Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Friday 21 June 2013

Bold and Daring: The Way Progressive News Should Be
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The more I learn about cluster B personalities, the more I believe we need a national, even world-wide project to identify and deal with them. I'm not saying to round them up, but these are dangerous, hurtful people without consciences, empathy or compassion. 
So, I will continue with more more coverage on Psychopaths and Sociopaths. Here are two new podcasts, aired yesterday, downloadable today. 
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Daily Headlines

By Paul Craig Roberts
The Rational Market Myth
As the Fed is committed to saving the banks "too big to fail," it is likely that the banks know of the Fed's announcements in advance. With inside information, the banks know precisely when to short the stock, bond, and bullion markets. The banks make billions from the inside information.

As the meme goes, the chief villains responsible for the high cost of American healthcare are waste, overtreatment, fee-for-service medicine, unaccountable hospitals, and paying for treatments that don't work. Obamacare fixes reflect that meme. But are the accepted villains really the central villains, or just the easiest ones to target?

I interview business researcher Clive Boddy, discussing the effects of corporate psychopaths.

Orwell understood what many Americans, caught up in their partisan flag-waving, are still struggling to come to terms with: that there is no such thing as a government organized for the good of the people--even the best intentions among those in government inevitably give way to the desire to maintain power and control at all costs.

By Bob Burnett
America's Second Civil War
On April 12, 1861, Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, launching the first Civil War. America's second Civil War will start in late September when conservatives block raising the debt-limit ceiling and the US goes into default. But our new Civil War actually began in November of 2010 when Tea-Party conservatives seized control of the Republican Party and many states.
WikiLeaks may publish further revelations promised by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, Julian Assange hinted during a conference call with journalists. He reiterated that his legal team is helping Snowden in his quest for asylum in Iceland. "We don't speak about investigations or upcoming publications," Assange repeated several times, but hinted that "significant material will be published in coming weeks."

70% of the faculty is contract faculty that teaches the lion's share of the classes.In the case of full-time contract faculty,it also designs and implements curricula and takes part in committee work yet has absolutely no representation on the Faculty Senate the governing arm of the university. This is significant, much like the kind of voting situation that pertained in Great Britain before the voting reform laws were passed

President Barack Obama's unprecedented initiative, known as the Insider Threat Program, is sweeping in its reach. It has received scant public attention even though it extends beyond the U.S. national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration and the Education and Agriculture departments. It emphasizes leaks of classified material, but catchall definitions of "insider threat" give agencies latitude to pursue and penalize a range of other conduct.

The Fisa court plays no role in the selection of individuals, nor does it monitor who is selected by the NSA. The NSA's ability to collect and retain the communications of people in the US, even without a warrant, has fueled congressional demands for an estimate of how many Americans have been caught up in surveillance.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked her colleagues to oppose Michael Froman, Pres Obama's pick for US Trade Representative, charging that he is not committed to giving the American public information about theTrans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, which would affect everything from intellectual property rights, to product safety standards, to financial regulations. Many lawmakers criticized the secrecy surrounding the deal; certain members of Congress can see the proposed text of the deal, but the public cannot. Warren has called on the office of the US Trade Representative to release the full text of the TPP deal to the public. But in a floor speech Wednesday, she said Froman has made clear he would not release the text.

Nick discusses the emerging peer to peer economy, it's disruptive effects on existing systems and economics, and how top down forces are resisting these bottom up aspects of progress.

Cleveland county prosecutor Aaron Brockler was fired earlier this week after creating a fake Facebook account and posting as the fictitious former girlfriend of an alleged killer in an aggravated murder case he was prosecuting. Brockler claims that he specifically created the account in order to cast doubt on the alibi of 29-year-old Damon Dunn, the man accused of committing murder at a Cleveland car wash during May 2012. Possibly in romantic relationships with Dunn, two women were ready to provide an alibi for Dunn that would place him somewhere other than the car wash where the murder took place.

"The U.K.'s top privacy watchdog has decided that Google won't be hit with any fines over its collection of Street View data."

This piece describes a resolution coming to a vote at the upcoming Conference of Mayors Annual Meeting and asks that people contact their mayor to support this resolution, before, during or after the Annual Meeting.

Exodus International closes after a tearful apology by leader Alan Chambers for all the harm it did to the LGBT community with its reparative therapy and its insistence that homosexuals could "change."

The Doce Fire which started on Tuesday morning, and is located approximately 7 miles NW of Prescott, AZ, is now 10% contained.

