While I cannot improve upon your most excellent comments, outstanding unity100, please allow me to add that all those perps and crooks going after Wikileaks' Julian Assange are connected, financially, in one way or another with the Swedish publishing people, the Bonnier family (Ardin, their shysters, Borgstrom and the other clown, as well as all the original publication rags involved --- basically the Swedish equivalent to the Rupert Murdoch machine).
The same Bonnier business which received funds from the US Federal Reserve Bank, along with Sweden's central bank, during the period of 2008 - 2010. Funny how those things always work out that way????
...which really is the sole source of what passes for MainStreamMedia in the US, ever report that the organization which vets, or does the background checks for the TSA, is Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater USA??? Never, never will they ever report that very crucial fact, which may be why over 55 sky marshals (the doods with the guns aboard the jetliners) have been fired, and/or convicted and jailed for everything from human trafficking, to drug smuggling, rape, etc., etc.? Blackwater OK's the crooks, so the TSA is full of crooks.
Thank you. I always despise people who mindlessly repeat something without ever giving it some critical analysis first. If knowledge were power, then scientists and geniuses would be meeting at the Bilderberg, not just the bank/oil cartel boys (with their social information system lackey twits, of course).
Doesn't it truly strike you as ludicrous, when so many Ameritards repeat that tiresome phrase about criminals being so stupid? Especially since the bank/oil cartel gets away with virtually everything? I mean, since when did anyone from JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BankofAmerica, Citigroup, Blackstone Group, Fortress, Citadel Management, AIG, Carlyle Group, etc., etc., go to jail? After the S&L meltdown, over 1,000 banksters were convicted and many went to jail. Criminals appear to get away with virtually everything today.
"They don't own any manufacturing facilities of their own."
And whose money do you think paid for all those foreign factories, production facilities, R&D labs, training centers, call centers, etc., which those jobs are either offshored to, or created anew at? That would be USAID, US foreign aid from various sources, presided over by the Wall Streeters who once bounced back and forth between the Street and government positions, but now USAID, like so much of the former US gov't, has been privatized (90% for USAID, BTW).
"And as a publicly traded company, Cisco has an obligation to make as much money as they can for their shareholders."
Oh...give it a rest already, David Brooks clown clone. That's the same exact argument members of Hitler's Third Reich gave for their humans-into-ovens mandate. No corporation is obligated to support dictators and totalitarian governments, whether in th USA or in China, etc.
Sadly, I suspect you are right, but what's even more troubling is that in America every single time one hears any so-called reporters complaining about the TSA, not a single one of these half-assed stenographers ever thinks to ask who was responsible for vetting them? For doing those background checks on them? (Last time I checked a few years back, it turned out to be none other than Blackwater USA, today called Xe Services.)
"I would like someone to explain to me how the Thomas Drake case involved anything remotely..."
The crime Mr. Drake committed (other than being rather gullible as to the real objectives behind the US intel establishment, now majority privatized) was to point out the thievery and/or embezzlement going on with the outsourcing of the $3 million contract which would total up to at least $1 billion. This is the primary purpose and reason for the existence of the Financial-Intelligence-Complex, founded by the super-rich during WWII (Rockefeller, Harriman, Mellon, etc.).
Same problem with Baer, Valerie Plame, etc., people who are, not unintellgent, but still gullibly believe in that Hallmark History of America. Just check out the latest organization Ms. Plame is at, and the backgrounds of its directors (to halt nuclear proliferation).
"..'could potentially hack into sensitive government, military, and corporate files."
Gee whiz, since so many other countries (China)...(China)...(China)...have been doing this thanks to US, Euro and Japanese multinationals offshoring all that technology along with the jobs to a bunch of totalitarian countries (much like Police State Amerika) this forein intelligence hacking is a given.
I'd say be highly worried about all those anti-democracy multinationals......
Unfortunately a bad precedent has already been established with 9/11/01. The black boxes from the two aircraft which crashed into the Twin Towers includes the pilots cabin door activity (open and closing, etc.) and there is nothing to indicate any hijacking ever took place (i.e., only a brief, several second partial open and closing to allow passage of coffee to pilot). Therefore, it probably won't be admissable, given that it doesn't count for 9/11/01. (Truly, America is screwed!)
