Category Archives: Profiteering

China seethes on sidelines amid latest North Korea crisis

Source: China seethes on sidelines amid latest North Korea crisis

I ask you to speak for calm and diplomacy and a shut down of bully boy bravado from us and the Koreans. Bullies care more about themselves than the thousand or perhaps millions of innocents who could die because they miscalculated.

The WikiLeaks-Russia connection started way before the 2016 election – Vox

In April 2012, the relationship between Assange and Russia became direct for the first time. Specifically, Assange became a star on Russia Today (RT), Russia’s state-funded English-language propaganda outlet.“With WikiLeaks’ funding drying up — under American pressure, Visa and MasterCard had stopped accepting donations — Russia Today began broadcasting a show called ‘The World Tomorrow’ with Mr. Assange as the host,” the New York Times reported in a 2016 piece on Assange’s Russian ties.The exact nature of the arrangement between RT and Assange has never been very clear. Assange and WikiLeaks insist that Assange was never employed by RT, and that RT was only one of many broadcasters that bought rights to air Assange’s show. Either way, though, Assange was paid by the Kremlin. According to the Times, the amount of money he received has never been disclosed.The World Tomorrow had a decidedly anti-American bent, in keeping with much of RT’s programming and Assange’s own writing. Its first episode was a polite interview with Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. In the interview, Assange refers to Nasrallah as a “freedom fighter,” telling him “you have fought against a hegemony of the United States.”That this was serving an ideological purpose could have been lost on Assange. RT is designed to be the voice of the Russian state in the English-speaking world, particularly America. It’s part of a broad-based Russian propaganda effort aimed at whitewashing Putin’s government, using attacks on alleged US misdeeds as a key strategy.It’s an old tactic used by Soviet apologists, called “whataboutism.” Whenever an American criticized the Soviet Union, the Soviet apologist would say, “What about the bad things America does?” This wasn’t a genuine moral criticism of the United States, which was often quite deserved, so much as a debating tactic aimed at deflecting a moral critique of Soviet policy.Assange eagerly participated in an extended campaign of whataboutism. Not just that, in fact: He was paid by an authoritarian government, one that kills and arrests dissenters, for doing so. His principles as a transparency activist seem not to have gotten in the way.

Source: The WikiLeaks-Russia connection started way before the 2016 election – Vox

New Report Reveals McConnell And Ryan Took Millions From Russian Oligarch Tied To Putin

During the 2015-2016 election season, Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonid “Len” Blavatnik contributed $6.35 million to leading Republican candidates and incumbent senators. Mitch McConnell was the top recipient of Blavatnik’s donations, collecting $2.5 million for his GOP Senate Leadership Fund under the names of two of Blavatnik’s holding companies, Access Industries and AI Altep Holdings, according to Federal Election Commission documents and OpenSecrets.org.

Source: New Report Reveals McConnell And Ryan Took Millions From Russian Oligarch Tied To Putin

With genetic morph, a weird type of anthrax has emerged—and it’s on a rampage | Ars Technica – (nature developed a new potential pandemic source to deal with “over-population” of animals in areas affected by deforestation and growth of human development.)

Classic anthrax is caused by Bacillus anthracis, which tends to strike ungulates (hoofed mammals) in seasonal outbreaks in arid locales, such as the African savannahs. The bacteria can cause infection in skin, lungs, or intestines. In humans, B. anthracis causes ghastly skin lesions and severe respiratory and intestinal infections—which have mortality rates as high as 85 to 60 percent, respectively.The alternative anthrax bacteria appear to cause an identical anthrax disease in animal models. But, those bacteria aren’t B. anthracis; they’re cousins, B. cereus, commonly found in soil and food. Usually, these are relatively harmless, with some strains known to cause a minor fraction of food poisoning cases. But the ones causing alternative anthrax are different. They just so happen to have gotten their grips on B. anthracis’ virulence plasmids—circular, shareable bits of DNA that contain the genetic code for their disease-causing gene products.

Source: With genetic morph, a weird type of anthrax has emerged—and it’s on a rampage | Ars Technica

Hamilton 68: Tracking Putin’s Propaganda Push… To America

Digging deeper, the 54 stories related to partisan politics include 30 hostile to the Democratic Party, 14 supportive of President Trump, 2 hostile to the Republic Party establishment, and 2 targeting the U.S. Intelligence Community. Of 18 stories related to Syria, 14 attacked US actions, while 4 lauded the actions of Russia and their allies. The 9 articles targeting Robert Mueller and his investigation were uniformly hostile.

