Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1102
March 2, 2018
Why I’m Not on Facebook
Why I’m Not on Facebook
Brant Pinvodic (2014)
Film Review
This is a documentary by a father struggling with the decision whether to allow his 13 year old son to join Facebook. After interviewing the Winklevoss twins, who claim to be the true originators of Facebook,* Pinvodik conducts a weird experiment in which a group of young Facebook fanatics construct a glamorous fake profile for him. When he’s instantly bombarded by “friend” requests, he phones a number of his new “friends” and attempts visits them at home. He’s extremely surprised by the number of celebrities who “friend” him, including Roseanne Barr.
He then consults an investigator who demonstrates how easy it is to access our personal information online – even when we aren’t on Facebook. Within minutes the investigator locates Pinvodic’s drivers license number, tax information and Amazon purchases, as well as the school his kids attend.
Pinvodic finishes with an examination of Facebook addiction. In addition to interviewing a teenager who spends 12+ hours a day on Facebook, he visits a psychologist specializing in narcissism. The latter maintains that Facebook appeals to two of the most powerful human emotions: narcissism and insecurity. By making ordinary people feel famous and significant, it enables them to become stars in their own limited universe.
In the end, the filmmaker concludes Facebook has both advantages and drawbacks. It can help people find jobs, kidney donors and long lost friends. On the downside are its addictive potential and the immense amount of personal information it collects for the benefit of US intelligence and corporate advertisers.
*The twins eventually sued Mark Zuckerberg, who currently runs Facebook, and won a $65 million settlement Winklevoss Twins Win Facebook Settlement
March 1, 2018
Ibero-America Joins China’s BRI, Will North America Be Next?
All nations in Western Hemisphere (except US and Canada) have agreed to participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
EIR’s Intel Director for Ibero America, Dennis Small, discusses the recent agreement of the CELAC nations (all nations in the Western hemisphere except U.S. and Canada) to participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
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Freedom Rider: Russiagate and the surveillance duopoly
“Russiagate is a sinkhole of political confusion and that is precisely why it was created. It began with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, a lackluster effort meant to continue the neo-liberal agenda, make war, and do little else. She had nothing to offer voters and hung her hat on making Trump look like ‘Putin’s puppet.’ ”
By Margaret Kimberley
Source: Intrepid Report
Republican and Democratic Party dueling over Russiagate provides us with a teachable moment. It should teach us to disrespect and discredit the law enforcement system as it exists in this country. We must oppose the surveillance state altogether and we should not be tricked by duopoly theatrics into thinking that either of the evil twins are acting in our interests.
Local cops plant drugs and weapons in order to arrest and convict anyone they want. They kill an average of three people every single day. Cash bail keeps the poor in jail not because they are necessarily dangerous, but because they are poor. Those are just some facts in the litany of oppression used by law enforcement against mostly poor, black people. But there is another order of wrong doing that engulfs the whole world.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) created a system…
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Failure of US bid to flood Europe with Gas from Fracking
With so much anti Russian hysteria US officials overlooked the price difference. Gas shipped from the first US LNG export terminal was at one point priced in Rotterdam at $7.85 to $8.35 per mbtu while the average Euro price was $ 5.35
by TheFreeOnline A few months ago US officials were openly boasting that they would steal the market for Russian gas in Europe by replacing it with their own LNG now flowing from the devastated fracking fields of America.
But in recent weeks not a single cargo of Frack Gas has reached Europe..What went wrong?
It seems that with so much anti Russian hysteria they overlooked the price difference. . Gas shipped from the first US LNG export terminal was at one point priced in Rotterdam at $7.85 to $8.35 per mbtu while the average Euro price was $ 5.35, (May 2017 European price , see Climate-lethal US frack-gas Footnote 3 ) .
Even the rabidly anti Russian Baltic Republics seem to have shut up about bashing Putin with US gas, while Rotterdam has signed up as the trans-shipment center for cheap LNG from the new Russian LNG plant…View original post 1,754 more words
Bigshot American General Whines Whines That Russia Is Impediment To World Domination
“An increase in Russian surface-to-air missile systems in the region threatens our access and ability to dominate the airspace,” Votel complained at one point, discussing Syria.
[SEE: Is American economic survival dependent upon its ability to lay waste to the world?]
