Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Donald Rumsfeld: Up Close and Creepy
MotherJones | David Corn | 03/27/14

Not too long into Errol Morris' new documentary on Donald Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known, the viewer learns almost all he or she needs to know about the former defense secretary who helped President George W. Bush lead the nation into war in Iraq. After a short recap of the initial US military action in Afghanistan following the horrific September 11 attacks, Morris notes that a "confusion" set in, with many Americans believing Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, was involved in 9/11. Morris puts this to Rumsfeld during the Q&A that makes up the spine of the film. Rumsfeld, in his familiar know-it-all way, dismisses the premise: "I don't think the American people were confused about that." Morris, who is not on screen, counters by citing a 2003 poll showing that 69 percent of Americans said it was "likely" that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the assault. Rumsfeld responds, "I don't remember anyone in the Bush administration saying anything like that, nor do I recall anyone believing that."

Really? Rumsfeld is not acknowledging a known known. Within hours of the Al Qaeda attack, according to now-public memos, Rumsfeld was asking if Saddam Hussein could be hit in response, and for weeks afterward, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, repeatedly said during administration meetings that the Iraqi leader might have been behind the 9/11 plot. ... Read more

Why the US Turned Vladimir Putin into a Villain
AlterNet | Tariq Ali | 03/30/14

Once again, it seems that Russia and the United States are finding it difficult to agree on how to deal with their respective ambitions. This clash of interests is highlighted by the Ukrainian crisis. The provocation in this particular instance, as the leaked recording of a US diplomat, Victoria Nuland, saying "Fuck the EU" suggests, came from Washington.

Several decades ago, at the height of the cold war, George Kennan, a leading American foreign policy strategist invited to give the Reith Lectures, informed his audience: "There is, let me assure you, nothing in nature more egocentric than embattled democracy. It soon becomes the victim of its own propaganda. It then tends to attach to its own cause an absolute value which distorts its own vision … Its enemy becomes the embodiment of all evil. Its own side is the centre of all virtue."

And so it continues. Washington knows that Ukraine has always been a delicate issue for Moscow. The ultra-nationalists who fought with the Third Reich during the second world war killed 30,000 Russian soldiers and communists. They were still conducting a covert war with CIA backing as late as 1951. Pavel Sudoplatov, a Soviet intelligence chief, wrote in 1994: "The origins of the cold war are closely interwoven with western support for nationalist unrest in the Baltic areas and western Ukraine." ... Read more

Bernie Sanders: Citizens United Is Creating An 'Oligarchic Form Of Society'
HP | Natasha Bach | 03/27/14

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) spoke out against the rise of the wealthy in United States politics from the Senate floor Thursday, saying the rise of the billionaire class leads to a discussion of "whether or not this nation is going to become an oligarchic form of society."

"We have a nation in which the economics and politics are controlled by a handful of billionaire families, [where] it doesn't matter what party is in power because the real power rests with a billionaire class," he said. "Unless we act boldly to reverse that trend, we're seeing this country moving in exactly that direction."

The Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, Sanders argued, "allows the super wealthy to spend as much as they want on elections," meaning that the "billionaire party is now in fact the major political force in this country ... led by people like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson." ... Read more
Sen. Bernie Sanders: Citizens United Is Creating An 'Oligarchic Form Of Society' (short version) (03/28/14) [1:45]

Robert Reich: Billionaires are Poisoning American Democracy
AlterNet | Robert Reich | 03/27/14

Charles and David Koch should not be blamed for having more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans put together. Nor should they be condemned for their petrochemical empire. As far as I know, they've played by the rules and obeyed the laws. They're also entitled to their own right-wing political views. It's a free country

But in using their vast wealth to change those rules and laws in order to fit their political views, the Koch brothers are undermining our democracy. That's a betrayal of the most precious thing Americans share. ... Read more

*Watch the US Drop 2.5 Million Tons of Bombs on Laos
MotherJones | H.H. Bhojani | 03/26/14

Between 1964 and 1973, the United States dropped around 2.5 million tons of bombs on Laos. While the American public was focused on the war in neighboring Vietnam, the US military was waging a devastating covert campaign to cut off North Vietnamese supply lines through the small Southeast Asian country.

The nearly 600,000 bombing runs delivered a staggering amount of explosives: The equivalent of a planeload of bombs every eight minutes for nine years, or a ton of bombs for every person in the country--more than what American planes unloaded on Germany and Japan combined during World War II. Laos remains, per capita, the most heavily bombed country on earth. .. Read more
Watch the US Drop 2.5 Million Tons of Bombs on Laos

Secret War in Laos

GOP States Are The Most Dependent On Government
HP | Benjamin Hallman | 03/26/14

If we learned nothing else during the 2012 election, it is that some of us are makers, hard-working folk solely responsible for America's prosperity, and others are takers, who want the federal government to pay for luxuries like food and health care.

What may come as some surprise is where these two warring tribes tend to live. The states with elected officials most likely to espouse anti-taker sentiments -- i.e., Republican-dominated states -- are the most dependent on federal spending, while returning the least to Washington in the way of tax dollars. ... Read more

Bank Of America To Pay $9 Billion To Settle Mortgage Securities Suit
AP & HP | author | 03/27/14

Bank of America will spend $9.33 billion to resolve a dispute over mortgage securities with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the regulator that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Bank of America said that it will make cash payments of roughly $6.3 billion and also purchase securities from Fannie and Freddie worth more than $3 billion. It is one of several banks to settle with the FHFA, which announced the agreement Wednesday.

Fannie and Freddie don't directly make loans to borrowers. They buy mortgages from lenders, package them as bonds, guarantee them against default and sell them to investors. That helps make loans available and gives Fannie and Freddie a huge role in the housing market. They own or guarantee about half of all U.S. mortgages. ... Read more

*Watch the US Drop 2.5 Million Tons of Bombs on Laos
MotherJones | H.H. Bhojani | 03/26/14

Between 1964 and 1973, the United States dropped around 2.5 million tons of bombs on Laos. While the American public was focused on the war in neighboring Vietnam, the US military was waging a devastating covert campaign to cut off North Vietnamese supply lines through the small Southeast Asian country.

