749: The Big Jump

NDAA and Overturning of Smith-Mundt Act

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (NDAA) allows for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be released within U.S. borders and strikes down a long-time ban on the dissemination of such material in the country.[14][15][16]

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Propaganda in the United States is propaganda spread by government and media entities within the United States. Propaganda is information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to influence opinions. Propaganda is not only in advertising; it is also in radio, newspaper, posters, books, and anything else that might be sent out to the widespread public.

Domestic[edit]World War I[edit]The first large-scale use of propaganda by the U.S. government came during World War I. The government enlisted the help of citizens and children to help promote war bonds and stamps to help stimulate the economy. To keep the prices of war supplies down, the U.S. government produced posters that encouraged people to reduce waste and grow their own vegetables in "victory gardens." The public skepticism that was generated by the heavy-handed tactics of the Committee on Public Information would lead the postwar government to officially abandon the use of propaganda.[1]

World War II[edit]During World War II the U.S. officially had no propaganda, but the Roosevelt government used means to circumvent this official line. One such propaganda tool was the publicly owned but government funded Writers' War Board (WWB). The activities of the WWB were so extensive that it has been called the "greatest propaganda machine in history".[1]Why We Fight is a famous series of US government propaganda films made to justify US involvement in World War II.

In 1944 (lasting until 1948) prominent US policy makers launched a domestic propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the U.S. public to agree to a harsh peace for the German people, for example by removing the common view of the German people and the Nazi party as separate entities.[2] The core in this campaign was the Writers' War Board which was closely associated with the Roosevelt administration.[2]

Another means was the United States Office of War Information that Roosevelt established in June 1942, whose mandate was to promote understanding of the war policies under the director Elmer Davies. It dealt with posters, press, movies, exhibitions, and produced often slanted material conforming to US wartime purposes. Other large and influential non-governmental organizations during the war and immediate post war period were the Society for the Prevention of World War III and the Council on Books in Wartime.

Cold War[edit]During the Cold War, the U.S. government produced vast amounts of propaganda against communism and the Soviet bloc. Much of this propaganda was directed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover, who himself wrote the anti-communist tract Masters of Deceit. The FBI's COINTELPRO arm solicited journalists to produce fake news items discrediting communists and affiliated groups, such as H. Bruce Franklin and the Venceremos Organization.

War on Drugs[edit]The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, originally established by the National Narcotics Leadership Act of 1988,[3][4] but now conducted by the Office of National Drug Control Policy under the Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998,[5] is a domestic propaganda campaign designed to "influence the attitudes of the public and the news media with respect to drug abuse" and for "reducing and preventing drug abuse among young people in the United States".[6][7] The Media Campaign cooperates with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and other government and non-government organizations.[8]

Iraq War[edit]In early 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense launched an information operation, colloquially referred to as the Pentagon military analyst program.[9] The goal of the operation is "to spread the administrations's talking points on Iraq by briefing ... retired commanders for network and cable television appearances," where they have been presented as independent analysts.[10] On 22 May 2008, after this program was revealed in the New York Times, the House passed an amendment that would make permanent a domestic propaganda ban that until now has been enacted annually in the military authorization bill.[11]

The Shared values initiative was a public relations campaign that was intended to sell a "new" America to Muslims around the world by showing that American Muslims were living happily and freely, without persecution, in post-9/11 America.[12] Funded by the United States Department of State, the campaign created a public relations front group known as Council of American Muslims for Understanding (CAMU). The campaign was divided in phases; the first of which consisted of five mini-documentaries for television, radio, and print with shared values messages for key Muslim countries.[13]

NDAA and Overturning of Smith-Mundt Act[edit]The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (NDAA) allows for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be released within U.S. borders and strikes down a long-time ban on the dissemination of such material in the country.[14][15][16]

Ad Council[edit]The Ad Council, an American non-profit organization that distributes public service announcements on behalf of various private and federal government agency sponsors, has been labeled as "little more than a domestic propaganda arm of the federal government" given the Ad Council's historically close collaboration with the President of the United States and the federal government.[17]

International[edit]Through several international broadcasting operations, the US disseminates American cultural information, official positions on international affairs, and daily summaries of international news. These operations fall under the International Broadcasting Bureau, the successor of the United States Information Agency, established in 1953. IBB's operations include Voice of America, Radio Liberty, Alhurra and other programs. They broadcast mainly to countries where the United States finds that information about international events is limited, either due to poor infrastructure or government censorship. The Smith-Mundt Act prohibits the Voice of America from disseminating information to US citizens that was produced specifically for a foreign audience.

During the Cold War the US ran covert propaganda campaigns in countries that appeared likely to become Soviet satellites, such as Italy, Afghanistan, and Chile.

Recently The Pentagon announced the creation of a new unit aimed at spreading propaganda about supposedly "inaccurate" stories being spread about the Iraq War. These "inaccuracies" have been blamed on the enemy trying to decrease support for the war. Donald Rumsfeld has been quoted as saying these stories are something that keeps him up at night.[18]

Psychological operations[edit]The US military defines psychological operations, or PSYOP, as:

planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.[19]

The Smith-Mundt Act, adopted in 1948, explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at the US public.[20][21][22] Nevertheless, the current easy access to news and information from around the globe, makes it difficult to guarantee PSYOP programs do not reach the US public. Or, in the words of Army Col. James A. Treadwell, who commanded the U.S. military psyops unit in Iraq in 2003, in the Washington Post:

There's always going to be a certain amount of bleed-over with the global information environment.[23]

Agence France Presse reported on U.S. propaganda campaigns that:

The Pentagon acknowledged in a newly declassified document that the US public is increasingly exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations.[24]

Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the document referred to, which is titled "Information Operations Roadmap." [22][24] The document acknowledges the Smith-Mundt Act, but fails to offer any way of limiting the effect PSYOP programs have on domestic audiences.[20][21][25]

Several incidents in 2003 were documented by Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel, which he saw as information-warfare campaigns that were intended for "foreign populations and the American public." Truth from These Podia,[26] as the treatise was called, reported that the way the Iraq war was fought resembled a political campaign, stressing the message instead of the truth.[22]

See also[edit]References[edit]^ abThomas Howell, The Writers' War Board: U.S. Domestic Propaganda in World War II, Historian, Volume 59 Issue 4, Pages 795 - 813^ abSteven Casey, (2005), The Campaign to sell a harsh peace for Germany to the American public, 1944 - 1948, [online]. London: LSE Research Online. [Available online at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/archive/00000736] Originally published in History, 90 (297). pp. 62-92 (2005) Blackwell Publishing^National Narcotics Leadership Act of 1988 of the Anti''Drug Abuse Act of 1988, Pub.L. 100''749, 102 Stat. 4181, enacted November 18, 1988^Gamboa, Anthony H. (January 4, 2005), B-303495, Office of National Drug Control Policy '-- Video News Release, Government Accountability Office, footnote 6, page 3 ^Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998 (Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999), Pub.L. 105''277, 112 Stat. 268, enacted October 21, 1998^Gamboa, Anthony H. (January 4, 2005), B-303495, Office of National Drug Control Policy '-- Video News Release, Government Accountability Office, pp. 9''10 ^Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998 of the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999, Pub.L. 105''277, 112 Stat. 268, enacted October 21, 1998^Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2006, Pub.L. 109''469, 120 Stat. 3501, enacted December 29, 2006, codified at 21 U.S.C. § 1749^Barstow, David (2008-04-20). "Message Machine: Behind Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand". New York Times. ^Sessions, David (2008-04-20). "Onward T.V. Soldiers: The New York Times exposes a multi-armed Pentagon message machine". Slate. ^Barstow, David (2008-05-24). "2 Inquiries Set on Pentagon Publicity Effort". New York Times. ^Rampton, Sheldon (October 17, 2007). "Shared Values Revisited". Center for Media and Democracy. ^"U.S. Reaches Out to Muslim World with Shared Values Initiative". America.gov. January 16, 2003.

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 23:52

The Ashley Madison hacks have seemingly outed one prominent public figure so far: Josh Duggar, the eldest son of 19 Kids and Counting's Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar.

According to Gawker, Duggar had a paid account with the famed website for extramarital affairs while working at the Family Research Council (FRC), a D.C.-based Christian conservative organization. His account information has been tracked to his home, as well as another residence owned by his grandmother.

Duggar became a national pariah after admitting this May to acts of child molestation, and the resulting backlash led TLC to cancel his family's show in July.

Duggar has repeatedly made efforts to apologize for his actions, but in last night's data dump of hacked information from the cheating website, someone was shown to have used a credit card with his name and billing address (as screen-grabbed by Gawker):

The data pulled suggests that Duggar's profile included a list of turn-ons, and that his sexual interests included ''Likes to Receive Oral Sex,'' ''Open to Experimentation,'' and ''Someone I Can Teach.''

The data indicates that Duggar paid for two monthly subscriptions to the site, and that his second account was linked to his Oxon Hill, Md., home, where he lived while working for FRC.

[Image via screengrab]

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 22:37

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 10:58

The top executives at Ashley Madison were aware that their company was vulnerable to a breach, according to one alleged internal document which shows the CTO and CEO of the company voicing concern over how hackers could infiltrate their database of adults looking to cheat on their spouses.

The leak of 9.7 gigabytes of information Wednesday, which hackers claim they stole from Ashley Madison's internal computers, was among the worst-case scenarios imagined by the company executives in an internal questionnaire. The authenticity of the document, which was part of the information posted online by the hackers, could not be independently verified by BuzzFeed.

While security experts have said that the information posted online appears to be from the site, Ashley Madison has not yet confirmed whether the accounts of more than 37 million people, as well as internal company documents, are authentic.

In the questionnaire, company employees are asked to comment on their concerns for the company.

''We should put any and all efforts forward to defend against any security issues that can put our brand and 15 years of hard work at risk,'' writes CEO Noel Biderman.

Trevor Stokes, the CTO, echoes his concerns writing, '' I would hate to see our systems hacked and/or the leak of personal information.''

In further comments the two wonder about data exfiltration and the confidentiality of the data posted on their site, Kevin Mcall, VP of operations, adds that there is ''a lack of security awareness across the organization.''

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 10:43

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first prescription drug designed to boost sexual desire in women, a milestone long sought by a pharmaceutical industry eager to replicate the blockbuster success of impotence drugs for men.But stringent safety measures on the daily pill called Addyi mean it will probably never achieve the sales of Viagra, which has generated billions of dollars since the late 1990s.The drug's label will bear a boxed warning - the most serious type - alerting doctors and patients to the risks of dangerously low blood pressure and fainting, especially when the pill is combined with alcohol. The same problems can occur when taking the drug with other commonly prescribed medications, including antifungals used to treat yeast infections."Patients and prescribers should fully understand the risks associated with the use of Addyi before considering treatment," said Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA's drug center, in a statement announcing the approval Tuesday.Under an FDA-imposed safety plan, doctors will only be able to prescribe Addyi after completing an online certification process that requires counseling patients about Addyi's risks. Pharmacists will also need certification and will be required to remind patients not to drink alcohol while taking the drug.Opponents of the drug say it's not worth the side effects, which also include nausea, drowsiness and dizziness. They point out that the FDA rejected the drug twice, in 2010 and 2013, due to these risks."This is not a drug you take an hour before you have sex. You have to take it for weeks and months in order to see any benefit at all," said Leonore Tiefer, a psychologist and sex therapist who organized a petition last month calling on the FDA to reject the drug.Patients should stop taking the drug after eight weeks if they do not see any improvement, notes the FDA release.Sprout Pharmaceutical's drug is intended to treat women who report emotional stress due to a lack of libido. Its approval marks a turnaround for the FDA, which previously rejected the drug twice due to lackluster effectiveness and side effects. The decision represents a compromise of sorts between two camps that have publicly feuded over the drug for years.On one side, Sprout and its supporters have argued that women desperately need FDA-approved medicines to treat sexual problems. On the other side, safety advocates and pharmaceutical critics warn that Addyi is a problem-prone drug for a questionable medical condition.Beginning with the drug's launch in mid-October, doctors who see patients complaining about a loss of sexual appetite will have a new option."Women are grasping, and I feel like we need to offer them something that acknowledges that, and that we can feel safe and comfortable with," said Dr. Cheryl Iglesia, a surgeon and official with the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Iglesia said she has occasionally resorted to prescribing testosterone creams to boost women's libido, a use not approved by the FDA.The search for a pill to treat women's sexual difficulties has been something of a holy grail for the pharmaceutical industry. It was pursued and later abandoned by Pfizer, Bayer and Procter & Gamble, among others. But drugs that act on blood flow, hormones and other biological functions all proved ineffective.Addyi, known generically as flibanserin, is the first drug that acts on brain chemicals that affect mood and appetite.Women and their doctors will have to decide whether the drug's modest benefits warrant taking a psychiatric pill on a daily basis.Company trials showed women taking the drug generally reported one extra "sexually satisfying event" per month, and scored higher on questionnaires measuring desire.Tiefer and other critics said the FDA was pressured into approving the drug by a feminist-themed lobbying campaign funded by Sprout and other drugmakers."It's just a mishmash of politics and science and sex and money," Tiefer said.The lobbying group, dubbed Even the Score, began publicizing the lack of drugs for female sexual dysfunction as a women's rights issue last year."Women deserve equal treatment when it comes to sex," the group states in an online petition to the FDA, which attracted more than 60,000 supporters. Women's groups, including the National Organization for Women, signed on to the effort, though it was funded by Sprout and other companies working on female sex drugs.At an FDA meeting in June, more than 30 members of the public called for the drug's approval, frequently citing the Even the Score campaign. They vastly outnumbered speakers who spoke in opposition to the drug. At the meeting's conclusion, the panel of FDA advisers voted 18-6 to recommend approving the drug, with safety restrictions.Sprout declined to comment on how much it spent on the campaign.For now, executives with the Raleigh, North Carolina-based company are setting modest expectations for Addyi, their first and only product. The company will focus its 200 sales representatives on promoting the drug to medical specialists."We will be small," CEO Cindy Whitehead said. "We will be specialty focused among the physicians who already have a familiarity with female sexual dysfunction."Women with insurance can expect to pay between $30 and $75 per month for Addyi, depending on the terms of their coverage.The FDA specifically approved the drug for premenopausal women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder, a lack of sexual appetite that causes distress.Surveys estimate that 8 to 14 percent of women ages 20 to 49 have the condition, or about 5.5 to 8.6 million U.S. women. Because so many factors affect sexual appetite, there are a number of alternate causes doctors must rule out before diagnosing the condition, including relationship issues, medical problems, depression and mood disorders.The diagnosis is not universally accepted, and some psychologists argue that low sex drive should not be considered a medical problem.---Associated Press video journalist Ted Shaffrey in New York contributed to this report.

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Archived Version

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 23:44

Hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) or inhibited sexual desire (ISD) is considered a sexual dysfunction and is characterized as a lack or absence of sexual fantasies and desire for sexual activity, as judged by a clinician. For this to be regarded as a disorder, it must cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulties and not be better accounted for by another mental disorder, a drug (legal or illegal), or some other medical condition. A person with ISD will not start, or respond to their partner's desire for, sexual activity.[1] Other terms used to describe the phenomenon include sexual aversion and sexual apathy.[1]

HSDD was listed under the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders of the DSM-IV.[2] In the DSM-5, it was split into male hypoactive sexual desire disorder[3] and female sexual interest/arousal disorder.[4] It was first included in the DSM-III under the name inhibited sexual desire disorder,[5] but the name was changed in the DSM-III-R.

There are various subtypes. HSDD can be general (general lack of sexual desire) or situational (still has sexual desire, but lacks sexual desire for current partner), and it can be acquired (HSDD started after a period of normal sexual functioning) or lifelong (the person has always had no/low sexual desire.)

HSDD has garnered much criticism, primarily by asexual activists. They point out that HSDD puts asexuality in the same position homosexuality was from 1974-1987. Back then, the DSM recognised 'ego-dystonic homosexuality' as a disorder, defined as having sexual interest in the same sex and it causing distress. Despite the DSM itself officially recognizing this as unnecessarily pathologizing homosexuality and removing it as a disorder in 1987,[6] the DSM has not recognized HSDD as unnecessarily pathologizing asexuality.[citation needed]

Low sexual desire alone is not equivalent to HSDD because of the requirement in HSDD that the low sexual desire causes marked distress and interpersonal difficulty and because of the requirement that the low desire is not better accounted for by another disorder in the DSM or by a general medical problem. It is therefore difficult to say exactly what causes HSDD. It is easier to describe, instead, some of the causes of low sexual desire.

In men, though there are theoretically more types of HSDD/low sexual desire, typically men are only diagnosed with one of three subtypes.

Lifelong/generalised: The man has little or no desire for sexual stimulation (with a partner or alone) and never had.Acquired/situational: The man was previously sexually interested in his present partner but now lacks sexual interest in this partner but has desire for sexual stimulation (i.e. alone or with someone other than his present partner.)Acquired/generalised: The man previously had sexual interest in his present partner, but lacks interest in sexual activity, partnered or solitary.Though it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between these types, they do not necessarily have the same etiology. The cause of lifelong/generalized HSDD is unknown. In the case of acquired/generalized low sexual desire, possible causes include various medical/health problems, psychiatric problems, low levels of testosterone or high levels of prolactin. One theory suggests that sexual desire is controlled by a balance between inhibitory and excitatory factors.[7] This is thought to be expressed via neurotransmitters in selective brain areas. A decrease in sexual desire may therefore be due to an imbalance between neurotransmitters with excitatory activity like dopamine and norepinephrine and neurotransmitters with inhibitory activity, like serotonin.[8] The, New York-based, "New View Campaign" organization has expressed skepticism about too much emphasis on explanations based on neurotransmitters because emphasis on such explanations have been made largely by "educational" efforts funded by Boehringer-Ingelheim while it was attempting to get the FDA to approve a drug affecting neurotransmitters for treatment for HSDD.[9] Low sexual desire can also be a side effect of various medications. In the case of acquired/situational HSDD, possible causes include intimacy difficulty, relationship problems, sexual addiction, and chronic illness of the man's partner. The evidence for these is somewhat in question. Some claimed causes of low sexual desire are based on empirical evidence. However, some are based merely on clinical observation.[10] In many cases, the cause of HSDD is simply unknown.[11]

There are some factors that are believed to be possible causes of HSDD in women. As with men, various medical problems, psychiatric problems (such as mood disorders), or increased amounts of prolactin can cause HSDD. Other hormones are believed to be involved as well. Additionally, factors such as relationship problems or stress are believed to be possible causes of reduced sexual desire in women.[12] According to one recent study examining the affective responses and attentional capture of sexual stimuli in women with and without HSDD, women with HSDD do not appear to have a negative association to sexual stimuli, but rather a weaker positive association than women without HSDD [13]

DiagnosisEditIn the DSM-5, male hypoactive sexual desire disorder is characterized by "persistently or recurrently deficient (or absent) sexual/erotic thoughts or fantasies and desire for sexual activity", as judged by a clinician with consideration for the patient's age and cultural context.[3] Female sexual interest/arousal disorder is defined as a "lack of, or significantly reduced, sexual interest/arousal", manifesting as at least three of the following symptoms: no or little interest in sexual activity, no or few sexual thoughts, no or few attempts to initiate sexual activity or respond to partner's initiation, no or little sexual pleasure/excitement in 75%-100% of sexual experiences, no or little sexual interest in internal or external erotic stimuli, and no or few genital/nongenital sensations in 75%-100% of sexual experiences.[4]

For both diagnoses, symptoms must persist for at least six months, cause clinically significant distress, and not be better explained by another condition. Simply having lower desire than one's partner is not sufficient for a diagnosis. Self-identification of a lifelong lack of sexual desire as asexuality precludes diagnosis.[3][4]

TreatmentEditCounselingEditHSDD, like many sexual dysfunctions, is something that people are treated for in the context of a relationship. Theoretically, one could be diagnosed with, and treated for, HSDD without being in a relationship. However, relationship status is the most predictive factor accounting for distress in women with low desire and distress is required for a diagnosis of HSDD.[14] Therefore, it is common for both partners to be involved in therapy. Typically, the therapist tries to find a psychological or biological cause of the HSDD. If the HSDD is organically caused, the clinician may try to deal with that. If the clinician believes it is rooted in a psychological problem, they may recommend therapy for that. If not, treatment generally focuses more on relationship and communication issues, improved communication (verbal and nonverbal), working on non-sexual intimacy, or education about sexuality may all be possible parts of treatment. Sometimes problems occur because people have unrealistic perceptions about what normal sexuality is and are concerned that they do not compare well to that, and this is one reason why education can be important. If the clinician thinks that part of the problem is a result of stress, techniques may be recommended to more effectively deal with that. Also, it can be important to understand why the low level of sexual desire is a problem for the relationship because the two partners may associate different meaning with sex but not know it.[15]

In the case of men, the therapy may depend on the subtype of HSDD. Increasing the level of sexual desire of a man with lifelong/generalized HSDD is unlikely. Instead the focus may be on helping the couple to adapt. In the case of acquired/generalized, it is likely that there is some biological reason for it and the clinician may attempt to deal with that. In the case of acquired/situational, some form of psychotherapy may be used, possibly with the man alone and possibly together with his partner.[10]

MedicationsEditTestosterone supplementation is effective in the short term.[16] Its long term safety, however, is unclear.[16]

A few studies suggest that the antidepressant, bupropion can improve sexual function in women who are not depressed, if they have hypoactive sexual desire disorder.[17]

The medication, flibanserin increases the number of satisfying sexual events per month by about 0.5 to 1 over placebo from a starting point of between 2 to 3.[18] It is not yet FDA approved.[18]

In the early versions of the DSM, there were only two sexual dysfunctions listed: frigidity (for women) and impotence (for men).

In 1970, Masters and Johnson published their book Human Sexual Inadequacy[19] describing sexual dysfunctions, though these included only dysfunctions dealing with the function of genitals such as premature ejaculation and impotence for men, and anorgasmia and vaginismus for women. Prior to Masters and Johnson's research, female orgasm was assumed by some to originate primarily from vaginal, rather than clitoral, stimulation. Consequently, feminists have argued that "frigidity" was "defined by men as the failure of women to have vaginal orgasms".[20]

Following this book, sex therapy increased throughout the 1970s. Reports from sex-therapists about people with low sexual desire are reported from at least 1972, but labeling this as a specific disorder did not occur until 1977.[21] In that year, sex therapists Helen Singer Kaplan and Harold Lief independently of each other proposed creating a specific category for people with low or no sexual desire. Lief named it "Inhibited Sexual Desire," and Kaplan named it "Hypoactive Sexual Desire." The primary motivation for this was that previous models for sex therapy assumed certain levels of sexual interest in one's partner and that problems were only caused by abnormal functioning/non-functioning of the genitals or performance anxiety but that therapies based on those problems were ineffective for people who did not sexually desire their partner.[22] The following year, 1978, Lief and Kaplan together made a proposal to the APA's taskforce for sexual disorders for the DSM III, of which Kaplan and Lief were both members. The diagnosis of Inhibited Sexual Desire (ISD) was added to the DSM when the 3rd edition was published in 1980.[23]

For understanding this diagnosis, it is important to recognize the social context in which it was created. In some cultures, low sexual desire may be considered normal and high sexual desire is problematic. For example, sexual desire may be lower in East Asian populations than Euro-Canadian/American populations.[24] In other cultures, this may be reversed. Some cultures try hard to restrain sexual desire. Others try to excite it. Concepts of "normal" levels of sexual desire are culturally dependent and rarely value-neutral. In the 1970s, there were strong cultural messages that sex is good for you and "the more the better." Within this context, people who were habitually uninterested in sex, who in previous times may not have seen this as a problem, were more likely to feel that this was a situation that needed to be fixed. They may have felt alienated by dominant messages about sexuality and increasingly people went to sex-therapists complaining of low sexual desire. It was within this context that the diagnosis of ISD was created.[25]

In the revision of the DSM-III, published in 1987 (DSM-III-R), ISD was subdivided into two categories: Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder and Sexual Aversion Disorder (SAD).[26] The former is a lack of interest in sex and the latter is a phobic aversion to sex. In addition to this subdivision, one reason for the change is that the committee involved in revising the psychosexual disorders for the DSM-III-R thought that term "inhibited" suggests psychodynamic etiology (i.e. that the conditions for sexual desire are present, but the person is, for some reason, inhibiting their own sexual interest.) The term "hypoactive sexual desire" is more awkward, but more neutral with respect to the cause.[27] The DSM-III-R estimated that about 20% of the population had HSDD.[28] In the DSM-IV (1994), the criterion that the diagnosis requires "marked distress or interpersonal difficulty" was added.

The DSM-5, published in 2013, split HSDD into male hypoactive sexual desire disorder and female sexual interest/arousal disorder. The distinction was made because men report more intense and frequent sexual desire than women.[3] According to Lori Brotto, this classification is desirable compared to the DSM-IV classification system because: (1) it reflects the finding that desire and arousal tend to overlap (2) it differentiates between women who lack desire before the onset of activity, but who are receptive to initiation and or initiate sexual activity for reasons other than desire, and women who never experience sexual arousal (3) it takes the variability in sexual desire into account. Furthermore, the criterion of 6 symptoms be present for a diagnosis helps safeguard against pathologizing adaptive decreases in desire.[29][30]

CriticismEditHSDD, as currently defined by the DSM has come under criticism of the social function of the diagnosis.

HSDD could be seen as part of a history of the medicalization of sexuality by the medical profession to define normal sexuality.[31] It may also over pathologize normal variation in sexuality because the parameters of normality are unclear. This lack of clarity is partly due to the fact that the terms "persistent" and "recurrent" do not have clear operational definitions.[24]HSDD may function to pathologize asexuals, though their lack of sexual desire may not be maladaptive.[32] Because of this, some members of the asexual community lobbied the mental health community working on the DSM-5 to regard asexuality as a legitimate sexual orientation rather than a mental disorder.[33]Other criticisms focus more on scientific and clinical issues.

HSDD is such a diverse group etiologically that it functions as little more than a starting place for clinicians to assess people.[34]The requirement that low sexual desire causes distress or interpersonal difficulty has been criticized. It has been claimed that it is not clinically useful because if it is not causing any problems, the person will not seek out a clinician.[34] One could claim that this criterion (for all of the sexual dysfunctions, including HSDD) decreases the scientific validity of the diagnoses or is a cover-up for a lack of data on what constitutes normal sexual function.[35]The distress requirement is also criticized because the term "distress" lacks a clear definition.[36]DSM-IV criteriaEditPrior to the publication of the DSM-5, the DSM-IV criteria were criticized on several grounds. It was suggested that a duration criterion should be added because lack of interest in sex over the past month is significantly more common than lack of interest lasting six months.[37] Similarly, a frequency criterion (i.e., the symptoms of low desire be present in 75% or more of sexual encounters) has been suggested.[38][39]

The current framework for HSDD is based on a linear model of human sexual response, developed by Masters and Johnson and modified by Kaplan consisting of desire, arousal, orgasm. The sexual dysfunctions in the DSM are based around problems at any one or more of these stages.[15] Many of the criticisms of the DSM-IV framework for sexual dysfunction in general, and HSDD in particular, claimed that this model ignored the differences between male and female sexuality. Several criticisms were based on inadequacy of the DSM-IV framework for dealing with women's sexual problems.

Increasingly, evidence shows that there are significant differences between male and female sexuality. Level of desire is highly variable from woman to woman and there are some women who are considered sexually functional who have no active desire for sex, but they can erotically respond well in contexts they find acceptable. This has been termed "responsive desire" as opposed to spontaneous desire.[15]The focus on merely the physiological ignores the social, economic and political factors including sexual violence and lack of access to sexual medicine or education throughout the world affecting women and their sexual health.[40]The focus on the physiological ignores the relationship context of sexuality despite the fact that these are often the cause of sexual problems.[40]The focus on discrepancy in desire between two partners may result in the partner with the lower level of desire being labeled as "dysfunctional," but the problem really sits with difference between the two partners.[36] However, within couples the assessment of desire tends to be relative. That is, individuals make judgments by comparing their levels of desire to that of their partner.[38]The sexual problems that women complain of often do not fit well into the DSM-IV framework for sexual dysfunctions.[40]The DSM-IV system of sub-typing may be more applicable to one gender than the other.[10]Research indicates a high degree of comorbidity between HSDD and female sexual arousal disorder. Therefore, a diagnosis combining the two (as the DSM-5 eventually did) might be more appropriate.[41]ReferencesEdit^ abUniversity of Maryland, Medical Centre: Inhibited sexual desire^Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.). Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association. 2000. ^ abcdAmerican Psychiatric Association, ed. (2013). "Male Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, 302.71 (F52.0)". Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. American Psychiatric Publishing. p. 440-443. ^ abcAmerican Psychiatric Association, ed. (2013). "Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder, 302.72 (F52.22)". Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. American Psychiatric Publishing. p. 433-437. ^Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed.). Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association. 1980. ^Alison Ritter: Appropriate services for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people: More than just gender sensitive? page 5^Janssen, E., Bancroft J. (2006). "The dual control model: The role of sexual inhibition & excitation in sexual arousal and behavior". In Janssen, E. The Psychophysiology of Sex. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press. ^Clayton AH (July 2010). "The pathophysiology of hypoactive sexual desire disorder in women". Int J Gynaecol Obstet110 (1): 7''11. doi:10.1016/j.ijgo.2010.02.014. PMID 20434725. ^"New View Campaign. Fact Sheet: Marketing"(PDF). Newviewcampaign.org. Retrieved 2013-08-16. ^ abcMaurice, William (2007). "Sexual Desire Disorders in Men". In Leiblum, Sandra. Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy (4th ed.). New York: The Guilford Press. ^Balon, Richard (2007). "Toward an Improved Nosology of Sexual Dysfunction in DSM-V". Psychiatric Times24 (9). ^Warnock JJ (2002). "Female hypoactive sexual desire disorder: epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment". CNS Drugs16 (11): 745''53. doi:10.2165/00023210-200216110-00003. PMID 12383030. ^Brauer M, van leeuwen M, Janssen E, Newhouse SK, Heiman JR, Laan E (September 2011). "Attentional and Affective Processing of Sexual Stimuli in Women with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder". Archives of Sexual Behaviour. doi:10.1007/s10508-011-9820-7. ^Rosen RC, Shifren JL, Monz BU, Odom DM, Russo PA, Johannes CB (June 2009). "Correlates of sexually-related personal distress in women with low sexual desire". Journal of Sexual Medicine6 (6): 1549''1560. doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01252.x. ^ abcBasson, Rosemary (2007). "Sexual Desire/Arousal Disorders in Women". In Leiblum, Sandra. Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy (4th ed.). New York: The Guilford Press. ^ abWierman, ME; Arlt, W; Basson, R; Davis, SR; Miller, KK; Murad, MH; Rosner, W; Santoro, N (Oct 2014). "Androgen therapy in women: a reappraisal: an endocrine society clinical practice guideline.". The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism99 (10): 3489''510. doi:10.1210/jc.2014-2260. PMID 25279570. ^Foley KF, DeSanty KP, Kast RE (September 2006). "Bupropion: pharmacology and therapeutic applications". Expert Rev Neurother6 (9): 1249''65. doi:10.1586/14737175.6.9.1249. PMID 17009913. ^ ab"Joint Meeting of the Bone, Reproductive and Urologic Drugs Advisory Committee (BRUDAC) and the Drug Safety and Risk Management (DSaRM) Advisory Committee"(PDF). June 4, 2015. Retrieved 5 June 2015. ^Masters, William; Johnson, Virginia (1970). Human Sexual Inadequacy. Boston: Little Brown. ^Koedt, A. (1970). "The myth of the vaginal orgasm". In Escoffier, J. Sexual revolution. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press. pp. 100''9. ISBN 1-56025-525-0. ^Irvine, Janice (2005). Disorders of Desire. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. p. 265. ^Kaplan, Helen Singer (1995). The Sexual Desire Disorders. New York: Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 1''2, 7. ^Kaplan 1995, pp. 7''8^ abBrotto LA, Chik HM, Ryder AG, Gorzalka BB, Seal B (December 2005). "Acculturation and sexual function in Asian women". Archives of Sexual Behaviour34 (6): 613''626. doi:10.1007/s10508-005-7909-6. ^Leiblum, Sandra; Rosen, Raymond (1988). Sexual Desire Disorders. The Guilford Press. p. 1. ^Irvine 2005, p. 172^Apfelbaum, Bernard (1988). "An Ego Analytic Perspective on Desire Disorders". In Lieblum, Sandra; Rosen, Raymond. Sexual Desire Disorders. The Guilford Press. ^American Psychological Association (1987)^Brotto LA (2010). "The DSM Diagnostic Criteria for Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder in Women". Archives of Sexual Behaviour39 (2): 221''239. doi:10.1007/s10508-009-9543-1. PMID 19777334. ^Brotto LA (June 2010). "The DSM Diagnostic Criteria for Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder in Men". Archives of Sexual Behaviour7 (6): 2015''2030. doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2010.01860.x. ^Irvine 2005, pp. 175''6^Prause N, Graham CA (June 2007). "Asexuality: classification and characterization"(PDF). Arch Sex Behav36 (3): 341''56. doi:10.1007/s10508-006-9142-3. PMID 17345167. ^Asexuals Push for Greater Recognition. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/story?id=6656358&page=1^ abBancroft J, Graham CA, McCord C (2001). "Conceptualizing women's sexual problems". J Sex Marital Ther27 (2): 95''103. doi:10.1080/00926230152051716. PMID 11247236. ^Althof SE (2001). "My personal distress over the inclusion of personal distress". J Sex Marital Ther27 (2): 123''5. doi:10.1080/00926230152051761. PMID 11247205. ^ abBancroft J, Graham CA, McCord C (2001). "Conceptualizing Women's Sexual Problems". Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy27 (2): 95''103. doi:10.1080/00926230152051716. PMID 11247236. ^Mitchell KR, Mercer CH (September 2009). "Prevalence of Low Sexual Desire among Women in Britain: Associated Factors". The Journal of Sexual Medicine6 (9): 2434''2444. doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01368.x. PMID 19549088. ^ abBalon R (2008). "The DSM Criteria of Sexual Dysfunction: Need for a Change". Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy34 (3): 186''97. doi:10.1080/00926230701866067. PMID 18398759. ^Segraves R, Balon R, Clayton A (2007). "Proposal for Changes in Diagnostic Criteria for Sexual Dysfunctions". Journal of Sexual Medicine4 (3): 567''580. doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2007.00455.x. PMID 17433086. ^ abcTiefer L, Hall M, Tavris C (2002). "Beyond dysfunction: a new view of women's sexual problems". J Sex Marital Ther28 (Suppl 1): 225''32. doi:10.1080/00926230252851357. PMID 11898706. ^Graham, CA (September 2010). "The DSM Diagnostic Criteria for Female Sexual Arousal Disorder". Archives of Sexual Behaviour39 (2): 240''255. doi:10.1007/s10508-009-9535-1. PMID 19777335. Further readingEditMontgomery, KA (Jun 2008). "Sexual Desire Disorders". Psychiatry (Edgmont)5 (6): 50''55. PMC 2695750. PMID 19727285. Basson, R; Leiblum, S; Brotto, L; Derogatis, L; Fourcroy, J; Fugl-Meyer, K; Graziottin, A; Heiman, JR; Laan, E; Meston, C; Schover, L; van Lankveld, J; Schultz, WW (Dec 2003). "Definitions of women's sexual dysfunction reconsidered: advocating expansion and revision.". Journal of psychosomatic obstetrics and gynaecology24 (4): 221''9. doi:10.3109/01674920309074686. PMID 14702882. Warnock, JJ (2002). "Female hypoactive sexual desire disorder: epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment.". CNS Drugs16 (11): 745''53. doi:10.2165/00023210-200216110-00003. PMID 12383030. Basson, R (10 May 2005). "Women's sexual dysfunction: revised and expanded definitions". Canadian Medical Association Journal172 (10): 1327''1333. doi:10.1503/cmaj.1020174. PMC 557105. PMID 15883409. Nappi, RE; Wawra, K; Schmitt, S (Jun 2006). "Hypoactive sexual desire disorder in postmenopausal women.". Gynecological endocrinology : the official journal of the International Society of Gynecological Endocrinology22 (6): 318''23. doi:10.1080/09513590600762265. PMID 16785156. External linksEdit

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Archived Version

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 23:43

First-ever FDA-approved treatment for women's most common form of sexual dysfunction

Raleigh, N.C. '' August 18, 2015 '' Sprout Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Sprout) announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted approval of Addyi' (flibanserin 100 mg) (pronounced add-ee), a once-daily, non-hormonal pill for the treatment of acquired, generalized hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in premenopausal women. Addyi is the first and only FDA-approved treatment for this condition, the most common form of female sexual dysfunction, affecting up to 1 in 10 women in the United States.1

''It has been a remarkable journey to get to this breakthrough moment. Today we celebrate what this approval means for all women who have long awaited a medical treatment option for this life impacting condition,'' said Cindy Whitehead, chief executive officer of Sprout. ''We applaud the FDA for putting the patient voice at the center of the conversation and for focusing on scientific evidence.''

