalition and the Supreme Military Council about how we can continue to elevate our assistance; we are leading the world in providing humanitarian assistance for those affected by the violence; and we will continue to coordinate international efforts to end the bloodshed and hasten a political transition to a Syria where Bashad al-Assad has no role.''
  Some Syria experts praised the White House's decision to plan more options in Syria, but doubted that Obama would actually make the decision to intervene in the near term.
  ''No doubt, the United States and its like-minded allies and partners are fully capable, without the use of ground troops, of obviating the Assad regime's degraded fixed and mobile air defenses and suppressing the regime's use of airpower,'' said Robert Zarate, policy director at the Foreign Policy Initiative, a Washington-based group that advocates for aggressive U.S. military action in support of human rights and democratic allies. ''But the question is whether that's something President Obama actually has the will and resolve to do.''
Things Americans Do That Seem Just Bizarre To The Outside World
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 29 May 2013 09:15
  Made Mac n cheese for my aussie cousins. Included 600 grams of cheese. They were floored (and clogged probably) -- Marcvsgrippa
  6. Pumpkin everythingPumpkin flavored things, pumpkin is a vegetable yet it is always in seasonal items in combination with sweet flavors. To me a pumpkin spice coffee is so strange!-- TallGrass2
  7. Cheerleaders...dressing up young girls in short skirts and getting them to dance around and cheer on young men strikes me as odd '--preparetodobattle
  8. FlagsI work at a summer camp and there is nothing funnier than watching the international counselors be totally weirded out by the flag ceremony we have every morning/evening (5-7 camper colorguard raises flag, salutes, 60-90 people recite pledge and girl scout promise in unison, we turn on our heels and file out silently in the morning, in the evening we fold the flag, sing taps, turn on our heels and file out silently to dinner) '--izzielosthermind
  9.Taking coffee everywhereEating/drinking coffee as you go, to me the best part of eating is sitting down, talking, and relaxing '-- tallgrass2
  Courtesy of Joyride Coffee
  10. Being obsessed with your alma mater.I know this does not apply to everyone but your attachment to your college/university AFTER you have left. The amount of older people I saw on my trip wearing college gear was insane. As well as supporting your college as an alumni. Coming from the UK where a university is used to gain your degree then its a case of thanks for the piss ups, bye! '-- Fenrir89
  I get made fun of all the time in Russia for having an attachment to my college. They just don't get the idea of loyalty to the school. I think it comes from two places: sports, and a sense of community. '-- Ck14
  11. All the pomp and circumstance surrounding prom
  I have cousins who live in the US and just hearing about the number of hoops they had to jump through to ask someone to a dance is hilarious. '-- Saysthingsfromabush
  In Scotland our equivalents are ceilidhs and in school you just go and f***ing dance. Concept of building up the courage to ask someone to a ceilidh is simply ridiculous. "hey would you like to come and get bruised with me doing some fast dances to violins?" As is tradition. '-- Reducto_Absurdum
  Bob n Renee via Flickr
  12. White teeth maniaAmericans are obsessed with straight, white teeth. It's like your entire concept of beauty hangs on it. Don't get me wrong, dental hygiene is important, but not everyone needs a perfect Hollywood smile. They look super fake. '-- Flashnewb
  13. Being obsessed with being the best country in the worldmany Chinese people do not understand how America can function so "well" since the people here are all so different. We have black, asians, white, hispanics, indians just to name of few and yet we don't have massive in fighting between races or religions. Go to many other countries and the smallest differences in culture, language, and background will almost automatically cause some major issues. '-- jdavem
  The way its often described to me is that Americans have a very "open mind", and that we can handle having a lot of different people around, even when we don't agree. '-- fawkesandthehound
  ">Daniel Goodman / Business Insider
Two US embassy personnel shot in Venezuela
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 29 May 2013 09:06
  Two US embassy personnel shot in Venezuela
  (AFP) '' 17 hours ago
  CARACAS '-- Two employees of the US embassy in Venezuela were shot and wounded early Tuesday in the capital Caracas, in a murky incident that local media and a police source said took place at a strip club.
  "We can confirm that two members of the US embassy in Caracas were injured during an incident early this morning," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters in Washington.
  "Medical staff inform us that their injuries are not life-threatening," he added, noting that they were hurt at "some sort of a social spot" but without specifying the venue or nature of their injuries.
  US diplomatic sources later confirmed to AFP that the two men were shot.
  The Venezuelan media identified the two men as Roberto Ezequiel Rosas and Paul Marwin, and said they were military attaches at the embassy, but neither the State Department nor the embassy in Caracas would confirm those reports.
  "My understanding is that they are other agency personnel, not from the State Department," Ventrell said.
  Venezuelan television channel Globovision reported on its website that the incident took place at the Antonella bar located in a shopping center in the Chacao district of Caracas, after an altercation with other bar patrons.
  Bar staff told AFP on condition of anonymity that the venue is indeed a strip club that only admits men over the age of 30, but refused to say anything about the alleged incident involving the US embassy personnel.
  A district policeman, who also spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said a shooting incident had been reported just outside the Antonella bar, involving three Americans.
  In the entryway of the club, there are photos of female strippers.
  Venezuela has the highest murder rate in South America with 54 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. In the first quarter of 2013 alone, there were 3,400 murders, according to government statistics.
  Several diplomats have been assaulted in recent months in the country.
  The United States and Venezuela, which have had no ambassadors since 2010, have had strained relations since Caracas accused Washington of backing a coup that briefly ousted the late Hugo Chavez in 2002.
  President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez's former vice president, has maintained a confrontational stance with the US government since his election on April 14, calling President Barack Obama the "grand chief of devils."
  Foreign Minister Elias Jaua, however, said two weeks ago that the new government was prepared to normalize relations with the United States, beginning with a return of Venezuela's ambassador to Washington.
  Despite the tensions, Venezuela sells the United States 900,000 barrels of oil a day.
  Copyright (C) 2013 AFP. All rights reserved. More >>
DOJ criminality deepens as report shows targeting of Fast and Furious whistleblower
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 29 May 2013 09:01
  (NaturalNews) The criminality and illegitimacy of the federal government continues to grow, this time with the disclosure that a former U.S. attorney intentionally released a document aimed at discrediting a whistleblower in the "Operation Fast and Furious" scandal.A new report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General has confirmed that Dennis Burke, former U.S. attorney for Arizona, leaked a document that was intended to smear John Dodson, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Department of Justice agency which launched the operation that saw thousands of semi-automatic, military-style rifles purchased in the U.S. by straw buyers fall into the hands of Mexican drug gangs.
  From the report:
  On July 8, 2011, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) received information from an attorney representing John Dodson, a Special Agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), concerning the alleged unauthorized disclosure of sensitive ATF information. According to Dodson's attorney, Dodson had received an e-mail from a Fox News producer asking for comment about excerpts from an internal ATF investigative memorandum that Dodson had drafted and which described a proposed undercover operation for an ATF firearms investigation...
  Dodson's attorney alleged that officials within the DOJ had disclosed the memorandum to retaliate against Dodson for his criticism of the conduct of the firearms trafficking investigation referred to as Operation Fast and Furious. On June 15, 2011, shortly before the alleged unauthorized disclosure, Dodson and other ATF agents had expressed their concerns about Operation Fast and Furious during testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
  The DOJ IG report went on to state that the office launched an investigation shortly after receiving the complaint.According to details of the investigation, on Aug. 16, 2011, Burke contacted an IG investigative counsel by phone to say he had indeed released the memorandum to the media, adding that the reporter "seemed to be familiar with the contents of the ... memorandum before Burke provided it to him," the report said.
  In tracking down the details of the disclosure, investigators solicited sworn statements from 150 of 152 employees who had been identified by the Justice Department as having had access to documents provided to congressional panels looking into the failed operation. Of that figure, the IG's office singled out five for additional interviews because they had indicated some knowledge of the memorandum's release.
  In its report, the IG concluded that indeed "Burke's conduct in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to be inappropriate for a Department employee and wholly unbefitting a U.S. Attorney."
  "We are referring to OPR our finding that Burke violated Department policy in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to a member of the media for a determination of whether Burke's conduct violated the Rules of Professional Conduct for the state bars in which Burke is a member," the IG report said.
  Burke eventually resigned his position as U.S. Attorney following the incident, in August 2011. He became the first major Justice Department official to leave his or her position in the Fast and Furious scandal.
  In interviews with congressional investigators after the fact, Burke said he now views his leaking of the memorandum as a "mistake."
  Besides uncovering Burke's involvement in leaking the document, the IG investigation also turned up emails between senior Department of Justice officials in which they discussed smearing Dodson.
  One of those officials was Tracy Scmaler, director of the Justice Department's Office of Public Affairs. She resigned her position at DOJ "after emails uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed that she worked with left wing advocacy group Media Matters for America to smear whistleblowers and members of Congress and the media who sought to investigate DOJ scandals under Attorney General Eric Holder," Breitbart News reported.
  Obama is being blamed for many of these scandals and, as president and head of the Executive Branch of government, he is certainly culpable.But only to an extent.
  Granted, Obama has worked overtime to expand the power of the presidency, but he inherited an office whose role had already been enlarged far beyond anything the founding fathers envisioned for the Executive Branch. But Congress is culpable as well, for the Legislative Branch has, over the past century, relegated its lawmaking authority to the plethora of federal bureaucracies it has created.
  And the president controls them.
  Decrying bureaucracy and advocating for smaller government shouldn't be a political slogan. It should be a demand of every freedom-minded, liberty loving American. That's because we are no longer being "represented" by our elected leaders, we are being "ruled" by federal agencies.
  That is not the "republican form of government" our Constitution guarantees.
  Sources for this article include:
  http://www.breitbart.com
  http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/2013/s1305.pdf
  http://www.breitbart.com
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Apple hires former EPA chief Lisa Jackson to coordinate environmental policy
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  Wed, 29 May 2013 08:49
  Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage at All Things D's D11 conference today, touching on a variety of issues, from wearable electronics and iOS 7 to Apple's tax headaches in the US. One big announcement was the appointment of Lisa Jackson, the former head of the EPA, to head up Apple's environmental responsibility efforts. Cook announced that Jackson would be reporting directly to him in her new role. "Lisa Jackson is joining Apple. Lisa was running the EPA for the last four years," said Cook, as he discussed initiatives like Apple's renewable energy-powered data center in North Carolina. "She's going to be coordinating a lot of this activity across the company," he added.
  Jackson served as head of the EPA since 2009, after being appointed to the job by president-elect Barack Obama. Serving nearly four years in that role, she announced plans to step down in late 2012 after it was discovered that she was conducting EPA business using a private email address. Jackson scored some big successes during her tenure, including getting carbon dioxide and other chemicals listed as pollutants in the Clean Air Act, but a proposal for smog legislation that she spearheaded was shot down in 2011 owing to weak economic growth.
  "She'll fit right in with our culture."
  In recent years, Apple has been focused on its environmental performance, issuing regular responsibility reports to highlight its progress, but it has been criticized by EPEAT and others for decisions that prioritize tightly integrated product designs over repairability. In her new role at Apple, Jackson will be helping to steer its environmental policy, and while the job will be quite different from what she was doing in Washington, Cook is positive that she's a good match a good match for the company. "She'll fit right in with our culture," said Cook.
Newtown Massacre Records: Bill Drafted In Secret Would Block Release Of Some Newtown Massacre Records
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Wed, 29 May 2013 08:43
  May 21, 2013|By JON LENDER, EDMUND H. MAHONY and DAVE ALTIMARI, jlender@courant.com, The Hartford Courant
  The staffs of the state's top prosecutor and the governor's office have been working in secret with General Assembly leaders on legislation to withhold records related to the police investigation into the Dec. 14 Newtown elementary school massacre '-- including victims' photos, tapes of 911 calls, and possibly more.
  The behind-the-scenes legislative effort came to light Tuesday when The Courant obtained a copy of an email by a top assistant to Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane, Timothy J. Sugrue. Sugrue, an assistant state's attorney, discussed options considered so far, including blocking release of statements "made by a minor."
  "There is complete agreement regarding photos etc., and audio tapes, although the act may allow the disclosure of audio transcripts," Sugrue wrote to Kane, two other Kane subordinates and to Danbury State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky, who is directing the investigation of the killings.
  The bill that's being crafted has not been handled under routine legislative procedures '-- it hasn't gone through the committee process, which includes a public hearing, for example. Sugrue's email Tuesday indicated that a draft of the bill was being worked on by leaders in both the House and Senate, and might be ready as soon as the end of the day.
  He wrote: "I just received a call from Natalie Wagner" '-- a member of the legal counsel's staff in the office of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
  "She believes that draft language will be forthcoming today (the work of both houses) in the form of a special act. ..." Sugrue wrote that Wagner "will send me the draft in confidence when she receives it, and I will immediately forward it."
  However, late Tuesday, the legislation proposed by Kane wasn't ready to be acted on in either legislative chamber, said Malloy's director of communications, Andrew Doba. He said he did not know when that might happen.
  "A lot of people, including our office, have heard the concerns expressed by the families of Newtown victims, and are exploring ways to respect the families' right to privacy while also respecting the public's right to information," gubernatorial chief of staff Mark Ojakian said in a statement released by Doba.
  A major question yet to be settled is whether the legislation would apply only to the Newtown case, or to documents from other criminal cases that are now subject to public disclosure. A report on the police investigation into the Newtown shooting is expected to be released in June.
  As envisioned by Kane, the bill wouldn't be limited to the Newtown file.
  "We are seeking legislation to protect crime scene photographs protecting victims and certain 911 tapes," Kane told The Courant Tuesday. "It is something that I have been concerned about for years and years and the situation in Newtown brings it to a head. I don't want family members seeing pictures of their loved ones publicized in a manner in which these are subject to be published."
  He said as he sees the legislation, it would apply to "basically crime scene photographs depicting injuries to victims and recordings, 911 recordings displaying the mental anguish of victims. Things like that, of that category. And it seems to me that the intrusion of the privacy of the individuals outweighs any public interest in seeing these."
  Sugrue said in his email that the "forthcoming" language would be "in the form of a special act, not an amendment to the [state's Freedom of Information Act]."
  As originally discussed behind the scenes, the proposed legislation would have amended the state's freedom of information law by adding a blanket exemption to disclosure of any "criminal investigation photograph, film, videotape, other image or recording or report depicting or describing the victim or victims."
  Colleen Murphy, the director of the state's FOI Commission, said Tuesday that her staff had argued against the idea of such a blanket change. She said a couple of weeks ago the office of House Speaker Brendan Sharkey provided her agency with a draft including the blanket exception. She said she was advised that this draft would not be put to a vote, but she knew nothing abut the contents of the "forthcoming" draft.
  Murphy said she'd urged that lawmakers be "thoughtful and careful about any legislation" and to "not be reactive to one situation" by making changes that could have long-term, unintended effects.
  Murphy was unaware of Sugrue's email when The Courant told her about it late Tuesday afternoon. She said she and her staff had not been receiving detailed updates. Asked if she would have liked to have been kept aware of developments such as Sugrue's email, she said yes.
  The killing of 20 first-graders and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown has sparked a number of legislative proposals this year to protect the privacy of the victims' families and spare them further pain. One example is a bill that would exempt the death certificates of minors from public disclosure for six months.
Newtown's 911 Calls: Will Connecticut Block the Public From Ever Hearing Them?
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 29 May 2013 08:37
  Legislation drafted behind closed doors could give the victims' families control over key police documents.
  By Gavin Aronsen on Wed. May 29, 2013 3:00 AM PDT
  Last week, the Hartford Courant reported that Connecticut's top prosecutor and aides to Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy had crafted legislation that could block public access to investigation material from the massacre at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School, including recordings of 911 calls, death certificates, names of minors who were witnesses, and photographs of victims from the crime scene. The proposal, drafted behind closed doors as an amendment to a bill regarding access to emergency services reports, would allow victims' families to have the final say on whether photos, videos, or audio "depicting the physical condition of any victim" can be released to the public.
