Wednesday, June 30, 2010

A few things that happened in June, 2010...


Bilderberg 2010

Now with its own website: Bilderbergmeetings.org

AFP: Global cabal pushes agenda before meeting in Sitges, Spain

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As more darkness descends...

Glenn Greenwald: The U.S. wins the right to abduct innocent people with impunity

In practice...

PrisonPlanet: G20 Protesters Being Abducted, Bundled Into Unmarked Vans In Toronto

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The mostly unreported war in Yemen...

Amnesty International: Images of missile and cluster munitions point to US role in fatal attack in Yemen

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India vying to rule the heavens...

Cryptome: Space Weapons Should Be Part of Upcoming US-India Strategic Dialogue

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A story that ran last year, but perhaps shedding some light on events this year...

Politico: Pentagon preps for economic warfare

For instance:

LaRouchePAC: BP Actions In Gulf Are An Act of War Against the United States

But the Gulf geyser isn't just another oil spill...

AP: Gulf oil full of methane, adding new concerns

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While 'operation top kill' failed miserably on the well head in the Gulf, there is another top kill effort underway in Washington...

Lame Cherry: Oh that Joe Sestak

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The most incomprehensible case of election fraud yet...

BradBlog: SC Dem Party Exec Board Upholds Nomination of Alvin Greene for U.S. Senate

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There is something... shall we say, scripted about the WikiLeaks saga:

New Yorker: No Secrets - Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency

Raw Story: Daniel Ellsberg fears a US hit on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange

Cryptome paints a less than rosy picture of Assange...

Assange is preparing to do a Fischer

But then there's this...

Independent: Iceland rewrites law to create haven for investigative reporting

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The wild west days of the Internet are numbered...

Washington Times: FTC floats Drudge tax

Here is the FTC discussion draft on how to re-corral journalism

POTENTIAL POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS TO SUPPORT
THE REINVENTION OF JOURNALISM


And if that doesn't work, just kill it:

TechWorld: Obama 'Internet kill switch' plan approved by US Senate panel

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File under culture wars:

MTV: Will Lady Gaga's Upcoming Tour Include Human Corpses? It Might ...

Nihilism from the 'paper of record'...

NYT: Should This Be The Last Generation?

A kinder, gentler (generationally delayed) genocide...

Huffington Post: Genetically Modified Soy Linked to Sterility, Infant Mortality in Hamsters

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

A gaggle of fellating fawns

Now that Helen Thomas is gone, we can very well describe the entire White House press corps in this way. They are worthless. They are spineless, supine sycophants. They would be performing a greater service to humanity if they were giving five dollar blow jobs in the Pentagon latrines... Or in Joe Biden's back yard...

Salon: Our hard-core adversarial press corps

Glenn Greenwald pictures quite the scene:

I have no doubt that [The Atlantic's Marc] Ambinder -- who promised that "later today, I'll lay out some thoughts about the ethics of all of this" -- is shortly going to explain to us how getting squirted in the face by Rahm (aside from being fun and deeply pleasurable for him) assists his intrepid journalistic endeavors by building relationships and cementing access (he also reported: "Note, too, that shortly after I shot this video, Emanuel sprayed me in the shirt with his Super Soaker. I have a picture of that, too").

This invites the perfect segue... But, call letters notwithstanding, we have promised to keep this site "softcore at best," so we invite the reader to open two image searches: 'xxx money shots' & 'sawyer blitzer couric gregory stephanopolis etc.' and combine appropriately.

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Now, another party that took place the week previous on the White House lawn was the American Jewish Heritage Celebration Day, upon which Rabbi David Nesenhoff took the opportunity to ask Helen Thomas some questions...

Rabbilive: Helen Thomas Complete (original)

Thomas was the only reporter with a specifically assigned seat in the White House briefing room, which was appropriate since she was really the only reporter who deserved a seat. The daily briefings as broadcast on C-Span are generally uneventful, regurgitated pablum (especially the questions) until the press secretary calls on Helen. She was the one who got to the point. We had noted, at the time, that her question to President Obama during his first press conference - Helen's Question - was basically a trick question to try and get him to admit the verboten truth that Israel has nuclear weapons. Unsurprisingly he evaded the question since it simply isn't kosher to discuss Israel's nukes (in part because the U.S. clandestinely helped Israel acquire its nuclear arsenal; see Secrecy News: GAO Report on the 1965 NUMEC Affair Declassified). Thomas is of Lebanese descent; as such, she has never shown the same deference to Israel's interests as do her colleagues in the press corps. As her lines of questioning on the subject of Israel and the Palestinian question have been increasingly pointed in recent years, we would wouldn't be surprised if there were an AIPAC instigated campaign to "get Helen!"

And so the end result was sadly predictable...

CNN: White House correspondent Helen Thomas retires amid controversial comment

Meanwhile...

@ http://twitter.com/edhenrycnn - afternoon of June 5...

@WolfBlitzerCNN had sort of dried off @DanLothianCNN and I had her boys get him w/the water guns http://yfrog.com/28db0j 1,275,774,514,000.00 via Twitter for iPhone

.stay tuned for possible @WolfBlitzerCNN drenched pic ..
1,275,773,768,000.00 via web

.@WolfBlitzerCNN also lost water gun fight to Rahm ... but maybe he lost on purpose to butter up chief of staff for a POTUS interview ..
1,275,773,449,000.00 via web

.@ArdyB yes, change of clothes and all dry after water gun fights. My son & @DanLothianCNN 's son shot up ol' @WolfBlitzerCNN pretty bad ..
1,275,773,359,000.00 via web in reply to ArdyB

http://twitvid.com/B09AW - Video of VP Biden flying down a water slide -- exclusive!
3:59 PM Jun 5th via API

.Rahm was chasing Mrs Biden & she hid behind me so i got in his crosshairs -- now i know how Sestak felt http://yfrog.com/28dqlj
3:54 PM Jun 5th via Twitter for iPhone

.A little girl just hit VP in face with water. Secret Service hasnt detained her. Yet. http://yfrog.com/b9dy6j 3:42 PM Jun 5th via Twitter for iPhone

.Uh-oh now VP Biden's got a (water) gun -- the Secret Service appears to be laughing http://yfrog.com/09j3snj
3:40 PM Jun 5th via Twitter for iPhone

.Mrs Biden trying to shoot me and @savannahguthrie at "Biden Beach" party at the VP's mansion http://yfrog.com/evy9mj

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Wrath of the Methane God


While some are eager to blame capitalists...

World Socialist: A wave of mine disasters

The coincidence of so many mine and well disasters makes one wonder, what is going on beneath with the "god of methane" ("god" as place holder for a yet to be proven explanation)...

The world-wide rash of explosions began on April 5 with the Massey mine disaster in Montcoal West Virginia, leaving 29 dead. And only this week has the methane gas cleared up enough to allow investigators to enter...

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (June 2): Re-entry into West Virginia mine planned for today

Then came the big one in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving 11 dead and the destruction of an ecosystem and regional economy...

BBC (April 20): Oil workers describe methane explosion on Gulf rig

And throughout the month of May...

Voice of Russia (May 9): [66 killed] in methane explosion in mine in the Kemerovo region

Channel News Asia (May 14): China coal mine gas blast kills 21

Al Jazeera (May 18): Blast traps miners in Turkey

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The "god of methane" is indeed something to fear...

Armaggeddon Online: Methane Explosion

At the ocean floor lies a sleeping monster, one that millions of years ago devastated the Earth, causing a mass-extinction, and today could be released again. It is silent, invisible and deadly, and contains double the energy of the entire world's fossil fuels combined. It is the frozen methane reserves at the bottom of the sea; capable of causing massive rises in global temperatures and igniting the atmosphere...

If a large proportion of the gas were released the effects would be devastating. If hundreds of thousands of trillions of tons were released into the atmosphere, the rate global warming would skyrocket. Methane is 20 times more powerful a gas at raising global temperatures than carbon dioxide, so a release of a vast quantity of gas would cause huge temperature rises around the world. If temperatures rose by the 13 degrees Fahrenheit they did during the last release, ice caps would start to melt flooding large areas of the Earth. Worse, the gas would be ignited by lightning, leaving huge fires over areas of land, with coastal areas at especially great risk of destruction. Many cities that escaped the rising sea levels would not be spared the fire.


So then, we should be extremely cautious when dealing with this substance, particularly in its hydrate form...

Gaurdian: Did Deepwater methane hydrates cause the BP Gulf explosion?

Bloomberg: Japan Mines `Flammable Ice,' Flirts With Environmental Disaster

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Finally, on another anomaly coming from the great beneath...

National Geographic: Electric Ash Found in Iceland Plume Miles From Volcano