IBM Sued for Cooperating with NSA Spy Program
December 16th, 2013IBM knows a thing or two about colluding with fascists:
Via: Reuters:
IBM Corp has been sued by a shareholder who accused it of concealing how its ties to what became a major U.S. spying scandal reduced business in China and ultimately caused its market value to plunge more than $12 billion.
IBM lobbied Congress hard to pass a law letting it share personal data of customers in China and elsewhere with the U.S. National Security Agency, in a bid to protect its intellectual property rights, according to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
The plaintiff in the complaint, Louisiana Sheriffs’ Pension & Relief Fund, said this threatened IBM hardware sales in China, particularly given a program known as Prism that let the NSA spy on that country through technology companies such as IBM.
The Baton Rouge pension fund said the revelation of Prism and related disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden caused Chinese businesses and China’s government to abruptly cut ties with the world’s largest technology services provider.
It said this led IBM on October 16 to post disappointing third-quarter results, including drops in China of 22 percent in sales and 40 percent in hardware sales.
Frenchelon: France Broadens Its Surveillance Power
December 16th, 2013*yawn*
How old is the Frenchelon joke? I don’t remember if I first came across it in the 1980s or 1990s.
Via: New York Times:
For all their indignation last summer, when the scope of the United States’ mass data collection began to be made public, the French are hardly innocents in the realm of electronic surveillance. Within days of the reports about the National Security Agency’s activities, it was revealed that French intelligence services operated a similar system, with similarly minimal oversight.
Apartheid Lives on in Israel
December 16th, 2013Original in French: Nelson Mandela Est Mort Mais L’Apartheid Est Toujours Vivant
Via: Mondoweiss:
After saluting the demise of a “moral leader of the first order ,” Netanyahu decided not to attend the funeral of Nelson Mandela because of the cost of the trip. The reason given is surprising to say the least when the world is paying tribute to the heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle. The Israeli Prime Minister perhaps recalled that his country had maintained close economic and military relations with the white regime of South Africa? Did he perhaps remember that one close to Nelson Mandela had quoted him saying on December 4, 1997 that “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”?
Perhaps he was afraid of being pointed to as the propagator of an exclusion and segregation system in so many ways similar to that in South Africa until June 1991, when the four main pillars of apartheid were abolished? A crime against which Nelson Mandela fought relentlessly?
The question deserves to be asked. Nelson Mandela is dead, but the apartheid lives on in a uncodified, illegal but very real form, especially in Israel. A disguised apartheid, rampant, despised. Many believe that the use of the term “apartheid” is exaggerated or outrageous for the Jewish state, but they forget that apartheid takes various forms derived from the domination of one group over another or several others and leading to exclusion, marginalization or expulsion. Apartheid is not only the product of the occupation, it is the consequence of the colonisation and the wish to get rid of a group of people by sticking them in particular locations or Bantustans to be replaced by another group. Removing or confining the Palestinians to leave the field open to the Jewish community. Is not that the definition given in 1973 by the UN resolution 3068 which decided that “the crime of apartheid means inhumane acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of humans on any other race of human beings and systematically oppressing it”. Who can deny that this is not a reality in Israel today? For years, Western leaders regularly call for an end to colonization, the destruction of Palestinian homes, the brutality of the army at the end of the blockade of Gaza, the release of political prisoners without getting any echo from the Israeli authorities.
Almost every week, new housing programs are advertised in the West Bank or Jerusalem. Almost every week, Palestinians are killed.
Twenty- six from the beginning of the year. The latest on December 7. He was fifteen years old, killed by a bullet in the back to Ramallah. The penultimate , November 30, a Palestinian worker in an irregular situation in Israel, shot by a border guard. According to the UN, a third of those wounded in 2013 are children. Military court is about to close an investigation by refusing to pursue a soldier who killed a demonstrator in December 2011 by firing a tear gas grenade just a few feet from his face. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu continues the implementation of the Prawer Plan to settle the Negev Bedouins who, from time immemorial lived as nomads in order to make room for settlers [Update on Prawer plan here]. Naftali Bennett, Minister of Economy, proposed on December 8, annex “the area where 400,000 settlers live and only 70 000 Arabs .”
