Lots of bad environmental news this week.  I don’t really know much about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) so I’ll let the pieces speak for themselves.

Bees Are Dying and We’ll All Pay for It

Kiona Smith-Strickland, Gizmodo

5/13/15 3:55pm

Bee colonies are still dying, and food may get more expensive as a result.

Beekeepers in the U.S. lost 42.1 percent of their bee colonies between April 2014 and April 2015, according to a recent annual survey. Those losses continue a trend of die offs among bee colonies, which beekeepers say could drastically affect our food supply.

Without bees to pollinate crops, we stand to lose many staple foods that we eat every day, from apples and tomatoes, to onions and berries.

…

Winter losses tell only part of the story. In fact, U.S. beekeepers lost enough colonies during the last two summers to make up for the improvements in winter losses. Last summer, about 27.4 percent of colonies died out. Large-scale commercial beekeepers, those with more than 50 colonies, seem to be especially prone to losing bee colonies during the summer.

Why are bee colonies dying? Several reasons: sometimes they succumb to winter cold, and sometimes a colony falls prey to mites, viruses, or fungi. Colony collapse disorder, or CCD, is one of the biggest problems, and it’s actually pretty creepy. Colonies that have succumbed to CCD are eerily deserted. The adult bees are gone, but there aren’t any bodies. It’s likely that the workers died elsewhere, but they left with unhatched young in the brood chamber, ample supplies of food in the hive, and the queen all alone in the hive.

Researchers think CCD is the product of an unfortunate combination of pesticides, parasites, pathogens, and nutritional problems caused by less diversity and availability of sources of pollen and nectar. Any of those causes could also contribute to more ordinary kinds of colony loss.

A Sharp Spike in Honeybee Deaths Deepens a Worrisome Trend

By MICHAEL WINES, The New York Times

MAY 13, 2015

In an annual survey released on Wednesday by the Bee Informed Partnership, a consortium of universities and research laboratories, about 5,000 beekeepers reported losing 42.1 percent of their colonies in the 12-month period that ended in April. That is well above the 34.2 percent loss reported for the same period in 2013 and 2014, and it is the second-highest loss recorded since year-round surveys began in 2010.

Most striking, however, was that honeybee deaths spiked last summer, exceeding winter deaths for the first time. Commercial beekeepers, some of whom rent their hives to farmers during pollination seasons, were hit especially hard, the survey’s authors stated.

“We expect the colonies to die during the winter, because that’s a stressful season,” said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an assistant entomology professor at the University of Maryland who directs the survey for the bee partnership. “What’s totally shocking to me is that the losses in summer, which should be paradise for bees, exceeded the winter losses.”

…

Dr. vanEngelsdorp said increasingly poor nutrition could be a factor in the rising summer death rate. Rising crop prices have led farmers to plow and plant millions of acres of land that was once home to wildflowers; since 2007, an Agriculture Department program that pays farmers to put sensitive and erosion-prone lands in a conservation reserve has lost an area roughly equal to half of Indiana, and budget cuts promise to shrink the program further. Dr. vanEngelsdrop and other scientists cite two other factors at work in the rising death rate: a deadly parasite, the varroa mite, and pesticides.

In recent years, some experts have focused on neonicotinoids, a class of pesticides used almost universally on some major crops in the United States. The European Commission has banned the use of three variants of the pesticide on flowering plants, citing risks to bees, and questioned whether they should be used at all.

Honeybees dying, situation ‘unheard of’

By Justin Wm. Moyer, Washington Post

May 14 at 3:11 AM

Just last year, it seemed there was something to celebrate despite planet Earth’s ongoing honeybee apocalypse: Bee colony losses were down. Not by enough, but they were down.

…

“One year does not make a trend,” Jeff Pettis, a co-author of the survey who heads the federal government’s bee research laboratory in Beltsville, Md., told the New York Times.

Turns out Pettis was right. VanEngelsdorp and other researchers at the Bee Informed Partnership, affiliated with the Department of Agriculture, just announced more than 40 percent of honeybee hives died this past year, as the Associated Press reported. The number is preliminary, but is the second-highest annual loss recorded to date.

“What we’re seeing with this bee problem is just a loud signal that there’s some bad things happening with our agro-ecosystems,” study co-author Keith Delaplane of the University of Georgia told the AP. “We just happen to notice it with the honeybee because they are so easy to count.”

…

The state worst affected was Oklahoma, which lost more than 60 percent of its hives. Hawaii escaped relatively unscathed, losing less than 14 percent.

