The Future of Brain Implants

How soon can we expect to see brain implants for perfect memory, enhanced vision, hypernormal focus or an expert golf swing?

By Gary Marcus and Christof Koch

March 14, 2014 7:30 p.m. ET

online.wsj.com

What would you give for a retinal chip that let you see in the dark or for a next-generation cochlear implant that let you hear any conversation in a noisy restaurant, no matter how loud? Or for a memory chip, wired directly into your brain’s hippocampus, that gave you perfect recall of everything you read? Or for an implanted interface with the Internet that automatically translated a clearly articulated silent thought (“the French sun king”) into an online search that digested the relevant Wikipedia page and projected a summary directly into your brain?

Science fiction? Perhaps not for very much longer. Brain implants today are where laser eye surgery was several decades ago. They are not risk-free and make sense only for a narrowly defined set of patients—but they are a sign of things to come.

Unlike pacemakers, dental crowns or implantable insulin pumps, neuroprosthetics—devices that restore or supplement the mind’s capacities with electronics inserted directly into the nervous system—change how we perceive the world and move through it. For better or worse, these devices become part of who we are.

Neuroprosthetics aren’t new. They have been around commercially for three decades, in the form of the cochlear implants used in the ears (the outer reaches of the nervous system) of more than 300,000 hearing-impaired people around the world. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first retinal implant, made by the company Second Sight.

Both technologies exploit the same principle: An external device, either a microphone or a video camera, captures sounds or images and processes them, using the results to drive a set of electrodes that stimulate either the auditory or the optic nerve, approximating the naturally occurring output from the ear or the eye.

Another type of now-common implant, used by thousands of Parkinson’s patients around the world, sends electrical pulses deep into the brain proper, activating some of the pathways involved in motor control. A thin electrode is inserted into the brain through a small opening in the skull; it is connected by a wire that runs to a battery pack underneath the skin. The effect is to reduce or even eliminate the tremors and rigid movement that are such prominent symptoms of Parkinson’s (though, unfortunately, the device doesn’t halt the progression of the disease itself). Experimental trials are now under way to test the efficacy of such “deep brain stimulation” for treating other disorders as well.

Electrical stimulation can also improve some forms of memory, as the neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried and his colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, showed in a 2012 article in the New England Journal of Medicine. Using a setup akin to a videogame, seven patients were taught to navigate a virtual city environment with a joystick, picking up passengers and delivering them to specific stores. Appropriate electrical stimulation to the brain during the game increased their speed and accuracy in accomplishing the task.

But not all brain implants work by directly stimulating the brain. Some work instead by reading the brain’s signals—to interpret, for example, the intentions of a paralyzed user. Eventually, neuroprosthetic systems might try to do both, reading a user’s desires, performing an action like a Web search and then sending the results directly back to the brain.

How close are we to having such wondrous devices? To begin with, scientists, doctors and engineers need to figure out safer and more reliable ways of inserting probes into people’s brains. For now, the only option is to drill small burr-holes through the skull and to insert long, thin electrodes—like pencil leads—until they reach their destinations deep inside the brain. This risks infection, since the wires extend through the skin, and bleeding inside the brain, which could be devastating or even fatal.

External devices, like the brainwave-reading skull cap made by the company NeuroSky (marketed to the public as “having applications for wellness, education and entertainment”), have none of these risks. But because their sensors are so far removed from individual neurons, they are also far less effective. They are like Keystone Kops trying to eavesdrop on a single conversation from outside a giant football stadium.

A boy wearing a cochlear implant for the hearing-impaired. A second portion is surgically implanted under the skin. Barcroft Media/Getty Images

Today, effective brain-machine interfaces have to be wired directly into the brain to pick up the signals emanating from small groups of nerve cells. But nobody yet knows how to make devices that listen to the same nerve cells that long. Part of the problem is mechanical: The brain sloshes around inside the skull every time you move, and an implant that slips by a millimeter may become ineffective.

Another part of the problem is biological: The implant must be nontoxic and biocompatible so as not to provoke an immune reaction. It also must be small enough to be totally enclosed within the skull and energy-efficient enough that it can be recharged through induction coils placed on the scalp at night (as with the recharging stands now used for some electric toothbrushes).

