Monthly Archives: July 2019

Jul 14 2019

Fermi’s Paradox and the Psychology of Galactic Empires | Matthew O´Dowd | TEDxTUWien


Published on Aug 9, 2017

We now know that the Galaxy is full of potentially habitable planets. So why do we see no signs that any civilizations have come before us? Matt O’Dowd, astrophysicist and host of PBS Space Time, explains why Fermi’s paradox really is so surprising, and he offers a new piece of evidence that may point towards the solution. Astrophysicist Matthew O’Dowd spends his time studying the universe, especially really far-away things like Quasars, super-massive black holes and evolving galaxies. He completed his Ph.D. at NASA´s Space Telescope Science Institute, followed by work at the University of Melbourne and Columbia University. Currently he is a professor at the City University of New York´s Lehman College and an Associate at the American Museum of Natural Historys Hayden Planetarium. Thumbnail © Nadja Niemiec This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Jul 14 2019

Artificial Intelligence: it will kill us | Jay Tuck | TEDxHamburgSalon


Published on Jan 31, 2017

SUBSCRIBE 19M
For more information on Jay Tuck, please visit our website http://www.tedxhamburg.de US defense expert Jay Tuck was news director of the daily news program ARD-Tagesthemen and combat correspondent for GermanTelevision in two Gulf Wars. He has produced over 500 segments for the network. His investigative reports on security policy, espionage activities and weapons technology appear in leading newspapers, television networks and magazines throughout Europe, including Cicero, Focus, PC-Welt, Playboy, Stern, Welt am Sonntag and ZEITmagazin. He is author of a widely acclaimed book on electronic intelligence activities, “High-Tech Espionage” (St. Martin’s Press), published in fourteen countries. He is Executive Producer for a weekly technology magazine on international television in the Arab world. For his latest book “Evolution without us – Will AI kill us?” he researched at US drone bases, the Pentagon, intelligence agencies and AI research institutions. His lively talks are accompanied by exclusive video and photographs. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
Jul 14 2019

How to Have a Good Conversation | Celeste Headlee | TEDxCreativeCoast


TEDx Talks

Published on May 7, 2015
When your job hinges on how well you talk to people, you learn a lot about how to have great conversations – and most of us don’t converse very well. A great conversation requires a balance between talking and listening. This balance is important because bad communication leads to bad relationships, at home, at work, everywhere. Celeste Headlee has worked in public radio since 1999, as a reporter, host, and correspondent. She was the Midwest Correspondent for NPR before becoming the co-host of the PRI show The Takeaway. She also guest hosted a number of NPR shows including Tell Me More, Talk of the Nation, Weekend All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. Celeste holds multiple degrees in music and still performs as a professional opera singer. She’s the granddaughter of composer William Grant Still, the Dean of African American Composers. Celeste is an avid hiker, biker, paddler and dog walker. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
Jul 14 2019

How to defend yourself against misleading statistics in the news | Sanne Blauw | TEDxMaastricht


Published on Nov 3, 2016

Numbers are being used every day. In the news, in politics, in our jobs, and even in our social interactions. They are used to convince, explain, but also to deflect from what is truly happening. Too often, numbers appear as abstract, objective and difficult. Sanne Blauw’s mission is to make the world of numbers accessible to all. Sanne has broken most stereotypes about someone interested in mathematics throughout her life. From working at the OECD, to being a member of her University Council, to becoming a journalist. Sanne is far more than what most people would expect from a person with a PhD in econometrics. She strives to convince all of us to second-guess the numbers that shape our worldview. This talk is a must for all who work in journalism. Sanne Blauw is journalist for De Correspondent. She obtained a PhD degree in econometrics at the Tinbergen Institute and the Econometric Institute of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Using various quantitative methods, she combined applied micro-econometrics, psychology and development economics. Sanne is convinced that a better understanding of statistics would make the world a better place. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
Jul 14 2019

Senate Briefed on UFO Rash of Recent Sightings?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Opinion

Posted Jul 14, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

Well, the conspiracy takes are red hot that the aliens are coming and just waiting for us to self-destruct with World War III so they can inherit the planet. Believe it or not, three US senators were given a classified briefing about UFOs which have been seen traveling at hypersonic speed by US Navy pilots. It seems the story has hit several sources including Politico.

A spokesperson for Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has confirmed that he was present at the briefing and made a public statement. “If naval pilots are running into unexplained interference in the air, that’s a safety concern Senator Warner believes we need to get to the bottom of.”

Back in the early 1980s, there was a major sighting of a UFO which streaked across the sky from Princeton, New Jersey out past Trenton and off to the shore. New Jersey has actually been one of the hot spots where UFO sightings are far more common.

