The World’s First Space Nation Now Has A Satellite Flying Above The Earth

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On November 12, Asgardia cemented its presence in outer space by launching the Asgardia-1 satellite. The nation is slowing coming to fruition.
The ‘nanosat’ is roughly the size of a loaf of bread and undertook a two-day journey from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the United States, to the International Space Station (ISS). It contains 0.5 TB of data belonging to 18,000 of Asgardia’s citizens, such as family photographs, as well as digital representations of the space nation’s flag, coat of arms, and constitution. While Asgardia’s citizens will remain based on earth, for the time being, the satellite launch brings the nation one step closer to space. Asgardia-1 made its journey to the ISS aboard the OA-8 Antares-Cygnus, a NASA commercial cargo vehicle. Now it must wait for about three weeks as vital supplies and scientific equipment are transferred from the NASA ship to the six people currently living at the ISS. The nanosat will then be detached from the NASA vehicle and begin its own orbital journey around the earth. Citizens’ data will remain in orbit for between five and 18 months, the typical lifespan of this type of satellite. It will then burn out and disappear. Russian scientist Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli founded the world’s first independent nation to operate in outer space in October 2016. Named after a Norse mythological city of the skies, Asgardia is free to join and so far, about 114,000 people have signed up. Within 40 hours of the project being announced in 2016, over 100,000 people had applied for citizenship on Asgardia’s website. After three weeks, Asgardia had 500,000 applicants. Anyone over 18 years old, with an email address, regardless of gender, nationality, race, religion, and financial standing can apply for citizenship – including ex-convicts, provided they are clear of charges at the time of application

This post was published at shtfplan on November 16th, 2017.

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UN Diplomat Plunges To His Death After “Game Of Trust” Gone Wrong

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Sometimes, being too trusting can be a fatal mistake – especially in diplomacy – as one member of the Australian delegation at the United Nations learned early Wednesday morning, when he plunged to his death from his Manhattan balcony during a night of boozing with friends and his wife. The circumstances of Julian Simpson’s death are bizarre, considering that he died during a ‘trust game’ gone wrong, according to the New York Post.
Julian Simpson, 30, fell from the seventh floor to a second-floor landing at the Clinton Street building where he lived on the Lower East Side around 1:35 a.m., the sources said. Simpson was playing a ‘trust game’ with a male pal when he accidentally took the fatal fall, a source said.
‘I will prove it that you can trust me. Let’s play the trust game,’ Simpson said to the 24-year-old man just moments before he slipped and fell, sources said.
Simpson and his wife were out with friends for dinner and drinks before the group returned to their Clinton Street residence, where they enjoyed views of the Empire State building from their building’s wraparound roof deck. The New York landmark was lit up in the colors of the Australian flag to celebrate the country’s same-sex marriage vote.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Nov 16, 2017.

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AI Researcher Warns Skynet Killer-Robots “Easier To Achieve Than Self-Driving Cars”

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A group of the world’s leading AI researchers and humanitarian organizations are warning about lethal autonomous weapons systems, or killer robots, that select and kill targets without human control.
The group alleges killer robots now exist and the bulk of these technological developments are military funded in UK, China, Israel, Russia, and the United States. Although, fully autonomous weapons systems have not yet been deployed on the battlefield, the action by the group to ban lethal autonomous weapons is a preemptive ban before the technology falls into the wrong hands. The group calls on the citizens of the world to contact their representatives and for countries to work together to form international treaties, before it’s too late.
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Member List of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots:
Human Rights Watch Article 36 International Committee for Robot Arms Control PAX Association for Aid and Relief Japan: Mines Action Canada Nobel Women’s Initiative Pugwash Conferences on Science & World Affairs Seguridad Humana en Amrica Latina y el Caribe (SEHLAC) Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Future of Life Institute released a video yesterday titled: Slaughterbots.
The video portrays not to far in the distant future of a military firm unveiling a drone with shaped explosives that can target and kill humans on its own. Further in, the video abruptly changes pace, when bad guys get ahold of the technology and unleash swarms of killer robots onto the streets of Washington, D. C. and various academic institutions.
The video is aggressive and graphic but outlines if the technology was misused it could have severe consequences – such as civilian mass causality events.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Nov 15, 2017.

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The Superhero Complex: Are We Incapable of Saving Ourselves?

