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Tuesday, 9 April 2013


Daily Headlines

It shouldn't surprise. It's already policy. Market analyst Graham Summers explained. Depositor theft is coming. Europe is banker occupied territory. So is America.

The president leads his party. Unless Democrats mount a concerted opposition to this budget, they'll have gone on record as the party that wants to cut Social Security. Democrats who support it will help inflict a deep wound on their party's electoral chances. We have a moral obligation to future generations, and to ourselves, to actively oppose the cuts in this budget.

There's an attitude that you don't speak ill of the dead. I don't agree.

According to an #AumfHungerStrike activist 99% of Americans have no idea they can be detained indefinitely without charge under NDAA 2012 Section 1021, and then executed without trial under AUMF 2001.

The big banksters and corporate honchos who control the propaganda outlets don't want you to think that it's okay for the federal government to spend money on public projects. That's a big no-no. They think all the money should be diverted to privately-owned businesses so the "job creators" can rake in bigger profits and live high-on-the-hog.

By John Bruhns
President Obama: Driving on Cruise Control
A critique of the "happy-go-lucky" Obama Presidency.
We must address the reckless behavior of Wall Street and the excesses of big corporations by placing more cops on the corporate beat and giving them the resources necessary to do their jobs. The alternative is allowing the gamblers on Wall Street and the grossly overpaid CEO's of multinational corporations to continue to take, shred or stall the remaining regulatory system and run our country into the ground.

Use of deep caution needed in capital cases that go to execution.

By Robert Reich
The Stealth Sequester
The sequester is just starting. The sheer scale of it is guaranteed to make it far more apparent in coming months. Some 140,000 low-income families will lose their housing vouchers, for example. Entire communities that depend mainly on defense-related industries or facilities will take major hits. If you thought March's job numbers were disappointing, just wait.

The current business of human rights means human rights for some and not for others. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights, the Peace Alliance, and Citizens for Global Solutions are all guilty of buying into the false creed that U.S. military force can be deployed to promote human rights. None of these groups stood up to oppose the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan.

With upwards of 100 million Americans struggling with with sleep disorders, it stands to reason that science will need to come up with new sleep treatments that challenge the 4.5 billion dollar sleeping pill industry.

By Gary Lindorff
Etcetera
New poem by TCBH resident poet

Forests grow up to reach for sunlight. So that's exactly what scientist Anna Fontcuberta i Morral and team did for flat solar panels: transform them into vertical nano-scale filaments a thousand times smaller than a human hair. The result? In prototype state, Fontcuberta's nanowires capture light 10 percent more efficiently than traditional solar panels ever could. And to build these tiny solar collectors, she uses 1,000 times less material - specifically, gallium arsenide. The efficiency, as PhysOrg says, is due to nanowires' incredible capability to funnel more light than expected -- at only several hundred nanometres wide, the nanowires funnel as much light as if they were 12 times bigger. That translates to more light being captured and greater efficiency at turning an equivalent amount of sunlight into disproportionately more usable electrical energy.

Researchers report today that penis size does matter to women - though within limits. The finding suggests that women's preferences could have fuelled the evolution of the human male penis, which is longer and thicker than that of any other primate. Male genitalia evolve quickly. They diversify earlier than other physical traits, with a wide variation in size and shape across the animal kingdom that can reveal a species' evolutionary pressures. Biologists have puzzled, therefore, over what factors might have caused the human penis to become so large. Now, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that women consider penis size and height equally when judging men's attractiveness, but both exhibit diminishing returns with greater size and are less important than a masculine body type.

let's not use Margaret Thatcher's death to further extend her legacy, but to insist that it's long past time to pull the plug on its run.

The Israeli economy is dangerously over-reliant on the diamond industry. The industry is a major source of funding for the Israeli military which is guilty of gross human rights violations. Israeli diamonds should, therefore, be regarded as blood diamonds (not "conflict diamonds" as described by the Kimberley Process). When a fraud investigation threatened the industry authorities agreed to drop the investigation.

More than 100,000 Israeli websites have come under attack from Anonymous hacktivists around the world. Speaking to RT, a Middle East hacker explained the aims of the cyber assault on Israel's online presence. The websites of the Israeli parliament, banks, ministries and other government organizations were down for some time on Sunday during the assault, dubbed Operation Israel. The loosely-knit hacking group Anonymous threatened to "disrupt and erase Israel from cyberspace" in protest over its mistreatment of Palestinians. The hackers also released a list of email addresses and credit card numbers, reportedly lifted from the online catalog of Israel Military, a privately-owned business that sells military surplus, Haaretz reported. Israel Military officials indicated that the information made public did not come from its site.

By Marianne Hoynes
Birgitta Jonsdottir: Cyber Poet
Birgitta said, "I was so fond of this American idea of freedom of democracy and the freedom of expression, which just no longer exists today in the US. We have an entirely different way of communicating now than ever before, and so we need completely new laws created, to encompass all of the new technology. We are living in an entirely different world, so all of our laws are outdated...