HSDD is defined as a persistent absence of sexual thoughts, fantasies, responsiveness and willingness to engage in sexual activity that causes personal or relationship distress and cannot be accounted for by another medical condition or substance.2 Acquired HSDD refers to HSDD that develops in a patient who previously had no problems with sexual desire. Generalized HSDD refers to HSDD that occurs regardless of the type of stimulation, situation or partner.3

Flibanserin has been studied in more than 11,000 women.4 The FDA approval of Addyi is largely based on three North American, Phase 3, 24-week, randomized double blind, placebo-controlled, studies of premenopausal women with HSDD. For premenopausal women with HSDD, Addyi has demonstrated improvements in desire for sex, reducing distress from the loss of sexual desire and increasing the number of satisfying sexual events.5

The safety of flibanserin is based on clinical trial data in more than 8,500 women, over 1,000 of which were exposed to treatment for at least one year.4 Addyi was administered to over 2,500 premenopausal women with acquired, generalized HSDD in clinical trials, over 850 receiving treatment for at least 12 months.4 Discontinuation rates due to adverse events in the Phase 3 trials were 13% for Addyi and 6% for placebo. The most common adverse events among patients treated with Addyi were dizziness, somnolence, nausea, fatigue, insomnia and dry mouth. Hypotension and syncope were seen rarely with Addyi alone but more frequently when Addyi was taken in the morning and when co-administered with alcohol or certain other drugs. Alcohol consumption is contraindicated for women taking Addyi.5 With the FDA, Sprout Pharmaceuticals developed a comprehensive Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) program, including prescriber and pharmacist certification, to ensure safe use of Addyi. Sprout has also committed to enhanced pharmacovigilance and Phase 4 studies to mitigate and further characterize the safety profile of Addyi.

Addyi is anticipated to be available by October 17, 2015. For more information and Prescribing Information, visit www.addyi.com.

Please see Indication and Important Safety Information below.

Conference CallSprout Pharmaceuticals will host a teleconference on Wednesday, August 19th, at 9:30 a.m. EDT. The teleconference is accessible by dialing 888-632-3383, with international callers dialing 785-424-1676.

About Sprout PharmaceuticalsSprout Pharmaceuticals is passionate about women's sexual health. With a breakthrough concept for women, the company ''sprouted'' out of Slate Pharmaceuticals in 2011. Based in Raleigh, N.C., the company is focused solely on the delivery of a treatment option for women with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD). For more information or the latest news about Sprout Pharmaceuticals, visit www.sproutpharma.com or call 1-844-PINK-PILL (1-844-746-5745).

Indication and Important Safety InformationIndicationAddyi is indicated for the treatment of premenopausal women with acquired, generalized hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) as characterized by low sexual desire that causes marked distress or interpersonal difficulty and is NOT due to:'' A co-existing medical or psychiatric condition,'' Problems within the relationship, or'' The effects of a medication or other drug substance.

Acquired HSDD refers to HSDD that develops in a patient who previously had no problems with sexual desire. Generalized HSDD refers to HSDD that occurs regardless of the type of stimulation, situation or partner.

Limitations of Use' Addyi is not indicated for the treatment of HSDD in postmenopausal women or in men.' Addyi is not indicated to enhance sexual performance.

Important Safety Information

ContraindicationsAddyi is contraindicated:

' With use of alcohol.' With concomitant use with moderate or strong CYP3A4 inhibitors.' In patients with hepatic impairment.

Summary of Warnings and Precautions' Hypotension and Syncope due to an Interaction with Alcohol. An interaction between Addyi and alcohol increases the risk of severe hypotension and syncope. Alcohol use is contraindicated. Before prescribing Addyi, the healthcare provider should assess the likelihood of the patient abstaining from alcohol use.

' Addyi Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) Program. Addyi is available only through a restricted program called the Addyi REMS Program, because of the increased risk of severe hypotension and syncope due to an interaction between Addyi and alcohol. The Addyi REMS requires that prescribers are certified by enrolling and completing training; and, pharmacies are certified and will not dispense Addyi unless it is prescribed by a certified prescriber. More information is available at www.AddyiREMS.com.

' Hypotension and Syncope with CYP3A4 Inhibitors.'' Moderate and strong CYP3A4 inhibitors significantly increase Addyi concentrations, which can lead to hypotension and syncope. Concomitant use of Addyi with a moderate or strong CYP3A4 inhibitor is contraindicated.'' Concomitant use of multiple weak CYP3A4 inhibitors that may include herbal supplements (e.g., ginkgo, resveratrol) or non-prescription drugs (e.g., cimetidine) could also lead to clinically relevant increases in flibanserin concentrations that may increase the risk of hypotension and syncope.

' Central Nervous System Depression. Addyi can cause CNS depression (e.g., somnolence, sedation). In five 24-week, randomized, placebo-controlled, double blind trials of premenopausal women with HSDD the incidence of somnolence, sedation or fatigue was 21% and 8% in patients treated with 100 mg of Addyi at bedtime and placebo, respectively. The risk of CNS depression is increased if Addyi is taken during waking hours, or if Addyi is taken with alcohol or other CNS depressants, or with medications that increase flibanserin concentrations. Patients should not drive or engage in other activities requiring full alertness until at least 6 hours after taking Addyi and until they know how Addyi affects them.

' Hypotension and Syncope with Addyi Alone. The use of Addyi '' without other concomitant medications known to cause hypotension or syncope '' can cause hypotension and syncope. In five 24-week, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trials of premenopausal women with HSDD, hypotension was reported in 0.2% and

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Archived Version

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 23:42

Medical DoctorsThomas M. Hanson, MDMusa L. Speranza, MDSteven J. Fleischman, MDJulia A. Cron, MDMichael Reel, MDMargaret Baumbusch, MDNiki Topp, MDCertified Nurse-MidwivesRonald L. Krauss, BD, MSN, CNMKristen Becker, MSN, CNM

Mary Jane grew up in New Jersey (which is why she has a strange accent). She attended Brown University and then Yale University School of Medicine where she also did her residency training in obstetrics and gynecology. She joined Dr. Hanson in practice in 1979.

Although interested in all aspects of women's health, she has a special interest in menopause. She is an active member of the North American Menopause Society and is a Certified Menopause Clinician. She serves as medical advisor to a national menopause support group, the Red Hot Mamas, and is the women's health advisor for Prevention Magazine. Mary Jane also lectures widely to both women and their clinicians.

One of Mary Jane's most important hobbies is teaching. She is a clinical professor at the Yale University School of Medicine teaching residents, medical students, undergraduates and an occasional class at Guilford High School.

Mary Jane and her husband Steve live in Guilford. Their daughter Allie is currently attending her mom's alma mater, and son Max has traveled far west to attend Stanford University.

Dr. Minkin featured as the "Doc" expert on menopause.

Dr. Minkin appears on Good Morning America to discuss 7 ways for women to make it through menopause!

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Archived Version

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 23:38

Sprout Pharmaceuticals logo(Photo: Sprout Pharmaceuticals)

The privately-owned company that won government approval for the libido-boosting ''little pink pill'' for women has raised an estimated $100 million in private stock offerings since 2012, and could get even more if the firm goes public.

But Sprout Pharmaceuticals' road to success hasn't been without bumps. It took multiple tries for the Flibanserin pill to win Tuesday night's Food and Drug Administration nod. And two of the firm's executives were previously involved with another drug company that got an FDA warning about misleading consumers of a different product.

Based in Raleigh, N.C., Sprout made global headlines Wednesday after the FDA approved Flibanserin for use by women. The ruling makes the drug the first to be marketed alongside Viagra and other medications prescribed to improve sexual function in men.

Sprout CEO Cindy Whitehead said the drug should reach the market on Oct. 17 under the brand name Addyi.

The company raised money from dozens of investors well before the approval. Sprout issued five exempt offerings of securities between March 2012 and June 2015, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show. Each offering, which did not list the company's revenue, drew between five and 88 investors.

Outside investors were required to put up a minimum of $50,000 in all but one of the offerings, the records show. The proceeds were to be used for "working capital purposes, of which a portion may be used to pay the salaries of the company's executive officers," the filings state.

In the wake of the FDA approval, the investor fundraising total could skyrocket for an eventual Sprout initial public offering of stock. A company statement Wednesday said Sprout is focused on bringing Addyi to women who seek an FDA-approved treatment option, as well as on educating healthcare providers about the drug.

Potential stockholders would likely seek details of two FDA rejections during the past five years before the regulator approved Sprout's breakthrough drug.

The turn-downs, over side effects and questions of effectiveness, prompted the National Women's Health Network and other opponents to urge further study toward a safer libido booster for women. They faced opposition from Flibanserin supporters, including a Sprout-backed group, who questioned whether the FDA's previous rejections of the drug resulted from gender bias.

In March 2010, the FDA issued a warning letter to Slate Pharmaceuticals, a Durham, N.C.-based firm that marketed testosterone pellets for men under the brand name Testopel. The agency said a sales aid, web pages and consumer video for the drug were misleading because they promoted "unapproved uses" of the drug and omitted or minimized risk information.

Whitehead "co-founded and led all operational functions at Slate," according to her Sprout website biography. Her husband, Robert Whitehead, served as Slate's CEO and was listed as the recipient of the FDA warning letter. A Sprout statement Wednesday said Slate "took the matter very seriously and promptly took the corrective actions necessary to fully resolve it with the agency."

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1NFzRxF

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 05:29

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Dear Adam and John,

I have been a faithful listener to your show for the past 3 years. I helped my husband achieve his knighthood (Sir Richard Harriman), and have been working toward my own, with a $33.33 donation monthly from my bank. We even prayed for the troops at our wedding by having my brother read, “For all boots on the ground, ships at sea, subs in the water and feet in the air.” Your names have been involved in discussions with our friends and coworkers as though you were our actual friends, rather than radio personalities.

I stopped listening to your show last Thursday and have discontinued my $33.33 monthly donation. (My husband still listens and is deeply disappointed that I have stopped. He has asked that I “make up" with you.) I am writing you this not to dangle the loss of a listener or a small monetary donation over your head; my $33.33/month will not make or break you, nor would I wish it to. I think you provide a valuable service/product and deserve just compensation. Rather, I am writing to give you my personal feedback, and you can take it or leave it. I am not trying to be rude or arrogant - I’d just like you to have and potentially consider my opinion.

I am a dentist. I practice at a community health clinic in central/northern Maine and my practice is comprised of mostly poor children. I don’t expect either of you to ever love fluoride. In fact, I joked with my husband that I would request “floss and fluoride” at the round table when I did eventually make it to knighthood - and would ask you to consider offering it that one time, even though you don’t like it. I take your show for what it is - an alternative approach to analyzing the information we receive from the media and other sources. Your show is an educational tool and I think has taught a lot of people how to think critically. No one should agree with you 100% of the time, and that’s totally fine. When you’ve discussed fluoride in the past I usually roll my eyes, chuckle, and shake my head. No problem. We agree to disagree. But this last time I was deeply offended when you first asserted that fluoride is outright bad for your teeth and actually causes cavities (I’m aware of fluorosis - pronounced "floor-oh-sis” and will get to that in a second), and that dentists are all in on it BECAUSE it causes cavities so it’s good for business. I was hurt and surprised. Surprised because a) you have a lot of dentist listeners and b) of all the things you could claim fluoride does, the only this it does NOT do, unequivocally, is CAUSE cavities. Hurt because you just called into question the personal and professional ethics of all your dentist listeners, who have taken an oath to “first do no harm.”

I have included some additional information to read about fluoride (written by me, but with sources cited). I would love it if you would read it, but understand if you don’t. But as a dentist I am #1 bound to my patient and doing what is best for him or her and #2 am very well informed on this issue, and would go so far as to say that dentists are experts when it comes to fluoride. And so I was reminded, Adam, of when you mentioned how you would see things on the news about airplanes and pilots and notice how they would get very simple things wrong in their reports and thus came to the conclusion that you couldn’t really trust anything they said, because as an expert (a pilot), you know some of the basic information they are reporting is wrong. Similarly, when you referenced “fluorosis” and concluded that fluoride causes cavities, it bothered me deeply that you would make such a statement because it couldn’t be more wrong, and it doesn’t take any time at all to google “fluorosis” and find out what it really is (I define it below). Then it was taken further into saying that dentists are all in on this because it causes cavities.

In short: I’m not trying to be a jerk. I want you to know that you hurt my feelings (and that’s ok if that doesn’t really bother you because you don’t really know me) - and likely the feelings of all your dentist listeners because we work VERY hard to treat what is frustratingly the most easily preventable disease on the planet (ok maybe I’m using some hyperbole there but it’s WAY preventable), and two great guys who we have grown to love and trust are questioning our integrity by accusing us of trying to cause the very disease we are trying to prevent. Ouch. I’m in community health guys. I work in “the trenches” of dentistry and sometimes fluoride is the difference between a kid sucking on a sippy cup of mountain dew needing some coaching and a little education and needing to be hospitalized due to a life threatening abscess. It’s cool if you don’t believe that. I really don’t expect you to because you don’t see it firsthand, but please, at least extend just a little bit of courtesy to the hard working professionals who do. :(

Sincerely and Respectfully,

Kristie Lake Harriman, D.M.D.

Fluoride, when consumed in high quantities, can cause a host of very bad things to happen to you. No one is advocating that fluoride be consumed in high quantities. There are many things, which when ingested in very high quantities, can be bad for you. You can kill yourself by drinking too much water, because you can, in fact, “out drink” your kidneys. Shoot someone up with straight potassium and you will precipitate a heart attack, yet no one makes the leap to say “bananas are bad for you because they contain potassium.” Fluoride at high levels is bad. Fluoride at optimal levels (.7-1 part per million) is GOOD. Fluorosis is a condition in teeth when too much fluoride has been consumed during the tooth’s enamel development stage. It causes the teeth to have white and at higher levels brown spots and is by no means attractive. But patients with fluorosis are EXTREMELY resistant to tooth decay. That’s actually how this whole water fluoridation movement got started - people in Colorado Springs noticed that they all had really ugly looking, brown teeth, but none of them had tooth decay. It turned out that they had excessively high levels of fluoride in their water (responsible for the fluorosis), but that none of them had ever had a cavity. And that’s when research commenced to find the right levels of fluoride that could be safely added to drinking water to confer the caries resistance effects to the population, without the undesirable physical appearance. Later determined to be .7-1.2 parts per million, average is 1 part per million (which is like 1 inch in 16 miles, 1 second in 11.5 days, or a penny out of $10,000). There are places in the country, like Colorado Springs, where fluoride occurs naturally in their water supply, and we actually DE-fluoridate those areas to achieve a safe and healthy level of fluoride. In more recent years there has been a bit of a resurgence of fluorosis, namely due to the incorporation of fluoride in infant formula, the use of fluoride supplements for those patients without fluoridated water, and the ingestion of fluoridated water in addition to that supplement, due to the existence of fluoridated water in bottled beverages that were bottled in fluoridated areas, accidental fluoride ingestion in toothpaste, etc. And so we continue to amend things, decreasing/eliminating fluoride in infant formula, decreasing the fluoride supplementation schedule, and looking at the water fluoridation levels, decreasing it from 1 ppm to 0.7 ppm to correct for these confounding factors. This way you keep the great health benefits, but reduce the likelihood of mottled enamel. Since they began fluoridating water, there was a 60% decrease in the number of cavities in these communities. This is a truly significant health benefit, as caries is the most common infectious disease affecting humans and is completely preventable. The Center for Disease Control considers this to be one of the 10 great public health benefits of the 20th century.

Fluoride, like every other element on earth, has a level at which it is safe and beneficial, and a level at which is harmful and toxic. Calcium, Oxygen, Iodine, Chloride, Iron, (and water) are all very beneficial and necessary for health, but in excess can cause serious harm/death. Salt is fortified with iodine, cereals are fortified with iron, chloride is added to the water for purification... There are multiple additives/fortifications for public health, all of which are safe and beneficial within recommended limits, but could be fatal in their concentrated forms.

Calcium fluoride (CaF2) is not used for fluoridation because it is insoluble in water. Sodium fluoride (NaF) is used mostly in topical applications of fluoride, but is also used to fluoridate small water supplies. Fluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6) and sodium fluorosilicate (Na2SiF6) are used to fluoridate larger water supplies, with Fluorosilicic acid accounting for 95% of all water fluoridation. (per CDC and EPA ) While some of these fluoride containing products may be byproducts of the phosphate fertilizer industry, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s harmful or a waste product. It simply means it is a side product which was not the economically most important product produced. We use byproducts from oranges during juice production that are used in cleaners, disinfectants, flavorings, and fragrances. (Hodges A, Philippakos E, Mulkey D, Spreen T, Murraro R. Economic impact of Florida’s citrus indus- try, 1999 – 2000. Gainesville, University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Available at )

Fluoridating the water has an added public health benefit over topical application because not only does it make the teeth “stronger” from the inside out, but it also does not require compliance and resources so it can provide preventative effects to the entire population, including those most at risk, those of a lower socioeconomic status. (Jones CM, Worthington H. The relationship between water fluoridation and socioeconomic deprivation on tooth decay in 5-year-old children. Br Dent J 1999;186(8):397-400.) From a purely academic standpoint there are a plethora of articles over the last 60 years demonstrating the decrease in tooth decay in fluoridated areas vs. nonfluoridated areas. The effect continues to be studied in new regions and at new times in order to validate water fluoridation.

Community Effectiveness of Public Water Fluoridation in Reducing Children's Dental Disease

Jason Mathew Armfield

Public Health Rep. 2010 Sep-Oct; 125(5): 655–664.

I never realized how big of a difference this actually made until I saw it for myself in practice. Our clinic regularly visits 8 local Headstart programs to conduct cleanings, fluoride treatments, and examinations. Headstart programs serve socioeconomically disadvantaged children so the habits at home are typically similar amongst all the patients. There is a vast difference between the fluoridated and nonfluoridated Headstart examinations. We see >100 students in Waterville, a fluoridated community, and finding decay is typically rare. When we see a patient with extensive decay, they’ve usually recently relocated to Waterville from a nonfluoridated area. The examinations we conduct in nonfluoridated communities are much more discouraging, with many children requiring hospital sedation dentistry to rehabilitate their mouths. These kids have enough disadvantages to start with. Many of their parents don’t see oral health as a priority - they don’t model good hygiene practices, they don’t provide them with the resources to help themselves (many children tell me they don’t have toothpaste, floss, or toothbrushes at home), and many don’t provide their children with healthy meals or snacks so they have increased levels of sugar or fermentable carbohydrates in their diets. If they can have teeth that are more resistant to decay from the get go, it improves their chances for good oral health (which is irrefutably connected to overall health) substantially.

As for Fluoride’s effects on overall health, it has been proven many times over that in the proper concentration, fluoride is beneficial and far from harmful. “Since community water fluoridation was introduced in 1945, more than 50 epidemiologic studies in different populations at different times have failed to demonstrate an association between fluoridation and the risk of cancer.”

Hoover RN, McKay FW, Fraumeni JF. Fluoridated drinking water and the occurrence of cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst 1976;57(4):757-68.

Erickson JD. Mortality in selected cities with fluori- dated and non-fluoridated water supplies. New Eng J Med 1978;298(20):1112-6.

Rogot E, Sharrett AR, Feinleib M, Fabsitz RR. Trends in urban mortality in relation to fluoridation status. Am J Epidemiol 1978;107(2):104-12.

Chilvers C. Cancer mortality and fluoridation of water supplies in 35 US cities. Int J Epidemiol 1983; 12(4): 397-404.

Mahoney MC, Nasca PC, Burnett WS, Melius JM. Bone cancer incidence rates in New York State: time trends and fluoridated drinking water. Am J Public Health 1991;81(4):475-9.

Cohn PD, New Jersey Department of Health, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and Energy. An epidemiologic report on drinking water and fluoridation. Trenton, NJ;1992.

The National Cancer Institute evaluated the relationship between fluoridated drinking water and cancer deaths in the US during a 36 year period and the relationship between cancer rate and fluoridation over a 15 year period. They reviewed 2.3 million cancer death records and 125,000 cancer case records in counties using fluoridated water and found no indication of a cancer risk with fluoridated drinking water. (US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service. Review of fluoride: benefits and risks. Report of the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Fluoride. Washington, DC;February 1991. )

The American Cancer Society states, “Scientific studies show no connection between cancer rates in humans and adding fluoride to drinking water.” (American Cancer Society. A statement on fluoride and drinking water fluoridation by Clark W. Heath, Jr. MD, Vice President of Epidemiology and Surveillance Research of American Cancer Society;February 17, 1998 )

There have been clinical studies on pretty much every organ system and how it relates to fluoride. In no case have they found an association between any medical problem and optimal fluoridation levels. Additionally there have been no confirmed cases of allergy to fluoride as of a study on immune function in 1996 ( Challacombe SJ. Does fluoridation harm immune function? Comm Dent Health 1996;13(Suppl 2):69-71. )

Many animal studies (although there have been no human studies done on chromosome damage) confirm that even at levels 100 times higher than fluoridated water, there is no genotoxic effect (damage to DNA) in bone marrow, sperm cells, or ovarian cells. Li Y, Zhang W, Noblitt TW, Dunipace AJ, Stookey GK. Genotoxic evaluation of chronic fluoride expo- sure: sister-chromatid exchange study. Mut Res 1989;227:159-65.

The Harvard study attributing fluoride levels to decreased IQ was done in China, and the natural level of fluoride in some areas of rural China is far above the optimal fluoride levels in American drinking water. This is also why China doesn’t fluoridate their water - because there is no need to since it naturally contains a much higher concentration of fluoride than is even recommended. Dr. Osmunson asserts that the studies of fluorotoxicity occur in China and other countries because in the US we’re too pro-fluoride to do them here. In actuality, and the authors of this Harvard IQ study (which I read) say this themselves, it is because these high fluoride levels are not allowed to be administered to children because we recognize them as unsafe. Here is part of the introduction of the Harvard fluoride/IQ study: “Opportunities for epidemiological studies depend on the existence of comparable population groups exposed to different levels of fluoride from drinking water. Such circumstances are difficult to find in many industrialized countries, because fluoride concentrations in community water are usually no higher than 1 mg/L, even when fluoride is added to water supplies as a public health measure to reduce tooth decay. Multiple epidemiological studies of developmental fluoride neurotoxicity were conducted in China because of the high fluoride concentrations that are substantially above 1 mg/L in well water in many rural communities, although microbiologically safe water has been accessible to many rural households as a result of the recent 5-year plan (2001–2005) by the Chinese government. It is projected that all rural residents will have access to safe public drinking water by 2020 (World Bank 2006).” (Choi AL, Sun G, Zhang Y, Grandjean P. Developmental fluoride neurotoxicity: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Environ Health Perspect. 2012;120:1362–1368. [PMC free article] [PubMed])

I don’t dispute that high concentrations of fluoride can cause severe health problems, neurotoxicity likely among them. But again, this is a concentration issue and not a de facto fluoride issue. You can drink enough water to shut down your kidneys, but that doesn’t mean water is bad for you.

I have more information on fluoride too, but if you’ve reached this far you deserve a medal. :) Thanks for all that you do.

Kristina Lake Harriman, DMD

ITM,

This morning, I applied the "No Agenda Hidden Agenda" media deconstruction technique while watching the morning news show. I honestly don't know how you watch this stuff. I normally avoid it all, but I was forced to watch TV this morning against my will, so I made the most of the purgatory time.

I'm watching 'CBS This Morning' and I decide to pick the next story to disect. The story is about head lice becoming resistant to prescription drugs. Here's the link:

http://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs_this_morning/video/6xhrAAekr8YE3OgJpqng0HFiVCGDIGeb/new-lice-infestation-now-resistant-to-treatment/

Here's the script

- There is a problem... here's our news expert to talk about it (Dr. Holly Phillips, Medical Contributor)

- Say "the lice are mutating" without providing any scientific proof

- offer that there is "one possible explaination" that certain OTC meds aren't working

- Ask "what can parents do?"

- Say "there are prescription medications that are *fully effective*"

- Immediately pan to the flatscreen infographic display with animated texts as they speak. (1:20 mark of the clip)

- Say that you don't want to put strong medications on your kids and that prescriptions are not as strong, just more effective

- Then say this ... "The nit comb is still very very effective."

At the bottom, I immediately see "source: HeadLice.org", so I jump over to a whois...

https://whois.domaintools.com/headlice.org

The reverse whois shows other anti-lice sites...

nonitpolicy.com

malathion.org

skinparasite.org

skinparasite.com

headlice.org

I see "National Pediculosis Association" as the registrant...

http://healthfinder.gov/FindServices/Organizations/Organization/HR2088/national-pediculosis-association-inc

"Founded in 1983, the National Pediculosis Association®, Inc. (NPA) is a 501 c 3 non-profit volunteer organization including scientific advisors dedicated to protecting children and their environment from the misuse and abuse of over-the-counter chemical treatments for lice and prescription pediculicides. Proceeds from the LiceMeister® comb allow the NPA to be self-sustaining and accomplish its mission. "

So, the NPA sells the combs as a funds' source and used the segment to pitch insurance in general and the combs they sell.

The Form 990 doesn't show anything of note.

Dr Holly Phillips posts on her Twitter feed as the story is playing and only shows the undocumented factoids.

https://twitter.com/CBSThisMorning/status/633966364571648000

So there's my amaturish media deconstruction... feel free to use if you are so inclined.

Sir Sluf

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Archived Version

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:07

Modafinil is prescribed for the sleep disorder narcolepsy, but is bought online without prescription by healthy people, who take it to improve decision-making and problem-solving. Photograph: Stephen Kelly/PA

Modafinil is the world's first safe ''smart drug'', researchers at Harvard and Oxford universities have said, after performing a comprehensive review of the drug. They concluded that the drug, which is prescribed for narcolepsy but is increasingly taken without prescription by healthy people, can improve decision- making, problem-solving and possibly even make people think more creatively.

While acknowledging that there was limited information available on the effects of long-term use, the reviewers said that the drug appeared safe to take in the short term, with few side effects and no addictive qualities.

Modafinil has become increasingly common in universities across Britain and the US. Prescribed in the UK as Provigil, it was licensed in 2002 for use as a treatment for narcolepsy - a brain disorder that can cause a person to suddenly fall asleep at inappropriate times or to experience chronic pervasive sleepiness and fatigue.

Used without prescription, and bought through easy-to-find websites, modafinil is what is known as a smart drug - used primarily by people wanting to improve their focus before an exam. A poll of Nature journal readers suggested that one in five have used drugs to improve focus, with 44% stating modafinil as their drug of choice. But despite its increasing popularity, there has been little consensus on the extent of modafinil's effects in healthy, non-sleep-disordered humans.

A new review of 24 of the most recent modafinil studies suggests that the drug has many positive effects in healthy people, including enhancing attention, improving learning and memory and increasing something called ''fluid intelligence'' - essentially our capacity to solve problems and think creatively. One study also showed that modafinil made tasks seem more pleasurable. The longer and more complex the task tested, the more consistently modafinil conferred cognitive benefits, the authors of the review said.

The review points out that negative effects - including one study that showed that people already classed as creative saw a small drop in creativity - were reported in a small number of tasks, but never consistently. It added that the drug exerts minimal effects on mood, and only causes minor side effects such as nausea, headaches and anxiety, although these were also reported by people who took a placebo drug.

Other proposed smart drugs, such as Ritalin, prescribed for ADHD, have many negative side effects, said Anna-Katharine Brem, co-author of the review, published today in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology. ''Modafinil seems to be the first 'smart drug' that is reasonably safe for healthy people.''

She emphasised that although the drug is not thought to be addictive, its long-term effects have not been studied. ''It would be difficult to get ethical approval to test the effects of taking this drug in the long term,'' she said.

Peter Morgan, at Yale School of Medicine, says there is substantial evidence that other cognitive enhancers, such as caffeine or nicotine, have benefits from short-term use, but that those benefits are erased by long-term use, and are rather replaced by deficiencies in cognitive performance. ''There is no evidence that modafinil would be any different in this regard,'' he said.

The effects of modafinil on the brain are complex and not well understood. One promising theory is that the drug increases blood flow to brain areas serving attention and learning. It might also enhance brain activity in areas thought to act as ''conductors'', which manage skills like memory, reasoning and problem-solving.

''Modafinil is the first real example of a smart drug which can genuinely help, for example, with exam preparation,'' said Guy Goodwin, president of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. ''Previous ethical discussion of such agents has tended to assume extravagant effects before it was clear that there were any. If correct, the present update means the ethical debate is real: how should we classify, condone or condemn a drug that improves human performance in the absence of pre-existing cognitive impairment?''

Goodwin points out that drugs are approved to treat illnesses if they are effective and safe. The manufacturers of modafinil will not attempt to extend the licence to exam doping and there would be no precedent for handling such an application if they did, he said.

''That leaves us in uncharted territory. If there is a demand for modafinil, and people are prepared to pay for it then an illegal market will be created. Whether it becomes a target for political action must depend on how and whether public debate evolves to demand such action.''

Brem and her co-author Ruairidh Battleday think that time for debate has come. ''For the first time, we have an agent without serious side effects showing benefits which we haven't had before.''

''We're not saying 'go out and take this drug and your life will be better','' said Brem. ''It is still unlicensed for healthy people - but it is time for a wider debate on how to integrate cognitive enhancement into our lives. We need to explore the ethics, and scientist, politicians and the public need to be involved.''

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Archived Version

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 04:03

A new study suggests that joining a religious group could do more for someone's ''sustained happiness'' than other forms of social participation, such as volunteering, playing sports or taking a class.

A study in the American Journal of Epidemiology by researchers at the London School of Economics and Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands found that the secret to sustained happiness lies in participation in religion.

''The church appears to play a very important social role in keeping depression at bay and also as a coping mechanism during periods of illness in later life,'' Mauricio Avendano, an epidemiologist at LSE and an author of the study, said in a statement. ''It is not clear to us how much this is about religion per se, or whether it may be about the sense of belonging and not being socially isolated.''

Researchers looked at four areas: 1) volunteering or working with a charity; 2) taking educational courses; 3) participating in religious organizations; 4) participating in a political or community organization. Of the four, participating in a religious organization was the only social activity associated with sustained happiness, researchers found.

The study analyzed 9,000 Europeans who were older than 50. The report that studied older Europeans also found that joining political or community organizations lost their benefits over time. In fact, the short-term benefits from those social connections often lead to depressive symptoms later on, researchers say.

Although healthier people are more likely to volunteer, the researchers found no evidence that volunteering actually leads to better mental health. Benefits could be outweighed by other negative impacts of volunteering, such as stress, Avendano said.

The researchers noted that it is unclear whether the benefits of participating in a religious organization are connected to being in the religious community, or to the faith itself.

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Sarah Pulliam Bailey is a religion reporter, covering how faith intersects with politics, culture and...everything. She can be found on Twitter @spulliam.

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Archived Version

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 11:00

More children are ''growing up godless'' than at any other time in our nation's history. They are the offspring of an expanding secular population that includes a relatively new and burgeoning category of Americans called the ''Nones,'' so nicknamed because they identified themselves as believing in ''nothing in particular'' in a 2012 study by the Pew Research Center.

The number of American children raised without religion has grown significantly since the 1950s, when fewer than 4% of Americans reported growing up in a nonreligious household, according to several recent national studies. That figure entered the double digits when a 2012 study showed that 11% of people born after 1970 said they had been raised in secular homes. This may help explain why 23% of adults in the U.S. claim to have no religion, and more than 30% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 say the same.

So how does the raising of upstanding, moral children work without prayers at mealtimes and morality lessons at Sunday school? Quite well, it seems.

Far from being dysfunctional, nihilistic and rudderless without the security and rectitude of religion, secular households provide a sound and solid foundation for children, according to Vern Bengston, a USC professor of gerontology and sociology.

For nearly 40 years, Bengston has overseen the Longitudinal Study of Generations, which has become the largest study of religion and family life conducted across several generational cohorts in the United States. When Bengston noticed the growth of nonreligious Americans becoming increasingly pronounced, he decided in 2013 to add secular families to his study in an attempt to understand how family life and intergenerational influences play out among the religionless.

He was surprised by what he found: High levels of family solidarity and emotional closeness between parents and nonreligious youth, and strong ethical standards and moral values that had been clearly articulated as they were imparted to the next generation.

''Many nonreligious parents were more coherent and passionate about their ethical principles than some of the 'religious' parents in our study,'' Bengston told me. ''The vast majority appeared to live goal-filled lives characterized by moral direction and sense of life having a purpose.''

My own ongoing research among secular Americans '-- as well as that of a handful of other social scientists who have only recently turned their gaze on secular culture '-- confirms that nonreligious family life is replete with its own sustaining moral values and enriching ethical precepts. Chief among those: rational problem solving, personal autonomy, independence of thought, avoidance of corporal punishment, a spirit of ''questioning everything'' and, far above all, empathy.

For secular people, morality is predicated on one simple principle: empathetic reciprocity, widely known as the Golden Rule. Treating other people as you would like to be treated. It is an ancient, universal ethical imperative. And it requires no supernatural beliefs. As one atheist mom who wanted to be identified only as Debbie told me: ''The way we teach them what is right and what is wrong is by trying to instill a sense of empathy ... how other people feel. You know, just trying to give them that sense of what it's like to be on the other end of their actions. And I don't see any need for God in that. ...

''If your morality is all tied in with God,'' she continued, ''what if you at some point start to question the existence of God? Does that mean your moral sense suddenly crumbles? The way we are teaching our children '... no matter what they choose to believe later in life, even if they become religious or whatever, they are still going to have that system.''

The results of such secular child-rearing are encouraging. Studies have found that secular teenagers are far less likely to care what the ''cool kids'' think, or express a need to fit in with them, than their religious peers. When these teens mature into ''godless'' adults, they exhibit less racism than their religious counterparts, according to a 2010 Duke University study. Many psychological studies show that secular grownups tend to be less vengeful, less nationalistic, less militaristic, less authoritarian and more tolerant, on average, than religious adults.

Recent research also has shown that children raised without religion tend to remain irreligious as they grow older '-- and are perhaps more accepting. Secular adults are more likely to understand and accept the science concerning global warming, and to support women's equality and gay rights. One telling fact from the criminology field: Atheists were almost absent from our prison population as of the late 1990s, comprising less than half of 1% of those behind bars, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics. This echoes what the criminology field has documented for more than a century '-- the unaffiliated and the nonreligious engage in far fewer crimes.

Another meaningful related fact: Democratic countries with the lowest levels of religious faith and participation today '-- such as Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Belgium and New Zealand '-- have among the lowest violent crime rates in the world and enjoy remarkably high levels of societal well-being. If secular people couldn't raise well-functioning, moral children, then a preponderance of them in a given society would spell societal disaster. Yet quite the opposite is the case.

Being a secular parent and something of an expert on secular culture, I know well the angst many secular Americans experience when they can't help but wonder: Could I possibly be making a mistake by raising my children without religion? The unequivocal answer is no. Children raised without religion have no shortage of positive traits and virtues, and they ought to be warmly welcomed as a growing American demographic.

Phil Zuckerman is a professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College and author of "Living the Secular Life: New Answers to Old Questions."

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter@latimesopinion

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Archived Version

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 04:06

Simone Croezen,Mauricio Avendano,Alex Burdorf andFrank J. van Lenthe*'†µ*Correspondence to Dr. Frank J. van Lenthe, Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, the Netherlands (e-mail: f.vanlenthe{at}erasmusmc.nl).Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; SHARE, Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe.

Received May 13, 2014.Accepted January 16, 2015.We examined whether changes in different forms of social participation were associated with changes in depressive symptoms in older Europeans. We used lagged individual fixed-effects models based on data from 9,068 persons aged '‰¥50 years in wave 1 (2004/2005), wave 2 (2006/2007), and wave 4 (2010/2011) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). After we controlled for a wide set of confounders, increased participation in religious organizations predicted a decline in depressive symptoms (EURO-D Scale; possible range, 0''12) 4 years later (β = ''0.190 units, 95% confidence interval: ''0.365, ''0.016), while participation in political/community organizations was associated with an increase in depressive symptoms (β = 0.222 units, 95% confidence interval: 0.018, 0.428). There were no significant differences between European regions in these associations. Our findings suggest that social participation is associated with depressive symptoms, but the direction and strength of the association depend on the type of social activity. Participation in religious organizations may offer mental health benefits beyond those offered by other forms of social participation.

(C) The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 14:08

Cisgender has its origin in the Latin-derived prefix cis-, meaning "on this side of", which is an antonym for the Latin-derived prefix trans-, meaning "across from" or "on the other side of". This usage can be seen in the cis''trans distinction in chemistry, the cis''trans or complementation test in genetics, in Ciscaucasia (from the Russian perspective) and in the ancient Roman term Cisalpine Gaul (i.e., "Gaul on this side of the Alps"). In the case of gender, cis- is used to refer to the alignment of gender identity with assigned sex.

A number of derivatives of the terms cisgender and cissexual include cis male for "male assigned male at birth", cis female for "female assigned female at birth", analogously cis man and cis woman, as well as cissexism and cissexual assumption. In addition, one study published in the Journal of the International AIDS Society used the term cisnormativity, akin to sexual diversity studies' heteronormativity.[3][4] A related adjective is gender-normative; Eli R. Green has written that "'cisgendered' is used [instead of the more popular 'gender normative'] to refer to people who do not identify with a gender diverse experience, without enforcing existence of a normative gender expression".[5]

Julia Serano has defined cissexual as "people who are not transsexual and who have only ever experienced their mental and physical sexes as being aligned", while cisgender is a slightly narrower term for those who do not identify as transgender (a larger cultural category than the more clinical transsexual).[6] For Jessica Cadwallader, cissexual is "a way of drawing attention to the unmarked norm, against which trans is identified, in which a person feels that their gender identity matches their body/sex".[7]

German sexologistVolkmar Sigusch used the term cissexual (zissexuell in German) in a peer-reviewed publication: in his 1998 essay "The Neosexual Revolution", he cites his two-part 1991 article "Die Transsexuellen und unser nosomorpher Blick" ("Transsexuals and our nosomorphic view") as the origin of the term.[8] He also used the term in the title of a 1995 article, "Transsexueller Wunsch und zissexuelle Abwehr" (or: "Transsexual desire and cissexual defense").[9]

The terms cisgender and cissexual were used in the 2006 article in the Journal of Lesbian Studies[10] and Julia Serano's 2007 book Whipping Girl,[6] after which the term gained some popularity among English-speaking activists and scholars.[11][12][13] Jillana Enteen wrote in 2009 that "cissexual" is "meant to show that there are embedded assumptions encoded in expecting this seamless conformity".[14]

Julia Serano also uses the related term cissexism, "which is the belief that transsexuals' identified genders are inferior to, or less authentic than, those of cissexuals".[15] In 2010 the term "cisgender privilege" appeared in academic literature, defined as the "set of unearned advantages that individuals who identify as the gender they were assigned at birth accrue solely due to having a cisgender identity".[16]

In February 2014, Facebook began offering "custom" gender options, allowing users to identify with one or more gender-related terms from a curated list, including cis, cisgender, and others.[17][18]Cisgender was also added to the Oxford English Dictionary in June 2015, defined as "designating a person whose sense of personal identity corresponds to the sex and gender assigned to him or her at birth (in contrast with transgender)."[19]

From feminism and gender studiesEditKrista Scott-Dixon wrote in 2009: "I prefer the term non-trans to other options such as cissexual/cisgendered."[20] She holds this view because she believes the term "non-trans" is clearer to average people and will help normalize transgender individuals.

