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Sat, 24 Aug 2013 14:56

THE RED BOOK betaPREDICTIONSLEADERBOARDABOUTLOGOUTLOGIN / REGISTER

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 00:03

Google set up tabs in Gmail to make management of your inbox easier, but the search giant decides where to put your email. Unfortunately sometimes Google decides to stick a newsletter or items you want to see in the Promotions tab or vice verse. Here's a look at managing the tabs and disabling them all together if you want.

According to Google, the Promotions tab is for: ''Deals, Offers, and other marketing emails.''

The problem I have with that description is ''other''. I've noticed newsletters that I want to read daily end up in the Promotions tab. Newsletters that are not marketing at all, but letting me know what articles I can read on a website. In my opinion the Promotions tab seems like the ''pseudo spam'' tab. If this is the case for you, it's easy to move them to your primary tab which is ideally where all of your important mail should be.

To move a message from Promotions to Primary, just do a simple drag and drop.

Then after moving your message to your primary tab, make sure to verify you want it to come there all the time.

Now ideally, that should be the last time you have to think about it, and the newsletter or message you want will always appear in your Primary box.

Disable Promotions or All Gmail TabsIf you're just sick of dealing with the tabs in general '' get rid of them. Click the plus icon next to the Promotions tab.

Then simply select the ones you want to get rid of and click Save.

All done. You're Gmail box will look like it used to before the annoying tabs were added. If you want them back you'll need to go into settings and turn them back on.

What's you're opinion on the tabs in Gmail? Do you like them or are you going to turn them off?

About Brian BurgessBased in MN, Brian Burgess is Editor in Chief at groovyPost. Got an idea or question? Email it to Brian at Brian@groovyPost.com.

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Sat, 24 Aug 2013 20:06

While the media panicked over the halting of NASDAQ stock trading due to a reported bug in the system (more on that shortly), one critical development went under-reported. In fact, it wasn't reported at all.

If the following from France's second largest newspaper Le Figaro is accurate, then we must assume that war is now a foregone conclusion.

According to our information, the regime's opponents, supervised by Jordanian, Israeli and American commandos moving towards Damascus since mid-August. This attack could explain the possible use of the Syrian president to chemical weapons.

According to information obtained by Le Figaro , the first trained in guerrilla warfare by the Americans in Jordan Syrian troops reportedly entered into action since mid-August in southern Syria, in the region of Deraa. A first group of 300 men, probably supported by Israeli and Jordanian commandos, as well as men of the CIA, had crossed the border on August 17. A second would have joined the 19. According to military sources, the Americans, who do not want to put troops on the Syrian soil or arming rebels in part controlled by radical Islamists form quietly for several months in a training camp set up at the border Jordanian- Syrian fighters ASL, the Free Syrian Army, handpicked.

Translation via Zero Hedge

What's equally as intriguing as boots on the ground inside of the Syrian border is the fact that these troops and intelligence officers reportedly made their way into the country on August 17th, fully four days before reports and images surfaced showing hundreds of men, women and children killed by a chemical weapons attack allegedly at the hands of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The purported attack, which some experts argue was a set-up, left even the pacifist government of France calling for military intervention. Furthermore, should UN investigators, who conveniently happen to be in-country investigating possible chemical weapons stockpiles, confirm that the attack did take place, then we can expect armed military confrontation in the middle east once again.

Of interest is also the fact the NASDAQ stock market exchange was halted today due to what NASDAQ officials call a technical glitch. Within hours of the 'glitch' cyber security experts suggested that this was no accident, but rather, a hack attack originating from the ''hacking collective'' known as the Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, an Iranian backed organization.

Earlier this week President Obama met with the heads of the Federal Reserve, the SEC, the FDIC and several other agencies responsible for monitoring and implementing U.S. financial, economic and monetary policy, indicating that there could be a serious crisis unfolding behind the scenes of our financial system. This comes on the heels of the Federal Reserve claiming that they would begin to ''taper'' the stimulus, a move that would likely send massive shock waves through domestic and global stock markets.

This is all speculation, of course, but it's hard to ignore the fact that the US financial system is potentially on the brink of a massive re-collapse, while the Obama administration is actively engaging Syria in what we can only conclude will lead to a broader conflict in the middle east.

Throughout history governments have deflected blame for economic disasters by turning their efforts to a far off enemy and going to war. It's certainly no accident and it's a forecast that contrarian observers have made repeatedly as the global economic crisis deepened.

Is this what we're seeing play out right now?

If so, then the implications are far reaching, because anyone who thinks this is going to be another Iraq are kidding themselves. This time, the Russians and the Chinese have a stake in the game, and they too have been positioning pieces on the Grand Chessboard. Not only have the Russians already advised western nations that the Syrians will be armed with weapons never before seen in the middle east, but they have warned that any military confrontation in the region could potentially go nuclear.

The question then becomes: who were the Russians talking about?

Syria doesn't have nuclear weapons. Neither does Iran (at least not for a few more months if Israeli intelligence reports are to be believed).

But the United States, Israel, Russia and China do have nukes.

Thus, one can only conclude that the Russians were talking about a nuclear engagement between them'... and us.

It's a realistic possibility also put forth by survival specialist Joel Skousen in his documentary Strategic Relocation and a warning reiterated by a DHS Insider who claimed in June of 2013 that a World War was about to break out and would lead to the deaths of millions.

This is getting real folks. All signs point to a serious confrontation in our near future.

Source

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Source: Lame Cherry

Thu, 22 Aug 2013 13:27

As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.........

Ever notice how remove viewers have vanished from the Mockingbird fringe media........gee I wonder why that order went out. None the less, I am not remote viewer, although I have that capability.

The chemical weapons being utilized in Syria are real. They are not of Col. Khadaffi nor of Bashir Assad origin. In fact, if one desires to know where these weapons came from in Middle East manufacture, the source of them is Saddam Hussein.These WMD chems came directly to Syria from Iraq. No Saddam did not ship this weapons cache, but this cache was one in the Kurdish region by Mosul. They were located and under CIA control and recently entered in country to light the fuse in Syria.

Assad's people did not use these weapons. This was al Qaeda group which answers to 1600 Penn Avenue as a greater regional realignment is taking place and the children of Aram are to be sacraficed on holocaust fires.When the Russians make the statement that this was not Assad and it was the American or European backed terrorists in these "fighters", they are not lying.This is distressing to me personally as the Americans have a mother in these Syrians after the Exodus in she was the main progenitor of the American line through the sons of Manneseh.

I digress, but this is not right to be making a collossal pyre of Syria for the anti Christ's coming kingdom.

There are not a great deal of these chemical weapons in only one truck load entered Syria. The protocols are changing in this, in the Jews are not to receive chemical greetings, but instead it is now calling for biological agents in "non lethal" anthrax to be introduced, again from Saddam's missing WMD stores.Upon inquiry there was about 97 pounds of this Saddam Anthrax brought into America, and it was not weaponized. It's stores have been added to by a private lab on the east coast. This is where the source is for this anthrax in a "non lethal" spore.Approximately 275 pounds of this WMD has left the states and is sitting in an American base in Turkey awaiting deployment.One of the religious Jewish enclaves in northern Israel is the intended delivery point via rocket attack.

It is stated this blog stopped the original "Jew babies coughing up lungs" by publication of the original protocol. The new operational plans are for this "non lethal" anthrax to sow the seeds of destruction.

Protocol indicates end of August launch for a two week "war".Tick tock.........Goes the clockIt was posted hereSo very clearThat chemical weapons would come to playTo blame Assad for his nuclear judgment dayThe Russians now say it was Obama's al QaedaThe regime now says it was Assad duhTick tockTick tockWill the war come last week lateOf that August dateTick tockTick tock

I would prefer that the cartel would get this initiated as living on the air I breathe and not large donations from millionaires for these exclusives gives my child bearing hips a girlish figure, but then I suppose as TL once noted I looked like holocaust audition chic once in my model figure.Get your mind on the WMD's and not my bod as both are lethal, but the theater in Syria is the attraction.

That should be enough of the exclusives for free. They though still have on the digital something about including Americans in this as was exclusively published here. So what do you rich people want now from me......to breathe my air too when yours is unfit?TL concludes if the work here does not warn off the events on the horizon transpiring, then those events completed would probably bring in the millionaire donations as they will then try to save themselves.

All I need is the air Lame Cherry breathes and my wads o'cash.Richtard O'Moneybags..

71 lines and 674 words.........that would be like 5000 dollars a line to be informed to save oneself. Got to go as looking at a pizza with TL and what difference does world war make when you can look at a pizza.

agtG

REPORT: 500 killed in 'gas attack' near Damascus...

SKYNEWS: 1,300...

Children convulsing on floor, foaming at nose and mouth...

'Rebels' post videos of attack on YOUTUBE...

'Suspicious'...

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Source: RT - News

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 16:30

Materials implicating the forces of Syrian president Bashar Assad in chemical weapons use near Damascus were prepared prior to the alleged incident on August 21, the Russian foreign ministry said.

Moscow continues to monitor closely the event surrounding the ''alleged'' chemical attack near Damascus, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich, said in a statement.''We're getting more new evidence that this criminal act was of a provocative nature,'' he stressed. ''In particular, there are reports circulating on the Internet, in particular that the materials of the incident and accusations against government troops had been posted for several hours before the so-called attack. Thus, it was a pre-planned action.''

The Damascus chemical attack accusations indicate the launch of ''another anti-Syrian propaganda wave'' and, in this context, the calls on the UN Security Council to immediately use force in Syria ''heard from some EU capitals'' are ''unacceptable'', Lukashevich said.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Assad's government has demonstrated a ''constructive approach'' to the chemical weapons issue by allowing UN experts into the country. But it's alarming that the ''same signals'' aren't coming from the Syrian opposition, which so far hasn't displayed willingness to ensure the safety and efficient operations of UN investigators on the territory it controls, he said.

''This directly impedes the objective investigation of allegations of possible cases of chemical weapons use in Syria, which is called for by a number of countries and which the Russian side supports,'' Lukashevich noted.

The Russian foreign ministry ''strongly appeals to those who should put pressure on the opposition, making it take the necessary steps in order to ensure the full realization of the objectives of the international expert mission,'' the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the UK has put the blame for the Damascus chemical attack on Assad's forces, saying it thought the Syrian government had ''something to hide.''

"I know that some people in the world would like to say that this is some kind of conspiracy brought about by the opposition in Syria,'' William Hague, British Foreign Secretary, is cited as saying by Reuters. ''I think the chances of that are vanishingly small and so we do believe that this is a chemical attack by the Assad regime.''

The reports of a chemical weapons use in the suburbs of the Ghouta region on the outskirts Damascus appeared in the pro-opposition media on Wednesday, August 21, coinciding with the arrival of the UN investigators to the Syrian capital.

The Islamist rebels claimed that over a 1,000 people, including many children, were killed in the attack, with the government saying that the accusations were fabricated in order to cover up the opposition's battle losses and undermine the work of the UN mission.

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Source: BBC News - Home

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 21:01

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.

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Source: Reuters: World News

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 13:12

TweetShare thisEmailPrintA member of the 'Liwaa Ahrar Suriya' brigade, operating under the Free Syrian Army, is seen in a public park that separates them and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in Sakhour area, Aleppo August 24, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Muzaffar Salman

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN | Sun Aug 25, 2013 7:43am EDT

AMMAN (Reuters) - Gulf-based supporters have sent a 400-ton shipment of arms to Syria's outgunned rebels, one of the biggest to reach them in their two-year-old uprising, opposition sources said on Sunday.

The consignment - mostly ammunition for shoulder-fired weapons and anti-aircraft machine guns - came into northern Syria via the Turkish province of Hatay in the past 24 hours, and was already being handed out, the sources added.

One rebel officer told Reuters the flow of arms bound for rebels had increased since opposition groups accused the government of launching deadly chemical weapons attacks in Damascus on Wednesday.

"Twenty trailers crossed from Turkey and are being distributed to arms depots for several brigades across the north," said rebel official Mohammad Salam, who told Reuters he saw the weapons come over the border.

Syria's conflict, pitting mostly Sunni Muslim insurgents against President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect follows an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, has ignited sectarian tensions across the region.

Qatar and other Sunni-led Gulf states have backed the insurgents, while Shi'ite power Iran remains one of Assad's main allies.

Rebel units operating in northern Syria range from moderate Islamists to hardline jihadists and include Liwa al-Islam (The Division of Islam), Sukur al-Sham (The Hawks of Syria), The Free Martyrs of Syria, Ahfad al-Rasul (The Grandsons of the Prophet) and Ahrar al-Sham (The Freemen of Syria).

Analysts say they have struggled to hold onto advances against Assad's Iranian and Russian-armed forces and his monopoly on air power.

A senior officer in the Gulf and Western-backed Supreme Military Council, an umbrella group for rebel units, said there had been an increase in rebel-bound arms shipments coming into Turkey, particularly since the reports of a chemical assault.

The government has dismissed Syrian opposition accusations that it killed well over 1,000 civilians with poison gas in Damascus suburbs on Wednesday.

Weapons still waiting to cross into Syria included more sophisticated anti-tank guided weapons, the officer added, without elaborating.

He, and other sources, said money for the shipments came from the Gulf, without naming countries.

Western diplomats fear some of the increasing flow of Gulf-financed weapons could end up in the hands of groups linked to al Qaeda.

(Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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Sat, 24 Aug 2013 23:39

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. naval forces are moving closer to Syria as President Barack Obama considers military options for responding to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad government. The president emphasized that a quick intervention in the Syrian civil war was problematic, given the international considerations that should precede a military strike.

The White House said the president would meet Saturday with his national security team to consider possible next steps by the United States. Officials say once the facts are clear, Obama will make a decision about how to proceed.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel declined to discuss any specific force movements while saying that Obama had asked the Pentagon to prepare military options for Syria. U.S. defense officials told The Associated Press that the Navy had sent a fourth warship armed with ballistic missiles into the eastern Mediterranean Sea but without immediate orders for any missile launch into Syria.

U.S. Navy ships are capable of a variety of military action, including launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, as they did against Libya in 2011 as part of an international action that led to the overthrow of the Libyan government.

"The Defense Department has a responsibility to provide the president with options for contingencies, and that requires positioning our forces, positioning our assets, to be able to carry out different options - whatever options the president might choose," Hagel told reporters traveling with him to Asia.Hagel said the U.S. is coordinating with the international community to determine "what exactly did happen" near Damascus earlier this week. According to reports, a chemical attack in a suburb of the capital killed at least 100 people. It would be the most heinous use of chemical weapons since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988.

Hagel left little doubt that he thinks the attack in Syria involved chemical weapons, although he stressed there is not yet a final answer. In discussing the matter, he said, "it appears to be what happened - use of chemical weapons."

The United Nations disarmament chief, Angela Kane, arrived in Damascus on Saturday to press the Syrian government to allow U.N. experts to investigate the alleged chemical attacks.

Obama remained cautious about getting involved in a war that has killed more than 100,000 people and now includes Hezbollah and al-Qaida. He made no mention of the "red line" of chemical weapons use that he marked out for Syrian President Bashar Assad a year ago and that U.S. intelligence says has been breached at least on a small scale several times since.

"If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it - do we have the coalition to make it work?" Obama said Friday. "Those are considerations that we have to take into account."Obama conceded in an interview on CNN's "New Day" program that the episode is a "big event of grave concern" that requires American attention. He said any large-scale chemical weapons usage would affect "core national interests" of the United States and its allies. But nothing he said signaled a shift toward U.S. action.

U.S. defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss ship movements publicly. But if the U.S. wants to send a message to Assad, the most likely military action would be a Tomahawk missile strike, launched from a ship in the Mediterranean.

For a year now, Obama has threatened to punish Assad's regime if it resorted to its chemical weapons arsenal, among the world's vastest, saying use or even deployment of such weapons of mass destruction constituted a "red line" for him. A U.S. intelligence assessment concluded in June chemical weapons have been used in Syria's civil war, but Washington has taken no military action against Assad's forces.

U.S. officials have instead focused on trying to organize a peace conference between the government and opposition. Obama has authorized weapons deliveries to rebel groups, but none are believed to have been sent so far.

In his first comments on Syria since the alleged chemical attack, Obama said the U.S. is still trying to find out what happened. Hagel said Friday that a determination on the chemical attack should be made swiftly because "there may be another attack coming," although he added that "we don't know" whether that will happen.

After rebels similarly reported chemical attacks in February, U.S. confirmation took more than four months. In this instance, a U.N. chemical weapons team is already on the ground in Syria. Assad's government, then as now, has rejected the claims as baseless.

Obama also cited the need for the U.S. to be part of a coalition in dealing with Syria. America's ability by itself to solve the Arab country's sectarian fighting is "overstated," he said.

---

AP National Security Writer Robert Burns was traveling with Hagel. AP writers Josh Lederman and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

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Source: Dprogram.net

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 20:43

Russia: Provocation was ''pre-planned''

(PaulWatson) '' Hundreds of videos showing apparent victims of a chemical weapons attack in Syria were uploaded to YouTube on August 20, a day before media reports say the attack actually happened, prompting Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman to assert the incident was a ''pre-planned'' provocation staged by rebels.

As PBS reports, ''At around 3 a.m. (on August 21st) , patients started streaming in from neighborhoods in suburban Damascus like Zamalka and Ain Terma,'' following the alleged chemical weapons attack.

However, a playlist of videos entitled 'Alleged Chemical Attack in Eastern Ghouta August 21st 2013' contains 159 videos '' every one of which was uploaded to YouTube on August 20th.

While no one is denying that some kind of attack did indeed take place, the fact that hundreds of videos showing victims of the attack were uploaded to YouTube a day before the incident is supposed to have actually happened remains unexplained.

The time stamp attributed to uploaded videos applies to the country in which they were uploaded, meaning that the videos were uploaded in Syria on August 20th, which is seemingly impossible given that the attack took place in the early hours of the 21st. The only way the videos could display as being uploaded on the 20th was if they were uploaded in America, which is on an earlier time zone.

According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich, this represents evidence of a ''pre-planned'' provocation. Lukashevich labeled the accusations ''another anti-Syrian propaganda wave.''

''We're getting more new evidence that this criminal act was of a provocative nature,'' he told RT. ''In particular, there are reports circulating on the Internet, in particular that the materials of the incident and accusations against government troops had been posted for several hours before the so-called attack. Thus, it was a pre-planned action.''

The unanswered question as to how footage showing victims of an attack that occurred on August 21 was uploaded to YouTube on August 20 is in addition to doubts cast about the veracity of the videos by several chemical weapons experts.

Paula Vanninen of the Finnish Institute for Verification of the Chemical Weapons Convention questions the behavior of those seen handling the victims in the video footage. ''At the moment, I am not totally convinced because the people that are helping them are without any protective clothing and without any respirators'....In a real case, they would also be contaminated and would also be having symptoms,'' he stated.

Stephen Johnson, an expert in weapons and chemical explosives at Cranfield Forensic Institute, told Euro News that the video footage also looked suspect.

''There are, within some of the videos, examples which seem a little hyper-real, and almost as if they've been set up. Which is not to say that they are fake but it does cause some concern. Some of the people with foaming, the foam seems to be too white, too pure, and not consistent with the sort of internal injury you might expect to see, which you'd expect to be bloodier or yellower,'' Johnson said.

His comments were echoed by chemical and biological weapons researcher Jean Pascal Zanders, who said that the footage appears to show victims of asphyxiation, which is not consistent with the use of mustard gas or the nerve agents VX or sarin. ''I'm deliberately not using the term chemical weapons here,'' he said, adding that the use of ''industrial toxicants'' was a more likely explanation.

Source: Infowars

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: Lame Cherry

Thu, 22 Aug 2013 13:27

As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.........

Ever notice how remove viewers have vanished from the Mockingbird fringe media........gee I wonder why that order went out. None the less, I am not remote viewer, although I have that capability.

The chemical weapons being utilized in Syria are real. They are not of Col. Khadaffi nor of Bashir Assad origin. In fact, if one desires to know where these weapons came from in Middle East manufacture, the source of them is Saddam Hussein.These WMD chems came directly to Syria from Iraq. No Saddam did not ship this weapons cache, but this cache was one in the Kurdish region by Mosul. They were located and under CIA control and recently entered in country to light the fuse in Syria.

Assad's people did not use these weapons. This was al Qaeda group which answers to 1600 Penn Avenue as a greater regional realignment is taking place and the children of Aram are to be sacraficed on holocaust fires.When the Russians make the statement that this was not Assad and it was the American or European backed terrorists in these "fighters", they are not lying.This is distressing to me personally as the Americans have a mother in these Syrians after the Exodus in she was the main progenitor of the American line through the sons of Manneseh.

I digress, but this is not right to be making a collossal pyre of Syria for the anti Christ's coming kingdom.

There are not a great deal of these chemical weapons in only one truck load entered Syria. The protocols are changing in this, in the Jews are not to receive chemical greetings, but instead it is now calling for biological agents in "non lethal" anthrax to be introduced, again from Saddam's missing WMD stores.Upon inquiry there was about 97 pounds of this Saddam Anthrax brought into America, and it was not weaponized. It's stores have been added to by a private lab on the east coast. This is where the source is for this anthrax in a "non lethal" spore.Approximately 275 pounds of this WMD has left the states and is sitting in an American base in Turkey awaiting deployment.One of the religious Jewish enclaves in northern Israel is the intended delivery point via rocket attack.

It is stated this blog stopped the original "Jew babies coughing up lungs" by publication of the original protocol. The new operational plans are for this "non lethal" anthrax to sow the seeds of destruction.

Protocol indicates end of August launch for a two week "war".Tick tock.........Goes the clockIt was posted hereSo very clearThat chemical weapons would come to playTo blame Assad for his nuclear judgment dayThe Russians now say it was Obama's al QaedaThe regime now says it was Assad duhTick tockTick tockWill the war come last week lateOf that August dateTick tockTick tock

I would prefer that the cartel would get this initiated as living on the air I breathe and not large donations from millionaires for these exclusives gives my child bearing hips a girlish figure, but then I suppose as TL once noted I looked like holocaust audition chic once in my model figure.Get your mind on the WMD's and not my bod as both are lethal, but the theater in Syria is the attraction.

That should be enough of the exclusives for free. They though still have on the digital something about including Americans in this as was exclusively published here. So what do you rich people want now from me......to breathe my air too when yours is unfit?TL concludes if the work here does not warn off the events on the horizon transpiring, then those events completed would probably bring in the millionaire donations as they will then try to save themselves.

All I need is the air Lame Cherry breathes and my wads o'cash.Richtard O'Moneybags..

71 lines and 674 words.........that would be like 5000 dollars a line to be informed to save oneself. Got to go as looking at a pizza with TL and what difference does world war make when you can look at a pizza.

agtG

REPORT: 500 killed in 'gas attack' near Damascus...

SKYNEWS: 1,300...

Children convulsing on floor, foaming at nose and mouth...

'Rebels' post videos of attack on YOUTUBE...

'Suspicious'...

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 01:31

The UN high representative for disarmament affairs, Angela Kane, arrives at a hotel in Damascus, Syria, on 24 August 2013 Photograph: Hassan Ammar/AP

The US navy is deploying an extra missile warship to the eastern Mediterranean ahead of a summit to debate last week's chemical weapons attack in Syria, as calls mount for a military response.

The summit, to be held in Jordan's capital Amman in the first half of the week, has been called as a consensus emerges that the nerve agent sarin was the cause of hundreds of deaths in rebel-held east Damascus early on Thursday.

Biological samples taken from victims and survivors of the attack have now been passed to western officials in Jordan after having been smuggled out of Syria over the past 72 hours. Unmarked questionnaires have been distributed to officials in the three most affected communities, asking for forensic and environmental details, as well as for organ tissue and clothing worn by victims. A final death toll has not been established, with estimates ranging from several hundred to more than 1,400.

Three hospitals in Syria's Damascus governorate which are supported by the international medical humanitarian organisation M(C)decins sans Fronti¨res reported that they received approximately 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms in less than three hours on the morning of Wednesday, 21 August. Of those patients, 355 are reported to have died.

Officials, who have not identified themselves but claim to be part of an international response, have also made phone contact with rebel officials, seeking photographs of the rockets that are thought to have carried the gas. The remains of 20 such rockets have been found in the affected areas, activists and local residents say. Many remain mostly intact, suggesting that they did not detonate on impact and potentially dispersed gas before hitting the ground.

Survivors spoken to by the Observer last week say they heard the rockets whistling in but they did not detonate. Several have been photographed half buried in bitumen, which suggests that they did not carry a warhead or, if they did, it failed to explode.

France, Britain and Turkey have blamed the Syrian regime for the attack, which came as its military forces were advancing into the area. France's foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said on Saturday that "all the information at our disposal converges to indicate that there was a chemical massacre near Damascus and that the [regime of Bashar al-Assad] is responsible". The foreign secretary, William Hague, said last week that "this is a chemical attack by the Assad regime" and it was "not something that a humane or civilised world can ignore". Barack Obama has described the incident as "grave" and asked intelligence officials to prepare a detailed assessment.

Syria has continued to deny responsibility as the UN's disarmament chief, Angela Kane, arrived in Damascus to try to negotiate access to the site of the attack for an inspection team that was sent to investigate three earlier alleged attacks. The team has been in the capital for the past six days and has been pressing for permission to make the journey '' only a short distance from their hotel '' for the past 72 hours. Rebel groups in the area say that they will guarantee safe passage. However, the Syrian government has not agreed and the UN fears that the journey is unsafe without a negotiated agreement. Syrian state television said on Saturday that its forces had found tunnels in rebel areas in which chemicals were stored.

The images of dead and dying in the attack have caught the attention of regional governments like nothing else in the two-and-a-half year conflict. The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, will travel to Jordan along with the head of the US central command, General Lloyd Austin, and chiefs of staff from Turkey, Britain, France, Qatar, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Italy and Canada.

The addition of a US destroyer takes to four the US Mediterranean flotilla, one more than normal. US defence secretary Chuck Hagel said no decision has been made to use the warships in operations against Syria. Speaking on Friday, officials in Washington said no response to Syria would involve sending troops into the country. Two of Syria's three main allies, Russia and Iran, have supported calls for a transparent and credible inquiry into the attack. Both accuse rebel groups of having carried out the atrocity. The Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, has remained silent since Thursday.

Hezbollah leaders roundly condemned car-bombings of two mosques in Lebanon's second city, Tripoli, one day later, which killed 42 and wounded hundreds. The mosques had been focal points of anti-Assad rhetoric in the largely Sunni north. Lebanon, an unstable multi-confessional state, has been perenially on edge since the start of the Syrian uprising with occasional flare-ups in violence that threaten to drag it into the chaos consuming its powerful neighbour.

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Archived Version

Source: WT news feed

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 01:18

Dianne Feinstein, a senator who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, said the NSA told her committee about a set of "isolated cases" that have occurred about once a year for the last 10 years. The spying was not within the US, and was carried out when one of the lovers was abroad.

John DeLong, NSA chief compliance officer, said that those errors were mainly unintentional, but that there have been "a couple" of wilful violations in the past decade.

"When we make mistakes, we detect, we correct and we report," said Mr DeLong.

The NSA issued a statement on Friday saying: "NSA has zero tolerance for wilful violations of the agency's authorities" and responds "as appropriate."

Mrs Feinstein said: "Clearly, any case of noncompliance is unacceptable, but these small numbers of cases do not change my view that NSA takes significant care to prevent any abuses and that there is a substantial oversight system in place.

"When errors are identified, they are reported and corrected."

The extent of American spying on its citizens and foreigners through the NSA and its "Prism" programme were revealed by Edward Snowden, a whistleblower, who fled to Russia where he has claimed temporary asylum.

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Archived Version

Source: Unfashionista

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 16:31

1. Why did you initially lie about David Miranda not being offered a lawyer, and then fail to correct the record all day long?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-greenwald-guardian-partner-detained-heathrow

To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ.

2. Why did you alter the original story that included this lie, wiping the fact that it was Glenn Greenwald who filed it?

http://www.trendingcentral.com/who-wrote-the-guardians-initial-report-on-david-miranda/

3. Having known all day long that Miranda had been offered a lawyer, why did you only run your interview with him admitting this at 10pm, after other UK papers had gone to bed and could not correct their supportive editorials?

4. Why did you first give the entire British press the misinformation that David Miranda was merely your journalist's husband, when he had been paid by you to work on and ''assist in the story''?

5. Since you claim the high ground on ''press freedom'' I am sure you will wish to be transparent, and address claims that you were not engaging in ''journalism'' here at all, but instead knowingly abetting espionage. Here we go:

You state

The Guardian paid for Miranda's flights. Miranda is not an employee of the Guardian. As Greenwald's partner, he often assists him in his work and the Guardian normally reimburses the expenses of someone aiding a reporter in such circumstances

You paid for David Miranda's flights and expenses because, you claim, he was ''assisting Glenn Greenwald'' in his work.

Buthowwas he assisting Glenn Greenwald? If he was transporting purely ''journalistic materials'' why did Greenwald not use FedEx? If the data needed to be secure, why not use a P2P fileshare site? Why did the Guardian approve paying Miranda's expenses when there are direct flights from Berlin to Rio that Poitras and Greenwald could have used?

Is it because Glenn Greenwald explained to you that as a US citizen he could not email, transport, or securely share stolen information about US and UK intelligence operations against foreign regimes without committing a serious felony and needed to use his husband as a mule?

In that case is not Guardian Media Group corporately responsible for abetting espionage against the United States and United Kingdom?

6. The question of ''Exactly HOW was David Miranda ''assisting'' in the story while your paper was paying him to do so'' arises even more strongly when we look at Miranda's statements to US TV. Here is a video of him and Greenwald talking to Anderson Cooper at CNN. You will want to slide the cursor to 5:05.

Here you will note Miranda's hilarious ''not me guv'' pretence of not being a mule and Glenn Greenwald's corresponding smirk sitting next to him.