Nosy senator? Did you mean Joey Lieberman, a member of that ultra-neocon Foundation in Defense of Democracies (whose, one wonders???), PNAC version 2.0?
Recently, they have financed a pile of drivel, in support of the Cheney-Rumsfeld conspiracy theory on 9/11, and attacking all those critics who know stuff like math, science, engineering, aviation and are retired intelligence professionals and military professionals, as well as former heads of state (i.e., really "flaky" guys as opposed to goatherds like Cheney and Rumsfeld, no doubt?).
Yup, sure wouldn't ever want anyone to investigate the backgrounds of those 64 passengers aboard the four commericial airliners involved that day.
After all, in homicide cases, it is always routine to investigate the background of the victim or victims, as in the majority of cases the murderer knows their victims. And on 9/11/01, the certain group of victims were those passengers with ahead-of-time reservations that day!
....those Linden LaRouche types, always hanging around the downtown street corners, waiting for those rubes who either take them seriously or believe they are actually a political party (matching campaign financing funds scam -- when you check of funds for presidential campaigns on the tax forms, because the LaRouche party qualifies as a political party they receive at least $30 million every four years).
Then there's the "Save the Children" bunch (ever check out their directors????? 'nuff said on that one). And how about the Red Cross, structured as a global money laundering operation (how many pennies per ever one thousand donated are actually used???) and what can you say when their director meets several times a year with Henry Kissinger, Richard Perle and David Rockefeller???? (Not my kind of people, that's for sure!)
Nobody was monitoring the robot (externally, that is) to see whether or not IT had something to do with the removal of the "memory part" (not to be confused with those other parts??)? This is truly thought-provoking....I mean, could the 'bots be in on this, or something????
On a more serious note, though, recall that it was malware which brought down a Spanish airliner around that same timeframe. The malware interfered with the diagostic warning systems of the avionics systems (occupired same memory vectors, disrupting warning signals from emitting).
Geez, I was just about to fill in everyone about this, but there's always some wise ass who beats me to it. What a compleat downer, dood!
Now, if only they make it mandatory for those governors of the states (Texas, Georgia, Alabama, et al.) requesting emergency federal aid to fork over THEIR birth certificates.
Of course, I'm sure Donald Trump has already forged an American birth certificate for his hairpiece, who recently announced it, too, is running for the presidency (should be some serious competition for Bachmannmeister).
Our latest bankster stooge in the long line of the Vanilla Presidency (Johnson to the present), has gone after, and jailed, more whistleblowers than all previous US presidents combined. Joe McCarthy would have loved him!
(And old buddy sent this to me to post around:)
FORENSIC ECONOMICS 101
Private equity firms/leveraged buyout firms manage and oversee the bulk of the largest pension funds (superannuation funds) out there, including most union funds. They leverage these funds to destroy unions and future union employment, while structuring them with credit derivatives which profit themselves but end up destroying those funds.
With the destruction of those funds, which must either be bailed out or allowed to default, comes the further destruction of local governments as they are usually heavily invested (through their bond issues) in those pension funds. Thus allowing the super-rich to go in and pick up new assets at bargain basement values.
This would be considered the optimal asset stripping.
U.S. foreign aid (US taxpayer assisted) is well known to be directed to countries which will then purchase weapons systems from defense contractors, but what is less known is what the greater slice of that foreign aid goes to.
The bulk of it is managed and manipulated by American-based multinationals to build foreign factories, production facilities, R&D labs, worker training, etc., to which the multinationals then offshore American jobs to, and create new jobs at. Extreme examples of this were the two “free trade agreements” supported and passed during the Bush administration, lobbied on behalf of by former president, Bill Clinton (in the pay of the jobs offshoring industry), involving Jordan and Oman.
Foreign aid established factories in those two countries, which then imported the cheapest labor they could from Bangladesh and the Philippines, chiefly benefitting the American-based multinationals who exported those jobs to the factories, and the small number of wealthy and connected managers and owners in Jordan and Oman who managed those factories.
