Freedom Project

RT - 9/7/12

AFP Photo/Alberto Pizzoli

The next time a tourist snaps a picture of the famous Hollywood sign, their photo won’t be the only item added to the annals. The LAPD considers photography a suspicious activity, and trying to take certain shots may add a page to your personal file.

A memo released last month by Police Chief Charlie Bucks re-categorizes certain behaviors — including photo shoots in public spots — to constitute suspicious activity, which is enough to have cops file a report, open an investigation and forward any further information about a suspect to the federal authorities — all over just an itchy shutter finger.

More: RT.com.

NPR - AP, 9/4/12

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Navy SEAL's insider account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden contains classified information, the Pentagon said Tuesday, and the admiral who heads the Naval Special Warfare Command said details in the book may provide enemies with dangerous insight into secretive U.S. operations.

Rear Adm. Sean Pybus told his force Tuesday that "hawking details about a mission" and selling other information about SEAL training and operations puts the force and their families at risk.

More: NPR.org.

Mail Online - Hugo Duncan, 9/6/12

Discover Magazine - Ed Yong, 9/4/12

A baseball speeds from the hands of a pitcher, a slave to Newton’s laws. But in the brain of the batter who is watching it, something odd happens. Time seems to dawdle. The ball moves in slow motion, and becomes clearer. Players of baseball, tennis and other ball sports have described this dilation of time. But why does it happen? Does the brain merely remember time passing more slowly after the fact? Or do experienced players develop Matrix-style abilities, where time genuinely seems to move more slowly?

According to five experiments from Nobuhiro Hagura at University College London, it’s the latter. When we prepare to make a movement – say, the swing of a bat – our ability to process visual information speeds up. The result: the world seems to move slower.

The Independent - Michael Day, 9/5/12

Whistleblower charged with leaking sensitive figures says 20 others are doing the same

At least 20 whistleblowers are seeking to expose corruption and incompetence at the Vatican, according to the man who is to stand trial at the Holy See this autumn accused of stealing sensitive documents and leaking them to the press.

The Telegraph - By Nick Squires, Rome, 07 Sep 2012

Silvio Berlusconi's summer retreat on Sardinia's exclusive Costa Smeralda, which gained notoriety for parties with topless models, features an underground cave, complete with an emergency escape exit to the sea.

The existence of the cave at the former Italian prime minister's Villa Certosa estate had been rumoured for years but the first photographs of it emerged on Friday.

They were obtained by Antonello Zappadu, an Italian photographer who made his name in 2009 by taking long-lens pictures of scantily-clad showgirls at Mr Berlusconi's residence.

Source: DailyBail.com - 9/6/12

"Where do they find these buffoons..."

Spence is the GOP candidate for Governor in Missouri.

Instead of repaying Reliance Bank's $40 million TARP bailout, Spence doled out $40 million in insider loans to board members, including $1.1 million for a vacation home for himself and a cool $600,000 for his plastics company.

Nice work if you can get it.

---

The Facts:

Reuters - 9/6/12

(Reuters) - The number of poor Americans who repeatedly ran short of food shot up by 800,000 in 2011 to nearly 17 million compared with 2010, the U.S. government said on Wednesday.

The Department of Agriculture said in a report that about 5.5 percent of Americans, or nearly 17 million, suffered "very low food security" last year, meaning they had to skip meals or not eat for a day because of a lack of money to buy food. That is a rise of 800,000 over the prior year, it said.

The food-security report was released one day after the government said that a record 46.7 million Americans were enrolled for food stamps in June, up by 173,000 in May.

More: in.Reuters.com.

The New York Times - Nathanial Popper, 9/4/12

Janet Cowell, the treasurer of North Carolina, is examining the extent of the state’s possible losses related to Libor.  (Peter W. Stevenson for The New York Times)

The scandal over global interest rates has state officials like Janet Cowell of North Carolina working intensely behind the scenes to build a case for suing the nation’s largest banks.

Press TV - 9/6/12

France has embarked on providing direct financial and arms aid to insurgent-held areas of Syria and is even supplying anti-aircraft weapons to terrorists fighting Syrian Army forces.

Reuters
By Jennifer Ablan and Matthew Goldstein, 9/4/12

Huff Post - Laurel Dewey, 9/4/12

What if everything you were ever told and believed about a subject wasn't true? What if the well-meaning, trusted and respected people who told you those lies were just parroting the propaganda that they heard?

That's the exact dilemma I found myself in about three years ago. For most of my life, I bought into the grim and terrifying stories I heard about -- dare I say it? -- marijuana.

More: HuffingtonPost.com

Press TV - 9/6/12

The American spy agency, CIA has declassified a document, admitting to “analytic liabilities” that resulted in false US intelligence estimates on Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, leading to a major war.

The heavily-redacted 2006 review, declassified on Wednesday, shows that the case for war against Iraq rested on a number of falsehoods, all of which came from the US intelligence community’s failures in assessing Iraqi weapons programs in the lead-up to the Bush administration’s 2003 invasion.

The document highlights that such “analytic liabilities” kept US analysts from seeing the issue “through an Iraqi prism” and generated findings that helped justify the Iraq war.

More: PressTV.com.

RT.com  - 9/7/12

Ronnie Garza, one of the defendants, wearing lockboxes on his arms during a protest. (Image from Occupy Austin Facebook account)

A US court is reviewing Austin police emails for possible evidence of entrapment. It was revealed that Occupy protesters, who face felony charges for using special devices to create human chains, received the locks from an undercover officer.

The officer was one of the three APD agents who infiltrated the movement. He helped them obtain lockboxes, homemade devices consisting of a plastic or metal tube with a bolt running across in the center.

More: RT.com.

Business Insider - Larry Doyle, Sense on Cents
Sep. 6, 2012, 7:42 AM

America is increasingly aware that the student loan bubble is a major problem for millions of students, families, and our nation as a whole. While far too many politicians from both sides of the aisle talk in platitudes about the need for education, few if any of these politicians are willing to pull back the cover and expose the ugly reality embedded in current data on the student loan bubble.

Yes, America knows that total student debt now exceeds all other forms of consumer debt. We also know that total student debt is now approaching $1 trillion dollars. I personally believe that the cost of education at public and private colleges and universities has to adjust downward but that reality does not appear imminent.
Read more: http://www.senseoncents.com/2012/09/student-loan-bubble-the-hidden-reality/#ixzz25oT0KHRP