Puppet MastersS

Airplane

Government drones set to spy on farms in the United States


Top Secret

Top Senators Call for Hearings After Recent Leaks of Classified Information

McCain
© n/a
Top senators are calling for a hearing on the "continuing leaks of classified information" allegedly from the White House after a recent media report detailed a U.S. cyber warfare targeting Iran's nuclear facilities.

A report in The New York Times on Friday provided classified details of the U.S cyber attack.

Since the beginning of his term, President Barack Obama secretly ordered cyber attacks targeting computers that run Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities, the Times reported, attributing the information to the program's participants.

Senators John McCain and Dianne Feinstein, a Republican and a Democrat respectively, discussed the possibility of holding hearings to address the leak of information.

"I am pleased to report that chairman Carl Levin has agreed to hold a hearing on these leaks in the Senate Armed Services Committee," McCain said in a statement Tuesday.

Airplane

Boeing's Phantom Eye Makes First Autonomous Flight

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© i.i.com.comBoeing's Phantom Eye
After the Phantom Eye landed, it was slightly damaged when the landing gear hit the lakebed and broke

Boeing sent its Phantom Eye unmanned airborne system (UAS) on its first autonomous flight last week.

Boeing's Phantom Eye is a hydrogen-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is propeller-driven. The aircraft uses two 2.3 liter, four-cylinder engines capable of pushing 300 horsepower total and can loiter above a target for up to 10 days. Its main purpose is to gather information or conduct attack missions.

The Phantom Eye took off at 6:22 a.m. PST for a 28-minute flight. It reached an altitude of 4,080 feet and a speed of 62 knots. The flight took place June 1 at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

"This day ushers in a new era of persistent Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaisance (ISR) where an unmanned aircraft will remain on station for days at a time providing critical information and services," said Darryl Davis, president of Boeing Phantom Works. "This flight puts Boeing on a path to accomplish another aerospace first -- the capability of four days of unrefueled, autonomous flight."

After the Phantom Eye landed, it was slightly damaged when the landing gear hit the lakebed and broke. But overall, the flight was a success.

Previous to the June 1 flight, the Phantom Eye took part in a series of tests throughout April, such as navigation and control, pilot interface, and mission planning.

The Phantom Eye used for demonstration purposes has a 150-foot wingspan and can carry a 450-pound payload. It can fly up to 96 hours without needing to land, but Boeing is looking to make a new model in 2014 that can fly up to 240 hours without landing.

Comment: The product of a nation of free people, unmoved by fear, proud and honorable, or the product of a pathological, fearful group of psychopaths and those ponerized by their influence?


Attention

Greek Leftists: No Debt Repayments

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© SAPA
}No debt repayments, higher salaries and freedom from EU-IMF tutelage: Greece under the radical leftists, who are poised to win a June 17 election, seems a world removed from its current recession nightmare.

The Syriza party has pledged to tear up Greece's loan agreement with the EU and the IMF, which is currently keeping the country on its feet but at the cost of an unprecedented wave of austerity cuts and structural reforms.

If implemented, such a program, which would also mean the nationalization of banks and a halt to privatization, could well mean Greece's ejection from the eurozone, potentially sending shock-waves through the global economy.

Fed up with two years of salary and pension cuts, Greek voters on May 6 punished larger parties associated with the bailout and catapulted Syriza to second place, within striking distance of the top.

Vader

US again bombs mourners

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Another terrorist taken out by Team Obama. Hope and Change is great, isn't it?
In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented that after the U.S. kills people with drones in Pakistan, it then targets for death those who show up at the scene to rescue the survivors and retrieve the bodies, as well as those who gather to mourn the dead at funerals: "the CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals." As The New York Times summarized those findings: "at least 50 civilians had been killed in follow-up strikes after they rushed to help those hit by a drone-fired missile" while "the bureau counted more than 20 other civilians killed in strikes on funerals."

This repellent practice continues. Over the last three days, the U.S. has launched three separate drone strikes in Pakistan: one on each day. As The Guardian reports, the U.S. has killed between 20 and 30 people in these strikes, the last of which, early this morning, killed between 8 and 15. It was the second strike, on Sunday, that targeted mourners gathered to grieve those killed in the first strike:
At the time of the attack, suspected militants had gathered to offer condolences to the brother of a militant commander killed during another US unmanned drone attack on Saturday. The brother was one of those who died in the Sunday morning attack. The Pakistani officials said two of the dead were foreigners and the rest were Pakistani.

Che Guevara

Best of the Web: Northern Light: Why Canada's 'Casserole' Movement is All of Ours

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© Alexis Gravel
I gave a talk last week at Canada's Wilfrid Laurier University to the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Many in the audience had pinned small red squares of felt to their clothing. The carre rouge, or red square, has become the Canadian symbol of revolt. It comes from the French phrase carrement dans le rouge, or "squarely in the red," referring to those crushed by debt.

The streets of Montreal are clogged nightly with as many as 100,000 protesters banging pots and pans and demanding that the old systems of power be replaced. The mass student strike in Quebec, the longest and largest student protest in Canadian history, began over the announcement of tuition hikes and has metamorphosed into what must swiftly build in the United States - a broad popular uprising. The debt obligation of Canadian university students, even with Quebec's proposed 82 percent tuition hike over several years, is dwarfed by the huge university fees and the $1 trillion of debt faced by U.S. college students. The Canadian students have gathered widespread support because they linked their tuition protests to Quebec's call for higher fees for health care, the firing of public sector employees, the closure of factories, the corporate exploitation of natural resources, new restrictions on union organizing, and an announced increase in the retirement age. Crowds in Montreal, now counting 110 days of protests, chant "On ne lรขche pas" - "We're not backing down."

