Wednesday, March 19th, 2014
BARTON GELLMAN and ASHKAN SOLTANI, - The Washington Post
Stephan: Once again we need to thank Edward Snowden for government documents spelling out just how pervasive the American police state has become. Do you wonder why people in other countries dislike us so. I cannot tell you how painful I find this at a personal level.
I was 21 and working for National Geographic when I first traveled overseas on business. I had an assignment and I still remember the many courtesies extended to me. Looking back I was so naive and still thank the people who saw what I was trying to do and made it happen for me when I could never have done it on my own. They didn't know me, several were clear about that, but I was an American. That was enough.
About five years ago I was in Paris and saw young people, who were clearly Americans, as they confirmed to me, sitting at a table sewing Canadian patches on their packs. "It just makes things easier," one of the young women told me. And it has gotten worse. I lived in Egypt for two years, and wouldn't even visit today.
The National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording ‘100 percent” of a foreign country’s telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort and documents supplied by former contractor Edward Snowden.
A senior manager for the program compares it to a time machine – one that can replay the voices from any call without requiring that a person be identified in advance for surveillance.
This cover slide comes from a weekly briefing deck by the NSA’s Special Source Operations team, which is responsible for deploying and maintaining bulk collection methods.
This is an excerpt from a weekly briefing memo from the NSA’s Special Source Operations team that describes collection efforts and defines many agency terms.
In this excerpt from the FY13 Congressional Budget Justification, the addition of a country to MYSTIC efforts is mentioned.
Obama and changes at NSA
On Jan. 17, President Obama called for significant changes to the way the NSA collects and uses telephone records of U.S. citizens. Read a transcript of his remarks.
Report
Here is the report from the five-member Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, which contains 40-plus […]
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Wednesday, March 19th, 2014
DAN SEWELL, - The Columbus Dispatch
Stephan: As far as I can tell although filed by The Associated Press, this didn't rate a mention on any news network. Further evidence of why we need to leave the carbon era. Instead we have spent a week talking about a story for which no one has a single certain explanatory fact. The NASA report on the collapse of civilization... yawn. Lets speculate instead on whether Martians have dematerialized the Malaysian 777 airliner.
This and the Crimea, for which there is almost as little certain data. It is the most astonishing display of the complete absence of substance in the American media one can imagine. Literally a week spent on two stories one of which is almost entirely information free and the other which lacks most of the data that would give us insight.
CINCINNATI — Thousands of gallons of crude oil leaked from an interstate pipeline into the area of a southwest Ohio nature preserve, authorities said today. There were no immediate reports of injuries to wildlife.
Federal and state environmental officials were at the scene today of the spill west of Cincinnati. Nearby residents in Colerain Township weren’t in danger from the leak reported late yesterday, authorities said. The pipeline was shut off overnight, they said.
The Mid-Valley Pipeline Co. pipeline runs nearly 1,000 miles from Texas to Michigan and is largely owned by Sunoco Logistics Partners. A Sunoco Logistics spokesman said the cause of the leak in a wooded ravine was under investigation.
Spokesman Jeff Shields said initial estimates were that 240 barrels of oil were released, the equivalent of some 10,000 gallons. He said crews confirmed the release at about 1 a.m. and the pipeline was shut down immediately on either side of the release area.
Ohio Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman Heather Lauer said a wetland area of about one acre was affected by oil that had traveled about a mile down an intermittent stream. She said an environmental contractor had been called to begin work on the cleanup.
Rangers at the Oak Glen Nature […]
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Wednesday, March 19th, 2014
ZOË SCHLANGER, - Newsweek
Stephan: I don't know why this comes as a surprise to anyone. On the same mutation principle that is creating superbugs GMO is forcing the mutation of the worms and bugs it was designed to kill. How can Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta and the others not have seen this coming.
One of industrial agriculture’s biggest GMO crops may have just backfired. Scientists have confirmed that corn-destroying rootworms have evolved to be resistant to the Bt corn engineered to kill them.
Bt stands for Bacillus thuringiensis, the name of the genetically modified corn’s ‘donor” organism. Bacillus thuringiensis is a naturally occurring soil bacterium that produces protein crystals that bind to certain receptors in the rootworm’s intestine, killing it. For years, farmers have planted Bt corn as an alternative to spraying insecticides. Bt corn accounted for three-quarters of all corn planting in 2013. That may have to change.
After finding a cornfield in Iowa in 2011 that was decimated by rootworm despite being planted with the Bt corn, Iowa State University entomologist Aaron Gassmann and his team began to study the pests’ interactions with the genetically modified organism (or GMO) corn in a lab. Their study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes the western corn rootworm’s rapid evolution after feeding on the engineered crop.
But Bt corn is still capable of warding off other pests, so farmers will likely keep planting it. Except now they’ll need to use pesticides to protect their crop from rootworms. As entomologists warned the […]
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Tuesday, March 18th, 2014
DEAN OBEIDALLAH, - The Daily Beast
Stephan: The constant spewing of hate that comes from a significant percentage of the Congress, as well as the open disinformation operation that is Fox News and conservative talk radio, produces effects. As this story illustrates once again the bone-headed prejudice of some areas of the country can hardly be exaggerated.
The use of the Arabic word for wind created a tornado amongst bigots on Facebook, but for every Negative Nancy there were 10 Tolerant Toms, which is something to be proud of as America continues the fight against racisim.
If I say the word ‘haboob,” are you outraged? Does that word make you want to post angry comments on Facebook? If not, then apparently you aren’t from Texas.
The term ‘Haboob” is the Arabic word for wind-try saying it a few times, it’s fun!-and American meteorologists have been using it since the 1950’s to describe a huge sandstorm. Most recently, however, the word inspired a mini-firestorm.
Shortly after KCBD News Channel 11 in Lubbock, Texas posted a photo on its Facebook page with the caption ‘Haboob headed toward Lubbock” Texans begun to freak out, taking to Facebook to make it clear they aren’t fond of Arabs or Muslims therefore don’t want to hear no, ‘meddle [sic] eastern term.”
The hullabaloo over ‘haboob” ranged from run of the mill xenophobic comments such as, ‘Its a freakin’ dust storm people!! Its not a Haboob!! This is America….be proud!!!” to the more angry, racist remarks like:
‘Since when do we need to apply a Muslim vocabulary […]
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Tuesday, March 18th, 2014
LINDSAY ABRAMS, Assistant Editor - Salon
Stephan: The Fukushima story just becomes more and more bizarre.
The serious and delicate business of decommissioning Fukushima’s crippled nuclear plant is being undertaken by a series of unskilled, poorly trained workers, the New York Times reports, in a ‘crisis of manpower” that can have dangerous implications both for environmental safety and for the workers themselves.
A series of mishaps, coupled with the dangerous nature of the work to begin with, has made the cleanup a less than desirable gig – Reuters, which has been following the worksite closely, has already reported on how homeless men are being rounded up and paid below minimum wage to clean up radioactive fallout.
The Times has more on the scary state of affairs at Fukushima, summed up by this online ad: ‘Out of work? Nowhere to live? Nowhere to go? Nothing to eat? Come to Fukushima.” Also telling was this incident from last fall:
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That crisis was especially evident one dark morning last October, when a crew of contract workers was sent to remove hoses and valves as part of a long-overdue upgrade to the plant’s water purification system.
According to regulatory filings by Tepco, the team received only a 20-minute briefing from their supervisor and were given […]
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