the big 5 stories:

#1 - Is The CIA Behind Mexico's Bloody Drug War?

Is the CIA the cause of the bloody border war that is happening right now just south of the US? 23,000 have died and counting. The Central Intelligence Agency has a long history of criminal activity and drug running with roots that go back to the agency's forerunners. The current Mexican drug war that is reeking havoc of the US border is the result of both above-board policies and black-budget shenanigans. From dealings with Lucky Luciano to bringing crack-cocaine to south central Los Angeles to the opium production going on right now in Afghanistan, the CIA has always been the world's drug dealer. Journalist Mike Whitney reports that the evidence of CIA involvement in the drug trade is vast, documented and compelling." Full Story

#2 - Homeland: Drones Coming to Texas

Many may not know it but "drones" have been flying over every border state except Texas. That now changes as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that unmanned aerial drones will soon fly through Texas skies. The same drones that have killed over 700 Afghans (see below). The reason given was to fight the drug war but the growing presence of a military weapon patrolling domestic skies is sending a chilling to many. Full Story

#3 - Obama's Drone War Killed 700 Afghans in 2009

Of the 44 predator strikes carried out by US drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan over the past 12 months, only five were able to hit their actual targets, killing five key Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but at the cost of over 700 innocent civilians.

According to the statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, the Afghanistan-based US drones killed 708 people in 44 predator attacks targeting the tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009.

For each Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians, claim authorities.

The success percentage for the drone hits during 2009 was hardly 11 per cent. On average, 58 civilians were killed in these attacks every month, 12 persons every week and almost two people every day. Most of the attacks were carried out on the basis of human intelligence, reportedly provided by the Pakistani and Afghan tribesmen, who are spying for the US-led allied forces in Afghanistan. Full Story

#4 - Polls Show Growing Support for Repeal of Health Reform

A new national poll shows support for repealing President Obama’s health care reform law has not abated in the month since its passage, and actually ticked up.

“Support for repeal of the recently-passed national health care plan remains strong as most voters believe the law will increase the cost of care, hurt quality and push the federal budget deficit even higher,” said the new release from the polling firm Rasmussen Reports.

Fifty-eight (58) percent of likely voters said they would support an effort to repeal the legislation, as Republicans have given consideration to campaigning on such a promise. Just 38 percent communicated opposition to such an effort.

The percentage who support repeal efforts are up 3 percent from the week just after the bill passed, when President Obama made several campaign-style stops in support of the bill. Full Story

#5 - Death Squads in Afghanistan

It should no longer be a matter of dispute that US Special Forces in Afghanistan are responsible for an increasing number of murders, whether part of targeted extra-judicial killings or the result of bad intelligence. From the attack on a bridal shower in Gardez on February 12, 2010 that killed numerous civilians, including two pregnant women, to the growing list of executions of insurgents in the Kandahar area, Special Forces have become the US military version of death squads.

As noted in an April 25 article in New York Times, the offensive against supposed Taliban forces in Kandahar has already commenced, with the "opening salvos of the offensive…being carried out in the shadows by Special Operations forces." Full Story

also:
*Financial Reform: GOP Prepared To Abandon Stalling Tactics

*Immigrants fall through the cracks of a broken system

*US puts child soldier on trial

the Girls of CoOlDiGgY tm

(coming soon)

the fairer sex

Meet Katya, the Sex Spy Who Silences Dissenters

She has piercing blue eyes, a girl-next-door face and likes to do a little amateur modeling, yet according to those who have fallen for her charms, Ekaterina Gerasimova is also the Kremlin's most effective secret agent and a latter-day Mata Hari.

Her mission, it is claimed, is to discredit prominent Kremlin critics by luring them into compromising situations using vintage KGB honeytrap techniques.

Offering her body, sex, and drugs from cocaine to marijuana as an inducement, "Katya," as she is usually known, has tried and often succeeded in bedding at least half-a-dozen high-profile Kremlin critics and other political figures. The damage to reputations has varied from serious to negligible depending on her victim's marital status and response.

Her latest scalp was Viktor Shenderovich, a journalist and the scriptwriter on Russia's former version of the Spitting Image television satire.

