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Glenn Greenwald and Peter Maass
The Intercept 2014-12-19 12:28:00
NBC News yesterday called her a "key apologist" for the CIA's torture program. A follow-up New Yorker article dubbed her "The Unidentified Queen of Torture" and in part "the model for the lead character in 'Zero Dark Thirty.'" Yet in both articles she was anonymous. The person described by both NBC and The New Yorker is senior CIA officer Alfreda Frances Bikowsky. Multiple news outlets have reported that as the result of a long string of significant errors and malfeasance, her competence and integrity are doubted - even by some within the agency. The Intercept is naming Bikowsky over CIA objections because of her key role in misleading Congress about the agency's use of torture, and her active participation in the torture program (including playing a direct part in the torture of at least one innocent detainee). Moreover, Bikowsky has already been publicly identified by news organizations as the CIA officer responsible for many of these acts. The executive summary of the torture report released by the Senate last week provides abundant documentation that the CIA repeatedly and deliberately misled Congress about multiple aspects of its interrogation program. Yesterday, NBC News reported that one senior CIA officer in particular was responsible for many of those false claims, describing her as "a top al Qaeda expert who remains in a senior position at the CIA." | |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Aeneas Georg
Sott.net 2014-12-22 17:30:00
Last month there was a cyberattack on a SONY made movie/comedy featuring North Korea calledThe Interview, which resulted in SONY retracting the movie. The movie was apparently so bad that SONY would have been right to pull it even without the hack. Accusations from the US blamed, in predictable fashion, North Korea. North Korea claims innocence, saying it had nothing to do with it, and offered to launch a joint investigation with the US: Sounds reasonable. So how does the Empire of Chaos react? Yes, you read that correctly. The US is considering blacklisting North Korea and listing it as a state sponsor of terrorism. The biggest sponsor of state terrorism reacts to an offer of a joint investigation by blacklisting the country that made the offer! Puppet-in-chief Obama had this to say: The US spies on every head of state and every country in the world, imposes sanctions at will, unilaterally goes to war, funds, trains and arms ISIS and the Nazi regime in Kiev and everywhere else it wishes regime change. As usual no evidence has been presented to implicate North Korea, just like with Flight MH17 and numerous Russian "invasions" of Ukraine. We the people are just expected to believe the pathological leadership of the exceptional United States of America and support them in their destruction of the world. | |
Comment: See also: Where's the evidence? U.S. accuses North Korea for Cyberattack on Sony
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Aeneas Georg
Hardly a day goes by without 'sanctions' being mentioned in the news. Some sanctions lifted, other sanctions sanctioned, and yet others considered. It's like some political-media circus marketed as a righteous response to some injustice, human rights violations, cruel regime or whatever lobbyists and PR companies come up with. As with most marketing, it bears little-to-no relation to the truth.Sott.net 2014-12-22 17:22:00
It takes only a quick look to see that all those countries the US has unilaterally slapped sanctions on have been countries portrayed as 'enemies' of the US and where regime change has been either attempted or is strongly desired - Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Libya, Cuba, Ukraine, Russia, Syria, China, etc. All are countries that the US happens to be losing control over, hence sanctions were put in place. Places such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, Bahrain etc. are never considered for sanctions. Neither by the US nor by the EU. The EU for the simple reason that it has no voice of its own and just follows the dictates of Uncle Sam. You might well object and say that Ukraine has no sanctions despite the questionable extent of US control, and you'd be right. But remember back just a couple of years ago and the Empire of Chaos was very much considering | |
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Inder Comar
Late Friday, a federal judge dismissed a civil claim filed against George W. Bush and other high-ranking officials regarding their conduct in planning and waging the Iraq War, and immunized them from further proceedings.Global Research 2014-12-22 20:46:00
The tribunal at Nuremberg, established in large part by the United States after World War II, declared international aggression the "supreme international crime" and convicted German leaders of waging illegal wars. The case alleged that George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz committed aggression in planning and waging the Iraq War. Specifically, the lawsuit claimed that high-ranking Bush officials used the fear of 9/11 to mislead the American public into supporting a war against Iraq, and that they issued knowingly false statements that Iraq was in league with Al-Qaeda and had weapons of mass destruction, when none of those things were true. "The decision guts Nuremberg," Comar said. "Nuremberg said that domestic immunity was no defense to a claim of international aggression. This Court has said the opposite." The court's ruling comes in the wake of the Senate report regarding the use of torture by the CIA during the Bush Administration. The Senate report confirmed that a false confession obtained from the torture of Ibn Shaykh al-Libi was cited by the Administration in support of the war. | |
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Peter Spence
The Telegraph 2014-12-22 19:38:00 Comment: The reader is advised to read Paul Craig Roberts excellent analysis of Russia's actual economic condition before wading into the mire of disinformation below.
The Central Bank of Russia has said it will provide £343m of support to one of the country's more troubled banks, as analysts warn of a wave of defaults in the sector. Russia is facing a "full-blown economic crisis", a former finance minister has warned, as the country is forced to take emergency financial measures. The economy has been battered by a wave of sanctions as a result of tensions over Ukraine, geopolitical uncertainty, and falling oil prices. Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister and once considered an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said: "Today I can say that we have entered or are currently entering a full-blown economic crisis. Next year we will feel it in full force." Analysts have warned that the Russian economy will not improve in the long-term unless either the oil price or relations over Ukraine improve. Comment: The price of oil may be low, but Russia does not lack for customers. China and India, both massive markets, are lining up for reliable Russian energy. "Improved relations" with Ukraine doesn't even need to enter into the picture Speaking at a press conference in Moscow, Mr Kudrin went on to say: "As for what the President and government must do now, the most important factor is the normalisation of Russia's relations with its business partners, above all in Europe, the US and other countries". Comment: Alexei Kudrin is an interesting fellow. On the one hand, he shepherded Russia's finances to the point where they have some of the lowest debt levels in the world. On the other hand, he presided over the looting of Russia's industries under Boris Yeltsin, supports a level of privatisation that is unacceptable to the current government, and believes that all foreign NGOs should be able to operate freely in Russia. A member of the so-called 'fifth column' mentioned by Putin? | |
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Dennis Kucinich
Three members of Congress just reignited the Cold War while no one was looking Truthdig 2014-12-16 18:57:00 Late Thursday night, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a far-reaching Russia sanctions bill, a hydra-headed incubator of poisonous conflict. The second provocative anti-Russian legislation in a week, it further polarizes our relations with Russia, helping to cement a Russia-China alliance against Western hegemony, and undermines long-term America's financial and physical security by handing the national treasury over to war profiteers.