Miranda: ''I don't know that'... I was just taking the fi- '... those materials back to Glenn. You know Glenn been working with a lot of stories along the years'...I didn't quite follow everything that he writes every day'...I can't follow him, because I have to have a life.''

Get that, Mr. Rusbridger? Your man ''assisting on the story'' says that he doesn't even know what this story is about, he wasn't even paying attention to it, because he ''has to have a life''.

In what way then was he assisting in the story and why was the Guardian paying for his flights and expenses '' unless the paper knew that Miranda was needed to physically transport stolen classified US intelligence because, unlike Greenwald and Poitras, he is not a US citizen?

For what reason did you not ask Mr. Greenwald why flights and expenses were necessary for Mr. Miranda?

How precisely did you understand Mr. Miranda to be ''assisting a reporter in his work''?

Assuming you knew that David Miranda was transporting incredibly damaging, life-threatening CIA and GCHQ national intelligence, how is the Guardian Media Group not complicit in this?

7. If the GMG is indeed complicit, through knowledge and payment, in the cross border smuggling of stolen NSA and GCHQ data, why should not the US authorities and the Home Secretary prepare corporate and criminal charges against the Guardian, David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald, and Laura Poitras?

8. I believe it to be the case (I am open to correction) that Mr. Rusbridger has stated he did not know what David Miranda was carrying. Is this not completely disingenuous, as the only way he would have paid for the flights would be he suspected a human mule was necessary to transport the dangerous files?

9. Alan Rusbridger tweeted what he claimed was a photo of a smashed Macbook destroyed by security services. In fact, the internet soon proved there were parts from at least four computers in the picture. Why was the Guardian storing unbelievably dangerous material that threatens our national security on as many as four office computers, at least, that could easily be remotely hacked by any number of foreign spy agencies?

10. On a total of how many drives and computers did the Guardian copy this material?

11. On a total of how many basic office computers around the world has Guardian Media Group made copies of this material?

12. You know that on Portugese TV your reporter Glenn Greenwald threatened revenge exposure of British spy agencies, & that Mr. Rusbridger claimed this would not happen. Yet yesterday the Independent newspaper exposed a top secret British base working against our enemies in the Middle East, thereby endangering British intelligence efforts against terrorism and the lives of British intelligence agents?

13. Did the Guardian Media Group or, to your knowledge, any of its employees, particularly Mr. Greenwald, leak this incredibly damaging story that endangers UK intel to the Independent, out of a desire for revenge?

14. Why did you assert that Mr. Miranda was carrying ''journalistic materials'' if you claim you had no idea what he was carrying?

15. Why do you assert that journalism '' reporting about a story or news item '' is the same as possessing, smuggling, and copying, stolen classified intelligence information that endangers the life and work of British intelligence agents?

16. In deciding to insecurely hold this information on multiple office computers and goodness knows what other means, were you aware that (again speaking in a foreign language) your ''reporter'' Glenn Greenwald said to Argentina's La Nacion:

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/matthew-dancona-in-this-spy-story-the-state-is-not-so-clearcut-a-villain-8777943.html

Last month, Greenwald told the Argentinian daily newspaper, La Nacion, that Snowden had ''enough information to cause more harm to the US government in a single minute than any other person has ever had''

If you are not aware of this, why not? If you are aware of this, why is Guardian Media Group storing this information on insecure basic office computers?

17. Since Mr. Greenwald has made you aware of the incredibly damaging and dangerous nature of this information, why have you not supplied copies to the US and UK governments, so that they can see what Snowden has leaked to China, Russia and Wikileaks, and take steps to protect the lives of their agents and intelligence assets '' lives that you and Guardian Media Group are well aware are now at risk from exposure?

Because you yourselves have said you have held back even more damaging and identifying material, you clearly have had sight of it. Why are you not allowing the US and UK to also have sight of it so we can protect our people? Do you literally not care about their lives, knowing full well they're endangered by your reporter, Glenn Greenwald?

18. Why are you disabling questions on the ironically-named ''Comment is Free'' on your Greenwald articles? Is it because you have no shame?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10259658/Scotland-Yard-launch-criminal-investigation-over-David-Miranda-data.html

Jonathan Laidlaw QC, appearing for Scotland Yard to oppose a legal challenge by Mr Miranda, said: ''That which has been inspected contains, in the view of the police, highly sensitive material the disclosure of which would be gravely injurious to public safety and thus the police have now initiated a criminal investigation.

''I am not proposing to say anything else which might alert potential defendants here or abroad to the nature and the ambit of the criminal investigation which has now been started.''

He added that the material amounted to ''tens of thousands of highly classified UK documents''.

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Sat, 24 Aug 2013 20:42

Generation Imaging is a microfilm scanning company founded by G.I. Partners, LLC of Florida, and is run by Damian Hospital and Dan Gandul. We are composed of the most experienced and detail orientated microfilm scanner operators, managers, and customer service representatives in the United States. No microfilm or microfiche scanning job is too big or too small for'...

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Source: End the Lie - Independent News

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 16:36

This undated handout image received 25 January, 2006 shows the National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade, Maryland. (AFP Photo)

Top-secret national security documents leaked to the Guardian newspaper reveal that the United States government compensated the tech companies that signed on to participate in the controversial NSA spy program known as Prism.

The Guardian published on Friday new documentation attributed to former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden in which it's suggested that the US National Security Agency spent millions of dollars making sure the biggest names on the Internet were kept compliant with an international surveillance program disclosed by the leaker earlier this year.

According to the paperwork provided by Snowden and discussed by the Guardian's Ewen MacAskill on Friday, the NSA emptied millions of dollars on ensuring Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook were able to share information sent over the Web with the federal government.

''The material provides the first evidence of a financial relationship between the tech companies and the NSA,'' wrote MacAskill.

The Guardian article cites a top-secret NSA document from December 2012 in which the agency said through a newsletter that it spent millions to keep the tech companies cooperating with the government after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled that it was a violation of the US Constitution's Fourth Amendment to be collecting purely domestic communications through the Prism program.

''Last year's problems resulted in multiple extensions to the certifications' expiration dates which cost millions of dollars for Prism providers to implement each successive extension '' costs covered by Special Source Operations,'' it reads in part.

Snowden, the 30-year-old leaker who has exasperated the US and British governments through a steady stream of classified disclosures, told the Guardian that the Special Source Operations unit handles surveillance programs, such as Prism, in which telecommunication companies and Internet providers sign-on to ''corporate partnerships'' with Uncle Sam.

Asked about the latest disclosure, a representative for Yahoo told the Guardian, ''Federal law requires the US government to reimburse providers for costs incurred to respond to compulsory legal process imposed by the government. We have requested reimbursement consistent with this law.''

Facebook denied that it received compensation from the US government ever for facilitating the flow of private data. A representative for Google told the Guardian, ''We await the US government's response to our petition to publish more national security request data, which will show that our compliance with American national security laws falls far short of the wild claims still being made in the press today.''

In the wake of the first NSA disclosures leaked by Mr. Snowden, lawmakers in the US and abroad have debated whether or not the secretive surveillance programs, such as the Internet one operated under the name Prism, strike the proper balance between privacy and security.

President Barack Obama and his administration have made numerous claims that those operations exist with significant oversight to prevent any errors, including constitutional violations, but other documents released by Snowden in the wake of the first disclosures have shown that the NSA has accidentally collected the personal correspondence of Americans at least thousands of times annually.

According to their latest report, the federal government is spending millions to find a way to keep those companies only collecting data that invades the privacy of those outside the US.

Source: RT

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Source: CNET News - Politics and Law

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 23:34

Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and Microsoft all received money to cover costs related to surveillance requests, the UK's Guardian reports, citing documents provided by former contractor Edward Snowden.

Tech firms including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and Microsoft received money from the National Security Agency to cover legal-compliance costs related to the NSA's Prism surveillance program, according to the latest Edward Snowden documents published by the UK's Guardian newspaper.

A 2011 ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance -- or FISA -- Court found unconstitutional the NSA's inability to collect foreign Internet data without also collecting domestic data. And the NSA worked to rejigger its systems to bring them in line with the law. (The 2011 ruling was released this week as the result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.)

The Guardian says of the new Snowden documents:

An NSA newsletter entry, marked top secret and dated December 2012, discloses the huge costs [the NSA compliance effort] entailed. "Last year's problems resulted in multiple extensions to the certifications' expiration dates which cost millions of dollars for Prism providers to implement each successive extension -- costs covered by Special Source Operations," it says.

Special Source Operations, described by Snowden as the "crown jewel" of the NSA, handles all surveillance programs, such as Prism, that rely on "corporate partnerships" with telecoms and Internet providers to access communications data.

The Guardian says the revelation "raises new questions" about tech companies' relationships with the NSA. Yahoo and Microsoft, however, say, as they've been saying, that they're simply complying with the law.

"Microsoft only complies with court orders because it is legally ordered to, not because it is reimbursed for the work," a company spokesperson said. "We could have a more informed discussion of these issues if providers could share additional information, including aggregate statistics on the number of any national security orders they may receive."

The spokesperson also pointed to an item in an FAQ tied to Microsoft's 2012 Law Enforcement Requests Report:

Does Microsoft charge law enforcement for providing data and content?Yes. Pursuant to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Microsoft is entitled to seek reimbursement for costs associated with compliance with a valid U.S. law enforcement request. We only charge U.S. law enforcement entities pursuant to industry rates and only in an attempt to recover some costs associated with the need to comply with U.S. legal demands. We do not, however, charge in emergency situations or in known child exploitation investigations.

Yahoo, for its part, said in a statement that "Federal law requires the US government to reimburse providers for costs incurred to respond to compulsory legal process imposed by the government. We have requested reimbursement consistent with this law."

Facebook told the Guardian it had "never received any compensation in connection with responding to a government data request."

And Google sent the following statement to the Guardian: "We await the US government's response to our petition to publish more national security request data, which will show that our compliance with American national security laws falls far short of the wild claims still being made in the press today."

All 4 firms are among the 63 companies, trade groups, and civil liberties groups that are signatories of a letter that calls on President Barack Obama and Congress to allow Internet and telecommunications companies to offer more details about US government requests for user information. And Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are involved in individual efforts to win this right.

Suspicion over the involvement of tech firms in the Prism program were fired up by the initial reports about Prism in The Guardian and The Washington Post, which said the NSA had "direct access" to company servers. CNET's Declan McCullagh subsequently reported that there was no evidence of wholesale access to company servers.

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Source: WT news feed

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 13:20

In a 1975 hearing, Sens. Frank Church (D-Idaho) and John Tower (R-Tex.) examine a dart gun designed by the CIA to be used in assassinations. The Church Committee also investigated the infiltration of activist groups by government agents. (AP)

The Obama administration is reportedly proposing Cass Sunstein as a member of a panel to review the surveillance practices of the National Security Agency (NSA), among other former White House and intelligence staffers. Sunstein was the head of the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs until last year, when he returned to teaching at Harvard Law School.

As one of our intrepid commenters pointed out yesterday, while at Harvard in 2008, Sunstein co-authored a working paper that suggests government agents or their allies ''cognitively infiltrate'' conspiracy theorist groups by joining ''chat rooms, online social networks or even real-space groups'' and influencing the conversation.

Sunstein's paper defined a conspiracy theory as ''an effort to explain some event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role,'' and acknowledges that some conspiracy theories have turned out to be true. It also specifically notes that his plan of ''cognitive infiltration'' should only be used against false conspiracy theories that could be harmful to the government or society.

But even the suggestion that the government should infiltrate groups that are not actively participating in criminal acts is troubling. In fact, it recalls the abuses uncovered by the Church Committee in the 1970s, when the FBI infiltrated such subversive groups as the feminist and civil rights movements. To his credit, Sunstein's infiltration suggestion is different in nature:

By this we do not mean 1960s-style infiltration with a view to surveillance and collecting information, possibly for use in future prosecutions. Rather, we mean that government efforts might succeed in weakening or even breaking up the ideological and epistemological complexes that constitute these networks and groups.

But while it's nice to assume that the government would limit that ''cognitive infiltration'' authority to false conspiracies, history suggests that it would be also used against activists trying to expose actual government misconduct.

The paper also suggests that the government ''formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech.'' That sounds an awful lot like the 50 Cent Party of online commentators who are paid per comment by the Chinese communist party to sway public opinion.

A man with such a credulous view of government power might not be the best choice to review allegations of NSA privacy abuses.

Andrea Peterson covers technology policy for The Washington Post, with an emphasis on cybersecurity, consumer privacy, transparency, surveillance and open government. She also delves into the societal impacts of technology access and how innovation is intertwined with cultural development.

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Source: WT news feed

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 13:21

1 of 2. Copies of the Guardian newspaper are displayed at a news agent in London August 21 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Suzanne Plunkett

WASHINGTON | Fri Aug 23, 2013 10:29pm BST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Guardian has agreed with the New York Times to give the U.S. newspaper access to some classified documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, the British newspaper said on Friday.

In a brief story posted on its website, the Guardian said it "struck a partnership" with the Times after the British government threatened the Guardian with legal action unless it either surrendered or destroyed files it received from Snowden about Government Communications Headquarters - Britain's equivalent of NSA.

"In a climate of intense pressure from the UK government, the Guardian decided to bring in a US partner to work on the GCHQ documents provided by Edward Snowden. We are working in partnership with the NYT and others to continue reporting these stories," the Guardian said in a statement.

Representatives of the Times did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.

However, a source familiar with the matter said the partnership deal had been struck several weeks ago and that Jill Abramson, the Times' executive editor, was personally involved in negotiating it.

The website Buzzfeed reported that Scott Shane, a Times reporter who covers national security and intelligence, was working on a series of stories expected to be published next month jointly with the Guardian.

The Guardian said in its story that its partnership with the Times would enable it to "continue exposing mass surveillance by putting the Snowden documents on GCHQ beyond government reach."

It said Snowden, who disclosed documents on U.S. internet and phone surveillance programs in June and has obtained asylum in Russia, was aware of the deal.

The Guardian's editor, Alan Rusbridger, revealed earlier this week that under the supervision of representatives of GCHQ, Guardian staffers had destroyed computer equipment containing Snowden files after the newspaper was threatened with possible legal action by senior British government officials.

Rusbridger said he had put British officials on notice that copies of material which had been destroyed had been sent outside British government jurisdiction.

British authorities say they launched a criminal investigation this week following the temporary detention and questioning at London's Heathrow Airport of David Miranda, domestic partner of Glenn Greenwald, a Brazil-based Guardian writer who has led coverage of leaks from Snowden and communicated directly with the former NSA contractor.

British officials have said that Snowden's leaks have gravely damaged national security and could put lives in jeopardy if more secrets are disclosed.

The Times and the Guardian previously collaborated on stories related to alleged phone hacking by British tabloid newspapers and on coverage of secret U.S. military and diplomatic documents made available by U.S. Army soldier Bradley Manning to the WikiLeaks website.

(The story was refiled to delete reference to representatives of the Guardian in paragraph 4)

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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Source: WT news feed

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 01:19

US spy chief to speak about internet security at Dutch conferenceFriday 23 August 2013

The controversial director of America's National Security Agency is visiting the Netherlands next month at the invitation of telecoms firm KPN, the company confirmed on Friday.

General Keith Alexander is speaking at a private KPN symposium which is focusing on privacy and cyber security, magazine Vrij Nederland reported earlier.

Troels Oerting, head of Europol's cybercrime centre and former Dutch armed forces chief turned cyber security expert Dick Berlijn are also on the list of speakers.

According to KPN, Alexander will speak about 'threats and developments in terms of internet security'.

Snowden

Alexander had already been invited before whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked information about NSA's internet spying activities, KPN said.

The NSA and the FBI are accused of tapping directly into the central servers of leading US internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person's movements and contacts over time.

According to the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, NSA has access to 75% of US internet traffic.

(C) DutchNews.nl

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Source: Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 12:53

Can UN scientists revive drive against climate change?Javascript is currently disabled in your web browser. For full site functionality, it is necessary to enable Javascript. In order to enable it, please see these instructions.33 minutes ago by Richard InghamA leaden cloak of responsibility lies on the shoulders of UN scientists as they put the final touches to the first volume of a massive report that will give the world the most detailed picture yet of climate change.

Due to be unveiled in Stockholm on September 27, the document will be scrutinised word by word by green groups, fossil-fuel lobbies and governments to see if it will yank climate change out of prolonged political limbo.

The report will kick off the fifth assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an expert body set up in 1988 to provide neutral advice on global warming and its impacts.

Six years ago, the IPCC's fourth assessment report unleashed a megawatt jolt of awareness. It declared that the planet was warming, that this was already starting to affect Earth's climate system and biosphere, and that there was overwhelming evidence that humans, especially by burning coal, gas and oil, were the cause.

It earned the IPCC a share in the Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore and stoked momentum that led to the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen, the biggest summit in UN history.

Yet that was the high point. The near-fiasco of Copenhagen combined with a financial crisis that struck Western economies... and climate change vanished off politicians' radars. Then came damage to the IPCC's own reputation, when several errors were found in the landmark report, prompting a fightback by gleeful climate sceptics and a painful investigation of the panel itself.

A draft of the leviathan new work, seen by AFP, will amplify the 2007 warning in several ways.

The panel will declare it is even more confident that global warming is man-made and starting to affect extreme weather events, such as flooding, drought, heatwaves and wildfires. It also warns of a potential rise in sea levels that, by century's end, would drown many coastal cities in their current state of preparedness.

"Changes are projected to occur in all regions of the globe, and include changes in land and ocean, in the water cycle, in the cryosphere, in sea level, in some extreme events and in ocean acidification. Many of these changes would persist for centuries. Limiting climate change would require substantial and sustained reductions of CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions," warns the draft.

The document, focussing on the science of climate change, will be followed next year by two volumes, on impacts and on how to tackle the problem, followed by a synthesis of all three texts.

The main text is written and approved by scientists, and cannot be modified by national governments, who also have representatives on the IPCC.

The governments do have a say, though, in the all-important summary for policymakers, which in its present form runs to 31 pages. So far, they have raised 1,800 reservations about the summary, and these will be hammered out in a line-by-line appraisal over four days before next month's release.

Defenders of the laborious system say approval by governments amounts to a "buy-in" from all the world's nations'--a consensus ranging from huge carbon polluters China and the United States and vulnerable small-island states such as the Maldives to major oil and gas exporters like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

"I am greatly in favour of this process of comments followed by adoption," Jean Jouzel, a leading French climate scientist who is vice president of the IPCC group in charge of the upcoming volume, told AFP. "The adoption is what gives the IPCC report its success and visibility, and enables its effective use by governments."

Others are not so sure. Inclusiveness, transparency and nitpicking mean the process is horribly slow.

Almost every week, new evidence of climate damage is published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. But the most recent scary stuff'--the discovery, for instance, that melting permafrost is starting to leak methane, a potent greenhouse gas'--will not be included in the new report because of the cutoff date for reviewing material.

"It [the summary] is a powerful document because it is signed off by all governments," said a source who follows the process closely. "But the IPCC has become such a conservative organisation. The report is really science at the lowest common denominator."

Michael Mann, a professor at Penn State University and author of a book, "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars," blames this in part on campaigning by well-funded sceptics who either deny global warming or pin it on natural causes, such as fluctuations in solar heat.

They intimidate individual scientists and exploit areas of scientific uncertainty to claim there is no expert consensus, he said. As a result, the IPCC compilers are driven to even greater caution, with the risk that they deliver a message that is fuzzy or larded with doubt.

"I believe that these pressures combine with the innate tendency of scientists to be reticent about drawing strong conclusions," said Mann.

As a result, "assessment reports like the IPCC report almost inevitably end up understating the conclusions and, in this case, the risks of human-caused climate change."

Explore further:Human activity is 'almost certainly' driving climate change, IPCC leaked report says

(C) 2013 AFP

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What we need to do to save the planet from a CO2 disaster is to shut down the denial machine by insisting that science stops saying "maybe" and starts saying "will be" a crisis as what denier would deny an "inevitable crisis" instead of saying "possible crisis" for 28 years? Science has never agreed or said anything beyond "could be" a crisis.Unless CO2 mitigation starts soon we are doomed but denialism is preventing our children from having futures.

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Can UN scientists revive drive against climate change?Javascript is currently disabled in your web browser. For full site functionality, it is necessary to enable Javascript. In order to enable it, please see these instructions.33 minutes ago by Richard InghamA leaden cloak of responsibility lies on the shoulders of UN scientists as they put the final touches to the first volume of a massive report that will give the world the most detailed picture yet of climate change.

Due to be unveiled in Stockholm on September 27, the document will be scrutinised word by word by green groups, fossil-fuel lobbies and governments to see if it will yank climate change out of prolonged political limbo.

The report will kick off the fifth assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an expert body set up in 1988 to provide neutral advice on global warming and its impacts.

Six years ago, the IPCC's fourth assessment report unleashed a megawatt jolt of awareness. It declared that the planet was warming, that this was already starting to affect Earth's climate system and biosphere, and that there was overwhelming evidence that humans, especially by burning coal, gas and oil, were the cause.

It earned the IPCC a share in the Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore and stoked momentum that led to the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen, the biggest summit in UN history.

Yet that was the high point. The near-fiasco of Copenhagen combined with a financial crisis that struck Western economies... and climate change vanished off politicians' radars. Then came damage to the IPCC's own reputation, when several errors were found in the landmark report, prompting a fightback by gleeful climate sceptics and a painful investigation of the panel itself.

A draft of the leviathan new work, seen by AFP, will amplify the 2007 warning in several ways.

The panel will declare it is even more confident that global warming is man-made and starting to affect extreme weather events, such as flooding, drought, heatwaves and wildfires. It also warns of a potential rise in sea levels that, by century's end, would drown many coastal cities in their current state of preparedness.

"Changes are projected to occur in all regions of the globe, and include changes in land and ocean, in the water cycle, in the cryosphere, in sea level, in some extreme events and in ocean acidification. Many of these changes would persist for centuries. Limiting climate change would require substantial and sustained reductions of CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions," warns the draft.

The document, focussing on the science of climate change, will be followed next year by two volumes, on impacts and on how to tackle the problem, followed by a synthesis of all three texts.

The main text is written and approved by scientists, and cannot be modified by national governments, who also have representatives on the IPCC.

The governments do have a say, though, in the all-important summary for policymakers, which in its present form runs to 31 pages. So far, they have raised 1,800 reservations about the summary, and these will be hammered out in a line-by-line appraisal over four days before next month's release.

Defenders of the laborious system say approval by governments amounts to a "buy-in" from all the world's nations'--a consensus ranging from huge carbon polluters China and the United States and vulnerable small-island states such as the Maldives to major oil and gas exporters like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

"I am greatly in favour of this process of comments followed by adoption," Jean Jouzel, a leading French climate scientist who is vice president of the IPCC group in charge of the upcoming volume, told AFP. "The adoption is what gives the IPCC report its success and visibility, and enables its effective use by governments."

Others are not so sure. Inclusiveness, transparency and nitpicking mean the process is horribly slow.

Almost every week, new evidence of climate damage is published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. But the most recent scary stuff'--the discovery, for instance, that melting permafrost is starting to leak methane, a potent greenhouse gas'--will not be included in the new report because of the cutoff date for reviewing material.

"It [the summary] is a powerful document because it is signed off by all governments," said a source who follows the process closely. "But the IPCC has become such a conservative organisation. The report is really science at the lowest common denominator."

Michael Mann, a professor at Penn State University and author of a book, "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars," blames this in part on campaigning by well-funded sceptics who either deny global warming or pin it on natural causes, such as fluctuations in solar heat.

They intimidate individual scientists and exploit areas of scientific uncertainty to claim there is no expert consensus, he said. As a result, the IPCC compilers are driven to even greater caution, with the risk that they deliver a message that is fuzzy or larded with doubt.

"I believe that these pressures combine with the innate tendency of scientists to be reticent about drawing strong conclusions," said Mann.

As a result, "assessment reports like the IPCC report almost inevitably end up understating the conclusions and, in this case, the risks of human-caused climate change."

Explore further:Human activity is 'almost certainly' driving climate change, IPCC leaked report says

(C) 2013 AFP

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What we need to do to save the planet from a CO2 disaster is to shut down the denial machine by insisting that science stops saying "maybe" and starts saying "will be" a crisis as what denier would deny an "inevitable crisis" instead of saying "possible crisis" for 28 years? Science has never agreed or said anything beyond "could be" a crisis.Unless CO2 mitigation starts soon we are doomed but denialism is preventing our children from having futures.

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Wet noses to the touchscreen, iPads go to the dogsYou may or may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but you can certainly try to get Fido to use an iPad.

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The world's sea levels fell in 2011 and it's all Australia's fault.

New US research shows Australia's dry soil and mountainous coastline soaked up heavy rainfall in 2010 and 2011 and stopped it from flowing back into the ocean.

That effectively halted a longterm trend of rising sea levels which have been caused by higher temperatures and melting ice sheets.

"No other continent has this combination of atmospheric set-up and topography," scientist John Fasullo, who worked on the study, said in a statement.

"Only in Australia could the atmosphere carry such heavy tropical rains to such a large area, only to have those rains fail to make their way to the ocean."

The harsh Australian landscape is being blamed for a fall in the world's sea levels. Photo: Getty.

The world's oceans have been rising in recent decades by around three millimetres every year.

This is partly because heat has caused water to expand, and partly because run-off from retreating glaciers and ice sheets has made its way into the oceans.

But for an 18-month period beginning in 2010, the oceans mysteriously dropped by about seven millimetres, more than offsetting the annual rise, the study says.

The US scientists say this was mainly caused by Australia's uniquely dry soil and land surface.

While some of the water evaporated in the desert sun, much of it sank into the dry, granular soil of the Western Plateau or filled the Lake Eyre basin in the east.

Since 2011, sea levels have been rising at a faster pace of about ten millimetres per year.

UPDATE: 8/23/13 1:00PM PDT Its seems there's blunders to go around. The Washington Post now says they "misquoted" Gore. Given his penchant for saying and doing dumb things in the past related to his views on climate, color me "skeptical", especially when he makes ugly comparisons about people like he did below. It may be more of a case of some deal was worked out behind the scenes to salvage Gore's waning credibility. I suppose we'll never know, but I have asked WaPo to put the relevant audio of the tape recorded session online so we can verify that Gore was misquoted. -- Anthony

From the WUWT story yesterday: Al Gore compares climate skeptics to anti abolitionists, racists, homophobes, and alcoholic families

Would there be hurricanes and floods and droughts without man-made global warming? Of course. But they're stronger now. The extreme events are more extreme. The hurricane scale used to be 1-5 and now they're adding a 6. The fingerprint of man-made global warming is all over these storms and extreme weather events.

We are used to such feckless bloviations, such as when Gore said on national television the temperature below the Earth's crust is millions of degrees. or when he adds reverse rotation airbrushed hurricanes to his book to make the weather look scarier.

Today, the Capital Weather Gang at the Washington Post called out Gore for his nonsense.

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By Ezra Klein, Published: AUGUST 21, 3:23 PM ET Aa Al Gore was vice president of the United States from 1993-2001. Since leaving politics, he's been heavily involved in the campaign to fight global warming, even winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. And he says he's more optimistic than ever that the issue has reached ''a tipping point.'' In this lightly edited interview transcript, he explains why.

Ezra Klein: In 2005, when ''An Inconvenient Truth'' came out, I remember that the hope was we could keep the carbon load in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, and the fear was we would hit 400ppm. Now we've hit 400ppm and people are hoping to avoid 450ppm. This seems to be getting out of hand, and fast.

Al Gore: We have already crossed the 400 parts per million mark. We crossed it earlier this year. The question now is how high it will go before we begin bending the curve. But in spite of the continued released of 90 million tons of global warming pollution every day into the atmosphere, as if it's an open sewer, we are now seeing the approach of a global political tipping point.

The appearance of more extreme and more frequent weather events has had a very profound impact on public opinion in countries throughout the world. You mentioned my movie back in the day. The single most common criticism from skeptics when the film came out focused on the animation showing ocean water flowing into the World Trade Center memorial site. Skeptics called that demagogic and absurd and irresponsible. It happened last October 29th, years ahead of schedule, and the impact of that and many, many other similar events here and around the world has really begun to create a profound shift.

A second factor is the sharp and unexpectedly steep decrease in prices for electricity produced from wind and solar and the demand destruction for fossil fuel energy from new efficiency improvements. The difference between 32 degrees fahrenheit and 33 degrees fahrenheit seems larger than just one degree. It's the difference between water and ice. And by analogy there's a similar difference between renewable electricity that's more expensive than electricity from coal and renewable electricity that's less expensive. And in quite a few countries in the world and some parts of the United States we've crossed that threshold and in the next few years we're going to see that crossed in nations and regions containing most of the world's population.

Another way to think about this is that back when mobile telephones first appeared, the market projections for how quickly they would increase market share turned out to be not just wrong but way wrong. This is a point made by Dave Roberts at Grist, but the projections made 5-10 years ago for the installation of solar and wind technologies were, similarly, not just wrong but way wrong. We've seen a dramatic increase that's far more rapid than anybody projected and it's accelerating -- not just in the United States but even more rapidly in developing countries.

EK: Do the policy failures of the last decade put more pressure on technological advances to be the source of the solution?

AG: No, I seem them as intertwined. To some extent, the failure of policy at Copenhagen and before that in Washington has put more emphasis on the hopeful developments in technology, but as the conversation is won on global warming -- and it's not won yet but it's very nearly won -- the possibilities for policy changes once again open up.

We are seeing dramatic progress towards new policies in China, Korea, Ireland. We've seen a coal tax in India. We've seen changes in Australia, the largest coal producing nation. We've seen Mexico take a leadership position. We've seen action in California and other states. And some 17 other countries are in various stages of adopting either a cap and trade or carbon tax or both. If China follows through in its stated intention to move its cap-and-trade pilot program into a nationwide program in two years, then we'll see a new center of gravity in the global energy marketplace that will accelerate the shift towards a market-based set of policies that will speed up the phase-out of coal-based electricity.

