'Artificial Intelligence is as dangerous as NUCLEAR WEAPONS': AI pioneer warns smart computers could doom mankind

Posted by George Freund on July 19, 2015   ~ hehe it's ALL fun & games (& not 2 mention the shit that IS really go~in ON b~hind the curtain ??? )  until yer 'monster' starts chas~in yer ass all over the fucking North Pole Huh ???   ...than it's save me God ,,saveeee me :o     oh um & a side note maybe ,just fucking maybe... the real reason Y "they" what COMPLETE sur~val on ALL US ...is some of the "mathematics" is so "easy" that just 'bout anybody can do this shit  ??? & just think 'bout THAT whole ball of shit :0

Leading artificial intelligence pioneer Stuart Russell has compared artificial intelligence to the development of nuclear weapons. He particularly fears what will happen if AI is used in weapons and military systems. Films such as Terminator (pictured above) have given what some believe is a glimpse of what could happen

Expert warns advances in AI mirrors research that led to nuclear weapons
He says AI systems could have objectives misaligned with human values
Companies and the military could allow this to get a technological edge
He urges the AI community to put human values at the centre of their work

By RICHARD GRAY FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 14:30 GMT, 17 July 2015 | UPDATED: 15:12 GMT, 17 July 2015

Artificial intelligence has the potential to be as dangerous to mankind as nuclear weapons, a leading pioneer of the technology has claimed.

Professor Stuart Russell, a computer scientist who has lead research on artificial intelligence, fears humanity might be 'driving off a cliff' with the rapid development of AI.

He fears the technology could too easily be exploited for use by the military in weapons, putting them under the control of AI systems.



Leading artificial intelligence pioneer Stuart Russell has compared artificial intelligence to the development of nuclear weapons. He particularly fears what will happen if AI is used in weapons and military systems. Films such as Terminator (pictured above) have given what some believe is a glimpse of what could happen

He points towards the rapid development in AI capabilities by companies such as Boston Dynamics, which was recently acquired by Google, to develop autonomous robots for use by the military.

Professor Russell, who is a researcher at the University of California in Berkeley and the Centre for the study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University, compared the development of AI to the work that was done to develop nuclear weapons.

His views echo those of people like Elon Musk who have warned recently about the dangers of artificial intelligence.

Professor Stephen Hawking also joined a group of leading experts to sign an open letter warning of the need for safeguards to ensure AI has a positive impact on mankind.

In an interview with the journal Science for a special edition on Artificial Intelligence, he said: 'From the beginning, the primary interest in nuclear technology was the "inexhaustible supply of energy".

'The possibility of weapons was also obvious. I think there is a reasonable analogy between unlimited amounts of energy and unlimited amounts of intelligence.

'Both seem wonderful until one thinks of the possible risks. In neither case will anyone regulate the mathematics.

'The regulation of nuclear weapons deals with objects and materials, whereas with AI it will be a bewildering variety of software that we cannot yet describe.

'I'm not aware of any large movement calling for regulation either inside or outside AI, because we don't know how to write such regulation.'

This week Science published a series of papers highlighting the progress that has been made in artificial intelligence recently.

In one, researchers describe the pursuit of a computer that is able to make rational economic decisions away from humans while another outlines how machines are learning from 'big data'.



Nuclear research was conducted with the aim of producing a new energy source, but scientists also knew that it could be used to create weapons of great power. Professor Russell warns AI could be put to similar use if researchers are not careful. A nuclear bomb test is shown over French Polynesia in the image above

GOOGLE SETS UP AI ETHICS BOARD TO CURB THE RISE OF THE ROBOTS

Google has set up an ethics board to oversee its work in artificial intelligence.

The search giant has recently bought several robotics companies, along with Deep Mind, a British firm creating software that tries to help computers think like humans.

One of its founders warned artificial intelligence is 'number one risk for this century,' and believes it could play a part in human extinction.

'Eventually, I think human extinction will probably occur, and technology will likely play a part in this,' DeepMind's Shane Legg said in a recent interview.

Among all forms of technology that could wipe out the human species, he singled out artificial intelligence, or AI, as the 'number 1 risk for this century.'

The ethics board, revealed by web site The Information, is to ensure the projects are not abused.

Neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, 37, founded DeepMind two years ago with the aim of trying to help computers think like humans.



Autonomous robots like Boston Dynamics Big Dog (shown above) particularly concerned Professor Russell

Professor Russell, however, cautions that this unchecked development of technology can be dangerous if the consequences are not fully explored and regulation put in place.

He said: 'Here's what Leo Szilard wrote in 1939 after demonstrating a [nuclear] chain reaction: 'We switched everything off and went home. That night, there was very little doubt in my mind that the world was headed for grief.'

'To those who say, well, we may never get to human-level or superintelligent AI, I would reply: It's like driving straight toward a cliff and saying, 'Let's hope I run out of gas soon!'

