Terrorism

Source: Associated Press

The popular video-sharing site YouTube has moved to purge terrorists training films and other videos that extremist groups might use to attract new members, an imperfect process that will rely on users to report objectionable videos.

It's sort of like the post Sept. 11 advice — if you see something, say something. It's nearly impossible to vet every video when 13 hours of new video are uploaded every few minutes.

A quick search on Google-owned YouTube on Friday, one day after the new policies were posted, turned up several videos on how to make bombs using, for instance, such household items as toilet bowl cleaner and tin foil.

In addition to barring terror training videos, the new YouTube community guidelines include bans on videos that incite others to commit violent acts, videos on activities such as how to make bombs and footage of sniper attacks. Previously, it had policies in place against showing people "getting hurt, attacked or humiliated," banning even clips OK for TV news shows.

YouTube has not identified specific videos on its site that led to the change, nor said exactly how it will choose those that are purged. YouTube does not deny that extremist groups could have used the site.

Source: The Register

Global military contractor BAE Systems has announced that it will lead a large alliance of American academics in building an army of miniature robots to aid the US military. The effort, known as Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST), will receive $38m of US Army funding.

“Robotic platforms extend the warfighter's senses and reach, providing operational capabilities that would otherwise be costly, impossible, or deadly to achieve,” said Dr. Joseph Mait, MAST supremo at the US Army Research Lab.

The horde of robots scraped the pork barrel clean

The idea is that a variety of crawling or flying mini-droids will be produced, able to go into situations where human troops might fear to tread - caves, bunkers, mountains, hostile urban areas etc. The robo-bug army would then spy out targets and intel for human commanders to act upon.

Under MAST various enabling technologies will be advanced: "small-scale aeromechanics and ambulation; propulsion; sensing, processing and communications; navigation and control; microdevices ..." and so forth, according to BAE.

“The technologies that will be developed under MAST represent capabilities and techniques that will influence nearly all of the products that BAE Systems will develop and produce in the future,” added Steve Scalera, MAST manager for BAE Systems.

War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.

Torrent Download

Source: Freedom Rider

This is all too sick and disgusting for words. Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair will teach religion at Yale University. That's right. The man responsible for giving Bush cover in occupying Iraq and killing one million people will be affiliated with the Yale University Divinity School. I hope someone at Yale has guts enough to denounce this travesty.

It isn't surprising that Blair can only get a job like this in America, or that the Bush family alma mater is the place where he landed. Will he ever stop sucking up to Bush? I guess not. When he tried to establish a similar arrangement at the London School of Economics faculty and students said no thank you. The British have sense enough to be embarassed by his presence. Only the Bushies would make the case for this awful man to have a decent job. If there were any justice in this world Blair would be [executed for his crimes] permanently unemployed and friendless.

Regarding the 7/7/2005 terrorist attacks in London, let us look at the facts, and what we were told, and compare them. Then, using Ockham’s Razor and common-sense, let us see what conclusions are to be drawn, so we can all understand what most likely really did happen that day.

Sign the open letter to the major television networks urging them to NOT follow FOX's lead to another war. The video shows the evidence of how they are repeating the same distortions and fear mongering they did before the Iraq war.

Source: Rouge Government

Brooklyn traffic agent became a YouTube star when she was caught on camera parking her patrol car in front of a fire hydrant - and then flipping the bird to the cameraman.

Edythe Anderson, an NYPD summons enforcement supervisor, apparently thought nothing of pulling in front of a hydrant to run into a Brooklyn restaurant to grab some lunch.

But the sight of it infuriated video vigilante "Jimmy Justice," 36-year-old musician and the amateur cameraman.

"They are pretty vicious giving out tickets but when they do something wrong. It's a double standard," he said.

Justice said he carries a video camera with him to his various musical gigs just so he can catch civil servants taking advantage of the system.

"Basically, I asked her: How come you can park in front of a hydrant? Isn't that illegal. You'd give someone else a ticket," Justice said.

by Michel Chossudovsky

Since the US led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the Golden Crescent opium trade has soared. According to the US media, this lucrative contraband is protected by Osama, the Taliban, not to mention, of course, the regional warlords, in defiance of the "international community".

The heroin business is said to be "filling the coffers of the Taliban". In the words of the US State Department:

"Opium is a source of literally billions of dollars to extremist and criminal groups... Cutting down the opium supply is central to establishing a secure and stable democracy, as well as winning the global war on terrorism," (Statement of Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles. Congressional Hearing, 1 April 2004)

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), opium production in Afghanistan in 2003 is estimated at 3,600 tons, with an estimated area under cultivation of the order of 80,000 hectares. (UNODC). An even larger bumper harvest is predicted for 2004. The State Department suggests that up to 120 000 hectares were under cultivation in 2004. (Congressional Hearing, op cit):

"We could be on a path for a significant surge. Some observers indicate perhaps as much as 50 percent to 100 percent growth in the 2004 crop over the already troubling figures from last year."(Ibid)