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Brently Kopopolous
Sott.net 2015-01-29 00:40:00
Fritz Gerlich was a German journalist during Hitler's rise to power. He was well known for his biting criticism of der Führer. One of his most controversial moments was turning Hitler's image into a composite where his facial features were exaggerated and he was arm in arm with a black woman. In the article, Fritz suggested that readers apply Hitler's own science of physiognomy to Hitler himself, and when applied, it's clear Hitler isn't even Aryan, but of a Mongolian subtype. This insult was the final nail in the coffin for Fritz, who had consistently used the power of the pen to combat Hitler each step of the way. He was arrested and dragged off to Dachau while working on yet another Hitler exposé, and killed a little over a year later. Gerlich serves as but one example of many journalists who were threatened, beaten and murdered for revealing the truth. Only in the dark can evil things hide. I draw this piece of history to your attention, dear reader, because I want to talk about some other modern-day journalists who were killed under questionable circumstances. It seems we have yet to learn the lessons we said we'd never forget. | |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Ben Yakas
Gothamist 2015-01-29 22:47:00
Murders reached a historic low in NYC for 2014; overall crime was down across the board by nearly 5%; hell, even the holiday slowdown didn't really lead to any additional crime. So clearly, now is the time when NYC really needs to implement a new anti-terrorism program which would empower a team of NYPD officers to roam around the city carrying machine guns. What could go wrong? Police Commissioner Bratton made the announcement earlier today at an event hosted by the Police Foundation at the Mandarin Oriental. He said that the new 350 cop unit, called The Strategic Response Group, will be dedicated to "disorder control and counterterrorism protection capabilities" against attacks like the hostage situation in Sydney, which the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence John Miller said was an inevitability in NYC. This new squad will be used to investigate and combat terrorist plots, lone wolf terrorists, and... protests. "It is designed for dealing with events like our recent protests, or incidents like Mumbai or what just happened in Paris," Bratton said, according to CBS. "They'll be equipped and trained in ways that our normal patrol officers are not," Bratton explained. "They'll be equipped with all the extra heavy protective gear, with the long rifles and machine guns - unfortunately sometimes necessary in these instances." Capital NY adds that these officers will also be used "to assist on crime scenes, and help with crowd control and other large-scale events." | |
Comment: What Mr Bratton is suggesting is that police need machine guns and the training to use them in order to 'police' protests and other large-scale demonstrations. That'll end well, perhaps in anew, updated holocaust?
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BBC News
2015-01-30 22:18:00
A French government infographic designed to help fight jihadist ideology gets widely shared online - but with a heavy dose of sarcasm. On Wednesday the French government launched a website to counter terrorism in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Its message of national unity, aimed at young people who could be radicalised as well as the general public, quickly made a splash on the internet. The site was liked 17,000 times on Facebook; its official Twitter hashtag (#StopDJihadisme) was used 12,000 times; and a slick video meant to counter jihadist recruiters got over half a million hits. | |
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Fort Russ
2015-01-30 21:30:00
"Ukraine understands only the language of force"--Zakharchenko interview given shortly after the destruction of a streetcar in Donetsk and his denunciation of the ceasefire. Q: Aleksandr Vladimirovich, the meeting with the mother, it seems you are still under the influence of that meeting. Zakharchenko: Yes, of course, it influenced me greatly. It's not the first nor the last time, and it's very difficult to talk to people like that. You know, they start to understand where they are once they arrive. I want them to come here as parents. One mother took her son back and told her relatives this is something like a radio station, Ukraine will be able to learn the truth through him, because when I talk to them I understand that Ukrainian media is not showing what is happening here, they show only what is convenient for them to show. Victorious "cyborgs", armed only with one grenade held in their teeth are defending the airport for 241 days, which we practically did not attack. But once we started our attack, it turned out that the victorious cyborgs could not stand against us for even two days, but only because we were wrong in our estimate of the number of units defending the airport. | |
Comment: When was the last time you saw Poroshenko on the front?
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RT
2015-01-30 21:34:00
Poland plans to allow civilians to sign up for military training. With anti-Russian hysteria spreading like wildfire, Warsaw has rushed to step up its defense systems amid fears over the ongoing military conflict in neighboring eastern Ukraine. "All citizens interested in taking part in military exercises will be able to sign up starting March 1" at regional recruitment centers, Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak told reporters on Thursday. Although Poland, Central Europe's largest country, ended conscription in 2008, Siemoniak said that some 38,000 reservists would be called up to take part in exercises in 2016, compared to the 12,000 this year. The ministry also plans to involve paramilitary groups in its new defense policy, AFP reported. Since the crisis broke out in eastern Ukraine, Poland, a NATO member state, has been busy revamping its armed forces. Warsaw plans to spend 33 billion euros ($37 billion) over a decade on the overhaul. "The chances of a peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis are increasingly slim. Russia's obvious goal is to block Ukraine's path toward Europe," Siemoniak said, adding that Russia's use of "military means" poses "a long-term threat to Europe."
