Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

How the Harper government committed a knowledge massacre

harper
© Andrew Cowie/AFP/Getty Images
Scientists are calling it "libricide." Seven of the nine world-famous Department of Fisheries and Oceans [DFO] libraries were closed by autumn 2013, ostensibly to digitize the materials and reduce costs. But sources told the independent Tyee in December that a fraction of the 600,000-volume collection had been digitized. And, a secret federal document notes that a paltry $443,000 a year will be saved. The massacre was done quickly, with no record keeping and no attempt to preserve the material in universities. Scientists said precious collections were consigned to dumpsters, were burned or went to landfills.

Probably the most famous facility to get the axe is the library of the venerable St. Andrews Biological Station in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, which environmental scientist Rachel Carson used extensively to research her seminal book on toxins, Silent Spring. The government just spent millions modernizing the facility.

Comment: One of the characteristics of a pathocracy is that it systematically does away with not only knowledge and information from all spheres of life, but also with those who produce it:

Scientists continue to be muzzled by Canada's Harper government
Psychopathology in Canadian Politics: Stephen Harper's Ruthless Drive for Power


Info

Snowden leaks prompt Amnesty International appeal to U.S. Supreme Court

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© CS Monitor
Edward Snowden's leaks should prompt reconsideration of whether Amnesty International has standing to challenge mass surveillance, a rights group told the high court Friday.

In 2008, Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal complaint on behalf of labor, legal, media and human-rights organizations opposing warrantless surveillance as unconstitutional.

Saying the groups could not prove that the government actually spied on them, and that their fear of injury under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was merely speculative, a Manhattan federal judge initiall sided with the government on summary judgment.

When the 2nd Circuit reversed in March 2011, it said the critics did indeed have standing to fight as the entities would be more than tangentially related to the "persons of interest" who could be the target of any possible surveillance. That 63-page decision said government surveillance poses a threat that is great enough to have caused immediate harm. The groups have gone to great lengths to avoid the chance that wiretaps could compromise their communications with clients and sources, according to the ruling.

This claim of "future injury" was too " speculative ," however, for a five-member majority of the Supreme Court in February 2013.

Months later in June, Snowden eliminated doubt that the policy-challenging plaintiffs - along with millions of other U.S. citizens - were being spied on by disclosing a top-secret court order that forces Verizon to "turn over, every day, metadata about the calls made by each of its subscribers over the three-month period ending on July 19, 2013."

Eye 1

Big Brother's little siblings: local police departments are spying on us too

police officers
It's not just the NSA anymore. Here's how local law enforcement collects your call data, even if unrelated to crime.

By now, it's well known that the National Security Agency is collecting troves of data about law-abiding Americans. But the NSA is not alone: A series of new reports show that state and local police have been busy collecting data on our daily activities as well - under questionable or nonexistent legal pretenses. These revelations about the extent of police snooping in the U.S. - and the lack of oversight over it - paint a disturbing picture for anyone who cares about civil liberties and privacy protection.

The tactics used by law enforcement are aggressive, surreptitious and surprising to even longtime surveillance experts. One report released last month made front page news: an investigation by more than 50 journalists that found that local law enforcement agencies are collecting cellphone data about thousands of innocent Americans each year by tapping into cellphone towers and even creating fake ones that act as data traps.

A new report by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law details how police departments around the country have created data "fusion centers" to collect and share reports about residents. But the information in these reports seldom bears any relation to crime or terrorism. In California, for example, officers are encouraged to document and immediately report on "suspicious" activities such as "individuals who stay at bus or train stops for extended periods while buses and trains come and go," "individuals who carry on long conversations on pay or cellular phones," and "joggers who stand and stretch for an inordinate amount of time." In Houston, the criteria are so broad they include anything deemed "suspicious or worthy of reporting." Many police departments and fusion centers have reported on constitutionally protected activities such as photography and political speech. They have also demonstrated a troubling tendency to focus on people who appear to be of Middle Eastern origin.

