Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Pakistan: Pregnant woman killed by own family

Islam is stuck in the dark ages when it comes to some of the laws that are still carried out in some parts of the world.

A pregnant woman was stoned to death by her own family in front of a Pakistani high court on Tuesday for marrying the man she loved. 
English: The stoning of Assyrian women at Wawe...
English: The stoning of Assyrian women at Wawela valley. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 Nearly 20 members of the woman's family, including her father and brothers, attacked her and her husband with batons and bricks in broad daylight before a crowd of onlookers in front of the high court of Lahore, the police investigator Rana Mujahid said. 
Hundreds of women are murdered every year in Muslim-majority Pakistan in so-called " honour killings" – carried out by husbands or relatives as a punishment for alleged adultery or other illicit sexual behaviour – but public stoning is extremely rare.
Mujahid said the woman's father has been arrested for murder and that police were working to apprehend all those who participated in the "heinous crime". 
Another police officer, Naseem Butt, identified the slain woman as Farzana Parveen, 25, and said she had married Mohammad Iqbal against her family's wishes after being engaged to him for years. 
- Pregnant Pakistani woman stoned to death by family | World news | theguardian.com
Enhanced by Zemanta

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Proof that Wikipedia still needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

In July of 2008, Dylan Breves, then a seventeen-year-old student from New York City, made a mundane edit to a Wikipedia entry on the coati. The coati, a member of the raccoon family, is “also known as … a Brazilian aardvark,” Breves wrote. He did not cite a source for this nickname, and with good reason: he had invented it. He and his brother had spotted several coatis while on a trip to the IguaƧu Falls, in Brazil, where they had mistaken them for actual aardvarks.

“I don’t necessarily like being wrong about things,” Breves told me. “So, sort of as a joke, I slipped in the ‘also known as the Brazilian aardvark’ and then forgot about it for awhile.”
Adding a private gag to a public Wikipedia page is the kind of minor vandalism that regularly takes place on the crowdsourced Web site. When Breves made the change, he assumed that someone would catch the lack of citation and flag his edit for removal.
Coati 1
Coati 1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Over time, though, something strange happened: the nickname caught on. About a year later, Breves searched online for the phrase “Brazilian aardvark.” Not only was his edit still on Wikipedia, but his search brought up hundreds of other Web sites about coatis. References to the so-called “Brazilian aardvark” have since appeared in the Independent, the Daily Mail, and even in a book published by the University of Chicago. Breves’s role in all this seems clear: a Google search for “Brazilian aardvark” will return no mentions before Breves made the edit, in July, 2008. The claim that the coati is known as a Brazilian aardvark still remains on its Wikipedia entry, only now it cites a 2010 article in the Telegraph as evidence.
This kind of feedback loop—wherein an error that appears on Wikipedia then trickles to sources that Wikipedia considers authoritative, which are in turn used as evidence for the original falsehood—is a documented phenomenon. There’s even a Wikipedia article describing it. Some of the most well-known examples involve Wikipedia entries for famous people, such as when users edited the article on the British actor Sacha Baron Cohen to say he had worked at Goldman Sachs. When a Wikipedia editor tried to remove the apocryphal detail, it took some convincing. Because it had since appeared in several articles on Cohen in the British press, the burden was on Wikipedians to disprove the myth.
How a Raccoon Became an Aardvark | New Yorker

Enhanced by Zemanta

Thursday, May 22, 2014

PEGASUS, the time travel experiment.

time travel
time travel (Photo credit: flyzipper)
The Time Travel and Teleportation Experiments of Project Pegasus - In 2004, Washington-based attorney Andrew D. Basiago began telling his story of a top-secret organization called Project Pegasus. Although he was only seven years old at the time, Basiago claims he had, from 1968 to 1972, participated in a number of bizarre experiments that took him on journeys through time, space, and potentially into parallel universes.

Project PEGASUS: Travelling To Mars |UFO Sightings Hotspot - Project Pegasus: Travelling to Mars – Teleportation and “Jump Rooms” Despite the fact that there's no physical evidence that corroborates the claims of Al Bielek, Preston Nichols, Andrew Basiago and Laura M. Eisenhower, and others, that US military has developed secret programs on space-time travel, since the '40s, but the video below, 'a smoking-gun whistleblower' cause the persons you will hear and see now, have done astonishing revealings about this subject. Listen carefully what Cernan is saying after 8.00 minutes of video. You think it may be a slip, it is very doubtful.. Actually Cernan says that Buzz Aldrin already was in Mars and would like to go back there. Unintentional words that may confirm the existence of the Project Pegasus.


Enhanced by Zemanta

Al Franken on media consolidation

English: Al Franken, Senator from Minnesota
English: Al Franken, Senator from Minnesota (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Major developments in recent days could shape the nation’s media landscape for years to come. Last week, the Federal Communications Commission advanced a proposal that critics say threatens net neutrality, the concept of a free and open Internet. The new rules could allow Internet "fast lanes" where companies pay providers for faster access to consumers. That sparked a wave of protest from opponents who say the rules hand too much power to the major companies who can afford to shell out, consolidating their control at the expense of smaller competitors and consumers’ monthly bills. Similar concerns have been raised about a merger deal struck over the weekend. The telecom giant AT&T has agreed to buy satellite television operator DirecTV in a nearly $50 billion deal. The move comes just months after Comcast announced plans to merge with Time Warner Cable. [...]

