Central and Eastern U.S. states preparing to be hit with an early 'Polar Vortex'

SOTT | Nov 6, 2014 | Alex Sosnowski

The atmosphere is preparing to send part of the polar vortex southward toward the United States next week with an outbreak of arctic air and lake-effect snow.

The polar vortex is a large pocket of very cold air, typically the coldest air in the Northern Hemisphere, which sits over the polar region. Occasionally, this pocket of very cold air can get dislodged farther south than normal, leading to cold outbreaks in Canada and the U.S.

The main blast of cold air associated with the plunging polar vortex will swing southeastward into the Central and Eastern states spanning Sunday, Nov. 9, to Friday, Nov. 14, 2014. According to AccuWeather Long Range Expert Paul Pastelok, "Areas from the northern and central Plains to the Great Lakes, the upper Gulf Coast and the Appalachians will feel significant impact from the arctic outbreak."

The worst of the cold will be felt from Fargo, North Dakota, and Minneapolis to Chicago and St. Louis beginning on Tuesday and continuing through the middle and latter part of the week. Heating demands will jump and people will be reaching for winter coats before venturing outdoors.

Chilly days and cold nights will be felt farther along in the South and along the Atlantic Seaboard late in the week and into next weekend.

The cold air will be accompanied by gusty winds, which will send AccuWeather RealFeel® temperatures plunging into the single digits and teens in the north and into the 20s and 30s in part of the Deep South. Such cold will raise the risk of hypothermia and frostbite in the North and will make it uncomfortable for some outdoor activities in the South.

"It is possible single-digit low temperatures occur in parts of the northern Plains and the Upper Midwest, away from the Great Lakes with temperatures plunging to 20 degrees below average in parts of the South," Pastelok said.

While the brunt of the cold air is not likely to be directed toward the I-95 corridor of the East, a breeze accompanying the cold air will make if feel more like December for at least a few days.

The action of cold air passing over the relatively warm waters of the Great Lakes will unleash bands of lake-effect flurries, snow and squalls from the Upper Midwest to the interior Northeast.

While snowfall can be heavy in a pattern such as this, it tends to be highly localized.

"A broad area of snow on the ground would result in significantly lower temperatures," Pastelok said.

The bare ground and warm Great Lakes waters will take away some of the severity of this early season arctic outbreak.

"Despite the moderation, freezing temperatures are possible along the upper Gulf Coast from northeast of Houston to northern Florida late next week," Pastelok said.

For folks not ready for winter, there is some indication that the cold weather will ease prior to Thanksgiving.

The weather pattern forecast to send the polar vortex on a southward plunge can be traced back to the western Pacific Ocean, where Typhoon Nuri curved east of Asia earlier this week.

According to Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson, "In brief, when a typhoon curves away from Asia it causes the jet stream [steering winds] farther to the east across the Pacific and into North America to buckle and amplify days later."

The contorted jet stream can lead to major storms and big surges of warmth and outbreaks of cold air.

Prior to the plunge of the polar vortex, the pattern will give birth to a powerful storm over the northern Pacific Ocean. This storm, partly associated with the former typhoon is likely to slam the Aleutians and west coast of Alaska with high winds, huge waves and heavy precipitation spanning Friday into this weekend.

Source: AccuWeather

Anti-Food: New Food Marketing Is All About What Isn't In It

TRUTHStream Media | Mar 16, 2014 | CHANNEL

With all the chemicals and genetic modification adulterating our food supply, it's pretty sad that it's come to this: food and beverage companies selling their products by assuring you what *ISN'T* in your food.

Power Tool Makers Fight against Finger-Saving Device

ALLGOV | Mar 2, 2014 | Steve Straehley

SawStop of Tualatin, Oregon, has named several major power tool companies in an antitrust lawsuit, claiming the companies conspired to boycott SawStop’s device that can prevent finger amputations by saws. The reason for the boycott, according to SawStop, is that companies are afraid that if one adopted the technology, others would be more exposed to personal injury lawsuits.

SawStop’s technology sends a weak electric current through a saw blade. When the blade touches skin, a sensor detects the change in current and jams an aluminum wedge into the blade, stopping it in about three milliseconds, much quicker than a user can react.

The company filed suit against several companies, including Black & Decker, Ryobi, Makita and Bosch, according to the website Fair Warning. The suit says that it was revealed in a 2010 lawsuit that company officials discussed the SawStop device and its potential effect on liability issues at meetings of the Power Tool Institute, an industry trade group.

SawStops’ action contends industry companies conspired to boycott the technology and force Underwriters’ Laboratories to change its saw safety guard standards to the detriment of SawStop.

In the 2010 suit, David Peot, Ryobi’s former director of advanced technologies, testified that “if another manufacturer were to develop a concept of improved table saw safety, then the manufacturers who don’t have that would certainly be at a disadvantage when it comes to product liability,” according to Fair Warning.

A key issue in the SawStop case is whether it was filed in time. Antitrust claims are required to be brought within four years of the violation, unless it’s shown that the defendants willfully concealed the action. SawStop claims it learned of the violation only in 2010, with Peot’s testimony.

SawStop hopes to collect at least $10 million in lost revenue, as well as treble damages, in the suit. In the meantime, SawStop is selling saws using its technology. The company says it has sold more than 50,000 of the saws and claims to have saved more than 2,000 amputations.

In response to the marketing of SawStop saws, the big players in the power tool industry joined to create their own version of the safety technology, according to Fair Warning. The venture ended in 2009 with the companies saying they had created a device superior to SawStop’s. However, the device has yet to be incorporated into any saws marketed by the companies.

To Learn More:

Power Tool Makers Accused in Lawsuit of Thwarting Adoption of Finger-Saving Device (by Myron Levin, Fair Warning)

After More Than a Decade and Thousands of Disfiguring Injuries, Power Tool Industry Still Resisting Safety Fix (by Myron Levin, Fair Warning)

Comment:  "However, the device has yet to be incorporated into any saws marketed by the companies." There's a good reason for that. This technology has not figured out how to stop a blade instantly without screwing up the motor and parts permanently that run it. (Notice electric miters saws don't stop on a dime even with their current stopping functions.) Unfortunately, this type of thinking will not suffice over time, and partially because the whole idea of cutting wood is to have a "very sharp" blade that runs efficiently and with greater power. Now, these idiots are attempting to cover the fact their large and obvious warning labels are absent as these warnings are detrimental to their sales to people who really don't have any business using these tools and have not be trained. Nevertheless, being able to sell any tool to anyone is the main objective, and this is an attempt to hide that fact.

WELCOME TO ALGORITHMIC PRISON

© NextGov

WELCOME TO ALGORITHMIC PRISON
Feb 22, 2014 | Phantom Report

Corporations and government are using information about us in a new – and newly insidious – way. 