The co-opting of the conservation lobby (Nature Conservancy, League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, etc.) and the environmental lobby (those entities duped into supporting cap-and-trade) by Wall Street (corporate and individual land monopolists and oil/energy corporations).
For example, when a volunteer group works to set aside a tract of land for conservation purposes, etc., and they don’t continuously track the final result, they are unaware that some, or all, of the tract is eventually sold for pennies on the dollar to foreign corporations, either in a quid pro quo deal, or which is owned through circuitously laddered holding companies by an American-based multinational.
Also, various conservation groups will lobby on behalf of tax cuts and benefits for set aside lands, unaware they are working – for free – on behalf of those super-rich land monopolists.
The controlled, compromised and highly manipulated tax code which chiefly exists to benefit the one percent, the speculator class.
A traditionally popular example of this is the “Louis B. Mayer clause” dating back to 1954, where Mayer’s tax attorneys bribed the usual congressmen to insert a special clause in the tax section to allow Mayer to avoid paying taxes on his fortune when he retired. This clause specified that only the special pre-existing tax situation (i.e., exactly targeting only Mayer’s situation) existing prior to the date of that clause was allowed – the complete antithesis of all legal foundation, i.e., a law is normally passed to be in effect which affects everyone after the passage of said law!
A recent example is the “Blackstone Group clause” – essentially the Blackstone Group bought some congress critters to allow them to continue paying the same capital gains tax rate after they went public, when by law they should
Exactly, and the USA and China are soooo in cahoots and sooo converging there is far greater similarity between the two (the USA: Corporate Fascist State, China: Totalitarian Capitalist State) then differences.
You are probably right, although it is interesting to make note of a crash of a Spanish airliner which occurred around that timeframe and turned out to be caused by malware aboard their avionics system. Now that's scary????
Let me get this straight now....are you suggesting Gates hired some dood to copy Gary Kildall's CP/M OS and call it DOS? Or that he only got the DOS monopoly from Akers from IBM 'cause his mom and Akers were friends and sat on some of the same boards? Or that Gates' uncle happened to be the VP of First Interstate Bank, where Gates got his startup financiing?? Or that Microsoft routinely licensed, than copied, others proprietary software code into their Windows' OS?? Geez, sounds about right, don't it.....?
" His recent change is just Robber Baron Guilt playing itself out like it always does."
UUhhhhh??? Excuse me....you mean that foundation of his which pushes Monsanto's GMOs all over the planet?? Or those mercenary armies his foundation finances for the coltan in Africa? Or the privatization of the nation's schools for the bankster class?
Or perhaps you are referring to Microsoft's donations to David Rockefeller's (and Henry Kissinger's and Richard Perle's) "American Friends of Bilderberg, Inc."???
Poor Pauly, but he has all those "streetcars to nowhere in Seattle" to play with, the ones that cost the hapless taxpayers there a fortune, but don't do anything for city transit.
Oh, that's right, I keep forgetting he's the de facto owner and mayor of Seattle. Poor Paulie.....
Back around 2003, I watched that pathetic News Hour on PBS (the one where 87% of the "guests" all happen to be members of the Council on Foreign Relations, and they especially love to have that Beschloss presidential historian -- whose wife was an employee/hedge fund expert of the Carlyle Group and has since moved on to one of the Rockefeller foundations, along with neocon piece of crap, Richard Perle, also a constant guest) on whether stock options should be counted as part of one's salary.
I was interested in contacting the "liberal" response guest, an identified NY University business economics professor -- took me three months to finally track her down as she had no connection with NYU, nor ever had, but WAS a member of the NY chapter of the Screen Actors Guild (she didn't realize she was posing as an imposter but was misled into believing it was an audition).
Many Americans, and no doubt Euros as well, are quite confused and clueless as to reality. When you state Switzerland, I would consider that one of those countries also in deep, deep moral and ethical trouble (as is Sweden, where they appear to follow US neocon econ-warfare policies in lockstep, as does Italy, etc.).
Historical perspective: During World War II, the Financial-Intelligence-Complex came into being, although there were existing elements prior to WWII, it was principally institutionalized during that time.