I actually saw one of these saucers take off when I was late and cut through a field trying to get to a party with a girlfriend in the late ’70s in Princeton. There it was, sitting in a field, and as soon as my lights got close it took off with such blinding light I had to slam on the breaks. There was absolutely no sound – just white light. My girlfriend said we had to call the press. I told her no way, I was a businessman and I could not get involved. The next day, the front pages of the Trenton Times reported thousands of people calling in about a UFO which streaked across the sky.

I found three things very curious. First, I had long been told that out by that field there was a secret base underground which the government had constructed so why would such a vehicle be just sitting in a field near this base? Secondly, the blinding white light and the absence of sound meant the engines had to be magnetic rather than a combustion fuel. The third strange aspect was that it abruptly went straight up, stopped dead, and then made a right horizontal turn at incredible speed. This meant that there had to be some gravitational technology for no occupant could survive such G-forces.

My conclusion was that these were not aliens, but most likely secret technology we created. I had an uncle who was a Navy pilot during the Korean War over the Pacific and said that the pilots would often encounter UFOs back then as they seem to be doing again. Indeed, there were reports carried out in 1947 and 1949, and then there was the major incident of 1952 UFO sighting which was a series of the unidentified flying object reported from July 12 to July 29, 1952, over Washington, D.C. These were perhaps the most publicized sightings that took place. The History Channel covered the story. The radar operator Howard Cocklin did an interview before he died.

There could be the explanation that a secret program exists with technology from the famous Roswell crash, or perhaps it is someone from the future who has figured out how to bring Einstein’s theories of time to practical implication using gravity. It just seems to me if they were aliens, they have come a long way to just observe a primitive race. Is the rash of new sightings involving people from the future here to observe how World War III begins?

Whatever the explanation, it is the fuel of Scfi movies and conspiracies. Of course, if they really are aliens, perhaps they will come to fix the pension crisis and eliminate the corruption in governments.

Jul 14 2019

Power Outage in New York – Dramatic Media – Rest of Country ‘Meh’…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on July 13, 2019 by 

Fox News talking hair Leland Vitter uses his best dramatic voice, channels his inner Shep, and proclaims the end of the known universe is nigh, because the power went out in a part of Manhattan, New York City.  Evacuations, crisis, no stoplights… oh, my.

OMG… “pitch black”, it’s the beginning of the zombie apocalypse or something, only this time they’re bringing hashtags!

New York – A power failure struck the West Side of Manhattan on Saturday evening, plunging subway stations into darkness, stalling trains, stranding people in elevators and for a time leaving parts of Times Square without its customary bright lights.

Con Edison said that about 42,000 customers were without power, mainly on the West Side. The Fire Department said the failures stretched from 72nd Street to the West 40s, and from Fifth Avenue to the Hudson River.

“Unfortunately, we do not have an estimated restoration at this time,” Con Edison said. “Our crews are working as quickly and safely as they can to restore service.”

The New York City Council speaker, Corey Johnson, said on Twitter that there had been a “major disturbance” at Con Edison’s 49th Street substation, and that the utility was working to fix it. He said the A, C, F, D and M subway lines were affected. (read more)

Jul 14 2019

More Leaked U.K. Diplomatic Cables Against President Trump as British Authorities Promise to Catch Leaker…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on July 13, 2019 by 

The leaks from the diplomatic cables of former British Ambassador Kim Darroch continue; this time the cables discuss the U.K. efforts to get President Trump to change his position toward the cancellation of the Iran nuclear deal.

Apparently the British ambassador wrote the Trump administration was “set upon an act of diplomatic vandalism.” Oh, the audacity of it all.  Yes, according to the Brits President Trump was an intractable fellow when it came to the Iran Deal.

(Via Daily Mail) […] Sir Kim Darroch’s claim – made after Boris Johnson made a doomed trip to the White House to change the President’s mind – is revealed in leaked cables and briefing notes which led to Sir Kim’s resignation last week.

The new revelation comes after an extraordinary row over the freedom of the press blew up this weekend, with Mr Johnson and leadership rival Jeremy Hunt leading the condemnation of Scotland Yard over its threats to prosecute this newspaper.

[…] In other dramatic developments:

  • Spies at the Government’s ultra-secretive GCHQ were poised to joined the hunt for the leaker by targeting email and mobile phone records;
  • The Queen’s former private secretary Christopher Geidt was named by Whitehall sources as a frontrunner to replace Sir Kim in Washington;
  • Tensions ramped up further between Britain and Iran with the Royal Navy’s £1 billion destroyer HMS Duncan being sent to the Persian Gulf to protect UK vessels against attack by Iranian boats.

