Home · News · News Sep 2014 · Sep 09 2014
Tuesday September 09, 2014
News Articles

Photos Capture Amazon Tribe As They Beat And Strip Illegal Loggers
HP | author | 09/08/14

This is not a bad way of solving disputes. Maybe we should give Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld some sticks and let then chase after ISIS.
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Noam Chomsky: The Real Reason Israel "Mows the Lawn" in Gaza
AlterNet & TomDispatch.com | Noam Chomsky | 09/09/14

Like other states, Israel pleads "security" as justification for its aggressive and violent actions. But knowledgeable Israelis know better.

On August 26th, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) both accepted a ceasefire agreement after a 50-day Israeli assault on Gaza that left 2,100 Palestinians dead and vast landscapes of destruction behind. The agreement calls for an end to military action by both Israel and Hamas, as well as an easing of the Israeli siege that has strangled Gaza for many years.

This is, however, just the most recent of a series of ceasefire agreements reached after each of Israel's periodic escalations of its unremitting assault on Gaza. Throughout this period, the terms of these agreements remain essentially the same. The regular pattern is for Israel, then, to disregard whatever agreement is in place, while Hamas observes it -- as Israel has officially recognized -- until a sharp increase in Israeli violence elicits a Hamas response, followed by even fiercer brutality. These escalations, which amount to shooting fish in a pond, are called "mowing the lawn" in Israeli parlance. The most recent was more accurately described as "removing the topsoil" by a senior U.S. military officer, appalled by the practices of the self-described "most moral army in the world." ... Read more

Chomsky: U.S. Plunges the Cradle of Civilization into Disaster, While Its Oil-Based Empire Destroys the Earth's Climate.

Hustle and Flow: Here's Who Really Controls California's Water
MotherJones | author | date

"Water flows uphill towards money," a source told Marc Reisner in Cadillac Desert, the seminal book on California water politics. Today the complex web of political interests that Reisner detailed some 30 years ago has become even more arcane and intertwined. As California confronts its worst drought in years, these power brokers will largely determine who gets water, and who gets left high and dry:

DIANNE FEINSTEIN: The chair of the powerful energy and water panel of the Senate Appropriations Committee has a history of siding with the state's agricultural interests, which use 80 percent of the state's water. In a March email to two Cabinet secretaries, Feinstein joined Republicans in urging federal water officials to capture "the maximum amount of water" from the Sacramento San Joaquin River Delta for farmers. Two months later, she pushed a drought bill through the Senate by a unanimous vote, over the objections of environmentalists who said it would open the door to permanently increasing water allocations to farmers at the expense of endangered fish. Environmental groups "have never been helpful to me in producing good water policy," she later told the San Francisco Chronicle. She is now hammering out a compromise bill with House Republicans who want to do even more to gut endangered species laws. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, September 09 [7:29]
DN | The Climate Change Defense? Citing Global Warming, DA Drops Charges Against Anti-Coal Activists (09/09/14) [3:06]
John Oliver
*HBO | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Student Debt (09/07/14) [16:16]
BraveNewFilms | Bad Paper (05/22/14) [7:26]
Marine Corps veteran Josh Christmon earned a Purple Heart from his service in Iraq, where a close encounter with a roadside explosion nearly killed him. He suffered back problems and leg injuries, along with many of the classic symptoms of PTSD.

Josh's bad dreams followed him back home. Alcohol seemed as good a way to forget as anything, so one night, he went out for drinks. He was also offered a joint. Josh took two puffs. A week later, he failed a random drug test at work, and days after that, he was less-than-honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, losing all of his veterans benefits, including his medical care.