“Most of the major commercial beekeepers get a dark panicked look in their eyes when they discuss these losses and what it means to their businesses,” Pennsylvania State University entomology professor Diana Cox-Foster, who didn’t participate in the survey, said. Her state lost more than 60 percent of its colonies.

The USDA estimated that honeybees add more than $15 billion to the value of the country’s crops per year.

“If losses continue at the 33 percent level, it could threaten the economic viability of the bee pollination industry,” the department said. “Honey bees would not disappear entirely, but the cost of honey bee pollination services would rise, and those increased costs would ultimately be passed on to consumers through higher food costs. Now is the time for research into the cause and treatment of CCD before CCD becomes an agricultural crisis.”

Science Oriented Video

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

–Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

Science News and Blogs

• U.S. Will Allow Drilling for Oil in Arctic Ocean, By CORAL DAVENPORT, The New York Times
• Alaska’s Tricky Intersection of Obama’s Energy and Climate Legacies, By CORAL DAVENPORT, The New York Times
• Shell’s Record Adds to the Anger of Those Opposing Arctic Drilling, By JOHN SCHWARTZ and CLIFFORD KRAUSS, The New York Times
• Seattle Port Votes to Delay Drilling Rigs on the Way to Alaska, By KIRK JOHNSON, The New York Times
• Port Of Seattle Votes To Delay Arrival Of Shell Oil Rigs, But The Fight’s Not Over Yet, by Natasha Geiling, Think Progress
• Deep-water drilling to resume near site of 2010 BP oil disaster, Al Jazeera
• Enbridge, Michigan settle over 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill, by Renee Lewis, Al Jazeera
• Arctic drilling for ‘extreme oil’ is risky – and letting Shell do the work is reckless, by Cindy Shogan, The Guardian
• Fear of Ruin as Disease Takes Hold of Italy’s Olive Trees, By JIM YARDLEY, The New York Times
• First collision data from a new detector at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, by Jon Butterworth, The Guardian
• Large Hadron Collider Detects Extremely Rare Particle Decay Predicted By Standard Model, By Avaneesh Pandey, International Business Times (autoplay ad)
• Crew Change on International Space Station Is Delayed, By NICHOLAS ST. FLEUR, The New York Times
• Sarah Brightman cancels trip to the International Space Station, By Martin Chilton, The Telegraph
• A Grisly Find Under a Supermarket Illuminates France’s Medieval History, By AURELIEN BREEDEN, The New York Times
• Gold-Filled Tomb of Chinese ‘Survivor’ Mom Discovered, by Owen Jarus, Live Science
• PHOTON SPACE SAIL successfully Kickstarted into orbit, by Richard Chirgwin, The Register
• All 5 of Pluto’s Known Moons Spied by NASA Probe (Photo), by Mike Wall, Space.com
• Mercury got very old magnetic field: NASA, By: Parham Dolati, Young Herald
• Oxygen on Mars to Make Human Missions ‘Lighter’, AFP
• New details emerge about Ceres’ bright spots, by Laurel Kornfeld, The Space Reporter
• New type of star cluster spotted in neighboring galaxy, by Kathy Fey, The Space Reporter
• New Dinosaur Is Velociraptor’s Cousin, And It May Have Been Even More Dangerous, By Ed Mazza, The Huffington Post

Obligatories, News and Blogs below.

You stop being racist and I’ll stop talking about it.

Commencement Season

Soul Daddy interviews Morgan Freeman

Tonightly it’s ‘Mystery Topic’, but our panelists are Joel McHale, Lola Ogunnaike, and Ahmed Ahmed.

Continuity

Kristen Shaal

This week’s guests-

• Wednesday 5/13: Reza Aslan
• Thursday 5/14: Rebel Wilson

Reza Aslan will probably be on to talk about Of Kings and Prophets, a new ABC series based on the life of King Saul.  He will be one of the producers.  His last 2 books, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam and Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth were critically well received except on Faux and he has a noted celebrity feud with Bill Maher.

Tom Brokaw’s web exclusive extended interview and the real news below.

You stop being racist and I’ll stop talking about it.

Accidental

Intentional

Tonightly- Special Guest: Morgan Freeman.  Panelists Dan Savage, Alexandra Wentworth, and Kerry Poppins; topics: updates on George Zimmerman and the panel discusses a sex study, whatever that means.

