November 4, 2012

Bombshell: Senator Suggested False Flag Attack To Kennedy 2 Years Prior To Operation Northwoods Proposal

Originally posted by Mr.H on share.banoosh.com

According to newly released documents by the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, former Californian democratic senator George Smathers proposed an Operation Northwoods style false flag attack on Gitmo to then Massachusetts senator Kennedy. The Guardian reports Kennedy and Smathers were seriously entertaining the possibility of assassinating Fidel Castro. Kennedy was obviously against the entire idea. Smathers went on to propose the option of bombing American troops to provide an excuse for military intervention in Cuba. Significant about Smather’s confessions is the now apparent fact that the idea of bombing the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay was obviously floating in political circles as well as military ones some time before the actual formalization of the false flag proposals in the Operation Northwoods documents, ultimately rejected by President Kennedy in 1962. The other significant aspect of the confession by Smathers is that the proposals described within Northwoods in March of 1962 literally reflect the false flag proposal submitted to Kennedy in 1960 by senator Smathers.

In the freshly released documents by the JFK Memorial Library, Smathers- who frequently joined John F. Kennedy on trips to the south- admits that he proposed the idea of a false flag attack on Gitmo during a conversation with the President-to-be. After the “killing Castro” propiosal was discarded by Kennedy, Smathers suggested provoking an incident at the US Naval base at Guantanamo Bay on the eastern tip of Cuba as a pretext for a US invasion. Smathers:

“I did talk to him about a plan of having a false attack made on Guantanamo Bay which would give us the excuse of actually fomenting a fight which would then give us the excuse to go in and do the job. He asked me to write him something about it. And I think I did.”

As noted this very proposal by Smathers in 1960 is stunningly similar to the infamous Northwoods document, signed by chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, in which the Joint Chiefs of Staff propose some pretty criminal things, among which the one proposed by Smathers to Kennedy in 1960. Under “Incidents to establish a credible attack” the Joint Chiefs came up with the following proposals in regards to the US naval base at Gitmo:

1- Start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio.
2- Land friendly Cubans in uniform “over-the-fence” to stage attack on base.
3- Capture Cuban (friendly) saboteurs inside the base.
4- Start riots near the base main gate (friendly Cubans).
5- Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires.
6- Burn aircraft on air base (sabotage).
7- Lob mortar shells from outside of base into base. Some damage to installations.
8- Capture assault teams approaching from the sea or vicinity of Guantanamo City.
9- Capture militia group which storms the base.
10- Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires.
11- Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims.

In a February 2 1962 memorandum titled “Possible Actions to Provoke, Harass or Disrupt Cuba,” written by Gen. William H. Craig and submitted to Brig. Gen. Edward Lansdale, the commander of the Operation Mongoose project outlines Operation Bingo- a plan to “create an incident which has the appearance of an attack on U.S. facilities (GMO) in Cuba, thus providing an excuse for use of U.S. military might to overthrow the current government of Cuba.”

In the context of Operation Mongoose, a highly classified US military operation, the refusal of Kennedy to put his signature under the before mentioned proposals is especially significant. According to countless sources from inside and outside the American intelligence communities, Mongoose was the infrastructure under which the assassination of Kennedy in ’63 has been carried out. Mongoose was in fact one of the largest covert operations ever conducted in the United States. It involved universities, military bases, individuals, businesses and government agencies- all neatly compartmentalized, of course.

Later, just about the time the Joint Chiefs of Staff submitted their operation Northwoods document to the President, Smathers recalled Kennedy telling him:

“George, I’d love to have you over … but I want you to do me a favour. I’d like to visit with you, I want to discuss things with you but I don’t want you to talk to me anymore about Cuba.”

Smathers said he didn’t bring it up again until the President invited him to an informal dinner some time after:

“I remember the President was actually fixing our own dinner and I raised the question of Cuba and what could be done and so on,” he related. “And I remember that he took his fork and just hit his plate and it cracked and he said, ‘Now, dammit, I wish you wouldn’t do that. Let’s quit talking about this subject.”

The revealing aspects of the Smathers confessions released by the JFK Memorial Library can hardly be overestimated. By the time Kennedy was presented with Operation Northwoods, he must have recognized the striking similarities to the Gitmo false flag proposal by Smathers. And just like in 1960, he firmly rejected the plans.