The young Kim Jong-un, 30, is matchless in the boys with toys department; he can play with loads of missiles, the fourth largest army in the world at 1.1 million (75 percent of them stationed within 100km of the DMZ) and, to top it off, a whole country. But as much as the real military powers behind the throne, he is not suicidal.

By Tom Engelhardt
Barbara Garson: Going Underwater in the Long Recession
They call it the "spring swoon." For the third straight year, the American economy bounded out of the starting blocks, adding hundreds of thousands of jobs in January and February. And for the third year in a row, that momentum melted away in the spring like the last traces of winter snow.
By Danny Schechter
The Past Fires Back: Thatcher and Kissinger in the NEws
Monday was a big news day marked by the death pf Margaret Thatcher and the dumping of Henry Kissingers documents by Wkileaks. How were they covered?


Latest Articles
Divide And Conquer
Divide and Conquer outlines the various means by which the oligarchy is successfully manipulating the comotose American public.
Exploiting Holocaust Remembrance Day
Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated annually. It runs from sundown April 7 to sunset April 8. This year's theme is "Defiance and Rebellion during the Holocaust: 70 years Since the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising."
New York Times Supports Targeted Killings
It doesn't surprise. When America goes to war or plans one, Times editors march in lockstep. They support imperial lawlessness.
Exonerations as rare as they are tell us a lot about the US criminal-justice system. In this article I address the issue of caution in carrying out state-sanctioned executions.

After participating in war, post-traumatic stress disorder is not a sign of mental illness; it is normal. What does participating in an immoral war of choice do to the soldier?

This demand for respectful silence in the wake of a public figure's death is not just misguided but dangerous. That one should not speak ill of the dead is arguably appropriate when a private person dies, but it is wildly inappropriate for the death of a controversial public figure, particularly one who wielded significant influence and political power.

Belated review of Argo movie

Kansas just enacted aaw which declares that life begins at fertilization. Am I the only one who suspects that for many pro-lifers, life begins at conception (or fertilization), but ends with birth?

The mainstream media reporting from Washington D.C. about cutting spending and/or raising revenue is almost void of one simple fact. American companies and the wealthiest 1% avoid paying their fair share of taxes by utilizing tax havens to shelter their assets and profits. If these tax loopholes can be closed, sequester and austerity will be words Americans would never have to hear again.

This article examines some of the deeper psychological issues standing in the way of women's progress.

Plutocracy in the current American style is having pernicious effects that go beyond the dominant influence of the rich on the nation's economy and government. It is setting precedents and modeling the unaccountability and irresponsibility that is pervading executive power throughout the society. Two successive presidential administrations and two decades of rogue behavior by corporate elites have set norms now evident...

Introduction to a personal blog that tracks the author's experience with learning how to implement a nutrarian life style and diet, as prescribed by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.

Margaret Thatcher, who has died following a stroke, was one of the most influential political figures of the 20th Century. But her rejection of consensus politics made her a divisive figure and opposition to her policies and her style of government led eventually to rebellion inside her party and unrest on the streets.


Best News Links from the Web
A powerful earthquake has struck close to Iran's only nuclear power station, killing at least 32 people and injuring 850 more as it devastated small villages, according to state media reports. Tuesday's 6.3 magnitude quake totally destroyed one village, a Red Crescent official told the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA), but the nearby Bushehr nuclear plant was undamaged, according to a local politician and the Russian company that built it.

As the world waits to see if North Korea launches a ballistic missile, the regime has attempted to raise tensions further, warning foreigners living in South Korea to make evacuation plans because the peninsula is on the brink of war. The warning to foreign residents in the South comes a week after North Korea told overseas embassies in Pyongyang that they should consider evacuating staff, warning their safety could not be guaranteed if war breaks out. No embassies are thought to have acted on the advice.

At the current pace of their retreat, small glaciers could disappear within the next 10 to 15 years, affecting water supply for the populations.

A lot of people are designing complicated, expensive energy-producing devices, and it is difficult to see them being adopted on a large scale," he said. "Ours is simple, less expensive, and it works. And with that, I think we've changed the dialog in the field."

The McConnell gang explored going far beyond Judd's politics and policy preferences. This included her mental health. The meeting leader noted: She's clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it's been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she's suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s.

The Senate launched formal debate of legislation to curb gun violence Monday, with Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) dismissing a threatened Republican filibuster as shameful and against the will of a majority of Americans. "The least Republicans owe the parents of these 20 little babies who are murdered at Sandy Hook is a thoughtful debate about whether stronger laws could have saved their little girls and boys," he said. During his remarks, Reid referenced a letter he received Monday from 13 Senate Republicans who are threatening to filibuster the legislation because they believe the proposals would infringe on the Second Amendment.

ACT NOW to stop massive cuts to your own Social Security. This is theft, grand-theft larceny. Funds allocated toward retirement and disability are being stolen to pay for wars, bank fraud, and corporate tyranny. Sign ALL these petitions to Obama white house and congress and PASS THEM ON. * If you survive long enough in Amerika, you may indeed be eating dog food.

