Fear of The Unknown Is Still Dividing The Planet: It's Time To Let Others Just Be

A common theme seems to be steadily intensifying with those who disagree with information on the internet--a fear of the unknown. There is a constant need to insult or criticize content which disagrees with their own sense of truth. Although confronting fear won't always make it go away, many researchers suggest that people must alter memory-driven negative attitudes about feared objects, events or the unknown to overcome the fear itself, allowing open-mindedness and multiple perspectives to override negativity.

When people retain negative attitudes about anything that disagrees with their own version of reality, they are more likely to experience a continued sense of fear than people whose attitudes are less negative. Physiological markers such as heart rate and anticipatory anxiety always increase when measurements are taken in people whose attitudes remain negative.

Much of our concept of ourselves and our attitudes as individuals in control of our destinies underpins much of our reality or what we think about our existence.

Some of these attitudes are often based on a powerful association between a fear and a negative feeling that is so strong, that many people can't see or even think about the fear without experiencing that automatic negative reaction. For example, many people around the world devoted to their religion absolutely fear atheists. They refuse to relate to their position. They will not even conceive the right of atheists to their own opinions and feel extremely threatened by any content promoting the principles of atheism. The same can be true if we reverse the two roles. Neither position will ever advance the other if each can only think negatively about the other. This creates self-righteousness, divisions of superiority and of course ignorance.

Negative reactions to the unknown instills a sense of weakness in our character, specifically a lack of strength in our own convictions. When people have the need to strongly chastise others for their opinions and information they present, it shows a genuine deficit of attributes related to confidence about our own belief systems, morals and values. 

Those who have confidence in their doctrines do not have to identify all those things they dislike so much in others or attempt to magnify those flaws to please their own conscience. In essence, they feel they must right-fight to support their own belief system since in their minds, a competing system must be incorrect.

There is always improvement in our outlook when we change the attitude representation. To change the likelihood that negativity or fear is automatically activated when one is placed in a specific situation, we must positively view the opinions of others as valid regardless of our own perception. If somebody see's the sky as "green" instead of "blue", instead of immediately declaring their state of mind as incorrect, we can think about how interesting it is that they see the sky "green" and perhaps ask ourselves why their perspective differs so greatly from our own.

Many of the websites I contribute towards constantly receive criticism for their content, however NONE of them approach other websites or choose to email individuals who have oppositions to their own views. Why? Because they know they are entitled to those views. They don’t engage them and they certainly don’t wish to begin any type of conflict with those who think differently than they do. Everybody has their own path in life and their learning is unique, allowing them to experience that uniqueness and growth at the deepest levels of their being. Their views are no more correct or incorrect than any other, especially since truth is 360 degrees and all perception defines our reality.

While many may disagree with that, it is the belief system of what is now millions of people on Earth. People are entitled to their own opinions, but if they feel the need to encourage websites or authors to change and direct their content towards a mentality that agrees with an opposing view, perhaps these same people should be looking into their own belief systems to discover why they feel so threatened or wronged by simple words. The same words can both positively and negatively affect millions of people. The difference lies in how we perceive another's reality to be different from our own. We are all very much the same--just experiencing and learning at different rates. No one rate of learning is more superior or advanced than another, just different.

It is an opportunity to really learn something about ourselves--that judgement on others is only a judgement on ourselves. Other people in our lives serve as our own reflection of the imperfections we seek to correct in ourselves. We attract every person in our life for a reason--to show us who we are. If you think everybody in your life is around you by coincidence, you're not paying attention to the very valuable lessons they are teaching you.

When we embrace our uniqueness and understand that every human being is here for a purpose and to follow a specific path, our judgement, criticism and control over others disappears. In the end, would you rather be right, or would you rather be kind? Be kind, with love and compassion, but most of all, allow others to just be. I can guarantee that if you practice this, you will be amazed at how quickly your outlook on your experiences will change. Most of all, you will never see information as a threat again.

sources  :- http://preventdisease.com/news/13/022713_Fear-of-The-Unknown-Is-Still-Dividing-The-Planet-Its-Time-To-Let-Others-Just-Be.shtml

NEW cyber-attack unleashed MiniDuke: New cyber-attack(with size of 20kb) 'hacks governments' for political secrets

New attack unleashed MINIDUKE ,The governments of at least 20 countries may have fallen victim to a sophisticated new cyber-attack. Security experts believe the hackers are attempting to steal political intelligence.MiniDuke has infected government entities in the Ukraine, Belgium, Portugal, Romania, the Czech Republic and Ireland. In addition, a research institute, two think-tanks, and a healthcare provider in the US were also compromised. A prominent research organisation in Hungary was also infected with the mystery malware. An analysis of logs from command servers, suggest the malware has hit 59 unique victims in 23 countries including locations as diverse as Brazil, Israel, Germany, Lebanon, Spain, the UK and Japan.

