October 30, 2013

EXCLUSIVE: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say

Source: Washington Post

The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.

By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.

According to a top secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, NSA’s acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from Yahoo and Google internal networks to data warehouses at the agency’s Fort Meade headquarters. In the preceding 30 days, the report said, field collectors had processed and sent back 181,280,466 new records — ranging from “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received e-mails and when, to content such as text, audio and video.

The NSA’s principal tool to exploit the data links is a project called MUSCULAR, operated jointly with the agency’s British counterpart, GCHQ. From undisclosed interception points, the NSA and GCHQ are copying entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information between the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html

October 29, 2013

Perhaps it is all wishful thinking - But if Bernie Sanders did run for President in 2016 - would you

support him in the primaries - assuming he ran seeking the Democratic nomination for President?

Some of you may have seen this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023933909

October 28, 2013

If you see only one political film this year - let it be DIRTY WARS with Jeremy Scahill

Dirty Wars follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, author of the international bestseller Blackwater, into the heart of America’s covert wars, from Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond.

Part political thriller and part detective story, Dirty Wars is a gripping journey into one of the most important and underreported stories of our time.

What begins as a report into a U.S. night raid gone terribly wrong in a remote corner of Afghanistan quickly turns into a global investigation of the secretive and powerful Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

As Scahill digs deeper into the activities of JSOC, he is pulled into a world of covert operations unknown to the public and carried out across the globe by men who do not exist on paper and will never appear before Congress. In military jargon, JSOC teams “find, fix, and finish” their targets, who are selected through a secret process. No target is off limits for the “kill list,” including U.S. citizens.

Drawn into the stories and lives of the people he meets along the way, Scahill is forced to confront the painful consequences of a war spinning out of control, as well as his own role as a journalist.

We encounter two parallel casts of characters.

The CIA agents, Special Forces operators, military generals, and U.S.-backed warlords who populate the dark side of American wars go on camera and on the record, some for the first time.

We also see and hear directly from survivors of night raids and drone strikes, including the family of the first American citizen marked for death and being hunted by his own government.

Dirty Wars takes viewers to remote corners of the globe to see first-hand wars fought in their name and offers a behind-the-scenes look at a high-stakes investigation.

We are left with haunting questions about freedom and democracy, war and justice.

http://dirtywars.org/the-film

http://dirtywars.org/watch

http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Wars-Jeremy-Scahill/dp/B00DPUB5LK

http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Wars-Jeremy-Scahill/dp/B00FKNSPWW/ref=tmm_aiv_title_0

October 27, 2013

State of Belief Radio: Drones and “Just Peace Theory” also Rev. Jennifer Butler on the ACA

For those who are not familiar State of Belief Radio is a weekly program produced by the Interfaith Alliance and hosted by the Rev. Welton Gaddy:

http://stateofbelief.com/showarchive/2013/drones-and-just-peace-theory/

October 26, 2013: Drones and “Just Peace Theory”

By Jonathan Craig on October 26, 2013


This weekend on State of Belief, hear how two often political, contemporary issues, health care and the use of drones, define who we are morally and spiritually. Also, learn about the experiences and challenges of raising children to “be both” in an interfaith family. Download Icon

A Moral Right: The Affordable Care Act Stumbles Out of the Gate

The rollout and implementation of the Affordable Care Act got off to a rocky start over the past few weeks, making it easy for opponents to find fault with, poke fun at and otherwise politicize an initiative that ultimately advances an idea few can honestly disagree with: in the richest country in the world, people should not be deprived of access to health care. Joining Welton on the show this week is the Rev. Jennifer Butler to talk about the real mandate for universal access to health care: morality. Rev. Butler is the founding CEO of Faith in Public Life, a strategy center to uphold faith as a powerful force for justice and the common good.

Drones and “Just Peace Theory”

This week two leading human rights organizations – Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – released reports about the toll on civilian lives being taken by the use of drones in Pakistan and Yemen. Directly challenging our collective national conscience, the reports raise disturbing questions about the country’s use of armed, unmanned drones half a world away. Highly-respected ethicist and theologian Dr. Glen Stassen is on State of Belief to explore how we justify the loss of innocent lives in drone strikes and the ethics of military force – and the applicability of “Just Peace Theory,” which he has taken the leading role in developing. Dr. Stassen is the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, and author of numerous books, including Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace.

