Inside the Army Spy Ring & Attempted Entrapment of Peace Activists, Iraq Vets, Anarchists
February 26th, 2014Via: Democracy Now:
More details have come to light showing how the U.S. military infiltrated and spied on a community of antiwar activists in the state of Washington. Democracy Now! first broke this story in 2009 when it was revealed that an active member of Students for a Democratic Society and Port Militarization Resistance was actually an informant for the U.S. military. The man everyone knew as “John Jacob” was in fact John Towery, a member of the Force Protection Service at Fort Lewis. He also spied on the Industrial Workers of the World and Iraq Veterans Against the War. A newly made public email written by Towery reveals the Army informant was building a multi-agency spying apparatus. The email was sent from Towery using his military account to the FBI, as well as the police departments in Los Angeles, Portland, Eugene, Everett and Spokane. He wrote, “I thought it would be a good idea to develop a leftist/anarchist mini-group for intel sharing and distro.” Meanwhile, evidence has also emerged that the Army informant attempted to entrap at least one peace activist, Glenn Crespo, by attempting to persuade him to purchase guns and learn to shoot. We speak to Crespo and his attorney Larry Hildes, who represents all the activists in the case.
Research Credit: ottilie
James Stuart Jr., Prominent Lincoln Banker, Found Dead
February 26th, 2014Via: Linkoln Journal Star:
A successful Lincoln businessman and member of a prominent local family died last week. Former National Bank of Commerce CEO James Stuart Jr. was found dead in Scottsdale, Ariz., the morning of Feb. 19.
A family spokesman did not say what caused the death. A Scottsdale, Ariz., police spokesperson could not be reached over the weekend.
Stuart was a native of Lincoln and graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a degree in Business Administration.
In 1969, Stuart joined Citibank in New York City and served as a loan officer until 1973, when he joined First Commerce Bancshares (then NBC Co.) as executive vice president. He was named president in 1976, chairman and CEO in 1978, and also became chairman and CEO of National Bank of Commerce in 1985. Stuart spent his life building the organization into an important business voice in Lincoln, friend and colleague Brad Korell said.
“He was a very successful banker,” said Korell, who worked with Stuart for more than 30 years. “I always felt that he was a visionary. He really did build one of the most successful and admired banking organizations in the Midwest.”
How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations
February 26th, 2014Via: The Intercept:
Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums.
Related: Obama Staffer Wants ‘Cognitive Infiltration’ of Conspiracy Groups
Research Credit: bretwalda
DARPA: Dream Research
February 26th, 2014Via: Medium:
Today, Onur Varol and Filippo Menczer at Indiana University in Bloomington, use network science to study the similarities between dreams reported in English, Chinese and Arabic—research that is funded in part by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA.
They say their results provide a new window into the cultural links between dreams experienced by people in different parts of the world.
…
Just how this work fits in to DARPA’s broader mission to create breakthrough technologies for national security is rather obscure.
‘Magic Formula of Physics Moves Every Kind of Animal on Earth’
February 25th, 2014Via: Houston Chronicle:
A magic formula of physics is propelling animals across the planet, from birds and sharks to jellyfish, according to a new discovery by researchers at Texas A&M Univeristy.
While people struggle with fixed-wing aircraft and solid propellors, animals triumph with flexible wings, fins and tails and now we know that despite their other vastly differing characteristics, they are all moving in essentially the same way.
“We found insects, birds, bats, whales, fish, dolphins, even smaller molluscs are all using the same basic mechanics,” said Marine Biologist Nathan Johnson from A&M at Galveston who did the study with colleagues from Harvard, California Institute of Technology, Indiana University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
It shows just how advanced Mother Nature’s designs are compared to human engineering. Scientists hope their findings will help technology catch up with millions of years of evolution.
They found that the animals all flex their wing, tail or fin within a “magic range” of 30 to 60 degrees, and they all bend just 30% of whatever their relevant propulsor is.
Sounds obvious, but it’s something humans have yet to replicate by relying only on stiff wings for aircrafts and similar non-flexible propellors for boats. Thus missing out on nature’s discovery of a potentially perfect universal design.
“The best reason we can think that these similarities are there in nature is that they are the most energy efficient,” said Johnson.
Research Credit: alvinroast
Electronics Retailer Checks Customers’ Names Against U.S. Watch List
February 25th, 2014Via: EEV Blog:
If your name happens to be fairly common like mine, then you may end up having your orders flagged and put on hold by Element 14, at least here in Australia. Because, well, their system sucks arse, and it seems like they are licking the arse of the United States government to boot. Am I pissed? You betcha!
I placed an order for some innocuous parts from Element 14 in Australia the other day and their system automatically “flagged” my order and put it on hold based on my name being on some US Government watch list!
Yep, you read that right.
My delivery address in Element 14?s system has “David Jones” on it, and apparently the US government are watching someone called David Jones, so you know, a parts distributor in Australia has to flag that and put my order on hold. Makes sense huh?
Hopefully, MtGox Is Finally Dead
February 25th, 2014MtGox has needed to die for years. I sincerely hope they they are down for the count this time. That thing was the bitcoin exchange from hell.
Via: cNet:
Embattled Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has largely vanished from the Internet amid accusations that the exchange is insolvent after a years-long theft that resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Web site for the Tokyo-based exchange has been wiped clean, as has its official Twitter feed. A screen shot posted by a Reddit user indicates that trading on the exchange has been halted.
Comcast’s Deal with Netflix Makes Network Neutrality Obsolete
February 23rd, 2014Via: Washington Post:
For the past two decades, the Internet has operated as an unregulated, competitive free market. Given the tendency of networked industries to lapse into monopoly—think of AT&T’s 70-year hold over telephone service, for example—that’s a minor miracle. But recent developments are putting the Internet’s decentralized architecture in danger.
In recent months, the nation’s largest residential Internet service providers have been demanding payment to deliver Netflix traffic to their own customers. On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Netflix has agreed to the demands of the nation’s largest broadband provider, Comcast. The change represents a fundamental shift in power in the Internet economy that threatens to undermine the competitive market structure that have served Internet users so well for the past two decades.
The deal will also transform the debate over network neutrality regulation. Officially, Comcast’s deal with Netflix is about interconnection, not traffic discrimination. But it’s hard to see a practical difference between this deal and the kind of tiered access that network neutrality advocates have long feared. Network neutrality advocates are going to have to go back to the drawing board.
Use of Prescription Drugs in Kentucky and West Virginia [???]
February 23rd, 2014I was reading this piece about the most miserable states in the U.S. when I came across this sentence in the section on Kentucky:
The state’s population was the nation’s most reliant on prescription drugs, with 19.3 prescriptions filled per capita in 2011, tied with West Virginia.
😯
Would that be a world leading statistic? In other words, where in the world are people using more prescription drugs than in Kentucky and West Virginia?
Mysterious Polio-Like Illness Affects Kids in California
February 23rd, 2014Via: USA Today:
A mysterious polio-like syndrome has affected as many as 25 California children, leaving them with paralyzed limbs and little hope of recovery.
…
While there haven’t been reports of the illness outside California, Van Haren thinks that’s only because no one is looking for it. He believes once doctors nationwide begin to, they’ll find other cases.
“My goal is to get the word out to other neurologists, to make them aware of this,” he said.
