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Quenelle

Best of the Web: 'I believe Putin': Trump dismissed US intelligence community's advice on North Korea threat, says fmr. FBI Director McCabe

Kate Lyons
The Guardian
Sun, 17 Feb 2019 16:25 UTC
Putin Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump (left) and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a joint press conference following their summit talks at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki on July 16.
A former FBI acting director has alleged Donald Trump dismissed advice from his own security agencies on the threat posed by North Korea's missiles, saying "I don't care. I believe Putin."

Andrew McCabe made the claims in an interview with 60 Minutes, in which he discussed his tenure at the FBI after James Comey was fired by the president in 2017.

McCabe said Trump made the comments in a meeting about the weapons capability of North Korea. McCabe was not in the meeting with Trump and said his FBI colleague told him about it later.

"The president launched into several unrelated diatribes. One of those was commenting on the recent missile launches by the government of North Korea. And, essentially, the president said he did not believe that the North Koreans had the capability to hit us here with ballistic missiles in the United States. And he did not believe that because President Putin had told him they did not. President Putin had told him that the North Koreans don't actually have those missiles," said McCabe.

"Intelligence officials in the briefing responded that that was not consistent with any of the intelligence our government possesses," said McCabe in the interview. "To which the president replied, 'I don't care. I believe Putin.'"


Comment: Trump understands what the vast majority of regular people understand: that Putin is a much more trustworthy source of information than Deep State intelligence officials who are beholden to the War Party and communicate with the president solely to steer him in the direction they want him to go.

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Brain

Best of the Web: Entirely new form of communication observed in the brain: non-linear information transfer via self-propagating electric fields


The Daily
Thu, 14 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Brain
Case Western Reserve researchers observe waves 'leap' across cut in brain tissue; 'ephaptic coupling' said to be producing self-propagating waves, unknown until now

Biomedical engineering researchers at Case Western Reserve University say they have identified a previously unidentified form of neural communication, a discovery that could help scientists better understand neural activity surrounding specific brain processes and brain disorders.

"We don't know yet the 'So what?' part of this discovery entirely," said lead researcher Dominique Durand, the Elmer Lincoln Lindseth Professor in Biomedical Engineering and director of the Neural Engineering Center at the Case School of Engineering. "But we do know that this seems to be an entirely new form of communication in the brain, so we are very excited about this."

Until now, there were three known ways that neurons "talk" to each other in the brain: via synaptic transmission, axonal transmission and what are known as "gap junctions" between the neurons.

Comment: Not long to go now till their jaws drop upon discovering that we're wave-reading consciousness units connected to The Information Field...

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Attention

Best of the Web: Haitian protesters call for Russian intervention as they revolt against US puppet government


RT
Sun, 17 Feb 2019 15:31 UTC
haiti protests feb 2019
© AFP / Hector Retamal“Down with Americans, long live Putin!” chanted around 200 demonstrators in the capital Port-au-Prince on Friday, some holding up printouts with the face of the Russian president.
As the poorest Caribbean state descends into chaos caused by the corruption of its elites, protesters on the streets are calling for help from a man who has never set foot in the country - Vladimir Putin.

"Down with Americans, long live Putin!" chanted around 200 demonstrators in the capital Port-au-Prince on Friday, some holding up printouts with the face of the Russian president.

Protesters burned the American flag as criticism of the links between Washington and the unpopular government of President Jovenel Moise. They called Moise, elected in 2016, a US-installed puppet, who is surviving due to US reluctance to exert international pressure.


Comment: What Smedley Butler Found Out in Haiti

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Light Saber

Best of the Web: Yellow Vest protesters who have lost eyes, limbs demand justice from Macron

Igor Ogorodnev
RT
Sat, 16 Feb 2019 23:35 UTC
Yelow vest lost eye
© (L) Facebook / Fiorina Jacob Lignier; (C) Jacob Maxime; (R) YouTube / TVLPhotos show protester Fiorina Jacob Lignier before and after she was struck by a police gas grenade.
France gathered for the 15th week of Gilets Jaunes protests, with the injury toll of the worst civil unrest in decades now resembling that of a small war. Yet despite pleas from victims, Emmanuel Macron is tightening the screws.