Handcuffs

Best of the Web: 72 types of 'dangerous' Americans

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© Ayay.co.uk
Are you a conservative, a libertarian, a Christian or a gun owner? Are you opposed to abortion, globalism, Communism, illegal immigration, the United Nations or the New World Order?

Do you believe in conspiracy theories, do you believe that we are living in the "end times" or do you ever visit alternative news websites (such as this one)?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you are a "potential terrorist" according to official U.S. government documents. At one time, the term "terrorist" was used very narrowly. The government applied that label to people like Osama bin Laden and other Islamic jihadists. But now the Obama administration is removing all references to Islam from terror training materials, and instead the term "terrorist" is being applied to large groups of American citizens. And if you are a "terrorist", that means that you have no rights and the government can treat you just like it treats the terrorists that are being held at Guantanamo Bay. So if you belong to a group of people that is now being referred to as "potential terrorists", please don't take it as a joke.

The first step to persecuting any group of people is to demonize them. And right now large groups of peaceful, law-abiding citizens are being ruthlessly demonized.

Below is a list of 72 types of Americans that are considered to be "extremists" and "potential terrorists" in official U.S. government documents. To see the original source document for each point, just click on the link. As you can see, this list covers most of the country...

1. Those that talk about "individual liberties"

2. Those that advocate for states' rights

3. Those that want "to make the world a better place"

4. "The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule"

5. Those that are interested in "defeating the Communists"

6. Those that believe "that the interests of one's own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations"

Mr. Potato

Pot, meet Kettle: Obama, on vacation, berates GOP who went home for the holidays and 'abandoned less fortunate'

obama vacation
© AP/Carolyn KasterPresident Barack Obama holds his shave ice as he exits Island Snow to greet people waiting outside, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2013.
While President Barack Obama continued what the New York Times called a "real and rare vacation in Hawaii," he used his Weekly Address to accuse Republicans in Congress of going home for the holidays while less-fortunate Americans suffer. (Bold added):

Just a few days after Christmas, more than one million of our fellow Americans lost a vital economic lifeline - the temporary insurance that helps folks make ends meet while they look for a job. Republicans in Congress went home for the holidays and let that lifeline expire. And for many of their constituents who are unemployed through no fault of their own, that decision will leave them with no income at all.
We make this promise to one another because it makes a difference to a mother who needs help feeding her kids while she's looking for work; to a father who needs help paying the rent while learning the skills to get a new and better job. And denying families that security is just plain cruel. We're a better country than that. We don't abandon our fellow Americans when times get tough - we keep the faith with them until they start that new job.

Take 2

Why has Republican belief in evolution declined so much? (Hint: Political posturing to get votes)

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© Steve Pope/APFormer House Speaker Newt Gingrich visits Kanzi, a 25-year-old Bonobo, at Great Ape Trust of Iowa in 2005.
There's been a drop of more than 10 points - to just 43 percent - in the last four years.

In November, Mischa Fisher took to this space to criticize the notion that Republicans are the anti-science party. Plenty of Democrats hold views that contradict empirically established facts, and Republican skepticism is overblown, he wrote.

And yet ...

The Pew Research Center released new numbers Monday on how Americans view evolution. (The question was asked in a way to include those who believe God or a supreme being guided the process.) About six in 10 accept it, the poll found, but the partisan divide is wide:

Wolf

Abuse claims kept secret; allowed priest to minister and teach sex ed

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© Jeffrey Thompson/MPR NewsHarry Walsh wasn't included on a recent list of priests 'credibly accused' of sexual abuse. Church leaders knew his history, yet allowed him to continue working in parishes until the fall of 2011. Today Walsh teaches sex education to troubled teenagers and vulnerable adults in Wright Co., Minn.
When beloved priest Harry Walsh retired two years ago, parishioners of St. Henry's Catholic Church in Monticello, Minn., decorated a VFW hall with paper shamrocks and musical notes to say goodbye.

They sang, gave speeches and cried. Walsh, then 77, had served as the parish's music minister for nearly a decade.

"You developed close personal relationships with everybody and that gave us all the ability to trust you with all of our personal lives," one person wrote on a tribute website for the Irish-born priest. "You have blessed this community immeasurably."