Source: Hamilton 68: Tracking Putin’s Propaganda Push… To America

Israeli police confirm Netanyahu is suspect in fraud investigation | World news | The Guardian

According to a statement from the Israel Police, Harow is expected to receive six months of community service and a fine of $193,000 on separate breach of trust charges – rather than a prison sentence – in exchange for his testimony.The latest dramatic twists in the series of long-running investigations into Netanyahu, his family and close circle, have led some commentators in the Israeli media to suggest that an indictment may now be inevitable.Amid mounting calls from politicians for Netanyahu to stand down if he is charged in any of the investigations, commentators even in media usually friendly to the Israeli prime minister – including the rightwing Jerusalem Post – have begun beginning to talk about ‘alternatives’ to him.The confirmation of the seriousness of the allegations comes on the day after his wife, Sara, was again interviewed by police in a separate case relating to claims for household costs in the prime minister’s residence.

Source: Israeli police confirm Netanyahu is suspect in fraud investigation | World news | The Guardian

Gulf of Mexico dead zone is largest on record | Ars Technica

This year’s “dead zone,” where oxygen levels are so low they threaten fish and other small aquatic life, is about 50 percent larger than normal. The average size of the dead zone over the last 31 years has been 14,037 square kilometers, according to Nancy Rabalais, a researcher at Louisiana State University who has long studied the issue. The dead zone was likely even larger than what the scientists found, but there was insufficient time on board the ship to measure its entire extent.

Source: Gulf of Mexico dead zone is largest on record | Ars Technica

The Earth is exhausted – we′re using up its resources faster than it can provide | DW Environment | DW | 01.08.2017

We’ve already used up more resources this year than our planet can regenerate. That’s bad news for our climate and for poorer countries in the Global South, which stand to lose out the most. Anne-Sophie Brändlin reports.

Source: The Earth is exhausted – we′re using up its resources faster than it can provide | DW Environment | DW | 01.08.2017

Palantir: the ‘special ops’ tech giant that wields as much real-world power as Google | World news | The Guardian – “Predictive programs cannot help but build in biases/beliefs of the designers because the designers are either unaware of their biases or believe them to be true..”

Data merely becomes a new way of reinforcing old prejudices. Critics of these analytics argue that from the moment a police officer with the pre-crime mindset that you are a criminal steps out of their patrol car to confront you, your fate has been sealed. In 2013, TechCrunch obtained a leaked report on the use of Palantir by the LA and Chicago police departments. Sgt Peter Jackson of the LAPD was quoted as saying: “Detectives love the type of information [Palantir] provides. They can now do things that we could not do before.” Palantir is immensely secretive. It wields as much real-world power as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple, but unlike them, Palantir operates so far under the radar, it is special ops.

Source: Palantir: the ‘special ops’ tech giant that wields as much real-world power as Google | World news | The Guardian

The mask is off: Trump is seeking war with Iran | +972 Magazine

But Trump’s confidence may be misplaced on two levels. First, abusing the inspection mechanisms of the deal may prove harder than Trump has been led to believe. The inspections are the cornerstone of the deal, and Iran’s ability to cheat on the deal is essentially non-existent as long as the integrity and efficiency of the inspections remain in tact. But if Trump begins to abuse the mechanism to fabricate a conflict, he will end up undermining the inspections regime and actually enhance the ability of those in Iran who would like to pursue a covert nuclear program. Precisely because of the commitment of Europe and others to non-proliferation, they are likely to resist Trump’s efforts to tinker with the inspections.Second, by revealing his hand, Trump has displayed his duplicity for all to see. That includes the American public, whose anti-war sentiments remain strong and are a key reason they supported the nuclear deal in the first place.The American public knows the Iraq playbook quite well. Trump’s own supporters remain enraged by the disastrous war with Iraq. They know how they got played. It’s difficult to imagine why they would allow themselves to get played again by a president who has left little doubt about his intent to deceive.

Source: The mask is off: Trump is seeking war with Iran | +972 Magazine