Why Are Things As They Are?

 

We Say Fight Back!

Chalmers Johnson’s Cookbook On Revolution Summarized  richgibson.com/johnsonquotes.htm

Congratulations on the publication of

gumroad.com/l/hOGG

Pakistani Drone Protestors Block Nato Supply Route  Thousands of people protesting U.S. drone strikes blocked a road in northwest Pakistan on Saturday used to truck NATO troop supplies and equipment in and out of Afghanistan, the latest sign of rising tension caused by the attacks.
The protest, led by Pakistani politician and cricket star Imran Khan, had more symbolic value than practical impact as there is normally little NATO supply traffic on the road on Saturdays. The blocked route in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province leads to one of two border crossings used to send supplies overland from Pakistan to neighboring Afghanistan.
Khan, whose Tehreek-e-Insaf party runs the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, called on federal officials to take a firmer stance to force the U.S. to end drone attacks and block NATO supplies across the country.
“We will put pressure on America, and our protest will continue if drone attacks are not stopped,” Khan told the protesters.  http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/pakistani-drone-protesters-block-nato-supply-route-20989382

(Joe Hill Murdered November 19, 1915)

(Below) Thousands of people in the UK and US united in their rejection of mainstream media in a mass protest. Protesters targeted the headquarters of media giants like Fox News, the BBC and NBS, decrying their narrow coverage of world affairs.
The March Against Mainstream Media (MAMM) organized the international protest via social media and challenged the established media to cover it.
In a statement posted on the MAMM website, the organization said big media outlets had two options: “report on the fact that thousands of people are currently protesting outside of their buildings because they are keeping important news from the public’s eyes,” or ignore them.  http://rt.com/news/march-against-mainstream-media-848/

Bloomberg Worries About Inequality as a Source of Revolution (so did Aristotle)  Complex human societies, including our own, are fragile. They are held together by an invisible web of mutual trust and social cooperation. This web can fray easily, resulting in a wave of political instability, internal conflict and, sometimes, outright social collapse.
Analysis of past societies shows that these destabilizing historical trends develop slowly, last many decades, and are slow to subside. The Roman Empire, Imperial China and medieval and early-modern England and France suffered such cycles, to cite a few examples. In the U.S., the last long period of instability began in the 1850s and lasted through the Gilded Age and the “violent 1910s.”
We now see the same forces in the contemporary U.S. Of about 30 detailed indicators I developed for tracing these historical cycles (reflecting popular well-being, inequality, social cooperation and its inverse, polarization and conflict), almost all have been moving in the wrong direction in the last three decades.
The roots of the current American predicament go back to the 1970s, when wages of workers stopped keeping pace with their productivity. The two curves diverged: Productivity continued to rise, as wages stagnated. The “great divergence” between the fortunes of the top 1 percent and the other 99 percent is much discussed, yet its implications for long-term political disorder are underappreciated. Battles such as the recent government shutdown are only one manifestation of what is likely to be a decade-long period.
Wealth Disrupts
How does growing economic inequality lead to political instability? Partly this correlation reflects a direct, causal connection. High inequality is corrosive of social cooperation and willingness to compromise, and waning cooperation means more discord and political infighting. Perhaps more important, economic inequality is also a symptom of deeper social changes, which have gone largely unnoticed.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-20/blame-rich-overeducated-elites-as-our-society-frays.html

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Michigan’s (read Detroit’s) Bad Bank School System Losing Students

Michigan’s Education Achievement Authority has lost nearly a quarter of its students in the past year, a dramatic dip in its second year of operating 15 low-performing schools in Detroit.
The EAA, a statewide district formed by Gov. Rick Snyder in 2011 to take over failing schools, enrolled 7,589 students in K-12 at its 15 schools — 2,369 fewer than last fall, when it had 9,958 students across 12 direct-run schools and three charter schools. That’s a drop of 23.6 percent.
The biggest decline came at the district’s 12 direct-run schools, where 2,103 students left. At its charter schools, 266 fewer students enrolled.
The enrollment decline, documented in figures released this week by the Michigan Department of Education, is expected to seriously impact the bottom line of the state’s first recovery district. The EAA, which is supposed to turn around Michigan’s lowest-performing schools, has been heavily criticized by Democratic lawmakers but is a signature project of the governor. From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20131122/SCHOOLS/311220039#ixzz2lQhYfLdy