These obstacles may seem daunting, but many of them look suspiciously like the ones that cellphone manufacturers faced two decades ago, when cellphones were still the size of shoeboxes. Neural implants will require even greater advances since there is no easy way to upgrade them once they are implanted and the skull is sealed back up.

But plenty of clever young neuro-engineers are trying to surmount these problems, like Michel Maharbiz and Jose Carmena and their colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. They are developing a wireless brain interface that they call “neural dust.” Thousands of biologically neutral microsensors, on the order of one-tenth of a millimeter (approximately the thickness of a human hair), would convert electrical signals into ultrasound that could be read outside the brain.

The real question isn’t so much whether something like this can be done but how and when. How many advances in material science, battery chemistry, molecular biology, tissue engineering and neuroscience will we need? Will those advances take one decade, two decades, three or more? As Dr. Maharbiz said in an email, once implants “can be made ‘lifetime stable’ for healthy adults, many severe disabilities…will likely be chronically treatable.” For millions of patients, neural implants could be absolutely transformative.

Assuming that we’re able to clear these bioengineering barriers, the next challenge will be to interpret the complex information from the 100 billion tiny nerve cells that make up the brain. We are already able to do this in limited ways.

Based on decades of prior research in nonhuman primates, John Donoghue of Brown University and his colleagues created a system called BrainGate that allows fully paralyzed patients to control devices with their thoughts. BrainGate works by inserting a small chip, studded with about 100 needlelike wires—a high-tech brush—into the part of the neocortex controlling movement. These motor signals are fed to an external computer that decodes them and passes them along to external robotic devices.

Almost a decade ago, this system was used by a tetraplegic to control an artificial hand. More recently, in a demonstration of the technology’s possibilities that is posted on YouTube, Cathy Hutchinson, paralyzed years earlier by a brainstem stroke, managed to take a drink from a bottle of coffee by manipulating a robot arm with only her brain and a neural implant that literally read (part of) her mind.

For now, guiding a robot arm this way is cumbersome and laborious, like steering a massive barge or an out-of-alignment car. Given the current state of neuroscience, even our best neuroscientists can read the activity of a brain only as if through a glass darkly; we get the gist of what is going on, but we are still far from understanding the details.

In truth, we have no idea at present how the human brain does some of its most basic feats, like translating a vague desire to return that tennis ball into the torrent of tightly choreographed commands that smoothly execute the action. No serious neuroscientist could claim to have a commercially ready brain-reading device with a fraction of the precision or responsiveness of a computer keyboard.

In understanding the neural code, we have a long way to go. That’s why the federally funded BRAIN Initiative, announced last year by President Barack Obama, is so important. We need better tools to listen to the brain and more precise tools for sending information back to the brain, along with a far more detailed understanding of different kinds of nerve cells and how they fit together in complex circuits.

The coarse-grained functional MRI brain images that have become so popular in recent years won’t be enough. For one thing, they are indirect; they measure changes not in electrical activity but in local blood flow, which is at best an imperfect stand-in. Images from fMRIs also lack sufficient resolution to give us true mastery of the neural code. Each three-dimensional pixel (or “voxel”) in a brain scan contains a half-million to one million neurons. What we really need is to be able to zero in on individual neurons.

Zooming in further is crucial because the atoms of perception, memory and consciousness aren’t brain regions but neurons and even finer-grained elements. Chemists turned chemistry into a quantitative science once they realized that chemical reactions are (almost) all about electrons making and breaking bonds among atoms. Neuroscientists are trying to do the same thing for the brain. Until we do, brain implants will be working only on the logic of forests, without sufficient understanding of the individual trees.

One of the most promising tools in this regard is a recently developed technique called optogenetics, which hijacks the molecular machinery of the genes found inside every neuron to directly manipulate the brain’s circuitry. In this way, any group of neurons with a unique genetic ZIP Code can be switched on or off, with unparalleled precision, by brief pulses of different colored light—effectively turning the brain into a piano that can be played. This fantastic marriage of molecular biology with optics and electronics is already being deployed to build advanced retinal prosthetics for adult-onset blindness. It is revolutionizing the whole field of neuroscience.