In April Professor Russell raised concerns at a United Nations meeting in Geneva over the dangers of putting military drones and weapons under the control of AI systems.

He joins a growning number of experts who have warned that scenarios like those seen in films from Terminator, AI and 2001: A Space Odyssey are not beyond the realms of possibility.



Elon Musk is one of the driving forces behind super-intelligent computers but last year, the Tesla founder warned that AI could to do more harm than nuclear weapons (Tweet pictured)

He: 'The basic scenario is explicit or implicit value misalignment - AI systems [that are] given objectives that don't take into account all the elements that humans care about.

'The routes could be varied and complex—corporations seeking a supertechnological advantage, countries trying to build [AI systems] before their enemies, or a slow-boiled frog kind of evolution leading to dependency and enfeeblement not unlike EM Forster's The Machine Stops.'

EM Forster's short story tells of a post-apocalyptic world where humanity lives underground and relies on a giant machine to survive, which then begins to malfunction.

Professor Russell said computer scienitsts needed to modify the goals of their research to ensure human values and objectives remain central to the development of AI technology.

He said students needed to be trained to treat these objectives much in the same way 'as containment is central to the goals of fusion research'.

In an editorial in Science, editors Jelena Stajic, Richard Stone, Gilbert Chin and Brad Wible, said: 'Triumphs in the field of AI are bringing to the fore questions that, until recently, seemed better left to science fiction than to science.

'How will we ensure that the rise of the machines is entirely under human control? And what will the world be like if truly intelligent computers come to coexist with humankind?'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3165356/Artificial-Intelligence-dangerous-NUCLEAR-WEAPONS-AI-pioneer-warns-smart-computers-doom-mankind.html#ixzz3gASKXczk ;

The Bankruptcy Of The Planet Accelerates - 24 Nations Are Currently Facing A Debt Crisis

Posted by George Freund on July 20, 2015   ...maybe the "OLD" sys~tum is B'ing 'phased out' & the NEW ( read that ..the hidden deep,Deep, DEEP finance sys~tum is B'ing brought OUT ???)  folks ALL this fucking $$$ is /has been go~in 'some~where' ,,, it ($$$) just doesn't fall "off" the face of the Earth & go puff!   Huh ;)  ...maybe "it's" float~in out there in 'out  er  space'

By Michael Snyder, on July 16th, 2015

There has been so much attention on Greece in recent weeks, but the truth is that Greece represents only a very tiny fraction of an unprecedented global debt bomb which threatens to explode at any moment. As you are about to see, there are 24 nations that are currently facing a full-blown debt crisis, and there are 14 more that are rapidly heading toward one. Right now, the debt to GDP ratio for the entire planet is up to an all-time record high of 286 percent, and globally there is approximately 200 TRILLION dollars of debt on the books. That breaks down to about $28,000 of debt for every man, woman and child on the entire planet. And since close to half of the population of the world lives on less than 10 dollars a day, there is no way that all of this debt can ever be repaid. The only “solution” under our current system is to kick the can down the road for as long as we can until this colossal debt pyramid finally collapses in upon itself.

As we are seeing in Greece, you can eventually accumulate so much debt that there is literally no way out. The other European nations are attempting to find a way to give Greece a third bailout, but that is like paying one credit card with another credit card because virtually everyone in Europe is absolutely drowning in debt.

Even if some “permanent solution” could be crafted for Greece, that would only solve a very small fraction of the overall problem that we are facing. The nations of the world have never been in this much debt before, and it gets worse with each passing day.

According to a new report from the Jubilee Debt Campaign, there are currently 24 countries in the world that are facing a full-blown debt crisis…

■ Armenia

■ Belize

■ Costa Rica

■ Croatia

■ Cyprus

■ Dominican Republic

■ El Salvador

■ The Gambia

■ Greece

■ Grenada

■ Ireland

■ Jamaica

■ Lebanon

■ Macedonia

■ Marshall Islands

■ Montenegro

■ Portugal

■ Spain

■ Sri Lanka

■ St Vincent and the Grenadines

■ Tunisia

■ Ukraine

■ Sudan

■ Zimbabwe

And there are another 14 nations that are right on the verge of one…

■ Bhutan

■ Cape Verde

■ Dominica

■ Ethiopia

■ Ghana

■ Laos

■ Mauritania

■ Mongolia

■ Mozambique

■ Samoa

■ Sao Tome e Principe

■ Senegal

■ Tanzania

■ Uganda

So what should be done about this?

Should we have the “wealthy” countries bail all of them out?

Well, the truth is that the “wealthy” countries are some of the biggest debt offenders of all. Just consider the United States. Our national debt has more than doubled since 2007, and at this point it has gotten so large that it is mathematically impossible to pay it off.

Europe is in similar shape. Members of the eurozone are trying to cobble together a “bailout package” for Greece, but the truth is that most of them will soon need bailouts too…


All of those countries will come knocking asking for help at some point. The fact is that their Debt to GDP levels have soared since the EU nearly collapsed in 2012.

