✐ Drones, the next upcoming technology

RT America have uploaded a video on their YouTube Channel: "First commercial drones to start flying this summer". With the Prism "scandal" still fresh in mind, I'm concerned about how the drones will be used...?

I'm quoting this:

"Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) sent two letters to FBI Director Robert Mueller asking for the agency to explain its domestic drone program as well as the policies behind it. Assistant Director for the Office of Congressional Affairs, Stephen Kelly, responded to the lawmaker's request saying that "every request to use UAV's must be approved by senior FBI management and without a warrant the FBI will not use a UAV." Also on Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration approved drones to be used for civilian use, and RT speaks with Michael Brooks, producer of The Majority Report, about drones."

I mean, thinking about Prism, how the US government kept it as a secret, until Snowden "whistled". Can we really trust that it won't be used as another spying device, violating the human right of privacy?! I'm aware of that the US isn't the only country developing and using drones, but this is a "progress" that I feel very uncomfartable with. What happened to Democracy, Freedom of speech, Freedom of the press and the right to Privacy, etc?

More about drones:
Drones by country: who has all the UAVs? (The Guardian)
Drones Over America: What Can They See? (NPR) 

✐ Democracy Now! - Edward Snowden

Democracy Now, July 29 - 2013
Holder Tells Russia Snowden Won't Face Torture or Death, But Does U.S. Record Undermine Its Pledge?

"The Obama administration has assured Russia that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden will not be executed or tortured if he is sent back to the United States. In a letter to his Russian counterpart, Attorney General Eric Holder said Snowden does not face the death penalty and would not even if charged with additional crimes. Holder said his assurances eliminate the grounds for Snowden's asylum bid in Russia and said the United States is prepared to issue him a passport valid for returning to the United States. "It's sad that the U.S. has to [promise] it won't torture people or kill, but in fact it's meaningless," says Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a lawyer for WikiLeaks' Julian Assange. "It's not necessarily enforceable by Snowden, but even more importantly, think about how the U.S. defines torture. The U.S. doesn't really think that anything it did under the Bush era was torture with the exception possibly of waterboarding. So that means Snowden can be subjected to every enhanced interrogation techniques -- lights on all the time, loud noise, cold temperatures, hot temperatures, strapped into a chair. Second, it doesn't say anything in the letter we won't put him into some underground cell and keep him there the rest of his life."

✐ America - Rammstein

✐ Freedom of speech for US citizens?

I found this video on YouTube, it's a press conference with a State Department spokeswoman, the journalists are trying very hard to get an answer out of her. The question is; "Does Edward Snowden have the right to freedom of speech?"

"Tensions are high as NSA leaker Edward Snowden officially submitted application for temporary asylum in Russia on Tuesday. After Russian and international human rights advocates and lawyers met with Snowden at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Friday, the US said it was disappointed in Russia for considering the whistleblowers asylum. During a daily press briefing State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki was given a thorough grilling on the Snowden affair by journalists, including AP's Matthew Lee and CNN's Elise Labott and was left lost for words at almost every turn."

"U.S. House of Representatives voted down a proposal to stop the NSA program that systematically collecting telephone records of millions of Americans. The distribution of votes in the House was 205 in favor, while 217 voters were opposed."
Source: IDG News (Swedish)

So the NSA can continue with it's spying on everyone, regardless if they're terrorists or not. The American dream have become the American nightmare.

✐ Beer helps me sleep

I can understand why people suffering from PTSD often use alcoholic beverages to be able to cope with their traumatic experiences. I have never been diagnosed with PTSD, but my whole life, from early childhood to adulthood (my 10 years abroad) have been one big road of traumatic experiences.

I've been through 6 years of psychotherapy, just to deal with a traumatic childhood. It worked for awhile, then I left Sweden for 10 years and managed to get myself into more traumatic situations. Back in Sweden, mid 90s, I started to take medicines, that worked for 4-5 years, but slowly the meds stopped to have the same effect. I'm still on meds but they don't help all the way.

Not when I sleep and the subconscious takes over and keeps repeating the same dream over and over, my recurring nightmare. In order for me to sleep a dreamless sleep, is when I have been drinking beer or other alcoholic beverages. That's an observation I did after friday nights beer drinking. Such a relief to not have that damn dream, even though I was ill with a hangover the next day. It was worth it.

I'm not drinking very often, during the past 6 months, I've been drinking on 3 occasions. Alcohol is not my first choice when it comes to "drugs", I don't really like it, but it definitely helps me sleep whitout any dreams, it's more like bitter medicine. I can't drink it every day, but sometimes I really need a break and then I will drink.

