iRobot to Build Soft Military Robots

The U.S. military has gone soft - with a contract for soft, flexible "ChemBots" that can creep through tiny spaces.

The next generation of military robot won’t be gun-toting, armored, or equipped with explosives. Instead, it will be soft. So says iRobot about the next custom robot it will be engineering for the U.S. military.

The company announced Tuesday that it had received a multi-year, $3.3 million contract for the mobile robots from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army Research Office. Their mission: build a so-called ChemBot that can worm its way through the most cluttered and complex environments, and through openings that are smaller than it is.
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Still Pushing For Strike On Iran - War For Israel

Bush: Use of force on Iran not ruled out

The US President says although he hopes to settle Iran's nuclear standoff through diplomacy he will not rule out the use of force.

"I would like to say one thing about the Iranian demand for civilian nuclear power, it is a justifiable demand," he said in London.

The US President has repeatedly vowed to keep the military option on the table, arguing that the 'consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran are such that military strikes are justified, whether a smoking gun is found or not'.

Iran asserts that as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty it is entitled to enrich uranium for civilian purposes.
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Brown: We will take action against Iran

"Today Britain will urge Europe, and Europe will agree to take further sanctions against Iran," the prime minister said in a joint press conference with US President George W. Bush.

"We will take action today that will freeze the overseas assets of the biggest bank in Iran, the Melli bank, and secondly action will start today for a new phase of sanctions on oil and gas," Brown added.

Despite Iran's transparency in its nuclear issue and international reports conceding that Tehran is not running a nuclear weapons program, the West continues to threaten the Islamic Republic with intensified sanctions.

This is while Tehran has repeatedly asserted that as a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) it is entitled to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, adding that the country is not seeking to develop nuclear bombs as such weapons have no place in its defense doctrine.
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Crude oil prices nearing $140

Despite Saudi Arabia's decision to increase crude output, oil prices have struck an all-time high of over 139 dollars per barrel.

The price of New York's light, sweet crude for July delivery reached a record high point of 139.89 dollars a barrel on Monday.

This is while following UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's appeal to King Abdullah in Jeddah on Saturday, Saudi Arabia agreed to produce an extra 200,000 barrels per day starting from July.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced on Monday that Britain was starting action for a new phase of sanctions on Iran's oil and gas sectors.

"We will take action today that will freeze the overseas assets of the biggest bank in Iran, the Melli bank, and secondly action will start today for a new phase of sanctions on oil and gas," Brown said

Iran holds the world's second largest oil and gas reserves.
Source

Pentagon, DARPA eyes breakthrough binoculars

The Pentagon has awarded $6.7 million in seed money to try to develop binoculars that would tap a user's brain waves to home in on threats, Northrop Grumman Corp said on Monday.

The company said it was leading an academic and industry consortium assembled for the project, known as the Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System program, or CT2WS.

The plan features a custom helmet equipped with electrodes placed on the scalp to record neural responses to the presence or absence of potential threats, Los Angeles-based Northrop said in a statement.

The brain's input would "train the system's algorithms, which will continue to be refined over time so that the warfighter is always presented with items of relevance to his mission," the statement said.

The goal is to detect enemy forces and vehicles over ranges of one to 10 kilometers while surveying a 120-degree or greater field of view, according to documents on DARPA's Web site.
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More Info: Northrop-led team developing binoculars for military that taps into brain waves

Patriot Act cuts into library privacy

The U.S. Patriot Act threatens Americans’ freedom to read, an official of an arm of the national Association of American Publishers said Monday.

“Library privacy laws are now trumped by the Patriot Act,” said Judy Platt, director of communications and public affairs of Freedom to Read.

Platt told the Press Club of Baton Rouge that a field agent of the FBI can currently seek records if they think they “are relevant to an on-going investigation … with absolutely no court supervision.”

Platt said her group is part of a coalition trying to get judicial oversight of the FBI activity. It is pushing for passage of the bipartisan “National Security Letter Reform Act,” she said.

