Month: February 2014

This Is Post No. 23,679 …

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Wudang

… since the creation of Infinite Unknown in 2008.

In January several readers donated generously €20, €30, even €100.

In February there have been no donations.

Even a €5 (or €1) donation matters and helps keeping this website and my work alive.

If you can’t donate €5 because your financial situation does not allow it, then please don’t even think about donating and create some financial freedom first.

All others who can afford to donate and haven’t done so yet, please think about it.

A big thank you to all my readers for your support via social networks, comments & donations.

Thank you also for your mental & spiritual support.

In Liberty,
Infinite Unknown

Ukraine Accuses Russia Of Invasion, Considers State Of Emergency After Masked Gunmen Occupy Two Crimean Airports

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– Ukraine Accuses Russia Of Invasion, Considers State Of Emergency After Masked Gunmen Occupy Two Crimean Airports (ZeroHedge, Feb 27, 2014):

The bizarre events in the Crimea continued overnight, after unidentified masked men but dressed like those who took over the parliament in Simferopol yesterday, took over two airports by blockading one near the Russian naval base in Sevastopol and another in the capital of Simferopol. This prompted the Ukraine’s interior minister Arsen Avakov, to accuse Moscow’s military of blockading the airports, and in a Facebook post, he called the seizure of the Belbek international airport in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol a “military invasion and occupation.” He added: “It is a breach of all international agreements and norms.” As NBC reports, the Interfax news agency quoted Russian military sources as saying the incident at Belbek airport was intended to stop “fighters” flying in. However, Interfax later quoted a Russian official as saying that no units had approached the airport or blockaded it. In a nutshell, Russia continues to push with escalation ever further, and is testing just how far it can and will go without Ukraine responding.

airport crimea 2

airport crimea_0

 

Kyivpost has a more detailed account:

Two Crimean airports were taken over by Russian military troops, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Facebook this morning. He said the situation in the autonomous republic has now escalated to “a military intervention” and called on the National Security Council to take urgent steps towards its regulation.

“My assessment of what’s going on is that it’s a military intervention and occupation in violation of all international agreements and norms,” he said in his statement. “This is a direct provocation of bloodshed on the territory of a sovereign state.”

Read moreUkraine Accuses Russia Of Invasion, Considers State Of Emergency After Masked Gunmen Occupy Two Crimean Airports

China Currency Plunges Most In Over 5 Years, Biggest Weekly Loss Ever: Yuan Carry Traders Crushed

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– China Currency Plunges Most In Over 5 Years, Biggest Weekly Loss Ever: Yuan Carry Traders Crushed (ZeroHedge, Feb 27, 2014):

And just like that the Chinese yuan devaluation has shifted away from the merely “orderly.”

In the past few hours of trading, China, which as we reported two days ago has started intervening aggressively in the Yuan market (for the reasons why, read this), has seen its currency crash by nearly 0.9%, which may not seem like much, but is in fact the largest drop since December of 2008, and at last check was trading at around 6.18, even as the PBOC fixed the CNY reference rate 0.02% higher from the last official close to 6.1214, erasing pivot support point at 6.1346 and 6.1408.  Naturally this means that the obverse, the CNYUSD, has crashed to as low as 0.1620. Should this move sustain without reverting, this will be the biggest weekly loss ever!

…

12 Signs That Russia Is Ready To Fight A War Over Crimea

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Russian-Military-Vehicles

– 12 Signs That Russia Is Ready To Fight A War Over Crimea (Economic Collapse, Feb 27, 2014):

Russia will never, ever give up Crimea without a fight.  Anyone that thinks otherwise is just being delusional.  The Russian Black Sea fleet’s main base at Sevastopol is far too strategically important.  In addition, ethnic Russians make up approximately 60 percent of the population of Crimea, and most of the population is rabidly pro-Russian.  In fact, many prominent Crimean politicians are already calling for reunification with Russia.  So if you have been thinking that Russia is just going to fold up shop and go home now that pro-European protesters have violently seized power in Kiev, you can quit holding your breath.  The truth is that Russia is more than willing to fight a war over Crimea.  And considering the fact that vitally important pipelines that pump natural gas from Russia to the rest of Europe go right through Ukraine, it is not likely that Russia will just willingly hand the rest of Ukraine over to the U.S. and the EU either.  If the U.S. and the EU push too hard in Ukraine, a major regional war may erupt which could ultimately lead to something much larger.

