investigative journalist Michael Ruppert has reportedly committed suicide
The 63-year-old former narcotics investigator with the LAPD shot himself after his radio show, according to an announcement by author Carolyn Baker who was a guest on his final broadcast on Sunday. Mr Ruppert was famous for his litany of conspiracy theories which encompassed the CIA to drugs, international politics, the oil industry, Wall Street and 9/11.
Keith Alexander Unplugged
Greenwald writes: "The almost-complete continuity between George W. Bush and Barack Obama on such matters has been explained by far too many senior officials in both parties." By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept 08 May 14 he just-retired long-time NSA chief, Gen. AFR: What were the key differences for you as director of NSA serving under presidents Bush and Obama? The almost-complete continuity between George W. The fact that Obama, in 2008, specifically vowed to his followers angered over his campaign-season NSA reversal that he possessed “the firm intention — once I’m sworn in as president — to have my Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future” only makes that point a bit more vivid. AFR: Can you now quantify the number of documents [Snowden] stole? There’s an equally vital point made by Alexander’s admission.
The longest fast
Imphal is a city of about half a million people marred by neglect, militarization and insurgencies. Auto-rickshaws, the preferred mode of transportation, whip dust storms on half-built roads; a substantial number of commuters wear masks to work. Paona Bazaar, the city center and the largest market, is a cluster of single- or double-storied brick-and-cement buildings in varying states of decrepitude. The urban decrepitude of Imphal gives way to visions of semi-pastoral communities a few miles out of the city. On November 2, 2000, Kamal Singh's younger brother, Chandramani, a 17-year-old student whose family worked the fields and ran a small fish farm, walked half a mile down a narrow street from his house to catch a bus to Imphal. Soldiers from the Assam Rifles, an Indian paramilitary force, barged into the village, questioning and beating up villagers as they sought the whereabouts of the insurgents behind the bomb.
The War On Consciousness: The Talk That Gave TED Indigestion by Graham Hancock
Brief summary, with live links, of the 2013 TED controversy My talk, "The War on Consciousness", was presented at the TEDx Whitechapel event in London on 12 January 2013 and posted to the TEDx Youtube channel on 13 February 2013. A month later, on 14 March 2013, TED deleted the talk from the TEDx Youtube channel (original location here: where it had accumulated more than 132,000 views, and relegated it to an obscure section of its website surrounded by prejudicial statements intended to bias viewers against it from the start and ensure no harm was done to the "TED brand". At the same time a talk by Rupert Sheldrake entitled "The Science Delusion" was also deleted from the TEDx Youtube channel and reposted in the same deliberately obscure fashion. But TED's decision effectively to act as a censor in the very real war on consciousness that is underway in our society has backfired.
Now Presenting.... The Activist Awards
The Kodak Theater in Los Angeles where the Academy Award ceremonies are held. (File)The annual Academy Awards GALA, viewed by one billion people worldwide, is scheduled for the evening of March 2, 2014. Motion pictures and the people who act in and produce them are center stage. Apart from the documentaries, this is a glittering evening of “make-believe” and “make business.” Now suppose our country had another Academy Awards GALA for citizen heroes – those tiny numbers of Americans who are working successfully full-time in nonprofit groups to advance access to justice, general operations of our faltering democratic society, and the health, safety, and economic well-being of all citizens. This must sound unexciting in comparison with the intensity of the world of film. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. A drama-filled activist award night for civic courage and creativity will inspire millions of viewers to try their hand at operating the levers of power for the good of our society.
I will not drink SodaStream fizzy water for Passover | American Friends Service Committee
by Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb As we approach the Jewish holy days, we are reminded of the phrase that initiates the Telling of the Story: Let all who are hungry come eat, let all who are oppressed, join us at the table of liberation. Unfortunately, if they are Palestinians living in the West Bank, they may need a special security clearance. That is the case for Palestinian workers who are employed by SodaStream, the increasingly popular home carbonation product sold in 39 countries in 35,000 stores worldwide. Jewish religion commands us to make food choices that do not promote oppression. That is why I choose not to buy SodaStream, even though this product claims to be environmentally friendly, employs hundreds of Palestinian workers, and even provides an onsite mosque for praying. The boycott of SodaStream arises from its location in an industrial zone within Ma'ale Adumin, the largest Jewish-only settlement in the West Bank. Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb g the fruits of oppression.
Final tweets of a young woman with brain cancer are haunting and inspirational - Jacksonville Technology
The final months of Twitter posts from a young Canadian woman with terminal brain cancer have been compiled into a touching video that went viral on Thursday. Sites like Buzzfeed and eBaumsWorld have picked up on the story, and the video, bringing hundreds of thousands of views overnight. The moving montage was compiled by Shannon McKarney, a digital consultant who lives in Toronto. The content came from tweets made by a young woman named Amanda, who had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, and who died in April of 2013. “I admired the way she had taken on this challenge she faced, she was diagnosed with this terminal illness and she said ‘OK, I’m going to run with it,’” McKarney told BuzzFeed. MORE: Desperate movie critic turns to crowd funding site as last resort Amanda tweeted for the final time on April 10, 2013: "Tomorrow, I go back into the hospital for the last time.
Amiri Baraka's Tradition
Long before his death, last week, at the age of seventy-nine, Amiri Baraka attained the status reserved for those Americans whose unruly complexities and contradictions spill beyond the neat categories we prefer for our public figures. Baraka was part trickster and part provocateur, a brilliant juggler of genres, ideas, and identities, whose career spanned nearly six decades. Words like “controversial” and “polarizing” crowded his obituaries, but these terms, while technically accurate, are about as revelatory as calling winter cold. The received wisdom about Baraka in his later years dismissed him as a relic of the sixties, a rage prophet still shouting in an era when the anger had long since dissipated. Baraka was foundational for a generation of writers who emerged in his wake, a singular figure whose work laid down the terms of engagement for many, if not most, of us who came to the craft after him. In Baraka’s retelling of history, music served as a primary source.