Spain’s Debt to GDP has risen from 69% to 98%. Italy’s Debt to GDP has risen from 116% to 132%. France’s has risen from 85% to 95%.

In addition to Spain, Italy and France, let us not forget Belgium (106 percent debt to GDP), Ireland (109 debt to GDP) and Portugal (130 debt to GDP).

Once all of these dominoes start falling, the consequences for our massively overleveraged global financial system will be absolutely catastrophic…


Spain has over $1.0 trillion in debt outstanding… and Italy has €2.6 trillion. These bonds are backstopping tens of trillions of Euros’ worth of derivatives trades. A haircut or debt forgiveness for them would trigger systemic failure in Europe.

EU banks as a whole are leveraged at 26-to-1. At these leverage levels, even a 4% drop in asset prices wipes out ALL of your capital. And any haircut of Greek, Spanish, Italian and French debt would be a lot more than 4%.

Things in Asia look quite ominous as well.

According to Bloomberg, debt levels in China have risen to levels never recorded before…


While China’s economic expansion beat analysts’ forecasts in the second quarter, the country’s debt levels increased at an even faster pace.

Outstanding loans for companies and households stood at a record207 percent of gross domestic product at the end of June, up from 125 percent in 2008, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

And remember, that doesn’t even include government debt. When you throw all forms of debt into the mix, the overall debt to GDP number for China is rapidly approaching 300 percent.

In Japan, things are even worse. The government debt to GDP ratio in Japan is now up to an astounding 230 percent. That number has gotten so high that it is hard to believe that it could possibly be true. At some point an implosion is coming in Japan which is going to shock the world.

Of course the same thing could be said about the entire planet. Yes, national governments and central banks have been attempting to kick the can down the road for as long as possible, but everyone knows that this is not going to end well.

And when things do really start falling apart, it will be unlike anything that we have ever seen before. Just consider what Egon von Greyerz recently told King World News…


Eric, there are now more problem areas in the world, rather than stable situations. No major nation in the West can repay its debts. The same is true for Japan and most of the emerging markets. Europe is a failed experiment for socialism and deficit spending. China is a massive bubble, in terms of its stock markets, property markets and shadow banking system. Japan is also a basket case and the U.S. is the most indebted country in the world and has lived above its means for over 50 years.

So we will see twin $200 trillion debt and $1.5 quadrillion derivatives implosions. That will lead to the most historic wealth destruction ever in global stock, with bond and property markets declining at least 75 – 95 percent. World trade will also contract dramatically and we will see massive hardship across the globe.

So what do you think is coming, and how bad will things ultimately get once this global debt crisis finally spins totally out of control?

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-bankruptcy-of-the-planet-accelerates-24-nations-are-currently-facing-a-debt-crisis

The Mystery of the Vanishing Nukes

The Mystery of the Vanishing Nukes ...Oops ?

• http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/07/the-mystery-of-the-vanishing-nukes/
•  July 21, 2015
•  Brent Swancer

 

We all lose or misplace things from time to time. Our wallet, our car keys, our remote control, no matter how vigilant we are these things just seem to vanish from time to time. There are even those occasions when they remain gone forever, despite our best efforts to relocate them. In most cases, it may be just a minor inconvenience or annoyance, but what of things that people have lost that have potentially earth shattering consequences? I’m not talking about car keys here, but of the rather unsettling habit that human beings have developed of losing track of things that we really should make sure we never lose. I’m talking about how sometimes we have managed to lose whole nuclear weapons, yes in the plural, as in more than one. Say what?! Over the years, various nations have gone and managed to just up and lose dozens of nuclear weapons under a variety of circumstances, and just like your keys or wallet, sometimes they have gone missing without a trace; seemingly vanished off the face of the earth.
Missing nukes are often referred to as “Broken Arrows,” defined as “an unexpected event involving nuclear weapons that result in the accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft or loss of the weapon which does not result in the threat of nuclear war.” These broken arrows occurred much during the Cold War between the late 1950s and the mid-1960s, which was a tense time of unprecedented nuclear weapon stockpiling and transportation of such devices. Even amid all of this confusion and mayhem, one might be inclined to think that there would be no possibility that someone could just lose a nuke, or that one could simply go missing, but they would be wrong. In fact, perhaps even more disturbing than the idea that a nuclear weapon can disappear without a trace is the sobering fact that it has happened with an alarming frequency. To date, the US reportedly has lost 11 nuclear weapons, and there are around 50 nuclear devices unaccounted for worldwide. In many of these cases, the nukes have seemed to vanish off the face of the earth and no one has any idea of where they have gone.

