Bargins: U.S. Military Trying to Buy-Off Iraqi Survivors :.

This story represents the epitome of America's depravity and belief in the primacy of money. For Americans, money is the end and the means. Money is why we do most of what we do. It makes perfect sense that U.S. Military Psychological Warfare theorists devised this half-cocked plan. The flaw, however, exists in assuming that the Iraqi people have the same shallow values as Americans:

In accordance with the brutal accounting of modern combat, cash payments were made Thursday to people in this small village who suffered during recent fighting between U.S. Marines and insurgents in nearby Fallouja.

The village leader received $15,000 on behalf of residents in compensation for dead livestock, uprooted trees, damaged fields and other losses. The Marines tried to bargain him down to $10,000, but he stood firm.

The son of a man killed by gunfire while driving in a battle zone received $2,500. And a man who said his 7-year-old daughter was killed as she tended the family's sheep also received $2,500.
posted by Kevin at 5:41 AM

Another Dumb Idea: Smart Roads :.

Now, after perfecting illuminated markers that are embedded in the road surface to guide motorists through bad weather or warn of dangerous conditions, Mr. Dicks's company, Astucia Traffic Management Systems, is going a step further. Its latest creation is an embedded stud equipped with a camera that catches speeders, monitors traffic for criminals or stolen cars and even checks for bald tires on the fly.
posted by Kevin at 6:52 PM

Sex Magic Rituals in Abu Ghraib Prison!? :.

This New York Post article goes from sounding like an account of depraved idiots to something else... like some kind of strange sexual ritual:

Iraq's feared Abu Ghraib jail was one big sex romp - sometimes by candlelight with an audience watching, U.S. troops said yesterday.

Sex and alcohol were commonplace, and soldiers frequently set up candlelit rooms for voyeuristic sex shows, said a soldier who served at the notorious prison.

"There were lots of affairs. There was all kinds of adultery and alcoholism and all kinds of crap going on," said Dave Bischel, a National Guardsman with the 870th Military Police unit, who returned home from Abu Ghraib last month.

"There was a bed found in one of the abandoned buildings. There was a mattress on the ground. They had chairs all circled around it and candles all over the place," said Bischel, adding the chairs were "obviously for an audience."

Not knowing much about sexual rituals, thank you very much, I started typing words from the article into Google; sexual magic ritual candles circle etc.

Well, well, well...

I found a handy little essay called Invocation of the Demon-Brother: A Sadeo-Sex Magical Working that seems to provide some insights:

The purpose of this working is for a magician to identify and invoke the powers of his demon-brother. This is not a 'binding' in the usual sense but the beginnings of a mutual partnership whereby the magician gains a demonic ally to assist him in his works and in turn, 'feeds' this ally by sacrifices � offerings of pain or sexual energy, or by providing a vessel through which his demon-brother can enjoy the carnal world.

All workings open with Rite of the Averse Star. [pentagram] A short outline of this rite follows.

The Averse Star is the central rite of the Brotherhood of Lucifer, an affirmation of kinship with Lucifer and the fallen ones. This rite always takes place within a circle of candles, which provide a 'flicker' effect enabling celebrants to clairvoyantly see the demon-horde who gather beyond the circle. Unlike the 'banishing rituals' used in Western Magick, the object of the Averse Star is to 'thin' the veils between the worlds, and allow the free exchange of 'enthusiasm' between the human participants and their demonic kin.

The temple used for this series of workings is a large cellar beneath the lodge-house. [A prison is a type of lodge-house.] A permanent magical circle 9' in diameter is inscribed on the floor of this chamber. This circle is ringed with candles. In the centre of the circle is a triangle, within which is a low altar (a leather-topped seat) [how about an old mattress?] over which the recipient of the rite may be placed. Shackles around the altar enable the magician to be bound in place. A mirror is placed at the apex of the triangle and positioned so that the recipient can view his or her own face.
posted by Kevin at 4:03 PM

Thy Will Be Done: Was the Berg PSYOP Also a Ritual Killing? :. (mp3)

Irish researcher, Fintan Dunne, has extracted the last few seconds of audio from the Berg execution video. I'm relatively convinced that I'm hearing, "Thy will be done." I found different sources of the video and listened all the way through to the end. Indeed, this enigmatic phrase is present.

What do you think?

Are there any Cryptogon readers out there who have done research into ritual killings? The reason I'm asking is because I think it would be interesting to know which flavor of black death magic these maniacs are following. Whatever it is, I think this would be the same version of the "religion" that the elite enablers, like Bush/Cheney/Kerry/Clinton et al. follow.

If we can determine which "book" these freaks are following, perhaps we can gain some insights into what their plans are and more about their modus operandi.