  Under existing Connecticut law, investigators don't release graphic crime scene photos to the public unless they are introduced as evidence at a trial. But they are permitted to release audio from 911 calls, documentation that has been made public elsewhere after other high-profile mass shootings including Columbine and Aurora. (Conversely, police did not release audio of 911 calls made during the Virginia Tech massacre.) The new proposal would still allow access to written transcripts of the 911 calls made in Newtown.
  Critics of the proposal helped forestall a vote last week, raising questions about its broader implications and why it wasn't subject to the normal legislative process, including committee hearings and input from the public. A New York Timeseditorial on Sunday argued that the "proposal raises grave concerns about whether parents' sensitivities could block the release of such things as private journals kept by the Newtown shooter," adding that the journals of the Columbine shooters "eventually provided valuable insight into [their] thoughts."
  The draft of the amendment doesn't go that far; it aims to protect sensitive information about victims but not the killer. Still, "It is an exemption to disclosure without there being a real, transparent process," says Colleen Murphy, executive director of Connecticut's Freedom of Information Commission. That could set a dubious precedent, she says, potentially subjecting future police documents to the control of families victimized by crimes.
  Garvin Ambrose, the state's victim advocate, directly raised that possibility last week, arguing that "this legislation needs to be expanded to include all crime victims." And Kevin Kane, the chief state's attorney, whose office helped draft the amendment, told the Courant that he also wanted to expand the proposal beyond the Newtown investigation, saying "that the intrusion of the privacy of the individuals outweighs any public interest" in gaining access to such material.
  But in Gov. Malloy's view, Newtown is an exception. "I think there are different circumstances," he said. "You know, when John Kennedy was assassinated, certain documents were frozen for 50 years."
  Asked whether creating an exception solely for Newtown might perpetuate a spate of conspiracy theories about Newtown, Malloy acknowledged that there has been "a lot of wacky coverage in the blog world" about the shooting, but added, "They're nuts anyway, okay?" (For example, parents of children killed in Newtown have been accused of being actors in a staged event orchestrated by the federal government to push gun control legislation through Congress.)
  A final report from the state police investigation of the massacre is expected to be released in June. Here's the working draft of the amendment:
Enhanced Fujita scale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 29 May 2013 08:31
  Enhanced Fujita ScaleEF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5The Enhanced Fujita scale (EF scale) rates the strength of tornadoes in the United States and Canada based on the damage they cause.
  Implemented in place of the Fujita scale introduced in 1971 by Tetsuya Theodore Fujita, it began operational use in the United States on February 1, 2007, followed by Canada on April 1, 2013.[1][2] The scale has the same basic design as the original Fujita scale'--six categories from zero to five, representing increasing degrees of damage. It was revised to reflect better examinations of tornado damage surveys, so as to align wind speeds more closely with associated storm damage. Better standardizing and elucidating what was previously subjective and ambiguous, it also adds more types of structures and vegetation, expands degrees of damage, and better accounts for variables such as differences in construction quality.
  The new scale was publicly unveiled by the National Weather Service at a conference of the American Meteorological Society in Atlanta on February 2, 2006. It was developed from 2000 to 2004 by the Fujita Scale Enhancement Project of the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech University, which brought together dozens of expert meteorologists and civil engineers in addition to its own resources.
  As with the Fujita scale, the Enhanced Fujita scale remains a damage scale and only a proxy for actual wind speeds. While the wind speeds associated with the damage listed have not undergone empirical analysis (such as detailed physical or any numerical modelling) owing to excessive cost, the wind speeds were obtained through a process of expert elicitation based on various engineering studies since the 1970s as well as from field experience of meteorologists and engineers. In addition to damage to structures and vegetation, radar data, photogrammetry, and cycloidal marks (ground swirl patterns) may be utilized when available.
  The scale was used for the first time in the United States a year after its public announcement when parts of central Florida were struck by multiple tornadoes, the strongest of which were rated at EF3 on the new scale. It was used for the first time in Canada shortly after its implementation there when a tornado developed near the town on Shelburne, Ontario on April 18th, 2013, causing up to EF1 damage.
  The first time the EF5 rating was used was for the May 4, 2007 Greensburg, Kansas tornado. The latest occurrence of an EF5 tornado was the 2013 Moore tornado in Moore, Oklahoma during the May 18''20, 2013 tornado outbreak.
  Parameters[edit]The six categories for the EF scale are listed below, in order of increasing intensity. Although the wind speeds and photographic damage examples are updated, the damage descriptions given are those from the Fujita scale, which are more or less still accurate. However, for the actual EF scale in practice, damage indicators (the type of structure which has been damaged) are predominately used in determining the tornado intensity.[3]
  Damage indicators and degrees of damage[edit]The EF scale currently has 28 damage indicators (DI), or types of structures and vegetation, each with a varying number of degrees of damage (DoD). Larger degrees of damage done to the damage indicators correspond to higher wind speeds.[5] The links in the right column of the following table describe the degrees of damage for the damage indicators listed in each row.
  DI No.Damage Indicator (DI)Degrees of Damage (DOD)1Small Barns or Farm Outbuildings (SBO)82One- or Two-Family Residences (FR12)103Manufactured Home '' Single Wide (MHSW)94Manufactured Home '' Double Wide (MHDW)125Apartments, Condos, Townhouses [3 stories or less] (ACT)66Motel (M)107Masonry Apartment or Motel Building (MAM)78Small Retail Building [Fast Food Restaurants] (SRB)89Small Professional Building [Doctor's Office, Branch Banks] (SPB)910Strip Mall (SM)911Large Shopping Mall (LSM)912Large, Isolated Retail Building [K-Mart, Wal-Mart] (LIRB)713Automobile Showroom (ASR)814Automobile Service Building (ASB)815Elementary School [Single Story; Interior or Exterior Hallways] (ES)1016Junior or Senior High School (JHSH)1117Low-Rise Building [1''4 Stories] (LRB)718Mid-Rise Building [5''20 Stories] (MRB)1019High-Rise Building [More than 20 Stories] (HRB)1020Institutional Building [Hospital, Government or University Building] (IB)1121Metal Building System (MBS)822Service Station Canopy (SSC)623Warehouse Building [Tilt-up Walls or Heavy-Timber Construction] (WHB)724Electrical Transmission Lines (ETL)625Free-Standing Towers (FST)326Free-Standing Light Poles, Luminary Poles, Flag Poles (FSP)327Trees: Hardwood (TH)528Trees: Softwood (TS)5Differences from the Fujita scale[edit]The new scale takes into account quality of construction and standardizes different kinds of structures. The wind speeds on the original scale were deemed by meteorologists and engineers as being too high, and engineering studies indicated that slower winds than initially estimated cause the respective degrees of damage. The old scale lists an F5 tornado as wind speeds of 261-318 mph (419-512 km/hr), while the new scale lists an EF5 as a tornado with winds above 200 mph (324 km/hr), found to be sufficient to cause the damage previously ascribed to the F5 range of wind speeds. None of the tornadoes recorded on or before January 31, 2007 will be re-categorized.
  Essentially, there is no functional difference in how tornadoes are rated. The old ratings and new ratings are smoothly connected with a linear formula. The only differences are adjusted wind speeds, measurements of which were not used in previous ratings, and refined damage descriptions; this is to standardize ratings and to make it easier to rate tornadoes which strike few structures. 28 Damage Indicators (DI), with descriptions such as "double-wide mobile home" or "strip mall", are used along with Degrees of Damage (DOD) to determine wind estimates. Different structures, depending on their building materials and ability to survive high winds, have their own DIs and DODs. Damage descriptors and wind speeds will also be readily updated as new information is learned.[5]
  Since the new system still uses actual tornado damage and similar degrees of damage for each category to estimate the storm's wind speed, the National Weather Service states that the new scale will likely not lead to an increase in a number of tornadoes classified as EF5. Additionally, the upper bound of the wind speed range for EF5 is open'--in other words, there is no maximum wind speed designated.[3]
  Rating classifications[edit]Tornado rating classificationsEF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5WeakStrongViolentSignificantIntenseFor purposes such as tornado climatology studies, Enhanced Fujita scale ratings may be grouped into classes.[6][7][8]
  See also[edit]References[edit]Edwards, Roger; J. G. LaDue, J. T. Ferree, K. Scharfenberg, C. Maier, W. L. Coulbourne (2013). "Tornado Intensity Estimation: Past, Present, and Future". Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc.94 (5): 641''53. doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00006.1. External links[edit]
Bush's Invasion of Iraq was Criminal '... Obama's About to Do the Same Thing In Syria
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  Archived Version
  Wed, 29 May 2013 08:21
  Bush Launched the Iraq War For Oil '... Obama Is Launching the Syrian War for Natural GasThe former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff '' the highest ranking military officer in the United States '' said that the Iraq war was ''based on a series of lies''.
  Many high-ranking military officials, top Republican leaders and key architects of the Iraq war said that the war was really about oil. And yet the American people haven't seen any benefit '... top oil economists have said that the Iraq war substantially raised the price of oil.
  The American government sold the Iraq war under false pretenses.
  Indeed, the American government planned the Iraq war long before 9/11. Former CIA director George Tenet said that the White House wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted ''crap'' in its justifications for invading Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill '' who sat on the National Security Council '' also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. Top British officials say that the U.S. discussed Iraq regime change even before Bush took office. In 2000, Cheney said a Bush administration might ''have to take military action to forcibly remove Saddam from power.'' And see this and this. Indeed, neoconservatives planned regime change in Iraq 20 years ago.
  National security experts '' including both hawks and doves '' agree that waging war against Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries has weakened America's national security and increased terrorism risks. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
  In fact, there was noAl Qaeda in Iraquntil the U.S. invaded in 2003:
  Similarly, neoconservatives planned regime change in Syria 20 years ago.
  And carrying out acts of violence and blaming it on the Syrian government as an excuse for regime change '' i.e. false flag terror '' was discussed over 50 years ago by British and American leaders.
  And Western governments want regime change in Syria because of gas:
  Syria is an integral partof the proposed 1,200km Arab Gas Pipeline:
  Here are some additional graphics courtesy of Adam Curry:
  ***
  Syria's central role in the Arab gas pipeline is '... a key to why it is now being targeted.
  Just as the Taliban was scheduled for removal after they demanded too much in return for the Unocal pipeline, Syria's Assad is being targeted because he is not a reliable ''player''.
  Specifically, Turkey, Israel and their ally the U.S. want an assured flow of gas through Syria, and don't want a Syrian regime which is not unquestionably loyal to those 3 countries to stand in the way of the pipeline '... or which demands too big a cut of the profits.
  A deal has also been inked to run a natural gas pipeline from Iran's giant South Pars field through Iraq and Syria (with a possible extension to Lebanon).
  And a deal to run petroleum from Iraq's Kirkuk oil field to the Syrian port of Banias has also been approved:
  Turkey and Israel would be cut out of these competing pipelines.
  No wonder Turkey and Israel are both launching military strikes against Syria.
  On the other hand, Russia's giant natural gas industry would be threatened if Syria's current regime is toppled '... no wonder Israel and Russia are getting into it over Syria.
  And the monarchies in Qatar and Saudi Arabia would also benefit as competitors in the gas market if Syria's regime is taken out '... so they're backing the ''rebels'' as well.
  And the U.S. is heavily backing backed Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria. (even the New York Times reports that virtually all of the rebel fighters are Al Qaeda terrorists.)
  Indeed, the U.S. has been arming the Syrian opposition since 2006.
  And the U.S. is now considering imposing a no-fly zone over Syria '... which was also the opening move in the wars against Iraq and Libya.
  Bush launched the Iraq war under false pretenses '... similarly, the war in Syria is really being launched by Obama and natural gas players in the region who want to cut Syria and Russia out of the game.
  Postscript: If the corporate media were reporting more accurately on Syria than they did on Iraq, the American people would realize that there is grave doubt about who is most responsible for the violence, and who really used chemical weapons in Syria.
  Not that Assad is a saint, but he poses no danger to the United States, and shouldn't be demonized and turned into a threat to American national security man any more than Saddam Hussein.
  The Iraq war will end up with a final price tag of between $5-6trillion dollars. We simply can't afford to get involved in another war '... especially with Russia and Iran actively aligned against us.
Jordan to conduct wargames with 18 countries
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 14:55
  AMMAN, May 25: More than 15,000 soldiers from 18 different countries will take part in a joint military exercise in Jordan in the coming weeks, a military official said on Saturday.
  Jordan's armed forces will host the ''Eager Lion 2013'' exercise with troops from ''friendly countries'', including the United States, participating, the official Petra news agency cited the official as saying.
  They would take part in battlefield, logistics and humanitarian exercises alongside troops from Britain, Bahrain, Canada, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Iraq, Italy, Lebanon, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, he added.
  The official did not say when the manoeuvres were due to begin but said they would run for two weeks and follow last year's ''successful'' operation.
  Jordan is a major beneficiary of US military and economic aid, with Washington granting $2.4 billion in the past five years, according to official figures.
  The wargames will be held as Jordan is currently hosting around 500,000 refugees who fled the civil war in neighbouring Syria. Amman has repeatedly sought for more support in dealing with the influx.'--AFP
Sky News And The 4000 Year Old Mosques
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  Archived Version
  Source: Israellycool
  Tue, 28 May 2013 13:01
  Judge Dan | May 28, 2013 | 1 commentThere's a spat of epically horrible editing errors on Sky News, two of which I presented here. So it should come as no surprise when Sky News wrote of the ''4000 year old mosques'', when reporting on the damage to historical sites in Syria.
  The error was since corrected, but the original sentence said:
  But I'm not in any ordinary battlefield. I am in one of the most important archaeological sites in the world '' the 4,000-year-old mosques, covered markets and Citadel of Aleppo.
  Here's a cached version to prove it:
  Sky News is in dire need of a new editor, preferably someone who doesn't think Palestinians are descendants of the Jebusites.
  I do urge you though to read the article, to see what real threats and damage to world heritage sites are, as opposed the the weekly rambling of Palestinian groups regarding Al-Aqsa mosque and the Zionist plot to destroy it with acid/earthquakes/Talmudic rituals/excavations/sharks with laser beams/all of the above [circle the correct answer].
  Filed Under: Judge Dan
  Tags: Al-Aqsa Mosque, Aleppo, Jebusites, Mosque
New South African ID cards here in July
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  Tue, 28 May 2013 12:02
  Green, bar-coded identity books will be replaced with identity smart cards from July, Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor said on Thursday.
  ''We will begin with the issuing of the cards to new applicants and those who need re-issuing of identity documents from July this year,'' she told reporters in Pretoria.
  The South African company, Altech Card Solutions, had won the R40 million tender to supply the Government Printing Works (GPW) with card personalisation machines and an automated mailing solution, manufactured by DataCard in the US.
  The leading identity card manufacturer, Gemalto Southern Africa, had won the Euro16m (about R199m) tender to supply pre-printed polycarbonate cards containing a contactless microchip.
  ''Through a rigorous tender process, GPW identified two world-class suppliers, each with extensive experience in their field'...,'' said Pandor.
  ''The smart card is part of the national effort to consolidate the restoration, common citizenship and identity and dignity to our people,'' she said.
  Pandor said it would take six or seven years to phase out the old identity documents (ID).
  She said the identity card roll-out would start at 27 regional offices.
  Director general Mkuseli Apleni said those who had fraudulent IDs were in trouble.
  ''This is a security-tight process'... Hard luck to those with fraudulent documents.''