Here's how the House's touted "unanimity" was achieved: Under a parliamentary motion termed "unanimous consent," legislative rules can be suspended and any bill can be called up. If any member of Congress objects, the motion is blocked and the bill dies. At 10:23:54 p.m. on Thursday, a member rose to ask "unanimous consent" for four committees to be relieved of a Russia sanctions bill. At this point the motion, and the legislation, could have been blocked by a single member who would say "I object." No one objected, because no one was watching for last-minute bills to be slipped through. Most of the House and the media had emptied out of the chambers after passage of the $1.1 trillion government spending package. | |
Comment: The latest sanctions on Russia were approved by a combination of deception (who elseoperates on that principle?) and apathy. No wonder people are opting out of voting in the US. Why should a Congressman be paid so lavishly when "many members seldom read the legislation on which they vote." Maybe most don't bother to read bills because their lobbyist/contributor has already "explained" it to them?
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Eva Bartlett
RT 2014-12-21 18:02:00
Five months ago the world watched in horror as the bully of the Middle East, Israel, launched the most brutal massacre on the Palestinians of Gaza since the Nakba (perhaps more brutal, Palestinian friends in Gaza have said). Lasting over twice as long as the 2008-09 war on Gaza (formerly the most-brutal massacre since the Nakba), and killing over 800 more Palestinians than in the attack six years ago, the July-August 51-day offensive killed 2,131 Palestinians and injured over 11,000, and destroyed tens of thousands of homes, buildings, businesses, hospitals, Gaza's only power plant and other key components of Gaza's infrastructure. Palestinian and foreign activists and journalists within the 40 kilometer-long strip of open-air prison tweeted and live-streamed images more horrific than the best Hollywood productions. Weathered journalists broke down sobbing at the sight of Palestinian civilians, especially children being targeted like prey by one of the world's most wickedly powerful armies and navies. Doctors who have seen the mutilated corpses and scarcely-living bodies of Palestinian elderly, men, women and children many times before were yet still appalled by the brutality of these latest attacks. Worldwide, protesters, journalists of integrity called the bombardment of Gaza genocidal (asIsraeli officials and politicians called for genocide). One of the most shocking of many images was that of 4-year-old Saher Abu Namous's half blown-off head, his father cradling him and wailing.Entire families were murdered in this latest Israeli offensive. Not for the first time, the Israeli army bombed schools hosting internally displaced, hospitals (including a rehabilitation hospital for disabled and invalid), and entire neighborhoods. As with prior military operations, the Israelis in 2014 targeted water and sewage lines, electricity networks, hospitals, primary health centers, ambulances and medics, bridges and major roads, key governmental buildings, schools and universities.They went further and attacked water, electricity and sanitation personnel, killing at least 14, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted. The resulting electricity, water and sanitation crises are such that until November, power was out 18 hours a day, and just 10 percent of the 1.8 million Palestinians get water once a day (for a matter of hours). As of mid-November, Oxfam reported, power cuts were 12 hours per day in some areas. While the bombs rained down, some Israelis pulled up seats to watch the bloodshed, as 21stCentury Wire noted: "Old sofas, garden chairs, battered car seats and upturned crates provide seating for the spectators. ...Some bring bottles of beer or soft drinks and snacks. ...Nearly all hold up smartphones to record the explosions or to pose grinning, perhaps with thumbs up, for selfies against a backdrop of black smoke." The Israeli army used the same banned weapons on Palestinians this summer that they've used in the past two massacres, as well as "armour piercing bombs" which have "high explosive capabilities" and were used on Palestinian homes. Weapons-seekers flocked to Israel after seeing the effects of its weaponry and technology. Israel's weapons industry thrives with each massacreof the Gaza testing ground. Strangling and starving Gaza In September 2005, the 8,500 Israeli colonists finally, unwillingly leave their homes on stolen land. With no Jewish colonists in Gaza, Israel has since been free to lock-down all of Gaza and bomb whenever the whim occurs, with no fear of any Israeli loss of life. The Israelis have waged wars against Gaza every year or two since pulling their colonists out. Since the June 28, 2006 Israeli repeating bombing of Gaza's sole power plant - destroying all six transformers - Palestinians in Gaza have neither been allowed to import the transformers and materials needed to rehabilitate the plant, nor offered an alternative solution. Through the now-destroyed tunnels, Palestinians did import smaller transformers and got the power plant hobbling again, but never to full capacity. In a 2006 report on Israel's bombing of Gaza's power plant, B'Tselem called for Israel to: "Cover the expenses needed to return the power plant to full capacity; Finance the upgrading of the infrastructure to transfer electricity from Israel to the Gaza Strip; Permit the entry of the equipment needed to rehabilitate the power plant, without delay." However, Israel did none of the obliged, nor has it ever paid (in any sense of the word) for the reconstruction of buildings and infrastructure it has repeatedly targeted over the years. The supply of electricity bought from Israel and Egypt doesn't suffice for Gaza's now 1.8 million Palestinians. The crisis impacts on every facet of life: hospital functions, sanitation, water supply, refrigerators and appliances, and education. | |
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RT
2014-12-19 12:52:00
The International Monetary Fund has postponed the allocation of €88 million credit assistance to Cyprus over the suspension of a new foreclosure law. The move came after the Cyprus parliament decided to delay putting the foreclosure law into practice. The new legislation would speed up the procedure of banks seizing property from people unable to pay back loans. The introduction of the law in September was a condition for further credit assistance to Cyprus. It has been put back to January 30, 2015. "Following today's suspension of the existing legislation on foreclosure, critical requirements for the completion of the fifth program review are now no longer met," the IMF said in a statement. "We look forward to continued cooperation, and will agree with the authorities on the next steps in the period ahead." | |
Comment: It seems that the IMF vultures won't rest until some poor folks lose their homes.