"This is not normal. We are in France, one of the oldest and best democracies in the world," says Fiorina Jacob Lignier, who lost her eye at a demonstration in Paris on December 8. "We usually condemn from afar other countries where this occurs, that this is happening here is unbelievable."

Lignier, a 20-year-old philosophy student, traveled from the northern city of Amiens to march on the Champs-Elysees to protest against fuel taxes with her boyfriend, Jacob Maxime.

He told RT that they were marching with a column of peaceful demonstrators, when a group of masked radicals began to vandalize a shopfront more than 50 yards away.

Comment: S.O.S. Russia S.O.S.

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Biohazard

Best of the Web: Parents of woman killed by 'poison used on Skripal' blame... UK govt, British media, but not Russia

Steven Morris and Caroline Bannock
The Guardian
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 18:05 UTC
dawn sturgess
© Adrian Sherratt/The GuardianDawn Sturgess died after being poisoned with nerve agent following the Sergei Skripal incident
The parents of the woman who died in the Wiltshire novichok poisonings have broken their silence to express their anger and hurt at losing their daughter in an extraordinary international incident and say they believe there could be more of the nerve agent yet to be found.

Speaking as the first anniversary of the poisonings nears, Stan and Caroline Sturgess also revealed their concerns that the UK authorities chose to settle the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, exposing residents to risk.

The couple told the Guardian they still had many unanswered questions and called for more clarity from the British government about the poisonings. They also spoke passionately about their sense of injustice that Dawn, a mother of three from a very respectable family, was unfairly portrayed as a homeless drug user.
Stan and Caroline Sturgess
© Adrian Sherratt/The GuardianStan and Caroline Sturgess
The Sturgesses have complicated feelings toward Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, who collapsed after being poisoned with novichok in Salisbury and are now in hiding. "I don't know where Skripal is and I don't know what I'd do if I met him. He's still got his daughter," said Stan, a retired bricklayer.

Caroline said: "It's sad they ended up in a coma but they weren't the true victims. He [Skripal] took risks - he must have known there was a chance people were still after him."
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Jet5

Flashback Best of the Web: The Soviets Were Winning Their Afghan War Against US-backed Insurgency Until Gorbachev Pulled Them Out

Mark Kramer
LA Times
Sun, 26 Dec 2004 11:17 UTC
Soviet Mi-24 Hind Attack Helicopter
Soviet Mi-24 Hind Attack Helicopter in Afghanistan in the 1980s
Twenty-five years ago, on Christmas Eve, Soviet troops marched into Afghanistan with the aim of restoring order in a few months. Nine years later they withdrew amid continued violence. In their wake, civil war erupted and the Taliban rose to power, providing a haven to Al Qaeda.

Critics of the U.S. military effort in Iraq often cite the Soviet experience in Afghanistan as evidence that using foreign troops to put down an insurgency is bound to fail. But that "lesson" is misleading because it depends on a depiction of the Soviet-Afghan war that is downright inaccurate.

When Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan, they initially failed to protect their logistical and communications lines. But Soviet commanders quickly corrected these mistakes and brought in better troops, including helicopter pilots trained for mountain warfare. From mid-1980 on, the Afghan guerrillas never seized any major Soviet facilities or prevented major troop deployments and movements.

When Soviet generals shifted, in mid-1983, to a counterinsurgency strategy of scorched-earth tactics and the use of heavily-armed special operations forces, their progress against the guerrillas accelerated. Over the next few years, the Soviets increased their control of Afghanistan, inflicting many casualties - guerrilla and civilian. Had it not been for the immense support - weapons, training, materials - provided to the Afghan guerrillas by the United States, Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan, Soviet troops would have achieved outright victory.
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Red Flag

Best of the Web: Leftist hysteria continues: French schools to change 'mother & father' to 'parent 1 and 2' under new law


RT
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 18:57 UTC
pronouns
French schools are set to replace the words 'mother' and 'father' with 'Parent 1' and 'Parent 2' following an amendment to a law which passed through French Parliament this week.


Comment: You have GOT to be kidding.


The new naming convention is ostensibly aimed at ending discrimination against same sex parents but critics argue that it "dehumanises" parenthood and may lead to rows over who gets classified as 'Parent 1.'