Employing massive data files, much of the information taken from the Internet, they profile us, predict our good or bad character, credit worthiness, behavior, tastes, and spending habits – and take actions accordingly.

As a result, millions of Americans are now virtually incarcerated in algorithmic prisons.

Some can no longer get loans or cash checks. Others are being offered only usurious credit card interest rates. Many have trouble finding employment because of their Internet profiles. Others may have trouble purchasing property, life, and automobile insurance because of algorithmic predictions. Algorithms may select some people for government audits, while leaving others to find themselves undergoing gratuitous and degrading airport screening.

An estimated 500 Americans have their names on no-fly lists. Thousands more are targeted for enhanced screening by the Automated Targeting System algorithm used by the Transportation Security Administration. By using dataincluding “tax identification number, past travel itineraries, property records, physical characteristics, and law enforcement or intelligence information” the algorithm is expected to predict how likely a passenger is to be dangerous.

Algorithms also constrain our lives in virtual space. They determine what products we will be exposed to. They analyze our interests and play an active role in selecting the things we see when we go to a particular website..

Eli Pariser, argues in The Filter Bubble, “You click on a link, which signals your interest in something, which means you are more likely to see articles about that topic” and then “You become trapped in a loop…” The danger being that you emerge with a very distorted view of the world.

If you’re having trouble finding a job as a software engineer, it may be because you got a low score from the Gild, a company that predicts the skill of programmers by evaluating the open source code they have written, the language they use on LinkedIn, and how they answer questions on software social forums Algorithmic prisons are not new.. Even before the Internet, credit reporting and rating agencies were a power in our economy. Fitch’s, Moody’s, and Standard and Poor’s have been rating business credit for decades. Equifax, the oldest credit rating agency, was founded in 1899.

When algorithms get it right (and in general they do a pretty good job), they provide extremely valuable services to the economy. They make our lives safer. They make it easier to find the products and services we want. Amazon constantly alerts me to books it correctly predicts I will want to read. They increase the efficiency of businesses.

But when algorithms get it wrong, real suffering follows.

Read More: NextGov

Quantum Craziness | Space News

© Thunderbolts.info

Quantum Craziness | Space News
Dec 27, 2013 | ThunderboltsProject

A new paper published by an MIT physicist claims to theoretically prove that so-called "quantum entanglement" -- two particles seemingly occupying more than one state simultaneously -- gives rise to a wormhole that allows particles to communicate through a "gravitational tunnel". This theory follows from a paper published earlier this year, which suggests two black holes that become entangled and then are pulled apart create a wormhole, connecting the black holes. The reasoning in these papers is purely mathematical. Wal Thornhill examines this theoretical approach.


Original URL:http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/yo...

Dr. Neil Turok, the Director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics:

Theoretical physics is at a crossroads right now...In a sense we've entered a very deep crisis. You may have heard of some of these models...There've been grand unified models, there've been super-symmetric models, super-string models, loop quantum gravity models... Well, nature turns out to be simpler than all of these models.

If you ask most theorists working on particle physics, they're in a state of confusion. The extensions of the standard model, like grand unified theories, they were supposed to simplify it. But in fact they made it more complicated. The number of parameters in the standard model is about 18. The number in grand unified theories is typically 100. In super-symmetric theories, the minimum is 120. And as you may have heard, string theory seems to predict 10 to the power of 1,000 different possible laws of physics. It's called the multiverse. It's the ultimate catastrophe: that theoretical physics has led to this crazy situation where the physicists are utterly confused and seem not to have any predictions at all...

Source: https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/w...

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Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Assault on Our Sovereignty, Our Constitution, Our Liberty (Video)

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Assault on Our Sovereignty, Our Constitution, Our Liberty (Video)
Dec 19, 2013 | The new American | William F. Jasper

Over the past couple of years, The New American has presented many articles, including a special “Free Trade Agenda” issue of the print publication (PDF), exposing the dangers of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. It is a regional trade agreement aimed at integrating the economic, legal, and political systems of Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam — and the United States. As such, it proposes a radical, unconstitutional transformation of our republic and of the entire governing structure of our nation.

The architects of the TPP admit that they plan to expand the outrageous ambitions of the TPP to an even larger group of nations, which they have dubbed the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP). The Peterson Institute for International Economics is one of the premier globalist think tanks and a key promoter of the TPP. A Peterson Institute study states that “the TPP is regarded as an interim arrangement or stepping stone toward a broader, regionwide Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific.”

The TPP and FTAAP promoters are consciously using the same formula of lies, deception and subversion that globalist leaders in Europe have been employing for decades to convert formerly independent nations into obedient “member states” of the European Union.


The TPP, if accepted, will transfer increasing legislative, executive and judicial powers to regional entities, and to the World Trade Organization, which claims ultimate jurisdiction over all matters covered by the agreement.

And what kind of matters are those?

Since all negotiations have been held in secrecy, we can only report on the issues the U.S. Trade Representative’s office admits the TPP covers, which include: customs, telecommunications, investment services, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, intellectual property, regulatory coherence, development, non-conforming measures and cross-border trade in services, rules of origin, competition, agriculture, textiles, and environment.

One can only speculate the consequences when surrendering sovereignty on any of these important issues.

Wikileaks, an Internet whistleblower site, leaked one chapter of the text in late 2013. It showed the dangers the TPP presents to alternative, independent media and the right of citizens to communicate via the Internet.

The TPP would, in effect implement the anti-freedom measures of two badly misnamed bills that failed to pass Congress: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). These bills would have drastically affected Internet freedom, allowing virtually anyaone — but especially the ruling powers — to stop publication of anything they find objectionable by claiming copyright infringement.

My colleague at The New American, constitutional attorney Joe Wolverton, points out that “such procedures bypass the U.S. court system and the Constitution by abolishing the due process owed to those accused of crimes.” And notes Wolverton, “The TPP is an attack on our laws, our courts, our freedom of expression, our Constitution, and our sovereignty.”

Contact your representatives now to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and see the additional articles listed below that we’ve published detailing the dangers of the TPP.

Related articles:

WikiLeaks Publishes Key Chapter of Secret TPP Agreement
Regional Scheme for the Pacific Rim
Trans-Pacific Partnership Ready for Christmas Delivery?
TPP Secret Trade Agreement Puts International Tribunal Above U.S.
The “Free Trade” Agenda Threatens Our Rights
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Secret Surrender of Sovereignty

Time to Jail the Banksters...

© The Big Picture RT

Time to Jail the Banksters...
Oct 30, 2013 | The Big Picture RT

Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Magazine, joins Thom Hartmann. It didn't take Wall Street's allies in the financial media long to start whining about JPMorgan's $13 billion settlement with the federal government.

But is that record fine really as bad as the people on CNBC say it is?