Russia and Ukraine have very deep historical ties.  Most Americans may not think that Ukraine is very important, but the Russians consider Ukraine to be of the utmost strategic importance.

Read more12 Signs That Russia Is Ready To Fight A War Over Crimea

Mt. Gox Files For Bankruptcy, Lost 750,000 Of Its Customers’ Bitcoin Holdings And More Than 100,000 Of Its Own Coins, Or More Than $450 MILLION Worth

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Aaaaaaand, it’s gone …

– Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy (New York Times, Feb 28, 2014):

TOKYO — Mt. Gox, the troubled exchange for the virtual currency Bitcoin, filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday and said that it might have lost 750,000 of its customers’ coins, essentially all of them, in a hacking attack.

The Tokyo-based exchange, which warned this month of a software flaw that may have allowed hackers to defraud it of Bitcoins, had halted all trading this week.

Mark Karpeles, the company’s chief executive, wearing a suit instead of his usual T-shirt, bowed in contrition and apologized in Japanese at a press conference in Tokyo.

“There were weaknesses in the system,” he said. “I’m truly sorry to have caused inconvenience.”

He said that the exchange had most likely lost 750,000 of its customers’ Bitcoin holdings and more than 100,000 of its own coins, or more than $450 million worth.

Read moreMt. Gox Files For Bankruptcy, Lost 750,000 Of Its Customers’ Bitcoin Holdings And More Than 100,000 Of Its Own Coins, Or More Than $450 MILLION Worth

31 Percent Of All Food In America Is Wasted – And Why That Is About To End

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Burger-And-Fries

– 31 Percent Of All Food In America Is Wasted – And Why That Is About To End (Economic Collapse, Feb 26, 2014):

According to a stunning new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nearly a third of all food produced in the United States gets wasted.  We are probably the most wasteful society in the history of the planet, and we are also one of the most gluttonous.  More than 35 percent of all Americans are considered to be officially “obese” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Unfortunately, this era of gluttony and taking food for granted will soon be coming to an end.  Thanks to crippling drought in key growing areas and other extremely bizarre weather patterns, a massive food crisis is beginning to emerge all over the planet.  If you don’t think that this is going to affect you, then you simply are not paying attention.  Approximately half of all produce grown in the United States comes from the state of California, and right now California is suffering through the worst stretch of drought on record.  Food prices are going to start soaring, and that is going to affect the household budget of every family in America.

Needless to say, a time is coming when Americans will not waste food so recklessly.  But for the moment, we still have a tremendous amount of disrespect for the value of food.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we waste a staggering 133 billion pounds of food each year…

Read more31 Percent Of All Food In America Is Wasted – And Why That Is About To End

U.S. Supreme Court Rules Police May Search A Home WITHOUT OBTAINING A WARRANT

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constitution-burning-1

– Supreme Court Rules Police May Search A Home Without Obtaining A Warrant (ZeroHedge, Feb 27, 2014):

If the most disturbing, if underreported, news from yesterday, was Obama’s “modification” of NSA capabilities, which contrary to his earlier promises, was just granted even greater powers as phone recording will now be stored for even longer than previously, then this latest development from the Supreme Court – one which some could argue just voided the Fourth amendment – is even more shocking. RT reports that the US Supreme Court has ruled that police may search a home without obtaining a warrant despite the objection of one occupant if that occupant has been removed from the premises. With its 6 to 3 decision in Fernandez v. California on Tuesday, the Court sided with law enforcement’s ability to conduct warrantless searches after restricting police powers with its 2006 decision on a similar case.

Cop entry_1

From RT:

In 2009, the Los Angeles Police Department sought suspect Walter Fernandez, believed to have stabbed someone in a violent gang robbery. When police first arrived at the suspect’s home, they heard yelling and screaming before Fernandez’s live-in girlfriend Roxanne Rojas answered the door, appearing “freshly bruised and bloody,” and with an infant in hand, according to argument recap by SCOTUSblog.

