Month: October 2013

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

It’s quite simple really, and as the WaPo explains, the NSA “has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials. By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.”   Continue reading “How The NSA Spies On Your Google And Yahoo Accounts”

Common Dreams – by Lauren McCauley

Regulators with Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority gave the final OK Wednesday for the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to begin to remove the 1300 spent fuel rods from the badly damaged Unit 4 pool, thus initiating a decommissioning process which anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman describes as “humankind’s most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis.”   Continue reading “Japan Greenlights ‘Perilous’ Cleanup at Fukushima’s Reactor 4”

Reuters – by Harriet McLeod

Six people, including two children, were shot to death in a South Carolina home on Tuesday in what police believe is a murder-suicide involving members of a family, authorities said.

Investigators in Greenwood County, where the shootings took place, did not immediately release the identity of the shooter.   Continue reading “Six people killed in apparent murder-suicide in South Carolina”

While on active duty I was stationed in many places. I was in Desert Storm and OIF 2003-2004. I have trained until I thought I couldn’t go any more. But the best training I ever had was one event at Ft. Polk in the late 80s.

We had a system called P1 and P2. P1 was field time (two weeks, generally) P2 was recovery and prep for field time. I thought it sucked more than anything I had ever done, but looking back it was some of the best training ever. I was young, dumb and full of crap.   Continue reading “The best training I ever got”

Press TV

Having failed to convince Washington to launch a military strike against Iran, the powerful Israel lobby in the United States is now focusing its efforts to “sabotage” the nuclear talks between Tehran and the world powers, an American professor says.

“In the face of that problem of not being able to mobilize the United States to go to war with Iran, they’re focusing on strangling the economy,” James Petras, Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, told Press TV on Wednesday.    Continue reading “Israel lobby trying to ‘sabotage’ Iran-US nuclear talks: James Petras”

Natural Society – by Elizabeth Renter

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from medical marijuana advocates, requesting the classification of marijuana as a Schedule I substance be reconsidered. With that denial, the Supreme Court said lower courts were right in upholding the DEA’s determination that the Food and Drug Administration must be the ones with the final say. In other words, marijuana is still considered a highly dangerous and addictive drug with no medical applications.   Continue reading “Appeal for Marijuana Reclassification Rejected: Still Deemed “Dangerous” and Medicinally Uselss”

CNS News – by Patrick Goodenough

Secretary of State John Kerry expressed his frustration Tuesday with the fact that even in the United States, “a very educated country,” there are those who do not recognize the urgency of combating global warming.

Addressing the D.C. Greening Embassies Forum, which encourages the “greening” of foreign mission in Washington, Kerry took aim at those who challenge the notion that the science is settled when it comes to climate change.   Continue reading “Kerry ‘Amazed’ That Some Americans Still Don’t Grasp Urgency of Global Warming”

WND – by Bob Unruh

American taxpayers have been frustrated by the failures of the Obamacare Healthcare.gov website – wrong responses, no responses, messages to just wait or come back later – but a headline in Digital Trends perhaps best captures the outrage over the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the unsuccessful project.

“We paid over $500 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404 (error code),” it states.   Continue reading “Healthcare.gov Most Expensive Website Ever”

Firefighter Close Calls

Wednesday, October 30, 2013 Did you see the Detroit FD movie “Burn”? If so, you know the story of FF Brendan Milewski, who on August 13, 2010, had his lie change forever. He was operating at a building fire and was hit with a massive chunk of limestone, and that basically exploded his seventh thoracic vertebra. He now lives the rest of his life as a T6 Paraplegic. Fortunately, his city takes care of Firefighters injured in the line of duty….forever. Nope.   Continue reading “THEY HAVE YOUR BACK? Don’t Count On It.”

Before It’s News – by Mort Amsel

Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave orders to the Defense Ministry to shoot down any foreign drones that ignore warnings to leave Japanese airspace.

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng responded on Saturday. According to Chinese state-run media Xinhua, “Geng said that if Japan took the so-called moves, it would be a severe provocation to China and an act of war, and China will take resolute measures to strike back.”   Continue reading “China Vows War If Japan Follows Orders To Shoot Drones”

Who What Why – by Dave Lindorff, Russ Baker and Milicent Cranor

In the six months since the Boston Marathon bombing, the FBI has by all appearances been relentlessly intimidating, punishing, deporting and, in one case, shooting to death, persons connected, sometimes only tangentially, with the alleged bombers.

All of these individuals have something in common: If afforded constitutional protections and treated as witnesses instead of perpetrators, they could potentially help clear up questions about the violence of April 15.  And they might also be able to help clarify the methods and extent of the FBI’s recruitment of immigrants and others for undercover work, and how that could relate to the Bureau’s prior relationship with the bombing suspects—a relationship the Bureau has variously hidden or downplayed.   Continue reading “Feds Accused Of Harassing “Boston Bomber” Friends, And Friends Of Friends”

Anti-War – by Ivan Eland

Sending a shock wave through the U.S. military-industrial complex, NATO ally Turkey passed up the usually dominant American defense industry in favor of an obscure Chinese defense company for a contract on a long-range missile defense system. Unlike the American Patriot system, the Chinese system, produced by China Precision, is not easily compatible with existing NATO air defense systems, and China Precision is even under US sanctions for selling technologies that the US government says could help Syria (Turkey’s new nemesis), Iran, and North Korea develop unconventional weapons. One would think that Turkey would have made sure its primary security guarantor – the United States – was happy, given that a civil war is raging in neighboring Syria and occasionally spilling into its territory. Yet the US quest to be “Big Man on Campus” and retain “influence” in Europe after the Cold War has allowed its NATO allies to get away with even more then they did back then.   Continue reading “Turkey’s Arms Purchase Should Jolt US Alliance Policies”