"... It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings."....I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
'Nobody knows the story to her. She won't talk to nobody. It's like a mysterious story on the internet,' Mossy Grove's Alexandria Schubert, who spotted the woman in east Tennessee, told WATE.
Police have identified the woman as Elizabeth Poles, 56, of Motts, Alabama. Beyond that, details are sparse.
Senior officials in North Korea's Workers Party and military are increasingly objecting to policies or ignoring orders from leader Kim Jong-un, leading to rumors that his grip on the country is weakening, sources said Tuesday.
A source said Kim Jong-un recently presided over a meeting on bolstering North Korea's power supply and called for more hydro-electric power plants, but senior officials claimed that the North's chronic power shortage can be resolved only by building nuclear plants.
"Kim was furious and fired them on the spot, stripping them of their ranks," the source added.
As North Korea forfeited international support to build a light-water reactor after its nuclear test, Kim has been focusing on constructing large-scale hydro-electric projects like the Heecheon and Chongchon river dams.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/07/26/2014072600380.html
President Obama has emotionally checked out of his job a couple of years early, it seems. How can one tell?
Candidates for president who brazenly assume they are the inevitable victor are sometimes accused of “measuring the drapes” for the White House.
Obama, conversely, seems to be prematurely packing his bags in hopes for an early departure.
Just last week, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported that “The First Family is believed to be in escrow on a contemporary home in a gated community where entertainers Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby once maintained estates”.
George Santayana observed that “Americans don’t solve problems, they leave them behind”. Perhaps the president is taking this to heart.
For rumours to catch fire, an element of truth must typically be involved.
The fact that the press would find relevance in speculating on Obama’s post-White House residence – and identify California as the kind of scene the future ex-president would want to hang out in when he leaves office – is perhaps telling.
And, indeed, this comes on the heels of multiple reports from outlets such as The New York Times and Politico, detailing how Obama has increasingly been spending his time at trendy restaurants and fancy, late-night dinner parties with celebrities and various intellectuals.
Rubbing elbows with the rich and elite is fine enough. Unfortunately, the work suffers. The degree to which he is now phoning it in – sleepwalking perfunctorily through his second term – is astonishing.
And based on his recent handling of situations much more serious than a possible post-presidential move to sunny California, it seems as if “No Drama Obama” is no longer even worried about keeping up appearances; he doesn’t care enough to fake it.
The much-admired Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black may be rolling in his grave at the prospect of a merger between 21st Century Fox and Time Warner Inc., which would reduce control of the major Hollywood studios to five owners, from six, and major television producers to four, from five.
“The widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public,” he wrote in the majority opinion that decided a 1945 antitrust case involving major newspaper publishers and The Associated Press. “The First Amendment affords not the slightest support for the contention that a combination to restrain trade in news and views has any constitutional immunity.”
Fox and Time Warner may no longer publish old-media newspapers or magazines, but they certainly disseminate information and opinions that may be even more vital to the “welfare of the public” today than the newspapers of Justice Black’s era. HBO alone, one of Time Warner’s cable channels, produces “Real Time With Bill Maher,” “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” and acclaimed documentaries like “The Case Against 8,” about the struggle for marriage equality, and the “Paradise Lost” series, which examined the murder convictions of the group of white teenagers known as the West Memphis Three.
Fox and Time Warner disseminate a wide range of information and opinions. HBO, one of Time Warner’s cable channels, produces “Real Time With Bill Maher,” “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” as well as acclaimed documentaries. Credit Janet Van Ham/HBO, via Associated Press
How many of those would be produced under the ownership of a Rupert Murdoch, or for that matter, any other media mogul who controlled close to 40 percent of all major film production and nearly 20 percent of all television?
“I don’t see a bright distinction between news and entertainment,” said Christopher L. Sagers, an antitrust professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. “One person shouldn’t own all the cultural creativity resources. If one person can limit content, that’s a huge loss to society.”