The governments of at least 20 countries may have fallen victim to a sophisticated new cyber-attack. Security experts believe the hackers are attempting to steal political intelligence.

Computer security firms Kaspersky Lab and CrySyS Lab discovered that the malware, dubbed "MiniDuke," targeted government computers in the Czech Republic, Ireland, Portugal and Romania along with think tanks, research institutes and healthcare providers in the United States.

“The technical indicators from our analysis show this is a new type of threat actor that hasn't been seen before,” Kurt Baumgartner, a senior security researcher with Kaspersky Lab.

but its very difficult to identify the hackers so their locations are on the trace.The threat operates on low-level code to stay hidden, and uses Twitter and Google to get instructions and updates. It allegedly infected PCs when ‘victims’ opened a cleverly disguised Adobe PDF attachment to an email.

“The high level of encryption in the malware and the flexible system it used to communicate with the C2 via Twitter and Google indicates this was a strategically planned operation,” Baumgartner said.

“This is a very unusual cyberattack,” said Eugene Kaspersky, founder and chief exec of Kaspersky Lab. “I remember this style of malicious programming from the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s. I wonder if these types of malware writers, who have been in hibernation for more than a decade, have suddenly awoken and joined the sophisticated group of threat actors active in the cyberworld." 

Its is one of the most amazing technology as its size is as small as hay but it is as deadly as warfare missile.

Their mode of propogation  Booby-trapped documents that formed the theme of the attack featured fabricated human rights seminar information (ASEM) and Ukraine’s foreign policy and NATO membership plans. These malicious PDF files were rigged with exploits attacking Adobe Reader versions 9, 10, and 11, bypassing Adobe's sandbox in the process. The toolkit used to create these exploits were the same as those that featured in a recent attack reported by FireEye, even though these latter assaults featured a different attack payload. 
"Some of the elements remind us of cyber-espionage tools such as Duqu or Red October, such as the minimalistic approach, hacked servers, encrypted channels and also the typology of the victims. The amount of high profile victims in this attack is also notable and puts it on the same level with other advanced campaigns such as Red October."

How effective?

All this and Twitter functionality, too

Kaspersky Lab’s experts, in partnership with CrySys Lab, have analysed the attacks and published preliminary findings suggesting whoever created the malware was skilled and well-aware of the techniques used by anti-virus analysts. For one thing, the malware programmed to avoid analysis by a hardcoded set of tools in certain environments like VMware by laying dormant if it finds itself running in a virtualised environment.

If the target’s system meets the pre-defined requirements, the malware will use surreptitiously use Twitter to start looking for specific tweets from pre-made accounts, providing the encrypted locations of URLs associated with the spyware botnet's command and control channels. The same functionality allows to loading of additional backdoors onto compromised systems.

MiniDuke’s creators also provided a dynamic backup system. If Twitter isn’t working or the accounts are down, the malware can use Google Search to find the encrypted strings to the next command and control node.

Once an infected system locates the C&C nodes, it receives encrypted backdoors that are obfuscated within GIF files and disguised as pictures that appear on a victim’s machine. Once they are downloaded to the machine they can download a larger backdoor that carries out several basic actions, such as copy file, move file, remove file, make directory, kill process, and, of course, download and execute new malware.

The malware backdoor connects to two servers, one in Panama and one in Turkey, to receive instructions from the attackers, according to a joint analysis of the malware by Kaspersky Lab and Hungarian security researchers at the Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS), who previously worked with their Russian counterparts in analysing Flame, another cyber-espionage tool.
reference :- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/27/miniduke/
                   http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/nato-european-governments-hit-by-miniduke-   cyber-attack-336476

THE FIVE SCOOP: GET SMITTEN.

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  • GET SMITTEN!

  

THE FIVE SCOOP: GET SMITTEN.

If you love ice cream, or at least think you do, there’s a small shipping container in Hayes Valley that will make you smitten. And they’re not serving up your typical corn syrup and preservative laced “dairy dessert” either. 

Smitten Ice Cream is winning hearts and taste buds over with their rich and creamy treat, made from fresh and natural ingredients, by the batch, right in front of you. It’s amazing. And delicious.

Care for some strawberry white balsamic? Or perhaps you’re more inclined to try the Earl Grey with chocolate chips or blood orange with pistachios. Yeah, deliciously decadent, just...go try some.

The creamery is brought to us by Robyn Sue Goldman, who in 2007 while researching the production methods used to make ice cream, was appalled and disenchanted to discover that some manufacturers used as little as 2% of dairy ingredients for their mass produced frozen dessert, all the while being jam packed with preservatives, emulsifiers, stabilizers and other unnatural ingredients that big name companies need in order to maintain a shelf life of God knows how long.

