“Shit-Life Syndrome,” Trump Voters, and Clueless Dems
January 5th, 2020Via: Counterpunch:
For most of these low-wage workers, Hutton notes: “Finding meaning in life is close to impossible; the struggle to survive commands all intellectual and emotional resources. Yet turn on the TV or visit a middle-class shopping mall and a very different and unattainable world presents itself. Knowing that you are valueless, you resort to drugs, antidepressants and booze. You eat junk food and watch your ill-treated body balloon. It is not just poverty, but growing relative poverty in an era of rising inequality, with all its psychological side-effects, that is the killer.”
Shit-life syndrome is not another fictitious illness conjured up by the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industrial complex to sell psychotropic drugs. It is a reality created by corporatist rulers and their lackey politicians—pretending to care about their minimum-wage-slave constituents, who are trying to survive on 99¢ boxed macaroni and cheese prepared in carcinogenic water, courtesy of DuPont or some other such low-life leviathan.
And Now… “New York Mayor Says City Bracing for Iranian Retaliation After Soleimani Killed”
January 4th, 2020Via: Reuters:
New York City security officials went on heightened alert for possible Iranian retaliation in response to a U.S. air strike in Baghdad on Friday that killed Qassem Soleimani, Tehran’s most prominent military commander, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
The city is constantly vigilant against possible terrorist attacks given its history but the mayor said the threat has changed significantly given the resources that a state such as Iran has compared to non-state organizations like al Qaeda or ISIS.
“It’s just a world of difference,” de Blasio told a news conference.
“We have to assume this action puts us in a de facto state of war,” the mayor said.
U.S. Government Limits Exports of Artificial Intelligence Software
January 4th, 2020Via: Reuters:
The Trump administration took measures on Friday to crimp exports of artificial intelligence software as part of a bid to keep sensitive technologies out of the hands of rival powers like China.
Under a new rule which goes into effect on Monday, companies that export certain types of geospatial imagery software from the United States must apply for a license to send it overseas except when it is being shipped to Canada.
“They want to keep American companies from helping the Chinese make better AI products that can help their military,” said James Lewis, a technology expert with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
‘How Robot Priests Will Change Human Spirituality’
January 3rd, 2020Via: OneZero:
The company SoftBank Robotics created Pepper the robot to chant at Buddhist funerals in Japan, and a church in Germany programmed a machine to pronounce traditional blessings. Very recently in Dubai, the government’s cultural and Islamic affairs agency IACAD launched the first-ever “Virtual Ifta” that uses A.I. to issue fatwas. Other groups have experimented with machines that can hear confessions, offer prayers, or even offer sacraments.
U.S. Kills Top Iranian General in Baghdad
January 2nd, 2020Update: U.S. State Department: All U.S. Citizens Should Depart Iraq Immediately
Via: U.S. Embassy Baghdad:
Due to heightened tensions in Iraq and the region, the U.S. Embassy urges American citizens to heed the January 2020 Travel Advisory and depart Iraq immediately. U.S. citizens should depart via airline while possible, and failing that, to other countries via land. Due to Iranian-backed militia attacks at the U.S. Embassy compound, all public consular operations are suspended until further notice. U.S. citizens should not approach the Embassy. The U.S. Consulate General in Erbil is open for visa and American Citizen Services appointments, including passport issuance.
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Update: Al Jazeera English Livefeed
Via: Al Jazeera:
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Update: Pentagon Statement on Soleimani Assassination
Via: U.S. Department of Defense:
At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more. He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months – including the attack on December 27th – culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel. General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.
This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.
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Update: Sane Analysis from… Fox News?
Via: Fox News:
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Update: Trump Tweets American Flag
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2020
Flashback: Old Trump Tweets About Obama Starting a War with Iran for Political Purposes
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Update: “Potential Turning Point in the Middle East”
Via: Daily Mail:
Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani, the powerful head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, was killed in an airstrike at Baghdad International Airport, Iraqi TV and three Iraqi officials officials said Friday.
The officials said the strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, which were responsible for the recent attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
An official with the PMF blamed the U.S. military for the rocket strike, but American officials have made no comments on the incident yet. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to an inquiry from DailyMail.com.