Questions:

Is there any occult significance in the fact that Berg was beheaded (as opposed to being stabbed, slashed or some other method)?

Is there anything in the text of what what the killer read that serves as an incantation? If so, from where is this derived? Give me an exact source. Don't just say, "This is Satan worship." Book and verse, please... spell name, number, eye of newt, toil and trouble, weird vats full of stuff, boil and bubble, etc.

There are five people involved with killing Berg. Is this a possible reference to the five sided pentagram?

This is more of an observation than a question: The prominent colors worn by the killers are black red and white. These colors play a prominent role in any group that dabbles in black magic and weird rituals. The Catholic Church, the Third Reich and even run of the mill Satanists are some examples.
posted by Kevin at 2:04 PM

Berg PSYOP Summary on Alex Jones :.

Alex Jones has most of it. I would add:

Pictures of the chairs. Alex mentions the chairs, but take a look for yourself. I know. I know. The same chairs are probably all over Iraq. But are they? I've seen that chair for sale outside grocery stores here in the U.S. Are those chairs common in Iraq? Or did the U.S. military bring them along?

The ring. Executioner wore gold ring - forbidden by Islam:

One of the clues the FBI and CIA is studying is the large gold ring Zarqawi is wearing on his right hand, giving off a glare several times during the six-minute tape.

The accent. Berg's killer isn't Zarqawi. The speaker in the tape is not speaking with a Jordanian accent. Zarqawi is a Jordanian.

Michael Berg's comments. What the hell does this mean?

"Nicholas Berg died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld," Michael Berg said. "The al-Qaida people are probably just as bad as they are, but this administration did this."
posted by Kevin at 5:00 PM

World Bank Corruption May Top $100 Billion :.

They want you to believe that this is all some big mistake. *gasp* The corruption must stop! It's so terrible!

Just like the torture in Iraq is an aberration...

You see, the Elite buy off corrupt officials in developing countries in order to INSURE that legitimate social and infrastructure programs never take place. It's payola. World Bank "loans" are made to THE MOST CRIMINALLY CORRUPT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD! But you better believe that they will buy U.S. made weapons, and other "tie aid"* items on the World Bank spreadsheets. This is yet another way of funneling taxpayer money to corporations.

And it's all fun and games as long as these target states allow foreign corporations to run roughshod over their land, stealing natural resources and enslaving people. If some leader decides, "Enough is enough," well, that's when the U.S. Marines go in.

$100 billion, $200 billion... It doesn't matter. The purpose of setting up the World Bank in the first place was to facilitate a wholesale theft of what was left to steal in the world! The real question should be, what did these "corrupt" billions yield in terms of corporate profits? Ahhhh, well, I'm not going to attempt any exact figures, but you're surly talking trillions of dollars since the inception of these multilateral banking swindles:

Corrupt use of World Bank funds may exceed $100 billion and while the institution has moved to combat the problem, more must be done, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Thursday.

Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, charged that "in its starkest terms, corruption has cost the lives of uncounted individuals contending with poverty and disease."

He commended World Bank President James Wolfensohn for bringing greater attention to the issue, but said, "Corruption remains a serious problem."

Lugar opened a hearing on corruption at the multilateral development banks, the first public examination in an ongoing Senate investigation.

He cited experts who calculated that between $26 billion and $130 billion of the money lent by the World Bank for development projects since 1946 has been misused. In 2003, the bank distributed $18.5 billion in developing countries.

Jeffrey Winters, an associate professor at Northwestern University, said his research suggested corruption wasted about $100 billion of World Bank funds, and when other multilateral development banks are included, the total rises to about $200 billion.

* Monetary aid that is made to a state contingent on that state's agreement to buy specific goods and services from lender states. The U.S. is the largest contributor to World Bank programs. U.S. corporations, therefore, are the primary beneficiaries of World Bank "loans."
posted by Kevin at 1:37 PM

The Israeli High-Speed Pursuit Story :.

Extreme weirdness:

Two Israelis driving a moving van were arrested in Tennessee last Saturday after leading police on a high-speed chase, marking at least the third time since 9/11 that Israelis in moving vans suspected of espionage in the U.S. have been taken into custody.

Taken into custody in the incident were Israeli nationals Shmuel Dahan and Almaliach Naor. In the wallet of 23-year old Dahan, an Israeli military veteran living in Miami Beach, police discovered a "Learn to Fly in Florida" business card.

More: POLITICALLY CONNECTED ISRAELIS! :.

The leader of the two Israelis arrested after leading police on a high speed chase in a moving van last Saturday in rural Tennessee is the son of the spokesman for the Likud Party of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the MadCowMorningNews has learned.

