U.S., Russia enlarge focus on cyberwar

From What do they teach at the "Kremlin's school of bloggers"? by Evgeny Morozov (Foreign Policy)

One of the Kremlin's pet new media projects has been a site called liberty.ru. It's been set up under the auspices of the Fund for Effective Politics, a think-tank headed by Gleb Pavlovsky, who has been instrumental in shaping the Russian ideology of the last decade. The official objective of liberty.ru - as articulated by Pavlovsky - has been to tap into the immense creativity of the Russian internet users and involve them in producing ideas that could make Kremlin's increasingly unappealing ideological package relevant to the younger generations. Liberty.ru was meant to become something like Russia's DailyKos or Talking Points Memo.


From Network Attack Weapons Emerge by David A. Fulghum (Aviation Week)

Devices to launch and control cyber, electronic and information attacks are being tested and refined by the U.S. military and industry in preparation for moving out of the laboratory and into the warfighter's backback.

It's a part of a technology race that is already well underway. The Russian attack on Georgia last year showed weaknesses in some combat areas, but not in cyberwarfare, say U.S. analysts.

"The Russians conducted a cyberattack that was well coordinated with what Russian troops were doing on the ground," says a longtime specialist in military information operations. "It was obvious that someone conducting the cyber[war] was talking to those controlling the ground forces. They knew where the [cyber]talent was [in Russia], how to use it, and how to coordinate it.

"That sophisticated planning at different levels of cyberwarfare surprised a lot of people in the Defense Dept.," he says. "It looked like a seamless, combined operation that coordinated the use of a range of cyberweapons from the sophisticated to the high school kids that thought it was cool to deface official web sites. The techniques they used everybody knows about. The issue was how effective they were as part of a combined operation."

The U.S. is looking for a tool to duplicate that kind of attack. Moreover, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded several contracts to information technology (IT) companies to design a cyberattack range. Candidate sites include Naval Air Warfare Center's China Lake, Calif., radar cross-section facility and the U.S. Air Force radar cross-section range at Holloman AFB, N.M.

Several future attack devices are being built in a U.S. cyberwarfare attack laboratory. The one shown to Aviation Week & Space Technology is a software framework for locating digital weaknesses. It combines cybersleuthing, technology analysis and tracking of information flow. It then offers suggestions to the operator on how best to mount an attack and, finally, reports on success of the effort.

Right now, electronic and cyberattacks are conducted and understood by a very few. To make the capability part of the warfighter's arsenal it has to be configured and packaged so that a non-expert could use it on the battlefield.

Abstention as a last weapon for European protest

From Athens Newspaper Headlines of the Athens News Agency:

ELEFTHEROS: "Abstention is leading - Voters' tendency terrifies the two mainstream parties".


From Number of Europeans keen to vote in EU elections increases (EU Observer):

The survey also shows people's awareness of the election date has increased – 49 percent now say they will take place in June, compared to 16 percent last month.

The citizens of Malta, Hungary and Cyprus were best informed on the issue, while the Finns, Portuguese and Dutch were the least knowledgeable about the voting date.

Contradictory results

The poll also indicates that 53 percent of the people are now interested in the elections and 46 percent are not, with the result contradicting those of a similar survey from last week.

That poll – also carried out by TNS Opinion – for the French Political Innovation Foundation showed the exact opposite trend on 18 May, saying 46% of the people were interested in the vote while 53% were not.

Meanwhile, the results of a separate Ipsos opinion poll for French daily 20 minutes and Le Point magazine published on Tuesday showed a different picture with regards to the number of people planning to vote.

It said the abstention level in France would be higher than 60 percent and the turnout no higher than 35 to 39 percent – although 45 percent of the French respondents in the TNS poll said they would "definitely vote."

The TNS Opinion survey was conducted from 4 to 15 May in all EU member states but due to legal restrictions on publishing the pre-electoral results in Greece, Italy and Luxembourg, the results for these countries have not been published.


From European election: Brussels braces for big protest vote (Guardian):

The EU's credibility and legitimacy look set to suffer next month when its sole exercise in direct democracy is expected to see voters spurn the ballot boxes in record numbers or vote increasingly for extremists, mavericks and populists.

In what is touted as a festival of freedom and democracy, some 375 million voters in 27 countries are entitled to elect a five-year European parliament in polls held from 4 to 7 June. Around 9,000 candidates are competing for 736 seats.

But the ballot looks more likely to turn into an unruly protest engulfing Europe's elites, producing an angrier parliament more hostile to Brussels. From the UK to Portugal, from Romania to Denmark, fringe parties and extremists are likely to gain seats at the expense of mainstream parties as voters vent their anger over financial meltdown, rising unemployment and perceived corruption among the governing classes.