“We want judicial oversight to be put back into the program,” Platt said. “Today they don’t have to show that a crime has been committed. They don’t have to show probable cause. All they have to say is it is relevant.”
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'Jewish settler attack' on film

Footage from a video camera handed out by an Israeli human rights group appears to show Jewish settlers beating up Palestinians in the West Bank.

For the past year, B'Tselem has handed out video cameras to Palestinians as part of its "Shooting Back" project.

The thinking behind the project is that when trouble flares, rather than just giving a statement to the Israeli police or army, video carries much more weight.

"The difference is amazing," says Oren Yakobovich, who leads the Shooting Back project.

"When they have the camera, they have proof that something happened. They now have something they can work with, to use as a weapon."
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Israel lobby authors in Israel

Echoing their claim that pro-Israel forces in Washington had pressured the United States into attacking Iraq, the pair argued that the same forces are now pushing the country into attacking Iran.

"There is only one country in the world that is putting any pressure on the U.S. to attack Iran, and that is Israel," Mearsheimer told a packed lecture hall at Hebrew University, according to the Jerusalem Post. "And it is putting enormous pressure on the US."

Mearsheimer added, "Inside the United States, it is pro-Israel individuals and groups who are almost wholly responsible for pressure being brought to bear on Bush and Cheney to use military force on Iran. The idea that the lobby and Israel don't put huge amounts of pressure on the U.S. is contradictory to the evidence."
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West Bank Israeli teens fake abduction

Two Israeli teenagers from the West Bank are suspected of faking their abduction by Palestinians.

The students from the community of Yitzhar were taken into Israeli custody early Thursday in a military raid on a Palestinian village near Nablus.

The teens had telephoned Israeli authorities claiming to have been abducted by Palestinians, but Israel Radio quoted police as saying they believe the two came to the village overnight of their own accord to vandalize property and were cornered by locals.

Initially the military also was led to believe that a third teen may have been snatched, but this proved to be false. The incident prompted Israel to mobilize its security forces for a large-scale dragnet of the area, abandoning planned counterterrorist missions.

Authorities said the teens would be charged with filing a false police complaint and required to compensate the state for the expense of the overnight "rescue."
Source

Where's healthy debate on U.S. policy toward Israel?

NOW that the presidential primaries are over, it is fair to ask: Why do the presumptive candidates of our two major parties vigorously debate the economy, health care, Iraq, and every other issue, but mouth down-the-line support for hawkish Israeli positions?

That tendency was on national display last week when Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama each spoke to the annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC.

Each candidate recited a nearly identical litany of pro-Israeli positions on everything from Israel's demand to keep Jerusalem as Israel's capital to refusing to negotiate with the Palestinian group Hamas.

Yet long before the birth of Hamas in 1987, Israel had expelled Palestinians, confiscated their property and demolished their homes. It had tortured, assassinated, banished or imprisoned Palestinians without trial. Israel's violations of Palestinians' human rights have been extensively documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B'Tselem (an Israeli human rights organization) and other respected institutions.
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12 June '08: Soldiers help settlers attack Palestinian putting out a fire near 'Asira al-Qibliya

Inspiring Words From Ghandi

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.”

“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.”

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”
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1GB Camcorder Pen

I randomly found this. Just something interesting.
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This quite discrete “secret agent pen” features a built-in 1GB flash memory and it is capable or recording almost 3 hours of video with audio.

"Sitting in your shirt pocket, standing in the pen cup or lying on the desk no-one will ever notice as you secretly capture their every move. The built in flash stores the video until it is ready to be downloaded to a computer via USB, and with 1GB of memory you’ll get almost 3 hours of recording time.

The video is encoded on the fly through a buffer system to MPEG 4 and if the battery runs low during a recording session the pen will ensure it writes the video from the buffer to flash before shutting down. All video is captured with audio making this the perfect tool for recording confessions, secret rendezvous or interviews.

