http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?fid4ct=36408 Fri, 24 May 2013 16:01:00 EDT Thu, 23 May 2013 12:23:00 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss RapidFeeds v0.1 -- http://www.rapidfeeds.com en-us Syrian officials said that the attempt to reach the village was part of ongoing Israeli support for the rebels along their frontier, and that the attack on the jeep was "self-defense." They urged the UN Security Council to stop Israel from future cross-border operations, and complained about Israel firing missiles into southern Syria after the jeep was "destroyed." http://news.antiwar.com/2013/05/24/syria-attacked-israeli-vehicle-was-heading-to-rebel-village/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7050831 Sat, 25 May 2013 04:10:00 EDT You know that gold bear market that the financial press keeps touting? The one George Soros keeps proclaiming? Well, it is not there. The gold bear market is disinformation that is helping elites acquire the gold. Certainly, Soros himself doesn't believe it, as the 13-F release issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 15 proves. http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/21/soros-bets/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7050743 Sat, 25 May 2013 00:30:00 EDT Yesterday, in his widely-heralded speech (another one, God help us), Obama said:"We unequivocally banned torture..." This is flatly, unequivocally not true. It is a lie. Yes, Obama knows he is lying. There is no way in hell he cannot know he's lying. But I expect serial murderers to lie. What is equally disgusting -- and even more disgusting, from one point of view -- is that almost everyone, including almost all "dissenting" writers, are willing to accede to the lie. http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-ruling-class-as-full-time-sadistic.html http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7050645 Fri, 24 May 2013 21:41:00 EDT One of the methods used to extract information from Muslim inmates in Guantanamo was to apply sexual interrogation techniques, Terry Holdbrooks, former guard at the camp has told RT. Such a degradation methods, the former US soldier said, were used on innocent men. http://rt.com/news/guantanamo-guard-islam-torture-608/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7050561 Fri, 24 May 2013 17:52:00 EDT Two members of the FBI's elite counterterrorism unit died Friday while practicing how to quickly drop from a helicopter to a ship using a rope, the FBI announced Monday in a statement. The statement gave few details regarding the deaths of Special Agents Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw, other than to say the helicopter encountered unspecified difficulties and the agents fell a "significant distance." ... Last month, the team was involved in the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings. And in February, it rescued a 5-year-old boy held hostage for six days in an underground bunker in Alabama. http://hamptonroads.com/2013/05/fbi-agents-died-fall-helicopter-va-coast http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7050467 Fri, 24 May 2013 16:01:00 EDT As we noted in the context of antibiotics, it's well recognized that financial incentives cause the pharmaceutical industry to engage in research that tends to maximize profits rather than maximizing the health of the public. But a widely-circulated article in the Washington Post reveals another kind of bias that may stop us from adopting better ways of keeping people healthy that would also reduce healthcare costs. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130502/07475922914/why-even-good-hospitals-doctors-are-obstacle-to-better-cheaper-healthcare.shtml http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7050358 Fri, 24 May 2013 13:49:00 EDT A man at the center of a videotaped altercation with Kern County sheriff's deputies earlier this month died from heart disease, not baton blows, authorities said Thursday. The county coroner's office labeled David Sal Silva's death accidental, adding that the primary cause was hypertensive heart disease. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kern-beating-20130524,0,301184.story http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7050302 Fri, 24 May 2013 11:42:00 EDT An interesting controversy over the JFK assassination has erupted at the Huffington Post. A man named Peter Mandel has authored an essay entitled, "Conspiracy Theorists Keep My Late Father in Their Sights," which the Huffington Post published this past Monday. http://fff.org/2013/05/22/jfk-assassination-controversy-erupts-on-huffington-post/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7050055 Fri, 24 May 2013 02:29:00 EDT When Barack Obama ran for president of the United States in 2008, his message of hope and change gave us, the citizens of lesser republics, hope that he would close Guantánamo and shut down programs where extrajudicial killing or bribing foreign heads of state with American taxpayer dollars had become standard practice. Instead, a few days after his inaugural address, a C.I.A.-operated drone dropped Hellfire missiles on Fahim Qureishi's home in North Waziristan, killing seven of his family members and severely injuring Fahim. He was just 13 years old and left with only one eye, and shrapnel in his stomach. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/opinion/the-forgotten-victims-of-obamas-drone-war.html http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7050026 Fri, 24 May 2013 00:59:00 EDT Jeremy Scahill, author of "Dirty Wars" on the U.S. covert wars, sits down with CNN "The Lead's" Jake Tapper. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWU7-WSeje8 http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7049914 Thu, 23 May 2013 22:26:00 EDT The White House dislikes [Hamid Karzai] but he's all they have at the moment. They desperately need him now, particularly until signing a final agreement on having U.S. troops remain until 2024. President Obama well remembers his humiliation when Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki rejected demands to keep troops in Iraq after the "withdrawal" date, Dec. 30, 2011. http://original.antiwar.com/jack-a-smith/2013/05/19/afghanistan-war-may-end-by-2024-maybe/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7049884 Thu, 23 May 2013 20:23:00 EDT Across Seattle, reports alt-weekly The Stranger, posters are appearing linking gay rights and gun rights in ways that are just freaking out the usual control-freaky suspects. http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/22/gay-rights-and-gun-rights-linked-in-seat http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7049751 Thu, 23 May 2013 18:26:00 EDT ... Yesterday's killers were amateurs. Bush, Obama, and all the other political leaders of the U.S. and Britain are professional killers. They will never apologize for their murders. They are proud of them, and the mob cheers their killings. And they have repeatedly declared that they have no intention of stopping. It is not the monster who commits the single crime who demands our attention. It is the monster for whom crime and murder are a systematic mode of behavior, for whom slaughter and devastation are chosen instruments of policy in pursuit of hideous ends. There is only one monster we must stop: the monster in the mirror. http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-monster-in-mirror.html http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7049701 Thu, 23 May 2013 16:25:00 EDT That this was a barbaric and horrendous act goes without saying, but given the legal, military, cultural and political significance of the term "terrorism", it is vital to ask: is that term really applicable to this act of violence? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7049621 Thu, 23 May 2013 14:26:00 EDT Even when they aren't abusive and/or deadly, the pseudoscientific practices used at "tough love boarding schools" have often proven to be ineffective and can lead to PTSD, anxiety, depression and drug addiction. ... The methods used at these facilities are arguably traceable to an anti-drug cult in the 60s called the Church of Synanon. Their method was to abduct addicts and then "rehabilitate" them through beatings and humiliation. ... While these practices might seem abhorrent, the troubled teen industry is huge, powerful and experienced in deflecting allegations. In 2002, Forbes magazine's Erika Brown estimated its worth at $2 billion, and since then it's only been on the rise. http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/thousands-of-american-teens-are-trapped-in-abusive-cult-like-treatment-centres http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7049517 Thu, 23 May 2013 12:23:00 EDT The tempo of events in Syria has accelerated in recent weeks. The government forces have scored significant battlefield victories over the rebels, and this has provoked a mixture of war provocations and peace offers from the U.S. and its anti-Assad allies. http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/13/syria-endgame-approaching-fast/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7049230 Thu, 23 May 2013 02:18:00 EDT Unlike the industrial corporations of a hundred years ago, companies like Nike don't actually make things. They use artificial property rights like 'intellectual property' to control the conditions under which other people can make things, and to set up toll gates between the people who make things and the people who consume things. The really, really big money isn't the ability to produce, but the ability to collect tribute for allowing production to take place. http://c4ss.org/content/19096 http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7049156 Thu, 23 May 2013 00:27:00 EDT When high tech gunsmith group Defense Distributed test-fired the world’s first fully 3D-printed firearm earlier this month, some critics dismissed the demonstration as expensive and impractical, arguing it could only be done with a high-end industrial 3D printer and that the plastic weapon wouldn't last more than a single shot. Now a couple of hobbyists have proven them wrong on both counts. http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/05/20/25-gun-created-with-cheap-3d-printer-fires-nine-shots-video/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7049117 Wed, 22 May 2013 22:07:00 EDT Steven Coughlin had enough. He packed up and left D.C. Coughlin was a research epidemiologist who was working on behalf of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C. When he found the impact of burn pits on veterans was going to be left out of a study he was working on, he quit, packed his bags and moved out West. "I just couldn't go along with what they were doing," Coughlin said. http://www.newsherald.com/news/government/va-researcher-quits-over-burn-pit-studies-1.145419 http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7049046 Wed, 22 May 2013 20:12:00 EDT One day before President Obama is due to deliver a major speech on national security, his administration on Wednesday formally acknowledged that the United States had killed four American citizens in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/us-acknowledges-killing-4-americans-in-drone-strikes.html http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7049012 Wed, 22 May 2013 18:13:00 EDT Not long after he was elected president, Barack Obama arranged what senior US officials called "Terror Tuesdays". On the agenda were "kill lists" -- names of individuals whose perceived threat to America's security made them targets for assassination by unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. The kill lists, scrutinised personally by Obama at the weekly meetings, were soon expanded to become what US journalist Jeremy Scahill, author of Dirty Wars, calls a form of "pre-crime" justice where individuals are considered fair game if they met certain life patterns of suspected terrorists. Unidentified