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RT
2015-01-30 21:24:00
Two Russian journalists working for Life News TV channel have been detained in Kiev by Ukraine's Security Service, which says the crew will be expelled from the country and denied entry for five years. The news of the journalists' detention was first tweeted by Director General of NewsMedia group Aram Gabrelyanov. "Life News journalists have been detained in Kiev by SBU [Ukraine's Security Service]," he posted. "They've been taken away in an unknown direction. They claim they are investigating some subway bomb planting." The detention was later confirmed by the SBU's senior adviser, Markian Lubkovsky. "I'd like to confirm that SBU in Kiev detained two citizens of the Russian Federation, Life News journalists," he wrote on Facebook, adding that the journalists will "in the near future be expelled" from Ukraine and denied entry for five years. "These Russian citizens' activity has nothing in common with journalism and can be described as harmful to Ukraine's security and national interests," Lubkovsky's post reads. Comment: Yes, since Ukraine's "national interests" are to intimidate and suppress any factual reporting by outside parties, it's not surprising to see Ukraine arrest these two journalists and, if they are lucky, kicked out of the country. | |
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RT
2015-01-30 23:47:00
Greece hasn't outright asked Russia for a loan, but Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Moscow wouldn't rule it out. His statement comes days after Greece openly opposed further economic sanctions against Russia. "Well, we can imagine any situation, so if such [a] petition is submitted to the Russian government, we will definitely consider it, but we will take into account all the factors of our bilateral relationships between Russia and Greece, so that is all I can say. If it is submitted we will consider it," Siluanov told CNBC in an interview in Moscow on Thursday. The new left-wing Syriza government in Greece won a majority at last Sunday's election on the promise to renegotiate the country's €317 billion debt and end austerity. Greece needs to negotiate with EU policymakers by February 28 in order to receive the next tranche of bailout funds. If Athens doesn't get the money it will have difficulty servicing its debt. Two bailouts were paid in 2010 and 2014 totaling €240 billion.
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L. Michael Hager
Impunity for Israeli war crimes encourages more gross violations of international law. Palestine's application to the International Criminal Court is a welcome step toward accountability.Truth-Out 2015-01-29 19:33:00
Where, in this post 9/11 world, are war criminals to be held accountable? Not in the United States, where a Senate report on CIA torture has failed to indict the initiators and implementers, despite "harsh interrogation" techniques that included sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, rectal feeding (rape) and waterboarding, and where the painful force-feeding of hunger strikers at the Guantánamo prison continues unabated. Not in Israel, where its indiscriminate attacks on UN schools, public buildings and private residences in Gaza last July killed more than 1,500 civilians (including 500 children), and where the country's leaders have justified such carnage as an appropriate response to Hamas rockets that killed five Israeli civilians (including one child). So it's not surprising that both the United States and Israel have condemned Palestine's decision to join the International Criminal Court (as the 123rd member) and deplore the recent decision of the ICC prosecutor to investigate possible war crimes by both Israel and Palestinian members of Hamas. According to The New York Times of January 17, the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, called the action of the court's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, "inflammatory" and said he would oppose Israeli cooperation with the inquiry and would call for disbandment of the court. The US State Department weighed in on the side of Israel, arguing that since the Palestinians do not have their own state they were ineligible to join the court. Recognizing Palestine as a state, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on November 29, 2012, to accord Palestine "non-member observer status in the UN." Only the United States and eight other governments voted against it. As a UN observer state, Palestine signed the Rome Statute on January 1, 2015, a day after a UN resolution mandating Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank failed to pass at the Security Council. As a result, Palestine will formally become a member of the ICC on April 1, 2015. | |
Comment: International human rights organizations and your average human beings have been accusing Israel of war crimes for quite some time. We're not holding our breath, but we hope Israel is held accountable for indiscriminate killing innocent women, children and civilians in their violent occupation of Palestine.
And fortunately, more and more countries are ceasing to care what the hypocrites Israel and U.S. think and have recognized Palestine's right to exist.  See also: A Sovereign Palestinian State? | |
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RT
2015-01-30 14:35:00
At least 12 civilians have been killed in a rocket attack in Donetsk, RIA Novosti reported, citing Donetsk People's Republic officials. Ukraine's military has blamed the separatists for the attack, calling it an attempt to undermine Minsk peace talks. Two civilians were killed at a trolleybus stop, and five others died while waiting in a line for humanitarian aid. Five more people died in the Azotnoye district of the city.
The Donetsk People's Republic Defense Ministry claims the attack was carried out from nearby residential area which is according to them "a neutral zone located to the north of Donetsk Airport." The spokesman says "the Ukrainian forces approach, attack and then step back to their positions."