Advances in molecular biology, neuroscience and material science are almost certainly going to lead, in time, to implants that are smaller, smarter, more stable and more energy-efficient. These devices will be able to interpret directly the blizzard of electrical activity inside the brain. For now, they are an abstraction, something that people read about but are unlikely to experience for themselves. But someday that will change.

Consider the developmental arc of medical technologies such as breast surgery. Though they were pioneered for post-mastectomy reconstruction and for correcting congenital defects, breast augmentation and other cosmetic procedures such as face-lifts and tummy tucks have become routine. The procedures are reliable, effective and inexpensive enough to be attractive to broad segments of society, not just to the rich and famous.

Eventually neural implants will make the transition from being used exclusively for severe problems such as paralysis, blindness or amnesia. They will be adopted by people with less traumatic disabilities. When the technology has advanced enough, implants will graduate from being strictly repair-oriented to enhancing the performance of healthy or “normal” people. They will be used to improve memory, mental focus (Ritalin without the side effects), perception and mood (bye, bye Prozac).

Many people will resist the first generation of elective implants. There will be failures and, as with many advances in medicine, there will be deaths. But anybody who thinks that the products won’t sell is naive. Even now, some parents are willing to let their children take Adderall before a big exam. The chance to make a “superchild” (or at least one guaranteed to stay calm and attentive for hours on end during a big exam) will be too tempting for many.

Even if parents don’t invest in brain implants, the military will. A continuing program at Darpa, a Pentagon agency that invests in cutting-edge technology, is already supporting work on brain implants that improve memory to help soldiers injured in war. Who could blame a general for wanting a soldier with hypernormal focus, a perfect memory for maps and no need to sleep for days on end? (Of course, spies might well also try to eavesdrop on such a soldier’s brain, and hackers might want to hijack it. Security will be paramount, encryption de rigueur.)

An early generation of enhancement implants might help elite golfers improve their swing by automating their mental practice. A later generation might allow weekend golfers to skip practice altogether. Once neuroscientists figure out how to reverse-engineer the end results of practice, “neurocompilers” might be able to install the results of a year’s worth of training directly into the brain, all in one go.

That won’t happen in the next decade or maybe even in the one after that. But before the end of the century, our computer keyboards and trackpads will seem like a joke; even Google Glass 3.0 will seem primitive. Why would you project information onto your eyes (partly occluding your view) when you could write information into your brain so your mind can directly interpret it? Why should a computer wait for you to say or type what you mean rather than anticipating your needs before you can even articulate them?

By the end of this century, and quite possibly much sooner, every input device that has ever been sold will be obsolete. Forget the “heads-up” displays that the high-end car manufactures are about to roll out, allowing drivers to see data without looking away from the road. By the end of the century, many of us will be wired directly into the cloud, from brain to toe.

Will these devices make our society as a whole happier, more peaceful and more productive? What kind of world might they create?

It’s impossible to predict. But, then again, it is not the business of the future to be predictable or sugarcoated. As President Ronald Reagan once put it, “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.”

The augmented among us—those who are willing to avail themselves of the benefits of brain prosthetics and to live with the attendant risks—will outperform others in the everyday contest for jobs and mates, in science, on the athletic field and in armed conflict. These differences will challenge society in new ways—and open up possibilities that we can scarcely imagine.

Dr. Marcus is professor of psychology at New York University and often blogs about science and technology for the New Yorker. Dr. Koch is the chief scientific officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle.

Some Thoughts On The Article V Issue

by Tom DeWeese
February 25, 2014
newswithviews.com

I’ve written many articles in the past concerning my opposition to a Constitutional Convention (Con Con). I’ve also helped in successful fights in Ohio and Kansas to stop Con Con Resolutions. But recently there is a new twist in the effort to amend the Constitution to preserve freedom. It’s called an Article V Convention of the States.

Proponents say it answers my concerns over the dangers of a Con Con, and so many activists have asked me where I stand on this new effort. So here are a few thoughts.

