Year: 2015

Fellowship of the Minds

We were dressed and ready to go out for the New Year’s Eve Party.

We turned the answering machine on, covered our pet parakeet, and put the cat in the backyard. We didn’t want the cat shut in the house because she always tries to eat the bird. Then we phoned the local cab company and requested a taxi.

The taxi arrived. Just as we were opening the front door to leave the house, the cat we had put out in the back yard, scoots past our legs back into house.   Continue reading “Wednesday Funny: Say goodbye to mother”

Sent to us by Mary.

Geoengineering Watch – by Roger Landry, The Liberty Beacon

So you refuse to get vaccinated, and will never allow vaccines in the system of the children you love and care for so much … Hmmm, sorry but you have little choice in the matter. No I am not talking about mandatory or forced vaccinations … Look … up in the sky … it’s a bird … it’s a plane … no … it’s a delivery system for vaccines that you are not even aware of, never agreed to, and probably never would consent to, but your consent was not sought and was never considered!   Continue reading “Vaccinations From The Sky”

UPI – by Amy R. Connolly

WASHINGTON, March 4 (UPI) — A lone gunman responsible for several shootings in the Washington, D.C. area, including near the National Security Agency headquarters early Wednesday, has been arrested, the FBI said.

The suspect, whose name and age was not released, is thought to be responsible for shootings on the Intercounty Connector in Maryland, near the NSA at Fort Meade and other locations around the Baltimore and D.C. suburb area in the past two weeks. Two people sustained minor injuries in one of the incidents. There have been no reports of serious injuries.   Continue reading “Shots fired at NSA building, suspect arrested”

RT

In a landmark ruling on Monday the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court has seemingly allowed Jews to pray on Temple Mount – a highly divisive issue that was one of the catalysts for the Second Palestinian Intifada.

The ruling is a victory for Rabbi Yehuda Glick, a hardline Jewish activist, who brought an action against the Israeli police for banning him from visiting the site for two years.   Continue reading “Jerusalem court allows Jewish prayer on Temple Mount in historic ruling”

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism – by Melanie Newman

The Supreme Court has confirmed that where the state retains data on individuals without their consent, it is interfering with their privacy even when that data is public.

But despite this finding the court ruled that the Metropolitan Police acted lawfully by keeping details of the activities of a 90-year-old pensioner with no criminal record as the interference with his private life was “minor”.   Continue reading “Supreme Court: Police retention of data on peaceful protester breaches privacy rights, but is justified”

ArsTechnica – by Cyrus Farivar

The New York Police Department (NYPD) will soon have the ability to track stolen or wanted cars even if they are well outside of the five boroughs.

The NYPD is set to sign a $442,500 deal over three years with Vigilant Solutions to subscribe to the company’s massive private automated license plate reader (ALPR or LPR) database, according to a recent contract awards hearing. The database reportedly contains 2.2 billion records.

Neither the NYPD nor Vigilant Solutions immediately responded to Ars’ request for comment. The company already makes its database available to other law enforcement agencies across the country, but the NYPD is likely the largest local client agency.   Continue reading “NYPD to conduct “virtual stakeouts,” get alerts on wanted cars nationwide”

Independent – by Andrew Buncombe

A leading US conservative currently considering a presidential run sparked controversy today when he claimed sexuality was a matter of choice because a lot people entered prison straight and emerged gay.

Ben Carson, a black neurosurgeon-turned-conservative activist, told a US broadcaster the fight for gay marriage equality bore no resemblance to that struggle for civil rights because people “have no control” of their race.   Continue reading “Ben Carson: Potential Republican presidential candidate says sexuality is a choice because ‘straight people turn gay in prison’”

Common Dreams – by Alex Main

On January 29, the White House announced that $1 billion in assistance to Central America would be included in its budget request for fiscal year 2016. The goal of this aid, as Vice President Joe Biden described it in a New York Times op-ed, is to help the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras “change the climate of endemic violence and poverty” that has led to a “dangerous surge in migration,” as exemplified by last summer’s influx of unaccompanied child migrants. Explicitly modeled on Plan Colombia, the aid package would help make the region “overwhelmingly middle class, democratic and secure.”   Continue reading “Will Biden’s Billion Dollar Plan Help Central America?”

Blacklisted News

KILLING THEIR OWN … FOR POLITICAL GAIN

A CIA “psychological operations” manual prepared by a CIA contractor for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels noted the value of assassinating someone on your own side to create a “martyr” for the cause.

The manual was authenticated by the U.S. government.   Continue reading “CIA Urged Rebels to Assassinate Their Own in Order to Create “Martyrs””

Fuel Fix – by Jennifer A. Dlouhy

WASHINGTON — The slumping oil prices that have prompted energy companies to lay down rigs and lay off workers hit domestic producers harder than their international counterparts because of the U.S. crude export ban, Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield is expected to tell a House panel on Tuesday.

“Price cycles come with the territory, and we will navigate this downturn as we have in the past,” Sheffield says in prepared testimony filed with the House Energy and Power Subcommittee, ahead of a Tuesday afternoon hearing on “world energy markets.” “Producers of domestic oil are especially disadvantaged compared to foreign producers, however, because they cannot receive global prices.”   Continue reading “Oil, gas industry urges lawmakers to lift crude exports ban”

MassPrivateI

The picture to the left is one of many examples of how security guards are being transformed into a DHS run ‘police force’. Some states even have police patrolling libraries.

In Portland, Maine it’s not uncommon for security guard Marko Petrovich to uncover suspicious materials, like hypodermic needles and beer cans. Then the gumshoe work begins: Whodunnit? And sometimes whoever done it is still doing it. Long occupancy is call for suspicion. Spend too much time in the john and Petrovich will wind up in there with you, asserting in broken and unabashed English that “you not take shit forty-five minutes.”    Continue reading “Library ‘security guards’ are acting like police, searching for suspicious people”

The Newspaper

An Air Force major detained at a suspicionless roadblock five years ago will not be able to sue for damages. A sharply divided Fifth Circuit US Court of Appeals panel concluded on Thursday that Border Patrol agents could hold Major Richard Rynearson indefinitely simply because they did not care for his attitude.

Rynearson was driving to work on March 18, 2010 along Highway 90 in Uvalde, Texas, when he was stopped at an immigration roadblock set up 67 miles from the border with Mexico. Rynearson recorded the incident and posted in on YouTube (view video).   Continue reading “Federal Appeals Court Endorses Suspicionless Detention Of Air Force Officer”

Yahoo News

More than 200 bodies were recently unearthed in several mass burials beneath a Paris supermarket.

The bodies, which were lined up head to feet, were found at the site of an ancient cemetery attached to the Trinity Hospital, which was founded in the 13th century.

Though it’s not clear exactly how these ancient people died, the trove of bodies could reveal insights into how people in the Middle Ages buried their dead during epidemics or famine, the researchers involved said.   Continue reading “Hundreds of Medieval Bodies Found Under Paris Supermarket”

The Atlantic – by ALANA SEMUELS

LAS VEGAS—There’s been a lot of hubbub about the effort tech whiz Tony Hsieh and his crack team of acolytes have put into revitalizing downtown Las Vegas.

In case you missed it, Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, in January 2012 announced that he was putting $350 million into the Downtown Project, which would fund new businesses in an economically depressed part of the city seven miles north of the Las Vegas Strip. He also wanted to create a tech hub in a city better known for gambling and tourism, which some journalists dubbed the newest “techtopia.”   Continue reading “$350 Million Might Not Be Enough to Save Las Vegas”

Sputnik

Big money has long had a major part in politics, and the 2016 presidential race is no different.

No one has formally announced their intentions to run for the nation’s highest elected office, but the presumed front-runners for the two major political parties are already following the money and shaking the trees over at Goldman Sachs in New York, the wealthiest and most successful financial institution in Wall Street history.   Continue reading “The 2016 Money Race: Jeb & Hillary Fight for Goldman Sachs Cash”

Press TV

Israel has ordered several Palestinian families in the occupied East  al-Quds (Jerusalem) to destroy their houses as part of the regime’s settlement expansion policies.

The Israeli Civil Administration has told Palestinian families in the Khillet al-Raheb area to demolish their homes immediately or the Tel Aviv regime will do it at its own expense.   Continue reading “Israel orders demolition of over a dozen Palestinian houses”