Monsanto Now Owns Blackwater (Xe) A report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation (Blackwater’s Black Ops, 9/15/2010) revealed that the largest mercenary army in the world, Blackwater (now called Xe Services) clandestine intelligence services was sold to the multinational Monsanto. Blackwater was renamed in 2009 after becoming famous in the world with numerous reports of abuses in Iraq, including massacres of civilians. It remains the largest private contractor of the U.S. Department of State “security services,” that practices state terrorism by giving the government the opportunity to deny it. Many military and former CIA officers work for Blackwater or related companies created to divert attention from their bad reputation and make more profit selling their nefarious services-ranging from information and intelligence to infiltration, political lobbying and paramilitary training – for other governments, banks and multinational corporations. keep track of “public disclosure” of its opponents. Source: Pravda
Murphys Law Calculator Murphy's Law Calculator From a formula for * Sod's Law provided by British Gas: ((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10)) "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong!" Find out in advance whether you will be able to successfully repair your VCR, get to a meeting on time, impress your date, or be a success at any activity whatsoever ! Score: 5.492 Risk Factor: 16371.9 You have a 54% chance of screwing this up at least once ! You can minimize your risk by reducing the urgency (planning ahead) You can minimize your risk by having a backup plan (redundant circuitry, alternate route etc.) British Gas commissioned Dr David Lewis, a chartered psychologist; Dr Keylan Leyser, an economist and business consultant; and Philip Obadya, a mathematician, to devise the formula. Murphy's Law Links: Note: Murphy's Law has long been known in the UK as "Sod's Law".
50 Must-Read Novels from the 20th Century Literature, as with all forms of creative expression, is a highly subjective art. The preferences of one individual may not necessarily overlap with those of another. However, many books nevertheless hold significant influence over both contemporaries and society as a whole. 1. A muckraking exploration of worker exploitation and inadequate food safety laws in America, this novel directly led President Teddy Roosevelt to pass the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. 2. Author: Franz Kafka One of the quintessential existentialist novels, Kafka’s story of a man who awakes one morning to discover himself transformed into a giant pest (often interpreted as some sort of insect) offers a disheartening glimpse into several societal ills. 3. Author: James Joyce A journey of sexuality, exile, colonialism, and aesthetics, this semi-autobiographical novel mirrors many of Joyce’s own personal struggles with himself and his native land. 4. Author: Hermann Hesse 5. Author: F. 6. 7.
New Bill Known As Enemy Expatriation Act Would Allow Government To Strip Citizenship Without Conviction First, Congress considered the National Defense Authorization Act, sections of which gave the President the authority to use the military to arrest and indefinitely detain Americans without trial or charge. The language was revised because of strong condemnation from the American people. But now a new bill has emerged that poses yet another threat to the American citizenry. Congress is considering HR 3166 and S. 1698 also known as the Enemy Expatriation Act, sponsored by Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Charles Dent (R-PA). The new law would change a part of US Code 1481 which can be read in full here. I hope I’m wrong, but it sounds to me like this is a loophole for indefinitely detaining Americans.
25 Stunning HDR Wallpapers - StumbleUpon Credits (not in order): Trey Ratcliff, Others remain Unknown. If you are the owner or know the owner of any of theses HDR wallpapers, Please let us know. You are free to download these photos and enjoy them but you may not use them commercially. The copyright belongs to the respective photographers. A Little Meditation Goes a Long Way I consider myself something of a prospective meditator—meaning that a serious meditation practice is always something I’m about to start… next week. So for years, I’ve been making a mental note of new studies showing that meditation can literally change our brain structure in ways that might boost concentration, memory, and positive emotions. Jacob Wackerhausen The results seem enticing enough to make anyone drop into the full lotus position—until you read the fine print: Much of this research involves people who have meditated for thousands of hours over many years; some of it zeroes in on Olympic-level meditators who have clocked 10,000 hours or more. Well, a new study offers some hope—and makes the benefits of meditation seem within reach even for a novice like me. The researchers tracked 16 people who were participating in the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, the training program developed more than 30 years ago by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
