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The US President's Hit List or “Death by PowerPoint”

Posted: 29 May 2012 12:01 PM PDT

– US national security agencies increasingly use computerized analysis of collected data to designate a person as an enemy combatant.

– The US currently uses non-judicial Presidential “hit lists” to simplify the killing of people (including US citizens) designated as enemy combatants.

– The US is rapidly increasing its use of drones to kill enemy combatants nearly anywhere in the world 24x7x365.

The scary part is that the combination of these trends is the path of least resistance to an automated totalitarianism.

For those of you out of the loop on what is going on, it probably seemed to be a bit of a stretch. Particularly, the idea that the President could put American citizens on a military hit list without going through a judicial process.

If you were skeptical on the existence of a hit list, here's an article from today's (almost on cue) New York Times.

Continue reading “John Robb: The Official US Process of Death by Powerpoint”

2012/05/292012/05/29

Mini-Me: “Inside Job” Director Charles Ferguson: Wall Street Has Turned the U.S. into a “Predatory Nation”

Commerce, Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement

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Huh?

“Inside Job” Director Charles Ferguson: Wall Street Has Turned the U.S. into a “Predatory Nation”

Two years after directing the Academy Award-winning documentary, “Inside Job,” filmmaker Charles Ferguson returns with a new book, “Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America.” Ferguson explores why no top financial executives have been jailed for their role in the nation’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We also discuss Larry Summers and the revolving door between academia and Wall Street, as well as the key role Democrats have played in deregulating the financial industry. According to Ferguson, a “predatory elite” has “taken over significant portions of economic policy and of the political system, and also, unfortunately, major portions of the economics discipline.” Click here to see Part 2 of this interview. [includes rush transcript]

Charles Ferguson, the Academy Award-winning director of Inside Job, a documentary about the financial crisis. His film on the war in Iraq, No End in Sight, was nominated for an Academy Award. His new book is called Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America.

WATCH VIDEO

Phi Beta Iota: We strongly disagree on where the blame should be placed. The two-party tyranny, and corrupt Senators and Representatives, are the ones who have committed treason in betrayal of the public trust. Nothing Wall Street has done would have been possible without the combination of “control fraud” (failure of the Executive to enforce laws and regulations) and corruption (outright legalization of crime by corrupt Members in return for specified 5% bribes). There is nothing wrong with the United States of America that cannot be fixed, and fixed quickly, merely by flushing the two-party tyranny and all political incumbents (both executive and legislative), down the toilet. This is a state and local problem as well, not just a national problem.

2012/05/292012/05/29

Mini-Me: AE911Truth LA Press Conference w/ Ed Asner at Premiere of 9/11: Experts Speak Out; 5-22-12

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

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Huh?

AE911Truth LA Press Conference w/ Ed Asner at Premiere of 9/11: Experts Speak Out; 5-22-12

This is the major press conference that AE911Truth held at the occasion of the World Premiere of their powerful myth-shattering documentary “9/11: Explosive Evidence — Experts Speak Out” on May 22, 2012 in Beverly Hills, CA. Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth founder, Richard Gage, AIA and AE911Truth supporter and actor, Ed Asner, teamed up to lay into the media in an effort to hold them accountable for their 10-year silence on the subject of the abundant scientific evidence and eyewitness testimony that pulls the rug from under the official story of the destruction of the three World Trade Center towers on 9/11. This new documentary, introduced by Gage, following the press conference hosts 43 technical and building professionals who cite the evidence and call for a new investigation. It also includes 8 psychology professionals who are well versed in the difficult issues that viewers of this film may face when confronting the evidence.

Watch Video Below.

Phi Beta Iota: We are deeply sympathetic about the fact that most Americans, including well-educated Americans and especially well-educated Americans employed by the federal government, simply cannot comprehend this stuff. They live in a dream world, where America can do no wrong, government can be trusted, Dick Cheney deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and Barack Obama earned the one he got for his first ten days in office, etcetera etcetera. If the measure of a nation is the combination of public intelligence and public integrity, the USA is deeply mired in a cesspool of its own making.

2012/05/292012/05/30

The Open Source Everything Manifesto: Chapter 1 Open Sesame Extract I

Manifesto Extracts

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Chapter 1 Open Sesame Extract I

The core concept here, one that Buckminster Fuller would endorse, is of achieving ZERO RESISTANCE in transfer of energy and information. Put in other trerms (that Occupy, among other movements, would appreciate), the objective is to eradicate CORRUPTION and all “burdens” on human activity that have been contrived and imposed without the consent of the governed. Corruption and lies are “resistance” to optimal functionality.

. . . . . . . .

In an open-source community, all costs are minimized and benefits are optimized.

. . . . . . . .

This network is capable of doing what no other network–and certainly no government or corporation–can aspire to: tell the truth, the whole truth, all the time, rooted in transparency and building trust–this is the alchemy of the twenty-first century: share information, earn trust. Transparency, not secrecy, is what rpoduces validated intelligence (decision-support) that is truthful and trustworthy and therefore priceless.

