Monday, November 25, 2013

"If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in the ranks": Frederick The Great





"Perhaps the most obvious political effect of controlled news is the advantage it gives powerful people in getting their issues on the political agenda and defining those issues in ways likely to influence their resolution.": W. Lance Bennett - Author, professor at University of Washington Source: News: The Politics of Illusion, 1983







My friend, I do not blame you for this. Had I listened to you this trouble would not have happened to me. I was not hostile to the white men. Sometimes my young men would attack the Indians who were their enemies and took their ponies. They did it in return. We had buffalo for food, and their hides for clothing and for our tepees. We preferred hunting to a life of idleness on the reservation, where we were driven against our will. At times we did not get enough to eat and we were not allowed to leave the reservation to hunt. We preferred our own way of living. We were no expense to the government. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers were sent out in the winter, they destroyed our villages. The "Long Hair" [Custer] came in the same way. They say we massacred him, but he would have done the same thing to us had we not defended ourselves and fought to the last. Our first impulse was to escape with our squaws and papooses, but we were so hemmed in that we had to fight. After that I went up on the Tongue River with a few of my people and lived in peace. But the government would not let me alone. Finally, I came back to the Red Cloud Agency. Yet, I was not allowed to remain quiet. I was tired of fighting. I went to the Spotted Tail Agency and asked that chief and his agent to let me live there in peace. I came here with the agent [Lee] to talk with the Big White Chief but was not given a chance. They tried to confine me. I tried to escape, and a soldier ran his bayonet into me. I have spoken.  crazy horse, ogalala Lokota...................  Wado cwy

"Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless." - Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi






























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Friday, November 22, 2013

Hear me in my sorrow, for I may never call again. O make my people live!




"There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
"You are never strong enough that you don't need help." - César Chávez

















Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one. He was on his horse in that world, and the horse and himself on it and the trees and the grass and the stones and everything were made of spirit, and nothing was hard, and everything seemed to float. His horse was standing still there, and yet it danced around like a horse made only of shadow, and that is how he got his name, which does not mean that his horse was crazy or wild, but that in his vision it danced around in that queer way.
It was this vision that gave him his great power, for when he went into a fight, he had only to think of that world to be in it again, so that he could go through anything and not be hurt. Until he was killed at the Soldiers' Town on White River, he was wounded only twice, once by accident and both times by some one of his own people when he was not expecting trouble and was not thinking; never by an enemy. He was fifteen years old when he was wounded by accident; and the other time was when he was a young man and another man was jealous of him because the man's wife liked Crazy Horse.
They used to say that he carried a sacred stone with him, like one he had seen in some vision, and that when he was in danger, the stone always got heavy and protected him somehow. That, they used to say, was the reason that no horse he ever rode lasted very long. I do not know about this; maybe people only thought it; but it is a fact that he never kept one horse long. They wore out. I think it was only the power of his great vision that made him great.


Black Elk and Lame Deer were Heyoka which means that you literally say and do things backwards in a humorous manner but whose spirit helpers are the powerful thunderbeings.
Lame Deer was the last true Heyoka. If you look at this world most things flow in a clockwise cycle but you also have that small element in life that goes the opposite direction. There are things that Black Elk and Lame Deer did and said things in a way to divert the tensions at that time when the pipe way was under attack.



























kosmicdebris..................................






"You are never strong enough that you don't need help." - César Chávez

http://kosmicdebris.blogspot.com/2012/10/hear-me-in-my-sorrow-for-i-may-never.html






 Unspeakable Horrors in a Country on the Verge of Genocide
 
By David Smith Bossangoa
 
Militias in the Central African Republic are slitting children's throats, razing villages and throwing young men to the crocodiles. What needs to happen before the world intervenes?
 
 
Beirut Bombs Are Much More than Syria War Spillover
 
By Rami G. Khouri
 
This development in the context of three older phenomena that have now come together to bring us to the brink of an Armageddon-like confrontation among two gigantic indigenous forces that can ravage the entire Middle East.
 
 
AIPAC VS Obama
Israel Lobby Says Either Obama Backs Down on Iran Or Its War
 
By M J Rosenberg
 
Top AIPAC staffer, warns President Obama today that he either abandon negotiations with Iran (and impose new sanctions) or its war.
 
