It is amazing how an inexpensive technological development can render irrelevant billions of dollars of investment. In this case the security apparatus of Homeland Security. When I did the original 3-D printing story about three years ago the printers cost $50,000. Just a few weeks ago, when these printers hit the news big time the printers were $8,000. In this story the printer used was $2,600. I predict, within a year 3-D printers that can print guns will be less than $1000. Clearly dealing with terrorism requires new strategies, a different approach than asking people to surrender their civil liberties, and billions spent on building a huge intrusive security apparat. Click through to see the many pictures which will add to your understanding of what this issue involves.
Anyone who reads SR regularly knows my views on religious fundamentalism in general, and the threat posed to America by the Christian version particularly. Here is the latest. Notice the universals of fundamentalism of whatever faith: Deeply distorted views on sexuality, the suppression and subordination of women, the emphasis on guilt, and the commitment to willful ignorance.
“The Christian home school subculture isn't a children-first movement. It is, for all intents and purposes, an ideology-first movement. There is a massive, well-oiled machine of ideology that is churning out soldiers for the culture war. Home schooling is both the breeding ground – literally, when you consider the Quiverfull concept – and the training ground for this machinery. I say this as someone who was raised in that world.”
Below is a very interesting summary of the political tensions among secularism and religion and modernism and tradition in Tunisia. I think the author, who I do not know but whose writings I have followed, is one of the most knowledgeable observers of the Arab Spring.
THE SPARK THAT ignited the Arab Spring over two years ago came from Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia. For 28 days people across the country revolted against the repression and corruption of the 23-year authoritarian regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Finally, on Jan. 14, 2011 Tunisians celebrated their victory and resilience over tyranny and oppression when Ben Ali fled the country. But if getting rid of the dictator was relatively short and easy, the dismantling of his regime and its corrosive effects on society has proven to be very challenging indeed.
But it gets worse. When those in their own ranks try to bring attention to huge security holes in their operations the DHS’s full resources are put upon them, wasting more taxpayer money chasing bogus ‘domestic’ security threats.
Click for DVD Website
The Obama administration has done nothing about the story I am about to tell you, and our ‘free press’ has suppressed it. Even the famous investigative journalism show, 60 Minutes, never aired their interview with DHS officer/supervisor for Customs and Border Protection, Julia Davis, back in 2004.
Julia Davis reported a Homeland Security failure to the FBI and was designated a domestic terrorist, at one point having 54 investigations going against her.
Briefly, Ms. Davis got intelligence that 23 foreign visitors from terrorist watch list countries were going to be passing through one of our southern border crossing points when there was Intel chatter about a Fourth of July attack. The average at the time was only 5 to 10 of these entries a month.
When she passed the word up her chain of command she was told not to worry about it. She later found out that Border Intel authorities responsible for debriefing such people were attending a July 4th barbecue… taking the day off.
So being the good soldier that she was and honoring the oath of office that she took, she informed the FBI so someone would know that these people were all going to be passed through with no special interviews. She did not go outside the chain of command. She did her job.
DHS subsequently came down on her like a ton of bricks. To circumvent all of her constitutional rights they simply classified her as a ‘domestic terrorist’. That’s right folks, that’s exactly what they did, which meant DHS could do just about anything they wanted to her without needing to get warrants.
At the peak of the harassment she endured, DHS had 54 investigations ongoing at God only knows the cost to the taxpayers. Her home was raided with a Black Hawk helicopter and 27-man SWAT team, a larger force than that used on the bin Laden compound in Pakistan. She was arrested twice, imprisoned, and then completely cleared of any wrong doing.
This is not good news. And guess which country is number one in this category? Do you think this might be the result of the toxins and hormones in our environment, food, and water? This is exactly what one would expect to see in large animal studies designed to study the process of disease.
Additional unintended consequences of GMOS resulting from a view of the earth that values only profits, with no consideration as to wellness at any level. Click through to see the relevant charts. A fully referenced and illustrated version of this article is posted on ISIS members website and is otherwise available for download: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/login.php?location=GM_Crops_and_Water_a_Recipe_for_Disaster.php
Tax avoidance, secret mining deals and financial transfers are depriving Africa of the benefits of its resources boom, ex-UN chief Kofi Annan has said.
BBC 10 May 2013
Firms that shift profits to lower tax jurisdictions cost Africa $38bn (£25bn) a year, says a report produced by a panel he heads.
“Africa loses twice as much money through these loopholes as it gets from donors,” Mr Annan told the BBC.
It was like taking food off the tables of the poor, he said.
Under-pricing deprives Africa of much-needed money, the report says
The Africa Progress Report is released every May – produced by a panel of 10 prominent figures, including former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Graca Machel, the wife of South African ex-President Nelson Mandela.
African countries needed to improve governance and the world's richest nations should help introduce global rules on transparency and taxation, Mr Annan said.
The report gave the Democratic Republic of Congo as an example, where between 2010 and 2012 five under-priced mining concessions were sold in “highly opaque and secretive deals”.
This figure was equivalent to double DR Congo's health and education budgets combined, the report said.
Phi Beta Iota: Both articles are posted in full below for our viewers that prefer not to click through.
Here is an extraordinary breakthrough in medicine. It reminds me of the work done by by Dr. Barry Marshall and Dr. Robin Warren of Perth, Western Australia in the late 70s and early 80s that established a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a major cause of peptic ulcers. If you have low back pain you might discuss this with your physician. This is very good news.
Up to 40% of patients with chronic back pain could be cured with a course of antibiotics rather than surgery, in a medical breakthrough that one spinal surgeon says is worthy of a Nobel prize.
Surgeons in the UK and elsewhere are reviewing how they treat patients with chronic back pain after scientists discovered that many of the worst cases were due to bacterial infections.
The shock finding means that scores of patients with unrelenting lower back pain will no longer face major operations but can instead be cured with courses of antibiotics costing around £114.
One of the UK's most eminent spinal surgeons said the discovery was the greatest he had witnessed in his professional life, and that its impact on medicine was worthy of a Nobel prize.
“This is vast. We are talking about probably half of all spinal surgery for back pain being replaced by taking antibiotics,” said Peter Hamlyn, a consultant neurological and spinal surgeon at University College London hospital.
It is amazing how an inexpensive technological development can render irrelevant billions of dollars of investment. In this case the security apparatus of Homeland Security. When I did the original 3-D printing story about three years ago the printers cost $50,000. Just a few weeks ago, when these printers hit the news big time the printers were $8,000. In this story the printer used was $2,600. I predict, within a year 3-D printers that can print guns will be less than $1000. Clearly dealing with terrorism requires new strategies, a different approach than asking people to surrender their civil liberties, and billions spent on building a huge intrusive security apparat. Click through to see the many pictures which will add to your understanding of what this issue involves.
