Nina Hagen Band - live 1978
31 Jul 2011
Obama's war on truth tellers
National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake faces 35 years in prison on espionage charges for allegedly leaking information to the press about the NSA's overspending and failure to properly maintain its large trove of domestic spy data.
"Espionage is the last thing my whistleblowing and first amendment activities and actions were all about," Drake said recently in a public speech. "This has become the specter of a truly Orwellian world where whistleblowing has become espionage."
Rebel General Shot By Islamist Militia
An Islamist militia allied to Libya's rebel opposition is behind the death of their military commander Abdel Fattah Younes, a National Transitional Council minister has said.
Ali Tarhouni, who is the finance and oil minister for the NTC, recently recognised by several countries including Britain as the legitimate Libyan authority, said Younes was killed by a group known as the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade. General Younes defected to the rebels in February after the beginning of the Libyan uprising. He had served under Gaddfi since the revolution of 1969. Younes body was found shot and burned with those of two of his aides on Friday.
"His lieutenants did it," said Tarhouni, according to the Reuters news agency. If true, the revelation will cast fresh doubt on the rebels' ability to fight as a group and form a stable government. It will also be troubling for British Foreign Secretary William Hague and others who have publicly put their faith in the rebels. Hague announced on Wednesday that Britain would recognise the NTC as the representative government of Libya after similar announcements by the US and French governments.
The decision was mocked by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, who said that the slaying of Younes was "a slap in the face" to the British government. "By this act, al-Qaeda wanted to mark out its presence and its influence in this region."
Europe's leaders are 'playing with fire'
Europe's leaders have been warned to adopt a more "cautious" approach when discussing multiculturalism. The Norwegian chairman of the Nobel peace prize committee has told them they risk inflaming far-right and anti-Muslim sentiment.
Thorbjørn Jagland, a former prime minister of his country, said leaders such as the British premier would be "playing with fire" if they continued to use rhetoric that could be exploited by extremists.
Four months ago in Munich, Cameron declared that state multiculturalism had failed in Britain, a view immediately praised by Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, as "a further huge leap for our ideas into the political mainstream". Marine Le Pen, vice-president of the far-right National Front party in France, also endorsed Cameron's view of multiculturalism, claiming that it corroborated her own party's line.
Jagland's comments come in the wake of the Oslo bomb and the massacre on Utøya Island that left 77 people dead. The killer, Anders Behring Breivik, said he was inspired by the right-wing English Defence League. Breivik sent his manifesto, published online hours before the attacks, to about 250 British members of the BNP, the EDL and the Stop Islamisation of Europe group.
Jagland, who is also secretary general of the Council of Europe, told the Observer: "We have to be very careful how we are discussing these issues, what words are used.
30 Jul 2011
Kill The Messenger
Sibel Edmonds, a 32-year-old Turkish-American, was hired as a translator by the FBI shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 because of her knowledge of Middle Eastern languages. She was fired less than a year later in March 2002 for reporting shoddy work and security breaches to her supervisors that could have prevented those attacks.
Facebook and Twitter are creating a vain generation of self-obsessed people with child like need for feedback
Facebook and Twitter have created a generation obsessed with themselves, who have short attention spans and a childlike desire for constant feedback on their lives, a top scientist believes. Repeated exposure to social networking sites leaves users with an 'identity crisis', wanting attention in the manner of a toddler saying: 'Look at me, Mummy, I've done this.'
Baroness Greenfield, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, believes the growth of internet 'friendships' – as well as greater use of computer games – could effectively 'rewire' the brain. This can result in reduced concentration, a need for instant gratification and poor non-verbal skills, such as the ability to make eye contact during conversations.
Facebook director calls for an end to internet anonymity
Facebook's marketing director has called for an end to on-line anonymity, saying internet users would 'behave a lot better' if everyone had to use real names when surfing or posting on the internet.
Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s marketing director and sister of multi-millionaire founder Mark, made the comments during a round table discussion on cyber bullying.
Mrs Zuckerberg argued the end of on-line anonymity could help curb the trend of trolling and harassment on the web. Speaking at a Marie Claire panel discussion on social media, she said: ' I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away.
Turkey's military chiefs 'quit'
General Ski Kushner, the head of the Turkish armed forces, has quit along with the heads of the ground, naval and air forces. The country's state-run Anatolia news agency said on Friday that the military chiefs wanted to retire because of tensions with Recap Typo Endogen, the recently re-elected prime minister. Anatolia reported Kushner as resigning "as he saw it as necessary".
In a written statement released after the news of the generals' retirement, Recap Typo Endogen, the Turkish prime minister, said that the armed forces will continue to do their duty in a spirit of unity.
Hurried, a Turkish daily newspaper, said on its website that Kushner was quitting his post as an act of protest against the court cases jailing military officers which mean he could no longer defend the rights of his staff. "It has become impossible for me to continue in this high office because I am unable to fulfil my responsibility to protect the rights of my personnel as the chief of general staff," the report quoted Kushner as saying.