Disease lays waste to GM corn in the US

image

Disease lays waste to GM corn in the US
Sept 30, 2013 | GMWatch

The unravelling of GM agriculture continues in the US, as a devastating disease, Goss's wilt, lays waste to GM corn.

Monocultures of GM corn all developed from varieties with low resistance to the disease are primarily blamed. The no-till farming practiced with GM herbicide-tolerant crops is also named as a possible culprit, since corn debris left on the soil can harbour disease.
---
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A disease cuts corn yields

STEPHANIE STROM
New York Times, September 30, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/science/earth/a-disease-cuts-corn-yields.html?_r=1&

It has come on like a tidal wave, washing across the Corn Belt from Minnesota to the Texas panhandle, a disease that few farmers had seen until five years ago.

Known as Goss’s wilt, it has cut some farmers’ corn yields in half, and it is still spreading. This summer it reached Louisiana, farther south than it had ever been identified. Alison Robertson, a plant pathologist at Iowa State University, estimated that about 10 percent of this year’s corn crop would fall to Goss’s.

The disease, named for R. W. Goss, a longtime Nebraska plant pathologist, is caused by a bacterium with the formidable name Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. nebraskensis. When a plant is damaged by hail or other heavy weather, the microbe enters the wound and infects its vascular system, scarring the leaves with brownish-yellow lesions sprinkled with black freckles.

The infection may or may not kill the plant, depending on when it comes, but it almost always curtails yields. And for farmers who have never seen the infection before, it is deeply disconcerting.

“The farmer who called me had found a circle of corn about 50 feet in diameter or so that had strange symptoms, stalks broken over and twisting, discoloration, the whole nine yards,” said Clayton Hollier, a plant pathologist at Louisiana State University. “I hadn’t heard symptoms like that since I learned about Goss’s in college.”

Until 2008, Goss’s wilt had been confined to western Nebraska and a handful of counties in eastern Colorado. But that year it was found in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

In 2011, a particularly virulent year, farms in much of Illinois lost as many as 60 bushels of corn per acre to the disease (the usual yield is 200 bushels per acre). So did many counties in Indiana.

While there are no official tallies, the last two years do not appear to have been as bad — thanks in part to dry, hot weather, which tends to keep the disease at bay. But its continuing spread is worrying farmers and plant pathologists throughout the Corn Belt.

No one is certain why Goss’s wilt has become so rampant in recent years. But many plant pathologists suspect that the biggest factor is the hybrids chosen for genetic modification by major seed companies like Monsanto, DuPont, and Syngenta.

“My theory is that there were a couple of hybrids planted that were selected because they had extremely high yield potentials,” said Dr. Robertson, whose research is financed by Monsanto and the Agriculture Department. “They also may have been highly susceptible to Goss’s wilt.”

About 90 percent of the corn grown in the United States comes from seeds that have been engineered in a laboratory, their DNA modified with genetic material not naturally found in corn species. Almost all American corn, for instance, is now engineered to resist the powerful herbicide glyphosate (often sold as Roundup), so farmers can kill weeds without killing their corn.

Farmers often refer to such biotech plants, which require Agriculture Department approval, as “traited”, to distinguish them from traditional hybrids.

While some corn seeds are resistant to Goss’s wilt, especially those sold in western Nebraska and eastern Colorado, most are not. Dan Anderson, Monsanto’s lead project manager for corn, acknowledged that high-yield varieties from his and other companies might be susceptible to the disease, but added that changes in farm management might also be spreading the disease. As farmers grow more corn to satisfy the demand for ethanol, they are rotating it less frequently with other crops.

“One of the best management techniques for controlling Goss’s wilt is crop rotation — corn, then soy or another crop,” Mr. Anderson said.

Another possible factor is the growth of no-till farming, which leaves cornstalks, on which the bacteria can linger, to decay in the field after harvesting, rather than being plowed under.

No hybrids have been developed that can fully withstand Goss’s wilt, but the companies have increased the number of seeds with higher resistance.

Ryan Forth and his father farm about 4,500 acres of land north of Ames, Iowa, about two-thirds of it in corn and the rest in soybeans. Mr. Forth is also a seed dealer for Monsanto. Some seeds in the company’s DeKalb line have been identified as highly susceptible to Goss’s.

After a windstorm in 2010, he said, “we started seeing these weird little circles on the foliage” in the field where the DeKalb seeds were planted.

At first they thought the marks were because of wind damage or the lack of rain — “you always suspect the weather,” he said — but now he’s certain it was the choice of hybrid that caused the problem.

The next year, they planted the same hybrids. “We were the poster child for Goss’s that year,” Mr. Forth said. “We had a complete disaster, a train-wreck kind of a yield for me.”

Last year, he planted a different Monsanto hybrid and has not had a problem with Goss’s wilt since. He no longer sells the DeKalb hybrids that contract the disease.

History Secrets: Earth Had Oxygen Much Earlier Than Thought

© Live Science

Earth Had Oxygen Much Earlier Than Thought
Sept 25, 2013 | Live Science

Oxygen may have filled Earth's atmosphere hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought, suggesting that sunlight-dependent life akin to modern plants evolved very early in Earth's history, a new study finds.

The findings, detailed in the Sept. 26 issue of the journal Nature,have implications for extraterrestrial life as well, hinting that oxygen-generating life could arise very early in a planet's history and potentially suggesting even more worlds could be inhabited around the universe than previously thought, the study's authors said.

It was once widely assumed that oxygen levels remained low in the atmosphere for about the first 2 billion years of Earth's 4.5-billion-year history. Scientists thought the first time oxygen suffused the atmosphere for any major length of time was about 2.3 billion years ago in what is called the Great Oxidation Event. This jump in oxygen levels was almost certainly due to cyanobacteria — microbes that, like plants, photosynthesize and exhale oxygen.

However, recent research examining ancient rock deposits had suggested that oxygen may have transiently existed in the atmosphere 2.6 billion to 2.7 billion years ago.

The new study pushes this boundary back even further, suggesting Earth's atmosphere became oxygenated about 3 billion years ago, more than 600 million years before the Great Oxidation Event. In turn, this suggests that something was around on the planet to put that oxygen in the atmosphere at this time.

"The fact oxygen is there requires oxygenic photosynthesis, a very complex metabolic pathway, very early in Earth's history," said researcher Sean Crowe, a biogeochemist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. "That tells us it doesn't take long for biology to evolve very complex metabolic capabilities." [7 Theories on the Origin of Life]

Ancient oxygen reactions

Crowe and his colleagues analyzed levels of chromium and other metals in samples from South Africa that could serve as markers of reactions between atmospheric oxygen and minerals in Earth's rocks. They looked at both samples of ancient soil and marine sediments from about the same time period — 3 billion years ago.

The researchers focused on the different levels of chromium isotopeswithin their samples. Isotopes are variants of elements; all isotopes of an element have the same number of protons in their atoms, but each has a different number of neutrons — for instance, each atom of chromium-52 has 28 neutrons, while atoms of chromium-53 have 29.