From Euro-Elections: A Mass Revolt? (Sky News):

The impact of the MPs' expenses scandal may be a very British issue, but across Europe there are signs that people are fed up with their governments for their own particular reasons.

A common thread is the global economic downturn and unemployment, with many voters determined to punish ruling parties for - in their view - either causing it, or mishandling it.

A study by the LSE and Trinity College Dublin suggests that mass-abstention is the bigest threat with a predicted turn out of only 30%. The Guardian reported this week that many other people plan to turn their backs on the big parties in favour of extreme, populist or maverick candidates.


From Abstention Is Feared, Wrangling Runs High (ERT):

With the European Parliament elections being at the gate, political parties in Greece have focused their attention to a campaign against abstention. Government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros stressed that each ballot counts and appeared certain that the overwhelming majority of the citizens will do their duty as always. Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos called on the citizens to cast their ballots on the 7 June elections. The heads of the euro-ballots also expressed their concern on abstention in a press conference organized by the offices of the European Parliament in Athens. Marietta Giannakou and Giorgos Papakonstantinou also touched on the conditions under which the debate of the political leaders will take place.


From High Abstention Predicted (E-Politik):

The downswing of European Parliament election turnout seems to continue. In a new Eurobarometer survey, held in January and Febuary this year and yet not published, only 34 % of the European citizen declared they intend to vote the new European Parliament between the 4th and the 7th of June this year. This would be the lowest result since the Parliament was first elected in 1979.


From European elections: Abstention will be the rule (Euro Topics):

The most recent parliamentary elections last autumn left many Romanians frustrated because the politicians and parties have failed to keep their promises. Stelian Tanase writes in the daily Adevărul about the connection between national and European elections: "I believe the reason [for the indifference of the voters] is not just that Brussels is so far away; it's also what happened in the last elections. … I detect a certain carelessness in the repetition of the same old techniques that almost everyone recognises. I'm not sure whether the 'promise everyone everything' formula will work this time. … June 7 will basically be a test of how voters react to the tricks of the politicians. Have they learned their lesson from the bluff last autumn or can they forgive and forget this quickly? Abstention will be the rule, but the direction the vote takes will tell us something about the collective short-term memory."

Justice Department drops case against Iraq War resister

From AllGov.com:

U.S. Army Lieutenant Ehren Watada has faced the possibility of court-martial and jail time ever since he publicly refused to deploy to Iraq in 2006. He was the first officer to buck the Bush administration’s war policy, which turned him into a hero for opponents of the U.S. invasion. Watada won a partial victory on Wednesday in his long running legal battle when the government dropped an attempt to retry the first lieutenant for refusing his deployment orders. The Hawaiian native was first tried in 2007 by a military court, but the process ended in a mistrial. The Army then asked the Justice Department to pursue a case against Watada in federal court, but that effort fell apart.
 
Watada still faces charges by the Army that could result in his court-martial, although his attorney believes those charges will be thrown out of court. If that happens, the Army is likely to pursue some kind of administrative punishment against Watada, who originally said the Iraq war was illegal and unjust, and that participating in it would make him a party to war crimes. Although he refused deployment to Iraq, he said he was willing to serve in Afghanistan.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

Signs of a conspiracy: Mystical numbers, contagious ideas

From Read before it's banned by the U.S. government - Part 6 :

Given widespread doctrine among various religious orders concerning this cause-and-effect relationship between binding and loosing of geopolitical supernaturalism, a question arises if during the American invasion of Iraq the Bush administration or a multinational power elite operating behind U.S. political machinations was trying to “bind” something in or above Babylon through “loosing” the Angel in the Whirlwind? In other words, was an intentional effort made to magically limit interference from Ahriman by summoning the power of Metatron and Shekinah? Mystical language used by officials during this timeframe did invoke appropriate forces connected to these entities including the Angel in the Whirlwind, the Mother Of All Bombs (MOAB), and even the title by which the U.S. battle plan was launched—”Shekinah,” pronounced “Shock-n-Awe.” The language here is further connected to Freemasonic rituals and midrashic studies concerning the Moriah event in Genesis 22:4, which says, “Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.” Just how Abraham was able from a great distance to recognize the exact location where he was to sacrifice Isaac on Moriah is not answered in the Bible, opening to midrashic interpretation that Abraham saw the Shekinah above the mountain in the form of a pillar of fire pointing him to the spot. Anecdotal Jewish writings use this interpretation to recall the pillars of cloud by day and fire by night that led the Israelites through the wilderness. Freemason writers likewise incorporate this symbolism into their mysticism involving the twin pillars of Enoch, the pillars of Solomon, and those of Masonic lodges.