The arrested Israeli 'mover,' Shmuel Dahan, 23, is himself a former spokesman, for the National Union of Israeli Students which represents the country's 150,000 university students.

News that one of the two Israeli 'movers' belonged to that country's political elite might have proven useful in the criminal investigation underway in rural North Carolina and Tennessee, where the two men led authorities on a high-speed chase in a rented moving van last weekend.

However, the investigation was halted Wednesday, after the men were released from Unicol County Jail to the custody of federal officials from the INS, where they face only a deportation hearing.

"They�re taking it out of my jurisdiction," stated Sheriff Kent Harris, who apprehended the men last Saturday after a high speed chase on a little-used state highway.

"We may never know what they were doing."
posted by Kevin at 7:59 AM

U.S. Department of Justice Hits Cryptogon

Yesterday, I mentioned that the NSA was looking for info related to cyberwar on Cryptogon, but that they didn't download my essay on the subject.

This morning, someone at the Department of Justice conducted this Google search on Sean Gorman. The DOJ user DID download my cyberwar essay. (This is why I locked the essay; so the disclaimer couldn't be separated from the "possible terrorist scenario" section.)

This is interesting, since I was just discussing Sean Gorman and this very same cyberwar essay over Yahoo (unencrypted) chat with someone two days ago. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

Do I realize that my Yahoo chat sessions are open to surveillance?

Yes.

Do I care?

No, because I'm not afraid of the bozos. Besides, I haven't done anything wrong.

Here's a hint to federal agents, just in case you get any weird thoughts about me: I have nothing to say to you, so don't bother emailing me, calling me or showing up to my house. Remember how John Young dealt with you? Well, I plan on taking a page out of his play book if you people feel the need to interact with me. What this means is that all of my readers will know EVERYTHING.

So, feel free to check the archive section, if you want. There's almost two years worth of stuff for you to pour over.

Related: U.S. DOJ Host

[13/May/2004:07:43:53 -0600] wdcsun16.usdoj.gov 149.101.1.116
posted by Kevin at 6:48 AM

Abu Ghraib: Freak Orgy!? :.

Depraved, white trash sex acts, rape and torture... We're never going to hear the end of this. Here's the formula: This is Michael Jackson X OJ Simpson to the 10th power all over unspeakable war crimes.

If you have kids, pull the TV and Internet connections out of the wall. Consider sending them into the forest to be raised by wolves:

Shocking shots of sexcapades involving Pfc. Lynndie England were among the hundreds of X-rated photos and videos from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal shown to lawmakers in a top-secret Capitol conference room yesterday.

"She was having sex with numerous partners. It appeared to be consensual," said a lawmaker who saw the photos.

And, videos showed the disgraced soldier - made notorious in a photo showing her holding a leash looped around an Iraqi prisoner's neck - engaged in graphic sex acts with other soldiers in front of Iraqi prisoners, Pentagon officials told NBC Nightly News.

"Almost everybody was naked all the time," another lawmaker said.

Many members of Congress left the 45-minute viewing session early, thereby missing the porno performance by England, but there were enough other images of torture, humiliation and intimidation to sicken anyone.
posted by Kevin at 6:14 AM

Wholesale Prices Shoot Up 0.7 Percent :.

Oh yeah, baby, here it comes. Make your time:

Wholesale prices shot up by 0.7 percent in April, the largest increase in a year, propelled by higher gasoline costs and the biggest jump in dairy product prices since 1946.

The increase in the Producer Price Index came after wholesale prices rose by 0.5 percent in March, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The latest PPI report, which measures prices before they reach store shelves, provided fresh evidence that inflation is awakening after a long slumber.
posted by Kevin at 6:09 AM

CIA: Torture as Official Policy :.

Knowing what we all know about the NY Times, take this and multiply it by 1000:

The Central Intelligence Agency has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses, according to current and former counterterrorism officials.

At least one agency employee has been disciplined for threatening a detainee with a gun during questioning, they said.

In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as "water boarding," in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.

These techniques were authorized by a set of secret rules for the interrogation of high-level Qaeda prisoners, none known to be housed in Iraq, that were endorsed by the Justice Department and the C.I.A. The rules were among the first adopted by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks for handling detainees and may have helped establish a new understanding throughout the government that officials would have greater freedom to deal harshly with detainees.

Defenders of the operation said the methods stopped short of torture, did not violate American anti-torture statutes, and were necessary to fight a war against a nebulous enemy whose strength and intentions could only be gleaned by extracting information from often uncooperative detainees. Interrogators were trying to find out whether there might be another attack planned against the United States.