Source: https://share.banoosh.com/2012/08/21/bombshell-senator-suggested-false-flag-attack-to-kennedy-2-years-prior-to-operation-northwoods-proposal/

Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

Originally posted by Christina Bonnington and Spencer Ackerman on Wired.com, August 30, 2012

It seemed like a simple enough idea for an iPhone app: Send users a pop-up notice whenever a flying robots kills someone in one of America’s many undeclared wars. But Apple keeps blocking the Drones+ program from its App Store — and therefore, from iPhones everywhere. The Cupertino company says the content is “objectionable and crude,” according to Apple’s latest rejection letter.

A mockup of developer Josh Begley’s drone-strike app for iOS. Wired.com

It’s the third time in a month that Apple has turned Drones+ away, says Josh Begley, the program’s New York-based developer. The company’s reasons for keeping the program out of the App Store keep shifting. First, Apple called the bare-bones application that aggregates news of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia “not useful.” Then there was an issue with hiding a corporate logo. And now, there’s this crude content problem.

Begley is confused. Drones+ doesn’t present grisly images of corpses left in the aftermath of the strikes. It just tells users when a strike has occurred, going off a publicly available database of strikes compiled by the U.K.’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which compiles media accounts of the strikes.

iOS developers have a strict set of guidelines that must be adhered to in order to gain acceptance into the App Store. Apps are judged on technical, content and design criteria. As Apple does not comment on the app reviews process, it can be difficult to ascertain exactly why an app got rejected. But Apple’s team of reviewers is small, sifts through up to 10,000 apps a week, and necessarily errs on the side of caution when it comes to potentially questionable apps.

Apple’s original objections to Drones+ regarded the functionality in Begley’s app, not its content. Now he’s wondering if it’s worth redesigning and submitting it a fourth time.

“If the content is found to be objectionable, and it’s literally just an aggregation of news, I don’t know how to change that,” Begley says.

Begley’s app is unlikely to be the next Angry Birds or Draw Something. It’s deliberately threadbare. When a drone strike occurs, Drones+ catalogs it, and presents a map of the area where the strike took place, marked by a pushpin. You can click through to media reports of a given strike that the Bureau of Investigative Reporting compiles, as well as some basic facts about whom the media thinks the strike targeted. As the demo video above shows, that’s about it.

It works best, Begley thinks, when users enable push notifications for Drones+. “I wanted to play with this idea of push notifications and push button technology — essentially asking a question about what we choose to get notified about in real time,” he says. “I thought reaching into the pockets of U.S. smartphone users and annoying them into drone-consciousness could be an interesting way to surface the conversation a bit more.”

But that conversation may not end up occurring. Begley, a student at Clay Shirky’s lab at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, submitted a threadbare version of Drones+ to Apple in July. About two weeks later, on July 23, Apple told him was just too blah. “The features and/or content of your app were not useful or entertaining enough,” read an e-mail from Apple Begley shared with Wired, “or your app did not appeal to a broad enough audience.”

Finally, on Aug. 27, Apple gave him yet another thumbs down. But this time the company’s reasons were different from the fairly clear-cut functionality concerns it previously cited. “We found that your app contains content that many audiences would find objectionable, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines,” the company e-mailed him.

It was the first time the App Store told him that his content was the real problem, even though the content hadn’t changed much from Begley’s initial July submission. It’s a curious choice: The App Store carries remote-control apps for a drone quadricopter, although not one actually being used in a war zone. And of course, the App Store houses innumerable applications for news publications and aggregators that deliver much of the same content provided by Begley’s app.

Wired reached out to Apple on the perplexing rejection of the app, but Apple was unable to comment.

Begley is about at his wits end over the iOS version of Drones+. “I’m kind of back at the drawing board about what exactly I’m supposed to do,” Begley said. The basic idea was to see if he could get App Store denizens a bit more interested in the U.S.’ secretive, robotic wars, with information on those wars popping up on their phones the same way an Instagram comment or retweet might. Instead, Begley’s thinking about whether he’d have a better shot making the same point in the Android Market.