29 Jul 2011
Mystery over Libyan rebel commander's death
The head of the Libyan rebels' armed forces and two of his aides were killed by gunmen on Thursday, creating a power vacuum at the top of the opposition military hierarchy and raising questions about who was responsible.
Abdel Fattah Younes was killed after being summoned to the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi to appear before a judicial inquiry, opposition leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil announced at a press conference late on Thursday night.
Rebel security reportedly arrived at Younes's operations room near the rebels' eastern front and arrested him and his aides early on Thursday.
Security officials said at the time that Younes was to be questioned about possible ties to Muammar Gaddafi's regime. Younes was Gaddafi's interior minister before defecting to the rebels early in the uprising, which began in February. Jalil said that Younes had been summoned for questioning regarding "a military matter". He said Younes and his two aides, a colonel and a major, were shot before they arrived for questioning.
Syrian troops 'kill and arrest dissidents'
Syrian security forces have continued their clampdown on the pro-democracy movement, killing four protesters and arresting two leading activists on the eve of more mass rallies.
In the eastern city of Deir al-Zour, where security forces were carrying out operations in nearly all neighbourhoods, two civilians were shot dead on Thursday night, Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syria Observatory for Human Rights, told the AFP news agency.
Afterwards, some 3,000 people gathered in front of the house of the new governor, Samir Othman al-Sheikh, to "demand an end to the killing," he said.
Earlier, residents were out in the streets trying to prevent security forces from carrying out arrests, he said.
To the west, in Madaya, near the capital Damascus, residents told the Reuters news agency two civilians were also killed in a security sweep on the town on Thursday.
28 Jul 2011
Let's stop assuming the police are on our side
Can confidence in the (British) Metropolitan police sink any lower? Even before the past few weeks revealed the possibility of their complicity in the News of the World hacking scandal, and the past few months their brutal attitude towards the policing of students and other protesters, there were many who already had reason to mistrust those who claim to be "working together for a safer London".
One of the positive effects of "citizen journalism" is how much harder it makes it for the authorities to disseminate disinformation, such as the stories put out by the Met concerning Tomlinson's death. More recently, in the case of the arrests of UK Uncut protesters in Fortnum & Mason, video footage of chief inspector Claire Clark deceiving the group into a mass arrest has proved highly embarrassing to the police, who nevertheless freely admit that arrests at protests are part of an ongoing intelligence-gathering operation. The use of undercover police officers, such as Mark Kennedy, recently found to have unlawfully spied on environmental activists, has further increased suspicions regarding the motivations for police spying, not to mention the fact that its illegality makes it wholly ineffective against those it would seek to prosecute. It is cheering to see those targeted fighting back against such criminalisation of legitimate protest, particularly among those too young to vote, such as Adam Castle, who is taking the police to court over kettling at a student protest last November.
But given the many allegations of police corruption, racism, spying and death in their supposed care, why does anyone feel safe when the police are around? Robert Reiner, professor of criminology at LSE and author of The Politics of the Police, describes the phenomenon of "police fetishism" in the following way: "the ideological assumption that the police are a functional prerequisite of social order so that without a police force chaos would ensue". In fact, as Reiner points out, many societies have existed without an official police force or with very different models of policing in place. While it may be hard to imagine Britain without a police force of some kind, it is increasingly clear that those who "protect" its largest city are far from doing any such thing.
Teenager Arrested Over Probe Into Hacking Collective Anonymous and LulzSec
A teenager has been arrested in the Shetland Islands as part of the Metropolitan police's probe into the online groups who hacked into the Sun and the Times websites. 'Hacktivist' collectives Anonymous and LulzSec have previously taken credit for online attacks on the FBI, Nato, and the websites of credit companies MasterCard and Visa.
The 19-year-old is said to use the online nom de plume "Topiary" and was arrested in what police said was a "a pre-planned intelligence-led operation".
In a statement officers from the Metropolitan Police Service’s Police Central e-Crime Unit said: "The man arrested is believed to be linked to an ongoing international investigation into the criminal activity of the so-called 'hacktivist' groups Anonymous and LulzSec, and uses the online nickname 'Topiary' which is presented as the spokesperson for the groups."
EU warns against growing tensions in Kosovo
The European Union has issued a stern warning against a deadly flare-up of violence in Kosovo's Serb-run north, reports Reuters news agency. Ethnic Serbs set fire to a border crossing post in northern Kosovo on Wednesday, after Kosovo's government regained control of the post and a second one late on Monday night.
Catherine Ashton, EU foreign policy chief, said in a statement: "I strongly condemn the violence that has taken place in northern Kosovo. These latest developments are unacceptable". She said that it is the responsibility of the governments in Belgrade and Pristina to restore peace between the two nations.