Continuity

Jordan Klepper

This week’s guests-

• Tuesday 5/12: Tom Brokaw
• Wednesday 5/13: Reza Aslan
• Thursday 5/14: Rebel Wilson

I wonder what Tom Brokaw will be on to speak about since he’s already made it quite clear that Brian Williams is off limits.

Probably about A Lucky Life Interrupted, his new book

The real news below.

Democrats defy White House on trade pact

By Burgess Everett, Politico

5/12/15 3:08 PM EDT

In a stern rebuke to President Barack Obama, Senate Democrats rebelled against his trade initiative on Tuesday afternoon and voted against even opening debate on the bill.

Democrats have demanded additional worker protections before they would consider voting to approve fast-track trade powers for the president. Shortly ahead of the vote, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rejected the demands, insisting he would not make any guarantees beyond a vote on the fast-track bill.

The ensuing Democratic filibuster sank the legislation on the Senate floor, 52-45, with 60 needed to pass. Trade proponents in both parties vowed to try to put the pieces back together, but with little more than a week before a Memorial Day recess and several expiring laws still to be addressed, the immediate future of Obama’s trade agenda is uncertain.

Republicans and White House officials have argued that enacting fast-track Trade Promotion Authority is critical for Obama’s ability to strike a massive trade deal with Pacific Rim countries.

“What we just saw here is pretty shocking,” said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) immediately following the vote.

Democrats that are supportive of Obama’s trade efforts huddled on Tuesday afternoon to plot their strategy. After nearly an hour, led by Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the bloc of about 10 Democrats said McConnell has not offered them sufficient guarantees.

“The group is concerned about the lack of commitment to trade enforcement, which is specifically the customs bill,” Wyden told reporters after the meeting. “Until there is a path to get all four bills passed … we will, certainly most of us, will have to vote no.”

…

The customs provision in particular is viewed as veto-bait for the White House, potentially complicating the trade package’s future if it is approved. The measure could force the administration to designate China as a currency manipulator, which the White House fears would spark a trade war with Beijing.

Love them or hate them and without passing any judgement at all on Israel or Palestine there is no denying that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC is one of the most powerful special interest lobbying groups on Capitol Hill which is why it’s so utterly unsurprising to read stories like this-

AIPAC-backed amendments add to trade bill turmoil

By Nahal Toosi, Politico

5/11/15 2:15 PM EDT

The trade legislation being debated on Capitol Hill is already highly contentious. Amendments added about Israel are raising the rancor even more.

The trade bill amendments aim to discourage foreign governments – in particular European ones – from boycotting, divesting from or putting sanctions on commercial activity linked to Israel and “Israeli-controlled territories.” They were inspired by the “BDS movement,” which was started a decade ago by Palestinian activists to put economic pressure on Israel to change its dealings with the Palestinians.

Opponents have a range of concerns with the amendments, which sailed through House and Senate committees. Some support the BDS movement, arguing it is a peaceful, grass-roots campaign that should not be targeted by U.S. trade law. Others, including some who oppose the BDS movement, are more worried about the legislation’s use of the phrase “Israeli-controlled territories.” They argue it’s a veiled reference to Israeli settlements in the West Bank – and that its use is an attempt to use U.S. law to legitimize Israel’s control over disputed land that Palestinians claim for a future state.

…

Several of the opponents express concern that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee backs the provisions, which would appear to shift the pro-Israel group’s position on the settlements. AIPAC has in the past avoided taking a formal position on the settlements, whose existence and expansion the U.S. government has generally opposed.

“In our view, these are not anti-BDS measures,” said Dylan Williams, vice president of government affairs for the left-leaning pro-Israel group J Street. “These are pro-settlement measures.”

Williams pointed out that many European countries actively promote trade with the state of Israel itself, suggesting that “the very target of these provisions are the European measures narrowly aimed at illegal settlement activity in the West Bank.”

Jewish Voice for Peace federal policy organizer Rabbi Joseph Berman also blasted the settlement-related implications and added that the amendments “are harmful to prospects for peace as well as principles of free speech.”

Members of the various activist groups have been contacting lawmakers and officials in the Obama administration to stop the provisions. They said that it appears some lawmakers are unaware of the implications of the language and may be reluctant to challenge a measure cast as pro-Israel.

…

Even without the Israeli-related elements, the multifaceted trade bills, which would in part give greater authority to the president, are already causing deep fissures in Congress. They are being debated as the U.S. negotiates major trade deals with European and Asian countries.