A nuclear warhead

Many cases of disappearing nukes happened over water. During the height of the Cold War it is estimated that 365 days a year there were airborne nuclear weapons aboard US bombers, typically following four main routes that passed over Greenland, the Mediterranean, Japan and Alaska. Considering the vast distances involved and the lack of fuel capacity to allow planes to cross oceans on one tank of fuel, these missions required midair refueling, a dangerous and hairy operation which, along with the threat of other possible midair problems and perils, such as storms, enemy fire, or simply running out of gas, lie at the heart of some of the most spectacular cases of mysteriously disappearing nukes.
One infamous case occurred on 10 March 1956, when a B-47 Stratojet took off from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa on a non-stop transatlantic flight to deliver two nuclear weapon cores in special transport cases to an undisclosed overseas base. Considering the enormous distance involved, two in-flight refuelings were scheduled. The first refueling went off without a hitch, yet the plane failed to show for its second refueling over the Mediterranean Sea. Considering the cargo the plane had been carrying, an extensive search was immediately launched to try and locate the missing aircraft, but no trace of the plane, debris, the crew, or its nuclear payload could ever be found. It is as if the bomber just flew off the face of the earth. It is assumed that the plane went down somewhere over the Mediterranean, possibly due to running out of fuel, but no one has any idea where, and the plane’s disappearance, as well as the location of the missing nuclear cores, remain a complete mystery to this day.
Another nuclear bomb was lost in the Atlantic in 1968, when an American B-52 bomber went down over Greenland and crashed into the ice of North Star Bay, near Thule Air Force base, detonating its conventional explosives in a spectacular fireball. Unfortunately, the plane had also been carrying four nuclear warheads, at least one of which was never recovered and is thought to have been sealed in the ice after the explosion melted it and it subsequently refroze. Additionally, uranium, tritium and plutonium were scattered over a 2,000-foot radius in the vicinity, leading to serious health problems in those who engaged in recovery efforts. So sensitive was this incident that the military covered it up for decades. It is still unknown as to how many bombs of the four onboard were actually lost and to what extent the radioactive contamination spread. The missing bomb or bombs have never been found and presumably still remain trapped somewhere down in the Greenland ice.

A B-52 bomber

In some cases, the planes with their nuclear cargo never even made it into the air. What must be one of the most ridiculous cases of a vanishing nuke happened on 10 Dec. 1965 on board the USS Ticonderoga, an aircraft carrier that was on its way to Yokosuka, Japan from Vietnam. An A-4E Skyhawk carrying an extremely powerful B-43 hydrogen bomb was carried up one of the carrier’s huge aircraft elevators to be loaded onto the deck and prepared for takeoff. The crew surely could not have believed what happened next. Rather than the proud, patriotic, and heroic image of this majestic fighter jet preparing to bolt forth into the sky, those on board were instead treated to the absurd sight of the plane simply rolling off the deck to plunge into the ocean, complete with its pilot and onboard nuclear weapon. The plane would go on to sink five kilometers (16,400 feet) into the ocean depths and would resist all efforts to locate it. To make matters scarier, experts at the time were concerned that the extreme depths involved might actually set off the bomb. This incident was kept under wraps by the government for a long time since it showed that the U.S. had nuclear weapons in Vietnam and also that they had defied a treaty with Japan to not bring such weapons into Japanese territory. To this day the location of the plane, its pilot, and its potent nuclear payload remains unknown.
Some of the missing warheads were not lost over the sea, but under it. In April of 1989, the Russian submarine Komsomolez experienced a catastrophic fire on board during a mission off the coast of Greenland. The resulting damage crippled the sub and sent it hurtling down 1,700 meters (5,500 feet) into the cold blackness to the bottom of the ocean along with the two nuclear warhead equipped torpedoes it was carrying. The nukes were never found. On May 22, 1968, the American nuclear submarine the USS Scorpion was on its way back to Norfolk, Virginia from a three month training exercise in the Mediterranean Sea and was 320 nautical miles south of the Azores when it suddenly vanished along with its two nuclear warheads. The U.S. was at first convinced that the Russians were involved in its disappearance, but the wreckage of the sub was later found strewn about the bottom at a depth of 3,300 meters (10,800 feet) by the research ship Mizar. Because of the incredible depths involved, the nuclear warheads were never recovered and remain lying upon the bottom of the sea.

