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United States
June 28, 2016 After Brexit, a Trump path to victory. While Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, England voted for independence. These people, with their unique history, language and culture, want to write their own laws and rule themselves. From patriots of all nations, congratulations are in order. Scotland will seek a second referendum to leave the U.K. The French National Front of Le Pen and the Dutch Party for Freedom both want out of the EU. As Scots seek to secede from the U.K., Catalonia seeks to secede from Spain, Veneto from Italy, and Flemish nationalists from Belgium. Ethnonationalism seems everywhere ascendant. The disintegration of the EU into its component nations would follow, as Putin helpfully points out, the dissolution of the USSR into 15 nations, and the breakup of Yugoslavia into seven. Czechoslovakia lately split in two. The Donbass seeks to secede from Ukraine. Is that so different from Transnistria splitting off from Moldova, Abkhazia and South Ossetia seceding from Georgia, and Chechnya seeking separation from Russia? After World War II came the disintegration of the French and British empires and birth of dozens of new nations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. America returned the Philippine islands to their people. The previous century saw the collapse of the Spanish Empire and birth of a score of new nations in our own hemisphere. In Xi’s China and Putin’s Russia, nationalism is rising, even as China seeks to repress Uighur and Tibetan separatists. Palestinians want their own nation. Israelis want “a Jewish state.” On Cyprus, Turks and Greeks seem happier apart. Kurds are fighting to secede from Turkey and Iraq, and perhaps soon from Syria and Iran. Afghanistan appears to be splintering into regions dominated by Pashtuns, Hazaras, Uzbeks and Tajiks. Eritrea has left Ethiopia. South Sudan has seceded from Khartoum. Nor is America immune to the populist sentiments surging in Europe. In Sanders’ fulminations against corporate and financial elites one hears echoes of the radical leftist rhetoric in Greece and Italy against EU banking elites. And as “Brexit” swept the native-born English outside of multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual London, populist-nationalist Trump and anti-establishment Cruz swept the native-born white working and middle classes in the primaries. In Britain, all the mainstream parties – Labor, Tory, Liberal Democrat, Scottish National – supported “Remain.” All lost. Farage’s UK Independence Party alone won. What might a Trumpian policy of Americanism over globalism entail? A 10 to 20 percent tariff on manufactured goods to wipe out the trade deficit in goods, with the hundreds of billions in revenue used to slash or eliminate corporate taxes in the USA. Every U.S. business would benefit. Every global company would have an incentive not only to move production here, but its headquarters here. An “America first” immigration policy would secure the border, cut legal immigration to tighten U.S. labor markets, strictly enforce U.S. laws against those breaking into our country, and get tough with businesses that make a practice of hiring people here illegally. In Europe and America, corporate, financial and political elites are increasingly disrespected, and transnationalism is receding. An anti-establishment, nationalist, populist wave is surging across Europe and the USA. It is an anti-insider, anti-Clinton wave, and Trump could ride it to victory. (Source: WND)
June 28, 2016 In the book with title: 'Crisis of character" Former Secret Service officer Byrne exposes the truth behind Hillary, Bill, and their public facade. Posted directly outside President Clinton's Oval Office, Former Secret Service uniformed officer Byrne reveals what he observed of Hillary's character and the culture inside the White House while protecting the First Family. Now that a second Clinton administration threatens - their scheme from the very beginning - Byrne exposes what he saw of the real Hillary. Having witnessed the personal and political dysfunction of the Clinton White House - so consumed by scandal and destroying their enemies, real and imagined - Byrne came to understand that, to the Clintons, governing was an afterthought. He now tells this story - before voters go to the polls - in the hopes that Clinton supporters will understand the real Hillary. Product Details: Hardcover: 304 pages; Publisher: Center Street (June 28, 2016); Language: English. (Source: Amazon)