  More government newsBroadband spectrum licensing one step closer to reality
  DoC wants transparency on SMS, voice, and data prices
  Internet content regulation in South Africa by FPB
Syrian opposition disarray threatens international support | Reuters
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 11:07
  Demonstrators wave Syrian opposition flags during a protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad at the courtyard of Fatih mosque in Istanbul May 24, 2013.
  Credit: Reuters/Murad Sezer
  By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
  ISTANBUL | Tue May 28, 2013 9:56am EDT
  ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Diplomatic efforts intensified on Tuesday to solve a crisis in Syria's opposition which threatens to derail a planned peace conference and rob the Islamist-dominated alliance of international support.
  After six days of talks in Istanbul, the 60-member Syrian National Coalition has failed to agree on the wider involvement of a liberal opposition bloc, to the dismay of Western and some Arab backers keen to reduce the influence of Islamists.
  More than two years after the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began, the disarray raises questions about the opposition's ability to agree any sort of inclusive transitional government and could strengthen Assad's hand ahead of a U.S. and Russian-backed peace conference planned for the coming weeks.
  It also comes as Assad's forces regain ground inside Syria, with fighting raging around the strategic border town of Qusair and the capital Damascus in recent days, and as Western nations remain divided on supplying arms to the rebels.
  Russia and the United States are trying to bring Assad's representatives and the opposition together at a conference in mid-June in Geneva, the first serious diplomatic effort in nearly a year to end a war which has killed more than 80,000.
  Syria's government has said it will attend, but the fractious opposition has not yet committed, potentially a major embarrassment for Washington and the alliance's other backers.
  Senior representatives from Qatar, a major player behind the opposition, as well as other Western and Arab powers were due in Istanbul later to try to break the deadlock, joining envoys from nations including the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, France and Britain who have been monitoring the talks since last Thursday.
  A senior Saudi Arabian official was also expected to attend.
  "Effectively, without an opposition overhaul there will not be a Geneva," one senior regional official said.
  In a sign of the disarray, the opposition delegates were forced to decamp from the hotel where they were meeting, originally booked for three days, to another venue even further out on the fringes of Istanbul.
  Senior coalition officials are painfully aware that their failure to agree after days of late-night bartering risk undermining their credibility and giving ammunition to Assad at a critical juncture.
  "In Geneva, we are going to face a disciplined team that is going to be sent by Assad with experience in negotiating with Israel for decades. We can't afford but to send our top people if we decide to go," one senior opposition source said.
  HIGH STAKES
  The coalition had meant to discuss a new leadership in Istanbul, including the fate of provisional Prime Minister Ghassan Hitto, who has not been able to form a provisional government in exile since being appointed on March 19.
  But it is still stuck on whether to admit a liberal bloc headed by opposition campaigner Michel Kilo, a respected Christian writer whose group has been offered only five seats instead of the more than 20 it had been seeking.
  Failure to broaden the coalition, in which Qatar and a bloc largely influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood has been playing the driving role, could undermine Saudi Arabian support for the revolt and raise the specter of a rivalry among Gulf powers that could further weaken the opposition.
  With Lebanese Shi'ite guerrillas from Iranian-backed Hezbollah now openly fighting alongside government troops in Syria, Saudi Arabia is keen to play a greater role in backing the Sunni-led opposition, opposition sources have said.
  Farouk Tayfour, deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood, who fought against Assad's father in the 1980s, met with Kilo late on Monday in a possible sign of a detente.
  "Tayfour addressed the coalition yesterday and told them in a stern tone that this is unacceptable. We are jeopardizing our credibility," another coalition source said.
  George Sabra, the acting head of the coalition, appeared intent to drop the issue and proceed with electing a new leadership. But other senior opposition officials said such a move would only deepen divisions.
  "If they go ahead with choosing a new leadership, they are setting the stage for a war between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and nobody wants this," one of the officials said.
  (Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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VIDEO-Teen accused of plotting to bomb school has form of OCD, family says - CNN.com
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 11:06
  By Holly Yan, Cristy Lenz and Greg Morrison, CNN
  updated 10:43 AM EDT, Tue May 28, 2013
  STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  Prosecutor: Grant Acord made bombs and planned an attack deadlier than ColumbineAcord, 17, is due in court Tuesday and will be charged as an adult with attempted aggravated murderAn attorney for the suspect's mother says the teen has PANDAS and is "very mentally ill"There is no clear diagnostic criteria for PANDAS(CNN) -- An Oregon teen accused of planning to bomb his high school suffers from a rare form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, his family said.
  "My heart goes out to everyone affected by Grant's struggle with PANDAS, a rare form of OCD," Grant Acord's mother said through her attorney.
  "I grieve for my son, but understand and support the efforts of law enforcement to keep our beloved community safe," the mother, Marianne Fox, added. "This is a challenging and confusing time for everyone who knows Grant. I will have no further comment while I wait with the rest of you to see what unfolds."
  Acord, 17, is expected to appear in court for the first time Tuesday. He will be charged as an adult with attempted aggravated murder.
  Acord's goal, said Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson, "was to model the Columbine shootings with some adjustments that would make it a greater success."
  PANDAS, which stands for pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcus, is caused by the body's immune reaction to a strep infection, not the infection itself, according to the International OCD Foundation.
  But there is no clear diagnostic criteria for PANDAS, according to the PANDAS Network.
  Alan Lanker, the attorney for the mother, said Acord has received treatment, but said he did not know the details of the teen's treatment.
  "He's very mentally ill. He has PANDAS. It's a brain infection that's causing a mental illness. It's been their concern for some time," Lanker said.
  Disturbingallegations
  Police found six types of explosives after they arrested Acord on Thursday night at a home in Albany, Oregon, Haroldson said. Authorities believe he was planning to bomb West Albany High School.
  They recovered napalm, pipe and drain cleaner bombs, as well as Molotov cocktails Friday from "a secret compartment that had been created in the floorboards" of the teen's bedroom, Haroldson said.
  With the help of checklists and diagrams, the prosecutor said, Acord wanted to outdo the Columbine shootings.
  The 1999 massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School left one teacher and 14 students dead, including the two gunmen.
  Albany police became suspicious after they received information suggesting Acord was making a bomb with the intent of detonating it at a school.
  "I've been doing this job for a while, and this was probably the scariest moment I've ever had as a school resource officer," Sgt. Alan Lynn told CNN affiliate KPTV.
  "Luckily in this incident, somebody had the courage to come forward and say, 'This is what I know,' reported that to us, and we were able to investigate that. And because of that information, we were able to stop a horrific event (from) occurring in our community."
  Sheriff: Student plotted TX college attack, fantasized about stabbings
  Fifth-grade boys' plot to kill a classmate thwarted
  In January: Alabama teen free on bail after allegedly plotting 'terrorist attacks'
  CNN's Jake Carpenter and AnneClaire Stapleton contributed to this report.
YWCA USA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:54
  Not to be confused with YMCA.The YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association) is a non-profit organization, the first of which was founded in the UK in 1855. Local and national associations are located worldwide, each with differing aims and methods, but all providing programs for women based on the perceived need in their communities. The umbrella organization for the national associations is the World YWCA, based in Geneva, Switzerland. The original Christian focus is still very strong in many of the national movements, both in Europe and the rest of the world, but some have changed their focus to social activities and gender-related topics only. While the organization remains independent of the YMCA, some programs they provide are similar, such as child care, health & wellness, and employment training. In response, many local YMCA and YWCA associations have amalgamated into YM/YWCAs or YMCA-YWCAs, and belong to both organizations while providing the programs of each.
  In the UK[edit]In the United Kingdom, the name has been truncated to YWCA England & Wales as Christianity no longer plays an integral part in the organisation. YWCA England & Wales concentrates on informal education (youth work), information and signposting for young women growing up in disadvantaged areas. It also campaigns on issues that affect young women. YWCA's most recent campaign was called Respect young mums, and was about getting better support for teenage mums.
  In the US[edit]As the new CEO of the YWCA USA, Dr. Dara Richardson-Heron will oversee the organization which promotes solutions to improve the lives of over 2 million women, girls, people of color and their families in the United States. The YWCA USA has almost 250 associations throughout the country and services are provided in over 1,300 locations across the nation. Associations are configured into 9 regions. Regions vary in size from 19 associations (New England) to 60 associations (Great Lakes). Average of the other regions is 32 associations. The associations employ about 14,000 staff members - 44% are full-time and 56% part-time. In 2004, the YWCA USA utilized 75,225 volunteers to deliver our services.
  YWCA USA In 2004, YWCA USA associations registered 2.6 million people in programs for children, youth and adults, of which 22% were helped with domestic violence programs, 8% were involved in economic empowerment & leadership development programs, 10% participated in racial justice programs, 7% were served by housing and shelter programs, 24% experienced child, youth and teen programs, 24% enjoyed the benefits of health, fitness and aquatic programs. The majority of the YWCA USA associations publicly advocate on Racial Justice, Violence Against Women, Early Childhood Education and Increasing Women's Income issues.
  The YWCA of The City of New York, the oldest of all of the YWCAs in the United States, is 150 years old. They are unique in that the organization is guided purely by human service-oriented programs rather than physical services. Such programs include their Early Learning Centers, Family Resource Center, Out-of-School Programs, Professional Development Programming, and Women's Employment Programming to name a few and still guided by the YW mission of eliminating racism and empowering women. They are a major component of the non-profit community in New York City. They produce several fundraising events annually including the Salute to Women Leaders Luncheon, the YWCA-NYC Theatre Benefit (featuring the broadway hit The Color Purple in 2005 and the revival of Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line in 2006). Their annual Summer Soir(C)e (held at the W Hotel in 2005 and Cipriani 23rd Street in 2006) at which they present their "W" award. This award is presented to a woman who is a visionary, an innovator, trend-setter, a woman who gives back to her community and helps those the YW serves daily: the women, girls and families of New York City. In 2005, this award was given to Marian McEvoy and in 2006 to Star Jones-Reynolds.
  Prior to the U.S. civil rights movement, some YWCA facilities were segregated or operated as separate organizations. Advocates like Helen L. Seaborg in Washington, D.C. worked successfully to mediate mergers between the segregated groups.
  The YWCA USA is a preeminent provider of domestic violence programs and shelters in the United States, serving well over ½ million women and children. As comparison, the largest national hotline averages 192,000 calls per year. They are one of the largest providers of child care in the United States with nearly 350,000 children cared for, possibly more children than the largest for-profit center chain. The total income per year is almost $650 million - ($649,500,430). Of this amount, 49% is from government grants, 23% from public support (individuals, foundations, corporations) and membership fees, and 21% from program service fees.
  The YWCA USA is an organizational member of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, which advocates gun control.
  More about the CEO: Dr. Dara Richardson-Heron: Dara Richardson-Heron, M.D., served for four years as CEO of the Greater New York City Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.® During her tenure, the Affiliate has ranked as the #1 Komen Affiliate in fundraising and grants awarded '-- outpacing over 120 other Affiliates in the U.S. and abroad. The Susan G. Komen for the Cure® organization is the largest source of nonprofit funds in the world dedicated to the fight against breast cancer. Dr. Richardson-Heron is a 15-year and counting breast cancer survivor and a powerful advocate and public spokesperson for preventive health and breast cancer awareness. Her media appearances include CBS News, WCBS News, ABC News, NBC News, The Doctor Oz Show, The Martha Stewart Show, The CBS Morning Show, Fox News, The Today Show, CNBC and Bloomberg Business Week. She has also been featured in O Magazine, New York Daily News and New York Newsday. Dr. Richardson-Heron has more than 20 years of health care leadership, management and operations experience in the corporate and nonprofit sectors. Her experience and expertise spans health care delivery, management, strategic planning, change management, grants administration, human resources, advocacy, public policy and consensus-building.
  Previously, Dr. Richardson-Heron served as the Chief Medical Officer of United Cerebral Palsy of NYC and National Chief Medical Officer for United Cerebral Palsy Association providing advocacy, support, educational services, advice and counsel to over 100 UCP affiliates and thousands of individuals with disabilities in the U.S., Canada and Australia.
  She was Special Assistant to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Consolidated Edison, serving as liaison with Board members, the business community and other constituents and working with senior leaders to execute projects and assess company management. During her 11 years at Con Edison, Dr. Richardson-Heron also served as the Executive Medical Director and Administrative Physician where she was in charge of corporate medical clinic's daily operations, providing comprehensive medical, preventive health and wellness services and regulatory examinations for over 16,000 employees.
  In 2004, she was appointed by the Manhattan Borough President to a commission investigating the growing health care disparities among minorities in New York City. She also served as Chair and Medical Advisor of the YWCA/New York State Department of Health project, ''Breaking Down Barriers '-- Eliminating Obstacles to Health Care for Women with Disabilities.''
  Dr. Richardson-Heron is on the boards of the Women's Forum of New York and the New York Foundation for Senior Citizens. She is also a member of the Greater New York Chapter of the Links, Inc. and an alumna of CORO Foundation-Leadership New York. The recipient of many awards, she has been honored with the YWCA Academy of Women Achievers Award, YMCA Black Achiever in Industry Award and was named one of the ''25 Influential Black Women in Business'' by The Network Journal. In 2010, she was named a ''Woman of Excellence in Philanthropy'' by the United Way of New York City.
  Dr. Richardson-Heron received a Doctorate in Medicine from New York University School of Medicine and Bachelor of Arts Degree in Biology at Barnard College of Columbia University. She also completed the Human Resources Executive Program at the University of Michigan.
  source on CEO: http://www.ywca.org/atf/cf/%7Bbf8ea0ec-d765-4988-acd0-e6f97718cc89%7D/YWCA_NEW_CEO_PRESS_RELEASE_081412.PDF
  Trivia[edit]The YWCA logo was created in 1988 by Saul Bass.The organization was mentioned in The Smiths' song Half A Person. "I booked myself in at the Y...WCA. I said I like it here - can I stay? I like it here - can I stay? And, do you have a vacancy, for a back-scrubber?"See also[edit]External links[edit]
YWCA Cambridge | About Us
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:52
  Eliminating Racism. Empowering Women. Right in the heart of Cambridge's Central Square.
  The YWCA Cambridge, since its inception in 1891, has advocated for women's rights and provided affordable accommodations and support services for women. Today, the YWCA Cambridge is a Cambridge institution with a variety of classes and programs, including the largest women's residential facility in the city.
  The YWCA Cambridge also offers rental space for meetings, seminars, theater productions and more.
  The YWCA Cambridge is currently planning for major renovations to buildings on its Main Campus and working towards the creation of new programming. As a place for women, children and families to find shelter, support and opportunities to learn and grow, the YWCA Cambridge is committed to being a welcoming resource and center of vibrant activity, responding to the ever-changing needs of the community in the 21st century.
  Welcome, and thank you for your support of the YWCA Cambridge.
Support WAM! | WAM!
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:50
  Recently Deadspin, a major sports blog, called Kasandra Perkins the ''catalyst'' for her own murder at the hands of her NFL-player boyfriend. Bestselling author Bret Easton Ellis proclaimed that Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow's success can be reduced to the fact that she's ''a very hot woman.'' And the Geena Davis Institute released a study demonstrating, among other things, that fewer than a third of all speaking parts on prime time comedies go to women. Just another week in our toxic, sexist media.
  That's exactly why WAM! is on the rise. Our local chapters are flourishing from Los Angeles to Ottawa. The chapters and our listserv together are helping us help each other push back against misogynist media, get published and produced ourselves, navigate sexism in media workplaces, and take action together to create the media we deserve. And of course, we're getting ready to launch the WAM! Community Action Network (WAM!CAN) project, which will enable us to take collective, targeted, measurable monthly actions together '' actions with real power to move the needle toward gender justice in media.
  We're on the cusp of becoming a game-changing force that can change the media for good. Will you join us?
  Whatever your dream for gender justice in media, we can make it real if you make a donation today. Give us the strength we need to stand up and turn all our dreams into actions.