So Robyn spent the majority of the recession researching and developing the perfect ice cream maker using all fresh and pure, natural ingredients as well as...liquid nitrogen. 

Meet Kelvin; Smitten’s wonder machine with a double helix shaped wand that uses liquid nitrogen to freeze milk and cream so fast that they don’t have time to form ice crystals. That, my friend, makes for some absurdly creamy ice cream. Actually, calling it absurdly creamy doesn’t do it justice; you’ve got to try some for yourself.

Before setting up shop in Hayes Valley, Robyn tricked out a Radio Flyer wagon with her first Kelvin prototype, complete with a four hour battery pack and a single flavor to introduce San Francisco’s populace to her new treat; typically using Twitter and Facebook to announce her presence at City parks. 

Smitten is currently looking for garages and other cool spaces for their next shops and has plans to open the second creamery in the South Bay this May. And hey, if your special someone popped the question on Valentine’s Day, why not have Smitten cater dessert for your summer wedding? Trust me, it’s unlike anything you’ve had before.

source :- http://www.getthefive.com/articles/the-idealist/the-five-scoop-get-smitten/

WHISKEY IS HAVING A RENAISSANCE AMONG GENERATION Y.

Whether it's bourbon, scotch, whiskey or whisky; from Scotland, Kentucky or Tennessee— brown alcohol is growing in popularity.

Fifty years ago, your grandfather sat alongside a bunch of tweed-clad men and smoked Cubans and drank whiskey out of tumblers. Or, he sat in a leather chair in a smoking jacket, with a pipe, and a Glenlivet. It seemed he was always sitting, and drinking.

Then the pendulum swung over to Generation X who coveted craft beers, mixed drinks and wine. For Gen X, there was no shaking off the tweed and cigar image. You see, young people don’t want to drink what dad drinks.

Enter the “Young Fogies”

Responding to their parent’s affinity for beer and wine, Generation Y—the Millennials, are taking up where their grandparents left off, and enjoying the pleasures of three fingers of whiskey while socializing. It has a romantic ruggedness that appeals to its drinkers.

Kentucky bourbon and Tennessee whiskey sales rose 5.2 percent to 16.9 million cases last year, according to the Distilled Spirits Council. Revenue increased 7.3 percent to $2.2 billion. Kentucky produces 95 percent of the world's bourbon supply, according to the Kentucky Distillers' Association. There are 4.9 million bourbon barrels aging in Kentucky, which outnumbers the state's population.

The preferred consumption method of bourbons, whiskey and scotch is straight, served in a glass tumbler. Why straight? Evidently mixing the fusel oils in bourbon with things high in sugar—Coke and things like that, will cause hangovers the next day. I can attest from personal experience, I’ve never had a hangover from drinking straight scotch, bourbon or whiskey

Perhaps another reason for the upswing in interest in whiskey is about life stage. As 20-somethings have their first taste of disposable income, single, club-and-pub-going men and women want to use that income to show off their maturation and social standing—and might see whiskey as a sophisticated drink.

It may also be tied to the growing attention paid to what we put in our bodies. As alcohol goes, whiskey is one of the more natural, simple drinks. It’s just made from barley and water.

At the same time, with the growing number of small distilleries, whiskey has a sense that it is artisan-made with each barrel having a diverse taste—not unlike the craft brew and wine industries of our parent’s generation.

So, it all comes down to health, social stature, and craft—and a generation that wants to feel they are part of that. It is no wonder that whiskey is going through a renaissance.

Image credit: Photographer: Gary Nomura Febus. Model: Teyler Kalin

Victims of Forced Love

Victims of Forced Love

Somayeh became depre ssed and isolated. She leaves the house only for medical visits.

Somayeh Mehri, 29, and her three-year-old daughter Ra’na live in a small town in one of the poorest regions in Iran. Somayeh’s husband, Amir Afghanipour, a thief and drug addict, hit her and locked her up many times. If she followed through with plans to divorce, he threatened that she would not live her life with her face. 

Then one night in June 2011, he poured a bucket of acid on his wife and child while they slept. Their faces, hands, and bodies were severely burned; Somayeh lost her ability to see and Ra’ana lost one of her eyes. Somayeh still needs hundreds of surgeries and Ra’na needs more than 70. The government and villagers have paid for some of these surgeries, sometimes selling their land to pay for more operations.

Sliding pound: British currency loses 67% of its value over last 30 years

AFP Photo /Carl Court

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Currencies, Markets

While the British pound slides on the currency markets in reaction to a downgrade of the UK's triple-A credit rating, examination of its purchasing power shows it has had an even more dramatic decline over the last three decades.

A survey by Lloyds TSB Private Banking shows that over the past 30 years the British pound’s value has fallen by almost two thirds.

In other words one would need £299 today to have the equivalent spending power of £100 in 1982.

