Link: http://theintelhub.com/2012/02/09/group-forces-congressional-hearing-on-big-sis-twitter-drudge-spying/

Among the documents were guidelines from DHS instructing outside contractors to monitor the web for media reports and comments that “reflect adversely” on the agency or the federal government.As Reuters reported last month, in early 2010 contractors were asked to spend 24 hours monitoring news media coverage on popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks, as well as news sites including the Huffington Post and The Drudge Report.

Link: http://theintelhub.com/2012/02/09/congress-approves-30000-spy-drones-over-america-as-us-police-state-tightens/

HR 658, the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act, has just passed both the House and the Senate which authorizes the use of 30,000 spy drones over America by the year 2015.If you divide that by 50 states, that is 600 drones per state.If you speak out against the government for criminal activity, or for egregiously attacking our Constitution, you can legally be considered an extremist and a terrorist. Bad news for you, because now you can be hauled away and imprisoned for life, without a trial or your Habeas Corpus rights.Having more than seven days worth of food in your house makes you a terrorist suspect.

Link: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/news/2012/02/09/government-may-sanction-incapacitating-c

Experts concluded that the Government may be preparing to exploit a loophole in the Chemical Weapons Convention allowing the use of incapacitating chemical agents for domestic law enforcement. -that would be banned in warfare under an international treaty .

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9067332/Alcoholic-drinks-to-get-weaker-says-minister.html

Alcoholic drinks should be made weaker under in Britain under Government plans to tackle the "deadly problem” of binge-drinking, a health minister has said. ."In the strategy, ministers are expected to unveil measures to increase the price of alcoholic drinks according to how strong they are. This could be done through higher taxation per unit, minimum pricing per unit or simply higher levels of duty for strong drinks. Ministers will also encourage companies to produce weaker alcoholic drinks.

Link: http://www.infowars.com/shouting-cameras-bark-orders-at-residents-to-leave-their-own-property/

London Council says police state machines were activated by mistake.Residents of a block of flats in North London were outraged to discover cameras in their gardens barking out orders, telling them to leave the area immediately and that they were being monitored by the authorities.

Link: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106684

More than a decade ago, solar electricity changed the lives of several mountain communities in Cuba. Now this and other renewable power sources are emerging as the best options available to develop sustainable energy across the island.If the world's clean energy potential exceeds our consumption needs, why do we insist on using the polluting kind?"

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/06-0

Patenting seeds has led to a farming and food crisis - and huge profits for US biotechnology corporations.Corporations defined a problem - and for them the problem was farmers saving seeds. They offered a solution, and the solution was to make it illegal for farmers to save seed - by introducing patents and intellectual property rights [PDF] on those very seeds. As a result, acreage under GM corn, soya, canola, cotton has increased dramatically.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/06/aclu-warns-congress-pushing-willy-nilly-toward-an-era-of-aerial-surveillance/

On Monday, the Senate passed H.R. 658, a bill that would make it easier for law enforcement agencies to obtain and use unmanned aerial vehicles. The bill was passed by the House on Friday Domestic drones are potentially extremely powerful surveillance tools, and that power — like all government power — needs to be subject to checks and balances,

Link: http://en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20120206/171166824.html

Russia may have to boost its nuclear potential in future amid emerging nuclear proliferation threats, Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s deputy defense minister and a negotiator on the European missile shield, said on Monday.

Link: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/02/cashless-society-bank-of-america.html

In another example that we appear to be rapidly moving into a cashless society, Bank of America in California refused to accept cash for a mortgage payment. The manager of the bank said it was against their policy to accept legal tender physical currency (aka U.S. dollars) as payment for BoA mortgages.
The customer attempting to pay his mortgage, firefighter Robert Somerton, recorded the ordeal in Lakeport branch which made the bank manager so upset that he called the police.manager so upset that he called the police. The police detained Somerton for a half hour with a warning that he may never return to that BoA branch or he'll be arrested. Since when does a bank not accept cash?" "They won't accept cash when they know it's about to be devalued and worthless.
They just sent a very clear message that the dollar is going to be dumped."

