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12/27/2003
The Air Car :.I thought this was a joke at first. Nope. The thing runs on compressed air. Research Credit: CL
posted by Kevin at 8:11 PM
Spider Hole 101 :.How did itsy-bitsy Saddam fit in his itty-bitty hole? Find out!Research Credit: TR
posted by Kevin at 7:03 PM
New Hybrid Propulsion System Easily 50% More Efficient Than Traditional Internal Combustion Engines :.The best part about it is that the generator runs on diesel, which means it will run on non-polluting biodiesel or vegetable oil. Someone obviously didn't get the word to disappear this technology. My guess is that it will simply fade away, or remain in a constant state of obscurity, like all of the other technologies that could have solved our energy problems: A new Dutch invention can make cars, busses and other vehicles no less than 50 percent more efficient and thus more environmentally friendly. Better still, the technology is already available; it all comes down to a smart combination of existing systems.
This winter, in the city of Apeldoorn, a city bus will be used to prove that the claims about the new invention are true. These are quite bold. E-traction, the company that developed the bus, boasts fuel savings of up to 60 per cent, with emissions down to only a fraction of the soot and carbon dioxide an ordinary bus would blow out of its tailpipe.
In addition, the test bus requires no adaptation, its drivers need no extra training and there'll be no discomfort for passengers. It will simply run on diesel, just like all the other buses, and it should be just as reliable. One thing however will be very different; the Apeldoorn bus hardly makes a sound, hence its nickname "the whisperer".
posted by Kevin at 9:48 AM
Col. Sabow Case Won't Die :.Buried in the hundreds of pages that comprise the 2004 Defense Authorization Act, was the order that the mysterious death of Col. John Sabow, USMC, be reviewed and that "experts outside the Defense Department" investigate the medical and forensic evidence from the 12 year-old shotgun death.
Thanks to California Congressman Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the Marine Corps will no longer have absolute control on what is revealed by the new probe. And that could open a Pandora's Box when the cover-up of Sabow's murder is revealed.
More than 12 years has gone by since the colonel's body was discovered outside his quarters at El Toro MCAS in California, a shotgun by his side. Evidence the Marine Corps chose to ignore showed Sabow did not commit "suicide." For all these years, the Corps refused to re-examine the case. Politicians and most of the establishment media declined to get involved. Until now.
posted by Kevin at 12:06 AM
12/25/2003
Best Practices for Seizing Electronic Evidence :.Some of the things the pigs will be thinking about when they steal your stuff and accuse you of thought crimes: Computers and digital media are increasingly involved in unlawful activities. The computer may be contraband, fruits of the crime, a tool of the offense, or a storage container holding evidence of the offense. Investigation of any criminal activity may produce electronic evidence. Computers and related evidence range from the mainframe computer to the pocket-sized personal data assistant to the floppy diskette, CD or the smallest electronic chip device. Images, audio, text and other data on these media are easily altered or destroyed. It is imperative that law enforcement officers recognize, protect, seize and search such devices in accordance with applicable statutes, policies and best practices and guidelines.
posted by Kevin at 9:59 AM
Man Gets Three Years For Barroom Remark About Bush :.WOW! It's important to maintain appearances when in public: A federal appeals court has upheld the sentence for a man who had suggested that President Bush might be set ablaze.
Richard Humphreys appealed his three-year sentence, saying his comment was protected by free speech rights. He was convicted in 2002 of threatening to kill or harm the president.
The court found Humphreys suffers from bipolar disorder, and should serve his confinement in a federal medical center.
Humphreys says he got into a barroom discussion with a truck driver a day before Bush's March 2001 visit to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
A bartender who overheard the conversation told police that Humphreys talked about a "burning Bush" and the possibility of someone setting Bush on fire.
posted by Kevin at 9:04 AM
Durable Goods Orders Plunge :.The dollar took it on the chin, again, on the mad cow news as well: New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods plunged unexpectedly in November, falling at the steepest rate in more than a year across a broad range of categories, a government report said on Wednesday.
The Commerce Department said orders fell 3.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted $180.07 billion -- defying Wall Street economists' expectations for a 0.8 percent rise.
It was the biggest monthly orders decline since a 6 percent tumble in September 2002 and followed a revised 4 percent increase in October.