Drones+ iPhone App from Josh Begley on Vimeo.

Source: https://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/drone-app/

Brazillian Court Demands Nestle Label GMO Ingredients

Originally posted by Anthony Gucciardi on NaturalSociety.com, August 22, 2012

Photo courtesy of NaturalSociety.com

It appears another victory has been declared in the battle against Monsanto and GMO ingredients. According to a major Brazilian business publication and GMWatch, a Brazilian court has demanded that multi-billion dollar food giant Nestle label all of their products as genetically modified that have over 1% GMO content. The ruling reportedly coincides with Brazilian law which demands all food manufacturers alert consumers to the presence of GMOs within their products.

Perhaps even more shocking is the fact that the court exposed a deep relationship between the Brazilian government and a major food industry lobby group that was forged in an effort to stop the court from issuing the ruling. This of course is predictable when considering that not only does Monsanto have a massive amount of political power with a figurehead in multiple branches of government, but when considering the previous WikiLeaks report that detailed how those who opposed Monsanto and biotechnology would be subject to ‘military style trade wars.’

The WikiLeaks documents revealed just how closely Monsanto has been working with the United States government, and just how serious the U.S. is about ensuring that the corporation’s GMO crops are widely accepted across the globe.

Amazingly, the Brazilian court took a stand against this corruption. Instead of groveling to Brazilian officials and mega biotechnology groups, the Brazilian business wire reports that the court determined the Brazilian government to be illegally working with the food industry entity known as ABIA. Furthermore, the court stated that consumers have the basic right to know what they are putting into their mouths — especially when it comes to GMO ingredients.

Nestle World Headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland - Panoramio.com

The court issued a fine of $2,478 per product that was found to violate the ruling after finding the presence of GMO ingredients in Nestle’s strawberry “Bono” cookies.

Other nations have taken similar actions against Monsanto and GMOs as a whole, with Poland banning Monsanto’s GM maize and Peru passing a monumental 10 year ban on GMOs as a whole. In the United States, the government continues to ignore and deny the concerns surrounding genetically modified crops and ingredients, instead streamlining the approval process for Monsanto’s new modified creations.

Americans Toss Out As Much As 40% Of Their Food, Study Says

Originally posted by Tiffany Hsu on LATimes.com, August 21, 2012

Americans waste up to 40% of their food, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council. (Beth Hall / Bloomberg News)

Americans are throwing out nearly every other bite of food, wasting up to 40% of the country’s supply each year – a mass of uneaten provisions worth $165 billion, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

An average family of four squanders $2,275 in food each year, or 20 pounds per person per month, according to the nonprofit and nonpartisan environmental advocacy group.

Food waste is the largest single portion of solid waste cramming American landfills. Since the 1970s, the amount of uneaten fare that is dumped has jumped 50%. The average American trashes 10 times as much food as a consumer in Southeast Asia, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Such profligacy is especially unwarranted in a time of record drought, high food prices expected to get higher and families unable to afford food, according to the council. Efforts are already in place in Europe to cut back on food waste.

But American consumers are used to seeing pyramids of fresh produce in their local markets and grocery stores, which results in $15 billion annually in unsold fruits and vegetables, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. In restaurants and home kitchens, massive portions often end up partly in the trash.

Half of American soil and many other key resources are used for agriculture – the Natural Resources Defense Council says wasted food eats up a quarter of all freshwater consumed in the U.S. along with 4% of the oil while producing 23% of the methane emissions.

In its report, the council urges the government to set a target for food-waste reduction. Companies should look for alternatives in their supply chain, such as making so-called baby carrots out of carrots too bent to be sold whole at the retail level.

The study also asks Americans to learn when food goes bad and to become less averse to buying scarred or otherwise imperfect produce. The average consumer should also save and eat leftovers, researchers said.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-food-waste-nrdc-20120821,0,7810321.story

Giant Mega Corporation, URS Corporation, Runs Monsanto’s World HQ, Trains Troops

Special Thanks to the team at Exposing The Truth for compiling information

Monsanto’s World HQ in St. Louis, Missouri - from urscorp.com

I did a search for Monsanto’s World HQ and came upon this page.