Sir Kim’s Iran memo was sent in May 2018, after Mr Johnson – who was then Foreign Secretary – had been dispatched to Washington to make a last ditch plea to President Trump not to abandon the nuclear deal with Iran designed to prevent the regime from building an atomic bomb. (read more)

Jul 14 2019

Armed Activist Hurling Molotov Cocktails at ICE Facility Shot Killed by Police…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on July 13, 2019 by 

This is an example of what happens when politicians and far-left activists push a false narrative that ICE facilities are comparable to concentration camps.

An obviously unstable man armed with a rifle attempts to blow up an ICE detention facility in Tacoma Washington following protests hours earlier.

WASHINGTON – An armed man was fatally shot early Saturday during a confrontation with police after he hurled incendiary devices at a Washington state immigration detention center, Tacoma police said.

The shooting occurred about 4 a.m. local time outside the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Northwest Detention Center, where the gunman attempted to set the building and parked cars on fire, according to police spokeswoman Loretta Cool.

Authorities did not immediately identify the gunman, saying in the statement the “medical examiner will release the identity of the victim when it is appropriate.”

The assault on the privately-run immigrant detention facility came amid protests over ICE plans to begin the previously postponed raids across the country on Sunday. The goal is the arrest of thousands of migrant families who already have court orders to be removed, according to US officials.

A peaceful rally against the raids at the Tacoma detention center had ended about six hours before the shooting, Cool said.  […]

Police said the man set a vehicle ablaze in the center’s parking lot and attempted to ignite a propane tank with a flare to set the building on fire. Officers called out to the man and shots were fired, according to a police statement. It’s not known whether the man fired on the officers, Cool said.

The gunman died at the scene; four officers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave per department policy. The incident is under investigation. (more)

.

This death is directly attributable to the dangerous incitement by politicians and immigration activists.  However, watch the media run cover for those who advocated for exactly this type of Antifa resistance violence.

Jul 14 2019

Flynn Case Highlights Multiple 2016 “Insurance Policy” Motives by DOJ and FBI Operatives…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on July 13, 2019 by 

Former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is involved in two heavily connected legal cases that came from the special counsel appointment of Robert Mueller.  One direct case is in DC District Court, Judge Emmet Sullivan; and one indirect case in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA), Judge Anthony Trenga.

The DC case is the direct case against Michael Flynn where Flynn took a plea deal and has been in a rather tentacled sentencing phase since November 2017.  The EDVA case is the FARA case against Flynn’s former business associate Bijan Rafiekian where Flynn was going to be a witness (now cancelled).

While the larger issues connecting both cases are somewhat complex, some details released last week reveal a concerning bigger picture that originated long before Robert Mueller became special counsel in May 2017.  [Back story HERE and HERE and HERE]

I’m going to make the assumption the reader is familiar with the backstory noted above; and additionally, in full disclosure for the reader, this is openly written for the research benefit of the Flynn defense team – with whom I’ve had no contact.

Of particular interest to me was the revelation that DOJ National Security Division head David Laufman engaged with Flynn in January 2017, and was the lead point of contact within the DOJ-NSD when Flynn was filing FARA compliance documents, as part of the transition into the Trump administration.

Laufman is particularly interesting -within this specific timeline- because he is at the heart of the DOJ/FBI small group activity in 2015/2016 when the group goal was Clinton’s exoneration and Trump’s surveillance/investigation.  While Laufman’s name is not as well known as Peter Strzok or Lisa Page, his Main Justice activity is just as consequential.

We know and accept from prior records [pg 12 Mueller report] that Michael Flynn was under some form of official and unofficial surveillance and investigation by the Obama administration from sometime in 2015 all the way to his first weeks in the Trump administration in January/February 2017.

That collective monitoring could have included authorized Title-3 electronic surveillance or Title-1 (FISA) surveillance.  My best guess is Title-III until the publication of the Turkish Op-Ed, and that opened the door to Title-I.  The change requires the target to do something that would allow the DOJ to jump and claim “acting as an agent of a foreign power”.   The  November 8th, 2016 op-ed advocacy, without notation of the contract, would provide the DOJ-NSD with the ability to make that claim.

David Laufman was head of the DOJ-NSD office that would have been watching.  In hindsight, the leaked reporting to the Wall Street Journal in 2017 confirms this:

WASHINGTON—The investigation into former national security adviser Mike Flynn began soon after a Justice Department staffer noticed a Nov. 8, 2016, op-ed article by the retired Army general in the congressional publication The Hill, according to a person familiar with the matter.