 
This is the Real Hypocrisy.
The False Analogy of Syria and Palestine
 
By Jonathan Cook
 
Those who want revolution are looking to build it on the bodies of Syrians who have little hope of liberating themselves.
 
 
Digging in: Why US won't leave Afghanistan
 
By Pepe Escobar
 
We came, we saw, we stayed. Forever. That's the essence of the so-called Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) to be struck between the Obama administration and Afghanistan - over 12 years after the start of the never-ending War on Terror.
 
 
The Disappeared and Mexico's New Dirty War
 
By Peter Watt
 
It is becoming increasingly difficult for Mexican officials to pretend that the massive number of murders and enforced disappearances is not part of a deliberate government strategy.
 
 
How Gullible Are Americans?
The Kennedy Assassination : 50 Years Later
 
By Paul Craig Roberts
 
The true story of JFK's murder has never been officially admitted.
 
 
Aldous Huxley: The Prophet Of Our Brave New Digital Dystopia
 
By John Naughton
 
Huxley foretold, a society that loves servitude.
 
 
Fear In A Handful Of Dust
The Sacred Vehemence Of Imagination In A Soulless Age
 
By Phil Rockstroh
 
Pain and pathology are extant. A crisis is imminent
 
 
A New Plot Hatches
The Money Changers Serenade
 
By Paul Craig Roberts
 
To sell this new rip-off scheme, Summers has conjured up an explanation based on the crude and discredited Keynesianism of the 1940s that explained the Great Depression as a problem caused by too much savings.


 Hard News  
 
21 Ways the Canadian Health Care System is Better than Obamacare
 
By Ralph Nader
 
In Canada, everyone is covered automatically at birth - everybody in, nobody out. Under Obamacare, 31 million Americans will still be uninsured by 2023 and millions more will remain underinsured.
 
 
The "War" on Some "Drugs"
 
By Eric Peters
 
I recently posted a video about a slightly built man with Down's Syndrome who had his colostomy bag ripped from his body and suffered a beat-down by police.
 
 
63 people killed in Iraq:
Truck bomb explodes in fruit and vegetable market in Baghdad, killing 48; over 15 killed in other attacks throughout city.
 
 
Iraqi Shiite group claims shelling Saudi border: -
An Iraqi Shiite group has claimed responsibility for firing six mortar shells at a region of Saudi Arabia bordering Iraq and Kuwait.
 
 
10 killed in Balochistan blast, arson attacks:
At least 10 people including two children were killed and 31 injured in bomb explosions and incidents of targeted killings in Quetta and other troubled parts of Balochistan, on Thursday.
 
 
Five killed as twin blasts rock Karachi:
At least five people were killed and several others injured after two blasts rocked Pakistan's Karachi city Friday evening, a leading Pakistani daily reported.
 
 
U.S. drone strike kills 8 at religious school in Pakistan:
At least eight students at a madrassa, or Islamic religious school, located in the northwestern Pakistani district of Hangu, died in an attack staged early Thursday by a U.S. drone, officials told Efe.
 
 
Imran Khan Vows to Block NATO Pakistan Supply Route Over Drone Murders:
Former Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan vowed to permanently block a supply route to U.S. forces in Afghanistan starting tomorrow as he seeks an end to drone strikes in the country's northwest, where his party holds power.
 
 
President Karzai Wants to Delay Signing of BSA, U.S. Says 'Impossible':
 Karzai caused a stir at the Loya Jirga on Thursday when he urged the elders to delay signing the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the U.S. until after the 2014 elections. The U.S. responded to Karzai's request to delay signing the agreement by saying it was neither "practical nor possible" to delay the signing.
 
 
United States gives Afghanistan year-end deadline for crucial security deal:
"I think delaying the signing to April will make it much for difficult for us to make our commitments. It'll make it more difficult - and make it virtually impossible for other countries to make their commitments. I think it'll have a long-term, deleterious impact on the scale of international assistance to Afghanistan," he said.
 
 
Yemeni tells White House of US drone strike that he says killed innocent kin:
A Yemeni civil engineer has provided White House officials with a first-hand account of a controversial CIA drone strike last year that he says "terrorized" his small village, scattered body parts near the local mosque and mistakenly killed two members of his family -- an imam who had denounced al Qaeda and a local police officer.
 