80 Suckers Line Up For Doe/RATT Shell Game  The United States Department of Education has revealed the finalists for its 2013 Race to the Top–District competitive grant program. The finalists, who will compete for $120 million in federal grants, include 80 districts spread over 21 states.
Race to the Top is a federal program focused on driving changes in public schools through competitive grants to states, with an eye toward reforming academic standards, investing in teachers and education leadership, improving achievement in schools whose students have performed poorly on standardized tests, and developing data systems that follow students from “cradle to career.” Race to the Top–District is a program within the Race to the Top initiative that is designed to support “local reforms that will personalize learning, close achievement gaps, and prepare each student for college and their careers.” Through the program, grants are provided directly to local education agencies or consortia of LEAs.
Thirty-one applicants (some representing multiple districts) were chosen as finalists for the 2013 competition. From that pool, ED will select five to 10 winning applicants, who will receive four-year grants worth $4 million to $30 million apiece.
According to ED: “Grantees will be selected based on their vision and capacity for reform as well as a strong plan that provides educators with resources to accelerate student achievement and prepare students for college and their careers.Read more at thejournal.com/articles/2013/11/20/80-districts-finalists-in-120-million-rttt-d-grant-program.aspx#5uyII2oifblBWyZ3.99

Why Would the United Microsoft, NEA, AFT, TFA, DOE, et al, want to flood schools with teachers?  the Department of Education — in partnership with the Advertising Council, Microsoft, State Farm Insurance, Teach for America, the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions and several other educational groups — is unveiling a public service campaign this week aimed at recruiting a new generation of classroom educators.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/21/education/campaign-seeks-to-recruit-top-students-to-become-teachers.html?ref=education

NYC Class Size Booms City class sizes have increased for the sixth year in a row, new stats from the city Education Department show.
Classes from kindergarten through third grade now have nearly 25 kids on average — more than any year since 1998, an analysis of the data shows.
That’s up four kids in just six years for general education, gifted and team-taught classes combined.
Read more: www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/nyc-class-sizes-grow-25-kids-average-article-1.1521347#ixzz2lRjlKpRr

Arne Duncan: White Suburban Mom Hater  Education Secretary Arne Duncan realized fairly quickly that he had stumbled.
He had just told a gathering of state superintendents of education that “white suburban moms” were rebelling against the Common Core academic standards — new guidelines for math and language arts instruction — because their kids had done poorly on the tough new tests. “All of a sudden, their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought … and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said at the event Friday.
Two hours later, with those comments sparking outrage on social media, Duncan told POLITICO that he “didn’t say it perfectly.” Read more: www.politico.com/story/2013/11/arne-duncan-common-core-comment-99987.html#ixzz2lRkWYznu

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

US’ Puppet Karzai Tries to Cut a Few Strings (remember Diem, Hamed)  After a frantic week of last-minute negotiations, Afghan President Hamid Karzai delivered a tepid endorsement Thursday of a proposed 10-year security pact with the United States in a rambling speech to an Afghan tribal gathering. But he then surprised attendees — and the world — by saying Afghanistan might not sign the accord until next spring.
www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-afghanistan-karzai-20131121,0,4733554.story#ixzz2lQmFNO6f

US/Afghan Pact=War Forever As many as 15,000 troops from the U.S., Turkey, United Arab Emirates and other countries would remain in Afghanistan through 2024,  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-21/u-s-has-deal-on-afghan-pact-before-tribal-leaders-meet.html

Karzai: US has been killing civilians  American officials reacted with anger and exasperation on Saturday after Mr. Karzai publicly accused American Special Forces troops of killing civilians in a raid on an Afghan home; American officials said it was an Afghan-led raid that killed only insurgents.
Moreover, Mr. Karzai’s aides continued to insist that even if the council, or loya jirga, ratified the bilateral security agreement with the United States, Mr. Karzai would not sign it until next year, after a presidential election to choose his successor, but before he leaves office.
The remarks from the president’s camp left many people wondering why Mr. Karzai had convened a loya jirga, bringing to Kabul 2,500 Afghan notables from around the country, dismissing most employees from work for six days and locking down a city of five million so thoroughly that all roads to it were blocked for several days.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/world/asia/us-upset-by-karzais-claim-about-civilian-deaths.html?_r=0