When atmospheric oxygen reacts with rock — a process known as weathering —heavier chromium isotopes, such as chromium-53, often get washed out to sea by rivers. This means heavier chromium isotopes are often depleted from soils on land and enriched in sediments in the ocean when oxygen is around. These proportions of heavier chromium were just what were seen in the South African samples. Similar results were seen with other metals, such as uranium and iron, that hint at the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere.

"We now have the chemical tools to detect trace atmospheric gases billions of years ago," Crowe told LiveScience.

'Almost certainly biological'

All in all, the researchers suggest atmospheric oxygen levels 3 billion years ago were about 100,000 times higher than what can be explained by regular chemical reactions in Earth's atmosphere. "That suggests the source of this oxygen was almost certainly biological," Crowe said.

"It's exciting that it took a relatively short time for oxygenic photosynthesis to evolve on Earth," Crowe added. "It means that it could happen on other planets on Earth, expanding the number of worlds that could've developed oxygenated atmospheres and complex oxygen-breathing life."

Future research can look for similarly aged rocks from other places, both on and outside Earth, to confirm these findings. "Research could also look at earlier rocks," Crowe said. "Chances are, if there was oxygen 3 billion years ago, there was likely oxygen production some time before as well. How far back does it go?"

Quackwatch ringleader Stephen Barrett in desperate, 'calamitous' defense in defamation lawsuit, says activist

© Natural News

Quackwatch ringleader Stephen Barrett in desperate, 'calamitous' defense in defamation lawsuit, says activist
Aug 29, 2013 | Natural News | Jonathan Benson

He continues to be one of the most obsessively outspoken critics of all things natural, often emerging unannounced from the outmoded realms of the internet-based "skeptics" world to bash the latest advances in alternative medicine. But former psychiatrist and ringleader of the widely-debunked anti-science website, QuackWatch.org, Stephen Barrett, is finally getting a taste of his own conventional medicine with a defamation lawsuit, which consumer health advocate and freedom fighter Tim Bolen is convinced could be Barrett's undoing.

Barrett is perhaps most known across the internet for his constant trashing of alternative treatment methods that he most likely never learned anything about in medical school way back when. These methods include things like acupuncture, chelation-based detoxification, nutritional supplementation, chiropractic -- you know, the very things that are actually helping to bring real relief and healing to a sick nation drowning in needless surgeries and dangerous pharmaceutical drugs. Barrett has actually made it one of his primary missions in life to "expose" these viable alternative treatments and warn people about their alleged ineffectiveness.

But in expressing his opinions, Barrett has also apparently crossed the defamation line by spreading all sorts of lies and misinformation about specific alternative treatments and falsely accusing companies that offer them of ripping off and deceiving their customers. These are serious accusations, and one such company aggressively targeted by Barrett in recent years, Doctor's Data, has decided to force this self-appointed "quackbuster" to put his money where his mouth is by taking him to court. And according to Bolen, Barrett is failing miserably to mount any sort of legitimate legal defense, as his attorney wastes time badgering Doctor's Data employees with useless questions.

The 'skeptics' and their ongoing war against natural medicine

It all began when Illinois-based Doctor's Data sent a letter to Barrett back in 2010 urging him to stop "transmitting false, fraudulent and defamatory information" about the company, which, according to its later-to-be-filed lawsuit, was intended to "intentionally ... harm its business and its relationship not only with doctors but also with the public." The letter went on to accuse Barrett of "conspir[ing] with and encourag[ing] individuals to seek litigation against [Doctor's Data]" and also of filing "false complaints at various government and regulatory agencies" against the company.

In other words, Barrett launched his own personal vendetta against Doctor's Data, according to the company, for the purpose of destroying its reputation and, ultimately, its business. Barrett has denied these accusations, of course, claiming that everything he has done and said with regards to Doctor's Data is within the realms of free speech. He has even stated his belief that the suit will eventually be dismissed by the court, assuming, of course, that Barrett and his legal team are successful in conjuring up a solid defense.

But this is exactly what Bolen says is not actually occurring. Barrett and his legal team, unable to defend their actions against Doctor's Data, according to Bolen, are currently engaged in a "Desperation Deposition," where they are basically interrogating Doctor's Data employees with nonsense questioning to delay the case. Barrett et al. have even gone so far as to petition the court to allow these time-wasting efforts to continue on longer in order to prolong what, according to Bolen, will be an inevitable failure.

"There is no question in my mind that Doctor's Data has already won this case," writes Bolen in a recent report. "Barrett et al. have no defense ... Their attorney Michael K. Botts, Esq. shows by his 'discovery' actions a visceral fear ... of what's coming. I would guess, from reading the court documents, that it is very unpleasant to even be in the same enclosed room with Botts."

Barrett can run, but he can't hide 

According to the most recently available information concerning the case, Botts actually shut down a deposition after being called out for abusing Doctor's Data employees with "useless, meaningless, repetitive questions" while directing his client not to answer. Now, Botts has filed a motion to get more deposition time to continue delaying the case, which Bolen believes serves as proof that Barrett simply does not have any defense whatsoever and is basically now just engaging in stalling tactics. The suit itself, it should be noted, calls for more than $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages from Barrett, a lofty sum.

"The hard part will be collecting any money from any of these useless, worthless posers," adds Bolen in his sharp criticism. "As I said about an earlier quackbuster, Victor Herbert ... after ten years of Herbert and his attorney Michael K. Botts, Esq.'s losing litigation attempts to destroy the 'Alternative Medicine' movement, the courts had awarded the Defendant's 'costs,' but collecting those costs was another thing."

You can read a portion of the original lawsuit filed by Doctor's Data against Barrett here:
http://bolenreport.com

You can read the full 71-page lawsuit here:
http://bolenreport.com

Sources for this article include:

http://bolenreport.com

http://www.bolenreport.com

Orwell’s Dystopic Nightmare Comes True: Agenda 21 Smart Cities Are Here!

© TruthStream Media

Orwell’s Dystopic Nightmare Comes True: Agenda 21 Smart Cities Are Here!
Aug 24, 2013 | TruthStream Media | Aaron Dykes / Melissa Melton

Our brave new world starts with these brave new cities. 

So-called smart cities aren’t just some far off futuristic abstract twinkle in the New World Order’s eye…these are being built right now.

Think privacy and freedom are limited commodities now? Try having either of those things living in a smart city control grid where everything you do is tracked, traced, chipped and monitored 24 hours a day.