Armed Kosovo police units crossed into the ethnic Serb-dominated north on Monday in an effort to station troops in a region that takes its orders from Serbia, news agencies said. A Kosovo police officer was shot in the head and died on Tuesday and four others were injured during an exchange of gunfire between police and local Serbs opposing Kosovo's efforts to take control of its border posts.
The same border post was burned down in 2008 by local Serbs after Kosovo declared independence
27 Jul 2011
Princess Diana Death Conspiracy Re-ignited: French Authorities May Arrest British Police
French authorities may seek an international arrest warrant for two former police chiefs, who withheld a prophetic note in which Princess Diana seemingly predicted her assassination by car crash. Something she stated on more than one occasion.
Former Scotland Yard chief Lord Condon and former Assistant Commissioner of Specialist Operations Sir David Veness, have been ordered to attend an interview in Paris to address why the note was under lock and key for 3 years following Diana’s death. If they fail to attend they will be treated as suspects. The note remained hidden even when Lord Condon’s successor Lord Stevens took over as Metropolitan Police Commissioner, suggesting the orders may have came from a higher authority.
The note was handed to the MET by Diana’s Lawyer Lord Mishcon shortly after the 1997 Paris tunnel crash, which also claimed the lives of Diana’s boyfriend Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul. It drew on a meeting between Diana and the law firm where she claimed her life was in danger; the record of the meeting in the form of a hand-written note says efforts would be made to get rid of her “…be it by some accident in her car such as pre-prepared brake failure or whatever.”
Lord Condon and Sir Veness have publicly claimed that they made the decision not to release the document unless there was a suggestion that the crash was not an accident [2], but the French Judge Gerard Caddeo may see this as withholding the very evidence that does suggest it wasn’t an accident. Under French law, “removing or concealing” evidence, which could “facilitate the discovery of a crime”, is punishable by three to five years in jail or a fine.
26 Jul 2011
Norwegian Police Knew Gunman’s Name Before Arrest
Despite being portrayed by the media as inept due to the length of time it took them to reach the island of Utoeya, it has now emerged that police knew the name of gunman Anders Behring Breivik before they even arrested him, a startling admission that prompted one of Britain’s top news anchors to question how authorities were aware of the gunman’s identity in advance.
During his Channel 4 News broadcast on Friday evening, host Jon Snow asked “why police knew the killer’s name by the time they had arrived on the island,” reported the Telegraph live blog.
“He surrendered the moment police called his name 3 minutes after they arrived. What we don’t know is how the police knew the terrorist’s name before they arrested him,” said Snow, who is recognized as one of Britain’s most trusted news anchors, and cannot be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist”. Snow also posed the question on his official Twitter page.
How authorities knew the gunman’s identity before his slaughter of young Norwegians on the island of Utoeya had even come to an end, and while the overwhelming speculation still centred around Islamic terrorists, is a mystery, as is the question of why the cops didn’t shoot Breivik immediately.
25 Jul 2011
25 Reasons To Absolutely Despise Bankers And Their Minions
Bankers serve no useful purpose. They have no redeeming qualities. They steal our money. They lie to us. They impoverish nations They ridicule our traditions and our way of life. They casually destroy countries.
The bankers are not real human beings. No real man or woman would look for honest, intelligent men and women who are well respected and then run to a phone to have them put on a Death List. When the dollar collapses, the bankers will go down their lists of honest and intelligent and courageous men and women killing them until we say No More.
Hunt for Britons linked to Norway killer Anders Behring Breivik
Before he carried out Norway’s worst terrorist atrocity, Breivik typed out a chilling 1,500-page description of his plans, written entirely in English and datelined “London, 2011”. He signed the document “Andrew Berwick”, an Anglicised version of his name, and described his “mentor” as an Englishman he identified as Richard.
Scotland Yard counter-terrorism officers are now trying to establish whether Breivik visited London in recent years and whether he was part of a wider network preparing to carry out similar attacks. The 32 year-old boasted that he was just one of up to 80 “solo martyr cells”recruited throughout Western Europe who were ready to follow his example of trying to overthrow governments tolerant of Islam.
He said he regarded himself as a successor to the medieval Knights Templar, and claimed to have been recruited at a meeting in London in April 2002, which was hosted by two English extremists and attended by eight people in total.
Any member of a political group that has allowed Muslims to migrate to their country is regarded as a “target” who deserves “the death penalty”, according to his writings. He also spoke of being in touch with the far-Right English Defence League and made repeated references to British politicians, including Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, who were blamed for making London a global hub of Islamic terrorism.
24 Jul 2011
Link Between Breivik and Israeli Mossad
Anders Behring Breivik is suspect in massacre of over 80 at Labour Party Youth camp on Norwegian island and downtown Oslo bombing. Breivik is being called a Christian fundamentalist even though he was a Freemason and supporter of such vile Zionist Islamophobes as Pam Geller and Richard Pipes.