According to Lloyds TSB Private Banking, the decline by a further 56 per cent over the next 30 years is inevitable if retail prices continue to rise at the current pace.

The pound tracking against a basket of currencies has reached its lowest level since July 2010 on Monday reaching $1.5069 against the dollar; this follows the Moody’s downgrade of the UK's cherished triple-A credit rating to AA+. It also dropped to a three-year low against the dollar last week. Later on Monday the British currency showed signs of recovery going up to $1.5144.

“People in the UK are feeling progressively poorer,” Mike Ingram market analyst of the BGC brokers told RT.

“The real wages in the UK are back to where they were in 2003. That’s a decade without any increase in prosperity effectively wiped out,” he said.

Did the Pope quit to dodge blame for misdeeds or just to do the right thing?

Italian newspaper La Repubblica has reported that the Pope was overwhelmed when presented with evidence in mid-December last year (collected in "two volumes of almost 300 pages – bound in red”) of a network of highly-placed Vatican priests who did not only engage in illicit homosexual “worldly relations” with outsiders, but let themselves be blackmailed by their gay lovers.

Among the listed locations for alleged trysts were a sauna, a beauty parlor, and even a residence used by an archbishop.

The newspaper claims it was then that Pope decided that he could not carry on, declaring that he was“no longer suited” to the demands of the job during his resignation speech earlier this month.

With cack-handedness that marked public relations throughout Benedict’s term, the Vatican immediately issued a denial that almost invited more speculation.

"Neither the cardinals' commission nor I will make comments to confirm or deny the things that are said about this matter. Let each one assume his or her own responsibilities. We shall not be following up on the observations that are made about this," said Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman.

The media quickly latched onto to the simultaneous announcement on Friday of a transfer of Ettore Balestrero, a senior clergyman, to a new prestigious post in Colombia, saying it was intended to get him out of the Vatican after unnamed transgressions.

This forced Lombardi into making a second statement on the same day. The spokesman shot the insinuations down as "absurd, totally without foundation", saying the decision had been made weeks ago.

Both the report and the figure of Balestrero did not come out of the blue, but to the press they are a continuation of the scandals that rocked the Papacy last year.

Throughout 2012, the Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, aided by a selection of powerful officials leaked documents to an Italian journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi that confirmed the worst outsider prejudices about the Holy See. The Vatileaks exposed the Papacy’s spiritual home as a highly-factionalized breeding ground for gossip, plotting and dirty tricks (including an instance when one newspaper editor was removed from his post by a rival with the help of anonymous letters falsely alleging his homosexuality). Even those who leaked the revelations themselves were suspected to be jockeying for position within the Holy See.

AFP Photo / Vincenzo Pinto

"The Pope was never the same after that. It was like shooting Achilles in the heel," one insider told Reuters after the resignation was announced.

The quick trial of Gabriele by Vatican cardinals was seen as a whitewash (concerned only with the specifics of how he obtained the documents, not why) but Benedict did order a deeper investigation by three trusted cardinals.

It was apparently their report, which showed the situation as even worse than assumed, that tipped the Benedict’s hand.

The other insurmountable embarrassment of 2012 was the interconnected but separate failure of the Vatican Bank to get on the “white list” of Moneyval, the EU’s banking compliance commission that had criticized the lack of transparency at the institution (something Vatileaks amply confirmed).

The man who led the Vatican’s efforts? Ettore Balestrero.

For the critics the assorted facts compose paint a picture of a Pontiff forced to abandon his post, unable to stem the tide of revelations, and possibly facing censure for personal mistakes, if not in deeds, then in appointing corrupt men to high places.

Even one of the investigating cardinals, Julian Herranz, conceded that this might have been one of the“hypotheses”.

"He could content himself with doing very little except praying ... but because the people he had in place were not adequate, instead of removing them, he removed himself," said yet another insider to Reuters.

But the does the notion of a Pope on the verge of disgrace (not only due to Vatileaks, but possibly also as a result of the sexual abuse allegations rocking the church) really stand up?

In his statement the 85-year-old Benedict XVI said his ebbing “strength of mind and body” was the reason for his resignation.

"The pope's decision was made many months ago, after the trip to Mexico and Cuba [almost a year ago] and kept in an inviolable privacy that nobody could penetrate," wrote the official Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano.

It was on that trip to Mexico that the Pope fell and hurt his head while in an unfamiliar hotel room. He has also had a pacemaker installed in recent months.

Pope Benedict XVI receives a sombrero in Leon.(AFP Photo / Osservatore Romano)

But it is perhaps a description of the pontiff from his own biographer Peter Seewald, who saw him last at the end of 2012, which most vividly conveys his true state.

"His hearing had worsened. He couldn't see with his left eye. His body had become so thin that the tailors had difficulty keeping up with newly fitted clothes ... I'd never seen him so exhausted-looking, so worn down," Seewald recently wrote in the German magazine Focus.