GMO Consumption and Gluten Sensitivity?
December 16th, 2013Via: Institute for Responsible Technology:
Gluten-related disorders are commonly accompanied by and possibly triggered by intestinal permeability, which is commonly referred to as “leaky gut.” Leaky gut occurs when gaps form between intestinal cells and large particles from the digestive tract enter the bloodstream, potentially triggering immune or allergic reactions. The Bt-toxin produced by genetically modified corn kills insects by punching holes in their digestive tracts, and a 2012 study confirmed that it punctures holes in human cells as well. Bt-toxin is present in every kernel of Bt corn, survives human digestion, and has been detected in the blood of 93% of pregnant women tested and 80% of their unborn fetuses. This “hole-punching toxin” may be a critical piece of the puzzle in understanding gluten-related disorders.
The Story of Your Enslavement
December 16th, 2013It’s really The Story of Humanity’s Enslavement.
The piece ends with the following message: “Wake up. To see the farm is to leave it.”
Many of you might think something like, “That’s a bit of a parsimonious way to conclude. Now what? I get it, but I still have to show up to work tomorrow morning.”
There are probably a lot of ways to gain relative freedom in one’s life. For me, getting into a situation where I no longer had a bank’s or landlord’s boot on my neck is definitely up there among the most positive developments in my life. There are lots of other pressures, of course, but we’re much better off than most, despite having such a low income. My wife and I look out at what more normal people think they have to earn, and what they have to do to get that money, and pretty much recoil in horror. Most people can’t even pause to consider alternatives.
There is no leaving “the farm,” though. Not really. While I feel as though I have a lot more freedom in my life than others might, I’m tied into the same system as those of you sneaking a peak at Cryptogon on your phones while you’re stopped in traffic and breathing smog on the 405.
So, in reality, to see the farm is to realize that there are nicer parts of it than others, but it’s still the farm. And it’s always harvest time somewhere on this place.
This topic is very deep and very dark, and since we’re dealing in the visual medium, if have a couple of hours and you want a hint of what we’re all up against, check out Human Resources.
Via: Stefan Molyneux:
Former Governor of the Bank of Israel to Become Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve
December 16th, 2013Via: Bloomberg:
Former Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer is President Barack Obama’s leading candidate to become vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, people familiar with the selection process said.
Fischer, 70, would replace Janet Yellen as the Fed’s No. 2 official, according to the people, who asked for anonymity because the decision isn’t final. There are no plans by the White House to announce the choice this week, one of the people said.
Obama has already offered the job to Fischer, who accepted it, according to another person familiar with the process. The person said the decision was made jointly by the president and Yellen, who is awaiting Senate confirmation to succeed Ben S. Bernanke as Fed chairman.
‘Deep Learning’ Professor to Head Facebook AI Lab
December 16th, 2013Via: New Yorker:
Earlier today, Facebook announced that one of the most prominent artificial-intelligence researchers in the world, Yann LeCun, will be joining the company to direct a massive new A.I. effort spread across offices in California, New York, and London. While it might sound like just another Facebook hire, the move, which LeCun describes as having “the long-term goal of bringing about major advances in artificial intelligence,” points to a new layer in Facebook’s ambitions, as well as a shift in the research and development of artificial intelligence.
…
Even before he approaches these larger challenges, LeCun can immediately get to work by mining Facebook’s enormous library of user-submitted photographs. Already the largest such photo library in the world, users add roughly three hundred and fifty million photos to it every day. Earlier this year, when Facebook announced Graph Search, it was remarkable for changing the search paradigm from page-based, like Google results from 2003, to something that is knowledge-based and capable of aggregating information from across different sources. For example, I can ask Facebook to show me friends from college who are married and live in Boston, and it generates the data instantly, rather than showing me a pre-existing Web page. However, as I noted when Graph Search was announced, it’s not very good at extracting meaning from photos. I can’t ask Facebook to show me pictures from my college friends in New York City that have babies and cats in them. LeCun’s work could change that, making it possible, for example, to even ask Facebook “Which of my friends had babies recently?” and get a reasonable answer, complete with photos, even if the new parents had never explicitly said that a baby was born.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev Heard Voices in His Head
December 16th, 2013Via: Yahoo:
Suspected Boston marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was tormented by voices in his head, according to the Boston Globe, which published the results of a five-month investigation into the attack on Sunday.