It's principal creators: David Rockefeller, Averill Harriman, Robert Lovett, Frank Wisner, Sr., the Dulles brothers (Alan Foster Dulles being a Rockefeller in-law), and Richard Bissell.
They originally set it up that Wall Streeters would bounce back and forth between The Street, and the top intel directorates, over the past several decades the American intelligence establishment has been so thoroughly privatized, that is no longer necessary. Also, this complex has it's European counterparts.
Now, National Security has never had anything to do with this control element, it is all about accumulating financial intelligence and population control. Period.
Always beware those misinformation and disinformation specialists (many purposely hired and paid) who misdirect by suggesting the continuing bureaucratic incompetence of this billions-funded agencies, when in reality they are highly compentent in those areas benefitting the klepto-plutocracy which runs America, and the majority of the Earth's countries.
Let's see now....Micro$oft's ADVAPI.DLL, and their sellout of the kernel to the Chinese Totalitarian Capitalist State? You nailed it of course, elrous0, and with the Pentagon's giving access to phony anonymizers to certain neocon PACs, it's all Wall Street motiviated, 'natch.
You mean the trinity of evil when you speak of organized 'net crime? Or that big time criminal outfit, the US DOJ? Confused by propagandistic articles? We all should be by this time. When the banksters are finally executed, then and only then should people speak of the lower echelon of ethnic crime.
Slashdot Mirror
The same Bonnier business which received funds from the US Federal Reserve Bank, along with Sweden's central bank, during the period of 2008 - 2010. Funny how those things always work out that way????
Greece, Iceland, Slovakia, Spain, and a number of other countries, millions no longer need to carry a wallet, since they no longer have any cash.
...which really is the sole source of what passes for MainStreamMedia in the US, ever report that the organization which vets, or does the background checks for the TSA, is Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater USA??? Never, never will they ever report that very crucial fact, which may be why over 55 sky marshals (the doods with the guns aboard the jetliners) have been fired, and/or convicted and jailed for everything from human trafficking, to drug smuggling, rape, etc., etc.? Blackwater OK's the crooks, so the TSA is full of crooks.
Thank you. I always despise people who mindlessly repeat something without ever giving it some critical analysis first. If knowledge were power, then scientists and geniuses would be meeting at the Bilderberg, not just the bank/oil cartel boys (with their social information system lackey twits, of course).
Doesn't it truly strike you as ludicrous, when so many Ameritards repeat that tiresome phrase about criminals being so stupid? Especially since the bank/oil cartel gets away with virtually everything? I mean, since when did anyone from JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BankofAmerica, Citigroup, Blackstone Group, Fortress, Citadel Management, AIG, Carlyle Group, etc., etc., go to jail? After the S&L meltdown, over 1,000 banksters were convicted and many went to jail. Criminals appear to get away with virtually everything today.
And whose money do you think paid for all those foreign factories, production facilities, R&D labs, training centers, call centers, etc., which those jobs are either offshored to, or created anew at? That would be USAID, US foreign aid from various sources, presided over by the Wall Streeters who once bounced back and forth between the Street and government positions, but now USAID, like so much of the former US gov't, has been privatized (90% for USAID, BTW).
Oh...give it a rest already, David Brooks clown clone. That's the same exact argument members of Hitler's Third Reich gave for their humans-into-ovens mandate. No corporation is obligated to support dictators and totalitarian governments, whether in th USA or in China, etc.
Sadly, I suspect you are right, but what's even more troubling is that in America every single time one hears any so-called reporters complaining about the TSA, not a single one of these half-assed stenographers ever thinks to ask who was responsible for vetting them? For doing those background checks on them? (Last time I checked a few years back, it turned out to be none other than Blackwater USA, today called Xe Services.)
The crime Mr. Drake committed (other than being rather gullible as to the real objectives behind the US intel establishment, now majority privatized) was to point out the thievery and/or embezzlement going on with the outsourcing of the $3 million contract which would total up to at least $1 billion. This is the primary purpose and reason for the existence of the Financial-Intelligence-Complex, founded by the super-rich during WWII (Rockefeller, Harriman, Mellon, etc.).