Women's and Gender Studies scholar Mimi Marinucci writes that some consider the "cisgender''transgender" binary to be just as dangerous or self-defeating as the masculine''feminine gender binary, because it lumps people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) arbitrarily and over-simplistically with heteronormative class of people as opposed to with transgender people. Characterizing LGB individuals together with heterosexual, non-trans people may problematically suggest that LGB individuals, unlike transgender individuals, "experience no mismatch between their own gender identity and gender expression and cultural expectations regarding gender identity and expression".[21]

From intersex organizationsEditIntersex persons are born with atypical physical sex characteristics that can complicate initial sex assignment and lead to involuntary or coerced medical treatment.[22][23] "Cisgender" is "confusing" in relation to people with intersex conditions, according to the Advocates for Informed Choice Inter/Act project.[24]Hida Viloria of OII-USA argues that, as an intersex person with a non-binary gender identity, this technically makes her "cisgender" but it fails to account for gender-based stigmatization of intersex bodies.[25]Organisation Intersex International Australia argues that, while most intersex people are not transgender, the experience or risk of "involuntary medical treatment to impose stereotypical sex characteristics" makes the use of "cisgender" problematic regardless of their gender identities.[26]

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Archived Version

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 14:31

We're reported on the shooting on Sunday involving Tyrone Harris, who, the police say, shot at them and who was in turn shot by them.

We previously noted that 1) Tyrone Harris was a protester 2) Tyrone, in street language, said he made his money by robbing people 3) Tyrone had been arrested on felony charges in November 2014, for stealing a car, stealing a gun and resisting.

In looking at the prior charge, something quite interesting shows up.

The person who bailed Harris out for the November charges is Molly Gott.

Who is Molly Gott? Why, she's a community organizer with MORE (Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment), a Soros-funded group we've talked about before, who has paid protesters. MORE was previously ACORN.

So here's a question. Why was this organization putting up money to bail this man out for theft of a car, stealing a gun and resisting? Was that part of a protester operation?

In doing so, they enabled him to be free to shoot at police last Sunday.

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:18

A 2002 picture of Khaled al-Asaad in front of a rare sarcophagus from Palmyra depicting two priests dating from the first century. Photograph: Marc Deville/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Islamic State militants beheaded a renowned antiquities scholar in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and hung his mutilated body on a column in a main square of the historic site because he apparently refused to reveal where valuable artefacts had been moved for safekeeping.

Related:Khaled al-Asaad's enthusiasm for Palmyra was inextinguishable

The brutal murder of Khaled al-Asaad, 82, is the latest atrocity perpetrated by the jihadi group, which has captured a third of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared a ''caliphate'' on the territory it controls. It has also highlighted Isis's habit of looting and selling antiquities to fund its activities '' as well as destroying them.

Syrian state antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim said Asaad's family had informed him that the scholar, who worked for more than 50 years as head of antiquities in Palmyra, was killed by Isis on Tuesday.

Asaad had been held for more than a month before being murdered. Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said he had learned from a Syrian source that the archaeologist had been interrogated by Isis about the location of treasures from Palmyra and had been executed when he refused to cooperate.

Related:Khaled al-Asaad profile: the Howard Carter of Palmyra

Isis captured the city from government forces in May but is not known to have damaged its monumental Roman-era ruins despite a reputation for destroying artefacts it views as idolatrous.

''Just imagine that such a scholar who gave such memorable services to the place and to history would be beheaded '... and his corpse still hanging from one of the ancient columns in the centre of a square in Palmyra,'' Abdulkarim said. ''The continued presence of these criminals in this city is a curse and bad omen on [Palmyra] and every column and every archaeological piece in it.''

Palmyra-based activists circulated an unverified, gruesome image on social media of Asaad's beheaded body, tied to a pole on a street in the city.

How Isis reshaped the Middle East in a year '' video explainerA board in front of the body set out the charges against him, which accused him of loyalty to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, maintaining contact with senior regime intelligence and security officials and managing Palmyra's collection of ''idols''.

Isis, which follows a puritanical interpretation of Islam, considers maintaining such ancient statues to be apostasy.

According to Syrian state news agency Sana and the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Asaad was beheaded in front of dozens of people on Tuesday in a square outside the town's museum. His body was then taken to Palmyra's archaeological site and hung from one of the Roman columns.

Related:A sledgehammer to civilisation: Islamic State's war on culture

Amr al-Azm, a former Syrian antiquities official who ran the country's science and conservation labs and knew Asaad personally, said the ''irreplaceable'' scholar was involved in early excavations of Palmyra and the restoration of parts of the city.

''He was a fixture, you can't write about Palmyra's history or anything to do with Palmyrian work without mentioning Khaled Asaad,'' he said. ''It's like you can't talk about Egyptology without talking about Howard Carter.

''He had a huge repository of knowledge on the site, and that's going to be missed. He knew every nook and cranny. That kind of knowledge is irreplaceable, you can't just buy a book and read it and then have that.

''There's a certain personal dimension to that knowledge that comes from only having lived that and been so closely involved in it and that's lost to us forever. We don't have that any more.''

Before the city's capture by Isis, Syrian officials said they moved hundreds of ancient statues to safe locations out of concern they would be destroyed by the militants. Isis was likely to be looking for portable, easily saleable items that are not registered.

Azm said Asaad had played a role in evacuating the contents of the museum before Isis took control, which meant he faced certain arrest. ''He'd been there for so long and been part of that city for so long, maybe he figured he lived there all his life and he would die there too, and that's unfortunately what happened,'' he said. ''It's terrible.''

Palmyra before it was captured by militant groupHistorian Tom Holland said the news was distressing. ''For anyone interested in the study of the ancient world, it comes as '' to put it mildly '' a shock to realise that ideologues exist who regard the curating of antiquities and the attendance of international conferences on archaeology as capital offences.''

Palmyra flourished in antiquity as an important trading hub along the Silk Road. Asaad had worked over the past few decades with US, French, German and Swiss archaeological missions on excavations and research in Palmyra's famed 2,000-year-old ruins, a Unesco world heritage site that includes Roman tombs and the Temple of Bel.

The Sana news agency said he had discovered several ancient cemeteries, caves and a Byzantine graveyard in the garden of the Palmyra museum. He was also a scholar of Aramaic, the lingua franca of the area before the rise of Islam in the seventh century.

Related:Looted in Syria '' and sold in London: the British antiques shops dealing in artefacts smuggled by Isis

''Al-Asaad was a treasure for Syria and the world,'' his son-in-law, Khalil Hariri, told the Associated Press. ''Why did they kill him? Their systematic campaign seeks to take us back into pre-history. But they will not succeed.''

In June, Isis blew up two ancient shrines in Palmyra that were not part of its Roman-era structures but which the militants regarded as pagan and sacrilegious. In early July, it released a video showing the killing of 25 captured government soldiers in the Roman amphitheatre.

Unesco warned last month that looting had been taking place on an ''industrial scale''. Isis advertises its destruction of sites such as Nimrud in Iraq but says little about the way plundered antiquities help finance its activities. Stolen artefacts make up a significant stream of the group's estimated multi-million dollar revenues, along with oil sales and straightforward taxation and extortion.

Archaeological experts say Isis took over the already existing practice of illegal excavation and looting, which until 2014 was carried out by various armed groups, or individuals, or the Syrian regime.

Isis initially levied 20% taxes on those it ''licensed'' to excavate but later began to hire its own own archaeologists, digging teams and machinery. The group invested more when the US-led coalition began to bomb oil fields and other targets and enforced punishments for looting without a licence.

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Archived Version

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:29

The IT company that stored Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was secretary of state operated out of a small loft apartment where its servers were stored in the bathroom, according to a new report.

The Daily Mail reported that employees of the Denver-based Platte River Networks worked out of a 1,858-square foot loft apartment up until this year, when they moved into a 12,000-square foot building. A former employee who spoke to the Daily Mail said the apartment was owned by the company's cofounders and said she resided in the same building.

''I don't know how they run their operation now, but we literally had our server racks in the bathroom,'' Tera Dadiotis, a 30-year-old former customer relations employee who worked at Platte River Networks from 2007 to 2010, was quoted as saying.

Image via Platte River Networks/Facebook

Dadiotis said that given the size of the firm, she didn't ''see how that would be secure'' enough for Clinton.

''At the time I worked for them they wouldn't have been equipped to work for Hilary Clinton because I don't think they had the resources, they were based out of a loft, so [it was] not very high security, we didn't even have an alarm,'' she told the Daily Mail.

The tech firm acquired Clinton's server in 2013 but handed it over to the FBI last week. Officials from Platte River Networks said the server no longer had any of Clinton's emails on it, but it did at one time. The firm has also said that it's ''highly likely'' a backup server had been created, which could produce the thousands of emails Clinton has said were deleted and irretrievable.

In 2012, Platte River Networks, founded in 2002, was honored as Denver's ''small business of the year.'' The company has also worked with Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado), a longtime friend of the Clintons.

The Daily Mail reported that David DeCamillis, vice president of sales, is a big Democratic supporter and even offered his house to Joe Biden during the 2008 Democratic convention in Denver. Once Biden was tapped as Obama's vice president, Biden didn't take him up on the offer, the Daily Mail reported.

Despite those connections, it is still unclear how Clinton came to find the company and choose it to house her personal server.

Questions about the security level of the tech firm that has been described as a ''mom and pop'' operation have remained, especially as cofounder Tom Welch also confirmed to the Daily Mail that the company at least at one point kept the servers in the bathroom. The company is also being sued along with four other firms for allegedly obtaining phone numbers, including those used by the White House, illegally.

''It's so weird, because it's just a small IT company. I know they've expanded quite a bit since I left but I do think it's strange, we only had the three owners and like eight employees. We didn't do any work in other states,'' Dadiotis said. ''No offense to them, but who are they? I know of a lot of IT companies that are much bigger. When I was there I answered all the phone calls, paid all the bills, and had a good handle on what was coming in and going out.''

''We were like your local IT company, nothing special or fancy, we had a really good reputation but that was on a local level,'' she continued.

Welch, who sold his third of the company in 2010, told the Daily Mail that he had no idea the company had eventually acquired Clinton's servers.

''I had no idea they had that kind of client, when I was with the company we were a small Denver business focused company, we really didn't do a lot, we did some stuff statewide, may have had a client or two in the western region but we certainly weren't doing business in Washington, D.C. or on the East Coast,'' he said.

Despite keeping the servers in the bathroom, Welch said their operation was very secure. He did not comment on whether Clinton's servers were safe from hackers, as he was no longer with the company at that time.

''The space that we had our office was essentially designed as a residential unit'...the bathroom connected to the master closet and that's what we retrofitted as a server room,'' he said. ''Our internal network was extremely secure. At the time Inca St was a relatively obscure location, second-floor office. The technology we had in place was pretty good. The security we had in place at the office was really good to protect our well-being.''

Welch did say Clinton's email scandal was going to put a ''black eye'' on the companym both on its reputation and its finances.

Platte River Networks could not be reached for comment by TheBlaze.

(H/T: Daily Mail)

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Archived Version

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:26

Today we learn just how far from an authorized Top Secret shop it really was, courtesy of the UK Daily Mail, which talked to a few former employees of the company:

One, Tera Dadiotis, called it 'a mom and pop shop' which was an excellent place to work, but hardly seemed likely to be used to secure state secrets. And Tom Welch, who helped found the company, confirmed the servers were in a bathroom closet.

It can also be disclosed that the small number of employees who were aware of the Clinton contract were told to keep it secret.

Remember back at the beginning of this farce, when Clinton assured us her server was kept in a secure facility and guarded by the Secret Service at all times '' as if that would have prevented hackers from attacking it? According to what we've been told so far, Clinton's server didn't end up in that Denver bathroom '' it was in Chappaqua, and later moved to a data center in New Jersey, which makes it increasingly bizarre that a company working out of a loft apartment in Colorado would take charge of it.

The employee who talked with the Daily Mail left Platte River Networks in 2010, and conceded that they probably beefed up their facilities a bit before they took on the Secretary of State's secret email server in 2013. However, the Daily Mail reports the company didn't move out of that loft apartment until recently, ''when they moved to a much bigger 12,000 square foot space,'' celebrating the move with an open house party on June 18.

Describing it as 'a great place to work, but kind of like a mom and pop shop', Tera reacted with disbelief that her former company was hired to manage the email system of Democrat juggernaut Hilary Clinton.

Speaking to Daily Mail Online at her home in Castle Rock, Colorado, Tera said: 'I think it's really bizarre, I don't know how that relationship evolved.

'At the time I worked for them they wouldn't have been equipped to work for Hilary Clinton because I don't think they had the resources, they were based out of a loft, so [it was] not very high security, we didn't even have an alarm.

'I don't know how they run their operation now, but we literally had our server racks in the bathroom. I mean knowing how small Platte River Networks'... I don't see how that would be secure [enough for Clinton].'

The Daily Mail also goes a long way toward solving the mystery of how Hillary Clinton, who lives on a vast estate in Chappaqua, New York, chose this loft apartment company in Denver to handle her email server: the company has solid Democrat Party connections, did some work for Democrat Governor John Hickenlooper, and might have come to the attention of the Clinton organization during the 2008 Democratic convention.

Other former employees pointed out that Platte River did nothing wrong by accepting the work from Clinton, which they tried to keep quiet, and handled to the best of their ability. It was Hillary Clinton's legal responsibility to ensure that classified information was properly handled; given that she's been lying about it for so long to everyone else, it's quite possible that she never told Platte River about it.

'''I'm sure they didn't do anything wrong. They didn't write the emails, they didn't make the choice to tell her she was going to use that email server. They were just turning the wrenches'... you make it as secure as possible,'' said another ex-employee, Jim Zimmerman, who imagined his former bosses soiling their trousers when the Clinton email scandal broke. ''If she did stupid stuff on the email and sent out classified information, that's all on her, Platte River can't control what she does with it. In the end they can only build something to her requirements. They were just doing what they were contracted to do to the best of their abilities.''

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 01:24

Exclusive08.19.156:45 PM ET

The candidate polling at 9 percent in North Carolina against Trump and Clinton isn't a real person. But 15-year-old Brady Olson, who lives on a farm in Iowa and gamed the FEC filing system, certainly is.

Deez Nuts, the Independent candidate from Iowa, is polling at 9 percent in North Carolina for President of the United States.

Sadly, Deez Nuts does not appear to exist. But Brady Olson does.

''When I heard about the Limberbutt McCubbins story, I realized I could,'' Olson tells The Daily Beast.

Brady Olson is 15 years old. He filed to run for the President of the United States with the FEC on July 26 as Deez Nuts.

According to a Public Policy Polling survey released Wednesday, almost one in 10 Tar Heel State voters would vote for him in a race between Nuts, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton.

(Limberbutt McCubbins, by the way, is a cat from Kentucky seeking the Democratic nomination for president.)

Dozens of real Deez Nutses or Deez Nutzes do live as citizens in the United States of America with legally changed names, from Phoenix, Arizona, to West Hartford, Connecticut, from sea to shining sea, but a potential president does not appear to be one of them.

According to a Federal Election Commission filing, the Deez Nuts running for president lives at 2248 450th Avenue in Wallingford, Iowa. The problem, however, is that there is no Deez Nuts who lives in Wallingford, Iowa'--a tiny town of 197 people'--according to the Emmet County recorder's office.

''Seriously?'' Emmet County recorder's assistant Jill White asked when The Daily Beast mentioned there was a federally registered presidential candidate by the name of ''Deez Nuts'''--and that a reporter was requesting information on a resident by that name.

There's only Brady Olson, the son of a farmer and a dental assistant, and a rising sophomore at the Graettinger Terril Ruthven Ayrshire Community School in rural Iowa.

Now he's trying to figure out his path to becoming the first 15-year-old President of the United States under an assumed name.

''The next step is to get some party nominations, like the Minnesota Independence Party or the Modern Whig Party,'' Olson says. ''It would also be great to find a VP, preferably McCubbins because the Nuts/McCubbins ticket sounds amazing.''

So how did Brady Olson go from standard Iowa high school student to the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter'--literally overnight?

''The polls are pretty long. By the time we drop Deez Nuts on them, they're pretty deep into the poll.''

''It started because somebody emailed us under the name Deez Nuts,'' says Jim Williams, an issue polling specialist a Public Policy Polling. ''He said, 'I'm Deez Nuts. I'm running. Here's my filing statement. Would you poll me?'''

Williams thought ''this is something Public Policy Polling would do,'' so he squared Nuts off against Trump and Clinton in Minnesota a few weeks ago. He polled at 7 percent.

''I thought, 'Let's put this out. This'll be funny,''' he says, and it was met with ''mild interest.''

But when his numbers rose after two more polls'--8 percent in Iowa, then 9 percent in North Carolina'--Nuts took off. On Wednesday, Deez Nuts was trending worldwide on Twitter.

''Today, we've clearly reached the tipping point,'' says Williams.

There is no 9-1-1 listing corresponding to that 2248 450th Street, according to officials at the Emmet County Registry of Deeds. Next door'--at 2250 450th Street in Wallingford'--sits Olson Land & Livestock, which is owned by Brady's dad, Mark Olson.

''Anybody can fill out a Form 2,'' says FEC Deputy Press Officer Christian Hilland. ''We do vetting, but it's more about did they fill out the information correctly?Did they review the fields? It doesn't speak to the authenticity of the individual who filed the claim.''

''Nuts'' did, in fact, fill out a Form 2'--a statement of candidacy'--on July 26. The form had no information other than the Wallingford address and his Independent party affiliation.

Fellow Form 2 filers for the 2016 election cycle include Sydneys Vuluptuous Buttocks, Kenny Rodeo, Eden, and Ole' Savior. Savior, a Republican, ran and lost in four other elections since 2006.

Savior and Nuts join President Emperor Caesar, Buddy the Cat, Buddy the Elf, Jack Sparrow, James ''Titus the Great'' Law, Princess Oawlawolwaol, and Donald Trump in the 2016 race for the presidency.

You can fill out your own Form 2 here and'--good news'--none of the fields are immediately checked against public records searches.

You, too, can be Deez Nuts from Wallingford, Iowa. The problems will only start to appear when your grassroots campaign for the presidency starts to receive the support of almost one-tenth of the residents of North Carolina.

''We check for things like, 'What election cycle are you running in?' If one or more of those fields are missing, we have campaign finance analysts who review those reports,'' says Hilland. ''We send a letter to the listed address that asks for clarification or an amendment.''

Also, if he or she raises $5,000, whoever lives at 2248 450th Avenue is going to have to come up with a real name. Nuts will then have to file a Form 1, which requires a name, phone number and address that check out.

And, again, the name doesn't check out.

''The name isn't familiar to me. Do you really think that's a legitimate name?'' Brenda Moore of the Emmet County treasurer's office asked The Daily Beast.

The county of just over 10,000 had no idea an alleged Independent front-runner from their neighborhood was earning national headlines.

''I haven't heard a word'--not a word about it,'' says Amy Sathoff of the Emmet County auditor's office.

She chuckled when The Daily Beast asked her to search ''Deez Nuts'' in her records.

''It seems kind of odd,'' Sathoff says, but confirmed that ''no person with that last name owns property in Emmet County.''

Since he began polling near double digits, Olson even began offering concrete policy positions on his Facebook page.

''He's now come out for a balanced budget. He's come out in favor of the Iran Deal,'' says Williams. ''Deez Nuts is starting to get serious.''

Joking aside, Williams says Nuts's high polling numbers shows that ''clearly, there's some kind of floor here for third-party entities that's rising.''

''I think having Trump as part of the poll helps push that number up because it leaves room for the non-hardcore Republicans who are not going to get on board with Donald Trump,'' says Williams.

Plus, there's a logistical reason Nuts is polling so well.

''The polls are pretty long. By the time we drop Deez Nuts on them, they're pretty deep into the poll,'' Williams says, then pauses.

''The jokes write themselves.''

But now, Olson is emboldened by his rising poll numbers. Despite the hurdles'--the president has to be at least 35 to take office, after all'--he plans on winning the whole thing.

''The U.S. would have to pass an amendment to take out Article 2,'' says Olson. ''But Congress wouldn't do that'--after being so embarrassed after losing to Deez Nuts.''

Gabriel Noble contributed to this report.

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Archived Version

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 01:22

If Donald Trump's unlikely rise to the top of the polls tells us anything, it's that Americans (or at least GOP primary voters) are sick of business as usual in Washington.

The endemic corruption, crony capitalism, rampant regulatory capture, and licentious logrolling that many voters have come to associate with the American political process has created a deep-seated desire for change and if there are two names which most certainly do not portend a break from business as usual inside the Beltway they are "Bush" and "Clinton." Indeed, the prospect that America will once again be faced with a choice that really isn't a choice by being compelled to choose between two candidates from Washington's political aristocracy has only served to boost Trump's appeal.

All of the above certainly seems to suggest that America is fully prepared to accept and embrace the candidacy of those who promise anything but the political status quo, which, we imagine helps to explain why the dark horse candidate "Deez Nuts" is now polling at 9% in North Carolina.

From PublicPolicyPolling:

The specter of Trump running as an independent candidate in the general election continues to be a big potential problem for Republicans. In such a scenario Clinton leads with 38% with Bush at 28% and Trump at 27% basically tying for second place. Trump wins independents with 38% (to 28% for Clinton and 24% for Bush), takes 38% of Republicans, and 14% of Democrats.

Finally another declared independent candidate, Deez Nuts, polls at 9% in North Carolina to go along with his 8% in Minnesota and 7% in Iowa in our recent polling. Trump leads Clinton 40/38 when he's in the mix.

As you can see from the following, North Carolina voters aren't yet sure what to expect from Nuts, but 9% of voters know that if forced to choose between Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Deez Nuts, they'll take Nuts any day of the week.

Breaking down the polling data, it looks like 9% of voters who chose Mitt Romney in 2012 would go with Deez Nuts in 2016 while an astonishing 25% of voters who voted for someone other than Obama or Romney would prefer Nuts over Clinton or Trump. Most of Nuts' support looks to come from the center of the policitcal spectrum and when broken down by gender, men seem to have a more favorable view of Nuts than women. When it comes to age, voters 18-29 were far more likely to have a favorable view of Nuts although surprisingly, when Nuts is pitted against Trump and Clinton, a shocking 15% of voters 30-45 say they would choose Nuts.

Full breakdown:

Deez Nuts

Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 4.6(9 votes)