Raised to be Both

Nearly a third of married Americans have spouses of a different religious background, which means that for some families raising their children in the traditions of only one parent’s religion doesn’t cut it. Some parents are now raising their children to “be both.” In her brand-new book, Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family, Susan Katz Miller discusses being raised Jewish in an interfaith family before raising her own children, with her Christian husband, to reflect both parents religious identities. Susan shares her experiences with us on this weekend’s episode of State of Belief


- See more at: http://stateofbelief.com/showarchive/2013/drones-and-just-peace-theory/#sthash.ue9LHbZa.dpuf

October 27, 2013

State of Belief Radio: Drones and “Just Peace Theory” also Rev. Jennifer Butler on the ACA

For those who are not familiar State of Belief Radio is a weekly program produced by the Interfaith Alliance and hosted by the Rev. Welton Gaddy:

http://stateofbelief.com/showarchive/2013/drones-and-just-peace-theory/

October 26, 2013: Drones and “Just Peace Theory”

By Jonathan Craig on October 26, 2013


This weekend on State of Belief, hear how two often political, contemporary issues, health care and the use of drones, define who we are morally and spiritually. Also, learn about the experiences and challenges of raising children to “be both” in an interfaith family. Download Icon

A Moral Right: The Affordable Care Act Stumbles Out of the Gate

The rollout and implementation of the Affordable Care Act got off to a rocky start over the past few weeks, making it easy for opponents to find fault with, poke fun at and otherwise politicize an initiative that ultimately advances an idea few can honestly disagree with: in the richest country in the world, people should not be deprived of access to health care. Joining Welton on the show this week is the Rev. Jennifer Butler to talk about the real mandate for universal access to health care: morality. Rev. Butler is the founding CEO of Faith in Public Life, a strategy center to uphold faith as a powerful force for justice and the common good.

Drones and “Just Peace Theory”

This week two leading human rights organizations – Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – released reports about the toll on civilian lives being taken by the use of drones in Pakistan and Yemen. Directly challenging our collective national conscience, the reports raise disturbing questions about the country’s use of armed, unmanned drones half a world away. Highly-respected ethicist and theologian Dr. Glen Stassen is on State of Belief to explore how we justify the loss of innocent lives in drone strikes and the ethics of military force – and the applicability of “Just Peace Theory,” which he has taken the leading role in developing. Dr. Stassen is the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, and author of numerous books, including Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace.

Raised to be Both

Nearly a third of married Americans have spouses of a different religious background, which means that for some families raising their children in the traditions of only one parent’s religion doesn’t cut it. Some parents are now raising their children to “be both.” In her brand-new book, Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family, Susan Katz Miller discusses being raised Jewish in an interfaith family before raising her own children, with her Christian husband, to reflect both parents religious identities. Susan shares her experiences with us on this weekend’s episode of State of Belief


- See more at: http://stateofbelief.com/showarchive/2013/drones-and-just-peace-theory/#sthash.ue9LHbZa.dpuf

October 25, 2013

How does a bill work?

From the Facebook page - Being Liberal:

https://www.facebook.com/beingliberal.org

October 25, 2013

Let’s all laugh at Ann Coulter, right-wing performance artist

my own note: I have wondered this at times - I'm not even sure if I agree with this author - but - What can I say? Is it possible that Ann Coulter is no doubt a right-wing ideologue - but most of her public commentary is as our British friends might say "taking a piss"? I don't know, maybe -- D.C.