In the end, the mathematical probability that the speeches, gestures, symbols, emblems and allegories thus connected to 9/11 were mere coincidence is astronomical. Even the hardiest skeptic is drawn to consider that an occult hand was at work beginning well over 200 years ago and up through this century in the design and layout of the “symbols and emblems” associated with the U.S. cities, buildings, monuments, numbers, and official seals that played a role before, on, and after 9/11. As David Flynn, author of the best selling book Temple at the Center of Time emailed me to say, “The combined occultic numbers, places, people and timing involved in the ‘terrorist attack’ is so consistent with the [goals of the Mystery organizations] that it goes beyond the agency of mere humans alone.” Researcher David Bay, Director of Cutting Edge Ministries (www.CuttingEdge.org) agrees, interpreting the events surrounding 9/11 as a catalyst for the last stage of the Masonic Baconian New Atlantis. Bay points out that even the street design in Government Center in Washington, D.C. “has been cunningly laid out in such a manner that certain Luciferic symbols are depicted by the streets, cul-de-sacs and rotaries… [which demonstrate] that the American continent was to be established as the new ‘Atlantis’, and its destiny was to assume the global leadership of the drive to the New World Order. From the beginning, the United States of America was chosen to lead the world into this kingdom of Antichrist, and Washington, D.C. was to be its capital.”

That the Masonic dream of Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis launched its final stages in America following 9/11 is intriguing. The antediluvian Atlantis, which Bacon utilized as metaphor, was mentioned by Plato in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias as laying beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar). In a drawing on the title page of his Instauratio magna (Great Instauration), Bacon depicted the Pillars of Hercules (using classic Greek Pillars) with a ship sailing through them to conceptualize movement past the limitations of existing scholarship into the area of unlimited scientific and anomalous knowledge, represented in his Rosicrucian utopia The New Atlantis.

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UN wants 'flood of drugs' in Afghanistan to devalue opium

United Nations officials in Afghanistan are attempting to create a "flood of drugs" in the country intended to destroy the value of opium and force poppy farmers to switch to legal crops such as wheat.

After the failure to destroy fields of the scarlet flowers in Afghanistan's volatile south, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says the answer is to stop the drugs from leaving the country in the first place.

"Manual eradication is incompetent and inefficient," UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa said during a visit to the western Afghan province of Herat. "So we want to see more efforts to stop the flow of drugs across Afghanistan's borders and the hitting of high-value targets to create a market disruption.

"We want to create a flood of drugs within Afghanistan. There will be so much opium inside Afghanistan unable to go out that the price will go down."

Officials admit that the plan is a second-best solution to intensive eradication campaigns. Last year the Afghan government succeeded in destroying only 3.5% of Afghanistan's 157,000 hectares of poppy because eradication teams were either attacked or bought off by local drug lords. But the attempt to use brute economics to tackle the country's $4bn (£2.5bn) narcotics industry instead is fraught with problems – not least Afghanistan's thousands of miles of porous borders.

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Redite

A case for decriminalizing drugs

...“I’m not saying drugs are good,” Pease said. “I’m saying prison is bad.”

Pease, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Central Connecticut State University, made a case for decriminalizing drugs by detailing a historical pattern of drug legislation that targets and punishes the country’s underclass. She spoke at the annual meeting of the League of Women Voters of Southeastern Connecticut at the Spa at Norwich Inn.

The local league adopted a plan at the meeting to initiate a regional study focusing on the pros and cons of the decriminalization of marijuana by gathering information from a variety of sources, including those in law enforcement, education, and substance abuse treatment.

Pease said 50 percent of federal prisoners are serving time for drug offenses; 46 percent of those people are black.

Some of the nation’s first drug legislation passed in 19th-century San Francisco after Cornelius Vanderbilt hired Chinese migrant workers to do the dirty and dangerous work of building a transcontinental railroad, work few white workers found appealing, Pease said. Along with their work ethic, the Chinese brought their custom of opium smoking. Not readily available to his workers, Vanderbilt supplied them with opium, selling it at inflated prices that kept them forever in debt, not unlike what we’ve seen throughout history with migrant workers at mills or factories renting company housing and buying food at the company store, she said.

With no money to return home after building the railroad, the Chinese settled on the West Coast. At about the same time, the country
experienced a recession, and unemployed white workers began to envy their Chinese counterparts for building the grand railroad, thinking they had stolen their jobs. Consequently, they were not welcomed in their communities and, being private people, settled in Chinatowns in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

They also continued their opium habit, because, as Pease said, “People just don’t give up their psychoactive drug of choice. Plus, they’re addicted.”

