Public Intelligence Blog

If you had any doubts about how corrupt the government has become, and how much it is an extension of the Non-geographical Corporate States, this story should settle the matter.

Leak: US Using Taxpayer Dollars To Promote Monsanto GMOs Overseas
ANTHONY GUCCIARDI – Natural Society

Just when you thought the latest Supreme Court ruling in favor of Monsanto’s anti-farmer patent policy was enough evidence of Monsanto’s deep relationship with the US government, hundreds of new cables from the State Department and embassies around the world reveal that your taxpayer dollars are being used to push Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds.

Even mainstream news websites like Reuters are now reporting on the cable details, as it becomes more than crystal clear that the United States government is literally assisting Monsanto in promoting it’s health-crushing genetically modified seeds and escalating the corporation above the law. The same corporation busted for running slave-like work rings where ‘employees’ were required to work on the GMO corn fields for up to 14 hours a day or have their pay withheld.

As it turns out, taxpayer dollars are being funneled into the pockets of international lobbyists who specifically negotiated deals that benefited Monsanto – not even the government itself. This even included crushing the biotech competition in many countries where Monsanto wanted the edge. All performed by the U.S. State Department with the taxes you pay each year from your own salary. What great use, huh? This leak is very similar to the one I discussed back in January of 2012, where the US threatened ‘trade wars’ against nations opposing Monsanto.

One circumstance from 2009 regarding Spain is particularly telling, as the cable tells us that the embassy was demanding ”high-level U.S. government intervention” at the ‘urgent request” of Monsanto to squash biotech competitors in the country so that Monsanto could come scoop up the market for itself. The organization Food & Water Watch has released a detailed report on the cables. A representative from the organization explained how this isn’t even just the promotion of Monsanto but a truly insane initiative by the US government to bend over backwards for the GMO juggernaut:

‘It really goes beyond promoting the U.S.’s biotech industry and agriculture,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. ‘It really gets down to twisting the arms of countries and working to undermine local democratic movements that may be opposed to biotech crops, and pressuring foreign governments to also reduce the oversight of biotech crops.”

This revelation is truly amazing, even to me. I am rarely surprised with the latest Monsanto news, but the leaks reveal that the State Department even sent out pamphlets and DVDs to promote Monsanto. They even offered to help troubleshoot any problems that the countries had with letting Monsanto in for business.

Monsanto truly has the United States government in the palm of its bloody proverbial hand.

John Maguire

Finally! Independent Testing Of Rossi’s E-Cat Cold Fusion Device: Maybe The World Will Change After All

Mark Gibbs

Forbes, 20 May 2013

Back in October 2011 I first wrote about Italian engineer, Andrea Rossi, and his E-Cat project, a device that produces heat through a process called a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR).

Very briefly, LENR, otherwise called cold fusion, is a technique that generates energy through low temperature (far lower than hot fusion temperatures which are in the range of tens off thousands of degrees) reactions that are not chemical. Most importantly, LENR is, theoretically, much safer, much simpler, and many orders of magnitude cheaper than hot fusion. Rather than explaining LENR in detail here please see my original posting for a more complete explanation.

My next post on this topic was here on Forbes a few days later and, as the labyrinthine and occasionally ridiculous saga developed, I tried to sort fact from fiction in a series of posts (see the list at the end of this posting) which covered everything from unconvincing demos, through an Australian businessman offering Rossi $1 million to show independently tested proof, to other players in the LENR market showing interesting results.

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Marina Gorbis

The Future Of Education Eliminates The Classroom, Because The World Is Your Class

Written by: Marina Gorbis

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China-Mali: For the record. China has offered to send more than 500 soldiers to the UN force seeking to contain Islamist militants in Mali .  This would be China’s largest UN peacekeeping contingent.

Iraq: An attack at a military checkpoint at Taji, north of Baghdad, on Thursday killed 11 people, including four soldiers, and wounded five.

Comment: The pause appears ended. The fighting has killed 420 people this month.

Lebanon: Fighting in Tripoli continued for a fifth day. Overnight clashes killed six people and wounded 40. .The Middle East is now destabilized from the border of Iran to the Mediterranean.

Niger: Islamic militants executed coordinated attacks at two locations in Niger, the country east of Mali. In one attack, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb at a French-Niger owned uranium mine in the town of Arlit. Simultaneously and 125 miles south, another bomber detonated a car bomb inside a military camp in the city of Agadez. Other jihadists in vehicles attempted to overrun the base, but were stopped by a firefight with Nigerian soldiers. The bombs killed 5 bombers, 25 people and injured 29, according to the Ministry of Defense. No expatriates were killed.

During this Watch, a surviving bomber is holding several Nigerien soldiers hostage

These were the first terrorist attacks of this kind in Niger. The two towns are in central Niger. Some of the facilities for processing uranium ore were damaged at Arlit.

An affiliate of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, known as the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) claimed responsibility. They were also involved in the Mali fighting. Nigerien officials judge the fighters came from Libya. One said that Libyan instability is destabilizing the entire region.