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Sherry Jones
The film, and the clips excerpted below, includes graphic depictions of torture employed in the CIA interrogation program. Moyers & Company 2014-12-19 04:30:00 Seven years ago, I interviewed Moazzam Begg, a British citizen who had been held by the United States in prisons in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay - without charge - for almost three years. His words described brutal torture inflicted by his American captors. But his tone was eerily matter-of-fact, delivered without apparent pain or anger. As I interviewed other former prisoners, it was the same - calm descriptions of horrific abuse. When I remarked on this to one of their attorneys, he told me what I should have figured out myself - this was the only way any of these men could repeatedly describe their torture and also protect their fragile sanity.
That revelation led to one of the most difficult decisions I made as a documentary filmmaker - to include dramatizations of the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," from "stress positions," to "sleep deprivation" and "solitary confinement," even water boarding in Torturing Democracy.Those scenes are the scenes that make you want to cover your eyes. But now, with the damning conclusions of the Executive Summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation, clearly and repeatedly describing torture, none of us can any longer cover our eyes. | |
Comment: We get the government we deserve. Those who think " the US would never do this to its own" had better think again. It's already happening. We just call it "police brutality" instead.
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Justin Gardner
The Free Thought Project 2014-12-21 03:32:00
As the wasteful, immoral war on drugs continues in police states around the world, authorities are always looking for ways to track the use of "illicit" drugs. It's the intelligence aspect of their war, and some of the methods literally reek. Introducing "sewage epidemiology," coming soon to a community near you.
According to the American Chemical Society's report:
The thought of authorities slogging through the sludge may be comical, but it represents another example of big brother using our money to monitor our behavior. Drug consumption is a non-violent act upon oneself. The drug trade is made violent in a black market under government prohibition. | |
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Sputnik
2014-12-21 02:08:00
According to documents published by WikiLeaks the US Central Intelligence Agency has issued advice for its agents on how to infiltrate international passport control systems, including in the European Union and the Schengen area. The US Central Intelligence Agency has issued advice for its agents on how to infiltrate international passport control systems, including in the European Union and the Schengen area, according to two previously undisclosed documents published by WikiLeaks on Sunday. "The European Union's Schengen biometric-based border-management systems pose a minimal identity threat to US operational travellers because their primary focus is illegal immigration and criminal activities, not counter-intelligence," reads one of the documents, dated January 2012. The CIA advice booklet, entitled "Schengen Overview", gives detailed information on customs procedures in the Europe and threats they pose to agents using false documents. While biometric systems are currently not used for people with US documents, this could possibly change in 2015, increasing the "identity threat level", according to the CIA. The second document, dated September 21, 2011, gives advice on how to pass airports screenings across the world. The manual, titled "Surviving Secondary", notes that airport watch lists may include names of confirmed or suspected intelligence agents and lists a number of signs that could disclose one's identity, such as apparent nervousness and inability to speak the language of the passport-issuing country. | |
Comment: That last bit about CIA agents testing positive for explosives from a terrorist camp is quite telling.
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Kevin Ryan
Dig Within 2014-12-21 01:34:00
Graeme MacQueen's new book, The 2001 Anthrax Deception, reveals stunning links between the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax attacks that immediately followed. The book also reviews some of the interesting actions taken by alleged hijacker leader, Mohamed Atta, in the years preceding 9/11.These actions suggest that Atta was trying to leave the people he encountered with memories that would support the official myth. In the few years before JFK's assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald engaged in similar attention-seeking actions. Considering this leads to the discovery thatOswald and Atta had a lot in common. The legend of Mohamed Atta describes a man who seemed to be everywhere at once. In just the two years before 9/11, Atta reportedly lived and/or plotted in Germany, The Netherlands, The Philippines, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan (via Turkey and Pakistan), Oklahoma, Las Vegas, Spain, and numerous locations in Florida. Oswald also traveled extensively in the years before the JFK assassination - back and forth from California to Japan, to New Orleans, Dallas, and Fort Worth, to Mexico City, and to Minsk and Moscow. | |
Comment: In case anyone is still wondering, Al-Qaeda was and is 100% made in America. Using fronts like those provided by Fethullah Gulen and others, the CIA trains, funds, and directs operatives under the "Islamic terrorist" moniker. (Also listen to last weekend's episode of The Truth Perspective on the SOTT Radio Network for more on Gulen's operation.) Those operatives in turn train and recruit patsies who actually believe they are doing "God's will" -- well, apparently God is an American, and he works for the CIA. These patsies are then sent on "missions" planned by their CIA handlers, or they are coerced into taking part in 'drills', in which they and others are killed, providing the necessary spectacle to keep the 'strategy of tension' in operation.