Nuclear submarine

It would be somewhat comforting for Americans to think that these are incidents which have only occurred in the middle of the ocean or in faraway lands, but the alarming fact is this is not the case, with 7 of the 11 missing nukes disappearing on U.S. soil. Where to even begin? On July 28, 1957, a C-124 transport plane experienced technical problems when two of its engines lost power after it departed Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The flight crew could not keep the aircraft on a level flight and so this necessitated the jettisoning of its two nuclear weapons off the East coast of the United States, which promptly sank into the ocean to never be seen again. Although the C-124 landed safely near Atlantic City, New Jersey, neither the warheads nor their debris were never located. On September 25, 1959, a U.S. Navy P-5M aircraft carrying a nuclear depth charge went down to smash into the Puget Sound near Whidbey Island, Washington and was never seen again, its nuclear payload lost forever to the deep dark sea.
On January 24, 1961, a nuclear catastrophe nearly occurred when a B-52 bomber carrying two fully operational nuclear warheads and flying on alert over Goldsboro, North Carolina, experienced a defective fuel line and sudden structural failure in one of its wings. The plane’s wing disintegrated, sending it plummeting towards the ground far below and killing three of its crew. The two nuclear weapons were released during the breakup from an altitude of 2,000-10,000 feet. Emergency parachutes had been installed in the warheads, and for one of the nukes the parachute deployed as planned and the weapon would later be safely recovered. However, the second warhead’s parachute malfunctioned and the weapon plowed into some swampy farmland, smashing it to pieces and sending debris flying over a wide area. It would later be revealed that the weapon had had a high probability of accidentally detonating, as five of the six onboard safety devices had failed, leaving only a single switch that had saved the entire area from being consumed in a devastating nuclear explosion. Although many of the bomb’s components were eventually recovered, the highly enriched uranium core was never found even after thorough desperate searches of the area by the military. It is thought that the extremely dangerous core had lodged itself as far down as 50 meters (165 feet) into the marshy, waterlogged ground. Such was the concern over the missing core that the Air Force acquired an easement on the land which required anyone planning to develop the area or start any sort of construction to first obtain permission from the military in order to keep the weapons grade core from falling into the wrong hands.
Perhaps the most notorious and indeed scariest incident on U.S. soil happened on Feb. 5, 1958, when a powerful, 7,000 pound Mark 15 hydrogen bomb, with over 100 times the destructive force of the Hiroshima bomb, disappeared over Wassaw Sound only 12 miles from Savannah, Ga., a city with a population of over 100,000 people. A B-47 Stratojet bomber piloted by Howard Richardson, Bob Lagerstrom and Leland Woolard, had been engaged in a night training flight over Sylvania, Georgia at an altitude of 36,000 feet when it accidentally collided with an F-86 Saberjet fighter, destroying the fighter and badly damaging one of the bomber’s wings. After three unsuccessful attempts to land with their payload aboard, the pilots were then instructed to jettison their nuclear weapon before trying to attempt another emergency landing, so pilot Maj. Howard Richardson dropped the bomb over the Wassaw Sound off of Tybee Island in a location near the mouth of the Savannah River before finally managing to land safely at nearby Hunter Army Airfield.

Mark 15 thermonuclear bomb

It was thought at the time that the recovery of the nuclear weapon would be swift, as it had been ditched in an area of shallow water which wasn’t particularly secluded, yet this would not prove to be the case. The area was completely shut off by the military and a massive search was launched for the missing nuclear weapon, including aerial searches, underwater divers, and meticulous scouring of the surrounding land by soldiers, yet after 2 months the bomb had still not been located. Shortly after, the military called off the search and deemed the weapon to be “irretrievably lost.” In the wake of the failed attempts to recover the lost nuclear weapon, the military went through great pains to enact a cover-up of the event and it has only come to light in the face of partially declassified documents gradually released on the incident. The Air Force would later claim that the missing bomb posed no threat if left undisturbed, but gave the ominous warning in a declassified report that “an intact explosive would pose a serious explosion hazard to personnel and the environment if disturbed by a recovery attempt.” It also made sure to monitor all dredging in the area, stating in another declassified document:

There exists the possibility of accidental discovery of the unrecovered weapon through dredging or construction in the probable impact area. … The Department of Defense has been requested to monitor all dredging and construction activities.

Showing that humans have the disturbing propensity to not learn a single thing, it later came to light in a partially declassified memo that the Air Force had wasted no time in promptly requested a new nuclear warhead to replace the lost one. The memo states:

The search for this weapon was discontinued on 4-16-58 and the weapon is considered irretrievably lost. It is requested that one [phrase redacted] weapon be made available for release to the DOD (Department of Defense) as a replacement.

The missing nuclear weapon of Tybee Island to this day has never been recovered and still lies somewhere out in the water near a major American metropolis. As its existence has become known to the general populace, there has been a great deal of outrage directed towards the military for losing the bomb in the first place, as well as its sudden decision to call off its search for it despite the potentially devastating consequences it could pose to the populace. Understandably, local residents want an investigation relaunched, and want the bomb found and removed. The Air Force has countered various accusations by stating repeatedly that the bomb poses no threat and even trying to downplay the threat by claiming the bomb was not fully functional. This claim stands in stark contrast to a recently declassified 1966 congressional testimony of former assistant secretary of defense W.J. Howard, who stated that the Tybee Island bomb was a “complete weapon, a bomb with a nuclear capsule,” and that it had represented one of only two weapons lost up to that time that was complete with a plutonium trigger.