I certainly feel the pain of patriotic Americans over the state of our Constitution. The original document has been basically put in a museum on Connecticut Ave. in Washington, DC and forgotten. We are told it is old and outdated. Not relevant to today’s age of technology, and moral reality. Old guys in powdered wigs wrote it. They knew nothing about instant communications, international terrorists, and besides, they were slave owners. How could their ideas possibly be relevant to us today? I’m sure Nancy Pelosi never read the Constitution because she would have had to pass it through Congress before she could find out what’s in it. For Obama, it’s just a road block keeping him from his need to change the country.

Well, you’ve all heard those arguments. The result is a government out of control. Spending is skyrocketing. Gun rights are under siege. Obamacare…right! Property rights, American industry, the dollar, personal privacy, and even our ability to choose the foods we want to eat, are all disappearing under an out-of-control government.

Something has to be done. There are those who argue that we can’t wait to try to elect the right kind of representatives in Congress and the White House. We have to take matters into our own hands immediately.

We have to see that the Constitution is strengthened to assure a balanced budged. Some have gone so far as to declare 10 Amendments for Freedom, including a plan to repay the national debt, enforce legislative transparency, a line item veto, term limits, immigration control, English as the national language, only U.S. laws over America, no socialism and a government bound by “In God we Trust.” And there are amendment ideas floating around to assure the Constitution is sound and strong for future generations.

Few of us would disagree with most of these ideas. They are put forth by respected leaders who have a record of promoting limited and Constitutional government. But how do we put these plans into action?

Radio host Mark Levin wrote a compelling book suggesting that there is a pressure valve written into Article V of the Constitution that shows us the way, through a convention of the states – an Article V Convention, as it is called. And we are assured that this is not a Constitutional Convention (Con Con) through which states call on Congress to convene. Too dangerous they tell us – and I agree.

No, an Article V Convention is different. We are told that the term Constitutional Convention or Con Con is inaccurate. That an Article V Convention is designed to precisely avoid the need for a Con Con. Specifically an Article V Convention is a meeting of the states -out of the control of Congress and the Pelosis of the nation. Each state will get one vote, and that will prevent a runaway convention that could result in the gutting of the Constitution. And through such a process, the states can control the agenda of the convention and therefore pass Mark Levin’s freedom amendments. It’s that simple. Moreover, the idea has captured the support of major Conservative leadership, including Sean Hannity, Home School leader Michael Farris, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, commentator Tim Baldwin, the Goldwater Institute, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and many more. All well respected leaders and advocates of limited government and Constitutional law.

I won’t begin to question them, their integrity, or their honorable intentions. I believe most are sincere in their concern and desire to save our Republic. But I have a few questions and observations.

First, what is the real issue here? What is the real reason why we have to even consider trying to redefine what the Founders meant our government to be? After all, it’s all in the Constitution already. Article V advocates, and Conservative movement in general, will readily tell you that the real issue is that our government, from the White House, to Congress, to the Supreme Court, are failing or refusing to follow Constitutional Law. They ignore it. So, say Article V proponents, that’s why we must amend the Constitution to assure our freedoms are guaranteed.

But, here is my real question for Article V advocates: If government today refuses to follow the Constitution, what will change once it is amended with the Articles of Freedom? What motivation will suddenly drive the Obamas and Pelosis to say “oh, the Constitution is the law of the land and we must follow it?” Especially when they oppose those freedom amendments for the same reasons they today ignore the entire Constitution. The Progressives who are in charge simply do not believe in balanced budgets, gun rights, and control of our borders. In addition, they really don’t care what a majority of Americans want, either. So an argument that the passage of the amendments will confirm that Americans want such a government cuts no ice with them.

Frankly, I believe that if we don’t change the atmosphere and mind set in the nation to one that supports the ideas behind our Constitution (free markets, individual liberty, limited government, and private property rights), then all the amendments in the world aren’t going to change the drive toward more and more government. The place to start that effort is by working to take back control of our local school systems, out of the clutches of the Federal Department of Education. Then, if we do first succeed in changing the mind-set of the nation to accept our ideas, a convention won’t be needed, We will have the necessary support around the nation to elect the right kind or representatives to restore Constitutional law through their legislative action. That, I believe, is the real task that lies ahead of us. There is no short cut or silver bullet around it.