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Yahoo! News
2014-12-15 15:42:00
Germany plans to finance part of the cost of four new corvette warships for the Israeli navymade by German firm Thyssen Krupp under a deal struck with the Jewish state in November, the government said on Monday. Following approval by German parliament's budget committee the contract could be finalised before the end of this year, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said. As part of its atonement for the Nazi Holocaust, Germany is committed to Israel's security and has often helped pay for the cost of military equipment such as submarines. The mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported on Sunday that Berlin had earmarked up to 115 million euros for the warships -- which would cost around 1 billion euros in total. Seibert declined comment on the size of the German contribution. | |
Comment: The Holocaust was 70 years ago. Just as the U.S. keeps EU countries in line via blackmail, so does the Mossad. That's the only rational explanation for this ludicrous policy. It's only a matter of time before the world turns on the psychopathic nation of Israel for its gangster tactics and genocidal mentality.
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Stuart Williams and Fulya Ozerkan
Yahoo! News 2014-12-16 00:00:00
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Monday told the European Union to "mind its own business", in a blistering attack against the bloc over criticism by EU officials of police raids against opposition media. Turkey has come under fire over the arrests Sunday of over two dozen journalists, television producers, police and even TV drama scriptwriters linked to US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen who has emerged as Erdogan's arch-foe. | |
Comment: One more leader who has the courage to stand up to the Anglo-American empire.
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RT
2014-12-18 00:00:00
A digital rights group in the United States plans to argue in federal court this week that the National Security Agency's internet surveillance operations violate the US Constitution's ban against unlawful searches and seizures. Six years after the Electronic Frontier Foundation brought suit against the NSA on behalf of a former AT&T customer, Carolyn Jewel, US District Court Judge Jeffrey White for the Northern District of California will hear an EFF attorney argue on Friday for summary judgment and attest that the intelligence agency's data collection methods breach the Constitution's Fourth Amendment clauses intended to protect private information. Filed back in 2008, the EFF's fight against the NSA long predates the public's awareness of Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who leaked classified documents about the agency's surveillance operations in 2013 and has since been charged with espionage and theft by the US Department of Justice. The disclosures attributed to Snowden and subsequent admissions from the intelligence community have in the past year provided the EFF and others with ample fodder to plead their cases against the government, however, and on Friday, Judge White is expected to be told by the group that the operations of the NSA as they're known today are unconstitutional. | |
Comment: It may be a long battle, but we can't forget how Aaron Swartz spearheaded a successful campaign that stopped the internet censorship bills (SOPA/PIPA).
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| Society's Child |
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John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute 2014-12-22 19:39:00
As a child, my Christmas wish list came right out of the Sears and Roebuck catalogue - toys, board games, bikes, action figures, etc. My parents, like so many in their day, belonged to the working-class poor, so while I never lacked for the necessities of life, many of the items on my wish list never came to be. Even so, I was no worse off for it. I wish the same could be said of those still unfulfilled items on my adult Christmas wish list. Each year, I wish for the same things - an end to war, poverty, hunger, violence and disease - and each year, I find the world relatively unchanged. Millions continue to die every year, casualties of a world that places greater value on war machines and profit margins than human life. I've seen enough of the world in my 68 years to know that wishing is not enough. We need to bedoing. It's not possible to solve all of the world's problems right away. For most people, putting an end to world hunger, poverty, disease and the police state may seem too insurmountable a task to even tackle. But as I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, there are practical steps each of us can take to hopefully get things moving in the right direction. Here's what I would suggest for a start: Tone down the partisan rhetoric, the "us" vs. "them" mentality. Politicians frequently perpetuate a "good" versus "evil," "us" versus "them" rhetoric which pits citizen against citizen and allows the politicians to advance their personal, political agendas. Instead of wasting time and resources on political infighting, which gets us nowhere, it's time Americans learned to work together to solve the problems before us. The best place to start is in your own communities, neighbor to neighbor. After all, at the end of the day, it makes no difference what politician you voted for - Republican, Democrat or otherwise - politics will never be the answer. Politicians have mastered the art of creating dissension, but they're all the same. Grassroots activism is the only kind of change you can count on. Turn off the TV and tune into what's happening in your family, in your community and your world. Read your local newspaper. Attend a school board or city council meeting. Get involved with a nonprofit that works in your community. Whatever you do, reduce your intake of mindless television and entertainment news. The only reality programming worth taking notice of is the one playing in your home and community | |
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RT
2014-12-22 18:39:00
Cunning fraudsters have conned the Ukraine Central Bank branch in Odessa into buying $300,000 worth of gold which turned out to be lead daubed with gold paint. "A criminal case has been opened and we are now carrying out an investigation to identify those involved in the crime," a spokesman for the Odessa police force is quoted by Vesti. The news was first reported by Odessa's State Ministry of Internal Affairs. A preliminary investigation suggests the gang had someone working for them inside the bank that forged the necessary paperwork to allow the sale of the fake gold bullion. It's also been discovered that bank staff were not regularly checked when entering or exiting the premises. Since the discovery, the National Bank no longer buys precious metal over the counter, as it cannot be sure of its authenticity, says the First Deputy Head of the National Bank of Ukraine, Aleksandr Pisaruk. | |
Comment: Ukraine sure is having a hard time hanging onto its gold reserves. It has already beenrobbed of the most of it by the US, under the cover of it being collateral for IMF and US financial aid. Now petty criminals are getting into the act.
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RT
2014-12-22 16:48:00
Police departments across big cities in the US are warning officers to take extra care after a spate of cop killings. Officers are advised to wear bulletproof vests and not make inflammatory posts on social media amid increased fears for their safety. A message from the New York Police Department (NYPD) union told cops that they should respond to every radio call with two cars, "no matter what the opinion of the patrol supervisor," while they should not make arrests "unless absolutely necessary," AP reported. Meanwhile, President of the Detectives Union Michael Palladino also warned of the dangers facing officers, stating, "Detectives assigned to Precinct Detective Squads and similarly-sized units should operate in teams of three when possible until we better assess the threat that exists against us," in an email sent to officers. | |
Comment: The police forces across the US are increasing their vigilance as the reality of their brutal tactics to "protect and serve" have been steadily increasing. The police no longer protect and serve the public but rather the people in power. It feels like the militarized police force have now declared war on the public.