In addition to the obvious danger of having a fully operational nuclear weapon lying so close to a major city, there is also the matter of the plutonium and other radioactive materials, such as uranium and beryllium, leaking into the environment. This is potentially horrible news for people and wildlife of the area, as well as for the rich crabbing industry of Wassaw Sound. There have been extensive efforts by several salvage companies to try and locate the missing bomb since its existence became public, but there are also those who think that it should be left alone. The bomb contains many dangerous elements, including the highly unstable lithium deuteride, as well as the over 400 pounds of TNT designed to act as a catalyst for the plutonium trigger to implode and thus create a nuclear explosion, and these have been slowly degenerating from being submerged for so many years. It is thought that any attempt to remove the bomb could be a highly perilous proposition. One can only hope that if someone does manage to find and retrieve it that it will be someone with good intentions and not one of the many enemies of the U.S. who would love to get their hands on some unguarded, unsecured intact nuclear weapon. The Tybee Island lost nuke remains elusive, sitting out there in the ocean somewhere posing an ill-defined threat. The Pentagon has notoriously been secretive about the whole affair and has seemingly failed to engage in any in-depth analysis of the situation.
The one thing that is no doubt going through your mind right now is just what exactly is the level of threat posed by these vanished nuclear weapons? This largely depends on who you ask. Otfried Nassauer, an expert on nuclear armament and the director of the Berlin Information Center for Transatlantic Security says:

Weapons that are on the ocean floor are hardly unlikely to explode. Perhaps this risk is somewhat greater with the bombs that were lost on land. But virtually nothing is known about whether such bombs can explode spontaneously.

Don Moniak, a nuclear weapons expert with the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League in Aiken, South Carolina said:

There could be a fission or criticality event if the plutonium was somehow put in an incorrect configuration. There could be a major inferno if the high explosives went off and the lithium deuteride reacted as expected. Or there could just be an explosion that scattered uranium and plutonium all over hell.

The bottom line seems to be, we don’t know. Perhaps more of an impending threat is the risk of leaked radioactive materials from these missing weapons. Lithium, beryllium and enriched uranium are all building blocks of nuclear weapons that can cause a whole laundry list of health problems in humans and wildlife, as well as irreversible environmental damage. The effects of corrosion on such lost nukes could mean that such dangerous materials could be released slowly into the environment over decades. The problem is only exacerbated by the Pentagon’s determination on putting a lid on the extent of the problem and its insistence on secrecy. There is also the obvious threat of some terrorist group attaining these lost nuclear materials.
Where have these nuclear weapons gone? What threat do they pose? What is the military doing about it? More importantly, how many more are there out there that have vanished without a trace that we don’t even know about? It is startling that not only can this happen, but that we can have so little of an idea of what the repercussions might even be. This all seems rather unbelievable, yet even in this day and age of enhanced security and nuclear awareness this can still happen. Vanishing, unaccounted for nukes are still apparently very much a thing. Bear in mind that there are 7 of these things missing somewhere on U.S. soil. Do you know where they are? I know I don’t. But I sure wish I did. Sleep tight.

Why Does The “War on Terror” Serve Western Policy?

jay008

Peter O’Toole as British Intelligence agent, T.E. Lawrence.

By: Jay Dyer

From Benghazi to Turkey, the ISIS “supply lines” are directly from NATO-controlled territory, and apparently it never occurs to the minds of western media to ask where, in fact, the so-called Islamic State obtains their arms.  The reason for this is obvious, as it would demonstrate that the Islamic State is not a homegrown, indigenous Wahhabist extremist group, but western creation, funded and aided like Al Qaeda since its inception, as Carter and Brzezinski openly discussed.  Not much has changed in the international terror theater since 1979, save the targets.  Counterpunch noted over a decade ago:

“Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [“From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”

Concerning the aiding and funding of the updated Mujahideen-Al Qaeda-ISIS brand, Tony Cartalucci comments:

The London Telegraph would report in their 2013 article, “CIA ‘running arms smuggling team in Benghazi when consulate was attacked’,” that:

[CNN] said that a CIA team was working in an annex near the consulate on a project to supply missiles from Libyan armouries to Syrian rebels.

Weapons have also come from Eastern Europe, with the New York Times reporting in 2013 in their article, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.,” that:

From offices at secret locations, American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia, and have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive, according to American officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.

And while Western media sources continuously refer to ISIS and other factions operating under the banner of Al Qaeda as “rebels” or “moderates,” it is clear that if billions of dollars in weapons were truly going to “moderates,” they, not ISIS would be dominating the battlefield.

Recent revelations have revealed that as early as 2012 the United States Department of Defense not only anticipated the creation of a “Salafist Principality” straddling Syria and Iraq precisely where ISIS now exists, it welcomed it eagerly and contributed to the circumstances required to bring it about.”

In terms of foreign policy, the target with ISIS is still Syria, as Washington elites have expounded through their Brookings Institute discussion of June 24, a rebound from the failed attempt by John Kerry to drum up support for war with Syria that fell flat due to the exposure of the laughable false flag “chlorine attack” propaganda pinned on Assad.  Now ISIS is both the means and the raison d’etre for invading and saving Syria, in the classic problem-reaction-solution strategy the West never tires from enacting in the global “freedom” war.