Same problem with Baer, Valerie Plame, etc., people who are, not unintellgent, but still gullibly believe in that Hallmark History of America. Just check out the latest organization Ms. Plame is at, and the backgrounds of its directors (to halt nuclear proliferation).
Gee whiz, since so many other countries (China)...(China)...(China)...have been doing this thanks to US, Euro and Japanese multinationals offshoring all that technology along with the jobs to a bunch of totalitarian countries (much like Police State Amerika) this forein intelligence hacking is a given.
I'd say be highly worried about all those anti-democracy multinationals......
Unfortunately a bad precedent has already been established with 9/11/01. The black boxes from the two aircraft which crashed into the Twin Towers includes the pilots cabin door activity (open and closing, etc.) and there is nothing to indicate any hijacking ever took place (i.e., only a brief, several second partial open and closing to allow passage of coffee to pilot). Therefore, it probably won't be admissable, given that it doesn't count for 9/11/01. (Truly, America is screwed!)
Recently, they have financed a pile of drivel, in support of the Cheney-Rumsfeld conspiracy theory on 9/11, and attacking all those critics who know stuff like math, science, engineering, aviation and are retired intelligence professionals and military professionals, as well as former heads of state (i.e., really "flaky" guys as opposed to goatherds like Cheney and Rumsfeld, no doubt?).
Yup, sure wouldn't ever want anyone to investigate the backgrounds of those 64 passengers aboard the four commericial airliners involved that day.
After all, in homicide cases, it is always routine to investigate the background of the victim or victims, as in the majority of cases the murderer knows their victims. And on 9/11/01, the certain group of victims were those passengers with ahead-of-time reservations that day!
Then there's the "Save the Children" bunch (ever check out their directors????? 'nuff said on that one). And how about the Red Cross, structured as a global money laundering operation (how many pennies per ever one thousand donated are actually used???) and what can you say when their director meets several times a year with Henry Kissinger, Richard Perle and David Rockefeller???? (Not my kind of people, that's for sure!)
On a more serious note, though, recall that it was malware which brought down a Spanish airliner around that same timeframe. The malware interfered with the diagostic warning systems of the avionics systems (occupired same memory vectors, disrupting warning signals from emitting).
Now, if only they make it mandatory for those governors of the states (Texas, Georgia, Alabama, et al.) requesting emergency federal aid to fork over THEIR birth certificates.
Of course, I'm sure Donald Trump has already forged an American birth certificate for his hairpiece, who recently announced it, too, is running for the presidency (should be some serious competition for Bachmannmeister).
(And old buddy sent this to me to post around:)
FORENSIC ECONOMICS 101
Private equity firms/leveraged buyout firms manage and oversee the bulk of the largest pension funds (superannuation funds) out there, including most union funds. They leverage these funds to destroy unions and future union employment, while structuring them with credit derivatives which profit themselves but end up destroying those funds.
With the destruction of those funds, which must either be bailed out or allowed to default, comes the further destruction of local governments as they are usually heavily invested (through their bond issues) in those pension funds. Thus allowing the super-rich to go in and pick up new assets at bargain basement values.
This would be considered the optimal asset stripping.
U.S. foreign aid (US taxpayer assisted) is well known to be directed to countries which will then purchase weapons systems from defense contractors, but what is less known is what the greater slice of that foreign aid goes to.
The bulk of it is managed and manipulated by American-based multinationals to build foreign factories, production facilities, R&D labs, worker training, etc., to which the multinationals then offshore American jobs to, and create new jobs at. Extreme examples of this were the two “free trade agreements” supported and passed during the Bush administration, lobbied on behalf of by former president, Bill Clinton (in the pay of the jobs offshoring industry), involving Jordan and Oman.
Foreign aid established factories in those two countries, which then imported the cheapest labor they could from Bangladesh and the Philippines, chiefly benefitting the American-based multinationals who exported those jobs to the factories, and the small number of wealthy and connected managers and owners in Jordan and Oman who managed those factories.
The co-opting of the conservation lobby (Nature Conservancy, League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, etc.) and the environmental lobby (those entities duped into supporting cap-and-trade) by Wall Street (corporate and individual land monopolists and oil/energy corporations).