 
We don't count people we murder:
House Committee Rejects Provision Requiring Account Of Drone Casualties: -
The U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee rejected a proposal on Thursday that would have required U.S. spy agencies to make an annual public accounting of the number of casualties caused by U.S. drone attacks on militants overseas.
 
 
Major Syrian rebel groups join forces:
Seven Islamist armed groups dissolve and form the largest alliance battling Syrian ared forces.
 
 
Chechens drawn south to fight against Syria's Assad:
I went to the Pankisi Gorge to find out why many young Chechens from there have travelled to Syria to fight alongside rebels trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
 
 
Russian Muslims fight and die against Assad's forces:
A scrawny 15-year-old this summer became the first from his deeply religious Muslim village in Russia's southern Dagestan province to die fighting alongside rebels in Syria.
 
 
U.S. Says Dozens of Americans Have Sought to Join Rebels in Syria:
 Dozens of Americans have traveled or tried to travel to Syria to fight with the rebels against the government of President Bashar al-Assad since 2011, American intelligence officials said Wednesday.
 
 
"This is the duty on me" - exclusive interview with 23-year-old British jihadi in Syria : Video -
23-year-old Ifthekar Jaman from Hampshire tells Richard Watson why he traveled to Syria to fight with Al Qaida-linked ISIS
 
 
Shiite militias: the other 'foreign fighters' in Syria:
While much attention is paid to the Sunni Muslim jihadists who've seized the rebel mantle, complicating and often halting Western attempts to support the opposition's cause, the House hearing included an in-depth analysis of the Iranian-sponsored militias that are fighting on behalf of President Bashar Assad.
 
 
Kerry flying to Geneva in sign of Iran progress:
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator signaled progress at talks with six world powers Thursday on a deal to cap some of his country's atomic programs in exchange for limited relief from sanctions stifling Iran's economy, saying the six had accepted Tehran's proposals on how to proceed.
 
 
Iran nuclear talks gain pace as Lavrov arrives in Geneva:
The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, threw his weight behind nuclear talks with Iran yesterday, arriving in Geneva to join negotiators struggling to seal a deal.
 
 
Israel's 'all-or-nothing' stance on Iran will lead to war: US official:
A senior White House official has said that Israel's "all-or-nothing" posture demanding a total halt to Iran's nuclear energy program is a path to war.
 
 
Iran enrichment right non-negotiable: Iranian Foreign Minister :
"Our right to enrichment is our red line. The enrichment program that Iran has, will continue.... Any agreement should include enrichment program for Iran. We will not accept anything else other than that," said the Iranian minister following a meeting with EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton.
 
 
Jewish groups embrace Senate sanctions announcement:
Jewish groups greeted with enthusiasm the announcement that the Senate would begin hearings on increased sanctions against Iran after the Thanksgiving break, although groups on different sides of the political spectrum worked to cast Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) announcement in a way that aligned with their lobbying efforts.
 
 
Child shot dead in Egypt clashes:
A 10-year-old boy is killed in Suez city and at least 35 people are arrested as protests are held across the country.
 
 
Number of child soldiers in CAR has nearly doubled since March: UN:
Up to 6,000 children have been enrolled by warring militias in the Central African Republic, a senior UN official said Friday, issuing a stark warning about the country's spiralling crisis.
 
 
Libyan MP says she needed handbag grenade for 'self-defense':
Libyan MP Souad Soltan was caught with a grenade in her pocket as she entered Tripoli's city hall on Nov. 21.
 
 
Thousands protest in Libya against the presence of militias in the capital, Tripoli:
Thousands of protesters demonstrated Friday in Libya's capital to call on unlawful armed groups to leave the city, a week after militiamen killed 43 people during a march demanding the groups disband.
 
 
China's first stealth combat drone takes maiden flight - reports:
The first Chinese stealth unmanned combat drone conducted a successful maiden flight Thursday, according to accounts by Chinese media and photos taken from a popular Chinese military website.
 
 
German politicians to use encrypted phones to block NSA spying:
Members of the German government will use encrypted phones as part of 'urgent' guidelines to protect against NSA snooping. The encryption software is not compatible with Apple, so Germany will phase out the use of iPhones at government level.
 
 
Meet the Spies Doing the NSA's Dirty Work:
This obscure FBI unit does the domestic surveillance that no other intelligence agency can touch.
 