Masdar City: ‘City of the Future’

Currently being built in Abu Dhabi at a price tag of $22 billion, Masdar (which means “the source”) is a six-kilometer walled smart city shaped like two squares that resemble The Borg’s Unicomplex from the sci-fi TV show Star Trek. Set for a target population of 50,000 people, the city promises to be carbon emission-free with 100% renewable energy. Traditional cars are completely out; while walking, biking and mass transit are encouraged. Futuristic driverless ‘personal rapid transit’ (PRT) pod cars are being considered, but are apparently quite costly. The tiny cars look like a smaller version of the little electronic cars featured in the 1980s film Total Recall.




As a research and testing ground for smart technologies, The National reported, “The officials running Masdar’s power grid will have access to detailed data on how energy is being used at any given moment and will have the means to directly moderate high rates of consumption to balance supply with demand.” [emphasis added]

Sensometrix SA – a Geneva-based company and leader in next generation biometric technology with products including “SensoBrain” and the eerie biometric slogan “Your hand is the future” – will work with Masdar to continue developing the company’s security technologies such as identity access management.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) headquarters is set to reside in Masdar as well. After the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) signed on to the project in 2010, Hillary Clinton spoke at The Masdar Institute, remarking, “the partnership that we have established between the United States and Abu Dhabi around renewable energy and climate change and sustainable development that takes advantage of human capital is one of the most important partnerships for the future that we could be pursuing.” Clinton also noted the work in Masdar is “in the interest of global progress”.

While truly sustainable, renewable green energy sources are a positive thing on the surface, the flip side to this community is that everything will be wired into a top-to-bottom, completely controlled smart grid. As experimental technologies are tested out over there, the U.S. deal through the DOE ensures these technologies will be “shared” (or someday imposed?) over here.

Considering the rise of these smart cities, NY Times Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote,“What Masdar really represents, in fact, is the crystallization of another global phenomenon: the growing division of the world into refined, high-end enclaves and vast formless ghettos where issues like sustainability have little immediate relevance.”

The city was set for 2016 completion, but several delays, including dust storms that incapacitated the solar panels, have set Masdar back to a potential 2020 end date.

Songdo International Business District: A ‘City in a Box’ 

The 100 million square foot Songdo, a $40 billion project by Gale International and Morgan Stanley Real Estate, has been dubbed the “City in a Box,” and is set for completion by 2015. Smart Data Collective.com reports that Songdo will be completely wired, with microchips and/or wireless sensors in practically everything from houses to cars to children who will wear tracking bracelets just in case they get lost. TelePresence screens will adorn all businesses and shops. Even the garbage will offer the city’s central monitoring unit real-time data for instant analysis via microchip cards. As if the ubiquitous sensors and microchips weren’t enough, everything in Songdo will also be monitored via CCTV cameras as well.




“The data will provide valuable insights in how people work, live and think within the smart city,” wrote Mark van Rijmenam of Smart Data Collective. [emphasis added]

Smart Grid, Stupid Implications

At first, giving real-time data on everything you do from the utilities you use to the garbage you throw away to a giant computer to help regulate resources and waste might sound helpful. Leave your water running? No worries, a computer can send a signal to the main control hub to shut it off for you. But as David Sasaki points out, smart cities could lead to dumb citizens: “There is a real risk that as our lives become more automated we become more like automatons. We will follow the guidance of our smart phones without reflecting on how we live our lives, and how we engage in our communities.” [emphasis added]

Sasaki’s comment recalls the instance of Japanese tourists driving their car into an Australian bay because they followed orders from their GPS over their own eyeballs.

Beyond that, while Sasaki notes that citizens could be given tax breaks, for example, if they reduce their water consumption, the same hand that can give can also take away by penalizing those in smart cities who use what might be considered too much of any resource – a determination that could easily adjust over time to become even more restrictive.

Ever since 9/11 in America, we’ve seen a government that has completely abandoned the Constitution with undeclared drone wars that lack any form of due process; the declaration of the homeland as a battlefield and the ability to detain and disappear citizens with the National Defense Authorization Act; unprecedented expansion of the National Security Administration big brother surveillance state; the continual militarization of our police and further expansion of the Transportation Security Administration; and unfair targeting practices of certain political groups considered oppositional to the president’s agenda by the Internal Revenue Service just to name a few.

Smart grid cities have the potential to bring some really wonderful alternative energy sources to the table, but with the power balance shifted into all the wrong hands, these cities amount to little more than glorified electronic concentration camps with trendy façades that play on “green guilt”.

To put tyrannical governments in control of a network of these electronic concentration camps makes George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 look like a Sunday afternoon at a preschool playground.

Is this a Preschool or a Prison? We Can’t Really Tell the Difference

Activist Post: Is this a Preschool or a Prison? We Can’t Really Tell the Difference
Aug 17, 2013 | TruthStream Media | Melissa Melton

Wasn’t America supposed to be the land of the free?

The public primary school for pre-kindergartners featured in the video below gave me chills. The brightly colored buildings belied their cold, hard, metal feel. The front entrance is card key secured, and a thick metal door attached to a gated metal security tunnel with a metal walkway leads back to a hallway of numbered, metal buildings. Every single window, including the little ones on the thick metal doors inside, have metal gratings bolted on the outside of them.



It felt like I was walking through a prison facility.

Four-year-olds attend this campus. That means these little ones are spending the majority of their weekdays all day long inside this place. These kids are literally being taught from the time they are tiny that spending one’s day in a prison-like gated metal security facility is somehow “normal” — this prepares them to expect nothing less than total control.

 This is just one example of a public school in modern day America. The president is currently mulling around with creating a federal universal daycare as part of the public education program in this country, and there is talk of making school run all year long without a summer break…with the implementation of CCTV cameras all over campuses, biometric scanning programs to buy lunches and check out library books, and RFID chip tracker tag ID cards, it would appear our schools are becoming way too much like our prisons.

Michael Snyder of American Dream Blog wrote about 18 examples of how life for students who attend public schools is the equivalent of being in a prison:

In the United States today, our public schools are not very good at educating our students, but they sure are great training grounds for learning how to live in a Big Brother police state control grid. Sadly, life in many U.S. public schools is now essentially equivalent to life in U.S. prisons. Most parents don’t realize this, but our students have very few rights when they are in school. Our public school students are being watched, tracked, recorded, searched and controlled like never before.

There’s a reason Rutherford Institute founder and constitutional lawyer John Whitehead refers to schools as one more part of America’s ever-expanding ‘electronic concentration camp‘. Our kids are being taught that giving up privacy and basic freedom to go about their daily lives in security lockdown while being continuously watched, chipped, tracked, traced, and totally controlled is…normal.

Related

How Schools Use Fear to Brainwash Students to Trust the System: A Parent’s Story

Melissa Melton is a co-founder of TruthstreamMedia.com, where this first appeared. She is an experienced researcher, graphic artist and investigative journalist with a passion for liberty and a dedication to truth. Her aim is to expose the New World Order for what it is — a prison for the human soul from which we must break free.