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If we felt empowered in daily life, would we be so enamored of superheroes constantly saving our world from destruction?
It’s been widely noted that the U. S. film industry ably functions as a pro-global hegemony propaganda machine: even when the plot features evil rogue elements at work in a global-hegemony agency (Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc.), the competence of the agency is never in doubt, nor is the agency’s ability to rid itself of the evil rogue element. Evil conspiracies are revealed and the Good Guys/Gals win. This depiction of official competence and the moral righteousness of patriotic employees is not surprising; these agencies have long “cooperated” with Hollywood on many levels. More troubling is the recent film-industry depiction of our dependence on superheroes and their superpowers to set things right. The benign view is that Hollywood is always seeking new billion-dollar source materials for multi-film franchises, and comic book heroes are tailor-made for franchises: not only can multiple films be made about individual superheroes, but the potential for mix-and-match combinations of superheroes is practically endless.

This post was published at Charles Hugh Smith on WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2017.

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Road to Damascus: An Irishman’s Journey to Syria

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Niall Farrell
Advertiser.ie
The Prophet Mohammad, when asked why he had never visited Damascus, replied that you ‘only enter paradise once’. Thus advised, I joined a group of international peace activists on a tour of Syria.
The trip would take us to Damascus, Maaloula, Homs, and Aleppo. The group included four close associates – Clare Daly TD, Mick Wallace TD, Edward Horgan, and Dave Donnellan; the latter pair established an ambitious peace project to name all children killed since the First Gulf War in 1991.
My interest in Syria grew from 2007 after retired US General Wesley Clarke revealed Pentagon plans to overthrow seven governments in five years – Syria was on the list as was Libya. When President Obama threatened to attack Damascus in September 2013, Margaretta D’Arcy and I blocked Shannon Airport’s runway demanding ‘Hands Off Syria’. We were sure weapons used to directly attack Syria or to be funnelled to so-called ‘rebels’ would be transported via Shannon or Irish airspace.

This post was published at 21st Century Wire on NOVEMBER 16, 2017.

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Amazon Poses a Serious Threat to Freedom and Free Markets

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How many people bitch about the Washington Post 24/7, yet have Amazon boxes piling up on their porch?
You are feeding the beast.
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 15, 2017

It wasn’t until earlier this year that I became really concerned about Amazon. Sure, I had warned people previously of the dangers of an oligarch like Jeff Bezos owning a major national newspaper like The Washington Post, and I’d also highlighted Amazon’s creepy $600 million contract with the CIA, but I didn’t truly grasp the bigger picture until recently.
It seems I’d been too focused on the financial system and other predatory industries to see the gigantic threat metastasizing in the room. If that happened to me, I’m sure many of you aren’t paying close enough attention to the risks to freedom and free markets posed by Amazon and its oligarch CEO. That’s why I decided to write this post.
This piece will be presented in two parts. First, I will highlight several recent articles that do a great job describing how dangerous Amazon, and its richest man in the world (net worth of $95 billion) CEO Jeff Bezos, is. Second, I’ll discuss my personal mission of redirecting more our family’s money away from this corporate behemoth.
Let’s kick things off with a few excerpts from a great article by Caitlin Johnstone titled, Friendly Reminder That Jeff Bezos Is Trying To Take Over The Universe:

This post was published at Liberty Blitzkrieg on Nov 15, 2017.

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‘Hindenburg Omen’ Meets ‘Titanic Syndrome’ For The First Time Since October 2007

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Two weeks ago we warned that a cluster of the infamous Hindenburg Omens was forming. Since then stocks have suffered their biggest drop in 3 months…

However, the Hindenberg Omen is not exactly flawless and has false-alerted a number of times in the last few years.
Which is why, John Hussman has adapted the signals and is now warning of a very significant convergence of the ‘Hindenberg Omen’ and the ‘Titanic Syndrome’…
I’ve noted over the years that substantial market declines are often preceded by a combination of internal dispersion, where the market simultaneously registers a relatively large number of new highs and new lows among individual stocks, and a leadership reversal, where the statistics shift from a majority of new highs to a majority of new lows within a small number of trading sessions.
– John P. Hussman, Ph. D., Market Internals Go Negative, July 30, 2007

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Nov 15, 2017.

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