President Barack Obama insists the trade legislation will help boost the U.S. economy, but he faces resistance from many of his fellow Democrats, while finding support from many Republicans who normally loathe him.

…

Lara Friedman, director of policy and government relations for Americans for Peace Now, said AIPAC’s descriptions of what the provisions really mean are “utterly disingenuous and dishonest” and that by supporting the amendments the group is crossing a line by trying to protect the settlements. She supplied POLITICO with a screenshot of an earlier version of AIPAC’s online statement on the legislation, in which the group referred to Israel or “her territories.”

An AIPAC source, who would not comment on the record, insisted the amendments have nothing to do with settlements. In the latest version of the statement on its site, AIPAC writes that, while many Arab states have long avoided doing business with Israelis, the primary threat is now coming from Europe, “where some governments are initiating efforts to boycott Israel, divest from Israel and threaten sanctions on companies that operate there.” Requests for AIPAC comment on the screenshot were not immediately answered.

…

Obama has in recent days urged Democrats to get on board with the overall trade package. But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has suggested he will block the GOP majority’s plans to press forward with the bills. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to set up a vote Tuesday that would officially open debate whether to give the president the greater trade authority he seeks.

Reid’s maneuvering could buy activists more time to get support from lawmakers to change the language.

“For us this is a matter of education (and) … making clear what a shift this would be for U.S. policy,” Friedman said. “If you actually believe that U.S. policy should be to support a two-state solution, this is inconsistent with that.”

Now, tell me that TPP is not just a pig in a poke for Plutocrats and D.C. insiders to lard up.

Your Mama

Tonightly we have softball (not that it doesn’t happen often enough) with Will Packer, Rachel Feinstein, and Mike Yard (who presumably can hit for it).

Continuity

Deflategate

Oh, you didn’t seriously think I’d pass up an opportunity to talk about steroid abuse and the serious consequences it has to your health and sex life.

This week’s guests-

• Monday 5/11: John Legend
• Tuesday 5/12: Tom Brokaw
• Wednesday 5/13: Reza Aslan
• Thursday 5/14: Rebel Wilson

John Legend is probably on to talk about Lip Sync Battle and I am going to indulge you with a little rant of mine.

You see, the last concert I was at (though the company was engaging and we both had a good time I hope) was a totally horrid affair where I was herded into a barn-like expanse with nary a scrap of seat $10 nachos and $8 beer if you cared enough to stand in line for about an hour.

Then the acts started and it was just like a badly synced video (and I’ve produced enough to know) as the perfomers came on stage and danced listlessly and hardly bothered to pretend their cordless mole mikes and intruments were even turned on.

In short it was just like getting stoned in your skeevy friend’s basement and watching them dance around in their underwear playing air guitar to an 8 track that had been sitting on the dashboard for far too long and paying $100 for the privilege.

Not that I don’t appreciate the gesture mind you, but I suspect even my host was vastly disappointed and if they’re reading this (which is possible) I want to emphasise I’m grateful for the experience and the company.  On the other hand I’ll not be buying tickets to an Arianna Grande concert any time soon as much as I admire her talent as a singer and actress.

Girl, you know it’s true.

Two Mumford & Sons web exclusive videos below.  That and the real news.

Ugh, in my heart of hearts I know it’s true.  Single sourcing?  Seymour Hersh!

My country, that I loved, has been stolen from me and I now live in a National Socialist regime (I will not answer to any arguments that my childhood illusions were misguided, I believed we could have been, should have been, better than that).

And now the great question.

Confront the truth or run away?

As always I leave it to you, gentle reader, to decide.  My natural instinct is always to fight for the oppressed and believe the best of people.  This seems like good ground, I expect victory.

And if not, a White Rose.

The Killing of Osama bin Laden

Seymour M. Hersh, London Review of Books

May 2015

The major US source for the account that follows is a retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. He also was privy to many aspects of the Seals’ training for the raid, and to the various after-action reports. Two other US sources, who had access to corroborating information, have been longtime consultants to the Special Operations Command. I also received information from inside Pakistan about widespread dismay among the senior ISI and military leadership – echoed later by Durrani – over Obama’s decision to go public immediately with news of bin Laden’s death. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

…

In October, Obama was briefed on the intelligence. His response was cautious, the retired official said. ‘It just made no sense that bin Laden was living in Abbottabad. It was just too crazy. The president’s position was emphatic: “Don’t talk to me about this any more unless you have proof that it really is bin Laden.”‘ The immediate goal of the CIA leadership and the Joint Special Operations Command was to get Obama’s support. They believed they would get this if they got DNA evidence, and if they could assure him that a night assault of the compound would carry no risk. The only way to accomplish both things, the retired official said, ‘was to get the Pakistanis on board’.