“URS provides complete facilities management services in support of Monsanto’s world headquarters.” They (URS Corporation) have a network of offices in nearly 50 countries and provide national, state and local government services to a myriad of countries, as well as private sector services worldwide.

Who is URS Corporation?

They build weapons and train troops. “URS manages and operates government installations, military bases and laboratories.”

They help run Kennedy Space Center, where NASA is based, and work with Kennedy to “develop and execute the ‘Master Plan.’” Recently a new master plan was developed in which it was decided that NASA will sell in to the private sector.

According to Trey Carlson, Master Planner for Kennedy Space Center, one of the themes of the new “Future Development Concept” is “to adopt new business practices allowing companies and outside organizations to make investments in the center to operate their enterprises.”

“It is very challenging making the transition from a government program focused primarily on a single crewed spacecraft to a multiuser program.”

An artist rendering of the new headquarters building for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. - nasa.gov

According to URS Corporation, they “provide vital services for every facet of daily operations at the Kennedy Space Center.”

As one of the goals of the new plan is “to build new facilities that are economically and environmentally sustainable,” it would stand to reason that URS Corporation are involved in that facet.

They are “one of the largest contractors serving the food, beverage and consumer products industries and have engineered and constructed more pulp and paper mill facilities than any other contractor.” They constructed the Hoover Dam in the 1930′s.

“Through a joint venture with Alberici Constructors, URS is building one of the world’s largest cement plants for Holcim (US) Inc.”

They “are one of the few companies globally that offer wholly integrated services spanning the full project life cycle for the mining industry” and “are the only North American contractor—and one of only four globally—to offer operations and maintenance services.”

They “have engineered more than 250,000 megawatts of electricity worldwide—more than any other contractor and equivalent to almost one-fourth of the current generating capacity in the United States. ”

“URS has provided planning, engineering or construction services for virtually every nuclear power plant operating in the United States today”

In regards to fossil fuels, they have “experience in dealing with all major suppliers in this industry.”

On oil, they “are a leading provider of design, construction and production services across the upstream, midstream and downstream supply chain” (That’s drilling, pipe-lining and refining). Since purchasing Flint Energy Services (now URS Flint) for $1.25 billion in February of 2012, they now service ” every major active North American oil and gas basin.”

They have ” longstanding relationships with the world’s leading petrochemical and specialty chemical companies.”

They “operate approximately 300 miles of toll roads in the United States” and “have design and construction experience on every type of highway, bridge, tunnel and interchange.”

They were responsible for the “Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Transit project—the first design-build-operate-maintain transit project in the United States” in which they “are now providing operations and maintenance under a 20-year contract.” Upon further exploration, I noticed the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail is actually operated by 21st Century Rail Corporation. Then I noticed that the $1.9 billion 20 year contract was actually awarded to 21st Century Rail Corporation. THEN I noticed that 21st Century Rail Corporation is a “team led by URS.” So if URS Corporation has the 20 year contract, but 21st Century Rail Corporation has the contract, wouldn’t it mean URS Corporation is 21st Century Rail Corporation? How many other corporations are also URS Corporation?

It is more involved than that, though. URS Corporation “supoprts a wide range of complex, multiyear programs at U.S. Department of Defense and other government facilities throughout the world,” among which include “the renovation of the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. and the prototype design for all future U.S. embassies.”

“Since 1986, URS has trained over 20,000 student pilots at the U.S. Army Aviation Center for Excellence at Fort Rucker, Alabama.” URS Corporation “also is a leader in creating curricula for a new aviation community–Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) operators.” “Since 1990, [they] have worked with the U.S. Navy to develop flexible education programs for every level of officer operating VIRGINIA class submarines.”

The Pentagon, Headquarters of the US Department of Defense - photo by David B. Gleason

The first paragraph of their “Operations & Maintenance” page states clearly, “URS provides operations and maintenance services to weapons systems worldwide for the United States government. These services are performed for all branches of the Department of Defense, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard. URS’ services support every type of vehicle—in the air, on the ground and at sea. This includes manned and unmanned, rotary- and fixed- wing, wheeled and tracked, and above- and under-sea vessels.”

They have “longstanding relationships with the world’s leading chemical and pharmaceutical companies” and offer “innovative support services during all stages of the development and operations cycle.”