. . . . . . . .

The contemporary challenge is our transition from the industrial-era worldview of unbridled consuption, selfishness, and “anything goes” to a new information-era worldview of “it's all connnected,” which means that we are all accountable for the whole. Resources are limited, brain power is virtually infinite. Open-Source Everything is the meme, the mind-set, and the method.

Book Page at Amazon . Book Page at Barnes & Noble . Book Page at McNallyRobinson . Book Page at North Atlantic Books (Publisher) . Book Page at Powell’s Books . Book Page at Random House . Book Page at Super Book Depot

2012/05/292012/05/29

Berto Jongman: Interesting Global Security Links

Links (Global Security)

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Al Qaeda in Yemen Documentary

Animation of Paradigm Shift

Crusade 2.0 : The West's Resurgent War on Islam

GigaNet (Organization and Conference)

Iran Strategy of US Working

Johan Galtung: Say War Think Peace

Long Now Foundation: If Mayors Ruled the World

Red Team Analysis of State Failure

Science of Torture

Science Special Issue on Human Conflict

US Domestic Threat (CRS Report)

US Veterans 50% Disabled After Recent Wars

Visualization Software (New)

Water Security Maps

2012/05/29

Owl: Major Cyber-Virus Across Middle East – Probably Israeli

Advanced Cyber/IO

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A new, potent, highly complex but large (20 gigs!) Stuxnet-like virus is on the loose – a number of comments after the article here makes a very good case that this one is from the Israeli government:

‘Flame' cyberespionage worm discovered on thousands of machines across Middle East

The UN's International Telecommunications Union and Kaspersky Labs revealed today that it has discovered Flame, a new trojan rivaling Stuxnet. Codenamed “Worm.Win32.Flame,” the malware is currently being researched and it is described as “one of the most complex threats ever discovered.” It is believed to be active across thousands of computers in the Middle East, primarily in Iran and Israel, as well as on some machines in North Africa. Researchers believe that the trojan's primary function is cyberespionage: once Flame infects a computer, it is equipped to record audio from connected or built-in microphones, monitor nearby Bluetooth devices, take screenshots, and save data from documents and emails. All of this data, apparently stolen as part of a targeted attack, is constantly sent up to command and control servers. Flame “has no major similarities with Stuxnet” or its malware family member Duqu, and is believed to be created and controlled by a separate group. The newly-discovered worm does share some aspects with Stuxnet and Duqu, however. Most disappointingly, Flame takes advantage of the same printer spooling hole and autorun.inf infection methods exploited by Stuxnet. According to Kaspersky Lab's reports, it's believed that Flame achieves its initial infection from users who are victims of phishing attacks, and then once it has made it onto a computer it can be spread over local area networks or via USB flash drives with other machines. The bad news is that it's confirmed that the worm has spread over local area networks to fully-patched Windows 7 systems…

2012/05/29

Winslow Wheeler: Congressional Pork Hidden in Defense Budget

Corruption, Government, Military

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WinslowWheeler Cropped — Winslow Wheeler

Slush funds for the executive branch in authorization and appropriations bills are a big no-no, but if they are intended for Members and their staff to use, that would seem to be different.

What I found in the House Armed Services Committee's defense authorization bill is described at Time's Battleland blog at http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2012/05/29/a-peek-at-pentagon-pork-a-taxpayers-guide/, and below:

A Peek at Pentagon Pork: A Taxpayers’ Guide

By Winslow Wheeler | Getty, May 29, 2012 |

The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee (sometimes called the HAC-D) have reported their separate defense bills to the House of Representatives (both bills purport to address both spending and policy). The House has already debated and passed the HASC’s “National Defense Authorization Act” (NDAA); it will soon debate the defense appropriations bill. Let’s check out what they’ve drafted and try to figure out which panel is the House’s reigning Pentagon pork king.

The press has covered both bills with multiple daily articles; the House debate, while truncated, got into all sorts of nuts and bolts, including amendments on labor practices in DOD contracting, military depot policy, and protection of sea otters in navy exercise areas, among many other things. In all, there were 141 amendments allowed for debate. That level of legislative and journalistic activity would suggest that the bill and its accompanying “committee report” were thoroughly scrubbed to make sure there were no slimy invertebrates hiding under rocks in the depths of the bill or its report.

Think no such thing.

The sea otters and other minutia addressed in amendments, for example, reflect the energy and thoroughness of lobbyists, not of congressional staff or others. Otherwise, some particularly odious elements of the HASC bill would hopefully have been challenged by one of the very few existing guardians of ethics and governance in the House. Had they or their staffs combed thoroughly through the bill and report they would have uncovered and, I hope, exposed that everlasting object of interest by Members of Congress: pork.

Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: Congressional Pork Hidden in Defense Budget”