Freedom and democracy. How I have come to loathe this phrase. Two-lofty-words-and-a-conjunction bandied around by handmaidens of Empire: verbal grenades that can gut entire nations. When I hear "freedom and democracy" I instinctively look for cover - just as "Allahu Akbar" yelled loudly enough can now make Arabs and Muslims hit the ground fast.

"Freedom and democracy" is the battle cry for every single western regime-change operation I can remember. Operations that leave innocent civilians dead, cities destroyed - anarchy, corruption and criminality in their wake.

In the Middle East, these are dangerous words that have filtered into our vocabulary. People here, intoxicated with their faux revolutions, now spout this silly foreign phrase with the same shrill, mad-eyed, self-righteous conviction as do Americans before they bomb us into 'freedom.'

But Arabs and Muslims should dig deep into their recent memory:

The first words uttered by you as you rose up against your US-backed dictators were "honor and dignity" - not "freedom and democracy." How did that fact get lost in the mayhem to follow?

And why on earth would this distinction make any difference?

It doesn't even take one page for you to be blown away by Brad Thor's highly successful thriller from last summer "Black List." It's right there on the first page of the preface.

But why are we talking about last year's success rather than his latest project ("Hidden Order") slated for release on Tuesday? Because last year's book warned of one of this year's biggest scandals: the NSA spying story.

"This is not only real stuff, but it chilled me to the bone," Thor told TheBlaze in a sit-down interview in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Friday. "This" is the NSA's capability to surveil its own citizens - but not just its capability, also its willingness and practice.

"I said, 'That's what I'm going to base my thriller, "Black List," on,' and that's what I did."

South Korea's defence ministry said on Monday it has ordered its staff to install a smartphone application that restricts key functions like the camera in an attempt to prevent military leaks.

The ministry said that, from Monday, its 1,500 staff are no longer allowed to bring smartphones into their offices without installing the app, called "Mobile Management Device".

The order caused a long queue at the gates of the ministry on Monday because some 20 percent of the staff had failed to install the app, officials said.

The ministry declined to confirm a report by Yonhap news agency that some staff had refused to install the app due to concerns about privacy.

Ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok told reporters that the app, which restricts the use of cameras and audio recording, prevents leaks through smartphones and stops outsiders from hacking into the devices of defence ministry officials.

"We've developed a system to restrict the core functions of smartphones because of concerns that our work could be leaked through them," he said.

Campaigners demand closure of EDF's Tricastin plant, calling it one of France's most dangerous

More than 20 Greenpeace activists climbed fences to break into an EDF nuclear power plant in southern France and demanded its closure, the environmental campaign group has said.

The activists, dressed in red, broke into the Tricastin plant at dusk on Sunday and unfurled a yellow and black banner on the wall with the words: "Tricastin, nuclear accident - president of the catastrophe?" above a picture of the president, François Hollande.

"With this action, Greenpeace is asking François Hollande to close the Tricastin plant, which is among the five most dangerous in France," Yannick Rousselet, in charge of nuclear issues for Greenpeace France, said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for EDF denied the activists had reached two of the plant's reactors and said that by 8.30am local time on Monday, 17 of them had been arrested for unauthorised access. Others clung on to metal structures and ladders, she said.

A Pakistani branch of the Taliban has sent hundreds of men to Syria to fight alongside rebels in the battle to topple President Assad. The militant organization has reportedly set up camps, aiming to foster ties with al-Qaeda's central leadership.

Taliban commanders told Reuters on Sunday that they decided to join the cause in Syria in order to fight alongside their "Mujahedeen friends."

"When our brothers needed our help, we sent hundreds of fighters along with our Arab friends," one senior commander said, mentioning that his group would be providing the general public with videos of their "victories" in Syria.

One commander told the agency that the help was sent at the request of "Arab friends."

"We have established our own camps in Syria. Some of our people go and then return after spending some time fighting there," a Pakistani Taliban commander said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The US and Israel have repeatedly threatened to take military action against Iran in order to force the Islamic Republic to halt its uranium enrichment program, which Washington and Tel Aviv claim includes a military component."

Israel has threatened to take unilateral action against the Islamic Republic of Iran over the country's nuclear energy program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on CBS News's Face the Nation on Sunday that Tel Aviv might act against Iran before the United States does.

"Our clocks are ticking at a different pace. We're closer than the United States. We're more vulnerable. And therefore, we'll have to address this question of how to stop Iran, perhaps before the United States does," the Israeli prime minister said.

