New York Times – by Ron Nixon

WASHINGTON — The federal government paid $11.3 million in taxpayer-funded farm subsidies from 1995 to 2012 to 50 billionaires or businesses in which they have some form of ownership, according to a report released Thursday by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based research organization.

The billionaires who received the subsidies or owned companies that did include the Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen; the investment titan Charles Schwab; and S. Truett Cathy, owner of Chick-fil-A. The billionaires who got the subsidies have a collective net worth of $316 billion, according to Forbes magazine.   Continue reading “Billionaires Received U.S. Farm Subsidies, Report Finds”

This info opened my eyes 20 some years ago.

UBUNTU

The Unlawful Deception

Our entire legal system is underpinned by Maritime or Admiralty Law, that very few people are even aware of and is guarded by the highest levels of our legal system. It is a great trick of deception that has been played on most of humanity, keeping us entangled in a web of confusion about who we really are and our rights as living breathing human beings, while we are literally treated as numbers by our so-called authorities.    Continue reading “Laws and Words that Enslave Us – Part 1”

MassPrivateI

Seattle, WA – In February, the Seattle Police Department announced it bought what’s called a “mesh network,” that will be used as a dedicated wireless network for emergency responders. What SPD did not say is that the network is capable of tracking anyone with a device that has a Wi-Fi connection.

“They now own a piece of equipment that has tracking capabilities so we think that they should be going to City Council and presenting a protocol for the whole network that says they won’t be using it for surveillance purposes,” said Jamela Debelak of the American Civil Liberties Union.   Continue reading “DHS sponsored ‘Mesh Network’ allows police to track (spy) on any with a device that has a Wi-Fi connection”

MassPrivateI

On a residential street in San Diego County, Calif., Chula Vista police had just arrested a young woman, still in her pajamas, for possession of narcotics. Before taking her away, Officer Rob Halverson paused in the front yard, held a Samsung Galaxy tablet up to the woman’s face and snapped a photo.

Halverson fiddled with the tablet with his index finger a few times, and – without needing to ask the woman’s name or check her identification – her mug shot from a previous arrest, address, criminal history and other personal information appeared on the screen.   Continue reading “Police have begun using the ‘Tactical Identification System’ a new mobile facial recognition program”

Blastr – by Trent Moore

A vintage documentary going behind the scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey has surfaced, delving into the making of the 1968 film two years before it blew our collective minds.

Rediscovered by Open Culture, the 20+ minute featurette looks at everything from the future of space exploration (circa the 1960s) to the making of Stanley Kubrick’s eventual classic. For sci-fi fans, this footage is a treasure trove of awesomeness.   Continue reading “Watch long-lost 1966 documentary that digs deep into 2001: A Space Odyssey”

A picture taken in the principalty of Monaco, shows yachts moored at Port Hercules. (AFP Photo / Valery Hache)RT News – by Robert Bridge

Amidst a sea of lost jobs, slashed wages and austerity measures, the super-rich seem super-resistant, with their wealth doubling since the financial crisis, adding $226 billion to their wealth in the last year alone.

The Wealth X and UBS Billionaire Census 2013 makes for sobering reading, in that it seems to confirm many peoples’ suspicions that the financial crisis, while a nightmare for so many, has actually been a windfall for the world’s richest.    Continue reading “What crisis? Billionaires’ fortunes double since 2009”

Still from YouTube video/SandiaLabsRT News

Move over, lightweight flying robots! The drone of the future is currently being developed at a government lab, and if all goes as planned it will do much more than just soar through the sky on its own.

While the United States continues to consider the merits behind its overseas weaponized drone program and efforts to allow surveillance unmanned aerial vehicles sail through domestic airspace, Sandia National Laboratories has released a video showing off a conceptual design meant to make the traditional UAV look like a thing of the past.   Continue reading “Newest drone to fly, swim and drive during missions”

Oconee Nuclear Station (Photo from wikipedia.org)RT News

A reactor at one of the nation’s largest nuclear power plants has been taken offline due to a radioactive leak within a containment building.

“Out of an abundance of caution,” service was temporarily removed from Unit 1 at the Oconee Nuclear Station in western South Carolina early Monday, according to ONS spokeswoman B.J. Gatten.    Continue reading “Radioactive leak found in reactor at S. Carolina nuclear plant, one of largest in US”

MassPrivateI

Schools are increasingly confronting a controversial question: Should they do more to monitor students’ online interactions off-campus to protect them from dangers such as bullying, drug use, violence and suicide?

This summer, the Glendale school district in suburban Los Angeles captured headlines with its decision to pay a tech firm $40,500 to monitor what middle and high school students post publicly on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.   Continue reading “‘Big Brother’ is watching (spying) students online activity”

sunflipSoren Dreier

The sun’s polarity is getting closer to flipping. The star’s northern hemisphere’s polarity has already reversed, and the southern hemisphere should follow suit soon, scientists say.

Every 11 years or so, the two hemispheres of the sun reverse their polarity, creating a ripple effect that can be felt throughout the far reaches of the solar system. The sun is currently going through one of those flips in its cycle, scientists working at Stanford University’s Wilcox Solar Observatory, which has monitored the sun’s magnetic field since 1975, said.   Continue reading “Sun’s Magnetic Field Will Flip Soon”

World Events and the Bible

(Video, Daily Mail) – Thousands of bodies are being piled up on the streets of the Philippines after the devastating Typhoon Haiyan, as aid agencies warn the death toll will ‘rise sharply’.

Police and soldiers have the grim task of searching through the wreckage for bodies after entire villages and parts of cities were flattened.   Continue reading “Philippine typhoon rescue teams warn death toll will ‘rise sharply’ from the 10,000 already confirmed”

Land Ownership Bloomberg –  by Andro Linklater

The 102 Pilgrims who sailed to the New World in 1620 were destined to be communists. Under the terms of their agreement with the Plymouth company, they were to work communally for the first seven years, ‘‘during which time, all profits & benefits that are got by trade, traffick, trucking, working, fishing or any other means … remaine still in ye comone stock.’’ After that time the proceeds would be shared with the investors in England.   Continue reading “When Pilgrims Privatized America”

Washington’s Blog

Even Threatens the International Space Station

In their obsession to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Israel created a computer virus (called “Stuxnet”) to take out Iran’s nuclear reactors.

The virus appears to have spread to other countries.   Continue reading “America and Israel Created a Monster Computer Virus Which Now Threatens Nuclear Reactors Worldwide”

Members of the Federal Police patrol in Nuevo Leon state, Mexico on Feb. 20, 2013. [AFP]Raw Story – by Agence France-Presse

Authorities have detained a former US soldier accused of leading a gang of kidnappers in northern Mexico, officials said Monday.

The 32-year-old suspect spearheaded a band of 16 people who operated in the states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila and Tamaulipas in the past four years, said Nuevo Leon security spokesman Jorge Domene.  Continue reading “Mexico accuses ex-U.S. soldier of leading kidnapping gang”