Mr Shenderovich, who is married and has a daughter, admits that he slept with Ms Gerasimova but claims he was set up by the Kremlin.

His credibility as an authoritative critic of the Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, appears to have been at least partly dented and his marriage is reportedly in trouble.

The editor of Russian Newsweek magazine also fell under Ms Gerasimova's spell and was filmed in his underpants chopping up what looked like cocaine after having sex.

A clutch of anti-Kremlin opposition figures and activists, including a man resembling the leader of the National Bolshevik Party, have also been caught in flagrante delicto.

But unlike Soviet times, when the secret service used compromising material to blackmail, Ms Gerasimova's exploits have been widely publicised in grainy videos on the internet.

The footage is often accompanied by mocking music and subtitles. It has taken a few weeks for the victims to realise that they have all been set up by the same woman.

Yet little is known about Ms Gerasimova beyond that she is in her twenties and is registered with an online modelling agency. Nicknamed ''Moo-Moo'' after the surname she uses on a social networking site, men said she used different first names and was highly persistent in her advances.

Some of the men said they knew something was wrong when she suddenly produced drugs or, in one case, asked a young opposition leader to join her and a female friend in experimenting with a large selection of sex toys.

She now seems to have disappeared, but at least one other prominent Kremlin critic has said he expects a similar video featuring himself and the woman to reach the internet soon.

girl blurbs

...now fresh out of rehab


*Sandra Bullock finally gets a real man

*Katie Holmes prepares her O. face: Will play Jackie Kennedy

*Oy Vey: Billy Joel's daughter, Alexa Ray, back stabs us, her fellow Jews, and gets a nose job

*Just like Family Guy said: Laura Bush talks about the person she killed

*We don't need a reason: Lizzy Caplan pictures

*Bad Mooooooove: Olivia Munn sports leather boots on her way PETA event while leaving Fat Burger

randomDiGgY

human taxidermy - at its worst

technocracy & the matrix

Apple Traced iPhone to Track Journalist’s Address

It is hard to say what is worse, the fact that an iPhone can trace you or the fact that, at Apple's request, San Mateo cops raided a journalist's home and seized his property for having possession of a glorified toy.

Steve Jobs and his fellow technocrats at Facebook and Google are going too far. They are toymakers, yes, they are cyber Hasbro's. Their products should be a fun way to pass the time. These constant instances of Constitution-stomping are ruining the point of what they are selling us - frivolous fun. That's it.

There is entirely too much "stuff" worship in our society. But worse, we all get trapped in the cult of personality of these tech moguls. We find it hard to admit when they've gone too far because their images are so nice n' fluffy, and we equate their toys with our identities. A hipster crimestop, if you will.

No doubt about it, Apple's latest display of tyranny is a PR nightmare. The era of being an Apple early adopter should take a breather. Full Story

RELATED: Gizmodo considers suing police after iPhone raid

The Daily P.P. Awards
Predictive programming - when TV tells you how it's gonna be

Today's award goes to G4TV's X-Play. Or, as it should be called, Comcast's Continuing Push To Get You in The Cloud or CCPTGYC. Okay, not a very marketable title. X-Play is more than just a very entertaining video game review program, it is the industry's biggest cheerleader for multi-player gaming over strong single-player campaigns. Their reviews often punish games that have no online components but do not penalize those games with short or weak single-player. They also heavily advocate the buying of games online and have a weekly segment dedicated solely to MMORPG's.

Publishers, like most media owners, would love nothing more than to eliminate "hard" copies of product as to end your ability to "own" what you buy (hold it in your hand, play it on any Xbox you want to, trade in, etc). They also like pushing online multi-player because, in theory, it extends the life of a game instead of them having to put much effort in developing a cerebral I.P. Just add maps once in a while. And Microsoft loves it because it sells loads of XBox Live subscriptions. X-Play's advertisers approve!