Acting far inferior to Peter O’Toole.

The endless, eternal war on terror is a contrived strategy of tension the Atlanticist establishment has used for over a hundred years, dating back to the exploits of Harry St. John Philby, T.E. Lawrence and the British carving up of the Middle East and special relationship with Saudi Arabia.  As mentioned, nothing has changed in the last century, other than the focal point of the terror attacks, as the Middle East must constantly be broken up, destabilized and reorganized into “micro-nations” more amenable to Washington’s corrupt corporate and ideological expansionist domination.  Recent so-called “terror events” are merely dots on the long timeline of terror, a scripted narrative designed to remodel the American landscape as much as the Middle East, according to D.C. think tank machinations.
Saudi Arabia, of course if one of the world’s chief funders of terror, operating as a proxy for the western elites.  Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait are all “Gulf Cooperation nations,” arising from the aegis of the British Empire, and adopted under the U.S. empire.  And what is constantly forgotten is the origin of this cadre’s alignment of the West through oil production was not merely the result of OPEC and Kissinger, it was in fact organized by Bilderberg: It was Bilderberg that organized the 70s OPEC oil debacle.  Isn’t it curious the GCC pro-terror states are also western-supplying oil states?  Citing William F. Engdahl in his A Century of War, Andrew Gavin Marshall writes:

“One enormous consequence of the ensuing 400 per cent rise in OPEC oil prices was that investments of hundreds of millions of dollars by British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell [both present at Bilderberg] and other Anglo-American petroleum concerns in the risky North Sea could produce oil at a profit,” as “the profitability of these new North Sea oilfields was not at all secure until after the OPEC price rises.”  In 2001, the former Saudi representative to OPEC, Sheik Ahmed Yamani, said, “’I am 100 per cent sure that the Americans were behind the increase in the price of oil. The oil companies were in real trouble at that time, they had borrowed a lot of money and they needed a high oil price to save them.” When he was sent by King Faisal to the Shah of Iran in 1974, the Shah said that it was Henry Kissinger who wanted a higher price for oil.” (136-7)

Heartland versus Rimland.

In other words, war is a racket, as General Smedley Butler famously stated, and the new “War on Terror” (TM) of our day is not new, but an updated version of the old British strategy of staving off Russia.   Little has changed a century later, as the major power bloc of the West, the Atlanticists still charge forward according to the Mackinder Heartland doctrine that the western merchant/banking sea power must dominate and control the Eurasian “heartland” to ensure no Eastern rivalry.  Through the export of Opium, China was subjugated, and through export of Marxism, both China and Russia experienced the havoc of western-born ideological materialism.
It is precisely this same utilitarian Anglo-empiricist, pragmatist philosophy that has ultimately turned on its own populace in a parasitical fashion unheard of for past empires.  Promising sensual and economic utopia, the Bolshevik export to Russia on the part of the Atlantic banking power is not the top-down social engineering strategy of the corporate elite upon the U.S. population itself.  The great delusion is that the West is “free,” when it is entering the realm of greater enslavement than Sovietism experienced.  The only difference is the foolish western populace cannot grasp their enslavement is at the hands of Marxist corporations. 
The central banks, the Fortune 100 and their shareholders love cultural Marxism and command and control, socialist economic models because it is the quickest way to consolidate wealth and transfer the actually valuable assets to the controlling oligarchy.   In such a system, the opposition will inevitably all be titled “terrorists,” as the appellation is already being extended beyond radical Islamists.  And after it extends beyond the average person, the conditioning will be so strong that any thoughts, words, actions or potential-pre-crime actions will also follow under the elastic notion of “terror.”
Terrorism is thus a social weapon, not of indigenous, individual “actors” and lone wolves, but stage managed dupes, patsies and tools of an international oligarchical cartel, as Orwell demonstrated in 1984 with the fictional villain of Immanuel Goldstein.  Indeed, who funds these groups? (We saw who, above).  The most obvious fact of the contradiction of the “War on Terror” (TM) is that it almost always works to further Washington’s domestic and geopolitical aims.  Terror, then, is like Trotsky’s notion of perpetual war – perpetual war on the psyche of the globe (it’s a global war on terror), as a phase in the dialectical convergence on the path to global government.  That is why terrorism serves western political aims.