US treasuries surged on the news. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note was last up 9/32 in price for a yield of 4.23 percent, down from 4.26 percent on Tuesday and down from 4.27 percent just before the durable goods report was released.
Every single category of durable goods suffered weaker demand in November, with orders for everything from computers and aircraft to new cars and defense goods falling.
posted by Kevin at 9:00 AM
Battered Orange Cutlass and Yuletide Mayhem :.I felt obligated to include a Christmas-themed article. I laughed uncontrollably for about five minutes after reading this: Cruising in a battered orange Cutlass, Berrick allegedly drove up on the lawns and smashed through the displays.
The Yuletide mayhem built to a crescendo on Saturday night, after retiree William Grasso flipped the switch on the elaborate display he sets up every year in his Islip Terrace yard. Scores of neighborhood children turned out for an open house to get a first peek at the lawn crammed with handmade wooden penguins, angels and a blinking 5-foot Santa on his gift-laden sleigh.
A few hours later, Grasso's son, John Altenburg, awoke to the sound of screeching tires. A car "was taking off with all the ornaments. The light posts were flying," said Altenburg, 41. "It was a war zone."
The car left behind a 35-foot-long swath of chewed-up grass where 30 Christmas characters had stood. A plastic teddy bear Santa Claus was found crushed in the road a half mile away.
posted by Kevin at 8:55 AM
12/23/2003
Parmalat Files for Bankruptcy :.To the tune of $5 billion: Parmalat, a dairy, juice and snack enterprise, has been struggling to survive after revelations that it claimed billions of dollars in assets it didn't have. A claim by a Parmalat offshore company to have nearly $5 billion deposited with Bank of America Corp. proved false, and Italian prosecutors said a document showing the account balance was fake.
posted by Kevin at 11:34 PM
FDA Investigating Reports of Unlicensed Influenza Vaccine :.The media unleashed what can only be described as a pure PSYOP aimed at frightening people into getting the flu vaccine, which, under the best of circumstances, amounts to medical fraud. But wait. It gets better. Now we learn that unlicensed individuals were smacking people up with questionable influenza vaccine!?!? WOW! This is practically unbelievable. And the mindless troglodytes just lap it up. Poor troglodytes. So dumb. So easily manipulated: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received reports of potential distribution of unlicensed influenza vaccine in the United States. The Agency is aggressively working with State health authorities and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate the source and quality of influenza vaccine being made available through unusual suppliers.
Specifically, FDA has received reports of offers to sell unlicensed influenza vaccine in the U.S., and of individuals who are not licensed health care professionals administering questionable influenza vaccine in apparent efforts to take advantage of reports that influenza vaccine is in short supply. FDA is actively investigating these reports and taking prompt action, when appropriate. For example, FDA and the Florida Department of Health worked together to prevent unlicensed product from entering the country and being offered for sale.
posted by Kevin at 5:46 PM
First U.S. Case of Mad Cow Disease :.There have been rumbles of coverups of this in the past. One has to wonder if it's much, much worse than this. The most shocking thing, in my opinion, is that a "downer" (non ambulatory) cow had been slaughtered for its meat! Do you understand what that means?! I can't even write any more about this. Oh man. This is what happens in The Meatrix: The first apparent case of mad cow disease in the United States has been discovered in Washington state, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Tuesday.
Two tests have already been carried out on the cow enabling Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman to call the case a "presumptive positive" and a sample is being flown to England for a third test to absolutely confirm the case.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, is linked to a similar form of the incurable and fatal brain-wasting disease in humans, called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or vCJD. There have been a small number of cases of vCJD reported worldwide, primarily in the United Kingdom, in people who ate BSE-contaminated meat.
Officials believe that meat from the Washington animal left a processing plant, Veneman said, and an investigation is under way to determine if any had reached store shelves.
posted by Kevin at 5:25 PM
'Pre-Emptive' Arrests in Los Angeles :. ( Local Copy as PDF) This is beyond the pale. Arbitrary, secret arrests. Pure tyranny. How many people were arrested? Unknown. What are their names? Unknown. Can thought crimes get a person on the pre-emptive arrest shitlist? What will happen when this thing goes Red? Is there going to be a knock on my door? Is there going to be a knock on your door? After all, you're a thought criminal if you read information produced by thought criminals. Seriously, when this thing goes Red, and it will, I wouldn't be surprised if I was taken down. The shitlist is probably much longer under Red. Run of the mill thought criminals are probably included on that thing, and who would say or do anything about it? Most of my regular readers won't even throw me a dollar. If Cryptogon suddenly went silent, there would be concerned emails from about ten people, and that would be it. It seems like we're getting close to very bad things, writ large. And it's too late to do anything about it. Doubleplusungoodthinkers, know this: We are the dead: In response to the national terrorism alert, Los Angeles police have made "a number of pre-emptive arrests," a high-ranking LAPD source said Tuesday.