EK: Let me push back on your optimism here. To again use ''An Inconvenient Truth'' as a time marker, when that came out, Republicans in the Senate were still introducing bills to fight climate change through policies like cap-and-trade or cap-and-dividend. In 2008, there was a cap-and-trade plan in the McCain/Palin platform. In 2009, Waxman-Markey passed the House. But since then, Republican opposition has solidified, and cap-and-trade and carbon tax ideas seem completely off-the-table in American politics.

AG: Well, it's not unusual to find big political shifts that take place beneath the surface before they're visible above the surface. A lot of Republicans have shared with me privately their growing discomfort with the statements of some of the deniers in their ranks. Even though they're not yet willing to come back to advocate constructive policies, there is definitely movement. You have now the formation of the first organized caucus in the Senate, with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse joining with others in a hard-hitting effort.

But you see it at the local level a bit more than at the national level. You see these state initiatives and laws. And you see maybe the biggest shift of all in the business community. I think that in order to be competitive internationally we'll have to make the shift towards a price on carbon. People are increasingly aware that we're already paying the costs of carbon and so it makes sense to put a price on it.

EK: But to play the pessimist again, wouldn't carbon prices in other countries give us a competitive advantage the longer we resist them at home? It seems that if India is taxing fossil fuels and we're not, that's a slight edge for us. It's easy to imagine it becoming a kind of protectionist, save-our-manufacturing-sector issue.

AG: It's certainly something that can't be dismissed out of hand. But remember the World Trade Organization rules explicitly allow the recapture of carbon taxes at the border, much in the manner of a value-added tax. The U.S. is in danger if it did not change of being subjected to those recapture provisions. And as the cost curve for renewable electricity continues plunging, the low-cost electricity in the future will be renewables. At Apple, for example, 100 percent of its server farms and headquarters are on renewables, and they're on the way to 100 percent for the company. Google is going down the same road. The pressure is only going to build as the price of renewable electricity continues to fall.

That's even more true as the consequences to society and to the future of human civilization become ever more apparent to people. Once questions are resolved into a choice between right and wrong, then the laws change. It happened with civil rights. It's happening now with gay rights. It happened with apartheid and, in an earlier era, with abolition. And this is now being resolved into a question of right and wrong.

EK: What do you think of the Obama administration's intentions to push regulatory approaches to limiting carbon emissions?

AG: I'm very encouraged. I thought the president's speech on climate was terrific and it followed the inspiring comments in his inaugural address and his post-election State of the Union. And remember the impact of policy direction on business calculations is forward-looking. When business begins to understand the direction of policy, they have to start adjusting to where the policy is going. When you look at the EPA process, it's undeniably clear that there will be a price on carbon one way or the other. Then when you look at the movement in other countries and the states and local measures being enacted, the direction is now quite clear and businesses are making plans to adjust to it.

EK: You've moved from the world of politics to the world of technology. How has that changed your view of how much technology can do to solve this problem, and in particular, has it changed your view on various geoengineering schemes?

AG: Let me deal with the geoengineering part of your question first. That's complex because there are some benign geoengineering proposals like white roofs or efforts to figure out a way to extract CO2 from the atmosphere , though no one has figured out how to do that yet. But the geoengineering options most often discussed, like putting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere or orbiting tinfoil strips -- these are simply nuts. We shouldn't waste a lot of time talking about them. Some people will anyway, but they're just crazy.

To the broader part of your question, innovation is already playing a major role in bringing about new potential solutions to the climate crisis. The tech world had a bitter experience after the burst of enthusiasm in 2005 and 2006 because of a perfect storm made up of four elements: First, the great recession, which had a huge, destructive impact on business generally. Number two, the Chinese juggernaut, which subsidized the production of several prominent renewable energy technologies to the point where their sales price fell below the price of production in the West. Third, the shale gas boom dropped the retail price of electricity to levels below what many renewable energy plans needed to be viable. And fourth there was the policy failure I mentioned earlier in the U.S. Senate and Copenhagen. And all the while there was this massively funded climate denier campaign by the Koch Brothers and Exxon-Mobile and others that hired tobacco industry veterans to work with them on consumer advertising and lobbying activities.

But that setback was only temporary because reality has a way of reasserting itself. There has been a 100-fold increase in the number of extreme, high-temperature events around the world in the distribution curve. And people have noticed for themselves -- the rain storms are bigger, the droughts are deeper and the fires are more destructive. All of these things have not escaped notice and people are connecting the dots. The cumulative amount of energy trapped by manmade global warming pollution each day in the earth's atmosphere is now equal to the energy that would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima bombs going off every 24 hours. It's a big planet, but that's a lot of energy.

The consequences are now hard to escape. Every night on the news, it's like a nature hike through the book of revelations. Eleven states today are fighting 35 major fires! People are noticing this. And simultaneously they're noticing the sharp drop in the cost of carbon-free, greenhouse gas-free energy, and the combination is pushing us over this political tipping point and the trend is unstoppable.

EK: What's your response to people who say those events simply can't be confidently connected to global warming?

AG: The leading scientists have in the last two years changed the way they discuss that particular connection. It's true that it used to be common for them to say you can't blame any single extreme weather event on global warming. What you had to say is the odds have shifted and those events are becoming more common and extreme. They've now changed their description of that connection. The temperature has increased globally and there's now 4 percent more water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere than 30 years ago. As a result, every extreme weather event now has a component of global warming in it.

If you look at superstorm Sandy on October 29th, the ocean water east of New Jersey was nine degrees fahrenheit above average. That's what put so much more energy into that storm. That's what put so much more water vapor into that storm. Would there be a storm anyway? Maybe so. Would there be hurricanes and floods and droughts without man-made global warming? Of course. But they're stronger now. The extreme events are more extreme. The hurricane scale used to be 1-5 and now they're adding a 6 [Update: See this post for more on Gore's remarks on hurricanes]. The fingerprint of man-made global warming is all over these storms and extreme weather events.

EK: Give me the optimistic scenario on what happens next. If all goes well, what do the next few years look like on this issue?

AG: Well, I think the most important part of it is winning the conversation. I remember as a boy when the conversation on civil rights was won in the South. I remember a time when one of my friends made a racist joke and another said, hey man, we don't go for that anymore. The same thing happened on apartheid. The same thing happened on the nuclear arms race with the freeze movement. The same thing happened in an earlier era with abolition. A few months ago, I saw an article about two gay men standing in line for pizza and some homophobe made an ugly comment about them holding hands and everyone else in line told them to shut up. We're winning that conversation.

The conversation on global warming has been stalled because a shrinking group of denialists fly into a rage when it's mentioned. It's like a family with an alcoholic father who flies into a rage every time a subject is mentioned and so everybody avoids the elephant in the room to keep the peace. But the political climate is changing. Something like Chris Hayes's excellent documentary on climate change wouldn't have made it on TV a few years ago. And as I said, many Republicans who're still timid on the issue are now openly embarrassed about the extreme deniers. The deniers are being hit politically. They're being subjected to ridicule, which stings. The polling is going back up in favor of doing something on this issue. The ability of the raging deniers to stop progress is waning every single day.

When that conversation is won, you'll see more measures at the local and state level and less resistance to what the EPA is doing. And slowly it will become popular to propose steps that go further and politicians that take the bit in their teeth get rewarded. I remember when the tide turned on smoking in public places. People thought the late Frank Lautenburg was crazy for proposing a ban on smoking in airplanes, but he was rewarded politically and then politicians began falling all over themselves to do the same. That's the optimistic scenario. And it's not just a scenario! It's happening now!

Don't get me wrong. We've got a long way to go. We're still increasing emissions. But we're approaching this tipping point. Businesses are driving it. Grass roots are driving it. Policies and changes in law in places like india and China and Mexico and California and Ireland will proliferate and increase, and soon we'll get to the point where national laws will evolve into global cooperation.

More from Wonkblog:

What the U.S. would look like if life were fair

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Between 2000 and 2012, American wages grew '... not at all

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When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it.

The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak's fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3 percent unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.

The Treasury official playing the bankers' secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama's leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world's central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn't be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world.

The memo is authentic.

I had to fly to Geneva to get confirmation and wangle a meeting with the Secretary General of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy. Lamy, the Generalissimo of Globalisation, told me,

''The WTO was not created as some dark cabal of multinationals secretly cooking plots against the people... We don't have cigar-smoking, rich, crazy bankers negotiating.''

Then I showed him the memo.

It begins with Larry Summers' flunky, Timothy Geithner, reminding his boss to call the Bank bigshots to order their lobbyist armies to march:

''As we enter the end-game of the WTO financial services negotiations, I believe it would be a good idea for you to touch base with the CEOs'...''

To avoid Summers having to call his office to get the phone numbers (which, under US law, would have to appear on public logs), Geithner listed the private lines of what were then the five most powerful CEOs on the planet. And here they are:

Goldman Sachs: John Corzine (212)902-8281

Merrill Lynch: David Kamanski (212)449-6868

Bank of America: David Coulter (415)622-2255

Citibank: John Reed (212)559-2732

Chase Manhattan: Walter Shipley (212)270-1380

Lamy was right: They don't smoke cigars. Go ahead and dial them. I did, and sure enough, got a cheery personal hello from Reed '' cheery until I revealed I wasn't Larry Summers. (Note: The other numbers were swiftly disconnected. And Corzine can't be reached while he faces criminal charges.)

It's not the little cabal of confabs held by Summers and the banksters that's so troubling. The horror is in the purpose of the "end game'' itself.

Let me explain:

The year was 1997. US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was pushing hard to de-regulate banks. That required, first, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act to dismantle the barrier between commercial banks and investment banks. It was like replacing bank vaults with roulette wheels.

Second, the banks wanted the right to play a new high-risk game: ''derivatives trading''. JP Morgan alone would soon carry $88 trillion of these pseudo-securities on its books as ''assets''.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Summers (soon to replace Rubin as Secretary) body-blocked any attempt to control derivatives.

But what was the use of turning US banks into derivatives casinos if money would flee to nations with safer banking laws?

The answer conceived by the Big Bank Five: eliminate controls on banks in every nation on the planet -- in one single move. It was as brilliant as it was insanely dangerous.

How could they pull off this mad caper? The bankers' and Summers' game was to use the Financial Services Agreement (or FSA), an abstruse and benign addendum to the international trade agreements policed by the World Trade Organisation.

Until the bankers began their play, the WTO agreements dealt simply with trade in goods '' that is, my cars for your bananas. The new rules devised by Summers and the banks would force all nations to accept trade in "bads" '' toxic assets like financial derivatives.

Until the bankers' re-draft of the FSA, each nation controlled and chartered the banks within their own borders. The new rules of the game would force every nation to open their markets to Citibank, JP Morgan and their derivatives ''products''.

And all 156 nations in the WTO would have to smash down their own Glass-Steagall divisions between commercial savings banks and the investment banks that gamble with derivatives.

The job of turning the FSA into the bankers' battering ram was given to Geithner, who was named Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation.

Bankers Go Bananas

Why in the world would any nation agree to let its banking system be boarded and seized by financial pirates like JP Morgan?

The answer, in the case of Ecuador, was bananas. Ecuador was truly a banana republic. The yellow fruit was that nation's life-and-death source of hard currency. If it refused to sign the new FSA, Ecuador could feed its bananas to the monkeys and go back into bankruptcy. Ecuador signed.

And so on '' with every single nation bullied into signing.

Every nation but one, I should say. Brazil's new President, Inacio Lula da Silva, refused. In retaliation, Brazil was threatened with a virtual embargo of its products by the European Union's Trade Commissioner, one Peter Mandelson, according to another confidential memo I got my hands on. But Lula's refusenik stance paid off for Brazil which, alone among Western nations, survived and thrived during the 2007-9 bank crisis.

China signed '' but got its pound of flesh in return. It opened its banking sector a crack in return for access and control of the US auto parts and other markets. (Swiftly, two million US jobs shifted to China.)

The new FSA pulled the lid off the Pandora's box of worldwide derivatives trade. Among the notorious transactions legalised: Goldman Sachs (where Treasury Secretary Rubin had been co-chairman) worked a secret euro-derivatives swap with Greece which, ultimately, destroyed that nation. Ecuador, its own banking sector de-regulated and demolished, exploded into riots. Argentina had to sell off its oil companies (to the Spanish) and water systems (to Enron) while its teachers hunted for food in garbage cans. Then, Bankers Gone Wild in the Eurozone dove head-first into derivatives pools without knowing how to swim '' and the continent is now being sold off in tiny, cheap pieces to Germany.

Of course, it was not just threats that sold the FSA, but temptation as well. After all, every evil starts with one bite of an apple offered by a snake. The apple: the gleaming piles of lucre hidden in the FSA for local elites. The snake was named Larry.

Does all this evil and pain flow from a single memo? Of course not: the evil was The Game itself, as played by the banker clique. The memo only revealed their game-plan for checkmate.

And the memo reveals a lot about Summers and Obama.

While billions of sorry souls are still hurting from worldwide banker-made disaster, Rubin and Summers didn't do too badly. Rubin's deregulation of banks had permitted the creation of a financial monstrosity called ''Citigroup''. Within weeks of leaving office, Rubin was named director, then Chairman of Citigroup '' which went bankrupt while managing to pay Rubin a total of $126 million.

Then Rubin took on another post: as key campaign benefactor to a young State Senator, Barack Obama. Only days after his election as President, Obama, at Rubin's insistence, gave Summers the odd post of US ''Economics Tsar'' and made Geithner his Tsarina (that is, Secretary of Treasury). In 2010, Summers gave up his royalist robes to return to ''consulting'' for Citibank and other creatures of bank deregulation whose payments have raised Summers' net worth by $31 million since the ''end-game'' memo.

That Obama would, at Robert Rubin's demand, now choose Summers to run the Federal Reserve Board means that, unfortunately, we are far from the end of the game.

Special thanks to expert Mary Bottari of Bankster USA www.BanksterUSA.org without whom our investigation could not have begun.

The film of my meeting with WTO chief Lamy was originally created for Ring of Fire, hosted by Mike Papantonio and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Further discussion of the documents I laid before Lamy can be found in ''The Generalissimo of Globalization,'' Chapter 12 of Vultures' Picnic by Greg Palast (Constable Robinson 2012).

FollowGreg on Twitter: @Greg_Palast

Previously '' 'The Con' Is Leaving a Trail of Blood Across the Planet

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Archived Version

Sat, 24 Aug 2013 23:37

By Greg Palast for Vice Magazine

When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it.

The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak's fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3% unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.The Treasury official playing the bankers' secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama's leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world's central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn't be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world.

The memo is authentic.

To get that confirmation, I would have to fly to Geneva and wangle a meeting with the Secretary General of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy. I did. Lamy, the Generalissimo of Globalization, told me,

"The WTO was not created as some dark cabal of multinationals secretly cooking plots against the people'.... We don't have cigar-smoking, rich, crazy bankers negotiating."

Then I showed him the memo.

It begins with Summers' flunky, Timothy Geithner, reminding his boss to call the then most powerful CEOs on the planet and get them to order their lobbyist armies to march:

"As we enter the end-game of the WTO financial services negotiations, I believe it would be a good idea for you to touch base with the CEOs'...."

To avoid Summers having to call his office to get the phone numbers (which, under US law, would have to appear on public logs), Geithner listed their private lines. And here they are:

Goldman Sachs: John Corzine (212)902-8281Merrill Lynch: David Kamanski (212)449-6868Bank of America, David Coulter (415)622-2255Citibank: John Reed (212)559-2732Chase Manhattan: Walter Shipley (212)270-1380

Lamy was right: They don't smoke cigars. Go ahead and dial them. I did, and sure enough, got a cheery personal hello from Reed''cheery until I revealed I wasn't Larry Summers. (Note: The other numbers were swiftly disconnected. And Corzine can't be reached while he faces criminal charges.)

It's not the little cabal of confabs held by Summers and the banksters that's so troubling. The horror is in the purpose of the "end game" itself.

Let me explain:The year was 1997. US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was pushing hard to de-regulate banks. That required, first, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act to dismantle the barrier between commercial banks and investment banks. It was like replacing bank vaults with roulette wheels.

Second, the banks wanted the right to play a new high-risk game: "derivatives trading." JP Morgan alone would soon carry $88 trillion of these pseudo-securities on its books as "assets."

Deputy Treasury Secretary Summers (soon to replace Rubin as Secretary) body-blocked any attempt to control derivatives.

But what was the use of turning US banks into derivatives casinos if money would flee to nations with safer banking laws?

The answer conceived by the Big Bank Five: eliminate controls on banks in every nation on the planet '' in one single move. It was as brilliant as it was insanely dangerous.

How could they pull off this mad caper? The bankers' and Summers' game was to use the Financial Services Agreement, an abstruse and benign addendum to the international trade agreements policed by the World Trade Organization.

Until the bankers began their play, the WTO agreements dealt simply with trade in goods''that is, my cars for your bananas. The new rules ginned-up by Summers and the banks would force all nations to accept trade in "bads" '' toxic assets like financial derivatives.

Until the bankers' re-draft of the FSA, each nation controlled and chartered the banks within their own borders. The new rules of the game would force every nation to open their markets to Citibank, JP Morgan and their derivatives "products."

And all 156 nations in the WTO would have to smash down their own Glass-Steagall divisions between commercial savings banks and the investment banks that gamble with derivatives.

The job of turning the FSA into the bankers' battering ram was given to Geithner, who was named Ambassador to the World Trade Organization.

Bankers Go Bananas

Why in the world would any nation agree to let its banking system be boarded and seized by financial pirates like JP Morgan?

The answer, in the case of Ecuador, was bananas. Ecuador was truly a banana republic. The yellow fruit was that nation's life-and-death source of hard currency. If it refused to sign the new FSA, Ecuador could feed its bananas to the monkeys and go back into bankruptcy. Ecuador signed.

And so on''with every single nation bullied into signing.

Every nation but one, I should say. Brazil's new President, Inacio Lula da Silva, refused. In retaliation, Brazil was threatened with a virtual embargo of its products by the European Union's Trade Commissioner, one Peter Mandelson, according to another confidential memo I got my hands on. But Lula's refusenik stance paid off for Brazil which, alone among Western nations, survived and thrived during the 2007-9 bank crisis.

China signed''but got its pound of flesh in return. It opened its banking sector a crack in return for access and control of the US auto parts and other markets. (Swiftly, two million US jobs shifted to China.)

The new FSA pulled the lid off the Pandora's box of worldwide derivatives trade. Among the notorious transactions legalized: Goldman Sachs (where Treasury Secretary Rubin had been Co-Chairman) worked a secret euro-derivatives swap with Greece which, ultimately, destroyed that nation. Ecuador, its own banking sector de-regulated and demolished, exploded into riots. Argentina had to sell off its oil companies (to the Spanish) and water systems (to Enron) while its teachers hunted for food in garbage cans. Then, Bankers Gone Wild in the Eurozone dove head-first into derivatives pools without knowing how to swim''and the continent is now being sold off in tiny, cheap pieces to Germany.

Of course, it was not just threats that sold the FSA, but temptation as well. After all, every evil starts with one bite of an apple offered by a snake. The apple: The gleaming piles of lucre hidden in the FSA for local elites. The snake was named Larry.

Does all this evil and pain flow from a single memo? Of course not: the evil was The Game itself, as played by the banker clique. The memo only revealed their game-plan for checkmate.

And the memo reveals a lot about Summers and Obama.

While billions of sorry souls are still hurting from worldwide banker-made disaster, Rubin and Summers didn't do too badly. Rubin's deregulation of banks had permitted the creation of a financial monstrosity called "Citigroup." Within weeks of leaving office, Rubin was named director, then Chairman of Citigroup'--which went bankrupt while managing to pay Rubin a total of $126 million.

Then Rubin took on another post: as key campaign benefactor to a young State Senator, Barack Obama. Only days after his election as President, Obama, at Rubin's insistence, gave Summers the odd post of US "Economics Tsar" and made Geithner his Tsarina (that is, Secretary of Treasury). In 2010, Summers gave up his royalist robes to return to "consulting" for Citibank and other creatures of bank deregulation whose payments have raised Summers' net worth by $31 million since the "end-game" memo.

That Obama would, at Robert Rubin's demand, now choose Summers to run the Federal Reserve Board means that, unfortunately, we are far from the end of the game.

* * * * * * * *

Special thanks to expert Mary Bottari of Bankster USA BanksterUSA.org without whom our investigation could not have begun.

The film of my meeting with WTO chief Lamy was originally created for Ring of Fire, hosted by Mike Papantonio and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Further discussion of the documents I laid before Lamy can be found in "The Generalissimo of Globalization," Chapter 12 of Vultures' Picnic by Greg Palast.

Greg Palast is also the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse.

HELP US FOLLOW THE MONEY. Visit the Palast Investigative Fund's store or simply make a tax-deductible contribution to keep our work alive!

Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter and podcasts.Follow Palast on Facebook and Twitter.

www.GregPalast.com

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Archived Version

Sat, 24 Aug 2013 20:08

If there's one thing we know about how the US government operates, it's that the American people are often the last to know about serious problems that may be taking place behind the scenes.

This week, in a move that has spooked a lot of economic and financial analysts, President Barack Obama held a special, closed door meeting with the heads of the U.S. government's financial, monetary and oversight agencies. It included members of the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, the CFTC, the SEC, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

This has left many wondering what is really going on '' and if a serious event is about to take place yet again.

I guess I'm always unnerved as a result of what happened in April, the last time the President of the United States had a meeting with all of the bank heads, and two days later the price of gold was smashed for over $200.

Now, the President is meeting with all of the heads of the various agencies, institutions, the Fed, and all of the other key money entities in the United States today. What's that all about?

But clearly if the President is having this meeting, there is a crisis unfolding somewhere in the background, and it could very well relate to the dollar, interest rates, and the massive derivatives market associated with interest rates'...

'...

This surge in interest rates may have already seriously destabilized the entire financial system, and that's why there is this meeting taking place in the White House today. The fact is that the vast majority of derivatives in the global financial system are related to interest rates.

Now, the entire financial system may be on the precipice of some sort of catastrophic event unfolding because of what we have already seen in the bond market, and how the derivatives are so heavily intertwined. Meaning, we may be on the verge of another disastrous derivatives meltdown.

John Embry '' King World News via Steve Quayle

Ahead of the 2008 collapse, as the pillars of our financial system were undergoing a controlled detonation, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve assured us the crisis had been contained. Experts and pundits on television were screaming to investors that everything was fine and to keep buying the dips.

Behind the scenes, however, President Bush, the Federal Reserve, and the world's leading financial institutions were scrambling to figure out how to keep the whole thing from falling apart. As former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson noted, we were on the brink of a historic collapse, and they knew it well ahead of time.

The American people were not as fortunate. Most of us came to the realization things had taken a turn for the worse only after 50% of our wealth had been wiped out in a stock market and housing crash.

Today, like before, all of the experts in Washington and the mainstream media are making a point to reassure us that we are in the midst of an economic recovery. However, key economic indicators suggest otherwise. We are seeing a plunge in global shipping, a halt in consumer spending, and perhaps most importantly, a significant rise in interest rates and the US government's borrowing costs.

Now, as the President meets with a veritable who's who of government finance, lending and monetary policy one can't help but think something is amiss.

Are we on the brink of another global disaster?

Please Spread The Word And Share This Post

Author: Mac SlavoViews: Read by 51,267 peopleDate: August 21st, 2013Website:www.SHTFplan.com

Copyright Information: Copyright SHTFplan and Mac Slavo. This content may be freely reproduced in full or in part in digital form with full attribution to the author and a link to www.shtfplan.com. Please contact us for permission to reproduce this content in other media formats.

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Fri, 23 Aug 2013 00:08

Nasdaq computers the target of Russian hackers, say US prosecutors

A prolific gang of hackers stole and sold 160 million credit card numbers from more than a dozen firms, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, US federal prosecutors charged.

But one company they hacked had nothing to do with credit cards or bank accounts: Nasdaq.

While they penetrated the main servers supporting Nasdaq's trading operations, it appears they caused limited damage. However, the attack raised the prospect that hackers could be getting closer to the infrastructure that supports billions of dollars of trades each hour.

The credit card scheme was run by four Russian nationals and a Ukrainian, said Paul Fishman, the US attorney for the District of New Jersey.

The victims in the scheme, which prosecutors said ran from 2005 until last year, included J.C. Penney, 7-Eleven, Heartland Payment Systems - a credit and debit processing company - and French retailer Carrefour.

The defendants were identified as Vladimir Drinkman, Alexander Kalinin, Roman Kotov and Dmitry Smilianets of Russia and Mikhail Rytikov of Ukraine. Smilianets and Drinkman were arrested in the Netherlands last year. Smilianets has been extradited to the US, where he is expected to make his first court appearance next week. The other three are at large.

Separate indictments involving some of the same men, accusing them of computer attacks on Citibank, PNC Bank and the Nasdaq stock exchange, were filed by federal prosecutors in New York.

The attackers had a sophisticated division of labour, according to the indictment. One hosted an anonymous web server. Others broke into the targeted sites. Another went inside and fetched the items of interest.

The defendants were able to sell US credit card numbers for US$10 and European numbers for US$50 because of the poorer security safeguards on US cards, Fishman said.

He said Heartland Payment Systems had suffered the biggest losses identified so far, about US$200 million.

Kalinin and another Russian, Nikolai Nasenkov, who is also at large, are accused of conducting a scheme to steal bank account information and use it to withdraw millions of dollars from the victims' bank accounts.

Kalinin was also charged with having gained access for two years to the servers of the Nasdaq stock exchange.

"As today's allegations make clear, cybercriminals are determined to prey not only on individual bank accounts, but on the financial system itself," Preet Bharara, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, New York, said in announcing the case.

As today's allegations make clear, cybercriminals are determined to prey not only on individual bank accounts, but on the financial system itself

Preet Bharara, Manhattan federal prosecutor

Kalinin had access to the Nasdaq servers, intermittently, until October 2010. Nasdaq discovered the breach itself and alerted the authorities.

Paul Tiao, a former senior adviser on cybersecurity at the FBI, said the Nasdaq breach was worrying because the servers the defendants attacked could have eventually provided an entry point to the more closely guarded trading systems.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Nasdaq breach a first for hackers

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Archived Version

Mon, 19 Aug 2013 17:23

Frank Franklin II/Associated Press

New York City during a blackout in 2003. More than 150 companies and groups will take part in a drill that will simulate attacks on the power grid.

This is why thousands of utility workers, business executives, National Guard officers, F.B.I. antiterrorism experts and officials from government agencies in the United States, Canada and Mexico are preparing for an emergency drill in November 2013 that will simulate physical attacks and cyberattacks that could take down large sections of the power grid.

They will practice for a crisis unlike anything the real grid has ever seen, and more than 150 companies and organizations have signed up to participate.

''This is different from a hurricane that hits X, Y and Z counties in the Southeast and they have a loss of power for three or four days,'' said the official in charge of the drill, Brian M. Harrell of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, known as NERC. ''We really want to go beyond that.''

One goal of the drill, called GridEx II, is to explore how governments would react as the loss of the grid crippled the supply chain for everyday necessities.

''If we fail at electricity, we're going to fail miserably,'' Curt H(C)bert, a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said at a recent conference held by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Mr. Harrell said that previous exercises were based on the expectation that electricity ''would be up and running relatively quick'' after an attack.

Now, he said, the goal is to ''educate the federal government on what their expectations should or shouldn't be.'' The industry held a smaller exercise two years ago in which 75 utilities, companies and agencies participated, but this one will be vastly expanded and will be carried out in a more anxious mood.

Most of the participants will join the exercise from their workplaces, with NERC, in Washington, announcing successive failures. One example, organizers say, is a substation break-in that officials initially think is an attempt to steal copper. But instead, the intruder uses a USB drive to upload a virus into a computer network.

The drill is part of a give-and-take in the past few years between the government and utilities that has exposed the difficulties of securing the electric system.

The grid is essential for almost everything, but it is mostly controlled by investor-owned companies or municipal or regional agencies. Ninety-nine percent of military facilities rely on commercial power, according to the White House.

The utilities play down their abilities, in comparison with the government's. ''They have the intelligence operation, the standing army, the three-letter agencies,'' said Scott Aaronson, senior director of national security policy at the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association of investor-owned utilities. ''We have the grid operations expertise.''

That expertise involves running 5,800 major power plants and 450,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines, monitored and controlled by a staggering mix of devices installed over decades. Some utilities use their own antique computer protocols and are probably safe from hacking '-- what the industry calls ''security through obscurity.''

But others rely on Windows-based control systems that are common to many industries. Some of them run on in-house networks, but computer security experts say they are not confident that all the connections to the public Internet have been discovered and secured. Many may be vulnerable to software '-- known as malware '-- that can disable the systems or destroy their ability to communicate, leaving their human operators blind about the positions of switches, the flows of current and other critical parameters. Experts say a sophisticated hacker could also damage hard-to-replace equipment.

In an effort to draw utilities and the government closer, the industry recently established the Electricity Sub-Sector Coordinating Council, made up of high-level executives, to meet with federal officials. The first session is next month.

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Fri, 23 Aug 2013 15:12

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) have been issued a directive to profile suspicious women flyers and subject them to remove their shirts for a pat-down check to see whether they are hiding explosives in their breast implants.

The latest directive comes after London's Heathrow Airport was put on terror alert amid fears that women fidayeen may enter with explosives hidden in breast implants.

Women guards in the frisking staff of the CISF will be carrying out these checks in an enclosure which the airport operator has been requested to provide.

''We are aware of the serious threat and this is a precautionary measure. Whenever a new threat comes to light, we circulate the information among the staff, asking them to be extra cautious. There is a possibility that women fidayeen may enter the airport carrying explosives in breast implants. That's why we have asked women guards to check women passengers thoroughly, especially the upper part of their body,'' said a senior CISF official.