Advocates for consolidation in media, who include not just Mr. Murdoch, who controls 21st Century Fox, and their allies, but also other big media, cable and telecommunications companies, tend to brush off antitrust concerns when it comes to content creation. (Even Time Warner has been cautious about raising any antitrust defenses, presumably because, should it thwart Mr. Murdoch this time, it may want to acquire its rivals at some point in the future.)
After all, the rise of Netflix and the popularity of YouTube demonstrate that anyone can make successful original programming in the freewheeling digital era. And even as television producers have consolidated, critics have hailed a new “golden age” of television.
But this ignores the fact that in 1983, 50 companies owned 90 percent of the media consumed by Americans. By 2012, just six companies — including Fox (then part of News Corporation) and Time Warner — controlled that 90 percent, according to testimony before the House Judiciary Committee examining Comcast’s acquisition of NBCUniversal.
Observing what he could only describe as “chaos on the border” during a midnight tour of the Rio Grande on Friday, Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, concluded, “President Obama is begging to be impeached.”
“For all I know, Obama is preparing to process five million illegal immigrant kids and teenagers into the United States,” Stockman said upon observing border operations near McAllen, Texas.
“He wants us to impeach him now,” Stockman theorized, “before the midterm election because his senior advisors believe that is the only chance the Democratic Party has to avoid a major electoral defeat. Evidently Obama believes impeachment could motivate the Democratic Party base to come out and vote.”
Accompanied by a WND film crew, Stockman began the evening by stopping at a massive Department of Homeland Security detention facility a mile or two north of the Mexican border, only to be encountered by seven or eight armed Border Patrol agents who approached Stockman and WND for questioning.
Though polite, a Border Patrol supervisor speaking from behind the chain-link fence that surrounded the facility refused to allow Stockman to tour the facility.
Through the chain-linked fence, the WND film crew took video of an active hanger-like open building cooled by two massive fans in which teenage illegal immigrants were being searched for concealed weapons as they were being processed into the detention facility.
Within minutes, as Stockman began asking questions of the Border Patrol supervisor, the hanger-like intake facility was shut down and emptied of illegal immigrant teenagers being processed by more than a dozen Border Patrol agents.
“We release all detainees under 14 years of age without taking any biometric identification, including no fingerprints,” the Border Patrol agent explained to Stockman. “We are prevented by law from taking fingerprints or other biometric information on these kids.”
The Border Patrol supervisor could not identify for Stockman the law in question.
“Then how do you know who these children under 14 years old are?” Stockman asked. “How do you know if you are releasing these kids to people who are truly family members in the United States or to pedophiles or other criminals posing as family members?”
“We only know who these children are by what they tell us,” the Border Patrol supervisor admitted. “Truthfully, we don’t really have any idea who they might be or where they came from other than what we can observe from questioning them. You’re right. If they give us false information, we have no way to know it or to follow it up without biometrics.”
Stockman asked what information the Border Patrol has on the people in the United States
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/congressman-at-border-obama-begging-to-be-impeached/
What kind of techie are you? Does tech run through your veins, or is it kind of a pain? Here's your chance to find out, with CNET's first tech personality quiz. Answer eight questions to reveal your digital destiny. And once you're done, enter for a chance to win* a pair of pretty rad high-tech specs! May the tech be with you!
http://www.cnet.com/news/find-your-tech-type-sweepstakes/#ftag=CAD9dabdda
Korea has the fastest average Internet connection in the world, a survey says. U.S. market researcher Statista on Friday said Korea has an average Internet connection speed of 14.2 Mbps.
That means it takes about 2 minutes 26 seconds to download a two-hour 2GB movie file.
Overall, Asia led the world with Japan ranking second (11.7 Mbps) and Hong Kong third (10.9 Mbps). Next came European countries like Switzerland, the Netherlands and Latvia.
The U.S. ranked ninth with 8.6 Mbps.