✐ My recurring nightmares... again

My recurring nightmares I've had for 20 years, that I wrote about in an earlier post has been haunting me really bad lately. I did manage to see the nighmares as "movies" for awhile, but I think I just supressed them. They came back and more stronger, I can wake up several times a night, with a pounding heart and full of anxiety. Last night in my dream, I was stuck on an airport whitout any money, wanting to go "home" but not being able to.

Night after the night the same nightmare, for 20 years now and they've become more frequent and more horrifying, the past year. I always wake up, feeling exhausted and I hate to wake up at 4 am from a nightmare and not being able to go back to sleep. It's not possible when my body is in a state of fear, my heart is pounding and I have the feeling I just want to run away. I've been told by others in the past, that I often talk or scream when I sleep.

Feel like I'm close to being at the end of my rope, I'm always tired, have no energy or wanting to do anything, I've lost interest in almost everything. My anxiety is worse than ever and I don't see any "happy" future in front of me. I'm stuck in "hell". 

My emotions are frozen, I can't cry or laugh, I have closed the doors to other people, isolated myself. The only way out I can see is death, I've had enough of this world and myself. I'm exactly the same age as when my mother died of a heart attack in her sleep, I wish it would happen to me, she was suffering and now I'm suffering, I want to this to end. I've had enough.

Fuck this, I found an escape, beer and music in Second Life....want to find out more? Click 'Second Life' at the top, live reporting from there.

Found this video on YouTube, not that I feel it is much of a help, just an understanding what's happening in the brain. From The Brain Channel

✐ Mainstream Media and Independent Media

So, the elephant is out and with that I mean USA, NSA, Prism and Edward Snowden, before that it was Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Well not so much of surprise, governments all over the world keep secrets or lies to their citizens, also in the western "democratic" countries. In my opinion these "whistleblowers" are "the good guys", sacrificing their own lifes, by revealing these shady businesses, some governments are carrying out. And thanks to the independent media to make us aware about it. The Guardian - Glenn Greenwald

"The Guardian is part of the GMG Guardian Media Group of newspapers, radio stations, print media including The Observer Sunday newspaper, The Guardian Weekly international newspaper, and new media—Guardian Abroad website, and guardian.co.uk. All the aforementioned were owned by The Scott Trust, a charitable foundation existing between 1936 and 2008, which aimed to ensure the paper's editorial independence in perpetuity, maintaining its financial health to ensure it did not become vulnerable to take overs by for-profit media groups."
Source: Wikipedia

I have had doubts about mainstream media's credibility for quite awhile. In some cases I know for a fact that they don't tell you the whole story or angles the news in a way that serves their purposes, and who knows what they are. In my baggage I have 1 semester of Media and Communication Studies (Uni), I've learnt to examine all kinds of media with a critical mind and that knowledge is important, you need to know who owns the media, where they get their money from, etc.

Media is a powerful tool in all societies of the world, even in the so called "democratic" countries. We're exposed to propaganda all the time through main stream media, some western countries are worse than others. Don't fool yourself because you live in a "democratic" western country, that you are not exposed to propaganda, because you are. I have found some independent news channels on YouTube, I don't know if they tell the "truth", but I find it enlightening to listen or read from a range of different sources

We need a free and independent press and media, it's their duty to scrutinize what the governments and their departments are doing. In all democratic countries, one of the most important amendments is the first; 'Freedom of the press' as well as 'Freedom of speech'. The sources or "whistleblowers" have a right to be anonymous and protected.

Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! is a United States daily progressive, nonprofit, independently syndicated program of news, analysis, and opinion.

"For true democracy to work, people need easy access to independent, diverse sources of news and information. But the last two decades have seen unprecedented corporate media consolidation. The U.S. media was already fairly homogeneous in the early 1980s: some fifty media conglomerates dominated all media outlets, including television, radio, newspapers, magazines, music, publishing and film. In the year 2000, just six corporations dominated the U.S. media."

RTAmerica
RT, also known as Russia Today, is an international multilingual Russian-based television network. It is registered as an autonomous non-profit organization, funded by the federal budget of Russia through the Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation. (Putin & Co)

"RT America broadcasts from studios in Washington, DC. We report on the other side of the story, not making any conclusions, but raising the unanswered questions."

NOTE! Not an indpendent media source. I've noticed that some of their news stories are biased, specially when it's about immigrants, and particularly when it's about muslims, and other things.

YouTube Playlist: USA + NSA + Prism - Edward Snowden