Pipes and Geller are ciphers for Israeli intelligence and propaganda elements and provide a clear link between Breivik and Mossad, which is under orders to stage false flag attacks to garner support for Israel against Palestine, Cyprus and Norway being the two most recent examples of Mossad-staged attacks.
And when it comes to “Al Qaeda’s” Mossad seal of approval, the vicious Zionist Rupert Murdoch and his Zio-trash papers can always be relied on to help out. Murdoch’s scandal-plagued “Sun” reports that Norwegian attacks are the work of “Al Qaeda”
UK scientists secretly grew human-animal hybrids in laboratory experiments
One hundred and fifty animal-human hybrid embryos have been produced by mad scientists in the UK -- with full government approval -- under the 2008 Human Fertilisation Embryology Act. The UK's Daily Mail newspaper is reporting that a committee of scientists recently blew the whistle on the operation and expressed alarm over the possibility of the experiments going "too far" and resulting in a real Planet of the Apes scenario, where animals escape from the lab and begin reproducing in the wild.
Sound like science fiction? It's actually just an extension of science fact: human-animal hybrids have been produced by these UK scientists for the last three years. Among the monstrosities they created were animal eggs fertilized with human sperm, and cybrids -- animal cells that are injected with human cell nuclei. They also created chimeras, a mixture of human cells and animal cells, much like what happened in the sci-fi Planet of the Apes depiction of science gone wrong.
23 Jul 2011
‘Satanic game of soccer’
Soccer leads straight to hell, according to conservative activist Billy Bob Neck, because it prevents you from using all of your God-given body parts.
Furthermore, the “Satanic” game is played by Europeans, Mexicans, “Mexicans from Brazil,” and “Mexicans from all over. Think of all the communists countries that you can think of? How many of them play soccer? All of em, every single one,” he noted. “How many play football? Not one. Football – that’s a sport.”
22 Jul 2011
The Euro Crisis Song
With each passing day the Euro crisis deepens, spreading to more countries with ever more dramatic consequences. But are you still struggling to understand how we got here? To help you out, we present The Euro Crisis Song.
Saudi terror law 'would strangle protest'
A secret new anti-terror law being drawn up by the Saudi authorities would "strangle peaceful protest", Amnesty International has said.
The BBC has been shown a classified copy of the draft law showing a number of measures Amnesty said would severely restrict human rights. These include lengthy detention without trial, restricted legal access and increased use of the death penalty. But a Saudi official said it was directed at terrorists, not dissidents.
The Saudi government has so far declined to comment, but the senior official, who did not want to be named, confirmed the existence of the draft law and did not dispute the clauses contained in it.
Amnesty International's Middle East press officer James Lynch told the BBC the draft law - a copy of which was leaked to the human rights group - "seeks to entrench some of the most repressive practices that Amnesty has been documenting for years". Among the measures proposed is a broadening of the definition of a terrorist crime to include any action deemed to be "harming the reputation of the state" or "endangering national unity".
21 Jul 2011
Whistleblower's Death: Murdoch scandal turning bloody
Key phone hacking witness dead. Police determine "nothing suspicious" in 2 seconds - and with no investigation.
United Nations Declares Famine In Southern Somalia
The United Nations has declared a famine in Somalia as east Africa continues to suffer through its worst drought in 50 years. The UN said that in two regions of southern Somalia, Bakool and Lower Shabelle, the rate of serious malnutrition among children was now high enough to be considered a famine.
More than 30 percent of children in the region are now acutely malnourished. Around four in 10,000 children are now dying every day. It is the first time in almost twenty years that Somalia has seen famine inside its borders.
"Across the country nearly half of the Somali population - 3.7 million people - are now in crisis, of whom an estimated 2.8 million people are in the south," the UN said in a statement. "Consecutive droughts have affected the country in the last few years, while the ongoing conflict has made it extremely difficult for agencies to operate and access communities in the south of the country," it added.
The UN also warned that famine could spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia in two months if more is not done to halt the crisis.
Shh! There’s a Secret CIA Prison in Somalia
With President Barack Obama having issued an executive order banning secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons and then-CIA Director Leon Panetta having stated that “CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites,” one might think a credible report that the CIA is still operating such a prison would make the front page of every newspaper in the country and be covered on all major television news programs. Alas, in 21st-century America, where the news media are the handmaidens of the state, the story has largely been ignored; and those outlets that have deemed it worthy of coverage have done so in such a way as to play down its revelations and play up the government’s denials.
On July 12 The Nation published a lengthy article by Jeremy Scahill exposing a secret CIA prison in Mogadishu, Somalia. Scahill’s report was based on an in-person investigation of the allegations, undertaken at great personal risk.
Scahill found that the CIA is using “a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being [Somali militant group Al Shabab members or of having links to the group are held.” The prison houses not just suspects captured within Somalia but also those picked up in Kenya (and possibly other countries) and rendered to Somalia for interrogation.