The nearly 600,000 bombing runs delivered a staggering amount of explosives: The equivalent of a planeload of bombs every eight minutes for nine years, or a ton of bombs for every person in the country--more than what American planes unloaded on Germany and Japan combined during World War II. Laos remains, per capita, the most heavily bombed country on earth. .. Read more
Watch the US Drop 2.5 Million Tons of Bombs on Laos

Russia To Create Own National Payment System In "Bid To Reduce Dependence On The West"
ZeroHedge | author | 03/27/14

The more the West attempts to "isolate" Russia and pushes it away from its "core values" and of course the US Dollar, the more Russia will seek the safety of a non-dollar based system. We have previously described how Putin has been scrambling to enmesh Russia in tight bilateral commodity-based trade with both China and India, and now it is Russia's turn to announce it would seek its own "national payment settlement system" following last week's surprising and unmandated service halts by both Visa and MasterCard, which as Vladimir Putin said earlier today, will be a "bid to reduce economic dependence on the West." ... Read more

Qaeda Militants Seek Syria Base, U.S. Officials Say
NYTimes | Eric Schmitt | 03/25/14

Dozens of seasoned militant fighters, including some midlevel planners, have traveled to Syria from Pakistan in recent months in what American intelligence and counterterrorism officials fear is an effort to lay the foundation for future strikes against Europe and the United States.

"We are concerned about the use of Syrian territory by the Al Qaeda organization to recruit individuals and develop the capability to be able not just to carry out attacks inside of Syria, but also to use Syria as a launching pad," John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director, told a House panel recently. ... Read more

Another Financial Crisis Is Looming--Here's Why and How It Will Play Out
Bloomberg & AlterNet | Bob Ivry | 03/26/14

So are we on the precipice of another financial crisis, and what will it look like? To be sure, danger still lurks in the mortgage market. The latest get-rich-quick scheme, with private equity firms buying up foreclosed properties and renting them out, then selling bonds backed by the rental revenue streams (which look suspiciously like the bonds backed by mortgage payments that were a proximate cause of the last crisis), has the potential to blow up. And continued shenanigans with mortgage documents could lead to major headaches. A new court case against Wells Fargo uncovered a bombshell, a step-by-step manual telling attorneys how they can fake foreclosure papers on demand; the fallout could throw into question the true ownership of millions of homes. Even subprime mortgages are in the midst of a comeback, because what could go wrong? ...

... That's not to say that Wall Street firms have been choir boys. The risk is merely harder to see, and you can't just look at the banks. In fact, banks have reduced their stake in many normal banking activities, leaving things like small business lending to the shadow banking system. This is the broad term given to hedge funds, private equity firms and the labyrinthine deals they initiate to move money around. These less-regulated entities have increased their overall portfolios 60 percent over the past five years, bingeing on subprime loans to businesses that could not otherwise access traditional credit. Nontraditional leveraged loans, issued to companies that end up with large amounts of debt, have fewer protections for lenders and carry much more risk. ... Read more

The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | 02/12/14

Call it the loophole that destroyed the world. It's 1999, the tail end of the Clinton years. While the rest of America obsesses over Monica Lewinsky, Columbine and Mark McGwire's biceps, Congress is feverishly crafting what could yet prove to be one of the most transformative laws in the history of our economy -- a law that would make possible a broader concentration of financial and industrial power than we've seen in more than a century. But the crazy thing is, nobody at the time quite knew it. Most observers on the Hill thought the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 -- also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act -- was just the latest and boldest in a long line of deregulatory handouts to Wall Street that had begun in the Reagan years. ...

... Wall Street had spent much of that era arguing that America's banks needed to become bigger and badder, in order to compete globally with the German and Japanese-style financial giants, which were supposedly about to swallow up all the world's banking business. So through legislative lackeys like red-faced Republican deregulatory enthusiast Phil Gramm, bank lobbyists were pushing a new law designed to wipe out 60-plus years of bedrock financial regulation. ...

... All of this was big enough news in itself. But it would take half a generation -- till now, basically -- to understand the most explosive part of the bill, which additionally legalized new forms of monopoly, allowing banks to merge with heavy industry. A tiny provision in the bill also permitted commercial banks to delve into any activity that is "complementary to a financial activity and does not pose a substantial risk to the safety or soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally." ... Read more

The Bigger Dog Whistle Bogeyman: Liberal Government
Salon & Bill Moyers | Ian Haney López | 03/24/14

While attention focuses on Paul Ryan's remarks about inner city culture, another dog-whistle theme continues its slow roil: food stamp abuse. More even than Ryan's twisting narrative, the brouhaha around food stamps helps make clear that conservatives seek to conjure a much bigger bogeyman than "lazy" minorities.

Ostensibly worried that too many people prefer welfare to work, House Republicans this January stripped $8.6 billion from the food stamp program. This threatened to reduce monthly food assistance by an average of $90 per family -- from households that are barely hanging on, with average gross monthly incomes of just $744. Yet far from conceding defeat, states are joining battle by adjusting their programs in ways that evade the cuts, bringing the food stamp debate back.

Just last week, House Speaker John Boehner warned that "states have found ways to cheat, once again, on signing up people for food stamps," and he implored his colleagues "to stop this cheating and this fraud from continuing." Cheating and fraud constitute stock themes in the conservative assault on food stamps -- tropes applied indiscriminately to both recipients and government. And therein lies a clue to the real target. ... Read more

What's The Primary Cause of Wealth Inequality? Financialization
ZeroHedge | author | 03/24/14

What is the primary driver of this era's widening wealth inequality? Thomas Piketty's new book Capital in the Twenty-First Century provides an answer: financialization. Financialization is the mass commodification of debt and debt-based financial instruments collaterized by previously low-risk assets, a pyramiding of risk and speculative gains that is only possible in a massive expansion of low-cost credit and leverage.

... When the profits from financializing collateral and leveraging those bets to the hilt far exceed generating wealth by creating products and services, the economy is soon hollowed out as the perverse incentives of financialization start driving every business decision and strategy. ... Read more

Monster Storm Expected to Miss Most Major Eastern Cities
Bloomberg | Brian K. Sullivan | 03/25/14

One to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) of snow may fall starting today from Philadelphia to New York, with eastern Long Island, Boston and coastal Massachusetts getting more, the National Weather Service said. A blizzard watch was posted for Cape Cod and the Massachusetts Islands. Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia may get more than 10 inches, Environment Canada said in a special weather statement. ...

... A warning for hurricane-force wind has been issued in the Atlantic off Massachusetts and Maine, the weather service said. Mariners could encounter waves as much as 37 feet high. .... Read more

Who Controls the Kochs’ Political Network? ASMI, SLAH and TOHE
ProPublica & Bill Moyer | Kim Barker | 03/19/14

Libertarian billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch were among the first to grasp the political potential of social welfare groups and trade associations -- nonprofits that can spend money to influence elections but don’t have to name their donors. The Kochs and their allies have built up a complex network of such organizations, which spent more than $383 million in the run-up to the 2012 election alone.

