Patrick Meier: Operational Checklist for Flying UAVs in Humanitarian Settings

An Operational Check-List for Flying UAVs in Humanitarian Settings The Humanitarian UAV Network (UAViators) has taken off much faster than I expected. More than 240 members in 32 countries have joined the network since it’s launch just a few weeks ago. I was also pleasantly surprised by the number of humanitarian organizations that got in touch with me …

Chuck Spinney: Robert Rubin, ROOT for the Collapse — With Bill Clinton as Active Enabler of Wall Street Crime — None of the “Advisors” Show Deep Integrity

Attached herewith is an important report in the Guardian.  It places the deregulation of Wall Street during the Clinton Administration into a particularly smarmy perspective by examining documents just released by the Clinton library.  Note the connections to players now in the Obama Administration. This report paints a revealing albeit depressingly familiar portrait of how …

Owl: Malaysian Airlines a Practice Run or Real Asian 9/11 Aborted for Reasons Unknown?

Flight 370: Zio-Al Queda-NeoCon Sequel to 9-11 Aborted, a Practice Run or on Horizon (Literally)? This article states the piloting of flight 270 involved flying it at very low levels to evade radar: “As the search for the missing flight MH370 enters its 10th day with few clues as to its whereabouts, the New Straits …

Review (Guest): The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man

Luke Harding Ed Snowden and the American tribal fear meme, February 19, 2014 By  Herbert L Calhoun “paulocal”   This is a story about what one American saw atop the tip of an iceberg called the “American national security state.” In the end, Ed Snowden, a 29-year old, $200,00/year High School dropout turned Computer Systems …

Marcus Aurelius: Defense Clandestine Service Here to Stay? Dubious in All Respects – And Still No Plumbing

Sigh. Concur with the comments and would add Sumner Shapiro’s own finding on the 80-20 rule. Flynn seems to be going the mini-me route, replicating CIA’s long-standing failure. Wasted effort and money — and still no focus on the plumbing. Analysis: Defense Clandestine Service Is Here To Stay WASHINGTON — Senior US officials and lawmakers …

David Swanson: War Can Be Ended — And No, the US Civil War Was Not About Slavery and Not Worth the Human and Other Enduring True Costs

War Can Be Ended Part I Of BOOK: War No More: The Case For Abolition Slavery Was Abolished In the late eighteenth century the majority of people alive on earth were held in slavery or serfdom (three-quarters of the earth’s population, in fact, according to the Encyclopedia of Human Rights from Oxford University Press). The …