Dragonflies can see by switching 'on' and 'off'

A Tau Emerald dragonfly (Hemicordulia tau) in mid flight.
Credit: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos, via Wikimedia Commons

Dragonflies can see by switching 'on' and 'off'
Aug 15, 2013 | Phys.org

Researchers at the University of Adelaide have discovered a novel and complex visual circuit in a dragonfly's brain that could one day help to improve vision systems for robots.

Dr Steven Wiederman and Associate Professor David O'Carroll from the University's Centre for Neuroscience Research have been studying the underlying processes of insect vision and applying that knowledge in robotics and artificial vision systems.

Their latest discovery, published this month in The Journal of Neuroscience, is that the brains of dragonflies combine opposite pathways - both an ON and OFF switch - when processing information about simple dark objects.

"To perceive the edges of objects and changes in light or darkness, the brains of many animals, including insects, frogs, and even humans, use two independent pathways, known as ON and OFF channels," says lead author Dr Steven Wiederman.

"Most animals will use a combination of ON switches with other ON switches in the brain, or OFF and OFF, depending on the circumstances. But what we show occurring in the dragonfly's brain is the combination of both OFF and ON switches. This happens in response to simple dark objects, likely to represent potential prey to this aerial predator.

"Although we've found this new visual circuit in the dragonfly, it's possible that many other animals could also have this circuit for perceiving various objects," Dr Wiederman says.

Watch Video

The researchers were able to record their results directly from 'target-selective' neurons in dragonflies' brains. They presented the dragonflies with moving lights that changed in intensity, as well as both light and dark targets.

"We discovered that the responses to the dark targets were much greater than we expected, and that the dragonfly's ability to respond to a dark moving target is from the correlation of opposite contrast pathways: OFF with ON," Dr Wiederman says.

"The exact mechanisms that occur in the brain for this to happen are of great interest in visual neurosciences generally, as well as for solving engineering applications in target detection and tracking. Understanding how visual systems work can have a range of outcomes, such as in the development of neural prosthetics and improvements in robot vision.

"A project is now underway at the University of Adelaide to translate much of the research we've conducted into a robot, to see if it can emulate the dragonfly's vision and movement. This project is well underway and once complete, watching our autonomous dragonfly robot will be very exciting," he says.

Not so Pure: Tropicana Orange Juice & 20 Class Action Lawsuits Against its ‘Natural’ & ‘100% Pure’ Labels

© Natural Society

Not so Pure: Tropicana Orange Juice & 20 Class Action Lawsuits Against its ‘Natural’ & ‘100% Pure’ Labels
Aug 12, 2013 | Natural Society | Christina Sarich

A rash of lawsuits have popped up over Tropicana Orange Juices claims that they make a ‘natural’ and ‘100% pure’ product when the drink is actually full of chemically engineered ‘flavor packets’ and other unnatural ingredients. Tropicana Brand is made by Pepsi-Co, a company that fought GMO labeling and also just settled out of court to the tune of $9 million for its false advertising claims on its ‘Naked’ juice products.
 
‘Flavor packets’ might seem unneeded since fresh squeezed orange juice is already quite delicious and flavorful, but these chemical constituents are added to reconstituted juice that may have been sitting around in vats for a year or more. Just some of the chemicals in these ‘flavor packets’ are terpene compounds such as valencine. Terpenes occur naturally, and are sourced from lots of plant types including the conifer tree. However, once they have been chemically altered they become terpenoids and are used to remove paint from brushes, as in turpentine, the caustic artist’s medium.

Furthermore, because this OJ could sit around for months, juice companies hire flavor and fragrance experts to chemically alter the final product to make it palatable in much the same way Givenchy and Christian Dior make their perfumes smell ‘sweet.’ The juice is reconstituted, hardly the 100% fresh, healthy juice straight from an organic orange, let alone a conventionally grown one that is full of pesticide residue.

Fortunately, just this past June, District Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh partly denied Tropicana’s motion to dismiss a class action suit brought forth by Dennis Lynch and seven other plaintiffs. This lawsuit, among others, is claiming that Tropicana has been advertising falsely since their product is highly processed and artificially flavored, but sold as ‘natural’ and ‘100% pure.’ Tropicana is in fact, “pasteurized, deaerated, stripped of flavor and aroma, stored for long periods of time before available to the public, and colored and flavored before being packaged, and then shipped all over the country.”

In the Lynch vs. Tropicana lawsuit, plaintiffs are suing for “unjust enrichment; breach of express warranty; numerous violations of New York, New Jersey and Wisconsin laws; punitive damages; injunctive relief and declaratory relief, among other complaints.” If these 7 individuals are able to successfully win their case, manufacturers might be a little more mindful about the claims they make about our foods, especially as the public is becoming more alert due to GMO-labeling being refused by the politicians we voted into office, and the widespread blatant label lies of the food industry.

If you feel you have a right to know what is in your food, you can visit JustLabelIt.org to become more active in fighting for healthy, natural food in just eight easy steps

How the universe works: Clockwork and Creation

How the universe works: Clockwork and Creation
July 31, 2013 | Extinction Protocol

Scientists have discovered that our solar system is very unique. Earth is located in a star system that is by no means the norm in space. As a matter of fact, our solar system appears to be the exception. A stunning exception, in the way it’s laid out to actually foster the very conditions on Earth which makes life possible. In the universe at large, chaos, explosions, and mind-bending collisions between massive celestial bodies appear to be commonplace. After you watch this video, you may never see our little blue planet quite the same again.

Scotland lunar-calendar find sparks Stone Age rethink

Scotland lunar-calendar find sparks Stone Age rethink
July 27, 2013 | Phys.org

Archeologists have discovered a lunar calendar in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, that is nearly ten thousand years old. Their findings show that the calendar makers (1) thought about time and (2) figured out a means to follow it at a period in history that was still in the Stone Age. The discovery is considered both surprising and important because it now places a calendar nearly five thousand years before what was previously considered as the first formal calendar, created in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago. But here, a discovery has been made of a calendar construct appearing to track the phases of the moon nearly 10,000 years ago.

Scientists are now calling this discovery in Scotland that seems to mimic the phases of the moon to track lunar months the world's oldest known calendar.

"What we are looking at here is a very important step in humanity's earliest formal construction of time, even the start of history itself," said Vincent Gaffney, professor of landscape archaeology at Birmingham University, who led the team who analyzed the pits and their functions.

Also referred to as the "Warren Field calendar," referring to the land area in Aberdeenshire where the calendar was found, the discovery consists of an array of 12 pits and arc. They appear to represent the phases of the moon, going from waxing and waning to central arc, corresponding to the lunar months of the year.

However, said Prof. Gaffney, because the lunar year does not correspond to the natural year, the sequence had to be calibrated annually, and the site seems to align along the midwinter solstice, indicating that each year it was calibrated, and kept good time.

