killa-bee-el-zebub

sciencedaily |  When people get together in groups, unusual things can happen -- both good and bad. Groups create important social institutions that an individual could not achieve alone, but there can be a darker side to such alliances: Belonging to a group makes people more likely to harm others outside the group.

"Although humans exhibit strong preferences for equity and moral prohibitions against harm in many contexts, people's priorities change when there is an 'us' and a 'them,'" says Rebecca Saxe, an associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at MIT. "A group of people will often engage in actions that are contrary to the private moral standards of each individual in that group, sweeping otherwise decent individuals into 'mobs' that commit looting, vandalism, even physical brutality."

Several factors play into this transformation. When people are in a group, they feel more anonymous, and less likely to be caught doing something wrong. They may also feel a diminished sense of personal responsibility for collective actions.

Saxe and colleagues recently studied a third factor that cognitive scientists believe may be involved in this group dynamic: the hypothesis that when people are in groups, they "lose touch" with their own morals and beliefs, and become more likely to do things that they would normally believe are wrong.

In a study that recently went online in the journal NeuroImage, the researchers measured brain activity in a part of the brain involved in thinking about oneself. They found that in some people, this activity was reduced when the subjects participated in a competition as part of a group, compared with when they competed as individuals. Those people were more likely to harm their competitors than people who did not exhibit this decreased brain activity.

"This process alone does not account for intergroup conflict: Groups also promote anonymity, diminish personal responsibility, and encourage reframing harmful actions as 'necessary for the greater good.' Still, these results suggest that at least in some cases, explicitly reflecting on one's own personal moral standards may help to attenuate the influence of 'mob mentality,'" says Mina Cikara, a former MIT postdoc and lead author of the NeuroImage paper.

 

careful with those waha-bees eugene!!!

rudaw |  Turkey has tolerated Islamic extremists crossing its border to join the fight in Syria, but with the same Islamists now raising havoc in Iraq Turkey may have to rethink its policy of aiding the militants, analysts and activists say.

Last week, Turkey felt the direct impact of the turmoil in Iraq, after its consulate in Mosul was taken over by insurgents and its diplomats captured, only to be freed a day later.

“Radical Islamic groups, with the knowledge of the Turkish intelligence service, recruit and send our young kids to the war in Syria from border bases in Turkey’s Kurdish provinces,” charged Atilla Yazar, head of the Urfa branch of Turkey’s Human Rights Association (IHD).

“Now we hope that the Turks have realized how dangerous these groups are, and that they'll stop supporting the anti-Kurdish groups and engage in a dialogue with the Kurds in Syria.”

The insurgents – a dangerous league of Islamic militants and loyalists from Saddam Hussein’s ousted regime and military – have seized large portions of Sunni territories, including Tikrit, Anbar and parts of Dyala province, halting only 100 kilometers from  Baghdad.

Ankara has been accused of supporting the jihadists, which includes the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), because they are fighting the Bashar Assad regime in Syria.

Turkey, whose decade-long policy has been to keep a tight lid on its own large minority Kurds, has also seen its interests served in ISIS clashes with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has unilaterally declared autonomy in Syria’s northwestern Kurdish regions.

"So far, militants from ISIS have been able to get treatment in hospitals in Turkey and hold meetings there. Turkey tried using ISIS against Assad and PYD,” explained Joost Jongerden, assistant professor at Wageningen University in Netherlands.

According to Daniella Kuzmanovic, lecturer at Copenhagen University and an expert on Turkey, Ankara’s cozy relations with the jihadis may come to an end now.

wah-ha bees...,

dailymail |  WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

• Image of officer's decapitated head tweeted with sickening message: 'This is our ball. It's made of skin #WorldCup'
• Battle lines drawn as Iraqi forces gather at base just 20 miles outside Baghdad after militants seize two more towns
• President Obama rules out sending troops back to Iraq but promises to review military options including air strikes
• Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki claims security forces have now started to clear several cities of 'the terrorists'
• More than 20 UK nationals thought to be trapped in territories where Islamists are carrying out summary executions
• Al Qaeda-inspired militants stage jubilant parade of American Humvee patrol cars seized from collapsing Iraqi army
• Masked fighters wave the black flag of the Islamic State and flash the 'V' sign while shouting 'towards Baghdad!'
• Insurgents have also captured two helicopters, 15 tanks and armoured cars that used to belong to U.S. military
• Iraq's refugee population has increased by almost 800,000 this year as the government struggles against rebels
• President Barack Obama weighs up possible airstrikes - but rules out putting U.S. soldiers back on the ground
• ISIS leader dismissed Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as woefully incompetent, calling him 'underwear merchant'

girls gone for good, killer-bees wahlin, politicians and ass-clowns gassin out they necks...,

BI | It's now been two months since terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 Nigerian school girls in the country's unstable north.

Despite new aerial patrols from U.S. drones, no progress has been made in locating them. This past week, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo said some of the girls may never return home. And ordinary Nigerians are accusing the Nigerian government of trying to stifle their pleas to keep the situation top of mind. 

In an op-ed on Project Syndicate, former British PM Gordon Brown goes a step further, discussing the gruesome reason for why the campaign may have already been lost:

...it is likely that in the month since Boko Haram released a video of the girls flanked by gunmen, the girls have been split into groups of 40-50. If one group is rescued by force, the others will be murdered, creating a serious tactical dilemma for the Nigerian government’s special forces.

And, as the world’s attention shifts to other global trouble spots, such as Iraq, intense international scrutiny is giving way to what seems like silent acceptance of the girls’ fate. The fight to maintain global support has become an uphill one for Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, despite his direct appeal to the whole world for help in securing the girls’ release.