[…] In the article, Mr. Flynn championed closer U.S. ties with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and maligned the Turkish government’s No. 1 foe, U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

The piece didn’t disclose Mr. Flynn’s business relationship with Turkish interests.

The Justice Department staffer, who works in the office that enforces the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, checked the database of people registered to represent foreign interests. He found no entry for Mr. Flynn and sent him a letter inquiring about the article, according to this person, who said the staffer’s query triggered the FARA investigation.  (read more)

We know that FARA investigations were used by the Lynch/Yates DOJ to gain FISA surveillance on DC targets.  Given that Flynn was already a high profile target it would be almost guaranteed the Obama administration quickly gained a FISA warrant on Flynn in the days immediately following the public advocacy (November 2016).

So when Flynn was engaged with David Laufman in December ’16/January ’17 in the completion of the FARA compliance forms, it is certain that Laufman knew much more about the background of who hired the Flynn Intel Group, than Flynn himself.  Hence, Laufman pressured a FARA filing that was later used by Mueller to claim Flynn filed a misleading FARA notification.   It was all a set up.

Heck, knowing how foreign intelligence units were used by the FBI and CIA to engage the Trump campaign (pure politics); and keeping the entire sketchy intel operation around the killing of Jamal Kashoggi in mind (more politics); I’m now of the opinion someone in/around the Obama White House worked with someone in/around Recep Erdogan (Turkish Govt.) to set up that entire 2016 Flynn lobbying scenario using a Dutch front group.  The DOJ-NSD was waiting to exploit it.

So yesterday, there were some court arguments as the EDVA case against Flynn’s partner is about to start….  The transcript is not yet public, but Techno-Fog gained access.  Pay attention to this snippet Techno released:

Please pay attention to this part: “because of Flynn’s relationship with an ongoing presidential campaign without any reference to the defendant or FIG”…

The word “campaign” is a written Freudian slip, a *tell* per se’, that informs those paying attention of the history of the government’s activity and foreknowledge.

So here’s where I’m at….   The granules are small, but the granules are all assembled in the same part of the same picture.  The Dutch/Turkish lobbying contract was a set-up; just like the Trump Tower meeting was a set-up; just like the London meeting with Alexander Downer was a set-up; just like the $10,000 from Charles Tawil to George Papadopoulos was a set-up; just like Mifsud was a set-up… etc. etc.

In the foreground you’ve got Brennan and the White House (Brennan’s working group), and Fusion GPS, and Nellie Ohr, and Christopher Steele etc… In the background you’ve got Yates, and Carlin, and Laufman, and McCord, and Weissmann (DOJ-NSD team); together with Comey, and McCabe, and Baker, and Strzok, and Page (FBI team)… and essentially the bridge, Bruce Ohr, acting as a carrier smidgen taking information from the working group to the FBI to the DOJ….

These are the basic elements of the seditious small group within the DOJ-NSD and FBI.

Additionally, this gets more interesting when you think about the scale of what they were doing, and how intensely they were committed to it.

When the network was failing in their impeachment effort; when the insurance policy was not working; and when they were falling back in logical sequence to various defensive positions throughout 2018; where did David Laufman resurface?

See the scale of this?

New York Field office FBI agent Monica McLean was the handler who initiated her best friend Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford against Supreme Court nominee Judge Kavanaugh.  Who was Monica McLean’s lawyer?…. David Laufman.

Who was Blasey-Ford’s lawyer?…. Michael Bromwich; he’s also the lawyer for Andrew McCabe.

Why?

What possible reason would the same ‘small group’ participants have for going from the 2016 election effort, and 2017 impeachment effort, to the 2018 SCOTUS manipulation effort?  [Also intended to influence the 2018 mid-term]

The “small group” activity was/is so illegal (literally seditious), it was a reasonable part of the concentric defense to try and block a SCOTUS nomination and influence the outcome of the 2018 mid-term election.

That’s the scale of this.

And given the scale of this….

Jul 13 2019

Epstein Case Claims Trump Team Scalp: Labor Chief Still Defends Secret Plea Deal


Bill Whittle
Published on Jul 12, 2019
The Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case claims a Trump team scalp as Labor chief Alex Acosta resigns. He still defends his actions a decade ago in a secret deal that many view as a slap on the wrist for Epstein. Should Trump have fought for him or fired him? This episode of Bill Whittle Now is one of 48 shows each month produced by the Members at BillWhittle.com. To learn more about what Membership means, visit https://billwhittle.com/ufaqs/what-is…