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Tue, 18 Aug 2015 00:38

The Clintons' Greatest Shame:Chelsea Clinton is the biological daughter of Webb Hubbell and not Bill ClintonBy Robert Morrow 512-306-1510, email: Morrow321@aol.com Oh, yes she is! In 2007 I had a conversation with then TIME reporter Karen Tumulty. I was calling her and asking why TIME was not covering all the dirty tactics and criminal private detective terror campaigns that the Clintons had long used to frighten Bill's sex victims and former girlfriends into silence. Tumulty astoundingly told me ''We are not going to re-litigate the 1990's.'' I then said to Tumulty, well you do know that Chelsea is the biological daughter of Webb Hubbell and not Bill Clinton? Tumulty's response was interesting - she did not deny or challenge this blockbuster assertion but rather just seemed to confirm it by her awkward silence and accepting non denial. Years later I asked a longtime high level Republican operative ''How long have you known that Chelsea was the biological daughter of Webb Hubbell?'' He said since 1992. Then I asked ''Why didn't you use it in the 1992 presidential campaign?'' His answer: ''Because I was not running the 1992 campaign.'' I then asked ''Would you say that most high level Republican and Democratic political operatives know that Chelsea is the biological daughter of Webb Hubbell?'' This long time GOP operative said: ''Yes.'' Dave Martin, historian and political commentator known as ''DC Dave'' on the internet: ''First, the evidence that Chelsea is Webb Hubbell's daughter is strong and has been out there for quite a while. I first heard it from Chris Ruddy around 1994. He said it was all over Arkansas.'' Chris Ruddy, a journalist and the owner of NewsMax, was a long time Clinton antagonist. Ruddy has now made some sort of a deal and has ''gone over to the dark side'' with theClintons, to the puzzlement and dismay of his conservative friends who just shake their heads whenever Ruddy's name comes up. Both Gennifer Flowers (privately to someone I know) and Larry Nichols (publicly) have both stated that Chelsea is the biological daughter of Webb Hubbell. Both Flowers (14 year affair) and Nichols were very close to Bill Clinton. Larry Nichols, a truth teller on the Clintons, has done a lot of very dirty, highly illegal and even violent things for the Clintons until he broke with them in 1988. Larry Nichols used to be best friends with Raymond Buddy Young, a certified Clinton goon who was head of the Arkansas state troopers under Bill. So if most or all of the high level political and journalistic insiders know that Chelsea is the biological daughter of Webb Hubbell and not Bill Clinton, it is time that YOU knew, even if it is 21 years too late because it says a lot about the Clintons, the dysfunctions in their lifestyles, the deceptions they have pulled on people and it perfectly illustrates that Hillary is not some sort of victim of Bill's epic philandering, but rather an adultery perp herself and a malevolent & cynical force in covering up all this ''Jerry Springer'' insanity. John McCain once joked in 1998 that Chelsea was the offspring of Hillary and Janet Reno (the dad). McCain actually said ''Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father.'' McCain was a lot closer to the truth than he had any idea. The truth is Chelsea Clinton is the biological daughter of Webb Hubbell and not Bill Clinton. The Clintons for years have gone to great lengths to pretend to be something they are not: a family. To this day, Bill often refers to Hillary as his ''wife'' despite the fact he has been kicked out of her house a long time ago. And Hillary refers to Bill as her ''husband'' despite the fact that Hillary knew Bill was completely sexually unhinged long before the day she ''married'' Bill on Oct. 11, 1975.Bill was given some phony award for ''Father of the Year'' recently and Hillary made sure to skip the ceremony. Bill Clinton's own parentage has long been in question. The phony cover story concocted by Bill's mother Virginia, which is often told and repeated in biographies and at Wikipedia, is that Bill's father was a traveling salesman, William Jefferson Blythe III, who died in a car wreck 3 months before Bill was born. That is just a bunch of bunk. The reality is that Bill's mother, known then as Virginia Cassidy, was a nurse who had an affair with a Dr. George Wright of Hope, AR, who is, in fact, the biological father of Bill Clinton. Author John Gartner went to Hope and talked to the old timers, people who had held Bill Clinton as a baby, and he found out in Hope it is pretty much an open secret that Bill Clinton is the bastard son of Dr. George Wright, now deceased. You can read about it in Gartner's bookIn Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography. Sidenote: author John Gartner worships Bill Clinton. Bill's mother, later known as Virginia Kelley, was promiscuous party girl who loved to drink, gamble and be chased by men. An ally cat in heat would be a good description of Virginia, who Bill modeled himself after. In the 1992 campaign Bill's aide Betsy Wright had a list of a whopping 26 women who were potential ''bimbo eruptions'' who might come forward and say they had had sex with wild Bill. In Clinton terms these were all nuts, sluts & liars. In reality, these were just the tip of the iceberg of the women who Bill Clinton has had sex with, probably the only ones he could remember off the top of his head. Before we get to the evidence that Chelsea is the biological daughter of Webb Hubbell and not Bill Clinton, let's take an extended tour through the war zone of the Bill and Hillary relationship as well as Bill's lifetime of unhinged sexual promiscuity and even rapes and serial sexual assaults. Several of Bill's sex assaults have involved biting the victim's lips. I can think of at least 3 cases of Bill biting lips of his women victims: Juanita Broaddrick, Elizabeth Ward Gracen and a woman victim from Arkansas who author Roger Morris interviewed at length. It is important to learn about Hillary's bisexual adulteries as well and her sexual affairs with both Webb Hubbell and Vince Foster. Even though Hillary had Chelsea with Hubbell in 1980 (Feb. 27, 1980 precisely), by the late 1980's and early 1990's Vince Foster had become Hillary's ''significant other'' - so close that the best description of Hillary and Vince is that they were emotional husband and wife and in a very hot and heavy affair. In order to cover up all this uber dysfunction, the Clintons have used a variety of tactics ranging from terror campaigns, run by nasty so-called ''private detectives'' (aka goons Jack Palladino, Anthony Pellicano) to public relations and coordinated smear campaigns to terrify Bill's sex victims and former mistresses into silence. In Hillary's authoritarian mind these women have the ''right to remain silent'' because anything they say ''can and WILL be used against you.'' In other words - shut up or face the wrath of the Hildebeast. That is how pretty much how it has been for about 40 years: Bill has had sex with (or tried to have sex with) hundreds of women from all shapes, sizes, backgrounds and races. Very attractive women, ugly women, horny women, even unwilling women. The Rolling Stones are not the only ones who like brown sugar. Bill has had perhaps a dozen long term girlfriends who he has cheated with for decades in addition to hundreds of "one night stands." On April 25, 1978, Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton, the state's highest law enforcement official, raped Juanita Broaddrick (without a condom), and while doing so he savagely bit her top lip to subdue her. Juanita was a county coordinator for Bill and a volunteer in his '78 gubernatorial campaign. Juanita says she will never forget Bill putting his sunglasses on afterwards then telling her to put some ice on her mangled lips. Bill: ''You might want to put some ice on that.'' Juanita's friend Norma Rogers-Kelsay found here in her hotel room after the rape. Juanita says ''I was sitting there crying and so upset at the time '... I felt like the next person coming through the door [was coming] to get rid of [my] body. I absolutely could not believe what had happened to me.'' Reporter Jon Doughtery says Kelsay ''found Broaddrick in a state of shock, her lip swollen, mouth bruised, and her pantyhose torn at the crotch.'' Kelsay told Fox news on 2/2/99 that Juanita ''was hysterical '' her lip was blue and bleeding and her hose was severely torn in the crotch area.'' Kelsay says Juanita ''told me they had intercourse against her will.'' Kelsay told NBC News that Juanita was in ''quite bad shape'' and her ''lips were swollen, at least double in size.'' Bill raped Juanita twice within a span of 30 minutes. Bill bit Juanita's lip so hard he almost severed it in half. Then Bill raped Juanita again '' for a second time - as he found he could get a new erection. Juanita says: ''Then he said, ''My God, I can do it again'' and he did.'' After he raped her, Juanita says ''I felt paralyzed and started to cry.'' Most significantly, Hillary knew about Bill's rape of Juanita in real time and helped to cover it up. We know that because Larry Nichols was in the room with Buddy Young when Hillary came running in and said, ''You will never believe what the motherfucker [Bill] did now, he tried to rape some bitch!'' So, in other words, Hillary did not report Bill to the police. Hillary, interestingly, is the person who founded Arkansas' first rape crisis center. Juanita said in the letter: ''Do you remember how you [Hillary] thanked me, saying ''we want to thank you for everything that you do for Bill.'' At that point, I was pretty shaken and started to walk off. Remember how you kept a tight grip on my hand and drew closer to me? You repeated your statement, but this time with a coldness and look that I have seen many times on television in the last eight years. You said, "Everything you do for Bill". You then released your grip and I said nothing and left the gathering. What did you mean, Hillary? Were you referring to my keeping quiet about the assault I had suffered at the hands of your husband only two weeks before? Were you warning me to continue to keep quiet?'' - Juanita Broaddrick Juanita said that she became physically ill within seconds of Hillary's grasping behavior and had to leave the party/rally within minutes. Juanita says, ''I could have passed out at that moment and I got my hand from hers [Hillary's] and I left. She was just holding onto my hand. Because I had started to turn away from her and she held onto my hand and [Hillary] said 'Do you understand? EVERYTHING that you do,' cold chills went up my spine.'' That's the first time I became afraid of that woman.''Rhodes Scholar Bill likely raped a 19-year-old Eileen Wellstone at Oxford in 1969Biographer Roger Morris recounts another savage assault by Bill "A young woman lawyer in Little Rock claimed that she was accosted by Clinton while he was attorney general and that when she recoiled he forced himself on her, biting and bruising her. Deeply affected by the assault, the woman decided to keep it all quiet for the sake of her own hard-won career and that of her husband. When the husband later saw Clinton at the 1980 Democratic Convention, he delivered a warning. 'If you ever approach her,' he told the governor, 'I'll kill you.' Not even seeing fit to deny the incident, Bill Clinton sheepishly apologized and duly promised never to bother her again."Have you ever had sex with a Miss America? Well, Bill Clinton probably has raped one: Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Miss America 1982 Elizabeth Ward Gracen has never publicly stated that Bill Clinton raped her. However, Elizabeth has publicly stated that Bill bit her lip. And, more importantly, her friend Judy Stokes has said that Bill in fact *raped* Elizabeth. Investigator Rick Lambert (for Paula Jones lawyers) talked to Judy Stokes who was a close friend to Liz Ward Gracen. Lambert says, ''I talked to Judy Stokes for an hour and a half. At first, she was reluctant to burn her bridges with Liz. But I finally asked, 'Do you believe Clinton raped her?' She said , ''Absolutely. He forced her to have sex. What do you call that?' Stokes was totally convinced it was rape.'' In the late 1990's as impeachment for Bill was heating up, Elizabeth was subject to a terror campaign to keep her quiet. Here is what Elizabeth said in 1998: ''I think [Bill] is a very dangerous, manipulative man and I've had to be very careful. There was a lot of pressure on my family and friends, people were being staked out. I was a little bit afraid for my safety at one point. It's just not an area where you are safe.'' [Toronto Star, 9-17-98] "Yes, I was physically scared. We are talking about the presidency of the country here, and between the friendly calls on one hand telling me to get out of town for my own good and then talking about smear tactics on the other, I got scared. Yes, physically scared. There were always veiled threats. Always. I did nothing wrong except one stupid night a long time ago. But now this last year has become very frightening." Key point: Juanita Broaddrick, Elizabeth Ward Gracen and the female Arkansas lawyer were all bitten by Bill Clinton. Biting is an old tactic used by rapists to disable their victims into submission; the women have to move their hands off protecting their vagina in an attempt to get the rapist's teeth out of their lips, thus leaving the vagina exposed for pillage. At this point, I should say that the Clintons have used private detectives to run terror campaigns on Bill's former girlfriends and sex victims to keep them quiet. They have hired folks such as Ivan Duda, Jack Palladino, Anthony Pellicano and Terry Lenzer to keep a lid on the Clintons' epic dysfunctions and even criminality. This is has been going on for decades, long before Monica Lewinsky, who the Clintons were ready to destroy as a nut, slut, liar and stalker before Bill's ejaculate was confirmed on her blue dress. In 1982 when Bill Clinton was running for governor of Arkansas, Hillary Clinton told Little Rock, AR private investigator Ivan Duda: Have the Clintons ever murdered anyone? I don't know; but one thing is for sure the Clintons & Raymond Buddy Young sent 3 off duty Arkansas state troopers to beat up and nearly murdered Gary Johnson, who was Gennifer Flowers's neighbor, on Friday June 26, 1992. Gary Johnson was also the lawyer for former Clinton insider turned antagonist truth teller Larry Nichols. At a time the Clintons were lying about the Gennifer Flowers's affair,Gary Johnson had a security camera videotape that showed Bill Clinton often coming to Gennifer's condominium. I asked Bill Clinton at a book signing in Austin, TX in 2007 if he had helped to organize the murder of Jerry Parks. Clinton paused and gave a very careful answer of ''No.'' Bill, of course, is a pathological liar, so a denial does not mean much. Clinton also told me he did not know who Gary Johnson was. Clinton for damn sure knew who Gary Johnson's client was: Larry Nichols, a longtime Arkansas Clinton insider turned enemy. After I had finished quizzing Bill on the 1992 Gary Johnson beating which he surely authorized and the suspicious 1993 Jerry Parks murder, I looked Bill Clinton in his face and said ''Mr. President, you are a sociopath!'' As I was walking away Bill actually said ''I might be one'... but you have no right to tell these lies.'' The Clintons for decades have gone to great lengths to cover up their wildly dysfunctional, Jerry Springer style relationship. Criminal intimidation tactics have been a part of the toolbox for that, aside from the usual lying.Did Bill rape Hillary in June, 1979? On top of all of the above, has Bill ever raped Hillary? It is certainly possible; Bill has raped and attacked several women. I know Bill raped Juanita Broaddrick (1978). I am pretty sure he raped Elizabeth Ward Gracen (1982) although she has never publicly stated that, but she has said that Bill bit her lip. Bill probably raped a 19-year-old Eileen Wellstone at Oxford (1969) according to an unnamed State Dept. employee. Edward Klein, in his book The Truth about Hillary, quotes an anonymous New York investment banker who met the Clintons while on vacation in June, 1979.Hillary was Having Sex with both Webb Hubbell & Vince Foster, her partners at Rose Law Firm One of the great myths of the Clinton relationship is that Hillary was some sort of a victim to Bill's philandering. In reality Hillary has played the heavy hand, often supervising the hiring of private detective goons to run terror campaigns on Bill's sex victims and former girlfriends. This is in addition to the fact that Hillary has been quite adulterous in her own right. Hillary was having sex with both Webb Hubbell and Vince Foster. Hillary, Webb and Vince were the ''Three Amigos'' while Bill Clinton running on an adultery obstacle course that was comparable to that of Wilt Chamberlain, Gene Simmons, John Kennedy, & Lyndon Johnson '...4 other Hall of Fame man-whores. It is a mantra among conservative activists that the Clintons murdered Vince Foster; I can't tell you how many times I have heard this. I categorically reject the theory that the Clintons murdered Vince Foster. This is because I know how close Hillary and Vince were. Hillary and the married Vince were emotional wife and husband and Vince Foster was absolutely obsessed with his relationship with Hillary. This is quite a difficult concept for most men to understand, but it was true. When Bill was out of town, Vince often would come by the Governor's mansion to see Hillary and stay until the early morning hours. By summer, 1993, Vince Foster, the vice White House counsel in the Clinton Administration, was a very depressed man and in the midst of a full blown psychological melt down. He could not solve all the Clinton legal scandals, his own wife Lisa had moved to Wash DC and was nagging him & Hillary was riding his ass at work and most certainly not giving Vince any ''special time.'' Webb Hubbell writes about the childish behavior of Vince after a planned dinner with the Hubbells, the Fosters & Hillary got canceled by Hillary at the last minute on Father's Day 1993. (Notice how Hillary was not planning to spend time with Bill on Father's Day'...) After Hillary called with the last minute cancel, Hubbell says: Vince Foster was in a mode of complete mental breakdown and depression by mid summer 1993 and I think his cratering relationship with Hillary, including her caustic humiliations of Vince, played a big role in his suicide on July 20, 1993. Ron Kessler:"Former FBI agent Coy Copeland was the senior investigator who read the reports of the other agents. According to Copeland, what never came out publicly was that the agents learned that about a week before his death, Hillary Clinton and Foster, who was her mentor at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, held a meeting with other White House aides to go over the health care legislation she was proposing. Those who were present told the FBI agents working for Starr that Hillary violently disagreed with a legal objection Foster raised at the meeting and humiliated Foster in front of the aides, Copeland says. "Hillary put him down really, really bad in a pretty good-size meeting," Copeland says. "She told him he didn't get the picture, and he would always be a little hick-town lawyer who was obviously not ready for the big time."The last man, perhaps the only man, who ever really loved Hillary Clinton, blew his brains out. After Vince Foster killed himself, who do you think Bill comforted himself with that night? Marsha Scott also boasted to her boyfriend Danny Dwyer ''I've had sex with Bill Clinton every Christmas for 30 years, ever since we were in our early 20's in Arkansas. It's my annual Christmas present to him!''Marinka Peschmann has written a historically significant book on the Death of Vince Foster: Suicide in his White House office with Hillary immediately demanding Foster's body be removed from the premises. I have every book on the Clintons and Following Orders is one of the most insightful and historically significant ones that I have read. It is very probable that Foster committed suicide in his office at the White House and his body was found by his co-workers who called Hillary. Hillary immediately demanded that Foster's body be removed from the White House and ordered his office sealed so that two things could happen: cleaning up the mess and more importantly, the removal of any papers incriminating to the Clintons on any topic. In addition to being Hillary's boyfriend and emotional husband, Foster was handling the Clinton's personal business (Whitewater, tax returns, everything) while on the payroll of the government. Foster also had a big file on the fiasco at Waco which Hillary had played a big role in. It was Hillary, acting through Vince Foster & Webb Hubbell, who had ordered the final FUBAR assault on the Waco Branch Davidians on April 19, 1993- it was not Bill Clinton and it was certainly not Attorney General Janet Reno who had been on the job for two weeks. 76 men, women and children were killed or murdered depending on your point of view. Side note: Vince Foster had known Bill Clinton since they were in kindergarten at Hope, AR in the early 1950's. Vince was as inner circle Clinton as one could be: the Clintons family lawyer and Hillary's most important lover. The Clintons did not physically murder Vince Foster, although a strong case can be made that Hillary did, in fact, psychologically murder Vince. In order to understand that Chelsea is the biological daughter of Webb Hubbell, one has to understand the dimensions of just how out of control sexually Bill was and how very little sex he was having with Hillary. Bill, amidst his hundreds of affairs, was even having sex with a black lady night manager of McDonald's in Little Rock. Larry Nichols, after he was tossed out of the Clinton inner circle and became a antagonist of the Clintons, used to follow Gov. Bill around under ''total surveillance.'' Larry wanted to know if Bill had a distinguishing characteristic to his anatomy. Larry says: Larry approached this woman and, using a little duplicity, got her to talk about Bill. She was afraid of losing her job as the night manager at McDonald's. Two state troopers confirm Larry's story by saying they took Bill to see this black lady. Larry asked this woman to tell him about Clinton: Bill Clinton has never release his medical records. It might be because as Monica Lewinsky has reported, he has herpes. Or it could be his blood type might not match Chelsea's. Or it might be because Bill's medical records might reveal multiple bouts with cocaine addiction and treatment. From Hillary's point of view, one would have to wonder what is swimming around in the Petri dish of Bill's genitalia. Bill used to have sex with street hookers with no condoms, the sexual version of Russian roulette. As the saying goes, when you have sex with someone, you are also having sex with everyone that person has had sex with. Especially if condoms are not involved. Bobbie Ann Williams, a Little Rock Arkansas street hooker, says she and Bill did cocaine together as well as having a foursome orgy with 2 other street hookers in the country cabin of Bill Clinton's mother back in the 1983-1984 '' while Bill was governor. In Little Rock the projects are about 5 blocks away from the Governor's Mansion. Bill would go out jogging, then the next thing you know he would be in the bushes with a street hooker being serviced with oral sex. Several years ago I saw Bill on TV touting his Clinton Global Initiatives, one of which is to end HIV/AIDS in the world. Bill remarked that abstinence was not enough, that young kids need access to and education about condoms.1) Juanita Broaddrick who Bill raped twice without a condom (April 25, 1978)2) and Gennifer Flowers who Bill had a 14 year affair with3) and street hooker Bobbie Ann Williams all say Bill hated condoms and absolutely refused to use them. Bill got Gennifer pregnant in late 1977 and he paid $200 for an abortion for her (performed in late January, 1978). Bill told Juanita after he raped her that he had had the mumps as a kid and was infertile so don't worry about getting pregnant. Bill's rape of Juanita was just 3 months after Bill had paid for Gennifer's abortion of their baby. Bobbie Ann Williams says Bill sired her son Danny or ''Danno,'' born in 1985 '' which deadbeat dad Bill has never claimed or supported. Lucille Bolton, Danny's aunt, says the man, now about age 28, is definitely Bill's son ''There's no buts, there's no ifs, there's no supposes about it.'' The Clintons' greatest shame is that Chelsea is the biological daughter of Webb Hubbell; but in my mind their greatest shame is Bill Clinton having a son with street hooker Bobbie Ann Williams: a son that Bill has never accepted responsibility for and never been there for financially or, more importantly, emotionally. Street hooker Bobbie Ann also says that Bill had sex with her when she was 4 months pregnant with his future son. Bobbie Ann said in 1992:[Clinton Confidential, p. 179, originally in the Globe (2/17/92), ''Mystery Dad of Black Hooker's Near-White Baby '' Wild Bill's the Father, Claims Ghetto Mom''] Michael Isikoff in his book Uncovering Clinton, (p. 162) describes some particularly bizarre, disturbing and apparently not uncommon behavior by Bill. An anonymous, but convincing, woman '' the wife of a prominent Democrat- told reporter Isikoff what happened when Bill got her in the side room of the Oval Office: Bill then started calling this woman at her work; he called her many times in January, 1997, around the time of his 2nd inauguration.The Saga of Arkansas journalist Suzi Parker: Targeted by a terror campaign to silence her reporting on a Clinton scandal Of all the things Bill has done in his life, the selling of HIV and Hepatitis C laced blood of Arkansas prison inmates to Canadians has to be near the top of the list. Over 20,000 Canadians were infected with Hepatitis C and a thousand more were infected with HIV, thanks to deadly tainted Arkansas prison blood. Prisoners sold their blood for $7 in scrip/ pint of blood; The state of Arkansas and Bill's political friends marked it up and sold it for $50/pint of blood to blood brokers. That is called blood money. The bottom line is Bill and his Arkansas political cronies gave this program political protection long after it was discovered there were severe problems with the Arkansas prison blood program management in the mid 1980's. Prisoners were not properly screened for diseases; some prisoners were not paid in cash but in drugs!; an inmate clerk was selling the ''right to bleed'' to fellow inmates who had been banned because they were already infected with Hepatitis B. [http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=3732, accessed on 8/24/13] After Suzi wrote her exposes on this tragedy and detailed the involvement of Bill and his profiting political friends in this disaster, Suzi began receiving threatening phone calls in the middle of the night which had all the fingerprints of the Clinton intimidation machine. [Their Lives, p.31]] Suzi says she was being watched and followed at a press conference by infected hemophiliacs that Suzi attended : ''It was creepy.'' [Their Lives, p. 32] In May, 1999, the clinic owned by Arkansas whistleblower Mike Galster was burned to the ground with arson; the same night the hemophiliac group's office in Canada was burglarized. After the arson, the burglary, being watched and followed, and threatening nighttime phone calls, Suzi Parker quit covering the Arkansas blood scandal out of fear for her life. Were Hillary's and Bill's goons behind the criminal intimidation tactics used on Mike Galster, the HIV and Hepatitis C '' infected Canadian hemophiliacs, and reporter Suzi Parker? Suzi Parker thinks so.My 2012 interview with Suzi Parker who confirmed that she was a victim of a terror campaign to silence her reportingSuzi, I have a few questions about your experiences investigating the tainted prison blood scandal in Arkansas. I understand you were a victim of a harassment/intimidation campaign. Is that true? If so, do you think the Clintons were behind it? Or perhaps related business parties who were benefiting from the tainted blood trade? Would you be willing to answer some questions and/or trade information on your experiences on this story. Sincerely, Robert Morrow (of Austin, TX)Thanks for the email. I am sorry but that chapter of my journalism career is closed. I was the victim of such a campaign but have nothing else to say on the matter. Thanks again for your interest.The Clinton 1998 Terror Campaign on Kathleen WilleyAnother example is the frightening harassment of Kathleen Willey just before she was going to give a deposition in the Paula Jones case on Jan. 10, 1998. Goons sent by either the Clintons conducted a terror campaign intent on silencing Willey, whose husband had committed suicide on the same day Kathleen was sexually harassed by Clinton on 11-29-93. Bill made a very aggressive, crude unwanted pass on Kathleen. Kathleen says Bill ''forcefully attacked'' her and ''his hands were all over me. His hands were up my dress.'' Conservative activist Melanie Morgan actually got Jack Palladino to admit he was running a terror campaign for Hillary in the Kathleen Willey case: The only regret that I had about the whole thing was that Hillary did not pay me in a timely fashion'' - private detective goon Jack Palladino to Melanie Morgan in 2003. Palladino also said ''I saved Hillary Clinton's ass. You'd think she would be more grateful to me.'' So classic of the Clintons - they don't even pay their thugs on time! Palladino is the same guy who go around asking Gennifer Flowers' neighbors precious questions such as ''Is Gennifer Flowers the sort of person who would commit suicide?'' As for Kathleen Willey, the terror campaign of witness tampering against Kathleen occurred in the months before her deposition in the Paula Jones case which was scheduled for 1-10-98. Someone shot a nail gun many times into 3 of her car tires. (They were shot into the sidewalls of the tires, so it is obvious Kathleen did not run over some nails.) It was vandalism with intent to terrorize. Here is Kathleen telling author Candice Jackson about this psychological terrorism: [Candice Jackson, Their Lives: the Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine, p. 153] Kathleen's cat of 13 years, Bullseye, mysteriously disappeared. The next morning after she had given her deposition, Kathleen found the severed head of a small animal on her front porch - a few feet away and facing her. (Sellout, p. 118). Willey in her own words says she was ''very, very, very frightened'' [Their Lives, p. 154] That is 3 ''verys'' quoted verbatim. Also, on Jan 8th, 1998, just two days before her deposition, a menacing stranger man approached her and asked her about her car tires, her missing cat Bullseye and her children '' by name. He said ''Don't you get the message?'' Here is what Kathleen told CNBC's Chris Matthews: ''He asked me, 'Did you ever find your cat [Bullseye]?' And I said, ''No, I haven't and we really miss him.' Then he said 'Did you ever get your tires fixed on your car?' And I said 'No' and that's when the hair really started standing up on my neck.'' The menacing stranger then said ''That cat, he was a nice cat. Bullseye was his name, wasn't it?'' Kathleen added, ''He asked me about my children by name. He said, 'How are your children, Shannon and Patrick?' It was a very insidious thing and it was meant to scare me.'' Private investigator Jared Stern said in March, 1998 that he was asked by Robert Miller (then head of a private investigation firm Prudential Associates) to do a noisy investigation of Kathleen Willey '' looking at her phone records, finding if she took medication, going through her trash. A ''noisy'' investigation was meant to scare and intimidate Kathleen. Miller was working at the behest of the lawyer of Nathan Landow (a huge Democratic fundraiser). Robert Miller told Jared Stern that the ''WHITE HOUSE'' was behind the intimidation campaign request. [p. 381, Uncovering Clinton] ABC News Jackie Judd interviewed Jared Stern's lawyer Edward Bouquet:Bouquet: ''I think he perceived a situation where he was being asked to do something that he wasn't comfortable with.''Jackie Judd: '' Bouquet claims Stern was so uncomfortable he called Willey and left a message '' using an alias '' warning her that someone wanted to do her harm '...'' [ABC News, 2-1-99] Jared Stern left a phone message to Kathleen and he said ''My name is Kirk, and I just want to warn you, there are people out there who want to hurt you.'' In fact, this was a part of the psychological terror campaign of witness tampering that Hillary's agents were waging on Kathleen. First Lady Hillary was engaging in witness tampering '' a felony. Two days after Kathleen's deposition (1-10-98) in the Paula Jones case, Hillary's goons were at it again (1-12-98): ''On Monday, two days after I was deposed, I was home alone. Just as the sun was coming up, I opened my front door to let my dogs out. On the porch in front of me was a new horror. A small animal skull was lying on the bricks staring at me. It was bare bone, empty, dry, sitting a few feet from the door. It was the size of a cat's skull. I thought of Bullseye. Had they killed my wonderful old cat?''[Kathleen Willey, Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton, p.125]Kathleen Willey sums the criminal intimidation campaign: [Kathleen Willey, Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton, p. x]Bill Clinton told Gennifer Flowers in definitive terms that Hillary was a lesbianHillary can be summarized as: 1) Vince Foster was her boyfriend and emotional husband who blew his brains out when things were not going well with Hillary in July, 1993 2) Webb Hubbell, her other law partner, is the biological father of Chelsea (Feb., 1980) and on top of that 3) Hillary is a lesbian (bisexual) with many affairs with women. In other words: all of the above.Gennifer Flowers describes Bill's response when Gennifer asked Bill if Hillary were a lesbian: ''There's something you need to know. I've been hearing tales around town that Hillary is having another thing with a woman.'' I watched his face to see his reaction, and couldn't believe it when he burst out laughing. I was stunned! I asked him what was so funny. ''Honey,'' he said, ''she's probably eaten more pussy than I have.'' Bill said he had known for a long time that Hillary was attracted to women, and it didn't really bother him anymore. His first clue came from her lack of enjoyment of sex with him. She didn't like to experiment and insisted on the missionary position and nothing else. Because she wasn't enjoying herself; neither was he. Sex with her became a duty; nothing more.''

[Gennifer Flowers, Passion and Betrayal, p.42] In fact, Bill would often respond to his buddies who questioned his massive amounts of affairs by saying ''Hillary has eaten more pussy than I have.'' Hillary was also outed at the ''1993 March on Washington for Lesbian Gay and Bisexual Rights and Liberation'' rally which was held on 4-25-93. (By the way, Bill had raped Juanita Broaddrick on the same day April 25th fifteen years earlier in 1978. Hillary helped to cover up that rape.) Nancy Pelosi read to the gay marchers a letter of support from Bill:http://www.qrd.org/qrd/events/mow/clinton.letter.to.mow At some point a lesbian activist stood on the main stage on national TV CSPAN - in front of hundreds of homosexual activists - joyfully outed Hillary as a fellow lesbian! She said: ''I'm going to tell you a secret. Hillary Clinton has had a lesbian affair. At last we have a First Lady in the White House that we can fuck!'' The next day Rush Limbaugh had a field day discussing this on his radio show '... with NO denials from the White House. Republican insider Jack Wheeler had reported very early in the Clinton Administration that his Secret Service sources were telling him that Hillary was a full blown bisexual. Jack Wheeler said: ''My sources indicate that Hillary Clinton is bisexual and fools around more than her husband. The stories you hear from the Secret Service, detailed to guard her, are mind boggling '... It is Hillary that is pushing the White House's homosexual agenda.'' [Jack Wheeler, Strategic Investment newsletter, 2-10-93] Wheeler was reporting this a mere 20 days into the first Clinton Administration back in 1993 and before the April gay rights rally. Of course, the folks back in Arkansas had known since the 1970's that Hillary was a switch hitter. Back in Arkansas in the early days, when Paul Fray had confronted Hillary with the lesbian ''rumors'' about her, Hillary tellingly did not deny them and only responded ''Fuck this shit.'' [Jerry Oppenheimer, State of a Union, p.219]Bill Lost the Nuclear Launch Codes at peak of Monica Lewinsky crisis - January 21, 1998 The next time someone tells you that the Clintons' ''personal private sex lives'' of Olympian levels of dysfunction have no bearing on how they perform in office, just tell them about the time Bill LOST THE NUCLEAR LAUNCH CODES at the peak of the Monica Lewinsky crisis, which was a crisis Bill created by lying in his Paula Jones case depositions. The Lewinsky scandal broke on the Drudge report on January 17, 1998. By January 21 - four days later - Bill had lost the nuclear launch codes, which are about the size of a credit card.Air Force Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson, a military aide whose job was to carry the ''nuclear football,'' describes the scene where Bill told his military aides, ''I don't have mine on me. I'll track it down, guys, and get it back to you.'' [Buzz Patterson, Dereliction of Duty, p. 56] Later, after his aides had turned the White House upside down looking for the USA nuclear launch codes, Bill ''finally threw up his hands and said casually, 'I just can't find it '... don't know where it is.''' [Buzz Patterson, Dereliction of Duty, p. 57]Israel's Mossad was taping Bill's phone sex masturbation with Monica Lewinsky Sexual blackmail in the world of espionage and intelligence is very real. Finding a weakness in a target's sex life is often used as a way of gaining critical information or even blackmailing and controlling the behavior of a target. The higher level the target, the bigger the payoff. Gordon Thomas, in his book Gideon's Spies, (p.103) says that the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, was taping Bill's phone sex with Monica Lewinsky. Danny Yatom, the head of the Mossad, sent a spy team in March, 1997, to Washington D.C. based on reports ''that President Clinton was repeatedly indulging in phone-sex calls with a former White House aide, Monica Lewinsky '... Knowing the White House was totally protected by electronic counter-measures, the yahalomin team focused on Lewinsky's apartment. They began to intercept explicit phone calls from the president to Lewinsky. The recordings were couriered by diplomatic bag to Tel Aviv.'' Ken Starr in the Starr Report says that on March 29, 1997 ''[Bill] told [Monica] that he suspected a foreign embassy '... was taping his telephones. If anyone ever asked about their phone sex, she should say that they knew that their calls were being monitored all day long, and the phone sex was a put on.'' [Gideon's Spies, p.104]Bill Clinton named ''Father of the Year'' by National Father's Day Committee 2013 The striking thing about Bill getting this award was not Chelsea, who will inherit all the Clinton hundreds of millions, showing up to say how great Bill is, but that Hillary pointedly did NOT attend the awards ceremony. In what other family would the ''husband'' be named ''Father of the Year'' and the ''wife'' not even bother to show up? In 1992 when the Clintons knew they had a massive adultery problem to cover up, they put Chelsea on the cover of People Magazine in order to present the image of a "normal" intact family:

Hillary in fact was named the 1984 Arkansas Mother of the Year. While she was on stage accepting the award, the Arkansas state trooper who had to deal with her daily abuse and nastiness was back stage and he remarked to his buddies that Hillary should have been given the ''motherfucker of the year'' award'...Bill Clinton officiated at the wedding of Anthony Weiner & Huma Abedin in 2010 - What could possibly go wrong? In 2010 Bill Clinton conducted the ceremony at the wedding of Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin, who is a top aide to Hillary Clinton. What could possibly go wrong with that situation? Why not Ron Jeremy being the master of ceremonies? It has long been rumored that Huma Abedin, Hillary's body woman, was a lipstick lesbian mistress of Hillary. I used to think that '... but now after her marriage to Weiner and childbirth, I tend to doubt it. I guess I was wrong on that one. However, I have learned never to underestimate the sexual dysfunction and adultery in the Clintons and the people who closely associate with them. Anthony Weiner, aka ''Carlos Danger,'' went on to humiliate himself by sending pictures of his penis across the internet to stranger women. And he kept engaging in this bizarre, Clintonesque behavior even while he was married and with a wife and baby and was planning to run for Mayor of New York City. Weiner seems to be modeling himself after Bill Clinton and Huma Abedin, playing the role of the perpetually humiliated, enabling wife, is obviously modeling herself after Hillary. Why are the Clintons and Bushes so Chummy? Answer: Permanent Liability from Iran-Contra with all its epic CIA Drug running, Money Laundering and Murders to Cover it all up The Clintons, the Bushes, Oliver North and the CIA were all heavily involved in the CIA drug trade of Iran-Contra. Supposedly it was to help the Nicaraguan contras, but you can bet they were skimming tens of millions off the top. The Clintons and the Bushes got married during Iran-Contra. The Bushes call Bill ''Bubba.'' Like Christopher Hitchens, I just call him ''Rapist.'' (Hitchens on Hillary: There are 4 good books to read about the Clintons, the Bushes and the epic CIA drug smuggling of Iran-Contra. Read them and you will never look at the American politics in the same way again - I guarantee that! Those 4 books are 1) Compromised: Clinton , Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed (1994) 2) The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider by Al Martin (2000) and 4) The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (1997). Bill Clinton & George Herbert Walker Bush both had close relationships with CIA Drug Smuggler Barry Seal who was murdered in 1986 Author Daniel Hopsicker concluded that Oliver North arranged for the murder of CIA drug smuggler Barry Seal on February 19, 1986. I agree, except that I would add that both then Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush and his son Jeb Bush were also part of the plot to murder Barry Seal. The reason for Seal's murder is that Barry Seal, facing criminal charges in Louisiana and looking at a massive tax liability to the IRS, was a threat to plea bargain to authorities and give up much bigger names and bust Iran-Contra wide open. Seal was a threat to talk that had to be silenced. As it occurred, Iran-Contra did bust open in the fall of 1986 with the downing of a CIA plane carrying Eugene Hasenfus over Nicaragua on Oct. 5, 1986. Barry Seal, with his squadron of custom designed drug planes, was running drugs for the CIA, the Bushes, the Clintons & Oliver North. It was a $billion/year drug trade. Al Martin worked closely with Jeb Bush during Iran-Contra. Here is how Al describes the scene in his must read bookThe Conspirators: Confessions of an Iran-Contra Insider(p. 201): When Jeb Bush, Oliver North and Dewey Clarridge once spoke about an individual, North laughed and said, "Well, we haven't decided how we will rule his demise yet - whether it will be accident, natural causes, or suicide."" Daniel Hopsicker's seminal book Barry and the Boys: The CIA, the Mob and America's Secret History is a must read for anyone interest in American history of politics. In a nutshell, the elites of the both the Republican and Democratic parties were heavy into the CIA drug trade in the 1980's. Bill Clinton had gotten his favorite state trooper L.D. Brown into the CIA. Brown, a non-corrupt person, was put on a roundtrip flight to Central American with the CIA's Barry Seal (CIA contractor as most operatives are). Brown was mortified to discover to cocaine coming back on the roundtrip to Arkansas. An infuriated Brown later confronted Clinton. Clinton's reply: ''That's [Dan] Lasater's deal! That's Lasater's deal! And your buddy [VP George Herbert Walker] Bush knows about it!'' That Clinton quote is my favorite quote in modern American politics and I think it sums up the situation nicely. Now do you understand why Jeb Bush awards a ''Liberty Medal'' to Hillary Clinton for her supposed support of the Constitution? The Clintons got married to the Bushes during Iran-Contra and those marital vows - unlike the Bill/Hillary marital vows, will never be broken. Too much permanent liability, including murders, is sitting on the table. A Hillary/Jeb 2016 presidential race would be ''heads they win'' and ''tails the American people lose" proposition. The Bushes and the Clintons need desperately need each other in order to protect themselves from the rest of America who should have put both families in jail a long time ago. Bill Clinton has been CIA since he was recruited at Oxford in fall, 1968. GHW Bush has been CIA since before the Bay of Pigs operation, which he helped to organize in 1961. Barry Seal - until his murder by the US government in 1986 - had worked with the CIA since before this photo below was taken with him and other Operation 40 operatives in Mexico City in the early 1960's.

The Clintons are every bit as ruthless as the Bushes and vice versa. People ask, have the Clintons ever murdered anyone? Besides all the folks who got torched at Waco in 1993, the murder of Jerry Parks on September 26, 1993, may very well have been a Bill Clinton/Raymond Buddy Young murder. Jerry Parks was in the 1980's CIA drug trade and working for the Clintons. Parks, also a private investigator, was hired by Hillary and Vince Foster to spy on Bill and document his womanizing when Hillary was thinking about divorcing Bill around 1990 or so. That was when Bill was having a spectacularly flagrant affair with Mary Jo Jenkins. In summer 1993, Jerry Parks was in an $80,000 billing dispute with the Clintons. Parks had not been paid his money from the 1992 campaign and he was most definitely not a happy camper and he was someone who knew more damaging dirt (personal, political, criminal) on the Clintons than just about anyone on earth. I am 100% certain that Bill used Buddy Young and his inner circle state troopers to beat up and nearly murder Gary Johnson on June, 26, 1992, in order to keep a lid on the Gennifer Flowers sex scandal. It is reasonable to think that the same Arkansas state troopers that beat Gary Johnson to a pulp, were the same ones who murdered Jerry Parks, more out of fear he would reveal Clinton CIA drug dealing secrets than merely Bill's epic womanizing, an open secret in Arkansas for decades. Webb Hubbell? He is the biological father of Chelsea Clinton. This is the Clintons' Greatest Shame. I have had to walk the reader through a sampling of the epically dysfunctional relationship of the Clintons and the often criminal intimidation tactics they have used to cover up this chaos. This context is important for understanding that the Clintons have not had much sex even in the early years of their ''marriage.'' Here are some of my favorite Clinton quotes:''C'mon, Bill put your dick up. You can't fuck her here.'' - Hillary to Bill at a political event.''What the fuck do you think you're doing? I know who that whore is. I know what she's here for. Get her out of here.'' - Hillary referring to one of Bill's girlfriends.''These women are all trash. Nobody's going to believe them.'' - Hillary''I need to be fucked more than twice a year!'' Hillary to Bill in the 1980's. Hillary, in the early years of her faux marriage with Bill, refused to take the Clinton name and insisted on being called by her maiden name Hillary Rodham. It was only for political reasons and after a crushing 1980 governor's race loss that Hillary put ''Clinton'' as her last name and cleaned up her personal appearance. So, if Hillary was not having sex with Bill Clinton then who was she having sex with? Answer: Webb Hubbell, Vince Foster and a string of lesbian lovers. Hillary was probably referring to making partner at Rose Law firm because she was already an associate at that time. ''The irony of it is, about two months later the phone rings in my office in Wall Street. It's Clinton, calling from the governor's mansion in Little Rock. I've heard he's been hitting up Wall Street a lot. Investment bankers are always targets for governors looking for a contribution or two. ''Anyway, we talk for a while, and then he says, 'By the way, Hillary hasn't been feeling well recently. She went to the doctor, and the doctor called a press conference, and lo and behold, I'm holding the Arkansas Gazette reading that my wife is pregnant.' ''That's the way he learns Hillary is pregnant with Chelsea - in the newspaper.'' In what other ''family'' in America does the so-called ''wife'' (Hillary) hold a press conference to announce her pregnancy and not even tell her ''husband'' (Bill) that she is pregnant with what is presumed to be their first child? In what family does the husband have to read the paper to find out his wife is pregnant? Unless, of course, the child is not Bill's seed. Also, when Bill left the presidency in Jan, 2001, he pardoned everyone else, including Marc Rich and big time drug dealers '.... but he sure did not pardon Webb Hubbell. Hillary and Hubbell appear to be sending subtle messages involving Chelsea and their relationship to each other in their respective books. Hillary, in her bookIt Takes a Village, says that ''a burly ex-football player'' gave her advice on how to hold Chelsea as a baby:''Think of a baby like a football and hold it tight.''Hillary is probably referring to Hubbell who played as an offensive tackle for the Arkansas Razorbacks. Hillary may have seen burly Hubbell as a father figure similar to her dad Hugh Rodham, a tough guy Navy drill instructor who played football at Penn State. In the 1980 Arkansas governor's race, Hillary, who had had baby Chelsea on 2/27/80, who had been so active before in Bill's political maneuvers, withdrew from campaigning as Bill's political fortunes were going down the tubes in that campaign. When Bill was elected president in 1992, Hillary tried to make Bill promise to appoint Hubbell to the U.S. Supreme Court if a vacancy occurred. Hillary had ordered Bill to give Webb an interim appointment as the chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court:''Well goddam it Bill he's my friend, you can appoint him by law, so do it!'''' said Hillary according to L.D. Brown. Webb got the Arkansas Supreme Court appointment. In his book Friends in High Places, Hubbell makes a special point of mentioning Chelsea when he says how successful he felt looking out at her from the living room of his big house in the summer: My take: that is a subtle ''shout out'' from Hubbell to Hillary and Chelsea. Just as Hillary's comment on ''a burly football player'' who told her to hold the baby like a football was a nod to Hubbell. In his book Hubbell emphasizes how close he, Vince Foster and Hillary were both professionally and socially. See page 55: they used to lunch often, the Three Amigos would even attend race lingerie shows together; the wives of Hubbell and Vince would get phone calls from biddies tattling on their socializing with Hillary. Key line: "Vince and I were mesmerized by her. She was like nobody we had ever been around before. Bill wasn't much of a presence in our lives." [emphasis added](p. 56). Bill for four decades has been sickly hyper promiscuous. In the 1970's and 1980's cocaine Bill was sexually promiscuous to the google power. Bill literally was making out with a woman not named Hillary in the bathroom of his 1975 wedding reception. Gennifer Flowers tells about the time that Bill tried to have sex with her ... at his and Hillary's 10th "wedding" anniversary party in 1985. Bill would brutally, cruelly and openly humiliate Hillary in front of other women. Sally Perdue and Susan McDougall were 2 other of Bill's numerous flames during this era.

Sally Perdue, pictured below jogging with her daughter Myra in 1979, was later subjected to a vicious Clinton terror campaign in 1992. The back window of her Jeep was smashed in and shotgun shells were placed on her drivers' seat. Perdue was also receiving letters saying "Marilyn Monroe was snuffed." Pressure was placed on the school were she worked at to fire her. All this was emanating from the Clintons and their nasty private detectives - either Pellicano or Palladino was behind this. Sally Perdue literally had to leave the USA and went to China for a period to escape the intimidation campaign. Sidenote: Bill was so addicted to cocaine during this period that he used so much his head itched all the time; his brother Roger Clinton was caught on an undercover police videotape saying that he needed to get more cocaine because his brother Gov. Bill "has a nose like a vacuum cleaner." The fact that Chelsea is the biological daughter of Webb Hubbell - and she is - is the Clintons's most shameful secret. This fact is so discrediting to the notion of Hillary as some sort of innocent victim of Bill's decades long epic, unhinged and blatant philandering. The Clintons for decades have tried to cover up who they actually are. ''Husband and wife'' as they tell us with a straight face today? Bill? A husband of Hillary? Bill is not even the biological father of Chelsea. Bill and Hillary are extremely embarrassed about and sensitive about this issue and it is not because they care about Chelsea's feelings. Bill would not behave like he has for 30 years if he cared about Chelsea's feelings. When the Monica Lewinsky affair busted wide open, Chelsea was so overcome with physical distress that she had to be taken to the Stanford infirmary. In 2007 I had a talk with Karen Tumulty, then a reporter for TIME. I called her to discuss the Clintons' terror campaigns and why the media should cover this basic issue: Tumulty's response was we are not going to re-litigate the 1990's. Then I said well you know Chelsea Clinton is the daughter of Webb Hubbell and not Bill Clinton. Tumulty's response was a pregnant pause and she did not even lift a finger to challenge me on that bold assertion. Also, based on Susan Estrich's public comments about the Clintons not having secrets anymore, I am convinced Estrich, Tumulty and scores of other journalists and political insiders know that Webb Hubbell, and not Bill Clinton is the biological father of Chelsea. It is one of the Clintons' ugliest secrets. In 2013 I asked a well-known Republican political operative who has spent a lot of time at high levels in GOP politics ''How long have you known that Webb Hubbell was the biological father of Chelsea Clinton?'' He said he had known that since 1992. I said why didn't the Republicans use that as an issue in 1992? Reply: he wasn't running the 1992 presidential campaign. The Clintons have been in the national eye for 25 years and I have never seen this precious little nugget about Chelsea's bastard lineage reported in the MSM. And don't tell me it's because kids are not fair game in political discourse. Politicians use kids and glowing wives as testimony for their fitness all the time. I remember a Clinton video from the 1992 campaign will Hillary just gushing about Bill saying he's the kind of guy who just makes you feel happy all the time. Vince Foster, like McAuliffe & any Clinton insider, would have been highly acute to this topic and worried about the fallout that any revelation about Chelsea being the daughter of Hubbell would have. So in sum, Bill Clinton learned about the pregnancy of Hillary by reading about a press conference of Hillary's doctor in the Arkansas Gazette in summer 1979. He and Hillary had an epically dysfunctional 1970's relationship that was more faux marriage than ''open marriage.'' Hillary stated in 1978, with Larry Nichols present, that she was going to fuck Webb Hubbell to make partner at Rose Law Firm. Both Webb Hubbell and a teenage Chelsea have very big gummy lower lips and weak chins. Chelsea as an adult has had plastic surgery specifically to reduce the gumminess of her lips. Vince Foster (Hillary's other boyfriend and emotional husband) was worried about damaging information relating to Hillary that would come out in the Senate confirmation process of Webb Hubbell as associate attorney general. It is the Clintons' greatest shame: Chelsea is the biological daughter of Webb Hubbell and not Bill Clinton.

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 14:59

Former Penthouse Pet Sandra Taylor said in a recent interview that Donald Trump was amazing in bedThe presidential hopeful had a secretary track Taylor down for a date after spotting her on the cover of New York magazineTrump also advised Taylor on her career, urging her to change her name which at the time was Sandi Korn and giving her a copy of his biography The pair split when their relationship became public in early 1991, shortly after Trump had split from first wife IvanaBy Chris Spargo For Dailymail.com

Published: 08:27 EST, 18 August 2015 | Updated: 03:08 EST, 19 August 2015

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Donald Trump is good in the boardroom and the bedroom.

Former Penthouse Pet Sandra Taylor claims that Trump was an amazing lover when the two enjoyed a brief fling in 1991, gushing about the presidential's hopefuls sexual prowess.

She said of Trump, who had his secretary track her down after spotting her on the cover of New York magazine; 'Omigosh, he was great'.

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Gushing: Former Penthouse Pet Sandra Taylor (above) said in a recent interview that Donald Trump was amazing in bed

Difficult times: The pair split when their relationship became public in early 1991, shortly after Trump had split from first wife Ivana (above the Trumps in April 1991)

Big break: Taylor appeared on the cover of Penthouse in March 1991 (left) after the split from Trump (right on Monday)

Taylor - who at that time went by Sandi Korn - also said in her interview with Richard Johnson of the New York Post that Trump would make a 'terrific president.'

As for their first date, she did not get too graphic with the details, simply saying that the two went for pizza and a walk around the city before ending up back at her apartment.

'He was very sweet,' said Taylor.

And it was not just a night of passionate lovemaking Taylor got on that first date, as Trump also gave her a copy of his book - The Art of the Deal - and told her she needed to change her name.

'I've been Sandra Taylor ever since,' said Taylor.

He also advised Taylor; 'If you bet big, you win big. If you bet small, you win small.'

The two enjoyed a few more dates but split when their relationship became public.

'I was sad when it ended,' said Taylor.

She went on to marry her current husband - ad executive husband David O'Connell - 20 years ago, and now works as an actress.

The couple have a child and live in California according to a recent interview Taylor did with Closer.

Moving on: Trump would go on to marry Marla Maples (left) and then Melania Knauss (right)

Heidi Klum trumps Trump after he declares her no longer a 10

As for Trump, he would go on to marry Marla Maples, who once claimed the real estate tycoon was the best sex she ever had.

The pair began having an affair in 1986 while Trump was still with his first wife Ivana, and eventually walked down the aisle in 1993, giving birth to their daughter Tiffany later that year.

They divorced in 1999, at which point Trump began dating his current wife Melania.

Meanwhile, another model has also spoken out about Trump recently - Project Runway host Heidi Klum.