The pen itself is an attractive writing instrument with a gloss black finish on the main body, rubber finger grip and chrome detailing."
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U.S. a bigger threat than Iran ever will be

The United States has made over 70,000 nuclear weapons with over 10,000 still operational and it is rumored that tiny Israel, with no infrastructure for developing nuclear weapons, has over 100 nuclear weapons.

Why again are these two countries so much in a hurry to attack a relatively weak nation?

I can only think of one possible answer that makes sense. The U.S. federal government has and has had many people at the highest levels of our government with either dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship or very strong ties to Israel such as Michael Chertoff, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Larry Franklin, Doug Feith, Ed Luttwak, Henry Kissinger, Ken Adelman, Lewis Libby, Bob Satloff, Elliott Abrams, Marc Grossman, James Schlesinger, David Frum, John Bolton, etc. etc. etc.

It is clear that it is in the best interests of Israel to have the powerful U.S. military attacking Middle Eastern countries who are not happy with Israel's constant terrorization of Palestinians.

The final question would then have to be "just who are all these men trying to serve - the people of the United States or Israel?"
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Remembering Ukraine's Unknown Holocaust

As Britain's socialist government cleared the way for a gaudy show trial of that Great Satan of the left, Chile's Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the 65th anniversary of this century's bloodiest crime was utterly ignored. Leftists now baying for Pinochet's head don't want to be reminded of the Unknown Holocaust.

In 1932, Soviet leader Josef Stalin unleashed genocide in Ukraine. Stalin determined to force Ukraine's millions of independent farmers - called kulaks - into collectivized Soviet agriculture, and to crush Ukraine's growing spirit of nationalism.

Faced by resistance to collectivization, Stalin unleashed terror and dispatched 25,000 fanatical young party militants from Moscow - earlier versions of Mao's Red Guards - to force 10 million Ukrainian peasants into collective farms. Secret police units of OGPU began selective executions of recalcitrant farmers.
When Stalin's red guards failed to make a dent in this immense number, OGPU was ordered to begin mass executions.

But there were simply not enough Chekists (secret police) to kill so many people, so Stalin decided to replace bullets with a much cheaper medium of death - mass starvation.
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Man's mortification into sheeple (CLICK HERE)

Have Fun Voting Out There Folks! (Not Really)

I just turned 18 this year and all I know is that I won't be wasting my time on such a pointless event.
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Clinton: Obama will be Israel's friend
"Let me be very clear, I know that Senator Obama will be a good friend to Israel," AFP quoted Clinton as saying.

"I know that Senator Obama shares my view that the next president must be ready to say to the world, 'America's position is unchanging, our resolve unyielding, our stance non negotiable, the United States stands with Israel now and forever," she added.
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Obama: I'll take care of Iran for Israel
Speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Obama said, “The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

"I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel," Obama said.
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'Pentagon wants insect-like nano-drones'

Straight out of a James Bond movie/video game!
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The U.S. agency responsible for future weapons technology, DARPA, has ordered the creation of an insect-sized flying machine capable of carrying out surveillance. The news was revealed by the project contractor, AeroVironment, in a press-release.

Top generals hope it will lead to a so-called Nano Air Vehicle. The flying machine is to be only 7cm long, weighing just 10g. The device will mimic an ordinary insect.

The James Bond like scheme has already cost the U.S. military more then $2.3 million.

The hand-launched device will be used for security, surveillance, reconnaissance and other indoor and outdoor missions.

The Californian firm is to create a working prototype in half a year.
Source

World's Smallest UAV Weighs 10 Grams, Flaps Like a Bird

AreoVironment is building the world's smallest UAV, called the Nano Air Vehicle, that has moving wings instead of a propeller or engine. DARPA has given the company $636,000 and six months to demonstrate an ultra-small UAV that will be under three inches long and under 10 grams.

The concept for the project came about through a $1.7 million "Phase One" brainstorming contract. Apparently unaware of the existence of birds, DARPA decided that this innovative and classy new idea was worth pushing through to development and handed over the second wad of cash this week. The Nano Air Vehicle is part of an apparent trend toward smaller and smaller UAVs, following AreoVironment's 80 gram, six inch Black Widow and Prox Dynamics' four inch, 20 gram Black Hornet (which, thanks to the less literal-minded people at PD, does not fly like an actual insect).
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War Without Soldiers

The future of the U.S. military looks a bit like a child's toy glider.

