[xico]

The Pledge of Allegiance is un-American

By Michael Lind

Shouldn't the government pledge allegiance to the people rather than the other way around?
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle24007.htm

Good question.

[xico]

Israel "angers" U.S. by approving new illegal WBank homes:

Israel triggered a fresh rift with Washington over settlement building on Tuesday by approving the building of 900 homes for Jews on West Bank land it occupied in a 1967 war and annexed to its Jerusalem
http://www.reuters.com/article/middl...is/idUSLH27626

[xico]

AIPAC Received Classified US Trade Docs from Israeli Embassy :

A FBI file reveals the Israeli embassy passed stolen classified US government information to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In 1984 Israel and AIPAC jointly lobbied Congress to secure preferential Israeli access to the US market against widespread American industry opposition.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33968442/site/14081545

What else is new?

[xico]

Militants using 'Israeli weapons':

The use of Israeli-made light arms by militants in Pakistan against security forces in Waziristan region of the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan has raised several questions amongst many, news reports revealed yesterday.
http://snipurl.com/tay1p


The longer the war lasts, the more money the war profiteers make.

[xico]

Hungry America: food insecurity, state by state:

A new report from the US Department of Agriculture highlights the millions of Americans suffering from food insecurity. Find out how they compare from state to state.
http://snipurl.com/tay7f

Why don't they just pull themselves up by their bootstraps?

[xico]

2010 ARMY WEAPON SYSTEMS HANDBOOK

The U.S. Army has published the latest edition of its Army Weapon Systems [ http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/l...010/index.html ] handbook, cataloging dozens of Army weapons with descriptive information, status updates, contractor relationships, and images.

"The systems listed in this book are not isolated, individual products," the introduction says. "Rather, they are part of an integrated investment approach to make the Army of the future able to deal successfully with the challenges it will face."

"We have received extraordinary funding support through wartime Overseas Contingency Operations funds, but they have only enabled us to sustain the current fight. We look forward to continued Congressional support to achieve our broad modernization goals."

[xico]

LEGAL ISSUES SURROUNDING MILITARY COMMISSIONS

The role of military commissions in adjudicating the cases of suspected terrorist detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere was critically examined in two House Judiciary Subcommittee hearings last July, the records of which have just been published.

"My concern remains," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who chaired the hearings, "that we may be creating a system in which we try you in Federal court if we have strong evidence, we try you by military commission if we have weak evidence, and we detain you indefinitely if we have no evidence."
"That is not a justice system," Rep. Nadler said.
See "Legal Issues Surrounding the Military Commissions System," July 8, 2009; and "Proposals for Reform of the Military Commissions System," July 30, 2009.

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/


Exactly!

[xico]

A Historical Note.

The Soviet Origins of Helmut Kohl's 10 Points

Documents show secret messages from Moscow sparked West German chancellor to announce German unification plans on November 28, 1989
Unintended consequences - the backchannel backfires: shock in Moscow and dismay in Washington

New evidence from National Security Archive book "Masterpieces of History" (forthcoming from CEU Press, 2010)

For more information contact: Svetlana Savranskaya/Thomas Blanton - 202/994-7000

http://www.nsarchive.org

Washington, DC, November 18, 2009 - Secret messages from senior Soviet officials to West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl after the fall of the Berlin Wall led directly to Kohl's famous "10 Points" speech on German unification, but the speech produced shock in both Moscow and Washington, according to documents from Soviet, German and American files posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive.

Published for the first time in English in the Archive's forthcoming book, "Masterpieces of History," the documents include highest-level conversations between President George H.W. Bush and Kohl; the text of the letter Kohl had delivered to Bush just as he announced the "10 Points" to the Bundestag on November 28, 1989; excerpts on Germany from the transcript of the Malta summit between Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev; Gorbachev's own incendiary meeting with the German foreign minister after Kohl's speech; and more.

For more information, visit the Archive Web site:

http://www.nsarchive.org

[xico]

Extinct goat was cold-blooded
November 18, 2009 by Lin Edwards Enlarge
Extinct goat Myotragus balearicus. Image: Xavier Vázquez, via Wikipedia.

(PhysOrg.com) -- An extinct goat that lived on a barren Mediterranean island survived for millions of years by reducing in size and by becoming cold-blooded, which has never before been discovered in mammals.

The goat, Myotragus balearicus, lived on what is now Majorca, a Spanish island. The island had scarce resources, and there was no way for the goats to leave, and so scientists wondered how they had thrived for so long. A recently published research paper reveals the extinct goat survived by adjusting its growth rate and metabolism to suit the available food, becoming cold-blooded like reptiles.