The humanitarian headquarters has stopped aid distribution across Donetsk in order to keep locals and volunteers safe. On January 24, a residential area in the port city of Mariupol came under fire, killing 30 people and injuring 100. On January 22, 15 people were killed when shells hit a trolleybus stop in Donetsk. On Monday, Kiev announced a state of emergency in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, and put other Ukrainian regions on high alert. On Friday, talks between the contact group's members on the Ukrainian conflict should have taken place in Minsk, but were canceled due to the absence of the Kiev representative, Lugansk and Donetsk representatives told RIA Novosti. "Unfortunately, the Ukrainian side didn't join. Ukraine is still avoiding dialogue," Lugansk's Vladislav Deinego said. | |||
Comment: It looks as though the Ukrainian authorities are intentionally bombing the areas (again) that would provide humanitarian relief to the Ukrainians - something only monsters would do.
See: Western propaganda exposed as Russian convoy 'invades' Ukraine with humanitarian aid | |||
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Jay Dyer
21st Century Wire 2015-01-28 17:53:00
One of the more fanciful, or thought to be fanciful, topics I've been covering for a good while now is the subject of the relationship of the CIA to Hollywood. Recent blockbusters like Zero Dark Thirty and American Sniper focus on the military and intelligence agencies in supposed "based on true events" scenarios, but is more at work here? The film industry has always loved tales of espionage, but in reality, the creation and manufacturing of a completely alternate reality and history is far more extensive than most would assume. While many films have nobly challenged assumptions about war in figures like Kubrick or Stone, for the most part, film has functioned as one of the most powerful forms of propaganda in the western establishment's arsenal. Watching some old G.I. Joe cartoon episodes for an upcoming analysis, I was not surprised to find Harvard psychological consultants as part of the production of the show, as reaching the youth with propaganda is central to creating cubicle dwelling automatons later in life. Likewise, researching this as a thesis topic was also instrumental in making these connections, as was the mass of information in Peter Levenda's Sinister Forces trilogy. More recently, a plethora of news articles have surfaced that highlight this deep relationship, as this rabbit hole never ends. The coalescing of intelligence agencies, secret societies and Hollywood in reality is more sensational than any incestuous cult a pulp crime fiction writer could dream up. Author John Rizzo has recently published a book titled, Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA, which is an amazing admission of this scandalous affair between intelligence and the film industry. The L.A. Times comments: The CIA also recruits actors to give more visibility to propaganda projects abroad, such as a documentary secretly produced by the agency, Rizzo said. And the agency sometimes takes advantage of the door-opening cachet that movie stars and other American celebrities enjoy. A star who met a world leader, for example, might be asked for details about that meeting. | |
Comment: This is just the tip of the iceberg. See:
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Tony Cartalucci
Near Eastern Outlook 2015-01-30 15:56:00
US claims to be waging war against "Islamic State" whose various "al-Baghdadi" leaders do not exist. In 2007, the New York Times revealed that long-vilified "Islamic State" leader Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi did not exist, and that the creation of this fictional character was a ruse to obfuscate the role of foreigners in the creation and perpetuation of "Al Qaeda in Iraq." Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, the chief American military spokesman, said the elusive Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose audio-taped declarations were provided by an elderly actor named Abu Adullah al-Naima.In an article titled, "Leader of Al Qaeda group in Iraq was fictional, U.S. military says," the NYT reports. The NYT would also reveal the purpose of the deception: The ruse, Bergner said, was devised by Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was trying to mask the dominant role that foreigners play in that insurgent organization. The ploy was to invent Baghdadi, a figure whose very name establishes his Iraqi pedigree, install him as the head of a front organization called the Islamic State of Iraq and then arrange for Masri to swear allegiance to him. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, sought to reinforce the deception by referring to Baghdadi in his video and Internet statements.The admission by US military leaders, reported in the NYT, reveals that the so-called "Islamic State" was nothing more than an appendage of Al Qaeda - with Al Qaeda itself directly armed, funded, and backed by stalwart US allies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Despite the NYT and the Pentagon's admissions, the entire ruse has continued, on an exponential scale. | |
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Channel 4, UK
2015-01-26 16:43:00
Yanis Varoufakis, widely tipped to be Syriza's new finance minister, tells Paul Mason what they would do if they get into government in Greece, and admits the prospect of power in Europe is "scary".
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RT
2015-01-30 16:22:00
"Get out of here, you low-life scum," Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) said to demonstrators who interrupted a congressional hearing in Washington on Thursday. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was scheduled to speak at the hearing. C-SPAN was broadcasting the morning hearing of the United States Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by McCain, and caught the senior lawmaker live on camera as he verbally unloaded on protesters from the DC-based group Code Pink. Kissinger, who is best known for his role in the administration of President Richard Nixon during the height of the Vietnam War, encountered jeers from the protesters as soon as he entered the Senate chamber.
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Comment: A glimpse into how our leaders perceive humanity: "low-life scum." Kissinger, of course, is famous for saying that US soldiers are "nothing but dumb stupid animals", while Albright reckons "the price was worth it" with respect to 500,000 Iraqi children dying in the 1990s due to US sanctions.
