It is now just over 35 years since I was first told outright that all of NASA's Apollo manned moon missions were faked.... At that time, as a 19 year old bright yet brash University student who had at the time so much faith in the "system" and never doubted anything written in our "history" books as well as what was told by our governments and media, it was an eye opener and probably the turning point in my entire life....

I am back... Again, I have been spending more and more time lately taking care of personal and family business, and concentrating on getting myself more physically fit.... The recent scare I had with a "heart condition" caused me to realize that my focus must be on my own health and fitness first and foremost.. Therefore at times, this blog has been put on the so called "back burner" and has not received the attention that I used to do in previous years...

by KenMy first thought on hearing of Comcast's acquisition Time Warner Cable (which as far as I can tell is a more accurate description than a "merger" of the country's no. 1 and no. 2 cable-TV companies) was: They're not gonna let that happen, are they?

TweetChannel Zintan Libya Media -- Scandal of the century
Urgent: Libya granted passports to a Libyan AL-Qaeda members to navigate around the World

As you may have noticed, the audio in our podcasts has been a little uneven recently.  About 2 weeks ago, a critical amplifier fritzed out, and since then we’ve had intermittent distortion and other problems.  My personal tech guru, Raul Velez, is on the way with a new mixer and other gear.  Can you help me with this unexpected expense?We need to raise $1,000 to pay for the equipment and to pay Raul for his time and expertise.  (Raul is a dedicated listener, too!)
Here are the ways you can pitch in:
–take out a new monthly subscription, maybe at the $10 or $20 level

10 years ago this week, then-Mayor Gavin Newsom took huge political risk and permitted same sex marriage, available soon in Virginia….Click here for free audiobook download from Audible, and generate a $15 payment to support this podcast!
–that uber-liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals just invalidated California restrictions on concealed weapons permits

"Money is all over the place." Really? Watch that video from Thursday's Chris Hayes' MSNBC show above. That's the ugly sound of Republican class war against American families. That's why there are children who don't have enough food to eat. That guy in the bow tie and the canary yellow cardigan could have been reading a script from the days that lead up to the French Revolution. Admit it, you'd secretly watch him being guillotined if it was televised. And the accursed Tom Perkins too. He wasn't on Chris' show last night.

Foreign Policy in Focus
February 14, 2014
 
Military Humanitarian Intervention: The Shock Doctrine Applied to Syria
What’s needed in Syria is not military intervention, but a global peace offensive.
By Rob Prince
 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Operations
February 14, 2014
A New Chief for NATO Liaison Office in Belgrade

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Maritime Command
February 14, 2014
NATO Submarine Warfare Exercise underway in Norway

 
by ALISON WEIR
 Counterpunch

A surprisingly positive report this morning by CBS News:

Justin Raimondo reports on the NullifyNSA campaign here.

Contents1. 69th Anniversary of the Allied holocaust in Dresden2. Martin Heidegger's Ghost Continues to Haunt the ZionistsTHIS DAY IN HISTORY: Today, Feb. 14, is the 69th anniversary of the Allied fire bombing holocaust against the art city of Dresden, Germany, where upwards of 100,000 civilians were incinerated, and the priceless art treasures of the historic city were forever obliterated.

TweetOk, lets start with a little history about Khalifa Belqasim Haftar aka General Haftar. Khalifa Haftar has been a known traitor to Libya since he defected from his country , moved to Virginia and joined the CIA after the Libyan war with Chad in late 1986 (he had been a spy for Chad) . The CIA financed his gang of militias that were later to try and take down the Libyan government in a failed attempt in 2001. The reason being amongst other things the lack of support of the Libyan people and tribes.

In 2009, Nanci Griffith put out an album, The Loving Kind, inspired by the death of Mildred Loving the year before. Nanci and Mildred both saw the clear relationship between the landmark Supreme Court case, Loving v Virginia-- which struck down the miscegenation laws that remained in the South to prohibit marriages of whites and blacks-- to the struggle for LGBT marriage equality.