I feel like I’m talked out, and all I’ve really done is quote their website. They also offer “a full range of planning, design, construction and program and construction management services across the water and wastewater industry, including water supply planning, water storage and transmission, water quality management planning, water treatment and distribution, and wastewater collection, treatment and disposal.”

It would be difficult to display the vast array of projects taken on and listed by URS Corporation here, so I urge you to visit their project page and peruse yourself. I also urge you to visit their home page to get a glimpse at some of the categories of things they handle.

URS Corporation’s Headquarters is located at:

600 Montgomery Street, 26th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94111-2728 USA
+1.415.774.2700 +1.415.398.1905 fax

Sources:

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/news/kscmasterplanrevision.html

https://ursflint.acquisitioninformation.com

https://www.urscorp.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_class_submarine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson%E2%80%93Bergen_Light_Rail

Darpa Looks to Make Cyberwar Routine With Secret ‘Plan X’

Col. Todd Wood (right), commander of 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, briefs National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander at Forward Operating Base Masum Ghar in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. Photo: Sgt. Michael Blalack/U.S. Army

Originally posted by Noah Shachtman on wired.com on August 21, 2012

The Pentagon’s top research arm is unveiling a new, classified cyberwarfare project. But it’s not about building the next Stuxnet, Darpa swears. Instead, the just-introduced “Plan X” is designed to make online strikes a more routine part of U.S. military operations. That will make the son of Stuxnet easier to pull off — to, as Darpa puts it, “dominate the cyber battlespace.”

Darpa spent years backing research that could shore up the nation’s cyberdefenses. “Plan X” is part of a growing and fairly recent push into offensive online operations by the Pentagon agency largely responsible for the internet’s creation. In recent months, everyone from the director of Darpa on down has pushed the need to improve — and normalize — America’s ability to unleash cyberattacks against its foes.

That means building tools to help warplanners assemble and launch online strikes in a hurry. It means, under Plan X, figuring out ways to assess the damage caused by a new piece of friendly military malware before it’s unleashed. And it means putting together a sort of digital battlefield map that allows the generals to watch the fighting unfold, as former Darpa acting director Ken Gabriel told the Washington Post: “a rapid, high-order look of what the Internet looks like — of what the cyberspace looks like at any one point in time.”

It’s not quite the same as building the weapons themselves, as Darpa notes in its introduction to the five-year, $100 million effort, issued on Monday: “The Plan X program is explicitly not funding research and development efforts in vulnerability analysis or cyberweapon generation.” (Emphasis in the original.)

But it is certainly a complementary campaign. A classified kick-off meeting for interested researchers in scheduled for Sept. 20.

The American defense and intelligence establishment has been reluctant at times to authorize network attacks, for fear that their effects could spread far beyond the target computers. On the eve of the Iraq invasion of 2003, for instance, the Bush administration made plans for a massive online strike on Baghdad’s financial system before discarding the idea out of collateral damage concerns.

It’s not the only factor holding back such operations. U.S. military chiefs like National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander have publicly expressed concern that America may not be able to properly respond to a national-level attack unless they’re given pre-defined battle plans and “standing rules of engagement” that would allow them to launch a counterstrike “at net speed.” Waiting more than a few moments might hurt the American ability to respond at all, these officers say.

“Plan X” aims to solve both problems simultaneously, by automatically constructing mission plans that are as easy to execute as “the auto-pilot function in modern aircraft,” but contain “formal methods to provably quantify the potential battle damage from each synthesized mission plan.”

Then, once the plan is launched, Darpa would like to have machines running on operating systems that can withstand the rigors of a full-blown online conflict: “hardened ‘battle units’ that can perform cyberwarfare functions such as battle damage monitoring, communication relay, weapon deployment, and adaptive defense.”

The ability to operate in dangerous areas, pull potential missions off-the-shelf, and assess the impact of attacks — these are all commonplace for air, sea, and land forces today. The goal of Plan X is to give network-warfare troops the same tools. “To get it to the point where it’s a part of routine military operations,” explains Jim Lewis, a long-time analyst of online operations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Of course, many critics of U.S. policy believe the deployment of cyberweapons is already too routine. America’s online espionage campaign against Iran has been deeply controversial, both at home and abroad. The Russian government and its allies believe that cyberweapons ought to be banned by international treaty. Here in the U.S., there’s a fear that, by unleashing Stuxnet and other military-grade malware, the Obama administration legitimized such attacks as a tool of statecraft — and invited other nations to strike our fragile infrastructure.