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9news.com.au
2014-12-22 12:57:00
The 37-year-old Cairns mother accused of murdering eight children had recently turned to religion and banned technology from her home. Raina Mersane Ina Thaiday, who remains under police guard in hospital, had taken to giving fiery sermons in the street and had cut the power to her home and threw away the television, neighbours told News Corp. She warned locals not to use their mobile phones because they were the "work of the Devil"and posted a handwritten sign on a front window of her public housing home that read: "No alcohol, cigarette, and drunken people allowed in this area". Others said the house, where she is accused of killing seven of her own children and a niece in a frenzied knife attack last Friday, was often the scene of wild all-night parties. Meanwhile, preliminary autopsy reports are detailing the horrific injuries sustained by some of the eight children in the knife attack. It is alleged some suffered multiple stab wounds, with one child sustained at least 12 knife wounds to the front and 10 more on the back, according to pathology results. | |
Comment: It is not the first time we have seen mothers torturing or murdering their children, it seems to be a Sign of our Times. This one however, certainly goes high up on the list of the shocking, horrific, terribly sad and totally insane.
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Peter Hitchens
Daily Mail on Sunday 2014-12-21 17:33:00
This is a time of year for memories, and the ones that keep bothering me are from my childhood, which seemed at the time to be wholly happy and untroubled. Yet all the adults in my life still dwelt in the shadow of recent war. This was not the glamorous, exciting side of war, but the miserable, fearful and hungry aspect. My mother, even in middle-class suburban prosperity, couldn't throw away an eggshell without running her finger round it to get out the last of the white. No butcher dared twice to try to cheat her on the weights. Haunted all her life by rationing, she would habitually break a chocolate bar into its smallest pieces. She had also been bombed from the air in Liverpool, and had developed a fatalism to cope with the nightly danger of being blown to pieces, shocking to me then and since. I am now beset by these ingrained memories of shortage and danger because I seem surrounded by people who think that war might be fun. This seems to happen when wartime generations are pushed aside by their children, who need to learn the truth all over again. Comment: A perfect definition of the hysteroidal cycle. From Political Ponerology: The most characteristic feature of such a period is widespread hysteria, like that of the quarter century in Europe preceding WWI. "Happy" times of peace are necessarily dependent on social injustice, and children of the privileged class learn early to repress ideas that they and their families are benefiting from the injustice of others. Such unconscious defense mechanisms cause these individuals to disparage the values of those whose work they exploit. These processes lead to an hysterical state of inhibited logic and reasoning. This rigidity of thought then gets passed on to the next generation to an even greater degree. | |
Comment: Hitchins neatly points up the absurdity of the West's actions towards Russia. The virus truly doesn't understand that when the host dies it will die too.
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Bob Unruh
WND.com 2014-12-19 02:03:00
Officials at a Virginia school turned an allegedly misbehaving 4-year-old preschooler over to law enforcement, where he was put in handcuffs and shackles and ordered to talk to jail inmates, according to a legal group intervening in the case. The unnamed student, who was enrolled in the pre-kindergarten program at Nathanael Greene Primary School, in Stanardsville, Virginia, was removed from the classroom Oct. 16 after allegedly "becoming agitated and throwing several items onto the floor." "That such extreme restraints would even be contemplated in a case such as this points to a failure by those in leadership to provide the proper guidance to school personnel in what forms of restraint and force are appropriate when dealing with students, especially the youngest and most vulnerable," said a letter sent this week to school district officials by John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, which was asked by the mother to intervene. "It is imperative that Green County Public Schools take steps to assure [the student's mother] and the rest of the community of parents and concerned citizens that what happened to [the student] will not happen again to him or other students of similar age," Whitehead said. The letter said policies should make it clear that handcuffing, shackling and other "excessive restraint techniques are never appropriate when dealing with children of tender years." "Under the circumstances, Green County Public Schools should also rescind the suspension imposed upon [the student] and remove any indication of the incident from [the student's] records. The trauma [the student] has endured, which continues to cause him nightmares and may forever taint his experience and thoughts about school, should not be compounded by a blemish on his record." | |
Comment: This is how the police state treats the vulnerable people in society. Scaring him/her straight was not the real lesson here. It was a lesson of compliance to desensitize children and brainwashing them into accepting the police state.
America's Children: The trials of growing up in a police state | |
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Dominic Kelly
Opposing Views 2014-12-21 00:00:00
A Good Samaritan in Jonesboro, Georgia decided to help the people in his small community by showing up at the electric company's officer, approaching random people, and asking if he can pay their power bills. The Good Samaritan, known only as Steve, told CBS46 News that he wanted to give to people in person rather than donating through a charity because he thought a lot of people in his community could use financial assistance around Christmas time. "I've had a couple of people who are so shocked - they think I'm trying to scam them - so they look over at the police officer who is sitting there. He nods his head and smiles and tells them 'it's OK,'" Steve said. "Then I've had a couple of people who still don't want to do it." | |
Comment: This is a heartwarming gesture, particularly in these times when so many people are struggling to make ends meet.