Documents released in recent months show the Kochs have added wrinkles to their network that even experts well versed in tax law and campaign finance say they’ve never seen before -- wrinkles that could make it harder to discern who controls each nonprofit in the web and how it disperses its money. ... Read more

Koch Brothers: Using Wealth Against 'Free' Elections to Turn Democracy into Fascism
cps-news.com | author | 03/00/14

Tom Perkins, a very wealthy venture capitalist, proposed the following: "You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes"; suggesting, in essences, that only the wealthy should elect our officials. What Perkins isn't saying is that's basically already happening --- his alternative simply allows the rich to keep the money they're currently using to buy elections. And nobody buys elections better than David and Charles Koch.

During the 2012 elections, the Koch's pledged $200 million to get the 'black Democrat' voted out of office. Because of current laws - mainly Citizens United vs. the FEC - no one really knows how much they actually spent. However, we do know that political networks linked to the Koch's spent more on the 2012 election ($407 million) than all the candidates spent on the entire 2000 Presidential Election. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, March 24 [13:09]

*DN | Exclusive: NSA, FBI, DIA Sued over Refusal to Disclose U.S. Role in Imprisonment of Nelson Mandela (03/25/14) [15:36]

*DN | Ryan Shapiro: on Obama's Broken Promises on Transparency (03/25/14) [6:52]

*DN | Ryan Shapiro: Why Did FBI Monitor Occupy Houston, and Then Hide Sniper Plot Against Protest Leaders? (03/25/14) [5:49]

*DN | Ryan Shapiro: Why Did the FBI Label Ryan Shapiro's Dissertation on Animal Rights a Threat to National Security? (03/25/14) [16:20]

*TRNN | George Irvin: Has Anglo-America Capitalism Run Out of Strategies? (03/25/14) [9:42]

How Dark Money Flows Through the Koch Network
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Interactive: "How Dark Money Flows Through the Koch Network" at ProPublica website

Jon Stewart | Arianna Huffington (03/24/14) [6:27]

U.S. Military Nuclear Material Unaccounted For: Missing in Action or Just Sloppy Practices?
fas.org | Katie Colten | 03/19/14

The United States has the gold standard when it comes to accounting for fissile materials especially in the military sector. Yet, for more than 30 years, government reports have sounded the alarm that the accounting system for these materials is not adequate. The United States is still not meeting its most stringent standards. If the nuclear material accounting system is not adequate, what does it imply for nuclear-armed states that are still manufacturing and remanufacturing warheads more frequently than the United States? ...

Climate Change Dangers Here Now, Will Worsen Many Human Ills, UN Panel Warns
AP & HP |Seth Borenstein | 03/24/14

If you think of climate change as a hazard for some far-off polar bears years from now, you're mistaken. That's the message from top climate scientists gathering in Japan this week to assess the impact of global warming. In fact, they will say, the dangers of a warming Earth are immediate and very human.

... The key message from leaked drafts and interviews with the authors and other scientists: The big risks and overall effects of global warming are far more immediate and local than scientists once thought. It's not just about melting ice, threatened animals and plants. It's about the human problems of hunger, disease, drought, flooding, refugees and war, becoming worse. ... Read more

Koch Brothers Are The Largest Land Owners Of Canada's Tar Sands
thinkprogress.org/ | author | date

The Koch Brothers are known for many things -- their vast financial empire, their conservative political ideology, their active political involvement, their support of the Keystone XL pipeline -- but their Alberta, Canada land ownership has not been as widely discussed. A Washington Post feature has brought this subject back to attention as the Keystone XL debate heats up and discussion over the relationship between the Koch Brothers and their Republican allies takes on even greater significance in an important election year.

According to the Washington Post, which uses a report from the activist group the International Forum on Globalization as a foundation, a Koch Industries subsidiary holds leases on 1.1 million acres in the northern Alberta oil sands, an area nearly the size of Delaware. The Post confirmed the group's findings with Alberta Energy, the provincial government's ministry of energy. ... Read more

The biggest lease holder in Canada's oil sands isn't Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It's the Koch brothers.
WashingtonPost | Steven Mufson | 03/20/14

You might expect the biggest lease owner in Canada's oil sands, or tar sands, to be one of the international oil giants, like Exxon Mobil or Royal Dutch Shell. But that isn't the case. The biggest lease holder in the northern Alberta oil sands is a subsidiary of Koch Industries, the privately-owned cornerstone of the fortune of conservative Koch brothers Charles and David.

The Koch Industries subsidiary holds leases on 1.1 million acres -- an area nearly the size of Delaware -- in the oil sands region of Alberta, Canada, according to an activist group that studied Alberta provincial records. ... Read more

Petrodollar Alert: Putin Prepares To Announce "Holy Grail" Gas Deal With China
ZeroHedge | author | 03/21/14

While Europe is furiously scrambling to find alternative sources of energy should Gazprom pull the plug on natgas exports to Germany and Europe (the imminent surge in Ukraine gas prices by 40% is probably the best indication of what the outcome would be), Russia is preparing the announcement of the "Holy Grail" energy deal with none other than China, a move which would send geopolitical shockwaves around the world and bind the two nations in a commodity-backed axis. One which, as some especially on these pages, have suggested would lay the groundwork for a new joint, commodity-backed reserve currency that bypasses the dollar, something which Russia implied moments ago when its finance minister Siluanov said that Russia may regain from foreign borrowing this year. Translated: bypass western purchases of Russian debt, funded by Chinese purchases of US Treasurys, and go straight to the source. ... Read more

It Starts Early: Black Preschoolers Suspended at Much Higher Rate Than Whites
AlterNet | Aaron Cantú | 03/21/14

Across institutions, economic indicators and rates of crime, racial gaps abound. Now, new data from the US Department of Education reveals that unequal treatment can begin as early as preschool.

Of the 8,000 toddlers suspended from preschool in 2011--a surreal factoid in and of itself--roughly 45 percent of them were black and 26 percent were white, even though rates of enrollment were nearly the reverse. Latino children were also suspended at a higher rate to whites relative to their enrollment. ... Read more
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*Supreme Court Ruled In Favor Of The Nation's Top Corporate Interest Group In 7 Of 8 Cases This Term
thinkprogress.org | Ian Millhiser | 03/13/14

So far this term, the Supreme Court handed down eight cases where the United States Chamber of Commerce filed a brief -- and a majority of the justices sided with the Chamber in all but one of these decisions. The one outlier decision was a case involving anti-retaliation protections for whistleblowers where the justices votes broke down along unusual lines, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writing the majority opinion and Justice Sonia Sotomayor in dissent.