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Sott.net
2015-01-30 14:33:00
At a recent PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West) rally in Frankfurt, Israeli psychologist Dr. Rotem Avituv gave a disturbing speech that evoked the rhetoric of the Nazi era. Wrapped in a German flag with an Israeli flag apparently fluttering close by, Avituv told the cheering crowd:
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Andrew Korybko
Sputnik 2015-01-29 14:49:00
The US is constructing a global system of bilateral and multilateral alliances to assist it in more efficiently projecting power throughout the 21st century. As the world moves towards multipolarity, the US is prepared to exploit this trend to its geopolitical advantage. Instead of 'going it alone' as Bush was prone to do, the US is now finding ways to get others to do its dirty work by convincing its 'partners' that they have a shared interest in doing so. During the 2011 War on Libya, France and the UK took the helm while the US, as it was described, "Led From Behind". A New York Times editorial at the time defined this as "discreet US military assistance with [others] doing the trumpeting". Four years later, this concept has grown out of its Libyan test tube and gone global, with the US setting up similar alliance systems all throughout the world in order to indirectly project its will in key regions. As the cynical saying goes, "Why do for yourself what others can do for you?" 'Friends' Across The World Let's take a look at the US' Lead From Behind (LFB) partners, beginning from the Western Hemisphere and moving eastward: Latin America: The US works closely with the Pacific Alliance, a neo-liberal economic trading group composed of close allies Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Peru, and Chile. Their shared goal is to counter the leftist economic vision emanating from Venezuela and to dismantle its geopolitical resistance network of Nicaragua, Cuba, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The end result is to surround and contain Brazil in case it ever decides to seriously counter the US' influence. | |
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Bruce Einhorn
Bloomberg 2015-01-30 15:04:00
As Japanese exporters enjoy an earnings boost from the weakened yen, their rivals in South Korea are struggling with a stronger won. Hyundai Motor's net income fell 14 percent in 2014, the biggest decline since 2008. The automaker's subsidiary, Kia Motors, suffered a 22 percent drop in profits, with earnings in the fourth quarter collapsing 54 percent. The picture isn't bright for Korean retailers, either. Consumers are spending less at department stores Lotte Shopping and Shinsegae. The bad results are adding to worries that the South Korean economy may soon stumble into a Japan-style deflationary trap. Consumer prices rose just 0.8 percent in December compared with a year earlier, and Samsung Securities expects prices in 2015 to rise less than 1 percent. From last October to December, the economy grew 0.4 percent over the previous quarter, and domestic demand contracted 0.6 percent. "Korea's economic momentum faded quickly at the end of last year," Mark Walton, a senior economist with BNP Paribas, wrote in a Jan. 27 report. "The breadth of the slowdown hints at a deep-seated malaise." | |
Comment: A bad sign when combined with deflationary pressures in the Euro zone. Deflation can be much more dangerous than moderate inflation. Especially in an economy with as much household debt as South Korea (87% of GDP).
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| Society's Child |
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Tom Boggioni
Raw Story 2015-01-30 22:48:00
A former Utah police officer, who changed his plea to no contest mid-trial, is facing life in prison for forcing a teenage girl to have sex with multiple teen boys over several years, starting when she was thirteen, the Deseret News is reporting. Cody C. Smith, 40, of Logan, pleaded no contest Monday to two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, each charge carrying a sentences of 6 years to life in prison. Prosecutors have indicated they will seek consecutive sentences for Smith, who will ask the judge to have the sentences run concurrently, according to court records. Following his plea, Smith requested release "to get his affairs in order," however District Judge Brian Cannell ordered Smith to be taken into custody immediately "due to the nature of the offenses." According to the original arrest warrant, Smith took the 13-year-old girl to his home and forced her to "go upstairs and start to undress, kiss and have sex" with a 13-year-old boy. The boy reportedly told Smith he was "LDS and naive" but Smith kept entering the room to provide instructions, forcing them to have sex. | |
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Tom Boggioni
Raw Story 2015-01-30 22:37:00
During a discussion on reports that national sorority organizations are advising University of Virginia sorority members to avoid all fraternity events during "bid week" out of sexual assault concerns, a Fox News contributor suggested that some female students who have been assaulted were "bad girls" who like to be "naughty." The University of Virginia has been the subject of investigations for on-campus sexual assaults prior to, and in the wake of a mostly discredited Rolling Stone story that appeared in the music magazine last year. Appearing on Fox's Outnumbered, former Clueless actress Stacey Dash shook her head while saying she found the ban "ridiculous," referring to the college women as "girls," in video captured byMedia Matters of America. | |
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Mia De Graaf
Daily Mail, UK 2015-01-30 21:26:00
A woman known as North Carolina's 'Bear Lady' may have been killed by a bear. The remains of Kay Grayson, 67, were found in a well-known bear path just 100 yards from her isolated home in Tyrrell County on Monday. Authorities could only find bones, hair and ripped clothing, which had likely been there for two weeks after she was reported missing. | |