Link: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/152399#.Ty4sFHpTDGg

Iran's state news agency IRNA said the satellite was launched Friday. It is reportedly designed to collect data on weather conditions and monitor for natural disasters.Iran's space program has raised concerns because the same technology that allows missiles to launch satellites can be used to fire warheads.

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29033

China's near-exclusive access to terbium and yttrium sent prices soaring in 2011, potentially hobbling clean energy industry. Shortages of a handful of rare minerals could slow the future growth of the burgeoning renewable energy industries, and affect countries' chances of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, business leaders were told at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. Last year, prices of many scarce minerals exploded, rising as much as 10 times over 2010 levels before dropping back, said PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).Terbium, yttrium, dysprosium, europium and neodymium are widely used in the manufacture of wind turbines, solar panels, electric car batteries and energy-efficient lightbulbs. But because these "rare earths" are mined almost exclusively in China, it is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to source them in the required quantities. In a survey of some of the largest clean energy manufacturers, 78% told PwC said they were already experiencing instability of supply of rare metals, and most said they did not expect shortages to ease for at least five years. Currently, 95% of the rare earth minerals needed by clean tech industries come from China which has set strict export quotas. Last year China reserved most for its own for its domestic wind, solar and battery industries, shifting costs to the US and Europe which do not mine any of the minerals.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2095610/Silver-bullet-cancer-Metal-kill-tumours-better-chemotherapy-fewer-effects.html

Silver can kill some cancers as effectively as chemotherapy and with potentially fewer side effects, new research claims.
Scientists say that old wives tales about the precious metal being a ‘silver bullet’ to beat the Big C could be true.
The metal already has a wide range of medicinal uses and is a common antiseptic, antibiotic and means of purifying water in the third world.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/30-8

Their dart-like rifle round is designed for small-caliber firearms like those carried by the average grunt or law enforcement officer. [...] Sandia's 4-in-long bullet has actuators that steer tiny fins that guide it to its target.Their bullet works much like a precision guided aerial bomb might function. An optical sensor in the nose of the bullet detects a laser beam painted on a target and sends that information to a guidance and control system also packed on board. An eight-bit CPU commands electromagnetic actuators to adjust tiny fins that deploy from the round immediately after it exits the muzzle. From there, the on-board electronics aerodynamically guide the bullet home to its target, allowing the shooter to adjust a round’s trajectory in flight to correct on a long shot or to stay with a moving target.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/further/2012/01/27

Science has confirmed what some of us long suspected but were (sometimes) too polite to say: People who hold racist and rabid right-wing views are, to put it bluntly, stupid, or at least stupider than other people. A new study finds that children with low intelligence grow into Tea Party-ish adults who hold socially conservative views and would like black, gay and other troublesome types to just go away, please. It is suspected that some of these people will not be happy with the findings and may even take to the streets with signs like this. As always, we wish them better spelling."There is reason to believe that strict right-wing ideology might appeal to those who have trouble grasping the complexity of the world."

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/29-2

It could be much more difficult than we thought to feed everyone in a warmer world.A study released Sunday afternoon finds that wheat crop yields could plunge due, in part, to climate change. Extreme temperatures are already cutting wheat yields in India (Narinder Nanu/AFP) The study, published in Nature Climate Change, researchers warn that current projections underestimate the extent to which hotter weather in the future will accelerate this process. Extreme heat causes wheat crops to age faster and reduce yields, the Stanford University-led study shows, underscoring the challenge of feeding a rapidly growing population as the world continues to warm.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/153909/conservatives_use_creationist_playbook_to_attack_climate_change_education_in_schools

The overwhelming scientific evidence that says humans are causing the warming of the planet has emerged as the new battlefield in middle and high schools in the U.S.