Known as the Switchblade, the high-tech mini-plane built by Monrovia, Calif.-based contractor AeroVironment, can be packed in a tube that weighs less than four pounds. Pull it out and its wings, about a foot long, snap into place. Throw it, and its motor engages, setting it to fly a pre-programmed route or a path guided by remote control.
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DARPA's AMP (Accelerated Manufacture of Pharmaceuticals) Program

Maybe this has some significance, maybe it doesn't. I just find it interesting that they are running a program for "Biological Warfare Defense". Maybe they're giving us a hint of something to come? Maybe not. Just something I found. Draw your own conclusion, do your own research!
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Current vaccine and protein manufacturing systems require years to produce meaningful quantities of therapeutics. Consequently, these systems fail to provide timely, flexible, and cost-effective therapies to protect against a mass-casualty infection or poisoning. In addition, the identity of many new biological threat agents are unlikely to be known in advance and therefore pre-emptive manufacturing and stockpiling of countermeasures can not be performed. Our military’s operational readiness and need for specific vaccines and monoclonal therapies require a radical solution to replace the current slow scale-up and manufacture of these life saving drugs.

The Accelerated Manufacture of Pharmaceuticals (AMP) Program seeks to produce therapeutics or vaccines “on demand,” in large quantity, at low cost, to interdict both established and new biological threats. AMP will significantly shorten the time required to produce high-quality protein therapeutics such as vaccines and antidotes. The goal of the program is to create an extremely rapid, flexible, and cost-effective manufacturing system capable of producing 3 million doses of GMP-quality vaccines or monoclonal antibodies (mAB) within 12 weeks.
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Also See: Flexible Manufacturing of Pharmaceuticals for Biological Warfare Defense (PDF)

What's Up With HAARP?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkLTzesBxGE&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi1nLmlicxU

Iran to post Web response to Dutch anti-Islam film Fitna

According to the Tehran Times, the new documentary, entitled "Beyond Fitna", was directed by a group of Iranian filmmakers and produced by the Islam and Christianity Nongovernmental Organization.

"The film honors all monotheistic religions and gives a response to the anti-Islam propaganda of Western extremists," the NGO's spokesman, Mohammad Karimi, told official Iranian news agency IRNA.

He said the documentary was produced under the supervision of a group of religious scholars and Iranian professional documentarians in the English, Persian, and Arabic languages.
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Military Suicides

Not just in the US Military but also in Russia's Military too. And I'm sure in other countries too. This is bad stuff.
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The number of Army suicides increased again last year, amid the most violent year yet in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Two defense officials said Thursday that 108 troops committed suicide in 2007, six more than the previous year. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the full report on the deaths wasn't being released until later Thursday.
Army suicides reported up again at 108
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The Pentagon released new figures today revealing that 40,000 U.S. troops have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder since the Iraq war began in 2003. Bad enough, but officials believe many more are keeping their illness secret.
As Suicides Surge, Military Reveals 40,000 Cases of PTSD
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A total of 341 Russian servicemen committed suicide in 2007, Russia's chief military prosecutor said on Thursday.

Suicides remain the leading cause of non-combat deaths in Russia's Armed Forces, ahead of crimes, accidents and hazing.
Prosecutors report 341 military suicides in 2007

Israel, U.S. opt out of cluster bomb ban

Israel, the United States and four other major military powers opted out of an international ban on cluster bombs.

Human rights groups say the bombs pose a threat to civilians because they often do not detonate on time and are left dormant for months. Israel particularly has been criticized for their use; some 200 Lebanese have been killed or maimed since the end of Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah. Israel says it scattered a million bomblets over south Lebanon during that war.