Second. As I listen to Article V proponents make their arguments about how they’re going to bring about change – that they are going to bring all of these states together, hold a convention and pass their amendments, they seem to ignore the very existence of the Progressive movement that today controls nearly every aspect of our governing process. What do Article V proponents think these forces are going to do while the convention process is going on? Here’s what my research has found. Progressive groups like the Open Society Institute, the Center for American Progress, and the American Constitutional Society, to name a few, all groups funded by George Soros, are behind a movement for a more “Progressive Constitution.” They are simply not going to let conservatives have the playing field to themselves. They will use every trick, spending every dollar in their bulging war chests, to assure they control the process. Tim Baldwin has written with great vigor in support of the Article V Convention. But I think it is interesting to note that his father, Chuck Baldwin, former Constitution Party presidential candidate, author, columnist and a personal friend of mine, was quoted in a World Net Daily column in 2009, entitled “Globalists ‘Salivating’ over Collapse of America,” said, “The globalists who currently control Washington, D.C., and Wall Street are, no doubt, salivating over the opportunity to officially dismantle America’s independence and national sovereignty, and establish North American Union — in much the same way that globalists created the European Union. A new Constitutional Convention is exactly the tool they need to cement their sinister scheme into law.” Yes, Chuck was talking about a Con Con, but what will be different in an Article V Convention of the States if the Progressives get into the process?

Third I have a great concern over how the Article V Convention is being promoted. I have been an activist all of my life. I have seen pretty much every tactic used by powerful forces who are trying to railroad the people. The tactics always seem to be the same. Use the facilitation process to bring people into the fold, control the debate, and attack the opposition with accusations of deceit and fringe ideas. I have many times been awarded a tin foil hat by such forces for advocating ideas contrary to their vision for America. So, I’m a little sensitive to such tactics when I see them. And I know that the Tea Party is well aware of such tactics. That, in fact, is one of the things that motivates true Tea Party patriots to take action against rich, powerful, DC based groups which try to usurp or control the Tea Party. Yet, these are exactly the tactics I see being employed today by Article V proponents. Some of my associates have attempted to speak out at meetings where Article V is being promoted, and are not allowed the floor. That should sound familiar to Ron Paul supporters who have had microphones yanked out of their hands or turned off at state conventions. A couple of my friends have even been asked to represent the anti-Article V position. But, while the Article V proponent is given all the time he wants, the opposition is usually allowed only a few minutes to make their case. If the TeaParty is opposed to such tactics by County Commissioners, legislative committees, or Republican leadership at state conventions – then why don’t they question it at their own meetings? A full, open debate is always healthy in a free society. A deliberate attempt to silence opposition should cause people to question the motives of the perpetrators.

Finally, the proponents of Article V take great comfort in reciting the powerful names of those supporting their efforts. As I said, many are very respected leaders of the Conservative movement. But, how dare they deride in such nasty fashion, those who oppose them? They’ve called Phyllis Schlafly an old lady and out of touch. Phyllis was fighting for the Constitution when most of these Article V proponents were still in school. She risked everything she had to stop the Progressives’ Equal Rights Amendment. Home school advocate Mike Farris has called the John Birch Society evil. JBS has been unwavering in its dedication to the Constitution through the dark days of Communist infiltration of the 1950’s to today’s fight against Agenda 21.

The fact is, I was forced to part ways with Mike Farris and his tactics in the 1990s [bold italics added] . At the time I was heavily engaged in a three year war to stop the destruction of our public school system through the “reforms” known as Goals 2000, School-to-Work and The Work Force Development Act. Today, these “reforms” have morphed onto Common Core. When we had a chance to stop them in the 1990s, Mike Farris refused to support my efforts against the Work Force Development Boards, saying they didn’t affect home schoolers! I considered that a betrayal to every student in the nation.

It is with great pain that I acknowledge that some people I really respect have joined the Article V effort. But I can’t join them because, to me, something really smells about this Article V movement. Its arguments don’t past scrutiny. Its tactics are underhanded. Its source of funding is not in the open. I think honest Tea Party members and dedicated freedom activists should ask a lot of questions before risking our precious Constitution to their lot.