Welcome to http://NewWorldNextWeek.com — the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:
Story #1: This Algorithm Can Predict a Revolution
http://ur1.ca/gmf5r
Sentient World Simulation: Meet Your DoD Clone
http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=5041
Ward Lab’s Conflict Forecast

by Judith Curry This post discusses Workshop presentations on methodologies and application examples of decision analytical strategies to support robust decision making on climate adaptation. This post is a follow-on to the two previous posts: UK-US Workshop on Climate Science … Continue reading →

Like most Koreans, the farmers and fishing families protested the senseless division of their nation between north and south in 1945 - a line drawn along the 38th Parallel by an American official, Dean Rusk, who had "consulted a map around midnight on the day after we obliterated Nagasaki with an atomic bomb," wrote Cumings.

Ma’an – February 14, 2014

BETHLEHEM – Two young Palestinian football players shot by Israeli forces last month have learned that they will never be able to play sports again due to their injuries, according to doctors.
Doctors at Ramallah governmental hospital said the pair will need six months of treatment before they can evaluate if the two will even be able to ever walk again, at best.

Press TV – February 14, 2014

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has renewed its call for the elimination of nuclear weapons across the world.
In a statement on Thursday, NAM labeled nuclear arms as a major threat and expressed deep concern over the destructive repercussions of the use of such weapons on present and future generations as well as the environment.

Image: A protester sits at the feet of policereciting prayers from a book in defiance ofregime orders to clear the streets and returnhome. February 14, 2014 (ATN) - The regime of accused mass murderer, convicted criminal and fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra chose the sacred Buddhist holiday of Makha Bucha to carry out a bungled crackdown on the now month-long "

Republic News Agency
February 6, 2014
NATO has a direct relation to the genocide of the Ossetian people – Member of Parliament of South Ossetia

Al-Ahram
February 13, 2014
NATO’s war on Libya
A new book calls Western aims and NATO actions during the Libyan conflict into question, writes Edward S. Herman

Voice of Russia
February 13, 2014

Escalation of violence in Ukraine: martial law may be only option
John Robles

Photo: EPA

====
Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Lion Feuchtwanger: Selections on war
====
Lion Feuchtwanger
From Paris Gazette (Exil) (1939)
Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

You've probably read that Paul Ryan's plan to screw over military families with cuts to compensation and pensions has been backfiring, making the apostle of Randian greed and selfishness even more toxic than he's been in the past.

   
Vacy Vlazna
Dear Morani

“We who are born here on this divine land, we who are dedicated to the message of peace and freedom and the defense of human values, and of the strength of the olive tree…we declare our presence as a wound crying in the depths of time and space in spite of the tempests which try to rend our roots from the very earth to which we gave our name.” Mahmoud Darwish at the 50th anniversary of the Nakba*

By Cyrus Safdari | Iran Affairs | February 14, 2014

RT | February 14, 2014

A US federal agency that sought to pay photographers for “positive images” of its work in Afghanistan has canceled the program. The project, created to combat negative news coverage, collapsed amid charges that the effort amounted to propaganda.

Eric Draitser of StopImperialism.com appears on Press TV to discuss the absurd accusation of Iran being in league with Al Qaeda.  Draitser explains that such a narrative is rooted in a deeply held fear that Iran’s foreign policy presents an obstacle to US hegemony in the region.  He draws the connection between US policy in Syria, and the similarity of these most recent accusations with similar lies spouted by the Bush Administration.

February 14, 2014 (Eric Draitser) - The recent anti-NSA, anti-surveillance protests were the latest manifestation of a burgeoning movement for freedom from mass surveillance and the liberation of information. It is this new resistance movement, comprised of myriad individuals and organizations, which is perhaps the greatest measure of the legacy of Aaron Swartz.By the time of his death a little more than a year ago, Aaron Swartz had already achieved more in his 26 years than most activists achieve in a lifetime.