The German beauty hit back at Trump with a mocking video after he said in an interview with the New York Times that she was 'no longer a 10.'

The video - posted on Twitter - shows Klum in a shirt with the number '10' written on it which is ripped off by a man in a Trump mask to reveal a shirt underneath that reads '9.99.'

DONALD TRUMP'S WIVESIvana Zeln­Äkov: Trump married his first wife in 1977, and the pair had three children; Donald Jr. (born in 1977), Ivanka (born in 1981) and Eric (born in 1984). Ivana filed for divorce in early 1990 after an incident that occurred while the family was on vacation in Aspen. After learning that Marla Maples was at the same resort as her husband and children, she became enraged according to eyewitnesses. She was also seen arguing with her husband on the ski slopes. Their divorce was finalized in 1992 and Ivana is rumored to have walked away with $20 million, the $14 million family estate in Greenwich worth $14million, a multi-million dollar housing allowance, $350,000 a year in alimony, and all of her no doubt very, very expensive jewelry.

Marla Maples: Some claim Trump and Maples began seeing one another as early as 1987, but they only publicly began dating in after Ivana filed for divorce. The Southern-born actress and model married Trump in 1993 and they had a daughter Tiffany soon after before divorcing in 1999.

Melania Knauss: Trump began dating his third and current wife, Slovenian model Knauss in 2000, though they first met in 1998. They became engaged in 2004 and wed in 2005, with their son Barron being born in 2006.

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 06:15

LinkedIn Influencer Ellen Petry Leanse published this post originally on LinkedIn.

A few years back I noticed something: the frequency with which the word "just" appeared in email and conversation from female co-workers and friends.

I first sensed this shortly after leaving Google and joining a company with a high ratio of female to male employees.

Google, and everywhere else I'd worked before, had a more traditional gender mix.

I'd never really noted a high concentration of "just" before, so I thought it might be my imagination. But soon I knew my hunch was legit. "Just" just kept showing up way too frequently.

"I just wanted to check in on '..."

"Just wondering if you'd decided between '..."

"If you can just give me an answer, then '..."

"I'm just following up on '..."

I started paying attention, at work and beyond. It didn't take long to sense something I hadn't noticed before: women used "just" a lot more often than men.

Still, it was only a hunch '-- I had no data. Yet even if it was selective listening, it seemed I was hearing "just" three to four times more frequently from women than from men.

It hit me that there was something about the word I didn't like. It was a "permission" word, in a way '-- a warm-up to a request, an apology for interrupting, a shy knock on a door before asking "Can I get something I need from you?"

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was a "child" word, to riff Transactional Analysis. As such it put the conversation partner into the "parent" position, granting them more authority and control. And that "just" didn't make sense.

I am all about respectful communication. Yet I began to notice that "just" wasn't about being polite: it was a subtle message of subordination, of deference. Sometimes it was self-effacing. Sometimes even duplicitous. As I started really listening, I realized that striking it from a phrase almost always clarified and strengthened the message.

And as I began to pay attention, I was astonished '-- believe me '-- at how often I used the word.

I sent a memo to my work teammates about the "J" word and suggested a moratorium on using it. We talked about what it seemed to imply (everyone agreed) and how different that message was from the way we saw ourselves: trusted advisors, true partners, win-win champions of customer success.

We started noticing when and how we used "just" and outing each other when we slipped. Over time, frequency diminished. And as it did we felt a change in our communication '-- even our confidence. We didn't dilute our messages with a word that weakened them.

It was subtle, but small changes can spark big differences. I believe it helped strengthen our conviction, better reflecting the decisiveness, preparedness, and impact that reflected our brand.

Yet "just" still bugged me. Sure, I'd had my little experiment with friends. But I'd acted on a hunch, maybe right, maybe wrong.

So I ran a test in the real world.

In a room full of young entrepreneurs, a nice even mix of men and women, I asked two people '-- a guy and a girl '-- to each spend three minutes speaking about their startups. I asked them to leave the room to prepare, and while they were gone I asked the audience to secretly tally the number of times they each said the word "just."

Sarah went first. Pens moved pretty briskly in the audience's hands. Some tallied five, some six. When Paul spoke, the pen moved '... once. Even the speakers were blown away when we revealed that count.

Now, that's not research: It's a mere MVP of a test that likely merits more inquiry, but we all have other work to do.

Plus, maybe now that you've read this, you'll heighten your awareness of that word and find clearer, more confident ways of making your ideas known.

In other words, help take the "J Count" down. Take the word out of your sentences and see if you note a difference in your clarity '-- and even the beliefs that fuel the things you say.

It's actually easy, once you start paying attention. Like it?

If so, then, to riff Nike: well '... "Do it."

Apple and Google alum, entrepreneur, and online pioneer Ellen Leanse brings 35 years of global impact to her work as a tech strategist and advisor. She speaks and writes on innovation, diversity in tech, ethics, and mindfulness and regularly posts on Twitter at @chep2m.

This post also appeared on Women 2.0.

More From Ellen Petry Leanse:Read the original article on LinkedIn. Copyright 2015. Follow LinkedIn on Twitter.

Hi Adam,

Thank you for taking the time to read this email; I know you're busy so I'll try to be brief.

I heard you talk about hypothyroidism in women on the NA show this past Sunday and thought I'd chime in. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism by an endocrinologist in my teens and put on the lowest possible dosage of synthroid; I didn't feel any difference between taking it and not taking it. Years later, I found an awesome general practitioner who offered to test my thyroid levels and found I was completely normal. He couldn't believe I had been prescribed meds for years and said there was no reason for me to ever be on them. So I think it is completely possible women are being over-diagnosed as hypothyroid.

But I also think there is another explanation for this- birth control. I was pressured into starting birth control when I was 14 (and not having sex) to "regulate" my cycle. I've been on and off BC over the past 15 years and every time I go on it, I gain weight, my hair falls out, my head feels foggy, and I get severely depressed. These symptoms are all- surprise!- also symptoms of hypothyroidism. So I suspect that it is so prevalent in women nowadays due to birth control. Which, really, is like adderall for girls- over-prescribed with a bunch of side effects. One of which is lots of head fogginess- thinking and remembering things were difficult for me. Just made me a better slave, I suppose. And now all these synthetic hormones are going into our water supply.

Anyway, just wanted to give my thoughts on the matter. In my own experience (and from talking with other women), for almost every gynecological problem the Dr will just prescribe birth control, rather than actually trying to find out what the problem is. And the drug companies do push it- every time I go to the ob/gyn, I'm given a bunch of samples of whatever the latest pills are. So I wouldn't be surprised if this is what is causing all the hypothyroidism. Either way, I'll never go back on the pill, being on it sucks.

Oh, and keep an eye out for statins. My dad's cardiologist has pushed him to get my siblings and me on statins. We are all in our 20's with normal cholesterol, but apparently we should take them as a precaution. WTF?

Thanks again for reading this and for doing the show!

Jen (a fellow native Arlingtonian)

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Source: The Iran Project

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 01:17

Iran accounts for 130-160 tons of the 200 tons of saffron produced worldwide every year and ranks first and far ahead of Spain, Italy, the US, China, Afghanistan, Austria, Switzerland and Argentina where the rest is grown.

Saffron is an expensive spice known as red gold. Despite the price that rivals that of precious metals, growing saffron is very simple and accessible to anyone.

Soil plays the most important part in saffron cultivation. Other than that, it needs little water to grow and can be easily stored for a long time and transported at low cost.The spice is well adapted to semi-arid climate with strong resistance against cold. The crop is not cultivable in the north and the south of Iran as rainfall and humidity are detrimental to its growth in summer when the crop prepares to bloom in the next season.

Khorasan Razavi Province is best suited for saffron production followed by Fars, Hamedan, Kerman, Yazd and Qom provinces. In fact, in recent years, when many crops suffered the adverse impacts of shrinking water resources in the country, saffron farmers gained the most.

Despite the eye-catching production figures, profitability in this sector has remained insignificant mainly as a result of low productivity and lack of branding and proper packaging. Regrettably, Iran is not recognized as the largest saffron exporter as other countries, namely Spain and France, reprocess and package the Iranian saffron and reexport it under their own brands.

According to official statistics released by Agriculture Organization of Khorasan Razavi Province, from 1974 to 2002, saffron production in Iran progressively increased. Unofficial data suggest that the trend is still ongoing, which could serve as a strong motivation for investors to engage in the sector.

In 1973, 17 tons of saffron were produced from 2,950 hectares that were under cultivation at the time. In 2002, the cultivated land grew to 45,000 hectares and the production figure rose to 180 tons. On average, around 20 tons of the produced saffron are consumed domestically and the rest is exported overseas.

Although the increase in cultivated land matters, productivity plays a more important role. Some farmers produce 7 kilograms of saffron per hectare while others have managed to harvest 8 kilograms by optimizing energy consumption and human resources.

Therefore, potential investors should enter the field with sufficient knowledge and be equipped with effective tools to boost productivity.

By Financial Tribune

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 22:43

VIENNA (AP) '-- Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors to investigate a site it has been accused of using to develop nuclear arms, operating under a secret agreement with the U.N. agency that normally carries out such work, according to a document seen by The Associated Press.

The revelation on Wednesday newly riled Republican lawmakers in the U.S. who have been severely critical of a broader agreement to limit Iran's future nuclear programs, signed by the Obama administration, Iran and five world powers in July. Those critics have complained that the wider deal is unwisely built on trust of the Iranians, while the administration has insisted it depends on reliable inspections.

A skeptical House Speaker John Boehner said, "President Obama boasts his deal includes 'unprecedented verification.' He claims it's not built on trust. But the administration's briefings on these side deals have been totally insufficient - and it still isn't clear whether anyone at the White House has seen the final documents."

Said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce: "International inspections should be done by international inspectors. Period."

The newly disclosed side agreement, for an investigation of the Parchin nuclear site by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, is linked to persistent allegations that Iran has worked on atomic weapons. That investigation is part of the overarching nuclear-limits deal.

Evidence of the inspections concession is sure to increase pressure from U.S. congressional opponents before a Senate vote of disapproval on the overall agreement in early September. If the resolution passes and President Barack Obama vetoes it, opponents would need a two-thirds majority to override it. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has suggested opponents will likely lose a veto fight, though that was before Wednesday's disclosure.

John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican senator, said, "Trusting Iran to inspect its own nuclear site and report to the U.N. in an open and transparent way is remarkably naive and incredibly reckless. This revelation only reinforces the deep-seated concerns the American people have about the agreement."

The Parchin agreement was worked out between the IAEA and Iran. The United States and the five other world powers were not party to it but were briefed by the IAEA and endorsed it as part of the larger package.

On Wednesday, White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said the Obama administration was "confident in the agency's technical plans for investigating the possible military dimensions of Iran's former program. ... The IAEA has separately developed the most robust inspection regime ever peacefully negotiated."

All IAEA member countries must give the agency some insight into their nuclear programs. Some are required to do no more than give a yearly accounting of the nuclear material they possess. But nations'-- like Iran '-- suspected of possible proliferation are under greater scrutiny that can include stringent inspections.

The agreement in question diverges from normal procedures by allowing Tehran to employ its own experts and equipment in the search for evidence of activities it has consistently denied '-- trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Olli Heinonen, who was in charge of the Iran probe as deputy IAEA director general from 2005 to 2010, said he could think of no similar concession with any other country.

The White House has repeatedly denied claims of a secret side deal favorable to Tehran. IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told Republican senators last week that he was obligated to keep the document confidential.

Iran has refused access to Parchin for years and has denied any interest in '-- or work on '-- nuclear weapons. Based on U.S., Israeli and other intelligence and its own research, the IAEA suspects that the Islamic Republic may have experimented with high-explosive detonators for nuclear arms.

The IAEA has cited evidence, based on satellite images, of possible attempts to sanitize the site since the alleged work stopped more than a decade ago.

The document seen by the AP is a draft that one official familiar with its contents said doesn't differ substantially from the final version. He demanded anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue in public.

The document is labeled "separate arrangement II," indicating there is another confidential agreement between Iran and the IAEA governing the agency's probe of the nuclear weapons allegations.

Iran is to provide agency experts with photos and videos of locations the IAEA says are linked to the alleged weapons work, "taking into account military concerns."

That wording suggests that '-- beyond being barred from physically visiting the site '-- the agency won't get photo or video information from areas Iran says are off-limits because they have military significance.

While the document says the IAEA "will ensure the technical authenticity" of Iran's inspection, it does not say how.

The draft is unsigned but the proposed signatory for Iran is listed as Ali Hoseini Tash, deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council for Strategic Affairs. That reflects the significance Tehran attaches to the agreement.

Iranian diplomats in Vienna were unavailable for comment, Wednesday while IAEA spokesman Serge Gas said the agency had no immediate comment.

The main focus of the July 14 deal between Iran and six world powers is curbing Iran's present nuclear program that could be used to make weapons. But a subsidiary element obligates Tehran to cooperate with the IAEA in its probe of the past allegations.

The investigation has been essentially deadlocked for years, with Tehran asserting the allegations are based on false intelligence from the U.S., Israel and other adversaries. But Iran and the U.N. agency agreed last month to wrap up the investigation by December, when the IAEA plans to issue a final assessment.

That assessment is unlikely to be unequivocal. Still, it is expected to be approved by the IAEA's board, which includes the United States and the other nations that negotiated the July 14 agreement. They do not want to upend their broader deal, and will see the December report as closing the books on the issue.

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Source: Consortiumnews

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 01:15

Between Republican partisanship and Israeli pressure, the ranks of U.S. politicians and pundits opposed to the Iran nuclear deal are growing. But their arguments, including from Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Corker, remain logically flimsy and counter-factual, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

By Paul R. Pillar

Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has long given us hope for reasonableness even when he and we have been surrounded by partisan rabidity and a lack of reason. Corker was one of the few Republican senators to refrain from signing the Tom Cotton letter that lectured the Iranians on how they cannot count on the United States sticking to any agreement that Iran may reach with it.

When others in Congress were looking for ways to use new sanctions to torpedo preemptively any agreement on restricting Iran's nuclear program, Corker was working on legislation to provide structure to Congressional review of any agreement that emerged from the negotiations. The initial version of his bill was studded with poison pills, but Corker showed the flexibility, working with acting ranking Democrat Ben Cardin, to revise it into something balanced enough that it was enacted with broad bipartisan support and signed by President Barack Obama.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

It has been a fairly safe bet for some time that Corker would eventually oppose the nuclear agreement; with Jeff Flake, the only Republican senator who was possibly in play on the issue, having announced his opposition the other day, the GOP ranks in the Senate will be completely closed.

But still one might hope to see signs of well-informed reasonableness, especially as a welcome contrast with the bombast of the presidential campaign, in which those vying for primary votes from the party base are striving to outdo each other in denouncing the agreement with comparisons to genocidal ovens and the like. We will have enough to worry about concerning the future of the agreement and thus the ability to restrain Iran's nuclear activities if one of those candidates, laden with such campaign baggage, makes it to the White House.

It thus is sad, but also revealing, to see how utterly weak are Corker's announced reasons for opposing the agreement, at least those he can fit into the space of an op-ed. Well-informed reasonableness this is not.

Corker says that rather than ending Iran's enrichment program, the deal ''industrializes'' it '-- whatever that means. Ending Iranian enrichment of uranium altogether was never feasible. The agreement severely restricts both the level of enrichment and the amount of enriched uranium Iran can stockpile.

Maybe ''de-industrialization'' is a term that could more aptly be applied to what the agreement accomplishes on that score compared to what the Iranians had been doing before the preliminary agreement was reached. In observing the terms of that agreement, Iran already has substantially walked back its program from what was taking place earlier.

The senator speaks of an inspection process that is ''deeply flawed,'' with ''unorthodox arrangements'' and ''secret'' agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency. In fact, the negotiated inspection arrangements are consistent with the Additional Protocol for IAEA inspections, and they conform to the usual practice of having individually negotiated procedures that are kept confidential between the IAEA and the member state.

The only respect in which the procedures are ''unorthodox'' is that they are more extensive and more intrusive than any other nuclear inspection arrangement '-- the most extensive and intrusive that any nation has ever agreed through negotiation to place its own program under. The constant and detailed monitoring of declared facilities is supplemented by inspections of any other suspect Iranian facilities through carefully drafted procedures that ensure that if there is any disagreement, the Iranians get outvoted and the facility gets inspected.

Corker then gets into non-nuclear issues in ways that are nothing short of strange. He writes that ''we will be relying on Iran to help achieve our goals in Iraq, Syria and perhaps elsewhere.'' So is he saying it would be better if Iran not help us to achieve our goals in such places?

He does say ''this abrupt rebalancing could have the effect of driving others in the region to take greater risks, leading to greater instability.'' The parties to the nuclear agreement have, throughout the negotiation, all stayed focused on the nuclear issue itself, and any rebalancing that results will hardly be ''abrupt.'' It also is hard to see how restricting what Iran can do with its nuclear program produces instability.

Besides, if other parties in the region are going to engage in risky behavior that is a problem with them, not with Iran, and such behavior needs to be addressed directly. Corker tries to tie this confused set of issues back to the agreement by saying that Iranian awareness of all this ''helped the regime continually erode the deal to its benefit.'' Erode from what?

The obligations in this agreement, other than reducing the punishment of Iran, are all obligations for Iran to fulfill. The starting point, before negotiations began, was an Iranian nuclear program subject to no restrictions at all beyond Iran's basic obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Corker tries to cast a general aspersion on the negotiations by stating that ''since negotiations began in earnest'' all sorts of nasty things have happened in the region that involve Iran in some way: that Iran has ''doubled down on its support of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad,'' and ''cemented Hezbollah as an expeditionary shock force'' while lots of people have died in the Syrian civil war and ISIS has been doing bad things in Iraq.

Nothing whatever is provided in the way of either evidence or reasoning that any of this has anything to do with either the negotiations or the agreement that emerged from them. Besides the absence of logic and evidence, this blurt contradicts Corker's use in the next paragraph of the now shop-worn theme that sanctions relief will give the Iranians ''hundreds of billions of dollars'' '-- a gross overestimate '-- to do those proverbially nefarious things in the region.

If that theme were valid '-- i.e., that Iran's regional policy will be dictated by its available financial resources '-- then we should have seen a reduction in Iranian regional activity when the sanctions began to bite, and a further reduction when oil prices plunged. But Corker, in his effort to suggest that bad things happen whenever one negotiates with Iranians, is telling us that the opposite has occurred.

In fact, if there is any pattern at all in Iranian regional activity over the last several years it is that the activity is reactive, with the Iranians responding to civil wars or the emergence of extremist mini-states or and any other events that affect Iranian interests.

Corker winds up by talking about ''leverage'' as if the more sanctions that are in place, the more leverage we have. That represents a fundamental misunderstanding, or misrepresentation, of leverage and where it comes from. Leverage comes from the ability and prospect to reward someone if they do as we want or to punish them if they were to act contrary to our wishes.

The prospect of sanctions relief is what gave our side the leverage to induce Iran to agree to place its nuclear program under extraordinary restrictions. The prospect of re-imposition of sanctions will be one of the incentives (though not the only one) for the Iranians to abide by their obligations in the agreement. Sanctions per se give us no leverage. The belief that sanctions will stay in place no matter what gives Iran no incentive to concede, to comply, or to do anything else in accordance with our wishes.

Bob Corker has an important role to play in Congressional oversight of implementation of the nuclear agreement, especially assuming continued Republican control of the Senate and thus continuation of Corker's chairmanship of the foreign relations committee. He can still play that role positively and constructively. He has been responsible enough and careful enough not to tie himself in the kind of constraining rhetorical knots that several of the presidential candidates have.

Let us hope that he can discard the crummy arguments and, once the agreement is implemented, perform his oversight function vigorously. Meanwhile, his posture on the agreement is a demonstration of just how weak the arguments against it are.

Paul R. Pillar, in his 28 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, rose to be one of the agency's top analysts. He is now a visiting professor at Georgetown University for security studies. (This article first appeared as a blog post at The National Interest's Web site. Reprinted with author's permission.)

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 17:41

Posted on August 18, 2015 by willyloman

by Paul Craig Roberts

I have been contacted by attorney John Remington Graham, a member in good standing of the bar of the Minnesota Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. He informs me that acting in behalf of Maret Tsanaeva, the aunt of the accused Tsamaev brothers and a citizen of the Kyrgyz Republic where she is qualified to practice law, he has assisted her in filing with the US District Court in Boston a pro se motion, including an argument of amicus curiae, and an affidavit of Maret Tsarnaeva. The presiding judge has ordered that these documents be included in the formal record of the case so they will be publicly accessible. The documents are reproduced below.

The documents argue that on the basis of the evidence provided by the FBI, there is no basis for the indictment of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The FBI's evidence clearly concludes that the bomb was in a black knapsack, but the photographs used to establish Dzhokhar's presence at the marathon show him with a white knapsack. Moreover, the knapsack lacks the heavy bulging appearance that a knapsack containing a bomb would have.

backpack containing bomb supposedly planed by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

As readers know, I have been suspicious of the Boston Marathon Bombing from the beginning. It seems obvious that both Tsamaev brothers were intended to be killed in the alleged firefight with police, like the alleged perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo affair in Paris. Convenient deaths in firefights are accepted as indications of guilt and solve the problem of trying innocent patsies.

In Dzhokhar's case, his guilt was established not by evidence but by accusations, by the betrayal of his government-appointed public defender Judy Clarke who declared Dzhokhar's guilt in her opening statement of her ''defense,'' by an alleged confession, evidence of which was never provided, written by Dzhokhar on a boat under which the badly wounded youth lay dying until discovered by the boat owner and hospitalized in critical condition. Following his conviction by his defense attorney, Dzhokhar allegedly confessed again in jihadist terms. As legal scholars have known for centuries, confessions are worthless as indicators of guilt.

Dzhokhar was not convicted on the basis of evidence.

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Archived Version

Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 16:49

EXECUTIVE ORDER

- - - - - - -

PRESIDENTIAL INNOVATION FELLOWS PROGRAM

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. It is in the national interest for the Federal Government to attract the brightest minds skilled in technology or innovative practices to serve in the Federal Government to work on some of the Nation's biggest and most pressing challenges. This order establishes a program to encourage successful entrepreneurs, executives, and innovators to join the Federal Government and work in close cooperation with Federal Government leaders, to create meaningful solutions that can help save lives and taxpayer money, fuel job creation, and significantly improve how the Federal Government serves the American people.

Sec. 2. Establishment and Administration. (a) The Administrator of General Services (Administrator) shall establish the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program (Program) to enable exceptional individuals with proven track records to serve time-limited appointments in executive branch departments and agencies (agencies) to address some of the Nation's most significant challenges and improve existing Government efforts that would particularly benefit from expertise using innovative techniques and technology. Individuals selected for the Program shall be known as Presidential Innovation Fellows (Fellows).

(b) The Program shall be administered by a Director, appointed by the Administrator under authorities of the General Services Administration (GSA). GSA shall provide necessary staff, resources and administrative support for the Program to the extent permitted by law and within existing appropriations.

(c) GSA shall appoint the Fellows and, in cooperation with agencies, shall facilitate placement of the Fellows to participate in projects that have the potential for significant positive effects and are consistent with the President's goals.

Sec. 3. Advisory Board. (a) The Administrator shall establish an Advisory Board to advise the Director by recommending such priorities and standards as may be beneficial to fulfill the mission of the Program and assist in identifying potential projects and placements for Fellows. The Advisory Board will not participate in the Fellows' selection process.

(b) The Administrator will designate a representative to serve as the Chair of the Advisory Board. In addition to the Chair, the membership of the Advisory Board shall include the Deputy Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Management and Budget's Administrator of the Office of Electronic Government, and the Assistant to the President and Chief Technology Officer, or their designees and such other persons as may be designated by the Administrator. Consistent with law, the Advisory Board may consult with industry, academia, or non-profits to ensure the Program is continually identifying opportunities to apply advanced skillsets and innovative practices in effective ways to address the Nation's most significant challenges.

Sec. 4. Application Process. (a) The Director, in accordance with applicable law, shall prescribe the process for applications and nominations of individuals to the Program.

(b) Following publication of these processes, the Director may accept for consideration applications from individuals. The Director shall establish, administer, review, and revise, if appropriate, a Government-wide cap on the number of Fellows. The Director shall establish and publish salary ranges, benefits, and standards for the Program.

Sec. 5. Selection, Appointment, and Assignment of Fellows. (a) The Director, in accordance with applicable law, shall prescribe appropriate procedures for the selection, appointment, and assignment of Fellows.

(b) Prior to the selection of Fellows, the Director will consult with agencies and executive branch departments, regarding potential projects and how best to meet those needs. Following such consultation, the Director shall select and appoint individuals to serve as Fellows.

(c) The Fellows shall serve under short-term, time-limited appointments. As a general matter, they shall be appointed for no less than 6 months and no longer than 2 years in the Program. The Director shall facilitate the process of placing Fellows at requesting agencies and executive branch departments.

Sec. 6. Responsibilities of Agencies. Each executive branch department or agency, as defined in section 105 of title 5, United States Code, is encouraged to work with the Director and Advisory Board to attempt to maximize the Program's benefits to the department or agency and the Federal Government, including by identifying initiatives that will have a meaningful effect on the people served and that will benefit from involvement by one or more Fellows. Departments and agencies also are encouraged to ensure that each Fellow will work closely with responsible senior officials for the duration of the assignment.

Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to a department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE,August 17, 2015.

# # #

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Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 16:49

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

''My hope is this continues to encourage a culture of public service among our innovators, and tech entrepreneurs, so that we can keep building a government that's as modern, as innovative, and as engaging as our incredible tech sector is. To all the Fellows who've served so far '' thank you. I encourage all Americans with bold ideas to apply. And I can't wait to see what those future classes will accomplish on behalf of the American people.'' ''-President Barack Obama

Today, President Obama signed an executive order that makes the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program a permanent part of the Federal government going forward. The program brings executives, entrepreneurs, technologists, and other innovators into government, and teams them up with Federal employees to improve programs that serve more than 150 million Americans.

The Presidential Innovation Fellows Program is built on four key principles:

Recruit the best our nation has to offer: Fellows include entrepreneurs, startup founders, and innovators with experience at large technology companies and startups, each of whom leverage their proven skills and technical expertise to create huge value for the public.Partner with innovators inside government: Working as teams, the Presidential Innovation Fellows and their partners across the government create products and services that are responsive, user-friendly, and help to improve the way the Federal government interacts with the American people.Deploy proven private sector strategies: Fellows leverage best practices from the private sector to deliver better, more effective programs and policies across the Federal government.Focus on some of the Nation's biggest and most pressing challenges: Projects focus on topics such as improving access to education, fueling job creation and the economy, and expanding the public's ability to access their personal health data.Additional Details on Today's Announcements

The Executive Order formally establishes the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program within the General Services Administration (GSA), where it will continue to serve departments and agencies throughout the Executive Branch. The Presidential Innovation Fellow Program will be administered by a Director and guided by a newly-established Advisory Board. The Director will outline steps for the selection, hiring, and deployment of Fellows within government.

Announcing New Fellows

Today, the Administration is also announcing 6 new Presidential Innovation Fellows from industry that will begin serving in the coming weeks. Since the launch of the Presidential Innovation Fellows pilot program in 2012, 96 top innovators have been recruited into this highly-competitive program from across the country.

The new Fellows being announced today are:

Adam Bonnifield, from Washington, DC, a digital strategist, developer and the co-founder of Spinnakr, a platform for making big data accessible and actionable.Ross Dakin, from Palo Alto, CA, a software engineer who has created novel financial services at Upstart Network, cyber threat intelligence tools at BrightPoint Security, and same-day infrastructure at Deliv.Luke Keller, from Brooklyn, NY, a product designer and strategist who developed products to help educators introduce character development to their classrooms at Character Lab.Kate McCall-Kiley, from Kensington, MD, a designer specializing in human-centered design and social change who previously served on innovation teams at Booz Allen Hamilton, Capital One, and Design for America.Josh Patterson, from Columbia, SC, a data scientist and economist who most recently lead the development of big data systems at Accenture Technology Labs.Alexandra Pelletier, from Jamaica Plain, MA, a product manager who most recently served as the digital lead for the Innovation Acceleration Program at Boston Children's Hospital.Building on Success: Additional Details on the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program to Date

Since the launch of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program in 2012, 96 top innovators have been recruited into this highly-competitive program from across the country, including places like: Silicon Valley; New York City; Austin; Washington, D.C.; and Boston.

Recruit the Best

A core element of the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program is to recruit leading entrepreneurs, innovators, developers, designers, and engineers into government for ''tours of duty.'' In the past three years, Fellows who have served include:

Director of Engineering at Macromedia, Sarah AllenOpen Source Health Developer and Navy Veteran, Tom BlackLecturer at the d.School (Institute of Design at Stanford) and Director of Social Innovation at Hot Studio, Sarah BrooksManager of Mobile Analytics at The New York Times,Rachel Harrison GordonPartner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, Scott HartleyBusiness Development Lead at IDEO, Ashley JablowCo-Founder of Blue State Digital, Clay JohnsonLead Developer at Google Maps, Susannah RaubPresident and CFO of Shutterstock, Adam RiggsDirector of Enterprise Information for City of New Orleans, Denice RossCo-Founder of DMV.org, Vidya SpandanaFounder of the weather service Weather Underground, Alan SterembergPrincipal Software Architect at Boston Children's Hospital, Gajen SuntharaSenior Medical Director at Aetna, Henry Wei, MDFrom Fellow to Leader

To date, 35 Fellows have stayed on inside government to continue to serve in new roles once their Fellowship ended. These former Fellows include:

Chief Architect of Data.gov, Phil Ashlock (2012 Fellow)Chief Data Officer of the Department of Commerce, Ian Kalin (2012 Fellow)Chief Technology Officer of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Marina Martin (2012 Fellow)U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer at the White House, Ryan Panchadsaram (2012 Fellow)Executive Director of 18F, Aaron Snow, and Deputy Executive Director of 18F, Hillary Hartley (2013 Fellows)Director of the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program, Garren Givens (2013 Fellow)Chief Technology Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency, Gregory Godbout (2013 Fellow)Senior Policy Advisor, Office of the Secretary at the State Department, Adam Riggs (2013 Fellow)Founding team of the United States Digital Service, Charles Worthington and Mollie Ruskin (2013 Fellows)The full list of Fellows and their backgrounds can be found here: https://presidentialinnovationfellows.gov/fellows/.

Presidential Innovation Fellow Projects and Accomplishments

Fellows have partnered with leaders at more than 25 government agencies, delivering impressive results in months, not years, driving extraordinary work and innovative solutions in areas such as health care; open data and data science; crowd-sourcing initiatives; education; veterans affairs; jobs and the economy; and disaster response and recovery. Examples of projects include:

Open Data

When government acts as a platform, entrepreneurs, startups, and the private sector can build value-added services and tools on top of federal datasets supported by federal policies. Taking this approach, Fellows and agency stakeholders have supported the creation of new products and services focused on education, health, the environment, and social justice. As a result of their efforts and the agencies they have worked with:

To date, the Administration has opened more than 130,000 data sets. Fellows working with GSA prototyped and delivered an upgrade to Data.gov, making it easier for agencies to provide data to the public, while also spurring innovation around new tools and services to make that data more useful. In addition, Fellows helped drive the rollout of open data standards at nearly a dozen agencies in support of the President's Executive Order making open data the default practice for the Federal Government.Millions of adverse event and medication error reports on FDA-regulated drugs are now online. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) partnered with a Fellow to launch openFDA, an initiative that puts millions of adverse event and medication error reports on FDA-regulated drugs in the public domain and available through an application programming interface (API).Leveraging open data to build trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities that they serve. A team of Fellows, in collaboration with the White House Domestic Policy Council, the Office of Science Technology & Policy, and other White House offices and Departments and Agencies, have been at the forefront of the Police Data Initiative, which responds to the recommendations of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. The initiative has brought together police chiefs, municipal chief technology officers, and the private-sector to facilitate the efforts of law enforcement agencies to publish open data about police activities such as officer-involved-shootings, vehicle stops, and citizen complaints. There are currently 26 jurisdictions working to make available new data sets to the public through this initiative.More than 150 utilities and vendors have committed to providing over 60 million households in the United States access to their personalized energy data. Fellows, in collaboration with the Department of Energy, National Institute of Standards and Technology, the North American Energy Standards Board, utilities and vendors, worked to double the reach of Green Button, which aims to reduce waste and shrink energy bills by providing consumers with secure, easy-to-understand information about how they are using energy in their households.With more than 205,000 downloads, the OSHA Heat App is helping to protect workers and save lives. As part of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) effort to help outdoor workers prevent heat illness, a Fellow worked with OSHA to release of a new version of the Heat Safety Tool mobile app. Since the update, the app has 30,000 new users. The app informs employers and workers about current weather conditions and provides information to help users plan work schedules accordingly and take other precautions to prepare for extreme heat.Jobs and the Economy

Fellows continue to work on solutions that will give the government better access to innovative tools and services. This is also helping small and medium-sized companies create jobs and compete for Federal government contracts.

Fellows learned that greater transparency on procurements led to more competitive bids. Working with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), Fellows helped SBA pilot an online platform called RFP-EZ in only six months to make it easier for small tech businesses to bid on government contracts. Critical feedback from this pilot showed that greater transparency led to more competitive bids, benefitting both the agencies and the taxpayers they serve.Fellows are helping small businesses search for opportunities to work with the Federal government. Working with GSA, a team of Fellows designed FBOpen, a platform that opens the catalogue of Federal opportunities to a larger audience, and helps small business more easily find opportunities to work with the Federal government.Fellows are working to make it easier for government to engage modern software development services. Fellows partnered with GSA's Office of Integrated Technology Services to begin the process of establishing a government-wide Agile Delivery Services Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA). When finished, this product aims to enable agencies to buy agile web and mobile development services in a more cost effective and easier way.A Fellow helped streamlined the review process for international development grants. A Fellow advised USAID's Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) fund leaders on methods to streamline operations and improve the selection and review process for grants.Digital Government

The Presidential Innovation Fellows Program is a part of the Administration's strategy to create lasting change across the Federal Government by improving how it uses technology. The Fellows played a part in launching 18F within the General Services Administration (GSA) and the U.S. Digital Services (USDS) team within the Office of Management and Budget.

Helping agencies better deliver on their missions through advancing a collaborative, creative and modern approach to software development. 18F is the consultancy inside the GSA that helps government agencies build and buy digital services. In just 18 months, 18F has grown from its founding team to over 110 specialists providing software delivery, consulting, infrastructure and talent services to nearly every major federal agency.Transforming government's most important digital services. The United States Digital Service brings America's best technical talent into the Federal government to apply their skills and knowledge to improve the nation's most important citizen-facing digital services. USDS teams work side by side with agency partners and leadership across government to transform some of our most important services to work better for users.These teams are employing the best of product design and engineering practices to ensure projects are delivered, scale, and meet the needs of the public.Supporting Our Veterans

Launched an online tool to make it easier for Veterans to calculate their education benefits. Fellows helped the Department of Veterans Affairs launch an online GI Bill Comparison Tool that makes it easier for Veterans, Servicemembers, and dependents to calculate their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits and learn about the VA's approved colleges, universities, and available education and training programs across the country.Built a one-stop shop for finding employment opportunities. The Veterans Employment Center was developed by a team of Fellows working with the Department of Veterans Affairs in connection with the First Lady's Joining Forces Initiative and the Department of Labor. This is the first interagency website connecting Veterans, transitioning Servicemembers, and their spouses to meaningful employment opportunities. The portal has resulted in cost savings of over $27 million to the Department of Veterans Affairs.Education

More than 1,900 superintendents pledged to more effectively leverage education technology in their schools. Fellows working at the Department of Education helped develop the idea of Future Ready, which later informed the creation of the Future Ready District Pledge. The Future Ready District Pledge is designed to set out a roadmap to achieve successful personalized digital learning for every student and to commit districts to move as quickly as possible towards our shared vision of preparing students for success. Following the President's announcement of this effort in 2014, more than 1,900 superintendents have signed this pledge, representing 14 million students.Launched a resource for students to learn how to respond to and prevent sexual assault on campuses. As part of a recommendation from the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, Fellows contributed to the launch of NotAlone.gov, a Department of Education website that provides resources for students, schools, and citizens on how to respond to, and prevent, sexual assault on college and university campuses and in schools. NotAlone.gov has received over 540,000 page views to-date.Crowdsourcing platform enabled volunteers to review more than 18,000 historic and scientific records. A team of Fellows helped develop a crowdsourcing platform for the Smithsonian Transcription Center that allows the public to transcribe handwritten historical documents and records, support important research, and provide an important avenue for Americans to help preserve the Nation's history. In just six months, working with partners at the Smithsonian, Fellows launched an end-to-end solution for creating digital records for historic files, leading to a cost-savings of $6 million for outsourcing transcriptions.Health and Patient Care

More than 150 million Americans are able to access their health records online. Multiple rounds of Fellows have worked with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to expand the reach of the Blue Button Initiative. As a result, patients are able to access their electronic health records to make more informed decisions about their own health care. The Blue Button Initiative has received more than 600 commitments from organizations to advance health information access efforts across the country and has expanded into other efforts that support health care system interoperability.Fellows were part of the Healthcare.gov rescue team that helped stabilize and support enrollment website. Two Fellows were part of the initial Healthcare.gov ''rescue'' team. After stabilizing the site, the team continued to support the Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services via open enrollment, ultimately enrolling millions of people in affordable health coverage.Disaster Response and Recovery

Communities are piloting crowdsourcing tools to assess damage after disasters. Fellows developed the GeoQ platform with FEMA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency that crowdsources photos of disaster-affected areas to assess damage over large regions. This information helps the Federal government better allocate critical response and recovery efforts following a disaster and allows local governments to use geospatial information in their communities.Calling All Innovators

The Presidential Innovation Fellows program is on the lookout for more of the most talented innovators and technologists to join the team and work on our Nation's most pressing challenges. Fellows serve for 12 months as entrepreneurs-in-residence, working quickly and iteratively to turn promising ideas into game-changing solutions. The first step is to apply online at www.pif.gov.