The experts believe the site dates back to around 8000 BC. Gaffney and team in their paper on the subject observed that the site "also aligns on the south east horizon and a prominent topographic point associated with sunrise on the midwinter solstice. In doing so the monument anticipates problems associated with simple lunar calendars by providing an annual astronomic correction in order to maintain the link between the passage of time indicated by the Moon, the asynchronous solar year, and the associated seasons."

Although previously excavated back in 2005, geophysical survey teams from several universities have been working to map the sites again and to look for further features. The Warren Field site was first discovered as unusual crop marks spotted from the air by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS).

The pit-creators are identified as a Mesolithic group, referring to a group of cultures between Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The three "lithics" belong to the Stone Age, and the Mesolithic were a transition group who succeeded in adapting to a collecting and fishing as well as hunting economy The question remains, why did these hunter gatherers track the phases of the moon? For hunting purposes? To explore celestial bodies?

One theory comes from project member, Dr Christopher Gaffney, Archeological Science at the University of Bradford:

"For pre-historic hunter-gatherer communities, knowing what food resources were available at different times of the year was crucial to survival. These communities relied on hunting migrating animals and the consequences of missing these events were potential starvation. They needed to carefully note the seasons to be prepared for when that food resource passed through, so from this perspective, our interpretation of this site as a seasonal calendar makes sense."

Strangling the City: How ‘Sustainable’ is Boxing in Freedom

Strangling the City: How ‘Sustainable’ is Boxing in Freedom
July 26, 2013 | TruthStream Media / Aaron Dykes

Is the city building up or closing in?

At least in Austin, it is thus: The city is moving in all around us; but look carefully, those amenities are boxing us in, not setting us free.

We made some comments about the Texas capital’s heavy dose of Agenda 21 in this mostly informal video that shows some of the city’s recent development:



So goes the nation, or is this just our local issue? By the appearances of America2050.org (driven by the Regional Plan Association and funded by both the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation) effort to create densely populated Megaregions across the country, I would wager the answer to be ‘yes.’ The plan would essentially double the population of existing metropolitan areas.

The federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grants given to local communities, in turn partnered with the Dept. of Traffic and EPA, correspond with this agenda.

“Sustainability” is one of the key phrases used to justify this huge consolidation, not just of populations, but of power. But who elected regional planners to redesign the nation? No one, that’s who.

In Central Texas, vast authority was handed over to an organization called CAPCOG, the Capital Area Council of Governments, which is comprised of appointed leaders and which overseas a number of key development projects related to transportation, housing, zoning, economic re-development and etc. Similar organizations – lacking elected leaders, sufficient accountability or even general public awareness – exist across the nation.

As Melissa Melton previously reported, for Austin, as in other locales, this includes implementation of the “smart grid,” the adoption of international building codes, control over thermostat data, greater emphasis on mixed-use building structures, more multifamily units, and the like.

As a growing metropolitan city, Austin stands out as a prime example, in fact. Not only has Austin received HUD Sustainable Communities grants, but it has been designated by ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA (who have been integral since 1992 in the implementation of the United Nations’ Agenda 21 goals) as one of ten STAR Beta Communities across the United States. Emblematic of this is the Mueller Community, which has been developed by regional planners to incorporate the sanitized, vision of a ‘sustainable urban’ Stepford Wives lifestyle in an ‘advanced smart grid’ model.

Unlike the East Coast, Texas is mostly new to super dense population zones. While buses exist, trains are sparse even in Houston and Dallas, and few are accustomed to mass transportation as a way of life. But with the politically shady imposition of toll roads, light rail (a taxpayer funded inner-city rail scheme) and an attempt to link urban living with “emerging Megaregions” like the “Texas Triangle,” that is changing.

For years, I passed by the Plaza Saltillo Metro Rail stop just a few blocks East of the famed 6th Street downtown area vibrant with the city’s night life and plenty of intoxicated patrons who could probably use a lift. But never have I seen anyone waiting at that rail station, day or night. And over the course of years, I never spotted the actual train – not once. Did it even exist?

I never got a direct answer to that rhetorical question floating around in my head, but I was delayed in my (rather despicable) automobile travel activities by a related end just a few weeks ago.

It was rush hour on North Lamar, and things were already busy and stressful on the road. The rail road barriers came down and things came to grinding halt. I assumed a freight train was hauling through and I wondered how many cars it would be and how long it would take. Instead, for a solid two or three minutes nothing at all came by.

Still the barriers impeded the busy flow of traffic. But nothing. It was another minute, maybe even two before the train finally crossed over what is a major road through the city of Austin.

When it finally came, the train was not a freighter hauling industrial products or commercial goods, but a two car metro rail ‘train’. Little had I noticed that over in the corner was a station dubbed Crestview, officially ‘west of Lamar between Justin St. and St. John’s Ave.’ And as surely as I was eager to get moving on those taxpayer roads, I realized that no one – not a soul – was visibly in that train. Not one passenger, yet the metro rail stop had blocked hundreds of cars for a full 4 or maybe even 5 minutes.

Is that outrageous? Or just what Texans can expect to face in coming years, along with higher taxes to cover new infrastructure and a fresh push for more trains and toll roads (encircling cities like Austin and typically built on top of, or taking over, taxpayer-funded roads), alongside the literal rise of dozens of new skyscrapers, and more and more “mixed use” buildings that include trendy shops, overpriced condos short on floor space, and a growing population of metro-minded dupes.

Subways and trains make plenty of sense in New York City and other East Coast metro areas, and quite a few European cities I’ve visited, however briefly. But this kind of transition in Texas and other areas of heartland America will not come without significant growing pains, plenty of cost, and a drastic but understated loss of sovereignty.

It is already being reported that California’s high speed rail is ‘collapsing’ under the strain of corruption. At a minimum, it is burdening West Coast dwellers with the high cost of graft and over-budgeted boondoggles.

Again, all this ‘concentrated growth’ is sold in the name of “sustainability” or protecting the environment. But consider for one moment what would happen in the event of economic collapse, civil unrest, food shortages, natural disasters/terror attacks, or even temporary shortages (for whatever reason). The biggest cities in the country would quickly become the worst possible places to be. Statistically, the average home only holds a few days worth of food before they run out, while grocery stores hold only a three or four days worth of food. Electricity outages or the like could potentially cause panic even quicker than food.

Without going into all the details, that picture should get across one simple concept: an urban zone like this is not “sustainable” in any real sense.

That kind of sustainability is a myth.

Related:

25 Facts About The Fall Of Detroit That Will Leave You Shaking Your Head

ANCIENT PYRAMIDS IN ANTARTIC? JULY 25 2013 (EXPLAINED)

ANCIENT PYRAMIDS IN ANTARTIC? JULY 25 2013 (EXPLAINED)
July 25, 2013 | GabeHashTV


VER VIDEO EN ESPAÑOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we5iB-...