The United States stayed out of the negotiations, in part because it says the devices can be critical in repelling an advancing army. It failed, however, to persuade NATO allies to keep out. Nonetheless, the six major users and producers of cluster bombs did not sign the treaty: Israel, the United States, Pakistan, India, China and Russia.
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29 May '08: Israel refuses to issue ID cards to unregistered Palestinians

Israel refuses to provide a solution for residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip whose parents did not register them in the population registry at birth. Living without ID cards, these persons are often barred from realizing basic rights such as the right to work, to education, to family life, and more.

“I long for the day I’ll finally get an ID card. I want to pass through each and every checkpoint in the West Bank, just to show everyone I have an ID card. Sometimes I feel that death will be the only solution to my problem. In the afterlife I’m sure no one gets asked about his ID card.”
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Monkeys control a robot arm with thoughts

Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday.

The report, released online by the journal Nature, is the most striking demonstration to date of brain-machine interface technology. Scientists expect that technology will eventually allow people with spinal cord injuries and other paralyzing conditions to gain more control over their lives.

The findings suggest that brain-controlled prosthetics, while not practical, are at least technically within reach.
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IAEA: No N-weaponization found in Iran

The IAEA has not detected the use of nuclear material linked to Iran's "alleged studies" of weaponization, the agency's latest report says.

The findings are part of a restricted International Atomic Energy Agency report forwarded to the UN Security Council and to the 35 board members of the agency on Monday, May 26.

“The Agency has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has provided the Agency with access to declared nuclear material and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and activities,” said the report, a copy of which was obtained by Press TV.
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Israeli and US Death Squads Infesting the World

White House and CIA lawyers claim that an intelligence “finding” makes a difference because the ban on political assassinations doesn't apply in wartime. Hey presto! The right sort of finding puts everything on a war footing. They also say that the prohibition won’t prevent the US taking action against terrorists. And in the wake of 9/11 it won’t stop the United States acting in self-defence. So, all the US has to do is invent or manufacture a “finding”, label the folk who stand in their way “terrorists” and claim the murder was an act of self-defence in a war situation, and they're home and dry.
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Zionism and the Media

GRAHAM: "The Jewish stranglehold on the media has got to be broken or this country's going down the drain."

NIXON: "You believe that?"

GRAHAM: "Yes, sir."

NIXON: "Oh boy. So do I. I can't ever say that but I do believe it."
- Religious leader Billy Graham and President Richard Nixon Exchange captured on tape.
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Part of the Zionists' control of this country's policies toward Israel comes through their extensive influence on the American and world media. The main reason for this is the strong presence of Jewish owners in the media and their presence in the editorial rooms as writers and editors that gives Zionists such influence. In addition, when one word in a media outlet is said publically against Israel, the Zionists are quick to organize a boycott of that newspaper, radio station, TV station or movie corporation calling them anti-Semitic (i.e. the movie, "The Passion of Christ") and unfairly trying to conjur up all the images that they've kept in the public mind with that term - what one writer calls the use of the "holocaust syndrome."
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Carter: Israel has 150 nuclear warheads

Former US president Jimmy Carter says the Zionist regime possesses 150 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, according to The Times of London.

The southern town of Dimona is home to a reactor that is the centerpiece of Israel's illegal nuclear weapons program. The regime began developing a nuclear reactor in Dimona in the 1950s.

The Zionist regime is reportedly the only nuclear-armed country in the Middle East which has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
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Finkelstein faces Israeli deportation

Outspoken academic Norman Finkelstein has been denied entry to the Israel and later whisked away to a prison awaiting deportation.

Finkelstein arrived in Tel Aviv earlier on Friday on his way to the Occupied Territories.

He was immediately detained and told he is banned from Israel for 10 years. Finkelstein is one of the most prominent academic critics of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Finkelstein, who is Jewish and the son of Holocaust survivors, has written critical books on Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories and on what he called 'exploitation' of the Jewish tragedy during World War II.

His writings, noted for their support of the Palestinian cause have dealt with politically-charged topics such as Zionism , the demographic history of Palestine and his allegations of the existence of a "Holocaust industry" that exploits the memory of the Holocaust to further Israeli and financial interests.
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