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Gary Brecher
Pando Daily 2015-01-19 21:00:00
I read a long article called "My Terrifying Night with Afghanistan's Only Female Warlord" last month. It was utter crap, and so similar to a lot of utter crap I've been reading about the women fighters of the Kurdish YPJ militia in Syria that I realized it's time somebody called foul on the offensive, ignorant crap going around about what the media likes to call "women warriors." I don't particularly enjoy the role of progressive scold, and it don't hardly come natural to me, but somebody's gotta do it. What happens, in every case where writers and TV reporters with no background in military reporting try to describe "women warriors" is that they sexualize everything, ignore the real context, and betray a deep misogyny in every word they write or speak on camera. I mean, to the point that it's surprising, at least to me, because a lot of these people make a big deal about being progressive. I'm kinda shocked, actually, how crude their gender bias is. Nobody seems to be even trying to hide it. Reporters seem to insist on trying to "humanize," i.e. feminize and sexualize, their subjects by asking them about boyfriends, marriage, and kids. You can see that sort of tilt in nearly every story about the magnificent fighters of the YPJ, the women's military force defending Kobane and other Kurdish Syrian cities against Islamic State. YPJ fighters dominate the mixed YPJ/G forces in Rojava (Kurdish North Syria); the overall commander of Kurdish resistance to the IS swine attacking Kobane is female, for example. But even well-meaning reporters insist on bringing the conversation back to boyfriends, marriage, and kids, like this generally good story by Australia's 60 Minutes, which drags in the question of boyfriends, etc., at the 8:49 point. | |
Comment: Just another reflection of how shallow and totally lacking in insight the Western worldview is when it comes to pretty much everything. It's no wonder the Western media (at least those who don't receive explicit directives on what or what not to write) has fallen hook, line and sinker for the official party line on the conflict in Ukraine, for example. They can only see the situation through their narrow American lenses. And those lenses tend to blur out any insight into humanity and the reasons these conflicts are erupting worldwide.
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RT
2015-01-30 21:02:00
Comment: It's bad enough that the U.S. has given carte blanch to police to shoot and kill with impunity, now Texas wants to extend that to teachers in charge of children? We've already seen how many innocent civilians are killed by police who claim to "fear for their lives", now they want to extend that to untrained school officials. Giving educators immunity for murder is absolutely insane. Schoolteachers in Texas will be allowed to use lethal force against students without risking legal repercussions if a new bill being considered in the Lone Star State's legislature becomes a law. The bill - HB 868, or the "Teacher's Protection Act" - affords educators legal immunity in the unlikely event that they happen to kill any of their students during school-sanctioned events. Specifically, the bill - introduced to the Texas State Legislature on January 22 by Rep. Dan Flynn (R-Canton) - says "an educator is justified in using force or deadly force on school property, on a school bus or at a school-sponsored event in defense of the educator's person or in defense of students of the school that employs the educator if, under the circumstances as the educator reasonably believes them to be, the educator would be justified...in using force or deadly force, as applicable, in defense of the educator or students." Indeed, the language does not limit any hypothetical action on the educator's part to be done in self-defense: the proposed bill actually allows teachers to use deadly force on children if they believe another student or their self is in danger. As of August 2014, Texas was among eight states in the country where laws allow school employees to carry firearms on campus, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. And, as theHouston Chronicle pointed out this week, teachers in Texas are already granted immunity if they assault a student, and the "use of force, but not deadly force, against a [student] is justified." | |
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Carey Wedler
Activist Post 2015-01-30 00:00:00
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton announced Thursday that 350 heavily armed NYPD officers, called the "Strategic Response Group," will soon be patrolling protests and the city at large. He said the new strain of hyper-armed police will be
Bratton announced their purpose is specifically ...designed for dealing with events like our recent protests, or incidents like Mumbai orwhat just happened in Paris.Lumping protesters in with terrorists, he said the permanent force will deal with "disorder control and counterterrorism protection capabilities." It will allegedly assist on crime scenes and help with "crowd control and other large-scale events." It is not unusual for authorities to ramp up "security" efforts following attacks (such as the ax attackagainst officers in October), but the idea of machine-gun clad officers is disturbing, especially considering past NYPD abuses of protesters and other residents. | |
Comment: The Pentagon has been supplying police forces, cities and school systems throughout the country with military grade weapons. It appears that our government regards its citizens as enemies, and is prepared to use any amount of force to corral the populace. How such tactics can possibly be construed to lead to 'improved police relations with communities' is inexplicable!