Fortunately for Josh and other veterans, there are organizations like Swords to Plowshares (http://www.swords-to-plowshares.org/) that are fighting to restore their lost benefits, but it shouldn't be this way in the first place.
BraveNewFilms | CIA Director John Brennan Lies His Ass Off (08/19/14) [1:18]
*BraveNewFilms | F35, The jet that ate the Pentagon (older, but good 02/03/14) [8:18]
At least $8 billion of the Pentagon's budget for 2015 is devoted to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Already on track to be the most expensive weapon system in history, the F-35 is becoming a black hole in the Pentagon budget.
Click to zoom - for Infographics
Promising the sky: Pork Barrel Politics and the F-35 Combat Aircraft.pdf
WarCosts.com
F35 is a Bad Deal
TRNN | Michael Ratner: Will the Palestinian Authority join the ICC despite intimidation? (09/09/14) [15:17]
TRNN | Bill Black discusses the significance of a new lawsuit against Evans Bancorp that alleges the bank would not give loans to black neighborhoods (09/07/14) [6:26]
TRNN | Bill Black says Ecuador's plan is supposed to provide bank services to rural communities through mobile phones (09/08/14) [10:06]
Ring of Fire
RoF | Ring of Fire (full) (09/07/14) [57:00]
  1. 04:22 - "The Next Foreclosure Nightmare is Here." Michael Burg tells us what states are doing to prevent the foreclosure nightmare that is right around the corner. #ForeclosureNightmare
  2. 14:11 - Can Liberalism Replace Secularism?" Journalist CJ Werleman explains the connection between the prosperity of liberalism and secularism. #FreedomFromReligion
  3. 23:02 - "Far Right Groups Pose Serious Security Threats." Howard Nations tells us why the FBI is more concerned about the threats of the sovereign citizen movement than they are from al Qaeda. #FarRightTerrorism
  4. 34:04 - "GOP Boys' Club Doesn't Understand Women." Author Nancy Cohen explains why the Republican Party can't seem to understand why women can't stand the GOP. #GOPBoysClub
  5. 40:57 - "The Economics of Revolution." Interview with David DeGraw.
*RoF | Warhawks A More Serious Threat Than ISIS (09/08/14) [3:33]
*RoF | Charter School Fraud Gone Wild (09/08/14) [9:21]
The F-35 Is Unaffordable
The F-35 Is Unaffordable, And There Are Alternatives

    By the dollars:
  1. $39.1 billion - amount spent on RDT&E that was never in the Pentagon's original program costs for the F-35. In large part, that money went to contractors for additional research and several rounds of redevelopment when the contractors failed to meet the F-35 goals set by the Pentagon.

  2. It doesn't appear that the Pentagon ever penalized the contractors for those failures.

  3. $27 billion -- how much the Department of the Navy will spend between now and fiscal year (FY) 2019 on the F-35, roughly the same as the cost to complete the purchase of the entire remaining identified requirements for the V-22 and the P-8.
  4. $6.3 billion -- amount being spent on FY15 procurement for a single aircraft program. Of the total Pentagon FY15 procurement request of $90.6 billion, this accounts for just under seven percent of the entire Pentagon unclassified procurement request.
  5. $4.2 billion -- cost of all currently planned modernization for the F-22, the F-15 and the F-16 over many years. This is well within the more than $4.6 billion the Air Force is asking Congress to devote to procurement and research and development of the F-35 in just the coming fiscal year.
  6. $564 million - Total cost for 8 Super Hornets. The Department of the Navy FY15 request is for 2 F-35Cs for the Navy and 6 F-35Bs for the Marines. The Department could save a lot of money by purchasing Super Hornets rather than either variant of the F-35.

By the percentages:
  1. 110% -- How much of its future tactical aircraft modernization plan the Air Force could purchase with just this year's F-35A procurement line.
  2. 100% -- How much of the Air Force's FY15 Combat Aircraft request is devoted to the F-35A.
  3. 80% -- A new F-16 is at least 80% cheaper than the Air Force's stated list price for an F-35A and the F-15 won't require additional infrastructure training.
  4. 60% -- A new F-15E is roughly 60% of the stated list price for an F-35A.
  5. 23% -- How much of the Department of the Navy's Combat Aircraft request is devoted to the F-35B and F-35C.

The United States enjoys by far the greatest air superiority in the world. The wide range of aircraft employed by the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marines performs at least nine different missions: (1)air-to-surface, (2)air-to-air, (3)Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), (4)Command and Control, (5)Electronic Attack, (6)Tanking, (7)Airlift, (8)Combat Search and Rescue and (9)Global Strike. The F-35 is proposed to fulfill all of those except tanking, airlift, combat search and rescue and some aspects of global strike.
War Profeteering
Thom Hartmann | War Costs - Exposing America's War Profiteers (older) [9:00]

09.09.2014. 12:38



Special Interest Important stuff
GOOD Shorts Videos

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Newer Documentaries You Might Not Have Seen

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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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