Let’s all laugh at Ann Coulter, right-wing performance artist

Really, laugh -- her right-wing shtick is the same high-level performance art as Stephen Colbert

By Chris Sosa for salon.com


Ann Coulter (Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

In a way, Ann Coulter ceased to be any semblance of a genuine conservative fighter the moment she became known as a major conservative voice. Facts were replaced with detached, often hilarious, political rhetoric that amounted to little more than hot polemic air. Take this quote from “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)”:


“Like the Democrats, Playboy just wants to liberate women to behave like pigs, have sex without consequences, prance about naked, and abort children.” (2004)

While liberals had a collective meltdown, this quote could be attributed to Lisa Lampanelli with no fanfare whatsoever. It’s a matter of context. Ann Coulter had found the perfect recipe: treating news spaces as comedy platforms where she could deliberately make ridiculous statements to infuriate liberals who would be too dense to notice what was going on. But her performance requires equal condescension to conservatives, without whom the Coulter brand would disappear. Coulter knows her performance hurts the right, and she clearly doesn’t care.

Coulter is often dismissed as a schoolyard bully, but the only thing that really separates her from any mainstream comedian is the platform. Perhaps this is why Coulter counts noted anti-conservative comedians Bill Maher and Joy Behar among her personal friends, appearing with them on-air numerous times over the years. All three are individuals who find large swaths of the American public stupid beyond repair and make a living out of taunting them. Highlighting absurdity by viciously lobbing it back at people is the heart of political comics’ gold standard: George Carlin.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/24/lets_all_laugh_at_ann_coulter_right_wing_performance_artist/

October 24, 2013

another outstanding documentary in full - the Oscar nominated - Jesus Camp

I think between Marjoe exposing the con artist side and Jesus Camp showing the sincerely self-deceived side - the two documentaries give a reasonable view of modern America Pentecostal - a movement I spent about seven years of my life deeply involved in - more than 33 years ago. ON the other hand from the early 70's - back in Marjoe days to the more recent times - in Jesus Camp days - white American Pentecostalism went from being for the most part an apolitical working class and poor peoples' revivalist movement to being to a large extent (but not entirely, to be fair) a right-wing heavily politicized middle and upper middle class religious movement - as it moved from the revival tent to the suburban megachurch.


Here it is in full Jesus Camp:

http://vimeo.com/34473505

October 24, 2013

Marjoe - on youtube - the full 1972 Oscar winning documentary about the con-artist boy preacher

This is one hell of a film to watch. It won the Oscar for best documentary in 1972 - It is one hour and 28 minutes long. This is the true story about the life of the child evangelist, Marjoe Gortner whose con-artist parents forced him to preach and then collected a fortune off of him. He ran away when he was 14 but discovered later on when he was in his early twenties that to make a decent living he would return to his preaching and fleecing. It is an incredible film and an incredible story prior to deciding to work with a film crew to do an expose film on himself.



This is a great documentary and there are any number of this kind of con artist. But it would be a mistake to imagine that all or most fundamentalist/Pentecostal type preachers are conscious and intentional con artist. There are a lot more poor preachers than there are rich ones. The biggest problem lies not with the willful con artist preachers - but with the true believers who spread this destructive and self-destructive message - not out of avarice but out of complete and utter sincerity.

I want to make it clear that I am not anti-religious - as anyone who knows me already knows - but I do think all forms of blind faith and absolutism whether secular or religious are intrinsically dangerous and harmful both personally to the individual and collectively to society and the world.

October 21, 2013

Tennessee couple accused of selling daughters as young as 6 years old to pornographers

When I hear of crimes like this - I am not filled with bloodlust desires for "justice" I am just saddened and baffled.

A couple from eastern Tennessee was arrested on Saturday and charged with crimes relating to having rented out their daughters, aged 5 to 16, to pornographers.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Ronnie Lee McCall and his wife, Connie Sue, forced their daughters to perform sex acts on film in and around Johnson City, Tennessee. The case came to the office’s attention after it learned that one of the children had been driven to South Carolina in order to make a pornographic film.

The 6-year-old was covered in head and body lice, had flea bites and evidence of ring worm infection. All the children also suffered from severe dental problems.

“The amount of tooth decay, you can imagine, was extremely painful. She had black teeth, and holes in all the teeth, just really inexcusable,” Investigator Debbie Dunn of the Johnson City

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/20/tennessee-couple-accused-of-selling-daughters-young-as-6-years-old-to-pornographers/