Read moreU.S. Supreme Court Rules Police May Search A Home WITHOUT OBTAINING A WARRANT

GCHQ spied on millions of Yahoo video chats, harvested sexual images of chatters, compared itself to ‘Tom Cruise in Minority Report’

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– GCHQ spied on millions of Yahoo video chats, harvested sexual images of chatters, compared itself to “Tom Cruise in Minority Report” (Boing Boing, Feb 27, 2104):

NSA ragout 3

NSA ragout 1

A stunning new Snowden leak reveals that the UK spy agency GCHQ harvested images and text from millions of Yahoo video chats, including chats in which one or both of the participants was British or American. Between 3 and 11 percent of the chats they intercepted were sexual in nature, and revealing images of thousands of people were captured and displayed to spies. The programme, called OPTIC NERVE, focused on people whose usernames were similar to those of suspects, and ran from at least 2008 until at least 2010. The leak reveals that GCHQ intended to expand the programme to Xbox 360 Kinect cameras and “fairly normal webcam traffic.” The programme was part of a facial recognition research effort that GCHQ compared to “Tom Cruise in Minority Report.” While the documents do not detail efforts as widescale as those against Yahoo users, one presentation discusses with interest the potential and capabilities of the Xbox 360’s Kinect camera, saying it generated “fairly normal webcam traffic” and was being evaluated as part of a wider program. Beyond webcams and consoles, GCHQ and the NSA looked at building more detailed and accurate facial recognition tools, such as iris recognition cameras – “think Tom Cruise in Minority Report”, one presentation noted.

NSA ragout 4

Sexually explicit webcam material proved to be a particular problem for GCHQ, as one document delicately put it: “Unfortunately … it would appear that a surprising number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person. Also, the fact that the Yahoo software allows more than one person to view a webcam stream without necessarily sending a reciprocal stream means that it appears sometimes to be used for broadcasting pornography.”

The document estimates that between 3% and 11% of the Yahoo webcam imagery harvested by GCHQ contains “undesirable nudity”. Discussing efforts to make the interface “safer to use”, it noted that current “naïve” pornography detectors assessed the amount of flesh in any given shot, and so attracted lots of false positives by incorrectly tagging shots of people’s faces as pornography.

UK spy agency intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users [Spencer Ackerman and James Ball/The Guardian]

Two Russian Warships Enter Black Sea Through Bosphorus; Another Docks In Cuba

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– Two Russian Warships Enter Black Sea Through Bosphorus; Another Docks In Cuba (ZeroHedge, Feb 27, 2014):

Russia may be awaiting a diplomatic resolution of the Ukraine crisis, but we wouldn’t hold our breath especially with the deposed president Yanukovich set to conduct a press conference tomorrow from Russia’s Rostov-on-Don at 5pm local time, where we hardly anticipate a scaling back of the escalation in what is sure to not be an abdication from power. Instead, Putin continues to prepare for the worst and is openly signalling to the West that if he has to fight to regain influence in the Ukraine, he will, as a top Kremlin politician warned last week. As such it was not surprising to read that two Russian warships, the Minsk and the Kaliningrad which last week were sent out on deployment around Syria, crossed back into the Black Sea, most likely in direction Sevastopol, as the build up of Russian forces in the Crimea continues.

From Bosphorus Nabal News:

Read moreTwo Russian Warships Enter Black Sea Through Bosphorus; Another Docks In Cuba

Obamacare: Now Appearing On Your Restaurant Bill!

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– Obamacare: Now Appearing On Your Restaurant Bill (ZeroHedge, Feb 27, 2014):

That the bulk of Americans (especially those 4+ million whose insurance policies have recently been cancelled as a result of the ACA) have to pay more for healthcare as a result of Obamacare, is now largely accepted and well-known. But did you know that the cost of Obamacare is slowly metastasizing to other places? Such as your restaurant bill.

Presenting Exhibit A.

ACA Surcharge

From CNN:

Several restaurants in a Florida chain are asking customers to help foot the bill for Obamacare. Diners at eight Gator’s Dockside casual eateries are finding a 1% Affordable Care Act surcharge on their tabs, which comes to 15 cents on a typical $15 lunch tab. Signs on the door and at tables alert diners to the fee, which is also listed separately on the bill.

Read moreObamacare: Now Appearing On Your Restaurant Bill!

Royal Bank Of Scotland Has Lost All The £46 BILLION Pumped In By The Taxpayer

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State-rescued lender confirms total losses since bailout level with 2008 state bail-out

– RBS has lost all the £46bn pumped in by the taxpayer (Telegeraph, Feb 27, 2014):

Royal Bank of Scotland has lost all the money invested in it by the taxpayer six years ago when the lender came close to collapse.

The bank has confirmed its total losses since its bailout have now drawn level with the £46bn pumped into it in 2008 in return for an 81pc stake.