Read more
*TYT | Really Depressing News About The Supreme Court (03/18/14) [8:05]

*Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'?
TheGuardian | Nafeez Ahmed | 03/17/14

Our runaway consumption habits and growing inequality could lead to the collapse of Western civilization according to a new NASA-funded study written up at The Guardian's Earth Insight blog. Noting that warnings that the end is near are often "controversial" and "fringe," the interdisciplinary study looked at the factors that have caused civilizations to collapse in the past and makes a compelling argument that we may be headed in that direction.

By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilizational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy. ... Read more or here

3 Reasons Science Deniers Are Freaking Out About Neil deGrasse Tyson's "Cosmos"
AlterNet | Chris Mooney | 03/19/14

Not surprisingly, those who deny the theory of evolution were not happy with this. Indeed, the science denial crowd hasn't been happy with Cosmos in general. Here are some principal lines of attack:

watch the full episode here

Bill Moyers
progressive.org | Peter Dryer | recent

We are this close to losing democracy to the mercenary class. Last October, Bill Moyers announced that he was retiring and that his weekly show, Moyers & Company, would end January 3. Three weeks later, in response to an outpouring of e-mails, letters, and Facebook comments urging him to reconsider, Moyers recanted. He will continue to host the show. His only pushback was to recast the show from an hour to a half-hour format. ... Read more

Is Paul Ryan Racist?
Politico | Ian Haney Lopez | 03/14/14

Paul Ryan triggered a firestorm of recrimination this week. Speaking recently on Bill Bennett's Morning in America radio program, the Wisconsin Republican and self-styled budget wonk linked poverty to "this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work."

Setting aside the factual claim -- the notion that poverty is especially concentrated in America's inner cities is an increasingly antiquated one -- these comments elicited a quick and forceful rebuke from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who decried them as "a thinly veiled racial attack." She explained: "[W]hen Mr. Ryan says 'inner city,' when he says, 'culture,' these are simply code words for what he really means: 'black.'" ... Read more

Meet Paul Ryan's 'Inner City Expert' Who Claims Blacks and Latinos Have Lower IQs
AlterNet | Joan Walsh | 03/18/14

Charles Murray says it's not racist to suggest that some ethnic groups are genetically inferior to others.article

I should no longer be shocked at the intellectual dishonesty of Charles Murray, but I am. On Tuesday Murray made a brief reply to his critics, most notably Paul Krugman, who have accused Murray of racism for much of his work, but especially his 1994 book, "The Bell Curve." Murray rejoined the news cycle last week, when Rep. Paul Ryan cited him as an expert on poverty and the troubles of "inner city" men, who, in Ryan's words, are "not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work." ... Read more

*Why 'Paid-What-You're-Worth' Is a Toxic Myth
AlterNet | Robert Reich | 03/17/14

It's often assumed that people are paid what they're worth. According to this logic, minimum wage workers aren't worth more than the $7.25 an hour they now receive. If they were worth more, they'd earn more. Any attempt to force employers to pay them more will only kill jobs.

According to this same logic, CEOs of big companies are worth their giant compensation packages, now averaging 300 times pay of the typical American worker. They must be worth it or they wouldn't be paid this much. Any attempt to limit their pay is fruitless because their pay will only take some other form.

"Paid-what-you're-worth" is a dangerous myth. Fifty years ago, when General Motors was the largest employer in America, the typical GM worker got paid $35 an hour in today's dollars. Today, America's largest employer is Walmart, and the typical Walmart workers earns $8.80 an hour.

Does this mean the typical GM employee a half-century ago was worth four times what today's typical Walmart employee is worth? Not at all. Yes, that GM worker helped produce cars rather than retail sales. But he wasn't much better educated or even that much more productive. He often hadn't graduated from high school. And he worked on a slow-moving assembly line. ... Read more

*Science Deniers Are Freaking Out About "Cosmos"
MotherJones | Chris Mooney | 03/17/14

If you think the first episode of the new Fox Cosmos series was controversial (with its relatively minor mentions of climate change, evolution, and the Big Bang), Sunday night's show threw down the gauntlet. Pretty much the entire episode was devoted to the topic of evolution, and the vast profusion of evidence (especially genetic evidence) showing that it is indeed the explanation behind all life on Earth. At one point, host Neil deGrasse Tyson stated it as plainly as you possibly can: "The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact." ... Read more

*Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Part 1 [hr]

*Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Part 2 [hr]

The NSA's Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program
firstlook.org/theintercept/ | Jeremy Scahill | 02/10/14

According to a former drone operator for the military's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target's identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.

The drone operator, who agreed to discuss the top-secret programs on the condition of anonymity, was a member of JSOC's High Value Targeting task force, which is charged with identifying, capturing or killing terrorist suspects in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and elsewhere. ... Read more

New York Attorney General Is Investigating High-Speed Trading: Bloomberg
HP & Reuters | author | 03/18/14

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating whether U.S. stock exchanges and alternative trading venues provide improper advantages to high-frequency traders, Bloomberg reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Schneiderman's office is examining the sale of products and services that offer faster access to data and richer information on trades than what is typically available to the public, the report said. ... Read more

*HOW CORPORATIONS ARE THE BIGGEST TAX DODGERS
progressive.org | author | 03/17/14

The term "corporate social responsibility" is fast becoming an oxymoron. A new report on how little big companies pay in taxes is further proof. "A comprehensive, five-year study of 288 profitable Fortune 500 companies finds that twenty-six paid no federal corporate income tax over the five-year period; 111 paid no federal corporate income tax in at least one of the last five years, and one-third paid a U.S. tax rate less than 10 percent over the same period," says a recent study by Citizens for Tax Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based group. Among the companies that paid not a single penny over five years, despite making huge profits, are household names such as Boeing, General Electric, Priceline.com, and Verizon. ... Read more
*TYT | Corporate Taxes HUGE Under Obama, Right? Wrong, Here Are The Facts (03/16/14) [6:28]

Feinstein accuses CIA of spying on Senate panel as dispute escalates
mcclatchy |Ken Dilanian | 03/13/14

Feinstein also sharply criticized the CIA's acting general counsel, Robert Eatinger, who she said had alleged to the Justice Department that Senate staffers may have committed a crime.