For example, when a volunteer group works to set aside a tract of land for conservation purposes, etc., and they don’t continuously track the final result, they are unaware that some, or all, of the tract is eventually sold for pennies on the dollar to foreign corporations, either in a quid pro quo deal, or which is owned through circuitously laddered holding companies by an American-based multinational.
Also, various conservation groups will lobby on behalf of tax cuts and benefits for set aside lands, unaware they are working – for free – on behalf of those super-rich land monopolists.
The controlled, compromised and highly manipulated tax code which chiefly exists to benefit the one percent, the speculator class.
A traditionally popular example of this is the “Louis B. Mayer clause” dating back to 1954, where Mayer’s tax attorneys bribed the usual congressmen to insert a special clause in the tax section to allow Mayer to avoid paying taxes on his fortune when he retired. This clause specified that only the special pre-existing tax situation (i.e., exactly targeting only Mayer’s situation) existing prior to the date of that clause was allowed – the complete antithesis of all legal foundation, i.e., a law is normally passed to be in effect which affects everyone after the passage of said law!
A recent example is the “Blackstone Group clause” – essentially the Blackstone Group bought some congress critters to allow them to continue paying the same capital gains tax rate after they went public, when by law they should
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/obsessed-with-jacob/Content?oid=7560624
You are probably right, although it is interesting to make note of a crash of a Spanish airliner which occurred around that timeframe and turned out to be caused by malware aboard their avionics system. Now that's scary????
Let me get this straight now....are you suggesting Gates hired some dood to copy Gary Kildall's CP/M OS and call it DOS? Or that he only got the DOS monopoly from Akers from IBM 'cause his mom and Akers were friends and sat on some of the same boards? Or that Gates' uncle happened to be the VP of First Interstate Bank, where Gates got his startup financiing?? Or that Microsoft routinely licensed, than copied, others proprietary software code into their Windows' OS?? Geez, sounds about right, don't it.....?
UUhhhhh??? Excuse me....you mean that foundation of his which pushes Monsanto's GMOs all over the planet?? Or those mercenary armies his foundation finances for the coltan in Africa? Or the privatization of the nation's schools for the bankster class?
Or perhaps you are referring to Microsoft's donations to David Rockefeller's (and Henry Kissinger's and Richard Perle's) "American Friends of Bilderberg, Inc."???
Oh, that's right, I keep forgetting he's the de facto owner and mayor of Seattle. Poor Paulie.....
I was interested in contacting the "liberal" response guest, an identified NY University business economics professor -- took me three months to finally track her down as she had no connection with NYU, nor ever had, but WAS a member of the NY chapter of the Screen Actors Guild (she didn't realize she was posing as an imposter but was misled into believing it was an audition).
Historical perspective: During World War II, the Financial-Intelligence-Complex came into being, although there were existing elements prior to WWII, it was principally institutionalized during that time.
It's principal creators: David Rockefeller, Averill Harriman, Robert Lovett, Frank Wisner, Sr., the Dulles brothers (Alan Foster Dulles being a Rockefeller in-law), and Richard Bissell.
They originally set it up that Wall Streeters would bounce back and forth between The Street, and the top intel directorates, over the past several decades the American intelligence establishment has been so thoroughly privatized, that is no longer necessary. Also, this complex has it's European counterparts.
Now, National Security has never had anything to do with this control element, it is all about accumulating financial intelligence and population control. Period.
Always beware those misinformation and disinformation specialists (many purposely hired and paid) who misdirect by suggesting the continuing bureaucratic incompetence of this billions-funded agencies, when in reality they are highly compentent in those areas benefitting the klepto-plutocracy which runs America, and the majority of the Earth's countries.
Let's see now....Micro$oft's ADVAPI.DLL, and their sellout of the kernel to the Chinese Totalitarian Capitalist State? You nailed it of course, elrous0, and with the Pentagon's giving access to phony anonymizers to certain neocon PACs, it's all Wall Street motiviated, 'natch.
You mean the trinity of evil when you speak of organized 'net crime? Or that big time criminal outfit, the US DOJ? Confused by propagandistic articles? We all should be by this time. When the banksters are finally executed, then and only then should people speak of the lower echelon of ethnic crime.