While the Ed Snowden story getting all the attention, another story came and went never got enough attention when it first came out, but perhaps this older story is more relevant now than when it first came out. It's the story of “Main Corp,” which was first written by Christopher Ketchum of Radar Magazine. The roots of this program go back to the 1980's. Ketchum wrote:
According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, “There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources tell Radar that the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect.
Tom Bearden has been advising the public about Scalar-based weather-warfare for over 20 years, and he was well aware of this SoD quotation long before NaturalNews just recently picked it up. Here is his 1997 early warning.
(NaturalNews) The development of so-called “weather weapons” has been dismissed by many as paranoid hyperbole, the work of science fiction movie script writers and conspiracy theorists, but the fact is they have existed, at least in the laboratory, for decades.
None other than former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, in fact, has talked about the development of weather-related weaponry – or, more specifically, techniques to create weather events to support offensive military operations. During a question-and-answer session at the Conference on Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and U.S. Strategy at the Georgia Center in Athens, Ga., in 1997, Cohen addressed them:
The omnibus military spending bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) rolled out of the House Armed Services Committee pulling a trailer load of amendments and barreling down an increasingly potholed road. In the same week as news broke of massive school closings in Chicago and Philadelphia for lack of funding, only two members of the committee, California representatives Jackie Speier and John Garamendi, had the presence of mind to vote “no” on $637.5 billion more for drones, nukes, and missile “defense” in FY2014.
The NDAA will now make its way through a House of Representatives packed with liberals and conservatives who take massive campaign contributions from military contracting firms. Democrats will take their lead from President Obama, who proposed the $1.15 trillion annual budget that includes a whopping 56.5% military share of the discretionary spending pie. Source: NationalPriorities.org
Despite the crisis of sequestration and claims that the U.S. is too broke to adequately fund food stamps, Head Start, or “Meals-on-wheels” for the elderly, the NDAA contains $85.8 billion for the war in Afghanistan plus another $7.7 billion for the Afghan Security Forces. These funding levels are $52.2 billion over what sequestration would supposedly require — an additional $1 billion a week.
The House Armed Services Committee also passed a “Sense of Congress” endorsement of a continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan after 2014 as well as ongoing funding for the Afghan Security forces. Thus the U.S. “withdraws” from Afghanistan.
Why does Congress keep voting for military spending when the U.S. is supposedly so broke?
Christof Lehmann (nsnbc),- On Saturday 8. June 2013 the Syrian Arab Army has won decisive battles over western-backed insurgents in Qasair and throughout the country. In Qasair, the last pockets of resistance in al-Budweia al Sharquia were fought down and the armed forces are restoring security and are bringing relieve to the cities occupants.
Syrian armed forces won decisive battles against the insurgents throughout the country and security is being reestablished in the country with the exception of small, residual pockets. The risk of terrorist attacks, sniper attacks, car bombs and the terrorism in general remains high, while major combat operations are most likely completed.
“Hundreds rather than thousands of gunmen are fighting the Syrian army and that those are of European nationalities and from the regions countries, which is why there is increased importance to end the crisis and create favorable conditions to hold the international conference on Syria”.
The total number of remaining foreign fighters is estimated be different sources, between 5.000 and 10.000. On Saturday, the Syrian armed forces initiated decisive operations and restored security in most of Syria. A Syrian military source stated about Qasair, that the army is:
“going ahead with removing the debris of destruction and the barricades set up by the terrorists, while engineering units are dismantling explosives which were planted or left behind by the insurgents”.
Units of the Syrian armed forces also inflicted heavy losses to insurgents in other areas and report of large numbers of killed insurgents.
The latest drone strike to hit Pakistan's tribal region came days after the country's new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif demanded an end to such attacks. Academic Akbar Ahmed has authored The Thistle and the Drone on the dynamics of drone strikes. Speaking with Sameer Arshad, Ahmed discussed why drones are ineffective, the fall-out of using these, the US-Pakistan relationship — and how the Taliban has grown in power but could also face resistance:
What do drone strikes just before and after Nawaz Sharif's inauguration reflect about US policies towards his government?
These reflect a certain contradiction in American policy — these almost suggest a confrontation with the new PM which the US does not want.
However, Sharif is a seasoned politician. He will find a way out to maintain Pakistan's integrity while America pursues its aims. The relationship is mutually beneficial and important to both.
Are drone strikes making the world safer?
I can categorically answer that in the negative. Apart from the dubious arguments justifying drones, this is a highly ineffective method of checking violence. With every three bad guys killed, there are some 30 innocent women and children who die. And every strike feeds into anti-Americanism — after over a decade of using drones, neither have suicide bombers stopped, nor have those following them dwindled.
We need other methods of checking violence effectively.
Against the Nationalist Fragmentation of Cyberspace & Against “Astroturf Activism”
The Arab Spring redrew the battle-lines between over the control of information between the statist/capitalist elites and the popular classes – raising questions of increased restriction and surveillance, and of the limits of cyber-activism. In some ways this battle is often mischaracterised as being a narrow debate between cool intellectual property technocrats and wild-eyed free-use pirates, or as being a political dispute between authoritarian regimes and free speech activists, with no wider relevance to society. But it is clear that what is at stake is the global ideology (and exploitative practice) of corporatist enclosure versus that of the creative commons; in other words, it is more even than a universalist human rights concern, but is rather an asymmetrical war between the parasitic and productive classes over a terrain of power/wealth-generation known as the knowledge economy.
FORTUNE — Until recently less than 1% of Japan's electrical power output came from renewables. But following the catastrophe of Fukushima and the power blackouts that followed, Japan has seen an explosion in investment in alternatives. Solar, in particular, in this averagely photon-blessed country, has seen a seismic rise of late and is this year poised to become the world's largest solar market in volume after China.
According to a report by energy analyst IHS on Japan's energy mix, Japan's solar installations jumped by “a stunning 270% (in gigawatts) in the first quarter of 2013.” That means by the end of 2013 there will be enough new solar panels equal to the capacity of seven nuclear reactors. Such massive growth will allow Japan to surpass Germany and become the world's largest photovoltaics (PV) market in terms of revenue this year.
“Japan is forecast to install $20 billion worth of PV systems in 2013, up 82% from $11 billion in 2012,” IHS said. “In contrast, the global market is set for tepid 4% growth. The strong revenue performance for Japan this year is partly driven by the high solar prices in the country.” Germany still leads with the total number of units and capacity, however, with its 32,192 megawatts. Japan is now closer to the U.S.'s 8,069 megawatts at 7,429 megawatts, according to London-based BNEF.
[ Sameer Arshad ]