The Darpa effort is being lead, fittingly, by a former hacker and defense contractor. Daniel Roelker helped start the intrusion detection company Sourcefire and the DC Black Ops unit of Raytheon SI Government Solutions. In a November 2011 presentation (.pdf), Roelker decried the current, “hacker vs. hacker” approach to online combat. It doesn’t scale well — there are only so many technically skilled people — and it’s limited in how fast it can be executed. “We don’t win wars by out-hiring an adversary, we win through technology,” he added.

Instead, Roelker continued, the U.S. needs a suite of tools to analyze the network, automate the execution of cyberattacks, and be sure of the results. At the time, he called these the “Pillars of Foundational Cyberwarfare.” Now, it’s simply known as Plan X.

Source: https://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/plan-x

Israel deploys Iron Dome missile system on Egypt border

Originally posted by breakingnews.sy on August 20, 2012

The Israeli military has stationed an Iron Dome missile-defense battery west of Eilat.

The move came days after two Grad rockets were reportedly fired from the Sinai Peninsula at the Red Sea resort city.

The remains of a Grad rocket were found north of Eilat on Friday evening.

The deployment of the battery was part of a national plan to test the Iron Dome system.

 

Source: https://breakingnews.sy/en/article/5215.html

Facebook, CNN, and the rise of Social Voting

CNN and Facebook have joined forces to make the “I’m Voting”

(Credit: ElectNext)

Facebook app, which enables Facebook users to endorse candidates and issues, and to commit to voting.

If you use the app and commit to voting for someone, that information appears in your timeline, news feed, and real-time ticker.

During CNN’s political coverage this fall, CNN personalities will use the app to poll users on issues.

“We fundamentally changed the way people consume live event coverage, setting a record for the most-watched live video event in Internet history, when we teamed up with Facebook for the 2009 Inauguration of President Obama,” CNN’s KC Estenson said.

“By again harnessing the power of the Facebook platform and coupling it with the best of our journalism, we will redefine how people engage in the democratic process and advance the way a news organization covers a national election.”

Is this the rise of social voting? During the midterm elections, Foursquare dipped a toe into the idea that voting could be made “more fun and social.” Foursquare launched a special elections page, reported ReadWriteWeb, awarded badges to those who checked in at polling places, and promoted an #IVoted hashtag. And Facebook had a Facebook Polling Place Locator live during the 2010 midterms.

ElectNext takes the principle of a dating website and applies it to politics. Tell ElectNext how you feel about certain issues, and it will “match” you with candidates that fit your political beliefs. The Sean Parker-funded Votizen lets you publicly endorse certain candidates to your friends, turning your social networks into a digital soapbox of sorts. And once you’ve put your candidates in office, PopVox helps you keep them accountable, by giving you tools to track legislation and tell your representative just how you feel about it.

Hemp Growing Was Once the Law in the US

Before you start growing your own hemp plants it is worthwhile to read up on the history of hemp growing in the US. At one time it was legal. Not only was it legal, the law required the growing of it.

According to the book Healthy Oils, hemp is another word for the plantCannabis sativa L. Marijuana comes from this same plant genus - as does cauliflower and broccoli. However, the strains used in consumer and industrial

HEMP IS RIGHT ON THE MONEY, highlighted a 1914 series $10 bill of a hemp harvest, and it is discussed in the video attached. The bill is printed on 100% hemp paper. The first Federal Reserve Bank notes were issued in 1914. This $10 bill bears the signature of Andrew Mellon, the Secretary of the Treasury under multiple presidential administrations. Mellon was also the head of several oil companies and banks. Mellon was the uncle of Harry Anslinger, the first leader of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 1931-1961. Anslinger was the main cheerleader of the Reefer Madness misinformation campaign and the primary person responsible for marijuana prohibition.

products contain only a negligible amount of the intoxicating substance delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Thus industrial grade hemp is not marijuana. Yet, since the 1950’s the growing of hemp has been effectively prohibited.

