If you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you have just been promoted to the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

I assure you I’m not making this stuff up. Police agencies now believe the “main terrorist threat in the United States is not from violent Muslim extremists, but from right-wing extremists.” Under the guise of fighting violent extremism “in all of its forms and manifestations” in cities and communities across the world, the Obama administration has agreed to partner with the United Nations to take part in its Strong Cities Network program. Funded by the State Department through 2016, after which “charities are expected to take over funding,” the cities included in the global network include New York City, Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis, Paris, London, Montreal, Beirut and Oslo.

Working with the UN, the federal government will train local police agencies across America in how to identify, fight and prevent extremism, as well as address intolerance within their communities, using all of the resources at their disposal. What this program is really all about, however, is community policing on a global scale.

Add in tens of thousands of armed, surveillance drones that will soon blanket American skies, facial recognition technology that will identify and track you wherever you go and whatever you do. And then to complete the circle, toss in the real-time crime centers being deployed in cities across the country, which will be attempting to “predict” crimes and identify criminals before they happen based on widespread surveillance, complex mathematical algorithms and prognostication programs.

Hopefully you’re getting the picture, which is how easy it is for the government to identify, label and target individuals as “extremist.”

We’re living in a scary world.

BGI, a company based in the southern city of Shenzhen that is known for its work sequencing human, plant and animal DNA, recently announced that it intends to start selling $1,600 miniature pigs that it initially created as laboratory models for studying human ailments.

The pigs created a splash late last month when BGI showed them at the Shenzhen International Biotech Leaders Summit. The pint-size porkers were created through a process known as gene editing. Rather than introduce another organism’s DNA into the pigs, scientists “edit” the swine’s own genetic material, disabling a copy of the growth hormone receptor gene so that cells don’t get a signal to grow.

Some scientists are already talking about modifying human DNA to create smaller humans in an effort to fight climate change. With the advent of “micro-pigs”, the possibility moves closer.

Since dogs’ anatomy is similar to those of humans’, intentionally creating dogs with certain human genetic traits could allow scientists to further understand how they occur.

First come the animals, then come humans. Chinese scientists are not constrained by ethics or scientific peers in creating odd animals using genetic modification. Just yesterday, it was revealed that micro-pigs were showcased in China. Now its muscle-bound whippets. It is just a matter of time before genetic modification for bizarre human traits are announced.

As part of his election campaign, Mr Trudeau pledged to bring home the CF-18 fighter jets that were deployed to the region until March 2016. He has not yet given a timescale. Justin Trudeau's Liberals swept to power in Monday's election, ending nearly a decade of Conservative rule under Stephen Harper. Mr Trudeau, an ex-high-school teacher, is the eldest son of late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

During the 11-week election campaign, the Liberal Party said it would:

 Cut income taxes for middle-class Canadians while increasing them for the wealthy

 Run deficits for three years to pay for infrastructure spending

 Do more to address environmental concerns over the controversial Keystone oil pipeline

 Take in more Syrian refugees, and pull out of bombing raids against Islamic State while bolstering training for Iraqi forces

 Legalise marijuana

Monday’s poll saw the Liberals, led by Justin Trudeau, win 184 seats in the Canadian parliament – more than enough to form a majority government. Stephen Harper’s Conservatives came in second with just 99 seats. The outgoing PM was enthusiastic about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a recently negotiated free-trade pact between 12 Pacific Rim nations, excluding China. The White House has repeatedly presented the TPP as a way to prevent China from “writing the rules of the global economy,” in the words of President Barack Obama.

During the campaign, Trudeau came under attack by the Conservatives and the New Democrats for declining to make up his mind on the TPP. The Liberals’ leader has criticized the secrecy surrounding the pact and said he would have to read the text of the agreement before making up his mind. His party, however, endorsed the TPP on principle when it was announced October 5, saying it “strongly supports free trade.”

As the US wilts, demand for OPEC’s crude will grow in 2015, ending two years of retreat, the International Energy Agency estimates. While cratering prices and historic cutbacks in drilling have taken their toll on the US, OPEC members have also paid a heavy price. Saudi Arabia, the main architect of OPEC’s new strategy, will have a budget deficit of 20 percent of gross domestic product this year, the International Monetary Fund estimates.

While the kingdom has been able to tap foreign currency reserves and curb spending to cope with the slump, financial assets may run out within five years if the government maintains current policies and prices stay low, the IMF said Wednesday.

Less wealthy OPEC members have even fewer options. The threat of political unrest is mounting in the “Fragile Five” of Algeria, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela, according to RBC Capital Markets LLC. Faltering US supplies show the Saudi-led strategy is paying off, said Societe Generale’s Wittner. “If there are folks in the oil market who expect this is going to end with a new game plan, they’re going to be very disappointed,” he said.

