Israel Lobbyist Suggests False Flag Operation to Get U.S. Into War with Iran
September 26th, 2012Via: The Passionate Attachment:
Last Friday, during question time at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy policy forum luncheon on “How to Build US-Israeli Coordination on Preventing an Iranian Nuclear Breakout,” the director of research at the pro-Israel think tank hinted that a Pearl Harbor-type attack might be necessary to get the United States to go to war against the Islamic Republic.
“I frankly think that crisis initiation is really tough,” said Patrick Clawson, who also heads the Washington Institute’s Iran Security Initiative, in response to a question about what would happen if negotiations with Tehran fail. “And it’s very hard for me to see how the United States … uh … President can get us to war with Iran.”
…
“So, if in fact the Iranians aren’t going to compromise,” the Israel lobbyist concluded with a smirk on his face, “it would be best if somebody else started the war.”
Research Credit: HPLovecraft666
Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients
September 24th, 2012Via: Guardian:
Drugs are tested by the people who manufacture them, in poorly designed trials, on hopelessly small numbers of weird, unrepresentative patients, and analysed using techniques that are flawed by design, in such a way that they exaggerate the benefits of treatments. Unsurprisingly, these trials tend to produce results that favour the manufacturer. When trials throw up results that companies don’t like, they are perfectly entitled to hide them from doctors and patients, so we only ever see a distorted picture of any drug’s true effects. Regulators see most of the trial data, but only from early on in a drug’s life, and even then they don’t give this data to doctors or patients, or even to other parts of government. This distorted evidence is then communicated and applied in a distorted fashion.
In their 40 years of practice after leaving medical school, doctors hear about what works ad hoc, from sales reps, colleagues and journals. But those colleagues can be in the pay of drug companies – often undisclosed – and the journals are, too. And so are the patient groups. And finally, academic papers, which everyone thinks of as objective, are often covertly planned and written by people who work directly for the companies, without disclosure. Sometimes whole academic journals are owned outright by one drug company. Aside from all this, for several of the most important and enduring problems in medicine, we have no idea what the best treatment is, because it’s not in anyone’s financial interest to conduct any trials at all.
Research Credit: cr
German Neuroscientist: Computer Use by Very Young Children Causes Brain Development Deficits That Are Irreversible
September 24th, 2012Via: WorldCrunch:
Dr. Manfred Spitzer knows that people find his arguments provocative. In his first book, he warned parents of the very real dangers of letting their children spend too much time in front of the TV. Now, in a second book called Digitale Demenz [Digital Dementia], he’s telling them that teaching young kids finger-counting games is much better for them than letting them explore on a laptop.
Spitzer, 54, may be a member of the slide-rule generation that learned multiplication tables by heart, but his work as a neuropsychiatrist has shown him that when young children spend too much time using a computer, their brain development suffers and that the deficits are irreversible and cannot be made up for later in life.
South Korean doctors were the first to describe this phenomenon, and dubbed it digital dementia – whence the title of Spitzer’s book. Simplistically, the message can be summed up this way: the Internet makes you dumb. And it is of course a message that outrages all those who feel utterly comfortable in the digital world. In the aftermath of the publication of Spitzer’s book, they have lost no time venting their wrath across Germany.
New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau Illegally Targeted Kim Dotcom, Bram van der Kolk and Their Families
September 24th, 2012—
Via: New Zealand Herald:
An inquiry into unlawful bugging by the Government’s foreign intelligence arm relates to intercepted communications by Kim Dotcom himself and his co-accused Bram van der Kolk, as well as their families.
The Prime Minister today announced that he had asked the Inspector General for an inquiry into unlawful interception of communications in the Dotcom case by the Government Communications Security Bureau.
The Government Communications Security Bureau is explicitly prohibited by law from intercepting the communications of any New Zealand citizen or permanent resident – it can only intercept communications of foreign organisations or people.
Dotcom’s lawyer Greg Towers confirmed the interceptions in question related to Mr Dotcom, Mr Bram van der Kolk and their families, all of whom were New Zealand residents.
“At the end of the day, until we get the outcome of the inquiry we really don’t know to what extent there has been illegality. We know it’s been illegal because they’ve admitted it.”
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Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the actions of the GCSB should be concerning to all New Zealanders.
“A number of New Zealand agencies, including the police, have bent over backwards to assist the United States in prosecuting Mr Dotcom,” said Dr Norman.
“Government agencies should not, however, break New Zealand’s laws to assist another country.
“The Kim Dotcom case doesn’t appear to constitute a threat to New Zealand’s national security, so it is hard to understand why the GCSB considered it should be involved at all.”
Related: Secret Power, New Zealand’s Role in the International Spy Network, by Nicky Hager
Not The Onion: NYPD Urges iPhone 5 Owners to Register Device, Deploys Officers to Stores
September 24th, 2012Oh sure.
Via: Reuters:
In response to a sharp spike in iPhone thefts from unwitting consumers this year, the New York City Police Department will station officers at Apple Inc. sales locations throughout the city for Friday’s release of the new iPhone 5.
The officers will help customers register iPhone serial numbers, or engrave them with unique identification numbers prefaced with the letters “NYC.”
Research Credit: almaverdad2
Riots Break Out at Foxconn Factory in China
September 24th, 2012Via: NBC:
Reports early Monday from China suggest that a mass disturbance or riots may have broken out at a Foxconn factory in the Chinese city of Taiyuan.