Those arrests were made in the past 48 hours and included people who came to authorities' attention after the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda terror attacks in the United States.
The source stressed that none has been charged with any terrorism-related offense but were rounded up on unrelated charges -- in one case, credit card fraud -- in an effort to get information about possible threats. None of those picked up was identified.UPDATE: CNN Activates Memory Hole on this StoryThe text of this story has been changed. I do not have the original text and I couldn't find it anywhere. They actively suppressed this one. If anyone happened to save this, please email me.UPDATE: Original CNN Story Recovered From My Browser's Cache Files ( Local Copy as PDF) The fact that CNN disappeared this story really irked me. So, I started messing around, searching, assuming Microsoft Internet Explorer does weird things. I was shocked by what Explorer stores locally! I routinely dump Explorer's offline content, but I never realized just how much information that thing was saving locally! It's insane. In this case, though, it came in handy. I think it's incredibly ironic that a Microsoft product allowed me to snatch this story from the memory hole! By the way, Internet Cache Explorer is a great tool, if you want to rummage through the Internet detritus that Explorer accumulates on your hard drive. Note: To delete offline content, in Explorer, go to Tools -> Internet Options -> In Temporary Internet Files select Delete Files -> Check Delete All Offline Content -> Click OK. This operation could take several minutes to complete. You might also want to change the size limit on offline content.
posted by Kevin at 5:13 PM
Nuclear Arms Race to Oblivion Continues :.With the U.S. running roughshod all over the planet, what should we expect from frightened states? Russia has deployed a new batch of its top-of-the-line strategic nuclear missiles after a break caused by a funding shortage, even as the military presented ambitious plans on Monday for building weapons even more potent.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov inaugurated the new set of Topol-M missiles at the Tatishchevo missile base in the central Saratov region on Sunday, describing them as a "21st-century weapon" unrivalled in the world.
"This is the most advanced state-of-the-art missile in the world," Ivanov said in remarks broadcast by Russian television stations on Monday. "Only such weapons can ensure our sovereignty and security and make any attempts to put military pressure on Russia absolutely senseless."
Ivanov reported the deployment to President Vladimir Putin on Monday, saying that the military will continue modernising all components of the nation's nuclear forces.
posted by Kevin at 4:31 PM
Fund Scandal: Ratting Out the Rats :.Looking to bring some excitement to the workplace? Get your PHB thrown in jail, and knock the mainpole out from under your bigtop: The mutual fund scandal, which has ensnared dozens of companies and generated countless headlines, started with an anonymous tip.
In March, an unnamed whistleblower told Massachusetts securities regulators that Morgan Stanley executives pressured brokers to steer clients toward their in-house mutual funds, prompting both Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin and New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to investigate.
Other leads soon followed.
posted by Kevin at 4:26 PM
Race to the Bottom: "Nobody has come up with a way to spin it in a positive way." :.I say, bitchslap these evil monsters. If you must buy their goods, buy them used. Cut off the revenue and you cut off their heads: Morgan Stanley estimates the number of U.S. jobs outsourced to India will double to about 150,000 in the next three years. Analysts predict as many as two million U.S. white-collar jobs such as programmers, software engineers and applications designers will shift to low cost centers by 2014.
But the biggest companies looking to "offshoring'' to cut costs, such as Microsoft Corp., International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) and AT&T Wireless (AWE), are reluctant to attract attention for political reasons, observers said this week.
"The problem is that companies aren't sure if it's politically correct to talk about it,'' said Jack Trout, a principal of Trout & Partners, a marketing and strategy firm. "Nobody has come up with a way to spin it in a positive way.''
This causes a problem for publicly traded companies, which would ordinarily brag about cost savings to investors. Instead, they send vague signals that they are opening up operations in India and China, but often decline to elaborate.