© 2014 Tom DeWeese – All Rights Reserved 

Tom DeWeese is one of the nation’s leading advocates of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education and American sovereignty and independence.

A native of Ohio, he’s been a candidate for the Ohio Legislature, served as editor of two newspapers, and has owned several businesses since the age of 23. In 1989 Tom led the only privately-funded election-observation team to the Panamanian elections. In 2006 Tom was invited to Cambridge University to debate the issue of the United Nations before the Cambridge Union, a 200 year old debating society. Today he serves as Founder and President of the American Policy Center and editor of The DeWeese Report

For 40 years Tom DeWeese has been a businessman, grassroots activist, writer and publisher. As such, he has always advocated a firm belief in man’s need to keep moving forward while protecting our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.

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Carnival in Crimea

By Pepe Escobar

atimes.com

Time waits for no one, but apparently will wait for Crimea. The speaker of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, has confirmed there will be a referendum on greater autonomy from Ukraine on May 25.

Until then, Crimea will be as hot and steamy as carnival in Rio – because Crimea is all about Sevastopol, the port of call for the Russian Black Sea fleet.

If the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a bull, this is the red flag to end all red flags. Even if you’re deep in alcohol nirvana dancin’ your troubles away at carnival in Rio – or New Orleans, or Venice, or Trinidad and Tobago – your brain will have registered that NATO’s ultimate wet dream is to command a Western puppet Ukrainian government to kick the Russian navy out of its base in Sevastopol. The negotiated lease applies until 2042. Threats and rumors of reneging it have already emerged.

The absolute majority of the Crimean peninsula is populated by Russian speakers. Very few Ukrainians live there. In 1954, it took only 15 minutes for Ukrainian Nikita Krushchev – he of the banging shoe at the UN floor – to give Crimea as a free gift to Ukraine (then part of the USSR). In Russia, Crimea is perceived as Russian. Nothing will change that fact.

We’re not facing a new Crimean War – yet. Only up to a point. NATO’s wet dream is one thing; it is quite another to pull it off – as in ending the Russian fleet routinely leaving Sevastopol across the Black Sea through the Bosphorus and then reaching Tartus, Syria’s Mediterranean port. So yes, this is as much about Syria as about Crimea.

The new Ukrainian Orange, Tangerine, Campari, Aperol Spritz or Tequila Sunrise revolution seems so far to have answered NATO’s prayers. But it’s a long and winding road for NATO to reenact the 1850s and remix the original Crimean War.

For the foreseeable future, we will be drowning in a white sea of platitudes. As in Pentagon supremo Chuck Hagel “warning” Russia to stay out of the turmoil, while NATO’s defense ministers issue the requisite pile of statements that no one reads “showing support” for the new leadership, and corporate shills reassure the populace this is not a new Cold War. [1]

Dance to my strategy, suckers
Where’s H L Mencken when we need him? No one ever lost money underestimating the mendacity of the Pentagon/NATO/CIA/State Department system. Especially now, when Ukrainian policy seems to have been subcontracted by the Obama administration to the likes of neo-con Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland, married to Dubya darling neo-con Robert Kagan.

As Immanuel Wallerstein has already observed, [2] Nuland, Kagan and the neo-con gang are as much terrified of Russia “dominating” Ukraine as of a slowly emerging, and eventually quite possible, geopolitical alliance between Germany (with France as a junior partner) and Russia. That would mean the heart of the European Union forging a counter-power to the dwindling, increasingly wobbly American power.

And as the current embodiment of wobbly American power, the Obama administration is really in a class by itself. They are now lost in their own, self-concocted “pivot” maze. Which pivot comes first? That one to China? But then we need to pivot to Iran first – to end that Middle East distraction. Or maybe not.

Take this latest sound bite by US Secretary of State John Kerry, on Iran: “We took the initiative and led the effort to try to figure out if before we go to war there actually might be a peaceful solution.”