A Times of India report says the Nigerian government has now turned to the Sri Lankan government for advice in counteracting the movement, given the latter's experience defeating the Tamil Tigers. That campaign resulted in tens of thousands of civilian casualties. So it seems like whatever , the price for doing so may be extreme.

homegrown killer-bees desperate to swarm but can't achieve critical mass..., yet

slate | Given how savagely anti-gay the mainstream Oklahoma Republican party is, it’s no surprise that the state’s Tea Partiers are so rabidly hateful that they come across more as dark satire than as serious bigots. To wit: This week, an Oklahoma magazine discovered that last summer, Tea Party state House candidate Scott Esk endorsed stoning gay people to death: “I think we would be totally in the right to do it,” he said in a Facebook post. Esk went on to add nuance to his position:

That [stoning gay people to death] goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realize, and I’m largely libertarian, but ignoring as a nation things that are worthy of death is very remiss.

When a Facebook user messaged Esk to clarify further, he responded:

I never said I would author legislation to put homosexuals to death, but I didn’t have a problem with it.

Understandably unnerved, the magazine called up Esk for clarification. Although Esk claimed he didn’t remember the comments, he fleshed out his views:

That was done in the Old Testament under a law that came directly from God and in that time there it was totally just. It came directly from God. I have no plans to reinstitute that in Oklahoma law. I do have some very huge moral misgivings about those kinds of sins.

Pressed one final time about his position on stoning gay human beings to death, Esk dug in his heels:

I know what was done in the Old Testament and what was done back then was what’s just. … And I do stand for Biblical morality.

the effects of deception in social networks

arvix |  Honesty plays a crucial role in any situation where organisms exchange information or resources. Dishonesty can thus be expected to have damaging effects on social coherence if agents cannot trust the information or goods they receive. However, a distinction is often drawn between prosocial lies ('white' lies) and antisocial lying (i.e. deception for personal gain), with the former being considered much less destructive than the latter. We use an agent-based model to show that antisocial lying causes social networks to become increasingly fragmented. Antisocial dishonesty thus places strong constraints on the size and cohesion of social communities, providing a major hurdle that organisms have to overcome (e.g. by evolving counter-deception strategies) in order to evolve large, socially cohesive communities. In contrast, 'white' lies can prove to be beneficial in smoothing the flow of interactions and facilitating a larger, more integrated network. Our results demonstrate that these group-level effects can arise as emergent properties of interactions at the dyadic level. The balance between prosocial and antisocial lies may set constraints on the structure of social networks, and hence the shape of society as a whole.

isis could clean up the hood and the trailer park quick, fast, and in a hurry...,

theatlantic |  The best way to get a sense of ISIS’s blueprint for state-building is to look at how it has ruled al-Raqqa governorate and other territory in neighboring Syria. The group’s first move is often to set up billboards around town that emphasize the importance of jihad, sharia, women’s purity, and other pietistic themes. It reaches out to local notables and tribal leaders as well to blunt the kind of backlash that greeted AQI and its harsh interpretation of sharia during the sahwa movement last decade.

The group also has a surprisingly sophisticated bureaucracy, which typically includes an Islamic court system and a roving police force. In the Syrian town of Manbij, for example, ISIS officials cut off the hands of four robbers. In Raqqa, they forced shops to close for selling poor products in the suq (market) as well as regular supermarkets and kebab stands—a move that was likely the work of its Consumer Protection Authority office. ISIS has also whipped individuals for insulting their neighbors, confiscated and destroyed counterfeit medicine, and on multiple occasions summarily executed and crucified individuals for apostasy. Members have burned cartons of cigarettes and destroyed shrines and graves, including the famous Uways al-Qarani shrine in Raqqa.

Beyond these judicial measures, ISIS also invests in public works. In April, for instance, it completed a new suq in al-Raqqa for locals to exchange goods. Additionally, the group runs an electricity office that monitors electricity-use levels, installs new power lines, and hosts workshops on how to repair old ones. The militants fix potholes, bus people between the territories they control, rehabilitate blighted medians to make roads more aesthetically pleasing, and operate a post office and zakat (almsgiving) office (which the group claims has helped farmers with their harvests). Most importantly for Syrians and Iraqis downriver, ISIS has continued operating the Tishrin dam (renaming it al-Faruq) on the Euphrates River. Through all of these offices and departments, ISIS is able to offer a semblance of stability in unstable and marginalized areas, even if many locals do not like its ideological program.

That’s not to say this ideological project isn’t an integral part of ISIS’s social services. Its media outlet al-I’tisam sets up stalls to distribute DVDs of the videos it posts online. In a number of ISIS-held locales, a da’wa truck drives around broadcasting information about the group's belief system. Moreover, ISIS has established a number of religious schools for children, including ones for girls where they can memorize the Koran and receive certificates if successful, while also holding “fun days” for kids replete with ice cream and inflatable slides. For their older counterparts, ISIS has established training sessions for new imams and preachers. Schedules for prayers and Koran lessons are posted at mosques. In a more worrisome development, ISIS runs training camps for “cub scouts” and houses these recruits in the group’s facilities.

is inequality the root of social evil?

HuffPo | The global economic system is near collapse, according to Pope Francis.

An economy built on money-worship and war and scarred by yawning inequality and youth unemployment cannot survive, the 77-year-old Roman Catholic leader suggested in a newly published interview.

“We are excluding an entire generation to sustain a system that is not good,” he told La Vanguardia’s Vatican reporter, Henrique Cymerman. (Read an English translation here.) “Our global economic system can’t take any more.”

The pontiff said he was especially concerned about youth unemployment, which hit 13.1 percent last year, according to a report by the International Labor Organization.

"The rate of unemployment is very worrisome to me, which in some countries is over 50 percent," he said. "Someone told me that 75 million young Europeans under 25 years of age are unemployed. That is an atrocity."

That 75 million is actually the total for the whole world, according to the ILO, but that is still too much youth unemployment.

Pope Francis denounced the influence of war and the military on the global economy in particular:

“We discard a whole generation to maintain an economic system that no longer endures, a system that to survive has to make war, as the big empires have always done,” he said.

"But since we cannot wage the Third World War, we make regional wars," he added. "And what does that mean? That we make and sell arms. And with that the balance sheets of the idolatrous economies -- the big world economies that sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money -- are obviously cleaned up."

what happens if you have no welfare and no job?

theatlantic | A few weeks ago I wrote about how the welfare reform of the 1990s led to many poor mothers being kicked off welfare rolls. While some poor adults could still receive help from food stamps and disability insurance, the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act" dramatically cut how much cash aid they could collect. The hope was that they would find work, but many didn’t.