Link original photo of alleged pyramid
http://www.mountainguides.com/wordpre...

Link Nanutak National Gerographic
http://www.natgeocreative.com/photogr...

PAGINA WEB
http://www.gabehash.com/
YOUTUBE
http://www.youtube.com/Gabehash (Canal Español)
http://www.youtube.com/GabehashTV (English Channel)
TWITTER
https://twitter.com/GABEHASH
FACEBOOK
http://www.facebook.com/losamigosdega...

In conclusion, the location, structure and the references found on the Internet suggest that the alleged pyramids are a natural phenomenon called Nunataks common in glacial areas.

If not why so many climbers who have been there were not aware of the pyramids? Is it because it is a natural phenomenon that are used to seeing?

In the end this is just our opinion of the news and you are those who have the final word. Judge for yourself.
.
.(Read more http://www.gabehash.com/)

Colorado town considers hunting licenses, bounties for drones

AFP Photo / John Moore

Colorado town considers hunting licenses, bounties for drones
July 17, 2013 | RT

A small town in the state of Colorado is currently weighing a new ordinance that would allow the issuance of hunting licenses for unmanned aerial vehicles, and even offer bounties for their successful takedown.

Deer Trail, a town of some 540 residents that lies 55 miles east of Denver, has drafted what might be described as hostile regulation aimed at drones, outlining the weapons, ammunition, rules of engagement and bounties involved with drone hunting, reports Denver broadcaster ABC 7News.

"The Town of Deer Trail shall issue a reward of $100 to any shooter who presents a valid hunting license and the following identifiable parts of an unmanned aerial vehicle whose markings and configuration are consistent with those used on any similar craft known to be owned or operated by the United States federal government,” reads the ordinance draft.

Read more..
 

Comment: All militant aircraft are being converted to UAVs, or unmanned aerial vehicles, as one crashed in Florida today, in a state they are supposedly outlawed. Looks like there will be plenty of targets.

Ku Klux Kourt kills King’s Dream Law - Replaces Voting Rights Act with Katherine Harris Acts

Ku Klux Kourt kills King’s Dream Law - Replaces Voting Rights Act with Katherine Harris Acts
June 25, 2013 | Greg Palast

They might as well have burned a cross on Dr. King's grave.  The Jim Crow majority on the Supreme Court just took away the vote of millions of Hispanic and African–American voters by wiping away Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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I'm so angry, so distraught by this, that I've asked my foundation to release my film, 'Election Files, for free.  This is a no-BS, no charge download of my series of investigative reports for BBC Television and Rolling Stone.

Furthermore, I'm directing the Palast Investigative Team to drop all other work for a ‘round-the-clock investigation of the Theft of 2014 and 2016 elections that the Supreme Court's ruling sets in motion.  Help us, join us.

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When I say "millions" of voters of color will lose their ballots, I'm not kidding.  Let's add it up.

Last year, the GOP Secretary of State of Florida Ken Detzner tried to purge 180,000 Americans, mostly Hispanic Democrats, from the voter rolls.  He was attempting to break Katherine Harris' record.

Detzner claimed that all these Brown folk were illegal "aliens."

But Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act requires that 16 states with a bad history of blocking Black and Brown voters must "pre-clear" with the US Justice Department any messing around with voter rolls or voting rules.  And so Section 4 stopped Detzner from the racist Brown-out.

I'll admit there were illegal aliens on Florida's voter rolls – two of them.  Let me repeat that:  TWO aliens'–One a US Marine serving in Iraq (not yet a citizen); the other an Austrian who registered as a Republican.

We can go from state to state in Dixie and see variations of the Florida purge game. It quickly adds up to millions of voters at risk.

Yet the 5-to-4 Court majority ruled, against all evidence, that, "Blatantly discriminatory evasions [of minority voting rights] are rare."   Since there are no more racially bent voting games, the right-wing Robed Ones conclude there’s no more reason for “pre-clearance.”

Whom do they think they're fooling?  The Court itself, just last week, ruled that Arizona's law requiring the showing of citizenship papers was an unconstitutional attack on Hispanic voters.  Well, Arizona's a Section 4 state. 

You'll love this line from the Ku Klux Kourt majority.  They wrote that the "coverage" of Section 4 applies to states where racially bent voting systems are now "eradicated practices."

 "Eradicated?"I assume they didn't see the lines of Black folk in Florida last November.  That was the result of the deliberate reducing of the number of polling places and early voting hours in minority areas.  Indeed, if the Justice Department, wielding Section 4, hadn't blocked Florida from half its ballot-box trickery, Obama would have lost that state's electoral votes.

And that's really what's going on here:  The problem is not that the Court majority is racist.  They're worse:  they're Republicans.

We've had Republicans, like the great Earl Warren, who put on the robes and take off their party buttons.

But this crew, beginning with Bush v. Gore, is viciously partisan.  They note that, "minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels."  And the Republican Supremes mean to put an end to that. See "Obama" and "Florida" above.

And when they say "minority" they mean "Democrat."

Because that's the difference between 1965 and today.  When the law was first enacted, based on the personal pleas of Martin Luther King, African-Americans were blocked by politicians who did not like the color of their skin.

But today, it's the color of the ballot of minorities – overwhelmingly Democratic Blue—which is the issue.

Pre-clearance goes WAY north of the Confederacy to Alaska where Alaska's Natives are often frozen out of the voting system—and West to California.

In the Golden State, an astonishing 40% of voter registration forms were rejected by the Republican Secretary of State on cockamamie clerical grounds.  When civil rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy and I investigated, we learned that the reject pile was overwhelmingly Chicano and Asian—and overwhelmingly Democratic.

How? Jim Crow ain't gone, he's moved into cyberspace.  The new trick is lynching by laptop:  removing voters, as was done in Florida and Arizona (and a dozen other states), by using poisoned databases to pick out "illegal" and "felon" and "inactive" voters—who all happen to be of the Hispanic or African-American persuasion.  The GOP, for all the tears of its consultants, knows it can't rock these votes, so they block these votes.

Despite the racial stench of today's viciously anti-democratic ruling, the GOP majority knew they were "handicapping" the next Presidential run by a good six million votes.  (That's the calculation that RFK and I can up with for the racially-bent vote loss in 2004—and the GOP will pick up at least that in the next run.)

And the Court knew full well that their ruling today was the same as stuffing several hundred thousand GOP Red votes into the ballot boxes for the 2014 Congressional races.

The Republican court knows that to swipe 2016, they had to replace the Voting Rights Act with a revival of the Katherine Harris act.

* * * * * *

It was investigative reporter Greg Palast, for The Guardian and BBC Television who uncovered Katherine Harris purge of Black voters in 2000.  He is also the author of the recent New York Times bestseller, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits:  How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps.

Palast's film The Election Files is now available as a FREE download.
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