individuals, described as "military aged-males", would be targeted if they were at a certain place at certain times. These are considered legitimate targets in "signature strikes". http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/defence-and-security-blog/2013/may/13/dirty-wars-drones http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7048927 Wed, 22 May 2013 16:12:00 EDT An FBI special agent shot and killed a man in Orlando, Florida, early on Wednesday morning, just hours after he was interrogated about the Boston Marathon bombings. The man, who was identified as 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev, was reportedly an acquaintance of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who he met through the world of mixed martial arts.... Todashev was shot shortly after midnight at an apartment complex about 10 miles from Walt Disney World, after FBI agents and other law enforcmenet reportedly returned for a final interview. ... Khusn Taramiv, a friend of Todashev, told WESH-TV that they were both interviewed by the FBI for three hours on Tuesday.... Taramiv also claims that Todashev thought that he was being "set up" and expressed concerns that something bad was going to happen to them. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/fbi-shooting-orlando-boston-marathon/65476/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7048851 Wed, 22 May 2013 13:45:00 EDT In just ten months, the United States managed to transform an 82 year-old Catholic nun and two pacifists from non-violent anti-nuclear peace protestors accused of misdemeanor trespassing into federal felons convicted of violent crimes of terrorism. Now in jail awaiting sentencing for their acts at an Oak Ridge, TN nuclear weapons production facility, their story should chill every person concerned about dissent in the US. http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/how-us-turned-three-pacifists-multiple-felony-saboteurs?paging=off http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7048813 Wed, 22 May 2013 12:05:00 EDT The editors of Antiwar.com have known for some time that the FBI has had an eye on them. Naturally enough, they used the Freedom of Information Act to request bureau's files on them and their organization -- but the FBI hasn't been forthcoming. Now the ACLU has filed suit to force the bureau to divulge the extent of its snooping on anti-interventionist journalists. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/aclu-sues-the-fbi-on-antiwar-coms-behalf/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7048467 Wed, 22 May 2013 02:09:00 EDT When cops behave badly, many suddenly develop an acute case of unconstitutional stage fright, often resulting in the immediate confiscation of any cameras/cell phones in the vicinity. If it's going to come down to "our word against yours," it helps immensely to have any contradictory "words" spirited away by Narrative Control, a branch of law enforcement that handles all cop "publicity rights," as well as providing new interpretations and reimaginings of existing statutes. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130519/19190923142/if-youre-going-to-illegally-seize-citizens-cell-phones-least-make-sure-youre-grabbing-right-ones.shtml http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7048314 Tue, 21 May 2013 23:36:00 EDT ...[T]he ridiculous pageant continues. Everyone plays his part, pathetically hoping that if we all refuse to acknowledge the truth, facts will contort themselves to satisfy our collective fantasy. And the State is insistent that we may view it in only two ways: either the State is run by the most idiotic collection of incompetent nincompoops the world has ever seen, or a gang of singularly determined, endlessly scheming liars and vicious, bloody murderers is in charge, who will lie about everything and murder anyone. http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-state-explodes-itself.html http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7048223 Tue, 21 May 2013 21:11:00 EDT Just a few moments ago, Al Jazeera posted an editor's note from Imad Musa, its Online Head for Al Jazeera English, entitled "In the Massad case, we should have done better."... The note is still rather opaque, as it does not explain what happened, why it happened or who is responsible. But credit is still due Al Jazeera for acknowledging and rectifying their obvious mistake and responding to critics, something many media outlets refuse to do under similar circumstances. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/21/al-jazeera-joseph-massad-retraction http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7048148 Tue, 21 May 2013 18:41:00 EDT A truck driver was beaten within an inch of his life by California Highway Patrol for not signing a traffic ticket that he could not read. The driver, who broke no laws, was beaten so badly that he woke up in a trauma hospital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lcYTJx9Y1c http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7048019 Tue, 21 May 2013 16:31:00 EDT Scripps News reporters discovered 170,000 Lifeline phone customer records online that contained everything needed for identity theft. After requesting an interview with the COO of TerraCom and YourTel, the reaction was kill-the-messenger style; the reporters were called "Scripps Hackers" and threatened with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/83073 http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7047969 Tue, 21 May 2013 14:27:00 EDT Bottom line: Ríos Montt is a free man tonight. The overturning of the historic guilty verdict in this trial is a huge, though not unexpected blow, to justice. It is an unimaginable blow to each of the Ixil Maya victims, and others, who suffered abuses during the US-backed military dictator's 17-month reign. http://boingboing.net/2013/05/20/guatemala-nations-highest-c.html http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7047747 Tue, 21 May 2013 