During the late autumn of 2010, the US continued to keep quiet about the walk-in, and Kayani and Pasha continued to insist to their American counterparts that they had no information about bin Laden’s whereabouts. ‘The next step was to figure out how to ease Kayani and Pasha into it – to tell them that we’ve got intelligence showing that there is a high-value target in the compound, and to ask them what they know about the target,’ the retired official said. ‘The compound was not an armed enclave – no machine guns around, because it was under ISI control.’ The walk-in had told the US that bin Laden had lived undetected from 2001 to 2006 with some of his wives and children in the Hindu Kush mountains, and that ‘the ISI got to him by paying some of the local tribal people to betray him.’ (Reports after the raid placed him elsewhere in Pakistan during this period.) Bank was also told by the walk-in that bin Laden was very ill, and that early on in his confinement at Abbottabad, the ISI had ordered Amir Aziz, a doctor and a major in the Pakistani army, to move nearby to provide treatment. ‘The truth is that bin Laden was an invalid, but we cannot say that,’ the retired official said. ‘”You mean you guys shot a cripple? Who was about to grab his AK-47?”‘

‘It didn’t take long to get the co-operation we needed, because the Pakistanis wanted to ensure the continued release of American military aid, a good percentage of which was anti-terrorism funding that finances personal security, such as bullet-proof limousines and security guards and housing for the ISI leadership,’ the retired official said. He added that there were also under-the-table personal ‘incentives’ that were financed by off-the-books Pentagon contingency funds. ‘The intelligence community knew what the Pakistanis needed to agree – there was the carrot. And they chose the carrot. It was a win-win. We also did a little blackmail. We told them we would leak the fact that you’ve got bin Laden in your backyard. We knew their friends and enemies’ – the Taliban and jihadist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan – ‘would not like it.’

A worrying factor at this early point, according to the retired official, was Saudi Arabia, which had been financing bin Laden’s upkeep since his seizure by the Pakistanis. ‘The Saudis didn’t want bin Laden’s presence revealed to us because he was a Saudi, and so they told the Pakistanis to keep him out of the picture. The Saudis feared if we knew we would pressure the Pakistanis to let bin Laden start talking to us about what the Saudis had been doing with al-Qaida. And they were dropping money – lots of it. The Pakistanis, in turn, were concerned that the Saudis might spill the beans about their control of bin Laden. The fear was that if the US found out about bin Laden from Riyadh, all hell would break out. The Americans learning about bin Laden’s imprisonment from a walk-in was not the worst thing.’

Despite their constant public feuding, American and Pakistani military and intelligence services have worked together closely for decades on counterterrorism in South Asia. Both services often find it useful to engage in public feuds ‘to cover their asses’, as the retired official put it, but they continually share intelligence used for drone attacks, and co-operate on covert operations. At the same time, it’s understood in Washington that elements of the ISI believe that maintaining a relationship with the Taliban leadership inside Afghanistan is essential to national security. The ISI’s strategic aim is to balance Indian influence in Kabul; the Taliban is also seen in Pakistan as a source of jihadist shock troops who would back Pakistan against India in a confrontation over Kashmir.

…

The bin Laden compound was less than two miles from the Pakistan Military Academy, and a Pakistani army combat battalion headquarters was another mile or so away. Abbottabad is less than 15 minutes by helicopter from Tarbela Ghazi, an important base for ISI covert operations and the facility where those who guard Pakistan’s nuclear weapons arsenal are trained. ‘Ghazi is why the ISI put bin Laden in Abbottabad in the first place,’ the retired official said, ‘to keep him under constant supervision.’

…

‘Of course the guys knew the target was bin Laden and he was there under Pakistani control,’ the retired official said. ‘Otherwise, they would not have done the mission without air cover. It was clearly and absolutely a premeditated murder.’ A former Seal commander, who has led and participated in dozens of similar missions over the past decade, assured me that ‘we were not going to keep bin Laden alive – to allow the terrorist to live. By law, we know what we’re doing inside Pakistan is a homicide. We’ve come to grips with that. Each one of us, when we do these missions, say to ourselves, “Let’s face it. We’re going to commit a murder.”‘ The White House’s initial account claimed that bin Laden had been brandishing a weapon; the story was aimed at deflecting those who questioned the legality of the US administration’s targeted assassination programme. The US has consistently maintained, despite widely reported remarks by people involved with the mission, that bin Laden would have been taken alive if he had immediately surrendered.

