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Die

Best of the Web: New York City Refuses to Defend the Cop Who Pepper-Sprayed Occupy Wall Street Protesters

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© YouTubeScreenshot from YouTube user LeakSourceArchive
New York City will not provide a defense attorney for Police Officer Anthony Bologna, who was caught on camera pepper-spraying Occupy Wall Street protesters and now faces a civil lawsuit.

The now-notorious cop, a 29-year veteran of the NYPD and a deputy inspector, will have to cover his own legal fees, with the help of his union, the Captains Endowment Association.

A widely seen YouTube video showed Bologna pepper spraying at least two girls at an Occupy protest, who fell to the ground, screaming and crying in pain while the officer purportedly turned and walked away.

A month after the Sept. 24 incident, a police investigation found that the cop had violated NYPD guidelines.

Patrol Guide 212-95 lists situations in which an officer may legally use pepper spray. It may only be used in situations where the officer must protect himself or another from harm, establish control of someone resisting arrest or someone trying to flee from custody, establish control of an emotionally disturbed person or prevent an attack from a dangerous animal.


USA

Best of the Web: TSA Ignores Nude Scanners Court Order

TSA
© Transportation Security Administration
While being stripped naked by US airport technology might make some travelers uncomfortable, the TSA has further elevated concern by refusing to hold public hearings regarding its rules and regulations of nude full-body scanners.

A year ago, the Transportation Security Administration was ordered to hold public hearings regarding the use of its full-body scanners at US airport security checkpoints - hearings that never occurred, reported Wired.

In a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in July 2011, claiming the body scanners were intrusive and unconstitutional, the US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to block use of the scanners - but ordered the hearings.

Under the Administrative Procedures Act, the TSA would have to go through a 90-day "notice and comment" period for any rules that would affect the rights of the public.

Critics of the machines, including worried air passengers, claim that the radiation used by the scanners to see through clothes are privacy violations and threats to ones health. Some have questioned the scanner's effectiveness, worrying that the machines might not detect explosives taped to a person's body - or placed inside the body. These concerns, among others, would have to be addressed at the hearings.

Black Cat

Best of the Web: "A Coordinated Attack": July 20th Colorado Shooting Anomalies

Placing eyewitness statements and police radio recordings side by side, the following video plainly shows that there is more to the Aurora Shooting than we've been led to believe.


Comment: See also: FBI and DHS Warned in May of Terrorists Planning to Attack Movie Theaters

Suspect 'Eyewitnesses' - From 9/11 to the Colorado Massacre


Dollar

Best of the Web: Market insider encourages investors to buy up farms and food as scarcity war escalates

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The worst US drought in 50 years is having a significant effect on global food prices
The road to Dystopia is paved with dust and hardship.

Such is the gloomy worldview of Jeremy Grantham, chief investment strategist of Boston-based institutional money manager GMO LLC. He envisions a future of scarce resources, where food and the means to produce it is the coin of an unstable realm.

"We are five years into a severe global food crisis that is very unlikely to go away," Grantham wrote in a letter to GMO clients, published late Tuesday.

"It will threaten poor countries with increased malnutrition and starvation and even collapse," Grantham predicted. "Resource squabbles and waves of food-induced migration will threaten global stability and global growth. This threat is badly underestimated by almost everybody and all institutions with the possible exception of some military establishments."


Comment: Yes, you can rest assured that the Pentagon is at least aware enough of the reality of the situation to have preparations in place to cope with the social and political turmoil to follow.


MIB

Best of the Web: German intelligence working to bring 'al Qaeda' barbarians to power in Syria

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German intelligence estimates that "around 90" terror attacks that "can be attributed to organizations that are close to al-Qaeda or jihadist groups" were carried out in Syria between the end of December and the beginning of July, as reported by the German daily Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). This was revealed by the German government in a response to a parliamentary question.

In response to the same question, the German government admitted that it had received several reports from the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, on the May 25 massacre in the Syrian town of Houla. But it noted that the content of these reports was to remain classified "by reason of national interest", Like many other Western governments, Germany expelled Syria's ambassador in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, holding the Syrian government responsible for the violence.

Black Cat

Best of the Web: The Startling Accuracy of Referring to Politicians as 'Psychopaths'

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© Paramount Pictures
The characteristics that define clinical psychopathy are many of the same that make effective leaders.

In this presidential election season where, as usual, the fur is flying and name-calling is in full swing, one invective seems to be gaining currency -- psychopath. A web search for "Romney" or "Obama" and "psychopath" (or, more generally, "politician" and "psychopath") yields millions of hits. While it's tempting to dismiss this phenomenon as mere venting by angry voters, the rantings of conspiracy theorists, or even bloggers trying to drive traffic, it is worth at least asking the question: could they be right? If these pundits mean that the targeted office-seekers are evil or "crazy," probably not. But if they are pointing out that politicians and psychopaths share certain characteristics, they could be on to something.

Psychopathy is a psychological condition based on well-established diagnostic criteria, which include lack of remorse and empathy, a sense of grandiosity, superficial charm, conning and manipulative behavior, and refusal to take responsibility for one's actions, among others. Psychopaths are not all the same; particular aspects may predominate in different people. And, although some psychopaths are violent men (and women) with long criminal histories, not all are. It's important to understand that psychopathic behavior and affect exist on a continuum; there are those who fall into the grey area between "normal" people and true psychopaths.