AMY GOODMAN: Your response to the latest decision by the FCC?

SEN. AL FRANKEN: I was very unhappy with that vote. It was—Tom Wheeler, the chair of the FCC, had—it had kind of been leaked out a couple weeks prior to this that he was open to a fast lane, meaning that—the antithesis of net neutrality. Net neutrality has been the architecture of the Internet from the very beginning. What it means is it treats all digital content, all content that comes across the Internet to you, the consumer, through the Internet service providers, is all treated the same, is all treated equally or neutrally. And that has led to all this innovation that we’ve had over all these years on the Internet. And what Chairman Wheeler is talking about is allowing a fast lane, and it would be deep-pocketed corporations that would be able to buy this. And so, information would come to viewers from big corporations faster, or consumers. And this really would hurt innovation, and it has freedom of speech issues.
Let me give you just an example of why this—all information traveling the same has led to innovation. Years ago, there was a thing called Google Video, and it wasn’t very good. And the guys who created YouTube did it in—over a pizzeria in San Mateo, California. It’s a better product, and because it was—allowed travel the same speed as the Google product, people got to see it. And they sampled it, and they liked it better, and so we have YouTube. And in the same way, we’ve had all this explosion of innovation over the Internet because of net neutrality.
In the same way, this threatens democracy, something I know you’re interested in. And because right now your show travels as fast as Fox News, travels as fast as The New York Times, someone blogging right now not liking what I’m saying could do this—you know, can do that and get it up as fast as any other piece of information. If you have a fast lane for corporate news and corporate information and corporate content, that threatens our very democracy.- Sen. Al Franken: Media Mega-Mergers and FCC Rollback of Net Neutrality Threaten Democracy | Democracy Now!
Enhanced by Zemanta

Land Grab: Obama To Sign Bill That Declares 500,000 Acres In New Mexico Off Limits To Human Traffic (Video)





This land grab dwarfs the Bundy Ranch land grab. This land grab also has nothing to do with back taxes or grazing rights. At the bottom of this post I have included Agenda 21 land use maps to give you a better idea of the big picture when all the land grabbing is completed.

Read more here...

via IFTTT
Enhanced by Zemanta

U.S. Sends Military Personnel To Chad





It has now been officially announced that the United States will yet again be committing troops to a foreign theatre. As FOX News reports, President Barack Obama formally announced in a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner on Wednesday, May 21, 2014, the deployment of 80 U.S.

Read more...

from Pocket http://ift.tt/1h9xodW

via IFTTT
Enhanced by Zemanta

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

10 ways web freedom is being butchered worldwide.

The Internet has emerged as the most empowering tool of individual freedom since the Gutenberg’s press, affording billions of people worldwide not only the tool of instant communication, but access to a wealth of liberating information, freedom from the chains of received consensus, and the opportunity to become their own media platform. 
 This represents an ever increasing threat to the status quo of the elite, which is why the establishment is working feverishly to dismantle the freedom granted by the world wide web in its current form. 

1) The Death of Net Neutrality
English: Wall-mounted emergency switch to swit...
English: Wall-mounted emergency switch to switch off the Internet when needed; like the "Internet Kill Switch" planned by some US politicians and probably already used by the Mubarak regime in Egypt in 1/2011. Deutsch: Internet-Not-Aus-Schalter; ungefƤr so, wie von einigen US-Politikern gefordert (und vielleicht vom Mubarak-Regime im Januar 2011 schon benutzt). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
2) Intelligence Agencies are Manipulating the Internet With Deliberate Disinformation3) Governments are Paying Trolls to Sway Public Opinion
4) Mainstream News Websites are Killing Comment Sections
5) The Obama Administration’s “Cognitive Infiltration” of the Internet    
6) False Flag Cybersecurity Attacks as a Pretext to Increase Web Regulation
7) Fairness Doctrine for the Internet
8) Homeland Security’s Internet Kill Switch
9) New Taxes and Regulations Set to Stifle Communication & Sales on the Web
10) SOPA, CISPA & The FBI’s Internet Backdoor

Endgame
The ultimate endgame for the bid to kill the Internet as we know it undoubtedly revolves around a plan to create a universal Internet ID system, recently introduced by the White House, which will eventually be transformed into a de facto license to use the world wide web. This would empower the state to strip anyone who misbehaves of the ‘privilege’ of using the Internet and thereby institute government permission to access the web.
Only by aggressively opposing these onerous threats to the freedom of the Internet can we hope to preserve the world wide web in its current incarnation and continue to see informed and empowered people the world over embrace it as the tool of individual liberation it has truly become.
       