June 26, 2016 Snowden’s body might be confined to Moscow, but the former NSA computer specialist has hacked a work-around: a robot. If he wants to make his physical presence felt in the United States, he can connect to a wheeled contraption called a BeamPro, a flat-screen monitor that stands atop a pair of legs, five-foot-two in all, with a camera that acts as a swiveling Cyclops eye. Inevitably, people call it the “Snowbot.” The avatar resides at the Manhattan offices of the ACLU, where it takes meetings and occasionally travels to speaking engagements. (You can Google pictures of the Snowbot posing with Brin at TED.) The technology is of real symbolic and practical use to Snowden, who hopes to prove that the internet can overcome the power of governments, the strictures of exile, and isolation. Sitting in the same homemade studio he uses for his frequent speaking engagements, Snowden could control the robot’s movements with his computer, maneuvering with uncanny agility, swiveling to make eye contact with people as they spoke to him. The idea that Snowden is still walking the American streets, virtually or otherwise, is infuriating to his former employers in the U.S.-intelligence community. Its leaders no longer make ominous jokes about wanting to put him on a drone kill list - as former NSA and CIA director Hayden did in 2013 - but they still vilify him and maintain that he did real harm to America’s safety and international standing. While Snowden’s leaks revealed the NSA’s controversial and possibly unconstitutional bulk collection of domestic internet traffic and telephone metadata, they also exposed technical details about many other classified activities, including overseas surveillance programs, secret diplomatic arrangements, and operations targeting legitimate adversaries. The spy agencies warn that the public doesn’t comprehend the degree of damage done to their protective capabilities. He still faces charges of violating the federal Espionage Act, crimes that could carry a decades-long prison sentence. The last person to leak classified information of such magnitude, Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Snowden argues that he was put in Russia by the U.S. government, which canceled his passport while he was en route to Ecuador, trapping him in Moscow during a layover. But to critics, his dependence on Putin is discrediting. “I am not saying that he is a Russian spy, but he is in a tough spot,” says journalist Kaplan, author of the recent book Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War. “He is in a position where, because of his captive status, he can’t really say anything that terribly critical about his hosts, who happen to be some of the most sophisticated and intrusive cyberespionage hackers in the world.” Although Snowden acknowledges that he was approached by the FSB, he claims he has given them no information or assistance, and he vehemently denies he is anyone’s puppet. He cheered the release of the Panama Papers, which contained voluminous evidence of corruption in Putin’s inner circle. (Source: NewYorkMagazine): http://tinyurl.com/heph9gh
June 24, 2016 Trump statement regarding British referendum on E.U. membership. The people of the United Kingdom have exercised the sacred right of all free peoples. They have declared their independence from the European Union and have voted to reassert control over their own politics, borders and economy. A Trump Administration pledges to strengthen our ties with a free and independent Britain, deepening our bonds in commerce, culture and mutual defense. The whole world is more peaceful and stable when our two countries – and our two peoples – are united together, as they will be under a Trump Administration. (Source: DonaldJTrump): http://tinyurl.com/zjd7mrp
Jun 22, 2016 Temporary blindness tied to smartphone use in dark. Two women went temporarily blind from constantly checking their phones in the dark. The solution: make sure to use both eyes when looking at your smartphone screen in the dark. They have one eye adapted to the light because it's looking at the phone and the other eye is adapted to the dark. (Source: AP): http://tinyurl.com/h7npeve
22 Jun 2016 US and Chinese warships join forces in massive joint naval exercise in the Pacific. The tactical maneuvering exercise was held before the two navies head to Hawaii for the 2016 Rim of the Pacific multinational naval exercise. Five warships from China and two from the United States joined the exercise, with the Chinese missile destroyer Xi'an being the command ship. During the two-hour drill, the participating fleets formed V-shaped, rhombus and screen formations before continuing their journey to Hawaii. The Chinese fleet departed from a military port in Zhoushan City, in east China's Zhejiang Province. The RIMPAC naval exercise will begin on June 30 and will be the second time the Chinese Navy has participated. (Source: Mirror): http://tinyurl.com/zloqhm3
June 22 2016 Land around the San Andreas fault is rising and sinking, new earthquake research shows. The vertical movement is the result of seismic strain that will be ultimately released in a large earthquake. In the journal Nature Geoscience scientists found that much of the Los Angeles Basin, Orange County, San Diego County and the Bakersfield area are sinking 2 to 3 millimeters a year. By contrast, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, and a large portion of San Bernardino County, are rising at the same rate. (Source. LosAngelesTimes):
