'Flying saucer' police spy camera takes to the skiesIt looks more like the latest in saucepan technology than the future of crime fighting.
But police are confident that this miniature remote- controlled helicopter will be an invaluable weapon in the war against wrongdoers.
The Microdrone, measuring only 2ft between the tips of its eight rotor blades, was originally designed for military reconnaissance.
When it takes to the skies above Liverpool this summer, it will be the first time such a device ha... (more)
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Only 40% Of Muslims Believe Arabs Carried Out 9/11 Muslims in America are better assimilated and more concerned about religious extremism than their counterparts in Western Europe and elsewhere in the world, according to a poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.
The survey, covering the views of 1,050 Muslims out of an initial sample of more than 55,000 people interviewed in English, Arabic, Urdu and Farsi, is the most comprehensive of its kind. It shows a mostly immigrant adult Muslim population ... (more)
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Lazy teens? Think againA new study says many teens carry a heavier load than people give them credit for, despite the stereotypical image of nonchalant teenage loungers.
Canadian teens ranked first among their counterparts in nine OECD countries in terms of average hours spent on unpaid and paid labour during the school week.
Canadian teens averaged 7.1 hours of unpaid and paid labour per day in 2005 — a 50-hour work week, virtually the same as that of adult Canadians aged 20 to 64 ... (more)
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The Militarization of the United StatesUnder the guise of the war on terror the Bush administration has managed to set in motion the process of militarizing the United States by completely undermining the United States Constitution, dividing the nation, and restructuring the intelligence and defense department positions to appoint military officers to key leadership positions
Since 9/11, Bush has signed the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act of 2002, giving federal law enforcement agencies broad powers ... (more)
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Papers Please—and Your Biometric Data According to the New York Times, by way of Raw Story, the immigration bill currently wending its way through Congress “would require employers to re-verify the identity of every single person currently employed in the United States. Not only would it place a considerable burden on both government and business, but the verification system currently being tested has sho... (more)
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Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against IranThe CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.
The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinf... (more)
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The Powerful Odor of Mendacity: From Wiretaps to War I. Glenn Greenwald catches Bush's "intelligence czar," Mike McConnell, in howlingly flagrant lies in a Washington Post op-ed about the need to "update" the secret FISA court's powers over governm ent surveillance. Greenwald does a masterful job of demolition – but in the end, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. All he does is go back to Bush's own public statemen... (more)
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New presidential directive gives Bush dictatorial power The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007 declares that in the event of a “catastrophic event”, George W. Bush can become what is best described as "a dictator": "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government." This directive, completely unnoticed by the me... (more)
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Much Ado About the Fort Dix Pizza Plot To listen to government officials and the mainstream media, the six New Jersey men arrested for allegedly plotting an attack on the Fort Dix military base were well organized and nearly "ready to strike."
But like all of the government's claimed victories in "fighting terrorism," there are disturbing holes in the story that should raise questions about scapegoating and scaremongering.
The U.S. attorney's office ... (more)
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Guardian at the Gates: Surging Toward War With IranIf you have any doubt that the Bush Administration is planning a military strike against Iran, then check out the lead story in today's Guardian: Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq. The story, which based entirely – entirely – on the unchallenged statements of three anonymous "American officials," not only alleges that Iran is "already committing daily acts ... (more)
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Harvey Wasserman: Drop Dead, New Yorkers The fallout now taints us all.
Amidst the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush and Giuliani saddled up their bullhorns and raced down to the smoldering World Trade Center to shout out a single "patriotic" demand: re-open the stock market!
And to hell with the health of the good citizens doing the clean-up. Ditto the rest of us down wind.
The public health outcome has now becom... (more)
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Hersh: Bush administration arranged support for militants attacking Lebanon In an interview on CNN International's Your World Today, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh explains that the current violence in Lebanon is the result of an attempt by the Lebanese government to crack down on a militant Sunni group, Fatah al-Islam, that it formerly supported.
Last March, Hersh reported that American policy in the Middle East had shifted to opposing Iran, Syria, and their Shia allies at a... (more)
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Paulson’s Kabuki: Integrating China into the Neoliberal SystemTreasury Secretary Henry Paulson is a man who knows what he wants. And what he wants is to further integrate the Chinese market into the global system---the “American-run” system. To achieve that goal he has assembled a group of 10 cabinet-level officials—mostly from big-business--who will are expected to urge the Chinese delegation to implement "sweeping economic reforms" that will open up their market to U.S. investment.
Undoubtedly, Paulson will pay “lip... (more) The US would never give it's entire manufacturing base to a nation which it considered even slightly rogue. China has not only been fully integrated, it is leading the way. |
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Pentagon's Teen Recruiting Methods Would Make Tobacco Companies Proud Congratulations: You have lived long enough to cringe at the bad decisions you were seduced, dared, stoned, bullied, or inspired into making as a teenager.
Thousands of America's children, however, are not so lucky. Almost 600,000 of America's 1 million active and reserve soldiers enlisted as teens. The military lures these physiologically immature kids with a PR machine that would make Joe Camel proud.