The movement to end the Surveillance State is finally getting serious. With the failure by Congress to rein in the NSA – although the heroic Rep. Justin Amash nearly succeeded in doing so – activists on the state level are mounting a campaign that promises to hit Big Brother where it really hurts – by […]

It’s official – America has finally forgiven France. This is big news, particularly after such a messy breakup over America’s infatuation with remaking the Middle East. That fixation on Iraq turned into an international affair when France spurned America’s proposition and then-President Jacques Chirac refused to get sucked into a morally and legally sticky ménage […]

Senior Obama administration officials say our government is sharply scaling back its drone strikes in Pakistan. That’s a step in the right direction. It would be even better if the entire U.S. program of targeted killings in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia were scrapped. By embracing drones as a primary foreign policy tool, President Barack Obama […]

The United States is the world’s leading arms trafficking nation, with $60 billion in arms transfer agreements last year alone. In 2011, U.S. companies and the US government controlled over three-quarters of the international weapons trade. The Obama administration regularly touts the role of US officials in promoting US arms sales. Acting Assistant Secretary of […]

Because the Cook Report is slightly skewered towards conservatives, their PVIs are generally a full point or two more Republican. Or, pout another way, the PVI are as much as 12-18 months behind demographic changes in districts. Always a rearview mirror operation rather than a forward-looking predictor, Cook rarely gets anything right-- until the day after an election. FL-13, entirely within Pinellas County, was gerrymandered in 2010 to make it safer for Republicans by taking out the African-American areas of south St Petersburg and dumping them into FL-14 (D+13).

Today's attacks left 40 dead and 59 wounded, including several foreign medical workers. Also, ISIS/DAASH militants took over a northern Iraq town in Salah ad Din province. Militants have tried to take over the town as recently as last year, but considering the events in Anbar, this attempt could be more serious.

February 13, 2014 (LocalOrg/Tony Cartalucci) - After much neglect, it is time to start putting effort back into LocalOrg - responses to the work featured here throughout the past have been both positive and enthusiastic. People are beginning to realize what the problems are but are now wondering what to do about them.

It's good to know that, despite losing the Virginia governorship, former AG "Cuckoo Ken" Cuccinelli hasn't forsworn the public arena.by KenEvery time you think you've heard it all . . . .I don't know how many readers remember Bruce Fein as a pipsqueak who styled himself a "constitutional lawyer" and squeaked at the time what seemed the nuttiest right-wing nutjob you could have outside the walls of a mental institution. Well, surprise!

Vertically-integrated media giant Comcast wants to swallow Time-Warner Cable; without net neutrality, Comcast would have monopolist power in many markets…Click here for free audiobook download from Audible, and generate $15 to support this podcast!
–18 House members urge Obama to reclassify marijuana
–Dem House leader Pelosi announces her opposition to fast track for TPP
–journalist group deplores the impact of NSA surveillance on reporters

By Tim Cushing | Techdirt | February 13, 2014

By Paul Craig Roberts | CounterPunch | February 12, 2014

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
February 11, 2014
Europe’s missile shield grows – thanks to the US Navy

The arrival in Spain of a US guided missile destroyer marks a key stage in building up Europe’s protection against ballistic missile threats.

 
by JONATHAN COOK                 Counterpunch
 
(Nazareth) – Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rarely been so politically embattled. His travails indicate the Israeli right’s inability to respond to a shifting political landscape, both in the region and globally.

Chris Field - the head of the UN climate panel's Working Group 2 - thinks the world "is staring down the barrel of climate change."

Can NARAL save America from Michael Boggs?Shenna Bellows is a brilliant, independent-minded and dedicated progressive running for the Maine Senate seat current occupied by Susan Collins ®. This morning we were talking about President Obama's shocking nomination of a right-wing ideologue from Georgia to the federal bench, Michael Boggs.

http://youtu.be/Msw5mR6oEUcEric Draitser of StopImperialism.com appears on Press TV to discuss the absurd accusation of Iran being in league with Al Qaeda.  Draitser explains that such a narrative is rooted in a deeply held fear that Iran’s foreign policy presents an obstacle to US hegemony in the region.  He draws the connection between US policy in Syria, and the similarity of these most recent accusations with similar lies spouted by the Bush Administration.