 
Utahns should deny water to NSA center: Op-Ed:
Like the eye of Sauron, the NSA's new facility in Utah overlooks hundreds of thousands of people in the valley below. Perched on a mountainside fortress of concrete and barricades, the 1-million-square-foot complex exists solely to allow the NSA to "see all."
 
 
Dutch government sued over NSA spying claims: -
A group of lawyers, journalists and privacy advocates in the Netherlands is taking the government to court to prevent Dutch intelligence using phone data illegally acquired by the US National Security Agency.
 
 
China caps its dollar holdings & plans crude oil futures priced in yuan:
The move also provides a buffer to China from future US Federal Reserve stimulus tapering, which, even just as it looms, has had severe ripple effects on emerging market currencies in Brazil and India.
 
 
People's Bank of China hints at retreat on dollar purchases:
The People's Bank of China said the mainland does not benefit any more from increases in its foreign-currency holdings, adding to signs policymakers will rein in US dollar purchases that limit the yuan's appreciation.
 
 
New report exposes lies used to justify Detroit bankruptcy:
 A report issued Wednesday by the New York City-based liberal think tank Demos is a devastating refutation of the arguments used by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr to throw the city of Detroit into bankruptcy.








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"I believe that even amid today's mortor bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow."







"The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear."  - Herbert Agar


"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it." - Oscar Wilde


"Truth is not determined by majority vote" -  Doug Gwyn

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it" - Mohandas Gandhi


"I believe that even amid today's motor bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow.": -  Martin Luther King - Acceptance Speech, - Nobel Peace Peace Prize in Oslo



s0



2nimews


 No Place for Nuclear Waste, Afghanistan War Until 2024, Honduras Political Assassinations



Keiser Report: Bitcoin is Beautiful



A National Campaign for Jury Nullification


Fighting Tar Sands In New England | Asher Platts | Resistance Report Segment


leecamp

Dystopia Will Not Attack Us, It Will Slowly Consume








Posted: 21 Nov 2013 10:37 PM PST
21 November, 2013
 - I’d been expecting them to find a way of blocking legitimate sites for a while.
A couple of weeks ago I had the task to clean up a drive-by hack at earth-heal.com. These attacks are exploits of forms on a site and simply add code to certain pages that cause a redirect to a blacklisted, malware url of no significance other than to tag any site that links there as infected.
I’d spent some time finding and analysing the added code and did a thorough clean of earth-heal. It was now squeaky clean, and in fact was never really “infected”. It was simply hacked to cause a browser to redirect to a blacklisted site.


Posted: 21 Nov 2013 09:07 AM PST
21 November 2013
leadsiri
 - Since ancient times and across multiple civilizations, Sirius, the dog star, has been surrounded with a mysterious lore. Esoteric teachings of all ages have invariably attributed to Sirius a special status and the star’s importance in occult symbolism is an attestation of that fact. What makes Sirius so special? Is it simply due to the fact that it is the brightest star in the sky? Or is it also because humanity has an ancient, mysterious connection with it?
Sirius is located in the constellation Canis Major – also known as the Big Dog – and is therefore known as the “dog star”. It is over twenty times brighter than our sun and is twice as massive. At night time, Sirius is the brightest star in the sky and its blue-white glare never failed to amaze star gazers since the dawn of time. No wonder Sirius has been revered by practically all civilizations. But is there more to Sirius than meets the eye?








 Undercover British Soldiers 'Killed Unarmed Civilians in Belfast'
By BBC
Speaking publicly for the first time, the ex-members of the Military Reaction Force (MRF), which was disbanded in 1973, said they had been tasked with "hunting down" IRA members in Belfast.
The US Military and the Philippines
By Bill Van Auken
There is perhaps no more egregious example of the US military overstaying its welcome than in the Philippines.
Iran Nuclear Negotiations 4 Dummies
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
Obama's vision is as limited as his knowledge of Iranians.  During the Iran-Iraq war,  - Iran repelled not only Iraq's attacks, but all its backers including America, European and Arab states.
In the Real Tally of Violence, Palestinians Have it Much Worse
By Amira Hass
There is no Palestinian without a personal and familial history of injustice that was caused by, and is still caused by Israel.
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave"
United States Can Spy on Britons Despite Pact, N.S.A. Memo Says
By James Glanz
The National Security Agency is authorized to spy on the citizens of America's closest allies, including Britain, even though those English-speaking countries have long had an official non-spying pact.
Inside America's Plan to Kill Online Privacy Rights Everywhere
By Colum Lynch
The United States and its key intelligence allies are quietly working behind the scenes to kneecap a mounting movement in the United Nations to promote a universal human right to online privacy.
Noam Chomsky - Media Control and Indoctrination in the United States
By Noam Chomsky
The United States is a very frightened country. And there are all kinds of things concocted for you to be frightened about.
Linkin Park - "Waiting For The Light That Never Comes"
A Call for Non-Violent Revolution
Video
Reform is the light that never comes. Tyranny reigns. Revolution is all we have left...