June 22, 2016 Lab-grown bones successfully implanted in pigs. Dr. Vunjak-Novakovic and her colleagues have managed to create living bone from stem cells. First, they made a CT scan to create a 3-D image of each pig’s jaw. From cow bone, they sculpted a “scaffold” — a three-dimensional copy of the pig bone. They put the scaffold in a nutrient solution along with stem cells extracted from the pigs. The cells attached to the scaffold, forming a new bone identical to the original. Then the researchers implanted the new bone in each pig. They reported their results in Science Translational Medicine. There was no problem with rejection. Clinical trials in humans are at least three years away. (Source: TheNewYorkTimes): http://tinyurl.com/znsam2s
21 06 2016 The Air Force Space Command has devised a new framework for interstellar warfare called Space Enterprise Vision (SEV). The vision is related to the Space Portfolio Review, a government-wide assessment of space-related national security issues that involve spy satellites. (Source: SputnikNews): http://tinyurl.com/zf3eub8
Globalization
21st June 2016 Hunting humans will become big business for the super wealthy within 100 years according to Wright, senior lecturer in tourism at the University of Central Lancashire in a paper for the scientific journal Futures. He outlined a world ravaged by economic and ecological disasters, leading to overpopulation and a huge gap between rich and poor. It also reflect both the past when public executions attracted huge crowds, to the craze for 'Dark Tourism' that is currently work billions a year. Due to the strain on resources for human survival the practice gradually became more recognisable and acceptable on the part of the wider population who form part of the wealthy-elite. Humans will gradually become more accustomed to death as a form of spectacle, influenced by current entertainment, movies and the media. (Source: TheSun): http://tinyurl.com/j2vwpwm
21 June 2016 The discovery that many genes are still working up to 48 hours after death has implications for organ transplants, forensics and our very definition of death. Hundreds of genes in animals with different functions “woke up” immediately after death. These included fetal development genes that usually turn off after birth, as well as genes that have previously been associated with cancer. Their activity peaked about 24 hours after death. In humans who had died from multiple trauma, heart attack or suffocation, various genes, including those involved in contracting heart muscle and wound healing, were active more than 12 hours after death. The fact that some genes associated with cancer are activated after death in animals, might be relevant for reducing the incidence of cancer in people who receive organ transplants. People who get a new liver, for example, have more cancers after the treatment than you would expect if they hadn’t had a transplant. The research also raises important questions about our definition of death – normally accepted as the cessation of a heartbeat, brain activity and breathing. If genes can be active up to 48 hours after death, is the person technically still alive at that point? (Source: TheNewScientist): http://tinyurl.com/hjgr785
Space
28 June 2016 Is China militarising space? Experts say new junk collector could be used as anti-satellite weapon. A small spacecraft sent into orbit by the Long March 7 rocket launched from Hainan in southern China is tasked with cleaning up space junk, according to the government, but some analysts claim it may serve a military purpose. The Aolong-1, or Roaming Dragon, is equipped with a robotic arm to remove large debris such as old satellites. The Roaming Dragon is small, weighing only a few hundred kilos, so the prototype could be produced and launched in large numbers. During wartime, they could be used as deterrents or directly against enemy assets in space. During the docking of the Shenzhou manned spacecraft to the Tiangong space laboratory, for instance, the two vehicles constantly exchanged information. The Aolong-1, by contrast, would be trying to rendezvous with a piece of cold, unresponsive debris. It would need to search for and identify the target, then plan and adjust its own course of approach. Sensors and computers on Aolong will have to analyse the fast, irregular patterns of the tumbling target to guide its arm. China is not the only country developing the technology. The European Space Agency is expected to approve a similar project called e.deorbit later this year. With a projected launch in 2023, the e.deorbit robot would target a European derelict satellite in low orbit, capture it, then safely burn it up in a controlled atmospheric reentry. The United States Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) plans to launch a larger, more sophisticated craft for the US Air Force in 2020. The Phoenix in-orbit servicing programme had been scheduled for launch last year, but was delayed by technical and cost concerns. Unlike the Aolong and e.deorbit, the Phoenix would also be able to carry out jobs such as repairing, upgrading and refuelling ageing satellites. It would even be able to turn foreign satellites into US spy satellites. (Source: DiplomacyandDefense): http://tinyurl.com/hl2lgx6
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