At the Abbottabad compound ISI guards were posted around the clock to keep watch over bin Laden and his wives and children. They were under orders to leave as soon as they heard the rotors of the US helicopters. The town was dark: the electricity supply had been cut off on the orders of the ISI hours before the raid began. One of the Black Hawks crashed inside the walls of the compound, injuring many on board. ‘The guys knew the TOT [time on target] had to be tight because they would wake up the whole town going in,’ the retired official said. The cockpit of the crashed Black Hawk, with its communication and navigational gear, had to be destroyed by concussion grenades, and this would create a series of explosions and a fire visible for miles. Two Chinook helicopters had flown from Afghanistan to a nearby Pakistani intelligence base to provide logistical support, and one of them was immediately dispatched to Abbottabad. But because the helicopter had been equipped with a bladder loaded with extra fuel for the two Black Hawks, it first had to be reconfigured as a troop carrier. The crash of the Black Hawk and the need to fly in a replacement were nerve-wracking and time-consuming setbacks, but the Seals continued with their mission. There was no firefight as they moved into the compound; the ISI guards had gone. ‘Everyone in Pakistan has a gun and high-profile, wealthy folks like those who live in Abbottabad have armed bodyguards, and yet there were no weapons in the compound,’ the retired official pointed out. Had there been any opposition, the team would have been highly vulnerable. Instead, the retired official said, an ISI liaison officer flying with the Seals guided them into the darkened house and up a staircase to bin Laden’s quarters. The Seals had been warned by the Pakistanis that heavy steel doors blocked the stairwell on the first and second-floor landings; bin Laden’s rooms were on the third floor. The Seal squad used explosives to blow the doors open, without injuring anyone. One of bin Laden’s wives was screaming hysterically and a bullet – perhaps a stray round – struck her knee. Aside from those that hit bin Laden, no other shots were fired. (The Obama administration’s account would hold otherwise.)

‘They knew where the target was – third floor, second door on the right,’ the retired official said. ‘Go straight there. Osama was cowering and retreated into the bedroom. Two shooters followed him and opened up. Very simple, very straightforward, very professional hit.’ Some of the Seals were appalled later at the White House’s initial insistence that they had shot bin Laden in self-defence, the retired official said. ‘Six of the Seals’ finest, most experienced NCOs, faced with an unarmed elderly civilian, had to kill him in self-defence? The house was shabby and bin Laden was living in a cell with bars on the window and barbed wire on the roof. The rules of engagement were that if bin Laden put up any opposition they were authorised to take lethal action. But if they suspected he might have some means of opposition, like an explosive vest under his robe, they could also kill him. So here’s this guy in a mystery robe and they shot him. It’s not because he was reaching for a weapon. The rules gave them absolute authority to kill the guy.’ The later White House claim that only one or two bullets were fired into his head was ‘bullshit’, the retired official said. ‘The squad came through the door and obliterated him. As the Seals say, “We kicked his ass and took his gas.”‘

After they killed bin Laden, ‘the Seals were just there, some with physical injuries from the crash, waiting for the relief chopper,’ the retired official said. ‘Twenty tense minutes. The Black Hawk is still burning. There are no city lights. No electricity. No police. No fire trucks. They have no prisoners.’ Bin Laden’s wives and children were left for the ISI to interrogate and relocate. ‘Despite all the talk,’ the retired official continued, there were ‘no garbage bags full of computers and storage devices. The guys just stuffed some books and papers they found in his room in their backpacks. The Seals weren’t there because they thought bin Laden was running a command centre for al-Qaida operations, as the White House would later tell the media. And they were not intelligence experts gathering information inside that house.’

On a normal assault mission, the retired official said, there would be no waiting around if a chopper went down. ‘The Seals would have finished the mission, thrown off their guns and gear, and jammed into the remaining Black Hawk and di-di-maued’ – Vietnamese slang for leaving in a rush – ‘out of there, with guys hanging out of the doors. They would not have blown the chopper – no commo gear is worth a dozen lives – unless they knew they were safe. Instead they stood around outside the compound, waiting for the bus to arrive.’ Pasha and Kayani had delivered on all their promises.