So suddenly it’s not about a nuclear deal to be possibly attained in 2014 anymore; it’s about “if before we go to war”. It’s about bombing a possible deal so the Empire may bomb a country – again. Or maybe that’s just a wet dream supplied by the Likudnik puppet masters.

The great Michael Hudson has speculated that “multi-dimensional chess” might be “guiding US moves in the Ukraine”. Not really. It’s more like if we can’t pivot to China – yet – and if the pivot to Iran is going to fail anyway (because we want it to), we might as well pivot somewhere else. Oh yes, that pesky place that prevented us from bombing Syria; it’s called Russia. And all that under the profound guidance of Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland. Where’s a neo-Aristophanes to chronicle these marvels?

And never forget US corporate media. That CNN hack has been Amanpouring lately about the Budapest Agreement – stressing Russia should stay out of Ukraine. Well, visibly a horde of producers at ratings-falling-to-the-floor CNN have not even read the Budapest Agreement which, as University of Illinois professor Francis Boyle has noted, “also states that the US, Russia, Ukraine, and UK need to immediately jointly ‘consult’ – meaning meet at least at the foreign minister level”.

So who pays the bills?
The new prime minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is – what else – a “technocratic reformer”, code for Western puppet. [3] Ukraine is a (torn) basket case. The currency has fallen 20% since the start of 2014. Millions of unemployed Europeans know the European Union does not have the dough to bail out the country (perhaps Ukrainians could ask former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi for some tips).

In Pipelineistan terms, Ukraine is an appendix to Russia; it’s Russian gas that transits through Ukraine to European markets. And Ukrainian industry depends on the Russian market.

Let’s take a closer look at the new Aperol Spritz “revolutionary” wallet. Every month, the natural gas import bill from Russia is roughly US$1 billion. In January, the country also had to spend $1.1 billion in debt repayment. Foreign currency reserves plunged to $17.8 billion from $20.4 billion. Ukraine has a minimum debt repayment of no less than $17 billion in 2014. They even had to cancel a $2 billion eurobond issue late last week.

Frankly, Russian President Vladimir Putin – aka Vlad the Hammer – must be grinning like the Cheshire cat. He could simply erase the significant 33% discount on natural gas imports he gave Kiev late last year. Rumor after rumor already state – ominously – that the Aperol Spritz revolutionaries won’t have the cash to pay pensions and public servants’ salaries. In June comes a monster payment to a bunch of creditors ($1 billion in debt will mature). Afterwards, it’s bleaker than north Siberia in winter.

The US offer of $1 billion is risible. And all this after the “”F**k the EU” “strategy” of Victoria Nuland torpedoed an Ukrainian transitional government – by the way, negotiated by the EU – which might have kept the Russians on board, money-wise.

Without Russia, Ukraine will totally depend on the West to pay all its bills, not to mention avoid being bankrupt. That amounts to a whopping $30 billion until the end of 2014. Unlike Egypt, they cannot dial the House of Saud’s number and ask for some juicy petrodollars. That $15 billion loan from Russia promised recently could come in handy – but Moscow must get something in return.

The notion that Putin will order a military attack on the Ukraine should be billed to US corporate media’s sub-zoological intellectual quotient. Vlad the Hammer just needs to watch the circus – as in the West squabbling about where to get those billions to be squandered in a (torn) basket case. Or the International Monetary Fund churning out yet another dreadful “structural adjustment” to send Ukraine’s population back to the Paleolithic.

Crimea could even stage its own delayed carnival, voting not only for more autonomy but to leave the (torn) basket case altogether. In this case, Putin will even get Crimea for free – Krushchev-style. Not a bad deal. Thanks to that oh so strategic “F**k the EU” Russian “pivot”.

Notes:
1. US and Britain say Ukraine is not a battleground between East and West, Daily Telegraph, February 26, 2014.
2. See here.
3. Biden: U.S. Supports Ukraine’s New Government, Voice of America, February 27, 2014.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com

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CARNIVAL IN CRIMEA – A POSTCRIPT

3/1/14

https://www.facebook.com/pepe.escobar.77377

Russia did not invade Crimea. Russian troops were already there by treaty.