Meanwhile, spending on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, the only cash assistance program that non-disabled, non-elderly, poor single mothers are eligible for, has dropped precipitously: It was lower in 2007 than it had been in 1970.

That left me wondering—what happened to the moms who had neither jobs nor cash assistance through TANF, which comes with strict time limits?

The Urban Institute recently released a fascinating new qualitative study that aims to answer that very question. Relying on 90-minute interviews with 29 unmarried women in Los Angeles and 22 in southeast Michigan, the nonprofit examined the lives of these so-called “disconnected” women—meaning they get neither income from work nor TANF money. (About one in eight low-income single mothers was disconnected in 1996, when welfare reform was first implemented, but about one in five was disconnected in 2008.)

not just liminal perspectives, but a genuine science of consensus reality

Ed points directly toward the essence of the thing

The DoD does not care about the ideology; their efforts are all about communication patterns and cluster detection for - as they put it - "warfighter-relevant insights". They want to figure out the social media communication path to spread word of mouth to predict the creation of pop-up protesters and flash mobs. They also want to to quickly identify influencers, or, as they put it " individuals mobilised in a social contagion" - I really love the word contagion because the goal is to quickly marginalize/neutralize the contagion.

The problem - and what is scary - is not only the DoD wants to do this, everybody's commercial operation in the world wants to do this. This is being studied for political strategy, this is being studied for consumer product marketing and being studied for social media marketing. So there is a concerted effort worldwide to be the first to be able to master this science so governments and corporations can predict social contagions.

Now, this falls back to the Elliot Rodger mass shooter - if they are looking to detect social contagions, wouldn't it be feasible to manufacture a social contagion? This is what I referenced earlier through the behavior modification drugs - what if someone can find someone who has charisma to lead others and help them as an invisible hand?

It doesn't matter - according to some, I'm supposed to be worried about what happened in the 1960s with COINTEL, act like an emotional seperatist from Amerikkka instead of concerning myself with socio-bio data manipulation patterns and practices that are manifesting itself in real-time.

journal of social structure REDUX (original post date 1/19/11))

JoSS | This work was supported in part by Department of Defense, the Office of Naval Research(ONR), United States Navy Grant No. 9620.1.1140071, NSF IRI9633 662 and the NSF IGERT 9972762 for research and training in CASOS. Additional support was provided by CASOS - the center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems at Carnegie Mellon University. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the author and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Department of Defense, the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, or the U.S. government.

Abstract: Given the increasing threat of terrorism and spread of terrorist organizations, it is of vital importance to understand the properties of such organizations and to devise successful strategies for destabilizing them or decreasing their efficiency. However, intelligence information on these organizations is often incomplete, inaccurate or simply not available. This makes the study of terrorist networks and the evaluation of destabilization strategies difficult. In this paper, we propose a computational methodology for realistically simulating terrorist networks and evaluating alternative destabilization strategies. We proceed to use this methodology to evaluate and conduct a sensitivity analysis of the impact of various destabilization strategies under varying information surveillance regimes. We find that destabilization strategies that focus on the isolation of individuals who are highly central are ineffective in the long run as the network will heal itself as individuals who are nearly structurally equivalent to the isolated individuals "move in" and fill the communication gaps.

Introduction
For reasons of national security it is important to understand the properties of terrorist organizations that make such organizations efficient and flexible, and based on this understanding devise successful strategies to destabilize such organizations or curtail their efficiency, adaptability, and ability to move knowledge and resources. The assessment of destabilization strategies poses a number of key challenges. What does the underlying organization look like? Does it evolve? What strategies inhibit or effect the evolutiuon so that the organization is destabilized? In this paper, we provide an approach to assessing destabilization strategies that draws on work in organization science, knowledge management and computer science.

Terrorist organizations are often characterized as cellular organizations composed of quasi-independent cells and distributed command. In a sense, this is a non-traditional organizational configuration; hence, much of the knowledge in traditional organizational theory, particularly that focused on hierarchies or markets, does not apply. To be sure, lessons can be learned from the work on distributed and decentralized organizations that provides some guidance. This work demonstrates that such structures are often adaptive, useful in a volatile environment, and capable of rapid response [1] [2]. In other words, we should expect terrorist organization to adapt, and adapt rapidly. This suggests, that in general, they should be difficult to destabilize; however, the traditional organizational literature provides little guidance on how to destabilize the organization.

In general, the organization's form or design profoundly influences its performance, adaptability, and ability to move information [3]. It follows that organizations can be destabilized by altering their design. The one caveat here, is that organizations, particularly more distributed and decentralized ones, are continually evolving [4]. Terrorist organizations are often characterized as dynamic networks in which the connections among personnel define the nature of that evolution. This suggests that social network analysis will be useful in characterizing the underlying structure and in locating vulnerabilities in terms of key actors.

In general, organizations evolve as they face unanticipated changes in their environment, rapidly evolving technologies, and intelligent and adaptive opponents. Over the past decade, progress has been made in understanding the set of factors that enable adaptation and partially validated models of adaptive networks now exist [5]. A key result is that, in the short run, there appears to be a tradeoff between adaptivity and extremely high performance in organizations [6]. This suggests that forcing an organization to adapt should reduce its performance. Thus, even if an actor is no longer key, the mere isolation of that actor may be sufficient to be disruptive. However, to assess this a model of organizational change and network healing is needed.

Since the destabilization of terrorist networks could inhibit their ability to effect harm, there is a profound need for an approach that would allow researchers to reason about dynamic cellular networks and evaluate the potential effect of destabilization strategies. To be useful, such an approach must account for the natural evolution of cellular networks. This situation is further complicated by the fact that the information available on the terrorist network is liable to be incomplete and possibly erroneous. Hence, destabilization strategies need to be compared and contrasted in terms of their robustness under varying levels and types of information error. In other words, it would be misleading to judge destabilization strategies in terms of their impact on a static an unchanging network [7].