Early this year one military analyst judged that Niger was even less prepared than Mali to cope with Islamic militants and terrorists. Nevertheless, a Nigerien unit participated in clearing operations in Gao, Mali.

The key points are that the jihadists have not given up their plans to establish a base in Sahelian Africa and all the countries are vulnerable. Their territory is enormous with poor infrastructure. They are poor and have small, poorly supported security forces.

The attacks might compel France to deploy some of the troops withdrawing from Mali to Niger. Niger is France’s single most important supplier of uranium for its extensive nuclear and electric power industries.

France might need to re-evaluate its strategy for providing security assistance to its former colonies. The threat calls for an integrated regional approach to security.  The Sahelian nations and France will certainly need outside help.

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Neal Rauhauser

One World, Three Reporting Domains

There are 249 sovereign territories, one sovereign military order, and a few bits of terra nullius that remain unclaimed for obscure reasons. The foreign policy challenges the U.S. faces can be separated into three broad geographic zones – Central & South America, The Muslim World, and the Pacific Rim & Southeast Asia.

I had a good reading background and I spent the first quarter of 2013 focused on The Muslim World. Having sorted out the good news sources and collected a bunch of maps in the process, I determined that simply staying on top of happenings is a full time job. I have not done the same with the other two regions, but I am going to assume that the Pacific Rim & Southeast Asia is roughly the same volume of work, while Central & South America is slightly less busy.

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Who? Mini-Me?

Huh?

NASA-funded research

The audacious plan to end hunger with 3-D printed food

Christopher Mims

Quartz, 21 May 2013

Anjan Contractor’s 3D food printer might evoke visions of the “replicator” popularized in Star Trek, from which Captain Picard was constantly interrupting himself to order tea. And indeed Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation, just got a six month, $125,000 grant from NASA to create a prototype of his universal food synthesizer.

But Contractor, a mechanical engineer with a background in 3D printing, envisions a much more mundane—and ultimately more important—use for the technology. He sees a day when every kitchen has a 3D printer, and the earth’s 12 billion people feed themselves customized, nutritionally-appropriate meals synthesized one layer at a time, from cartridges of powder and oils they buy at the corner grocery store. Contractor’s vision would mean the end of food waste, because the powder his system will use is shelf-stable for up to 30 years, so that each cartridge, whether it contains sugars, complex carbohydrates, protein or some other basic building block, would be fully exhausted before being returned to the store.

Ubiquitous food synthesizers would also create new ways of producing the basic calories on which we all rely. Since a powder is a powder, the inputs could be anything that contain the right organic molecules. We already know that eating meat is environmentally unsustainable, so why not get all our protein from insects?

If eating something spat out by the same kind of 3D printers that are currently being used to make everything from jet engine parts to fine art doesn’t sound too appetizing, that’s only because you can currently afford the good stuff, says Contractor. That might not be the case once the world’s population reaches its peak size, probably sometime near the end of this century.

“I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently,” says Contractor. “So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food.”

Read full article with graphics, photos, video.

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Jon Rappoport

CBS News star hacked: the big chill

www.nomorefakenews.com

Sharyl Atkisson is the one thing CBS News has going for it. She’s the real article. As real as you can be in the current news climate, while still working for a major media outlet.  She crashed the credibility of the CDC, as it was lying through its teeth about numbers of Swine Flu cases and overplaying the fake “epidemic.”  She’s taken on the horrific effects of vaccines, to the point where her Wikipedia page, through a series of unethical maneuvers, continues to characterize her as irrationally “anti-vaccine.”  She broke key elements of Fast&Furious. She’s a hound on Benghazi, and the Obama administration’s funding of “green programs.”

Now, she states that her computer was compromised in 2011, as she was covering Fast&Furious. She’s still working to find out what happened.

From Politico,  Sharyl Attkisson’s computers compromised

“Sharyl Attkisson, the Emmy-award winning CBS News investigative reporter, says that her personal and work computers have been compromised and are under investigation.

“‘I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some investigation on my end for some months but I’m not prepared to make an allegation against a specific entity today as I’ve been patient and methodical about this matter,’ Attkisson told POLITICO on Tuesday. ‘I need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on info we make public.’

“Attkisson told WPHT that irregular activity on her computer was first identified in Feb. 2011, when she was reporting on the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal and on the Obama administration’s green energy spending, which she said ‘the administration was very sensitive about.’”

end Politico excerpt

Two computers compromised. Star reporter. Somebody gained physical access or remote access to those machines. Strong likelihood it started as a government response to Atkisson’s coverage of Fast&Furious. (Although, unfortunately, Atkisson should also look to someone at CBS as the possible hacker.)  All those nasty stories Atkisson’s worked on, over the years? If she ever wants to use sources from those pieces again, she’s going to have to convince them they won’t pay a steep price for talking to her.  Then, for future stories, she’s going to have to convince new sources they can talk to her without getting into serious trouble.