Paleontologists studying fossilized Myotragus bones compared them to bones of reptiles living in the same region at the same time, and found surprising similarities. The bones of warm-blooded animals show uninterrupted fast growth, while the bones of cold-blooded animals have parallel growth lines showing interrupted growth corresponding to growth cycles, rather like the rings seen in tree trunks. Growth and metabolism rates are adjusted to suit the amount of food available, whereas warm-blooded animals require food to be available continuously. The Myotragus bones showed the same interrupted growth as reptiles.

Myotragus are the first mammals ever known to have achieved the same flexibility, and hence survivability, as reptiles. They also saved energy by having a brain half the size of hoofed mammals its own size, and its eyes were only a third of the size.

More here.

[xico]

Lift the ban - let Americans visit Cuba
Richard G. Lugar and Howard L. Berman, Miami Herald, Tue, Nov. 17, 2009
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/o...y/1337127.html

[ekim68]

This could be good or bad, right?

Chicago's Camera Network Is Everywhere

A giant web of video-surveillance cameras has spread across Chicago, aiding police in the pursuit of criminals but raising fears that the City of Big Shoulders is becoming the City of Big Brother.

While many police forces are boosting video monitoring, video-surveillance experts believe Chicago has gone further than any other U.S. city in merging computer and video technology to police the streets. The networked system is also unusual because of its scope and the integration of nonpolice cameras.

The city links the 1,500 cameras that police have placed in trouble spots with thousands more—police won't say how many—that have been installed by other government agencies and the private sector in city buses, businesses, public schools, subway stations, housing projects and elsewhere. Even home owners can contribute camera feeds.

Rajiv Shah, an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who has studied the issue, estimates that 15,000 cameras have been connected in what the city calls Operation Virtual Shield, its fiber-optic video-network loop.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...412824756.html

[poochee]

Originally Posted by ekim68

This could be good or bad, right?

Chicago's Camera Network Is Everywhere

A giant web of video-surveillance cameras has spread across Chicago, aiding police in the pursuit of criminals but raising fears that the City of Big Shoulders is becoming the City of Big Brother.

While many police forces are boosting video monitoring, video-surveillance experts believe Chicago has gone further than any other U.S. city in merging computer and video technology to police the streets. The networked system is also unusual because of its scope and the integration of nonpolice cameras.

The city links the 1,500 cameras that police have placed in trouble spots with thousands more—police won't say how many—that have been installed by other government agencies and the private sector in city buses, businesses, public schools, subway stations, housing projects and elsewhere. Even home owners can contribute camera feeds.

Rajiv Shah, an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who has studied the issue, estimates that 15,000 cameras have been connected in what the city calls Operation Virtual Shield, its fiber-optic video-network loop.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...412824756.html

I see it as a safety measure. I used to live there.

[poochee]

Judge: Corps’ failure led to Katrina flooding
Ruling says navigation channel wasn't properly maintained
updated 1 hour, 21 minutes ago
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS - A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a decision that could make the federal government vulnerable to billions of dollars in claims.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval sided with six residents and one business who argued the Army Corps' shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward neighborhood and a nearby Parish. He said, however, the corps couldn't be held liable for the flooding of eastern New Orleans, where two of the plaintiffs lived.

Duval awarded the plaintiffs $720,000, but the government could eventually be forced to pay much more in damages. The ruling should give more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities a better shot at claiming billions of dollars in damages.

The ruling is also emotionally resonant for south Louisiana. Many in New Orleans have argued that Katrina, which struck the region Aug. 29, 2005, was a manmade disaster caused by the Army Corps' failure to maintain the levee system protecting the city.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34028940...me_and_courts/

[ekim68]

DNA Testing Firm Goes Bankrupt; Who Gets the Data?

An Icelandic firm that offers private DNA testing to customers has filed for bankruptcy in the U.S., raising privacy concerns about the fate of customer DNA samples and records, according to the Times of London.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/dna/

[xico]

Originally Posted by poochee

I see it as a safety measure. I used to live there.

There was a post in a nother thread about a guy who doing a little over the speed limit when he caught the flash of the video camera. So he slowled down and went past it again. Again it flashed. He knew he was doing less than the limit, so he went still slower and it flashed a 2rd time. On the fifth try he was going at a crawl , and yet it flashed. Eh, he thought it must be malfunctioning. Two weeks later he got 5 tickets for not having his seatbelt on.

It seems to be a good idea, but I wonder what the downside is? When we're all chipped, will that register on the camera?