the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

In the trove of documents provided by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden is a treasure. It begins with a riddle: “ What do the President of Pakistan, a cigar smuggler, an arms dealer, a counterterrorism target, and a combatting proliferation target have in common? They all used their everyday GSM phone during a flight. ” This riddle appeared in 2010 in SIDtoday, the internal newsletter of the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, or SID, and it was classified “top secret.” It announced the emergence of a new field of espionage that had not yet been explored: the interception of data from phone calls made on board civil aircraft. In a separate internal document from a year earlier, the NSA reported that 50,000 people had already used their mobile phones in flight as of December 2008, a figure that rose to 100,000 by February 2009. The NSA attributed the increase to “ more planes equipped with in-flight GSM capability, less fear that a plane w

political comment by failed evolution After the heavy defeat in the recent referendum, the Italian PM, Matteo Renzi, announced his desire to resign. Renzi is a typical sample of the youngest politicians in Europe who restrict their action in a rhetoric of resistance against Berlin's orders inside eurozone. Another typical sample: the Greek PM, Alexis Tsipras. But when he had to take crucial decisions, Renzi retreated in almost every aspect against the majority of the Italians. The most disgraceful decision was the relaxation of labour and employment laws. In the end, Renzi did what the big capital and Berlin dictated. It is highly doubtful whether the majority of the Italians bothered to look at the details of the changes in constitution that Renzi wanted to pass through the referendum. Yet, it didn't really matter because Renzi and many other European 'leaders', still don't understand that the negative votes from people in most of the

‘ We were living in security and peace. These areas are being targeted, they want to force us to leave. Every Syrian is being targeted,’ one Syrian religious leader told a delegation of reporters who visited Aleppo earlier this month. by Eva Bartlett Part 4 - 18 killed in Nov. 3 terror attacks On the afternoon of Nov. 3, after meeting with Dr. Mohammed Batikh, director of Al-Razi Hospital, the victims of terror attacks which had begun a few hours prior began to arrive one after another, maimed and critically injured. The vehicle bombings and bombardment of Grad missiles, among other attacks, left 18 people dead and more than 200 injured, according to Dr. Zaher Hajo, the head of forensic medicine at Al-Razi Hospital. The corridors and emergency ward at Al-Razi Hospital, one of two state-run hospitals in Aleppo, quickly became clogged with the injured and grieving family members. In one crowded interior corridor, one of the wounded screamed out in pain: “Ya, A

From the documentary HyperNormalisation by Adam Curtis globinfo freexchange Faced with the humiliating defeat in the Lebanon , President Reagan’s government was desperate to shore up the vision of a moral world where a good America struggled against evil. And to do this they were going to create a simple villain. An imaginary enemy, one that would free them from the paralysing complexity of real Middle-Eastern politics. And the perfect candidate was waiting in the wings. Colonel Gaddafi, the ruler of Libya. The Americans were going to ruthlessly use Colonel Gaddafi to create a fake terrorist mastermind. And Gaddafi was going to happily play along, because it would turn him into a famous global figure. Colonel Gaddafi had taken power in a coup in the 1970s but from the very start, he was convinced that he was more than just the leader of one country. He believed that he was an international revolutionary whose destiny was to challenge the power of the W

Free Information vs Controlled Information war officially started As Naked Capitalism announced: As the lawyers like to say, res ipsa loquitur. Please tweet and circulate this letter widely. You will notice that our attorney Jim Moody is a seasoned litigator who has won cases before the Supreme Court. He has considerable experience in First Amendment and defamation actions. Past high profile representations include Westomoreland v. CBS and defending Linda Tripp. I also hope, particularly for those of you who don’t regularly visit Naked Capitalism, that you’ll check out our related pieces that give more color to how the fact the Washington Post was taken for a ride by inept propagandists, particularly our introduction to our spoof PropOrNot.org site, which uses the PropOrNot project as an example of sorely deficient propaganda and shows where it went wrong, or the humor site itself. Be sure not to miss its FAQ. We have another post today that describ