These problems suggest the need for a new methodological approach. In this paper, we provide an approach based on the use of a multi-agent network model of the co-evolution of the network of "observers" (the blue network) and the "terrorists" (the red network) in which the observers can capture only partial data on the underlying covert network and the covert network evolves both naturally and in response to attacks by the observers. This approach builds off of organization theory and social network theory, as well as machine learning and dynamic network analysis. Specifically, we have developed a computational model of dynamic cellular organizations and used it to evaluate a number of alternative strategies for destabilization of cellular networks.

It is important at the outset to note that this examination of destabilization strategies is highly exploratory. We make no claims that the examination of destabilization strategies is comprehensive, nor that the types of "error" in the data that intelligence agencies can collect is completely described. Further, our estimate of the structure of the covert network is based on publicly available data much of which is qualitative and requires interpretation. Thus, this work should be read as a study in the power of an empirically grounded simulation approach and a call for future research. Further, we restrict our analysis to a structural or network analysis and focus on what does the covert network look like, how does its structure influence its performance and ability to pass information, how does it evolve, how can its evolution be altered (its behavior destabilized) through interventions focused on the nodes, and what interventions should be taken given the level of fidelity in the information that we have. Admittedly, in this complex arena there are many other factors that are critical, but they are beyond the scope of this study. Thus, from a straight social network perspective, this study suggests the types of methodological issues that will emerge when working with dynamic large scale networks under uncertainty.

To ground this paper, a short case description is provided of Al Qaeda with the focus on the network structure. In these two descriptions we draw on both military and organizational theory. This is followed by a discussion of the intelligence agencies engaged in anti-terrorist activity and the possible data and errors in said data. Our intent is to demonstrate, at a fairly high level, the context and the resultant information and modelling problems, not to provide a full analysis for intelligence or military operations. As good science often emerges from attacking hard real world problems, we are trying to provide sufficient detail to understand the basis for the problems that research must address, rather than simply provide a high theoretical description of general data problems. This is followed by a brief discussion of the applicability of traditional social network analysis and the need to take a dynamic network perspective. We then describe a computational model of terrorist organizations as dynamic evolving networks, and anti-terrorist bodies with emphasis on their information collection and destabilization strategies. A virtual experiment is used to examine destabilization strategies and the results are then discussed.

is social science being militarized to target peaceful activists and protest movements?

guardian | A US Department of Defense (DoD) research programme is funding universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world, under the supervision of various US military agencies. The multi-million dollar programme is designed to develop immediate and long-term "warfighter-relevant insights" for senior officials and decision makers in "the defense policy community," and to inform policy implemented by "combatant commands." 

Launched in 2008 – the year of the global banking crisis – the DoD 'Minerva Research Initiative' partners with universities "to improve DoD's basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the US."

Among the projects awarded for the period 2014-2017 is a Cornell University-led study managed by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research which aims to develop an empirical model "of the dynamics of social movement mobilisation and contagions." The project will determine "the critical mass (tipping point)" of social contagians by studying their "digital traces" in the cases of "the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the 2011 Russian Duma elections, the 2012 Nigerian fuel subsidy crisis and the 2013 Gazi park protests in Turkey." 

Twitter posts and conversations will be examined "to identify individuals mobilised in a social contagion and when they become mobilised."

Another project awarded this year to the University of Washington "seeks to uncover the conditions under which political movements aimed at large-scale political and economic change originate," along with their "characteristics and consequences." The project, managed by the US Army Research Office, focuses on "large-scale movements involving more than 1,000 participants in enduring activity," and will cover 58 countries in total. 

Last year, the DoD's Minerva Initiative funded a project to determine 'Who Does Not Become a Terrorist, and Why?' which, however, conflates peaceful activists with "supporters of political violence" who are different from terrorists only in that they do not embark on "armed militancy" themselves. The project explicitly sets out to study non-violent activists:

"In every context we find many individuals who share the demographic, family, cultural, and/or socioeconomic background of those who decided to engage in terrorism, and yet refrained themselves from taking up armed militancy, even though they were sympathetic to the end goals of armed groups. The field of terrorism studies has not, until recently, attempted to look at this control group. This project is not about terrorists, but about supporters of political violence."

The project's 14 case studies each "involve extensive interviews with ten or more activists and militants in parties and NGOs who, though sympathetic to radical causes, have chosen a path of non-violence." 

I contacted the project's principal investigator, Prof Maria Rasmussen of the US Naval Postgraduate School, asking why non-violent activists working for NGOs should be equated to supporters of political violence – and which "parties and NGOs" were being investigated – but received no response. 

Similarly, Minerva programme staff refused to answer a series of similar questions I put to them, including asking how "radical causes" promoted by peaceful NGOs constituted a potential national security threat of interest to the DoD.

how serious must dissent be before the political police take notice and action?

vice |  Hastings’ piece, which paints a deeply unflattering picture of Bergdahl’s unit and its leadership, hardly had the impact of some of his other investigations.

But someone did pay attention to it: the FBI.

That, at least, is what was revealed in a heavily redacted document released by the agency following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request — filed on the day of Hastings’ death — by investigative journalist Jason Leopold and Ryan Shapiro, an MIT doctoral student whom the Justice Department once called the “most prolific” requester of FOIA documents.

The document, partially un-redacted after Leopold and Shapiro engaged in a lengthy legal battle with the FBI for failing to fulfill its FOIA obligations, singles out Hastings’ Rolling Stone piece — “America’s Last Prisoner of War” — as “controversial reporting.” It names Hastings and Matthew Farwell, a former soldier in Afghanistan and a contributing reporter to Hastings’ piece.

The document also included an Associated Press report based on the Rolling Stone piece, and what it identifies as a “blog entry” penned by Gary Farwell, Matthew’s father — which actually appears to be a comment entry on the Idaho Statesman’s website.

“The article reveals private email excerpts, from [redacted] to his parents. The excerpts include quotes about being ‘ashamed to even be American,’ and threats that, ‘If this deployment is lame, I’m just going to walk off into the mountains of Pakistan,’” the FBI file reads. “The Rolling Stone article ignited a media frenzy, speculating about the circumstances of [redacted] capture, and whether US resources and effort should continue to be expended for his recovery.”