The worldwide average Internet speed is 3.1 Mbps, exceeding the 3 Mbps mark for the first time, according to Statista.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/08/26/2013082600661.html
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the non-voting congressional delegate for the District of Columbia, angrily sputtered during a congressional hearing Friday that the White House should not be held up to scrutiny, saying that there was no right to know what it was doing behind closed doors.
"You don't have a right to know everything in a separation-of-powers government, my friend. That is the difference between a parliamentary government and a separation-of-powers government," Norton said during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing.
It was, to put mildly, a significant departure from the more traditional liberal stance that openness and transparency are must to prevent abuses of power by government officials. Instead the leading advocate for statehood for the District of Columbia literally argued that even the congressional committee charged with oversight shouldn't be asking questions in the first place.
She made the comments while protesting the committee's Republican majority for voting to ignore a claim by the White House that David Simas, director of it's Office of Political Strategy and Outreach, was immune to a congressional subpoena to testify. Republicans believe the office is being used a political campaign operation, a violation of federal election law.
Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., noted he was not alleging any wrongdoing by Simas, but there was a history of violations involving that particular office in prior administrations that justified requesting his testimony.
Under President Obama, the White House has asserted sweeping executive powers, including the right to ignore pretty much all congressional inquiries. The administration has regularly ignored subpoenas from congressional committees.
The notion of impeaching President Barack Obama got substantial attention Friday from two White House officials, who both said senior Republicans wanted to see it happen. But they couldn’t name any senior Republicans when pressed.
Further, White House press secretary Josh Earnest expressed doubt about whether House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was sincere when he said impeachment is not on the table.
“I do believe that the speaker said on a number of occasions that there would not be steps taken by Republicans to shut down the government over health care,” Earnest said of Boehner, adding, “Maybe you need to ask him a little bit more about whether impeachment is on the table or not.”
Some conservatives have called for impeaching Obama regarding executive overreach on issues such as Obamacare, immigration and guns without congressional authorization. The Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America have consistently used impeachment in fundraising emails to warn donors about what could happen if Republicans win more seats in the House and gain control of the Senate.
North Korean textbooks describe South Korea as a "fascist, military dictatorship" filled with "poverty and starvation," but fewer and fewer North Koreans are buying the propaganda.
◆ "Living Hell"
North Korean textbooks teach that South Korea is dominated by "foreign powers" that trample on the Korean people and "taint" its history, language and way of life. A book of writings purportedly by former leader Kim Jong-il describes the South as a "living hell" dominated by the "terror and repression" of the U.S.
The North also teaches students that the U.S. must be driven out and South Korea liberated. Textbooks say U.S. soldiers stationed in South Korea "fire guns in broad daylight, plunder homes and rape women." There are also rumors that North Korean defectors have their "eyes gouged out and limbs severed" if they go to South Korea.
◆ Diminishing Impact
But North Koreans from all walks of life prize South Korean-made products. One North Korean trader who crossed over the border into China said, "The best gifts for high-ranking [North Korean] officials are South Korean cosmetics or clothes. We bring them in secretly after removing their labels or crossing them out."
He said South Korean products are traded illicitly in open-air markets and can be sold at high prices if the removed labels are shown to customers.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/03/22/2014032200351.html
South Korean listed firms’ rewards for shareholders are extremely low compared to rivals in the United States, Canada and Japan, according to data compiled by Samsung Securities released on Thursday.
U.S. companies in the S&P 500 index spent an average of 55 percent of their net profit on stock buybacks from 2008-2013, and their dividend payout ratio - the percentage of earnings a company gives to shareholders in the form of dividends - stood at an average of 40 percent.
Hoping to stem the recent surge of migrants at the Southwest border, the Obama administration is considering whether to allow hundreds of minors and young adults from Honduras into the United States without making the dangerous trek through Mexico, according to a draft of the proposal.
If approved, the plan would direct the government to screen thousands of children and youths in Honduras to see if they can enter the United States as refugees or on emergency humanitarian grounds. It would be the first American refugee effort in a nation reachable by land to the United States, the White House said, putting the violence in Honduras on the level of humanitarian emergencies in Haiti and Vietnam, where such programs have been conducted in the past amid war and major crises.