Eye 2

Best of the Web: Truth Rub In Your Face


Comment: We didn't quite believe it at first, but apparently the following videos are part of an advertising campaign for Hulu, an online video service jointly owned by NBCUniversal, News Corporation and the Walt Disney Company and essentially part of the move to saturate the Internet with mind-numbing garbage while the world burns.



Attention

War is America's New Economic Stimulus Policy

San Luis Obispo, Calif. - Yes, I'm mad as hell again. I just read some bad news that should make every American mad as hell. In fact, two bad news items.

First, as a U.S. Marine vet, I got angry reading that there have been more military suicides than war deaths the past decade. Yes, more Iraq and Afghan war vets have killed themselves than were killed by America's enemies in combat. And more are expected as we had more than two million serve in the two wars.

US Soldier
© ReutersA soldier from the U.S. Army's Charlie Company, 1/12 Infantry, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division scans across the border at houses in Pakistan during a Sunday patrol near Dokalam village in Afghanistan's Kunar Province.
Second, if the economic, psychological, political and moral consequences of the past two wars aren't bad enough, many politicians and candidates - some of whom never served in the armed forces - are proposing that the full Congress pass the Ryan budget and force Pentagon generals to spend billions more than they requested.

This is insane. More taxpayer money for the Pentagon war machine? Why? We're winding down two wars. We're dealing with the tragedy of vet suicides. These same politicians whining about the debt and taxes. So why do they want to increase Pentagon spending? Do we love war that much? Are they planning to start a new war? Let's analyze this contradiction.

Yes, an epidemic: military suicides now exceed war deaths

The effort to increase Pentagon spending was already public knowledge since the House voted on the Ryan budget plan. But what really triggered the anger was a Newsweek feature, "We Pretend Our Vets Don't Even Exist," by Marine veteran Anthony Swofford. That put the spotlight on this new crisis, now an epidemic, one few are aware of, fewer care about.

Here are the hard facts: "About 18 veterans kill themselves each day. Thousands from the current wars have already done so. In fact, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died by their own hand is now estimated to be greater than the number (6,460) who have died in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Wake up folks. Something is wrong in our thinking. From the beginning we were in a trance, pretending the Iraq War would be short-lived, cheap and self-funded by oil revenues. Yes, from Day 1 the Iraq War was handled more like an economic stimulus program.

Remember, after 9/11 we were urged to focus on the economy, to spend, go to the mall shopping. Draft was unnecessary. And thanks to bonuses, we built a volunteer army, backed up by mercenaries, tens of thousands of private contractors.

We even hid photos of war casualties from the public, to sanitize the public's brain.

Stormtrooper

Best of the Web: Whatever Happened to Justice? Supreme Court OKs Police Tasering Pregnant Women

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King Jr.
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© unknownThe Supreme Court declined to hear a case involving the Seattle PD's use of a Taser on pregnant woman Malaika Brooks (shown here with her daugher).
Once again, the United States Supreme Court has proven Clarence Darrow, a civil liberties attorney and long-time advocate for the Constitution, correct in his assertion that "there is no such thing as justice - in or out of court." In meting out this particular miscarriage of justice, the Supreme Court recently refused to hear the case of a pregnant woman who was repeatedly tasered by Seattle police during a routine traffic stop simply because she refused to sign a speeding ticket.

Malaika Brooks, 33 years old and seven months pregnant, was driving her 11-year-old son to school on a November morning in 2004, when she was pulled over for driving 32 mph in a 20 mph school zone. Instructing her son to walk the rest of the way to school, Malaika handed over her driver's license to Officer Juan Ornelas for processing. However, when instructed to sign the speeding ticket - which the state inexplicably requires, Malaika declared that she wished to contest the charge, insisting that she had not done anything wrong and fearing that signing the ticket would signify an admission of guilt.

What happened next is a cautionary tale for anyone who still thinks that they can defy a police officer, even if it's simply to disagree about a speeding ticket. Rather than issuing a verbal warning to the clearly pregnant (and understandably emotional) woman, Officer Ornelas called for backup. Officer Donald Jones subsequently arrived and told Brooks to sign the ticket. Again she refused. The conversation became heated. The cops called in more backup. The next to arrive was Sergeant Steven Daman, who directed Brooks to sign the ticket, pointing out that if she failed to do so, she would be arrested and taken to jail. Again, Malaika refused.

Airplane

Propaganda Alert: Deputy al-Qaida leader -alibi- killed in drone strike

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© UnknownAbu Yahya al-Libi
Deputy al-Qaida leader Abu Yahya al-Libi was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan, U.S. officials told NBC News.

A U.S. drone struck a militant compound early Monday morning in North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's northwestern tribal area. Pakistan security reports indicated the pre-dawn strike killed 15 insurgents. That brought the total killed in three attacks over the past several days to nearly 30.

Al-Libi was a leading al-Qaida operative who was viewed as one of five candidates to succeed Osama bin Laden as leader of the terrorist group when he was killed last year.

Comment: A Boo?
Yeah.
Alibi?