Home · News · News Feb 2014 · Feb 11 2014
Tuesday February 11, 2014
News Articles

California's Drought Could Be the Worst in 500 Years
MotherJones | Alex Park | 02/10/14

The Golden State is in the midst of a three-year drought--and scientists believe that this year may end up being the driest in the last half millennium, according to University of California-Berkeley professor B. Lynn Ingram. Californians are scared, with good reason: Fire danger in the state is high, and drinking-water supplies are low.

But the drought will have repercussions outside the state's borders, as well. California produces a good chunk of the nation's food: half of all our fruits and vegetables, along with a significant amount of dairy and wine. ... Read more

"It is no longer possible to determine the difference between employees of the NSA and employees of companies such as Booz Allen."

How Booz Allen Made the Revolving Door Redundant
ipsnews.net | Pratap Chatterjee | 06/17/13 older

Edward Snowden, a low-level employee of Booz Allen Hamilton who blew the whistle on the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), unexpectedly exposed a powerful and seamless segment of the military-industrial complex -- the world of contractors that consumes some 70 percent of this country's 52-billion-dollar intelligence budget.

... Edward Snowden, a low-level employee of Booz Allen Hamilton who blew the whistle on the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), unexpectedly exposed a powerful and seamless segment of the military-industrial complex -- the world of contractors that consumes some 70 percent of this country's 52-billion-dollar intelligence budget. ... Read more

*The Intercept Images
Click to zoom chart
The Intercept | Trevor Paglen | 02/10/14

Over the past eight months, classified documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have exposed scores of secret government surveillance programs. Yet there is little visual material among the blizzard of code names, PowerPoint slides, court rulings and spreadsheets that have emerged from the National Security Agency's files.

The scarcity of images is not surprising. A surveillance apparatus doesn't really "look" like anything. A satellite built by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) reveals nothing of its function except to the best-trained eyes. The NSA's pervasive domestic effort to collect telephone metadata also lacks easy visual representation; in the Snowden archive, it appears as a four-page classified order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. ... Read more
New Photos of the NSA and Other Top Intelligence Agencies Revealed for First Time (02/10/14) [3:12]

How Agribusiness Tried to Destroy a Critical Scientist
AlterNet | Alex Kane | 02/11/14/span>

The biologist Tyrone Hayes had studied the endocrinology systems of frogs for many years, so it made perfect sense when the agribusiness giant Syngenta asked him to study the effects of the herbicide atrazine on amphibians. The company makes atrazine, which is used on half the corn in the U.S.

Hayes' research came back with a disturbing finding: that atrazine impeded the sexual development of frogs. Specifically, Hayes found that atrazine caused tadpoles to develop both ovaries and testes. So Syngenta decided to destroy Hayes.