Standardized testing is a common method by which colleges and universities evaluate the competency of applying high school students. But an increasing amount of students are cheating on such tests, which has caused lawmakers in New York to consider actually harvesting “digital DNA” from students and applying it to special ID cards that students would be required to furnish both before and after taking the SAT or ACT exams to prove their identities.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/26/novel-material-takes-3d-invisibility-cloak-a-step-closer/

Scientists in the United States reported a further step towards a celebrated “invisibility cloak” by masking a large, free-standing object in three dimensions. The lab work is the latest advance in a scientific frontier that uses novel materials to manipulate light, a trick that is of huge interest to the military in particular.A warplane cloaked with such materials could achieve “super-stealth” status by becoming invisible in all directions to radar microwaves,“When the scattered fields from the cloak and the object interfere, they cancel each other out, and the overall effect is transparency and invisibility at all angles of observations,

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/19/sopa_anti_piracy_or_censorship_wikipedias

Congressional support for a pair of anti-piracy bills is weakening after Wednesday’s historic online protest in which thousands of websites went dark for 24 hours. Hollywood film studios, music publishers and major broadcasters support the anti-piracy legislation, saying it aims to stop the piracy of copyrighted material over the internet on websites based outside the United States.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/23-1

GPS tracking unconstitutional without warrant Today, Supreme Court justices unanimously placed restrictions on Police use of GPS tracking devices in the case United States v. Antoine Jones, No. 10-1259. The use of such devices is now considered a 'search' and requires a warrant under the Fourth Amendment. The high court's ruling was a defeat for the Obama administration, which defended the use of global positioning system devices without a warrant and without a person's knowledge as a legal way to monitor a vehicle on public streets.

Link: http://autos.aol.com/article/howler-police-siren/?icid=maing-grid10|htmlws-main-bb|dl10|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D129583

"The Howler" uses a low frequency vibration that can be felt from up to 200 feet away

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/sun-shoots-a-fastball-at-earth-but-minimal-impact-expected-on-satellites-power-grid/2012/01/20/gIQA5KiBEQ_story.html

A huge sunspot unleashed a blob of charged plasma Thursday that space weather watchers predict will blast past the Earth on Sunday. Satellite operators and power companies are keeping a close eye on the incoming cloud, which could distort the Earth’s magnetic field and disrupt radio communications, especially at higher latitudes.

Link: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/us-supremacy-in-cyberspace-4585/

Prof. Igor Panarin - The United States was first to approach cyberspace as a new sphere of military action, along with the existing military domains such as land, sea, air and space. The concept dates back to 1998, but it was only interpreted into a concrete action plan following the war in South Ossetia in August 2008, which did not play out well for the US and its Georgian proxy.

Link: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/01/beyond-cashless-society-ibms-vision-for.html

Fresh on the heels of India’s massive databasing program that is set to encompass all 1.2 billion members of its population, recent announcements by IBM should be drawing the attention of some 300 million Americans.

Link: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/01/cashless-society-india-implements-first.html

Over the past few months, I have written several articles dealing with the coming cashless society and the developing technological control grid. I also have written about the surge of government attempts to gain access to and force the use of biometric data for the purposes of identification, tracking, tracing, and surveillance... Current events in India should serve not just as a warning, but also as a foreshadowing of the events to come in the Western world, specifically the United States.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/01/police-entire-nyc-building-was-pot-farm/

A five-story building in New York City was raided by police this week, revealing that the entire structure was being used as a multi-tiered marijuana farm.Police said that four of the floors appeared to be designated to individual stages of the plants’ growth, with the most mature on the top floor.
The building also had expensive filtration and watering systems to keep plants healthy and nosy neighbors about their own business, according to NBC New York.

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/nexeon-tips-magic-dust-into-our-batteries-6271847.html

Silicon anode technology is set for use in laptops, phones, even cars – sparking an electric revolution on the roads. In a small lab near Didcot in Oxfordshire a group of scientists have created a special powder that they hope will prevent phone batteries dying before you get a chance to charge up, and make electric cars a common sight on the roads.

Link: http://www.allgov.com/Controversies/ViewNews/Prosecutors_Fighting_the_Use_of_DNA_Evidence_in_Order_to_Save_Face_111130

Prosecutors Fighting the Use of DNA Evidence in Order to Save Face
Since DNA testing became available two decades ago, about 280 convicted felons in the United States have been exonerated of their crimes. In the process, serious flaws in the legal system have become exposed, including misconduct by law enforcement and prosecutors.