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Archived Version

Source: Rss special

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 17:37

Negotiations on the western route supplying Russian gas to China are showing ''very good dynamics'', Gazprom said after a meeting with PetroChina

Progress on negotiating the supply of gas from Russia via China's western route is going well, Gazprom announced after a meeting with PetroChina.

At a working meeting at Gazprom's headquarters, Alexey Miller, Chairman of Gazprom's Management Committee and Huang Weihe, Vice President of PetroChina addressed the issues of arranging Russian gas supply to China via the western route.

''The current project negotiations show a very good dynamics'', Gazprom said in a statement.

''It was pointed out that the main terms and conditions of supply had already been specified, for instance, a Russian-Chinese border crossing corridor for the future gas pipeline.''

The western route would enable the supply of 30 billion cubic meters a year to China from Western Siberia's fields.

The agreement on a pipeline to supply gas from Russia to China via the western route was signed on 8 May 2015 by Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), which has the majority stake in PetroChina, a major Chinese company focused on oil and gas production and sales.

Alexey Miller and Huang Weihe also addressed progress of gas supply to China via the eastern route, around which project operations in Russia and China are running according to schedule, Gazprom said.

The eastern route stipulates gas supply from the Yakutia and Irkutsk gas production centres to China via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline.

Gazprom and CNPC signed a Purchase and Sale Agreement for the Russian gas supply via the eastern route on May 21 2014. This 30-year contract provides for 38 billion cubic meters of Russian gas supplies to China a year.

Gazprom, a global energy company based in Russia, holds the world's largest reserves of natural gas.

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Archived Version

Tue, 18 Aug 2015 17:47

Bij een douanepost tussen Rusland en Oekra¯ne hebben Russische douaniers vijftig jonge eendjes levend verbrand, omdat deze zonder de juiste papieren over de grens gesmokkeld waren. Dat meldt HLN.

De eendjes waren gekocht in Kardiv, een stad in Oekra¯ne, en werden door de man meegesmokkeld om later te kunnen verkopen.

"Hij beschikte niet over de nodige papieren en dus werd beslist om de eendjes te vernietigen", aldus overheidswoordvoerster Svetlana Zaporozchenko. "Na de vernietiging werden de dieren begraven", voegt de Russin er - als pleister op de wonde - nog aan toe.

Help ons; deel dit item als je het leuk vondDanny Roodbol

Danny Roodbol is de initiatiefnemer, oprichter en eigenaar van fok.nl. Is maar zelden serieus, maar heeft een uitgesproken mening die vaak vooral niet politiek correct is.

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Archived Version

Source: Consortiumnews

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 01:16

Exclusive: The Pentagon's new ''Law of War'' manual puts some journalists in the category of ''unprivileged belligerents,'' meaning they can be tried by military tribunals as spies, a further sign of U.S. government hostility toward reporting that undercuts Washington's goals, writes veteran war correspondent Don North.

By Don North

Honest war correspondents and photographers who try to cover wars effectively are about to become suspect spies if a new Pentagon manual, ''Law of War,'' is accepted by U.S. military commanders. I can confirm from personal experience that reporting on wars is hard enough without being considered a suspicious character secretly working for the other side.

The 1,176-page manual, published on June 24, is the first comprehensive revision made to the Defense Department's law of war policy since 1956. One change in terminology directly targets journalists, saying ''in general, journalists are civilians,'' but under some circumstances, journalists may be regarded as ''unprivileged belligerents.'' [p. 173] That places reporters in the same ranks as Al Qaeda, since the term ''unprivileged belligerents'' replaces the Bush-era phrase ''unlawful combatants.''

An ABC News cameraman in the Persian Gulf War films the arrival of Syrian troops. (Photo credit: Don North)

''Reporting on military operations can be very similar to collecting intelligence or even spying,'' the manual says, calling on journalists to ''act openly and with the permission of relevant authorities.'' The manual notes that governments ''may need to censor journalists' work or take other security measures so that journalists do not reveal sensitive information to the enemy.''

The manual's new language reflects a long-term growing hostility within the U.S. military toward unencumbered reporting about battlefield operations as well as a deepening interest in ''information warfare,'' the idea that control over what the public gets to hear and see is an important way of ensuring continued popular support for a conflict at home and undermining the enemy abroad.

But allowing this manual to stand as guidance for commanders, government lawyers and leaders of foreign nations would severely damage press freedoms, not only for Americans but internationally. It would drastically inhibit the news media ability to cover future wars honestly and keep the public informed, which is after all what both U.S. government officials and journalists say they want.

Bitter Vietnam Memories

The new manual also reflects an historical trend. During the Vietnam War, a majority of U.S. military officers believed the press should have been under more restraint. By the early years of the Reagan administration, it had become an article of faith among many conservatives that the press had helped lose that war by behaving more as disloyal fifth columnists than a respectable Fourth Estate.

So, the Pentagon began to strike back. During the short-lived Grenada invasion of 1983, press coverage was banned in the early phases of the conflict. Soon, the Pentagon began a more formal process of both constraining and co-opting journalists. In the first Gulf War, journalists were forced to work in restrictive ''pools.'' In the Iraq War, reporters were ''embedded'' with military units while facing multiple limitations on what they could say and write.

Now, the Pentagon appears to be engaging in an attempt at intimidation or ''prior restraint,'' essentially warning journalists that if they are deemed to have reported something that undermines the war effort, they could be deemed ''unprivileged belligerents,'' presumably opening them to trial by military tribunals or to indefinite detention.

And, while that might seem to be an extreme interpretation, the manual's ominous wording comes at a time when the U.S. government has escalated its denunciations of what it regards as ''propaganda'' from journalists at RT, a Russian network, and earlier of Al-Jazeera, an Arab-based network, both of which broadcast internationally, including inside the United States offering alternative perspectives and contrasting information from what is often reported in the mainstream U.S. media.

Growing Dangers

This rhetoric labeling unwelcome journalism as ''propaganda'' hostile to U.S. national security goals also comes at a time of global political turmoil that has seen a shocking number of journalists jailed, intimidated and murdered with impunity simply for doing their jobs.

Reporters Without Borders reported 61 journalists killed last year, with 59 percent dying while covering wars. The same study found media freedom in retreat across the globe, including in the United States, which ranked 49th among the 180 nations examined regarding the environment for press activities, the lowest standing since President Barack Obama took office.

The Reporters Without Borders report suggests that the Pentagon's new manual may be part of a worldwide trend in which governments see shaping the presentation of information as an important national security goal and skeptical journalism as an impediment.

''Many governments used control and manipulation of media coverage as a weapon of war in 2014, ranging from over-coverage to complete news blackout,'' the report stated. ''It creates a hostile climate for journalists and has disastrous consequences for media pluralism.''

In the United States, the hostility toward unwanted or unapproved reporting '' whether from RT, Al-Jazeera or WikiLeaks '' has merged with more classification of information and greater delays in releasing material sought through Freedom of Information channels.

Despite President Obama's pledge to make his administration one of the most transparent in history, press freedom watchdogs have continually slammed his administration as one of the least transparent and criticized its aggressive prosecution of leakers, including Army Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning for releasing evidence of apparent war crimes in the Iraq and Afghan wars. Manning received a 35-year prison sentence and is currently facing possible solitary confinement for alleged prison infractions.

The Obama administration's obsession with secrecy even extended to the status of the new manual's views about war reporting. A spokesman for the National Security Council has declined to say whether the White House contributed to or signed off on the manual.

The manual does contain a disclaimer about its possible limits: ''The views in this manual do not necessarily reflect the views of '... the US government.''

The manual was issued by the office of Stephen W. Preston, general counsel for the Pentagon and former chief attorney for the CIA. After six years overseeing the Obama administration's legal policy with respect to lethal drone attacks as well as the raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the current war against the Islamic State, Preston resigned from the Pentagon in June following publication of the manual and has not been available for comment.

Media Pushback

The manual has even drawn some criticism from the mainstream U.S. media. On Aug. 10, a New York Times editorial declared: ''Allowing this document to stand as guidance for commanders, government lawyers and officials of other nations would do severe damage to press freedoms.''

The Times also dismissed the value of the manual's disclaimer about not necessarily reflecting the views of the U.S. government: ''That inane disclaimer won't stop commanders pointing to the manual when they find it convenient to silence the press. The White House should call on Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to revise this section, which so clearly runs contrary to American law and principles.''

Reporters Without Borders published an open letter to Secretary Carter calling on him to revise ''dangerous language'' of the Pentagon manual that suggests journalists can become ''unprivileged belligerents,'' akin to spies or saboteurs.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists in a critique of the manual writes, ''By giving approval for the military to detain journalists on vague national security grounds, the manual is sending a disturbing message to dictatorships and democracies alike. The same accusations and threats to national security are routinely used to put journalists behind bars in nations like China, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Russia to name just a few.''

Public attention to the new Pentagon manual came at an awkward time for U.S. government officials. Secretary of State John Kerry was recently in Hanoi lecturing the Vietnamese to let up on oppressed journalists and release bloggers from jail.

In Iran, the U.S. government has protested the trial of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian on spying charges and has marshaled international support behind demands for his release. United Nations human rights advocates called on Tehran to release Rezaian, declaring: ''Journalists must be protected, not harassed, detained or prosecuted.''

So, the new ''law of war'' manual suggests that we are seeing another case of American double standards, lecturing the world about principles that the U.S. government chooses to ignore when its own perceived interests are seen as endangered.

The reality is that the U.S. military has often taken questionable action against journalists, particularly Arab journalists working for U.S. or third country agencies. AP photographer, Bilal Hussein, whose photo of insurgents firing on Marines in Fallujah in 2004 earned him a Pulitzer Prize, was detained by the U.S. Marines and held two years without charges, evidence or explanation.

Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj was detained in 2001 while covering a U.S. offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan. U.S. military forces accused the Sudanese cameraman of being a financial courier for armed groups but never produced evidence to support the claims. Al-Haj was held for six years at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Prior to releasing him, according to his lawyer, U.S. military officials tried to compel al-Haj to spy on Al-Jazeera as a condition of his release.

In its 6,000-plus footnotes, the manual ignores these two cases. Instead it suggests its own perspective on how journalists covering conflicts should operate: ''To avoid being mistaken for spies, journalists should act openly and with the permission of relevant authorities'' '' advice that is both impractical and problematic.

For instance, how would the U.S. military respond if ''the permission of relevant authorities'' came from a battlefield adversary? Would that be taken as prime facie evidence that the reporter was collaborating with the enemy?

Plus, in any war that I've covered from Vietnam to Iraq, I have never gone looking for ''relevant authorities'' in the fog of battle, as finding one would be as unlikely as it would be risky. Indeed, the more likely result if such a person was found would be for the reporter to be detained and prevented from doing his or her job rather than receiving some permission slip.

Such na¯ve advice suggests the editors of this manual have had little experience in combat situations.

Don North as a young war correspondent in Vietnam.

A False Comparison

When asked to give an example of when a reporter would be an ''unprivileged belligerent,'' a senior Pentagon official pointed to the assassination of the Afghan rebel military commander Ahmad Shah Massoud in September 2001, but the two assassins were not real journalists; they were simply using that as a cover.

I was at Massoud's headquarters at the time and can confirm that the two assassins were Al Qaeda agents from Algeria posing as television journalists with explosives hidden in their camera. They could just as easily have posed as United Nations envoys or as mail couriers. They were not journalists.

Significantly, the manual does not list any current or former American war correspondents as consultants. Military legal experts from Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are listed as having an input, as well as unspecified ''distinguished scholars.''

Whatever their vast knowledge, the manual's author '' as well as those scholars and other military legal experts '' apparently had little familiarity with, or regard for, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which is supposed to guarantee freedom of the press.

Andrew Pearson, who was one of my colleagues at ABC News in Vietnam, observed: ''When the Pentagon gets squeezed between stupid presidents and truth-telling journalists, the answer isn't jail for the journalist,'' though that seems to be the answer that the new manual favors.

''The Pentagon types don't learn that much out on the firing range about the Constitution, so somewhere along the way in our complicated 'democratic system,' there has to be protection for journalists against a Pentagon that thinks they're a dictatorship,'' Pearson added.

In an interview on NPR last Friday, a senior editor of the manual, Charles A. Allen, deputy general counsel for international affairs, could not respond to the question: ''Can you give any examples of any cases of operations being jeopardized by journalists in say the last five wars?'' Allen said he could not provide examples without referring to Pentagon files.

In fact, in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, I can remember only a very few infractions of the media rules by the thousands of journalists covering military operations.

A History of Distrust

Yet, it may be true that the tension between the military and the press will never cease, because both need each other but cannot grant the other what it really wants. The reporters want absolute freedom to print or film everything on the battlefield, while the military's mission is to fight and to win.

The generals would prefer the journalists to perform as organs of state propaganda to ensure popular support for the war or to undermine the enemy. But the journalist's purpose is to find and report the truth to the public, a mission not always compatible with successful warfare, which also relies on secrecy and deception.

As one World War II military censor in Washington described his view of appropriate media relations, ''I wouldn't tell the press anything until the war is over, and then I'd tell them who won.''

The U.S. military's mistrust of the press goes back even further. As General William Tecumseh Sherman '' one of the Civil War's most aggressive and outspoken commanders '' declared: ''I hate newspaper men. I regard them as spies, which in truth they are. If I killed them all, there would be news from hell before breakfast.''

So, war correspondents struggle with the constant conflict between the public's right to know and the military zeal to keep things secret. One side fights for information and the other fights to deny or control it. The U.S. military's legacy of suspicion and even hostility toward the media has been passed down through generations within military institutions like a family heirloom.

It is unlikely we will ever again find ourselves with the unfettered access to war that we had in Vietnam, my first experience as a war correspondent. At that time, the U.S. government recognized the importance of journalists being allowed to do our jobs at our own risk. We were considered a necessary evil that had to be tolerated.

ABC News cameraman Jim Dysilva filming during the Marine advance in the 1968 battle for Hue in the Vietnam War. (Photo credit: Don North)

However, the Vietnam lesson for the U.S. military was that images and the written word can inform the public with devastating effect and can lead to demands for accountability for war crimes as well as an erosion of popular support for the war. In other words, a well-informed public in a democracy might decide that the war was a bad idea and that it should be brought to an end short of victory.

War correspondents have short working lives and there is no tradition or means for passing on their knowledge and experience. However, the American news media must learn to represent themselves collectively with one voice on matters of access to information and censorship as represented in the Pentagon's ''Law of War.''

The news media should establish a working council of news representatives to meet with government and military officials to negotiate acceptable ground rules for the future. Number one on the agenda should be a rewrite of the Pentagon's ''Law of War.''

Don North is a veteran war correspondent who covered the Vietnam War and many other conflicts around the world. He is the author of a new book, Inappropriate Conduct, the story of a World War II correspondent whose career was crushed by the intrigue he uncovered.

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 20:40

Kris Jenner allegedly wants to marry Caitlyn Jenner again, and do it on reality television. The Keeping Up With The Kardashians ''momager'' has allegedly concocted a plan to get a huge payday and give ratings a huge boost at the same time.

Hollywood Life reports that Kris Jenner is the mastermind behind her family's reality TV success, and now has a brand new plan to revitalize her reality television show and ratings by using her ex-husband Caitlyn Jenner's transition, formerly named Bruce Jenner, to her advantage.

''Kris is talking to Caitlyn about getting remarried'' on TV, according to a new report by In Touch Weekly, and the idea of actually doing as Kris ''deliriously happy.''

''Kris is desperate for attention and validation and wants to feel she's still a viable producer and reality star. She's not only ready to burry the hatchet with Caitlyn, but she wants Caitlyn to help her pull off one of the most outrageous stunts of her career: Kris is talking to Caitlyn about getting remarried.''

Kris Jenner allegedly believes that if she and Caitlyn Jenner get remarried on TV, and fans see them standing next to each other in their fabulous wedding dresses, that that she'll somehow gain some serious ground in her reality TV career.

''Kris thinks it's one of her finest ideas ever and that people will go nuts to see her and Caitlyn standing side by side in glamorous designer wedding attire. She's giddy over the idea. The image of her and Caitlyn '-- whom Kris privately still refers to as Bruce, by the way '-- reunited for a fabulous TV wedding makes her deliriously happy.''

Media expert David Johnson says that if Kris and Caitlyn were to marry on TV, it would be amazing for their ratings and the E! Network.

''Kris marrying Caitlyn would be ratings gold for the network airing the ceremony. A special like this could bring in as much as $15 million, and brands would want to be highlighted for donating their wares.''

However, if the Jenners were to reunite in that way, it would be interesting to see how their children reacted to the news. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Kylie Jenner has displayed some serious diva-like behavior as of late, and another big change in her life could send her over the edge, especially now that she's 18.

What are your thoughts on the reports of Kris Jenner and Caitlyn Jenner possibly getting remarried on TV?

[Photo By: Kevin Winter / Getty Images]

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Source: Sputnik International

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 01:26

Europe02:21 20.08.2015Get short URL

BRUSSELS (Sputnik) '-- Earlier on Wednesday, European Commission Vice President for Euro and Social Dialogue Valdis Dombrovskis signed the Memorandum of Understanding for a three-year ESM stability support for Greece.

"The first payment, which will be made tomorrow morning, amounts to 13 billion euros, of which about 12 billion euros will be directed to a special account to settle arrears," the ministry announced.

The Eurogroup approved the 86-billion-euro bailout package aimed at supporting Greece's ailing economy on August 14. In the course of this week, the parliaments of a number of EU member states have been voting on the ratification of the agreement with Athens.

Greece owes more than $270 billion to its main international creditors, including the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and some Eurozone nations.

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Tue, 18 Aug 2015 13:57

Het Duitse Fraport, exploitant van onder meer de luchthaven van Frankfurt, krijgt toestemming voor de overname van veertien regionale luchthavens in Griekenland.Het akkoord komt na lang gesteggel met de Grieken.

Fraport betaalt voor de veertien vliegvelden 1,2 miljard euro. Het is een van de grootste private investeringen sinds het uitbreken van de financile crisis in Griekenland.

De Griekse regering moet vaart maken met de privatiseringen. De verkoop van staatseigendommen is een onderdeel van het akkoord met de geldschieters voor een derde noodpakket van 86 miljard euro.

FondsDe vorige regering was in november al bijna rond met Fraport, maar de huidige regering legde daags na de verkiezingsoverwinning in januari het proces stil.

de overheid mocht alleen nog maar bedrijven van de hand doen als dat zou leiden tot meer werkgelegenheid en als het de economische groei zou stimuleren, zo zei het ministerie van Financin destijds. Een onafhankelijk privatiseringsfonds met een verbeterd bestuur moet nu alsnog geld opleveren; 50 miljard euro in totaal.

Onder de vliegvelden die Fraport overneemt, zijn onder meer de luchthavens van de toeristeneilanden Kos en Rhodos. De exploitant neemt ook het vliegveld over van Thessaloniki, de tweede stad van Griekenland.

Door: ANP/NU.nl

ITM Adam,

GRAND SALE! GRAND SALE! GRAND SALE!

Ran into this Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund document and figured it worth marking down some dates on the calendar.

These dates involve the conclusion of biding submissions to be made on available assets.

http://www.hradf.com/sites/default/files/attachments/20150813-hradf-bod-announcement-en_0.pdf

- OLP - Piraeus Port Authority

- TRAIN OSE S.A. - operates all passenger and freight trains on OSE lines

- ROSCOE S.A - rolling stock maintenance and availability services to train operating companies

- OLTh - Thessaloniki Port Authority

I cant remember if this site http://www.hradf.com/

has been previously discussed on the show but... HOLY MOLY

What a dynamite catalog!

Land Development! Infrastructure! Corporate!

Grand Sale! Grand Sale! Grand Sale!

This along with the Greek Governments decision this week to overturn the blocking of sale of operation involving 14 regional Greek airports.

A winning bid of 1.23 billion euros last year to German airport operator, Fraport AG, is for the moment back underway, as required through the current bail out 'agreements'.

Will the Syriza government hold power through the rest of month let alone year, to be able to even see these through...????

Thankyou for show

Max Dam'aje.

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Mon, 17 Aug 2015 16:23

When it comes to hard work, Steelers linebacker James Harrison is old school. We've seen it countless times, whether it's in the weight room, on the volleyball court or even while cutting grass.

Not surprisingly, this old-school mentality extends beyond the workplace and into Harrison's home. And here's the proof, via his latest Instagram post:

"I came home to find out that my boys received two trophies for nothing, participation trophies! While I am very proud of my boys for everything they do and will encourage them till the day I die, these trophies will be given back until they EARN a real trophy. I'm sorry I'm not sorry for believing that everything in life should be earned and I'm not about to raise two boys to be men by making them believe that they are entitled to something just because they tried their best...cause sometimes your best is not enough, and that should drive you to want to do better...not cry and whine until somebody gives you something to shut u up and keep you happy. #harrisonfamilyvalues"

The man makes a great point. In related news, here's to hoping someone in the media asks Harrison if Mike Tomlin passes out participation certificates at the end of every season.

For more on the issue of participation trophies, go check out Real Sports' fascinating segment on the trophy business that's at the core of what Harrison is rallying against.

James Harrison has no use for your participation awards. (USATSI)

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:20

When it comes to privacy, Germans can't take a joke. After it was revealed that the U.S. National Security Agency had intercepted calls in Germany, sales of old-school typewriters were reported to have skyrocketed, as some Germans assumed that sending letters might make communications surveillance harder for U.S. officials.

It's not only American surveillance that Germans are concerned about, however. On Tuesday, a 29-year old man was arrested at Frankfurt Airport after authorities noticed that he had microwaved his German identification card, reported German news agency dpa.

According to a police statement, the man was concerned that his privacy might be violated by the microchip that has been embedded in all German IDs since 2010. The man now faces either a fine or time in jail for the offense of illegally modifying official documents. According to German law, identification documents are state property.

Microwaving one's I.D. is in fact not as uncommon as one would expect. Here's a video of a literally exploding German identification document.

Another video tutorial on how to properly boil identification papers, which was uploaded to YouTube in 2011, has so far been viewed by over 200,000 people.

Although the video's creators note in the introduction that they do not want to encourage viewers to commit crimes, their detailed description suggests otherwise. Many commentators appeared to agree that it is necessary to microwave German ID cards in order to prevent being spied on.

A user named "Mister Vegan" asked about the specifics of the boiling and was swiftly advised to heat the documents up for about three seconds. Another commentator suggested to not only microwave the chip but also get rid of the complete I.D. card as it seemed ''useless'' to him.

German officials were aware of the strong public backlash against the microchip IDs even before they were first issued. In 2010, a governmental survey came to the conclusion that it would ''take ten years for the document to establish itself.'' Although several studies have refuted concerns that the microchip could be used to spy on individuals, many Germans remain cautious. Not everyone is willing to use the microchip, which would enable them to fill out online formulas much faster.

Skepticism of state authorities is deeply entrenched in German society: In June, activists inaugurated an Edward Snowden Square in the eastern German city of Dresden. Snowden had for instance revealed that the NSA had spied on German telecommunications data two years ago, and many Germans suspect their own intelligence services to have collaborated with their American counterparts.

"Much of this can be explained historically," Edward Snowden Square creator Markwart Faussner told WorldViews in June. "Germans have experienced observation throughout the 20th century. After the Nazi era, the Stasi intelligence service in the former East Germany monitored most of the country's citizens. When the Berlin Wall fell, East Germans suddenly found out from official government files that their friends or even family members had spied on them for years or decades. Hence, there is still a deeply rooted suspicion of state authorities in Germany,'' Faussner explained.

In a 2014 survey, nearly 40 percent of Germans said they considered increasing digitalization and the role of intelligence services to be a threat.

Not everyone who tampers with their ID card is arrested, however. A 2010 news segment on public TV network WDR, for instance, showed students destroying ID microchips with a similar method as part of a physics course '' without being arrested.

More on WorldViews:

The global cult of Edward Snowden keeps growing

Germans don't think America stands for freedom anymore

Rick Noack writes about foreign affairs and is based in Europe.

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Source: Sputnik International

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 22:29

US22:14 19.08.2015(updated 00:41 20.08.2015) Get short URL

Last month, former US Attorney General Eric Holder hinted at the possibility of reaching a plea deal with Edward Snowden, wanted for his role in unveiling the massive scale of the NSA's domestic spying apparatus.

"I certainly think there could be a basis for a resolution that everybody could ultimately be satisfied with," Holder said in an interview with Yahoo News. "I think the possibility exists."

In theory, an appeal would have lessened Snowden's jail time in exchange for his cooperation in helping assess the leak's damage to the intelligence community.

But according to senior officials speaking to Bloomberg, American interest in offering such a deal is shrinking fast, to the point that it's extremely unlikely.

Those officials cite three major reasons for the change of heart. For one, the government feels more confident in its knowledge of what information, exactly, Snowden revealed. US intelligence agencies, quite simply, feel more certain that they already know the answers to key questions they would have asked Snowden.

Another reason deals with the security of Snowden's information. Previously operating under the assumption that it needed Snowden's help to prevent intel from falling into the hands of foreign adversaries, the government now assumes that intel has already been stolen by hackers.

"Many people in government believe that the journalists who received Snowden's material are not capable of protecting it from a competent and committed state level adversary service," Ben Wittes, of the Brookings Institution, told Bloomberg.

"Even if Snowden did not give the material to others, they argue it would have been ripe for the picking."

Of course, using digital security as justification for refusing Snowden a plea bargain is an odd argument given the government's own inability to secure its data. Recent high-profile hacks into the Office of Personnel Management and the Internal Revenue Service have shown just how inept the United States' cybersecurity really is.

Lastly, officials feel emboldened by new suggestions that Snowden's leaks have aided US adversaries in dodging US surveillance.

"Do I think we have lost capabilities we had prior to the revelations? Yes," NSA director Mike Rogers said in February.

Of course, neither Rogers nor any other US official has offered any evidence for the claim that Snowden's actions harmed national security.

The about-face shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Even when Holder initially floated the idea of plea agreement, his comments received fierce backlash from more hawkish members in Washington, who have always considered Snowden's whistleblowing an act of treason.

"I'm quite stunned that we would be considering any return of Snowden to this country other than to meet a jury of his peers, period," former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden told Yahoo News.

Current Attorney General Loretta Lynch has also dismissed Holder's suggestion.

"[Snowden's] status is what it has always been: He's a federal fugitive. And if he chooses to come back, or if he is brought back, he will be accorded all the due process of every defendant in our criminal justice system," she told Bloomberg.

Even Snowden's attorney, Ben Wizner, indicated that his client would refuse any plea deal which result in jail time on felony charges.

"Our position is he should not be reporting to prison as a felon and losing his civil rights as a result of his act of conscience," Wizner told Yahoo.

Especially given the fact that Snowden currently enjoys life in Moscow, where he is free to continue exposing the abuses of the NSA. On Saturday, he released new documents to the New York Times which showed undeniable proof of collusion between the National Security Agency and tech giant AT&T.

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 20:58

ISTANBUL/DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Gunmen opened fire on Turkish police outside an Istanbul palace and eight soldiers were killed in a bomb attack in the southeast on Wednesday, heightening a sense of crisis as the country's political leaders struggle to form a new government.

The Istanbul governor's office said two members of a "terrorist group" armed with hand grenades and an automatic rifle were caught after attacking the Dolmabahce palace, popular with tourists and home to the prime minister's Istanbul offices.

There were no reports of casualties.

Militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) meanwhile killed eight soldiers with a roadside bomb in the southeastern province of Siirt, the military said, intensifying a conflict there after the breakdown of a two-year ceasefire last month.

The unrest in the NATO member state comes weeks after it declared a "war on terror," opening up its air bases to the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, launching air strikes on Kurdish militants, and detaining more than 2,500 suspected members of radical Kurdish, far-leftist and Islamist groups.

The latest attacks also come a day after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu gave up on efforts to form a new government after weeks of coalition talks with the opposition failed, paving the way for a new election potentially within months.

"Because of the failure to form a government, we have to seek a solution with the will of the people ... so we are heading rapidly towards an election again," President Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech.

The lira slid to a new low against the dollar as investors took fright at what some have dubbed a "perfect storm" of political uncertainty, slowing growth and deepening violence. The currency has seen its steepest five-day decline this week since May 2010, making it one of the world's worst-performing emerging markets currencies.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack at Dolmabahce palace, where the assailants opened fire on police guarding the entrance. The building has been targeted before by leftist militants.

Davutoglu was in the capital Ankara as reports of the shooting emerged and did not interrupt a speech he was giving live on television.

Turkey has been on heightened state alert since launching what Davutoglu described a "synchronized war on terror" in July, exposing it to reprisals from Islamic State sympathizers, Kurdish militants and leftist radicals alike.

A fighter proclaiming allegiance to Islamic State appeared in a video this week urging Turks to rebel against "infidel" Erdogan and help conquer Istanbul.

The leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C) meanwhile claimed responsibility earlier this month for an attack on the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, in which two women shot at the building. One of the attackers was hurt in an exchange of fire but there were no other casualties.

GOVERNMENT PARALYSIS

The ruling AK Party, which Erdogan founded, in June suffered its biggest election setback since coming to power in 2002, failing to win a single-party majority for the first time, plunging Turkey into uncertainty not seen since the fragile coalition governments of the 1990s.

The failure of Davutoglu's efforts to find a junior coalition partner led him to hand the mandate to form the next government back to Erdogan late on Tuesday. Presidential sources said Erdogan would consult with the speaker of parliament later on Wednesday on how to agree the next cabinet.

He could now give the mandate to the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), although he has appeared reluctant to do so, and the CHP would in any case be unlikely to be able to form a working coalition by an Aug. 23 deadline.

Erdogan told academics at a meeting on Wednesday that he favored forming an interim "election cabinet" before new polls in the autumn, according to the Hurriyet Daily News.

Such an arrangement would see power temporarily shared between four political parties with deep ideological divides, potentially paralyzing policy-making and further unraveling investor confidence.

The CHP said on Wednesday it was "unthinkable" that it would take part in such a government.

Parliament could in theory also vote to allow the current cabinet to continue working until a new election, but at least one of the opposition parties, the nationalist MHP, has already said it would vote against such a move.

Erdogan, who won Turkey's first popular presidential election in August 2014 and has since stretched the powers of a largely ceremonial post to their limits, has said the system of power has changed in Turkey.

He has championed a full presidential system akin to the United States or France, a constitutional change that would be virtually impossible without a single-party AKP government, but has also insisted that even without that step, his election by the people has bestowed him with extra authority.

"There is now a president in the country not with symbolic power, but with literal power," he said last week.

Also on HuffPost:

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:56

The elevator weighs about the same amount as a super crude tanker ship and is expected to cost about $5 billion to build. Thoth Technology said that once built, it will reduce the cost of reaching low Earth orbit by 30 percent compared to conventional rockets.

Traditional rocket launches can cost upwards of $250 million, while cheaper commercial offerings like those offered by SpaceX '-- the commercial aerospace company founded by Elon Musk'-- lists the launch price of its Falcon 9 rocket at $61.2 million and it's Falcon Heavy model at $90 million.

The inventor of the "space elevator" is Brendan Quine, an engineering professor at York University in Toronto and co-founder of Thoth Technology. He said the team behind the elevator worked on the concept for eight years before securing the U.S. patent in July.

"Other inflated tower designs have been explored previously, but they typically use buttress designs or support cables that we believe [are] impractical," Quine told CNBC.

Graham Warwick, a managing editor at Aviation Week, said that the aerospace industry had been looking for a cheaper way to launch goods and people for decades.

"Single-stage-to-orbit from the ground has so far proved impossible and a true space elevator (stretching all the way into space) would be hideously expensive to construct if we knew how, so this is another way to do it," Warwick told CNBC.

"Once built '-- if built, and if it works '-- this would seem to offer easier, more routine access to space. For spacecraft and for people."

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Tue, 18 Aug 2015 14:27

EXCLUSIVE: Mainland Chinese dissidents have handed Natural News the following bombshell story.

The Tianjin explosion, Natural News has learned, was waged as an act of ''kinetic retaliation'' by the Pentagon in response to China's currency war Yuan devaluation. The Chinese government has put in place unprecedented secrecy surrounding the mysterious explosion, and aggressive police state tactics are now being invoked to control the flow of information surrounding this event.

''Last week's explosions sent massive fireballs into the sky and hurled burning debris across the industrial area at the world's 10th-largest port, burning out buildings and shattering windows kilometres away,'' reports the Daily Mail UK.

The Chinese government's official explanation for the explosion, which has now killed 114 people, is a complete whitewash. China is going to declare regional martial law in the next 18 days, Natural News has learned, in order to exercise total control over the movement of people and information. The government has banned reporters from entering the area and has begun arresting bloggers who promote what the government calls ''conspiracy theories'' regarding the cause of the massive explosion.

China has blacked out reporting on Tianjin in exactly the same way the U.S. media blacked out reporting on Dr. William Thompson, the CDC whistleblower who admitted the CDC buried evidence linking vaccines to autism. In both China and the United States, when the government doesn't want the citizens to know something, it censors the story across the entire state-run media, invoking ''information totalitarianism.''

Immediately following the massive explosion, the Chinese government began flying ''black helicopters'' in formation across Beijing. Chinese dissidents took numerous photos of these helicopters and were able to deliver these exclusive pictures to Natural News:

A warning shot from the United States: Don't crash the dollar or sell our debtChinese dissidents have told Natural News they have reason to believe the attack on Tianjin is a warning shot from the United States, which is terrified that China is on the verge of announcing its own gold-backed currency while declaring a fire sale on U.S. debt holdings.

The actions would collapse the U.S. dollar and destroy the U.S. economy, sending the United States into economic freefall. The ''Rod of God'' weapon deployment by the U.S. Pentagon, we're told, was America's ''shot across the bow'' to send a powerful warning message to China while disguising the attack as a domestic chemical explosion.

Timeline of events: China devalues currency, then Pentagon strikes in mere hoursConsider the calendar of events in all this:

August 11, 2015: China devalues the Yuan by 1.9%, sending ''shockwaves'' around the world and setting off a ''devastating'' impact to the U.S. economy.

August 12, 2015: Tianjin struck by Pentagon's secret ''Rod of God'' weapon, a space-based top-secret kinetic weapon that can be dropped from high orbit to strike almost any land-based target. The weapon instantly destroys six city blocks on the edge of the city of Tianjin, sending a message to China that's eerily similar to the message sent by the United States in the dropping of the world's first atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. (Yes, the USA is willing to drop weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations. It has already done it twice!)

(For those following the Shemitah, the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan also occurred during a Shemitah year, in the month of august, 1945, exactly 70 years ago. This is precisely TEN Shemitah cycles ago, or what might be called a ''deca-Shemitah.'')

August 16, 2015: Obama issues stern warning '''...about the presence of Chinese government agents operating secretly in the United States,'' reports The New York Times. ''And it comes at a time of growing tension between Washington and Beijing on a number of issues: from the computer theft of millions of government personnel files that American officials suspect was directed by China, to China's crackdown on civil liberties, to the devaluation of its currency.''

The Pentagon's secret space-based weaponsThe ''Rod of God'' weapon consists primarily of a kinetic weapon arriving with unimaginable kinetic energy'... more than a small tactical nuclear weapon, in fact, giving it the appearance of a tactical nuke.

U.S. websites are now speculating that the Tianjin explosion was a U.S. space-based weapons test involving a ''Rod of God'' weapon dropped from orbit. ''The [resulting] lake [crater] in China proves a 5 kiloton blast, possibly nuclear or possibly from a space based 'rod from God' (pictured to the left) weapon [was] deployed by the space plane,'' says The Unhived Mind.

''After looking through the images of the soviet nuclear tests, the new lake in China appears to have been made by a slightly sub surface burst of at least a 5 kiloton nuclear bomb'... This was NOT an accident and the fracture pattern around the crater proves a sub ground burst. If it was a sub ground burst, then a small nuclear weapon is the biggest possibility because once a nuke has to push dirt, the blinding flash will not happen. A slightly subsurface detonation would explain why camera sensors did not get strange artifacts. And if it was not a nuke, it was something else incredibly huge, but not a fuel air bomb because fuel air bombs will not leave craters.''

Space-based kinetic weapons ''dropped'' onto targets are explained by Popular Science in this article from 2004:

When instructed from the ground, the targeting satellite commands its partner to drop one of its darts. The guided rods enter the atmosphere, protected by a thermal coating, traveling at 36,000 feet per second''comparable to the speed of a meteor. The result: complete devastation of the target, even if it's buried deep underground.

''When required these projectiles can be commanded to dive, singly or en masse, at targets on the Earth's surface, smashing into the victim at orbital speed. As the projectile's kinetic energy is released, the blast would be equivalent to a large conventional bomb,'' explains Armaghplanet.com.

China to declare martial law as total control of information and people kicks into high gearMartial law will be declared across Beijing in the coming days, dissidents have told Natural News. Meanwhile, the Chinese government '-- which runs a massive state-controlled firewall that snoops into all internet traffic and blocks VPN access '-- has added ''Tianjin'' as a red flag keyword to its internet traffic filtering.

Local police raids have already begun at the locations of bloggers and independent journalists who have attempted to report true stories on what really happened at Tianjin. The Chinese government is engaged in a total cover-up.

Natural News has learned that the Chinese government is now setting up roadside checkpoints near and around both Tianjin and Beijing. Additional security measures now in place to control the movement of people include:

' All hotels are reporting details of visitors to the government, including passport numbers, nationalities, names and phone calls made from the rooms.