A lot was, and is, at stake for Syngenta. They're trying to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from banning their herbicide, which is "one of the most common contaminants of drinking water; an estimated thirty million Americans are exposed to trace amounts of the chemical. It's been banned in Europe, and the EPA is reviewing the herbicide this year.... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, February 11 [11:13]
DN | The Day We Fight Back: Activism Sweeps the Internet With Global Action Against Mass Surveillance (02/11/14) [6:44]
*DN | The Sixth Extinction: Elizabeth Kolbert on How Humans Are Causing Largest Die-Off Since Dinosaur Age (02/11/14) [20:25]
TRNN News
*TRNN | NSA Whistleblower Kirk Wiebe says that the NSA has lived a mostly unconstitutional existence, and that any oversight will require an independent group to have direct access to collected data (02/11/14) [8:22]
TRNN | Journalist, filmmaker, activist Danny Schechter "The News Dissector", tells Paul Jay what brought him to South Africa, the fight against apartheid and meeting and chronicling Mandela (02/11/14) [18:19]
California Drought
Stunning Before and After Photos of California's Mega Drought! (01/27/14) [2:44]
Lake Nacimiento January 2014 [3:14]
"Inequality for All"
When 'They' Say Cutting Taxes On The Rich Means Job Creation, They're Lying. Just Ask This Rich Guy. (clip from "Inequality for All,") [4:40]
To see more on Robert Reich and "Inequality for All" see the Sticky News Menu
Suspicious0bservers.org
Suspicious0bservers | Storms, Sun, Climate (02/11/14) [4:07]
Jon Stewart
*Jon Stewart | Jason Jones remembers the good old days of drunken nuclear hooliganism between the United States and Soviet Union. (02/10/14) [6:28]
For more history on Russia, go to Oliver Stones' mini-series The Untold History of the United States on the Sticky News Menu
Jon Stewart | University of Missouri defensive lineman Michael Sam threatens his own NFL draft prospects by coming out as gay. (02/10/14) [4:24]
Japan and Fukushima
C2CAM | 2014:"Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Threatens USA & North America Fukushima Style USA Nuclear Crisis" (01/11/14) [1:45:31]
Rescue American Health Care"
Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare (2012) (trailer) [4:00]
ESCAPE FIRE: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare tackles one of the most pressing issues of our time: what can be done to save our broken healthcare system? The film examines the powerful forces trying to maintain the status quo in a medical industry designed for quick fixes rather than prevention, for profit-driven care rather than patient-driven care. After decades of resistance, a movement to bring innovative high-touch, low-cost methods of prevention and healing into our high-tech, costly system is finally gaining ground.
DN | Whistleblower Dr. Steven Nissen on "Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Health Care" (01/23/12 older, but good) [21:47]
Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across
Note: I don't endorse any of the videos in this section.
As I construct My News Pages I constantly run across a lot of NEW videos, and since I find YouTube frustrating trying to re-find videos, I save the links in this section so I can find them again.
Japan
BBC | No Sex Please, We're Japanese (10/25/13) [58:35]
Never Ending War
Never Ending War in Afghanistan (12/16/13) [58:55]
Discovery Times | The Fight for Baghdad (2004) [1:29:30]
"Discovery Times" was launched in April 2002 as a joint-venture between the New York Times and Discovery Communications. In April 2006 the NYT sold its stake in DT, ending its ownership in the channel. DT became "Investigation Discovery", abbreviated and stylized as ID, on January 27, 2008.

02.11.2014. 14:06



Special Interest Important stuff
GOOD Shorts Videos

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GOOD Short Videos
Newer Documentaries You Might Not Have Seen

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Newer Documentaries
Documentaries You've Never Seen

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Documentaries (small | pop-up)
Documentaries (big | full screen)
Good YouTube Documentaries

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Great YouTube Docs. (small | pop-up)
Good YouTube Docs. (big | full screen)

Lindsey Graham Mashups
Lindsey Graham

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the quiet part aloud on why he’s still so close to former President Donald Trump: because we can use him for our goals. "President Trump has gotten people who wouldn't give me or Romney or anybody else the time of day. They believe he is on their side," the senator told the America First Agenda Summit crowd on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

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Environment & Climate Change
Environment

The term "climate change" is often used to refer specifically to anthropogenic climate change (also known as global warming). Anthropogenic climate change is caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes.

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AI - Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Deep Learning
AI - Artificial Intelligence

AIArtificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the natural intelligence displayed by animals including humans. AI research has been defined as the field of study of intelligent agents, which refers to any system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of achieving its goals.

The term "artificial intelligence" had previously been used to describe machines that mimic and display "human" cognitive skills that are associated with the human mind, such as "learning" and "problem-solving". This definition has since been rejected by major AI researchers who now describe AI in terms of rationality and acting rationally, which does not limit how intelligence can be articulated.
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Quantum mechanics | AI - Artificial Intelligence
Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles.  It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.
Classical physics, the collection of theories that existed before the advent of quantum mechanics, describes many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at small (atomic and subatomic) scales. Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at large (macroscopic) scale.
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Economy, Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street is an eight-block-long street running roughly northwest to southeast from Broadway to South Street, at the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial services industry (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or New York-based financial interests.

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Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, and foreign policy objectives. Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis,.

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Daniel Ellsberg | Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg and Paul Jay explore Ellsberg's latest book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. In the introduction to the book, Ellsberg writes: "No policies in human history have more deserved to be recognized as immoral or insane. The story of how this calamitous predicament came about and how and why it has persisted over a half a century is a chronicle of human madness".

