Dear Mark Zuckerberg
September 8th, 2016Via: Aftenposten:
Dear Mark Zuckerberg.
I follow you on Facebook, but you don’t know me. I am editor-in-chief of the Norwegian daily newspaper Aftenposten. I am writing this letter to inform you that I shall not comply with your requirement to remove a documentary photography from the Vietnam war made by Nick Ut.
Not today, and not in the future.
The demand that we remove the picture came in an e-mail from Facebook’s office in Hamburg this Wednesday morning. Less than 24 hours after the e-mail was sent, and before I had time to give my response, you intervened yourselves and deleted the article as well as the image from Aftenposten’s Facebook page.
To be honest, I have no illusions that you will read this letter. The reason why I will still make this attempt, is that I am upset, disappointed – well, in fact even afraid – of what you are about to do to a mainstay of our democratic society.
North Korea Nuclear Test Suspected After ‘Artificial’ Quake
September 8th, 2016Via: BBC:
North Korea is suspected of carrying out its fifth test of a nuclear bomb, after a magnitude 5.3 earthquake was detected close to its test site.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said it had been an “artificial quake”.
An unnamed South Korean government source said it was highly likely to have been a nuclear test.
There has been no confirmation from the North, but previous artificial earthquakes in that area and of that magnitude have all been nuclear tests.
Google Drones Will Deliver Chipotle Burritos at Virginia Tech
September 8th, 2016Via: WTVR:
Project Wing, a drone project in Google’s X lab, will begin testing drone delivery of burritos at Virginia Tech later this month. Google expects to conduct a few hundred deliveries over the course of several days or potentially weeks.
Burritos won’t be delivered just anywhere on campus. Testing will be confined to a closed site. Students and employees from an adjacent building will be invited to order burritos on a special kiosk and watch as their food is flown several hundred meters over open ground. The food will be prepared on site in a Chipotle truck.
The drones — which will fly autonomously — will lower the burritos to the ground via a tether. Google said it chose to test food delivery to learn how to package sensitive cargo.
European Commission President Says He Spoke to Leaders of Other Planets About Brexit
September 8th, 2016Via: Exopolitics:
In a speech before the European Parliament discussing the consequences of the Brexit vote, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, made the stunning comment that he had spoken about it to “leaders of other planets.”
…
The official transcript released by the European Commission has been edited to remove the reference to “leaders from other planets”. The transcript now reads:
J’ai vu et entendu et écouté plusieurs des dirigeants. Ils sont très inquiets ….
“I saw and heard and listened to several executives. They are very worried …”
Yet, when one listens to an audio loop of what Junker’s actually said, he very clearly includes the phrase “dirigeants d’autres planets,” which translates as “leaders of other planets,” as pointed out by native French speakers discussing Junckers speech, and also by Google Translate.
Research Credit: TB
New ISIS Military Commander Was Trained by State Department as Recently as 2014
September 7th, 2016Via: PJ Media:
Gulmurod Khalimov, the new ISIS military commander whom the U.S. just days ago announced a $3 million bounty for, was trained by the State Department in an anti-terror program as recently as 2014 while serving in the security service of Tajikistan.
He replaces former ISIS commander Tarkhan Batirashvili, aka Umar al-Shishani, who was also trained by the United States as part of the Georgian army and who ISIS claimed was killed fighting in Iraq this past July.
The State Department confirmed Khalimov’s U.S.-provided training to CNN in May 2015:
“From 2003-2014 Colonel Khalimov participated in five counterterrorism training courses in the United States and in Tajikistan, through the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security/Anti-Terrorism Assistance program,” said spokeswoman Pooja Jhunjhunwala.
The program is intended to train candidates from participating countries in the latest counterterrorism tactics, so they can fight the very kind of militants that Khalimov has now joined.
A State Department official said Khalimov was trained in crisis response, tactical management of special events, tactical leadership training and related issues.
Pentagon Working Through ‘Terminator Conundrum’
September 6th, 2016Via: USNI News:
The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the Defense Department is working through the problems of future robotic weapon systems – so-called thinking weapons.
“We’re not talking about cruise missiles or mines,” but “robotic systems to do lethal harm… a Terminator without a conscience,” a reference to the 1984 science fiction film, Air Force Gen. Paul Selva said in a Thursday presentation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on innovation in the Defense Department.
Bill Gates Doubles His Bet on Wiping Out Mosquitoes with Gene Editing
September 6th, 2016Via: MIT Technology Review:
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation plans to double the sum it is spending to create a mosquito-killing technology that relies on CRISPR gene editing.
The technique, called a gene drive, is a way to spread traits through wild populations of animals, but its ability to alter nature is drawing opposition from some environmental groups.
The Gates-funded project, called Target Malaria, is based at Imperial College, London, and has been seeking to add instructions to the DNA of malaria mosquitoes that would cause them to become sterile. If released in the wild, a gene drive could push these species to extinction.
Spokesman Bryan Callahan says the Gates Foundation will give Target Malaria an additional $35 million, bringing Gates’s total investment to $75 million. That is the largest sum ever spent on gene-drive technology.
Flashback: MI6 Spy Gareth Williams Found Dead in Bag Had ‘Hacked Clinton Secrets’
September 5th, 2016Via: IB Times:
A MI6 spy who was discovered dead in a holdall at his apartment in 2010 had hacked into sensitive information about former US President Bill Clinton, it has been claimed. The spy had obtained Clinton’s diary for an event and passed it to a friend.
Gareth Williams, 31, hacked into the event’s guest list as it was to be attended by President Clinton, passing it to his friend who was also to be a guest at the party, according to sources speaking on condition of anonymity to the Sun on Sunday.
“The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams’s work with America was of the most sensitive nature,” one source said. “It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time.”
Anti-Zika Toxin Decimates Bees
September 5th, 2016Via: Guardian:
Huddled around their hives, beekeepers around the south-eastern US fear a new threat to their livelihood: a fine mist beaded with neurotoxin, sprayed from the sky by officials at war with mosquitos that carry the Zika virus.
Earlier this week, South Carolina beekeepers found millions of dead honey bees carpeting their apiaries, killed by an insecticide. Video posted by a beekeeper to Facebook showed thousands of dead insects heaped around hives, while a few survivors struggled to move the bodies of fellow bees.
“This is what’s left of Flowertown Bees,” a despondent keeper says in the video. Company co-owner Juanita Stanley told the Associated Press her farm looked “like it’s been nuked” and estimated 2.5 million bees were killed.
German Spies ‘Systematically Violating Constitution’
September 5th, 2016Via: thelocal.de:
The BND, Germany’s version of the CIA, has been accused of massive breaches of the constitution in a leaked report by the government’s representative for data protection.
“The BND [Bundesnachrichtendienst] systematically lifted and used personal data without a legal basis to do so,” wrote Federal Data Protection Commissioner Andrea Voßhoff in a report seen by public broadcasters NDR and WDR.