20 Jul 2011
Chile's President Allende killed himself, experts say
A team of international experts has concluded that the former president of Chile, Salvador Allende, killed himself during the 1973 military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet.
A detailed report was released two months after Mr Allende's body was exhumed as part of an inquiry into his death. Mr Allende's family has always accepted the official version. But some of his supporters suspected he had been killed by soldiers.
Allende, who was 65, died in La Moneda presidential palace on 11 September 1973 as it was being bombed by air force jets and attacked by tanks. The official version was that he shot himself - with a rifle given to him by his friend, the then Cuban leader Fidel Castro - as troops stormed the palace.
Mr Allende's family agreed to have his body exhumed from a cemetery in the capital, Santiago, so that an international team of experts, including specialists in ballistics, could determine the cause of death.
FBI targets Anonymous hacking group in series of raids on homes
16-year-old boy was arrested in London Tuesday night while the FBI detained at least 14 people after raiding homes across the US as part of an international operation targeting the hacking activist groups Anonymous and LulzSec.
Arrests and raids took place in Florida, California, and New Jersey and were aimed at targets suspected to be members of the hacking collective which has hit the headlines in recent months for a series of high-profile attacks. Computers and other equipment were also seized at several addresses in New York as local agents executed search warrants in New York city and Long Island, but – no arrests were made.
"These search warrants are being executed in connection with an ongoing FBI investigation," a New York FBI spokesman said. More arrests may follow, legal sources said.
19 Jul 2011
US Police Shut Down Lemonade Stands And Cookie Stands
US Police ramp up on their nationwide crackdown of illegal lemonade stand enterprising. 'We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, of what the lemonade was made with,' says police chief in Midway. ‘The law is the law’.
News of the World phone-hacking whistleblower found dead
Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbusiness reporter who was the first named journalist to allege that Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead. Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, was said to have been found at his Watford home.
Hertfordshire police would not confirm his identity, but said in a statement: "At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for the welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street. Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.
"The death is currently being treated as unexplained but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."
Westminster is bracing itself for one of the biggest days in recent Parliamentary history, as two select committees prepare to quiz some of the key players in the News of the World phone hacking and police corruption scandals.
18 Jul 2011
Ex-Uruguayan Dictator Dies
Former Uruguayan President-turned-dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry died early Sunday at home, where he was serving a 30-year sentence for killings and disappearances during his country's war against so-called subversives. He was 83. Bordaberry had been suffering from breathing problems and other illnesses before he died.
Elected in 1971, Bordaberry was a wealthy, conservative landholder who cut short his democratic term with a June 27, 1973 auto-coup carried out with military backing. He suspended the constitution, banned political parties, ordered tanks to ring Congress and ruled for three years by decree until his 1976 ouster by generals who went on to lead a right-wing dictatorship until 1985.
Rape and murder in Uttar Pradesh
A spate of exceptionally brutal rapes in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh has shocked India. Many of the victims were young girls.
Uttar Pradesh is India's most populous state with 200 million people. It is also home to a staggering number of poor - official statistics show more than 60 million people here live on less than $1.25 (75p) a day . Poverty also makes a community more vulnerable. Many victims were raped or assaulted when they went to the fields because, like millions of Indians, they have no access to toilets at home.
Uttar Pradesh has always had a high rate of crime, but it is the viciousness of the recent attacks that has stunned people most. "These cases are so brutal that we wouldn't have believed that they could happen - we thought such things could happen only in novels and films," Mrs Vera says.
SR Drapery, vice-president of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in Uttar Pradesh, says most of the rape victims are poor women and girls in remote villages. Many, he says, are low-caste Dalits (formerly known as "untouchables").
"I analysed the rape figures for 2007 and I found that 90% of victims were Dalits and 85% of Dalit rape victims were underage girls," he says. "It is well known that until not very long ago, in certain areas of the state's southern Bundelkhand region, new brides of Dalit farmhands had to sleep with their rich, high-caste landowners on their wedding night." Mr Drapery says the practice no longer exists - but Dalit women and girls remain vulnerable to predators.
17 Jul 2011
Living Without Money
Is it possible to feel rich without possessions? Can you live happily without money? In the documentary Living Without Money, we meet the German woman Heidemarie Schwermer who made a deliberate choice to live without money 14 years ago.
16 Jul 2011
Man explains why he loves the Orlando Police Department
At the FNB feeding of the homeless in the Lake Eola Park. A lone man carrying an "I (heart) OPD" sign conducts an interview with WFTV Channel 9 news. What this man says next will shock you!!!
15 Jul 2011
Drone Wars: Human Freedom in the Mediocre Machine
(Pilot) - An open ended series that aims to inspire and re-energise the viewer through public displays of sub-ironic absurdity.