Without naming Eatinger, she said the acting general counsel had been a lawyer in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, which managed and carried out the interrogation program from mid-2004 until it officially ended in January 2009.

"He is mentioned by name more than 1,600 times in our study," Feinstein said.

"And now this individual is sending a crimes report to the Department of Justice on the actions of congressional staff - the same congressional staff who researched and drafted a report that details how CIA officers - including the acting general counsel himself - provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice about the program." ... Read more

9 Facts About Factory Farming That Will Break Your Heart
HP | author | 03/17/14

On the surface, a package of small-farm, grass-fed beef may look entirely identical to a packet of generically-raised beef. Both are wrapped with cellophane and snugly stacked in the open meat fridge, labeled with the price, cut and weight of the meat. But these packages likely have drastically different backstories. Ninety-nine percent of the meat in the US comes from factory farms, a large-scale production that is more akin to a cracker factory than the rolling, green livestock farms you see in the movies.

Factory farms dominate the meat industry, thanks to a focus on efficiency and profits above all else. Although many individual farmers follow humane practices, these large-scale operations not only cause severe distress for the animals that live there, but create a product that is riddled with chemicals, antibiotics, and yes, sometimes disease. ... Read more
For more startling videos look at the following

GM Recalls Another 1.5 Million Cars; Halts Sales Until "Solution" Completed
ZeroHedge | author |03/17/14

General Motors is in trouble. On the heels of a 1.3 million car recall over fault ignition switches (that allegedly caused 12 deaths and could have been fixed with a $1 part), the bailed-out car maker has announced it will take a $300 million charge in Q1 to cover costs associated with this and 3 new recalls covering an additional 1.5 million cars. As Reuters reports, unsold vehicles will be placed on a stop-delivery until development of a solution has been completed. Why is this such a problem? Because GM's channel-stuffed dealer inventory is already at all-time record highs as the entire industry projected the sales to continue ad infinitum and inventory-to-sales surged to near-record highs. ... Read more

Wall Street Plays 2016 Dating Game as Christie Stumbles
Bloomberg | Max Abelson | 03/12/14

Billionaire Wilbur Ross invited Paul Ryan over for lunch. Goldman Sachs (GS) Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) bankers met with Rand Paul at a fundraiser in Atlanta. Investor Rob Arnott dropped in on Ted Cruz.

Wall Street Republicans have begun their White House dance less than halfway into a second Barack Obama term they tried to prevent with record donations to Mitt Romney. As investigations slow Chris Christie, whose backers have included a troop of billionaires, donors are looking for a candidate who can replace the constraints they detest with appreciation they think is due. ... Read more

*How the NSA Plans to Infect 'Millions' of Computers with Malware
firstlook.org/theintercept/ | Ryan Gallagher | 03/12/14

... The NSA began rapidly escalating its hacking efforts a decade ago. In 2004, according to secret internal records, the agency was managing a small network of only 100 to 150 implants. But over the next six to eight years, as an elite unit called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) recruited new hackers and developed new malware tools, the number of implants soared to tens of thousands.

To penetrate foreign computer networks and monitor communications that it did not have access to through other means, the NSA wanted to go beyond the limits of traditional signals intelligence, or SIGINT, the agency's term for the interception of electronic communications. Instead, it sought to broaden "active" surveillance methods -- tactics designed to directly infiltrate a target's computers or network devices. ... Read more

Complete Breakdown Of Financial Controls In US Government, Says Austin Fitts
ZeroHedge | author |03/13/14

Former HUD Assistant Housing Secretary and investment advisor Catherine Austin Fitts reveals her thoughts on the ever-rising debt ceiling… what Obamacare is really about (and that's not socialized healthcare)… why over $4 trillion missing from federal programs may not be incompetence, but a covert strategy…

"Well, you have a complete breakdown of internal financial controls in the US government. … You had over $4 trillion of what is called undocumentable adjustments and to this day, [these agencies] have never, as required by law, produced audited financial statements." "In my experience, government is not incompetent at all. … Gridlock is a cover story, incompetence is a cover story. There is a plan, you just can't see what it is." ... Read more
podcast audio below [20:00] (no video)

How the NSA Plans to Infect 'Millions' of Computers with Malware
The Intercept | Ryan Gallagher & Glenn Greenwald | 03/12/14

The classified files -- provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden -- contain new details about groundbreaking surveillance technology the agency has developed to infect potentially millions of computers worldwide with malware "implants." The clandestine initiative enables the NSA to break into targeted computers and to siphon out data from foreign Internet and phone networks.

The covert infrastructure that supports the hacking efforts operates from the agency's headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, and from eavesdropping bases in the United Kingdom and Japan. GCHQ, the British intelligence agency, appears to have played an integral role in helping to develop the implants tactic. ... Read more

*There's Something Very Wrong with the Official Story About the Boston Bombings
AlterNet | Russ Baker |03/11/14

An exclusive WhoWhatWhy investigation has found serious factual inconsistencies in accounts provided by the only witness to the alleged confession of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.

Why does this matter? Because this witness is the sole source for the entire publicly accepted narrative of who was behind the bombing and its aftermath -- and why these events occurred. ...

... Thus, the problems we have uncovered with the witness's testimony (as represented by law enforcement) now raise questions about almost everything concerning what has been described as the largest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. ... Read more

The Most Evil And Disturbing NSA Spy Practices To-Date Have Just Been Revealed
ZeroHedge | author | 03/12/14

In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target's computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer's microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites

The man-in-the-middle tactic can be used, for instance, to covertly change the content of a message as it is being sent between two people, without either knowing that any change has been made by a third party. From Glenn Greenwald's latest article: How the NSA Plans to Infect Millions of Computers with Malware. ... Read more

Ohio Fracking Operation Halted Following Area Earthquakes
HP | Hunter Stuart | 03/12/14

A series of earthquakes in Ohio has led officials to order a local fracking operation to halt while state inspectors investigate whether the drilling is linked to the tremors. Five earthquakes were felt by residents of Mahoning County in northeastern Ohio on Monday and Tuesday, bringing the total number of area earthquakes in the past several days to 11, local paper the Tribune Chronicle reports.

The U.S. Geological Survey pinpointed the epicenters of some of these quakes to be in the vicinity of seven oil and gas production wells in Poland Township, Ohio, that are owned by Houston-based company Hilcorp Energy, according to the Business Journal Daily. ... Read more

Senators Okay With Spying On Citizens, But Outraged It Happened To Congress
HP | Sabrina Siddiqui | 03/11/14

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a staunch defender of government surveillance of ordinary citizens, took to the Senate floor Tuesday with the stunning accusation that the Central Intelligence Agency may have violated federal law to spy on Congress.

Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, railed against the CIA for compromising the legislative branch's oversight role -- a theme echoed by many of her Senate colleagues throughout the day. The outrage was palpable among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and some suggested CIA Director John Brennan should resign if the allegations are true. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has stuck up for intelligence agencies in the past, declared a potential war. ... Read more

Report on CIA Black Sites and Torture May Provoke a Constitutional Crisis
Bill Moyers | Joshua Holland | 03/11/14

On Tuesday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) accused the Central Intelligence Agency of violating federal law and undermining Congress' constitutional oversight powers. She alleges that CIA officials monitored secure computers used by Capitol Hill staffers to prepare a report that reveals the agency's Bush era legacy of black detention sites and enhanced interrogation programs -- methods many have denounced as torture.

This is the latest development in a long-standing feud between the intelligence agency and Congress. Wrangling over the report, which runs over six thousand pages and cost the government $42 million to prepare, has led to what some are calling a "constitutional crisis." ... Read more

Our Chat With Edward Snowden's Legal Counsel
Bill Moyers | Michael Winship | 03/11/14

On Monday, via teleconference, whistleblower Edward Snowden addressed a crowd at SXSW, the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. Speaking from Russia, it was Snowden's first public address to people in the United States since he fled the country last June and the revelation that he possessed thousands of secret documents obtained while a subcontractor with the National Security Agency (NSA). Reporting based on those leaked documents has made headlines around the world, revealing a depth of government mass surveillance heretofore denied by official Washington. ... Read more

Osteen's Lakewood Church Suffers Theft Of Over $600,000, Shocking Texas Megachurch
magazine | author | date

The safe of Lakewood Church in Houston, Tex., was burgled on Sunday, to the tune of over $600,000 in cash, checks, and credit card information, reports The Chronicle. Joel and Victoria Osteen discovered the theft on Monday, and informed churchgoers of the burglary via email. Funds contributed on March 8 and 9 were taken. ... Read more

Pacific Ocean Earthquake Recorded 50 Miles Off The Coast Of Northern California
HP & AP | author | 03/10/14

A strong earthquake was recorded at 9:18 p.m. PDT on Sunday night in the Pacific Ocean near northern California, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The 6.9-magnitude temblor hit about 50 miles west of Eureka, Calif., at a depth of 4.3 miles. ...

... "This lasted longer than any earthquake I've ever felt," Raquel Maytorena, 52, who lives about a mile from the coast in Ferndale near Eureka, told The Los Angeles Times. "It just kept going and going, very slowly and softly. It was not violent. It almost felt like you were in a boat that was rocking." ... Read more

Democrats Clock All-Nighter With Talk Of Climate Crisis
magazine | Donna Cassata | 03/11/14

Democratic senators clocked an all-nighter, working in shifts into Tuesday morning to warn of the devastation from climate change and the danger of inaction.

Addressing a nearly empty chamber and visitor gallery, more than two dozen speakers agreed with each other about the need to act on climate change. Naysayers -- Republicans -- largely stayed away, arguing hours earlier that regulation would cost Americans jobs in a sluggish economy. ... Read more

Ukraine: A Geopolitical Choke Point
ZeroHedge | author | 03/10/14

In trying to put the fast-moving events in Ukraine in perspective, we are equally prone to lose our way in simplistic reductions or obfuscating complexities. Many commentators reduce the many dynamics in play to a conventional binary conflict: Russia vs. the U.S. (Cold War redux), Russia vs. Europe, neo-fascist nationalists vs. leftists, western Ukraine vs. eastern Ukraine, etc.

UKRAINE: Energy, Economic & Military Choke Point (03/04/14) [21:42]

Detroit Suburbs Devise Ways to Dodge Takeovers as Decay Widens
Bloomberg | Chris Christoff | 03/10/14

Sandwiched between bankrupt Detroit and two foundering cities that fell under state control, Lincoln Park is trying to avoid the same fate.

The bungalow suburb of 37,000 residents asked Michigan for a review of its finances, which are so shaky that it diverted $2.5 million to pensions from a water and sewer account. The audit, due by April 11, could prompt Governor Rick Snyder to appoint an emergency manager -- a fate the town wants to avoid. ... Read more

Conservative group Alec trains sights on city and local government
TheGuardian | Ed Pilkington | 03/06/14

The rightwing group Alec is preparing to launch a new nationwide network that will seek to replicate its current influence within state legislatures in city councils and municipalities.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, founded in 1973, has become one of the most pervasive advocacy operations in the nation. It brings elected officials together with representatives of major corporations, giving those companies a direct channel into legislation in the form of Alec "model bills". ... "stand-your-ground" laws, being one of them ... Read more

Exploring a 'Deep Web' That Google Can't Grasp
NYTimes | Alex Wright | 02/22/08

One day last summer, Google's search engine trundled quietly past a milestone. It added the one trillionth address to the list of Web pages it knows about. But as impossibly big as that number may seem, it represents only a fraction of the entire Web.

Beyond those trillion pages lies an even vaster Web of hidden data: financial information, shopping catalogs, flight schedules, medical research and all kinds of other material stored in databases that remain largely invisible to search engines. ... Read more

Tor Browser (Project)

The Ultimate Guide To The Deep Web
sickchirpse.com | author | 09/10/13

There's a part of the internet known as the deep web. The deep web is called the deep web because of its massive size, it's literally 'deep'. According to The Guardian, you can only access 0.03% of the internet via search engines like Google and the rest is what makes up the deep web. The deep web is truly anonymous -- you can't even get on it unless you yourself are anonymous.

You can't just access the deep web from a normal web browser -- like Firefox for example -- you can only access the deep web through a deep web browser. The most famous of these deep web browsers is called Tor and this is the one we recommend you get if you're looking to get onto the deep web. ... Read more

the Hidden Wiki.net
thehiddenwiki.net | author | website

For many who do not know, the deep web is a tremendous section of the world wide web that isn't accessible via regular queries through yahoo, google or various other search engines.

Doing a search online these days can be compared to pulling a net across the surface of the sea. Even though a large amount may possibly be captured in this net, there's still a great deal of info which is deep, and for that reason,it will be missed. ...