White House Fact Sheet in P5-1 Iran Scam  www.scribd.com/doc/186639570/P5-1-Fact-Sheet

Israel: US Iran Deal Rooted in Deceit   Israel on Sunday harshly criticized the international community’s nuclear deal with Iran, accusing the world of “self-delusion” and saying the first-stage agreement would not halt Tehran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
But officials acknowledged there was nothing they could do to stop the agreement, and said that Israel would do everything it could to shape the final deal that is to be negotiated during the next six months.
Israel believes Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, and in the weeks leading up to Sunday’s agreement, had warned the emerging deal was insufficient. It had called for increased pressure on Iran, and warned that any relief from economic sanctions would make Iran less willing to compromise down the road.  http://bigstory.ap.org/article/israel-minister-iran-deal-based-deceit

Drone Come Home–Hits Navy Ship  The Navy says an aerial target drone malfunctioned and struck a guided missile cruiser during training off Southern California, causing two minor injuries.
Lt. Lenaya (luh-NEY-yah) Rotklein of the U.S. Third Fleet said the accident on the USS Chancellorsville happened Saturday afternoon while the ship was testing its combat weapons system off Point Mugu.
She said two sailors were treated for minor burns after the ship was struck. She said the ship was heading back to Naval Base San Diego so that officials can assess the damage.
The Navy was investigating the cause of the drone malfunction.
Rotklein said the drone was being used to test the ship’s radar. She had no immediate information on whether the drone has malfunctioned before.
About 300 crew members were aboard the ship.  http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/17/drone-navy-ship-california/3617687/

US/UK Block Iraq War Inquiry  The US and Britain are trying to block the inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the invasion of Iraq, anti-war activist Lindsey German told RT. Conversations between former British PM Tony Blair and former US President George W. Bush remain unattainable.  http://rt.com/op-edge/iraq-war-inquiry-uk-816/

Another Suspected Navy Gangster/officer Busted The Navy announced Thursday that it has suspended another official — the seventh in two months — for his alleged ties to a major Singapore-based defense contractor accused of fraud and bribery in a scandal that continues to escalate.
Capt. David W. Haas, a Naval Academy graduate and the deputy commander of a coastal patrol unit based in San Diego, was suspended and reassigned Nov. 15. Navy officials said he is under investigation for his connections to the contractor, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, but declined to provide details. He has not been charged with a crime. www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/navy-suspends-another-officer-in-bribery-investigation/2013/11/21/f6467094-52ea-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html?hpid=z6

Wars Drums Beat at China The United States said Saturday it was “deeply concerned” and committed to defending Japan after China announced an air zone in the East China Sea that includes disputed islands.
In a move that US ally Japan branded as “very dangerous,” China said it was setting up the “air defense identification zone” over the islands administered by Tokyo to “guard against potential air threats.”
In similar statements, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that the United States was “deeply concerned” about the moves by China, which also scrambled air force jets to carry out a patrol mission in the newly declared zone.
“This unilateral action constitutes an attempt to change the status quo in the East China Sea,” Kerry said.  http://news.yahoo.com/us-deeply-concerned-over-china-air-defense-zone-223707007.html

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Ms Astor on Modern Wealth  ”Everyone became obsessed with money and went higgledy-piggledy scampering after their fortunes,” she said. ”People with money used to often care about the people who had no money. Not always, but often. Now, it is rare to find people with money who care at all about people with no money.” www.nytimes.com/2002/03/30/nyregion/100-candles-for-a-darling-of-society-and-charity.html?pagewanted=3&src=pm

Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 16000 for the first time Thursday, extending a rally that has the blue chip-index on pace for its best year in a decade.

