Puppet MastersS


House

UK flood disaster: Time to demand an EU cashback and divert our foreign aid, sez Farage

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© Hotspot MediaThe floods in Somerset are ruining people's lives.
When American satirist Robert Benchley arrived in Venice, he sent a telegram saying "streets flooded, please advise".

These words must ring hollow in the ears of people living in the South West who have seen their streets turn into rivers as the flood waters continue to rise. But it is not like these floods were new or unexpected.

This is the same region that suffered so much in 2007 when the Labour government announced they would increase spending on flood defences. In 2004, a Government-commissioned report advised a massive increase in spending on flood defences.

What did our leaders do when presented with this evidence?

Well, in 2006, Gordon Brown cut the flood defence budget by £14million.

Since then we have seen flood defence budgets decline in real terms over the course of the spending review. Yet during all this time they have continued to allow the building of houses on flood plains in order to fulfil the immigration driven need for housing.

USA

Obama administration mulling a targeted drone strike on (another) U.S. citizen abroad

Drone
© Google ImagesDue process fired at 425 m/s.
An intelligence leak to the Associated Press has indicated that the Obama Administration is considering a targeted drone strike on a U.S. citizen living abroad. If this takes place, it would mark the 5th American targeted for summary execution by the U.S. government.

The U.S. official spoke on conditions of anonymity because of the weight of the allegations. While the AP was privy to details such as the name of the target and the country where he resides, they have agreed to withhold this information because revealing details "could interrupt ongoing counterterror operations."

The Justice Department has reportedly not built a case on the target, meaning that the CIA can't kill him just yet unless the President authorizes the death warrant.

The further dilemma is presented due to the fact that the unnamed country is one that maintains its sovereignty and does not welcome wanton drone attacks from foreign superpowers.

Apparently, Obama's great dilemma is whether to target the individual openly with a drone, clandestinely through the CIA assassin program, or call off the mission in lieu of potential political fallout, according to the whistleblower.

Evil Rays

Putting Big Brother in the driver's seat: V2V Transmitters, black boxes & drones

"It's a future where you don't forget anything...In this new future you're never lost...We will know your position down to the foot and down to the inch over time...Your car will drive itself, it's a bug that cars were invented before computers...you're never lonely...you're never bored...you're never out of ideas... We can suggest where you go next, who to meet, what to read...What's interesting about this future is that it's for the average person, not just the elites." - Google CEO Eric Schmidt on his vision of the future
Police State
© Puff Critique

Time to buckle up your seatbelts, folks. You're in for a bumpy ride.

We're hurtling down a one-way road toward the Police State at mind-boggling speeds, the terrain is getting more treacherous by the minute, and we've passed all the exit ramps. From this point forward, there is no turning back, and the signpost ahead reads "Danger."

Indeed, as I document in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, we're about to enter a Twilight Zone of sorts, one marked by drones, smart phones, GPS devices, smart TVs, social media, smart meters, surveillance cameras, facial recognition software, online banking, license plate readers and driverless cars - all part of the interconnected technological spider's web that is life in the American police state, and every new gadget pulls us that much deeper into the sticky snare.

In this Brave New World awaiting us, there will be no communication not spied upon, no movement untracked, no thought unheard. In other words, there will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

We're on the losing end of a technological revolution that has already taken hostage our computers, our phones, our finances, our entertainment, our shopping, our appliances, and now, it's focused its sights on our cars. As if the government wasn't already able to track our movements on the nation's highways and byways by way of satellites, GPS devices, and real-time traffic cameras, government officials are now pushing to require that all new vehicles come installed with black box recorders and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications, ostensibly to help prevent crashes.

Stormtrooper

Pentagon wants to fit soldiers with a little black box brain implant

Implant
© Geek.com
Black box recorders are a common feature in aircraft. They sit there keeping track of everything that is happening. Then, if something goes wrong the information can be reviewed to piece together exactly what happened and form a view of the events that may otherwise have been lost.

Now the Pentagon is attempting to develop a similar system for use in humans, and in particular soldiers who have suffered brain damage. If they could be fitted with a black box in their brain, then it may be possible to trigger memories surrounding a traumatic event and overcome memory loss quickly and easily.