This does not nullify the degree of decay at the Holy See, but perhaps draws a more nuanced portrait of Benedict’s final year.

There is little doubt that Benedict XVI served a calamitous eight years as the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church. His time in charge has lurched from public relations disasters, to damaging revelations, to endless lawsuits from all corners of the world.

The Vatican’s instinctive response to crisis situations has been to close ranks, hide information and try to deal with transgressions internally, something that simply amplifies the scale of any misdeed once the truth inevitably emerges in this telecommunications age.

Whatever his reported knowledge on theological matters, Pope Benedict was rarely a successful communicator, often on the defensive after making pronouncements on the most routine issues, and regarded as out-of-touch and uncharismatic.

But for all his flaws, no one has doubted the personal religious devotion of the pontiff (and none of the scandals incriminated him in anything other than passiveness in his dealing with problems).

Perhaps due to his age and inherent traditionalism, he was never the right man for the Papacy, but at least he knew his limitations.

Benedict learned from observing his close friend John Paul II in the last months of his Papacy in 2005, body trembling with symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, and voice barely above a whisper as he attempted to struggle through services in front of crowds of thousands.

For all the unexpectedness of his resignation, Benedict said as far back as in 2010 that he would step down as soon as he was unable to perform this job.

He has done as he promised, with his dignity intact.

Asian nuns hold a portrait of Pope Benedict XVI on St Peter's square after the Angelus prayer led by Pope Benedict XVI from the window of his appartments.(AFP Photo / Gabriel Bouys)

By being the first Pope to leave his post alive in 600 years, Joseph Ratzinger may have angered the traditionalists (who say that being God’s representative on Earth isn’t a job you can just quit), but he may have also set an example to his successors that will help the Papacy avoid becoming a constant deathwatch as its decrepit heads are driven around the world in wheelchairs.

And for this he should be treated with respect, instead of having his motives queried and twisted by those pursuing their own agendas, however valid.

In the meantime, the world can switch its attention to the new man at the Vatican, who will hopefully be able to address the very problems Benedict XVI failed to overcome.

source:- http://rt.com/op-edge/pope-benedict-allegations-scandal-312/

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Canada to launch asteroid-hunter satellite

Screenshot from neossat.ca

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Canada, India, Natural disasters, SciTech, Science, Space

Canadian Space Agency is launching a satellite size of a large suitcase to track down dangerous asteroids passing nearby our planet. The recent meteor explosion above Russia’s Urals sparked hot debates on how to protect Earth from space threats.
The $12-million satellite weights a mere 65kg, but it will be searching space 24-hours a day for objects potentially dangerous to Earth. It is specially designed to disclose objects between Earth and the sun, previously undetectable from the ground because of the bright light of our star.
Named Near-Earth Object Space Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat), the satellite was jointly developed by Defense Research and Development Canada (DRDC) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). NEOSSat will be launched together with three other Canadian-built satellites by an Indian rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India at 12:26 GMT on Monday.

Unfinished NEOssat satellite (Photo from prject's official website http://neossat.ca)

The probe will be delivered to polar orbit 700km above the Earth’s surface, where atmospheric effects will not blur its 15-centimeter-wide telescope. NEOSSat will circle the globe every 100 minutes.
The telescope itself is the size usually used by amateur astronomers, but in space it will be much more sharp-sighted in the absence of atmosphere-scattered sunshine. It is fitted with an extended sunshade that enables the probe to search the cosmic space near the sun for asteroids.
Earth’s sentinel NEOSSat is actually multi-tasked. It can spot space objects intruding the terrestrial space - be they asteroids or man-made space junk, like decommissioned satellites - locating anything that travels on a trajectory possibly intersecting our planet’s orbit. NEOSSat also monitors the ever-growing number of orbiting satellites.
NEOSSat is expected to catalogue at least 50 per cent of previously undetected asteroids from one kilometer and greater within Earth’s orbit around the sun. The greater part of such asteroids has not been found yet.
Among the space bodies orbiting the sun is a group of elliptical-orbited asteroids called Atens and it troubles astronomers the most. The Chelyabinsk bolide that caused so much trouble in Russia’s Urals might have been an Aten asteroid.
The 500-kiloton explosion of an asteroid bolide above a 3.5 million city of Chelyabinsk in Russia’s Urals has become a good reminder that government just cannot sit idly until another – probably bigger - asteroid impact our planet.
After the Chelyabinsk explosion Russia’s Roscosmos space agency announced tender project of a national asteroid watch, Canadian scientists are elaborating methods to deorbit dangerous asteroids once they are tracked down and their orbit is proved to be threatening Earth.
NEOSSat is not the only satellite to be launched with the same Indian rocket booster.
Its payload includes a French-Indian ocean research satellite, a Canadian military satellite, two Canadian-Austrian BRIght Target Explorer (BRITE) nano-satellites with tiny telescopes, a small British satellite powered by a smartphone, and a CubeSat built by students in Denmark.
A research group from Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory is preparing a $350 million project for the next decade to knock the asteroid Didymos off its orbit when it passes close to Earth. The project is set to become the first human attempt to change an orbit of a space body. The study is supported by NASA and the European Space Agency.