12:26:00 EDT Clive Stafford Smith, who currently represents several inmates at the US prison camp through the legal charity Reprieve, claims that guards at the facility are requiring invasive searches before detainees can conduct in-person interviews or even phone calls to lawyers. ... "The US military has started directly abusing prisoners who want to contact their lawyers to tell them what is happening. So anyone who wants to see a lawyer, or have a legal phone call, must have his fingers put up his anus and his genitals touched," Smith writes. http://rt.com/usa/guantanamo-detainee-cavity-searches-284/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7047400 Tue, 21 May 2013 02:56:00 EDT Driving in the early morning hours to his job at a metal shop in Buda, Miguel Montanez at first thought the approaching lights were a school bus or a tow truck. But Montanez says it was a Hays County SWAT truck that rammed his car head-on. As they collided, another police vehicle pinned him from behind, he says. He heard a shot. "I saw my windshield crack, and I ducked down as low as possible," Montanez said. "I really thought I was going to die." http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/swat-team-rammed-wrong-mans-car-lawsuit-alleges/nXpKW/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7047333 Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT The state is all about crushing real dissent and punishing the disobedient. No matter how bad things get, no matter how lawless the supposed law-enforcers become, I'm troubled by libertarians who condemn those who refuse to sit up straight and obey the overlords in Washington. Kokesh has consistently refused to be obedient - and I say, more power to him. http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/05/20/criminalizing-disobedience-adam-kokesh-anti-war-activist-is-arrested/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7047265 Mon, 20 May 2013 21:52:00 EDT Having been tried out against a relative outlier like Assange, the theory that soliciting information can be criminal is apparently now ready for application against the mainstream press. http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/20/obamas-war-against-the-free-press-gets-c http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7047179 Mon, 20 May 2013 19:57:00 EDT A police officer has been indicted on a felony charge of indecent liberties with a child, arrested for a second time since early April. ... [Christopher E.] Roush has been with the department for nine years and is assigned to the south precinct. ... Roush, who legally changed his name from Miner, has faced charges before in Newport News. He was acquitted of rape in 2010, according to The Daily Press. http://hamptonroads.com/2013/05/newport-news-police-officer-indicted-felony-charge http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7047110 Mon, 20 May 2013 17:57:00 EDT FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds was described as "the most gagged person in the history of the United States" by the American Civil Liberties Union. ... [She] has revealed extraordinary information on the U.S. government's support for international terrorist networks and organised crime. The government has denied the allegations yet gone to extraordinary lengths to silence her. Her critics have derided her as a fabulist and fabricator. But now comes word that some of her most serious allegations were confirmed by a major European newspaper only to be squashed at the request of the U.S. government. http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/whistleblower-al-qaeda-chief-u-s-asset/ http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7046975 Mon, 20 May 2013 14:24:00 EDT It has long been clear that this WikiLeaks-as-criminals theory could and would be used to criminalize establishment media outlets which reported on that which the US government wanted concealed. Now we know that the DOJ is doing exactly that: applying this theory to criminalize the acts of journalists who report on what the US government does in secret, even though there is no law that makes such reporting illegal and the First Amendment protects such conduct. ... It is virtually impossible at this point to overstate the threat posed by the Obama DOJ to press freedoms. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/20/obama-doj-james-rosen-criminality http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7046926 Mon, 20 May 2013 13:06:00 EDT An apparent U.S. drone strike killed two suspected al-Qaeda militants in central Yemen on Monday, a local official said. ... On Saturday, four suspected al-Qaeda militants died in a similar attack in southern Yemen. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/05/20/U-S-drone-strike-kills-two-al-Qaeda-militants-in-Yemen-.html http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7046908 Mon, 20 May 2013 11:57:00 EDT A Daily News investigation of [Daniel] Sbarra and his team of cops exposed repeated charges of illegal searches, unprovoked violence, racial profiling, racial slurs and intimidation that cost the city more than $1.5 million in settlements. The figure could rise: Nine of the nearly 60 lawsuits filed against the accused rogue cops are still pending. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/lt-daniel-sbarra-team-finest-article-1.1348075?print http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7046433 Mon, 20 May 2013 02:29:00 EDT [Andrea] Rebello's funeral is scheduled for Wednesday in Sleepy Hollow, in Westchester County, north of New York City. Her life ended in the seconds that forced the veteran police officer to make a fatal decision, but the questions surrounding the student's death are just beginning, along with an internal investigation by the Nassau County Police Department. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/19/andrea-rebello-killed_n_3302043.html http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/?iid4ct=7046258 Sun, 19 May 2013 23:56:00 EDT