“When the veil of the shared artificial reality, that has been woven by Western psyop specialists, is torn asunder and cast aside, then all the world will understand that the turmoil that has been unleashed had nothing to do with any Nation’s national security and everything to do with maintaining Western corporate profits.”
Russia ‘threatens our ability to dominate’ – US general to Congress
General Joseph Votel, commander of US Central Command © Yuri Gripas / Reuters
The US is seeking to contain Iran’s rising influence in the Middle East and fend off challenges to Washington’s hegemony posed by Russia and China, the top general commanding US forces in the region told Congress.
General Joseph Votel, head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), briefed the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) on Tuesday on the…
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February 28, 2018
Seoul defies WTO ruling, vows to keep ban on Japan’s Fukushima seafood
From RT
South Korea vows to maintain its restrictions on Japanese seafood imports and appeal the WTO’s ruling against additional radiation tests and bans on fishery products introduced in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
In 2015, Tokyo filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) challenging South Korea’s import bans that were introduced on certain fish caught in Japanese waters over fears of radiation following the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima power plant in March 2011. In its official complaint, Japan also challenged additional testing and certification requirements placed by Seoul on Japanese fish caught from eight prefectures near Fukushima.
Lethal radiation amounts still detected at crippled Fukushima plant 7yrs after disaster
On Thursday, the WTO ruled in Japan’s favor, claiming that while South Korean practices were initially justified, they now violate the WTO’s sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement. “By maintaining the product-specific and blanket import bans on the 28 fishery products from the 8 prefectures and the 2011 and 2013 additional testing requirements on Japanese products, Korea acted inconsistently with Article 2.3, first sentence of the SPS Agreement and, as a consequence with Article 2.3, second sentence,” the ruling said.
South Korea on Friday refused to bow to the WTO ruling due to public health and safety concerns, announcing that it will challenge the ruling while maintaining the current level of restrictions.
“The Korean government will appeal to safeguard public health and safety,” the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a release. “Regardless of the decision, the current import ban will be put in place until the WTO’s dispute settlement procedure ends.”
Japan’s minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Ken Saito, called Seoul’s disobedience regrettable. “Japan will respond accordingly so that our position will be accepted by the Appellate Body as well. We will also call on South Korea to sincerely and promptly correct their measures,” he said at a news conference. . .
Read more: Seoul Appeals WTO Fukushima Seafood Ruling
Sugar Recommendations are Based on ’60 Years of Industry Manipulation of Science’
In the 1960s the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) secretly funded research at Harvard to downplay sugar’s possible link to coronary heart disease (CHD). The goal was to shift attention to fats as a greater hazard.
Anna Hunt, Staff Writer
Waking Times
Ahhhh, the sweet sugar industry, willing to fudge any numbers to make suckers out of us. All puns aside, this is exactly what the sugar industry did back in the 1960s. Specifically, the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) secretly funded research at Harvard to downplay sugar’s possible link to coronary heart disease (CHD). The goal was to shift attention to fats as a greater hazard. In the end, the sugar industry succeeded.
Sugar Recommendations are Based on Biased Research
An ongoing investigation by Stanton Glantz from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), revealed that the sugar industry funded a review published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967. This review “singled out fat and cholesterol as the dietary causes of coronary heart disease and downplayed evidence that sucrose consumption was also a risk factor.” In the end, this sugar industry-funded…
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What is Actually Happening in Eastern Ghouta?
Guest Post by Sophie Mangal
Currently, the situation around Eastern Ghouta can only be described as drastic. Jaysh Al-Islam, along with Faylaq al Rahman militants, are blocking civilian evacuations via humanitarian corridors, preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid, and evacuating the wounded.
The humanitarian pause came into effect at 9 a.m. on Thursday upon the initiative of the Syrian Government and Russia. In the area of Vafidin, the government forces have already created block posts, and the medical staff is ready to provide the necessary medical care for the sick and injured. Moreover, special buses will evacuate civilians to safe areas.
Despite the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2401, demanding an immediate end to the fighting and the establishment of a humanitarian truce lasting at least 30 days, the militants of Eastern Ghouta violated ceasefire and have shelled civilians who tried to flee the area from mortars. And in that way, radicals undermine the efforts of the Syrian authorities and hinder the evacuation of the population. At the same time, the Syrian army units fully respect the truce and do not respond to provocations.