''The first round of checks will be through hand-held metal detectors. If there is a beep on our machines, the passenger will be asked to remove her clothes. We are training our staff to be extra-sensitive as we understand that many women will feel angry by these checks,'' the officer added.

The CISF is seeking expert suggestions on how to identify passengers for random frisking.

''We have been told that the fidayeen can plant bombs surgically through breast implants. To detonate these bombs, one just needs to inject some kind of liquid in the implant. And such bombs are good enough to blow up a plane,'' said an official.

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Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:49

CERDAFIED - Following the bread crumb trail of FEMA orders, retired State Senator Sheldon R. Songstad of South Dakota State issued an ''Emergency Fema Region 3 Alert!!!,'' on August 13th.

Region three is comprised of; Washington DC, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Songstad's research turned up some very interesting facts. Each item on its own could go unnoticed, but the collective facts may be worthy of your attention and scrutiny. The U.S. government appears to be preparing for a major event. It appears that this event is being staged for approximately Oct. 1st. Let's look at the numbers and dates.

UN Peacekeepers began training the 4th week of July and will complete their nine week training by October 1st. They are learning English, as well as US weapon systems and Urban Warfare training.

How many troops are training? 386,000 troops!

The Center of Disease Control ordered $11 million worth of antibiotics. Where are they going? FEMA Region lll. When are they due? October 1st. This coupled with the fact that the World Health Organization held an emergency meeting, its second such meeting in its history, to discuss MERS Coronavirus. This is quite unsettling. The WHO determined that a vaccine MUST be in place by October 1st.

Periodic testing of GPS and Communications satellites is normal, but coordinating their testing for the first time, with a testing date of September 29th, is noteworthy.

All DHS agents MUST now qualify with sidearm, shotgun and AR 15's by September 28th. Less lethal qualifications are not mentioned. Has one eye brow raised? The DHS will receive 2800 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP's) that must be delivered by October 1st.

All National Guard units will complete their annual two week training in riot control and disaster assistance. All units MUST have their training complete by September 30th. However, the Eastern-based Coast Guard units will not be performing their usual training in the Gulf, this year they will be trained in Virginia and Delaware for 10 days beginning September 26th.

Coincidently, the Emergency Broadcast System will begin daily testing beginning on September 25th thru October 2nd. All of this kind of reminds me of the bomb sniffing dogs being trained at the Boston Marathon for the first time ever.

FEMA purchase orders deserve a little attention too. They ordered over $14.2 million for MREs and heater meals and 22 million pouches of emergency water, to be delivered to Region III by October 1st. An additional order of $13.6 million worth of MRE's and heater meals will be delivered to Austin by October 1st.

Our U.S. military will not be permitted leave from September 28th thru November 5th. NORCOMM's yearly training for civil unrest is suspended until September 27th. To be performed in northeast coastal areas. Date for release of QE3 report has been moved to October 16th.

Over 300 school systems will be issued a 3 day emergency kit for each student in September.

The retired Senator's national preparedness research was sparked by a comment Donald Trump made during a recent appearance on Fox News' ''On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.'' Songstad included a video version of his findings with his notice. His video is going viral.

How concerned should we be? Or perhaps the question is'....How prepared should we be? Perhaps the answer is'...'...Better prepared than the government.

(Lisa Cerda is a contributor to CityWatch, a community activist, Chair of Tarzana Residents Against Poorly Planned Development, VP of Community Rights Foundation of LA, Tarzana Property Owners Association board member, and former Tarzana Neighborhood Council board member.)

-cw

CityWatch

Vol 11 Issue 68

Pub: Aug 23, 2013

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Source: ynet - News

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 19:25

Yemen's President reveals details from intercepted phone call between al-Qaeda leaders which led to closure of dozens of Western embassies. 'We would carry out attack to change history,' one of them saidReuters

A vow made in a phone call by the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to carry out an attack that would "change the face of history" lay behind this month's closures of many Western embassies, Yemen's president said.

In the first public disclosure by a government leader of details of the intercepted call that prompted the US alert, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi said AQAP head Nasser al-Wuhayshi made the pledge to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri on July 29.

Related stories:

Many US and other Western diplomatic missions in the Middle East, Africa and Asia closed temporarily as a precaution.

Al Qaeda members in Arab Peninsula (Photo: AP)

Wuhayshi spoke by phone with Zawahri, who is believed to be based in Pakistan, while attending a meeting of 20 al Qaeda leaders in Yemen's Maarib province, Hadi said.

"When I was in Washington, the Americans told us that they had intercepted a call between Ayman al-Zawahri and Wuhayshi, in which Wuhayshi told Zawahri that they would carry out an attack that would change the face of history," the president told police cadets in remarks which state television aired on

Friday.

Al-Qaeda leader a-Zawahiri (Photo: EPA)

"I told the Americans this would be in Yemen," said Hadi, apparently reflecting a belief among some analysts that AQAP lacks the ability to launch big attacks outside the country.

Hadi, who visited Washington in late July and early August, added that two cars, each carrying seven tonnes of explosives, were later identified in Yemen by security forces.

The first, intended to attack the Mina al-Dhabba oil terminal in southeast Yemen, was destroyed.

The second car was headed for the capital Sanaa and is still unaccounted for, though Hadi said

authorities had arrested the cell which was in charge of smuggling it into the city.

"This made them (the Americans) scared and they closed their embassies in the whole region, because they heard Wuhayshi say he would carry out an attack that would change the course of history," Hadi

said.

US sources have said that while some type of message between Zawahri and AQAP was intercepted recently, there were also other streams of intelligence that contributed to the security alert.

The US embassy in Sanaa reopened on Aug. 18. It was one of about 20 US embassies and consulates that closed.

Hadi angered many Yemenis last year by giving unequivocal support for controversial US drone strikes in Yemen, which have increased under President Barack Obama.

The Yemeni army, with US backing, last year drove al Qaeda militants and their allies from strongholds they seized during months of turmoil against Saleh's rule.

But the militants have since regrouped and mounted attacks on government officials and installations.

Restoring stability to Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Arab world and next door to the world's

top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, is an international concern.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula used Yemen to plot attacks on international aviation and attacked a US warship and a French supertanker in Yemeni waters.

Yemen said earlier this month it had foiled a major al Qaeda plot to seize two oil and gas export terminals and a provincial capital in the east of the country.

Receive Ynetnews updates directly to your desktop

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Archived Version

Sat, 24 Aug 2013 20:08

If there's one thing we know about how the US government operates, it's that the American people are often the last to know about serious problems that may be taking place behind the scenes.

This week, in a move that has spooked a lot of economic and financial analysts, President Barack Obama held a special, closed door meeting with the heads of the U.S. government's financial, monetary and oversight agencies. It included members of the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, the CFTC, the SEC, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

This has left many wondering what is really going on '' and if a serious event is about to take place yet again.

I guess I'm always unnerved as a result of what happened in April, the last time the President of the United States had a meeting with all of the bank heads, and two days later the price of gold was smashed for over $200.

Now, the President is meeting with all of the heads of the various agencies, institutions, the Fed, and all of the other key money entities in the United States today. What's that all about?

But clearly if the President is having this meeting, there is a crisis unfolding somewhere in the background, and it could very well relate to the dollar, interest rates, and the massive derivatives market associated with interest rates'...

'...

This surge in interest rates may have already seriously destabilized the entire financial system, and that's why there is this meeting taking place in the White House today. The fact is that the vast majority of derivatives in the global financial system are related to interest rates.

Now, the entire financial system may be on the precipice of some sort of catastrophic event unfolding because of what we have already seen in the bond market, and how the derivatives are so heavily intertwined. Meaning, we may be on the verge of another disastrous derivatives meltdown.

John Embry '' King World News via Steve Quayle

Ahead of the 2008 collapse, as the pillars of our financial system were undergoing a controlled detonation, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve assured us the crisis had been contained. Experts and pundits on television were screaming to investors that everything was fine and to keep buying the dips.

Behind the scenes, however, President Bush, the Federal Reserve, and the world's leading financial institutions were scrambling to figure out how to keep the whole thing from falling apart. As former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson noted, we were on the brink of a historic collapse, and they knew it well ahead of time.

The American people were not as fortunate. Most of us came to the realization things had taken a turn for the worse only after 50% of our wealth had been wiped out in a stock market and housing crash.

Today, like before, all of the experts in Washington and the mainstream media are making a point to reassure us that we are in the midst of an economic recovery. However, key economic indicators suggest otherwise. We are seeing a plunge in global shipping, a halt in consumer spending, and perhaps most importantly, a significant rise in interest rates and the US government's borrowing costs.

Now, as the President meets with a veritable who's who of government finance, lending and monetary policy one can't help but think something is amiss.

Are we on the brink of another global disaster?

Please Spread The Word And Share This Post

Author: Mac SlavoViews: Read by 51,267 peopleDate: August 21st, 2013Website:www.SHTFplan.com

Copyright Information: Copyright SHTFplan and Mac Slavo. This content may be freely reproduced in full or in part in digital form with full attribution to the author and a link to www.shtfplan.com. Please contact us for permission to reproduce this content in other media formats.

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Sat, 24 Aug 2013 01:13

One week after it was first reported that talk radio giant Cumulus Media might cut ties with Rush Limbaugh and pull his show from 40 of its stations nationwide, the end result of the contractual showdown remains unclear. But we do know this: The damage has been done to Limbaugh and his reputation inside the world of AM radio as an untouchable star.

By opting to publicly negotiate its contract and making it clear the broadcast company is willing to walk away from his program, Cumulus has delivered a once unthinkable blow to Limbaugh's industry prestige. (Cumulus is also threatening to drop Sean Hannity's syndicated radio show.)

Even if Limbaugh wins in the end, he loses. Even if Limbaugh manages to stay on Cumulus' enviable rosters of major market talk stations, Limbaugh comes out of the tussle tarnished and somewhat diminished.

Recall that one year after Limbaugh ignited the most severe crisis of his career by insulting law student Sandra Fluke for three days on the air, attacking her as a "slut," the talker's team announced the host was unhappy with Cumulus. Angry that its CEO had been noting in the press how many advertisers Limbaugh had lost over the Fluke firestorm (losses that continue to accumulate), an anonymous Limbaugh source told Politico the host was so angry he might walk away from Cumulus when his contract expired at the end of the year.

Well, last week Cumulus called Limbaugh's bluff, plain and simple. And now the talker's side appears to be scrambling to make sure his show remains with Cumulus. But again, the damage is done. If Limbaugh really were an all-powerful source in AM radio, he would walk away from Cumulus. But he's not, and he can't.

Cumulus is reportedly driving a hard bargain and wants to reduce the costs associated with carrying Limbaugh's show, especially since he's unable to attract the same advertisers he used to. If in the end a deal is struck and Limbaugh stays with Cumulus for a reduced rate, what happens when the talker's contract expires with another large AM station group? Of course they're going to demand the same deal Cumulus got in exchange for keeping Limbaugh's show, or they'll threaten to drop the talker, too. And then on and on the process will repeat itself as broadcasters realize that maybe they can get Limbaugh on the cheap.

By the way, this is the exact opposite of how Limbaugh renewals used to be handled. Year ago, owners and general managers at Limbaugh's host stations lived in fear of getting a phone call from Limbaugh's syndicator, Clear Channel-owned Premier Networks, informing them the host was moving across town to a competitor when his contract was up. But today, Cumulus negotiates its Limbaugh contract via the press, apparently without the slightest concern about ending its association with him.

Of course, Limbaugh and Clear Channel could hold their ground, refuse to budge on Cumulus' demands and walk away from the radio giant with AM stations from coast to coast. That is an option, but it's also an unpleasant one in terms of what it would mean to Limbaugh's once unvarnished reputation as the AM talk gold standard.

Just look at what would likely happen to Limbaugh in New York City, the largest radio market in America. He's currently heard on WABC-AM, which has broadcast Limbaugh for decades and has served as his unofficial flagship station in America. But Cumulus owns the station and it's one that Limbaugh would get yanked off if the two sides can't come to an agreement. Where would Limbaugh likely end up in New York? On WOR-AM, a talk station that Clear Channel purchased last year, many observers believed, as a way to make sure Limbaugh would have a New York home if his deal ended at WABC-AM.

So what's wrong with Limbaugh moving to WOR-AM? Only the fact that the station's currently a ratings doormat, ranked 25th in that market with less than half the audience of WABC-AM. Yes, it's likely Limbaugh would improve that station's ratings if he moved over there. But at this stage in his career for Limbaugh to have to start over in the most important radio market in the country and do it on such a low-rated station? If you don't think that kind of demotion would sting, you don't understand the oversized egos that fuel talk radio in America.

The move to lowly WOR-AM would also call into question why debt-ridden Clear Channel opted to boost Limbaugh's salary by an astounding 40 percent in 2009, assuring him a $400 million payday over a ten-year contract.

Then again, Limbaugh is no stranger to sagging ratings, especially in New York City. Back in his prime a decade ago, Limbaugh helped power WABC-AM to become the number five-rated station in all of New York. Today, with Limbaugh still its marquee draw, the station has fallen to number 15 in the ratings, which may explain why Cumulus is willing to negotiate his departure.

Other cities would also pose a post-Cumulus problem. In Chicago for instance, Limbaugh would get dropped from WLS (which has also seen declining ratings in recent months), and without a Clear Channel-owned talk station in the market to pick him up, Limbaugh would have to find a new AM home. But based on the current radio landscape in Chicago, there would appear to be very few logical takers. (The city's top-rated AM information stations lean heavy on news and local talk; less on right-wing syndicated hosts like Limbaugh.)

Appearing on CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday, Talkers editor Michael Harrison insisted, "Rush is going to be around as long as he wants." He added, "He'll be 90 years old and still have a show." Harrison may be right. But last week's public shaming by Cumulus will likely be remembered for years as a turning point in Limbaugh's broadcast trajectory.

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HomeWar on the Horizon

Cultural Imperialism:The Sexual Agenda

Welcome toWar on the Horizon (WOH)

War on the Horizon (WOH)is a Haitianist organization created for the purpose of preparing Black people worldwide for an unavoidable, inevitable clash with the white race. whites around the world are absolutely determined to exterminate Afrikan people in all corners of the Earth.

As a result of this reality, WOH has dedicated our time and expertise to properly educating Black people to prepare for Racial Warfare. This includes intellectual, spiritual, psychological, and physical preparation for a global clash that will mean the end of white rule on this planet or the end of the Black Race as we know it.

Please review the information on our site to understand the threat our people are facing so that you may make the right decisions in preparation for this reality.

We'll See You on the Battlefield!

War on the Horizon Creed

Afrikan people are an international racial family who share a common: homeland (Afrika), Racial origin, culture, destiny, and a bitter enemy '' the white race. We are challenged by our common destiny to eradicate the system of racism white supremacy and its benefactors in order to establish righteous Black Dominion over Planet Earth.

We are mandated by our Creator to return to our proper status as rulers of this world. It is within the full rights and responsibility of every member of the Black world family to see to it that this ultimate goal is achieved so that we may once again restore peace and prosperity to Planet Earth under the divine and just leadership of God's first people '' The Black man, woman, and child of Afrika.

May our Black Brothers and Sisters see eternal progress,

May our International friends reap the benefits of refined Black leadership and,

May all of our global enemies perish by means of our Black swords.

Amen Ra!

War on the Horizon

We'll See You on the Battlefield!

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Part of a series of articles on...1526San Miguel de Gualdape(Sapelo Island, Georgia, Victorious)c. 1570Gaspar Yanga's Revolt(Veracruz, Victorious)1712 New York Slave Revolt(New York City, Suppressed)1733 St. John Slave Revolt(Saint John, Suppressed)1739 Stono Rebellion(South Carolina, Suppressed)1741 New York Conspiracy(New York City, Suppressed)1760 Tacky's War(Jamaica, Suppressed)1791''1804 Haitian Revolution(Saint-Domingue, Victorious)1800 Gabriel Prosser(Virginia, Suppressed)1803 Igbo Landing(St. Simons Island, Georgia, Suppressed)1805 Chatham Manor(Virginia, Suppressed)1811 German Coast Uprising(Territory of Orleans, Suppressed)1815 George Boxley(Virginia, Suppressed)1822 Denmark Vesey(South Carolina, Suppressed)1831 Nat Turner's rebellion(Virginia, Suppressed)1831''1832 Baptist War(Jamaica, Suppressed)1839 Amistad, ship rebellion(Off the Cuban coast, Victorious)1841 Creole, ship rebellion(Off the Southern U.S. coast, Victorious)1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation(Southern U.S., Suppressed)1859 John Brown's Raid(Virginia, Suppressed)

Nathaniel "Nat" Turner (October 2, 1800 '' November 11, 1831) was an American slave who led a slave rebellion in Virginia on August 21, 1831 that resulted in 55 white deaths. Whites responded with at least 100 black deaths.[2] He gathered supporters in Southampton County, Virginia. Turner was convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged. In the aftermath, the state executed 56 blacks accused of being part of Turner's slave rebellion. Two hundred blacks were also killed after being beaten by white militias and mobs reacting with violence.[3] Across Virginia and other southern states, state legislators passed new laws prohibiting education of slaves and free blacks, restricting rights of assembly and other civil rights for free blacks, and requiring white ministers to be present at black worship services.

At birth on October 2, 1800, Turner's owner recorded only his given name, Nat, although he may have had a last name within the slave community. In accordance with common practice, the whites referred to him by the last name of his owner, Benjamin Turner. This practice was continued by historians. Turner knew little about the background of his father, who was believed to have escaped from slavery when Turner was a young boy. Turner remained close to his paternal grandmother, Old Bridget, who was also owned by Benjamin Turner. Turner's maternal grandmother was one of the Coromantee also known as the Akan people from present-day Ghana, a group known for slave revolts. She was captured in Africa at thirteen years of age and shipped to America.[4]

Turner spent his life in Southampton County, Virginia, a predominantly black area.[5] After the rebellion, a reward notice described Turner as:

5 feet 6 or 8 inches high, weighs between 150 and 160 pounds, rather bright complexion, but not a mulatto, broad shoulders, larger flat nose, large eyes, broad flat feet, rather knockkneed, walks brisk and active, hair on the top of the head very thin, no beard, except on the upper lip and the top of the chin, a scar on one of his temples, also one on the back of his neck, a large knot on one of the bones of his right arm, near the wrist, produced by a blow.[6]

Turner had "natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension, surpassed by few."[7] He learned to read and write at a young age. Deeply religious, Nat was often seen fasting, praying, or immersed in reading the stories of the Bible.[8] He frequently experienced visions which he interpreted as messages from God. These visions greatly influenced his life; for instance, when Turner was 22 years old, he ran away from his owner, but returned a month later after having such a vision. Turner often conducted Baptist services, preaching the Bible to his fellow slaves, who dubbed him "The Prophet". Turner also had influence over white people, and in the case of Ethelred T. Brantley, Turner said that he was able to convince Brantley to "cease from his wickedness".[9]

By early 1828, Turner was convinced that he "was ordained for some great purpose in the hands of the Almighty."[10][11] While working in his owner's fields on May 12, Turner "heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first."[12] Turner was convinced that God had given him the task of "slay[ing] my enemies with their own weapons."[12] Turner said, "I communicated the great work laid out for me to do, to four in whom I had the greatest confidence" '' his fellow slaves Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam.[12]

Beginning in February 1831, Turner came to believe that certain atmospheric conditions were to be interpreted as a sign that he should begin preparing for a rebellion against the slave owners.

On February 11, 1831, an annular solar eclipse was seen in Virginia. Turner saw this as a black man's hand reaching over the sun, and he took this vision as his sign. The rebellion was initially planned for July 4, Independence Day, but was postponed for more deliberation between him and his followers, and due to illness. On August 13, there was another solar eclipse, in which the sun appeared bluish-green (possibly from debris deposited in the atmosphere by an eruption of Mount Saint Helens). Turner took this occasion as the final signal, and about a week later, on August 21, he began the rebellion.

Turner started with a few trusted fellow slaves. The rebels traveled from house to house, freeing slaves and killing the white people they found. The rebels ultimately included more than 70 enslaved and free blacks.[13]

Because the rebels did not want to alert anyone to their presence as they carried out their attacks, they initially used knives, hatchets, axes, and blunt instruments instead of firearms.[14] The rebellion did not discriminate by age or sex, until it was determined that the rebellion had achieved sufficient numbers. Nat Turner only confessed to killing one of the rebellion's victims, Margret Whitehead, whom he killed with a blow from a fence post.[14]

Before a white militia was able to respond, the rebels killed 60 men, women, and children.[15] They spared a few homes "because Turner believed the poor white inhabitants 'thought no better of themselves than they did of negros.'"[16][17] Turner also thought that revolutionary violence would serve to awaken the attitudes of whites to the reality of the inherent brutality in slave-holding, a concept similar to 20th century philosopher Franz Fanon's idea of "violence as purgatory".[18] Turner later said that he wanted to spread "terror and alarm" among whites.[19]

The rebellion was suppressed within two days, but Turner eluded capture until October 30, when he was discovered hiding in a hole covered with fence rails. On November 5, 1831, he was tried for "conspiring to rebel and making insurrection", convicted and sentenced to death.[20] Turner was hanged on November 11 in Jerusalem, Virginia. His body was flayed, beheaded and quartered.[21] In the aftermath of the insurrection there were 45 slaves, including Turner, and 5 free blacks tried for insurrection and related crimes in Southampton. Of the 45 slaves tried, 15 were acquitted. Of the 30 convicted, 18 were hanged, while 12 were sold out of state. Of the 5 free blacks tried for participation in the insurrection, one was hanged, while the others were acquitted.[22]

Soon after Turner's execution, a local lawyer, Thomas Ruffin Gray, took it upon himself to publish "The Confessions of Nat Turner", derived partly from research done while Turner was in hiding and partly from jailhouse conversations with Turner before trial. This work is the primary historical document regarding Nat Turner.

In total, the state executed 56 blacks suspected of having been involved in the uprising. In the aftermath, close to 200 blacks, many of whom had nothing to do with the rebellion, were murdered.[23]

Before the Nat Turner Revolt, there was a small but ineffectual antislavery movement in Virginia,[citation needed] largely on account of economic trends that made slavery less profitable in the Old South in the 1820s and fears among whites of the rising number of blacks, especially in the Tidewater and Piedmont regions. The push for abolition in 1831 represented the interests of 'herrenvolk' democracy and white male suffrage. Enraged poor whites condemned the slave-owning aristocracy for endangering their families and retaining an unfair advantage in elections as a result of the 3/5th clause. Most of the movement's members, including acting governor John Floyd, supported resettlement of blacks to Africa for these reasons. The enlightenment thinking of Virginia's forefathers played little part in the Emancipation's Debates of 1831-2. Considerations of white racial and moral purity also influenced many of these antislavery Virginians. These concerns illustrated that Virginia position towards slavery was no longer 'apologetic'. The fear caused by Nat Turner's insurrection and the concerns raised in the emancipation debates that followed laid foundation for politicians and writers who regarded slavery as a 'positive good'.[citation needed] Such authors included Thomas Roderick Dew, a William and Mary professor who published a pamphlet in 1832 opposing emancipation on economic and other grounds.[24]

Nevertheless, fears of repetitions of the Nat Turner Revolt polarized moderates and slave owners across the South.[citation needed] Municipalities across the region instituted repressive policies against blacks. Rights were taken away from those who were free. The freedoms of all black people in Virginia were tightly curtailed. Socially, the uprising discouraged whites' questioning the slave system from the perspective that such discussion might encourage similar slave revolts. Manumissions had decreased by 1810. The shift away from tobacco had made owning slaves in the Upper South an excess to the planters' needs, so they started to hire out slaves. With the ending of the slave trade, the invention of the cotton gin, and opening up of new territories in the Deep South, suddenly there was a growing market for the trading of slaves. Over the next decades, more than a million slaves would be transported to the Deep South in a forced migration as a result of the domestic slave trade.

In terms of public response and loss of white lives, slaveholders in the Upper South and coastal states were deeply shocked by the Nat Turner Rebellion. While the 1811 German Coast Uprising in Louisiana involved a greater number of slaves, it resulted in only two white fatalities. Events in Louisiana did not receive as much attention in those years in the Upper South and Low country. Because of his singular status, Turner is regarded as a hero by many African Americans and pan-Africanists worldwide.

Turner became the focus of historical scholarship in the 1940s, when historian Herbert Aptheker was publishing the first serious scholarly work on instances of slave resistance in the antebellum South. Aptheker wrote that the rebellion was rooted in the exploitative conditions of the Southern slave system. He traversed libraries and archives throughout the South, managing to uncover roughly 250 similar instances, though none of them reached the scale of Nat Turner's Revolt.

Interpretations[edit source |edit]Looking back, Nat Turner remains an "enigmatic and controversial figure", according to former University of Massachusetts Amherst history professor Stephen B. Oates, given that Turner fought for the just anti-slavery cause but he proceeded in acts of violence against women and children that would today be considered as war crimes or terrorism. Among many, perhaps most, African-Americans in the antebellum period up to today, Turner's legacy takes on a heroic status as someone willing to make slave-owners pay for the hardships that they enacted upon the millions of children, women and men they enslaved.[16]Black church historical writer James H. Harris has argued that the revolt "marked the turning point in the black struggle for liberation" since, in his view, "only a cataclysmic act could convince the architects of a violent social order that violence begets violence."[18]

Shortly after the revolt, Turner's motives and ideas were generally seen as opaque and too unclear to either support or condemn by most American whites.[19] Ante-bellum slave-holding whites clearly experienced a major psychological shock and lived in greater fear of future rebellions, with Turner's name working as "a symbol of terrorism and violent retribution".[16] Turner eventually received praise in a seminal Atlantic Monthly article in 1861 by Thomas Higginson, who called him a man "who knew no book but the Bible, and that by heart-- who devoted himself soul and body to the cause of his race". However, writing after the September 11 attacks, William L. Andrews drew analogies between Turner and modern ''religio-political terrorists'', and suggested that the ''spiritual logic'' explicated in Confessions of Nat Turner warrants study as ''a harbinger of the spiritualizing violence of today's jihads and crusades''.[19] Most historical commentary tended to sympathize with Turner after the U.S. civil war ended.