The audacious airport strike is a potential turning point in the Middle East as U.S.-Iran relations teeter on the brink, and is expected to draw severe retaliation from Iran and and its Shiite allies against Israel and American interests.
Experts say that the killing of Soleimani will be viewed by Iran as a massive military provocation.
‘The pressure to retaliate will be immense,’ tweeted Middle East scholar and John Hopkins professor Vali Nasr.
‘Soleimani had cult hero status within IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) and among Shia militias in the region, and was personally the most popular regime figure in Iran,’ said Nasr.
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Via: Reuters:
Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed early on Friday in an air strike on their convoy at Baghdad airport, an Iraqi militia spokesman told Reuters.
“The American and Israeli enemy is responsible for killing the mujahideen Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Qassem Soleimani,” said Ahmed al-Assadi, a spokesman for Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces umbrella grouping of Iran-backed militias.
U.S. officials told Reuters that strikes had been carried out against two targets linked to Iran in Baghdad.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to give any further details.
Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia
January 2nd, 2020Via: Time:
Australia has deployed military planes and ships to provide aid as hundreds of wildfires rage across Australia, forcing residents to flee and destroying homes.
The Australian Defense Force is sending ships to the Victoria town of Mallacoota on a two-week supply mission and using helicopters to bring in more firefighters since roads were inaccessible, according to the Associated Press (AP).
On Tuesday, thousands of people from the town on Australia’s southeastern coast fled towards the water as a fire ripped through the area.
Taiwan Military Chief Among Eight Dead as Helicopter Makes Forced Landing
January 2nd, 2020Via: Reuters:
Taiwan’s top military official was among eight people killed on Thursday after the helicopter carrying them made a forced landing in a mountainous area near the capital Taipei, the defense ministry said.
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The chief of general staff, Air Force General Shen Yi-ming, died in the incident, while five of the 13 people aboard survived, the military said in a statement.
Exploring Ruins of Coal Fired Power Plant in Chicago
January 1st, 2020They don’t mention it in the video, but you can clearly see that this is Crawford Generating Station:
Crawford Generating Station is a decommissioned coal?fired power plant built in 1924. It is located in South Lawndale community of the West Side district, in Chicago, Illinois.
It was closed in 2012 after a long battle with the community over pollution, like the nearby Fisk Generating Station. Both stations were owned and operated by Midwest Generation, a subsidiary of Edison International. Crawford and Fisk Stations were among the last standing coal generating facilities within a major U.S. city at their time of retirement.
This has a very Lost/Escape from Tarkov aesthetic with some amount of electricity still running in the facility.
Via: Exploring With Josh:
Medical Student Tried to Smuggle Cancer Research to China
January 1st, 2020Just another day at the office.
Via: AP:
A medical student from China who U.S. authorities say tried to smuggle cancer research material taken from a Boston hospital out of the country has been held without bail by a judge who ruled he was a flight risk.
Zaosong Zheng, 29, who last year earned a visa sponsored by Harvard University to study in the U.S., appeared Monday in U.S. District Court in Boston. He was arrested Dec. 10 at Boston’s Logan Airport on a charge of making false statements.
Magistrate Judge David Hennessy ruled that evidence suggested Zheng had tried to smuggle vials of research specimens in a sock in his suitcase bound for China and granted the prosecution’s request to hold him without bail.
Zheng stole the materials from his lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, authorities allege.
Some vials contained a colleague’s work he had replicated without the authorization or knowledge of the lab, Zheng told authorities, according to court documents. He was possibly acting on behalf of the Chinese government, the FBI said in an affidavit included in court documents.
U.S. Baghdad Embassy Attacked by Protesters Angry at Air Strikes
December 31st, 2019Via: BBC:
Protesters angered by recent US air strikes targeting an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia have attacked the American embassy compound in Baghdad.
US troops fired tear gas to disperse a crowd that breached the outer wall of the compound, which is in the capital’s heavily fortified Green Zone.
A guard post on the street nearby was also set alight.
US President Donald Trump accused Iran of “orchestrating” the attack and said it would be “held fully responsible”.
At least 25 fighters died when the US bombed bases associated with the Kataib Hezbollah militia in western Iraq and eastern Syria on Sunday.
The US said it was retaliating for a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk on Friday that killed an American civilian contractor.