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Andrea Germanos
Common Dreams 2015-01-28 00:00:00
South Carolina's capital city is exploring the possibility of privatizing its water and sewage system, prompting warnings that it could spell higher costs and lack of public control over "our most essential resource." Reporting for South Carolina's The State, John Monk wrote A move to solicit written expressions of interest from private companies was approved by council in open session at an early January meeting, Mayor Steve Benjamin said at Tuesday night's council meeting. However, that approval received virtually no publicity.Renée Maas, Senior Southern Region Organizer with Food & Water Watch, told Common Dreamsthat the privatization could take different forms, with Columbia leasing or selling its assets, hiring consultants, or privatizing its management system. Previous efforts to privatize the municipal systems elsewhere have show they can be costly for consumers, Maas said. | |
Comment: There has been a trend toward privatizing water resources, with mega-banks and billionaires buying up water all over the world. They perceive water as a critical commodity and it is likely they will take full advantage of their 'rights' wherever water becomes scarce. A 2009 analysis of water and sewer utilities by Food and Water Watch found that private companies charge up to 80 percent more for water and 100 percent more for sewer services. Various privatization abuserfailures occurred in California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. This is because water corporations are primarily accountable to their stockholders, not to the people they serve.
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Brent Lang
Variety 2015-01-29 17:44:00
George Lucas offered a bleak assessment of the current state of the film business during a panel discussion with Robert Redford at the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, saying that the movies are "more and more circus without any substance behind it." However, the Star Wars director hit back at critics who said his role in kicking off the blockbuster film business has watered down cinematic storytelling. "If you go into Star Wars and see what's going on there, there's a lot more substance than circus," he argued. In its day, Star Wars represented a major breakthrough in technology, and it's easy to discern a through line from the galaxy far, far away to the comic book movies and special-effects driven productions that dominate today's movie screens. The tools he helped popularize were all in the service of plot, he argued. "All art is technology," said Lucas. "That's the one thing that separates us from animals." | |
Comment: The general public is easily amused and desperate not to realize the desperate condition they are in.
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meinbezirk.at
Large-scale police operation: 200 cult-adherents wanted to pronounce their own judgements. Two police officers injured.2014-07-30 04:49:00 Hollenbach, Austria - They separate themselves from society, don't accept any kind of authority or government agency, and even want to make their own laws: Supporters of the cult-like One People's Public Trust assembled last Monday in Hollenbach, Austria. Under the guise of a "summer festival" they wanted to hold some kind of a "court trial", pronounce their own judgements, and even enforce it at the same time.
But it wouldn't come to that. On Monday morning, 60 police officers raided the Walknerhof farm in Hollenbach. 200 supporters of the alleged cult had settled down in the desolate farm. Members of this cult had been under police surveillance in the days before. In the internet videos are circulating showing supporters engaging in verbal fights with the police officers who only wanted to keep the situation calm. The local town hall had previously declared this assembly as illegal. | |
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RT
2015-01-29 23:32:00
The Seattle Police Department is reviewing the conduct of an officer after she arrested an elderly black man who was using a golf club as a cane. Posting online, the officer also characterized civil unrest in Ferguson, Mo., as "chronic black racism." Seattle police released dashcam footage of the July encounter on Wednesday. "You swung that golf club at me when I turned the corner at 11th and Pike," Officer Cynthia Whitlatch said to 70-year-old William Wingate before arresting him. The alleged club-swinging is not shown in the 20-minute video which starts out with Whitlatch -- who is white -- repeatedly yelling at Wingate to drop the golf club, calling it a "weapon" at one point. Wingate protests that he has been "walking with this golf club for 20 years." | |
Comment: With outlandish arrests such as these, it will not help the police relieve public tensionquestioning their actions.
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RT
2015-01-29 23:53:00
A meeting aimed at healing mistrust between the black community and police in St Louis descended into a brawl Wednesday evening, underlining the tension that is still simmering in the area since the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager in August. Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson shot dead 18-year-old Michael Brown on August 9, sparking months of protests. Protesters say that the incident is one of many across the state and the country, which show that blacks and other minorities are mistreated by the police. | |
Comment: Nothing is seriously being done to improve police relations with the public. These tensions will not automatically disappear.
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Travis Gettys
Raw Story 2015-01-29 11:32:00
A high school teacher and activist sued the city of Seattle after a police officer sprayed chemical irritant directly into his face as he left a peaceful rally on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Jesse Hagopian, who spoke at the event about how black lives matter, was making arrangements by cell phone with his mother to attend his son's second birthday party when he passed a Seattle police officer screaming at passersby. Video of the Jan. 19 incident shows the officer and some others standing at a police barricade as she orders a small, peaceful crowd - most of whom were walking past the police - to disperse. Hagopian said officers set up a barricade with their bicycles to prevent protesters from marching, and he said some participants walked through the line - but he did not. "Stand back, stand back," the officer screams as she holds a canister of pepper spray. Suddenly, as Hagopian walks past talking on his cell phone, the officer blasts pepper spray - which the video shows hits him and an unidentified woman directly in the face. Hagopian and the woman immediately duck for cover and the crowd scatters. "I felt the piercing pain shoot through my eye, my ear drum and my nostril, all over my cheek and face," said Hagopian, whose eye was swollen shut afterward. "I yelled out. My mom was in distress as she heard me yell." The officer continues to spray the chemical irritant in a sweeping motion toward the crowd, and she again orders the crowd to stand back when some witnesses ask what happened. Video of the incident was uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday, the same day Hagopian's attorney filed a lawsuit against the city. A spokesman for the police department said he had not seen the video and was unable to comment. | |
Comment: Assaulted by a police officer for the crime of walking?! Not a day goes by where you don't hear or read about police officers using excessive force or even murdering people. The police state has happened incrementally - to the surprise of those who thought it would never happen again. As outlined in the article below, history may be repeating itself.