Hard News  
Bush- Blair Legacy Continues As
Truck Bomb, Attacks Kill at Least 48 in Iraq:
A truck bomb tore through an outdoor vegetable market in northeastern Iraq, the deadliest of a series of attacks Thursday that killed at least 48 people, officials said.
Fighting for Aleppo base kills 15 Syria militia: NGO:
"Fifteen members of the National Defence Forces were killed in fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Al-Nusra Front and Islamist groups in the east of Aleppo province and near Base 80," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Difficult differences remain in Iran nuclear negotiations:
Each side appeared to be dampening down anticipation of an imminent breakthrough after the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany came close to winning concessions from Tehran in the last round of negotiations two weeks ago.
Netanyahu's estimate for Iran nuclear breakout "Sheer Nonsense":
In an interview with a German newspaper published Tuesday, Netanyahu said, "The Iranians already have five bombs' worth of low-enriched uranium," which they could build within a matter of weeks after making the decision to rush for a nuclear weapon.
UN official: Gaza is quickly becoming uninhabitable:
The Commissioner General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Filippo Grandi, has warned that "the plight of Palestinians and Palestinian refugees under Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, continues to worsen."
Saudi Arabia man arrested for giving out free hugs:
Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice arrested the two men in Riyadh for violating local laws and engaging in "exotic practices", Al Hayat newspaper said.
US Murders 8 People In Pakistan: :
At least eight persons, including three alledged Haqqani network commanders, were killed on Thursday in a rare US drone strike outside Pakistan's tribal belt, just a day after a top official said the US had agreed to halt such attacks during negotiations with militants.
Yeah right!
No more drone strikes during Taliban talks, US assures Pakistan:
The United States has promised that it will not carry out any drone strikes in Pakistan during any peace talks with Taliban militants in the future, the Prime Minister's Special Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said Wednesday.
Yeah right!
US will respect 'Afghan sovereignty,' says Obama:
President Barack Obama, in a letter to President Hamid Karzai, said the United States will continue to respect "Afghan sovereignty" under a new security agreement. Obama also said the U.S. military will not conduct raids on Afghan homes except under "extraordinary circumstances" involving urgent risks to U.S. nationals. The raids have been a particularly sensitive issue to the Afghans.
I can't imagine why - LOL
Afghan President Hamid Karzai:
 I don't trust the US: Afghan President Hamid Karzai told tribal leaders Thursday that he did not trust the United States, hours after Secretary of State John Kerry said a final draft deal on troop levels had been reached.
US, Afghan security deal at risk as Karzai calls for delay in signing:
President Hamid Karzai told a gathering of elders that the signing should be put off until after next year's Afghan presidential election -- and signed only if it is approved by the council and the parliament.
The Arrogance of American Exceptionalism :
UN representative Samantha Power: U.S. has 'nothing to apologize' to Afghanistan for:
Washington's UN representative Samantha Power said Thursday Afghanistan is owed no apology for US actions in the country since the overthrow of the Taliban 12 years ago.
We don't need no stinking badges! -
Video -  Humor
