Best of the Web:

Best of the Web: US: Last of Secret Kennedy Tapes Released

Lauren Keiper
Reuters
Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC

The final 45 hours of White House recordings secretly taped during John F. Kennedy's time in office were released on Tuesday, offering researchers unique perspective into the last three months of his administration.

The recordings are part of a collection of more than 248 hours of taped meetings and 12 hours of phone conversations that have been reviewed and released by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum since 1993.

"The president's intelligence really comes across," said Maura Porter, declassification archivist with the presidential library who worked on the tapes for a decade.

Kennedy can be heard stumping experts with his questions in areas that were not necessarily his forte, she said.

The recorded conversations were made deliberately by the president, often captured in the Oval Office or Cabinet Room, but were kept secret from even Kennedy's top aides, the library said in a statement.

Best of the Web: The Ron Paul FIX is in

SGT Report
Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:25 UTC

How did Newt Gingrich win the South Carolina primary? Answer: there are no free elections in the USA. There is no 'democracy' in the USA. There hasn't been for a long time.

Best of the Web: Newspaper Editor: Israel Should Consider Assassinating Obama

John Cook
Gawker.com
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:59 UTC

Andrew Adler, the owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, a weekly newspaper serving Atlanta's Jewish community, devoted his January 13, 2012 column to the thorny problem of the U.S. and Israel's diverging views on the threat posed by Iran. Basically Israel has three options, he wrote: Strike Hezbollah and Hamas, strike Iran, or "order a hit" on Barack Obama. Either way, problem solved!

Here's how Adler laid out "option three" in his list of scenarios facing Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu (the column, which was forwarded to us by a tipster, isn't online, but you can read a copy here):

Three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States' policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.

Yes, you read "three" correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel's existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don't you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel's most inner circles?

Another way of putting "three" in perspective goes something like this: How far would you go to save a nation comprised of seven million lives...Jews, Christians and Arabs alike?

You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table.

Best of the Web: Subculture of Americans Prepares for Civilization's Collapse

Jim Forsyth
Reuters
Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:44 UTC

When Patty Tegeler looks out the window of her home overlooking the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, she sees trouble on the horizon.

"In an instant, anything can happen," she told Reuters. "And I firmly believe that you have to be prepared."

Tegeler is among a growing subculture of Americans who refer to themselves informally as "preppers." Some are driven by a fear of imminent societal collapse, others are worried about terrorism, and many have a vague concern that an escalating series of natural disasters is leading to some type of environmental cataclysm.

They are following in the footsteps of hippies in the 1960s who set up communes to separate themselves from what they saw as a materialistic society, and the survivalists in the 1990s who were hoping to escape the dictates of what they perceived as an increasingly secular and oppressive government.

Preppers, though are, worried about no government.

Tegeler, 57, has turned her home in rural Virginia into a "survival center," complete with a large generator, portable heaters, water tanks, and a two-year supply of freeze-dried food that her sister recently gave her as a birthday present. She says that in case of emergency, she could survive indefinitely in her home. And she thinks that emergency could come soon.

"I think this economy is about to fall apart," she said.

Best of the Web: South African Weather Bill Creates a Storm of Controversy

John Platt
Mother Nature Network
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:44 UTC

Proposed law would make unauthorized storm predictions punishable by heavy fines and 10 years in jail.

A proposed law in South Africa would theoretically punish anyone who makes a prediction about severe weather or air pollution with heavy fines or jail time if they did not first receive written permission from the government-funded South African Weather Service (SAWS).

As written, the South African Weather Service Amendment Bill would affect not just TV weathermen and online weather sites but also community-based weather services. First offenses would be punished with a fine or up to 5 million rand (about $630,000) or five years in jail. The fines and jail time would be doubled for subsequent offenses.

The law was widely but inaccurately reported last week as punishing weather forecasters who make incorrect predictions with jail time, perhaps inspired by a Daily Telegraph headline that read "South African weather forecasters who get it wrong face imprisonment." The Telegraph story itself accurately reported on the bill, which has been criticized for creating a monopoly for SAWS weather reports, including radar images and text message alerts, which are only available to the public after paying a subscription fee.

Comment: The PTB really ARE AFRAID of the changing weather and they know they have no control over what is happening with climate change. They want to keep control at all costs and this is about the stupidest thing we've ever heard of in that respect. Do they think that not announcing violent weather will prevent it from happening? What about the millions of people put at risk without warning? Can you people believe that whoever came up with this retarded idea can actually dress himself?