Comment: And don't forget Dubya, a psychopath if ever there was one:

Textbook descriptions of George Bush reveal psychopathy, and much worse

Bush is a Psychopath

While some psychopaths do become politicians, for the most part politicians are mere figureheads playing second fiddle to the 'big kahuna psychopaths', éminences grises pulling the strings from the shadows (usually on Wall Street and throughout the international banking system).

Read Political Ponerology to understand the scale and depth of the root problem of everything that is wrong with our world.


Stormtrooper

Best of the Web: It's Happened: Paramilitary Police vs Civilians in Anaheim

First look at the pictures of what look like soldiers patrolling Iraq lined up to stop the small, 300 person march against police violence in Anaheim.

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Attention

Best of the Web: Time is Running Out: World in Serious Trouble on Food Front

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© Jim Lo Scalzo/EPAA corn farmer holds drought-stricken ears of corn plucked from fields outside Eldorado, Illinois.
In the early spring of 2012, U.S. farmers were on their way to planting some 96 million acres in corn, the most in 75 years. A warm early spring got the crop off to a great start. Analysts were predicting the largest corn harvest on record.

The U.S. is the leading producer and exporter of corn, the world's feedgrain. At home, corn accounts for four-fifths of the U.S. grain harvest. Internationally, the U.S. corn crop exceeds China's rice and wheat harvests combined. Among the big three grains - corn, wheat and rice - corn is now the leader, with production well above that of wheat and nearly double that of rice.

The corn plant is as sensitive as it is productive. Thirsty and fast-growing, it is vulnerable to both extreme heat and drought. At elevated temperatures, the corn plant, which is normally so productive, goes into thermal shock.

As spring turned into summer, the thermometer began to rise across the Corn Belt. In St. Louis, Missouri, in the southern Corn Belt, the temperature in late June and early July climbed to 100 degrees Fahrenheit or higher 10 days in a row. For the past several weeks, the Corn Belt has been blanketed with dehydrating heat.

V

Best of the Web: How Will the 99% Deal with the Psychopaths in the 1%?

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Did you know that roughly one person in a hundred is clinically a psychopath? These individuals are either born with an emotional deficiency that keeps them from feeling bad about hurting others, or they are traumatized early in life in a manner that causes them to become this way. With more than 7 billion people on the planet that means there are as many as 70,000,000 psychopaths alive today. These people are more likely to be risk takers, opportunists motivated by self-interest and greed, and inclined to dominate or subjugate those around them through manipulative means.


Comment: Actually, their numbers are probably far higher than that. Furthermore, there are other types of humans whose behaviour indicates they are so damaged as to be practically indistinguishable from psychopaths. Please read Political Ponerology to get an idea of the sheer scale of the problem.


Last year, the Occupy Movement drew a distinction between the top 1% and the remaining 99% - as distinguished by measures of wealth and income. Of course, this breakdown is misleading, since there are many top income earners who sympathize with the plights of others and are not part of the problem. But the real defining metric reveals itself: 1% of the global population is comprised of people who exhibit psychopathic tendencies.

Comment: As Lobaczewski warned in Political Ponerology, Ignota nulla curatio morbid - "Do not attempt to cure that which you do not understand". Before we can get creative about a grand future without psychopaths (or with getting psychopathology under control), we need to realise - en masse - that psychopaths are steering humanity as a whole off a very steep cliff. Indeed, humanity's inability to acknowledge and deal with this problem before it became too late is the reason why the Living System is cleaning house on our planet at this time.

Having said that, it is refreshing to see others thinking and communicating about the root problem of injustice in the world.

psycho 6%
© SOTT.net



Pistol

Best of the Web: Surprise! Gun sales surge in US following Colorado shooting

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© Gilles Mingasson/Getty ImagesGun shop in Texas: sales of firearms have soared across the US following the Colorado massacre.
Firearms sales are surging in the US in the wake of the Colorado massacre as buyers express fears that politicians may use the shootings to seek new restrictions on owning weapons.

In Colorado - the scene of Friday's shooting during the screening of a Batman film that killed 12 and injured dozens of others - gun sales jumped in the three days that followed. The state approved background checks for 2,887 people who wanted to purchase a firearm - 25% more than the average Friday to Sunday period in 2012 and 43% more than the same period the week before.

Dick Rutan, owner of Gunners Den in suburban Arvada, said requests for concealed-weapon training certification were "off the hook". His four-hour course in gun safety, required for certification for a concealed-weapons permit in Colorado, had drawn double the interest since Friday.

Comment: They have been deliberately flooding the US with affordable military-grade firearms for decades. Perhaps the deeper intention of apparently senseless acts like this horrific mass shooting is to rile gun owners into a defensive posture and thereby increase gun sales, not decrease them. As is outlined in The Controversy of Zion, the Powers That Be want global revolution, so that when it's over they can pick up the pieces and start with some new form of control. People don't realise that the 'security forces' are as expendable as civilians to the Powers That Be.

What those who constantly appeal to the US constitution's 2nd amendment don't seem to grasp is that if the government really wanted to "take away your guns" they would have done it long ago. They have deliberately allowed the mass arming of American civilians. Are we to suppose that this state of affairs happened by accident?