  Gratefully yours,
BBC News - Facebook sexism campaign attracts thousands online
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:47
  28 May 2013Last updated at09:13 ETBy Zoe KleinmanTechnology reporter, BBC NewsThousands of protesters are demanding tougher action from Facebook over posts that they say degrade women.
  More than 50,000 have tweeted in support of the FBrape campaign and around 5,000 have emailed brands whose advertising appears around the content.
  The campaign focuses on content that portrays rape and violence against women positively. Facebook has removed many examples already.
  A separate petition online has gathered more than 220,000 signatures.
  The new campaign has been organised by 40 women's groups and individuals, including US-based Women, Action and the Media (WAM) and the Everyday Sexism project, a UK-based Twitter feed that encourages women to share incidences of perceived sexism.
  In an open letter to the social media giant, the groups demand "swift, comprehensive and effective action addressing the representation of rape and domestic violence on Facebook" and say they are also asking Facebook users to contact companies whose adverts appear around the offending content.
  Sky, American Express and Dove beauty products are among the brands affected.
  The letter also lists examples of material that the group feels is unacceptable.
  They include Facebook groups with titles such as "This is why Indian girls get raped" and individual uploads of graphic photographs showing abused women.
  One image of a woman lying at the foot of a flight of stairs is captioned "Next time, don't get pregnant".
  'Target people's interests'Dove, a brand owned by Unilever, said it was "most upset" by the images, but both the brand and Facebook said the examples given had since been removed from the site.
  "Dove takes this issue very seriously and does not condone any activity that intentionally insults any audience," said global communications director Stacie Bright.
  Continue reading the main storyI don't think you can use the smokescreen of free speech when you take down other images which are often of women's bodies''
  End QuoteLaura BatesFounder, Everyday Sexism"We are working to refine our targeting terms in case any further pages like these are created. Facebook advertising targets people's interests, not pages, and we do not select the pages our adverts appear on."
  Both Ms Bright and a spokesperson for Facebook told the BBC that the examples mentioned in the letter had now been removed from the site.
  "There is no place on Facebook for hate speech or content that is threatening, or incites violence, and we will not tolerate material deemed to be genuinely or directly harmful," said Facebook in a statement.
  "We try to react quickly to remove reported language or images that violate our terms and we try to make it very easy for people to report questionable content using links located throughout the site."
  The company added, however, that not all material that some users might consider to be "vulgar and distasteful" actually violated its policies.
  Sheer frustrationLaura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism project, told the BBC the campaign had been born out of "sheer frustration" from a large number women who had tried to complain about the material and had then contacted her.
  "Obviously it's difficult to moderate a platform with one billion users but it is disproportionately affecting women," she said.
  "Facebook does crack down on issues like anti-Semitism and has been praised for it but when they see images of women being raped they don't consider that to be a form of hate speech.
  "A lot of women are saying it's preventing them from using Facebook."
  The social network has previously been taken to task for removing pictures of women breastfeeding infants and displaying their chests after mastectomy operations, she added.
  "I don't think you can use the smokescreen of free speech when you take down other images which are often of women's bodies," said Ms Bates.
  She also said that the groups and Facebook were "in communication" and both were hoping for a resolution as soon as possible.
Fake Blood and Clothing Shears Confirmed in Woolwich terror farce
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  Archived Version
  Source: the tap
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:42
  These are clearly scissors being used. See link below to see that Daily Mirror used faked footage in its video.One the men are down on the ground, the men in the police gear (and a woman) loom over them. Cohort brings the black case out of the hatch back: they are working fast, like the Boston hoaxers. First, pull down some of the heavier layers. It might appear at first glance that he is checking out the person for abdominal wounds. Yet, the photographs prove that is not the case. He is preparing this hoaxer for the scam:Policeman or actor-policeman now works towards the next step and searches for the key tool, the shears, and starts cutting away the clothing. This is apparently what he is reaching for, now:
  Shortly thereafter he can be seen in action, shearing away
  These are clearly shears. Moreover, the policeman is clearly stripping off the clothes.
  The results of the shearing: skin exposed on the upper body, sharp edges of the clothes clearly noticeable
  In this higher definition photo both actions can be seen, the stripping off of clothes through cutting shears and the preparation of the fake blood for application:
  Moreover, it can be seen that there is nothing wrong with this man and that he is merely acting. This means that the Mirror footage showing blood bursting out of their backsides was doctored.See the moulage kit with the fake blood packet, here. This is definitive evidence of a hoax. By this time one or more of the packets were already in his hands:
  http://nodisinfo.com/Home/the- scissors-moles-and-blood- drizzlers-of-woolwich/
Report: Holder Felt ''Remorse'' Over Subpoena Of Fox News Reporter After WaPo Posted Copy Of Search Warrant'...
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  Archived Version
  Source: Weasel Zippers
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:29
  I call BS, Holder personally signed off on the warrant to target Fox News reporter James Rosen.
  Via TPM:
  Attorney General Eric Holder reportedly felt ''a creeping sense of personal remorse'' upon reading the Washington Post's much-talked about story on the Department of Justice's subpoena of a Fox News reporter, aides told The Daily Beast in a story published Tuesday.
  According to The Beast, ''the gravity of the situation didn't fully sink in'' for Holder until the Post obtained the affidavit for a search warrant to obtain Fox's James Rosen's personal emails and reported on the 2010 subpoena in a front page story published earlier this month.
  On Monday, News Corp, the media conglomerate that owns Fox News, said it has no record of being notified by the government of the subpoena.
Obamacare Includes Diagnosis Codes For Injuries Caused By Turtles, Walking Into A Lamppost, Burning Water Skis'...
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  Archived Version
  Source: Weasel Zippers
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:29
  Because who hasn't been attacked by a turtle?
  Via Daily Mail:
  In a little-noticed speech to the Iowa Republican Party this month, Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul mocked President Obama's signature health care overhaul, noting the 122,000 new medical diagnostic codes doctors will have to use in order to inform the government about injuries sustained by Americans.
  Those codes, said Sen. Paul, a medical doctor himself, include line-items for 'injuries sustained from a turtle,' 'walking into a lamppost' and 'injuries sustained from burning water skis.'
  Paul has attracted attention in recent weeks for spending time in the Hawkeye State, because it' will be among the first states to weigh in during the 2016 Republican presidential primary season.
  As a video of Paul's remarks surfaced Monday on YouTube, news emerged that a CNN/Opinion Research poll showed 54 percent of Americans don't support Obamacare.
  Keep reading'...
Former head of MI5 calls for people to spy on neighbours following murder of soldier Lee Rigby | Mail Online
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:17
  Dame Stella Rimington said members of the public have to be the Government's 'eyes and ears'78-year-old, who spoke at the Hay Festival, was MI5's first female directorBy Emily Davies
  PUBLISHED: 20:02 EST, 27 May 2013 | UPDATED: 02:47 EST, 28 May 2013
  2kshares
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  Former head of MI5 Dame Stella Rimington has called for British people to inform security services if they suspect their neighbours maybe extremists
  The former head of MI5 Dame Stella Rimington has called for British people to inform security services if they suspect their neighbours maybe extremists.
  Dame Stella, who supports the Government's controversial 'snoopers' charter', said people need to be more alert because it is impossible for security services to spot every threat.
  She called for a wartime vigilance and for people to be the Government's 'eyes and ears' following the killing of Lee Rigby.
  The 78-year-old, who was MI5's first female Director General, said: 'The community has the responsibility to act as the eyes and ears, as they did during the war '... where there were all these posters up saying the walls have ears and the enemy is everywhere.
  'There have often been indications in the community, whether it's Muslim or anywhere else, that people are becoming extremists and spouting hate phrases.'
  Dame Stella said security services had to prioritise the most dangerous threats because 'thousands' of people were being radicalised in Britain.
  She said further terror attacks on the UK were inevitable unless the country became a 'police state'.
  Her comments, made at the Hay Festival, were prompted following the killing of 25-year-old soldier Lee Rigby by alleged Islamist fanatics Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, in Woolwich last Wednesday.
  Radicalised: Michael Adebolajo brandishing bloodied knives after the murder of Lee Rigby last week
  Arrested: In 2010 Michael Adebolajo, second from right, was among nine suspected members of the Al-Shabaab movement captured by Kenyan police
  Dame Stella said the Woolwich killing was classified as a 'terrorist attack' because of the ideology behind the attack.
  It has now emerged that Adebolajo made a second attempt to travel to Somalia to join extremist groups after failing in 2010.
  The killing has raised questions about MI5 after it also emerged the two suspects were known to them.
  Adebolajo was detained in Kenya in 2010 after trying to join a terrorist group.
  An investigation by parliamentary intelligence is being carried out to determine whether there were intelligence failings.
  Share or comment on this article
CHINA-EU
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  Archived Version
  Source: VENITISM
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:12
  Economic relations between China and the EU show promise but more should be done After ten years of the EU-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, has it made any difference? Alas, the partnership has mainly delivered more meetings. In 2006 the two sides opened negotiations for a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement which are still on-going. But there are reasons to be optimistic, even though a more robust economic partnership would require a major change of approach by both sides.The political relationship between these two giant economies remains cool, while the economic one has been stress-tested by the post-2008 Eurozone crisis. Since 2008, China has continued to grow rapidly (nearly 8 per cent last year) despite the wobbly global recovery. During this time it became the world's number one exporter and second largest national economy, exercising global influence through its trade leverage and a growing capacity for foreign investment. But its formidable economic problems '' a disappearing labour surplus, less price competitiveness, high pollution costs, bad bank loans and the need to improve state-funded social security '' are worsening. Its main export markets remain volatile in the meantime. China only avoided a prolonged economic downturn in 2009 thanks to a massive public investment programme. This further distorted financial markets, increased local government debt, improved infrastructure rather than skills and delayed the growth of private domestic consumption, which everyone agrees must replace investment and exports as the driver of Chinese growth.Meanwhile the malaise of the EU economy is well-documented. Steady but unspectacular economic growth pre-2008 has been replaced by widespread stagnation. Several Member States are suffering from a severe recession. Internal divisions over the management of the Eurozone banking and sovereign debt crisis and a four-year failure to regenerate economic growth have weakened the EU politically. Disagreement and disorder has undermined the push for closer integration following the 2010 Lisbon Treaty.Yet despite these unpromising circumstances, the economic links between the EU and China have gone from strength to strength:Two-way trade, now standing at '‚¬450 billion (2012), has grown four times in the past decade and by 50 per cent since 2008.The EU remains China's biggest export market (17 per cent of its exports) and China is now the EU's second biggest (9 per cent).Two-way investment flows have increased in the past ten years (more than sevenfold in the China-EU direction) and are still growing.The two sides, each densely-populated and resource-poor, are starting to cooperate in areas where they face similar challenges, such as sustainable industrial production, climate change, energy and health.There are still problems, of course. The EU is frustrated by the exclusion of foreign firms from China's services and government procurement markets, by restrictions on foreign investment and uncertainties about the rule of law. It is investigating alleged subsidies to major Chinese exporters. China, meanwhile, is pressing for looser visa restrictions, fairer treatment over EU trade defence measures and an end to the post-Tiananmen arms embargo.Nevertheless, economic interdependence has become a fact of life for both sides. The goal is to develop it, not limit it.What would do most to resolve each side's current economic difficulties? To begin, the EU and China need to live up to their commitment to open trade and investment. There also needs to be more cooperation in research and development in areas of common interest. Allowing more European competition and expertise into China's domestic market, particularly in the services sector, would boost its economic reform. Europe, too, would benefit from more direct investment from China and further efforts to open up the Chinese market.But such an economic deal faces political obstacles on both sides.Economic reform in China, in the form of competition and the rule of law, means attacking important vested interests: the state-owned enterprises responsible for about 40 per cent of output, 82 million Party members and an army of bureaucrats at every level, many of whom benefit from corruption. They are likely to fight back. And mistrust of foreign influence in China's domestic economy tends to outweigh the advantages of importing the technology, know-how and skills which China needs.The key problem on the EU side, apart from widespread mistrust of China as a partner, is the inability to agree on a common economic strategy towards China. The biggest Member States seem to prefer to compete rather than collaborate in this area, something China encourages. And issues such as common conditions for direct investment from China or the arms embargo are politically sensitive and divisive.These problems are not going to be resolved quickly, and any signs of change seem to be coming from the Chinese side.At the recent National People's Congress the new Chinese leadership announced the need for radical economic change. There is at least declaratory commitment to reform. President Xi Jinping highlighted the fight against corruption as a political priority and Premier Li Keqiang said that China needed a bigger private sector. Tackling vested interests would be part of that process. Indeed, recent administrative decisions seem to confirm that China is taking steps to make the remnimbi convertible and it is opening up its stock markets. The pace of change remains uncertain but its direction is clear.In the EU, though, signals of change are not yet visible. The recession may have strengthened the determination of bigger Member States to go their own way in relations with China, rather than agree and defend a common EU position.This may seem preferable in the short term, but it could be risky. Cooperation at national level with China in the development of new technologies, for example, could affect future industrial competitiveness across the EU. If Member States avoid EU-level decisions about a common industrial strategy, the EU could be in trouble further down the road. Alas, the United Kingdom, already semi-detached, is likely to oppose any extension of the EU's role. It is probably not alone, especially as EU-China economic activity continues to grow under existing arrangements.