The FBI file — as well as a Department of Justice document released in response to Leopold and Shapiro’s lawsuit — suggests that Hastings and Farwell’s reporting got swept up into an “international terrorist investigation” into Bergdahl’s disappearance.

A spokesperson for the FBI told VICE News that the agency does not normally comment on pending investigations and that it lets FOIA documents “speak for themselves.” The investigation was still pending as of last month, Leopold said.

According to the files — and a rare public statement by the FBI following Hastings’ death — Hastings was never directly under investigation by the agency, despite having pissed off a lot of people in very high places.

But it is not exactly clear why Hastings and Farwell’s “controversial” reporting made it into a criminal investigation that was already active before they even wrote the Rolling Stone story.

even valodya gotta give props for the conanesque audacity of adu bakr and his crew...,

channel4 |  A document issued by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis), sets out their hardline rules for the residents of Nineveh - the ancient name for the province around the city of Mosul, which the group seized earlier this week.

Former members of the security services and Iraqi army are assured that if they repent, they will be accepted and says special places for repentance have already been established. However, it warns that those who do not repent will die.

Promising Muslims they will be treated well unless they are spies for the enemy or criminals, the document requires citizens to pray five times a day. It also outlaws drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, and warns that gatherings, flags and bearing arms is now forbidden.

Women are told they must dress in an Islamic way: modestly and fully covered. They must also remain at home except in emergencies.

The extremists justify their acquisition of money previously belonging to the government, saying their leaders will spend it as they see fit.

The document also celebrates the release of "our" prisoners from government prisons in the region.

hard men steady-rolling on a monumental heist...,

zerohedge |  Now that 25 year old math PhD HFT programmers have finally figured out what this thing called Iraq is, and why headlines around it should factor into algo trading signals - especially those of crude oil - here, for their benefit is a summary of the latest events in Iraq, and also for everyone else confused why crude is back to levels not seen since last summer.

In broader terms (via RanSquawk):

• The situation in Northern Iraq continues to deteriorate as the extremist ISIS/ISIL group took control of Mosul and then moved into Tirkit, which was later recaptured, in the north of Iraq which is near the Ceyhan-Kirkuk pipeline, which carries 1.6mln bbls per day. ISIS/ISIL forces then seized the Baiji refinery, the main refinery in Iraq, from Iraqi forces. (BBG/RTRS)
• Iraqi forces and militants have now clashed in Ramadi, 100km from Baghdad, as ISIL extremist forces push towards the Iraqi capital. (BBG)
• However Iraqi Oil Minister Luaibi said US planes may bomb North Iraq and denied ISIL took Baiji refinery in the North. The oil Minister also said Iraq average crude exports 2.6mln bbl/d, Iraq crude production 3.166mln bbl/d, Kirkuk production 167,000 bbl/d and Iraq has stored oil products and won't increase imports. (BBG/RTRS)
• Washington has vowed to boost aid to Iraq and is mulling done strikes amid fears that Iraqi forces are crumbling in the face of militant attacks. (RTRS)

And in detail:

As the WSJ reports, after hard core Al Qaeda spin off ISIS (no relation to Sterling Archer) took over Saddam's home town of Tikrit yesterday, Iraq edged closer to all-out sectarian conflict on Thursday as Kurdish forces took control of a provincial capital in the oil-rich north and Sunni militants vowed to march on two cities revered by Shiite Muslims.  Kurdish militia known as peshmerga said they had taken up positions in key government installations in Kirkuk, as forces of the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki abandoned their posts and fled in fear of advancing Sunni militants, an official in the office of the provincial governor said.

Reuters adds that "The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga," citing Jabbar Yawar. "No Iraqi army remains in Kirkuk now."

This in turn has put the output of the key Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, with a 1.6MM bbls/day capacity, at risk. 

The militia were operating out of the headquarters of the Iraqi army's 2nd Division. The official said western parts of Kirkuk province were still under the control of fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, an al Qaeda offshoot.

Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, a spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, said the al Qaeda-inspired group would advance on Karbala and Najaf, as well as the capital Baghdad, the Associated Press reported, citing an audio statement.

However, as we showed yesterday, the final ISIS target is none other than the city of Baghdad, and the overthrow of the Iraq government entirely.

like it did any good...,

wsj |  The U.S. since last year has been secretly flying unmanned surveillance aircraft in small numbers over Iraq to collect intelligence on insurgents, according to U.S. officials.

The program was limited in size and proved little use to U.S. and Iraqi officials when Islamist fighters moved swiftly this week to seize two major Iraqi cities, the officials said.

Before the Islamist offensive, the program was expanded based on growing U.S. and Iraqi concerns about the expanded military activities of al Qaeda-linked fighters.

Officials wouldn't say what types of drones were being used but said the flights were conducted only for surveillance purposes. The program was launched with the consent of the Iraqi government. 

A senior U.S. official said the intelligence collected under the small program was shared with Iraqi forces, but added: "It's not like it did any good." The rapid territorial gains by the Islamist forces loyal to Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, an al Qaeda offshoot, caught the U.S. by surprise, the officials said.

Following the takeover of the two Iraqi cities, administration officials have asked the U.S. military and intelligence agencies to draw up options that include limited U.S. military action in Iraq, officials said.

One of the options being drawn up for the White House would expand the drone flights over Iraq, a step that could aid Iraqi forces or facilitate possible U.S. airstrikes. 

"They're looking at everything and anything and have been told explicitly by the White House to think outside the box of what is possible," a senior U.S. official said.

the inevitable demise of the fossil fuel empire...,

guardian | The latest data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and other sources proves that the oil and gas majors are in deep trouble. 

Over the last decade, rising oil prices have been driven primarily by rising production costs. After the release of the IEA's World Energy Outlook last November, Deutsche Bank's former head of energy research Mark Lewis noted that massive levels of investment have corresponded to an ever declining rate of oil supply increase:

"Over the past decade, the oil and gas industry's upstream investments have registered an astronomical increase, but these ever higher levels of capital expenditure have yielded ever smaller increases in the global oil supply. Even these have only been made possible by record high oil prices. This should be a reality check for those now hyping a new age of global oil abundance."

