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Mr. Potato

Berlusconi barred from public office for 2 yrs


Press TV
Sat, 19 Oct 2013 13:37 UTC
Silvio Berlusconi
© AFP/Getty Images
An Italian court has ruled that former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was found guilty of tax evasion, should be barred from holding public office for two years.

The Milan court issued the verdict on Saturday for the scandal-tainted former prime minister as part of a tax fraud ruling.

However, since the billionaire tycoon is a senator, the decision will have no immediate effect.

Berlusconi's expulsion from the Senate will depend on a separate vote in the upper house of parliament, which is expected to take place in November.

Italy's Supreme Court convicted Berlusconi on August 1 of tax evasion in a final ruling, and sentenced him to one year of community service or house arrest, making it the first definitive conviction against him after dozens of trials in almost 20 years of political career.

On October 2, Berlusconi was forced to abandon his bid to topple Prime Minister Enrico Letta after more than 40 of his lawmakers said they would defy him and instead vote in support of the coalition government.
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Card - MC

Flashback Debit card fees: why Bank of America will charge $5 for debit card use

Chris Richardson
The Christian Science Monitor
Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:17 UTC
credit card fees
© Chuck Burton/Associated PressBank of America plans to start charging customers a $5 monthly debit card fee. The fee will be rolled out starting early in 2012.
Debit card fees on the rise: Bank of America to charge $5 for debit card usage. Other banks may follow suit.

In early 2012, Bank of America customers with basic accounts will be charged a $5 monthly fee for shopping with their debit cards. The fee will be charged whether customers choose 'debit' or 'credit' at the point of sale.

ATM usage fees will remain the same, and those customers who do not shop with their debit card will notincur the $5 monthly fee.

Why is Bank of America making this move? It certainly fits a trend: ATM fees have been rising, bounced check fees have been going up, and free checking accounts are fast becoming a thing of the past.
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Attention

Secret 3G radio in every Intel vPro CPU could remote control PC at any time

Jim Stone
Popular Resistance
Thu, 19 Sep 2013 11:17 UTC
Intel
New Intel-Based PC's Permanently Hackable

So you think no one can access your data because your computer is turned off. Heck it's more than turned off, you even took the main hard drive out, and only the backup disk is inside. There is no operating system installed at all. So you KNOW you are safe.

Frank from across the street is an alternative operating systems hobbyist, and he has tons of computers. He has Free BSD on a couple, his own compilation of Linux on another, a Mac for the wife, and even has Solaris on yet another. Frank knows systems security, so he cannot be hacked . . . or so he thinks.

The government does not like Frank much, because they LOVE to look at everything. Privacy is a crime don't you know, and it looks like Frank's luck with privacy is about to run out.

The new Intel Core vPro processors contain a new remote access feature which allows 100 percent remote access to a PC 100 percent of the time, even if the computer is turned off. Core vPro processors contain a second physical processor embedded within the main processor which has it's own operating system embedded on the chip itself. As long as the power supply is available and and in working condition, it can be woken up by the Core vPro processor, which runs on the system's phantom power and is able to quietly turn individual hardware components on and access anything on them.

Comment: Not sure AMD processors are different.

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TV

The military-industrial pundits: Conflicts of interest exposed for TV guests who urged Syrian war

Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
Fri, 18 Oct 2013 11:03 UTC
Stephen Hadley
© vebidoo.deStephen Hadley, appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and Bloomberg TV. None informed viewers that Hadley currently serves as a director of the weapons manufacturer Raytheon.
New research shows many so-called experts who appeared on television making the case for U.S. strikes on Syria had undisclosed ties to military contractors. A new report by the Public Accountability Initiative identifies 22 commentators with industry ties. While they appeared on television or were quoted as experts 111 times, their links to military firms were disclosed only 13 of those times. The report focuses largely on Stephen Hadley, who served as national security adviser to President George W. Bush. During the debate on Syria, he appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and Bloomberg TV. None of these stations informed viewers that Hadley currently serves as a director of the weapons manufacturer Raytheon that makes Tomahawk cruise missiles widely touted as the weapon of choice for bombing Syria. He also owns over 11,000 shares of Raytheon stock, which traded at all-time highs during the Syria debate. We speak to Kevin Connor of the Public Accountability Initiative, a co-author of the report.