Mr. President, please do not cut Social Security! Mr. President, the chained CPI is a cut to Social Security benefits that would hurt seniors--it's an idea not befitting a Democratic president. If you want to reform Social Security, make the wealthy pay their fair share by lifting the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes. Sign the Petition!

The canonization of Margaret Thatcher began with nanoseconds of news reports that the former British prime minister and conservative icon had died at the age of 87. Thatcher was no consensus builder; she was divisive. She set out to crush unions, privatize, undercut the social safety net (where she could), and push free-market policies that led to the deregulatory nightmares of the future. She joined with Reagan in support of torturers and human rights abusers around the globe, as long as these folks were opposed to the Soviets.

WikiLeaks has published more than 1.7m US records covering diplomatic or intelligence reports on every country in the world. The data, which has not been leaked, comprises diplomatic records from the beginning of 1973 to the end of 1976, covering a variety of diplomatic traffic including cables, intelligence reports and congressional correspondence. Henry Kissinger was US secretary of state and national security adviser during the period covered by the collection, and many of the reports were written by him or were sent to him. Thousands of the documents are marked NODIS (no distribution) or Eyes Only, as well as cables originally classed as secret or confidential.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report on employment for March 2013 paints a grim picture. The U.S. economy only added 88,000 jobs in March; down for previous monthly performances. The number of unemployed officially counted is 11.7 million. The unemployment rate of 7.6 percent is little changed from previous months. Certainly austerity measures and job cuts in the public sector, due to the so-called sequester, have impacted job creation. However, these factors cannot explain all of the problem.

"If we can complete the final steps, we will have accomplished one of the most important potential agricultural transformations ever," said R. Malcolm Brown, Jr., Ph.D. "We will have plants that produce nanocellulose abundantly and inexpensively. It can become the raw material for sustainable production of biofuels and many other products. While producing nanocellulose, the algae will absorb carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas linked to global warming."

The ability to produce multiple oils in a matter of days out of one plant location using standard industrial fermentation is a game-changer. Solazyme's patented microalgae strains have become the workhorses of a growing industry focused on producing commercial quantities of microalgal oil for energy and food applications. Rakitsky is with Solazyme, Inc., of South San Francisco, Calif., one of the largest and most successful of those companies, which in 2011 supplied 100 percent microalgal-derived advanced biofuel for the first U.S. passenger jetliner flight powered by advanced biofuel.

84,000 gallons of crude oil are glugging their way across an Arkansas community right now, putting the spotlight on the transport of tar sands oil across the United States. While Exxon is claiming it's just "heavy" oil, the naming is a matter of semantics, because the oil comes straight from Canada's infamous tar sands. It's not the only recent spill involving oil from this region; in 2010, 877,000 gallons of oil were released in Michigan, for example. With more tar sands oil being transported, the frequency of such spills is only going to increase, and worse, there are signs that tar sands oil is more prone to spills than its conventional counterpart.

President Barack Obama might think he's offering a compromise budget on Wednesday when he formally unveils it. But Senate Republicans -- a group Obama will try to woo with a dinner that night -- are expected to vigorously push back, casting the 2014 spending plan as another attempt to raise taxes to fuel more deficit spending.

As North Korea hints at new military provocations in the coming days, the United States and South Korea have drawn up plans to respond more forcefully than in the recent past, but in a limited way intended to prevent an escalation to broader war. American officials described the new "counterprovocation" plan as calling for an immediate but proportional "response in kind" -- hitting the source of any North Korean attack with similar weapons.

A large swath of the wealthy does not like Social Security and Medicare because they do not like to pay taxes. You might think Obama would be on the side of the citizens on this one. But it seems that the President will officially propose this week to cut Social Security and Medicare as part of his annual budget, despite the fact that this move would be economically irresponsible, socially disruptive and morally repugnant. Here are seven things that should make Obama tremble before he dares to announce such a betrayal of the American people.

A fierce battle between U.S.-backed Afghan forces and Taliban militants in a remote corner of eastern Afghanistan left nearly 20 people dead, including 11 Afghan children killed in an airstrike and an American civilian adviser, officials said Sunday. The deaths capped one of the bloodiest weeks of the nearly 12-year-old war. On Wednesday, insurgents ambushed a courthouse in the relatively safe west, killing more than 46 people.

A science fiction-like arms race is quietly underway around the globe with the development of robots, with the autonomy to decide who shall live and die in wars of the future. Fully autonomous machines could be deployed on battlefields within decades, and debate over the moral, ethical and legal consequences of unleashing "killer robots" is heating up around the world. Military planners envision artificially intelligent machines that could win future wars by deciding who is an enemy to be terminated, while saving human soldiers from fighting at a far cheaper cost. Robots do not feel fear, and ones that can think autonomously will continue to fight, even if an enemy severs command communications, proponents say. "The development and deployment of increasingly autonomous weapon systems is inevitable, and any attempt at a global ban will likely be ineffective." -Matthew Waxman
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