Mark Hackard on Russia and the West

MR. PUTIN’S RECENT ADDRESS TO HIS SECURITY COUNCIL

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Joseph P. Farrell • http://gizadeathstar.com/2015/07/mr-putins-recent-address-to-his-security-council/

Mr.V.T. sent along this article from the offical website of the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, and it's worth pondering, if for no other reason than that it represents "the view from Moscow". However, in it, one will note some subtleties, and some not-so-subtleties:
Security Council meeting July 3, 2015, The Kremlin, Moscow
There are, as I stated, some subtleties and not-so-subtleties in these remarks, which, if added together, indicate exactly why Russia and the West are in such conflict, for the conflict, ultimately, is not even about geopolitics or conflicting interests. The conflict is really cosmological and, if one will permit the term, spiritual in nature; the conflict is about quite different visions for the future governance of the planet.
Mr. Putin, of course, admits the obvious conflicts of geopolitical visions in his remarks:

"Colleagues, recent events show that we cannot hope that some of our geopolitical opponents will change their hostile course anytime in the foreseeable future. The EU countries recently extended the sanctions they have imposed on us, and discussions continue in the United States on toughening sanctions against us.
"Amidst all of this, no one is even trying to analyse the reasons for what is now happening in southeast Ukraine, which was what started all of this fuss in the first place. What I mean here is that those who are imposing these restrictive measures and so-called sanctions on Russia are in fact responsible for the events that we are now witnessing in southeast Ukraine."

Translation: the Russian Presidency and its security council, are acknowledging that the long-term geopolitical and financial conflict between London and Washington and its compliant surrogates in Europe are not going to change soon. In effect, Russia is admitting that the situation is "Cold War, 2.0."
But there's a new dimension to this Cold War, that is very different from that of version 1.0. In version 1.0, it was, to some extent, the Soviet Communist Party imposing its own version of the obsolescence of the nation-state on its various client states in the Warsaw Pact: Moscow dictated political, financial, and yes, even cultural policy for the whole bloc, and backed it up with the Russian military. The dogma itself - the obsolescence of the nation-state, was itself the shared vision of the Eurocrats, Eurogarchs (Dr. Webster Tarpley's apt word for European oligarchs), and the proponents of "Mr. Global"(to borrow Catherine Austin Fitts' term) in the corporate West.
In this context, consider these remarks by Mr. Putin:

We must respond accordingly to this situation, of course, and take additional systemic measures in all key areas.
Firstly, we must make a rapid analysis of all the potential challenges and risks we face – political, economic, information risks and others. Based on this analysis, we then need to make adjustments to our National Security Strategy.
Once the National Security Strategy is updated, we will also need to update strategic planning documents currently in force or in the process of drafting. Furthermore, if needed, we will need to make clarifications to the Foreign Policy Concept and the Foundations of Russia’s Comprehensive Policy in the CIS Area.
At the same time, our strategic course in the foreign policy area remains unchanged. We are open for equal cooperation and collective work on key issues on the international agenda. We will continue to build relations with our partners based on the principles of respect and mutual consideration of each other’s interests, so long as this does not harm our own sovereignty and national security of course. (Emphases added).

Consider also, these remarks from the end of Mr. Putin's talk:

But let me draw one very important matter to your attention. The Prosecutor General’s Office, Rospotrebnadzor (national consumer protection service), the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service and other agencies must protect our people and companies from fake and poor quality goods. No matter whether goods are produced in Russia or abroad, they must meet modern requirements and standards and their origin and price setting must be transparent and clear.
In conclusion, our direct responsibility is to ensure reliable protection of Russia’s security in all areas and preserve our country’s social, political and economic stability.

Putting these remarks together, what Mr. Putin is doing is frankly challenging the two dogmas that are currently so much a part of the creed of Mr. Global and the Eurogarchs, namely, the dogma of the obsolescence of the nation-state and the dogma that the nation-state can, and should, be safely replaced by global corporations and their cultural policies. One need only think of the recent example of the rape of Greece, the growing disenchantment in Europe against its large of immigrant populations and the corresponding political and cultural backlash. In short, the vision Mr. Putin is promoting, if one considers the tenor of his concluding remarks about monopolies and cartels, is a model of a strong nation-state protecting its soveriegnty and, moreover, national culture. it is, as I have suggested, a post-post-modern view of the world and of the role of the nation state. In a sense, it is natural for Russia to take this view, having suffered under the Soviet system - which, let us remember, was a western invention and imposed on Russia by the connivance of the financial power in Germany and the USA in 1917-1918. In other words, in a sense, Russia played the "vast-federated system and obsolescence of the nation-state game" under the Soviet system. Like it or not, it has moved beyond that, while the West in general and Europe in particular now remain mired in the dogmas of the regulatory state and big corporate (cartel and trust) capitalism.
What will be interesting to observe is how Russia plays out this vision, not only with its dealings with China and the other BRICSA nations, but more particularly, in Europe, and especially in respect of its dealings with Germany and France, for the recent rifts between Paris and Washington, on the one hand, and Berlin on the other, on how to deal with the Greek situation, may give Russia the opportunity to probe and press for a renewal of its traditional friendliness with France. There will be cultural-economic studies in Russia about the relation between state and corporation that may be interesting to watch and consider, for the relation of the corporation as a person in law recognized by the state, is at the heart of the two dogmas of the Eurocrats and Mr. Global.
In short, Mr. Putin's "new strategy" is a total one, and at the heart of it are ideological challenges to the reigning assumptions of the West and its financial, political, and remaining and quite battered cultural institutions.