But this has not always been the case. Going back to 1619 America’s first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, VA. All farmers were ordered to grow Indian hemp seed. Mandatory cultivation laws were enacted in MA in 1631, in CT in 1632, and in the Chesapeake colonies in the 1700’s.

Cannabis hemp was even used as legal tender in most of the Americas from 1631 until the early 1800’s. The reason for making it legal tender was to encourage farmers to grow more. You could then pay your taxes with cannabis hemp throughout America for over 200 years. If you did not grow hemp during periods of shortages, you could be jailed.

In fact George Washington and Thomas Jefferson used enslaved African labor to grow this crop on their plantations.

Hemp has been grown for over 12,000 years for textiles, fiber, and food. There are established hemp growers in China, Romania, Hungary, and France. It is also now grown in Australia, Canada, Britain and Germany where for decades there had been none. The US has an experimental crop being grown in Hawaii under a government license.

Hemp is beginning to make a comeback in the US. Fashion designers and mass producers use it. It is also added to personal care products such as soap, shampoo and skin care products. Hemp seed oil naturally replenishes skin moisture and helps with the skin‘s elasticity. The omega-6 fatty acids are said to be helpful for sufferers of eczema, and psoriasis and other dry skin conditions.

Hemp seed oil is also used for cooking and is extremely high in polyunsaturated content (at least 80%). Because it is a very good source of omega fatty acids, adding it to your diet helps to substantially improve the skin’s natural elasticity and appearance.

In England, I found it easy to find all sorts of hemp seed products on the supermarket shelves.

Now cars made in France are being made from flax, hemp and other natural fibers.

Sources:

https://bkcreative.hubpages.com/hub/Hemp-Growing-Was-Once-Required-By-Law

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLMtihhYXyE

The end of Internet privacy (with petition)

Dear friends,

Right now, the US is poised to pass a new law that would permit US agents to spy on almost everything we do online. But we can stop them before the final vote.

Companies that we trust with our personal information, like Microsoft and Facebook, are key supporters of this bill that lets corporations share all user activity and content with US government agents without needing a warrant in the name of cyber-security — nullifying privacy guarantees for almost everyone around the world, no matter where we live and surf online.

If enough of us speak out, we can stop companies that profit from our business from supporting cyber-spying. Sign the petition to these key net corporations now:

https://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_cispa_corporate_global/?vl

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) would allow companies doing business in the US to collect exact records of all of our online activities and hand them over to the US government, without ever notifying us that we are being watched. No warrant, no legal cause and no due process required. To make matters worse, the bill provides the government and corporations with blanket immunity to protect them from being sued for violation of privacy and other illegal actions.

The bill’s supporters claim that consumer information will be protected, but the reality is that huge loopholes would make everything we do online fair game — and nowadays, from banking to shopping, our private information is all stored on the Internet.

CISPA is being moved forward in Congress and will be voted upon in days. Let’s raise a massive outcry to stop corporations from giving the US a blank check to monitor our every move. Click below to take action:

https://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_cispa_corporate_global/?vl

This year, we helped stop SOPA, PIPA and ACTA — all dire threats to the Internet. Now, let’s block CISPA and end the US government attack on our Internet.

WIth hope and determination,

Dalia, Allison, Emma, Ricken, Rewan, Andrew, Wen-Hua, and the rest of the Avaaz team

More information:

CISPA: The internet finds a new enemy (Global Post)
https://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/the-grid/cispa-the-internet-finds-new-enemy-sopa

CISPA protests begin amid key changes to legislation (Los Angeles Times)
https://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-cispa-protests-begin-amid-key-changes-to-legislation-20120416,0,5314596.story

Cybersecurity Bill FAQ: The Disturbing Privacy Dangers in CISPA and How To Stop It (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/cybersecurity-bill-faq-disturbing-privacy-dangers-cispa-and-how-you-stop-it

New CISPA Draft Narrows Cybersecurity Language as Protests Loom (Mashable)
https://news.yahoo.com/cispa-draft-narrows-cybersecurity-language-protests-loom-134202431.html

Source: avaaz.org email, April 18, 2012