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| Secret History |
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Zakaria Bziker
Morocco World News 2014-12-13 14:48:00
No one remembers one's moment of birth and neither does humanity. The beginning of man is a scientific mystery. This article, however, is not about how man came to be, but about shortly after that; it is about the dawn of humanity, a missing chapter in human history. People, in this forgotten chapter, mapped the earth and sky long before there were ancient Egyptians or Jews. They are not to be confused with Australopithecus, Homo Habilis, or Homo Ergaster. Instead, they are remembered by ancients as 'gods' because it is they who first engineered societies, leaving baffling traces on earth. The idea of how humanity's progress began is relative. Before the enlightenment, human civilizations throughout history viewed the past as glorious and expected the future to simply resemble and repeat the past. Mankind did not think highly of themselves until after Kant declared the motto "Sapere aude," - dare to think for yourself. But the question remains: what is it in our distant past that made the ancients behold it with such impressiveness? Scientific and technological progresses do not necessarily take thousands of years. The pace can be exponential, slow, or even regressive - exponential through accidental breakthroughs and inventions, e.g. the 20th century, but slow when impeded by a major force such as the Roman church or the Black Death that prolonged the dark ages for a century. Regression occurs due to a massive loss of knowledge, e.g. the burning of the Alexandria Library in 391 A.D. The idea that scientific and technological development takes millennia is an impression that we get from our assessment of the known history. Progress is inevitable and desirable for any civilization. The progress of science and technology changes the way we live presently as well as how we see the past and future. Our expectations of the future change based partly on the breakthroughs we make and the pace of the scientific development. Our visions of the past, too, change as we develop new ways of investigating facts. The current worldview of the past is that things were primitive, and that mankind emerged from a state of barbarism to become smarter and more capable. However, emerging evidence suggests otherwise beginning with Plato's account of Atlantis, although, across the past two millennia, his account was considered fictional. In 1882, U.S. Congressman Ignatius Loyola Donnelly published his book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World in which he gathers the then-available evidence in favor of an early mighty civilization that was far more advanced than they had any right to be. He mainly studied ancient myths and believed Plato's account of Atlantis to be historically accurate. Forty-seven years later, in 1929, a medieval map called Piri Reis was found at the Imperial Palace library in Constantinople (Istanbul). This map inexplicably depicts, with unprecedented fine details, the continents of South America and Antarctica corresponding to present longitude and latitude albeit it dates back to 1513. It was not until after the Piri Reis map discovery that other maps of high precision started emerging, eg: the Ribero maps 1520-30, the Ortelius map 1570, and the Wright-Molyneux map 1599 (McIntosh, 2000:59). | |
Comment: For more history on ancient, prediluvian civilizations and the nature of cyclical cosmic catastrophes check out The Secret History of the World and its sequels, Comets and the Horns of Moses and Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection.
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RT
2014-12-18 12:35:00
It took 70 years, but a 14-year-old African American boy from Alcolu, South Carolina who was executed for allegedly killing two white girls has now been exonerated of murder. In a ruling issued Wednesday by Circuit Judge Carmen Mullen, the murder conviction against George Stinney was vacated over concerns that the young boy's constitutional right to a fair trial was violated to the point that his name should be cleared, WIS TV reported. Stinney, who was so small at the time of his execution by electric chair that he had to sit on a phone book, is often cited as the youngest American to be put to death by the state in the 20th century. During his trial in 1944, Stinney's white lawyer did not present witnesses or cross-examine witnesses presented by the prosecution. In 2009, Stinney's sister claimed in an affidavit that her brother could not have killed the two young girls because he was with her at the time their deaths occurred. "The state, as an entity, has very unclean hands," attorney Miller Shealy argued at a hearing in January, as quoted by the Huffington Post. | |
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phys.org
2014-12-17 10:40:00
New research has uncovered the earliest known practical piece of polyphonic music, an example of the principles that laid the foundations of European musical tradition. The earliest known practical example of polyphonic music - a piece of choral music written for more than one part - has been found in a British Library manuscript in London. The inscription is believed to date back to the start of the 10th century and is the setting of a short chant dedicated to Boniface, patron Saint of Germany. It is the earliest practical example of a piece of polyphonic music - the term given to music that combines more than one independent melody - ever discovered. Written using an early form of notation that predates the invention of the stave, it was inked into the space at the end of a manuscript of the Life of Bishop Maternianus of Reims. The piece was discovered by Giovanni Varelli, a PhD student from St John's College, University of Cambridge, while he was working on an internship at the British Library. He discovered the manuscript by chance, and was struck by the unusual form of the notation. Varelli specialises in early musical notation, and realised that it consisted of two vocal parts, each complementing the other. Polyphony defined most European music up until the 20th century, but it is not clear exactly when it emerged. Treatises which lay out the theoretical basis for music with two independent vocal parts survive from the early Middle Ages, but until now the earliest known examples of a practical piece written specifically for more than one voice came from a collection known as The Winchester Troper, which dates back to the year 1000. Varelli's research suggests that the author of the newly-found piece - a short "antiphon" with a second voice providing a vocal accompaniment - was writing around the year 900.
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Ben Borland
The Express, UK 2014-12-21 00:20:00
The allegations centre on at least four institutions where thousands of children are said to have been experimented upon in conditions described as "like something out of Auschwitz". It is alleged that Porton Down, the top secret military facility in Wiltshire, was involved in trialling drugs for use in the Cold War on youngsters who were regarded as "feeble-minded". One survivor told this newspaper he has obtained written and video evidence that he will pass to the public inquiry into historical abuse of children in care when it begins next year. The man, now in his 50s, has been advised by lawyers to conceal his identity for his own safety until his full submission can be lodged at the inquiry announced by Scottish Education Secretary Angela Constance. However, he was willing to divulge some of his intended testimony about the treatment he and others suffered. He said: "Six and seven year olds were tied to racks and given electric shocks. "I was incarcerated with orderlies armed with rubber coshes. "We were imprisoned, experimented upon, lobotomies, you name it, they did it. "I was there, I saw it with my own eyes. | |
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| Science & Technology |
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Joan Lowy
Phys.org 2014-12-22 00:00:00
Alarmed by increasing encounters between small drones and manned aircraft, drone industry officials said Monday they are teaming up with the government and model aircraft hobbyists to launch a safety campaign. The campaign includes a website - www.knowbeforeyoufly.com - which advises both recreational and commercial drone operators of FAA regulations and how to fly their unmanned aircraft safely. The campaign was announced by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the Small UAV Coalition, both industry trade groups, and the Academy of Model Aeronautics, which represents model aircraft hobbyists, in partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration. The two industry trade groups also said they plan to distribute safety pamphlets at industry events, and are working with drone manufacturers to see that safety information is enclosed inside the package of new drones. Retailers say small drones, which are indistinguishable from today's more sophisticated model aircraft, are flying off the shelves this Christmas. | |
Comment: This safety campaign is better late than never, but the huge numbers of small drones in the hands of inexperienced hobbyists is a disaster in the making.