Assembly of NEOssat satellite (Photo from prject's official website http://neossat.ca)

Assembly of NEOssat satellite (Photo from prject's official website http://neossat.ca)

sources :- http://rt.com/news/neossat-asteroid-watch-telescope-380/

US losing global cyber war to China - House Intelligence chairman

As cyber battles grow more violent, hack attacks more blatant, risks more dramatic, the world's political opponents rush to protect themselves. The US and China seem to have strongest cyber armies, and the winner may have already been determined.
A series of hacking attacks on US corporations and infrastructure facilities show the United States is losing its cyber war with China, says the chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers.
"They [the Chinese] use their military and intelligence structure to [steal] intellectual property from American businesses, and European businesses, and Asian businesses, repurpose it and then compete in the international market against the United States," Rogers told ABC.
Earlier in February, American data company Mandiant reported to have tracked 141 cyber attacks performed by the same Chinese hacker group since 2006, 115 of which turned against US corporations. Rogers says there is "not a shadow of a doubt" the attacks were sponsored by the Chinese government. He says it's just the tip of the iceberg and on average the US is subjected to at least 140 attacks per day.
“We get [hit] every single day by a whole series of attacks, everything from criminals trying to get into your bank account or steal your identity, to nation states like China who are investing billions and hiring thousands,” he said.
China denies any involvement by the government or the military in hacking attacks, saying the Mandiant report lacks any proof of its charges.
Geopolitical analyst William Engdahl believes US 'cyber war' rhetoric aims to demonize China.
"I think what we’re looking at is part of this Obama pivot to focus on China and to paint China as a new military threat to the world. It’s a demonization of China,” he told RT.
While the US complains about being a victim of cyber attacks, it's well known its government has been behind major international cyber attacks against strategic objects of other nations. A computer virus known as StuxNet infected Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities, destroying nearly 1,000 of the country's 6,000 centrifuges. According to reports, the virus, made entirely out of code, was a joint collaboration between the US and Israel.
Last October, US President Obama signed an executive order expanding military authority to carry out cyber-attacks, now called ‘defensive’ actions. Around the same time, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned the public of a “cyber Pearl Harbor.” Panetta told Time magazine: “The three potential adversaries out there that are developing the greatest capabilities are Russia, China and Iran.”
The Pentagon has reportedly decided to double its cyber war workforce from 900 to more than 4500 employees. The new US 'cyber defense' strategy cannot but worry the other world players, leading as far as a 'US-China Cold War', RT's correspondent Marina Portnaya reports.
“In terms of a Pandora’s box, I think it will be slighter harder for the United States to adopt a position of purely defense now. We’ve sort of made it clear that we’re willing to use cyber in advance of our national interest.” Allan Friedman from Washington's Brookings Institute told RT.
There is little doubt the cyber espionage and rivalry has already turned into battlefield and is viewed by the military as such.
"Every commander with whom I have spoken is convinced that the next major war will include a cyber component," journalist Tom Gjelton told RT. "It won’t just be a traditional insurgency, bombing from aircraft, ground troops; the next war, almost certainly, will include a cyber component," he confirms.

‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Wins Albert Speer Oscar For Best Propaganda Picture

One of the most pervasive trends in 21st century western culture has become somewhat of an obsession in America. It’s called “Hollywood history”, where the corporate studio machines in Los Angeles spend hundreds of millions of dollars in order to craft and precisely tailor historical events to suit the prevailing political paradigm.

"Hollywood history" is very much in fashion these days. From Linclon to Dubya, and from Blackhawk Down to The Iron Lady, they constitute a significant portion of today’s major releases. There’s only one problem, however, with tailoring a story to fit neatly into a prevailing political paradigm … and over the last 100 years, the Germans and the Soviets did this too – with devastating effect, but back then we just called it propaganda.

No film embodies the Hollywood historical treatment more than the much celebrated cinema release of Zero Dark Thirty, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and one of the favourites to grab an armful of Academy Awards this weekend in LA including Best Picture, Bigelow for best director, Mark Boal for best screenplay, and Jessica Chastain for Best Actress.

The film’s main premise is constructed around a female CIA officer, played by Chastain, and her dogged determination to find the highly elusive mastermind of 9/11 and the al Qaeda’s MVP, Osama bin Laden. Chastain’s performance, critics claim, has also "empowered women" by showing how her film character caught bin Laden, but it didn’t actually happen that way. We’ll get to that later….