As you'd expect, DARPA has been tasked with looking into this area through its Defense Sciences department. We still know very little about how our memory works, but progress is being made through brain stimulation devices such as that developed by Medtronic for helping people with Parkinson's disease.

The solution DARPA and the Pentagon wants developed takes the form of an implantable device that can both record and stimulate brain activity. Anyone submitting a proposal for such a device needs to detail every step of how it would work, including the surgical procedure to attach it, power requirements once fitted, and how much space it would take up and how much it would weigh.

Vader

EU to consider intervention in Bosnia if tension escalates

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© bih-x.infoThe international High Representative, Valentin Inzko warns of eventual EU forces intervention in Bosnia.
An eventual escalation of tension in Bosnia might result in intervention of EU forces, a high official warned Sunday.

Valentin Inzko, High Representative of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, told Austrian media that the situation in the country will be analyzed next Tuesday.

"Austria will increase its troops there, but if it comes to escalation we would have to consider theintervention of EU forces. Currently, we do not have such intention," Inzko said for the Austrian Kurier newspaper.

"For many years people did not protest because for them the peace after the war, with more than 100 000 killed, was very important," he explained.

"It all began in the town of Tuzla, where workers have not been paid for over a year. They have been protesting every Wednesday, but no one paid attention to them," Inzko said adding that the current situation is Bosnia is the worst since 1995.

Sunday is the fifth day of anti-government protests in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Locals are protesting against high unemployment, rampant corruption and the lack of economic and political progress.

Take 2

U.S. jealousy of Russia worsens as Sochi Games impress international community

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The Olympic Games, created to bring countries together around sports, appear to be having the opposite effect on U.S.-Russia relations.

Rising animosity between the former Cold War powers was on full display Friday when Russia chose a former figure skater who tweeted out a racially charged picture of President Obama for the symbolic lighting of the Olympic cauldron.

That came just a day after the world found out that a personal phone call between State Department official Victoria Nuland and the U.S. ambassador to Kiev, where she can be heard saying "F - k the EU," had been intercepted and leaked on You Tube.

The Obama administration immediately pointed the finger at Moscow, which did little to signal a denial over an incident that embarrassed Washington.

To be sure, there are hard feelings in Russia toward the U.S. and the Obama administration, too.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped hosting the first Games since the 1980 Moscow Olympics, which the U.S. boycotted, would showcase a "new Russia" emerging from the ashes of the Soviet Union as he enters his 15th year in power.

Instead the U.S. and its western allies have consistently painted the picture of a corrupt autocracy.

Whistle

The media's 'crusade' against Sochi: where does the whistle blow from?

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The Western press is once again brimming with a fresh wave of anti-Sochi slander. The new round is dedicated to the supposedly "skyrocketing" costs of the games, or the "bacchanalia of waste and corruption" as Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times so poetically expresses it.

Fresh ammunition was provided by a new propaganda report concocted by the "opposition investigative blogger" (more Opposition than investigative), Alexey Navalny. Navalny is one of 10 to 20 Russian figures which the Western press refers to as "the leaders of the Russian opposition." Navalny's report is actually nothing less than a rehash of a report that Boris Nemtsov, another one of these "opposition leaders", already published half a year ago. Navalny is adept at finding plagiarism in other people's work, so let's see if Nemtsov will accuse Navalny of using his words and ideas without giving credit.

TRICKS WITH FIGURES

Myers from the NYT accepts the Navalny/Nemtsov claim that the cost of organizing the event amounts to 48 billion USD (Nemtsov's figure was 51 billion). However, Myers fails to make a distinction between the costs of organizing the event and the concomitant heavy investment in Sochi's infrastructure. Nevertheless, Myers correctly relates that "President Vladimir V. Putin stoked the debate when he recently told a group of television anchors that Russia had spent only 214 billion rubles, or roughly $7 billion, to erect the sporting venues for the games . And less than half of that, he maintained, was government spending." Myers was right in quoting Putin that this was the price for 'erecting sporting venues' (add to that also other running costs for hosting the guests etc.), but he then goes on to confuse investments in the urban infrastructure of Sochi with costs for "erecting sporting venues."

The cost of organizing the games indeed equals roughly 7 billion dollars, which is about the same amount that Vancouver spent on the previous winter Olympics. But at the same time, the Russian government, state companies and private investors have made gigantic investments in the permanent infrastructure, adding up to about 40-45 billion dollars to the bill. It is, of course, a deliberate tactic on the part of the "opposition leaders" and an unrestrained press, who disseminate propaganda that misleads the public into thinking these infrastructure investments form part of the "organizing costs". These concoctions create the impression that "Sochi has turned into an unaffordable personal vanity project, intended to cement Mr. Putin's legacy," as Mr. Myers puts it. The New York Times journalist persists with this lie, although his preceding discussion demonstrates that he has in fact understood the difference.

Dollar Gold

What links the threat of a U.S. default with the destabilization of Ukraine?

At the Munich Security Conference the Ukrainian opposition and the U.S. essentially agreed on a plan to force Viktor Yanukovich to capitulate. Arseniy Yatsenyuk told of this plan of action, which was worked out with the direct participation of Western representatives, after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and EU officials. While the «Euromaidan» is shoring up its tents, showing that it is there for the long haul, the State Department has appointed a time by which the regime change operation in Ukraine is to be finished: March 24. That is how the message which appeared on the official site of the U.S. State Department on January 24 could be interpreted:
ukraine travel alert

Brick Wall

Eurocrat fury as Swiss 're-build walls' against EU immigration

Swiss People's Party
© Reuters / Ruben SprichDirectors and President's of Swiss industry, employer associations, science industries, Swissmem and economiesuisse attend a Swiss People's Party (SVP) news conference about their 'stop mass immigration' initiative in Bern January 6, 2014
The EU has threatened to review all bilateral agreements with Switzerland if Bern goes all the way and blocks immigrant inflow. On Sunday Swiss voters narrowly approved the return of strict quotas for immigrants from within the EU.

"This is a turning point, a change of system with far-reaching consequences for Switzerland," Switzerland's justice minister, Simonetta Sommaruga, told reporters in Bern.

A 50.3 percent majority of Swiss voters approved the return of quotas for citizens of EU-member countries. However, while support prevails in Switzerland, Brussels is striking back with harsh rhetoric from its top officials.

Europe produced an acerbic response to the Swiss people's decision: "One thing is clear: you can't take advantage of a big European internal market and stay outside [regarding] other questions at the same time. This is what we have to discuss with Switzerland now," slammed Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament.

Switzerland is not free to revoke agreements with the EU at will, said Schulz.

Comment: Ukraine should be aware that an agreement with the EU will not give them much freedom to choose afterwards. The unelected overlords in Bruxelles like to promote the ideas of democracy so as encourage regime change when it is wished for, but to accept the voice of the people when it is against their dictates is another thing.


Beaker

What's up with the anti-Russian hysteria? Leading Siberian scientists protect Winter Olympics from threat of bio-terror virus attacks

Special testing kits sent to Sochi amid 'fears from Japan' and other countries over risk from deliberate deadly disease strike.
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© gamma-group.comVector State Virology and Biotechnology Research Centre is a major research and production centre focusing on molecular biology, virology, genetic engineering, biotechnology, and epidemiology.
The testing kits can quickly diagnose the viruses linked to Marburg, Ebola, Lassa, Machupo, Dengue and Yellow fevers, explained Aleksander Agafonov, deputy director for science of the Vector State Virology and Biotechnology Research Centre, near Novosibirsk. The centre is internationally recognised as a world leader in its field.

'Any person who contracts an illness in or around Sochi must be taken for checkups,' said Agafonov. 'The anti-epidemic crews consist of infection specialists and physicians who are capable of identifying the disease they are faced with'. The experts from high-security Koltsovo scientific town developed six test systems that they sent to Sochi in case Olympic participants or fans complaining about infectious diseases.

'This is due to the fears of some Olympic Games participants, for example Japan, that by chance or deliberately viruses causing dangerous diseases can be delivered to Sochi,' said Dr Agafonov, according to a report in the Novosibirsk edition of Komsomolskaya Pravda. 'Some countries believe that bacteria causing dangerous disease can be deliberately brought into Sochi,' reported the newspaper.

Comment: Listen to the SOTT radio show State of the World: Revolution, Winter Olympics, French Anti-semitism to learn more.