The path to tyranny: The Nazi Gestapo and the US police state | |
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| Secret History |
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| Science & Technology |
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Leonor Sierra
University of Rochester 2015-01-30 21:48:00
Researchers at the University of Rochester have developed an innovative approach to turn any computer or smartphone with a camera into a personal mental health monitoring device. In a paper to be presented this week at the American Association for Artificial Intelligence conference in Austin, Texas, Professor of Computer Science Jiebo Luo and his colleagues describe a computer program that can analyze "selfie" videos recorded by a webcam as the person engages with social media. Apps to monitor people's health are widely used, from monitoring the spread of the flu to providing guidance on nutrition and managing mental health issues. Luo explains that his team's approach is to "quietly observe your behavior" while you use the computer or phone as usual. He adds that their program is "unobtrusive; it does not require the user to explicitly state what he or she is feeling, input any extra information, or wear any special gear." For example, the team was able to measure a user's heart rate simply by monitoring very small, subtle changes in the user's forehead color. The system does not grab other data that might be available through the phone - such as the user's location. The researchers were able to analyze the video data to extract a number of "clues," such as heart rate, blinking rate, eye pupil radius, and head movement rate. At the same time, the program also analyzed both what the users posted on Twitter, what they read, how fast they scrolled, their keystroke rate and their mouse click rate. Not every input is treated equally though: what a user tweets, for example, is given more weight than what the user reads because it is a direct expression of what that user is thinking and feeling. To calibrate the system and generate a reaction they can measure, Luo explained, he and his colleagues enrolled 27 participants in a test group and "sent them messages, real tweets, with sentiment to induce their emotion." This allowed them to gauge how subjects reacted after seeing or reading material considered to be positive or negative. They compared the outcome from all their combined monitoring with the users' self reports about their feelings to find out how well the program actually performs, and whether it can indeed tell how the user feels. The combination of the data gathered by the program with the users' self-reported state of mind (called the ground truth) allows the researchers to train the system. The program then begins to understand from just the data gathered whether the user is feeling positive, neutral or negative. | |
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Christina Benjaminsen
Gemini 2015-01-27 00:00:00
Researchers in Trondheim have succeeded in getting bacteria to power a fuel cell. The "fuel" used is wastewater, and the products of the process are pure water droplets and electricity. This is an environmentally-friendly process for the purification of water derived from industrial processes and suchlike", says SINTEF researcher Luis Cesar Colmenares, who is running the project together with his colleague Roman Netzer. "It also generates small amounts of electricity - in practice enough to drive a small fan, a sensor or a light-emitting diode", he says. In the future, the researchers hope to scale up this energy generation to enable the same energy to be used to power the water purification process, which commonly consists of many stages, often involving mechanical and energy-demanding decontamination steps at its outset. | |
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Rory Cellan-Jones
BBC News 2015-01-29 17:01:00
Want to gain entry to your office, get on a bus, or perhaps buy a sandwich? We're all getting used to swiping a card to do all these things. But at Epicenter, a new hi-tech office block in Sweden, they are trying a different approach - a chip under the skin. Felicio de Costa, whose company is one of the tenants, arrives at the front door and holds his hand against it to gain entry. Inside he does the same thing to get into the office space he rents, and he can also wave his hand to operate the photocopier. That's all because he has a tiny RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip, about the size of a grain of rice, implanted in his hand. Soon, others among the 700 people expected to occupy the complex will also be offered the chance to be chipped. Along with access to doors and photocopiers, they're promised further services in the longer run, including the ability to pay in the cafe with a touch of a hand. On the day of the building's official opening, the developer's chief executive was, himself, chipped live on stage. And I decided that if was to get to grips with this technology, I had to bite the bullet - and get chipped too. | |
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Glenn McDonald
Discovery News 2015-01-29 14:47:00
In the sci-fi classic The Matrix, one of the film's most bananas moments reveals that futuristic machines are using cocooned human bodies as a kind of bioelectric power source. Those rascally science fiction writers - always with the crazy concepts. Well, it turns out the people-as-batteries scenario is actually well on its way. A new device unveiled last week at a European research conference is designed to do just that - tapping the energy of human body to generate power for wearable computers and devices. The postage-stamp sized generator, developed by researchers at the National University of Singapore, actuall y leverages the power of static electricity. When certain kinds of dissimilar surfaces are put in close contact, an electrical charge builds that can be harvested when the surfaces are flexed or pulled apart. The phenomenon is called the triboelectric effect, and the new device radically miniaturizes the approach by using nanoscale elements - plus the wearer's skin itself as one of the opposing surfaces. The research was presented at this year's IEEE MEMS 2015 conference in Portugal. | |