The post-evolutionary stage for human beings was always going to be a difficult one. As we settle into somewhat liberal capitalist societies (in the West anyhow) we find that standards in all areas of life are falling, from education - basic maths, spelling, motivation in the classroom, through to the media/entertainment world - reality TV, inane singing contests, banal newspapers/tabloids. Everywhere we see the economy and motivation and general intelligence levels collapsing. We struggle to recognise our fellow citizens as they heave their obese and bellicose bodies from fast food outlet to shopping mall, listening to manufactured TV pop music. Who are these people? How did they get like this?
We even find a general ennui to political matters; as the dumbed down population are fed and watered, their muscles of dissent have atrophied and they accept even tighter collars and austerity measures upon their necks.
Secretive US Elite Set Policy At Bohemian Grove
A Bohemian Grove insider has gone public to reveal that the secretive gathering of power brokers set to begin this week in Monte Rio, California is far more serious than the ‘summer holiday camp’ tag routinely attached to the powwow by the establishment media, noting how members “constantly” discuss business and politics.
Bohemian Grove is a privately owned 2,700 acre compound in Monte Rio, California surrounded by giant old-growth redwood trees. Once a year it plays host to a bizarre confab attended by some of the most powerful people in the world, including many US politicians and government officials, during which participants embroil themselves in a heady mixture of plutocratic plotting and occult pagan ritual ceremonies.
Alex Jones made history in 2000 when he became the first journalist to capture on video the ‘cremation of care’ ceremony, where Grove members dressed in Eyes Wide Shut-style hooded capes make a mock child sacrifice to Moloch, the pagan owl god, represented as a 50 foot statue carved out of a hollowed redwood tree.
CIA's fake vaccination programme criticised by Médecins Sans Frontières
Médecins Sans Frontières has lashed out at the CIA for using a fake vaccination programme as a cover to spy on Osama bin Laden on Thursday, saying it threatened life-saving immunisation work around the world.
The international medical aid charity said the ploy used by US intelligence, revealed this week in the Guardian, was a "grave manipulation of the medical act".
The CIA recruited a Pakistani doctor and health visitors before the operation in May that killed Bin Laden in Abbottabad in northern Pakistan, to try to ascertain whether the al-Qaida leader was living in the compound. The doctor, Shakil Afridi, set up a vaccination drive for Hepatitis B in the town in order to try to gain entry to the Bin Laden compound and obtain DNA samples from those living there.
On Thursday night, a senior US government official defended the practice, saying it had been intended as "an actual vaccination campaign conducted by real medical professionals". He said the team was supposed to deliver the full course of three vaccinations to those treated in Abbottabad.
14 Jul 2011
Israeli kindergarteners to be required to sing national anthem weekly
From September Jewish nursery and kindergarten teachers to raise Israeli flag and sing 'Hatikva' according to new Education Ministry directives; teachers also required to instruct children on state symbols.
Beginning this September, Jewish nursery and kindergarten teachers will be required to open the week with the raising of the Israeli flag and the singing of "Hatikva," in accordance with new directives issued by the Education Ministry.
The preschool teachers will also be required to teach the children the state symbols once a week. The directives state that by next Independence Day, "All the children will know the words to the national anthem."
What’s going on at the Bachmann clinic?
In her campaign for US president, Michele Bachmann touts her background as a small business owner. "A small business job creator," is how the Minnesota Congresswoman and Republican Presidential candidate described herself in her first campaign ad in Iowa.
That business is Bachmann and Associates. It's a Christian counseling service located outside Minneapolis. Bachmann started the center with her husband, Marcus who is the lead counselor at the clinic. The aspiring first couple and their children are pictured on the center's web site.
For at least five years, Bachmann and Associates has faced accusations it uses a controversial therapy that encourages gay and lesbian patients to change their sexual orientation. Andrew Ramirez, a former patient at Bachmann and Associates, said in an interview with CNN he witnessed the practice first-hand. In 2004, Ramirez turned to the clinic at the urging of his mother who wanted him to talk about his homosexuality.
13 Jul 2011
Secrets In Plain Sight
Secrets In Plain Sight is an awe inspiring exploration of great art, architecture, and urban design which skilfully unveils an unlikely intersection of geometry, politics, numerical philosophy, religious mysticism, new physics, music, astronomy, and world history.
Exploring key monuments and their positions in Egypt, Stonehenge, Jerusalem, Rome, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Washington DC, New York, and San Francisco brings to light a secret obsession shared by pharaohs, philosophers and kings; templars and freemasons; great artists and architects; popes and presidents, spanning the whole of recorded history up to the present time.
Egyptian protesters call for end to army rule
Thousands of Egyptians marched on the cabinet headquarters in central Cairo on Tuesday to demand the removal of the ruling military council.
The march, reminiscent of protests that forced former president Hosni Mubarak to step down on February 11, followed a warning by the military council that it would use all legitimate means to end a five-day-old protest in the city's Tahrir Square.