Crimea’s referendum will now be on March 30. And Crimea ASKED FOR HELP FROM RUSSIA. Western corporate media hysteria about Russia “invading” Ukraine is beyond ridiculous.

Russian troops in Crimea ARE LEGAL. According to the SOFA in place Moscow may deploy up to 30,000 soldiers. At the moment, there are less than 15,000, if that.

Don’t mess with Russian intelligence. Even before neo-con Vic “f#$* the EU” Nuland’s intercept, they had already identified the wider mechanics of the CIA-style coup – including Turkish intelligence financing Tatars in Crimea.

First Crimea – then there will be East Ukraine, from Dnipro to Donetsk. Like Crimea, they will ask for Russian support, military or otherwise. Thus the long-term scenario of all of them possibly joining the Russian Federation.

The coup in Kiev ONLY WORKS IF THE “WEST” – AS IN NATO – GETS CRIMEA. Otherwise it’s void.

And what will the Tatars in Crimea do? Stage a jihad? Wait: the “West” will surely try to FINANCE THIS JIHAD.

Very possible endgame: the “West” gets a bankrupt back of beyond (West Ukraine). Russia gets the industrialized East Ukraine, not to mention ultra-strategic Crimea.

Eugenicists Rejoice: More Black Babies Aborted Than Born in NYC

by Ben Shapiro

originally posted 21 Feb 2014

breitbart.com

On Friday, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Office of Vital Statistics released a report titled “Summary of Vital Statistics 2012 The City of New York, Pregnancy Outcomes.” As expected, the report showed an exceedingly high number of abortions and an exceedingly low number of births. 

But the report also showed something more disturbing: a vast majority of the abortions came from the black and Hispanic communities – and in the black community, births were outnumbered by abortion by 6,570. Overall, 42.4% of abortions in the city were of black children; another 31% came from the Hispanic community.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, some 30% of all abortions in the United States are performed on black women, and another 25% are performed on Hispanic women. Rev. John J. Raphael of Howard University has calculated that approximately 13 million black children have been killed before birth since Roe v. Wade, representing a population decrease in the black community of nearly one quarter. Almost 40% of all black pregnancies currently end in abortion.

This was the dream of the population control eugenicists’ whose heirs would eventually force abortion into the American mainstream. The early proponents of population control in the United States were eugenicists like Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, who stated, “[We should] apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.” 

In 1922, she expanded on this perverse idea: “We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” 

Sanger may not have targeted blacks alone for population control, but if targeting poverty meant targeting blacks and other racial minorities, she was certainly for it. And while Sanger was anti-abortion – she saw birth control as a preventive measure against abortion – she believed that population control in the black community was a necessity. Her heirs would broaden her concern with birth control into a program for full-scale abortion legalization.

This program was ineffective for decades, thanks to the rise of the black middle class and the stability of the black family structure. By the mid-1960s, half of black Americans had moved into the middle class, according to Kay Hymowitz; in 1965, just 24 percent of black children were born to single mothers. Those numbers still lagged behind the statistics for white Americans, which prompted the left to propose an entire system of government intervention to rectify the imbalance.

The result, however, was precisely the opposite of what was intended: thanks to the rise of the welfare state, which incentivized single motherhood, as well as a cultural shift discarding traditional family structure as a standard to be emulated, the black single motherhood rate skyrocketed. Black entry into the middle class stalled. Today, 73 percent of all children born in the black community are born out of wedlock. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 35 percent of black Americans live in poverty. In 1966, the black poverty rate was 41 percent.

There is no doubt that single motherhood has statistically crippled economic development in the black community. But instead of recognizing that single motherhood is an effect of both declining standards of morality and government benefits programs designed to excuse that decline, the left has blamed children themselves.  President Barack Obama infamously characterized the notion of one of his daughters experiencing an unplanned pregnancy as being “punished with a baby.” On the 41st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Obama declared abortion a vital element in allowing “everyone… the freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams.” And on the economic front, economist Steven Levitt has justified abortion as a way of fighting crime.

The result has been success far beyond the dreams of the social Darwinian eugenicists whose ideological heirs would eventually make abortion in America a booming industry. It just took an undermining of the social order by government intervention to accomplish that horrifying feat.

Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.