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Nukes
Nukes

Nuclear weapons have come a long way and come in all types of different sizes. Some are relatively small while others are enormous, so big they boggle the mind at what they can be capable of, i.e. the Soviet 'Tsar Bomba' is/was 3,000 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb.

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Rana Foroohar and Fall of American Business
Rana Foroohar

Ms. Foroohar says financialization delivers stagnant wages, inequality and economic crisis; the Financial Times columnist and author of "Makers and Takers" says the financial sector represents only 7 percent of the U.S. economy, but takes around 25 percent of all corporate profit while creating only 4 percent of all jobs.

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The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick

The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick | 2014 | 10 Episodes

Oliver Stone and American University historian Peter J. Kuznick began working on the project in 2008. Stone, Kuznick and British screenwriter Matt Graham cowrote the script. It covers "the reasons behind the Cold War with the Soviet Union, U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and changes in America's global role since the fall of Communism." Stone is the director and narrator of all ten episodes.

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Kuznick Interviews

Kuznick Interviews

Historian Peter Kuznick says Eisenhower called for decreased militarization, then Dulles reversed the policy; the Soviets tried to end the cold war after the death of Stalin; crazy schemes involving nuclear weapons and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba put the world of the eve of destruction - with host Paul Jay

The Untold History of the United States by Kuznick, Peter.mobi | Book | 6.99 MB

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China Valley of Tunnels

China Valley of Tunnels

A report written by a Georgetown University team led by Phillip Karber conducted a three-year study to map out China’s complex tunnel system, which stretches 5,000 km (3,000 miles). The report determined that the stated Chinese nuclear arsenal is understated and as many as 3,000 nuclear warheads may be stored in the underground tunnel network.

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911
911

On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists attacked the Unites States. They hijacked four airplanes in mid-flight. The terrorists flew two of the planes into two skyscrapers at the World Trade Center in New York City. The impact caused the buildings to catch fire and collapse. Another plane destroyed part of the Pentagon (the U.S. military headquarters) in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Officials believe that the terrorists on that plane intended to destroy either the White House or the U.S. Capitol. Passengers on the plane fought the terrorists and prevented them from reaching their goal. In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

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The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's ten-part, 18-hour documentary series, THE VIETNAM WAR, tells the epic story of one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history as it has never before been told on film. Visceral and immersive, the series explores the human dimensions of the war through revelatory testimony of nearly 80 witnesses from all sides--Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as combatants and civilians from North and South Vietnam. Ten years in the making, the series includes rarely seen and digitally re-mastered archival footage from sources around the globe, photographs taken by some of the most celebrated photojournalists of the 20th Century, historic television broadcasts, evocative home movies, and secret audio recordings from inside the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.

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Trump's Mashups
Trump's Mashups

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? VICE News' "Trump Talk" mashup series tries to answer that. And, we're happy to say, it was just nominated for two Webby Awards. Now you can watch all the nominated videos.

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Trump's Sexcapades
Trump's Sexcapades.

Jessica Leeds (1980s)
Kristin Anderson (1990s)
E. Jean Carroll (1995 or 1996)
Lisa Boyne (1996)
Cathy Heller (1997)
Temple Taggart McDowell (1997)
Karena Virginia (1998)
Mindy McGillivray (2003)
Jennifer Murphy (2005)
Rachel Crooks (2005)
Natasha Stoynoff (2005)
Juliet Huddy (2005 or 2006)
Jessica Drake (2006)
Ninni Laaksonen (2006)
Cassandra Searles (2013)
Allegations of pageant dressing room visits(1997)
Mariah Billado,
Victoria Hughes,
and three other Miss Teen USA contestants
Bridget Sullivan (2000)
Tasha Dixon (2001)
Unnamed contestants (2001)
Samantha Holvey (2006)

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Trump's Speeches | Rallys |Interviews
Trump's Speeches | Rallys

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? Watch Trump at some of his rallys and see what you think.

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