In popular culture[edit source |edit]The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), a novel by William Styron, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1968.[25] This book had wide critical and popular acclaim, but several critics considered it racist and "a deliberate attempt to steal the meaning of a man's life."[26] These assertions were part of cultural discussions about how different peoples can interpret the past and whether any one group has sole ownership of any portion.In response to Styron's novel, ten African-American writers published The Second Crucifixion of Nat Turner in 1968.[27]The movie Goodbye Uncle Tom (1971) ends with an unidentified man's fantasy re-enactment of Styron's novel. He imagines Nat Turner's revolt in the present, including the brutal murder of the whites around him, who replace the figures Turner talks about in Styron's novel.Nat Turner's Rebellion plays a major role in Episode 5 of the 1977 TV miniseries Roots. This is historically inaccurate, however, because the opening credits state that this part of the story takes place in the year 1841. Nat Turner's Rebellion ended 10 years earlier with Nat's execution in 1831.[28]In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Nat Turner as one of the 100 Greatest African Americans.[29]Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property, a film by Charles Burnett, was released in 2003.[30]In 2007 cartoonist and comic book author Kyle Baker wrote a two-part comic book about Turner and his uprising, which was called Nat Turner.[31]Nat Turner is mentioned in the song "The City" by the Wu-Tang Clan off their album Wu-Tang Forever.Philadelphia MC Reef the Lost Cauze put out a song called "Nat Turner" on his album A Vicious Cycle.[32]In 2009, in Newark, New Jersey the largest city-owned park to be completed was named Nat Turner Park. The park is named in honor of Nat Turner and his struggle for freedom. The facility cost $12 million in construction.[33]In early 2009, comic book artist and animator Brad Neely created a Web animation entitled "American Moments of Maybe", a satirical video game advertisement for Nat Turner's Punchout! a game in which a player supposedly took on the role of Nat Turner.[34]Nat Turner is mentioned in the song "The Point of No Return" by Immortal Technique on the album Revolutionary Vol. 2.Nat Turner is mentioned in the song "Born Fe Rebel" by Steel Pulse.The Letter Writer by Ann Rinaldi is a work of historical fiction that tells of Nat Turner's uprising.The rebellion is mentioned in the Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, a slave narrative by an escaped slave.Nat Turner is mentioned in the song "Ah Yeah" by KRS-One.Nat Turner is mentioned in the song "Somebody's Gotta Do It'" by The Roots on their 2004 album The Tipping PointOn Hell Razah's song "Rebel Music", Nat Turner is mentioned in verse: "Black queens havin' seeds while she's strung on dope / I resurrected Nat Turner with this song that I wrote".On Kanye West's album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Gil Scott-Heron's track "Comment #1", in which Nat Turner is mentioned, is part of Track 13: "Who Will Survive in America".Nat Turner is mentioned in the song "David Rose" by Clutch (hidden track on some copies of The Elephant Riders)Nat Turner is mentioned in Public Enemy's "Prophets of Rage," on their album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.American metal band Cormorant wrote a song about the rebellion titled "Blood on the Cornfields" on their Metazoa album.Nat Turner is also brought up in the book, Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl.Nat Turner is the subject of the book The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 1: The Witnesses: A Novel and its sequel by Sharon E Foster, written in 2011.Nat Turner is the subject of the book "L'Ange noir" by Catherine Hermary-Vieille.Nat Turner is mentioned in the song "The People`s Champ" by R.A The Rugged Man.Nat Turner is mentioned in the song "Nat Turner" by Hussein Fatal.Nat Turner is a character in the novel, Up Jumps the Devil by Michael Poore. Among many threads within the book, the small narrative about Nat Turner sympathetically re-frames Nat's arc from minister to ordained rebel with the help of a character known as John Scratch.^Bisson, Terry. Nat Turner: Slave Revolt Leader. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005.^American HIstory: A survey '-- Brinkley^Oates, Stephen B. (1990 [1975]). The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc. p. 126. ISBN 0-06-091670-2. ^William Stryon (1993), p. 128-9^Drewry, William Sydney (1900). The Southampton Insurrection. Washington, D. C.: The Neale Company. p. 108. ^Description of Turner included in $500 reward notice in the Washington National Intelligencer on September 24, 1831, quoted in Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts, p. 294.^Bisson, Terry. Nat Turner: Slave Revolt Leader. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005. p.76^Aptheker (1993), p296.^Gray, Thomas Ruffin (1831). The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrections in Southampton, Va. Baltimore, Maryland: Lucas & Deaver. pp. 7''9, 11. ^Gray (1831), p 9.^Rothman, Adam. Slavery. Teachinghistory.org. Accessed 2 June 2011.^ abcGray (1831), p 11.^Ayers, de la Tejada, Schulzinger and White (2007). American Anthem US History (Pg.286). New York, New York: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston. ^ abGray, Thomas Ruffin (1831). The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrections in Southampton, Va. Baltimore, Maryland: Lucas & Deaver. ^Oates, Stephen B. (1990 [1975]) The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion, New York: HarperPerennial ISBN 0-06-091670-2.^ abcOates, Stephen (1973-09). "Children of Darkness". American Heritage Magazine24 (3). Retrieved 2009-02-21 (archived). ^Bisson, Terry. Nat Turner: Slave Revolt Leader. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005. pp. 57-58^ abJames H. Harris (1995). Preaching liberation. Fortress Press. p. 46. ^ abcWilliam L. Andrews; ed. Vincent L. Wimbush (2008). "7". Theorizing Scriptures: new critical orientations to a cultural phenomenon. Rutgers University Press. pp. 83''85. ^Southampton County Court Minute Book 1830-1835 pp.121-123.^Gibson, Christine (November 11, 2005). "Nat Turner, Lightning Rod". American Heritage Magazine. Retrieved 2009-04-06 (archived). ^Walter L. Gordon, III, The Nat Turner Insurrection Trials: A mystic Chord Resonates Today (Booksurge, 2009) at 75, 92.^"Africans in America/Part 3/Nat Turner's Rebellion". Pbs.org. Retrieved 2010-08-21. ^"Alfred L. Brophy, Considering William and Mary's History with Slavery: The Case of President Thomas R. Dew". Retrieved 1 July 2012. ^"The Pulitzer Prizes | Fiction". Pulitzer.org. Retrieved 2010-08-21. ^Ebony '' Google Books. Retrieved 2010-08-21. ^"Dr. Molefi Kete Asante '' Articles". Asante.net. Retrieved 2010-08-21. ^''''. "Roots '' disc 3-1, part 1". YouTube. Retrieved 2010-08-21. ^Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-963-8.^http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0354763/^"Kyle Baker's Nat Turner #1". Comicbookbin.com. Retrieved 2010-08-21. ^"Video About Reef The Lost Cauze '' Nat Turner". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2010-08-21. ^"The Trust for Public Land Celebrates Groundbreaking at Nat Turner Park". Pr-inside.com. Retrieved 2010-08-21. ^"Brad Neely '' American Moments of Maybe '' Video, listening & stats at". Last.fm. 2008-11-21. Retrieved 2010-08-21. Herbert Aptheker. American Negro Slave Revolts. 5th edition. New York: International Publishers, 1983 (1943).Herbert Aptheker. Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion. New York: Humanities Press, 1966.Alfred L. Brophy. "The Nat Turner Trials". North Carolina Law Review (June 2013), volume 91: 1817-80.Scot French. The Rebellious Slave: Nat Turner in American Memory. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2004.William Lloyd Garrison, "The Insurrection", The Liberator, (September 3, 1831). A contemporary abolitionist's reaction to news of the rebellion.Walter L. Gordon III. The Nat Turner Insurrection Trials: A Mystic Chord Resonates Today (Booksurge, 2009).Thomas R. Gray, The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrections in Southampton, Va. Baltimore: Lucas & Deaver, 1831. Available online.William Stryon, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Random House Inc, 1993, ISBN 0-679-73663-8Stephen B. Oates, The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion. New York: HarperPerennial, 1990 (1975).Brodhead, Richard H. "Millennium, Prophecy and the Energies of Social Transformation: The Case of Nat Turner," in A. Amanat and M. Bernhardsson (eds.), Imagining the End: Visions of Apocalypse from the Ancient Middle East to Modern America (London, I. B. Tauris, 2002), 212-233.Kenneth S. Greenberg, ed. Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.Junius P. Rodriguez, ed. Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2006.Ely, Mike. "The Slave Rebellion of General Nat Turner". Kasama Project. December 2007Works by Nat Turner at Project GutenbergThe Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Va. Baltimore: T. R. Gray, 1831.Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property, California NewsreelNat Turner's Rebellion, Africans in America, PBS.orgJessica McElrath, Nat Turner's Rebellion, About.comThomas Ruffin Gray, The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831) online edition"Nat Turner: Lightning Rod" on the American Heritage websiteInterview with Sharon Ewell Foster regarding her recent research on Turner, The State of Things, North Carolina Public Radio, 31 Aug 2011Nat Turner Unchained an independent feature film about the Nat Turner revolt.

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Aug 2013 '' Annual Nat Turner MonthPosted on August 1st, 2013Nat Turner Month

Every August

Armageddeon

At the beginning of every year, Black people are forced to relive Martin Luther King Jr.'s nightmare of mass integration with and love for white folks. Every time we hear it, we have either of (4) responses:

Integrationist Negroes think to themselves, ''This is so beautiful. I prey these white folks learn to love us one day. Thank you Reverend King for teaching us to love white folks. One day, God willing, they will love us too!''Everyday Black people think to themselves, ''I don't know if I really agree with loving the racist white folks. Dr. King meant well, but maybe we should rethink that a little bit.''Strong Black people who are wiling to fight think to themselves, ''I respect the man, but I ain't with no turn the other cheek #$%@. You hit me, I'ma hit yo' &%$ back.''PanAfrikans, Black Nationalists, and Haitianists think to themselves, ''What kinda *&$# was that koon smokin? Turn that *%$^ off in my house. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be using that kind of language around the children. But turn that bull&^%$ off now god&^%$&^!!!! Happy slavin' koon motha&$%'...'...''We fail to consider the fact that we start our children off every year in January, one of the coldest months of the year, with a living testimonial of how to be a good Negro who is in love with his white enemies. This is a shining example of what slavery in amerikkka has done to the minds of our people. We have not only fallen in love with the whites who are committing racial genocide against us worldwide, but we have fallen in love with Negro preachers who love white folks as well. The great irony of it all is that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did not and does not represent anywhere near the best that Black religious figures in the history of amerikkka have to offer.

For instance, the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, was an admitted Christian (no one is perfect), whose contribution to our Race was so much more relevant than King's, that Martin Luther King Jr.'s name shouldn't even be mentioned in the same category with Mr. Garvey. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad organized and maintained a religious-based Black Nation within the boundaries of the u.s. for over a half-a-century. Religious men like Denmark Vesey, Gabrielle Prosser, David Walker, Bishop Henry McNeil Turner, The Reverend Ishakamusa Barashango, Malcolm X, Dr. Khallid Abdul Muhammad, among many others, fought for our Race with truth and dignity in a way that Negro preachers never have.

But there is one Black religious figure who stands above all others in our eyes at War on the Horizon (WOH). He is the Haitianist in amerikkka's icon. In fact, he is to the Haitianist in amerikkka what Jesus Christ is to Black Christians throughout the world. He was a God (Amen) sent messiah who came to show our people the way to freedom. On August 21, 1831, he led a rebellion against the white enslavers in the South that sounded the first horn announcing the end of chattel slavery in amerikkka would soon be near. His name is Nat Turner. He was the prophet who freed Black people from slavery in amerikkka. His story has been told a million times and will be told a hundred million more.

So instead of sharing an annual new year with whites during the cold, bitter snow and ice of January, War on the Horizon (WOH) is inviting you to begin a new tradition here in the hells of north amerikkka. We Haitianists invite all PanAfrikans, Black Nationalists, Black Progressives, and other anti-white, noble-minded Black people to join us in celebrating our Afrikan New Year in August of each year. From this day forward, August will officially be ''Nat Turner Month'' for WOH and it will mark our Afrikan New Year. Here are a few of the things that we invite other Afrikans to join us in doing each August in honor of the life and work of our great Prophet, Nathaniel Turner:

Call, email, text, etc . . . ''Happy Afrikan New Year'' to your sphere of influence and wish them well for the month on every August 1st. Set your goals and/or aspirations for the year on August 1st of every year and take time to reflect on how well you did with your goals from the last August New Year.Plan every act of vengeance, retaliation, protest, aggression, etc . . . for the month of August knowing that the ancestors, and especially Prophet Nat, Boukman Dutty, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, will be with you as you do your hunting.Take off August 21st each year from your job. Spend it with family and/or friends celebrating the life and work of Nat Turner '' The Prophet.Celebrate the Haitian Revolution for Nat Turner Month on every August 22nd. Watch the 1st ever Afrikan Insurrektion Muzikal (A.I.M.) ''1831 Turner Street '' The Life and Times of Nat Turner'' with your family and friends for free on YouTube.We look forward to celebrating Nat Turner Month with you this year and every year after. And in honor of our Prophet, here is the written confession of Nat Turner after his infamous insurrection in Southampton County, VA on August 21, 1831.

The Confessions of Nat Turner '' The Prophet

as Documented by Thomas R. Gray

1831 Turner Street feat Brothas

The Life and Times of Nat Turner, the Prophet1st Ever Afrikan Insurrektion Muzikal (A.I.M.)

The following is the actual testimony of Nat Turner as given by the Prophet himself to the attorney Thomas R. Gray. Enjoy!

In the words of the immortal Nat Turner:

I was thirty-one years of age the second of October last, and born the property of Benjamin Turner, of this county. In my childhood a circumstance occurred which made an indelible impression on my mind, and laid the groundwork of that enthusiasm which has terminated so fatally to many, both white and black, and for which I am about to atone at the gallows. It is here necessary to relate this circumstance. Trifling as it may seem, it was the commencement of that belief which has grown with time; and even now, sir, in his dungeon, helpless and forsaken as I am, I cannot divest myself of. Being at play with other children, when three or four years old, I was telling them something, which my mother, overhearing, said it had happened before I was born. I stuck to my story, however, and related some things which went, in her opinion, to confirm it. Others being called on, were greatly astonished, knowing that these things had happened, and caused them to say, in my hearing, I surely would be a prophet, as the Lord had shown me things that had happened before my birth. And my mother and grandmother strengthened me in this my first impression, saying, in my presence, I was intended for some great purpose, which they had always thought from certain marks on my head and breast. . . .

My grandmother, who was very religious, and to whom I was much attached-my master, who belonged to the church, and other religious persons who visited the house, and whom I often saw at prayers, noticing the singularity of my manners, I suppose, and my uncommon intelligence for a child, remarked I had too much sense to be raised, and, if I was, I would never be of any service to any one as a slave. To a mind like mine, restless, inquisitive, and observant of everything that was passing, it is easy to suppose that religion was the subject to which it would be directed; and, although this subject principally occupied my thoughts, there was nothing that I saw or heard of to which my attention was not directed. The manner in which I learned to read and write, not only had great influence on my own mind, as I acquired it with the most perfect ease,-so much so, that I have no recollection whatever of learning the alphabet; but, to the astonishment of the family, one day, when a book was shown me, to keep me from crying, I began spelling the names of different objects. This was a source of wonder i to all in the neighborhood, particularly the blacks-and this learning was constantly improved at all opportunities. When I got large enough to go to work, while employed I was reflecting on many things that would present themselves to my imagination; and whenever an opportunity occurred of looking at a book, when the school-children were getting their lessons, I would find many things that the fertility of my own imagination had depicted to me before. All my time, not devoted to my master's service, was spent either in prayer, or in making experiments in casting different things in molds made of earth, in attempting to make paper, gunpowder, and many other experiments, that, although I could not perfect, yet convinced me of its practicability if I had the means.

I was not addicted to stealing in my youth, nor have ever been; yet such was the confidence of the Negroes in the neighborhood, even at this early period of my life, in my superior judgment, that they would often carry me with them when they were going on any roguery, to plan for them. Growing up among them with this confidence in my superior judgment, anti when this, in their opinions, was perfected by Divine inspiration, from the circumstances already alluded to in my infancy, and which belief was ever afterwards zealously inculcated by the austerity of my life and manners, which became the subject of remark by white and black; having soon discovered to be great, I must appear so, and therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped myself in mystery, devoting my time to fasting and prayer.

By this time, having arrived to man's estate, and hearing the Scriptures commented on at meetings, I was struck with that particular passage which says, ''Seek ye the kingdom of heaven, and all things shall be added unto you.'' I reflected much on this passage, and prayed daily for light on this subject. As I was praying one day at my plough, the Spirit spoke to me, saying, ''Seek ye the kingdom of heaven, and all things shall be added unto you.,'

Question. ''What do you mean by the Spirit?''

Answer. ''The Spirit that spoke to the prophets in former days, and I was greatly astonished, and for two years prayed continually, whenever my duty would permit; and then again I had the same revelation, which fully confirmed me in the impression that I was ordained for some great purpose in the hands of the Almighty. Several years rolled round, in which many events occurred to strengthen me in this my belief. At this time I reverted in my mind to the remarks made of me in my childhood, and the things that had been shown me; and as it had been said of me in my childhood, by those by whom I had been taught to pray, both white and black, and in whom I had the greatest confidence, that I had too much sense to be raised, and if I was I would never be of any use to any one as a slave; now, finding I had arrived to man's estate, and was a slave, and these revelations being made known to me, I began to direct my attention to this great object, to fulfill the purpose for which, by this time, I felt assured I was intended. Knowing the influence I had obtained over the minds of my fellow-servant (not by the means of conjuring and such like tricks-for to them I always spoke of such things with contempt), but by the communion of the Spirit, whose revelations I often communicated to them, and they believed and said my wisdom came from God, '-- I now began to prepare them for my purpose, by telling them something was about to happen that would terminate in fulfilling the great promise that had been made to me.

About this time I was placed under an overseer, from whom I ran away, and after remaining in the woods thirty days, I returned, to the astonishment of the Negroes on the plantation, who thought I had made my escape to some other part of the country, as my father had done before. But the reason of my return was, that the Spirit appeared to me and said I had my wishes directed to the things of this world, and not to the kingdom of heaven, and that I should return to the service of my earthly master-

''For he who knoweth his Master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes, and thus have I chastened you.'' And the Negroes found fault, and murmured against me, saying that if they had my sense they would not serve any master in the world. And about this time I had a vision- and I saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was darkened-the thunder rolled in the heavens, and blood flowed in streams-and I heard a voice saying, ''Such is your luck, such you are called to see; and let it come rough or smooth, you must surely bear it.''

I now withdrew myself as much as my situation would permit from the intercourse of my fellow-servants, for the avowed purpose of serving the Spirit more fully; and it appeared to me, and reminded me of the things it had already shown me, and that it would then reveal to me the knowledge of the elements, the revolution of the planets, the operation of tides, and changes of the seasons. After this revelation in the year 1825, and the knowledge of the elements being made known to me, I sought more than ever to obtain true holiness before the great day of judgment should appear, and then I began to receive the true knowledge of faith. And from the first steps of righteousness until the last, was I made perfect; and the Holy Ghost was with me, and said, ''Behold me as I stand in the heavens.'' And I looked and saw the forms of men in different attitudes; and there were lights in the sky, to which the children of darkness gave other names what they really were; for they were the lights of the Saviour's hands, stretched forth from east to west, even as they were extended on the cross on Calvary for the redemption of sinners. And I wondered greatly at these. miracles, and prayed to be informed of a certainty of the meaning thereof; and shortly afterwards, while laboring in the field, I discovered drops of blood on the corn, as though it were dew from heaven; and I communicated it to many, both white and black, in the neighborhood-and I then found on the leaves in the woods hieroglyphic characters and numbers, with the forces of men in different attitudes, portrayed in blood, and representing the figures I had seen before in the heavens. And now the Holy Ghost had revealed itself to me, and made plain the miracles it had shown me; for as the blood of Christ had been shed on this earth, and had ascended to heaven for the salvation of sinners, and was now returning to earth again in the form of dew, '-- and as the leaves on the trees bore the impression of the figures I had seen in the heavens, '-- it was plain to me that the Saviour was. about to lay down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and the great day of judgment was at hand.

About this time I told these things to a white man (Etheldred T. Brantley), on whom it had a wonderful effect; and he ceased from his wickedness, and was attacked immediately with a cutaneous eruption, and blood oozed from the pores of his skin, and after praying and fasting nine days he was healed. And the Spirit appeared to me again, and said, as the Saviour had been baptized, so should we be also; and when the white people would not let us be baptized by the church, we went down into the water together, in the sight of many who reviled us, and were baptized by the Spirit. After this I rejoiced greatly, and gave thanks to God. And on the 12th of May, 1828, I heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he bad home for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first.

Ques. ''Do you not find yourself mistaken now?

Ans. ''Was not Christ crucified?'' And by signs in the heavens that it would make known to me when I should commence the great work, and until the first sign appeared I should conceal it from the knowledge of men; and on the appearance of the sign (the eclipse of the sun, last February *), I should arise and prepare myself, and slay my enemies with their own weapons. And immediately on the sign appearing in the heavens, the sea] was removed from my lips, and I communicated the great work laid out for me to do, to four in whom I had the greatest confidence (Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam). It was intended by us to have begun the work of death on the 4th of July last. Many were the plans formed and rejected by us, and it affected my mind to such a degree that I fell sick, and the time passed without our coming to any determination how to commence-still forming new schemes and rejecting them, when the sign appeared again, which determined me not to wait longer.

Since the commencement of 1830 I had been living with Mr. Joseph Travis, who was to me a kind master, and placed the greatest confidence in me; in fact, I had no cause to complain of his treatment to me. On Saturday evening, the 20th of August, it was agreed between Henry, Hark, and myself, to prepare a dinner the next day for the men we expected, and then to concert a plan, as we had not yet determined on any. Hark, on the following morning, brought a pig, and Henry brandy; and being joined by Sam, Nelson, Will, and Jack, they prepared in the woods a dinner, where, about three o'clock, I joined them.

Q. Why were you so backward in joining them?

A. The same reason that had caused me not to mix with them years before, I saluted them on coming up, and asked Will how he came to be there. He answered, his life was worth no more than others, and his liberty as dear to him. I asked him if he thought to obtain it. He said he would, or lose his life. This was enough to put him in full confidence. Jack, I knew, was only a tool in the hands of Hark. It was quickly agreed we should commence at home (Mr. J. Travis) on that night; and until we had armed and equipped ourselves, and gathered sufficient force, neither age nor sex was to be spared-which was invariably adhered to. We remained at the feast until about two hours in the night, when we went to the house and found Austin. . . .

I took my station in the rear, and, as it was my object to carry terror and devastation wherever we went, I placed fifteen or twenty of the best armed and most to be relied on in front, who generally approached the houses as fast as their horses could run. This was for two purposes-to prevent their escape, and strike terror to the inhabitants; on this account I never got to the houses, after leaving Mrs. Whitehead's, until the murders were committed, except in one case. I sometimes got in sight in time to see the work of death completed; viewed the mangled bodies as they lay, in silent satisfaction, and immediately started in quest of other victims. Having murdered Mrs. Waller and ten children, we started for Mr. Wm. Williams, '-- having killed him and two little boys that were there; while engaged in this, Mrs. Williams fled and got some distance from the house, but she was pursued, overtaken, and compelled to get up behind one of the company, who brought her back, and, after showing her the mangled body of her lifeless husband, she was told to get down and lay by his side, where she was shot dead.

The white men pursued and fired on us several times. Hark had his horse shot under him, and I caught another for him as it was running by me; five or six of my men were wounded, but none left on the field. Finding myself defeated here, I instantly determined to go through a private way, and cross the Nottoway River at the Cypress Bridge, three miles below Jerusalem, and attack that place in the rear, as I expected they would look for me on the other road, and I had a great desire to get there to procure arms and ammunition. After going a short distance in this private way, accompanied by about twenty men, I overtook two or three, who told me the others were dispersed in every direction. On this, I gave up all hope for the present; and on Thursday night, after having supplied myself with provisions from Mr. Travis, I scratched a hole under a pile of fence-rails in a field, where I concealed myself for six weeks, never leaving my hiding-place but for a few minutes in the dead of the night to get water, which was very near. Thinking by this time I could venture out, I began to go about in the night, and eavesdrop the houses in the neighborhood '' pursuing this course for about a fortnight, and gathering little or no intelligence, afraid of speaking to any human being, and returning every morning to my cave before the dawn of day. I know not how long I might have led this life, if accident had not betrayed me. A dog in the neighborhood passing by my hiding-place one night while I was out, was attracted by some meat I had in my cave, and crawled in and stole it, and was coming out just as I returned. A few nights after, two Negroes having started to go hunting with the same dog, and passed that way, the dog came again to the place, and having just gone out to walk about, discovered me and barked; on which, thinking myself discovered, I spoke to them to beg concealment. On making myself known, they fled from me. Knowing then they would betray me, I immediately left my hiding-place, and was pursued almost incessantly, until I was taken, a fortnight afterwards, by Mr. Benjamin Phipps, in a little hole I bad dug out with my sword, for the purpose of concealment, under the top of a fallen tree.

During the time I was pursued, I had many hair-breadth escapes, which your time will not permit you to relate. I am here loaded with chains, and willing to suffer the fate that awaits me.

The Confessions of Nat Turner, the leader of the late insurrection, in Southhampton (county), by Thomas R. Gray, VA'...Baltimore, 1831

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 02:09

EffeminizationEffeminization of the Black Male Page

This Is Not Us Brothers and Sisters!!!!!

Thank you for tuning into War on the Horizon (WOH) online. We trust that our information will awaken your Black Afrikan spirit and encourage you to join in this international war for our survival. At this point in history, whites worldwide are threatening the existence of every Black man, woman, and child on Earth. Since we are the most valuable people alive and there is no need for this planet's existence without us, it is time for us to prepare for the international war for Black survival.

In this regard, the videos you are about to watch are designed to help you understand one of the major assaults that whites are waging on our people globally. They are intentionally waging a war against the sexual sanity of Afrikan people around the globe. If we lose this battle, we lose the war and we will be exterminated. When we win this battle, it will mark the first victory in our war for world power and Black dominion. Enjoy and share with your friends.

Effeminization of the Black Male Part 1

Effeminization of the Black Male Part 2

Effeminization of the Black Male Part 3

Effeminization of the Black Male Part 4

Predators In Our Midst

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Sat, 24 Aug 2013 20:46

MINNEAPOLIS '-- One of the first inklings Sheriff Richard Stanek had that something was wrong came with a call from the mortgage company handling his refinancing.

''It must be a mistake,'' he said, when the loan officer told him that someone had placed liens totaling more than $25 million on his house and on other properties he owned.

But as Sheriff Stanek soon learned, the liens, legal claims on property to secure the payment of a debt, were just the earliest salvos in a war of paper, waged by a couple who had lost their home to foreclosure in 2009 '-- a tactic that, with the spread of an anti-government ideology known as the ''sovereign citizen'' movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices.

Over the next three years, the couple, Thomas and Lisa Eilertson, filed more than $250 billion in liens, demands for compensatory damages and other claims against more than a dozen people, including the sheriff, county attorneys, the Hennepin County registrar of titles and other court officials.

A message at the couple's foreclosed home.

Hennepin County Sherrif's Dept

''It affects your credit rating, it affected my wife, it affected my children,'' Sheriff Stanek said of the liens. ''We spent countless hours trying to undo it.''

Cases involving sovereign citizens are surfacing increasingly here in Minnesota and in other states, posing a challenge to law enforcement officers and court officials, who often become aware of the movement '-- a loose network of groups and individuals who do not recognize the authority of federal, state or municipal government '-- only when they become targets. Although the filing of liens for outrageous sums or other seemingly frivolous claims might appear laughable, dealing with them can be nightmarish, so much so that the F.B.I. has labeled the strategy ''paper terrorism.'' A lien can be filed by anyone under the Uniform Commercial Code.

Occasionally, people who identify with the movement have erupted into violence. In Las Vegas this week, the police said that an undercover sting operation stopped a plot to torture and kill police officers in order to bring attention to the movement. Two people were arrested. In 2010, two police officers in Arkansas were killed while conducting a traffic stop with a father and son involved in the movement.

Mostly, though, sovereign citizens choose paper as their weapon. In Gadsden, Ala., three people were arrested in July for filing liens against victims including the local district attorney and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew. And in Illinois this month, a woman who, like most sovereign citizens, chose to represent herself in court, confounded a federal judge by asking him to rule on a flurry of unintelligible motions.

''I hesitate to rank your statements in order of just how bizarre they are,'' the judge told the woman, who was facing charges of filing billions of dollars in false liens.

''The convergence of the evidence strongly suggests a movement that is flourishing,'' said Mark Pitcavage, the director of investigative research for the Anti-Defamation League. ''It is present in every single state in the country.''

The sovereign citizen movement traces its roots to white extremist groups like the Posse Comitatus of the 1970s, and the militia movement. Terry L. Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombing conspirator, counted himself a sovereign citizen. But in recent years it has drawn from a much wider demographic, including blacks, members of Moorish sects and young Occupy protesters, said Detective Moe Greenberg of the Baltimore County Police Department, who has written about the movement.

The ideology seems to attract con artists, the financially desperate and people who are fed up with bureaucracy, Mr. Pitcavage said, adding, ''But we've seen airline pilots, we've seen federal law enforcement officers, we've seen city councilmen and millionaires get involved with this movement.''

Sovereign citizens believe that in the 1800s, the federal government was gradually subverted and replaced by an illegitimate government. They create their own driver's licenses and include their thumbprints on documents to distinguish their flesh and blood person from a ''straw man'' persona that they say has been created by the false government. When writing their names, they often add punctuation marks like colons or hyphens.

Adherents to the movement have been involved in a host of debt evasion schemes and mortgage and tax frauds. Two were convicted in Cleveland recently for collecting $8 million in fraudulent tax refunds from the I.R.S. And in March, Tim Turner, the leader of one large group, the Republic for the united States of America, was sentenced in Alabama to 18 years in federal prison. (His group does not capitalize the first letter in united.)

Sovereign citizens who file creditor claims are helped by the fact that in most states, the secretary of state must accept any lien that is filed without judging its validity.

The National Association of Secretaries of State released a report in April on sovereign citizens, urging state officials to find ways to expedite the removal of liens and increase penalties for fraudulent filings. More than a dozen states have enacted laws giving state filing offices more discretion in accepting liens, and an increasing number of states have passed or are considering legislation to toughen the penalties for bogus filings.

The Eilertsons, who were charged with 47 counts of fraudulent filing and sentenced in June to 23 months in prison, were prosecuted under a Minnesota law that makes it a felony to file fraudulent documents to retaliate against officials. John Ristad, an assistant Ramsey County attorney who handled the case, said he believed the Eilertsons were the first offenders to be prosecuted under the law. ''It got me angry,'' he said, ''because at the end of the day, these two are bullies who think they can get their way by filing paper.''

The liens were filed against houses, vehicles and even mineral rights. In an affidavit, the Hennepin County examiner of titles said that in a conversation with the Eilertsons about their foreclosure, one of them told her, ''We're gonna have to lien ya.'' The examiner later found that a lien for more than $5.1 million had been placed on her property.

If the purpose was to instill trepidation, it worked. Several county and state officials said in interviews that they worried that they might once again find themselves in the crosshairs. One state employee said it was scarier to engage with offenders who used sovereign citizen tactics than with murderers, given the prospect of facing lawsuits or fouled credit ratings.

Like many who identify with the ideology, the Eilertsons learned the techniques of document filing online from one of many sovereign citizen ''gurus'' who offer instruction or seminars around the country.

In hours of recorded conversation found by the authorities on their computer, the Eilertsons consulted with a man identified on the recordings as Paul Kappel, learning what he called ''death by a thousand paper cuts.''

Mr. Eilertson, interviewed at the state prison in Bayport, Minn., denied being anti-government or belonging to any movement. But he was familiar with the names of some figures associated with sovereign citizen teachings, including an activist named David Wynn Miller, who Mr. Eilertson said was ''ahead of his time.'' (Mr. Miller writes his name as David-Wynn: Miller.)

Mr. Eilertson, who had no previous criminal record, said his actions were an effort to fight back against corrupt banks that had handed off the couple's mortgage time after time and whose top executives never faced consequences for their actions.

''It seemed like we were being attacked every day,'' he said. ''We needed some way to stop the foreclosure.

''We tried to do our part with as much information as we had available,'' he said, though he conceded that ''it kind of got out of control eventually.''

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 01:31

Statistic: Food Markets & Prices

Retail food prices are garnering a lot of attention in the media and among economists due to their increased volatility in recent years. For most of the last two decades, prices at both supermarkets and restaurants may have moved up and down on a monthly basis, but these swings tended to smooth out into modest yearly increases. As a result, the all-food Consumer Price Index (CPI) followed a fairly predictable pattern of about 2-3 percent inflation each year from 1990 through 2005.

However, since 2006, a series of interrelated factors'--including spikes in prices for food commodities and energy, major weather events, shocks to global commodity markets, and the U.S. economic recession and subsequent recovery'--have resulted in annual changes in the all-food CPI ranging from a 0.8-percent increase in 2010 to a 5.5-percent jump in 2008. Volatility is not the only characteristic of the recent trend in food prices. Food prices have also been rising faster than in earlier years, and food price inflation has easily outpaced price inflation for many other types of goods. Among major consumer spending categories, only prices for transportation, which include a number of energy price measures, and medical care have risen faster than food prices.

Rising Food Prices Pushed Up All-Items CPIThe U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics maintains a series of Consumer Price Indices for seven major consumer spending categories'--food, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, education, and recreation'--that make up the all-items CPI. The all-items CPI is used to track inflation for all consumer goods and services. These seven major CPI components have been measured and tracked according to their current definitions since 1993. From 1993 to 2005, the rate of inflation for the seven component categories varied considerably. For example, the medical care CPI increased by 60 percent, while the apparel CPI fell by 11 percent. During this time, food prices and overall price inflation both grew by 35 percent.