While the age of legal and cultural adulthood can vary, scienc... (more)
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Edwards proposes mandatory military serviceFrom the Washington Post:
"One of the things we ought to be thinking about is some level of mandatory service to our country, so that everybody in America--not just the poor kids who get sent to war--are serving this country," Edwards said.
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'Weaponizable' Gas for Your Backyard BarbecueIt seems like something from a James Bond film, with code names like Top Screen and "tiered security risk." Yet for the propane gas industry and thousands of other chemical facilities, this is no fiction.
Starting June 8, makers and sellers of the colorless, odorless, flammable gas and other chemicals face a new Department of Homeland Security rule requiring them to complete a secure online survey assessing whether they are a high-risk target for terrorists. If so, they must make ... (more)
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Fixing What's Wrong With Iraq Many of my colleagues, faced with the reality that the war in Iraq is not going well, line up to place all the blame on the president. The president “mismanaged” the war, they say. “It’s all the president’s fault,” they claim. In reality, much of the blame should rest with Congress, which shirked its constitutional duty to declare war and instead told the president to decide for himself whether or not to go... (more)
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National ID: Biometrics Pinned to Social Security Cards The Social Security card faces its first major upgrade in 70 years under two immigration-reform proposals slated for debate this week that would add biometric information to the card and finally complete its slow metamorphosis into a national ID.
The leading immigration proposal with traction in Congress would force employers to accept only a very limited range of approved documents as proof of work eligibility, including a driver's license that meets new f... (more)
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U.S. Real ID Act Poses Real Threats Americans saw their opportunity to speak out against or for the Real ID Act on Tuesday, when the deadline for public comment on the legislation ended. The act has been the object of controversy and major concern for many citizens who are raising personal privacy concerns. A handful of state governments are also voicing their dissent to the act, which would place huge financial burdens upon each participating state.
The Real ID Act was tacked onto a 2005 bill titled "Emergency S... (more)
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Debunkers Deny Existence Of NAU, JFK Conspiracy A recent Seattle Times article that scoffs at the very thought of a North American Union being implemented and dismisses it as a conspiracy theory sums up the biggest threat to freedom in America today, blind ignorance in the face of troubling facts.
"Forget conspiracy theories about JFK's assassination, black helicopters, Sept. 11, 2001. This is the big one." writes Philip Dine<... (more)
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Dodge says single currency 'possible'WASHINGTON — Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge says North America could one day embrace a euro-style single currency.
But to get there, Canada, the United States and Mexico must first tear down barriers to the free flow of labour, which he pointed out Monday have “gotten a bit thicker” in recent years.
Answering questions from the audience after a speech in Chicago, Mr. Dodge said a single currency was “possible.”
The i... (more)
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UN troops sold weapons to militia they were sent to disarmPakistani UN peacekeeping troops have traded in gold and sold weapons to Congolese militia groups they were meant to disarm, the BBC has learnt.
These militia groups were guilty of some of the worst human rights abuses during the Democratic Republic of Congo's long civil war.
The trading went on in 2005. A UN investigative team sent to gather evidence was obstructed and threatened.
The team's report was buried by the UN itself to "avoid political fall... (more)
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Google’s goal to organise your daily lifeGoogle’s ambition to maximise the personal information it holds on users is so great that the search engine envisages a day when it can tell people what jobs to take and how they might spend their days off.
Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said gathering more personal data was a key way for Google to expand and the company believes that is the logical extension of its stated mission to organise the world’s information.
Asked how Google might... (more)
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Why the US Government Is Hated All Over the World Something is wrong with the United States. I think most of us have noticed it. There is a mortal rot in the country, made manifest by many little rots that are hard to integrate mentally yet are, I think, somehow related. The change is grave, accelerating, probably irreversible, and fascinating. Things are not as they were.
The United States is the most hated country on the planet, followed by, to the extent that there is ... (more)
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Immigration bill would require re-verification of 145 million American workers A story in tomorrow's New York Times (reg. req.) describes how U.S. employers, despite having had a considerable amount of input into the current immigration bill, are unhappy with the result in a number of ways. In particular, they are worried that a "merit-based" system for allocating green cards would result in the government deciding whom to let in rather than businesses being able to apply for immigrant workers with the skills they need.
However, the ... (more)
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Bush To Be Dictator In A Catastrophic EmergencyThe Bush administration has released a directive called the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive. The directive released on May 9th, 2007 has gone almost unnoticed by the mainstream and alternative media. This is understandable considering the huge Ron Paul and immigration news but this story is equally as huge. In this directive, Bush declares that in the event of a “Catastrophic Em... (more)
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Pentagon Making Preparations To Keep Tens Of Thousands Of Troops In Iraq For ‘Decades’Tens Of Thousands Of Troops In Iraq For ‘Decades’ In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee this month, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace uttered a “carefully worded” statement revealing that the Pentagon had no plans to fully withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq if legislation passes Congress mandating troop redeployment:
PACE: Sir, we have publish ... (more)
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