Moreover, on the threshold of a U.S. presidential election year, job losses are a hot button issue. A company that highlighted a major job transfer could wind up in the campaign debate.
Multinationals find that when they trumpet expansion overseas, they cause problems at home. When Accenture Ltd. (ACN) executives in India this month announced plans to double their staff to 10,000 next year, they triggered a flood of calls to the company's U.S. offices about U.S. job losses.
Offshoring companies "are paying Chinese wages and selling at U.S. prices,'' said Alan Tonelson, of the U.S. Business and Industrial Council, a trade group for small business. "They're not creating better living standards for America.''
posted by Kevin at 4:22 PM
12/22/2003
Outside the NYSE: Pigs with Assault Rifles :.I saw some video on CNBC today of packs of NY cops, walking the streets in full battle dress, including assault rifles, as troglodytes meandered about with their Christmas gifts. Someone pinch me. Am I awake? Is this a nightmare?
posted by Kevin at 9:36 AM
Make Sure to Study Hard for that Computer Science Degree! :.IT graduates face a "grim" future as the UK's jobs market continues to show little sign of improvement.
A report by specialist publishers, GTI, does not make chirpy reading for IT grads looking to enter the world of work.
Says its Graduate Trends Survey 2003/4: "This year sees once again the nightmare scenario of thousands of well-qualified IT graduates looking forward to an uncertain future that they could not have imagined when they started their degrees three or four years ago."
According to the report, there are more graduates chasing fewer vacancies, with the average number of vacancies, and the actual number on offer, falling further. One measly crumb of comfort is that the rate of decline has slowed.
posted by Kevin at 6:56 AM
12/21/2003
The Bankruptcy of The United States :.United States Congressional Record, March 17, 1993 Vol. 33, page H-1303
Speaker-Rep. James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House:
"Mr. Speaker, we are here now in chapter 11.. Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization of any Bankrupt entity in world history, the U.S. Government. We are setting forth hopefully, a blueprint for our future. There are some who say it is a coroner's report that will lead to our demise.
It is an established fact that the United States Federal Government has been dissolved by the Emergency Banking Act, March 9, 1933, 48 Stat. 1, Public Law 89-719; declared by President Roosevelt, being bankrupt and insolvent. H.J.R. 192, 73rd Congress m session June 5, 1933 - Joint Resolution To Suspend The Gold Standard and Abrogate The Gold Clause dissolved the Sovereign Authority of the United States and the official capacities of all United States Governmental Offices, Officers, and Departments and is further evidence that the United States Federal Government exists today in name only.
The receivers of the United States Bankruptcy are the International Bankers, via the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. All United States Offices, Officials, and Departments are now operating within a de facto status in name only under Emergency War Powers. With the Constitutional Republican form of Government now dissolved, the receivers of the Bankruptcy have adopted a new form of government for the United States. This new form of government is known as a Democracy, being an established Socialist/Communist order under a new governor for America. This act was instituted and established by transferring and/or placing the Office of the Secretary of Treasury to that of the Governor of the International Monetary Fund. Public Law 94-564, page 8, Section H.R. 13955 reads in part: "The U.S. Secretary of Treasury receives no compensation for representing the United States."
posted by Kevin at 11:06 PM
When Was Saddam Captured? Ripe Dates and Drying Meat... :.This is a pretty good one: The CIA photograph, shown on the left, clearly shows a tree full of ripe dates which in Iraq ripen in late July or early August and never in December. The picture also shows a rope with hanging meat for drying. Our Iraqi sources informed us that this occurs always in the summer and never in December. Local link to a better quality photograph depicting the dates and the drying meat. I have no idea how valid this theory is, but it's something to keep in mind. It makes sense, but I just don't know. Research Credit: DH via TR
posted by Kevin at 10:57 PM
Across U.S., Jobless Losing Benefits :.More than 90,000 people who have been out of work for months will lose their federal benefits today, when a program to aid the long-term unemployed expires.
During the first six months of next year, more than 2 million unemployed people across the country will be cut off from the extra assistance, unless Congress acts. In Massachusetts, 2,500 workers a week will lose their benefits, according to government statistics studied by a congressional committee and several economic analysis groups.