“He believed in majestic mind control, which is a way of breaking down a person and creating an alternative personality with which they must coexist,” Donald Larking, a 67-year-old who attended a Boston mosque with Tamerlan, told the Globe. “You can give a signal, a phrase or a gesture, and bring out the alternate personality and make them do things. Tamerlan thought someone might have done that to him.”
Bottled Water Containing Di(2-Ethylhexyl) Fumarate and 24,000+ Other Chemicals
December 14th, 2013Via: Natural Society:
Several companies have stopped using BPA in plastic production due to consumer outrage, but just because a plastic container says it is “BPA Free” doesn’t mean it’s free of potentially harmful chemicals. As a matter of fact, recent research out of Germany indicates there are more than 24,000 of such chemicals in any given bottle of water—with some of them causing serious hormone-disrupting effects.
According to the story from Goethe University Frankfort, the researchers tested 18 different bottled water products in an effort to look for endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs. They found far more than expected, identifying 24,520 different chemicals in their testing. After isolating the chemicals and determining their impact on the body, the researchers narrowed down those with anti-estrogenic properties to one: DEHF or di(2-ethylhexyl) fumarate. This finding was of major concern.
Out of the 18 different bottled water products, 13 had “significant” anti-estrogenic activity, and 16 out of 18 inhibited the body’s androgen receptors by 90%. In other words, the bottled water was largely wrecking havoc on the human body.
Research Credit: emulsified
China Landed Rover on Moon
December 14th, 2013Update: Chinese Rover Landed on Moon and Launched Successfully
Via: CNN:
China’s first lunar rover deployed successfully from the unmanned spacecraft Chang’e-3 that landed on the moon Saturday.
Jade Rabbit (called Yutu in Chinese) is a six-wheeled lunar rover equipped with at least four cameras and two mechanical legs that can dig up soil samples to a depth of 30 meters.
The solar-powered rover will patrol the moon’s surface, studying the structure of the lunar crust as well as soil and rocks, for at least three months. The robot’s name was decided by a public online poll and comes from a Chinese myth about the pet white rabbit of a goddess, Chang’e, who is said to live on the moon.
Weighing 140 kilograms, the slow-moving rover carries an optical telescope for astronomical observations and a powerful ultraviolet camera that will monitor how solar activity affects the various layers — troposphere, stratosphere and ionosphere — that make up the Earth’s atmosphere, China’s information technology ministry said in a statement.
The Jade Rabbit is also equipped with radioisotope heater units, allowing it to function during the cold lunar nights when temperatures plunge as low as -180°C (-292°F).
The moon exploration makes China one of only three nations — after the United States and the former Soviet Union — to “soft-land” on the moon’s surface, and the first to do so in more than three decades.
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Via: BBC:
China is set to land a robotic rover on the surface of the Moon, a major step in the Asian superpower’s ambitious programme of space exploration.
On Saturday afternoon (GMT), a landing module will undergo a powered descent, using thrusters to perform the first soft landing on the Moon in 37 years.
Several hours later, the lander will deploy a robotic rover called Yutu, which translates as “Jade Rabbit”.
The touchdown will take place on a flat plain called the Bay of Rainbows.
The Chang’e-3 mission launched on a Chinese-developed Long March 3B rocket on 1 December from Xichang in the country’s south.
“On the evening of December 14, Chang’e-3 will carry out a soft landing on the lunar surface,” said a post on the mission’s official blog on Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.
The task was described as the mission’s “most difficult” in the post, written by the Chinese Academy of Sciences on behalf of the space authorities.
It is the third robotic rover mission to land on the lunar surface, but the Chinese vehicle carries a more sophisticated payload, including ground-penetrating radar which will gather measurements of the lunar soil and crust.