RBS made a loss last year of £8.2bn, its sixth consecutive annual loss, taking its cumulative losses to £46bn.

The scale of the losses means that all the capital provided by the taxpayer has now been used up dealing with the toxic legacy assets on the bank’s balance sheet.

Read moreRoyal Bank Of Scotland Has Lost All The £46 BILLION Pumped In By The Taxpayer

Rome Is On The Verge Of Detroit-Style Bankruptcy

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rome

– Rome Is On The Verge Of Detroit-Style Bankruptcy (ZeroHedge, Feb 27, 2014):

With European peripheral bond yields collapsing every single day to new all time lows (primarily driven by Europe’s near-certainty that a US-style QE is imminent as we first showed here in November, despite Mario Draghi’s own words from November 2011 that a QE intervention is virtually impossible), increasingly more of Europe is trading just as safe, if not more, as the United States. And in keeping with the analogies, considering a major US metropolitan center, Detroit, recently went bankrupt, it is only fair that Europe should sacrifice one of its own historic cities to the gods of negative cash flows. The city in question, Rome, which as the WSJ reports, is “teetering on the brink of a Detroit-style bankruptcy.”

Rome, the eternal city, which survived two millennia of abuse from everyone may be preparing to lay its arms at the hands of unprecedented corruption, capital mismanagement and lies.

Read moreRome Is On The Verge Of Detroit-Style Bankruptcy

John Kerry: ‘The US Is Beginning To Act Like A Poor Nation’

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– John Kerry: “The US Is Beginning To Act Like A Poor Nation” (ZeroHedge, Feb 27, 2014):

The following remarks by John Kerry, borne out of his humiliation over the complete fiasco that was the US intervention in Syria last year and the even greater fiasco that was this year’s attempt to get all feuding parties on the table in Geneva, only to see that outcome obliterated as well, appear to be borne out of his disgust at the defunding of the US defense budget, which for Kerry, more than his gross incompetence, is the reason why the US now finds itself in a “new isolationism” leading him to conclude that the US is “beginning to act like a poor nation.” One wonders what tipped him off: the fact that the US debt just hit a record high $17,419,220,117,766.69 or that the biggest monetizers of US deficit spending are the Fed, China and just as insolvent Japan?

From Reuters:

Read moreJohn Kerry: ‘The US Is Beginning To Act Like A Poor Nation’

Ukraine’s Yanukovych Says He’s Still President, Takes Refuge In Russia

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– Ukraine’s Yanukovych says he’s still president, takes refuge in Russia (The Raw Story/AFP, Feb 27, 2014):

Deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych on Thursday broke five days of silence to declare himself to still be Ukraine’s head of state, as sources strongly indicated that he had taken refuge in Russia.

Yanukovych issued a defiant statement through Russia’s three main news agencies, saying he had asked Russia to ensure his personal security. His comments gave no further clue about his whereabouts.

Read moreUkraine’s Yanukovych Says He’s Still President, Takes Refuge In Russia

GCHQ’s Interception And Storage Of Yahoo Webcam Images Condemned

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Critics react angrily to revelation that GCHQ intercepted and stored millions of images of people not suspected of wrongdoing

GCHQ
GCHQ’s Optic Nerve surveillance program: ‘Orwell’s 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual’, one critic said. Photograph: EPA

– GCHQ’s interception and storage of Yahoo webcam images condemned (Guardian, Feb 27, 2014):

Politicians and human rights groups have reacted angrily to revelations that Britain’s spy agency intercepted and stored webcam images of millions of people not suspected of any wrongdoing with the aid of its US counterpart.

GCHQ files dating between 2008 and 2010 reveal that a surveillance program codenamed Optic Nerve collected images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and saved them to agency databases, regardless of whether individual users were an intelligence target or not.

Read moreGCHQ’s Interception And Storage Of Yahoo Webcam Images Condemned

‘West Plays With Fire To Drive The Russian Naval Base Out Of Crimea’ (Video)

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– ‘West plays with fire to drive the Russian naval base out of Crimea’ (RT, Feb 27, 2014):

Crimea’s ethnic composition and Western policy towards Ukraine could create a Kosovo-like scenario where the majority of Russian speaking residents would claim independence which could lead to violence on the ground, Oxford historian Mark Almond told RT.

RT: If the EU and the US are concerned about doing what people on the Maidan want, why are they ignoring what people in Crimea want?