"Down, down with military rule," demonstrators chanted as they went from Tahrir Square towards the prime minister's office, where they demonstrated before returning to the square.
"The people want the removal of the field marshal," they shouted, referring to Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the military council leader who served as Mubarak's defence minister for two decades. The protest that began on Friday has increasingly targeted the generals running the country and is one of the longest since it took over from Mubarak following mass protests against rising prices, poverty, unemployment and years of authoritarian rule.
The Arc of the moral Universe Is Long ...
If you riot and protest with anger, resentment and hostility you are giving them exactly what they want. Let us give them exactly what they don't want, what they are terrified of - unleashed collective human energetic power.
12 Jul 2011
Israel passes law banning calls for boycott
The Knesset passed Monday a law penalizing persons or organizations that boycott Israel or the settlements, by a vote of 47 to 38. Opposition blasts law, which penalizes persons or organizations who call for a boycott of Israel or the settlements, calling it unconstitutional and irresponsible.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not present during the vote. MK Zeev Elkin (Likud), who proposed the law, said the law is not meant to silence people, but "to protect the citizens of Israel."
According to the law, a person or an organization calling for the boycott of Israel, including the settlements, can be sued by the boycott's targets without having to prove that they sustained damage. The court will then decide how much compensation is to be paid. The second part of the law says a person or a company that declare a boycott of Israel or the settlements will not be able to bid in government tenders
Anonymous hits US military contractor site
Anonymous, the international cyberactivist network, has announced the release of 90,000 military email logins which its members obtained in one of the biggest-ever hacking operations.
The group promised that the publication of the documents on several websites on Monday is only the first in a series of leaks intended to show the intelligence community's vulnerability. This round of emails comes from Booz Allen Hamilton, a management consultancy firm based in Virginia, United States.
Booz Allen Hamilton is active in the Middle East and North Africa, with its regional headquarters in the United Arab Emirates. "With a multidisciplinary approach, Booz Allen provides robust cybersecurity solutions to a broad range of clients and industries, enabling them to confidently pursue the opportunities offered by the cyber revolution," reads a statement on the company's website.
11 Jul 2011
Atlantis-Like Landscape Discovered
Buried deep beneath the sediment of the North Atlantic Ocean lies an ancient, lost landscape with furrows cut by rivers and peaks that once belonged to mountains. Geologists recently discovered this roughly 56-million-year-old landscape using data gathered for oil companies.
"It looks for all the world like a map of a bit of a country onshore," said Nicky White, the senior researcher. "It is like an ancient fossil landscape preserved 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) beneath the seabed."
So far, the data have revealed a landscape about 3,861 square miles (10,000 square km) west of the Orkney-Shetland Islands that stretched above sea level by almost as much as 0.6 miles (1 km). White and colleagues suspect it is part of a larger region that merged with what is now Scotland and may have extended toward Norway in a hot, prehuman world.
Google Patents Censorship Of 'Annoying' Content
Google filed the patent in December of 2005 and was granted the rights to it yesterday. Should Google decide to use this patent especially in Chrome, your web browsing experience could be vastly improved.
We could not help bringing you news that Google received a patent for “detecting and rejecting annoying documents.” Imagine annoying documents (potentially documents with a headline such as Google Patents Deep Secret Of The Internet) being automatically blocked from ever reaching your eyes or ears. How much more enjoyable and effective could the Internet be?
Coca-Cola Exposed! Killer Cola
You will never look at a can of Coke the same way after seeing this documentary film.
10 Jul 2011
Australian carbon tax
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has warned not every Australian will be better off financially from compensation measures to offset the impact of the federal government's carbon tax.
Ms Gillard said while most funds to be raised by the impost will be used for income tax cuts, pension increases and higher family payments, the government still had to balance its budget. 'Not everyone will be financially better off - there is no money tree,' she said in an address to the nation broadcast on the country's major television networks on Sunday evening.
The government on Sunday announced details of the tax, which will make about 500 big polluters pay an initial $23 for every tonne of carbon they put into the atmosphere. The tax, due to start on July 1, 2012, will rise by 2.5 per cent a year until the pricing mechanism shifts to a market-based emissions trading scheme three years later.
Also see the More Stories on Sky News - People's revolt looms on Australian carbon tax (The Australian)
Paris 'flytilla' activists grounded
Nearly 100 French activists en route to Israel have been stopped from boarding their flights by French authorities in Paris. Stranded at Charles De Gaulle Airport, the activists have staged a protest denouncing the French authorities' action.
"They have staged a noisy protests at the airport, shouting 'Collaborators, collaborators!' to condemn the French authorities for their action," our correspondent said on Friday.
The Welcome to Palestine campaign planned to send an estimated 600 people to the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Around half of the activists involved are reportedly French nationals.