A number of Western media have already blamed the Syrian government for ceasefire violations, as well as for potential use of chemical weapons against innocent civilians.
According to the Syrian political observer Abdullah al-Ahmed, such kinds of reports are exclusively aimed at discrediting the legitimate government and the Syrian government forces.
Abdel Bari Atwan, a Middle East expert, holds the similar position. He believes that some Western media in the near future will try to deflect everyone’s attention from the initiatives of Bashar Assad in the form of humanitarian corridors and civilian evacuation from the besieged Eastern Ghouta. In addition, the media could once again say that the Syrian Army used chemical weapons in order to justify attacks.
Through these actions, the West tries to create a false perception of what’s happening in Eastern Ghouta, as it did during the liberation of Aleppo in 2016. The Syrian army doesn’t fight against Syrians. Only with the support of Russia, can they provide all the necessary conditions for the improvement of the humanitarian situation, and rescuing civilians, who are forcibly retained by extremists.
Sophie Mangal is special investigative correspondent and co-editor of Inside Syria Media Center.
A Voice of Sanity in the Gun Control Debate
In the following film, historian and Native activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz discusses her book Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment. The major premise of her most recent book is that the Second Amendment relates mainly to the right and obligation of white settlers to keep guns, which they used in voluntary militias to massacre Native Americans and (in many cases) compulsory slave patrols to hunt down runaway slaves.
She begins by reminding us of the real issue (not the one we we’re taught in school) that triggered the Revolutionary War – namely the British ban on white settlement on unceded Indian lands west of the Appalachians. The hated Stamp Act, which triggered the familiar cry of “taxation without representation,” was enacted to finance British troops to roust settlers who were illegally squatting on Native lands.
She also points out that George Washington and most of the other founding fathers acquired their substantial wealth by illegally surveying and speculating in unceded Native land.
She disagrees with gun control advocates that the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” only relates to their use in “well-regulated militias.” She insists that it refers to an individual right, like all the other amendments in the Bill of Rights. She argues the right to participate in voluntary militias is already covered in Article 1 of the Constitution. Moreover the Second Amendment was specially modeled on an individual right to gun ownership in various state constitutions.
I found the Q&A’s at the end the most interesting part of her talk. Dunbar-Ortiz doesn’t believe gun control laws would end mass shootings in the US – mainly because American gun violence is directly rooted in the historically racist and genocidal nature of US gun culture. She contrasts the US with Switzerland and Canada. Despite the absence of any gun control laws (the Swiss are required to keep weapons in their homes), there is no gun violence in Switzerland. Likewise Canada has much less gun violence despite fewer gun control laws.
In both cases, she attributes the absence of gun violence to the historical absence of slavery or rampant militarism.
Dunbar-Ortiz also disputes Democratic claims that opposition to gun control stems from NRA lobbying. Noting that the US gun culture precedes the NRA by more than a century, she adds that the NRA spends far less on lobbying than Big Oil and Big Pharma. The NRA mainly derives its strength by mobilizing thousands of volunteers at the state level, where most gun control laws originate. These volunteers track the voting records of every state and local politician to ensure that anti-gun legislators don’t get re-elected.
February 27, 2018
Lawyers For The DNC Argue That ‘Primary Rigging’ Is Protected By The First Amendment
It appears that the defendants in the Democratic National Committee Fraud Lawsuit are attempting to argue that cheating a candidate in the primary process is protected under the first amendment.
AGR Daily 60 Second News Bites
The DNC defense lawyers then argued that: “There is no legitimate basis for this litigation, which is, at its most basic, an improper attempt to forge the federal courts into a political weapon to be used by individuals who are unhappy with how a political party selected its candidate in a presidential campaign.”
The brief continued: “…To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege based on their animating theory would run directly contrary to long-standing Supreme Court precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by political parties, especially when it comes to selecting the party’s nominee for public office.”
It appears that the defendants in the DNC Fraud Lawsuit are attempting to argue that cheating a candidate in the primary process is protected under the first amendment.
If all that weren’t enough, DNC representatives argued that the Democratic National Committee had no established fiduciary duty “to…
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