CHINA-AFRICA
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: VENITISM
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:12
  By Harry Verhoeven and Nikia ClarkeOver the past decade, Chinese priorities have shifted. Before, foreign aid, investment and technology were an import. Now, each is an export. The speed and scope of this change'--as Chinese firms, diplomats, traders and cash 'go out' in ever-increasing numbers'--has ignited controversy and hyperbole. These debates rage in advanced economies in response to China's rising clout and the acquisitions of global brands by its rapidly internationalising firms.They are also at fever pitch in the emerging world'--where China has become an important new financier, development partner, and source of foreign direct investment (FDI). This is nowhere more visible than in Africa, where Chinese engagement has received far more attention than seems warranted at first glance. Chinese FDI flows to Africa make up only around two to four percent of the country's total outward investment each year. Chinese FDI stock on the continent is a fraction of investments in Europe and the United States. However, these figures are growing rapidly, buttressed by an explosion in trade volumes'--nearly doubling in the past four years alone to an estimated $200 billion in 2012'--as well as deepening diplomatic engagement, development assistance, and accelerating migration between the two regions.There are diverse motives for China's increasing economic engagement with the continent'--resource acquisition, the transfer of manufacturing capacity abroad, the upgrading of newly internationalising firms, and opening new markets to Chinese exports. These international priorities have a strong domestic impetus, as Beijing struggles to engineer a structural transition at home'--from the world's manufacturing floor to a sustainable modern economy. However, the high profile China-Africa relationship also marks a trend that says as much about Africa's changing place in the global order as it does about the rise of China.Over the past decade, many African countries have posted high growth rates, improved governance and business environments, and boast a growing middle class: the decade between 1999 and 2008 has been Africa's best in terms of expansion of GDP since the 1960s. In the post-crisis world, investors'--especially those from emerging markets'--who see diminished prospects in traditional markets are looking for new growth opportunities. This is true in terms of selling products to emerging customers and in terms of securing key production areas in the future.But China is not the only guest at the party. According to a recent UNCTAD report, in 2012 developing countries, for the first time, attracted more FDI than advanced ones. In Africa, the composition of investment from new partners is notable. Capital from BRICS countries accounted for a quarter of all FDI flows in 2010, and nearly three quarters of investments in non-resource sectors. This means that after decades of stagnation, key African markets'--Nigeria, Angola and South Africa, but also increasingly countries with less extraordinary resource endowments like Kenya, Ethiopia or Rwanda'--are attractive for more than their primary resources. Their markets are quickly becoming much more crowded and competitive. In turn, this gives African governments more freedom to dictate their relations with foreign partners and to articulate their own development goals. This new-found leverage matters greatly in political terms to African elites.Making China work for AfricaIn a recent exchange in the Financial Times, Nigerian Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi warned that China is in Africa solely to pursue its own agenda, and Africa's rose tinted view of the Asian giant must give way to hard-nosed economic thinking. Rather than expecting Chinese engagement to automatically deliver inclusive growth and job creation in Africa, he argued, it is up to Africans themselves to ensure the new partnerships work to their advantage. Among other issues, he targeted trade issues and the effect of large volumes of Chinese goods on local economies and local producers. Qu Ming, President of the China Institute for International Studies, retorted that Sanusi's accusations were unfair and inaccurate, highlighting Chinese initiatives to encourage African manufacturing, and arguing that China has been and will continue to be a good development partner to the continent.It is not the first time that African dignitaries have used accusations of neo-colonialism to signal their displeasure with status-quo international relations based on the exchange of primary resources for manufactured goods. Given Africa's role in the global economy in the last few centuries, debates about a different way of engaging with international capital flows are of great significance to the continent's future.However, there is no consensus in African capitals over the best way to link new sources of investment to national development goals and structural change. Relations with China and other new partners have reopened the development debate, one previously settled under the banner of Western-backed economic liberalism. Yet Africans are again discussing the role of the state in economic change, and there is a new, and welcome, emphasis on the tangibles of development (production, infrastructure and employment) in addition to intangibles (democracy and governance championed by the Washington Consensus). For example, Ethiopia's growth rates of close to 10 percent per annum are the product of the combination of soaring investment in dams, railways and roads (often in partnership with Chinese firms); a continued reliance on Western aid (to the tune of more than $4 billion annually); and, crucially, a domestically crafted strategy of agriculture-led development first.But economic change creates winners and losers, and the deepening relationship with China is no exception. The presence of Chinese nationals in Africa's informal economies'--displacing petty traders and artisanal gold miners at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder in places like Congo, Mozambique and Zambia'--will continue to be a flashpoint for China-Africa relations, as will the volume of cheap Chinese goods moving through porous borders. In the short term, the continent's desperate infrastructure deficit combined with China's able, inexpensive, and contract-hungry construction firms is a happy marriage. However, it is the ways in which Africans can link Chinese investment in manufacturing and services to their own attempts to effect structural change that will determine the long-term impact of the China-Africa relationship. Ethiopia, but the likes of Kenya and Nigeria too, are key political economies to watch in the coming years as they try to balance Western suitors and emerging market partners to move into higher developmental gear.In the end, Sanusi and Qu are both right. China is indeed pursuing its own interests in Africa, but those interests are more multifaceted than a simple resources-for-manufactures swap. Africa's new international relations need not mimic the colonial ones of the past. Much of Africa today is vibrant, growing, and full of opportunity for foreign investors and local populations alike. This gives Africans more options than ever before. Ultimately, it is up to Africans to use this crucial moment in continental economic history to escape the low-income trap by redefining the continent's relations with the global system. Doing so would not just lift millions of Africans out of poverty, but would also provide a welcome boost to long-term global growth.
SilentSystem HandyPSK Top
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:07
  HandyPSK Features- Compact & standalone mono-band transceiver for digital mode operation- 40m and 20m models available.- Complete transceiver. No external radio equipment required.- Front end crystal filter architecture. Low noise and high IMD dynamic range.- Internal DSP emphasizes weak signals and decodes the text. No PC required.- Rotary dial operation. Copy received words and paste to send templates.- 128 x 64 dot backlit graphic LCD display.- Real time spectrum analyzer with 25 x 6 character text display area.- 100mW RF output. Control signal for external equipment is available.- Operating modes: BPSK, QPSK, RTTY, CW.- PS2 External keyboard jack.- Powered by 5 Volts external battery.(EIAJ 4mm jack)- Dimensions: 4" x 3" x 1"- Schematic(PDF)HandyPSK Pictures (Prototype)
  HandyPSK top view. Optional steel housing is available.
  You can operate only by main dial. Communication logs can be saved into MicroSD card.
  From left hand side, EIAJ power, Power switch, Headphone/Control, PS2/Serial, Antenna.
  Main PCB. You can see DsPIC33F DSP, TI 3204 CODEC, 3 pole Crystal filter. (and wires for development)
  HandyPSK and optional housing. Weight is about 8.8 oz(250 g).
  Main receiver screen. Spectrum analyzer and tuning indicator and received text.
  See this page to download Schematic of HandyPSK(PDF)
  Access Counter
Coronavirus death reported in France
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: BBC News - Middle East
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:01
  28 May 2013Last updated at09:49 ETA patient infected with the novel coronavirus has died in France, according to the health ministry.
  The virus, which is similar to those which cause Sars and the common cold, emerged last year.
  Out of 44 confirmed cases around the world, 23 people have now died with most infections linked to travel to the Middle East.
  The virus causes pneumonia and, sometimes, organ failure. Most patients have had other health problems.
  The 65-year-old, who had been travelling in Dubai, died in hospital on Tuesday.
  Another patient who shared a hospital room with the man has caught the infection.
  Concern?Cases have been reported in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Tunisia and the UK.
  Half of the 44 cases reported have been in Saudi Arabia.
  In a statement earlier in May the World Health Organization said: "The greatest global concern, however, is about the potential for this new virus to spread.
  "This is partly because the virus has already caused severe disease in multiple countries, although in small numbers, and has persisted in the [Middle East] region since 2012.
  "Of most concern, however, is the fact that the different clusters seen in multiple countries increasingly support the hypothesis that when there is close contact this novel coronavirus can transmit from person to person."
  In February, a patient died in a hospital in Birmingham, in the UK, after three members of the same family became infected.
  It is thought a family member had picked up the virus while travelling to the Middle East and Pakistan.
  Prof Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading, said the death was tragic, but the risks of infection were low.
  "It is very rare and apart from the unusual circumstances of very close containment with already hospitalised persons, it does not seem to transfer among people.
  "As a result, the overall risk remains very low and the most pressing need is to identify where the virus is coming from so that these occasional infections can be prevented."
VIDEO-BBC News - Syrian activists document al-Bayda and Baniyas 'massacre'
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 10:00
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On tax evasion
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: the President's Videos
  Tue, 28 May 2013 09:48
  Extract on tax evasion during the presentation of the outcome of the European Council meeting of the 22nd of May 2013, by Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of the European Council, at the European Parliament, in Brussels.
  Download in broadcast quality
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US targets digital currency in huge fraud probe
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories
  Tue, 28 May 2013 09:41
  US targets digital currency in huge fraud probeJavascript is currently disabled in your web browser. For full site functionality, it is necessary to enable Javascript. In order to enable it, please see these instructions.44 minutes agoBinary code in a woman's eye reflected from a computer screen in London. The United States on Tuesday unveiled what it said was the world's "largest" money laundering probe against the digital currency operator Liberty Reserve.
  The United States on Tuesday unveiled what it said was the world's "largest" money laundering probe against the digital currency operator Liberty Reserve.
  The Costa Rica-based entity, which operates a hugely popular online currency system outside of the control of national governments, is charged with running a "$6 billion money laundering scheme and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business," the US Attorney's office for New York said.
  Prosecutors said Liberty Reserve processed at least 55 million illegal transactions for at least one million users "and facilitated global criminal conduct."
  The probe involved law enforcement in 17 countries "and is believed to be the largest money laundering prosecution in history," the prosecutor's office said.
  Explore further:US seizes Bitcoin operator accounts
  (C) 2013 AFP
  More from Physics Forums - General Engineering
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  User comments : 2Adjust slider to filter visible comments by rank
  Display comments: newest first
  kochevnik1 / 5 (1)28 minutes ago
  Zionist banksters paranoid about convertibility from the dollar as they invert markets with their flood of funny money. They know that all their clown currency will ultimately weigh poorly against the ultimate reserve currency, gold. Cutting off any means to purchase real gold is the agenda. China and East are buying any gold they can find
  Guy_Underbridgenot rated yet4 minutes ago
  Liberty Reserve processed at least 55 million illegal transactions for at least one million users "and facilitated global criminal conduct."
  Sounds like a good time to invest in penitentiary design and construction...
  More news stories
  EU to ask Google to boost anti-trust offerThe European Commission said on Tuesday that it will probably ask US Internet giant Google to improve the way it intends to satisfy EU concerns over its dominant position in the online search and advertising ...
  US weapons designs hacked by Chinese, report claimsUS officials and defense firms have concluded that Chinese hackers have breached networks containing designs of many advanced US weapons systems, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
  Cold climate wind energy showing huge potentialWind energy capacity is growing rapidly in the cold climates of the world. According to the latest forecasts, between 45 and 50 gigawatts of wind energy will be built in cold climates by 2017, which would mean an increase ...
  Electric cars slow to gain traction in GermanyGermany plans to have one million electric vehicles on its roads by 2020, but so far that goal seems remote as the nation's motorists have shown little love for the quietly humming vehicles.
  Who's afraid of the bad, big data? You might want to read thisPrivacy and technology go together like music and dance: it's only when both work well together that the magic happens. But what about privacy in the age of big data, an era in which your every move has been ...
  How do plants grow toward the light? Scientists explain mechanism behind phototropismPlants have developed a number of strategies to capture the maximum amount of sunlight through their leaves. As we know from looking at plants on a windowsill, they grow toward the sunlight to be able to ...
  Family studies suggest rare genetic mutations team up to cause schizophreniaUsing a novel method of analyzing genetic variations in families, researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that individually harmless genetic variations affecting related biochemical processes may team up to increase the risk ...
  Researchers test quantum encryption hacking risk(Phys.org) '--Quantum communication systems offer the promise of virtually unbreakable encryption. Unlike classical encryption, which is used to send secure data over networks today and whose security depends on the difficulty ...
  Study shows emotional contagion increases in Alzheimer's patients(Medical Xpress)'--A team of researchers working at the University of California's Memory and Aging Center has found that emotional contagion appears to increase in a linear progression with patients who have Alzheimer's ...
  UN backs cassava as future global cropCassava has huge potential and could turn from "a poor people's food into a 21st century crop" if grown according to a new environmentally-friendly farming model, the UN food agency said on Tuesday.
  (C) Phys.org' 2003-2013
  US targets digital currency in huge fraud probeJavascript is currently disabled in your web browser. For full site functionality, it is necessary to enable Javascript. In order to enable it, please see these instructions.44 minutes agoBinary code in a woman's eye reflected from a computer screen in London. The United States on Tuesday unveiled what it said was the world's "largest" money laundering probe against the digital currency operator Liberty Reserve.
  The United States on Tuesday unveiled what it said was the world's "largest" money laundering probe against the digital currency operator Liberty Reserve.
  The Costa Rica-based entity, which operates a hugely popular online currency system outside of the control of national governments, is charged with running a "$6 billion money laundering scheme and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business," the US Attorney's office for New York said.
  Prosecutors said Liberty Reserve processed at least 55 million illegal transactions for at least one million users "and facilitated global criminal conduct."
  The probe involved law enforcement in 17 countries "and is believed to be the largest money laundering prosecution in history," the prosecutor's office said.
  Explore further:US seizes Bitcoin operator accounts
  (C) 2013 AFP
  More from Physics Forums - General Engineering
  Related Stories
  US seizes Bitcoin operator accounts May 18, 2013
  US authorities seized the accounts of a Bitcoin digital currency exchange operator, claiming it was functioning as an "unlicensed money service business," court documents showed Friday.
  US Treasury presents guidelines to virtual money transmitters Mar 25, 2013
  (Phys.org) '--Money launderers thinking virtual currency provides an easy way to towel-off have had a rude awakening this month with the U.S. Treasury announcing that virtual currencies, like real currencies, ...
  Four Canadians indicted on US gambling charges Feb 28, 2012
  US authorities seized the gambling website Bodog on Tuesday and announced the indictment of four Canadians on charges of illegal sports betting and money laundering, including founder Calvin Ayre.
  11 charged in US crackdown on online poker Apr 15, 2011
  Eleven people have been charged with bank fraud, money laundering, illegal gambling and other offenses in a crackdown on the three largest online poker companies operating in the United States.
  HSBC to pay $1.9B to settle money-laundering case Dec 11, 2012
  (AP)'--HSBC avoided a legal battle that could further savage its reputation and undermine confidence in the global banking system by agreeing Tuesday to pay $1.9 billion to settle a U.S. money-laundering ...
  EU tightens up online gambling controls Oct 23, 2012
  The European Commission outlined measures on Tuesday to tighten controls on online gambling, a fast-growing, multi-billion-euro industry, to combat fraud, money laundering and rigging of sport fixtures.
  Recommended for you
  EU to ask Google to boost anti-trust offer 9 minutes ago
  The European Commission said on Tuesday that it will probably ask US Internet giant Google to improve the way it intends to satisfy EU concerns over its dominant position in the online search and advertising ...
  Who's afraid of the bad, big data? You might want to read this 1 hour ago
  Privacy and technology go together like music and dance: it's only when both work well together that the magic happens. But what about privacy in the age of big data, an era in which your every move has been ...
  China steals new Australia spy agency blueprints, report says 5 hours ago
  Chinese hackers have stolen top-secret blueprints to Australia's new intelligence agency headquarters, a report said Tuesday, but Foreign Minister Bob Carr insisted ties with Beijing would not be hurt.
  Germany's top-selling tabloid to introduce paywall 17 hours ago
  Europe's top-selling newspaper said Monday it will introduce a paywall for part of its online offerings starting next month. Main news stories will remain free of charge online, but a subscription will be ...
  Cloud backup services offer more than just reassurance 20 hours ago
  Your email is likely in the cloud. Your photos and music may be there, too. So is it time to back up all the files and data from your computer to the Internet? Some storage experts and a growing number of consumers say yes. ...
  VideoCare brings video conferencing to seniors 20 hours ago
  Redwood City, Calif., resident Kelly Ilnicki is very close to her 89-year-old grandmother, who until recently lived alone in her home in Oceanside, near San Diego. Three or four times a day, Ilnicki talks to her grandmother ...
  User comments : 2Adjust slider to filter visible comments by rank
  Display comments: newest first
  kochevnik1 / 5 (1)28 minutes ago
  Zionist banksters paranoid about convertibility from the dollar as they invert markets with their flood of funny money. They know that all their clown currency will ultimately weigh poorly against the ultimate reserve currency, gold. Cutting off any means to purchase real gold is the agenda. China and East are buying any gold they can find
  Guy_Underbridgenot rated yet4 minutes ago
  Liberty Reserve processed at least 55 million illegal transactions for at least one million users "and facilitated global criminal conduct."
  Sounds like a good time to invest in penitentiary design and construction...
  More news stories
  EU to ask Google to boost anti-trust offerThe European Commission said on Tuesday that it will probably ask US Internet giant Google to improve the way it intends to satisfy EU concerns over its dominant position in the online search and advertising ...
  US weapons designs hacked by Chinese, report claimsUS officials and defense firms have concluded that Chinese hackers have breached networks containing designs of many advanced US weapons systems, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
  Cold climate wind energy showing huge potentialWind energy capacity is growing rapidly in the cold climates of the world. According to the latest forecasts, between 45 and 50 gigawatts of wind energy will be built in cold climates by 2017, which would mean an increase ...
  Electric cars slow to gain traction in GermanyGermany plans to have one million electric vehicles on its roads by 2020, but so far that goal seems remote as the nation's motorists have shown little love for the quietly humming vehicles.
  Who's afraid of the bad, big data? You might want to read thisPrivacy and technology go together like music and dance: it's only when both work well together that the magic happens. But what about privacy in the age of big data, an era in which your every move has been ...
  How do plants grow toward the light? Scientists explain mechanism behind phototropismPlants have developed a number of strategies to capture the maximum amount of sunlight through their leaves. As we know from looking at plants on a windowsill, they grow toward the sunlight to be able to ...
