Best of the Web:


Bad Guys

Best of the Web: As Europe erupts over U.S. spying, NSA chief says government must stop media

Glenn Greenwald
The Guardian
Fri, 25 Oct 2013 20:22 UTC
NSA Director General Keith Alexander
© Evan Vucci/APNSA Director General Keith Alexander, earlier this month.
With General Alexander calling for NSA reporting to be halted, US and UK credibility as guardians of press freedom is crushed

The most under-discussed aspect of the NSA story has long been its international scope. That all changed this week as both Germany and France exploded with anger over new revelations about pervasive NSA surveillance on their population and democratically elected leaders.

As was true for Brazil previously, reports about surveillance aimed at leaders are receiving most of the media attention, but what really originally drove the story there were revelations that the NSA is bulk-spying on millions and millions of innocent citizens in all of those nations. The favorite cry of US government apologists - - everyone spies! - falls impotent in the face of this sort of ubiquitous, suspicionless spying that is the sole province of the US and its four English-speaking surveillance allies (the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).
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Einstein

Best of the Web: Forbes ranks Putin world's most powerful person, downs Obama


RT.com
Wed, 30 Oct 2013 16:45 UTC
Vladimir Putin
© Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AFPUS President Barack Obama (L) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been ranked the most powerful person in the world by Forbes. He topped the list of the 72 world figures that "matter the most," while US President Barack Obama was rated second.

Putin's Syria "chess match" that prevented the US strike, and his having the last word in the diplomatic row over the fugitive NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, didn't go unnoticed with the editorial rating of the influential American business magazine, and were noted among the reasons for his top place.

Comment: With Vladimir Putin's RECENT efforts to avoid another war in the Middle East, it sure seems like he is becoming more of a peacemaker than war waging imperialist. Not bad for a "autocratic leader," "ex-KGB strongman," and "dictator".

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Blue Planet

Best of the Web: 2013 is Strange: Extreme weather events, 'Earth Changes', and other strange phenomena in October

Last Messages
YouTube
Mon, 28 Oct 2013 17:51 UTC
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Fireballs raining from the sky, strange lights appearing on the horizon, tornadoes touching down everywhere, major earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfires blocking out the sun, sunsets appearing to happen in the wrong place, mass animal deaths from sudden cold in both hemispheres, deepwater fish turning up where they shouldn't... the following video captures just some of the extreme weather events, 'earth changes', and other strange phenomena on the Big Blue Marble during the past month.

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Che Guevara

Best of the Web: Russell Brand on the revolution of consciousness: "This is the time for us to wake up"

Russell Brand
New Statesman
Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:31 UTC
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British comedian, actor, writer and activist Russell Brand in the spotlight
But before we change the world, we need to change the way we think.

When I was asked to edit an issue of the New Statesman I said yes because it was a beautiful woman asking me. I chose the subject of revolution because the New Statesman is a political magazine and imagining the overthrow of the current political system is the only way I can be enthused about politics.

When people talk about politics within the existing Westminster framework, I feel a dull thud in my stomach and my eyes involuntarily glaze. Like when I'm conversing and the subject changes from me and moves on to another topic. I try to remain engaged but behind my eyes I am adrift in immediate nostalgia; "How happy I was earlier in this chat," I instantly think.

I have never voted. Like most people I am utterly disenchanted by politics. Like most people I regard politicians as frauds and liars and the current political system as nothing more than a bureaucratic means for furthering the augmentation and advantages of economic elites. Billy Connolly said: "Don't vote, it encourages them," and, "The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one."
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Che Guevara

Best of the Web: Stop Watching Us: Largest privacy rally in U.S. history hits D.C.


RT
Sat, 26 Oct 2013 16:35 UTC
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© Reuters / Jonathan ErnstDemonstrators carry signs at "Stop Watching Us: A Rally Against Mass Surveillance" march near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, October 26, 2013.
Thousands are marching on the National Mall in Washington, DC to protest covert NSA surveillance operations on the anniversary of the Patriot Act. The organizers are planning to present Congress with a petition which has acquired over 570,000 signatures.

Stop Watching Us is a collective of 100 public advocacy groups, among them the American Civil Liberties Union, Freedom Works, as well as individuals like Chinese artist/activist Ai Weiwei and Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who worked with Edward Snowden to expose many of the NSA's surveillance procedures. The began at 11:30 am local time on October 26 - the 12th anniversary of the US Patriot Act.

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Radar

Best of the Web: Signs of change in October 2013

HawkkeyDavis Channel
YouTube
Wed, 23 Oct 2013 11:01 UTC
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© AP Photo/NSW Rural Fire Service, James MorrisFirefighters are battling scores of wildfires in southeastern Australia as authorities evacuate national parks and warned that hot, dry and windy conditions were combining to raise the threat to its highest alert level.
Dozens of typhoons and cyclones slamming into Southeast Asia, Japan and India, record heat and hundreds of wildfires in Australia, record snow and rainfall in the Northern and Midwestern US states, mile-wide tornadoes in Nebraska, hundreds of dead dolphins washing up all along the U.S. Atlantic coast, a powerful earthquake in the Philippines... these are just some of the extreme weather and geological events that took place around the world in October 2013.


This series does not imply the world is ending! This video series just documents extreme weather and geological events that are leading to bigger Earth Changes. If you are following the series, then you are paying attention to the signs.