But G4TV's parent company is Comcast, an avowed net neutrality foe, loves it because they are an internet provider. Their goal is to get everything that they can into "The Cloud" where all of your computer's data is stored to "save you the trouble of using hardware." Everything from your photos to your porn will be under the stewardship of Comcast and when you want it back, just ask nicely.


also:
*Palm saved? HP buys for $1 billion

*Glenn Beck's ratings on the decline

*Patents may force Android to charge

post-frivolous man

BEST and WORST Cities for the Recently-Graduated

Best:

1) Atlanta, GA
2) Pittsburgh, PA
3) Austin, TX
4) Denver, CO
5) Minneapolis, MN

Worst:

1) New York, NY
2) Detroit, MI
3) Los Angeles, CA
4) Cleveland, OH
5) St. Louis, MO

Full Story

the big 5 stories:

#1 - "Audit the Fed" Builds Support in Senate

The grassroots measure to give the private-owned Federal Reserve its first audit ever is building bipartisan support in the Senate. The bill, started in the House and championed by Reps. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Alan Grayson (D-FL), has gain a sponsor in Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and garnered possible advocates like Sanders is joined by four Republicans of varying politics: John McCain (AR), Jim DeMint (SC), David Vitter (LA) and Sam Brownback (KS).

If Democrats in the Senate back the measure, it would have at least 63 votes, but Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) is opposed and has argued against a broad audit. Dodd, a lame-duck who is leaving due to a conflict of interest scandal involving the financial firms he oversees, may be compromised and his opposition has not changed the public momentum for the audit.

Sen. Sanders has stated, "Let's not equate independence with secrecy. We cannot let the Fed operate in secrecy any longer. There is simply too much money at stake." Full Story

#2 - Rep. Calls for Federal Non-Cooperation with AZ Immigration Law

Outrage is growing over the passage of a controversial new measure in Arizona that forces police officers to determine the immigration status of someone they suspect of being an undocumented immigrant. We speak with Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), who is urging federal non-cooperation with the new law and is calling for a targeted economic boycott of Arizona. We also speak with Sunita Patel, an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is filing a lawsuit demanding records related to ICE’s little known “Secure Communities” program. Full Story

RELATED: Mexico issues travel alert for Mexican citizens in Arizona

#3 - Manuel Noriega, from US Friend to Foe

(Democracy Now): The US has extradited the former Panamanian president and CIA asset Manuel Noriega to France to face trial on money laundering charges. Noriega has been jailed in Miami since 1990 after his overthrow in the US invasion of Panama that killed up to 3,000 people. Noriega’s drug trafficking sentence ended two years ago, but he’s remained in jail while fighting France’s extradition request. Noriega’s attorney, Frank Rubino, criticized the US for failing to inform him of Noriega’s extradition.

Before Saddam Hussein there was Manuel Noriega. Like Saddam, Noriega enjoyed US support until he turned into a wayward ally, then an embarrassment, and finally an "imminent danger" who had to be overthrown.

Noriega was recruited as a CIA informant while studying at a military academy in Peru. He received intelligence and counterintelligence training at the School of the Americas at Fort Gulick, Panama, in 1967, as well as a course in psychological operations at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was to remain on the CIA payroll until February 1988. Full Story

#4 - Obama Will Not Comment on Debt Until After Elections

A possible Obama Austerity plan will be revealed after the mid-terms elections and a lame-duck session of Congress may pass the law and take the heat.

The President has commissioned a debt panel and is keeping his plans secret for the next 7 months. "I'm not going to say what's in, I'm not going to say what's out," Obama said as his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform held its first meeting. Eventually we, the public, will be allowed to know about the fiscal state of our nation. And then the President will scapegoat the Congress to implement his "difficult political decisions." Full Story

#5 - Bank Oligarchy: 60% of US is Owned by Them

Today financial power is being concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals. In fact, the six biggest banks in the United States now possess assets equivalent to 60 percent of America's gross national product. Back in the 1990s that figure was less than 20 percent. These six banks - Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo - literally dictate what goes on in the U.S. banking industry. Full Story

also:
*Ninth Circuit OKs Huge Class in Wal-Mart Gender Discrimination Case

*Police State Canada 2010 and the G20 Summit

*Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People: New Book

*Wall Street Reform: A Big Flop for the Big Lie Strategy?