Thursday’s gains came after Janet Yellen moved a step closer to becoming the next Federal Reserve leader and a better-than-expected report on the jobs market boosted sentiment. The Dow rose 109.17 points, or 0.69%, to close at 16009.99, its 40th record close this year.

The S&P 500 rose 14.48 points, or 0.81%, to close at 1795.85 and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 47.88, or 1.22%, to close at 3969.15.online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303653004579211283929257404

Obamagogue Knew about the Coming Shipwreck of Market Based Health “Care”  The Obama administration brought in a private consulting team to independently assess how the federal online health insurance enrollment system was developing, according to a newly disclosed document, and in late March received a clear warning that its Oct. 1 launch was fraught with risks.
The analysis by McKinsey & Co. foreshadowed many of the problems that have dogged HealthCare.gov since its rollout, including the facts that the call-in centers would not work properly if the online system was malfunctioning and that insufficient testing would make it difficult to fix problems after the launch.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/private-consultants-warned-of-risks-before-healthcaregovs-oct-1-launch/2013/11/18/9d2db5f4-5096-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html?hpid=z2

High unemployment continues to the dominant economic theme around the world.
And globally, young people have it worse than the average.
“We highlight that youth unemployment rates are in general much higher than total unemployment rates, despite the increases in the numbers of skilled and educated youth with increased years of schooling,” said Credit Suisse economist Amlan Roy in a recent note to clients.
“Youth unemployment rates were more than double total unemployment rates in most selected countries and more than triple the total unemployment rate in Italy. This has implications for lifetime income, lifetime savings, as well as related social implications at the aggregate level.”http://www.businessinsider.com/total-vs-youth-unemployment-rates-2013-11?nr_email_referer=1&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Markets%20Chart%20Of%20The%20Day&utm_campaign=Moneygame_COTD_112213

Bleeding Jobs in Maryland (as all of USA) The General Motors factory in Baltimore, the Solo Cup plant in Owings Mills and the steel mill at Sparrows Point all made things for decades. And all closed in the past 10 years.
It’s a familiar tale for much of the country. But Maryland’s manufacturing job losses — the result of cutbacks, shutdowns and technological innovations requiring fewer people — are among the nation’s steepest. The state saw a faster pace of job reductions in the sector than all but seven other states and the District of Columbia in the past six years, according to a Baltimore Sun analysis comparing the most recent Labor Department figures with the period just before the recession.
Maryland has lost 25,000 manufacturing jobs — nearly 20 percent of its base — since August 2007. It hasn’t enjoyed even the partial rebound the United States as a whole saw after deep declines.
The problem isn’t new. Maryland has shed manufacturing jobs since the 1970s. Since 1990, it has lost more of them than all but four states and the District of Columbia, part of a deindustrialization that hit the entire Mid-Atlantic region harder than much of the country.  http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-11-17/business/bs-bz-manufacturing-job-loss-20131117_1_sparrows-point-solo-cup-plant-maryland

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GrOcQCql3c

As antidote to the liberal/pomoites who continue to harp about US “democracy” a reminder from the slavers Constitition

Art. I, sec. 2, par. 3. The three-fifths clause provided for counting three-fifths of all slaves for purposes of representation in Congress. This clause also provided that any “direct tax” levied on the states could be imposed only proportionately, according to population, and that only three-fifths of all slaves would be counted in assessing each state’s contribution.
Art. I, sec. 9, par. 1. This clause prohibited Congress from banning the “Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit” before the year 1808. Awkwardly phrased and designed to confuse readers, the clause prevented Congress from ending the African slave trade before 1808 but did not require Congress to ban the trade after that date. The clause was a significant exception to the general power granted to Congress to regulate all foreign and interstate commerce.
Art. I, sec. 9, par. 4. This clause declared that any “capitation” or other “direct tax” had to take into account the three-fifths clause. It ensured that, if a head tax were ever levied, slaves would be taxed at three-fifths the rate of whites. The “direct tax” portion of this clause was redundant, because that was provided for in the three-fifths clause.
Art. IV, sec. 2, par. 3. The fugitive slave clause prohibited the states from emancipating fugitive slaves and required that runaways be returned to their owners “on demand.”
Art. V. This article prohibited any amendment of the slave importation or capitation clauses before 1808.