Manning revealed US war crimes and after years of illegal pre-trial prison abuse was sentenced to 35 years in prison for keeping the vow to the US Constitution. Some of the idiot conservative Republicans thought the sentence was too light.

Julian Assange is confined by the US and UK governments in violation of international law to the Ecuadoran Embassy in London for doing his job and publishing leaked documents revealing the mendacity, immorality, and illegality of Washington’s policies.

Edward Snowden is protected by Russia against Washington’s retribution for revealing that Washington’s illegal and unconstitutional spying is universal and includes the personal communications of all of the leaders of Washington’s own vassal states.

The American people accept the persecution of truth-tellers, because they have been brainwashed into believing that patriotism means defense of the government no matter what. As truth is so unfavorable to Washington, Americans believe that it must not be revealed, and if revealed, covered up, and those who reveal truth must be punished.

A country with such a population as this is a police state, not a free country.

A group of 188 MPs including many from Mrs Merkel’s own Christian Democrat party have prepared laws to fence off sections of the border. They say they will put them forward if Mrs Merkel does not come up with a solution to the refugee crisis within weeks.

“We must stop the flow of refugees. Considering a border fence should not be a taboo,” Christian von Stetten, the leader of the rebels and a member of Mrs Merkel's party, told Bild newspaper. The proposals come after Rainer Wendt, the head of the German police union, called for a border fence over the weekend.

"We wish that Iran would change its policies and stop meddling in the affairs of other countries in the region, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen," Adel al-Jubeir said at a joint press briefing with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Riyadh. "It is difficult to have positive relations" with Tehran, "when Saudi Arabia and its people are the target of continuous aggression" from the kingdom's arch rival, said Jubeir.

Saudi Arabia supports rebel groups who are fighting to oust Assad in the Syrian conflict. "We will make sure that we confront Iran's actions and shall use all our political, economic and military powers to defend our territory and people," said Jubeir. He accused Iran of acting like a "colonising state" in Syria, and demanded it pull its fighters out of the country and stop supplying arms to Assad.

"The aim of this delegation's visit is to further promote friendship, deepen cooperation and exchange views with Iran on bilateral military ties and issues of mutual concern," Sun said, according to the statement. The trip will also "promote the preservation of international and regional peace and stability", he added. China and Iran have close diplomatic, economic, trade and energy ties, and China has been active in pushing both the United States and Iran to reach agreement on Iran's controversial nuclear program.

Under a multilateral deal, agreed in July, sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union and United Nations will be lifted in return for Iran agreeing to long-term curbs on a nuclear program that the West has suspected was aimed at creating a nuclear bomb. Sun said that China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, was pleased that an agreement had been reached.

The child, named David Hickman, weighed just 3 lbs, 7 ounces at birth. His tragically short life was only 9 hours long. According to reports, the Hickmans went to Shannon’s mother for help when she began having contractions more than two months prior to her due date. The couple says they didn’t notice anything was wrong with the baby until just minutes prior to his death — a claim which an expert on this subject has called a lie. Instead of calling a hospital like most rational people, they prayed over the dying baby and “anointed” his head with oil.

Both halves of the Hickman couple will spend a minimum of 6 years and 3 months in prison for their actions, which is light, considering the fact that their child lost his life over their idiotic beliefs. The judge in the case, Robert Herndon, called one of the cult’s midwives “one of the most dangerous people in Oregon.”

It's happened. The BBC, the pinnacle of quality journalism, joined a string of world-renowned news networks to have grossly misreported a terror attack against Israelis. "Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two" read the headline on Saturday, failing to convey that the casualty was a terrorist who perpetrated a deadly stabbing and shooting attack, rather than an innocent victim.

The BBC headline is a new and unwelcome addition to what seems more like a trend than a series of isolated incidents. In November last year, a shooting spree at a Jerusalem synagogue was reported by CNN as having taken place at a mosque, and only weeks beforehand, the Associated Press led a report on a vehicular attack against Israelis with the headline "Israeli police shoot man in East Jerusalem."

Put together, these reports ostensibly reveal a fundamental anti-Israel bias: To Western journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, violence is one directional, emanating by definition from the Israeli side and directed against the Palestinians. More than latent anti-Semites, the journalists who wrote these shoddy headlines were simply ignorant. They failed to grasp the very rudimentary elements of the story, and exhibited a shocking unawareness of the general context – namely, the "most important story on earth."

How can professional journalists, working for renowned publications read by millions worldwide, make such embarrassing mistakes, time after time? What we see is the proliferation of a custom known as "churnalism," a portmanteau term that refers to journalists being required to produce sizable copy against increasingly tighter deadlines.