It is still unclear what exactly happened, but posts on China’s popular twitter-like service, Weibo, from users in the area show photographs and video of large numbers of police in and around the factory – many in riot gear – blocking off throngs of people.
Other photos show debris strewn around the Foxconn compound and in one case, an overturned guard tower.
According to popular tech blog engadget, the disturbance kicked off after Foxconn security guards allegedly hit a worker around 10 p.m. on Sunday.
Censors in China have reportedly already started deleting pictures from the scene.
This is not the first time that Foxconn has had problems with its Taiyuan facility, which is reportedly responsible for the fabrication of the back plate of the immensely popular new iPhone 5. In March, strikes broke out there after workers did not receive a pay raise they had reportedly been promised.
Suicide Now Kills More Americans Than Car Crashes
September 24th, 2012Via: Medline:
More Americans now commit suicide than die in car crashes, making suicide the leading cause of injury deaths, according to a new study.
In addition, over the last 10 years, while the number of deaths from car crashes has declined, deaths from poisoning and falls increased significantly, the researchers report.
“Suicides are terribly undercounted; I think the problem is much worse than official data would lead us to believe,” said study author Ian Rockett, a professor of epidemiology at West Virginia University.
There may be 20 percent or more unrecognized suicides, he said.
Many of the poisoning deaths may actually be intended, he added. A lot of these deaths are due from overdoses of prescription drugs, Rockett noted.
“We have a situation that has gotten out of hand,” he said. “I would like to see the same attention paid to other injuries as has been paid to traffic injuries.”
The report was published online Sept. 20 in the American Journal of Public Health.
For the study, Rockett’s team used data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics to determine the cause of injury deaths from 2000 to 2009.
The leading causes of unintentional deaths were car accidents, poisoning and falls, and for intentional deaths they were suicide and homicide.
Deaths from intentional and unintentional injury were 10 percent higher in 2009 than in 2000, the researchers noted.
And although deaths from car crashes declined 25 percent, deaths from poisoning rose 128 percent, deaths from falls increased 71 percent and deaths from suicides rose 15 percent, according to the study.
Suicide is now the first cause of injury deaths, followed by car crashes, poisoning, falls and murder, Rockett said.
Cryptogon Reader Signs Up for Hosting With BlueHost
September 23rd, 2012Thanks to the owner of integratedtaichi.com for signing up for hosting with BlueHost. Cryptogon earned a $90 commission.
Corrie Yelland Cured Anal Cancer with Cannabis Oil
September 23rd, 2012Warning: No information that appears on Cryptogon should be considered medical advice.
Via: Cannabis Nation:
Already coping with 2 spots of skin cancer on my collar bone, I was stunned when I was diagnosed with Anal Canal Cancer. (This is the same cancer that took Farrah Fawcett’s life.) Following 2 surgeries, the doctor told me they did not get all the cancer and I would have to endure a regime of radiation treatments. I started researching what this would entail, and attended a intake meeting at the Cancer Clinic. I was informed that “this is the worst area of of the body to radiate”, the radiation beam would hit both my coccyx and public bone potentially causing permanent damage.”
They would try not to hit my spine.”
Additionally, I would suffer 2nd and 3rd degree burns vaginally, rectally, across my buttocks, as well as my entire “nether regions”, and there was a “good possibility” both my vagina and rectum would fuse shut from the burns and subsequent scaring. The list of both short and long term side effects was endless and horrendous, but you get the gist. I told the doctor, I needed time to think about it. His response was hostile, as he told me I had 2-4 months, possibly 6. He mumurred something abut a “death wish” and walked out.
One day some one sent me Rick Simpson’s video, Run From The Cure. It took me days to get around to watching it, but when I did I was blown away.
…
On September 20, 2012, I saw my specialist/surgeon, whom I had not seen for approximately 6 months. He examined me once, then a second time, and then a third time. My heart was pounding so loudly I could hear the whooshing in my ears. And then the news I had only dared to hope for. “It’s gone! I can’t find anything at all. If it wasn’t for the scar tissue I would never have known you had ever had cancer.”
Related: phoenixtears.ca
Law Enforcement Speech Recognition System Stores Millions of Voices
September 23rd, 2012Made in Russia.
Via: Slate:
Russia’s Speech Technology Center, which operates under the name SpeechPro in the United States, has invented what it calls “VoiceGrid Nation,” a system that uses advanced algorithms to match identities to voices. The idea is that it enables authorities to build up a huge database containing up to several million voices—of known criminals, persons of interest, or people on a watch list. Then, when authorities intercept a call and they’re not sure who is speaking, the recording is entered into the VoiceGrid and it comes up with a match. It takes just five seconds to scan through 10,000 voices, and so long as the recording is decent quality and more than 15 seconds in length, the accuracy, SpeechPro claims, is at least 90 percent.
The technology has already been deployed across Mexico, where it is being used by law enforcement to collect, store, and search hundreds of thousands of voice-prints. Alexey Khitrov, SpeechPro’s president, told me the company is working with a number of agencies in the United States at a state and federal level. He declined to reveal any names because of nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements. But Khitrov did divulge that various versions of the company’s biometric technology are used in more than 70 countries and that the Americas, Europe, and Asia are its key markets. Not all of its customers are law enforcement agencies, either. SpeechPro also designs voice recognition technology that can be used in call centers to verify the identities of customers. Depending on the size and specifics of the installation, it can cost from tens of thousands up to millions of dollars.