…

Five days after the raid the Pentagon press corps was provided with a series of videotapes that were said by US officials to have been taken from a large collection the Seals had removed from the compound, along with as many as 15 computers. Snippets from one of the videos showed a solitary bin Laden looking wan and wrapped in a blanket, watching what appeared to be a video of himself on television. An unnamed official told reporters that the raid produced a ‘treasure trove … the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever’, which would provide vital insights into al-Qaida’s plans. The official said the material showed that bin Laden ‘remained an active leader in al-Qaida, providing strategic, operational and tactical instructions to the group … He was far from a figurehead [and] continued to direct even tactical details of the group’s management and to encourage plotting’ from what was described as a command-and-control centre in Abbottabad. ‘He was an active player, making the recent operation even more essential for our nation’s security,’ the official said. The information was so vital, he added, that the administration was setting up an inter-agency task force to process it: ‘He was not simply someone who was penning al-Qaida strategy. He was throwing operational ideas out there and he was also specifically directing other al-Qaida members.’

These claims were fabrications: there wasn’t much activity for bin Laden to exercise command and control over. The retired intelligence official said that the CIA’s internal reporting shows that since bin Laden moved to Abbottabad in 2006 only a handful of terrorist attacks could be linked to the remnants of bin Laden’s al-Qaida. ‘We were told at first,’ the retired official said, ‘that the Seals produced garbage bags of stuff and that the community is generating daily intelligence reports out of this stuff. And then we were told that the community is gathering everything together and needs to translate it. But nothing has come of it. Every single thing they have created turns out not to be true. It’s a great hoax – like the Piltdown man.’ The retired official said that most of the materials from Abbottabad were turned over to the US by the Pakistanis, who later razed the building. The ISI took responsibility for the wives and children of bin Laden, none of whom was made available to the US for questioning.

‘Why create the treasure trove story?’ the retired official said. ‘The White House had to give the impression that bin Laden was still operationally important. Otherwise, why kill him? A cover story was created – that there was a network of couriers coming and going with memory sticks and instructions. All to show that bin Laden remained important.’

…

Within weeks of the raid, I had been told by two longtime consultants to Special Operations Command, who have access to current intelligence, that the funeral aboard the Carl Vinson didn’t take place. One consultant told me that bin Laden’s remains were photographed and identified after being flown back to Afghanistan. The consultant added: ‘At that point, the CIA took control of the body. The cover story was that it had been flown to the Carl Vinson.’ The second consultant agreed that there had been ‘no burial at sea’. He added that ‘the killing of bin Laden was political theatre designed to burnish Obama’s military credentials … The Seals should have expected the political grandstanding. It’s irresistible to a politician. Bin Laden became a working asset.’ Early this year, speaking again to the second consultant, I returned to the burial at sea. The consultant laughed and said: ‘You mean, he didn’t make it to the water?’

The retired official said there had been another complication: some members of the Seal team had bragged to colleagues and others that they had torn bin Laden’s body to pieces with rifle fire. The remains, including his head, which had only a few bullet holes in it, were thrown into a body bag and, during the helicopter flight back to Jalalabad, some body parts were tossed out over the Hindu Kush mountains – or so the Seals claimed. At the time, the retired official said, the Seals did not think their mission would be made public by Obama within a few hours: ‘If the president had gone ahead with the cover story, there would have been no need to have a funeral within hours of the killing. Once the cover story was blown, and the death was made public, the White House had a serious “Where’s the body?” problem. The world knew US forces had killed bin Laden in Abbottabad. Panic city. What to do? We need a “functional body” because we have to be able to say we identified bin Laden via a DNA analysis. It would be navy officers who came up with the “burial at sea” idea. Perfect. No body. Honourable burial following sharia law. Burial is made public in great detail, but Freedom of Information documents confirming the burial are denied for reasons of “national security”. It’s the classic unravelling of a poorly constructed cover story – it solves an immediate problem but, given the slighest inspection, there is no back-up support. There never was a plan, initially, to take the body to sea, and no burial of bin Laden at sea took place.’ The retired official said that if the Seals’ first accounts are to be believed, there wouldn’t have been much left of bin Laden to put into the sea in any case.

…

Obama today is not facing re-election as he was in the spring of 2011. His principled stand on behalf of the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran says much, as does his decision to operate without the support of the conservative Republicans in Congress. High-level lying nevertheless remains the modus operandi of US policy, along with secret prisons, drone attacks, Special Forces night raids, bypassing the chain of command, and cutting out those who might say no.

