The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Useful distraction from the real fires in DoD.
Obama defends secret NSA surveillance programs – as it happened
Spy chief strongly defends surveillance, calls it legal
Timeline of revelations about US domestic spying
US intelligence boss calls for criminal investigation over surveillance program leaks
White House Says Congress Was Briefed 13 Times on Surveillance Programs
Continue reading “DefDog: Intelligence Smoke, the Real Fires are in DoD — and the Coming Crash”
Recovery? No. Continued looting by the 1%? Yes.
American Households On Foodstamps Climb To New Record
Yesterday, briefly, we were confused by the eruption in the stock market following a not too bad sub-200K nonfarm payrolls number. Because we know that in the New Normal bad is always good, no matter what the well-coifed TV pundit du jour tells you. Then we remembered that yesterday is when the USDA releases its monthly Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program data, i.e. Americans on Foodstamps.
It was here that the ramp was perfectly explained, because while the bad (for stocks of course) data was that individual foodstamps recipients rose by 170K in March – if just a whisker below all time highs – it was the number of American households on foodstamps, which rose to a new all time high of 23,116,441 (each collecting an average of $274.30 per month) that perfectly explained the Dow Jones' 200 point surge higher: the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle-classes to the 1% continues without a hiccup.
Continue reading “Josh Kilbourn: US Households on Foodstamps Hit 22 Million”
Google’s New “Moto X” Superphone Will SPY on YOU 24/7, and YOU Will LIKE IT
Quartz, 30 May 2013
Dennis Woodside, CEO of Motorola, Google’s wholly owned phone-making subsidiary, walked onto a stage yesterday with the company’s rumored new superphone, and while he refused to take it out of his pocket, he confirmed that it’s real and that it’s launching in October of this year.
He also dropped a number of technical details about the phone, known as the Moto X, which indicate that, essentially, it’s the world’s most sophisticated cluster of sensors you can wear on your person, and it’s going to know every single thing you do, whether it’s driving, sleeping or taking a walk around the block.
Google is betting that you will love your pocket Stasi so much you’ll never want to be without it—and Google is right.
The Moto X phone will be the world’s most perfect spy
Continue reading “4th Media: Google Moto X Phone a Total Sensor Spy”
Told You So: If You Have Been Using A Centralized Comms Service, You Were Wiretapped
Privacy: This night, news broke that the USA’s security agencies have been wiretapping essentially every major centralized social service for private data. Photos, video conferences, text chats, and voice calls – everything. We have been saying this for years and been declared tinfoil hat and conspiracy nuts; it’s good to finally see the documents in black on white.
This night, European time, the news broke that the USA’s National Security Agency (NSA) has had direct access to pretty much every social network for the past several years, dating back to 2007, under a program named PRISM. Under the program, a number of social services voluntarily feed people’s private data to the NSA. In short, if you have been using/uploading
…from any of…
…then you have been wiretapped, and still are.
US experiment: Pentagon destroys replica of underground nuclear facility
Pentagon uses advanced bunker buster bombs to destroy replica of underground facility as part of experiment whose results were relayed to friendly nations
The Pentagon has recently completed a series of field exercises on US soil as part of which a replica of an underground nuclear facility was destroyed, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday. The tests were declared a resounding success having exceeded all expectations.
The results of the experiment were relayed to friendly nations with the aim of reassuring them as to the US's ability to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities in a single strike. It was also meant to convey that the US is serious in its intentions to attack Iran should circumstances allow it.
Huh?
White House: Obama adjusting use of cyber offense in response to threats
EXTRACT:
Gen. Keith Alexander, the top officer at U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, testified March 12 before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the potential for an attack against the nation’s electric grid and other essential systems is real and that the federal government needed to take more aggressive steps.
At the time, Alexander said 13 cyber teams were being formed to guard the nation against destructive attacks in cyberspace, stressing that their role would be offensive. He also said the teams would work outside the United States, but he did not say where.
This series reveals a political and military system that is sick in its core. This toxic stew of the F-35's high cost, abetted by concurrent production, lagging performance and continuing design problems, has put U.S. and allied air power into a dive. The dive will steepen so long as F-35 production at the currently-projected rates continues. I recommend starting with Part 5, the summary by Mark Thompson of TIME Battleland Blog.
Part 1: The new era of F-35 good feelings
Part 2: Alphabet Soup: PAUCs, APUCs, URFs, Cost Variances and Other Pricing Dodges
Part 3: The deadly empirical data
Part 4: Different planes, common problems
Part 5: On final approach to fighter fiscal sanity
Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: F-35 Corruption, Costs, & Consequences (All Five Parts)”