Here is a resource paper/technology summary on the top ten basic attributes/reasons why LFTRs (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors) should be pursued. This is a very easy to use resource to have handy when you are talking to a legislator or talking to a friend, neighbor, or family member. While Thorium's use in a LFTR has many benefits we feel these top ten are the easiest to convey to someone knowing little about the technology in order to peak their interest.

TPP--Perhaps the MOST Important Secret Assault on Our Freedoms
TPP--PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT SECRET ASSAULT ON OUR FREEDOMS
By Shirley Wilcher
The Fisher Conundrum: Class vs. Race in Higher Education Admissions
This opinion editorial argues that class or socioeconomic status should not replace race as a factor in higher education admissions. Race-based affirmative action is still necessary in 2013.
House GOP pushes the "Smarter Solutions Act", a cynical bill that simply differs the profits lenders are expecting from the doubling of student loan interest rates starting in July.

There are very critical issues missing from news reports about the U.S. government's protection of so called classified information and its pursuit of that data's leakors.

If we look at the origins of the NSA super-surveillance program, which is generally believed to have begun right after 9/11 as a provision of the Patriot Act, we will see that in fact it began in February, 2001, within weeks after the swearing in of the Bush administration.

In essence, what I'm maintaining here is that this "War on Terror" is a propaganda tool used by the United States to provide justification for external and internal decisions by our government to achieve total subjugation of the American people.

By David Swanson
Prisons Full of Innocents
There are probably more innocent men and women in prison in the United States now than there were people in prison here total -- innocent and guilty -- 30 years ago, or than there are total people in prison (proportionately or as an absolute number) in most nations on earth.
Mohammad Naji Allaw says, "Over 90 of 166 Guantanamo prisoners are from Yemen. Most of them, 56 to be exact, have already been cleared by the US government for release but the US government still won't send them back."

How does the health of a society relate to low wages, emotional disconnection, and a shrinking middle class?

A terrible formula has taken hold: warfare state + corporate digital power = surveillance state.

By Zin Linn
Burma: Government reaches an 8-point agreement with Karenni rebels
Burma's Union Peace-Making Committee and the KNPP have taken part in a settlement promising to move forward with a national ceasefire accord. The Peace-Making Committee and KNPP held negotiations on 19 and 20 June in Loikaw. The talks was convened with Minister Aung Min on the government side and deputy chairman Khun Oo Reh on the KNPP side plus military chief General Bee Htoo.
How long did it take those early American revolutionaries to defeat the British and draft the philosophical ideals that are the framework of our nation? Ideals that guarantee our protection from intrusive governmental practices that would threaten our liberty, security, and civil rights?

The lies are piling on lies as the government, fearful of the truth and of the people, builds a fascist spying system and goes after the truth-tellers with a vengeance, says TCBH! journalist Dave Lindorff



Latest Articles
Why hasn't there been an update on the Sandy Hook School shooting investigation?

Their sons, husbands, fathers and brothers are simply pawns in the US game of politics where one party is always trying to "out hawk" the other, where concern about winning the next election far eclipses any respect for the rights of the prisoners. Most Americans have become so consumed by fear after 9/11 that they think that holding these prisoners in Guantanamo indefinitely somehow makes them safer.

We raise our voices in opposition to John McCain's attempts to steer our beleaguered nation once more into a needless and unwinnable war. We have one last request for our aged and belligerent hero: Please, John, retire. Take your liberal pension. Go home, sit on the veranda of one of your multi-million dollar mansions, and SHUT THE HELL UP!

More GOP Mythmaking on the Border
GOP House Speaker John Boehner recently called border security "laughable." Boehner was not being funny. That sentiment could have a major blowback effect in the House on the deal that the four GOP Senators crafted to take the issue of border security off the contentious table and move the immigration bill to final passage.

Best News Links from the Web
"Instead, three justices, Alito, Kennedy and Chief Justice Roberts, found that Salinas's challenge to his conviction failed because he did not expressly invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege. The plurality relied on prior decisions holding that to ensure that the Fifth Amendment was not being asserted too broadly and to allow the government to challenge an assertion or overcome it by granting immunity, a witness must expressly invoke the right to obtain its benefits. The plurality reasoned that there could be many explanations for silence in the face of questioning, and if the witness's reason was the Fifth Amendment, he was obligated to say so. The plurality's view carried the day because two other justices, Scalia and Thomas, took an even narrower view of the protections of the Fifth Amendment."

"Mayoral hopeful [Anthony Weiner] apologized Thursday after an elderly woman he met while campaigning described his openly gay opponent Christine Quinn as a "dyke."

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The 2,000-mile (3,200-km) boundary between the United States and Mexico would have enough border patrol agents to station one guard every 1,000 feet, under a compromise measure being considered by the U.S. Senate as part of an effort to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill."