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| Earth Changes |
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Becky Oskin
LiveScience 2015-01-29 19:06:00
The elusive and rare Sierra Nevada red fox has been spotted in Yosemite National Park for the first time in nearly a century, park officials said yesterday (Jan. 28). Camera traps caught the sleek animal in a remote northern corner of the park on Dec. 13, 2014, and again on Jan. 4 of this year. The cameras were set up by wildlife biologists hoping to spot the red fox and the Pacific fisher, Yosemite National Park's rarest mammals. The ongoing study is funded by the Yosemite Conservancy. There hasn't been a verified sighting of the Sierra Nevada red fox inside Yosemite National Park since 1916, said Ben Sacks, director of the University of California, Davis Veterinary School's Mammalian Ecology and Conservation Unit. That year, two animals were killed in Yosemite's Big Meadows, northeast of El Portal, for the University of California, Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. "It's likely that the Sierra Nevada red fox has been in the backcountry of Yosemite in the last century, but they are rare enough and secretive enough that they haven't been encountered by anyone who has been able to document them," Sacks told Live Science. | |
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english.kolkata24x7.com
2015-01-31 20:31:00
At Nayagram's Chunapara area, one person was killed by a wild elephant. The person, according to the locals, went into the nearby forest for some work. It is then a wild tusker came out of the woods and attacked him. Although he tried his best to rescue himself from the elephant, the tusker got the better of him at the end and killed him. The forest officers have already reached the spot of the mishap. | |
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Metro West Daily News
2015-01-30 17:46:00
A purple gallinule, a common marsh bird of Florida, made a wrong landing in Weston last week. Unable to withstand the cold temperatures and find food, its final resting place turned out to be 80-Acre Conservation Area near Hobbs Pond. On Jan. 19, dog walker Susie Duff discovered the bird when her two dogs stopped to examine something about 20 feet off a trail. When she approached, she observed an "odd bird" sitting motionless, but alive on the ground. Conservation Agent Michele Grzenda received the email on Monday night. "Being an avid bird watcher, I'm always intrigued when I receive a mystery bird inquiry," Grzenda said. "Fortunately Susie was able to take a couple of pictures and attach them to the email she sent me. I took one look at the photo and quickly emailed back, 'Wow! Susie, you have to take me to that bird first thing tomorrow.' I suspected the bird would not last the night, since it was so approachableand far away from its normal habitat." | |
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Last year, the New York Times predicted the end of snow. This week, its employees had trouble getting to work because of a travel ban caused by the blizzard. And those New Yorkers still subscribing to the print edition of the Old Gray Lady of Eight Avenue were even more out of luck. Snow wasn't over, but the New York Times was. A few days after the New York Times forecast a snowless future in 2014, a major snowstorm (which didn't read the paper and wasn't aware of the 97% scientific consensus) hit shutting down airports, causing major accidents and killing dozens of people. Thirteen inches of snow fell over the city. A week after warning of the end of snow, the New York Times was instead forced to report on "downed power lines, stranded travelers, abandoned vehicles and yet another mess of snow, slush and ice." | |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Tram Mai
12 News 2015-01-22 19:37:00
Despite a recent measles outbreak in California, a Valley doctor believes children should not get vaccinated and that they should be getting this kind of infection. "We should be getting measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, these are the rights of our children to get it," said Dr. Jack Wolfson of Wolfson Integrative Cardiology in Paradise Valley. Wolfson does not believe in vaccination. "We do not need to inject chemicals into ourselves and into our children in order to boost our immune system," he said. The cardiologist also believes the key is to have a healthy immune system. In order to have that, he says, you have to avoid chemicals, get enough sleep, exercise, take good supplements, and have proper nutrition. "I'm a big fan of what's called paleo-nutrition, so our children eat foods that our ancestors have been eating for millions of years," he said. "That's the best way to protect." | |
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An epidemic has taken over the United States, a crippling infection of measles hysteria. People with measles hysteria find themselves looking around at the people in the room and wondering which person is harboring the horrible contagious virus they will catch and take home to the kids and all their kids' friends. Wait a minute, when I was a kid that's exactly how we did it! We spread highly contagious viruses at chicken pox parties, measles parties, oh yes and even mumps parties, only there was no fear involved. Family doctors were on board with all of it, it was a natural part of growing up to get the measles, it was normal for parents to want their kids to get these childhood maladies, to build up their immune systems, and get on with a healthy life. We all had measles when I was a kid, in fact the CDC considers everyone born before the year 1957 to have lifetime immunity to the measles. Why? We all went through a benign, self-limiting disease that causes discomfort and the need to stay in bed with a fever. Medical textbooks from the pre-vaccine era describe measles as posing minimal risk to a well-nourished child. And there is an outstanding reward awaiting measles sufferers: lifetime immunity! No. Boosters. Needed. Ever. |