The amendment, passed Tuesday as part of a wider plan to build a so-called "school of trust," will also enforce mandatory school attendance for all three-year-olds.

"This amendment aims to root in law children's family diversity in administrative forms submitted in school," said Valérie Petit, MP for the majority REM party of President Emmanuel Macron.

Comment: And now you have more of an understanding why 80% of the French population supports a movement that wants to sweep the whole political class out of power.

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Airplane Paper

Best of the Web: Millions of Venezuelans sign Maduro's open letter to US with the message 'Hands Off Our Country'


grayzoneproject.com
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 20:34 UTC
letter us
Venezuelans queue to sign open letter to US government
The Grayzone breaks the media blockade inside Venezuela, amplifying the voices of people ignored by the corporate media. By Anya Parampil

Produced in partnership with MintPress News

The Grayzone reported from inside Venezuela, where millions of people waited in long lines to sign an open letter to the US public, strongly rejecting foreign intervention in their country.

Anya Parampil interviewed working-class Venezuelans in Simon Bolivar Square in the capital Caracas, on February 10, 2019.

Read the letter in full below.

Watch our report:


Comment: By February 8th, after just one day, two million Venezuelans had signed the letter, according to the Venezuelan government.

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Quenelle - Golden

Best of the Web: Yellow Vest spokesman hints at next stage: 'Paramilitaries are ready to overthrow the government'


Sputnik
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 18:29 UTC
Christophe Chalençon
Unofficial Yellow Vest spokesman Christophe Chalençon
The so-called Yellow Vest protests have been raging across France since mid-November, with the movement calling for the resignation of French President Emmanuel Macron over his government's policies.

The official Twitter account of an Italian political show, Piazzapulita, released a video of an interview with a man they claim is Christophe Chalençon, one of the leaders of the yellow vests movement.

While the footage, apparently filmed on a hidden camera, shows only the legs of a man, he can be heard speaking about the ongoing unrest in France.

The man, who is alleged to be Chalençon, is heard saying that if anything happens to him, French President Emmanuel Macron would end up on the guillotine.

Comment: Correction: ...which are rapidly turned violent by the police, on Macron's orders. And no, the demonstrators are not "no longer reflecting the group's early demands." The demonstrators are 'the group', which are supported by an overwhelming majority of French people, this crooked poll notwithstanding. France really is that close to a reckoning, and the Italian government is wise to prepare for it.

Assuming that that is Chalençon making those statements, then he is by no means the first to voice similar. Macron's palace guard have had a helicopter on stand-by to airlift him out of the Elysée if necessary! Hundreds of former and current police and military personnel have posted videos online since early December 2018 discussing armed intervention of some kind or another. A dozen retired generals published a letter late last year demanding that Macron get control of the situation, or else...

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Meteor

Best of the Web: Chelyabinsk to Cuba: The Meteor Connection


Astronomia.udea.edu
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 15:46 UTC
docks meteor
© Rachel Cook
On February 1, 2019 a bright meteor crossed the sky over Cuba just in the middle of the day. The phenomenon, that was followed by a "smoke trail" (a characteristic cloud left by the burn in the atmosphere of a meteoroid) and a sonic boom, was witnessed by thousands of locals and tourists in the region of Pinar del Rio (western side of the island).

Almost at the same time of the impact, a cruise ship was leaving the Havana harbor and on board, Rachel Cook, an American tourist and blogger, was making a timelapse of the undocking process. Without knowing, she was recording one of the few videos known to date of the falling meteor. Meanwhile, 400 km away, in Ft. Myers beach, Florida, a web cam of the EarthCam network was filming the midday activities in the beach. Luckily, the camera was aimed at the right direction to record the meteor from afar.

Just a couple of minutes after the event, social networks, especially Instagram and twitter, received a flood of tens of videos and pictures, taken from the island, most of them showing the smoke trail left by the meteor (see the image below). One of those videos was particularly interesting. It was recorded in one of the main streets of the city of Pinar del Rio, and showed tens of people in the street contemplating with awe the remnant cloud (see the video in this link). Although the video does not show the meteor, it was full of details about the place and time when it was recorded.

Comment: See also:



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