Drones pose serious threat to commercial air traffic! Close encounters with passenger aircraft increasing and FAA unable to handle problem | |
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Steve Connor
The Independent, UK 2014-12-22 21:42:00
Reading books on an iPad and similar e-readers in the evening may disturb sleep patterns because of the type of light the device emits, scientists said. The researchers found evidence to suggest that using iPads at night might suppress the release of the hormone melatonin which is involved in inducing sleepiness, resulting in the shifting of the normal circadian rhythm governing the body's 24-hour biological clock. The study of 12 adults for two weeks involved comparing reading from an iPad or a printed book before bedtime. The melatonin levels of each volunteer were monitored and their sleep patterns and morning alertness were also monitored. The participants took nearly 10 minutes longer to fall asleep and had a significantly lower amount of dream sleep after reading from a light-emitting e-reader than they did after reading from a printed book, according to the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. "Our most surprising finding was that individuals using the e-reader would be more tired and take longer to become alert the next morning. This has real consequences for daytime functioning,and these effects might be worse in the real world as opposed to the controlled environment we used," said Anne-Marie Chang of Penn State University. | |
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| Earth Changes |
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Emily Gosden
The Telegraph, UK 2014-12-22 21:00:00
A seal had to be rescued from a field more than 20 miles inland - after apparently getting "very, very lost". The seal, which was discovered in Newton-le-Willows, near St Helens in Merseyside on Monday morning, was likely to have swum up to 50 miles away from its home before clambering into the fenced-off field from a nearby brook, experts said. It was found in a "distressed" state by a dog-walker at about 9.45am, sparking a rescue operation involving the emergency services and the RSPCA as police warned locals to stay away from the "potentially dangerous" animal. The creature, believed to be a juvenile male grey seal, was eventually coaxed into a trailer using mackerel as bait and taken to a wildlife centre for checks. Farm owner Gary Watkinson, who owns the field where the seal was found, said: "We woke up this morning and found a seal in our field, which is quite unusual to say the least. | |
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tuoitrenews.vn
2014-12-21 20:40:00
Over 100 snakes of different kinds crawled along a national highway in southern Dong Nai Province, throwing locals into panic on Saturday afternoon. Around 4.40pm, locals who travelled and live in a neighborhood in the province's Thong Nhat District along the National Highway No. 1 were petrified at the ghastly sight of over 100 snakes crawling across the highway. Witnesses said they earlier saw three men, who resembled Buddhist monks with shaved heads in yellow outfits, getting down from a seven-seat car with three green sacks. The men unpacked the sacks as if they were pouring out the contents. | |
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Iftekhar Mahmud
en.prothom 2014-12-21 20:25:00
Autopsy on the two otters, recovered by forests department workers from the river Shela in the Sundarbans on Thursday, have confirmed that they had died from ingestion of oil. The veterinarians of the forests department on Saturday found furnace oil in the mouths and lungs of the two animals. Previously innumerable otters could be seen in the rivers of the southwest regions, but now they are only found in the Sundarbans. These are enlisted as endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Fishermen of Narail and the Sundarbans use otters to catch fish, and National Geographic as well as other wildlife agencies have done researches on this. After 350 thousand litres of oil was spilled in the river Shela of the Sundarbans in the 9 December tanker capsize, the shipping ministry has stated that this will cause no harm to the forest. The ministry for environment and forest took samples of water from the rivers Shela and Pashur and observed that the water has an adequate level of dissolved oxygen for plants and animals to survive. In other words, the animals and plant life was free of risk. | |
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Three days of heavy rainfall have caused flash floods in northern and central areas of Sri Lanka. Eastern, North-Central, Northern and North-Western provinces have all seen heavy rain since Saturday 20 December 2014. Sri Lanka's Disaster management Centre (DMC) say that as many as 452,960 people have been affected by floods or landslides in the past 3 days. Evacuations DMC say that around 46,000 people have evacuated their homes and are currently staying in temporary accommodation, including local schools and community centres. Some of the latest TV news reports in Sri Lanka have the total number displaced as being much higher at over 200,000. This as yet has been unconfirmed by Sri Lanka authorities. Eastern province is thought to be the worst affected. According to the latest situation report from Sri Lanka's Disaster management Centre (DMC), over 30,000 people from the districts of Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Ampara. DMC also say that 3 deaths have occurred in the province as a result of the recent floods. One person was reported as injured in the floods in Anuradhapura, North Central Province. The huge amounts of rain have increased river and reservoir levels across the provinces, forcing the authorities to open flood gates. Xinhua report that 29 of the big dams and 83 of the medium ones have reached spill level, forcing sluice gates to be opened, threatening people living downriver.
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| Fire in the Sky |
No new articles.