Al Jazeera's Cal Perry, reporting from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion international airport, said: "Across airports in Europe, we understand that a blacklist of passengers has been released. The Israelis are asking airlines to stop people from boarding planes. But the Israelis are saying those people will be deported anyway." Following the warnings, airlines had "already refused to take on board around 200 of these passengers", Sabine Hadad, an Israeli immigration spokeswoman, told the AFP news agency.
Will NATO Resurrect Operation Gladio To Frame Gaddafi?
Given the fact that NATO itself was one of the pioneers of false flag terror to frame political enemies under Operation Gladio, a CIA-supported terror campaign that was responsible for a series of bloody attacks in Europe throughout the cold war years, we shouldn’t be surprised if NATO ressurects the legacy of Gladio in its desperation to justify a final decapitation strike to topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
Gaddafi’s threat to attack Europe in retaliation for the NATO bombing campaign in Libya prompted the establishment media to react with contrived outrage, eliciting sharp intakes of breath at the mere thought that Gaddafi, whose country has been under constant bombardment for over three months, would dare to even speak about fighting back.
This is all based on the failure of the media to properly challenge the Obama administration’s ludicrous and Orwellian contention that more than 800 attack missions flown by U.S. warplanes over the last 13 weeks which have targeted Gaddafi’s command centers, not to mention universities, hospitals and apartment blocks, can be justifiably termed “kinetic military action” and does not amount to an act of war.
“Towards the end of the investigation, I received a letter. It said: ‘You have come to the door of power. If you try to enter through that door, we do not know what may happen.’
I pushed that door ajar and saw what was inside,” Felice Casson says. Thus the famous Italian prosecutor first uncovered the illegal armed network, Gladio.
9 Jul 2011
South Sudan becomes world's newest nation
The Republic of South Sudan has become the world's newest nation by officially breaking away from Sudan after two civil wars and over five decades of conflict with the north. It is the 193rd country recognised by the UN.
A mood of joy and celebration swept through its capital Juba at midnight on Friday, with scenes of jubilation and sounds of church bells ringing. Thousands of people gathered with friends and family on the streets singing, dancing, banging drums and honking horns in celebration. The main ceremony on Saturday is due to include military parades, prayers, raising the newly proclaimed republic's flag and Salva Kiir, the country's first president, signing the transitional constitution.
North Sudan's Khartoum government was the first to recognise the new state, hours before the formal split took place, a move that smoothed the way to the division of what was until Friday Africa's largest country. Northern and southern leaders have still not agreed on a list of sensitive issues, most importantly the exact line of the border and how they will handle oil revenues, the lifeblood of both economies.
8 Jul 2011
Your handy guide to aerial bombing
This illustration appeared in a british wartime publication around the time of the Baedecker Blitz. A combination of high explosive and incendiary was the norm for the bombs, the former blasting open buildings, the latter then setting them ablaze. The two civilians appear to have been included for scale without any sense of irony.
CIA Mind Control Techniques
MK-ULTRA Program Brainwashing Experiments Documentary (1979). Mind control (also known as brainwashing, coercive persuasion, mind abuse, thought control, or thought reform) refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator(s), often to the detriment of the person being manipulated." The term has been applied to any tactic, psychological or otherwise, which can be seen as subverting an individual's sense of control over their own thinking, behavior, emotions or decision making.
Plans to strip mine the moon may soon be more than just science
It may not be long before we start mining the moon for its resources, particularly the rare Helium-3 for its use in nuclear fusion. 'When things cost us a lot of money to lift from the Earth it’s better that we get it in space’.
Billions of tonnes of resources, ranging from water to gases to metals, have been detected on the Moon and further out into space, and both governments and private companies are navigating the ambiguous legal parlance to determine how to reach, extract and distribute it all.
Vast quantities of the isotope Helium-3 are known to exist on the Moon, as well as in the atmospheres of planets like Jupiter, and could come into high demand as the essential fuel for the so-called 'golden dream' of nuclear fusion power.
While existing nuclear fission plants break apart atoms and harvest the excess energy, nuclear fusion combines atoms of hydrogen to create helium, a process that releases vast amounts of energy.
The Strange and Dangerous Militarization of the US Police Force
Just after midnight on May 16, 2010, a SWAT team threw a flash-bang grenade through the window of a 25-year-old man while his 7-year-old daughter slept on the couch as her grandmother watched television. The grenade landed so close to the child that it burned her blanket. The SWAT team leader then burst into the house and fired a single shot which struck the child in the throat, killing her. The police were there to apprehend a man suspected of murdering a teenage boy days earlier. The man they were after lived in the unit above the girl's family. The shooting death of Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones sounds like it happened in a war zone. But the tragic SWAT team raid took place in Detroit.
Shockingly, paramilitary raids that mirror the tactics of US soldiers in combat are not uncommon in America. According to an investigation carried out by the Huffington Post's Radley Balko, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement over the last 30 years, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units for routine police work. In fact, the most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.