' Tourists who don't stay in hotels are now required to register with local police or risk arrest. The Chinese government has mandated that it must know the location of every person at all times.

' Red armbands are now being worn by workers to indicate they are serving as Stasi-like obedient police snitches. The red armbands indicate total obedience to the government, and the workers wearing them have all been trained in how to spot dissident behavior. It's China's version of ''If you see something, say something'' just as was pushed in the United States.

' In preparation for China's Sep. 3 celebration for the defeat of Japanese occupation '-- it's the 70th anniversary '-- China has banned Japanese writing in most of its large cities. Government propaganda runs 24/7, condemning the Japanese and the horrifying war crimes committed by Japanese soldiers against China. (It's true, the Japanese committed unimaginable atrocities such as mass-raping women and then chopping them into pieces with machetes to destroy the ''evidence.'')

' Helicopter patrols are now routinely witnessed across Beijing and Tianjin, where military choppers are flying in formation as a show of strength.

' Massive populations of laborers are now living in underground cities, underneath the clean, high-tech buildings of Beijing that seem like world-class architectural achievements. But underneath them, an entire class of sickly, impoverished laborers lives like rats, with very little food, poor sanitation and no sunlight.

If this war escalates, it could unleash a global currency war of attritionIf this covert war between China and the United States continues to escalate, it would ultimately devastate the economies of both nations. Both China and the USA are currently experiencing shockwaves in their stock markets as bubble economies built on debt begin to unravel.

In these times of shaky financial foundations, it doesn't take much to topple public faith and unleash a mass exodus away from currencies and markets. It's also clear that the United States considers currency games to be acts of war while justifying ''kinetic responses'' to such events.

This is all fully aligned with the government policies set in motion by President Obama in 2011. ''Washington will to [sic] consider using conventional weaponry in response to a cyber-attack on the United States, according a new US strategy,'' reported The Telegraph:

The White House's strategy statement on cybersecurity said the United States ''will respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would to any other threat to our country''.

''We reserve the right to use all necessary means '' diplomatic, informational, military, and economic '' as appropriate and consistent with applicable international law, in order to defend our nation, our allies, our partners and our interests,'' the May 16 document said.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan confirmed that the White House policy did not rule out a military response to a cyber-attack.

Even further, Henry Kissinger had the following to say about U.S. China relations, as quoted from his website HenryAKissinger.com, in an article entitled The Future of U.S. '' Chinese Relations; Conflict Is a Choice, Not a Necessity:

Just as Chinese influence in surrounding countries may spur fears of dominance, so efforts to pursue traditional American national interests can be perceived as a form of military encirclement. Both sides must understand the nuances by which apparently traditional and apparently reasonable courses can evoke the deepest worries of the other. They should seek together to define the sphere in which their peaceful competition is circumscribed. If that is managed wisely, both military confrontation and domination can be avoided; if not, escalating tension is inevitable.

If the United States defines currency war attacks as ''cyber attacks,'' then we may have just witnessed the first application of that new war doctrine, where electronic ''attacks'' are met with kinetic responses from the Pentagon.

Let us all hope this doesn't escalate even further, or America will likely find itself on the losing side of any war involving economics, currencies or cyber warfare.

Sources for this article include:http://www.naturalnews.com/046630_CDC_whistl'...http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/us/politic'...http://theunhivedmind.com/wordpress3/did-the'...http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-0'...http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/rods-from-g'...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/no'...http://www.henryakissinger.com/articles/fa04'...http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3200'...

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 16:55

Consensus reached on ambitious new Sustainable Development Agenda to end poverty by 2030 and universally promote shared economic prosperity, social development and environmental protection.

On Sunday, August 2nd, following more than two years of intense negotiations and hard work, the UN's 193 Member States reached consensus on the outcome document that will constitute the new sustainable development agenda to be considered and adopted by world leaders at the September UN Summit on the post-2015 development agenda in New York.

The emerging development agenda is universal, calling for action by low, middle and high-income countries alike. In the current draft document, Member States pledge that no one will be left behind. Indeed, the 2030 Agenda encompasses a universal, transformative and integrated agenda heralding an historic global turning point.

As noted by the World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, the focus of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs') on people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership provides a comprehensive and robust development path for the world to follow over the next fifteen years.

The World Bank Group is eager to work with governments, international institutions, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and others to achieve the global goals and targets: We are committed to helping meet them by supporting their implementation, providing finance, and collecting and sharing data.Formal adoption of the Agenda 2030 by world leaders in New York this September will mark an historic step along the global development path. Building on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2000, the SDGs contain an all-encompassing and nuanced set of targets that generate momentum and accountability for sustainable development including ending poverty by 2030.

The new goals, along with the broader sustainability agenda, address the root causes of poverty, the inter-connected nature of both challenges and solutions, and the universal need for development that works for all people.

Poverty eradication is at the heart of the new development agenda and has at its core the integration of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

The SDGs identify and aim to tackle systemic barriers to sustainable development such as inequality, unsustainable consumption and production patterns, inadequate infrastructure and lack of decent jobs.Member States stressed that the desired transformations will require a departure from "business as usual" and that intensified international cooperation on many fronts will be required. This includes a revitalized global partnership for sustainable development encompassing multi-stakeholder partnerships. Agenda 2030 also calls for increased capacity-building and better data and evidence for measuring sustainable development.

The High Level Political Forum on sustainable development, set up after the Rio+20 Conference, will serve as the apex forum for follow up and review and will thus play a central role. The UN General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and specialized agencies will also be engaged in reviewing progress in specific areas.

The successful outcome of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Addis Ababa last month was a key stepping stone on the global development path. It gave important positive momentum to help conclude a critical year for multilateral consensus on a development agenda for the world.

The consensus reached on the 2030 Agenda outcome document will provide momentum for negotiations on a new binding climate change treaty to culminate at the Paris Conference of the Parties (COP) Climate Change conference from 30 November to 11 December 2015.

The World Bank Group's twin goals of ending poverty and promoting shared prosperity are fully aligned to the 2030 Agenda. Indeed, such alignment sets us out walking hand in hand with the rest of international community on an ambitious new path for sustainable development.

At the beginning of the process and in the initial engagement of our institution with the UN and the development community, we identified three areas of focus and work: Finance, data, and implementation.

Finance, data and implementation encapsulate huge challenges, but steps are under way already on all three fronts. We are in good shape with our work on data, with our Memorandum of Understanding with other multilateral development banks (MDBs) and the UN, our own Data Council, as well as ongoing work on the data revolution. On finance, we can build on the success of our Spring Meetings Development Committee paper on "Billions to Trillions" as well as on our highly acknowledged participation in Addis. On implementation, the WBG has a big task ahead to promote and support the global public goods agenda and to help clients achieve the SDGs in accordance with national priorities and via smart partnerships that pull in the wider development community, including the MDBs, CSOs, and the private sector.

As many have said already, the consensus around 2030 Agenda and the SDGs they enshrine are a great step forward, but the real work lies ahead.

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Archived Version

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 11:27

Buckle up, East Coast snow lovers'--there's a lot more on the way this coming winter. Here, a man on cross-country skies treks the National Mall during a heavy snowstorm in Washington, D.C., on March 5, 2015.Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

There's a silver lining to all this talk of a super mega record-breaking Godzilla El Ni±o: The seasonal weather outlooks for this fall and winter will be some of the most accurate ever issued.

Last spring I profiled what El Ni±o'--a periodic warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean'--means for 60 places across the globe. Now that the event is in full swing, we have an even better idea of how U.S. weather will be affected over the next nine months. That's because El Ni±o acts like a heat engine that bends weather in a predictable pattern worldwide. Typically, the stronger El Ni±o is, the more predictable its influence. And this year's event is on pace to be one of the strongest ever recorded. By some measures, it already is.

''We're correct more than the usual proportion of the time when there's an El Ni±o,'' said Tony Barnston, chief forecaster at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, in a video statement. Barnston and his team'--which actually invented successful El Ni±o prediction'--recently issued an astounding forecast that essentially locks in a strong El Ni±o through next spring.

Globally, it's now virtually certain that 2015 will be the hottest year in history. That's a pretty remarkable thing to be able to say with more than four months of the year remaining. Last week data from NASA and the Japan Meteorological Agency confirmed that last month was the hottest July on record, joining every month so far this year except February and April as the warmest ever measured, according to calculations from Japan. As of mid-August, the Pacific Ocean had configured itself into an unprecedented temperature pattern, with record-setting warm water stretching from the equator all the way northward to Alaska. Thanks to the pattern's expected persistence, we can already piece together a pretty good guess of the implications'--months ahead of time.

So, without further ado, Here's what to expect this winter:

Will California get some drought relief?

To answer everyone's question, yes, this winter will likely bring above-normal rainfall to California. To answer a related question, no, it won't end the drought. After a record-breaking four-year stretch, California has racked up a mind-boggling rainfall deficit: San Francisco is more than 31 inches behind'--meaning this winter would have to feature a year and a half of extra rainfall during the six-month rainy season to break even. That very likely won't happen, and even if it did, flooding and mudslides would create an even bigger problem than another year of drought would.

What's more, there's an especially big caveat this winter. Current temperatures off the West Coast are already far warmer than anything ever measured. The placement of that huge mass of warm water'--cutely called ''the blob'' by local scientists'--tends to work against heavy rainfall in California, and it's a big reason why the drought has been so bad there the last couple of years. This'll be an epic battle between dueling masses of warm water (El Ni±o vs. ''the blob'') all winter long on the high seas of the North Pacific (and in the atmosphere above it), but as of now, it looks like California will indeed get some desperately needed rain'--enough to matter, just not enough to end the drought.

Will the Pacific Northwest get some drought relief?

One place that probably won't benefit from this winter's El Ni±o is the Northwest. It'll be another low-snowpack year, putting additional pressure on salmon, hydroelectricity, and ski resorts in the Cascades. Local officials are treating the current ''wet drought'''--in which rain and high temperatures have replaced snow for many parts of the Northwest'--as a possible preview of global warming. Officials in Washington state, for example, are modifying river flows as a last-ditch effort to provide cooler water for migrating salmon. As this year has proved, a dearth of snow has lasting implications for several months'--including an increased risk for huge wildfires come summer. Expect more of the same next year.

Sorry, Pacific Northwest. What about ski conditions in Colorado?

In sharp contrast to the Northwest, this winter could bring a good snowpack to the southern Rockies, a boon to tourism and a continuation of relatively recent drought-free conditions in Colorado.

A heavy snowfall would also be a significant boost to the fragile Colorado River basin, which is inching toward first-ever mandatory water restrictions after decades of over-allocation have pushed Lake Mead to record low levels. Lots of snow this winter in Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico could help delay Arizona's inevitable droughtpocalypse by another year or two.

Back to droughts. How are things looking for South Florida?

The driest spot east of the Rockies right now is in southern Florida, where this summer's rainy season has been the worst in 70 years. That's a big problem, because as sea levels rise, the Miami area needs a steady supply of freshwater as a counterforce against saltwater intrusion and as a salve for Everglades restoration. Ultimately, this is a battle the region cannot win, but for now southern Florida is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new pumps to keep the sea at bay.

The polar vortex last winter was brutal. Will it be bad again?

If the last two years are any indication, winters in the east are getting weirder. There are lots of theories for this, including the exceptionally warm Pacific Ocean and melting Arctic sea ice, as well as plain old natural variability. A broad signal for further rounds of extreme cold air outbreaks, especially for the Southeast, is present again this winter.

Should everyone in Boston move?

There's good and bad news for Boston and other East Coasters. It almost certainly won't be as cold as last year in the Northeast, but fierce Nor'easters could be commonplace, bringing a return of heavy snowstorms.

Back in 2012, in my New York City weather column in the Wall Street Journal, I did a quick analysis that showed El Ni±o winters brought an additional 10 inches of snowfall to the Big Apple, all else being equal. To get especially strong winter storms in the Northeast, the large-scale El Ni±o signal (which increases the amount of wintertime moisture available along the East Coast) needs to coincide with a weak and wavy jet stream. That's a recipe for heavy snow, even if temperatures aren't as brutally cold as the last two winters. Watch for big dips in the North Atlantic Oscillation (a rough approximation for jet stream strength) this winter for signs a big storm could be on the way.

Update, 3:30 p.m.: You forgot the entire middle part of the country! What's going to happen in Texas and in the Midwest?

Sorry! After a very rainy summer, drought has reappeared in eastern Texas. But since El Ni±o tends to bring above normal rainfall to the South during the winter months, the current dry spell should quickly come to an end.

Further north, the coming winter should be warmer than average in the Upper Midwest. That's got to be welcome news: The region has endured exceptionally cold stretches leading to record-setting ice cover on the Great Lakes in recent years, but snowfall show be below normal this time around, giving cities like Chicago and Minneapolis a well-deserved break.

It's August. How the heck did you come up with this forecast?

To make the above predictions, I took a blend of the most recent North American Multi-Model Ensemble, my go-to source for seasonal forecast information, and a blend of the large-scale weather during four past El Ni±os that I think are particularly close fits with the current one. Those four El Ni±os are: 1957''58, 1986''87, 1987''88, and 1997''98. Each of those El Ni±os peaked at least at ''moderate'' strength (more than 1 degree Celsius above normal in a key section of the tropical Pacific) and at the same time, each of those four El Ni±os also featured a strongly positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation'--more than 1 degree Celsius above normal across a specific region of the north Pacific off the west coast of North America.

You can find the raw seasonal forecast maps I used to make this forecast here.

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 14:21

by Sayer Ji, FounderGreenMedInfo.com

While any discussion of the ''chemtrail'' phenomenon today is immediately labeled conspiracy theory, a new study provides evidence that a global covert program is underway, made possible through political, commercial, and government interests working in collusion to release extremely toxic material into the atmosphere ostensibly to ''combat global warming.''

Admittedly, when the topic of ''chemtrails'' comes up, I get a bit uneasy. Like connecting vaccines with autism, certain topics have been so loaded with misinformation for so long that writing about them automatically invokes the specter of controversy, and not open discussion, as would be expected if discovering the truth were a priority.

One highly marginalized but vocal sector of the population believes chemtrails are being sprayed on us like Raid on cockroaches by our invisible overlords to facilitate a depopulation agenda. On the other extreme are academics unashamedly publishing papers suggesting we should play God by using various geoengineering techniques with avowedly planet wide impacts to ''combat global warming.'' Rarely, however, do we see anyone convincingly tying together the first-hand observational data with objective data, to prove that there is something in these persistent contrails other than frozen water vapor.

Thankfully, a groundbreaking study was recently published that did exactly this, bringing us closer to the truth than we have ever been before. The implications are simply profound and I believe may foment greatly expanded awareness and activism on the topic.

The new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health titled, ''Evidence of Coal-Fly-Ash Toxic Chemical Geoengineering in the Troposphere: Consequences for Public Health,'' offers a convincing explanation for what is behind the so-called ''chemtrail'' phenomenon, revealing that the source material used to create artificial weather visible throughout the world is the extremely toxic waste material from the electric industry known as coal fly ash.

If you are not already aware, ''chemtrail'' is a colloquial term used to describe the persistent contrails, presumably laden with ''chemicals,'' observed issuing from aircraft that result in the formation of artificial cloud patterns and weather. Their existence has been almost universally written off as ''conspiracy theory'' by the media and government despite global evidence '' as clear as day '' that the weather is being manipulated with aerosols, presumably for geoengineering purposes intended to offset global warming.

The new study, authored by San Diego resident J. Marvin Herndon, was initiated after he witnessed his region being sprayed daily by an, as of then, unidentified aerosol:

''In the spring of 2014, the author began to notice tanker-jets quite often producing white trails across the cloudless blue sky over San Diego, California. The aerosol spraying that was happening with increasing frequency was a relatively new phenomenon there. The dry warm air above San Diego is not conducive to the formation of jet contrails, which are ice condensate. By November 2014 the tanker-jets were busy every day crisscrossing the sky spraying their aerial graffiti. In a matter of minutes, the aerosol trails exiting the tanker-jets would start to diffuse, eventually forming cirrus-like clouds that further diffuse to form a white haze that scattered sunlight, often occluding or dimming the sun. Aerosol spraying was occasionally so intense as to make the otherwise cloudless blue sky overcast, some areas of sky turning brownish (Figure 1). Sometimes the navigation lights of the tanker-jets were visible as they worked at night, their trails obscuring the stars overhead; by dawn the normally clear-blue morning sky already had a milky white haze. Regardless, aerosol spraying often continued throughout the day. The necessity for daily aerosol emplacement stems from the relatively low spraying-altitudes in the troposphere where mixing with air readily occurs bringing down the aerosolized particulates and exposing humanity and Earth's biota to the fine-grained substance. The author's concern about the daily exposure to ultra-fine airborne particulate matter of undisclosed composition and its concomitant effect on the health of his family and public health in general prompted the research reported here.''

For those who have not witnessed the ''chemtrail'' phenomenon directly, it would be easy to write off this author's testimony as dubious or merely anecdotal. But the author rightly points out that there is already extensive evidence in the historical record of covert geoengineering programs, and which he summarizes thusly:

''Geoengineering, also called weather-modification, has been carried out for decades at much lower altitudes in the troposphere. The recent calls for open discussion of climate control or geoengineering tend to obscure the fact that the world's military and civilian sectors have modified atmospheric conditions for many decades as has been described by science historian, James R. Fleming [4]. Some of the early weather-modification research resulted in programs like Project Skywater (1961''1988), the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's effort to engineer ''the rivers of the sky''; the U.S. Army's Operation Ranch Hand (1961''1971), in which the herbicide Agent Orange was an infamous part; and its Project Popeye (1967''1971), used to ''make mud, not war'' over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. These few examples of weather-modification, all of them secret at the time they were engaged, show that the weather is in the words of the military, ''a force multiplier'' [5].''

The fact is that we don't need to speculate about whether these covert programs are still happening, because the evidence is ''hidden out in plain sight'' for millions to see on a daily basis. [Note: I highly suggest you watch ''Artificial Clouds,'' to get a primer on the difference between naturally occurring contrails and ''chemtrails.'']

The real questions here are: What is being sprayed? Who is behind the program? Why is there no public discussion of the program and its implications to human and environmental health?

While it is clear that weather modification programs focused on enhanced precipitation are being conducted across the country using silver iodide, as recently exposed by our contributor Dave Dahl's documentary ''Artificial Clouds,'' and that the result is global changes in weather patterns, exemplified by the temperature changes observed after the post-9/11 airplane grounding, the global geoengineering program appears to be a far greater threat to planetary health.

What Herndon's research uncovered is that, ''[T]oxic coal combustion fly ash is the most likely aerosolized particulate sprayed by tanker-jets for geoengineering, weather-modification and climate-modification purposes and describes some of the multifold consequences on public health.''

He arrived at this conclusion through the following methods:

''Two methods are employed: (1) Comparison of 8 elements analyzed in rainwater, leached from aerosolized particulates, with corresponding elements leached into water from coal fly ash in published laboratory experiments, and (2) Comparison of 14 elements analyzed in dust collected outdoors on a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter with corresponding elements analyzed in un-leached coal fly ash material. The results show: (1) the assemblage of elements in rainwater and in the corresponding experimental leachate are essentially identical. At a 99% confidence interval, they have identical means (T-test) and identical variances (F-test); and (2) the assemblage of elements in the HEPA dust and in the corresponding average un-leached coal fly ash are likewise essentially identical.''

Coal fly ash is a fine particle residue generated by coal combustion and is an extremely toxic material for the primary 3 reasons:

1) Because of its nanoparticle range sizing not only can it enter more easily into human tissue through skin, oral, or pulmonary contact, but it may also have greater toxicity due to its ability to mimic hormones and/or pass through cell membranes and altering nuclear programs to adversely alter cell phenotype.

2) It contains a wide range of heavy metals, including inorganic forms of aluminum and arsenic which are highly toxic to biological systems. It's mercury content can range as high as 1 part per million.1

3) It contains low-dose radioisotopes which can have profound, severe chronic adverse health effects several orders of magnitude higher than present toxicological risk assessments account for. Herndon states, ''Coal fly ash has been described as being more radioactive than nuclear waste [24].''

As Herndon states, ''The consequences [of coal fly ash exposure] on public health are profound, including exposure to a variety of toxic heavy metals, radioactive elements, and neurologically-implicated chemically mobile aluminum released by body moisture in situ after inhalation or through transdermal induction.''

Disturbingly, the EPA recently ruled that coal fly ash is not to be considered a ''hazardous waste,''2 despite overwhelming evidence that contains dozens of compounds that individually present a serious enough environmental and human health risk to be classified and regulated as hazardous to health.

When you consider that the EPA requires coal firing electrical plants to sequester the coal fly ash due to its known toxicity as a pollutant, the hypocrisy here is astounding. Of course, this ruling would protect those orchestrating the behind-the-scenes geoengineering agenda of using the electrical power industry's toxic byproduct: millions of tons of coal fly ash, as a ''beneficial'' substance used to ''combat global warming,'' even though the end result is the same: releasing a highly toxic material directly into the troposphere.

We already have examples of how this works. The private sector, like the aluminum industry, colludes with the government to take a highly toxic waste product like fluoride, and then lobby to have it legally mandated to be put into the environment and our bodies via fluoridation programs. Suddenly the industry responsible for concentrating and unleashing a substance that is not legal to dump into the environment due to safety concerns gets paid to have it dumped directly into our water supply which ends up in our environment and bodies. A highly toxic substance is simply re-purposed and rebranded as ''therapeutic'' when the profit motive is compelling enough to trump ethical and legal boundaries.

As of 2005, U.S. coal-fired plants reported producing 71.1 million tons of fly ash, of which 29.1 million tons was reported reused for industrial applications.3 Were it not for this ''recycling'' the industry would be left with a billion dollar problem, not unlike the nuclear industry's problem with nuclear waste. Therein alone lies a plausible motive for its use as a ''geoengineering'' ingredient, turning a liability into a profit center.

Herndon offers additional insight into why he thinks coal fly ash was chosen as the preferred geoengineering ingredient:

While academicians debate geoengineering as an activity that might potentially be needed in the future [2,3], evidence suggests that Western governments/militaries moved ahead with a full scale operational geoengineering program. But instead of mining and milling rock to produce artificial volcanic ash in sufficient volumes to cool the planet, they adopted a low-cost, pragmatic alternative, but one with consequences far more dire to life on Earth than global warming might ever be, and used coal combustion fly ash. To make matters worse, instead of placing the material high into the stratosphere, where there is minimal mixing and the substance might remain suspended for a year or more, they opted to spray coal fly ash into the lower atmosphere, the troposphere, which mixes with the air people breathe and gets rained down to ground.

Another very important point made by Herndon is that this interventionist approach to ''combat global warming'' appears to have been poorly thought out, perhaps resulting in exactly the opposite of the stated intention:

''There is yet another consequence of tropospheric coal ash spraying that is contrary to cooling the Earth and has potentially far-reaching adverse ecological and public health implications: weather modification and concomitant disruption of habitats and food sources. As reported by NASA, ''Normal rainfall droplet creation involves water vapor condensing on particles in clouds. The droplets eventually coalesce together to form drops large enough to fall to Earth. However, as more and more pollution particles (aerosols) enter a rain cloud, the same amount of water becomes spread out. These smaller water droplets float with the air and are prevented from coalescing and growing large enough for a raindrop. Thus, the cloud yields less rainfall over the course of its lifetime compared to a clean (non-polluted) cloud of the same size'' [42]. In addition to preventing water droplets from coalescing and growing large enough to fall to Earth, coal fly ash, which formed under anhydrous conditions, will hydrate, trapping additional moisture thus further acting to prevent rainfall. That may cause drought in some areas, floods in others, crop failure, forest die-offs, and adverse ecological impacts, especially in conjunction with the chemically-mobile-aluminum contamination from coal fly ash. The consequences ultimately may have devastating effects on habitats and reduce human food production.''

Herndon leaves us with closing remarks difficult to ignore, including a call to action that I hope our readers take to heart:

More than a half century ago Rachel Carson called the world's attention to the unintended consequences of herbicides and pesticides widely employed by agriculture. Instead of turning a blind eye, people everywhere became motivated to stop the worst of this environmental onslaught. Today we are fully aware of the vast interconnected web of dependencies and symbioses that comprise life on our planet. Earth exists in a state of dynamic biological, chemical, and physical equilibrium whose complexity far exceeds the understanding of contemporary science. The pervasive tropospheric spraying of coal fly ash threatens this equilibrium, whose delicacy or whose resilience we cannot quantify. Human health is at risk as is Earth's biota. Are we to remain silent? Or will we exercise our primal right to speak in our own defense as a species and question the sanity of emplacing coal fly ash in Earth's perpetually moving atmosphere?

Read the full article at GreenMedInfo.com.

References

1 ''Fly Ash in Concrete'' (PDF). perkinswill.com. 2011-11-17. Retrieved 2013-11-19. Fly ash contains approximately one part per million of mercury.

2 EPA 2014, Final rule: disposal of coal combustion residuals from electric utilities, Environmental Protection Agency, Washington D.C.

3 American Coal Ash Association. ''CCP Production and Use Survey'' (PDF).

Published on August 18, 2015

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:47

For six decades, the sinister-looking black U-2 spy plane has allowed the Pentagon to see what our enemies don't want us to know.

With sensors that can pinpoint landmines from 13 miles high, the plane has played a key role in U.S. intelligence gathering since its first flight on Aug. 1, 1955.

But as manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp. celebrates the plane's 60th year, the company is losing the battle against its retirement. The Pentagon says it is planning to end the sleek spy bird's daily sorties in 2019.

At a giant hangar in Palmdale where the plane is refurbished, Lockheed executives on Tuesday said they had no intention of seeing the U-2 relegated to its display in the Smithsonian.

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They say the glider-like spy craft nicknamed the Dragon Lady can fly until 2045.

"When we say we're going to fly, we fly," said J. Scott Winstead, Lockheed's U-2 strategic business manager, of the plane's reliability.

But in another hangar just miles away, competitor Northrop Grumman Corp. is already working to modify its enormous highflying drone, the Global Hawk, to carry the U-2's sensors.

Both aerospace firms lease space at the sprawling expanse of Joshua trees and sagebrush in the Mojave Desert known as Air Force Plant 42, about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Last month, Northrop won the right from the Air Force to equip two of the bulbous-nosed drones with adapters that may soon allow them to fly with some of the U-2's key sensors '-- which if successful could eliminate the need for two spy planes.

Mick Jaggers, Northrop's Global Hawk program director, said this week that the Global Hawk is cheaper to operate and flies closer to the ground, giving the Pentagon even more refined intelligence.

"We bring an advantage," Jaggers said. "We fly closer to the target we're trying to capture."

But being able to cruise for 12 hours at 70,000 feet '-- twice the altitude of a commercial jet '-- is one of the reasons the U-2 has served the Pentagon so well.

Executives say the plane is now flying at least 17,000 hours each year, twice as many hours as 20 years ago.

"There is always an airframe in the sky," said Melani Austin, Lockheed's U-2 program director.

Added Winstead: "If it's in the news, and there are hostiles in the area, you can bet the U-2 is there."

Secretly designed in Lockheed's Skunkworks research lab in Burbank during the Cold War, the plane was built to find missiles behind the Iron Curtain.

Lockheed engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson fashioned it as a jet-powered glider with long, narrow wings that were a third of the normal weight at the time.

Johnson delivered the first plane to the Eisenhower administration's Central Intelligence Agency just nine months after signing the contract. The company built the initial 20 planes for less than their budget, returning money to the government.

The public found out about the plane in 1960 when it was shot down by the Soviets. Pilot Francis Gary Powers was held by the Soviets for two years.

Winstead remembered Tuesday how the U-2's first flight in 1955 was actually a mistake. The plane was on what was planned as a high-speed taxi test, he said, and it just took off. "It loves to fly," he said.

The spy craft's slender wings give it enormous lift, but the design also makes it notoriously squirrelly to fly '-- raising the risks for the single pilot in its tight cockpit.

On the grueling missions, pilots wear spacesuits, breathing from an oxygen tank and eating and drinking everything through a straw. Meals, such as macaroni and cheese with added caffeine, come in a tube.

"We're worried about staying awake," said Lockheed pilot Greg Nelson, who previously flew the plane for the Air Force. "It's a survival contest between you the jet."

And until Lockheed's recent modifications, pilots on the longest missions often suffered from decompression sickness '-- known as "the bends" '-- like what scuba divers suffer when they surface too fast.

"We had a big problem," Nelson said, recounting how one afflicted pilot in Afghanistan nearly crashed.

Lockheed has now modified the planes so that pilots feel pressure equivalent to an altitude of about 15,000 feet rather than the 29,000 feet of altitude '-- the height of Mt. Everest '-- before the change. The improvements included strengthening the frame and increasing the air pressure inside the cabin.

"We've had no pilot injuries since then," Austin said.

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The Air Force now has 27 U-2s and five additional two-seat trainers. The aircraft are not as old as the 60-year anniversary suggests. Most were built in the 1980s, with just two left from a production run in 1968.

Lockheed has 325 employees working full time on refurbishing and maintaining the U-2, most of them in Palmdale. Every seven years, the plane is torn apart, stripped of its wings and then rebuilt.

Northrop assembles the Global Hawk in Palmdale. Jaggers said he is aiming to have a drone outfitted with the U-2's sensors and ready for tests in less than six months.

Lockheed's Winstead countered that equipping a Global Hawk fleet with new sensors could eventually cost hundreds of millions of dollars. "Right now the U-2 is bought and paid for," he said.

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, which has received funding from both companies, said the two planes "are complementary."

Global Hawk flights are often canceled because of weather, Thompson noted, while the U-2 flies above the storm.

Thompson said the Pentagon had been threatening for years to retire the spy plane.

"Congress always steps in and prevents it," he said.

Rob "Skid" Rowe has flown the U-2 as a test pilot for Lockheed for 22 years. He said he intends for that to continue.

"Beat back the robots," he said.

melody.petersen@latimes.com

Twitter: @melodypetersen

ALSO:

Critics of Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal warn about arbitration clause

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 00:45

For years the broadband industry tried to claim that they were imposing usage caps because of network congestion. In reality they've long lusted after usage caps for two simple reasons: they allow ISPs to charge more money for the same product, and they help cushion traditional TV revenues from the ongoing assault from Internet video. Instead of admitting that, big ISPs have tried to argue that caps are about "fairness," or that they're essential lest the Internet collapse from uncontrolled congestion (remember the debunked Exaflood?).Over the years, data has shown that caps aren't really an effective way to target network congestion anyway, can hinder innovation, hurt competitors, and usually only wind up confusing consumers, many of whom aren't even sure what a gigabyte is. Eventually, even cable lobbyists had to admit broadband caps weren't really about congestion, even though they still cling to the false narrative that layering steep rate hikes and overage fees on top of already-expensive flat-rate pricing is somehow about "fairness."

Comcast is of course slowly but surely expanding usage caps into its least competitive markets. More recently the company has tried to deny it even has caps, instead insisting these limits are "data thresholds" or "flexible data consumption plans." But when asked last week why Comcast's caps in these markets remain so low in proportion to rising Comcast speeds (and prices), Comcast engineer and vice president of Internet services Jason Livingood candidly admitted on Twitter that the decision to impose caps was a business one, not one dictated by network engineering:

Jason's not the first engineer to admit that caps aren't an engineering issue and therefore don't have anything to do with congestion. In fact if you followed the broadband industry's bunk Exaflood claims over the last decade, you probably noticed that ISP lobbyists say one thing (largely to scare legislators or the press into supporting bad policy), while actual engineers say something starkly different.Repeatedly we've been told by ISP lobbyists and lawyers that if ISPs don't get "X" (no net neutrality rules, deregulation, more subsidies, the right to impose arbitrary new tolls, whatever), the Internet will choke on itself and grind to a halt. In contrast, the actual people building and maintaining these networks have stated time and time again that nearly all congestion issues can be resolved with modest upgrades and intelligent engineering. The congestion bogeyman is a useful idiot, but he's constructed largely of bullshit and brainless ballast.

Livingood will likely receive a scolding for wandering off script. Comcast, unsurprisingly, doesn't much want to talk about the comment further:

"We've asked Comcast officials if there are any technology benefits from imposing the caps or technology reasons for the specific limits chosen but haven't heard back yet. Livingood's statement probably won't come as any surprise to critics of data caps who argue that the limits raise prices and prevent people from making full use of the Internet without actually preventing congestion."

That's worth remembering the next time Comcast tries to insist that its attempt to charge more for the same service is based on engineering necessity. The problem? Our shiny new net neutrality rules don't really cover or restrict usage caps, even in instances when they're clearly being used to simply take advantage of less competitive markets. While Tom Wheeler did give Verizon a wrist slap last year for using the congestion bogeyman and throttling to simply make an extra buck, the FCC has generally been quiet on the implementation (and abuse) of usage caps specifically and high broadband prices in general.There are some indications that the FCC is watching usage caps carefully, and says it will tackle complaints about them on a "case by case basis." But what that means from an agency that has traditionally treated caps as "creative" pricing isn't clear. It's another example of how our net neutrality rules were good, but serious competition in the U.S. broadband sector would have been better.

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 22:38

Naysyers are warning that the recent plunge in Bitcoin prices - from almost $318 at its peak during the Greek crisis, to $221 yesterday - is due to growing power struggle over the future of the cryptocurrency that is dividing its lead developers. On Saturday, a rival version of the current software was released by two bitcoin big guns. As Reuters reports, Bitcoin XT would increase the block size to 8 megabytes enabling more transactions to be processed every second. Those who oppose Bitcoin XT say the bigger block size jeopardizes the vision of a decentralized payments system that bitcoin is built on with some believing the split could spell the end of bitcoin. However, the turmoil in the price also coincides with some rather notable global macro eventsfrom Asia (where Bitcoin is extremely popular).

So while the price action is serious - we have roundtripped from the beginning of the peak of the Greek crisis. However, as Reuters reports, the split in cryptocurrency developers could spell the end of Bitcoin...

On Saturday, a rival version of the current software was released by two bitcoin big guns:Gavin Andresen, who was chosen by the currency's elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, as his successor when he stepped aside in 2011, and Mike Hearn, who along with Andresen is one of five senior developers.

For months Andresen and Hearn have been locked in an argument with the other three lead programmers over whether the "blocks" in which bitcoin transactions are processed should be enlarged from their current 1 megabyte, so as to enable more than three payments to be processed per second.

The new version, which calls itself Bitcoin XT, would increase the block size to 8 megabytes, which would allow up to 24 transactions to be processed every second. That is still a fraction of the 20,000 or so that VISA can process, but would increase every year, so that bitcoin could continue to grow.

Those who oppose Bitcoin XT say the bigger block size jeopardizes the vision of a decentralized payments system that bitcoin is built on, as the extra computer memory needed would shut out many of the thousands of individual "nodes" that currently power the network.

Some reckon the split could spell the end of bitcoin. But Hearn, speaking to Reuters on Tuesday, said that whether or not Bitcoin XT was adopted, the crypocurrency would live on.

Andresen and Hearn argue that it was Nakamoto's intention for bitcoin to be scaled up as technology developed so that it could widen its reach. But opponents argue that bitcoin was never intended as a rival to traditional payments systems.

"I have followed this from the beginning & I agree that it is an attempted governance coup,"tweeted Jon Matonis, founding director of the Washington, D.C.-based Bitcoin Foundation, of which Andresen himself is chief scientist.

"Bitcoin was designed to be protected from the influence of charismatic leaders, even if their name is Gavin Andresen, Barack Obama, or Satoshi Nakamoto," the user wrote.

We leave it to the reader to decide which is more responsible for the recent crash as one lead developer noted,

"If we thought it might be the end of bitcoin, we wouldn't do it,"

* * *

Finally, we note that add that the biggest winner from this is gold

The flight to central bank loss of control safety "pet rock" will never have governance problems.>>>>

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Source: FCW: The business of federal technology

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 17:43

Internet Governance

ICANN handoff officially delayedBy Mark RockwellAug 18, 2015The U.S. will retain oversight of Internet domain naming and addressing functions for at least another year, through September 2016, because more time is needed to plan and execute the handoff to an international body.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a Commerce Department component, had been working to relinquish its long-held oversight responsibilities of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to a global, multi-stakeholder body. The current contract with U.S.-based non-profit ICANN, which has historically contracted with NTIA to manage the master database of top-level domain names like .com and .net., is set to expire Sept. 30.

Lawrence Strickling, assistant secretary of Commerce for communications and information, said in an Aug. 17 blog post on the NTIA website that although the worldwide Internet community had made "tremendous progress" in developing proposals to transition the stewardship of ICANN and its handling of the Internet domain name system, he said more planning is needed before the functions are handed over.

Strickling had indicated only a few weeks ago that NTIA might need to extend the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority contract only until July 2016.

Additionally, although Strickling doesn't mention it in his blog post, some lawmakers have questioned the plan to transition oversight of ICANN to an international body, which they fear could include representatives of authoritarian regimes looking to tighten controls on the Internet for their own purposes.

A joint statement released Aug. 17 by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.), and Environment and the Economy Subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-Ill.) called the renewal "an important step."

"A key component of the bipartisan DOTCOM Act, which was overwhelmingly approved by the House, is to ensure Congressional oversight and provide concrete accountability and transparency measures for the transition" the GOP trio said. "By extending the United States' role in these functions, we are creating an environment for ongoing dialogue and decision making instead of a rush to meet artificial deadlines."

Strickling wrote that "it has become increasingly apparent over the last few months that the community needs time to complete its work, have the plan reviewed by the U.S. government and then implement it if it is approved."