Climate buffoons' real motives: 5 reasons they still spout debunked garbage
Salon | Lindsay Abrams | 03/06/14

The overwhelming majority of Americans, and nearly all scientists, believe that climate change is real and caused by human activity. Yet some very loud, very wrong people continue to insist otherwise. The drought and the floods have both become excuses to debate whether climate change was responsible, and from there, to question the legitimacy of climate science. The heat wave Down Under was ignored in favor of the United States' chilly weather -- and yet, per Rush Limbaugh, the polar vortex itself was a "hoax" created by the left. In the wise words of Pat Robertson, it's "idiocy" to believe in global warming because it's cold outside. ...

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, March 07 [15:05]

Note: more interviews can be found
under the The Real News button

Tor Browser Tutorial [6:32]

Climatologist Who Predicted California Drought 10 Years Ago Says It May Soon Be 'Even More Dire'
thinkprogress.org | Joe Romm | 03/07/14

... First, though, as I've reported, scientists a decade ago not only predicted the loss of Arctic ice would dry out California, they also precisely predicted the specific, unprecedented change in the jet stream that has in fact caused the unprecedented nature of the California drought. Study co-author, Prof. Lisa Sloan, told me last week that, "I think the actual situation in the next few decades could be even more dire that our study suggested."

"Where the sea ice is reduced, heat transfer from the ocean warms the atmosphere, resulting in a rising column of relatively warm air," Sewall said. "The shift in storm tracks over North America was linked to the formation of these columns of warmer air over areas of reduced sea ice." In January, Sewall wrote me that "both the pattern and even the magnitude of the anomaly looks very similar to what the models predicted in the 2005 study. ... Read more

New Government Report Warns of 'Cascading System Failures' Caused By Climate Change
HP | Kate Sheppard | 03/06/14

From roads and bridges to power plants and gas pipelines, American infrastructure is vulnerable to the effects of climate change, according to a pair of government reports released Thursday.

The reports are technical documents supporting the National Climate Assessment, a major review compiled by 13 government agencies that the U.S. Global Change Research Program is expected to release in April. Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory put together the reports, which warn that climate-fueled storms, flooding and droughts could cause "cascading system failures" unless there are changes made to minimize those effects. Island Press has published the full-length version of the reports, which focus on energy and infrastructure more broadly. ... Read more

The Propaganda and Nonsense Masking America's Noxious Role in the World
AlterNet | Patrick Smith | 03/06/14

“You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext.” Thus spoke Secretary of State John Kerry on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday, just as Russia took control of Crimea in the latest escalation of the Ukraine crisis.

This extraordinary remark appears to have gone briefly viral. And surely I am not alone in requiring time to recover from the sheer ignorance and presumption of it. Ignorant because even by the standards at State, where the past must evaporate on an almost daily basis, it is hypocrisy unlimited on the very face of it. Presumptuous because it implies a degree of stupidity among us that not even P.T. Barnum would dare take for granted. ... Read more

Cutting Through Fukushima Fog: Radiation in US?
Truthout | Bernard Weiner | 03/03/14

Governments cite "national security" concerns and "official secrets" as their justification for withholding information from the public. Corporations rationalize their secrecy behind concerns about "patent infringement," shielding their trademarked "proprietary" secrets from competitors. But most of the time, such obfuscation is really derived from the time-honored villains of systemic corruption and what is politely known as CYA in military and bureaucratic slang. Which brings us to Fukushima.

From the very beginning of this catastrophic emergency -- the earthquake/tsunami off the Japanese coast in March of 2011, when nuclear reactors at a power plant were flooded and then exploded and began their meltdowns -- the public in Japan and around the world have not been told the full story of what's been happening at the Dai-ichi nuclear-power plant in Fukushima province. ... Read more

A Healthy Economy Requires Fewer People Working on Wall Street, Making Much Less Money
AlterNet | Les Leopold | 03/05/14

"I wish someone would give me one shred of neutral evidence that financial innovation has led to economic growth -- one shred of evidence." -- Paul Volker (2009)

... Check out this chart: Between WWII and 1980, the wages of financial workers were the same as those who worked in non-financial industries. Then the two lines split apart with Wall Street extracting an enormous premium. Do the financiers deserve it? And how would we know if they do or don't? The answer should depend on how much value the financial sector, in fact, produces for our economy. Is there a correlation between the explosion in Wall Street incomes and economic growth? ... Read more

Wall Street Has Found Its Latest Dangerous Financial Product, Activists Warn
HP | Ben Hallman | 03/04/14

Housing and consumer activists warn that Wall Street is about to crash the housing market -- again. The activists said they are particularly concerned about the growing number of companies looking to issue bonds backed by rental properties -- bonds that a coalition of groups described as "eerily like" those mortgage-backed securities that helped fuel the last housing bubble.

"We are poised to experience another crisis if federal regulators fail to recognize and take corrective action to address red flags that are all too familiar," more than 75 housing and consumer groups wrote in a letter Tuesday to federal bank and housing regulators. ... Read more

Breaking News in Moscow
Slate | Christian Caryl | 03/06/14

The bizarre, mixed-up world Russians see when they watch the latest news on Crimea.

Another day of crisis in Ukraine, another day of Vesti, one of the flagship news programs on Russian state TV. Wednesday's broadcast led off with a report from the newborn "Autonomous Republic of Crimea," where, as the voice-over intones, "state institutions are rapidly taking shape." The new republic's armed forces and the new border guard service (who are both equipped and uniformed exactly like Russia's) are getting down to work. All this is happening, apparently, entirely spontaneously--there's nary a mention of the involvement of Russian troops or officials. All is calm in Crimea, apparently: As the camera pans over tidy buildings and happy passersby in the capital of Simferopol, the commentator is at pains to contrast the scene with the burnt-out buildings and smoldering barricades in Kiev.

Next there's footage of Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Kiev, where, we're told, "The United States is unreservedly supporting those who came to power through a coup." After Kerry's meeting with the leaders of Ukraine's interim government, we see him shaking hands with leaders of the Euromaidan protest movement; the commentator pointedly notes that Kerry's encounter with these "ultrarightists" is even "friendlier" than his session with the representatives of the government. ... Read more

U.S. Provokes Russia, Acts Surprised to Get Nasty Reaction
AlterNet | William Boardman | 03/06/14

If too many people get sucked in by the current, distorted media coverage of events unfolding now in Ukraine, then there's a good chance life will get very ugly for a lot of innocent people, since one of the logical end points is the use of nuclear weapons. Everyone in power knows that's a potential reality, but the urge to demagogue the Russians is presently overwhelming honesty and caution.