Since 2006, when commodity prices began their rollercoaster ride, the all-items CPI has risen 14 percent while the all-food CPI is up close to 20 percent. The wider differential in the post-2005 era means that a number of the macroeconomic inflationary factors have been specific to food prices. This effect was largely due to rising U.S. farm prices for corn, wheat, soybeans, and other food commodities. A number of factors triggered the price increases, including weather events that reduced output and storage levels, increased production of corn-based ethanol, and sharply increased U.S. exports to Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America.

Percent of Income Spent on Food Higher Than in 2008How have rising food prices affected the share of consumer income spent on food? Historically, as food prices have fallen in real (inflation-adjusted) terms, Americans' food expenditures as a share of disposable income have fallen at a similar rate. In 1930, Americans spent 24 percent of their disposable income on food, including both at-home food and food purchased at restaurants and other eating places. Since 1947, the share of income spent on food has trended downward, with occasional reversals in response to economic conditions, before flattening at around 10 percent for the last decade. In 2008, Americans spent 9.5 percent of their incomes on food. More recently, rising food prices, coupled with stagnant or falling incomes for many, have caused consumer spending on food as a share of disposable income to move upward. In 2011, Americans spent 9.8 percent of their disposable income on food.

Consumer Price Index (CPI), by Richard Volpe and Ephraim Leibtag, USDA, Economic Research Service, July 2012

Food Expenditures, by Annette Clauson, USDA, Economic Research Service, August 2013

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 01:52

by Clayton Browne, Demand Media Constitutional lawyers often work for policy institutes or think tanks.

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Many people think of constitutional lawyers as ivory tower academics who often come across more as legal philosophers than practicing attorneys. While there is a kernel of truth to this stereotype, as practitioners of constitutional law tend to gravitate to more weighty issues, there are many job opportunities outside of academia for constitutional lawyers. Some constitutional lawyers become judges, the federal government itself hires a bevy of constitutional lawyers, and many policy institutes and think tanks also hire constitutional lawyers to work on crafting public policy and support lobbying or public education efforts.

Step 1Earn a bachelor's degree in history, political science or any major involving research and analytical thinking. An undergraduate degree is required for admission to law school.

Step 2Enroll in law school. Law school is a rigorous three-year program where you learn about constitutional law, contract law, property law, civil law, criminal law and legal writing. Make sure to take all of the administrative law, constitutional law and public policy courses offered at your law school.

Step 3Apply for constitutional law internships after your second year of law school. Constitutional law internships are quite competitive, so make sure you keep a high grade-point average and work hard at developing your personal and professional networks.

Step 4Take and pass the bar exam in your state. The bar exam is a comprehensive exam covering all aspects of law that all lawyers must pass to practice in that state. Bar exams include questions on constitutional law.

Step 5Apply for constitutional law-related legal positions in your area. Large public policy institutes and think tanks, as well as state and federal government agencies, hire constitutional lawyers.

About the AuthorClayton Browne has been writing professionally since 1994. He has written and edited everything from science fiction to semiconductor patents to dissertations in linguistics, having worked for Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Steck-Vaughn and The Psychological Corp. Browne has a Master of Science in linguistic anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

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A constitutional lawyer is an attorney who tries cases where constitutional issues are at stake. The Constitution is considered the Supreme Law of the United States, and is a form of federal law. Thus, most cases based on constitutional questions are tried in the federal court system.

Like any other law, the Constitution imposes certain mandates for behavior. The Constitution primarily imposes behavioral mandates on legislatures and courts and other law making bodies. The Constitution dictates that any law that is made must not violate a person's constitutional rights.

When a person believes his constitutional rights are being violated by a law, that person can raise a constitutional question. He can sue the law making party for the violation of his rights. If he believes some other entity is violating his constitutional rights, he can also sue that entity.

A constitutional lawyer will then represent the person who believes his constitutional rights are being violated. The constitutional lawyer will file suit in federal court on behalf of the person whose rights are violated. The cause of action will be based upon the rights set forth in the Constitution.

Each state has its own Constitution, and states are bound to uphold not only the federal constitution, but the state constitution as well. If a cause of action arises out of state law, the case will be brought in state court instead of federal court. In this situation, a lawyer who is an expert in the state constitution will be called upon to represent the plaintiff.

Regardless of whether the case is based on the federal constitution or the state constitution, a constitutional lawyer will need to prove that his client's constitutional rights are being violated. This can involve arguments regarding how various provisions of the constitution should be interpreted. It can also involve showing evidence as to how those rights were violated.

Many famous cases are based upon rights set forth in the constitution. For example, Roe versus Wade, the famous abortion case, is based on the Constitutional rights to due process of the law and to privacy. A constitutional lawyer argued this case on behalf of a woman who believed that denial of the right to an abortion constituted denial of her right to freedom, as set forth in the constitution.

Constitutional lawyers often argue groundbreaking cases that reach the Supreme Court. Lawyers must be well versed in legal interpretation, and must be able to support their legal arguments with references not just to the constitution, but also to past interpretations. Many lawyers who work on cases of constitutional importance work for legal aid organizations, or work on a not-for-profit basis to defend what are believed to be the nation's fundamental rights and freedoms.

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 02:24

Horst Wessel (German Nazi martyr) -- Encyclopedia BritannicaOr click Continue to submit anonymously:

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 12:54

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Detroit Dominated by Pitbulls as 50K Dogs Roam Free

As many as 50,000 stray dogs roam the streets and vacant homes of bankrupt Detroit, replacing residents, menacing humans who remain and overwhelming the city's ability to find them homes or peaceful deaths.

Dens of as many as 20 canines have been found in boarded-up homes in the community of about 700,000 that once pulsed with 1.8 million people. One officer in the Police Department's skeleton animal-control unit recalled a pack splashing away in a basement that flooded when thieves ripped out water pipes.

''The dogs were having a pool party,'' said Lapez Moore, 30. ''We went in and fished them out.''

Poverty roils the Motor City and many dogs have been left to fend for themselves, abandoned by owners who are financially stressed or unaware of proper care. Strays have killed pets, bitten mail carriers and clogged the animal shelter, where more than 70 percent are euthanized.

''With these large open expanses with vacant homes, it's as if you designed a situation that causes dog problems,'' said Harry Ward, head of animal control.

Symbiotic SufferingThe number of strays signals a humanitarian crisis, said Amanda Arrington of the Humane Society of the United States, based in Washington. She heads a program that donated $50,000 each to organizations in Detroit and nine other U.S cities to get pets vaccinated, fed, spayed and neutered.

Arrington said when she visited Detroit in October, ''It was almost post-apocalyptic, where there are no businesses, nothing except people in houses and dogs running around.''

''The suffering of animals goes hand in hand with the suffering of people.''

She said pet owners who move leave behind dogs, hoping neighbors will care for them. Those dogs take to the streets and reproduce. Compounding that are the estimated 70,000 vacant buildings that provide shelter for dogs, or where some are chained without care to ward off thieves, Ward said.

Most strays are pets that roam, often in packs that form around a female in heat, Ward said. Few are true feral dogs that have had no human contact.

Ward said Detroit's three shelters -- his and two non-profit facilities -- take in 15,000 animals a year, including strays and pets that are seized or given up by owners.

Fearing HumansThey are among the victims of a historic financial and political collapse. Detroit, a former auto manufacturing powerhouse, declared the largest U.S. municipal bankruptcy on July 18 after years of decline. The city has more than $18 billion in long-term debt and had piled up an operating deficit of close to $400 million. Falling revenue forced cutbacks in police, fire-fighting -- and dog control.

With an annual budget of $1.6 million, Ward has four officers to cover the 139-square-mile (360-square-kilometer) city seven days a week, 11 fewer than when he took command in 2008. He has one dog-bite investigator, down from three.

''We are really suffering from fatigue, short staffed'' and work too much overtime, he said in an interview.

The officers, who wear bulletproof vests to protect themselves from irate owners, are bringing in about half the number of animals that crews did in 2008, Ward said.

In July, the pound stopped accepting more animals for a month because the city hadn't paid a service that hauls away euthanized animals for cremation at a cost of about $20,000 a year. The freezers were packed with carcasses, and pens were full of live animals until the bill was paid.

Famous FighterPit bulls and breeds mixed with them dominate Detroit's stray population because of widespread dog fighting, said Ward. Males are aggressive in mating, so they proliferate, he added.

One type of fighting pit bull has become known as far as Los Angeles as the ''Highland Park red,'' named after a city within Detroit's borders, Ward said.

Their prevalence was clear as Ward and officers Moore and Malachi Jackson answered calls Aug. 19. On a block where vacant houses and lots outnumbered occupied ones, they found four dogs in an abandoned house -- a male and three females, including a pregnant pit bull with a prized blue-gray coat.

Ward said it appeared the dogs were fed by someone who used the house to hide stolen items.

Walking SmallAggressive dogs force the U.S. Postal Service to temporarily halt mail delivery in some neighborhoods, said Ed Moore, a Detroit-area spokesman. He said there were 25 reports of mail carriers bitten by dogs in Detroit from October through July. Though most are by pets at homes, strays have also attacked, Moore said.

''It's been a persistent problem,'' he said.

Mail carrier Catherine Guzik told of using pepper spray on swarms of tiny, ferocious dogs in a southwest Detroit neighborhood.

''It's like Chihuahuaville,'' Guzik said as she walked her route.

At two nearby homes, one pet dog was killed recently and another injured by two stray pit bulls that jumped fences into yards, said neighbor Debora Mattie, 49.

Last year, there were 903 dog bites in Detroit, according to Ward, adding that most go unreported to police. He said 90 percent are by dogs whose owners are known.

After AttackMany de facto strays are called pets by owners who let them wander, said Kristen Huston, who leads the Detroit office of All About Animals Rescue, a non-profit that obtained the Humane Society's $50,000 grant last year to feed, vaccinate and sterilize pets. Some dogs run away from their neighborhoods and threaten people, she said.

''Technically, it's illegal to let a dog roam, but with the city being bankrupt, who's going to do anything about it?'' Huston said.

Huston said she walks through some of the poorest neighborhoods to talk to pet owners about how to care for their animals, sometimes giving them bags of food or even a free doghouse.

Ward said more needs to be done to educate pet owners. He said his crews are too few, but help keep dogs in check.

Four months ago, a woman sitting on her porch on the east side was attacked by two strays that tore off her scalp, Ward said.

''We got those dogs,'' he said. ''It's a big difference to that lady that those dogs were gone that day.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Christoff in Detroit at cchristoff@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net

City of Detroit Animal Control officer Malachi Jackson with a pit bull that was captured to be quarantined after biting someone in Detroit on August 19, 2013. Photographer: Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg

2:20

Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) ''- Thousands of stray dogs roam the streets and vacant homes of bankrupt Detroit, replacing residents, menacing people who remain and overwhelming the city's ability to find them homes or peaceful deaths. Bloomberg's Kevin Thrash reports. (Source: Bloomberg)

City of Detroit Animal Control officer Lapez Moore, left, fills out paperwork with Malachi Jackson after capturing two animals that will be quarantined after biting people in Detroit, on August 19, 2013. Photographer: Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg

One of the holding cages at the City of Detroit Animal Control office in Michigan on August 19, 2013 Photographer: Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg

Harry Ward, manager of the City of Detroit Animal Control, carries chains that were confiscated along with four pit bulls in Detroit, Michigan, on Aug. 19, 2013. Photographer: Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 13:19

Defense lawyers for Guantanamo detainees asked the judge in the military tribunal on Friday to suspend pretrial hearings as mysterious computer glitches are just the latest technological setbacks to complicate the legal proceedings.

Defense lawyers for Guantanamo detainees asked the military tribunal judge to suspend pretrial hearings as mysterious computer glitches have made their job a 'hot mess' forcing some of them to draft motions with pen and paper.

"We're basically put back in the 19th century," Army Major Jason Wright, who represents the alleged mastermind of the terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, said on Friday, as quoted by Reuters. "It takes about five to 10 times what it would normally take to do defense functions."

Defense lawyers for five Guantanamo detainees said email correspondences they sent were never received, investigative records that took years to compile had disappeared and external monitors were unable to access their internet searches. Even the prosecuting and defense teams had been given access to each other's files.

The technical problems had started earlier in the year but by April they had become so severe that the chief defense counsel, Air Force Colonel Karen Mayberry, ordered defense lawyers not to use their Pentagon computers for any confidential casework.

The situation became so dire that when Pentagon officials wished to convey messages to legal advisors in other cities, they had to place the sensitive data onto external drives, head to Starbucks and file them via Wi-Fi using their personal computers and personal email accounts, Wright revealed.

Defense attorney James Harrington, who represents Yemeni prisoner Ramzi bin al Shibh, said he had been forced to draft motions with pen and paper.

Another defense attorney for Mohammed, David Nevin, commented: "In this day and age you cannot practice law this way."

He said the chief of staff for the Pentagon official overseeing the military tribunals issued her judgment during a conference call on Thursday, declaring: "This is a hot mess."

Pentagon technical personnel have said it would take ''up to 111 days'' to fix the glitches once a contract was signed and money allocated, and that it was doubtful the work could be finished before the start of 2014.

The judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, said he would give the matter further consideration at a pretrial hearing scheduled to start on Sept. 16 and decide then whether to cancel hearings scheduled for October, November, December and January.

"I understand the serious nature of being able to communicate as a defense counsel," the judge said.

This is not the first time that the maximum-security tribunal has suffered from 'ghosts in the machinery.'

Judge Pohl in January convened an emergency meeting after it was discovered that some outside source was cutting the audio feed when particular subjects in the trial were being discussed.

The judge stated he was not happy with this interference and added that he would like some clarification on ''who turns that light on or off.''

''It's a 'whoa moment' for the court,'' Human Rights Watch observer Laura Pitter said in January, as quoted by the Miami Herald. ''Even the judge doesn't know that someone else has control over the censorship button?''

The five defendants are accused of training and funding the hijackers who allegedly crashed four commercial jets into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.

The Obama administration has backed down on its promise to close Gitmo and give the detainees civil trials on US territory in the face of extreme Republican pressure.

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Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:47

In today's (Saturday) press conference of 24th August 2013, Tepco announced that the three leaking tanks have been reused '' ie, recycled. It stated that the three tanks were initially installed in a different area, which then had 20cm of land subsidence in July of 2011. The base concrete sank underground. Instead of abandoning the potentially damaged tanks, they reused them in what can only be seen as a cost-cutting exercise. Let all those who robotically oppose regulation now read on.

The more Fukushima unravels, the more it resembles the famous 1970s disaster film, The Towering Inferno: poor design, contractors cutting corners, and then deliberately watered-down warnings leading to loss of life on an unnecessary scale. Except that on this occasion, it isn't 200 people trapped on the 102nd floor, it's the entire ecosystem of Planet Earth at risk.

Even over the last two days, I've been getting the usual morons telling me, emphatically, that there is no cause for alarm - although I do note they aren't there this morning. This might have something to do with the fact that yesterday afternoon European time, the Mayor of Fukushima admitted at a press conference that the fourth reactor leakage into the sea ''is not controlled'', a negatively polite way of confirming what those in the know have been telling me since Wednesday last: as of now, nobody has a clue how to stop the leakage.

One source '' who has been advising on nuclear events since the 1950s era, when he was a UK Whitehall official helping prepare for World War III, told me ''Which genius put a storage pool 100 feet above ground? If reactor number 4 does collapse, then Western America had better watch out'...General Electric, who designed these reactors, has some serious questions to answer'....I would also advise your Sloggers, not to buy fish products, salmon, tuna, sushi from the Pacific: as the Caesium plume spreads, the chances of ingesting contaminated fish will grow, and it will be interesting to ascertain what measures government is taking in this regard'....''.

Well, as of a week ago, the answer was ''none'', because the Japanese and US authorities blatantly lied to all of us about the size of the plume escape so far, and were until late Thursday continuing to underplay the sea escape. And going back to the GE installation itself, three engineers resigned at the time over concerns about design and materials: On February 2, 1976, Gregory C. Minor, Richard B. Hubbard, and Dale G. Bridenbaugh blew the whistle on safety problems, returning to prominence in 2011 when the first signs of disaster at the Japanese plant became apparent.

Says another experienced consultant to the sector, ''Nobody has suggested the [FOI data) is a fake, and if it is genuine, then you could almost put Washington and Tokyo on trial for crimes against humanity". Others are holding fire until they see more data - fair enough - but as the admissions start to seep out beneath the frosted glass along with the emissions, most are preparing for the worst.

"This leak is very serious," said Dr. Janette Sherman, an Alexandria, Virginia-based physician who specialises in radioactive and toxic exposure. Fukishima expert Ken Buesseler observes that, "There is still a lot of contamination at Fukushima'--in the land, in the buildings, and now from these tanks. Every bit of news that we've been getting is that the [radioactivity] numbers are going up. I'm becoming less confident that [TEPCO] can contain the problem''. It's a view shared by the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority, which also warns that the latest leakage problem might be beyond TEPCO's ability to cope. ''We should assume that what has happened once could happen again, and prepare for more,'' watchdog chairman Shunichi Tanaka told a news conference, ''we are in a situation where there is no time to waste.''

But there is one commonsense point that perhaps too many half-interested observers are missing: Fukushima is a unique double whammy, in that the radioactivity is emerging both as atmospheric plume and seaborne toxicity.

A plume will, eventually disperse or escape and become relatively harmless'....although twenty seven years after Chernobyl, some of Scotland's lamb output is deemed too dangerous to eat. But 80% of Fukushima's escape has been into the sea'....and this leakage is, according to Japan's own scientists, ''more deadly than the others''. Sea radiation's direction is much more predictable, and doesn't dissipate at anything like the speed of an atmospheric plume (I'm reliably informed). This is how the spread will look soon enough:

Except that using the future tense there is unfortunately inappropriate: as the New York Times confirmed yesterday, the Fukushima plant has been incontinent to the tune of 75,000 gallons, or 300 tons, of highly radioactive water a daysince the 2011 incident was first apparent.

It's just that Tepco denied it. Now you can see why the sea damage is a direct threat to Australia and South America, and the wind-blown plume will kill over a million Californians by 2030'....allegedly.

As a direct result of that latter 20th century euphemism 'spin', a great many people '' and trillions of tons of fish '' are now going to die. But anyone who understands even the basics of species interdependence will grasp that the fish deaths will merely change our diets. In the type of species interaction known as predation, a big species regularly consumes or eats another species. For example, a tiger eats deer, a snake eats rat, an eagle eats rabbit and micee are prey. The predator is usually the larger animal.

Most seabirds eat fish. All herons eat fish. Foxes, larger rodents and Homo sapiens eat birds. Apply the predation laterally, and the end of fish in two or more of the oceans is the end of thousands of species who either codepend with fish'...or will starve without them.

Omnivores like us can survive'....but not if nobody tells us the truth, and as a result we ingest radioactive flesh.

To offer two examples at random: the Great Barrier Reef will become a major shipping hazard if all the fish die. It's only kept under control by several codependent piscean species which feed on it. In fact, the economics of ecological interdependence are terrifying'....assuming you're human. We are, after all, the only species with an economic system, as none of the others GAF: but if fish die, fisherman starve; if avians die, whole manufacturing sectors die; and if opportunistic predators get hungry, they turn to eating other things. Like, um, us. Ask the Aussies about the crocs'...they'll tell you all you need to know. On Queensland's Daintree river Down Under, the failure of riverside plant species kills small river dwellers upon whom crocodiles feed. So the crocodiles (like UK foxes) venture into suburbia, drag off the odd child, and'....not pleasant.

Now I'm sure like me, you just know that every neoliberal dickhead driving forward that Pepsico canning subsidiary in the Phillipines loses sleep on a nightly basis fretting about predation. And so I'm equally sure that, just like me, you feel totally relaxed about manta rays whose tails light up for the most inexplicable of reasons, and taste like like strontium stew. But for those folks of a more grounded and sane nervous disposition, the stuff that's been coming out of Fukushima for nearly two and a half years now consists of one part spin, and one part potential planetary extinction.

There is no such thing as 'spin'. There are in fact three types of lies: those told because individuals are insecure, and harmlessly 'big themselves up'; those told to protect the feelings of others for whom they care; and those told for gain in terms of both money and power. Fukushima, whichever way you cut it, is a non-stop series of lies designed to obfuscate the danger, cover up blame, help Obama get re-elected, and keep the Japanese economy propped up. It represents the most jet-black series of unspeakable lies since Nixon spent a year saying an obvious whitewash wasn't taking place at the White House.

Tricky Dicky, of course, would pale by comparison with today's leaders, and their terminally toxic mendacity. But for sure, he would've approved of what the Japanese and American administrations have been doing since April 2011: deniable culpability, and all that.

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Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:41

Location:Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA

Type of Organization: Non-profit

Funding: Government grants and contracts, foundation and private donations, industry contracts. Annual operating budget of $215 million.

Research Areas: WHOI scientists study all aspects of the ocean including the coastal ocean, ocean life, deep ocean, and climate change.

Departments & Divisions: The Institution is home to 6 research departments, 4 interdisciplinary institutes, and more than 40 labs and centers.

People: More than 1,000 employees, including researchers, engineers, information technology specialists, ship and vehicle crew, and administrative support staff.

Academics: WHOI is accredited by the NEASC and offers Ph.D. and M.S. programs. In addition, WHOI offers postdoctoral and summer student fellowships, as well as other education programs.

Ships & Technology: WHOI operates the Global Class research vessels Atlantis and Knorr as well as the coastal vessel Tioga. WHOI also builds and operates a group of underwater vehicles and instruments designed for ocean exploration, including HOV Alvin, ROV Jason, and the AUVs Sentry, REMUS, and SeaBED.

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Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:34

Patrick J. KigerNational Geographic NewsPublished August 7, 2013

''Tensions are rising in Japan over radioactive water leaking into the Pacific Ocean from Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, a breach that has defied the plant operator's effort to gain control.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday called the matter ''an urgent issue'' and ordered the government to step in and help in the clean-up, following an admission by Tokyo Electric Power Company that water is seeping past an underground barrier it attempted to create in the soil. The head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority task force told Reuters the situation was an 'emergency.'. . .

''But most experts seem to think that ordinary movement of groundwater probably is the real culprit. An estimated 400 tons (95,860 gallons/ 362,870 liters) of water streams into the basements of the damaged reactors each day. Keeping that water from continuing to flow into the ocean is crucial. As the IAEA noted in its report, 'the accumulation of enormous amounts of liquids due to the continuous intrusion of underground water into the reactor and turbine buildings is influencing the stability of the situation.'

'Big surprise'--water does flow downhill,' said Dr. Janette Sherman, a medical expert on radiation and toxic exposure who once worked as a chemist for the Atomic Energy Commission, the forerunner of today's U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 'If you've ever had a leak in your house during a storm, you know how hard it is to contain water. There's a lot of water going into the plant, and it's got to go someplace. It's very hard to stop this.'''

Read the full article.

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 00:07

Gregory Charles Minor was one of three American middle-management engineers who resigned from the General Electric nuclear reactor division in 1976 to protest against the use of nuclear power in the United States. A native of Fresno, California, Minor received an electrical engineering degree from the University of California in 1960. He gained an M.S. degree at Stanford University in 1966. He began working for G.E. in 1960 and died of leukemia in 1999.[1]

Gregory Minor, Richard B. Hubbard and Dale G. Bridenbaugh resigned from the division of G.E. that built nuclear reactors in 1976, because they believed "nuclear power presented a profound threat to mankind". All three were managing engineers who had spent most of their working life building reactors, and their defection galvanized anti-nuclear groups across the country.[2][3]

The three engineers acknowledged, in Congressional testimony, the possibility of human error, and asserted that nuclear engineers had become so specialized that none of them could see the whole picture any longer. As a result, they said, no one was in control.[1]

Some scientists suggested their statements "may have been politically inspired". All three of the engineers were members of the Creative Initiative Foundation, a California group that "seeks to strengthen human relations" and "change the world for the better". The engineer's resignations were coordinated with help from another CIF member, who helped them orchestrate the announcement for maximum effect.[2]

Gregory Minor said that he had developed "a deep conviction that nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons now present a serious danger to the future of all life on this planet".[1]

^ abcWolfgang Saxon. G. C. Minor, 62, an Engineer Who Criticized Nuclear PowerThe New York Times, July 31, 1999.^ abThe San Jose ThreeTIME, Feb. 16, 1976.^The Struggle over Nuclear PowerTIME, Mar. 08, 1976.PersondataNameMinor, GregoryAlternative namesShort descriptionDate of birthPlace of birthDate of deathPlace of death

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 00:07

Monday, Feb. 16, 1976

As middle-management engineers in General Electric's nuclear energy division, Gregory Minor, 38, Richard Hubbard, 38, and Dale Bridenbaugh, 44, have spent most of their professional lives working to build and promote nuclear power plants. Last week they suddenly quit their well-paid jobs at GE's installation at San Jose, Calif. Calling in the press, they announced plans to work full time for a referendum on the ballot in the California June primary that would curb the construction of new nuclear power reactors in the state. Said Minor in his letter of resignation: "Nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons now present a serious danger...

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 00:12

A major component of the Palo Alto area½s history for more than a half century came to an end on New Year½s Eve when the Foundation for Global Community officially dissolved itself, ending a six-year process of winding down.

Assets are now being dispensed to other organizations, including some spinoff groups, that fit criteria that align with the Global Community½s beliefs and mission -- see www.globalcommunity.org .

Yet the organization will endure in the memories of literally thousands of persons it touched, sometimes deeply and sometimes without their knowledge, or negatively -- including me and my wife over several years in the late 1960s and early 1970s and in light incident when I was a young reporter for the erstwhile Palo Alto Times.

For 60 years, the organization went through a dynamic process of shifting its focus and creating spin-off efforts that focused on what some involved saw as an attempt at unification of science and religion, following in the philosophical footprints of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit priest-theologian and a geologist-paleontologist of a century ago.

Among other things, the organization is credited with ending the construction of nuclear power plants, primarily on the grounds that long-lasting and highly poisonous plutonium was simply too dangerous to the health of the world to continue creating with no fail-safe way of storing nuclear waste.

Promoting world peace and disarmament has been a continuing theme, based on the empowerment of individuals, a belief that the world, and the universe, is a single integrated system that encompasses both physical and spiritual/intellectual realities.

The organization evolved into an activist network that stood for promoting ½life choices½ over ½death choices½ from the individual/family level to global change.

Jim Burch, former Palo Alto mayor and a 40-year leader in the organization, joined with Palo Altan Don Fitton in outlining a detailed history of the group at a close-out event Dec. 31 that was featured Friday night in a Midpeninsula Community Media Center program. It was repeated Saturday night (Feb. 26) and will be repeated in future showings not yet scheduled.

That history, as could be expected, includes a heavy dose of controversy that peaked when it tackled nuclear power, stirring up leading nuclear-power advocates such as PG&E and Southern California Edison Company. Burch traveled the state debating Michael Peevey, now the president of the California Public Utilities Commission with a long history of promoting efficient energy usage. But at the time, Peevey was president of Southern California Edison, which was pushing nuclear power hard at the time.

The controversy also included some persons who were convinced by the early 1980s that it was a cult bent on infiltrating community organizations, from PTA chapters and school site councils to local government. The Palo Alto Weekly even ran a cover story about the group, then known as the Creative Initiative Foundation, an evolution from a confusing name, National Initiative. The organization was known earlier as Woman to Woman Building the Earth, and later designations included Sequoia Seminar, a major conference center in the Santa Cruz Mountains; Project Survival, the anti-nuclear-power effort; Beyond War; and finally Foundation for Global Community.

My personal experience with the group was overall positive. Starting a new family in Los Gatos while commuting to Palo Alto, my wife and I became hungry for some kind of intellectual discussion beyond baby talk. One night we attended a presentation at Los Gatos High School, our alma mater, called ½Challenge to Change.½

That outreach program for Sequoia Seminars included an impressive multiple-projector slide show that interspersed images of health and peace with war scenes and nuclear explosions, and powerfully presented the life-choices vs. death-choices scenario. We were invited to attend a discussion group of the same name. Our first group was led by a delightful couple, Ed and Barbara Thomas, now residing in Grass Valley.

They led us gently through a series of topics, using the powerful tool of group dynamics to lead us to conclusions that in hindsight were fairly obvious. I jotted down notes in a small leather notebook, a practice I started as a memory-assist in late grade school.

Then my family moved to Menlo Park, and two or three years later my wife and I decided to participate in another Challenge-to-Change discussion group in the area. Ah, but now there were printed handouts with an attractive design on rich brown paper. I found out Friday that Burch, formerly in marketing, designed the materials.

As such they were impressive, but the seven tenets we½d arrived at by discussion in Los Gatos were now listed in print -- and I noticed some changes. I dug out my old notes and at the next meeting noted that one tenet, ½Accept Authority,½ had moved from down the list to number one. In our initial discussion, ½authority½ was defined as knowledge-based. But now the meaning had a connotation of following orders, and the fact that the young couple moderating the group had German accents didn½t help.

We progressed through another layer of more personal discussions in a second group, and finally attended a weekend event at the Sequoia Seminar center in the redwoods. It was a deeply moving weekend that got into some valuable areas of couples interactions. But at the end I raised an objection that the organization clearly had an underlying layer of being religious -- yet that was never indicated in the materials or Challenge to Change presentation.

½Why not just admit it?½ I asked.

I later exchanged letters with early co-founder Harry Rathbun about that point, in a polite philosophical dialogue. The group had not yet launched its major anti-nuclear and antiwar efforts.

A second connection was when the group formed one of the most impressive demonstration teams I½ve ever seen. That involved hundreds of women, mostly upper middle class, who dressed in polyester pantsuits of pastel colors, representing all the colors in the rainbow. The women in various colors would march or circle together.