In May, NTIA asked groups developing transition plans how long it would take to complete their proposals. After getting responses and factoring in the U.S. government's evaluation and implementation times for those plans, "the community estimated it could take until at least September 2016 to complete this process," he wrote.

In response to feedback from the planning groups, Strickling told Congress in an Aug. 14 letter that NTIA intended to extend the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) contract for another year, with options for up to three additional years. NTIA also filed a notice in the Federal Register on Aug. 10 referring to its plans for a new deadline.

The Federal Register notice said comments on the IANA Stewardship Transition Plan are due by Sept. 8, 2015; comments on the Enhancements to ICANN Accountability are due by Sept. 12, 2015.

About the Author

Mark Rockwell is a staff writer covering acquisition, procurement and homeland security. Contact him at mrockwell@fcw.com or follow him on Twitter at @MRockwell4.

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 11:10

It's actually pretty easy to deal with your wireless router. All you need to do is plug in an Ethernet cable, go to a very particular IP address, remember a username and password (it's probably ''admin'' for both), find your settings in a dial-up-slow interface that wasn't even impressive in the 80s (when it was presumably last updated), and then hope against hope you don't cause thirty more problems every time you fix one.

OK, fine. Dealing with your wireless router is horrible. That's what Google found out over the last year or so, as it started dropping into people's homes to talk about Wi-Fi.

''We spent a lot of time with people who were having all kinds of trouble with their Wi-Fi,'' says Trond Wuellner, a Google product manager. Wuellner's been at the company for eight years, most of it spent working on wireless connectivity for Chromebooks. He knows your Wi-Fi sucks, and he thinks Google can help.

OnHub supports the latest in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, plus Google's new Weave language, which is designed to help appliances and connected-home devices talk to each other.

Today, the company is launching a new device called the OnHub, in partnership with router-maker TP-Link. There's another, Asus-made device in the works. For $199, it promises to make your Wi-Fi faster and more reliable, and to give you the ability to update and fix your connection. (You know, for the rare times unplugging it and plugging it back in just won't do.) Presales start today, and devices will ship in the coming weeks.The most striking thing about the OnHub is the way it looks. It's not your average router, with wires and antennas poking out from every side; it's a large cylindrical device with a blinking light on the top, shades of the Amazon Echo or Apple's Airport Extreme router. Its outer shell is removable, and comes in either blue or black (more colors are coming, Wuellner says, to better suit your room). It's pretty, in its way.

This is intentional: Google doesn't want you to crawl behind your desk every time you need to get at your router. It wants the OnHub right in the center of everything. This itself is a boon to your connection; hiding your router behind closed doors or underneath your TV is horrible for your signal. (Yes, people do that.)

''We discovered that when you put a router on the floor,'' Wuellner says, ''versus on the shelf, the one on the shelf performs twice as well as the one on the floor.'' Wuellner's team also discovered that making it a tall cylinder made users less likely to stack things on top of it, which also destroys signal.

If step one was to build a router people want on their shelf, not in the closet, then step two was to make it work really well. The OnHub has 13 antennas inside, 12 for casting signal and one for measuring congestion on your network. The device's software is constantly monitoring channels and frequencies, making sure you're connecting in the most efficient way. Wuellner says Google didn't just want to blow your mind with antenna power, but figure out how to use it properly. ''Imagine yourself in a battle with your neighbor about who can listen to their stereo,'' he says. Most routers just keep cranking the volume to try and drown out the other; the OnHub wants to help everybody share.

Google has intentionally left itself room to expand on the OnHub's capabilities, and expand it will.

There's a lot of Chromecast DNA in the OnHub, in that most of your interaction with the device happens through an app on your phone. It's called Google On, and it's available for iOS and Android. You set up your network through the app, which uses sound to find the router in your home. Once you've picked a username and password, there's an easy way to text or email the password to people who need it. Through the app, you can spot-check a network, prioritize a device to make sure you're getting enough juice for your Netflix stream, and even troubleshoot a connection. (By the way: If Google's finally figured out how to make a troubleshooter that isn't both complicated and unhelpful, well, that might be way bigger than the router.) As long as the light on top is glowing green, everything's hunky-dory. Orange is like your car's Check Engine light, prompting you to open the app to see what's gone wrong.OnHub supports the latest in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, plus Google's new Weave language, which is designed to help appliances and connected-home devices talk to each other. The OnHub is a trojan horse similar to Amazon's Echo, offering a single great feature'--really, really, ridiculously easy Wi-Fi setup'--as a gateway into the many other things this box could one day do. The device is the OnHub, not a router; the app's called On, not Router Connector App. Google has intentionally left itself room to expand on the OnHub's capabilities, and expand it will.

That's part of why you might get a slight case of the heebie-jeebies at the notion of a Google router. The company that already knows your location, your email, your search history, now sniffing around everything you connect to the internet? Yikes. Not to mention, there's the fact that it would be all too easy for Google to make the OnHub better for Google services than others, in the hopes that maybe you find yourself going to YouTube and not Netflix.

Wuellner promises, proudly, that none of this is happening. ''We're actually really proud of the work we've done around making sure OnHub is a trustworthy and secure member of your family,'' he says. ''We've drawn a very strong, hard and fast line around inspecting any information or websites about the content you're looking at in your home.'' There are settings in the app, too, that users can toggle on and off to determine what data is being shared.

OnHub is only the latest move in Google's relentless attempt to make it easier to get online. See, when you go online Google tends to make money. So it's making balloons that fly around the world beaming connectivity to Earth, and it's digging trenches for Fiber in cities around America. Now, with OnHub, it's trying to solve that impenetrable jungle of cables, blinking lights, and error messages that we're forced to live with. And once it's placed proudly on our shelves in our living rooms, who knows what OnHub could do?

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 14:05

Have you ever wondered what White Feminism is? Are you vaguely familiar with the term, but still unclear on what it actually means -- and how it affects you?

No worries! Above, we give you a brief, basic introduction to White Feminism, and explain why we need to start talking about it more.

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:54

New lice infestation now resistant to treatment

Air Date: 08/19/15

With students heading back to school, there's a health warning for parents. Head lice are graduating to a new threat level in half the nation's states and resisting commonly-used drugs. Dr. Holly Phillips joins ''CBS This Morning'' with tips for parents.

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:52

At just over 3 percent of gross domestic product, total U.S. military spending is almost $600 billion a year, constitutes around 5 percent of total national industrial output, and accounts for a major share of the economy in certain regions across the U.S., including as much as 13 percent in Virginia and about 6 percent in the DC/Maryland area.

Since 2010, however, the defense budget has been steadily declining. As the U.S. military ramps down its presence overseas, and military industries are squeezed by long-term trends on multiple fronts, how will the American economy fare?

This question framed a recent event hosted by the Foreign Policy and Economic Studies programs at Brookings, and moderated by Director of Research for Foreign Policy Michael O'Hanlon. Former Federal Reserve Chair and Distinguished Economics Fellow in Residence Ben Bernanke joined the discussion, along with the Metropolitan Policy Program Policy Director Mark Muro.

Here are some key takeaways from their discussion:

Cuts to defense funding were not motivated by defense needs and slowed the economic recoveryBen Bernanke kicked off the event by arguing that while defense spending is closely connected to economic growth, ''generally speaking, it's best to keep military preparedness goals separate from the short-run cyclical [economic] considerations.'' Moreover, when it comes to the defense budget cuts made during the recent period of economic recovery, he believes mistakes were made. Outside of the drawdown in forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bernanke said the cuts in military spending were not motivated by changes in defense needs and ''were actually a negative in terms of our economic recovery.''

Military research and development (R&D) helps fuel the private sector''There are plenty of examples where military technology has been extremely important for private sector growth,'' Bernanke said. ''One example I like is laser technology, which began as a military application, but there have since been something like 55,000 patents related to laser technology, and the things that have come out of that include laser surgery, barcodes, DVD players, and a whole range of things.''

Bernanke acknowledged the benefits of these developments, stating that ''by far the most important [impact of defense on economic growth] in the United States has been the linkage between defense military appropriations and broader technological trends,'' but added the caveat that ''if the same money had been spent on basic science [research] that would have probably been an even better strategy'... but the political system is not good at making long-run investments with uncertain impacts. But overall, military R&D has had positive spillovers in the private sector.''

Mark Muro echoed Bernanke's sentiment regarding the importance of technological advances resulting from defense funding, arguing that in many respects, the defense budget has functioned as the nation's de facto economic development policy.

''The defense budget has turned out to be the only place where one could argue for and deliver certain kinds of useful industry innovations,'' said Muro. ''Since World War II, the DOD has arguably been the nation's steadiest and most creative supporter of technology progress.'' In that sense, Muro continued, ''defense expenditures have functioned as a stealth industrial policy in the absence of a consistent, urgent, non-military development strategy.''

The defense budget shouldn't be a separate economic driver, but rather one part of a broader strategyThough Muro praised the military's frequent and important investments in technology, he warned that recent and forecasted declines in defense funding make it critical to ensure that the nation retains a broad, national strategic plan for economic growth.

''As we think about the size of the military, [we must] consider the rest of our economic strategy and ensure that we protect and build these industries,'' said Muro.

The military as an employerWhen it comes to the workforce participation, Michael O'Hanlon pointed out that there are currently 1.4 million active duty members of the military, plus an additional civilian workforce that is nearly 800,00 strong working for the Department of Defense and around 900,000 men and women in the reserves, which altogether represent ''a couple of percent'' of the U.S. workforce.

Bernanke noted that the need to employ 1.4 million active duty soldiers is itself a cost borne by the rest of the economy. This cost could be mitigated by the training and skills that the soldiers subsequently take to the civilian economy. Unfortunately, Bernanke said, the research suggests that a soldier re-entering the private sector will typically have a lower initial wage than a similar person who never served in the military.

Nonetheless, while in uniform, U.S. military personnel today are reasonably well compensated, O'Hanlon argued, with the latest DOD study on the issue suggesting that overall compensation (not including pensions) for enlisted military personnel of given age, experience and skill levels exceeded that for about 85 percent of comparable cohorts in the broader civilian economy.

Watch the full event video here:

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:23

Appearing on ''Morning Joe'' Wednesday, former NSA Director Michael Hayden said he would have moved ''heaven and earth'' to get to the bottom of the situation if any foreign minister used a private email account like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did.

''I'd really go after an email account in which the official and unofficial emails were co-mingled,'' he added. ''So, you put a very juicy target out there.''

Hayden called Clinton's handling of her emails was ''stupid and dangerous'' '-- not only to the U.S. and its national secrets, but dangerous to her as well.

''I don't even think it was legal,'' he said. ''That has to be against policy.''

Hayden was clear that Clinton should have used a government server while serving in the government and was seemingly stunned that her staff allowed her to keep the private email and server.

Watch the segment via MSNBC below:

'--

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 05:48

Related CoverageNASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) '' For years there has been a pill out there to help men with their sex drive.

But now a pill for women is one step closer to being available.

''It's a really difficult thing to say to the man that you love that you are not really interested in having sex with him,'' said Amanda Parrish of Brentwood.

She said her sex life used to be better.

''We had a really strong chemistry,'' said Parrish.

She said about three years into the relationship she noticed a change.

''I was quickly becoming one of those women who would either pretend to be asleep before he came to bed at night or come up with a headache,'' Parrish recalled.

She said she decided to join the clinical trial for a pill called, Flibanserin, or the ''Female Viagra.''

''The first thing that happened, driving down the road one day talking to my husband in the middle of the day, for no apparent reason, I got a little flutter and it was not a flutter in my heart, so I immediately let him know, 'Hey, I think this thing is working,''' said Parrish. ''It literally was like the light switch was turned back on and I was having thoughts in the middle of the day about him.''

''This drug it was like really turning back the clock for us, so it was very exciting,'' said Ben Parrish.

The Food and Drug Administration has twice rejected the pill since 2010 because of side effects including fatigue, low blood pressure and fainting.

Thursday an FDA panel voted in favor of approving it only if the manufacturer comes up with a plan to limit those risks.

''I was very fortunate. I didn't have just modest benefit, I had significant benefit and I had absolutely no side effects,'' said Parrish.

She said it has been a struggle since the clinical trial ended.

''Since that time I've done anything from read 'Fifty Shades of Grey' 12 times, to ordering voodoo medicine off the Internet,'' said Parrish.

Now that she knows what works, she hopes the pill appears on the market very soon.

''We'll be the first in line to get it,'' said Parrish.

A full decision from the FDA is expected by the end of the summer.

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 05:30

Amanda and Ben Parrish say the women's libido drug Flibanserin has helped their sex life. NBC Nightly News

Ben noticed the change almost immediately.

"She was flirty again," he said. "She was leaving me notes on my bathroom mirror in the morning."

The Parrishes are part of a coalition of people encouraging the FDA to approve the drug. One group called "Even the Score" '-- which receives funding from the drug's manufacturer '-- has launched a PR blitz including a

parody of those ubiquitous ads for male sexual enhancement drugs.But there are also skeptics.

"For the FDA to approve this drug would be giving in to a public relations campaign," said Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, an associate professor at Georgetown University.

The FDA has twice refused to approve the drug asking for more data on safety concerns.

But the Parrishes hope this week an outside advisory panel will finally approve a drug they believe saved their marriage.

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 04:58

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 04:23

JUDY WOODRUFF: For a closer look at the new libido pill and at some of the back-and-forth behind its approval, we turn to two physicians who focus on women's health issues.

Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, associate professor of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center, she is also director of PharmedOut, a group that tracks pharmaceutical industry marketing practices. And Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, she's a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist at the Yale Medical Group, and she's also clinical professor at the Yale University School of Medicine.

We welcome you both.

Dr. Minkin, let me start with you.

Explain, first of all, who are the women this drug is designed for?

DR. MARY JANE MINKIN, Yale Medical Group: This drug is designed for women who have '-- the fancy term is hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

Women who really don't have an interest in having sex is basically the simple way of thinking about it, and this drug is aimed for women who are premenopausal, not postmenopausal women, younger women.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what exactly does it do? How is it different? And we just mentioned this, but how is it different from the drugs designed for men like Viagra?

DR. MARY JANE MINKIN: Well, first of all, Judy, I wish we knew exactly how it works because this brain chemistry stuff, as Adriane will talk about, is very tricky.

But, basically, this drug, flibanserin, works at a central effect in the brain, affecting things like serotonin and dopamine activity. And, again, its focus is to increase sexual desire. It's a very, very different drug than Viagra or any of the drugs in that category for men. Those drugs have a distinct physical effect, basically to increase blood flow to the penis.

That's what it does. So, it's really a performance drug, not so much a desire drug.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And you have told us that you do plan to prescribe this drug for some of your patients.

DR. MARY JANE MINKIN: I do plan on prescribing it under appropriate circumstances with appropriate counseling and ruling out other things going on saying, yes, this is the right thing to try and we will give it a try.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, Dr. Fugh-Berman, you have said '-- you said in an interview I saw '-- at one point, you said this is a drug that's useless and it's even dangerous. What did you mean?

DR. ADRIANE FUGH-BERMAN, Georgetown University Medical Center: Well, this drug can cause sudden unconsciousness and also a very dangerously low blood pressure, nausea, sedation.

But the sudden unconsciousness that requires medical intervention is very worrisome. And people in clinical trials are healthier than people in the general population. Once this drug gets out there and is starting to be used by women with medical problems or women who are on multiple medications, I think we're going to see an epidemic of adverse effects.

It's a big interactor. It interacts with alcohol, the birth control pill, and many common medications.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, you're saying, even though doctors will have looked at who should be taking it, you're saying you still expect there to be problems?

DR. ADRIANE FUGH-BERMAN: Yes.

And there already have been doctors quoted in the media as saying they are going to use it in postmenopausal women, which it shouldn't be used in.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Postmenopausal women.

DR. ADRIANE FUGH-BERMAN: Yes. And they will give it to women who are casual drinkers, which '-- and you are absolutely not supposed to use alcohol with this pill, which is actually pretty unreasonable when you think about it. You're taking this pill every day, and really women are never going to have a drink again if they take this?

JUDY WOODRUFF: What about those issues, Dr. Minkin? I mean, thinking '-- just thinking about the population of women you said you might be prescribing it to who are premenopausal, what about the issue of alcohol? How do you think about that?

DR. MARY JANE MINKIN: Well, Adriane is correct. It is a concern, and obviously that these are not '-- certainly a women who is a significant alcohol consumer shouldn't even think about taking this medication.

And as far as it's not supposed to be used in the presence of alcohol and somebody has got to be ready to say I'm not going to drink, and that's a big commitment, understandably.

The drug also is supposed to be taken at night. Supposedly, if there are somnolence issues, this should be seen at night, so it should be less of an issue. But these are concerns that need to be discussed with the patients.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What about Dr. Fugh-Berman's other point, that it can cause unconsciousness?

DR. MARY JANE MINKIN: I must confess that I have not been privy to look at all the clinical trials that have been done.

It's certainly not a common effect that I have been aware of.

JUDY WOODRUFF: How widespread, Dr. Fugh-Berman, do you think '-- you said you have already seen that some doctors are saying they're going to prescribe it outside the parameters of what's supposed to be prescribed. How widespread do you think the use may end up being?

DR. ADRIANE FUGH-BERMAN: Yes, great question.

I don't really know, but there has been such '-- I'm not sure that there's ever been a drug that's come on the market that has such name recognition already, that there is such hype around this drug that was really manufactured by the company, that this is a drug that's been really approved by a public relations campaign.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And in that connection '-- it sounds like you're saying it was a mistake for the FDA to approve it.

DR. ADRIANE FUGH-BERMAN: It is definitely a mistake for the FDA to have approved it.

This drug is barely effective, if it's effective at all, because its effect really maybe due to its sedative effect. This drug is as sedating as four drinks.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Dr. Minkin, given all that, how much does that give you pause, as someone who may be prescribing it?

DR. MARY JANE MINKIN: Well, it obviously makes you think about doing significant counseling with the patient first as far as its use and talking '-- and calling if she has any side effects.

I think the most important thing to me in prescribing it to patients is, I don't want women thinking this is a cure-all: Oh, I don't want to have sex, this is going to make me want to have sex.

And this is not a cure for a lousy relationship. If somebody has got a lousy relationship, fix the relationship or get out of it. But this is not the answer for it. This is a very select use in people who are very selective for this particular indication. And it's not a cure-all by any means.

DR. ADRIANE FUGH-BERMAN: That's a really great point.

And really what we were talking about is an imbalance in libido between two partners. And I think we really need to question why we're saying there is something necessarily wrong with a woman who has a lower libido than her partner. There is not a scientific norm for libido.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And are you getting at this question of why it's taken so much longer to come up with a drug like this for women than it was for men?

DR. ADRIANE FUGH-BERMAN: And it hasn't been for want of trying. Pharmaceutical companies have really been trying. Viagra didn't work for women and neither have some other drugs.

So, really, women are more complicated than men, which isn't news.

(LAUGHTER)

JUDY WOODRUFF: I guess none of us could argue with that, but in a good way.

DR. MARY JANE MINKIN: Of course.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, well, we will leave it there.

(LAUGHTER)

JUDY WOODRUFF: Dr. Fugh-Berman, thank you very much.

Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, we thank you both.

DR. ADRIANE FUGH-BERMAN: Thank you.

DR. MARY JANE MINKIN: Thank you.

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 04:16

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson won an enthusiastic response from an audience at the Iowa State Fair Sunday when he said, ''We have to stop listening to these people who tell us that we cannot talk about God, we cannot talk about our faith.''

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 04:00

More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.

On Monday, NBC's Today was the only network morning show to cover a new study showing a strong link between religious faith and lasting happiness. Co-host Savannah Guthrie informed viewers: ''According to a new study in the American Journal of Epidemiology, joining a religious group does more for someone's sustained happiness than other forms of social participation.''

She continued: ''The study found religion led to the greatest mental health benefits. It also lessened depression and helped the sick better cope with their illnesses. Suggesting that the key to true happiness could begin with your faith.''

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Thu, 20 Aug 2015 03:32

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 20:53

Consumers are increasingly frustrated that they are paying for 700 channels when they really only watch 10. Preferences for the types of programming desired vary across socioeconomic categories. What cable companies are offering is a giant pile of disparate choices most of which no one wants.

The more streamlined offering model is not popular with cable operators as it reduces the subscription fees they can collect. There is a reason why Verizon '-- and soon, Apple '-- will be in litigation with companies like ESPN. While some consumers may rail at only having one or two ESPN channels, I suspect most will be comfortable without the other half a dozen or so ESPN offerings. In this newly proposed, unbundled world of television channels, those who want more can simply pay for more.

Read MoreCan Samsung Pay beat Apple Pay?

When viewers are asked what the biggest problem is aside from cost, the answer is that there's nothing on TV. What consumers are really saying is that there is nothing on TV that they want to watch that is available to watch right now. Not only do people not want most of the alternatives offered, they don't want to watch based on the dictated times by networks and programmers. The live-view model, despite working for sports and other special events, is a dying model. A demand model is clearly where the future resides.

While big cable providers are doing their best to move into the streaming world, companies that have significant experience with streaming media will likely have major advantages relative to legacy-modified alternatives. Netflix is a prime example of the streaming model that continues to capture share. A huge advantage Netflix has is that the cost of the service is a mere fraction of the typical cable bill that most consumers pay.

Read MoreCan Twitter avoid being the next MySpace?

So, will Apple TV change the face of television? It will and will be a part of a growing movement to provide more tailored alternatives in an on-demand basis through all distribution channels (including mobile). The cable companies will no doubt keep fighting in this new environment. But, at this point, it is less about expanding market share and more about reducing share erosion.

Read MoreGoogle's Alphabet move was brilliant

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 16:22

John Beale is set to be sentenced by a federal judge on Wednesday, Dec. 18. DOJ

In September, Beale, who served as a ''senior policy adviser'' in the agency's Office of Air and Radiation, pled guilty to defrauding the U.S. government out of nearly $900,000.

To explain his long absences, Beale told agency officials that he was engaged in intelligence work for the CIA, either at agency headquarters or in Pakistan. At one point he claimed to be urgently needed in Pakistan because the Taliban was torturing his CIA replacement, according to Sullivan.

''Due to recent events that you have probably read about, I am in Pakistan,'' he wrote McCarthy in a Dec. 18, 2010 email. ''Got the call Thurs and left Fri. Hope to be back for Christmas '....Ho, ho, ho.''

In fact, Beale had no relationship with the CIA at all. Sullivan, the EPA investigator, said he confirmed Beale didn't even have a security clearance.

''He's never been to Langley (the CIA's Virginia headquarters),'' said Sullivan. ''The CIA has no record of him ever walking through the door.''

Nor was that Beale's only deception, according to court documents. In 2008, Beale didn't show up at the EPA for six months, telling his boss that he was part of a special multi-agency election-year project relating to ''candidate security.'' He billed the government $57,000 for five trips to California that were made purely ''for personal reasons,'' his lawyer acknowledged. (His parents lived there.) He also claimed to be suffering from malaria that he got while serving in Vietnam. According to his lawyer's filing, he didn't have malaria and never served in Vietnam. He told the story to EPA officials so he could get special handicap parking at a garage near EPA headquarters.

When first questioned by EPA officials early this year about his alleged CIA undercover work, Beale brushed them aside by saying he couldn't discuss it, according to Sullivan. Weeks later, after being confronted again by investigators, Beale acknowledging the truth but ''didn't show much remorse,'' Sullivan said. The explanation he offered for his false CIA story? ''He wanted to puff up his own image,'' said Sullivan.

Even at that point, prosecutors say, Beale sought to ''cover his tracks.''' He told a few close colleagues at EPA that he would plead guilty ''to take one for the team,'' suggesting that he was willing to go to jail to protect people at the CIA.

John Kern, Beale's lawyer, declined to comment to NBC News. In a pre-sentencing memo, he had acknowledged his client's guilt, but had asked for leniency and offered a psychological explanation for the climate expert's bizarre tales.

''With the help of his therapist,'' wrote Kern, ''Mr. Beale has come to recognize that, beyond the motive of greed, his theft and deception were animated by a highly self-destructive and dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior.'' Kern also said Beale was driven ''to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives '... that are fueled by his insecurities.''

Two congressional committees are now pressing the EPA, including administrator McCarthy, for answers on the handling of Beale's case. Two new inspector general's reports fault the agency for a lack of internal controls and policies that allegedly facilitated Beale's deceptions.

For example, one of the reports states, Beale took 33 airplane trips between 2003 and 2011, costing the government $266,190. On 70 percent of those, he traveled first class and stayed at high end hotels, charging more than twice the government's allowed per diem limit. But his expense vouchers were routinely approved by another EPA official, a colleague of Beale's, whose conduct is now being reviewed by the inspector general, according to congressional investigators briefed on the report.

Beale was caught when he ''retired'' very publicly but kept drawing his large salary for another year and a half. Top EPA officials, including McCarthy, attended a September 2011 retirement party for Beale and two colleagues aboard a Potomac yacht. Six months later, McCarthy learned he was still on the payroll

In a March 29, 2012 email, she wrote, ''I thought he had already retired. She then initiated a review that was forwarded to the EPA general counsel's office. But the inspector general's office was not alerted until February 2013 and he didn't actually retire until April.

In a statement to NBC News, Alisha Johnson, McCarthy's press secretary, said that Beale's fraud was "uncovered" by McCarthy while she was head of the Office of Air and Radiation. ''[Beale] is a convicted felon who went to great lengths to deceive and defraud the U.S. government over the span of more than a decade,'' said Johnson. ''EPA has worked in coordination with its inspector general and the U.S. Attorney's office. The Agency has [put] in place additional safeguards to help protect against fraud and abuse related to employee time and attendance, including strengthening supervisory controls of time and attendance, improved review of employee travel and a tightened retention incentive processes.''

More from NBC News Investigations:

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 11:27

For more, vist iri.columbia.edu/enso and follow #IRIForecast on Twitter.

Spanish translation courtesy of Centro de Modelado Cientifico (cmc.org.ve)Tenemos un El Ni±o ''saludable''. La anomal­a en la temperatura de la superficie del mar desde la ºltima semana fue suficiente para llamarlo un evento fuerte, s"lo por lo observado durante la semana pasada. Pero para llamarlo oficialmente un evento fuerte tiene que continuar como m­nimo al mismo nivel por un mes entero, y la media de este julio podr­a contribuir a ello. Veamos qu(C) ocurre'... est creciendo [00:30].

Los modelos de predicci"n estn diciendo que va a ser ms fuerte, y esa es nuestra predicci"n, que muy probablemente se volver un evento ms fuerte.

En cuanto a los impactos, seguimos previendo los mismos que hemos estado mencionando en nuestros pron"sticos en los ºltimos meses: ms seco de lo usual en Indonesia, hºmedo en el sur de los Estados Unidos en invierno y (lluvias por debajo de lo normal en Centro Am(C)rica, el Caribe y Norte de Sudam(C)rica). [00:55]

A pesar de que El Ni±o puede significar distintas cosas negativas o positivas para la gente alrededor del mundo, desde mi punto de vista como cient­fico del clima es positivo. Por qu(C)? Porque obtenemos mejores predicciones climticas para medias mensuales cuando tenemos un El Ni±o o una La Ni±a, mejores que en casos normales. Cuando no tenemos El Ni±o o La Ni±a, hay muchas fluctuaciones aleatorias [01:26] que no son predecibles. Hay otros factores que ayudan con la predicci"n, pero, en t(C)rminos de predicibilidad, El Ni±o y La Ni±a son los factores ms fuertes en el sistema climtico a escala de tiempo estacional. Sabemos d"nde y cundo es ms probable que sea ms lluvioso o seco que lo normal cuando tenemos un El Ni±o. As­ que desde mi punto de vista estamos mostrando nuestra val­a como cient­ficos confiables cuando tenemos un El Ni±o o La Ni±a, comparado con cuando no tenemos uno.

A pesar de que algunas personas quiz no obtendrn muchos beneficios debido a este El Ni±o donde vaya a estar muy seco o con impactos negativos, yo estoy feliz y tengo esperanza de que podemos hacer un buen trabajo prediciendo mejor los impactos positivos y negativos alrededor del globo debidos a este El Ni±o, que puede muy probablemente ser uno fuerte.

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Wed, 19 Aug 2015 11:21

Donald Trump got a couple of things right when he called out Silicon Valley for abusing a U.S. visa program at the expense of American workers, but there are better solutions than the one put forward by the 2016 GOP candidate, angel investor Jason Calacanis said Tuesday.

As part of his immigration reform plan announced last weekend, Trump said he would increase the prevailing wage for H-1B visa recipients in order to encourage employers to hire native workers for well-paying science, technology, engineering and math jobs, rather than flying in foreign workers.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services grants H-1B visas to a limited number of skilled foreigners who agree to work in specialty fields.

Trump said too many workers are being hired at the program's lowest allowable wage levels at the expense of women and people of color, two notoriously underrepresented groups in Silicon Valley.

Read MoreH-1B visa program needs an overhaul: Experts

"This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program," Trump's campaign website said.

Calacanis said he believes the bottom 20 to 30 percent of H-1B visas are being abused, but the majority are used to recruit smart, skilled talent from around the world.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services makes 85,000 H-1B visas available each year and has hit that cap in recent years. That number is too minor to be considered relevant, but the program presents a divisive issue that Trump can use effectively, Calacanis said.

"This is Trump at his finest. He is bringing in the politics of race and the politics of jobs and xenophobia," he told "Squawk Alley."

Trump singled out Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, saying "Mark Zuckerberg's personal senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities."

Zuckerberg has called on Washington to pass comprehensive immigration reform. He has also donated to politicians who support reform, including Rubio, who is also running for the Republican presidential nomination, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, the National Journalpreviously reported.

Calacanis acknowledged that Silicon Valley has become a potent political player.

"Has Zuckerberg and the rest of the tech industry gotten super involved and bought a lot of politicians? Of course they have," he said. "The tech industry is catching up with the industries that have bought and sold Washington."

Facebook declined to comment. The Trump campaign could not immediately be reached.

Read MorePink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements

The H-1B visa presents a way of gaming globalization and attracting foreign workers to the United States rather than outsourcing jobs to countries like India, where intelligent, driven workers are willing to work for far less, Calacanis said. Shutting down the H-1B program would only spur employers to send jobs overseas, he added.

"One part of this puzzle, the H-1B visa, is bringing intelligent Ph.D.s, brilliant founders to this country to create dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of jobs," he said. "And then there's people hacking the system to move IT jobs. We need to separate those two."

The United States can remedy abuses in the H-1B program by making companies pay a free-market rate to utilize the program through an auction system, Calacanis said. The auction proceeds could then be used to retrain American workers.

Companies willing to pay a premium to attract the best of the best would likely win out in such auctions, while those that merely wanted to arbitrage IT salaries would likely be pushed out, he said.

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Tue, 18 Aug 2015 19:29

Story highlightsAn advisory panel votes 18-6 to recommend FDA approval for flibanserinDrug, which some dub as "female Viagra," is for treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorderAn FDA advisory committee voted 18-6 to recommend that the agency approve the drug flibanserin for the treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder in premenopausal women.

The panel's recommendation will be given to the FDA, which will ultimately decide whether to approve the drug, frequently referred to as "female Viagra" because it's a pill for sexual dysfunction in women. The FDA often follows the recommendations made by advisory committees but is not required to do so.

"I am elated, very happy to hear this," Dr. Margery Gass, a sexual dysfunction expert at Cleveland Clinic, said after Thursday's vote. "I think women are going to be very appreciative of having something they can try for this problem."

'It's complex'There's no doubt that sex drugs for men have been a boon for the pharmaceutical industry. The FDA approved Viagra in 1998. And last year, the drug earned more than $1.6 billion for Pfizer.

But drug companies have struggled to come up with the right formula for women.

Why?

According to a 2002 study, up to one-third of adult women might experience hypoactive sexual desire disorder -- the technical term for when women have a lack or absence of sexual desire or fantasy.

But some experts say that for women, the cure for low libido is more likely to be found in their brains than in a bottle.

"Women's sexuality is very complicated. It's not a matter of just taking that pill by the way, and then all of a sudden the lights go on," said Judy Kuriansky, a clinical psychologist and certified sex therapist. "You have to feel good about your body. You have to feel good about yourself. You have to feel the guy really loves you. ... It's complex. It's not the same as a man taking a pill."

Even though it's being dubbed as "Viagra for women," experts say it's a misnomer to describe flibanserin that way since the way the drug works is distinctly different.

It's a drug that works on the central nervous system -- in the same category as an antidepressant.

Viagra, in contrast, focuses on the physical, treating erectile dysfunction but doing nothing to induce sexual desire.

Third review by FDAThursday's meeting was the third time the FDA has reviewed flibanserin, made by Sprout Pharmaceuticals.

In the past, the FDA has rejected it, saying it had too many side effects, and really didn't turn women on anyhow.

In 2010, a committee told pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim, which initially developed the drug, that the company should go back to the drawing board to develop more conclusive data about it. In 2013, the drug was rejected without going before the committee.

Last year, Sprout Pharmaceuticals said it was preparing to conduct additional studies after the FDA had given the company "clear guidance" on "the path forward."

A 2013 study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine showed that women taking the drug reported an average increase of 2.5 satisfying sexual events in four weeks, compared with an increase of 1.5 among women using a placebo.

Gender disparity?In the days leading up to this week's vote, Sprout Pharmaceuticals has been part of a campaign making the case that the FDA hasn't done enough to help women dealing with sexual dysfunction.

The campaign, called "Even the Score," has argued there's been a significant gender disparity in the drugs that the FDA has approved.

That's a claim the FDA strongly denies.

"The FDA strives to protect and advance all important areas of women's health," FDA spokeswoman Andrea Fischer said, "including disorders of female sexual function."

Opinion: 'Female Viagra?' Women should be able to choose

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen and Brooke Baldwin contributed to this report.

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Tue, 18 Aug 2015 19:26

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Archived Version

Tue, 18 Aug 2015 16:35

Poptimism

The famous singer won't support a country that won't support its citizens. byHeather Dockray

Social Innovation

Americans spend more than $15 billion per year on animal healthcare. Can a new telemedicine platform help our pets, and our wallets? byAarian Marshall

Social Innovation

Researchers have created a new, high-tech paper that can clean contaminated drinking water while educating users on safe sanitation. byRafi Schwartz

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Archived Version

Mon, 17 Aug 2015 18:28

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has had it with Donald Trump and comparisons of his campaign to that of the billionaire mogul and GOP frontrunner.

The Vermont senator told the New York Times Magazine that he not only disagreed with Trump's views on immigration but that he found Trump's entire campaign to be an embarrassment. Asked by Ana Marie Cox in a short interview what he thought of ''Trump's surge in the polls,'' Sanders responded, ''not much.'' Sanders went on to slam Trump as an ''embarrassment for our country,'' citing his ''slurring of the Latino community'':

I think Donald Trump's views on immigration and his slurring of the Latino community is not something that should be going on in the year 2015, and it's to me an embarrassment for our country.

Sanders and Trump briefly crossed paths this weekend at the Iowa State Fair, where presidential candidates from both sides of the aisle visited the famed Soapbox and chowed down on a variety of fried delectables. ''I apologize, we left the helicopter at home. It's in the garage,'' Sanders joked, mocking Trump's splashy appearance at the fair via helicopter (the billionaire offered free rides to children and told them he was Batman.)

And on NBC's ''Meet the Press'' this weekend, Sanders explained to host Chuck Todd how his campaign differs from that of Trump's after Todd asked what he thought he ''had in common with the Trump voter'':

Here's the difference. I am not a billionaire. My family doesn't have a whole lot of people. We are raising our campaign contributions from 350,000 people who are contributing on average Chuck, $31.20 apiece. That's our response to out to working class people, to go out to the middle-class people and gain support. I think that's a little bit different approach than Donald Trump's.

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Archived Version

Sun, 16 Aug 2015 13:23

Presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) the 72-year-old Vermont socialist is surging in the Democratic Primary against Hillary Clinton. A couple of weeks ago, Bill Curry of Salon wrote that ''Hillary Clinton is going to lose: she doesn't even see the frustrated progressive wave that will nominate Bernie Sanders'' and Huffington Post followed up with that sentiment in an article entitled ''Bernie Sanders Has Overtaken Hillary Clinton In the Hearts and Minds of Democrats.''

The Washington Time reports that ''Sanders has drawn headlines for attracting packed crowds at campaign stops in Denver, Des Moines, Iowa, and Madison, Wisconsin, as well as for his rising poll numbers in early primary states Iowa and New Hampshire,'' with a recent CNN/WMUR New Hampshire primary poll showing Sanders pulling to within eight points of Clinton in New Hampshire.

Heartbroken when Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-M) decided not to run for president in 2016, ''some hard-core lefties'' and progressives have shifted their attention to Sanders, ''who has been drawing massive crowds across the country'' according to a recent report by Mother Jones.

In an interview with the Boston Herald last week, Warren stated that she's not ruling out the idea of joining Sanders on the campaign trail, telling the Herald that it's ''too early to say,'' adding ''Bernie's out talking about the issues that the American people want to hear about. These are people who care about these issues, and that's who Bernie's reaching. I love what Bernie is talking about. I think all the presidential candidates should be out talking about the big issues.''

David Pakman discusses in the clip below that, ''[Warren] is saying she is not at all surprised that the Vermont Senator is surging in the polls and drawing a lot of enthusiastic in New Hampshire,'' adding that there is a lot of speculation as to whether she will endorse Clinton or another candidate who is ''more in line with Elizabeth Warren's actual political views '' Bernie Sanders.''

Pakman goes on to note that ''there's an argument to be made that Elizabeth Warren could be more effective as a senator than she ever could be as vice-president.''

What are your thoughts? Would you like to see Warren stay in the Senate or would you prefer a Sanders Warren ticket in 2016?