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Dominoes

Best of the Web: The de-Americanisation of the world has begun - emergence of solutions for a multipolar world by 2015


Leap - GEAB 78
Wed, 16 Oct 2013 09:48 UTC
USA flag
© unknown
It's one of those times when history accelerates. Whatever the outcome of the negotiations on the shutdown and debt ceiling, October 2013 is one of them. It's the deadlock too far which has opened the eyes of those who still support the United States. A leader is followed when he is believed, not when he is ridiculous.

"Building a de-Americanised world": this statement would have raised a smile a few years ago. At most it would have passed for provocation by Hugo Chavez. But when we are seeing the United States' bankruptcy in real-time and it's an official Chinese press agency that says so (1), the impact isn't the same. In reality, it's describing out loud a process which is already well underway: simply, it's now allowed to speak about it in public. At least US government deadlock has the merit of loosening tongues (2). Let there be no mistake, this analysis hasn't appeared in the Chinese media by chance, and it reflects Beijing's hardening tone.

In fact, if the whole world is holding its breath before this pathetic game of the US elite; it's not out of compassion, it's to avoid being swept away in the fall of the world's first power. Everyone is trying to free itself from American influence and let go of a United States permanently discredited by recent events over Syria, tapering, shutdown and now the debt ceiling. The legendary US power is now no more than a nuisance and the world has understood that it's time to de-Americanise.
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Dollar

Surprises tucked in Senate bill, not least that District of Columbia is firewalled from shutdown for remainder of fiscal year 2014

Pete Kasperowicz
The Hill
Wed, 16 Oct 2013 23:03 UTC
The legislation released by the Senate late Wednesday to reopen the government contains several surprises.

The bill includes extra funds to fix flooded roads in Colorado, a $3 million appropriation for a civil liberties oversight board and a one-time payment to the widow of Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who died over the summer.

It also includes an increase in authorization for spending on construction on the lower Ohio River in Illinois and Kentucky. The bill increases it to $2.918 billion.

The Senate Conservatives Fund quickly called that language the "Kentucky Kickback," and said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) secured that as the price of his support for the bill. Taxpayers for Common Sense says the bill would increase total authorized spending by $1.2 billion.
Image
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Question

Did part of SEAL team Six die in a helicopter explosion during the Bin Laden raid?

Patrick Henningsen
21 First Century Wire
Sat, 19 Oct 2013 03:03 UTC
Seal team six raid
© Unknown
What the public were told by the US government via the corporate media, and what actually happened during the White House's much-celebrated "Bin Laden Raid" in 2011 -are not the same.

One thing which becomes clearer by the day about the fabled Bin Laden Raid which took place in Abbotabad, Pakistan, is that the US government has intentionally deceived the public about what happened. In other words, what President Obama described when he addressed the American people following "the raid" - was a work of pure fiction.

The following interview appeared on Pakistani broadcast channel, Sama TV, and includes a translation in English from an eye witness on the scene.

If the translation is accurate, then this eye witness blows the lid off of another plank in the White House's fictional drama.

The following is an interview with Muhammad Bashir, who lives next door to the alleged "compound" of Osama bin Laden. He claims that the first US helicopter suffered an explosion, which killed all of its US military occupants, somewhere between 10 and 20 men.

Based on this man's testimony, we have to ask the question: did the White House cover this up in order to protect the Dear Leader from a devastating "Jimmy Carter moment" (1979 Iran hostage rescue cock-up).
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Attention

Best of the Web: Real justice, love, technology only possible after 1% arrests for OBVIOUS Crimes

Carl Herman
Washington Blog
Fri, 18 Oct 2013 23:24 UTC
SOTT psychopaths rule our world
© SOTT.net
Preface:

Q: Hey, Herman, when will you shut-up about arrests of criminals?