Critics of the plan were quick to pounce, saying it appeared to redefine the legal definition of a refugee and would only increase the flow of migration to the United States. Administration officials said they believed the plan could be enacted through executive action, without congressional approval, as long as it did not increase the total number of refugees coming into the country.
More than half of Ontario's bees did not survive the winter, according to a new report that has the province's beekeepers' group very concerned.
About 58 per cent of Ontario bees died during what was an especially long winter, while other provinces lost on average about 19 per cent of their swarm, according to the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists survey. That means Ontario lost lost bees at a rate three times that of the other provinces.
While the report fingers the weather — this year's polar vortex — as the main culprit for the bee deaths, acute and chronic pesticide damage or insufficient recovery from pesticide exposure last year have also been cited by hive-minders as contributing factors.
Ontario Beekeepers' Association president Dan Davidson says bees' exposure in the hive to pollen contaminated by pesticides "almost guarantees they will not survive the winter."
The group is calling on Ontario's governing Liberals to fast track a plan looking at permits restricting the number of plant seeds treated with neonicotinoids, a widely used pesticide that some scientists and environmentalists say are killing bees and other insects.
The apiculturists association states Canada's overall winter mortality rate averaged 25 per cent, well above what it says
beekeepers deem the "acceptable" loss limit of 15 per cent.
ITALY’S once-luxurious Costa Concordia cruise liner has embarked on its last voyage on, as tug boats began towing it from island wreck site to scrapyard grave in one of the biggest salvage operations in maritime history.
Sunshine streamed down on the Mediterranean bay where hundreds of onlookers watched as the final cable attaching ship to shore was cut, finally severing ties between the Tuscan island of Giglio and the ship two and a half years after its capsize claimed 32 lives.
“We’ve done it! She’s off!” shouted salvage specialists in hard hats who popped champagne bottles and sprayed the crowd, while tourists cheered and church bells rang out as the ship was pulled away.
“It’s hard not to get emotional,” said Franco Porcellacchia, an engineer with ship owner Costa Crociere.
“Today, Giglio is once again ours,” a local man, visibly relieved to see the back of the Concordia, told AFP.
The rusting liner, roughly twice the size of the Titanic and now hoisted afloat by massive air chambers, will be tugged to the port of Genoa in northwest Italy, where it will be dismantled and scrapped.
The United States plans to spend about $5.8 billion over the next five years on a missile defense program designed to intercept incoming warheads from countries like North Korea, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
In a report made public Tuesday, the budget office provided the historical and future budgets for the Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense program, a missile defense system aimed at fending off ballistic missile threats from North Korea and Iran.
The report was made at the request of Sen. Jeff Sessions.
According to the report, the five-year budget of $5.8 billion, including costs for research, development and evaluation, as well as operation and maintenance for the program, breaks down to $1.15 billion in 2015, $1.43 billion in 2016, $1.25 billion in 2017, $1.01 billion in 2018 and $958 million in 2019.
Texas Governor Rick Perry announced Monday that he's deploying as many as 1,000 National Guard troops to help manage the surge of child migrants at the state's southern border.
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Perry, among the most vocal critics of President Obama's handling of the crisis, said the extra force is needed to deter the wave of immigrants, safeguard Americans from crime and protect taxpayers from the costs of managing the new arrivals.
"I will not stand idly by while our citizens are under assault and little children from Central America are detained in squalor," Perry said at a briefing in Austin. "The price of inaction is too high for Texans to pay."
Perry's move came just hours after the White House announced that the number of unaccompanied minors arriving at the border is dropping – from 355 per day in June to 150 in early July, according to spokesman Josh Earnest.
Earnest said the reasons for the drop remain unclear, but suggested the administration's efforts "to work with Central American leaders to publicize the dangers of the journey" have contributed significantly.