Ten Years For Jeremy Hammond Jeremy Hammond, the Anonymous hacktivist who released millions of emails relating to the private intelligence firm Stratfor, has denounced his prosecution and lengthy prison sentence as a “vengeful, spiteful act” designed to put a chill on politically-motivated hacking.
Hammond was sentenced on Friday at federal court in Manhattan to the maximum 10 years in jail, plus three years supervised release. He had pleaded guilty to one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) flowing from his 2011 hack of Strategic Forecasting, Inc, known as Stratfor. In an interview with the Guardian in the Metropolitan Correction Center in New York, conducted on Thursday, he said he was resigned to a long prison term which he sees as a conscious attempt by the US authorities to put a chill on political hacking.
He had no doubt that his sentence would be long, describing it as a “vengeful, spiteful act”. He said of his prosecutors: “They have made it clear they are trying to send a message to others who come after me. A lot of it is because they got slapped around, they were embarrassed by Anonymous and they feel that they need to save face.”
Most pointedly, Hammond suggested that the FBI may have manipulated him to carry out hacking attacks on “dozens” of foreign government websites. During his time with Anonymous, the loose collective of hackers working alongside WikiLeaks and other anti-secrecy groups, he was often directed by a individual known pseudonomously on the web as “Sabu”, the leader of the Anonymous-affiliated group Lulzsec, who turned out to be an FBI informant.
Hammond, who is under court orders restricting what he says in public, told the Guardian that Sabu presented him with a list of targets, including many foreign government sites, and encouraged him to break into their computer systems. He said he was not sure whether Sabu was in turn acting on behalf of the FBI or other US government agency, but it was even possible that the FBI was using Sabu’s internet handle directly as contact between the two hackers was always made through cyberspace, never face-to-face.  http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/15/jeremy-hammond-anonymous-hacker-sentenced

Bloomberg, pandering to Chinese Fascists, Kills Critical Story, fires Writer  Michael Forsythe, a Hong Kong-based reporter for Bloomberg who has written award-winning investigative articles on China, met with supervisors and was placed on leave, two Bloomberg employees with knowledge of the situation said. The move came days after several news media organizations, including The New York Times, published reports quoting unnamed Bloomberg employees saying that top editors, led by Matthew Winkler, the editor in chief, decided in late October not to publish an investigative article because of fears that Bloomberg would be expelled from China.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/world/asia/reporter-on-unpublished-bloomberg-article-is-suspended.html?ref=international-home&_r=0

Not Better Late than Never, Ala “Pardons” Scottsboro Boys

Alabama’s parole board wrote a new ending for the infamous “Scottsboro Boys” rape case Thursday by approving posthumous pardons more than 80 years after the arrests.
The board made the unanimous decision during a hearing in Montgomery for three black men whose convictions were never overturned in a case that came to symbolize racial injustice in the Deep South in the 1930s.
“Today, the Scottsboro Boys have finally received justice,” said Gov. Robert Bentley.
Nine black males were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train in northeast Alabama in 1931. The men were convicted by all-white juries, and all but the youngest defendant was sentenced to death.
The state senator who helped enact a law to permit posthumous pardons said the Scottsboro Boys’ lives were ruined by a justice system that ignored evidence,america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/21/alabama-board-approvespardonsforscottsboroboys.html

 

Columbia SC Coppers Get an MRAP   The Columbia Police Department has added new set of wheels to its fleet.  The new armored vehicle made its debut in the Columbia Veterans Day Parade Monday morning. It is a MRAP or Mine Resistance Ambush Protected vehicle.
Police says it can help protect officers and the public during dangerous situations.
The unit comes from Fort Bragg as a military surplus item to be used for civilian use. S.W.A.T. Commander Captain E. M. Marsh says it was valued at about $658,000. www.wltx.com/news/article/255485/2/Columbia-Police-Debut-New-Armored-Vehicle