 » The Plan to Kill the Internet Uncovered | Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
Enhanced by Zemanta

Facebook getting your friends to data mine for them.

facebook engancha
facebook engancha (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Facebook has added a feature so that you can ask friends whether or not they are in a relationship. It sounds like a way to help the somewhat creepy, but as always advertising is likely the key.
The new feature applies to any field in a user’s profile that they’ve not yet completed, such as phone number, relationship status, educational background or workplace. If you are a Facebook friend with that person, you’ll no longer see a blank in that slot, but rather an “Ask” button. For now, the button will only appear for US users. - Facebook Encourages Users To Probe One Another | Geeks are Sexy Technology News 
Looks like Facebook is at it again with being nosy. Another way to gather information that you have intentionally left blank because you thought that it was something you didn't want to share with your Facebook contacts. Makes you wonder if they are really working for Big Brother.
Enhanced by Zemanta

Sunday, May 18, 2014

US Military has a plan in case of a Zombie Apocolypse.

Pentagon document lays out battle plan against zombies - CNN.com - Never fear the night of the living dead -- the Pentagon has got you covered.

From responses to natural disasters to a catastrophic attack on the homeland, the U.S. military has a plan of action ready to go if either incident occurs. It has also devised an elaborate plan should a zombie apocalypse befall the country, according to a Defense Department document obtained by CNN.
United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In an unclassified document titled "CONOP 8888," officials from U.S. Strategic Command used the specter of a planet-wide attack by the walking dead as a training template for how to plan for real-life, large-scale operations, emergencies and catastrophes.

And the Pentagon says there's a reasonable explanation.

"The document is identified as a training tool used in an in-house training exercise where students learn about the basic concepts of military plans and order development through a fictional training scenario," Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for U.S. Strategic Command, told CNN. "This document is not a U.S. Strategic Command plan."

Read the complete article here.
Enhanced by Zemanta

Is an Internet tax on the horizon?

Internet Access Might Be Taxed For First Time - disinformation - The Internet Tax Freedom Act of 1998 is set to expire on Nov. 1, which means internet access and usage in the US could soon be taxed for the first time. Combined with efforts to standardize a sales tax on online purchases, these new taxes could mean a big hit on consumers. Congress could act to eliminate one or both taxes, but it is unlikely they will make any unpopular moves so close to the midterm elections.


Internet
Internet (Photo credit: hdzimmermann)
Fortunately for Internet users, extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act enjoys broad bipartisan support in Congress. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, these tax cuts are likely to get bundled with other internet taxes — specifically, state-level sales taxes on out-of-state online retailers (a Supreme Court decision had previously prohibited taxing online retailers without a presence in the state). And while the ITFA has bipartisan support, collecting sales taxes over the internet does not, especially in the Republican-controlled House. Combining the bills could force the issue of the sales tax by tacking it on to more widely supported legislation, but it could leave both issues stalled.

 Read the full article here.
Enhanced by Zemanta

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Is throttled back bandwidth the future of the US Internet?

The future of the Internet is going to consume more bandwidth, there is no way around this. The only thing that we have to decide is if we are willing to have our access to the Internet held hostage by large companies such as Comcast.


Data Caps May Be Comcast's Response To Proposed Net Neutrality Rules - Technology News - redOrbit


Comcast Tower
Comcast Tower (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Those who use massive amounts of data will simply have to pay more. That is in essence what Comcast told its customers on Thursday. The nation’s largest Internet service provider (ISP) and cable giant also responded to the Federal Communications Communication’s (FCC) net neutrality proposal – and the two events could be closely tied together.

Comcast is currently seeking the FCC’s approval for its $45-billion buyout of Time Warner Cable, a move that would make the Philadelphia-based company the most dominant provider in the United States with more than 30 million cable TV, and high-speed Internet customers across the country – including top markets such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

“Comcast remains committed to a free and open Internet and [is] working with the FCC on appropriate rules for all players across the industry,” Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen wrote Thursday in a blog post.

The other take away on this is that Comcast’s Cohen, speaking at the Moffett Nathanson Media & Communications Summit on Wednesday in New York, suggested that within five years all Comcast customers could once again have monthly bandwidth caps imposed on home broadband usage.

Cohen, however, suggested that most users would not use up the allotment and have to pay more.

“I would also predict that the vast majority of our customers would never be caught in the buying the additional buckets of usage, that we will always want to say the basic level of usage at a sufficiently high level that the vast majority of our customers are not implicated by the usage-based billing plan,” Cohen said in a statement as reported by Digital Trends. “And that number may be 350 — that may be 350 gig a month today, it might be 500 gig a month in five years, but it will never — I don’t think we will want to be in a model where it is fully variablized and 80% of our customers are implicated by usage-based billing and are all buying different packets of usage.”

According to reports, Comcast is currently running several pilot projects in select markets in the United States to test its bandwidth caps. These include options that allow users to combine download speeds with bandwidth caps, and the higher the speed the higher the bandwidth cap.

Read more @ redOrbit.

What can be done?  

First, stay involved, either through AFP’s efforts or by keeping in close contact with your own Senators and Representative.  Second, get involved in the comment process at the FCC.  Third, keep writing and talking about this, because silence in this case will mean government control and more silence in the future.

Enhanced by Zemanta