One demonstration was aimed at Palo Alto city government, and they expected the Palo Alto Times to cover it. They seemed to take it personally when reporter Mary Fortney (who died in January) didn½t show as expected. Someone suggested that the group of a couple dozen women take the demonstration to the newspaper, which they did.

This freaked out the building manager, a pretty conservative fellow, and a cluster of management and staff gathered inside the lobby, uncertain how to (or whether to) respond or call the police. I recognized some of the women, and on my own went outside and chatted with them in a friendly fashion. Mary showed up by then.

Then I asked if any had ever seen the backshop of a newspaper, still featuring large Linotype machines for typesetting and its own three-story high press. So I invited them all for a walk-through, further freaking out the building manager. At the end they thanked me and dispersed.

Burch recalls another demonstration that had an odd twist. Someone noticed that there were a group of official-looking men closely watching a demonstration in San Francisco and surmised (possibly from the short-brimmed hats and dark glasses that were the ½FBI uniform½ at the time) that it was the FBI. When they informed the women they said they knew that, and that three of the agents were husbands of women in pantsuits.

It was a unique organization that left a deep mark on the Palo Alto area, and far, far beyond.

AN INVITATION: Those who have been involved with or touched by the organization or its spinoffs, or concerned or critical of it, may comment below with personal accounts and memories.

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Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:32

Janette Sherman, M.D. specializes in internal medicine and toxicology with an emphasis on chemicals and nuclear radiation that cause illness, including cancer and birth defects. She graduated from Western Michigan University with majors in biology and chemistry and from the Wayne State University College of Medicine.

Prior to medical school, she worked for the Atomic Energy Commission (forerunner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) at the University of California in Berkeley, and for the U.S. Navy Radiation Defense Laboratory in San Francisco. Thus began her long-time involvement with the subject of nuclear radiation.

From 1976''1982 Dr. Sherman served on the advisory board for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Toxic Substances Control Act. She has been an advisor to the National Cancer Institute on breast cancer and to the EPA on pesticides. She is a resource person, advisor, and speaker for universities and health advocacy groups concerning cancer, birth defects, pesticides, toxic dumpsites, and nuclear radiation.

She was named Distinguished Alumna of Western Michigan University in 1989, was admitted to the Cosmos Club in Washington D.C. in 2001 based upon ''meritorious original research in medicine and toxicology'', and awarded the Foremothers Award in 2006 by the National Research Center for Women and Families.

Throughout her career Dr. Sherman has served as a medical-legal expert witness for thousands of individuals harmed by exposure to toxic agents. Her medical-legal files, including scientific research and background data are archived in the History section of the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, MD. Her 5000 workers' compensation medical files are included, the largest collection in the United States. Case files are available to researchers in the fields of medicine, law, sociology, economics, etc.

While Dr. Sherman retired from treating patients in 1994, she continues to do research and publishes in the peer-reviewed literature as well as in the popular press. She is the author of Chemical Exposure and Disease'--Diagnostic and Investigative Techniques, (out of print, but can be found online) and Life's Delicate Balance'--Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer, available from this website. She is the Contributing Editor of Chernobyl'--Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Nature, by Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko. Originally published by the New York Academy of Sciences and Wyle-Blackwell in 2009, it is now available from Greko Printing: orders@grekoprinting.com.

Dr. Sherman's principal aim in medicine has been to determine the cause of illnesses and prevent harm to our fellow humans and to the environment.

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 00:09

On several web sites there has recently been references to an article published on the web site Counterpunch with the title "Is the Dramatic Increase in Baby Deaths in the US a Result of Fukushima Fallout?-A 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest Cities Since Meltdown".

The article, published on 10 June 2011, is authored by Janette D. Sherman and Joseph Mangano, both renowned persons in the anti-nuclear movement. In the text the authors claim a statistically significant increase of infant mortality deaths with 35% after the Fukushima accident in eight selected cities on the U.S. west coast.

They write

The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age:

4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)

10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 - 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)

This amounts to an increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3%), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster.

Furthermore, they try to link the releases of radioactivity from Fukushima and Chernobyl to the relatively high infant mortality rate in the U.S. A look at the data used by Sherman and Mangano does indeed seem to indicate an increase in the number of infant deaths in northwest U.S. after Fukushima, see the plot below:

Infant mortality for 8 northwest U.S. cities, as reported by Sherman and Mangano

The Fukushima events started on March 11, i.e. by the end of week 10. Then it took slightly more than a week for the first release of radioactivity to reach the nortwest part of the U.S. The data do show an increased infant mortality rate after Fukushima. The black line shows the average value for the 4 weeks before March 19, and the orange line shows the average value for the 10 weeks after that. The error bars on each data point indicate the statistical uncertainties.

But why are the 10 weeks after Fukushima compared with only 4 weeks before? There seems to be a reason for it, commonly referred to as cherry-picking, i.e. you select the data that supports your theory without showing the full picture. To show the full data set may falsify what you want to show. This is quite common in politics and by people who have an agenda that is more important than the truth. But here we have two persons in medicine, one Medical Doctor and one Master of Public Health, they should be trustworthy professionals who are keen on giving people honest information, right? Let's check their deck of cards closer.

So, if we include data for, say, the first 7 weeks of 2011, we get a very different idea about the situation:

Infant mortality for 8 northwest U.S. cities, less biased version

Very interesting, the first seven weeks of 2011 actually has higher infant mortality than the weeks after Fukushima, quite different from what Sherman and Mangano wants us to believe. There is no spike after Fukushima, instead there is a dip during the 4 weeks before! A more detailed report on the closer scrutiny of Sherman and Mangano's article is found in our Deep Repository.

So, why does a Medical Doctor mistreat official data in this way? It is quite remarkable, and embarrasing, especially since Janette Sherman writes about herself on her web page (http://janettesherman.com/about/):

Dr. Sherman's primary interest is the prevention of illness through public education and patient awareness.

She seems to have forgotten about her primary interest in this case, I fail to see how cherry-picking data can be part of public education and public awareness. And if anybody can see how you can prevent illness through scaring people with false statistics, then please explain it to me. Embarrasing, Janette Sherman...

Joseph Mangano already has a track record of handling data in not so honest ways, we may come back to that in other blog entries (a few links to examples, as requested by a commenter: http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2005/08/joseph-mangano-and-art-of-deception.html and http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/documentlibrary/safetyandsecurity/factsheet/scienceonradiationhealtheffectsdispelstoothfairyproject/).

What baffles me the most is that he and Sherman try to get away with this alarmistic claim by such a lousy handling of official data. Anybody can easily check it for themselves and see that Sherman and Mangano are wilfully interpreting data so that they agree with their already decided view on things. What is worse, they are scaring a lot of people with their claims, for no reason at all. Therefore: Shame on you!

/Mattias Lantz - member of the network Nuclear Power Yes Please

Follow-up blog entries on the same subject19 June 2011: More bullshit from Joseph Mangano, take 2

21 June 2011: CounterPunch verifies infant mortality was alarmism but seems keen to create more of it

27 July 2011: Sherman & Mangano admits errors '' or do they?

Update 24 June 2011Several other people have scrutinized the Sherman-Mangano joke (by now I do not want to mis-use the word "study" in connection with these people), most notably in Scientific American. Here is a list:

The sei-uno-zero-nove (6109) blog, by Antonio Rinaldi, 21 June 2011: "e-nucleare disinformazione" (in Italian)The xkcd forum, user signatures ++$_ and endolith, 16 June, under the post "8.8 Earthquake hits 250 miles from Tokyo"The Cliff Mass Weather Blog, 17 June 2011: "Fukushima Radiation and Infant Mortality in the NW? No way" (borrowing our plots)Chris Mooney on the Discover Magazine blog, 17 June 2011: "Nuke Scaremongering and the Left"U.C. Berkeley, Department of Nuclear Engineering, Berkeley Radiological Air and Water Monitoring Forum (comments in all directions, but a couple of people are checking the data for themselves): "Fukushima fallout caused significant increase in baby deaths?" and "Post-Fukushima Infant Deaths in the Pacific Northwest Update."My colleague Andrea Mattera have translated this post into Italian and it has been posted as a comment on the Come don Chisciotte web page, 18 June 2011: "PICCO DEL 35% DI MORTALIT INFANTILE DOPO L'INCIDENTE DI FUKUSHIMA" (in Italian)Mike, a physics student from Victoria (Canada?) have checked the data for himself, they are available here. (Mike linked to his data from the discussion on the Unsilent Generation blog post: "Infant Mortality on Pacific Coast Jumped after Fukushima"The Buzz Blog on Physics Central comments on the scrutiny done in Scientific American and asks the question why Sherman and Mangano is doing this nonsense: "Beware the Evil Scientists"The uvdiv blog has a guest post by Alexey Goldin that hopefully is enjoyable also for non-statistics nerds, and he shows data for several years back: A curious case of cherry-picking data for the greater good. I can only agree with his final statement: "At this point it is worthwhile to question either the scientific integrity or statistical competence of Sherman and Mangano. They might be decent people and believe in what they say, but allow themselves to say "small lies" in a service of "Greater Truth". This never ends up well. Because they are likely to kill some unstable people with their small lies."Update 25 June 2011Several persons have asked about how to get access to the raw data. I put a summary of the links I have used on the follow-up post regarding the strange results from the CounterPunch re-analysis of the data (here), but I will now put them here as well. The last link on the list is the one that is the easiest one to use. Some information will appear if you hold the pointer over each link:

http://www.cdc.gov/

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/mmwr_wk/wk_cvol.html

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6010md.htm?s_cid=mm6010md_w#tab3

http://wonder.cdc.gov/mmwr/mmwrmort.asp

This entry was posted on Friday, June 17th, 2011 at 02:06:21 and is filed under Analysis, Bad Science, English, Fukushima, In the media, Janette Sherman, Joseph Mangano, Medical Doctors who have forgotten what their job is about. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Source: WT news feed

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 00:35

A retired U.S. Navy submarine specialist has been found guilty of attempted espionage for Russia.A federal jury in the state of Virginia found Robert Patrick Hoffman II, 40, guilty on August 21 of providing classified information to individuals whom he believed were Russian handlers.

The handlers were actually FBI operatives.

The local "Virginian-Pilot" newspaper reports that jurors took just 90 minutes to reach a unanimous verdict and reject Hoffman's defense that he was actually trying to lure the would-be Russian agents into a trap.

The prosecution said that top-secret details on how the U.S. Navy tracks its own submarines and foreign warships were among the information Hoffman thought he was handing over to Russia.

The FBI apparently became interested in Hoffman after he traveled to Belarus in late 2011, shortly after retiring from the navy.

He has claimed that he met President Alyaksandr Lukashenka during his stay.

It is not immediately clear how the trip ties in with Hoffman's attempted espionage.

He will be sentenced in December and faces possible life in prison.

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 04:24

Bewerkt door: redactie '' 25/08/13, 03:44 '' bron: ANP

(C) thinkstock.

Naar verwachting enkele duizenden actievoerders komen zondag naar het Amsterdamse Museumplein voor het To Russia With Love-concert. Ze willen een tegengeluid laten horen op het door de Russische staat georganiseerde galaconcert, aansluitend op het plein.

De initiatiefnemers van de manifestatie, de homobelangenorganisatie COC Nederland en Pride United, wilden eigenlijk dat de gemeente het evenement zou verbieden, maar het stadsbestuur vond dit niet passend. Wel bood het ruimte voor een tegenactie, die van 18 uur tot 20 uur duurt.

Onder anderen burgemeester Eberhard van der Laan is een van de sprekers. Ook zijn er optredens van Mathilde Santing en dansgezelschap Introdans, die een bewerking van Tsjaikovski's Het Zwanenmeer uitvoert.

De organisaties maken zich zorgen over de ontwikkelingen in Rusland, waar homorechten onder grote druk staan. De demonstranten willen het galaconcert, dat de schoonheid van de Russische cultuur moet laten zien, nadrukkelijk niet verstoren.

In the morning Adam,

Notice the language of the letter. We found out today that "opting out" means that he cannot participate in the school lunch program at all if he does not submit to the palm scanner.

Notice also the assurances that there is no way to defraud the palm scanner because blood needs to be pumping through the Human Resource's veins in order for it to work, I guess implying that even if someone chopped your child's hand off there is no way they are getting a free lunch on your dime.

Isaac Chase

Colorado Springs, CO

Picture of the letter

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Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:21

When it comes to efficient cafeteria operations, MCS lightens your load with software that's easy to use and works great. That's why four of the nation's top six school districts are already using it.

Your day is not a piece of cake.Moving students through school lunch lines quickly, serving nutritious meals, ensuring accurate reports, controlling expenses, meal planning and complying with regulations. That's a lot for any school food service director to handle.

The School Nutrition Experts. Since 1998, MCS Software has earned an expert reputation among K-12 schools. We were the first to introduce game-changing innovations like online application scanning, POS palm scanning and biometrics in vending machines. We have consulted with the USDA as they updated regulations, are approved as a TIPS TAPS vendor, and offer our customers reliable support that's so rare these days. MCS's Menus & Inventory module is USDA-approved for use in certification of compliance with the new School Lunch Program meal patterns now in place. We're ready to work with your District to ensure compliance with all the regulations.

We understand what's important to you. At MCS, we make it our mission to create new and better ways to help make school lunch programs more efficient. Our satisfied customers are proof that we are doing just that. In fact, 99% of MCS customers say they would refer MCS to their colleagues.

We make it easy. Changing software programs can be daunting. That's why we have a painless transition process that takes less than three days. Once you install MCS software, we are sure that you will never buy another food service software program from anyone else.

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Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:23

LARGO, Florida - A trip down the school lunch line will be quicker for Pinellas students and staff this school year. "It's two seconds to buy a meal. Literally, two seconds," says Edward Rutenbeck, senior user support analyst with Pinellas Schools Food Services.

This school year, middle and high school students in Pinellas will be the first in the nation to use palm scanning technology to pay for lunch. Rutenbeck says, "This gives children more time to eat lunch instead of waiting in line with their trays. They put their hand down and they're done."

Staff will use it too and enrolling is easy. The program is also voluntary.

"We choose to enroll on the screen and chose a student's name. They place their hand on scanner, wait for two seconds, lift it up, and place it again for two more seconds," explains Rutenbeck.

The Fujitsu PalmSecure technology uses infrared light to read each student's and employee's unique vein pattern and ties it to their meal plan.

"It's a true identification. Who else is going to have a palm like mine?" says Sharon Ingram, a Pinellas School District secretary, just after being enrolled. District officials say the system also protects students from identity theft.

The palm scanning technology is not new to the Bay area. In 2008, BayCare Health System implemented the program and became the first in the state to register and track patients. It has used biometrics to register 610,000 patients.

"It was important for us to have a medical record that was continuous. If a patient had more than one visit, the clinical provider had information of that previous visit," says Candace Gray, director of Registration for BayCare Health System.

Cafeteria cashier Lisa Buis works at Largo High School where up to 1,000 students go through the lunch line in a day. Buis says she looks forward to the new system. "It's going to be smooth sailing."

The district has ordered 300 palm scanners at a cost of $120,000. The palm scanners will replace the district's finger imaging technology that was implemented in 2005. District officials say the finger imaging system has not been reliable. Since student fingers' made contact with the scanner, after a while the scanner would break down and would need to be replaced.

Students will not be touching the palm scanner, but they will hold their hands over a black box several inches away from the sensor. The contactless palm vein authentication is said to be hygienic and non-invasive.

Later this year, cafeteria workers will clock in and clock out using the palm scanners.

You May Also Like...

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Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:26

Through the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by theFirst Lady and signed by President Obama, USDA is making the firstmajor changes in school meals in 15 years, which will help us raise ahealthier generation of children.

The new standards align school meals with the latest nutrition scienceand the real world circumstances of America's schools. These responsiblereforms do what's right for children's health in a way that's achievable inschools across the Nation.

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Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:42

Paul-Andr(C) Savoie is changing the car-insurance industry by helping insurers monitor every move you make.

Customer data provided by Mr. Savoie's tech company, based in Laval, Que., turns a car-insurance bill from a static monthly figure into something variable '' the more unsafe a customer's driving habits, the higher the cost.

More Related to this Story''It creates a huge financial incentive on a monthly basis to drive safe,'' said Mr. Savoie, president and CEO of Baseline Telematics. ''We are attracting safer drivers and rehabilitating other drivers.''

A handful of Canadian insurers have started testing the software in pilot programs. Those programs are overwhelmingly aimed at drivers 25 and younger. In some cases, it is the drivers' parents signing them up to keep close tabs on their driving habits.

Since the inception of the modern car-insurance industry, premiums in Canada and much of the world have been determined by broad criteria, including age and car model. However, the ubiquity of movement sensors available in many modern vehicles '' as well as the ability to analyze the massive amounts of data produced by those sensors '' has created a new brand of insurance.

By measuring exactly how each of their customers drives in real time, insurers are starting to charge individual premiums based on monitored driving habits.

For 17 years, Mr. Savoie's company has been building software and hardware for the insurance industry. Over the past year or so, a couple of Canadian insurers have started deploying Baseline's namesake technology, ''telematics.''

The product collects information from the vehicles of individual drivers and allows insurers to bill their customers according to these data. The software uses sensors to monitor speed, acceleration, braking and other metrics.

That information is then analyzed for signs of unsafe driving, such as hard braking or speed-limit violations (the software monitors a vehicle's location to determine whether drivers are keeping within limits).

While deployment of the technology is still in the testing stages among a handful of insurance companies, its usage reflects the widespread adoption of tools that allow companies to track customer habits.

The ability to monitor and adapt to the behaviour of individual customers, for example, was part of the rationale for last month's announcement by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. that it will acquire Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. for $12.4-billion. Shoppers' Optimum loyalty program will give Loblaw purchasing information on some 10 million customers.

The interactive and social-media-friendly nature of Mr. Savoie's software is meant to quell potential resistance from younger customers. Customers get weekly and monthly updates on their driving habits, are shown how they compare to others in their age group, and have the option to publish that information on Facebook.

''By people getting regular feedback and seeing in graphical illustration how they're driving compared to their peers, it has an impact on how they drive,'' said Don Thompson, vice-president of product management at Saskatchewan Government Insurance, which is testing the first telematics program for motorcycle insurance.

The telematics system itself is largely reliant on ''big data'' analytics '' a fast-growing industry focused on automatically sifting through huge amounts of information to find previously undiscovered trends.

To do that with the data collected by the telematics systems, Baseline sought the assistance of SAP, an analytics company whose customers include F1 racing teams and life-insurance providers '' the racing teams use SAP technology to collect and analyze data from cars in real time during races, and the insurers use it to look for patterns consistent with fraudulent claims.

Baseline charges its customers an activation fee up front and a monthly subscription fee afterward. The exact cost of the system differs from insurer to insurer.

By sifting through the data collected by the telematics program, Baseline and its customers are starting to see the patterns that help to flag high-risk driving. For example, frequent hard braking is a strong indicator of unsafe driving in cars, and the strongest indicator with respect to motorcyclists is cornering. As a result, Baseline's telematics hardware for motorbikes includes a 3-D accelerometer designed to measure the way a rider takes a corner.

In time, insurers say the new system will allow them to pinpoint every customer's risk level, and charge them accordingly, instead of relying on broad metrics.

''When somebody is a very bad driver, we see that after few months they're not with us any more '' they discover they're not good and they go with a traditional insurer,'' says Suzanne Michaud, vice-president of client experience at Mobiliz, which is running a telematics insurance program in Quebec.

''With telematics we don't charge you an average premium, we charge you your premium.''

The telematics-based systems still constitute a tiny fraction of overall insurance programs in Canada, and face growing pains. For example, the motorbike version of the technology is so new that very little data on the metrics associated with safe motorbike driving exist. That prompted Saskatchewan Government Insurance to ask skilled riders to come out to a local track to demonstrate proper riding techniques on motorbikes fitted with monitoring equipment, which provided some baseline data.

However, there are many privacy issues related to the frequent collection of data from drivers, including their location and speed. Protocols are being developed on a company-by-company basis on how data is stored and secured, as well as what to do if the data show extreme violations, such as speeds so far above posted limits that a driver could be criminally charged. In such cases, some insurers have opted to slap the customer with an immediate extra charge on that month's bill, hoping a hit to the wallet will help change behaviour.

But despite the privacy issues, Mr. Savoie is adamant that telematics-based policies will soon become the norm in Canada and throughout much of the world. In the early days of the service, Baseline had to install special hardware in vehicles to collect data. Now, the company is working on a smartphone app, which uses the sensors on those devices to collect the same information.

Soon, the company won't even have to do that, Mr. Savoie said, because most car companies are already building those sensors into the cars.

''I think in the next two or three years, you will not be able to buy a car that doesn't have a telematics connection back to the manufacturers. I think cars are basically going to be smartphones.''

But perhaps the most significant impact of telematics-based insurance is its applicability to myriad other industries. Richard Daukant, national vice-president of strategic engagements at SAP, notes that there has been an explosion in so-called body metrics hardware over the past few years '' wearable monitors that collect information such as heart rate, physical activity and calories burned.

Now, he says, health insurance companies are starting to take a long look at that technology, hoping to harness it for a new type of customized insurance policy, whose premiums are determined by each customer's lifestyle.

''It's almost pay as you live, not pay as you drive.''

Send your automotive maintenance and repair questions to globedrive@globeandmail.com

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Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:07

It was more than intuition that drew a Norcross police officer to an extended-stay hotel. A computer program in her police cruiser had advised her to scope out that very hotel, at that very hour. When she arrived, she spotted a suspicious-looking man.

Turns out, the man was on the lam, living at the hotel but wanted in Illinois on warrants stemming from burglary charges, officials said. ''He would eventually have been doing something wrong in Norcross,'' said Warren Summers, the city's police chief.

But the hotel resident never got the chance. His was just one of several arrests made within the first twenty-four hours after Norcross rolled out new security software on August 8. The technology is, depending on your perspective, either a super creepy form of snooping or a highly effective crime deterrent.

Norcross became the first police department in Georgia to launch a real-time crime prediction tool from a company called PredPol (short for ''predictive policing''). Using the same concepts retailers like Amazon and Target rely on to chart consumer behavior, the police program uses existing crime data (location, type of crime, dates, times, etc.) to form algorithms that lead police to where specific crimes are most likely to occur. It may sound farfetched'--or like a plot device in a science-fiction thriller'--but Chief Summers, for one, is sold.

Norcross cops credit the program with helping officers snare several suspects the first day'--including the absconder from Illinois and two alleged burglars, who Summers said were caught red-handed in a house that fell within a 500 square-foot ''predictive box'' for misdeeds identified by the PredPol algorithms.

A team of mathematicians and social scientists developed PredPol at three California universities over the past six years. Since its launch in 2011, departments from Santa Cruz to Columbia, South Carolina have adopted the technology.

For now, PredPol helps Norcross officers target theft-related crimes such as robbery and burglary, as opposed to homicides or domestic disputes. The department is paying for the program with seized drug money.

Elsewhere in the metro area, the Atlanta Police Department started a ninety-day PredPol pilot program in July. Department spokesman Carlos Campos said APD would launch the program in the fall, if they deem the pilot a success.

All thirty Norcross patrol cars have access to PredPol via onboard laptops. Officers have been trained to patrol the "predictive boxes" frequently.

''You may displace crime just by being there,'' Summers said. ''The ultimate goal is not only to catch people but prevent crime.''

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Wed, 21 Aug 2013 18:41

WASHINGTON '-- The federal government is making progress on developing a surveillance system that would pair computers with video cameras to scan crowds and automatically identify people by their faces, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with researchers working on the project.

The Department of Homeland Security tested a crowd-scanning project called the Biometric Optical Surveillance System '-- or BOSS '-- last fall after two years of government-financed development. Although the system is not ready for use, researchers say they are making significant advances. That alarms privacy advocates, who say that now is the time for the government to establish oversight rules and limits on how it will someday be used.

There have been stabs for over a decade at building a system that would help match faces in a crowd with names on a watch list '-- whether in searching for terrorism suspects at high-profile events like a presidential inaugural parade, looking for criminal fugitives in places like Times Square or identifying card cheats in crowded casinos.

The automated matching of close-up photographs has improved greatly in recent years, and companies like Facebook have experimented with it using still pictures.

But even with advances in computer power, the technical hurdles involving crowd scans from a distance have proved to be far more challenging. Despite occasional much-hyped tests, including one as far back as the 2001 Super Bowl, technical specialists say crowd scanning is still too slow and unreliable.

The release of the documents about the government's efforts to overcome those challenges comes amid a surge of interest in surveillance matters inspired by the leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor. Interest in video surveillance was also fueled by the attack on the Boston Marathon, where suspects were identified by officials looking through camera footage.

In a sign of how the use of such technologies can be developed for one use but then expanded to another, the BOSS research began as an effort to help the military detect potential suicide bombers and other terrorists overseas at ''outdoor polling places in Afghanistan and Iraq,'' among other sites, the documents show. But in 2010, the effort was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security to be developed for use instead by the police in the United States.

After a recent test of the system, the department recommended against deploying it until more improvements could be made. A department official said the contractor was ''continuing to develop BOSS,'' although there is no sign of when it may be done. But researchers on the project say they made progress, and independent specialists say it is virtually inevitable that someone will make the broader concept work as camera and computer power continue to improve.

''I would say we're at least five years off, but it all depends on what kind of goals they have in mind'' for such a system, said Anil Jain, a specialist in computer vision and biometrics engineering at Michigan State University who was not involved in the BOSS project.

The effort to build the BOSS system involved a two-year, $5.2 million federal contract given to Electronic Warfare Associates, a Washington-area military contractor with a branch office in Kentucky. The company has been working with the laboratory of Aly Farag, a University of Louisville computer vision specialist, and the contract was steered to the firm by an earmark request in a 2010 appropriations bill by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

Significant progress is already being made in automated face recognition using photographs taken under ideal conditions, like passport pictures and mug shots. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is spending $1 billion to roll out a Next Generation Identification system that will provide a national mug shot database to help local police departments verify identities.

But surveillance of crowds from a distance '-- in which lighting and shadows vary, and faces tend to be partly obscured or pointed in random directions '-- is still not reliable or fast enough. The BOSS research is intended to overcome those challenges by generating far more information for computers to analyze.

The system consists of two towers bearing ''robotic camera structures'' with infrared and distance sensors. They take pictures of the same subject from slightly different angles. A computer then processes the images into a ''3-D signature'' built from data like the ratios between various points on someone's face to be compared against data about faces stored in a watch-list database, the documents show.

The Homeland Security Department hired the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to test the BOSS system at an arena in Kennewick, Wash. The plan, according to a ''privacy impact assessment,'' was to use 30 volunteers whose facial data would be mingled in a database among 1,000 mug shots to see whether the system could reliably recognize when any of the volunteers were present.

The agency set up six tests to determine the technology's overall accuracy, determining afterward that ''it was not ready for a D.H.S. customer'' '-- meaning that police departments should not buy it.

In interviews, Ed Tivol of Electronic Warfare Associates and Dr. Farag both suggested that as computer processing becomes ever faster the remaining obstacles will fall away.

Mr. Tivol said the goal was to provide a match with an 80 percent to 90 percent certainty from a range of up to 100 meters, something ''that has never been done.'' While the system continued to have problems with light and shading in some tests, he said, in others the goal had been achieved at closer distances. Farther away, he said, the accuracy has fallen to 60 percent to 70 percent.

''The results were increasingly positive,'' he said. There was a ''significant improvement'' in speed, too, he said. At first, it took the system six to eight minutes to process images, but it now takes under 30 seconds.

Still, he and Dr. Farag said, the officials overseeing the testing wanted a quicker turnaround. That might be easier with the more powerful computers available to the military, they said, but the government wanted them to use processors available off the shelf for civilian applications.

Several independent biometric specialists, given a description of the project's test results, agreed that the system was not yet ready. They said 30 seconds was far too long to process an image for security purposes, and that its accuracy numbers would result in the police going out to question too many innocent people.

Several of the specialists also suggested that similar technology may be progressing more quickly in other laboratories that have not received taxpayer financing. A spokesman for Mr. McConnell stressed that while he requested that the contract go to Electronic Warfare Associates, it was ''competitively bid.'' Federal records show the firm was the only one to submit a bid.

Ginger McCall, a privacy advocate who obtained the documents under the Freedom of Information Act and provided them to The New York Times, said the time was now '-- while such technology is still maturing and not yet deployed '-- to build in rules for how it may be used. (Ms. McCall was at the Electronic Privacy Information Center at the time of her information act request.)

''This technology is always billed as antiterrorism, but then it drifts into other applications,'' Ms. McCall said. ''We need a real conversation about whether and how we want this technology to be used, and now is the time for that debate.''

In particular, she said, there should be limits on whose faces are loaded into them when they are ready for deployment. Ms. McCall said it would be acceptable to use it for terrorism watch lists, but she feared any effort to systematically track everyone's public movements by using a comprehensive database of driver's license photographs.

Still, Dr. Farag said, that kind of system is still very far off because it would take far too much computer processing power to load millions of images into a system and try to identify everyone at once, as opposed to sorting images in search of only a comparatively small number of faces on a watch list.

''Disappointments come when you are overambitious,'' he said.

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

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Tue, 20 Aug 2013 13:15

Door: Rosa Veenstra '' 20/08/13, 05:58

(C) Marcel van den Bergh/ de Volkskrant. Kinderen op kinderdagverblijf 't Hummeltje spelen met scheerschuim.

De gemeente Amsterdam wil kinderen vanaf 2,5 jaar naar de basisschool sturen. In het najaar lanceert de gemeente een plan om peuterspeelzalen, voorscholen en reguliere kinderopvang samen te voegen in een basisvoorziening voor peuters van 2,5 tot 4 jaar oud. In de loop van dit schooljaar begint een proefproject op tien scholen.