Link: http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/aclu-wireless-carriers-stop-tracking-americans-movements

The ACLU today wrote to the CEOs of the nation’s major cell phone providers asking that they stop routinely collecting and storing data on their customers’ daily movements. We’re also urging Americans to make this same demand, and we’ve created a page making it easy to do so.

Link: http://fairewinds.com/content/scientist-marco-kaltofen-presents-data-confirming-hot-particles

Washington, DC - October 31, 2011 – Today Scientist Marco Kaltofen of Worchester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) presented his analysis of radioactive isotopic releases from the Fukushima accidents at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Mr. Kaltofen’s analysis confirms the detection of hot particles in the US and the extensive airborne and ground contamination in northern Japan due to the four nuclear power plant accidents at TEPCO’s Fukushima reactors. Fairewinds believes that this is a personal health issue in Japan and a public health issue in the United States and Canada.

Link: http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/google-turns-encrypted-search-default-users

Today, Google announced that they will be making encrypted search the default for users who are logged into a Google account. This means that third parties, including both your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and the sites you ultimately visit (unless you click on an ad) will not be able to see exactly what you searched for. We're happy to see Google expanding access to secure search. We hope that it will continue to expand protections like this to all searches and hope other search engines will also do the same.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/14-4

Officials in Rick Perry's home state of Texas have set off a scientists' revolt after purging mentions of climate change and sea-level rise from what was supposed to be a landmark environmental report. The scientists said they were disowning the report on the state of Galveston Bay because of political interference and censorship from Perry appointees at the state's environmental agency.

Link: http://www.oldthinkernews.com/?p=2038

An arrogant scientific elite has divorced themselves from common sense, morality, and the rest of the human species in their quest for full spectrum scientific domination. While the vast majority of the population is consuming endless supplies of entertainment, a revolution is taking place right under their noses. The very genetic code of the planet’s biosphere is being tampered with; The ultimate goal being the ability to manipulate and program at will - as if working with a word processor – the biological processes of life.

Link: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=30962

British scientists have created over 150 human-animal hybrid embryos, in secret experiments conducted over the last three years, according to English publication the Daily Mail. The news comes just days after a group of scientists warned of a “Planet of the Apes” scenario if the human-animal experiments went too far.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/video/europe/2011/07/201172613013791228.html

North Korea and Cuba partner with Russia to build a sub-atomic particle research machine. Deep underground, on the border between France and Switzerland, is a gigantic scientific machine. The Large Hadron Collider, spanning 100m underground, is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles, in the hope of better understanding the universe.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/business/2011/05/20115108383288743.html

Software giant Microsoft plans to acquire Skype, the online video conferencing service for $8.5bn, both companies have announced. "Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world," Steve Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive, said on Tuesday.

Link: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=24741

I don’t care what you say about astrological misgivings…this is important. Celestial bodies pull on each other and things happen. Just a full moon sways our oceans, affects menstrual cycles and changes moods. What do you think major galactic events will precipitate? We’re already in a heavy duty solar cycle and are entering a galactic alignment called the ‘precession of the equinoxes’ that happens only every 26,000 years.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/11/fbi-destroys-ufo-reports

Agents routinely destroyed reports containing 'nothing of FBI interest' due to lack of filing space. The FBI was so overwhelmed with sightings of flying saucers in the 1940s that agents routinely destroyed reports because of lack of filing space, according to documents released by the organisation.

Link: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/151657-nuclear-storm-warnings

White House Science Advisor John Holdren and Sir John Beddington, Science Advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron, in a recent joint article "Celestial Storm Warnings" published in the New York Times, warned that a solar flare from the Sun could cause a great geomagnetic storm, with catastrophic consequences for the United States and the world. A great geomagnetic storm would generate a powerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could destroy electronic systems and collapse all the critical infrastructures--power grids, communications, transportation, banking and finance, food and water--that sustain modern civilization, and the lives of millions. Holdren and Beddington write reassuringly that "work to protect our societies is well underway."