Insurers Inflating Books, New York Regulator Says - by MARY WILLIAMS WALSH NYTimes.com
"New York State regulators are calling for a nationwide moratorium on transactions that life insurers are using to alter their books by billions of dollars, saying that the deals put policyholders at risk and could lead to another taxpayer bailout. nsurers' use of the secretive transactions has become widespread, nearly doubling over the last five years. The deals now affect life insurance policies worth trillions of dollars, according to an analysis done for The New York Times by SNL Financial, a research and data firm.These complex private deals allow the companies to describe themselves as richer and stronger than they otherwise could in their communications with regulators, stockholders, the ratings agencies and customers, who often rely on ratings to buy insurance."
A United Nations report detailed the hapless condition of Palestinian children tortured and used as human shields by the Israeli Forces. According to the United Nations human rights body, "Palestinian children arrested by Israeli military and police are systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture, are interrogated in Hebrew, a language they did not understand, and sign confessions in Hebrew in order to be released."

Russia Right to Dismiss Obama Nuke Fakery
Moreover, this vague commitment to reduce tactical weapons is flatly contradicted by fact. Only last month, the Obama administration announced that it was embarking on a $10 billion upgrade of its tactical nuclear arsenal in Europe over the next 10 years. Part of this revamp is the fitting of gravity-dropped B61 bombs in Europe with new precision-guided tail systems that will increase the overall strike capacity of the American nuclear arsenal.
Economies do change over time, and sometimes in fundamental ways. So what's really different about America in the 21st century? The most significant answer, I'd suggest, is the growing importance of monopoly rents: profits that don't represent returns on investment, but instead reflect the value of market dominance. Sometimes that dominance seems deserved, sometimes not; but, either way, the growing importance of rents is producing a new disconnect between profits and production and may be a factor prolonging the slump.

An obituary in The New York Times has sounded a discordant note amid the rest of the encomiums. And now Hastings' widow, Elise Jordan, is firing back at Times brass. Jordan did not take kindly to the Times' remembrance, and in an email to Times' editor Jill Abramson, asked the paper correct its report before printing it in the morning paper. Abramson sent the note to Bill McDonald, obituaries editor, who rejected the request.

The private company responsible for vetting Edward Snowden for a security clearance is under criminal investigation for systemic failure to adequately conduct background checks. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., announced at a Senate hearing Thursday that USIS, a government contractor headquartered in Falls Church, Va., conducted a background check for Snowden in 2011. The 29-year-old systems administrator's clearance gave him access to classified documents he later leaked to the media, revealing secret surveillance by the National Security Agency.

This article from Global Research provides a compelling argument that before the events of 9/11/01, the real powers behind the U.S. government already planned to effect regime change in five oil rich or strategic middle eastern and North African countries for the purpose of controlling crude oil and other resources in that area.

With fracking operations using between 1 and 9 million gallons of water daily, and there being an estimated 500,000 such wells in the United States how long can we expect clean water for growing crops and drinking? One must be reminded that life can exist without oil and gas, but will die without water. Are today's profits for a few worth death for millions in the future? Unfortunately, some think it is.

Université Laval researchers have developed a highly effective method for converting CO2 into methanol, which can be used as a low-emissions fuel for vehicles. The team led by Professor Frédéric-Georges Fontaine presents the details of this discovery in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have found an effective solution for collecting sunlight for artificial photosynthesis. By combining self-assembling DNA molecules with simple dye molecules, the researchers have created a system that resembles nature's own antenna system.

Almost half of the mobile apps running on Apple's iOS operating system access the unique identifier of the devices where they're downloaded, computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have found. In addition, more than 13 percent access the devices' location and more than 6 percent the address book. The researchers developed a new app that detects what data the other apps running on an iOS device are trying to access.

You won't see this battery in your cell phone -- instead, its low cost and common materials would make it ideal to store huge amounts of energy at once, such as solar energy at a power plant.

The House of Representatives on Thursday overcame last-minute lobbying from the Drug Enforcement Administration to pass a farm bill amendment that would legalize the growing of hemp for research purposes. The 225-200 vote came after a flurry of opposition from the DEA, which argued that it would be too difficult for the agency to differentiate legal hemp from illegal marijuana, both varieties of the cannabis plant. The House amendment, proposed by Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), is far more modest than a Senate effort by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to fully legalize growing hemp for industrial purposes. McConnell had hoped to have his measure inserted into the underlying farm bill or approved on a simple voice vote, but neither path proved open.
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 23:08