In 1875, laws made it illegal to sell and smoke opium. This marked Pease’s first instance of otherwise law-abiding people now being treated as criminals. ...

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Microwaving LEDs and transistors

Do not try this at home. Do not attempt to replicate without professional supervision.

Ukraine’s Security Service to identify thousands of Communist victims buried near Kiev

From Axis Information and Analysis:

Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) officials have announced that they have determined the identities of 14,191 people killed by order of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and buried in the Bykivnya forest outside of Kiev, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports.
SBU archives official Professor Vasyl Danylenko told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that there were 18 places in Ukraine that had been used to execute thousands of people during the Stalin era. He said Bykivnya was heavily guarded in Soviet times and, though many executions were carried out in Kiev, the dead were buried in mass graves at Bykivnya during the night.
Before World War II, most executions were carried out directly in the forest with the victims lined up before ready-dug graves. Danylenko said of the other 18 mass burial sites in Ukraine that have been identified, some are being used as parks, some have department stores built on them, or are serving as city cemeteries, according to RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.

Sign of the times

When times are hard.... Shouldn't you be ?

Israel claims Venezuela sending uranium to Iran

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel suspects Venezuela and Bolivia of supplying uranium to Iran, according to a foreign ministry document leaked to media.

"We have information according to which Venezuela provides uranium to Iran for its nuclear programme," the document says.

"It seems that Bolivia is also a supplier of uranium to the Iranian nuclear programme," the document said, adding that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has played a key role in boosting Iran's ties with Bolivia.

The document said Venezuela is helping Iran dodge UN imposed sanctions.

It further claimed Iran is establishing cells of the Hezbollah militia in northern Venezuela and on Venezuela's Margarita Island.

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"It was not prepared in a cave in Afghanistan"

From Interview with Dr. Harrit

Questions to Niels Harrit concerning the study "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe".

Introduction:

Some time ago, gulli.com featured the news about the work of a team of independent scientists from Denmark, USA and Australia. They claim to have found a substance called Nano Thermite in the dust of the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York City. Nano Thermite is an explosive, normally only used by the military, not available on the normal market. It is a relative to thermite, a substance used for welding.

On the Gulli board one of the biggest discussions ever broke loose between so called conspiracy theorists and people who trust the official version about 9/11. More than 28.000 views. More than 800 postings. We gave sceptical gulli users the chance to ask their questions directly to Dr. Niels Harrit, one of the scientists. The gulli users asked really tough questions and didn't censor anything. We gave all those questions to Mr. Harrit and were really curious how he would respond. He answered. So now, here's the promised interview. 

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Golden number linked to 666

Golden Number linked to 666
Formal Proof needed

While working on my websites on 666 myth ( http://www.666myth.co.nr/ French= http://www.666mythe.co.nr/ ) and on Isomorphous Triplets ( http://www.chez.com/cosmos2000/Numbers/IsomorphousTriplets.html ) I have found recently direct links between the Beast Number 666 and the famous Golden Number Phi, well-known by Pythagoras, Leonardo da Vinci … and in Sacred Geometry. This unexpected and incredible relation 666 versus Φ may constitute a way for the Rehabilitation of 666 !!! …

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The New American Century

'This film goes in detail through the untold history of The Project for the New American Century with tons of archival footage and connects it right into the present. This film exposes how every major war in US history was based on a complete fraud with video of insiders themselves admitting it. This film shows how the first film theaters in the US were used over a hundred years ago to broadcast propaganda to rile the American people into the Spanish-American War. This film shows the white papers of the oil company Unocal which called for the creation of a pipeline through Afghanistan and how their exact needs were fulfilled through the US invasion of Afghanistan. This film shows how Halliburton under their "cost plus" exclusive contract with the US Government went on a mad dash spending spree akin to something out of the movie Brewster's Millions, yet instead of blowing $30 million they blew through BILLIONS by literally burning millions of dollars worth of hundred thousand dollar cars and trucks if they had so much as a flat tire.

"A stunning film. It should be seen as widely as possible, in cinemas, bars, clubs, at meetings and, of course, through the internet. I'm sure the film will continue to be a source of debate and political education for many years. Maybe until the war criminals have been brought to trial." - Ken Loach

While Massimo Mazzucco’s first political documentary, GLOBAL DECEIT (2006), focused on the long list of inconsistencies in the official version of the 9/11 attacks, THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY explores the historical, philosophical and economic background that suggests a matrix for such events that is much closer to home than the so-called "Islamic terrorism". The film provides solid evidence for the true reasons behind the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, whose unfolding is described in chilling detail in a document called "Project for the New American Century", published in the year 2,000, that seems to have served as the actual blueprint for such dramatic events.'