So the bottom line is that the ISI were protecting Osama Bin Laden as a security asset (retired spy) in Abbottabad, a major military base like Fort Dix, New Jersey, until they allowed Obama to assassinate him with a firing squad flown in for that purpose which still managed to screw things up and fry a Blackhawk (Team ‘Murika, Yay!).

Well, thank goodness we killed those Poles that stormed our radio station at Gleiwitz and those anarchist Jews who burned down the Reichstag.

A DocuDharma tradition now on The Stars Hollow Gazette

I tease my mother by calling her Emily after Emily Gilmore both because overall my family reminds me very much of the Gilmores and because she’s never met a brand name she didn’t like whereas I’m perfectly content to buy generic.

I thank her among many things for a thorough grounding in the domestic and other arts.

Mom teaches first grade and is actually famous in a quiet sort of way.  The kind parents brag about and angle their kids for though she’s won national awards too.  Of course I owe everything I know about educating to her and among my own peers I’m considered an asskicking trainer.

She also insisted we learn to perform routine self maintenance, little things like laundry and ironing, machine and hand mending. basic cooking.  Of course she always indulged us with trips to museums and zoos, made sure we got library cards, did the usual bus driver thing to swim practice, had this huge second career as a Brownie/Girl Scout Leader for my sister.

At one point when I was old enough for it to make an impression she took her Masters of Fine Arts in Art of all things, so I know a little Art History with Far Eastern.  I understand how to bang out a copper pot and make silver rings because she took me to class once or twice.  She liked stained glass so much that she and dad made several pieces (you use a soldering iron and can cut yourself pretty bad so it’s a macho thing too).  They also did silk screening which taught me a lot about layout and graphic arts.

But she always liked fabric arts and in addition to a framed three dimensional piece in the living room, there are Afghans and rugs and scarves and pot holders and wash cloths and hats and quilts and dolls.

And the training kits and manuals for her mentorship programs, and the adaptations and costumes for the annual first and fifth grade play.  Did I mention she plays 3 instruments, though mostly piano?

She touch types too.

So to Emily, a woman of accomplishment and refinement, Happy Mother’s Day.

And they’re off.

Wait, that was last week.  Today we are back in Europe at Circuit de Catalunya on Hards and Hediums of which Sebastian Vettel says we cannot expect the same miracle of failure that led to a surprise second for Kimi Räikkönen at the last race in Sakhir even though he and Mercedes have saved a fresh set of Mediums.

Rosberg has gotten the pole which acually means very little unless you were betting on it.  McLaren shows signs of improvement, making it into Q2, which is good news for Honda, Jensen Button, and Fernando Alonso.

The movement to race what we got is raising some steam which goes to what I’ve been saying for years now which is that rule changes backed by testing limitations is a false economy that saves pennies now to cost pounds later.  Sure test time is expensive, but without it you can hardly expect to win or even to contend.

In more signs of failure and desperation Formula One is talking about “condensing it’s season” which pushes it comfortably out of March Madness for me but truly reflects the greed of Bernie Ecclestone and his determination to wring every last dime out of the teams and tracks for the priviledge of participating in his private circus.

Sigh.  I should stress less about sporting events that are the mere play things and status symbols of Billionaire Plutocrats.

Because, of course, we like to keep it light and frothy on the weekends.

How To Keep NSA Computers From Turning Your Phone Conversations Into Searchable Text

By Dan Froomkin, The Intercept

5/8/15

As soon as my article about how NSA computers can now turn phone conversations into searchable text came out on Tuesday, people started asking me: What should I do if I don’t want them doing that to mine?

The solution, as it is to so many other outrageously invasive U.S. government tactics exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, is, of course, Congressional legislation.

I kid, I kid.

No, the real solution is end-to-end encryption, preferably of the unbreakable kind.

And as luck would have it, you can have exactly that on your mobile phone, for the price of zero dollars and zero cents.

The Intercept’s Micah Lee wrote about this in March, in an article titled: “You Should Really Consider Installing Signal, an Encrypted Messaging App for iPhone.”

(Signal is for iPhone and iPads, and encrypts both voice and texts; RedPhone is the Android version of the voice product; TextSecure is the Android version of the text product.)

As Lee explains, the open source software group known as Open Whisper Systems, which makes all three, is gaining a reputation for combining trustworthy encryption with ease of use and mobile convenience.

Nobody – not your mobile provider, your ISP or the phone manufacturer – can promise you that your phone conversations won’t be intercepted in transit. That leaves end-to-end encryption – using a trustworthy app whose makers themselves literally cannot break the encryption – your best play.