Volgens het plan krijgen kinderen met een taalachterstand wekelijks recht op vier gratis dagdelen opvang van drie uur. Voor andere kinderen is dat twee gratis dagdelen per week. De opzet lijkt daarmee sterk op het plan van minister Lodewijk Asscher voor een landelijke peutervoorziening voor alle kinderen vanaf 2,5 jaar, ongeacht of de ouders werken of niet.

Amsterdam kent een relatief hoog aantal kinderen met een taalachterstand. Met ruim 6.300 peuters valt bijna de helft van alle 2,5 tot 4-jarigen in de stad onder die categorie, terwijl het er landelijk 45 duizend zijn. Volgens de bestaande regelingen hebben zij recht op minstens tien uur voorschoolse educatie per week, betaald door de gemeente.

0plusAmsterdam wil daar nu onder de naam Groep 0plus een pedagogische voorziening van maken voor alle kinderen. De opvang valt dan onder de verantwoordelijkheid van de basisschool en vindt plaats in hetzelfde gebouw of in de buurt daarvan. Als kinderen 4 jaar oud zijn, stromen ze door naar groep 1 van dezelfde school. Voor de financiering wil de stad het geld voor de kinderopvangtoeslag samenvoegen met de gemeentelijke middelen voor peuterspeelzaalwerk en voor- en vroegschoolse educatie.

Als het initiatief doorgaat, heeft de Amsterdamse kinderopvang er een potentile concurrent bij. Volgens het plan mogen basisscholen samenwerken met een bestaande aanbieder van kinderopvang, maar ze mogen de peutervoorziening ook zelf aanbieden. In dat geval ziet de opvang zijn meest winstgevende clinten wegstromen, omdat er bij kinderen tot 2 jaar oud meer beroepskrachten op de groep moeten staan dan bij oudere kinderen. Kinderdagverblijven verdienen daarom meestal pas aan de opvang wanneer kinderen de peuterleeftijd bereiken.

Grote aanbiedersHet plan valt daarom niet in goede aarde bij kinderopvangorganisaties in de stad. 'Uit ervaring weet ik dat scholen alleen in zee gaan met de grote aanbieders', zegt pedagoge Jessica Haije, eigenaar van Kids & Zo in Amsterdam. 'Dat zijn niet altijd de beste aanbieders op het gebied van de pedagogische kwaliteit voor peuters, dat blijkt ook uit rapportages van de GGD. Ik begrijp ook niet waarom er straks geld naar voorschoolse educatie bij basisscholen gaat, terwijl er al een hele infrastructuur ligt.'

Het initiatief past in de oproep van de vier grote steden om een einde te maken aan het verschil tussen de commercile kinderopvang en de gesubsidieerde opvang. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag en Utrecht willen zelf de regie krijgen over de voorschoolse educatie voor kinderen van 2,5 tot 4 jaar.

Gemeenten hebben al enige vrijheid om onderwijs, peuterspeelzalen, kinderopvang op elkaar af te stemmen. Rotterdam, Utrecht en Den Haag geven vrijwel alleen subsidie voor voorschoolse educatie als er een link is met de basisschool.

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Tue, 20 Aug 2013 02:52

Secretary of State John Kerry has determined that the four State Department officials placed on administrative leave by Hillary Clinton after the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi do not deserve any formal disciplinary action and has asked them to come back to work at the State Department starting Tuesday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pounds on her table while testifying on the September attack on U.S. diplomatic sites in Benghazi, Libya during a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on January 23, 2013. (Jason Reed/Reuters, via Landov)

Last December, Clinton's staff told four mid-level officials to clean out their desks and hand in their badges after the release of the report of its own internal investigation into the Benghazi attack, compiled by the Administrative Review Board led by former State Department official Tom Pickering and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Ret. Adm. Mike Mullen. Those four officials have been in legal and professional limbo, not fired but unable to return to their jobs, for eight months'... until today.

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Raymond Maxwell, the only official from the State Department's Near Eastern Affairs bureau to lose his job over the Benghazi attack, told The Daily Beast Monday he received a memo from the State Department's human resources department informing him his administrative leave status has been lifted and he should report for duty Tuesday morning.

''No explanation, no briefing, just come back to work. So I will go in tomorrow,'' Maxwell said. ''I know what Hosni Mubarak must feel.''

Maxwell previously told The Daily Beast that the reasons for his administrative leave designation had never been explained to him. He contended that he had little role in Libya policy and no involvement whatsoever in the events leading up to the Benghazi attack.

''The overall goal is to restore my honor,'' Maxwell had said.

While not a formal discplinary action, Maxwell regarded his treatment as punishment because he was not able to work and was publicly identified as being blamed for the tragedy that cost the lives of four Americans, including his friend Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Maxwell had filed grievances regarding his treatment with the State Department's Human Resources Bureau and the American Foreign Service Association, which represents the interests of foreign-service officers. The other three officials placed on leave were in the Diplomatic Security Bureau, including then Assistant Secretary Eric Boswell and Deputy Assistant Secretary Charlene Lamb.

A senior State Department official confirmed to The Daily Beast Monday that all four officials placed on administrative leave were now returned to regular duty and would not face any formal disciplinary action. The administrative leave designation was not a formal punishment, but did prevent the officials from working while the Kerry team, which inherited the Benghazi issue from the Clinton team in February, reviewed their cases.

''As soon as he came into the department, Secretary Kerry wanted to invest the time to review the ARB's findings and match those against his own on-the-job findings about security,'' the senior State Department official said. ''He's been hands-on focused on building on the lessons learned from the Benghazi attack to strengthen security at missions world-wide and continue the ARB's security paradigm shift.''

As part of this process, Kerry asked his high command to complete a thorough review of the ARB's findings. At the time of the report's release, Pickering said the ARB had determined that blame for the security failures leading up to the Bengazi attack should be placed at the Assistant Secretary level but that no officials had committed breaches of duty that would warrant outright termination.

After consideration, Kerry reaffirmed the ARB's finding that no employee breached their duty or should be fired but rather that some should be reassigned, the official said. NEA Assistant Secretary Beth Jones was never placed on administrative leave. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson has been nominated to replace her.

Kerry and his team also considered the long records of the four individuals and the circumstances leading up the Benghazi attack when considering what to do with the sidelined officials, the official said. None of the officials will be able to get their old jobs back and Boswell will not return as the head of diplomatic security.

''[Secretary Kerry] studied their careers and studied the facts,'' the official said. ''In order to implement the ARB and to continue to turn the page and shift the paradigm inside the Department, the four employees who were put on administrative leave last December pending further review, will be reassigned inside the State Department.''

There was also concern in Congress that only mid-level officials with little direct responsibility for the Benghazi attack had been taken out of their jobs following the ARB report release.

''The ARB tried to blame everyone but hold no one responsible, except for some of the lower level people who were not in control of the situation,'' Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), chairman of the House Oversight National Security subcommittee, told The Daily Beast in May.

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Wed, 21 Aug 2013 01:09

Media Spokesperson, Central Intelligence AgencyMarie E. Harf is a Media Spokesperson for the Central Intelligence Agency, a position she has held since June 2008. Ms. Harf is part of the small team that develops the Agency's media strategy and responds to queries from reporters on a wide range of national security and intelligence topics. She staffs senior Agency officials at public appearances, helps prepare them for press interviews, and organizes CIA-hosted media events.

Ms. Harf began her career at the CIA in the Directorate of Intelligence, where she was an analyst on Middle East leadership issues from March 2006 until June 2008. In this role, she produced finished intelligence products -- including for the President's Daily Brief -- on top foreign policy priorities, providing both insight and context while identifying risks and opportunities for the United States. She also authored in-depth assessments of foreign leaders, which were shared with U.S. officials before bilateral and multilateral meetings.

Ms. Harf received her Master's Degree in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia, where her thesis dealt with regime stability in Saudi Arabia. She graduated with honors from Indiana University, earning a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science with concentrations in Russian and Eastern European Studies and Jewish Studies. Ms. Harf is a native of Granville, Ohio, and a staunch Ohio State Buckeye football fan.

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Fri, 23 Aug 2013 00:13

Satellites have shown two mysterious 'black hole' whirlpools in the South Atlantic ocean - ultra powerful ''vortexes'' which suck water down into the depths.

The whirpools - never witnessed before - would suck down ships, debris and even living creatures, moving 1.3 million cubic metres of water per second.

Two of the black holes - or ''maelstroms'' - have been sighted in three months by physicists from Zurich and Miami.

The powerful vortices of current have been described as 'maelstroms' and are 'mathematical analogues' for black holes '' which is to say they do exactly the same with water that black holes do with light.

The discovery could give new insights into how oceanic currents transport debris and may even have implications for climate change studies.

Astronomical black holes bend space and time into a perpetually collapsing vortex. Light itself bends around them, which enables astronomers to recognise their existence.

Similarly, these oceanic maelstroms funnel current into an almost permanent spiral, trapping debris, oil and potentially living creatures in a body of water. Hardly anything leaks out.

The scientists used Edgar Allen Poe's 1841 story 'A descent into a Maelstrom' to describe their discovery:''The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel'...''

The ability to apply the same mathematical principles to water currents on earth as black holes in space is an unexpected side-effect of the theory of general relativity.

This phenomenon has been observed in the South Atlantic and South-western Indian Ocean, using satellite imagery designed to spot the aquatic equivalent of black hole currents. According to scientists, the maelstroms are prevalent in this area thanks to the southbound Agulhas current in the Indian Ocean.

In a three-month period, two perfect matches were found to mimic black hole behaviour, ''We have found exceptionally coherent material belts in the South Atlantic, filled with analogues of photon spheres around black holes,'' said George Haller, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Z¼rich and Francisco Beron-Vera at the University of Miami in Florida, who worked on the study.

The phrase 'photon spheres' refers to the light that is trapped around astronomical black holes, and in this instance is comparable to the rings of debris that are forming around these ocean maelstroms. As Haller and Beron-Vera's findings note, 'these vortices will capture and swallow nearby passively floating debris.'

In their research findings, Haller and Beron-Vora express their surprise at finding real-world examples that hold so closely to the theoretical equations. 'Vortices in turbulence are often envisaged as rotating bodies of fluid, traveling as coherent islands in an otherwise incoherent ambient flow. This'... '...view is appealingly simple, yet challenging to apply in actual vortex detection.'

The maelstroms are detected by their rotating edges, which the scientists found were reliable indicators of the vortex within, based on pioneering research carried out by Stephen Hawking on black holes: 'Intuitively, one expects that any'...vortex in the fluid must contain such a singularity in its interior, just as all black holes are expected to contain Penrose-Hawking singularities. This expectation turns out to be correct'.

The singularities, as they have been termed, last for months at a time, moving across the ocean without interference from other currents.

Thus they can transport water of different temperatures and salinity to other areas of the ocean, potentially influencing the regional climate.

Haller and Beron-Vera found that the vortices transported water in a north-western direction 30% faster than had previously been reckoned '' at a rate equating to 1.3 million cubic metres of water per second.

In addition, the maelstroms were found to occur four times deeper in the ocean than previously estimated; the study found examples as deep as 2000m below the surface.

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 04:19

Washington, Aug 23 '-- Indian American medical journalist Sanjay Gupta has had a strain of cannabis named after him since he suggested a relook at the use of medical marijuana changing his previous position on the controversial issue.

A Colorado medical dispensary named a new type of medical marijuana - Gupta Kush - after Gupta, CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, adding him to a list of celebrities including President Barack Obama who have namesake cannabis strains.

"Dr. Gupta's recent reporting on marijuana puts him at the forefront of the medical cannabis movement, and we thought what better way to honour his efforts than by giving him his own strain," said Jeff Kless, owner of Helping Hands Herbals Dispensary in Boulder, Colorado, in a media release.

"We'd like to ensure he remains part of the annals of cannabis culture, and now he will," he added.

Kless called naming a marijuana strain after Gupta as "our way of tipping our hat and honouring him for taking such a firm, science-based stance on behalf of marijuana as 'real' medicine".

"The political and health establishments now realise that cannabis has genuine medical benefits, which we've been saying for years," he said.

"Gupta Kush imparts a very relaxing state that calms the mind without compromising clarity. When the mind is quiet and happy, people allow themselves to heal. Medical marijuana helps that happen," Kless claimed.

Gupta Kush is an indica strain with its origins in the Hindu Kush mountains of South Asia, the reported birthplace of some of the world's oldest and most potent cannabis strains, according to the release.

It has a rich green colour hidden beneath a deep layer of trichomes, and a thick, hashy, floral taste. Onset is immediate and effects are long-lasting, it said.

Since publicly announcing his changed views on medical marijuana earlier this month, Gupta has inspired a more serious look at weed and even generated some pressure on Obama to re-examine his position on marijuana laws.

However, the White House last week indicated Obama isn't looking to change current federal laws relating to marijuana anytime soon in the light of Gupta's views.

Obama considered naming CNN's Gupta as surgeon general in 2009, but the neurosurgeon later said he withdrew his name so he could maintain his surgical career.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)

IANS

This article was distributed through the NewsCred Smartwire.Original article (C) IANS / Daily News 2013

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Sat, 24 Aug 2013 20:50

Latest BillThis Bill is being prepared for publication.

Latest news on the National Service Bill 2013-14This Bill is expected to have its second reading debate on 6 September 2013.

This Bill was presented to Parliament on 24 June 2013. This is known as the first reading and there was no debate on the Bill at this stage.

This Bill is a Private Member's Bill. These are often not printed until close to the second reading debate. If the text is not yet available here and you wish to know more about this bill please contact its sponsor, Mr Philip Hollobone.

Summary of the National Service Bill 2013-14A Bill to provide a system of national service for young persons; and for connected purposes.Stay up to dateKeep up to date with the progress of Bills going through Parliament. Sign up for email alerts or use our RSS feeds.

Related informationGuide to the passage of a BillFind out what happens at each stage of a Public Bill's journey through Parliament with the Passage of a Bill guide.

When does a Bill become law?Explanation of what happens after Bills have been passed, and when laws may change.

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Source: WT news feed

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 01:20

The foreign ministry said it had received an opinion from its constitutional advisors that the government was not bound by a 2009 parliamentary vote to launch the membership talks.

"After receiving this opinion the foreign minister has decided to consider dissolving the negotiation committee," the ministry said in a statement, quoted by the AFP news agency.

On a recent visit to Brussels, the new Prime Minister of Iceland Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson was told by European Commission President Jos(C) Manuel Barroso to decide ''without further delay'' whether it wanted to continue accession negotiations or abandon plans to join the EU.

>> Read: Barroso tells Iceland to make up its mind on joining the EU

The committee's dissolution effectively signals the abandonment of these negotiations.

On 27 April, Iceland held elections, inflicting to the ruling pro-European Social Democrats the the biggest defeat any ruling national party has suffered since independence from Denmark in 1944.

Gunnlaugsson, 38, is Europe's youngest democratically elected head of government. Since 2009, he has led the Progressives, a centre-right and liberal party affiliated with Liberal International.

The Progressive Party draws most of its support from farmers and fishermen. In coalition with the Independence Party (see background), the Progressives oppose EU membership.

In May, the new government announced a halt to the country's EU accession talks until Icelanders vote in a referendum within the next four years on whether they want membership negotiations to continue.

The decision of Iceland to stop the accession talks can be seen as bad news in Brussels. Croatia's recent accession gave EU leaders the opportunity to boast about the attractiveness of EU membership, despite the economic and sovereign debt crises.

Iceland was put on a fast track to EU accession, as it had already taken on board much of the EU legislation as member of the European Economic Area (EEA). It formally applied for EU membership on 16 July 2009 and started accession talks only one year later. The process has taken much longer for any other applicant country.

>> Read: Iceland gatecrashes EU antechamber

But Iceland is a special case, as the country's powerful fishing industry is in deep conflict with the EU over fishing quotas. The Commission says it can accommodate Iceland's ''specificities'', but in fact the differences between Reykjavik and Brussels are not only of technical but of political nature.

The EU considers that Iceland is overfishing and that the island nation should accept strict quotas. Iceland says it has more experience in fishing that the Union itself and that it could teach Brussels best practices.

Recently, Iceland backed the Faroe Islands in a fishing quotas conflict with the EU and objected to the EU position in the strongest terms.

>> Read: Herring loss sparks EU-Faroe Island trade spat

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Source: WT news feed

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 01:18

Published: 23 Aug 2013 17:44 CET | Print versionOnline: http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20130823-51567.html

German inventors unveiled a drone carrying a defibrillator on Friday which they hope will be able to save the lives of heart attack patients.

Every year 100,000 people die in Germany from heart attacks and the inventors hope that a drone will be able to deliver a defibrillator to revive the patient quicker than an ambulance.Fredrich N¶lle from technology group Definetz unveiled the prototype in Halle in North Rhine Westphalia. It has been designed to reach patients in remote areas and is activated by the emergency services or members of the public through a mobile phone app.

Germany's emergency services union (DBRD) welcomed the invention but warned people to not get their hopes up. ''We'll have to see how much these drones can help,'' Marco K¶nig from the DBRD said.

N¶lle said the drone worked through the app which when activated would start the drone and bring the defibrillator to the GPS coordinates of the patient.

The downside is that the drone relies on someone being with the heart attack victim and having the app downloaded on their phone.

N¶lle also said there were restrictions to flying drones in Germany, but added they were completely different to military drones which are giving the country's defence ministry a headache.

The drone on display on Friday had eight rotor blades, a diameter of one metre and a flying distance of 15 kilometres. With the defibrillator it weighs 4.7 kg and costs '‚¬20,000.

DPA/The Local/tsb

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 04:53

Teenagers injured or disabled by cervical cancer vaccines are stepping up efforts to permanently end the government's subsidy program for injections of Cervarix and Gardasil.

On Friday, eight teens, accompanied by their parents, called out health minister Norihisa Tamura over the issue. The schoolgirls, aged from 14 to 18 '-- including four in wheelchairs '-- and their parents are members of the Nationwide Liaison Association of Cervical Cancer Vaccine Victims and Parents.

Tamura was handed five petitions in a meeting with the group at the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, association chief Mika Matsufuji said afterward. The request to abolish the vaccination program topped the list.

The other petitions included one asking for stronger government efforts to identify the cause of the side effects and to find therapeutic remedies. The side effects range from convulsions and seizures to severe headaches and even partial paralysis.

In April, the Diet revised the Preventive Vaccination Law so that girls aged 14 to 18 could get the cervical vaccine shots for free.

But an advisory panel to the health ministry later urged that the government stop recommending vaccinations for cervical cancer after concluding the reported symptoms were likely being caused by the vaccines.

The ministry reportedly complied on June 15 by telling local governments to stop recommending that girls 12 to 16 get vaccinated with Cervarix or Gardasil in light of reports about chronically adverse reactions. The local governments, acting on behalf of the central government, had been telling teens to get the shots.

At Friday's meeting with Tamura, the schoolgirls, parents and the association asked the government to revise the vaccination law again to officially remove cervical cancer vaccines from the list of those subsidized by the central government.

''There is not a single moment when I am not suffering pain, and I want the government to find a remedy,'' said a 17-year-old high school senior from Yokohama.

''I do not want the government to resume recommending this vaccine.''

The girl said she started getting severe pains throughout her body, including her head, after receiving her third Cervarix injection in April 2011. The process requires three injections in six months.

A 16-year-old in a wheelchair whose hands and legs were convulsing during the meeting with Tamura and at the news conference, said she can't possibly be alone.

''There must be numerous girls who are suffering symptoms similar to mine without knowing their conditions stem from the vaccines.

''I took this action (going to the press) because I want those girls to become aware of the link'' between the vaccines and their disorders, she said.

Toshie Ikeda, a member of the Hino Municipal Assembly who has been secretary-general of the association and attended Friday's meeting with Tamura, quoted him as saying: ''I am aware of the necessity to create a team to study this problem and gather information on the actual state of damage that has been inflicted nationwide.''

Matsufuji, whose daughter is among the four in wheelchairs, quoted the minister as telling the petitioners that the decision will be made after the government completes its investigation.

According to Dr. Sotaro Sato, who has examined many cervical vaccine victims, the convulsions, inability to walk, and involuntary hand and toe movements are being caused by encephalomyelitis, or the inflammation of the brain and spinal cord.

''Cervical cancer vaccines, which are chemically bound to special types of adjuvants, often trigger encephalomyelitis,'' he said.

''Since the vaccines cause autoantibodies against the brain's neuronal fibers to be produced in many cases, they have triggered demyelinating disorders,'' he said, adding they have also induced many cases of cerebral vasculitis.

Cerebral vasculitis causes the body's immune system to attack blood vessels in the brain, often leading to hemorrhaging, said Sato, who runs a hospital in Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture.

The marketing of Cervarix, made by GlaxoSmithKlein PLC of Britain, was approved in 2009. This was followed by Gardasil, made by Merck Sharp & Dohme (better known as Merck & Co. in the U.S.), in 2011.

The ministry says that it has received a total of 1,968 reports of adverse reactions and that 3.28 million girls had been vaccinated as of March 31. The association says that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Ikeda said doctors often reject pleas from their patients' parents to file reports about adverse reactions, which are needed to obtain compensation from the government.

This is either because they are afraid of being held responsible for the shots or because they are ignorant the vaccines can produce side effects, he said.

Baby gets liver cellsThe National Center for Child Health and Development in Tokyo has successfully transplanted liver cells into a baby for the first time in Japan.

''We have safely conducted an operation that could develop into regenerative medicine using embryo-stem or induced pluripotent stem cells,'' NCCHD hospital chief Akira Matsui said Friday.

In the globally rare case, the center used surplus liver cells left frozen after 14 living liver transplants it conducted in and after May 2011. The donors consented to keeping the liver cells frozen.

The baby boy, whose liver was malfunctioning, underwent the transplant on Aug. 10, when he was 11 days old, and on Aug. 13, receiving cells that matched his blood type, the center said. Afterward, his liver began functioning properly.

The boy could be discharged from the hospital in a month and a half, the center said, adding it will keep track of his condition.

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Sun, 25 Aug 2013 13:15

ONE bright morning this month, 400 protesters smashed down the high fences surrounding a field in the Bicol region of the Philippines and uprooted the genetically modified rice plants growing inside.

Had the plants survived long enough to flower, they would have betrayed a distinctly yellow tint in the otherwise white part of the grain. That is because the rice is endowed with a gene from corn and another from a bacterium, making it the only variety in existence to produce beta carotene, the source of vitamin A. Its developers call it ''Golden Rice.''

The concerns voiced by the participants in the Aug. 8 act of vandalism '-- that Golden Rice could pose unforeseen risks to human health and the environment, that it would ultimately profit big agrochemical companies '-- are a familiar refrain in the long-running controversy over the merits of genetically engineered crops. They are driving the desire among some Americans for mandatory ''G.M.O.'' labels on food with ingredients made from crops whose DNA has been altered in a laboratory. And they have motivated similar attacks on trials of other genetically modified crops in recent years: grapes designed to fight off a deadly virus in France, wheat designed to have a lower glycemic index in Australia, sugar beets in Oregon designed to tolerate a herbicide, to name a few.

''We do not want our people, especially our children, to be used in these experiments,'' a farmer who was a leader of the protest told the Philippine newspaper Remate.

Genetically engineered Golden Rice grown in a facility in Los Ba±os, Laguna Province, in the Philippines.

Jes Aznar for The New York Times

But Golden Rice, which appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in 2000 before it was quite ready for prime time, is unlike any of the genetically engineered crops in wide use today, designed to either withstand herbicides sold by Monsanto and other chemical companies or resist insect attacks, with benefits for farmers but not directly for consumers.

And a looming decision by the Philippine government about whether to allow Golden Rice to be grown beyond its four remaining field trials has added a new dimension to the debate over the technology's merits.

Not owned by any company, Golden Rice is being developed by a nonprofit group called the International Rice Research Institute with the aim of providing a new source of vitamin A to people both in the Philippines, where most households get most of their calories from rice, and eventually in many other places in a world where rice is eaten every day by half the population. Lack of the vital nutrient causes blindness in a quarter-million to a half-million children each year. It affects millions of people in Asia and Africa and so weakens the immune system that some two million die each year of diseases they would otherwise survive.

The destruction of the field trial, and the reasons given for it, touched a nerve among scientists around the world, spurring them to counter assertions of the technology's health and environmental risks. On a petition supporting Golden Rice circulated among scientists and signed by several thousand, many vented a simmering frustration with activist organizations like Greenpeace, which they see as playing on misplaced fears of genetic engineering in both the developing and the developed worlds. Some took to other channels to convey to American foodies and Filipino farmers alike the broad scientific consensus that G.M.O.'s are not intrinsically more risky than other crops and can be reliably tested.

Mothers with masks made from baby bathtubs protested Golden Rice in Quezon City, the Philippines, in June.

Erik De Castro / Reuters

At stake, they say, is not just the future of biofortified rice but also a rational means to evaluate a technology whose potential to improve nutrition in developing countries, and developed ones, may otherwise go unrealized.

''There's so much misinformation floating around about G.M.O.'s that is taken as fact by people,'' said Michael D. Purugganan, a professor of genomics and biology and the dean for science at New York University, who sought to calm health-risk concerns in a primer on GMA News Online, a media outlet in the Philippines: ''The genes they inserted to make the vitamin are not some weird manufactured material,'' he wrote, ''but are also found in squash, carrots and melons.''

Mr. Purugganan, who studies plant evolution, does not work on genetically engineered crops, and until recently had not participated in the public debates over the risks and benefits of G.M.O.'s. But having been raised in a middle-class family in Manila, he felt compelled to weigh in on Golden Rice. ''A lot of the criticism of G.M.O.'s in the Western world suffers from a lack of understanding of how really dire the situation is in developing countries,'' he said.

Some proponents of G.M.O.'s say that more critical questions, like where biotechnology should fall as a priority in the efforts to address the root causes of hunger and malnutrition and how to prevent a few companies from controlling it, would be easier to address were they not lumped together with unfounded fears by those who oppose G.M.O.'s.

''It is long past time for scientists to stand up and shout, 'No more lies '-- no more fear-mongering,' '' said Nina V. Fedoroff, a professor at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia and a former science adviser to the American secretary of state, who helped spearhead the petition. ''We're talking about saving millions of lives here.''

Precisely because of its seemingly high-minded purpose, Golden Rice has drawn suspicion from biotechnology skeptics beyond the demonstrators who forced their way into the field trial. Many countries ban the cultivation of all genetically modified crops, and after the rice's media debut early in the last decade, Vandana Shiva, an Indian environmentalist, called it a ''Trojan horse'' whose purpose was to gain public support for all manner of genetically modified crops that would benefit multinational corporations at the expense of poor farmers and consumers.

In a 2001 article, ''The Great Yellow Hype,'' the author Michael Pollan, a critic of industrial agriculture, suggested that it might have been developed to ''win an argument rather than solve a public-health problem.'' He cited biotechnology industry advertisements that featured the virtues of the rice, which at the time had to be ingested in large quantities to deliver a meaningful dose of vitamin A.

But the rice has since been retooled: a bowl now provides 60 percent of the daily requirement of vitamin A for healthy children. And Gerard Barry, the Golden Rice project leader at the International Rice Research Institute '-- and, it must be said, a former senior scientist and executive at Monsanto '-- suggests that attempts to discredit Golden Rice discount the suffering it could alleviate if successful. He said, too, that critics who suggest encouraging poor families to simply eat fruits and vegetables that contain beta carotene disregard the expense and logistical difficulties that would thwart such efforts.

Identified in the infancy of genetic engineering as having the potential for the biggest impact for the world's poor, beta-carotene-producing rice was initially funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the European Union. In a decade of work culminating in 1999, two academic scientists, Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer, finally switched on the production of beta carotene by adding daffodil and bacteria DNA to the rice's genome. They licensed their patent rights to the agribusiness company that later became Syngenta, on the condition that the technology and any improvements to it would be made freely available to poor farmers in the developing world. With the company retaining the right to use it in developed countries, potentially as an alternative to vitamin supplements, Syngenta scientists later improved the amount of beta carotene produced by substituting a gene from corn for the one from daffodil.

If the rice gains the Philippine government's approval, it will cost no more than other rice for poor farmers, who will be free to save seeds and replant them, Dr. Barry said. It has no known allergens or toxins, and the new proteins produced by the rice have been shown to break down quickly in simulated gastric fluid, as required by World Health Organization guidelines. A mouse feeding study is under way in a laboratory in the United States. The potential that the Golden Rice would cross-pollinate with other varieties, sometimes called ''genetic contamination,'' has been studied and found to be limited, because rice is typically self-pollinated. And its production of beta carotene does not appear to provide a competitive advantage '-- or disadvantage '-- that could affect the survival of wild varieties with which it might mix.

If Golden Rice is a Trojan horse, it now has some company. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is supporting the final testing of Golden Rice, is also underwriting the development of crops tailored for sub-Saharan Africa, like cassava that can resist the viruses that routinely wipe out a third of the harvest, bananas that contain higher levels of iron and corn that uses nitrogen more efficiently. Other groups are developing a pest-resistant black-eyed pea and a ''Golden Banana'' that would also deliver vitamin A.

Beyond the fear of corporate control of agriculture, perhaps the most cited objection to G.M.O.'s is that they may hold risks that may not be understood. The decision to grow or eat them relies, like many other decisions, on a cost-benefit analysis.

How food consumers around the world weigh that calculation will probably have far-reaching consequences. Such crops, Scientific American declared in an editorial last week, will make it to people's plates ''only with public support.''

Greenpeace, for one, dismisses the benefits of vitamin supplementation through G.M.O.'s and has said it will continue to oppose all uses of biotechnology in agriculture. As Daniel Ocampo, a campaigner for the organization in the Philippines, put it, ''We would rather err on the side of caution.''

For others, the potential of crops like Golden Rice to alleviate suffering is all that matters. ''This technology can save lives,'' one of the petition's signers, Javier Delgado of Mexico, wrote. ''But false fears can destroy it.''

Amy Harmon is a national correspondent for The New York Times.

Correction: August 24, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the Philippine region where protesters destroyed a field growing genetically modified rice. It is the Bicol region, not Bricol.

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