  Family studies suggest rare genetic mutations team up to cause schizophreniaUsing a novel method of analyzing genetic variations in families, researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that individually harmless genetic variations affecting related biochemical processes may team up to increase the risk ...
  Researchers test quantum encryption hacking risk(Phys.org) '--Quantum communication systems offer the promise of virtually unbreakable encryption. Unlike classical encryption, which is used to send secure data over networks today and whose security depends on the difficulty ...
  Study shows emotional contagion increases in Alzheimer's patients(Medical Xpress)'--A team of researchers working at the University of California's Memory and Aging Center has found that emotional contagion appears to increase in a linear progression with patients who have Alzheimer's ...
  UN backs cassava as future global cropCassava has huge potential and could turn from "a poor people's food into a 21st century crop" if grown according to a new environmentally-friendly farming model, the UN food agency said on Tuesday.
  (C) Phys.org' 2003-2013
WOOLWICH BOOBS
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: aangirfan
  Tue, 28 May 2013 09:26
  Justine Rigden, girlfriend of Catholic/Moslem/ alleged MI5 agent Michael Adebolajo."I do not believe that two men would drive a car onto a pavement and crush a fella in civilian clothes against a road sign on the off chance that he was a soldier."Then, having done so, untangle him from the road sign '' because at the speed that car hit the road sign it would have nigh on cut poor Lee Rigby in half '' mop the major blood loss up, and then move him away and cut his fucking head off."
  STOP. STEP BACK'... AND THINK
  Michael, the terrorist- Among his friends on Facebook are two serving police officers who knew him from school.
  "So, having cut Lee's head off, the pair of Terrorists then hide it and drag his body into the road.
  "They then clear up the massive blood loss, because fuck me they would be drowning in blood by now, after which they proceed to give interviews and pose for photos'... Whilst waiting for the police to turn up?
  "Are you all brain dead fucking morons?"
  STOP. STEP BACK'... AND THINK
  "I seriously doubt a person would cause the damage seen to the car...."
  Woolwich 'Terror Attack' - SE London, 22.5.13 ' Cluesforum.infoThe car was necessary, because you cannot have a tough soldier being ouwitted by two guys with knives.Justine Rigden, girlfriend of Catholic/Moslem/ alleged MI5 agent Michael Adebolajo.
  "The likely scenario is that there are greenscreens used...
  "The backgrounds are inconsistent from one photo to the next.
  "So, they probably just filmed the guy as they would an interview, TV show or scene from a movie, on the corner of a regular street, somewhere in London.
  "Onlookers and passerbys don't see anything out of the ordinary, just a guy giving an interview on a street corner.
  Woolwich 'Terror Attack' - SE London, 22.5.13 ' Cluesforum.info
  Justine Rigden
  Justine Rigden was the girlfriend of the 'Woolwich terrorist' Michael Adebolajo.
  She says: "He stayed at my family's house and I stayed with his. He was a very family-oriented person."School friends of Adebolajo say he lived a Western lifestyle, growing up in Essex as a Christian with hard-working Nigerian immigrant parents.
  Among his friends on Facebook are two serving police officers who knew him from school.Daily Mail
  Justine, who was the girlfriend of 'MI5 spy' Michael. Daily Mail
  Continued here:
  WOOLWICH: FALSE FLAG: INSIDE JOB: FAKE
  ~~~~~~~
  Aangirfan - Alexa Global Traffic Rank
Remarks to the Press by Vice President Biden and Colombian President Santos, Bogota, Colombia
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Tue, 28 May 2013 09:22
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  May 27, 2013
  Casa de Nari±oBogota, Colombia
  12:30 P.M. (Local) PRESIDENT SANTOS: (As interpreted.) Good afternoon, everyone. First of all, I would like to warmly welcome Vice President Joe Biden on behalf of the 47 million Colombians. I would like to welcome his wife and his two granddaughters as well. And to tell him how pleased all Colombians are with his visit to our country today. Vice President Biden is an old friend of Colombia. He knows us well and he's helped us a lot. I was the finance minister when he was the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he came here with President Clinton, to launch Plan Colombia. That was 13 years ago; it will be 13 years in August. And since then, everybody is aware of the great progress that Colombia has achieved. And it's great to see Vice President Biden here as Vice President. He arrived yesterday with the news of the first agreement that was reached with the FARC in Havana. And if we are able to wrap up on the five points of our agreement, that would be a very happy ending to the process that began 13 years ago. That is why I want to deeply thank you, Vice President Biden, for your ongoing support throughout all these phases that Colombia has undergone; a process that has yielded very positive results already. Vice President Biden delivered a speech at the Council of the Americas a few weeks ago, and he repeated a phrase that I want to highlight now. He said that the United States is looking at Latin America, not in the spirit of what the United States can do for Latin America, but what the United States can do with Latin America. And I want to home in on that phrase, because that attitude is the right attitude. And that is the focus that the United States and Colombia have worked on to further our relations during my administration, as partners on equal footing, looking at each other eye to eye and working shoulder to shoulder. And to me, as a President, and Colombia, it's a great pleasure to me to say right now that the relations between Colombia and the United States have never been better -- not just because of the passing of the free trade agreement that turned one just a few days ago, but because our agenda is a broad, robust agenda, and it is an agenda that will undoubtedly bring great benefits to both countries. We had a very fruitful meeting. We spoke for over two hours, almost two and a half hours, about issues related to energy, education, the environment, trade, of course, security, which is one of the recurring issues on our agenda, although fortunately it's not the only issue on our agenda. We also talked about the Pacific Alliance and the meeting that we had with the presidents of Mexico, Chile and Peru last week and the heads of state of an observing country. And president -- Vice President Biden expressed the willingness of the United States and the desire to be an observer at the Pacific Alliance, and I told him that Colombia would of course support that request and we would submit that to the consideration of the other countries in -- at the council of ministers that will meet in the near future. We also talked briefly about the issue that has been an ongoing issue -- drug trafficking -- not just about the progress that we've made jointly, but also about the report that was delivered to me by Dr. Insulza, the OAS Secretary General. This is a report that we have distributed among the different leaders that attended the Pacific Alliance summit. We will continue to distribute to academic centers in different European countries. It will also be presented at the OAS General Assembly at the beginning of the upcoming month. And it's a report that will be the foundation of a necessary discussion to look at how we will continue to face this scourge that has affected us all so much and for which we need to undertake our utmost efforts to continue to make progress. And I want to thank you very especially, Mr. Vice President, and your government for the firm and compelling support that you have offered for our accession to the OECD. I hope that in upcoming days we will have some positive news on that front. Without your support, this would not have been positive. We cannot run a victory lap yet, but we can thank you right now because we have seen that firm, unflinching support from the United States for Colombia's accession to the OECD. Mr. Vice President, you are now traveling to Trinidad and Tobago. You will meet with the CARICOM countries. You will then travel to Brazil. And we would like to thank you as well for the gesture of making your first trip to Latin America as Vice President during this second administration, that you had selected Bogota, Colombia for this. You have a friend with us. We see our country as a strategic partner of the United States. I think that's the proper interpretation of our relations. And as we talked this morning, these relations are going through their best time. But as any other relationship that we have, they can continue to improve, and that is the aim that both countries have with a view to the future. Welcome, and thank you once again. VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, thank you very much, Mr. President. It's a great honor to be back with you. As you know, I've been to Colombia from the '70s on. And it's -- we did have a terrific discussion today, almost two and a half hours. We had a lot to talk about. We have an awful lot to talk about. We have so many common interests. And it's great in particular to see you again, my friend. You pointed out -- as the President pointed out, last time I was -- I think we were in Cartagena if I'm not mistaken. When Plan Colombia was announced, you were finance minister and I was a United States senator. Now you're President and I'm Vice President. It's obvious who did well. (Laughter.) And it's a genuine pleasure to be back in Colombia. The last time I came was in 2000, and although we've met in the meantime, and I've met with your predecessors in the meantime, when I made -- at that time in 2002 -- visits as a passionate supporter, and one who helped draft Plan Colombia in the United States Senate, I saw then with my own eyes the challenges, but I also saw how incredibly resilient and optimistic the spirit of the Colombian people were. And since then you've reclaimed your nation from civil war. You've taken this country further and faster than many dared hope was even possible back then. Of course, Colombia -- no Colombian needs to be told this story. You've lived it. But I wanted to take this moment to pay a personal tribute to you and to the people of Colombia for the remarkable, remarkable progress you've made just since last I was here. And now as conflicts begin to recede, Colombia is embracing a new mission, and that is locking in your economic and security gains that gave you so much to win and building a just and durable peace. And our relationship has evolved to reflect just that. I meant what I said when I said it's long past the time when America looks out and says, what can we do for you? It is not just with the Colombian people, but the entire hemisphere: What can we do with other countries in the hemisphere to benefit all of us? In 2010, our President launched a high-level, partnership dialogue focused on social inclusion, human rights, energy, science as well as security. And just over a year ago as you pointed out, our Colombian free trade agreement went into effect. It's a remarkable milestone that today when we meet the main topic is not security, it is economic prosperity. In the dozen or so times when I was here pre-2000, it always began with security and most times ended with security. Already, the United States exports to Colombia are up 20 percent and Colombia has greater and permanent access to the largest market in the world to export to, and I'm confident that will increase as well. This afternoon I will be visiting a flower farm, and that's -- and remember that used to be a gigantic issue back in the '90s. Well, the truth of the matter is that flower farm now exports half its products to the United States. Sixty percent of the employees are women, and of these, nearly half are heads of household, families whose lives have changed for the better and -- by this agreement. And personally I want to make clear to the press, I'm going to the flower farm, and I'm mainly going to get my wife some flowers. I just wanted to make it clear because in my household if I go anywhere near a flower shop, let alone flower farm and don't come home fully armed with flowers, I will have a very unhappy trip to Colombia. But today President Santos and I talked about how we can continue our work together, advance environmental and labor standards, support small and women-owned businesses, ensure that the dynamism of the Colombian economy touches every region of the country and every family in the country. And the free-trade agreement is just the beginning. We've doubled visa validity from five to 10 years. As was pointed out, we championed the Colombian accession to the OECD. We are prepared to talk with Colombia about the TTP. We are anxious to continue to engage with and integrate the economies of the region. And it makes sense for everyone. As I said in our meeting, the United States does not look at the progress of any nation or any group of nations as a zero-sum game. The more that the Alliance of the Pacific prospers, the better for everyone in the region. The more that we engage with one another, the better for all of us. And we watch with admiration the advances that you have made in the Alliance of the Pacific in opening markets, integrating regional economies so that people can compete globally. And I give you -- I'd like to extend to you my admiration for in one year the progress you and your fellow presidents have made. But from observation, it appears as though you have grabbed the bull by the horns -- you, the presidents have decided to make this work. And it's a lesson for us in a lot of other arenas as well. We're also working to realize the promise of our energy future together. We're sharing our expertise on reasonable extraction of unconventional oil and gas. We're working hand in hand with Connect America 2022 to create a regional energy market and ensure that the people across the hemisphere have access to reliable, affordable, ever cleaner, successful -- cleaner sources of electricity. Simply interconnecting Colombia and Panama will be a major economic benefit to both your countries and the consumers in both countries. And Colombia has shown leadership in meeting these emerging energy challenges head on. And finally, we focused on security. I made it clear to President Santos that the United States strongly supports his efforts to achieve historic peace with the FARC. Just as we supported Colombia's leaders on the battlefield, we fully support you at the negotiating table, Mr. President. We understand that some real progress appears to have been made yesterday on the agrarian front. We applaud every advance -- every advance -- that gets Colombians closer to the peace they so richly deserve. And we look forward to the day when Colombia can fully enjoy a genuine peace dividend. And even as we pursue peace and security at home -- as you pursue peace and security at home, Colombians are already training thousands of law enforcement officers and security officers from over 40 countries since 2009. What a change. I spent all my time down here in the '80s with us working in the reverse. You have done a remarkable job, and I commend President Santos for his efforts to continue Colombia's progress on human rights, strengthening the rule of law and taking the necessary steps to ensure that human rights violations are held -- violators are held accountable in the civilian judicial system. In the darkest days, the United States was proud to support the Colombian people. And, Mr. President, now in these brighter and brighter days, we're proud to be associated with you. And, folks, the one thing the President and I agree on is that the promise not only for our relationships but for the hemisphere are close to limitless. They're close to limitless, and we genuinely believe that if we work together, we can provide what we hope will be the case that -- when the Berlin Wall went down in Europe, we started to talk about a Europe whole and free, which has never occurred. And now it's on the verge of being fully realized. The President and I believe that our children will look to a hemisphere that is middle class, democratic and secure for the first time in the hemisphere's history. And with the leadership of men like President Santos I am confident that our children's future is in very, very good hands. So again, thank you, Mr. President. And we were commiserating how we used to each have a relatively good golf game before we got the respective positions we're in. So since we're both playing very badly, let's play together. Thank you all very much, appreciate it. END12:46 P.M. (Local)
Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Chastain among the front-runners to play Hillary Clinton in Rodham - News - Films
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 09:21
  Scarlett Johansson and Reese Witherspoon are among actresses being considered to portray the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
  Rodham - about the younger years of the former First Lady and senator - is due out some time around the 2016 presidential election, in which Clinton might be a candidate. It will focus on 1974, when she was a Washington lawyer.
  According the The Sunday Times, the frontrunners include 26-year-old Clinton are Amanda Seyfried, who starred in Les Mis(C)rables, Zero Dark Thirty's Jessica Chastain, Reese Witherspoon, and Scarlett Johansson, most recently seen playing Janet Leigh in Hitchcock.
  Rodham director James Ponsoldt said: ''They're all wonderful actresses. We're very fortunate that a lot of really great actors are interested in playing these roles. We're in an enviable position.''
  ''Regardless of people's political affiliation or how they feel about Hillary Clinton, you don't find people who question the quality of her intelligence or her drive. I want a wonderful actress who could embody that.''
  Witherspoon hit the news only last month, when she was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia, for disorderly conduct. She later admitted she "had one drink too many," and said she was ''deeply embarrassed'' by the incident, which was caught on video.
  The film's script, written by Young il-Kim, made last year's ''Black List'', which highlights Hollywood's best unrealised scripts. Having been leaked by The Daily Beast earlier this month, it attracted attention for its racier scenes. But Kim told The Daily Telegraph: "I didn't write 50 Shades of Rodham, as some news outlets are suggesting. I am a boring prude with little imagination."
  Asked whether the final draft would include sex scenes, Mr Kim replied: "It's an evolving process so I don't know. She was an attractive 26-year-old with an amazing future. And that's our thematic focus."
US Congress urged to legalize cyber-attacks to fight cybercrimes '-- RT USA
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  Archived Version
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Tue, 28 May 2013 09:16
  US Congress should legalize attacking hacker's computers with malware, physically destroy networks and take photos of data thieves and copyright violators with their own cameras in order to punish IP thieves, the IP Commission recommends.
  The commissioners - former US government officials and military men - say that the ''scale of international theft of American intellectual property (IP) is unprecedented''. However, the US government response has been ''utterly inadequate to deal with the problem.''
  "Almost all the advantages are on the side of the hacker; the current situation is not sustainable," the commissions's report says.
  ''New options need to be considered,'' the authors call, then adding that current laws are limited and ''have not kept pace with the technology of hacking.''
  Thus, the commission suggests allowing active network retrieving stolen information, ''altering it within the intruder's networks, or even destroying the information within an unauthorized network."
  For example, locking down the computer of unauthorized users and forcing them to come out to police could be one of the options.
  ''The file could be rendered inaccessible and the unauthorized user's computer could be locked down, with instructions on how to contact law enforcement to get the password needed to unlock the account,'' the commission recommended.