Perry on Monday acknowledged the drop in the new arrivals in recent weeks, but he offered a different theory for the trend, saying it was a "clear indication" that local, state and federal law enforcement efforts are working.
Democrats have criticized the Republicans' focus on border security, arguing that bolstering enforcement efforts won't remedy a situation where migrants are arriving at the border in hopes of being detained.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/212862-perry-orders-troops-to-border
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is clearly concerned about North Korea's provocative actions and did not mean to downplay the seriousness of the issue when he said Pyongyang is "quieter" than before, a government official said Monday.
"The secretary and we all have been very clear in condemning North Korea's aggressive actions when they occur. We've talked recently about the ballistic missiles and how those were in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions," State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said at a regular press briefing.
"So I think the secretary has been very clear about our concern with North Korea's activity," she said in response to a question whether Kerry's statement is a correct assessment of the situation.
"He wasn't trying to convey something different than we've conveyed in the past."
Kerry made the remark in an interview Sunday with NBC's "Meet the Press," arguing that the North "has been quieter" since his visit to China in April last year. Though the U.S. has yet to achieve the goal of North Korea's denuclearization, Kerry said the country is moving toward that objective.
But critics said the assessment is far from reality.
For decades Japan has been the world’s playground for design innovation. But now it may become ground zero for the future of something far more hostile: military drones.
The country has positioned itself as one of the unlikely players in the escalating global race for military drones, a move that’s controversial both at home and abroad. A veteran Japanese politician even warned that the country’s re-armament looked like “a kind of pre-war revival.” The United States has aided Tokyo in its efforts to re-arm, deploying two unarmed Global Hawk long-range surveillance drones in May to a base in Northern Japan, which infuriated both China and North Korea.
Japan is now in a position it hasn’t been in for nearly 70 years, when it gave up its right to engage in conflict outside its borders. The country is engaged in a bitter dispute with China over a set of islands that sit on resource-rich sea beds that each claims as its sovereign territory.
Japan is the third largest economy in the world, and the implications for both global peace and commerce could be widespread.
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/07/how-japan-fell-love-americas-drones/89195/
The FY 2015 bill summary states that the federal government will provide "$87.6 million above the request for the transportation of unaccompanied immigrant children– often via commercial or charter aircraft – from DHS custody to the legally required shelters operated by the Office of Refugee Resettlement within Department of Health and Human Services."
A DHS request for “escort services for unaccompanied alien children,” posted online in January, claimed that 50 percent of transported foreign minors are brought to interior U.S. cities via commercial planes. The others are transported via local ground transport and ICE charter air crafts.
Many U.S. citizens remain outraged that instead of turning illegal immigrants away at the border, tax dollars are being used to relocate foreigners to cities all around the nation. Upon arrival at federal housing units, the migrants receive more taxpayer subsidized amenities including housing, food, education, vocational training, recreation, and even legal counsel. They often continue to receive such benefits until they are released onto U.S. soil with a Notice to Appear for an immigration court hearing.
In a region where Christians predate Muslims by centuries, over one million Christians have been killed or have had to flee because of jihadi persecution, while America is basically standing by and watching. This is the sad news that Breitbart’s National Security Editor and one of the world’s leading experts on asymmetric warfare, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, brought to Breitbart News Saturday, hosted by Editor in Chief Alex Marlow on Sirius XM Patriot Radio.
Dr. Gorka explained that “in the last 48 hours, ISIS, which is now called the Islamic State in Mosul, has painted the letter “N” for Nazarene on the houses of all the surviving Christians in the city. ISIS has basically given an ultimatum to all the Christians left: You can either flee or convert to Islam, or we will kill you.”
Gorka points out that, over the last 20 years, America has stood up around the world to save Muslims. “Whether it was to save the Muslims in Bosnia or the Albanians, Kosovars, and Muslims in Serbia, it is now time for a humanitarian operation to save the remaining Christians in Iraq,” he said. “It is time for the American people and our representatives to do something for our co-religionists remaining in the Middle East.”