#3038363 SOPA Emergency IP list: So if these ass-fucks in DC decide to ruin the internet, here’s how to access your favorite sites in the event of a DNS takedown tumblr.com 174.121.194.34 wikipedia.org 208.80.152.201 # News bbc.co.uk 212.58.241.131 aljazeera.com 198.78.201.252 # Social media reddit.com 72.247.244.88 imgur.com 173.231.140.219 google.com 74.125.157.99 youtube.com 74.125.65.91 yahoo.com 98.137.149.56 hotmail.com 65.55.72.135 bing.com 65.55.175.254 digg.com 64.191.203.30 theonion.com 97.107.137.164 hush.com 65.39.178.43 gamespot.com 216.239.113.172 ign.com 69.10.25.46 cracked.com 98.124.248.77 sidereel.com 144.198.29.112 github.com 207.97.227.239 # Torrent sites thepiratebay.org 194.71.107.15 mininova.com 80.94.76.5 btjunkie.com 93.158.65.211 demonoid.com 62.149.24.66 demonoid.me 62.149.24.67 # Social networking facebook.com 69.171.224.11 twitter.com 199.59.149.230 tumblr.com 174.121.194.34 livejournal.com 209.200.154.225 dreamwidth.org 69.174.244.50
mental_floss Blog & 11 Pencil Vs. Camera Images - StumbleUpon 986 653Share10.7K Born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and now living in Belgium, Ben Heine is an amazing artist who overlaps hand-drawn works of art with photos to create stunning images. I selected eleven of his Pencil Vs. Camera images from his site, but you should check out all his awesome work if you have time. Drawing Autism Drawing Autism is an incredible collection of artwork by people diagnosed with autism, from teenage amateurs to established artists. Unlike many of the books I feature on 50 Watts, this one is in print. You should buy it. [Amazon link to the new reprint which comes out April 2, 2014 from Akashic.] This post features a small selection of my favorite images from the book, along with some quotes by the artists. Publisher's description: Over the last decade autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has become an international topic of conversation, knowing no racial, ethnic, or social barriers. Donna Williams, The Outsider What was the inspiration for this piece? "The Outsider" is about joining in from the periphery. An excerpt from the artist's answer to the question, "At what age did the act of creating art enter into your life? I was deeply mesmerized with all things aesthetic and sensory from at least 6 months of age. Felix: Imaginary City Map, Age 11 What was the inspiration for this piece None. D.
7 Lessons: Surviving A Zero-Day Attack - Security - Attacks/breaches Pacific Northwest National Laboratory CIO Jerry Johnson takes you inside the cyber attack that he faced down--and shares his security lessons learned. When Pacific Northwest National Laboratory detected a cyber attack--actually two of them--against its tech infrastructure in July, the lab acted quickly to root out the exploits and secure its network. PNNL then did something few other cyber attack victims have been willing to do. The lab's CIO, Jerry Johnson, last week provided a detailed accounting of the cyber attacks. Simultaneously, a spear-phishing attack hit one of the lab's major business partners, with which it shared network resources. Within hours, the lab made the decision to disconnect its network in order to sever the hackers' communications paths and contain any further damage. [ Want more lessons learned from InformationWeek 500 winners? Who was behind the attacks? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. John Foley is editor of InformationWeek Government. More Insights
SCHOPENHAUERS 38 STRATAGEMS, OR 38 WAYS TO WIN AN ARGUMENT - StumbleUpon Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), was a brilliant German philosopher. These 38 Stratagems are excerpts from "The Art of Controversy", first translated into English and published in 1896. Carry your opponent's proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it. (abstracted from the book:Numerical Lists You Never Knew or Once Knew and Probably Forget, by: John Boswell and Dan Starer) Study finds Zen meditation alleviates pain Zen meditation - a centuries-old practice that can provide mental, physical and emotional balance - may reduce pain according to Université de Montréal researchers. A new study in the January edition of Psychosomatic Medicine reports that Zen meditators have lower pain sensitivity both in and out of a meditative state compared to non-meditators. Joshua A. Grant, a doctoral student in the Department of Physiology, co-authored the paper with Pierre Rainville, a professor and researcher at the Université de Montréal and it's affiliated Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal. "While previous studies have shown that teaching chronic pain patients to meditate is beneficial, very few studies have looked at pain processing in healthy, highly trained meditators. Meditate away the pain For this study, the scientists recruited 13 Zen meditators with a minimum of 1,000 hours of practice to undergo a pain test and contrasted their reaction with 13 non-meditators. The ultimate result?
10 programming languages that could shake up IT | Application Development Do we really need another programming language? There is certainly no shortage of choices already. Between imperative languages, functional languages, object-oriented languages, dynamic languages, compiled languages, interpreted languages, and scripting languages, no developer could ever learn all of the options available today. And yet, new languages emerge with surprising frequency. Some are designed by students or hobbyists as personal projects. [ Test your programming smarts with our programming IQ test: Round 1 and Round 2. | Learn how to work smarter, not harder with InfoWorld's roundup of all the tips and trends programmers need to know in the Developers' Survival Guide. The answer is that, as powerful and versatile as the current crop of languages may be, no single syntax is ideally suited for every purpose. Like JavaScript, Dart uses C-like syntax and keywords.