Best of the Web: The Vaccination Agenda: An Implicit Transhumanism/Dehumanism

Sayer Ji
GreenMedInfo
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:00 UTC

Let's face it: the only real justification for using vaccines to "immunize" ourselves against disease is derived from the natural fact that when challenged by infectious agents the humoral arm of our immune system launches a successful response capable of conferring lasting immunity. Were it not for the elegance, proficiency, and mostly asymptomatic success of our recombinatorial immune system in dealing so well with infectious challenges, vaccination would have no cause, no scientific explanation, no justification whatsoever.

In fact, ever since the adaptive, antigen-specific immune system evolved in early vertebrates 500 million years ago, our bodies have been doing a pretty good job of keeping us alive on this planet without need for synthetic, vaccine-mediated immunity. Indeed, infectious challenges are necessary for the development of a healthy immune system and in order to prevent autoimmune conditions from emerging as a result of TH2 dominance. In other words, take away these natural infectious challenges, and the immune system can and will turn upon itself; take way these infectious challenges and lasting immunity against tens, if not hundreds of thousands of pathogens we are exposed to throughout our lives, would not be possible.

Can vaccines really co-opt, improve upon, and replace natural immunity with synthetic immunity?

How many will this require?

Are we not already at the critical threshold of vaccine overload?

By "improving" on our humanness in this way, are we not also at the same moment departing dramatically from it?

Best of the Web: Israel Rattled as Hackers Hit Bourse, Banks, El Al

Maayan Lubell
Reuters
Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:18 UTC

Hackers disrupted online access to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, El Al Airlines and three banks on Monday in what the government described as a cyber-offensive against Israel.

The attacks came just days after an unidentified hacker, proclaiming Palestinian sympathies, posted the details of thousands of Israeli credit card holders and other personal information on the Internet in a mass theft.

Stock trading and El Al flights operated normally despite the disruption, which occurred as Israeli media reported that pro-Palestinian hackers had threatened at the weekend to shut down the TASE stock exchange and airline Web sites.

While apparently confined to areas causing only limited inconvenience, the attacks have caused particular alarm in a country that depends on high-tech systems for much of its defense against hostile neighbors. Officials insist, however, that they pose no immediate security threat.

"They have demanded an apology for Israel's defensive measures," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said on his Facebook page, alluding to the conflict with Palestinians.

Comment: Giving the PTB MORE reason to shut down the internet.

Geeze, it's starting to look a lot like False Flag terrorist attacks every day. You know, like so-called Palestinian suicide bombers?

Best of the Web: Anonymous Shuts Down Corporate and Government Websites Worldwide ... The Timing Couldn't Be Worse

Washington's Blog
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:43 UTC

Anonymous Shuts Down MPAA, RIAA, FBI, DOJ and Copyright Office

Anonymous launched one of the largest hacking attacks in history today.

Gizmodo reports that - in response to the Feds' shutting down of the extremely popular file-sharing site MegaUpload - Anonymous has shut down the sites of the main corporate copyright enforcers, including:

Motion Picture Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
Universal Music
EMI

Anonymous has also shut down the main U.S. governmental copyright enforcers, including:

U.S. Copyright Office
Department of Justice
FBI

Plus foreign agencies, including:

French copyright authority HADOPI

Comment: Comment by Michael Rivero of WhatReallyHappened:

I have had my doubts about "Anonymous" ever since they showed up supporting Julian Assange and his extortion racket pretending to be a whistle blower site. In aligning with the pirates and attacking the DOJ, anonymous has handed the US government more justification for draconian controls on the internet.

I see your true colors shining through.

Best of the Web: Update on SOPA and PIPA: What's Happening With the Web Censorship Bills?

Washington's Blog
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC

In the face of massive Internet protest today, key senate and house backers of the SOPA and PIPA web censorship bills - including Senators Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt, John Cornyn, Orrin Hatch, John Boozman and Jim DeMint, and Representatives Ben Quayle and Lee Terry - have dropped their support. So have a number of other senators.

At least 17,000 websites allegedly joined in the protest.

Indeed, even several congresspeople joined in the protest. Here's what Congresswoman Anna Eshoo's homepage looks like right now: