Two U.S. presidents implicated by ex-CIA black-ops assassin

Two U.S. presidents are implicated in the well documented chronicles and confessions of ex-CIA black-ops assassin, Gene "Chip" Tatum, whose tortured body was found in 2007 on a beach in Panama.B

Barack Obama's Lost Principles

When President Obama ran for the presidency, his rhetoric was distinctly progressive. He is a very good orator and a superior debater and so we can be forgiven for taking the rhetoric seriously.

Julian getting ready to do it again?

Prospect of WikiLeaks Dump Poses Problems for Regulators

“Tens of thousands of its internal documents will be exposed on Wikileaks.org with no polite requests for executives’ response or other forewarnings.”

A Hacker's perspective on WikiLeks

The Hazards of Nerd Supremacy: The Case of WikiLeaks

Big government not the cause of economic problems

Robert Reich tells us what we already knew.


he tax deal negotiated between the president and Republicans is the latest version of trickle-down economics. It also confirms the Republican story of what happened to the economy and how to fix it: The bad economy is big government's fault, and the solution is to shrink government.

Life and Death Decisions Weigh on Junior Officers

QURGHAN TAPA, Afghanistan — The hill wasn’t much to behold, just a treeless mound of dirt barely 80 feet high. But for Talibanfighters, it was a favorite spot for launching rockets into Imam Sahib city. Ideal, American commanders figured, for the insurgents to disrupt the coming parliamentary elections

Obama has strong first-half finish

President Obama ends his first two years with image-altering successes; the next two may prove more frustrating.

Obama/Big Brother

‘Big Brother is watching you’. Yet another move toward a totalitariangovernment has secretly occurred that bears ominous signals for personal freedom. Barack Obama is demanding access to the Internet records of average citizens, in secret, and without court review.

America's New Mercenaries

As American commanders meet this week for the Afghanistan review, Obama is hiring military contractors at a rate that would make Bush blush.

Politics in Iraq Casts Doubt on a U.S. Presence After 2011 - NYTimes.com

Politics in Iraq Casts Doubt on a U.S. Presence After 2011 - NYTimes.com

BAGHDAD — The protracted political turmoil that saw the resurgence of a fiercely anti-American political bloc here is casting new doubt on establishing any enduring American military role in Iraq after the last of nearly 50,000 troops are scheduled to withdraw in the next 12 months, military and administration officials say.

'Don't ask, don't tell' bill clears Senate procedural vote

The Senate voted Saturday to proceed to debate on a bill ending the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, putting the campaign to end the ban on gay men and lesbians one vote away from completion.

Senators voted 63 to 33 go proceed to debate on the bill. Fifty-seven members of the Senate Democratic caucus and six Republicans -- Sens.Scott Brown (Mass.), Susan Collins (Maine), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and George Voinovich(Ohio) -- voted yes. Four senators -- Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), Judd Gregg(R-N.H.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va.) -- did not vote.

Carpentry among industries that aren't rebounding after recession

IN LAS VEGAS -- Every day in this desert city, the carpenters climb into their pickups and vans, resumes stacked on the passenger seats, driving first to the union hall, then in circles from one chain-linked construction site to another, asking for work.

For a year or more, it has been the same.

Nothing.

If they keep pursuing work as carpenters, in fact, many of them may never find a job.

Amazing Word Frequency Viewer

Compare Frequency Occurrences of any word or phrase from the Middle Ages until today!

"Scholars interested in topics such as philosophy, religion, politics, art and language have employed qualitative approaches such as literary and critical analysis with great success. As more of the world’s literature becomes available online, it’s increasingly possible to apply quantitative methods to complement that research. So today Will Brockman and I are happy to announce a new visualization tool called the Google Books Ngram Viewer, available on Google Labs. We’re also making the datasets backing the Ngram Viewer, produced by Matthew Gray and intern Yuan K. Shen, freely downloadable so that scholars will be able to create replicable experiments in the style of traditional scientific discovery.

US spy agencies paint grim picture of Afghan war

US spy agencies paint grim picture of Afghan war

Two reports produced by US intelligence agencies sharply contradict the American military's claims of success in the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan.

The National Intelligence Estimates on Afghanistan and Pakistan were recently presented in secret to members of the Senate and House intelligence committees. They represent the consensus view of Washington's 16 separate intelligence agencies, led by the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the State Department and the various arms of military intelligence.

6 Ways to Boost Brain Power:

6 Ways to Boost Brain Power:

Scientific American Reports

Scientists Gain Insights into How to Erase Pathological Fear

Scientists Gain Insights into How to Erase Pathological Fear

An OpEd "In Defense of Secrecy"

After using as an example a newspaper revelation of a satellite phone used by Osama bin Laden, the author takes the position that among the limitations on First Amendment rights, should be a requirement that classified information cannot be freely revealed.

Quoted from this article, is the rationale used by the author to support his contention that free speech limitation is justified:

The most common argument is that protecting information, and prosecuting offenders, is a violation of free speech. That is simply not true. The Supreme Court has never upheld First Amendment absolutism. There are legal and reasonable restrictions on what people are allowed to say, print, or broadcast. It is illegal to incite a mob to violence. It is illegal to libel others. It is illegal to make false claims in advertising about a product. It is illegal to utter profanity on broadcast television or radio. And it is, in fact, illegal to reveal information that would cause immediate harm to U.S. national security. This was uncontroversial during World War II, when sailors and their families were routinely trained that "loose lips sink ships."

More Americans Say They're Cybercrime Victims

Americans are nearly as likely to be victimized by an Internet-based crime as they are of other forms of nonviolent theft. At least that's the perceptions expressed by Americans when asked about crimes committed against themselves and their families.

Block Those Economic Metaphors - NYTimes.com

Block Those Economic Metaphors - NYTimes.com

A Wiki hornets' nest

A Wiki hornets' nest:

Eugene Robinson, from the Washington Post raises some serious conflicts arising from the recent shutdown of services by Amazon, PayPal, Visa, Master Card, and others.

There have been Denial of Service attacks on all these companies. Who should be supported as the cyber-war escalates?

Der Spiegel, among the most thoughtful of the German publications offers this contribution to the discussion.

Next, is a look at the Julian Assagne, the man in the middle of all of this.