Marlow observed that the blatant religious cleansing is horrifying and asked Gorka: “Why is it that the mainstream press is not interested in the story?” Gorka first responded by saying "Let's face it, this is a Christian version of the Holocaust and nothing less.”
After swearing an oath to protect the life of Barack Obama and then resigning, one former Secret Service agent is calling the president out for an alarming overreach of power he claims is risking the lives of Americans.
“The president has abdicated his duty to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, especially where illegal immigration is concerned,” Dan Bongino told WND in an interview.
A 12-year veteran of the Secret Service and candidate for Congress in Maryland’s Sixth District, he called the current state of the U.S. border “the most unsecure situation you could possibly imagine.”
“We’re not escorting these people out, we’re escorting them into the country,” he said.
Bongino, who during his time with the Secret Service guarded Obama, is the author of the New York Times bestselling “Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All.” The book offers an intimate look at life inside the presidential “bubble,” a haze of staffers, consultants, cronies, acolytes, bureaucrats and lobbyists that creates the “alternate reality” in which monumental policy decisions are made.
And it is the story of a dedicated Secret Service professional who, after years inside the bubble, walked away in favor of sounding a clarion call to the American people in defense of sane government and the U.S. Constitution.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/obama-ex-secret-service-agent-warns-of-new-power-grab/
1. We believe that Wall Street needs stronger rules and tougher enforcement, and we're willing to fight for it.
2. We believe in science, and that means that we have a responsibility to protect this Earth.
3. We believe that the Internet shouldn't be rigged to benefit big corporations, and that means real net neutrality.
4. We believe that no one should work full-time and still live in poverty, and that means raising the minimum wage.
5. We believe that fast-food workers deserve a livable wage, and that means that when they take to the picket line, we are proud to fight alongside them.
6. We believe that students are entitled to get an education without being crushed by debt.
7. We believe that after a lifetime of work, people are entitled to retire with dignity, and that means protecting Social Security, Medicare, and pensions.
8. We believe — I can't believe I have to say this in 2014 — we believe in equal pay for equal work.
9. We believe that equal means equal, and that’s true in marriage, it’s true in the workplace, it's true in all of America.
10. We believe that immigration has made this country strong and vibrant, and that means reform.
11. And we believe that corporations are not people, that women have a right to their bodies. We will overturn Hobby Lobby and we will fight for it. We will fight for it!
The airline has said 298 people ― 283 passengers, including three infants of various nationalities, and 15 Malaysian crew ― were killed when the plane went down Thursday in strife-torn eastern Ukraine.
The onslaught against Democratic Sen. Mark Udall (Colo.) reached a fever pitch this week when Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) had to cancel a special legislative session meant to keep two hydraulic fracturing initiatives backed by Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) off the November ballot.
Udall, who had stayed out of the fray on the two measures, was forced to take a side much to the GOP's glee.
Now, with Colorado as one of the top natural gas producing states in the nation, the fracking controversy could be the issue that gives Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) the boost he needs in the tight-knit race of high importance in the battle for Senate control. 
Udall came out against the two measures along with Hickenlooper, also up for reelection, essentially creating a rift within the state’s Democratic party.
The Polis-backed measures would set tighter restrictions on hydraulic fracturing operations for oil and natural gas in the state. One would extend the setback for hydraulic fracturing wells to 2,000 feet from schools, hospitals, and the like. The other would establish an "environmental bill of rights" giving local governments precedence when its laws conflict with the state's.
But the progressive Poils, who is known for flying solo on issues and not bending a knee to the party, is unlikely to pull the measures, which Colorado environmentalists fiercely support.
Four out of five major towns in Colorado have already banned the controversial drilling method, which pumps a pressurized mix of chemicals, water, and sand, or wastewater as many call it, into the ground to extract natural gas deposits from deep below the earth's surface.
Read more:http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/212747-a-fracking-problem-for-colorado-dems