Solidarity for Never

NEA Pimps the Common Core Common Core State Standards Toolkit
This toolkit provides general background and links to pertinent information about the CCSS, as well as practical assistance and planning.
Families and Educators Working Together for Student Success
How families and educators can work together to help students transition to Common Core State Standards and achieve success. (downloadable guide)
Families and Educators Advocate for Student Achievement
Become an advocate for Common Core State Standards. Find out how you can support change outside the classroom that will help student achieve success inside it. (downloadable guide)
10 Things You Should Know About the Common Core
Video: 2013 Education Nation Tackles Common Core  http://www.nea.org/home/46653.htm

Corruption Endemic in School Unions:

Nobody Noticed Union Boss Steal $808,000 (memories of Pat Tornillo!)   Sally Jo Widmer didn’t know when to stop.
During the last seven years of her life, the former Auburn teachers union president lost $351,365 on slot machines and table games at Turning Stone Casino, according to Auburn Police Detective Jeffery Mead.
The revelation comes as police continue to investigate allegations that Widmer misappropriated at least $808,000 from the Auburn Teachers Association.
Widmer was president of the union for more than three decades before she killed herself in November.  http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/06/sally_jo_widmer_lost_big_at_tu.html

Lisa Barrett Stole 30,000 dollars of EA dues  Former Wyoming Area School District teacher union president Lisa Barrett has been charged with embezzling more than $30,000 in union funds and has worked out a plea bargain with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.  http://www.timesleader.com/news/local-news/858885/Former-teacher-union-boss-admits-to-embezzlement

Then Comes Sandy Hawkes A Lakeside Elementary School secretary who resigned over alleged embezzling has been charged with felony theft in Flathead District Court.
Sandy Hawkes resigned at the June 5 meeting of the Somers/Lakeside School Board after it came to light that thousands of dollars were missing from the Somers Classified Employee Union account, of which Hawkes was the treasurer.www.dailyinterlake.com/news/local_montana/article_467b0d92-e5d4-11e2-9467-0019bb2963f4.html

Then Way Down Upon the Suwannee  For more than five years, Sheryl Daniels and Rhoshonda Herring stole from their union without detection. Now they’re getting more than their share of unwanted attention. On August 2, the two women, respectively, former president and former treasurer of United Teachers of Suwannee County (UTSC), turned themselves in to the Sheriff’s Office of Suwannee County, Florida for arrest in the face of evidence that they had embezzled UTSC funds in excess of $50,000. Last Monday, September 9, Herring and Daniels each pleaded not guilty to one count of grand theft. The union is a joint affiliate of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.
The defendants have a tough road ahead if they take this to trial. Daniels, 56, and Herring, 39, each a resident of Live Oak, Fla., were public school teachers in Suwannee County, Florida, located in the northern part of the state between Jacksonville to the east and the panhandle to the west. Daniels had retired from teaching by the time of her arrest; Herring soon after her own arrest submitted a letter of resignation to the local school board, which the board accepted. There isn’t much purpose of sticking around. According to UTSC records, Herring and Daniels during January 2008-May 2013 wrote more than 150 unauthorized union checks. Herring wrote 32 checks to Daniels worth $12,234, while Daniels wrote Herring 109 checks worth $38,638. In addition, the pair signed a combined 17 checks made out to cash totaling $5,764. Grand total: $56,636. As union treasurer, Herring also allegedly concealed the thefts in financial records.

Given the Chance, at least 1500 school workers quit Mich EA   About 1,500 teachers resigned in August, he said.  From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20131121/SCHOOLS/311210034#ixzz2lQhyx8ap

Spy versus Spy

NSA Infected 50 thousand Computers with Spy/Malware programs per Snowden  Sleeper agents are among the most sinister spy assets: they lie in wait, wolves in sheep’s clothing, and then deliver a critical blow when activated. The NSA has 50,000 of those waiting for the literal push of a button, according to the latest batch of leaked Snowden documents, as seen by Dutch daily evening newspaper NRC. But these aren’t people, like Keri Russel and Matthew Rhys in The Americans – these are computers, infected with malware and untroubled by conscience or the risk of going native.
The NSA reportedly infected 50,000 computer networks worldwide with malicious software with the sole aim of harvesting sensitive information it wasn’t privy to, which is basically what you’d call textbook spy work in the digital age, from an agency tasked with spying. That’s not to excuse or dismiss the significance of this revelation, but we’ve heard from the Washington Post previously that the NSA was working on this sort of thing and that at least 20,000 computers had been infected by the program as of 2008. So to hear from Snowden documents via the NRC that it’s now climbed to 50,000 is hardly surprising.  http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/23/nsa-has-50000-digital-sleeper-agents-snowden/