Where this film starts to take heat is with its sensational on screen CIA torture scenes. Unlike previously less celebrated but more integral, intellectual cinematic efforts at taking on torture – likeRendition and Lions for Lambs, Bigelow seemed incredibly bent on going the distance to glorify (through her attempt at Cinéma vérité) the troubling practice of torture by the CIA – as a means to glean intelligence about the whereabouts of various Islamic terrorists scattered throughout the world’s third world cesspits.


Bigelow and her writing team’s artistic license on the effectiveness of torture even prompted one screen legend, actor Susan Sarandon, to brand the film as a piece of manipulative political entertainment. The veteran human rights defender issued a written statement saying that when watching Zero Dark Thirty, “you should know that the movie has generated controversy because it leaves a mistaken impression: that the CIA’s torture of prisoners ‘worked’ by providing information that led to bin Laden.”

In fact, the US Senate Intelligence Committee spent four years investigating the CIA’s torture program, and according to Senators Diane Feinstein and John McCain, the CIA’s vaunted torture program under Obama did not lead to bin Laden (that’s the only true statement you will ever hear surrounding the government’s Osama bin Laden tale).

Zero Dark’s glorification of torture is merely the first level of moral descent, however, because you see, there’s still the thorny issue of Osama bin Laden to deal with…

One thing was clear when watching this film, and also by the reactions of theatre goers at my screening in Brixton, South London, that Zero Dark marks a new low point in America’s now fashionable politicised culture, and Bigelow must be aware of this because she seemed to play this card shamelessly in her highly politicised film.

Never before in the history of cinema has there been such a break-neck rush to complete and release a motion picture so soon after the said event, to serialise the legendary “Hunt for Bin Laden”, and “the greatest manhunt in history” by a gallant Seal Team 6, ending in the siege of the terror kingpin’s alleged place of abode – a compound located in Abbotabad, Pakistan.

Apparently, Bigelow’s production was already in motion in May 2011 in advance of the White House’s announcement that Seal Team 6 had killed Bin Laden, and Bigelow it seems, was either persuaded or herself decided (it’s not clear which one it was), to rewrite the film’s script in order to theatrically chronicle what President Obama had put forward as his greatest achievement since taking office. This was the birth of Zero Dark Thirty. Others are investigating whether the movie’s filmmakers received quiet government funding to promote torture, since they did obtain classified information, according to many reports. Unfortunately for Bigelow, and as some of us learned with Iraq, so-called ‘classified’ information is only as credible as its source (US intelligence unfortunately has a spotty record of late).

If Pentagon propaganda, or bolstering President Obama’s political trophy were the motives, then one could compare this film’s creators to similarly well-paid cinematic forebears like Albert Speer, or Leni Riefenstahl.

Hitler’s Reich relied onfilmmakers like Leni Riefenstahl,
 to write the government’s version of Nazi history.
Female cinematic icon Riefenstahl’s involvement in crafting Nazi government propaganda was eventually her undoing. After the Reich fell in 1945, she still maintained that her films were ‘works of art’ and claimed that they had nothing to do with Nazi politics and propaganda. With all the lies and propaganda swirling around Washington’s own criminal class, it will be interesting to see how filmmakers like Bigelow will defend their own ‘art’ in years to come.

But it’s hardly the first time Hollywood has been accused of gross misuse of its creative license. It’s become the norm, rather than the exception.

Other Hollywood attempts to hold the government’s line on history include the box office debacle,Flight 93, which derived its plot, characters and production design solely from the federal government’s own Official 9/11 Report. Evidence fleshed out since points to the obvious scenario that Flight 93 was actually shot down by a US jet fighter, with its debris spread over 20 miles in and around Shanksville, PA in 2001. No matter, Hollywood kept to the government’s original outdated script of “let’s roll!”.

The sheer volume of mistruths which have been fed downwards by the US government and its corporate media apologists over the last decade is staggering, and has had quite of profound, polarising effect on media consumers North America and Western Europe. The avalanche of state-sponsored and corporation-sponsored propaganda over the last decade in particular, appears to have successfully divided society into two groups: those who believe official propaganda and government released narratives of major events – and those who question it.

It’s safe to say that the sort of people who would never admit in public to questioning the government’s official explanations about what happened on 9/11 – are generally the same section of the population who would accept a film like Zero Dark Thirty as recorded history. These might also be the same type of people who believed in advance of America’s bombing and invasion of Iraq – Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The bin Laden mythology is powerful, however, and millions of people will walk away from this film feeling as if they’ve learned something about what its like working on the gritty side of the CIA.

Under normal circumstances, I would not pay for a ticket to see a historical production which I believe was based on a fictional narrative. I made an exception in this case because it was the only way I could review the film in time to write this piece. But the most profound realisation I got whilst watching the movie was a very sad one. I felt sorry for the director, the cast and all the production crew who put in their hard work and sweat, and probably believed that bin Laden was indeed in the Abbotabad compound in May 2011, and that they were reenacting a rare and proud piece of American history.

In order to believe this, they would also would have to have believed that somehow, the same bin Laden also masterminded a multi-pronged assault that managed to bypass the whole of the US Defense apparatus – all from his legendary cave in Tora Bora.

It’s no surprise how much both the Bush and Obama governments and the corporate military industrial complex has benefited from maintaining the mythology of a living Osama bin Laden since 2001. Unfortunately, the mythology does not measure up to reality, with multiple admissions in public by heads of state by Pervez Musharraf, and Benazir Bhutto, as well as by Madeline Albright and others, and even mainstream media reports going all the way back to 2001, stating that Osama bin Laden was dying, or had in fact died in late 2001.

Knowing all this, when I heard the news of Obama and the Navy Seal Team 6 raid on bin Laden, I knew immediately that not only was this almost certainly a fiction, but that their would be no photographs and videos released, because a dead man cannot come back to life after 10 years for a photo session.

As predicted, a few days later the White House confirmed my suspicions, announcing that indeed, ‘no photos or video will be released’…



On top of that, we were also told that they dumped bin Laden’s body at sea 48 hours after allegedly killing him. Fancy that? But even that pillar of the official fell apart later when it was revealed that no US sailors aboard the USS Carl Vinson ever saw the alleged burial at sea, and that no images exist in any government records of bin Laden aboard the decorated US sea vessel. Hard to believe, but only if you believe the government’s official fiction on the fate of Osama bin Laden.

Also, unknown to Kathryn Bigelow and her crew at the time of production, there was no DNA identification of bin Laden by the Pentagon either, and no autopsy was done. It’s as if he was merely a ghost. Does that mean that White House announcements to the contrary back in May 2011 were lies? Yes, it does.

So let’s get that straight. There is evidence to strongly suggest that bin Laden wasn’t even there at Abbotabad in 2011, but there’s NO evidence to prove that he was there.

These facts certainly give my own statements on the incident even more credibility, but that’s nothing to cheer about. We were lied to, again.

Zero Dark is also flanked this year by another historical effort which has relied heavy on Hollywood brand of artistic license is Ben Affleck’s Iranian hostage drama, Argo, which most analysts agree was heavily padded with imaginative characters, written-in backstories and invented obstacles, all woven together to create an ‘interesting’ and entertaining piece of film much the same way Charlie Wilson’s War was a jovial depiction of the CIA’s gun-running in the Soviet-Afghan War, painted by Hollywood as a story of American heroism for the ages. There are literally dozens of other examples of invented Hollywood history, these are only a few.

Rarely (if ever) has Hollywood ever actually challenged the political paradigm or the power of the Pentagon in one of its ‘historical productions’. Argo andCharlie Wilson’s ‘semi-fiction’ might seem like harmless Hollywood history to many movie goers, but altering history for entertainment purposes is not just deceptive, besides the fact that it’s not true yet its being passed off as history, it also borders on mass brainwashing, further distorting generational truths about what our nations’ governments actually get up to on tax payers’ time.

Rather than betting the farm on a quirky piece of historical trivia, will film goers ever see the day that a director like Affleck might try to tackle the Iran Contra Scandal and the CIA running guns to Nicaragua and Cocaine into Louisiana and Arkansas airports? Or reveal how the same CIA, with the help of the FBI, was responsible for introducing crack cocaine to the streets of Los Angeles during the 1980s, or even about the CIA shipping heroin out of Afghanistan after 2001? Likewise, ignoring the true historical context that it was the very same CIA, with the help of Saudi oil money, who created and trained the present day al Qaeda by employing the likes of Osama bin Laden to handle the terror group’s finances over the decades.

Sadly, spending $150 million on a film production that could reveal actual history to out gov't corruption is probably asking too much from Hollywood’s bold and beautiful. No, no, stick to quirky revisions of history, non-events, or outright inventions, and then bask in all the pomp of Oscar night.


Perhaps, upon doing a little research, Kathryn Bigelow might consider doing a sequel to Zero Dark Thirty – and tell us what happened to that famous "Navy Seal Team 6" after the bin Laden raid. That would make a good story, and one many people would like to know more about.

In the end, Zero Dark can only be summed up as one big, expensive lie in celluloid, in the Riefenstahl and Speer tradition. Regardless of how many awards it wins this winter – that’s how history will eventually label Kathryn Bigelow’s latest piece of moving art.

The good news is the truth has no expiration date, and political propaganda eventually collapses under the weight of its own inflated sense of purpose.

All we are seeing here, is simply… Hollywood drifting further towards Washington DC.