  In other words, authors suggest legalizing ransomware - an extortion tool used by organized criminals, when malware that blocks access to the computer system it infects, and demands a ransom paid to the creator to remove the restriction.
  Such measures, the commissioners stressed, do not violate existing laws, but still might help to prevent attacks and even provide both time and evidence for law enforcement to investigate the cyber-crime.
  As additional measures, the report recommends ''physically disabling or destroying the hacker's own computer or network,'' implanting malware in the hacker's network or photographing the hacker using his own system's camera.
  ''The legal underpinnings of such actions taken at network speed within the networks of hackers, even when undertaken by governments, have not yet been developed,'' the authors say.
  So, if counterattacks against hackers were legal, companies could use a variety of techniques and cause severe damage to the capability of IP pirates.
  "These attacks would raise the cost to IP thieves of their actions, potentially deterring them from undertaking these activities in the first place," the report concludes.
  However, if counterattacks were legalized, this would not be just about companies and hacker. Some pirated movies or songs on private computers, could be deemed an IP theft and allow rights holders to do horrible things to suspected systems.
Outcome of the European Council
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  Archived Version
  Source: the President's Videos
  Tue, 28 May 2013 09:15
  Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of the European Council, presents the outcome of the European Council meeting of the 22nd of May 2013, at the European Parliament, in Brussels. Extracts from the speech.
  Download in broadcast quality
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Fotografe Micky Hoogendijk toont haar werk in Amsterdam
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  Tue, 28 May 2013 09:12
  Micky Hoogendijk zal zaterdag bij de publieksopening van de expositie in Baden Baden Interior aanwezig zijn - Foto: Micky Hoogendijk
  Vanaf 1 juni is in woonwinkel Baden Baden Interior het werk van actrice en fotografe Micky Hoogendijk te zien. Het is voor het eerst dat de in Amerika woonachtige Amsterdamse haar fotowerk in een officile expositie in Nederland toont.
  De camera van haar stervende moeder was het begin. Zeen van vrije tijd in San Francisco en een klopje op de schouder van Lex Harding deden de rest. Sinds kort is de 42-jarige actrice Hoogendijk niet meer achter de fotocamera weg te slaan.
  Haar vertrek naar Amerika was onbedoeld het startsein voor een nieuwe carri¨re. 'Toen ik in San Francisco aankwam, had ik niet zoveel om handen en ik ben niet echt het type dat met bonbons op de bank gaat zitten,' zegt Hoogendijk over de telefoon vanuit haar huidige woonplaats Austin, Texas. 'Die camera lag daar,' en dus ging ze aan de slag.
  Regal Blond 2013
  PortrettenMensen fotografeert ze, het liefst zo puur mogelijk. En het gaat haar goed af. Haar 'Ode to Damien' werd verkocht en gepubliceerd in The Washington Post en met haar 'Death Becomes Her' won ze de Award New Dutch Photography Talent 2013.Wie haar foto's ziet, kan nauwelijks vermoeden dat de fotografe eigenlijk nog maar een beginner is. Met geduld leert ze haar modellen hoe ze tot rust kunnen komen. Als het zover is, slaat ze toe. 'Als ze tot de kern van zichzelf komen, dat is een magisch moment, '
  I and I for we
  KunstenaarZelf noemt ze zich een beeldend kunstenares. Helemaal uit het niets komen de artistieke ambities niet. Hoogendijk groeide op in een wereld vol kunstenaars. Haar vader Roelof Frankot was kunstschilder, haar opa kunsthandelaar.
  'Dit voelt helemaal goed, eindelijk draait het niet meer om mij, maar sta ik zelf achter de camera' zegt de kersverse fotografe over de telefoon. 'Acteren zie ik nu als hobby, fotografie, dat is mijn vak.'
  De expositie is te zien per 1 juni bij Baden Baden Interior in Amsterdam
ANP Pers Support - Uniek werk fotografe Micky Hoogendijk bij Baden Baden Interior
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 09:05
  Amsterdam, 27 mei 2013Vanaf 1 juni is een unieke selectie te zien van werken van fotografe Micky Hoogendijk.
  Baden Baden Interior, woonwinkel en design studio in Amsterdam, is buitengewoon trots op de samenwerking en heeft haar werk opgenomen in hun kunstportfolio.
  Om dit te vieren richt Hoogendijk Baden Baden Interior in met haar werken. Hiervoor komt zij speciaal over naar de stad waar zij is opgegroeid.
  Het afgelopen jaar hebben haar foto's in vooraanstaande galeries en op prestigieuze internationale art fairs gehangen, waar het door de kunstpers lovend werd ontvangen.
  Hoogendijk: "Baden Baden Interior is een mooie en vooral toegankelijke locatie voor mijn werk. Fotokunst tonen in een interieur setting. De sfeer in Baden Baden Interior sluit prachtig aan bij mijn werk."
  Julie de Vries, Baden Baden Interior: "Baden Baden Interior werkt al jaren samen met kunstenaars, en wij zijn zeer ervaren in het maken van de combinatie interieur en kunst. Wij zijn trots dat wij door de samenwerking met Hoogendijk de traditie mogen voortzetten."
  In deze collectie zijn onder andere te zien: "My Ode to Damien" die als eerste werd verkocht en gepubliceerd in The Washington Post en "Death Becomes Her" http://mickyhoogendijk.com/portfolioartlink/deathBecomesHer2012, die de cover won voor GUP, New Dutch Photography Talent 2013 https://gupgallery.com/photo-books-magazines/new-dutch-photography-2013.
  Als kunstenaar is Hoogendijk steeds op zoek naar de kwetsbaarheid van de mens, om daarmee juist zijn krachtige kern, zonder vernis, vast te leggen. Dat resulteert in sterke, intrigerende en iconische beelden. Ge¯nspireerd door het prachtige licht in de werken van Rembrandt en Vermeer, tovert zij met haar camera met licht.
  Als kind is zij opgegroeid in een internationaal kunstmilieu, omringd door uitgesproken kunstenaars, kunsthandelaars, theatermakers, acteurs en dansers.
  De cirkel is voor Hoogendijk rond nu zij met haar fotografie en als kunstenaar haar plek gevonden heeft. Elk werk is tevens een ode aan haar moeder die, vlak voor zij overleed, haar enige dochter de camera gaf die de aanzet zou blijken tot een verrassend andere invulling van haar leven.
FoE Australia's Jim Green issues conditional apology
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  Archived Version
  Source: Atomic Insights
  Tue, 28 May 2013 08:57
  On May 22, I republished a post written by Ben Heard and Geoff Russell for DecarboniseSA titled Green Nuclear Junk. In my introduction to the post, I made the following statement:
  My goal is to add just a little more pressure on Jim Green '-- the national antinuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth, Australia '-- to come clean and admit his mistakes. It would be even better if Green began to make amends for the environmental and economic damage caused by his antinuclear activism, but that is probably a futile hope.
  Though my post probably did not affect the situation, I need to follow up with a report that Jim Green has, indeed, apologized for his math error.
  Sincere apologies to Ben Heard and Geoff Russell for attacking them for a ''multi-order-of-magnitude mathematical howler''. The recurring 77-fold howler is mine, not theirs. (And Russell's real mathematical howler is trivial compared to mine since his involved nothing more than an illustrative thought-experiment.)
  However, Green has not yet decided to stop fighting the use of nuclear energy.
  I'm bound to acknowledge my miscalculations and to apologise for an unwarranted attack. But my messaging '' in my critique of the Kharecha/Hansen paper, and in the Choose Nuclear Free paper, and on countless other occasions '' is that the greatest hazard posed by nuclear power (and the nuclear fuel cycle more broadly) is the repeatedly-demonstated connection to WMD proliferation. That is unchanged. I've also said repeatedly that i'll gladly volunteer time and energy opposing the uranium/nuclear industry because of i) the WMD links and ii) the sickening, systemic racism which makes the industry unsupportable. Again, no change.
  Green has demonstrated that he is willing to read and consider constructive criticism, so I thought I would offer a few thoughts that might help him take the next step away from antinuclear activism and, perhaps even towards pronuclear advocacy.Like Green, I am no fan of nuclear weapons. Contemplation of the consequences of using them has given me many sleepless nights; as some of you may know, I served two tours on US ballistic missile submarines. I completed 11 strategic deterrent patrols and was a member of the two man control team for all but one of those patrols. I never took that responsibility lightly; it was a sobering assignment when I was 23 and the reality never wore off. However, I am enough of a realist to understand that there is nothing that humans can do to erase the knowledge that certain natural elements can be arranged to explode with enough force to destroy an entire city.
  I think we can, and should, reduce the probability of using nuclear weapons to as close to zero as possible. Improving prosperity and reducing the vast inequalities in access to power around the world are two ways to reduce the use of all weapons, especially nuclear weapons; both of those can be enabled by using more and more nuclear energy.
  Though hydrocarbons are fantastically useful materials and have served humanity well for hundreds of years, they are also the source of large and growing concentrations of wealth that impoverish others. Their use should be limited '' by market competition with increasingly less expensive nuclear energy '' to save as much of the finite resources as possible for many future generations and to achieve a situation where natural feedback loops can alleviate most of their climate changing emissions.
  As we increase the use of nuclear energy, nuclear materials will become increasingly valuable as fuel sources. Using enriched uranium and plutonium in reactors reduces accessible stockpiles of potential weapons material. The most secure location I can think of for storing materials that could be assembled into weapons is inside the core of an operating nuclear reactor.
  Not only are pressure vessels strong vaults, but the complex mixture of radioactive isotopes produced by a fission power plant make the fuel almost completely self-securing. The longer the material remains inside a power generating reactor, the less useful it will be for creating a weapon. After a certain amount of time, the material includes a sufficient variety of isotopes, some with characteristics that greatly reduce their usefulness in a weapon, that it is essentially impossible to convert them to any use other than producing more power.
  I am not sure I understand Green's concern about systemic racism. I am aware that there have been a few campaigns against uranium mining based on the fact that some resources have been exploited from land owned or occupied by aborigines, native Americans, or First Nation tribes, but that is not an inherent factor of nuclear energy. Uranium and thorium are widely distributed around the world; there is a known deposit within an hour of my southwest Virginia home that could supply the entire US demand for two years.
  Using nuclear energy is certainly not a racist endeavor; in fact, the Atoms for Peace vision and the program that implemented that vision was one of the least racist programs ever devised by the powerful to share their power and provide opportunities for all to prosper. One of the main reasons that I favor nuclear energy development is that I honestly love humanity and want to bring power to the people.
  There is a good chance that people like Jim Green can become effective pronuclear advocates as long as they continue to engage in critical thinking and learn as much as they can about the ways that nuclear energy use aligns with their primary concerns. If Green has the opportunity to watch Pandora's Promise he might be inspired by a film about leaders who are concerned about both the environment and the power needs of the less advantaged people in the world and, as a result of open-minded examination, have switched from antinuclear opposition to pronuclear support.
Chinese hackers accessed F-35B and other advanced US weapons systems
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  Archived Version
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Tue, 28 May 2013 08:56
  Many of the Pentagon's most advanced weapon systems -- including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and PAC-3 Patriot missile system -- were compromised by Chinese hackers, according to a classified document obtained by the Washington Post. The list of weapons was part of an earlier DoD report condemning Chinese cyber-espionage activities, but had been confidential until now. Other systems hacked are said to include the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), the Navy's Aegis ballistic-missile defense system, the F/A-18 fighter, V-22 Osprey and the Littoral Combat Ship used for shore patrol. Many of these form the foundation of defense systems from Europe to the Persian Gulf -- and their breach goes a long way towards explaining Washington's unprecedented dressing-down of China.
de kunst van Christina Curry
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 08:55
  GLAMORAMAArchiefContactGlipjesTip OnsZoekenHoe voelt het om op te groeien als spruit van BN'ers? Om als tiener te figureren in een soapserie rond je ouders? Om dochter te zijn van een exhibitionistische, geile moeder? Wij weten het niet want we heten geen Christina Curry. Misschien vertelt de kunst van Curry ons iets meer over hoe ze zich voelt danwel wat er in haar omgaat. Op de website etsy.com waar crea bea's hun waren kunnen veilen, is er werk opgedoken van Kunstenares Curry. Altijd verfrissend als een bn'er (n"g niet in kapitalen dus) niet heel lui DJ wordt maar gewoon lekker artistiek aan de slag gaat. Respect. Maar is het wat? Even kijken'...
  Occult ChurchEen aardig expressionistisch, quasi na¯ef werk in zwart wit. Curry leerde haar huidige vriendin kennen in een kerkelijke omgeving.
  The Left and Right Hand Path of Slender ManSlender Man achtervolgt, ontvoert en traumatiseert mensen, vooral kinderen. Een verwijzing naar een rommelige jeugd op verschillende continenten?
  Azrael BatmanSpeelse knipoog naar comiccultuur. Who's going to save you? Mooie vraag, waar de kunstenaar net als ieder ander dagelijks mee worstelt.
  M.B. | 27-05-13 | 20:01 | 12 reactiesReaguurselsOvergetrokken?
  W. Sneijder | 27-05-13 | 20:30Och erm...
  Rollins | 27-05-13 | 20:51Dacht dat er stond de kut van christina
  Wajong | 27-05-13 | 21:02Ze vond een Sketch-o-Graph op zolder.
  Jonkheer Wttewaall | 27-05-13 | 21:44Ik kijk liever naar haar blote billen/borsten.Is wellicht ook een beter verdienmodel.
  boasatlas | 27-05-13 | 22:29Nee. Gewoon nee.
  Donkey Bong | 27-05-13 | 23:25Prima werk. Nu stoppen met slap kletsen en het wordt misschien nog eens wat.
  Gash | 28-05-13 | 00:05@Wajong | 27-05-13 | 21:02Haha, ik ook :-P
  Slipsnifter | 28-05-13 | 01:13Leuk wijffie trouwens, die komt er wel.
  Slipsnifter | 28-05-13 | 01:14Uhhh begrijp er niks van. Dacht dat ze zo'n niets kunnend hopeloos geval was. Net als geer en goor Patty Brard en niet te vergeten haar eigen moedertje. Blijkt Miss curry gewoon wel talent te hebben.waarom dan in haar blote tieten/reet op internet. Terwijl ze ook ff naar de Gamma had kunnen gaan voor een paar emmertjes Verf??? Om zulke werkjes in elkaar te freubelen???
  Gangster of love | 28-05-13 | 06:48Ik vind 't wel leuk eigenlijk.
  Le0 | 28-05-13 | 10:52Ze kan al meer dan haar ouders, zullen we maar zeggen...
  Woods | 28-05-13 | 11:12Reageer ookJe bent niet ingelogd, klik hier om dat wel te doen: login of doe een CookieSync.Volg ons
  Tendentieus, ongefundeerd en nodeloos kwetsend.
McCain sneaks into Syria, meets rebels '-- RT USA
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  Archived Version
  Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile
  Tue, 28 May 2013 08:50
  Republican Senator John McCain, a staunch advocate of US military aid to the Syrian opposition, has made a surprise visit to war-torn Syria and met with rebels. The controversial move comes as Russia and the US are trying to set up a peace conference.
  According to a report by the Daily Beast, Arizona Senator McCain crossed into Syria form Turkey with General Salem Idris, who leads the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, and stayed there for several hours before returning back. The senator met with assembled leaders of Free Syrian Army units in both Turkey and Syria.
  Idris told the Daily Beast "We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation."
  A senior State Department official has confirmed that the senator did "cross into Syrian territory" but referred all questions to McCain's office. McCain's spokesman confirmed that the visit took place but declined to give any details.
  The move had come shortly before the EU agreed to end its arms embargo on Syrian rebels on Monday. Last week, a US Senate panel voted overwhelmingly to send weapons to forces fighting the Syrian government, underlining growing sentiment among lawmakers for a change in the US approach to the Syrian conflict.