Since 2000, the oil industry's investments have risen by 180% - a threefold increase - but this has translated into a global oil supply increase of just 14%. Two-thirds of this increase has been made-up by unconventional oil and gas. In other words, the primary driver of the cost explosion is the shift to expensive and difficult-to-extract unconventionals due to the peak and plateau in conventional oil production since 2005.

The increasingly dislocated economics of oil production

According to Lewis, who now heads up energy transition and climate change research at leading investment firm Kepler Cheuvreux:

"The most straightforward interpretation of this data is that the economics of oil have become completely dislocated from historic norms since 2000 (and especially since 2005), with the industry investing at exponentially higher rates for increasingly small incremental yields of energy."

The IEA's new World Energy Investment Outlook published last week revised the agency's estimates of future oil industry capital expenditures out to 2035 even higher, from $9.4 trillion to $11.3 trillion – an increase of 20%. 

Oil prices could in turn increase by $15 per barrel in 2025 if investment does not pick up. Most of the investment increase required would be devoted not to new sources of production, but "to replace lost production from depleting fields," said Lewis.

In the IEA's own words:

"More than 80% of this spending [of between $700 and $850 billion annually by the 2030s] is required just to keep production at today's levels, that is, to compensate for the effects of decline at existing fields. The figure is higher in the case of oil (at close to 90% of total capital expenditure)."

But as Lewis pointed out, the "risk of insufficient investment" is not a hypothetical matter that might occur a decade from now, but is "already today a clear and present danger" as most of the oil and gas majors have revised down their plans for capital expenditure in recent months.

biggest waste of wealth in all of human history...,

energyskeptic |  Introduction - At 47,000 miles long and four plus lanes wide, the Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways is the largest public works project in history, dwarfing Egypt’s pyramids, the Panama Canal, and China’s Great Wall.  To build it, forests were felled and mountains were leveled and overlaid with over three hundred million cubic yards of concrete.

Roads are essential and define the physical United States, and so taken for granted they’re almost invisible.

The interstates are just 1% of the nation’s road mileage but carry a trillion of the 4 trillion miles Americans travel each year. Many of the vehicles are heavy trucks, which hammer bridges and pavements, shortening road and bridge lifespans so much that to fix them, we’d need to spend  $225 billion a year for the next 50 years, and if we don’t, replacement will cost three times as much. One in four of the country’s nearly 600,000 bridges is structurally deficient or obsolete. Most were designed to last 50 years. In 2008, they averaged 43 years old (p 319).

Peak Oil Makes Roads and Vehicles Obsolete – Why Fix them?

Swift says that these roads represent “a spectacular investment in a mode of transport that will wither without new fuel sources” (page 6).

We don’t have new fuel sources and never will, so why repair the roads? That would only throw good money after bad. To avoid the hardest possible landing, we might want to keep a few key local and regional roads repaired, and let the thousands of miles of interstate between regions go.  Replace cars with buses, which are flexible, scalable, easily re-routable, and cheap compared to passenger trains since they can use existing roads.

What we have lost  

When horses were the main mode of transportation, American towns were compact, tightly settled, and roughly circular in layout. In the days of the horse and buggy the road served as company. As a cart joggled by, the farmer in the field or the housewife on her porch could hail it; the horse would stop almost of his own accord, and a chat would follow. But once the country road becomes a highway, filled with fast traffic with cars driven mostly by strangers, not neighbors, the whole situation is changed: the road ceases to be a symbol of sociability; it becomes very largely a curse.

As John Steinbeck observed in 1962′s Travels with Charley: In Search of America: “When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.”

A pilgrim of centuries past would have had much to report about the country he’d traversed—the details of flora and fauna, the land’s shape and character, the sounds and smells of village and field. He would have noticed the moss on tree bark, the fast-moving stream, the lacework of afternoon light on the forest floor. He might have startled deer and bear, unalerted by his soft approach, or reveled in bird song. A later traveler, riding horseback, might have spoken of the views he’d enjoyed, but they would have been limited views, next to the walker’s. He would have moved at a faster clip, and thus missed the tiny details of his surroundings that only a leisurely pace revealed. Further on, a stagecoach passenger had an even tighter range of experience; he beheld landscape not only from a road’s fixed path, but as a moving picture framed by his window, and his description of a long trip would likely dwell less on the scenery than on the discomforts of the stage, the bumps in the road, the passage itself. Trains erected a pane of glass between traveler and country, and further insulated him by boosting his speed. But with the modern car on the modern freeway, the modern traveler was left with practically nothing to celebrate but the ever-briefer time he had to devote to getting from one place to another. He was sequestered not only from his setting, but from fellow passengers, insulated from sound, smells, and climate. The details of all that surrounded him were blurred by speed, too distant to make out, or too distracting to enjoy. Scenery was held at arm’s length, beyond the well-manicured right of way.

if a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst..,

energyskeptic | James Howard Kunstler has written that Suburbia will be the largest waste of money and physical assets in human history.

The end of the age of oil means that just about everything will be useless too.  Below is just the transportation component of private and government assets.

$6.1 Trillion dollars of Transportation equipment and structures.

Total private and public fixed assets were $46.4 trillion in 2011 (current U.S. dollars). Transportation equipment and structures (private and public) accounted for nearly 12% percent of the total.

The components of transportation fixed assets and their values are

• private transportation equipment ($1.04 trillion)
• private transportation structures ($680 billion)
• government transportation structures ($3.77 trillion)

Fixed assets include both passenger and freight transportation. See the Bureau of Economic Analysis at www.bea.gov/national/FA2004/index.asp, tables 2.1, 3.1s, and 7.1b.