"It's a really diverse group of people who are running out of benefits -- higher-income, dot-commers, lower-wage workers, and manufacturing employees. It's people from every industry, from all states," said Maurice Emsellem, public policy director for the National Employment Law Project. "Whatever's going on with the economy, it's not translating into significant job growth."
posted by Kevin at 10:32 PM
Police Call for Remote Button to Stop Cars :.It's a good thing I don't live in Britain: After speed cameras, road humps and mobile phone bans, there could be more bad news for Britain's motorists. Police are urging Ministers to give them the power to stop vehicles by remote control.
In what will be seen as yet another example of the in-creasing power of Big Brother, drivers face the prospect of their cars being halted by somebody pushing a button.
posted by Kevin at 10:14 PM
Slave to the Machine: The Dawn of Ubiquitous GPS Surveillance :.Whether they're dispatching a fleet of garbage trucks or a team of bail-bond collectors, managers love the idea of knowing where their "assets" are. They can coordinate routes that arebased upon traffic data, offer customers a narrower time frame for delivery, and, yes, make sure mobile employees are actually on the job when they're supposed to be. The popularity of GPS in the workplace parallels its growth in the consumer realm: By 2006, according to some estimates, 4 out of 5 new vehicles will come equipped with the technology.
For workers, GPS can add convenience and security. But as the plowers' protest shows, close tracking can put a dent in morale. Privacy experts warn that employees may not realize how much they can be tracked, especially if they use a company cellphone or a vehicle with GPS during personal time.
posted by Kevin at 10:11 PM
Lost? Hiding? Your Cellphone Is Keeping Tabs :.The machine is going to eat us all alive if we don't opt out of this nightmare: Driven by worries about safety, the need for accountability, and perhaps a certain "I Spy" impulse, families and employers are adopting surveillance technology once used mostly to track soldiers and prisoners. New electronic services with names like uLocate and Wherify Wireless make a very personal piece of information for cellphone users � physical location � harder to mask.
But privacy advocates say the lack of legal clarity about who can gain access to location information poses a serious risk. And some users say the technology threatens an everyday autonomy that is largely taken for granted. The devices, they say, promote the scrutiny of small decisions � where to have lunch, when to take a break, how fast to drive � rather than general accountability.
posted by Kevin at 3:05 AM
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:. Reading
 Fatal
Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture by Andrew Kimbrell
Readers will come to see
that industrial food production is indeed a "fatal harvest"
- fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors
such as E. coli and "mad cow disease" find their way
into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff
from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to
genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield
monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our
farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate
farms.
 Friendly
Fascism: The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Myron Gross
This is a relatively
short but extremely cogent and well-argued treatise on the rise
of a form of fascistic thought and social politics in late 20th
century America. Author Bertram Gross' thesis is quite straightforward;
the power elite that comprises the corporate, governmental and
military superstructure of the country is increasingly inclined
to employ every element in their formidable arsenal of 'friendly
persuasion' to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans
through what Gross refers to as friendly fascism.
 The
Good Life
by Scott and Helen Nearing Helen
and Scott Nearing are the great-grandparents of the back-to-the-land
movement, having abandoned the city in 1932 for a rural life based
on self-reliance, good health, and a minimum of cash...Fascinating,
timely, and wholly useful, a mix of the Nearings' challenging
philosophy and expert counsel on practical skills.
 Silent
Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth by David Bollierd
In Silent Theft, David Bollier
argues that a great untold story of our time is the staggering
privatization and abuse of our common wealth. Corporations are
engaged in a relentless plunder of dozens of resources that we
collectively own—publicly funded medical breakthroughs,
software innovation, the airwaves, the public domain of creative
works, and even the DNA of plants, animals and humans. Too often,
however, our government turns a blind eye—or sometimes helps
give away our assets. Amazingly,
the silent theft of our shared wealth has gone largely unnoticed
because we have lost our ability to see the commons.
 The
Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics
Guide by John Seymour The
Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the only book that
teaches all the skills needed to live independently in harmony
with the land harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops
and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and
wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.
 When
Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten
When Corporations
Rule the World explains how economic globalization has concentrated
the power to govern in global corporations and financial markets
and detached them from accountability to the human interest. It
documents the devastating human and environmental consequences
of the successful efforts of these corporations to reconstruct
values and institutions everywhere on the planet to serve their
own narrow ends.
 The
New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques
for the Home and Market Gardener
This expansion
of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended
for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes
practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables,
with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock,
the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other
topics.
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