Netanyahu also said Iran is edging up to what he called a red line.

"They're edging up to the red line. They haven't crossed it yet," he said

After writing my most recent article with regard to what typically happens when a currency collapse takes down a country's economy, many people wrote to me asking me when it is going to happen. The short answer is that I have a hard time predicting the actions of psychopaths. All of us have a hard time predicting the action of others who are so different from the mainstream of America because most of us do not think like psychopaths. However, I can state with certainty that when the last mortgage has been stolen and the last pension has been confiscated, then it will be time to collapse the dollar.

Our country should be dubbed, the United States of Psychopathology. Psychopaths are at the root of the world's problems. They kill hundreds of millions in wars which serves no purpose except to enrich themselves. Subsequently, psychopaths such as the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds recruit already compromised psychopaths to do their bidding in both elected office and key administrative positions.

The Whole Country Is Going Crazy

The United States of America is presently undergoing a mental health crisis. An estimated 26.2% of Americans ages 18 and older suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. This figure translates to almost 60 million people who have a diagnosable mental illness. Even though mental disorders are widespread in the population, the main burden of illness is concentrated in a much smaller proportion, which is confined to about 6% of the population, or about 1 in 17 who suffer from a serious mental illness. Nearly half (45%) of those with any mental disorder meet criteria for two or more disorders.

In the U.S., mental disorders are diagnosed based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV).4

Ag-gag laws are cropping up like Whac-a-Mole across the states in an attempt to protect large-scale farming and cattle operations from those pesky activists who find out about abuse and cruelty. Instead of addressing the systemic issue of transparency and animal/food safety, lobbying leads to more laws that inhibit the freedom to speak out about dismal conditions - clear 1st Amendment violations. Always in the name of "safety" and protecting trade secrets. It's one thing to keep people from committing theft, destruction of property, breaking and entering, intellectual property theft and privacy violations - which basic laws support. But it's wholly another to prosecute well-intentioned tourists or try peaceful protesters as terrorists.

The latest to get burned is prominent world photographer and freelancer for National Geographic, George Steinmetz. He often gets government clearance to roam the airways for his aerial photography and uses a motorized paraglider with parachute and what looks like a lawn chair.

Even though the ensuing brief arrest on June 28th, and $270 bail each stems from trespassing, the underlying cause (fear) and reason for phone call to the sheriff appear to stem from upholding the Farm Animal and Field Crop and Research Facilities Protection Act. It was one of the first state laws of its kind enacted in 1990 and criminalizes farm photography.

A Chinese naval fleet was Sunday spotted sailing for the first time through an international strait between northern Japan and Russia's far east, the Japanese defence ministry said.

The two missile destroyers, two frigates and a supply ship passed through the Soya Strait from the Sea of Japan to the Sea of Okhotsk early Sunday, the ministry said.

The channel, also known as La Perouse, separates the Russian island of Sakhalin and the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido.

The five ships took part in joint naval exercises with Russia from July 5-12 off Vladivostok.

Two other Chinese naval ships which also took part in the drills were seen moving into the East China Sea on Saturday.

The purpose of the Chinese fleet's passage through the Soya Strait is not known, Kyodo news agency quoted a ministry official as saying.

On Saturday a fleet of 16 Russian naval ships was seen moving through the Soya Strait into the Sea of Okhotsk, the ministry said.

Millions of gallons of water laced with toxic chemicals from oil and gas drilling rigs are pumped for consumption by wildlife and livestock with the formal approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to public comments filed yesterday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Contrary to its own regulations, EPA is issuing permits for surface application of drilling wastewater without even identifying the chemicals in fluids used for hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, let alone setting effluent limits for the contaminants contained within them.

The EPA has just posted proposed new water discharge permits for the nearly dozen oil fields on or abutting the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming as the EPA has Clean Water Act jurisdiction on tribal lands. Besides not even listing the array of toxic chemicals being discharged, the proposed permits have monitoring requirements so weak that water can be tested long after fracking events or maintenance flushing. In addition, the permits lack any provisions to protect the health of wildlife or livestock.

"Under the less than watchful eye of the EPA, fracking flowback is dumped into rivers, lakes and reservoirs," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, pointing out that in both the current and the new proposed permits the EPA ignores its own rules requiring that it list "the type and quantity of wastes, fluids or pollutants which are proposed to be or are being treated, stored, disposed of, injected, emitted or discharged."