Mark Almond: Well one would have thought so if you’re going to listen to the crowd on the street on the square and there are many squares where there’re crowds including Simferopol and Sevastopol. The basic problem of course is what the Americans, particularly the lead military power in NATO want, is to eventually ease the Russian navy out of its base, out of its lease in Sevastopol in the Crimea. And so of course the fact that the great majority of people in Crimea not only 60 per cent that are actually Russian but many of the rest who speak Russian as their everyday language is something that the EU and NATO countries want to ignore. Of course if you have any kind of push to create a crisis, I’m afraid our democratic basis as in Kosovo where the great majority, where the great majority of Albanians wanted to be independent from Serbia, you would create a Kosovo crisis in Crimea. But of course strangely enough Washington and Brussels suddenly aren’t terribly interested in this. I myself think that creating a crisis is not a good idea, but nonetheless they seem to be bent on pushing to increase tension between people on the Peninsula. And of course there is a risk of violence against either ethnic Russians, civilians that are there or against the sailors and soldiers on the base.

Read more‘West Plays With Fire To Drive The Russian Naval Base Out Of Crimea’ (Video)

Absurd Amount Of U.S. Taxpayer Money Used To Provide Some Of The Wealthiest Companies With Corporate Welfare (Video)

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YouTube Added: Feb 25, 2014

Description:

Abby Martin remarks on a recent report by GoodJobsFirst.org which exposes the absurd amount of taxpayer money used to provide some of the wealthiest companies in the US with corporate welfare.

Interview With Bin Laden Raid Eyewitness Mohammad Bashir … Fundamentally Contradicts The Official Story (Video)

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Description:

Watch this interview from Saama TV, Pakistan, with eye witness Mohammad
Bashir, a resident of Abbottabad and neighbour to the alleged “compound”
where the US government claim Osama bin Laden was hiding. Mohammad
gives his eyewitness account of what he saw happen on 2 May 2011 (local
time) – an account which fundamentally contradicts the official story.

Planned Parenthood Produces Video Promoting Bondage And Sadomasochism To Teens

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Related info:

– Insider Exposed NEW WORLD ORDER Plans In 1969 (MP3 & Transcipt)

Research the history and the background of planned parenthood and its founder Margaret Sanger if you have time.

President Barack Obama hugs Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards
President Barack Obama hugs Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

– Planned Parenthood Produces Video Promoting Bondage and Sadomasochism to Teens (CNS News, Feb 26, 2014):

(CNSNews.com) — Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE)–which received more than $2.75 million in government funding in 2012–has produced and posted online a video specifically aimed at teenagers that promotes bondage and sadomasochism (BDSM) and proposes “rules” to follow when engaging in these activities.

“People sometimes think that those who practice BDSM are emotionally scarred or were once abused—not true, it’s a total myth,” the host of the video, Laci Green, informs its intended audience of teens.

“BDSM relies upon and creates trust,” she says.

In a message published at the beginning of PPNNE’s 2012 annual report, PPNNE President Meagan Gallagher described the genesis of the project that produced the video on bondage and sadomasochism.

“We continued to grow our online presence, and launched an innovative social education project called ‘A Naked Notion’ (www.anakednotion.org),” wrote Gallagher. “The numbers show that young people took notice–PPNNE’s ‘A Naked Notion’ YouTube channel has been viewed more than a million times!”

Read morePlanned Parenthood Produces Video Promoting Bondage And Sadomasochism To Teens

California Gets Rain … And Possibly Flash Floods

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FYI.

drought-1234

– California Gets Rain…and Possibly Flash Floods (The Daily Sheeple, Feb 27, 2014):

It’s raining in California, and much more is forecast before the week is out. Although it is more than welcome it doesn’t mean the drought is over, it would take much more precipitation to fill the reservoirs. The  rain that is due to fall will bring with it major problems for some residents.

The areas of Glendora and Azusa, northeast of Los Angeles it at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, an area that was hit by wildfires recently. 2,000 acres of trees were destroyed by the fires, and the loose ash and dried earth on the slopes where the trees once stood, make the area very prone to mud slides, some of which may contain debris such as semi-burnt tree stumps and rocks.

Mudslides have an enormous power, gaining speed as they move down the mountain.

Flowing like rivers they wipe out everything in their path and can move at speeds that give little chance of escape.

Fox News reports:

Read moreCalifornia Gets Rain … And Possibly Flash Floods