A: When arrests or surrender of 1% OBVIOUS criminals centering in war and money have been accomplished.
Americans cannot imagine real justice because they are dominated by 1% "leaders" in government, banking/finance, and media who:
  1. Blatantly violate war law, war-murdering more than WW2 Nazis (~30 million since WW2).
  2. Blatantly defraud Americans by trillions of dollars every year by lying that a "debt system" is a "monetary system."
  3. Blatantly lie through media that war-murders protect "our freedoms" while hiding all "reasons" for war were known to be false as they were told. They hide that all American freedoms under the Constitution have been destroyed by our own government.
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USA

UN report says drone strikes killed more civilians than publicly acknowledged


RT America
Fri, 18 Oct 2013 11:50 UTC
drone protest
© AFP Photo / S.S MirzaPakistani protesters belonging to United Citizen Action march behind a burning US flag during a protest in Multan on September 30, 2013, against the US drone attacks in Pakistani tribal area

A UN report accuses the United States of downplaying the number of civilians killed in anti-terrorist drone operations, while failing to assist in the investigation by releasing its own figures.

With the increased use of remotely piloted aircraft in military operations in a number of countries, the nagging question of civilian "collateral damage" as a consequence of these deadly technologies is a growing concern for the United Nations and human right groups.

In Afghanistan, for example, the number of aerial drone strikes surged from 294 in 2011 to 447 during the first 11 months of 2012, according to data released by the US Air Force in November 2012, UN Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson noted in his interim report, which is due to be presented to the UN General Assembly next Friday.

Pakistan officials confirmed that out of 2,200 deaths "at least 400 civilians had been killed as a result of remotely piloted aircraft strikes and a further 200 individuals were regarded as probable non-combatants."

Although the first missile test-fired from a drone occurred in February 2001, it wasn't until the end of 2012 that the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released data showing that 16 civilians had been killed and 5 injured due to drone strikes during the course of the year.

In its latest published figures, covering the first six months of 2013, UNAMA documented 15 civilian deaths and 7 injuries in seven separate attacks by drone aircraft.

Emmerson's 24-page document mentions a report by a US military advisor that contradicted official US claims that drone attacks were responsible for fewer civilian deaths compared with other aerial platforms, for example, fighter jets.
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Bad Guys

Documents reveal NSA's extensive involvement in targeted killing program

Greg Miller, Julie Tate and Barton Gellman
The Washington Post
Wed, 16 Oct 2013 00:00 UTC
drone poster
It was an innocuous e-mail, one of millions sent every day by spouses with updates on the situation at home. But this one was of particular interest to the National Security Agency and contained clues that put the sender's husband in the crosshairs of a CIA drone.

Days later, Hassan Ghul - an associate of Osama bin Laden who provided a critical piece of intelligence that helped the CIA find the al-Qaeda leader - was killed by a drone strike in Pakistan's tribal belt.

The U.S. government has never publicly acknowledged killing Ghul. But documents provided to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden confirm his demise in October 2012 and reveal the agency's extensive involvement in the targeted killing program that has served as a centerpiece of President Obama's counterterrorism strategy.

An al-Qaeda operative who had a knack for surfacing at dramatic moments in the post-Sept. 11 story line, Ghul was an emissary to Iraq for the terrorist group at the height of that war. He was captured in 2004 and helped expose bin Laden's courier network before spending two years at a secret CIA prison. Then, in 2006, the United States delivered him to his native Pakistan, where he was released and returned to the al-Qaeda fold.

But beyond filling in gaps about Ghul, the documents provide the most detailed account of the intricate collaboration between the CIA and the NSA in the drone campaign.

The Post is withholding many details about those missions, at the request of U.S. intelligence officials who cited potential damage to ongoing operations and national security.

Comment: The authors are attempting to whitewash NSA spying and the drone program by trying to justify the actions of the NSA as well as the murder of innocent civilians. NSA director Keith Alexander admitted that the Obama administration has issued misleading information about terror plots and their foiling to bolster support for the government's vast surveillance apparatus.
NSA surveillance is not used for 'finding terrorists' at all, so what exactly IS it used for then?
NSA director admits to misleading public on terror plots

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