Three killed in bombing at restaurant in Kandahar:
Kandahar's Regional Health Department Director said the city's main hospital received more than 20 wounded victims and three dead bodies. He said all the victims are civilian including a six-year-old boy.
Egyptian police officer killed in Ismailia:
An Egyptian police officer died of his injury on Thursday after he was shot by two unidentified attackers in Ismailia governorate, east of Cairo, official news agency MENA reported.
Egypt panel approves 'conditional military trials of civilians':
Egypt's 50-member constitution committee has approved an article allowing civilians to be tried by military courts. At Wednesday's session, 30 members voted in favour of the article, seven against, with two abstentions. The remaining 11 were absent.
Government Gave U.S. Permission To Spy On Ordinary British Citizens :
BBC video report
Australia sites hacked amid spying row with Indonesia:
The leaked documents showed that Australian spy agencies named Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the first lady, the vice-president and other senior ministers as targets for telephone monitoring, Australian media said.
French farmers blockade Paris roads over EU agriculture reforms: Video report -
The French government has called on farmers to lift road blockades "immediately" after two accidents which killed a fireman and left six police officers injured.
Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro gets special powers:
Under the measures Mr Maduro will be able to govern without consulting Congress for 12 months. After signing the bill, he promised to keep prices down and conduct a "ground-shaking" anti-corruption offensive.
Venezuela acuses US of interference in its affairs:
Venezuela accused the United States of "interference" in its internal affairs Thursday after Washington expressed concern that President Nicolas Maduro had been granted powers to rule by decree.
Hang the bankers:
JPMorgan agrees to $13 billion mortgage settlement (Bribe) - Video report -
"Not A Single Elite Banker Whose Frauds Drove The Financial Crisis In The U.S. Has Been Prosecuted"
Bigger than Libor? Forex probe hangs over banks:
Yet another dark cloud is looming over global banks as officials examine their behavior in the massive foreign exchange market, threatening to deal a new blow to earnings and reputations.
Geithner moves from US Treasury to Wall Street:
Geithner joins the legions of bank regulators and officials who have leveraged their insider status while in government to land positions in private finance paying millions in salaries and bonuses.
Senate goes for 'nuclear option':
The Senate approved a historic rules change on Thursday by eliminating the use of the filibuster on all presidential nominees except those to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Second American Revolution" Rally Falls 999,870 People Short Of A Million:
World Net Daily (WND) columnist Larry Klayman sent out the call for revolution. Declaring to the world that his Tea Party-powered "second American Revolution" would gather near the White House in Lafayette Square on November 19 and sweep President Obama from office.
Geithner moves from US Treasury to Wall Street:
Geithner joins the legions of bank regulators and officials who have leveraged their insider status while in government to land positions in private finance paying millions in salaries and bonuses.
Teen spends 3 years in infamous New York jail without ever being convicted:
A young Bronx teenager spent three years in the infamously violent Rikers Island prison complex without ever being convicted of a crime.
http://rt.com/usa/teen-jailed-without-conviction-101/