US Govt Lawyers: Ordinary Citizens Have no Standing to Challenge NSA Spying The government is arguing that only phone companies could challenge the collection orders, however, and then only in super-secret FISA courts, which have already rubber-stamped the surveillance time and again.
The lawyers are also arguing that the judge himself isn’t qualified to hear questions of “national security” and that he should simply trust the administration’s officials to figure things out on their own, outside of courts. news.antiwar.com/2013/11/22/govt-lawyers-americans-have-no-right-to-challenge-surveillance/

NSA Plans to Grow and Grow Officials at the National Security Agency, intent on maintaining its dominance in intelligence collection, pledged last year to push to expand its surveillance powers, according to a top-secret strategy document.  In a February 2012 paper laying out the four-year strategy for the N.S.A.’s signals intelligence operations, which include the agency’s eavesdropping and communications data collection around the world, agency officials set an objective to “aggressively pursue legal authorities and a policy framework mapped more fully to the information age.”
Written as an agency mission statement with broad goals, the five-page document said that existing American laws were not adequate to meet the needs of the N.S.A. to conduct broad surveillance in what it cited as “the golden age of Sigint,” or signals intelligence. “The interpretation and guidelines for applying our authorities, and in some cases the authorities themselves, have not kept pace with the complexity of the technology and target environments, or the operational expectations levied on N.S.A.’s mission,” the document concluded.
Using sweeping language, the paper also outlined some of the agency’s other ambitions. They included defeating the cybersecurity practices of adversaries in order to acquire the data the agency needs from “anyone, anytime, anywhere.” The agency also said it would try to decrypt or bypass codes that keep communications secret  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/politics/nsa-report-outlined-goals-for-more-power.html?ref=international-home

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

 

Soldier ties Minnesota man to Nazi civilian massacre; Germany pursuing charges  A retired Minnesota carpenter, shown in a June investigation to be a former commander in a Nazi SS-led unit, ordered his men to attack a Polish village that was razed to the ground, according to testimony newly uncovered by The Associated Press. The account of the massacre that killed dozens of women and children contradicts statements by the man’s family that he was never at the scene of the 1944 bloodshed.
The June story prompted official investigations in both Poland and Germany. On Monday, the prosecutor leading Germany’s probe revealed to the AP that he has decided to recommend that state prosecutors pursue murder charges against 94-year-old Michael Karkoc.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ap-exclusive-soldier-testifies-that-minnesota-man-ordered-nazi-led-unit-to-attack-village/2013/11/18/e92f3212-5045-11e3-9ee6-2580086d8254_story.html?hpid=z6

So Long

Mavis Batey, Bletchley Park code breaker in World War II, dies at 92  Winston Churchill, Britain’s wartime prime minister, was said to have called the Bletchley Park code breakers his “geese that laid the golden eggs but never cackled.” Fueled by what Mrs. Batey described as “ersatz coffee,” they toiled in secrecy to decipher the encoded messages spat out by the Axis powers’ Enigma machines.
Mrs. Batey recalled reporting for duty at Bletchley Park, a Victorian estate about 50 miles north of London, and being “thrown in at the deep end.”
“No one knew how the blessed thing worked,” she once told an interviewer, referring to the Enigma, which resembled a typewriter and scrambled messages with confounding complexity.
Knox, by her description, was an “eccentric genius” so consumed by his work that on at least one occasion, he stuffed his pipe with bits of sandwich rather than smoking tobacco.
“He would ask, ‘Which way does the clock go round?’ ” Mrs. Batey recalled in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. “If you were stupid enough to answer ‘clockwise,’ he would always answer, ‘Not if you’re the clock!’ That summed it up: You had to be prepared to think in a different way.”