It’s the big chill. This is the government and its allies sending a message to reporters’ sources and potential sources, confidential or not: watch out; we’re listening in; we can make you sorry.

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David Swanson

The Government’s List of “Anti-Government” People

Should the U.S. government be building a list of people whom a stranger has concluded based on as little as a moment’s interaction are “anti-government”?  Look at this photo of a U.S. Census laptop.  There’s a box to check if a respondent is reluctant to participate in the census.

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The next screen wants the census interviewer to explain the potential interviewee’s reluctance:

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Notice that there is a box for hostile or threatening.  That seems important.  There are boxes for just not interested or too busy.  There is a box for those who object that too many personal questions are asked.  The basics all seem to be covered.  But the Census employee is to check multiple boxes, “all that apply,” and one is  “Anti-government concerns.”  What does that mean?  What do Census workers think it means?  It clearly means something other than reluctant to give the government this information.  To be “anti-” the government sounds like someone is in favor of overthrowing the government.  And a government that thinks purely in terms of violence would inevitably interpret such a desire as one in favor of violently overthrowing the government.  But surely nobody tells a representative of the government that they favor its violent overthrow unless they don’t really take themselves seriously and are not actually a threat.  So maybe this “Anti-government concerns” box is equivalent to “Seems nuts,” but what sort of training does the survey taker have in mental health?  The serious question is what lists your name goes on if somebody marks you down as Anti-government.

Michelle Monk

Chinese Plant Compound Wipes Out Cancer in 40 Days, Says New Research

A little-known plant with a truly bizarre name is now making headlines as a cancer killer, with the compound of the plant vanishing tumors in mice with pancreatic cancer.

Known as the ‘thunder god vine’ or lei gong teng, the Chinese plant is actually integrated into Chinese medicine and has been used for ages in remedying a number of conditions including rheumatoid arthritis.

According to the new research out of the University of Minnesota’s Masonic Cancer Center, the thunder god plant compound led to no signs of tumors after a 40 day period — even after discontinuing the treatment. Published in the journal Science Translational Medicine and funded by the National Institutes of Health, even the scientists working on the project were stunned by the anti-cancer properties of the compound. Known to contain something known as triptolide, which has been identified as a cancer fighter in previous research, it is thought to be the key component that may be responsible for the anti-tumor capabilities.

Study leader and vice chairman of research at the Cancer Center explained to Bloomberg how he was blown away by the effects of the simple plant:

“This drug is just unbelievably potent in killing tumor cells,” he said. – See more.

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And just like with numerous other powerful substances like turmeric and ginger, mainstream science is still slowly confirming what many traditional practitioners have known for their entire lives. This is, of course, due to the fact that there is simply no money for major corporations in researching the healing powers of natural herbs and compounds such as the compound found in the thunder god vine. Turmeric and ginger, for example, have been found to be amazing anti-cancer substances that are virtually free compared to expensive and dangerous cancer drugs.

Nevertheless, the Big Pharma sponsored corporate scientists have managed to ignore these spices as much as possible. In fact, they have even been caught time and time again faking thousands of studies to fraudulently demonstrate the supposed value of pharmaceutical drugs pushed by major pharma juggernauts — many of which are later forced to pay millions in fines which only slightly stack up against their billions in profits.

Profits that are threatened by the many real studies that were performed by scientists examining the rejeuvenating power of cheap ingredients like turmeric, which has been found by peer-reviewed research available on PubMed to positively influence over 590 conditions.

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Sepp Hasslberger

Not just blowing in the wind: Compressing air for renewable energy storage

Study IDs 2 compressed air energy storage methods, sites for the Northwest

RICHLAND, Wash. – Enough Northwest wind energy to power about 85,000 homes each month could be stored in porous rocks deep underground for later use, according to a new, comprehensive study. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Bonneville Power Administration identified two unique methods for this energy storage approach and two eastern Washington locations to put them into practice.

Compressed air energy storage plants could help save the region’s abundant wind power – which is often produced at night when winds are strong and energy demand is low – for later, when demand is high and power supplies are more strained. These plants can also switch between energy storage and power generation within minutes, providing flexibility to balance the region’s highly variable wind energy generation throughout the day.

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“With Renewable Portfolio Standards requiring states to have as much as 20 or 30 percent of their electricity come from variable sources such as wind and the sun, compressed air energy storage plants can play a valuable role in helping manage and integrate renewable power onto the Northwest’s electric grid,” said Steve Knudsen, who managed the study for the BPA.

Geologic energy savings accounts

All compressed air energy storage plants work under the same basic premise. When power is abundant, it’s drawn from the electric grid and used to power a large air compressor, which pushes pressurized air into an underground geologic storage structure. Later, when power demand is high, the stored air is released back up to the surface, where it is heated and rushes through turbines to generate electricity. Compressed air energy storage plants can re-generate as much as 80 percent of the electricity they take in.

Read full press release from DOE Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

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