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FAIR

Activism Update

CNN Doubles Down on Pro-Nuclear Bias
Answers petitions, critics, with more slanted commentary 
November 21, 2013
CNN's CNN aired the pro-nuclear power film Pandora's Promise on November 7. The film was little more than propaganda (FAIR Action Alert, 10/25/13), brooking virtually no dissent from the views of the film's seven principal "stars"--one-time anti-nuclear environmentalists who now say the planet can only be saved from the ravages of fossil fuels by a rapid, large-scale investment in new, supposedly fail-safe "fast reactors."
In advance of the airing, FAIR and RootsAction presented CNN with a petition signed by over 27,000 activists, demanding the news network present a more balanced discussion of the issue. How did CNN respond? By compounding the bias with a post-show roundtable, Nuclear Power: The Fallout From Fear, that featured a panel just as slanted as its title.  
Moderated by CNN's Anderson Cooper, the panel was stacked three to one in favor of the film's premise. Dale Bryk of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the lone anti-nuclear voice, was outnumbered by the film's director, Robert Stone, climate scientist James Hansen and former nuclear plant operator Michael Friedlander. During the panel, Bryk had her remarks ridiculed as "silly" by Hansen and "delusional" by Stone, with no objection from Cooper, who seemed at times to play the role of a fourth pro-nuclear panelist. At one point he confronted Bryk on the role of renewables by parroting the film's line that "alternative solutions like solar, wind...will never be a real solution."
At another point, Cooper asked the filmmaker a leading question that suggested nuclear power has been remarkably safe: "Can you point to how many people have died from--I mean, Three Mile Island, nobody died. Emergency procedures there worked, correct?" 
Cooper's language could have come straight from any number of past corporate media whitewashings of nuclear power dangers. For instance, NBC's 1993 broadcast What Happened? (3/16/93) concluded that "the system worked" at Three Mile Island--that aside from some "communications" issues, people near the Pennsylvania plant were happily living their lives years after the 1979 partial meltdown there (Extra!, 7/1/93).  
Three Mile Island had resulted in only a "a minor release" of radiation, agreed Stone, adding that, in the US, "not a single death has occurred from commercial nuclear power in the entire 50-year history." 
Later, Stone said of the Fukushima accident: "Nobody has died, nobody has gotten sick, and according to the best science in the World Health Organization, nobody ever will." What WHO (2/28/13) actually says is that "the estimated risk for specific cancers in certain subsets of the population in Fukushima Prefecture has increased," and that one-third of the emergency workers at the plant have an increased cancer risk.
When FAIR asked epidemiologist Steven Wing of the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health to comment on Stone's claims, he acknowledged that no deaths had resulted immediately from acute radiation poisoning at Three Mile Island or Fukushima, but that longer-term cancers caused by radiation were a different story:  
The cancers from the TMI accident were measured through a survey of hospital records which showed that leukemia incidence was 6.9 times higher during 1981-85 in the area most affected by radioactive plumes compared to the least affected areas. In Fukushima, the cancers will occur in the future and can be estimated based on people's radiation doses and the knowledge that there is no threshold below which radiation doesn't cause cancer. This is the same way we estimate cancers from smoking, asbestos or other carcinogens. 
Wing added that even nuclear power plants running under normal conditions are not necessarily safe:
For routinely operating reactors, excess childhood cancer has been demonstrated in several European studies, although no comparable study has been conducted in the USA.
The role of renewables in planning a cleaner and safer energy future was disparaged by everyone on the panel except NRDC's Bryk. The same was true of virtually everyone who appeared in the film for more than a few moments. (The few dissenting voices heard in the film--e.g., Helen Caldicott, Ralph Nader--were little more than props, providing brief soundbites stating supposed myths, which were then ridiculed at length by the film's principal players.)
Such a position can only be sustained by excluding leading authorities on renewables, like electrical and nuclear engineer Arjun Makhijani,  the president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, who says:
A zero-CO2 US economy can be achieved within the next 30 to 50 years without the use of nuclear power. The US renewable energy resource base is vast and practically untapped. Available wind energy resources in 12 Midwestern and Rocky Mountain states equal about 2.5 times the entire electricity production of the United States. Given that we can satisfy our electricity needs by harnessing only 40 percent of the wind energy resources in these 12 states, it is extremely likely that we will be able to do away with CO2.
Edwin Lyman, a physicist and senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says that the kind of reactor touted in Pandora's Promise isn't the fail-safe technology flogged in the film, and isn't fully designed or ready for commercial use. No one like Lyman appears in the film, and CNN didn't include him in the panel either; they did permit him a column on CNN.com (11/7/13), where he charges Stone with promoting "numerous half-truths and less-than-half-truths": 
Like the story of Pandora itself, the tale of the integral fast reactor (IFR)--or at least the version presented in the movie--is more myth than reality. In the final assessment, the concept's drawbacks greatly outweighed its advantages. The government had sound reasons to stanch the flow of taxpayer dollars to a costly, flawed project that also was undermining US efforts to reduce the risks of nuclear terrorism and proliferation around the world.
Lyman pointed out that the fast reactor, even when fully developed, would produce more nuclear waste, not less, as claimed in the film. "Stone did not include anyone in the film who could have provided a more balanced and realistic assessment" of the fast reactor, Lyman said--which could be said of CNN's discussion of nuclear power in general. 
Considering the bias of CNN's documentary, it's unsurprising to find that two of its chief funders are billionaire boosters of nuclear energy. Virgin's Richard Branson, who with US nuclear industry officials proposed a meeting with President Obama and then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu to lobby for IFR nuclear technology, is listed as the film's executive producer. Branson claimed at the time not to have any direct financial interest in nuclear power. 
The film's other billionaire funder, Microsoft founder Paul Allen, is an investor in "advanced nuclear technologies," according to the website of his venture capital firm, Vulcan Inc.



TZM London TownHall with Peter Joseph, November 15th 2013 [ The Zeitgeist Movement ]














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