2011 Private Sector Transportation Equipment1 1,037 Transportation Structures2 680 Public Sector Highways 3,132 Transportation Structures2 635 Federal 15 State and Local 621

1 Includes trucks, truck trailers, buses, automobiles, aircraft, ships, boats, and railroad equipment.

2 Includes physical structures for all modes of transportation. Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Economic Accounts, Fixed Assests Tables, tables 2.1, 3.1s, and 7.1b

the very worst elements of elite rule at home and abroad that only nimrods could have supported...,

wikipedia |  On May 1, 2003, Bush became the first sitting President to make an arrested landing in a fixed-wing aircraft on an aircraft carrier^[3][4] when he arrived at the USS Abraham Lincoln in a Lockheed S-3 Viking, dubbed Navy One, as the carrier lay just off the San Diego coast, having returned from combat operations in the Persian Gulf. He posed for photographs with pilots and members of the ship's crew while wearing a flight suit. A few hours later, he gave a speech announcing the end of major combat operations in the Iraq War. Far above him was the warship's banner stating "Mission Accomplished."

Bush was criticized for the historic jet landing on the carrier as an overly theatrical and expensive stunt. For instance, it was pointed out that the carrier was well within range of Bush's helicopter, and that a jet landing was not needed.^[5] Originally the White House had stated that the carrier was too far off the California coast for a helicopter landing and a jet would be needed to reach it. On the day of the speech, the Lincoln was only 30 miles (48 km) from shore but the administration still decided to go ahead with the jet landing. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer admitted that Bush "could have helicoptered, but the plan was already in place. Plus, he wanted to see a landing the way aviators see a landing."^[6] The Lincoln made a scheduled stop in Pearl Harbor shortly before the speech, docked in San Diego after the speech, and returned to her home port in Everett, Washington on May 6, 2003.

The S-3 that served as "Navy One" was retired from service and placed on display at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida on July 17, 2003. The museum makes it clear that Bush was a passenger – not the pilot – of the plane.^[1] While Bush trained and served as a jet pilot in the Air National Guard flying F-102 fighter-interceptors, he was never trained to land on a carrier.

The banner stating "Mission Accomplished" was a focal point of controversy and criticism. Navy Commander and Pentagon spokesman Conrad Chun said the banner referred specifically to the aircraft carrier's 10-month deployment (which was the longest deployment of a carrier since the Vietnam War) and not the war itself, saying "It truly did signify a mission accomplished for the crew."^[7]

The White House claimed that the banner was requested by the crew of the ship, who did not have the facilities for producing such a banner. Afterward, the administration and naval sources stated that the banner was the Navy's idea, White House staff members made the banner, and it was hung by the U.S. Navy personnel. White House spokesman Scott McClellan told CNN, "We took care of the production of it. We have people to do those things. But the Navy actually put it up."^[8] According to John Dickerson of Time magazine, the White House later conceded that they hung the banner but still insists it had been done at the request of the crew members.^[9]

Whether meant for the crew or not, the general impression created by the image of Bush under the banner has been criticized as premature, especially later as the guerrilla war began. Subsequently, the White House released a statement saying that the sign and Bush's visit referred to the initial invasion of Iraq. Bush's speech noted:

"We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous."^[10]

"Our mission continues...The War on Terror continues, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide."

The speech also said that:

"In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."^[10]

iraq crisis: isis militants close in on baghdad

guardian | At least half a million people are on the move in Iraq after insurgent force the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis), continued its offensive towards Baghdad, reportedly taking the city of Tikrit – home town of former leader Saddam Hussein – overnight. The assault comes on the heels of Wednesday’s takeover of Mosul and surrounding regions, where a reported 30,000 Iraqi troops fled from just 800 insurgents after three days of sporadic fighting.

In the insurgents' most significant gain so far, Isis fighters entered Mosul and stripped the main army base, released hundreds of prisoners from jails and may have seized up to $480m in cash from Mosul banks. Fighters also seized the Turkish consulate, kidnapping 25 staff including the diplomatic head of the mission.

The swift capitulation of Iraq army forces in the city prompted condemnation and suspicion from the government.

"The army and police and the security organisations are much stronger than they [Isis] are, but there was a trick and a conspiracy," said Iraq's prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. "We will deal with it, but after we end their presence."

Tikrit, believed to have been taken by the insurgents overnight, lies less than 200km from capital Baghdad.

In July of last year Isis freed hundreds of convicted terrorists when it overran Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison, and in December the group retook parts of former al-Qaida strongholds Fallujah and Ramadi.

christian iraqis have no place to go...,

HuffPo |  Sunni insurgents from an al Qaeda splinter group extended their control from the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday to an area further south that includes Iraq's biggest oil refinery in a devastating show of strength against the Shi'ite-led government.

Security sources said militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - Sunni militants waging sectarian war on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian frontier - drove into the town of Baiji late on Tuesday in armed vehicles, torching the court house and police station after freeing prisoners.

The militants offered safe passage to some 250 men guarding the refinery on the outskirts of Baiji, about 200 kilometers south of Mosul, on condition they leave.

Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari called on his country's leaders to come together to face "the serious, mortal" threat. "The response has to be soon. There has to be a quick response to what has happened," he said during a trip to Greece.

Zebari said Baghdad would work with forces from the nearby Kurdish autonomous region to drive the fighters from Mosul.

Baiji resident Jasim al-Qaisi said the militants had also asked senior tribal chiefs in Baiji to persuade local police and soldiers not to resist their takeover.

"Yesterday at sunset some gunmen contacted the most prominent tribal sheikhs in Baiji via cellphone and told them: 'We are coming to die or control Baiji, so we advise you to ask your sons in the police and army to lay down their weapons and withdraw before (Tuesday) evening prayer'."

The Baiji refinery can process 300,000 barrels per day and supplies oil products to most of Iraq's provinces and is a major provider of power to Baghdad. A worker there said the morning shift had not been allowed to take over and the night shift was still on duty.

The push into Baiji began hours after ISIL overran Mosul, one of the great Sunni historic cities, advancing their aim of creating a Sunni Caliphate straddling the border between Iraq and Syria.

the mullahs demand more cannon fodder...,

churchandstate |  When I visited Iran in the mid 1970’s the then hated Shah was in power, but women were more likely then than now to receive good reproductive health care including birth control. This policy produced a stable birth rate which carried over for decades after the Shah was deposed by the present religious hierarchy.