But Walsh had a secret. He'd been accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl and 12-year-old altar boy decades earlier, according to church documents obtained by MPR News, and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis contributed to a financial settlement for the girl. Nonetheless, archbishops Harry Flynn and John Nienstedt allowed him to continue working in parishes until the fall of 2011. And neither bishop called police or warned the public.

More recently Walsh wasn't included on a list of 30 "credibly accused" priests released Dec. 5 by the archdiocese. Nienstedt said the disclosure of those names was important to restoring trust and could help protect children from harm.

- The list: Archdiocese names priests credibly accused of sexual abuse

Airplane Paper

Islamic charity officials gave millions to al-Qaeda, U.S. says

When Qatar's royal family was looking for advice on charitable giving, it turned to a well-regarded professor named Abd al-Rahman al-Nu'aymi. The 59-year-old educator had a stellar résumé that included extensive fundraising experience and years of work with international human rights groups.

But one apparent accomplishment was omitted from the list: According to U.S. officials, Nu'aymi also was working secretly as a financier for al-Qaeda, funneling millions of dollars to the terrorist group's affiliates in Syria and Iraq even as he led campaigns in Europe for greater freedoms for Muslims.

Nu'aymi was one of two men identified by Treasury Department officials last week as major financial backers of al-Qaeda and its regional chapters across the Middle East. Although U.S. officials routinely announce steps to disrupt terrorist financing networks, the individuals named in the latest case are far from ordinary. Both men have served as advisers to government-backed foundations in Qatar and have held high-profile positions with international human rights groups. The second man, a Yemeni, is heavily involved in his country's U.S.-backed political transition

Light Saber

U.S.: The Founding Fathers rejected democracy

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© Americanpatriot-vance.blogspot
The Founding Fathers universally rejected democracy and hoped that posterity would never turn the United States into one. The word they used was Republic, which is not synonymous with Democracy. The word Democracy is not in the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. Even the Pledge of Allegiance is to the Republic for which it stands.

Benjamin Franklin defined democracy as two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. So why did they reject Democracy? Because it is inherently flawed with the share the wealth philosophy, which only works as long as there is someone else's money to share. Those receiving are quite pleased with getting something for nothing. But those forced to give are denied the right to spend the benefits of their own labor in their own self-interest, which creates jobs no matter how the money is spent. They also lose a portion of their incentive to produce.

Fraser Tyler, author of The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic authored more than 200 years ago said it best. A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

Propaganda

Disinformation about French comedian Dieudonné's 'quenelle' gesture goes international

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© Meltybuzz.fr
No one seems to know just what is meant by the "quenelle," the vaguely menacing hand gesture invented and popularized by a French comedian widely criticized as anti-Semitic, but it is clearly nothing very nice, and it appears to be spreading.


Comment: The Opening sentence in this article is completely disingenuous. It is clear that the gesture means "Up Yours" and is directed at the ruling elite all over the world.


Fans of the performer, Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala, send him photos of themselves performing the gesture in front of historic monuments, next to unwitting public officials, at weddings, under water and in high school class photographs, but also, increasingly, beside synagogues, Holocaust memorials and street signs displaying the word "Jew." At least one young man appears to have posed for a quenelle outside the grade school in Toulouse where, in 2012, four Jews were killed by a self-proclaimed operative of Al Qaeda.

Jewish leaders, antiracism groups and public officials have pointed out that the quenelle, which is also the name of a fish dumpling that is a regional French delicacy, strongly resembles a downward-facing Nazi salute. Mr. M'Bala M'Bala, who goes by Dieudonné, insists it is nothing more than an "antisystem" joke for his initiates, most of them young men, some from the disaffected immigrant suburbs, some from the xenophobic far right.

Comment: It's interesting to see how uniform criticism of Dieudonné is outside of France.

See the following articles for the real story, one that is not being reported by ANY mainstream media:

Dieudonné M'bala M'bala and the Quenellization of France

The Move to Muzzle Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala