kpete
kpete's JournalBREAKING: WikiLeaks releases 2.4 million #Syria emails
Today, Thursday 5 July 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files – more than two million emails from Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies, dating from August 2006 to March 2012.
This extraordinary data set derives from 680 Syria-related entities or domain names, including those of the Ministries of Presidential Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Information, Transport and Culture.
Over the next two months, ground-breaking stories derived from the files will appear in WikiLeaks (global), Al Akhbar (Lebanon), Al Masry Al Youm (Egypt), ARD (Germany), Associated Press (US), L’Espresso (Italy), Owni (France) and Publico.es (Spain). Other publications will announce themselves closer to their publishing date.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said: "The material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria’s opponents. It helps us not merely to criticise one group or another, but to understand their interests, actions and thoughts. It is only through understanding this conflict that we can hope to resolve it."
MORE:
http://wikileaks.org/syria-files/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/05/1106159/-BREAKING-WikiLeaks-releases-2-4-million-Syria-emails
KRUGMAN: "Romney offers nothing but warmed-over right-wing platitudes"
It appears that the Obama campaign has decided to ignore the queasiness of Democrats with Wall Street ties, and go after Mitt Romney’s record at Bain. And rightly so!
After all, what is Romney’s case – that is, why does he want us to think he should be president? It’s not about ideology: Romney offers nothing but warmed-over right-wing platitudes, with an extra helping of fraudulent arithmetic, and it’s fairly obvious that even he himself doesn’t believe anything he’s saying.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/04/off-and-out-with-mitt-romney/
Japan's Fukushima nuclear crisis was preventable-Result Of 'Collusion', Panel Says
Source: Huffington Post
By Risa Maeda and Linda Sieg
TOKYO, July 5 (Reuters) - Japan's Fukushima nuclear crisis was a preventable disaster resulting from "collusion" among the government, regulators and the plant operator, an expert panel said on Thursday, wrapping up an inquiry into the worst nuclear accident in 25 years.
Damage from the huge March 11, 2011, earthquake, and not just the ensuing tsunami, could not be ruled out as a cause of the accident, the panel added, a finding with serious potential implications as Japan seeks to bring idled reactors on line.
The panel criticised the response of Fukushima Daiichi plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co, regulators and then Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who quit last year after criticism of his handling of a natural disaster that became a man-made crisis.
"The ... Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and Tepco, and the lack of governance by said parties," the panel said in an English summary of a 641-page Japanese document.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/05/japan-nuclear-disaster_n_1650264.html?1341493871
I hear that a former Alaskan Governor is available........
Romney Considering Woman as Veep
Ann Romney tells CBS News she thinks Mitt Romney could pick a female running mate.
Said Mrs. Romney: "We've been looking at that. And I'd love that option as well. There are a lot of people that Mitt is considering right now."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57466625/ann-romney-obamas-whole-campaign-strategy-is-lets-kill-this-guy/?tag=exclsv
Alabama Pastor Holds ‘Whites Only’ Conference
Alabama Pastor Holds ‘Whites Only’ Conference
By Annie-Rose Strasser on Jul 5, 2012 at 9:23 am
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Collier’s Alabama town is outraged over the flyer for his pastors’ conference, which specifies “All White Christians Invited.” The town’s mayor is renouncing the Reverend, saying that such hate speech is unwelcome in the town. But Collier defended the flyer this week, saying that he isn’t a racist — just that “the white race is God’s chosen people”:
The organizer of the event, Rev. William C. Collier says that his Church of God’s Chosen (Christian Identity Ministries) is not a hate group but adds that he believes “the white race is God’s chosen people.”
Collier defends why only white Christians are invited.
“We don’t have the facilities to accommodate other people. We haven’t got any invitations to black, Muslim events. Of course we are not invited to Jewish events and stuff,” Collier said.
more:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/07/05/511129/alabama-pastor-holds-whites-only-conference/
Romney, Spokesman Disagree On Whether The Individual Mandate Is A Tax
&feature=youtu.beAmerican Exceptionalism ... In Canada---A love letter from up north:
American Exceptionalism ... In Canada
A love letter from up north:
On the day that the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favour of Barack Obama’s health-care plan, Environment Canada issued a nationwide Smug Alert.
You could see it floating across the border, a cloud of self-satisfaction with America’s foibles. And who can blame us? It’s nice to have something that the guy next door doesn’t, especially when half his family really, really wants it but his crazy uncle screams blue murder every time he looks at it.
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It’s one thing to know that man, in the abstract, went to the moon. It’s another to know that it was you, your government, your parents, the guy down the road, that made that happen. Suddenly the place seems like a fortress of unlimited potential; invulnerable, if not insensate to the storms it has unleashed upon itself, if only the government could be fixed. Opinions on how to fix the government vary from person to person, which is usually the catch.
MUCH MORE:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/lets-celebrate-july-4th-by-admitting-americans-have-stuff-that-we-want/article4385643/
Shrodinger’s Romney
JOSH MARSHALL JULY 4, 2012, 12:28 PM
Coming off the massive success finally discovering evidence of the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle, CERN has announced plans to bombard subatomic particles together at a speed close enough to the speed of light to isolate Mitt Romney’s actual underlying position on whether or not the health care mandate is a tax.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/07/shrodingers_romney.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Talking-Points-Memo+%28Talking+Points+Memo%3A+by+Joshua+Micah+Marshall%29
Just In Time For The 4th - Your Own Personal Drone
Maple Seed Drones Will Swarm The Future
Imagine a cheap, tiny, hovering aerial drone capable of being launched with the flick of a person’s wrist and able to provide manipulable 360-degree surveillance views.
It’s real, it’s inspired by maple seeds, and the company behind it, Lockheed Martin, envisions a future in which swarms of the new drones can be deployed at a fraction of the cost and with greater capabilities than drones being used today by the military and other agencies.
“Think about dropping a thousand of these out of an aircraft,” said Bill Borgia, head of Lockheed Martin’s Intelligent Robotics Lab, in a phone interview with TPM, “Think about the wide area over which one collect imagery. Instead of sending one or two expensive, highly valuable aircraft like we do today, you could send thousands of these inexpensive aircraft, and they are almost expendable.”
The new drone which looks like very similar to a maple seed, with a small pod-like body attached a single whirring blade, is called the Samarai. The name is derived from the Latin word “samara,” which means a winged seed, just like the one that inspired its physical design, flight pattern and construction.
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/maple-seed-drones-will-swarm-the-future.php?ref=fpblg
"A Global Empire And A Creepy Police State Was Exactly What We Had In Mind," By Thomas Jefferson
WEDNESDAY, JULY 4, 2012
"A Global Empire And A Creepy Police State Was Exactly What We Had In Mind," By Thomas Jefferson
It's been 236 years. Along with the other framers, I just wanted to say: Well done. You guys nailed it.
Back when we presented our little list of complaints to the British Empire, we had a vision of the kind of country we'd like to create. Unalienable rights. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. It was pretty wild, radical stuff back then. But we never imagined how perfectly you folks would bring it off!
Hundreds of military installations all over the world. A network of spies almost completely beyond democratic control. A Defense Department that spends billions in black budget programs to fund armies of secret soldiers. And of course, a horde of blue-shirted thugs harassing disabled people, old people, breast cancer survivors, and a seven year-old girl with cerebral palsy. Wow. Just... wow. That's exactly what we all were thinking about, way back when.
When we complained about George III's standing armies and his attempts "to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power," what we really meant was we wanted to create our own force and scatter it throughout 130 countries. You people must have read our goddamn minds!
And when we griped about the king "imposing taxes on us without our Consent" to pay for his foreign military interventions, we never could have come up with the solution you devised. The idea of racking up trillion dollar deficits - essentially a Stamp Act every year on the nations' kids. It's simple. It's elegant. And it fixes itself. I mean, by the time they get old enough to vote, they'll be so far into the hole they'll just have to choose more of the same (until something Truly Bad happens, but let's not be negative about it). Way to go, America.
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the rest of the snark:
http://www.paulbibeau.blogspot.com/2012/07/global-empire-and-creepy-police-state.html
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