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| Health & Wellness |
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Will Hagle
Opposing Views 2014-12-22 00:02:00
In October and November 2014, it seemed as if Ebola was the biggest threat facing both the United States and the world at large. Stories of Ebola-infected patients filled newspapers and Internet headlines, and social media was abuzz with people talking about the virus. There was even the brief scare of Ebola spreading on American soil, as multiple patients were treated in U.S. hospitals. Today, the media landscape in the United States is far different. The top stories are focused more on the civil rights protests taking place around the country and the suspected North Korean involvement in the hacks against Sony than the Ebola virus. That's the nature of the 24/7 news cycle - stories dominate the national conversation for a brief period, are consumed rapidly and then quickly forgotten. In West Africa, however, Ebola is still very much on people's minds. We're currently still in the midst of the largest Ebola outbreak in recorded history. According to the World Health Organization's latest report, more than 7,300 people have died from the virus during this outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Those three countries have been struggling to contain the virus for numerous reasons, including an insufficient health care infrastructure and improper burial procedures. Sierra Leone's health care workers have been particularly affected in recent months, as Dr. Victor Willoboughy recently became the 11th physician to succumb to the virus in the country. He died last Thursday. | |
Comment: The lack of media coverage is leading Americans to become complacent, thinking that there is little risk to them. Unfortunately, that may not be the case, because it has been reported that the CDC stopped releasing statistics and granting interviews in an effort to control the news.
In actuality, the virus poses more risks than they are willing to concede and hospitals are woefully unprepared to deal with the crisis. Taking responsibility for your own health would be wise. If you begin to implement changes to your health regime now, you will have a much better chance of fighting off infection. | |
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RT
2014-12-22 15:10:00
Thousands of huge pig farms in N. Carolina are spraying untreated animal waste into the air and contaminating neighboring communities, Mark Devries, who shot a shocking aerial video with a spy drone, told RT. This environmental problem "has for some reason received very little attention in the American press," says documentary filmmaker and activist Mark Devries, whose drone captured footage of cesspools at over 2,000 industrial pork factory farms in the US state. "These pools are near people's homes, people's schools, people's neighborhoods," Devries said in an interview Monday to RT. "And in order to get rid of these giant open-air cesspools, the manure is actually sprayed into the air with giant spraying devices, which causes it to turn into a fine mist."
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Comment: Factory farming is very devastating to humans and the environment.
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Chantelle Zakariasen
Realpharmacy.com 2014-12-22 14:27:00
Apple Cider Vinegar has a plethora of useful and medicinal properties. There have been resourceswritten on all the amazing benefits that Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) has regarding multiple physical ailments as well as cleaning and DIY purposes. ACV is a cheap and effective multi-purpose cleaner, you can add it to your water, tea and salad dressings for a refreshing zing and capitalize on the multiple health benefits you'll be receiving. Why all the fuss over apple cider vinegar? The word vinegar translates to vin aigre, is french for "sour wine". The medicinal uses of vinegar date way back to when it was discovered in 5000 BC by a courtier in Babylonia. MD's during the 18th century used it as a multi purpose treatment for ailments like dropsy, stomach ache and even for managing diabetes (1). Columbus had barrels of apple cider vinegar on his ships to prevent scurvy. Apple cider vinegar was used during the civil war to disinfect wounds and Japanese Samurais drank it for strength and power. Hippocrates used vinegar to treat seventeen different conditions (2) ranging from ulcers to fractures. Apple Cider Vinegar is loaded with vitamins, minerals, and amino acids, it's various enzymes help with digestion and 1 Tbs equals is just 3 calories. | |
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RT
2014-12-18 02:10:00
Children with a severe form of epilepsy could be treated with a new drug derived from the cannabis plant. The element of the plant used is non-psychoactive, meaning patients would not receive the usual cannabis high. The medicine, called Epidiolex, has been trialed in the US, where early studies showed promising results, reducing the frequency and severity of seizures. Trials of the drug, which contains the compound Cannabidiol (CBD), will begin at Edinburgh University's Muir Maxwell Epilepsy Centre, based at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, and London's Great Ormond Street Hospital. | |
Comment: Let's hope Big Pharma doesn't dilute the potential benefits by adding poisonous substances and making it inaccessible with high prices.
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Scott Kaufman
Raw Story 2014-12-19 01:16:00
A clinical psychologist at Yale is attempting to improve the cognitive functioning of psychopaths using computer games, Vox reports. Arielle Baskin-Sommers claims that psychopaths are not, as is commonly believed, incapable of feeling emotion - and therefore unable to empathize with their victims. They suffer, she believes, from a cognitive deficit that prevents them from focusing on more than one subject at time, such that they pay attention to a goal (stealing money) without thinking about the consequences of attaining it (hurting their victim or being incarcerated). Baskin-Sommers tells Vox that "[t]here's an attention bottleneck that essentially has the psychopath narrow the focus of their attention on something that's their goal." Because her computer games enhance a psychopath's ability to attend to more than one matter at a time, Baskin-Sommers believes that they will be less likely to return to jail upon their release. | |
Comment: Where's a face-palm when you need one? Yes, psychopaths have a type of 'attention bottleneck' when it comes to attending to consequences, others' suffering, and anything that isn't getting them what they want. That does not mean training them to attend to various things at the same time will allow them to grow a conscience. If anything, such treatment will make them slightly smarter, able to attend to more data, which they will then use to become better at getting what they want. Psychopathy is not a 'cognitive' disorder, at least not exclusively. It is an emotional disorder. The general emotional deficit in modern psychologists can probably be blamed for these ridiculous, dead-end theories.
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| High Strangeness |
No new articles.
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Sean Davis
The feds wasted millions on mountain lion treadmills, synchronized swimming for sea monkeys, monkey gambling, and more.The Federalist 2014-12-22 22:55:00 It's that time of year again: Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) just released Wastebook 2014, his annual list of the most wasteful government projects during 2014. Coburn's wastebook list includes a comprehensive analysis of 100 of the most wasteful government projects funded over the last year. The full report, which includes detailed descriptions and investigations of every wasteful project, spans more than 200 pages. Here are eight of the most egregious and infuriating wasteful projects listed in Coburn's 2014 Wastebook report, which can be read in full here. |