  Meanwhile Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry have met in Paris where they are discussing the upcoming Geneva peace conference on Syria.
  Lavrov, emerging from the talks said that a peace conference on Syria was a ''tall order,'' but expressed hope that "when the United States and the Russian Federation take this kind of initiative, the chances for success are there."
  Kerry spoke for both countries when he said they were committed to upholding the principles outlined in the Geneva Communique of 2012, which proposed a transitional government to be elected by mutual consent between the government of Bashar Assad and the Syrian opposition.
  McCain's actions are a dangerous provocation reminiscent of his actions on Iraq and Libya, says independent researcher and writer Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich. She adds that under the US Constitution, one of the things that is considered treason is to promote or to bring about war.
  "McCain did the same thing for Iraq. He was a part of a Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and he met with the Iraqi opposition and we saw the war there. He was all for this Libyan opposition group.''
  ''McCain does not serve the interests of the American people or the world at large,'' she told RT.
  It remains unclear if the Arizona senator and an outspoken critic of Obama's handling on Syria crisis had informed the White House about his plans to visit Syria.
  However Sepahpour-Ulrich does not believe the Obama administration was unaware of the McCain's move.
  ''I don't think that Senator McCain would take it upon himself to go to Syria and meet with the opposition had he not had a nod from the government otherwise he would be locked up the minute he returns because he is acting against America's interest if indeed that's America's interest.''
  The researcher claims that we are seeing two sides here - ''We are seeing the government, the administration, Obama, trying to play the nice guy. But everything that is going on is what had led up to all the other wars in the region.''
  ''I don't think they want peace '' peace doesn't serve them.''
Terror police called in after prison warden stabbed in attack 'inspired by Woolwich murder'
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  Archived Version
  Tue, 28 May 2013 08:48
  A source told The Sun: ''This had all the hallmarks of a pre-planned attack inspired by the Woolwich atrocity.
  ''It's something officials have been fearing could happen for years and now it finally has.
  ''The officer was frankly lucky to survive. The attack was brutal.''
  The warden, said to be in his 30s, was reportedly set upon near the kitchens of the jail's E Wing.
  A Ministry of Justice (MoJ) spokesman said: "An incident involving three prisoners took place at HMP Full Sutton on 26 May from 4.25pm and was successfully resolved at 8.40pm after staff intervened.
  "A police investigation is ongoing."
  The MoJ would not comment on reports that the attackers were Islamic extremists.
  Drummer Rigby was hacked to death in the street in Woolwich, south east London, last week.
  Two suspected Islamist terrorists, Michael Adebowale, 22, and Michael Adebolajo, 28, are accused of his murder.
  In 2009, nine prisoners, including some terrorists, were caught planning to escape from Full Sutton in a hijacked helicopter.
  Last year's annual report on Full Sutton by the Independent Monitoring Board said the prison had seen an increase in Muslim prisoners and referred to ''tensions between them and other prisoners.''
  More than a fifth (22%) of the prison's inmates in 2012 were Muslims.
In Memoriam ex Veritas
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  Archived Version
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Mon, 27 May 2013 11:21
  FBI agents who eliminated older Tsarnaev brother "mysteriously" and conveniently fell out of a helicopterYes it is all coincidence as now others are noticing that things are odd and the FBI SEALs who were in on another Muslim attack sanctioned suddenly died too as eyewitnesses.
  It is a sad Memorial day indeed when Russian media sources are more trustworthy than the typical alphabet news agencies.Why and how those FBI agents were murdered must be investigated. The equipment must be seized and reviewed by independent investigators.
  agtG
  "--President of the association of veterans of antiterrorist unit "Alfa" Alexei Filatov talked to Pravda.ru about the tragedy and who may be guilty of it.
  'I judge Tsarnaev brothers based on what we know about their lives - where they lived, how they lived, what their aspirations were, what their family and friends, those with whom they studied, their teachers said about them. This act does not fit the picture. It is very hard, nearly impossible to explain why they did it. The guess of some experts, including those in the U.S., that it was a dormant unit of radical Muslims does not fit the picture. First, these people did not really live in the Caucasus. They come from Kyrgyzstan, spent a year in Makhachkala, and at an early age came to the U.S. No practical or physical contacts have been noticed. The fact that one brother went to Makhachkala, was allegedly in Chechnya ... It is unclear whether he was there doing construction work, or, like his father said, slept until 12pm, and then hung out with his friends ... I do not believe that at that time he was made a "dormant unit,"' summed up Alexei Filatov."For nearly 12 years they have been no terrorist attacks in the U.S. Ordinary Americans began to wonder: 'Why do soldiers die in Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else, if nothing happens, why not withdraw the troops?'"According to Filatov, it is quite possible that this way the authorities could "explain" this military presence. 'They (Tsarnavev brothers - Ed.) have been involved in this situation, and we will not speak of their role. In this situation they are not accidental spectators of the marathon. Work was conducted with them, and I'm sure that the only motive was money. They were offered money for playing a role. Later, I believe, they were simply used and framed. The older brother who possessed the information was simply destroyed so no one could straighten things out,' said Filatov.'And now we have two radicals with unclear motives and unclear objectives. And now it will beautifully transform in a pretty wrapping for the American society. Politicians - the White House, Barack Obama, even Republicans, who are now in the opposition - will derive their political dividends,' said Alexei Filatov."
Confirmed: Canada 2011 polls fraudulent
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  Archived Version
  Mon, 27 May 2013 09:21
  The Canadian Federal Court has confirmed that the country's 2011 federal election, which led to the victory of Stephen Harper's government, was fraudulent.
  The court emphasized in a Thursday ruling that it has found in no uncertain terms that widespread election fraud took place during the vote.
  The ruling also stated that ''there was an orchestrated effort to suppress votes during the 2011 election campaign by a person with access to the [Conservative Party's] CIMS database.''
  Accordingly, the Council of Canadians has called on the Conservative Party to investigate the issue. It says anything less at this point would be a cover-up on behalf of the Conservatives.
  The Council of Canadians says that the non-cooperation, obstructionism, and attempts to disrupt the Federal Court case by the CIMS makes it look like Prime Minister Harper has something to conceal.
  Garry Neil, Executive Director of the Council of Canadians said ''This Federal Court decision is a major indictment of the Conservative Party of Canada.''
  ''Either senior leaders of the Conservative Party were directly involved in election fraud or they were astoundingly negligent in securing access to their voter database. Illegal or incompetent--just like in the Senate scandal.''
  YH/HN
Kerry Touts Drone Strikes as Dramatic 'Success'
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  Archived Version
  Source: BlackListedNews.com
  Mon, 27 May 2013 02:58
  >>Speaking today in Ethiopia, Secretary of State John Kerry hyped the ongoing US drone strike program, declaring it an overwhelming success which had only been used to kill terrorist leaders.
  ''I am convinced we have one of the strictest, most accountable and fairest programs,'' insisted Kerry, adding that the US had never fired a missile when civilians were nearby, despite well-documented confirmations of large numbers of civilian deaths in the program, and only a handful of the thousands of slain Pakistanis ever identified by name.
  Kerry went on to confirm the recent lull in drone attacks in Pakistan, which analysts have chalked up to the Pakistani elections being held this month. Kerry claimed that to the contrary the lower number of attacks just proved how successful the strikes had been, and that essentially the US had killed so many ''al-Qaeda in Pakistan'' that there just weren't many potential targets left.
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The moon shouldn't be there
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: the tap
  Mon, 27 May 2013 02:57
  Icke fills in missing details from the Sitchin Annunaki Sumerian history of the earth, by cross referring the story to African legend. Sitchin dropped out many of the details of the Annunaki story in his Earth Chronicles. At 6 minutes onwards. The moon was hollowed out and dragged into position near earth. It caused massive cataclysms, tsunamis etc which wiped out all former civilisations. The reptilians then created a slave race to inhabit the planet. That's us, folks.
  In this Intellihub piece, the existence of warm zones at the earth's Poles is also discussed.
  Intellihub writes -
  The Hollow Earth TheoryResearchers such as Dr. Brooks Agnew, and others, have deeply considered the possibility that the earth itself could be hollow, or egg-like.Although this theory seems hard to comprehend as you have been told exactly opposite your entire life, entertain the idea for a moment. What if the earth was hollow? Would that be possible? Is there evidence to back this up? The answer is yes.Evidence shows that the earth rings like a bell after an earthquake for a period of up to about 60 minutes. Some scientists and researchers say that this is due to the fact that the earth is hollow. If the earth had a solid core when and earthquake happened, it would likely absorb all of vibration and not resonate it. This is just one detail that should open your mind to the possibility that a hollow planet is a possibility.Famous author and lecture, David Icke, explains in his book, Moon Matrix, exactly how the moon is likely hollow as well. While Icke has been received lately harshly with criticisms, an ActivistPost.com article points out how, ''Icke believes that the moon is an inter-dimensional, intensity portal for entities and energies from other dimensions. He believes that aliens use the moon as a home base for hijacking signals from the universe so that our bodily forms that are experiencing this virtual reality on Earth, can't fully experience what our creator meant for it to be. These aliens are the same reptilian shape-shifters that Icke claims are responsible for much of suffering on our planet. Reptilians want to filter anything beyond our five senses so that it manipulates what kind of world we can experience.''In the following clip, Icke explains how he believes the moon is rather too large to be orbiting earth.If that is just too much for you, let's bring you back down to earth.History in virtually every culture and civilization across the planet and throughout time, has documented what appears to be the existence of a hollow earth.
Ten fans injured when fox spors nylon camera line breaks.
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: QRZ Forums
  Mon, 27 May 2013 02:48
  It was a WOW!!!! moment. when that line broke supporting the overhead camera. 10 fans injured just glad no one got killed by it.You never know at the track what might happen?http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...cable/2362723/
  Last edited by AC4BB; Today at 06:17 AM.Bryan, AC4BB Scio me nihil Scire: Socrates Psm:109:8
Jew Bashing, The New Antisemitism Episode 2: New Anti-Semitism Europe
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  Archived Version
  Source: Israellycool
  Mon, 27 May 2013 02:45
  "The Israeli-Aussie version of Jon Stewart!" - Sabre Fencer"You do have a very unique sense of humor and are certainly not the norm, regular mortals should not try to copy you" - Real Jerusalem Streets
  "I could listen to him alllll day!" - Celestial Blue
  "He single-handedly does the best job of knocking down Israel haters online that I've ever seen" - Israelplug
  "Funniest blog I've ever read!" - ìž¥ëê°/Jang Nu-ga
  "..a decade of entertaining, informing, explaining, and kicking ass all over cyberspace, righteously" - Tzvi Zucker
  "The father of Israeli blogging" - Carl in Jerusalem
  "..expertly analyzes international media reactions to the news in Israel" - Maya Norton, Global Voices
  "Snarky humor, funny photo comparisons, and frustrations with the geopolitical neighborhood all clash for a lovely symphony of madness." - Laurence Simon
  "..wise and passionate.." - Political Vindication Radio
  "He can turn a very serious and possibly depressing piece of news and make it entertainment. That is talent, and that is why I love to read his blog." - Culture For All
  "This guy is so funny but that's only because everything he says is the TRUTH" - Chava Ayanna
  "Your blog and work along with are doing more to expose antisemitism than any org I know" - Ambrosin Shitrit
  "..magnificent Aussie bastard" - Zionist Shark
  "I really enjoy the blog and contributors~often gives me laugh and some serious insight at the same time" - Greentamarind
  "Darnit, Aussie Dave, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore" - Brett Greenberg
  "You're definitely right-wing to me, but lovable nonetheless" - Jim from Iowa
  "..right-wing blogger" - Ben Ehrenreich, NY Times
  "..the notorious Israellycool.com, which gently skips between right-wing rants against Islam, posts about science fiction and - what else? - blogs about the Eurovision song contest." - Tim Jonze, The Guardian
  "I don't read your facocte website moron. No one does" - Debbie Schlussel
  "..the liar & moral pygmy who writes Israellycool & makes feeble attempts to ridicule my views" - Dick Silverstein
Sweden's Riots Put Its Identity in Question
  Link to Article
  Archived Version
  Source: NYT > Home Page
  Mon, 27 May 2013 02:44
  Fredrik Sandberg/Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images
  Burned-out cars in the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby last week after groups made up mostly of young immigrants rioted.
  STOCKHOLM '-- Eva Bromster, an elementary school principal, was jolted awake by a telephone call late Thursday night. ''Your school is burning,'' her boss, the director of the local education department, told her.
  Ms. Bromster rushed to the school, in the mostly immigrant district of Tensta, north of Stockholm, and found one room gutted by fire and another filled with ankle-deep water after firefighters had doused the flames. It was the second fire at the school in three days.
  In Stockholm and other towns and cities last week, bands made up mostly of young immigrants set buildings and cars ablaze in a spasm of destructive rage rarely seen in a country proud of its normally tranquil, law-abiding ways.
  The disturbances, with echoes of urban eruptions in France in 2005 and Britain in 2011, have pushed Sweden to the center of a heated debate across Europe about immigration and the tensions it causes in a time of deep economic malaise.
  The riots, now subsiding, have produced less damage than the earlier ones in Paris and London, which also involved mostly immigrants. But the unrest has shaken Sweden, which has a reputation for welcoming immigrants and asylum seekers, including those fleeing violence in countries like Iraq, Somalia and Syria, and regularly ranks in surveys as one of the world's happiest places.
  ''I don't know why anybody would want to burn our school,'' Ms. Bromster said. ''I can't understand it. Maybe they are not so happy with life.''
  The riots are not unprecedented here. In 2008 and 2010, immigrants clashed with the police in the southern port city of Malmo. But the past week's arson attacks in Stockholm, the capital, and the spectacle of teenagers hurling stones at firefighters have left many Swedes wondering what went wrong in a society that has invested so heavily in helping the underprivileged.
  While the violence was concentrated in relatively poor districts, most of their residents have been shielded from dire poverty by a welfare system that is one of the world's most expansive, despite recent cutbacks.
  Sweden's center-right prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, scornfully described the riots as ''hooliganism,'' while the Swedish Democrats, a far-right party, have seized on the violence to push their anti-immigrant stance and called for the deportation of nonnative Swedes who break the law. ''This is not just a police issue,'' said Jimmie Akesson, the party's leader, but ''a direct result of an irresponsible immigration policy that has created deep cracks in Swedish society.''
  The left, which dominated Swedish politics for decades and devised the cradle-to-grave welfare system, has blamed reduced state benefits and a modest shift toward the privatization of public services for the unrest, pointing to an erosion of the country's tolerant, egalitarian ethos. A recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said that income inequality had grown faster in Sweden than in any other industrialized nation between 1985 and the end of the past decade, although it remains far more equal than most countries.
  ''The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer,'' said Barbro Sorman, an activist of the opposition Left Party. ''Sweden is starting to look like the U.S.A.''
  But Stockholm's immigrant enclaves, including Tensta and the nearby suburb of Husby, where the riots began May 19 after the police fatally shot a 69-year-old immigrant wielding a knife, show few outward signs of deprivation.
  Created in the 1960s as part of a state building blitz to create a million new homes in a decade, Stockholm's northern suburbs now offer well-tended parks, graceless but well-maintained public housing, well-equipped schools, youth centers, libraries and legions of social workers financed by the state.
  Dejan Stankovic, the Serbian-born manager of a team of government youth workers that has joined parents and other volunteers on nightly street patrols, recalled a visit to the area by a group of mystified American social workers. ''They said, 'It is green and safe, so what is the problem?' ''
  One big problem is the lack of jobs. The national unemployment rate is about 8 percent, but the rate is at least twice as high in immigrant areas and four times as high for those under 25. But, said Nima Sanandaji, a Kurdish-Swedish author of several books on immigration who was born in Iran, remote areas in the north of Sweden have more people out of work, ''but they are not throwing rocks and burning cars.''