Music Used:
Xtortion Audio - Tournique
Position Music Abandoned freedom
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MIB

Best of the Web: Was Israel behind the hacking of millions of French phones and NOT the U.S.? Extraordinary twist in spying saga revealed

Nabila Ramdani
Daily Mail UK
Fri, 25 Oct 2013 14:22 UTC
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© ReutersFrance first suspected the U.S. of hacking into former president Nicolas Sarkozy's communications network when he was unsuccessfully trying for re-election in 2012
Israel and not America was behind the hacking of millions of French phones, it was claimed today. In the latest extraordinary twist in the global eavesdropping scandal, Israeli agents are said to have intercepted more than 70 million calls and text messages a month. Up until now the French have been blaming the U.S., even summoning the country's Paris ambassador to provide an explanation.

But today's Le Monde newspaper provides evidence that it was in fact Israeli agents who were listening in.

France first suspected the U.S. of hacking into former president Nicolas Sarkozy's communications network when he was unsuccessfully trying for re-election in 2012. Intelligence officials Bernard Barbier and Patrick Pailloux travelled from Paris to Washington to demand an explanation, but the Americans hinted that the Israelis were to blame.

The Americans insisted they have never been behind any hacking in France, and were always keen to get on with the French, whom they viewed as some of their closest allies.

They were so determined to be friends with the French, that U.S. briefing notes included details of how to pronounce the names of the Gallic officials.

A note published in Le Monde shows that the Americans refused to rule out Mossad, Israel's notoriously uncompromising intelligence agency, or the ISNU, Israel's cyber-intelligence unit.

Comment: Again we come back to the idea that a third party, through the Mossad, is purposely 'revealing NSA and GCHQ secrets'.

PRISM for your Mind: NSA, WikiLeaks and Israel

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Che Guevara

Best of the Web: Actor Russell Brand reduces BBC newsman to stunned silence with scathing critique of the global corporate oligarchy

Travis Gettys
Raw Story
Thu, 24 Oct 2013 18:35 UTC
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Actor and comedian Russell Brand is calling for a political and philosophical revolution in his guest editorship of the New Statesman magazine, and he explained what he wants to see in a passionately argued interview on BBC's "Newsnight."

Combative host Jeremy Paxman asked the British actor, who's known for his past drug use and his brief marriage to pop singer Katy Perry, what gave him the right to promote his political beliefs, particularly since he's never voted.

"I don't get my authority from this preexisting paradigm, which is quite narrow and only serves a few people," Brand said. "I look elsewhere for alternatives that might be of service to humanity."

He continued, issuing reams of prose even as the veteran TV reporter challenged him to defend his arguments.

"I am not not voting out of apathy," Brand said. "I am not voting out of absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations."

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Star of David

Best of the Web: Israel's New Racism: The Persecution of African Migrants in the Holy Land


David Sheen and Max Blumenthal
Mon, 21 Oct 2013 16:59 UTC

Comment: This video offers a shocking evidence that the modern 'state of Israel' is based on hatred and xenophobia. Any group of people that falsely defines themselves as 'chosen' by a false god, establishes a 'nation' on the stolen land of others and proceeds to commit slow genocide against the indigenous population will ultimately end up hating all 'others', just like modern day Israelis.



Max Blumenthal explained how The New York Times commissioned the 11-minute video, but after the paper's editors saw it, refused to publish it:

I was asked to submit something by The New York Times op docs, a new section on the website that published short video documentaries. I am known for short video documentaries about the right wing in the US, and extremism in Israel. They solicited a video from me, and when I didn't produce it in time, they called me for it, saying they wanted it. So I sent them a video I produced with my colleague, David Sheen, an Israeli journalist who is covering the situation of non-Jewish Africans in Israel more extensively than any journalist in the world.

We put together some shocking footage of pogroms against African communities in Tel Aviv, and interviews with human rights activists. I thought it was a well-done documentary about a situation very few Americans were familiar with. We included analysis. We tailored it to their style, and of course it was rejected without an explanation after being solicited. I sent it to some other major websites and they have not even responded to me, when they had often solicited articles from me in the past.

Blumenthal, author of the bestselling and widely promoted 2009 book Republican Gomorrah, also spoke about the difficulty he has had getting any mainstream media attention for his new book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel.

Just like this video, Blumenthal's new book offers an unflinching look at the racist reality of Israel that America's establishment media simply does not have the guts to confront.
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Comet 2

Best of the Web: American Apocalypse: The case for divine retribution

Justin Raimundo
AntiWar.com
Mon, 21 Oct 2013 09:25 UTC
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I don't believe in God. However, I do believe in divine retribution. Without going into the specifics of this somewhat counterintuitive theology, suffice to say here that its central axiom is the idea that actions have consequences. One cannot go on committing evil without reaping a whirlwind or two. Eventually Nemesis overtakes Hubris, and the results aren't pretty.

This is our future. Or, at least, one hopes it is - otherwise, there is no justice in this world, or perhaps even in the next.

This struck me as I was reading a column by Steve Chapman, a mildly conservative journalist with vaguely libertarian leanings: according to him, people on the right (of which I count myself one) are "addicted to apocalypse." He takes us through decades of conservative apocalyptic rhetoric, from Ronald Reagan predicting the end of freedom in America due to the depredations of Medicare to Ted Cruz - the liberal media's villain of the moment - who recently said:

"The challenges facing this country are unlike any we have ever seen. ... (T)his is an administration that seems bound and determined to violate every single one of our Bill of Rights. We're nearing the edge of a cliff. ... We have a couple of years to turn this country around, or we go off the cliff to oblivion." Citing Reagan, Cruz declared: "One day we will find ourselves answering questions from our children and our children's children, 'What was it like when America was free?'"
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