Now we find that this same new religious hierarchy has begun offering incentives to Iranian women to produce more children.

According to the 6/8/14 NY Times article, “Urged to Multiply, Iranian Couples Are Dubious” by Thomas Edrbrink,

In their early 30s, married, and with prospects for successful careers, Bita and Sherag could be contemplating the logical next step in their lives: becoming parents.

But for them and an increasing number of young, middle-class Iranians who are deeply pessimistic over their country’s future, raising a child is one of the last things on their minds.

Bita, who like her husband asked for her family name to be withheld so they could speak freely, said she had had two abortions, which are illegal in Iran. “We are really serious about not having kids,” she said.

Iran’s leaders have taken notice. Worried about a steep decline in fertility rates that experts are predicting could reduce population growth to zero within 20 years, Tehran has started a broad initiative to persuade Iranian families to have more children.

Seems a bit redundant to worry about any scarcity of human beings on Earth when you consider that our plundered planet had added 5 billion humans since I was born in 1931.

Who was the environmentalist who noted that endless growth reminded him of the behavior of a cancer cell? As my OP ED pieces have noted for years, the only true solution to the population crisis will come when all women have access to modern methods of birth control and not be intimidated or coerced by the world’s reprehensible male dominated monotheistic religions!

Will the planet survive until that happens? The jury is still out on that one.

matthew 26:34 - cowards always deny truth...,

tdf |  For though is possible that we will see an escalating conflict rise across the face of the earth in the days and months to come, it is essential to realize that these external battles are only a reflection of the conflict that is raging within the hearts and souls of so many across the world today.

In accordance with the universal law "as above so below, as within so without", the increasing tensions that are rising on our global stage are surfacing in an effort to help us recognize the conflict that is taking place in the consciousness of each one of us.

For today there are many who are awakening to the truth that humanity has lost its way. People from all over the world are beginning to realize that the race of men is walking on an unsustainable path and that our governments, to whom we've entrusted the care of our planet and its populace, are willfully destroying the Earth and its inhabitants in their tireless conquest for war and wealth.

However, because we have become so dependent on the existing system and structures for our comfort and survival, many people feel powerless to step off the path and live a life that is in alignment with the truth that is growing in their hearts. For they fear that if they remove their support from the system they depend on, the threat to the system will then result in a threat on their own survival.

And so ironically we have a growing number of people around the world who are denying the truth of their hearts for fear of the possible threat it may pose to their comfort and survival in the present. While these same people are beginning to realize that their continuing support of the existing system along its current path will at some point in a not too distant future lead to an inevitable destruction of the planet.

the great white nope: a deliciously timely little discursion into notseeism...,

medialens |  When corporations own the news and advertisers 'sponsor' the shows, journalists know they are above all answerable to the company managers and allied interests who pay their salaries. The mere public, especially voices of dissent, can be treated with indifference, even contempt. Journalists have power without responsibility, and they know it.

On March 6, the fast-talking presenter of ABC Radio Triple 6's Mornings with Genevieve Jacobs in Canberra described the shameful suffering of indigenous Australians exposed by John Pilger's important film, Utopia.

'What veteran filmmaker John Pilger had to present for his film was in many ways a Third World country, a place where there is despair and dispossession, desperate injustice.'

Jacobs quoted football legend and 'Australian of the year', Adam Goodes, on 'mainstream' Australia's response to Pilger's film:

'Our response, our muted response, is a disgrace. It is disturbing and hurtful that we just don't evidently care all that much.'

Jacobs then interviewed Pilger, asking him:

'So what does that say about the state of the national debate?'

It was a good question, one that would soon return to haunt the questioner.

Like so many journalists responding to so much serious criticism, Jacobs breezily insisted that her organisation was different, it had embraced all points of view: 'John, that's a debate we're very aware of here in Canberra... I think we're well aware of that, John!' she told Pilger repeatedly, who exposed the usual, key flaw in the argument:

'Intensely discussed, yes, you're absolutely right. But discussed in the narrowest terms.'

This recalled the sublime moment when Noam Chomsky rendered a brash young Andrew Marr temporarily speechless, after the BBC interviewer had commented of the Gulf War:

'There was a great debate about whether there should have been a negotiated settlement.'

Chomsky interrupted: 'No, sorry, no, that's not [the] debate...'

Jacobs, though, was insistent:

'Certainly here in Canberra we do have that discussion vigorously and often... I have spoken to people in the studio... I think that has been widely discussed.'

Given that the issues had in fact been endlessly discussed, what on earth was the point of Pilger's film? Jacobs asked again:

'That's my question though – what do you bring that is new to this?'

Pilger replied: 'Well, have you seen the film?'

Jacobs: 'I haven't seen the film, but...'

Like her audience, Jacobs knew exactly what was coming next:

'Well then, how can we...? This is the problem, you see. And forgive me for raising it. How can you have a discussion with me about a film you haven't seen?... You say you're having a lot of debate there, but you apparently haven't watched the film that we're supposed to be talking about!'

Pilger's voice dropped and slowed as he circled the flailing interviewer like a 'Saltie' croc:

'I'm giving you the opportunity to explain to me and your listeners why you haven't, why you haven't watched the film before you discuss with the filmmaker the film?'

Jacobs explained that she hadn't seen the film 'because my producer suggested to me this morning that it would be a really good idea to discuss this'. But there was no place to hide:

'You run a programme, and with all respect to you, that's what Adam Goodes is talking about - that people like you cannot be bothered! And that's what he's writing about. Don't you find this so exquisitely ironic?'

Jacobs instantly shut down the debate and turned to emailed comments sent in by listeners. Would these be favourable to the guest who had just sunk the host? Jacobs blurted:

'Gus says to me, "Doesn't 'Triple 6' ever get tired of having people on the radio to lecture us about how racist we are? Didn't we say sorry? Are we going to move on?"'

And by way of balance:

'Rob says, "While I don't disagree with Pilger on many issues he's tackled over the years, his holier than thou, patronising tone alienates those who support his efforts and hardens the attitudes of those who don't."'