Ukraine is NOT a real place. Ukraine has never been a real place, not in the sense that Madascar or Cuba are both undeniably real places with real edges. Ukraine has no real edges, just lines on a map imposed by some treaty or army over the past several thousand years. To speak, as the more pompous do, of Ukraine's "territorial integrity" is to speak of an imaginary construct, useful for blurring people's minds for political purposes.

Ukraine in recent years has been what the power brokers of the disintegrating Soviet Union decided to let it be in 1991. Ukraine has no coherent history as a nation. First inhabited some 44,000 years ago, most of the region's history is as occupied territory. ... Read more

Russia Unlikely To Pull Back In Crimea, Analysts Say
HP & AP | Julie Pace | 03/05/14

Russia is unlikely to pull back its military forces in Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, analysts and former Obama administration officials say, forcing the United States and Europe into a more limited strategy of trying to prevent President Vladimir Putin from making advances elsewhere in the former Soviet republic.

It's an unsettling scenario for President Barack Obama, who is under pressure to show he has leverage over Putin in a deepening conflict between East and West. The threat of economic sanctions, along with a series of modest measures that include canceling trade talks with Moscow and suspending plans to attend an international summit in Russia, have so far done little to persuade the Russian leader to pull his forces back from Crimea. ... Read more

Bernanke Finally Reveals, In One Word, Why The Financial System Crashed
ZeroHedge | author | 03/04/14

Now that Ben Bernanke is no longer the head of the Fed, he can finally tell the truth about what caused the financial crash. At least that's what a packed auditorium of over 1000 people as part of the financial conference staged by National Bank of Abu Dhabi, the UAE's largest bank, was hoping for earlier today when they paid an exorbitant amount of money to hear the former chairman talk (Bernanke received at least $250,000 for his appearance, or in other words, more than he was paid for one full year as Fed chairman.).

... "Overconfidence." "This is going to sound very obvious but the first thing we learned is that the U.S. is not invulnerable to financial crises," Bernanke said. ... Read more

*Acidic ocean deadly for Vancouver Island scallop industry
cbc.ca | author | 02/26/14

The deteriorating health of B.C.'s oceans is impacting not only the province's marine life, but also its economy. Millions of shellfish are dying off before they can be harvested at Island Scallops, near Parksville, B.C., due to increased acidity levels in the ocean.

One-third of the workforce at Island Scallops -- 20 people -- are being laid off because the business has lost more than 10 million scallops before they were able to reach maturity since 2009. ... Read more

*The U.S. Military is the largest single consumer of energy on the planet
askville.amazon.com/ | author | older, but good facts

As the saying goes, facts are many but the truth is one. The truth is that the U.S. military is the single largest consumer of energy in the world. But as a wise man once said, don't confuse facts with reality. The reality is that even U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) does not know precisely where and how much energy it consumes.

Ukraine Conflict: Vladimir Putin Said He Hopes Russia Won't Have To Use Force In Ukraine
HP | author | 03/04/14

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow reserves the right to use all means to protect Russians in Ukraine, but hopes Russia won't have to use force. "If I decide to use armed forces it will be in line with international law," Putin said.

During a news conference on Tuesday, Putin described the recent turmoil in Ukraine as an anti-constitutional coup, and said that while the Ukrainian parliament was legitimate, acting President Olexander Turchynov was not. Putin also noted that if Ukraine holds new elections, the results will not be acknowledged by Russia. ... Read more

*Just 90 Companies Caused Two-Thirds of Man-Made Global Warming Emissions
MotherJones & The Guardian | Suzanne Goldenberg | 2013 older

The climate crisis of the 21st century has been caused largely by just 90 companies, which between them produced nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions generated since the dawning of the industrial age, new research suggests.

... "There are thousands of oil, gas, and coal producers in the world," climate researcher and author Richard Heede at the Climate Accountability Institute in Colorado said. "But the decision makers, the CEOs, or the ministers of coal and oil if you narrow it down to just one person, they could all fit on a Greyhound bus or two." .. Read more
Click picture to go to interactive graph

Rush Limbaugh: "12 Years a Slave" only won because of its title
Salon | Elias Isquith | 03/03/14

What is wrong with this guy????

Speaking on his radio show on Monday, right-wing pundit and provocateur extraordinaire Rush Limbaugh informed his audience that there was never any chance of "12 Years a Slave" not winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. Why? Because the film's title, according to Limbaugh, had that "magic word": slave. ... Read more

Wall Street Has Found Its Latest Dangerous Financial Product, Activists Warn
HP | Ben Hallman | 03/04/14

Housing and consumer activists warn that Wall Street is about to crash the housing market -- again. The activists said they are particularly concerned about the growing number of companies looking to issue bonds backed by rental properties -- bonds that a coalition of groups described as "eerily like" those mortgage-backed securities that helped fuel the last housing bubble.

"We are poised to experience another crisis if federal regulators fail to recognize and take corrective action to address red flags that are all too familiar," more than 75 housing and consumer groups wrote in a letter Tuesday to federal bank and housing regulators. ... Read more

*Steve McQueen Dedicated His "12 Years a Slave" Best Pic Oscar to Victims of Modern-Day Slavery
MotherJones | Asawin Suebsaeng | 03/02/14

The powerful drama 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture at the 2014 Academy Awards. During his acceptance speech, director Steve McQueen dedicated the award to the tens of millions of people still in slavery today:

Everyone deserves not just to survive, but to live. This is the most important legacy of Solomon Northup. I dedicate this award to all the people who have endured slavery, and the 21 million people who still suffer slavery today. Read more
Steve McQueen Dedicated His "12 Years a Slave" Best Pic Oscar to Victims of Modern-Day Slavery (03/02/14) [2:45]

Oscar Nominee Lupita Nyong'o Speech on Beauty (03/01/14) [4:54]

*Former Central Banker Admits "[They] Are Making It Up As They Go Along"
ZeroHedge | author | 03/03/14

A few weeks ago, William White (former economist at the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada, and Bank of International Settlements) made a frank admission.

"The analytical underpinnings of what we [mainstream economists] do are actually pretty shaky...I'm becoming more and more convinced that all of the models we use are basically useless... We've got the potential to do so much harm by not getting the creation of fiat credit and money right." Doctors at least have the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm. If only economists and central bankers had a similar ethic. But they don't. So they continue 'making it up as they go along', as Mr. White suggests, applying failed ideas with impunity and continued authority to an unquestioning public. ... Read more

Presenting the US car market this cold, stormy winter day:"