The methods employed by the C.I.A. are so severe that senior officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have directed its agents to stay out of many of the interviews of the high-level detainees, counterterrorism officials said. The F.B.I. officials have advised the bureau's director, Robert S. Mueller III, that the interrogation techniques, which would be prohibited in criminal cases, could compromise their agents in future criminal cases, the counterterrorism officials said.
posted by Kevin at 2:32 AM

Last 24 Hours: Irish, British and U.S. Government Hits to Cryptogon

jaffwa.staffordshire.gov.uk (Looking for info on hits from U.S. .mil domains.)

tias-gw7.treas.gov (Looking for info on the Moscow theater siege.)

h1.vpn.gov.ie (Looking for info on Bush's links to Nazis.)

jadegold.ncsc.mil (This is the U.S. National Security Agency. User conducted this Google search. He/she/it didn't grab my cyberwar essay, though. Darn. That would have been a good story to tell in a camp ringed by razor wire someday.)

gate1.dsid52.usmc.mil (Tired of looking through Apache logs.)

lr12249.littlerock.af.mil (Tired of looking through Apache logs.)
posted by Kevin at 5:14 PM

Get Chipped, Then Charge without Plastic - You Are the Card :.

Getting chipped is so hip, sexy and cool! That's the message, anyway.

It's surreal, finally watching it happen. I've been hearing warnings about this for 15 years. Well, it's here. They're finally doing it:

For instance, there's the important and deeply scientific experiment being conducted among the barely clothed patrons of Baja Beach Club in Barcelona. They're getting electronic credit cards implanted under their skin.

Beautiful club-goers have a problem: If you're going to wear a halter top and micro-skirt, there's not much of anywhere to put a wallet. And who wants to carry a purse when you're there to dance? Luckily, a company called VeriChip this year unveiled a solution based on radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology.

It's a slender glass capsule about as long as a dime is wide. Inside sits a computer chip, which stores a unique code that can identify an individual � sort of an electronic Social Security number. The capsule also holds a tiny antenna, which can radio that code to a receiver many feet away.

At the Baja Beach Club, Tuesdays are VeriChip implantation days. Stop in and a "nurse" � the club's word � uses a syringe to inject a VeriChip capsule under your skin. There don't seem to be any rules about where on the body it has to be placed. If you think this sounds like something you'd never do, then you're not the kind of person who goes to clubs wearing your bestest nose ring.

Once implanted, you become your own credit card. Need to pay for a drink? Wave your implant near a reader, and you're done. VeriChip has dreams of going global with its "human implantable ID technology" � once implanted, you could wave a body part to pay for a burger at Wendy's, a beer at a baseball game, or whatever.

There are a few kinks to be worked out, like the fact that you can't turn the chip off.
posted by Kevin at 4:40 PM

Mexican Military UFO Story

Story on: CNN, MSNBC, Independent, U.K., Rense, etc. etc. Take your pick, it's all over the place.

I make a point of NOT posting UFO stories. And this one was no different. I wasn't going to mention it.

Well, I just saw it televised on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, so... Beheadings yesterday, UFOs today... What's next? Why are these memes being driven by major media? Why now?


The Mexican Air Force has released footage of what appear to be unidentified flying objects picked up by an infrared camera as they whizzed around a surveillance plane.
posted by Kevin at 4:07 PM

Apple: Add Cluster to Cart, Buy Now :.

The Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics provides a faster, easier and lower-cost path to scientific discovery. You�ll get rapid access to data analysis with minimal administrative burden in one comprehensive, industry-leading solution. All starting at $27,999.

Do-It-Yourself Cluster
You don�t have to be a computer scientist to set up a fully functioning UNIX-based computational cluster. Apple has assembled the parts you need in one easy-to-set up, easy-to-use cluster powerhouse. In about 30 minutes you�ll be ready to run BLAST, HMMER, fasta and more from a powerful, easy-to-use Web interface � the setup process installs over 200 bioinformatics applications on your cluster.
posted by Kevin at 4:01 PM

Eli Lilly, Zyprexa, & the Bush Family :.

More than one journalist has uncovered corrupt connections between the Bush Family, psychiatry, and Eli Lilly & Company, the giant pharmaceutical corporation. While previous Lillygates have been more colorful, Lilly�s soaking state Medicaid programs with Zyprexa�its blockbuster, antipsychotic drug�may pack the greatest financial wallop. Worldwide in 2003, Zyprexa grossed $4.28 billion, accounting for slightly more than one-third of Lilly�s total sales. In the United States in 2003, Zyprexa grossed $2.63 billion, 70 percent of that attributable to government agencies, mostly Medicaid.
posted by Kevin at 3:01 AM

Petabox :.

Check the date, it's not April 1. We are entering an era in which computers are going to start having weird capabilities. Now, if a private company thought this thing up and built it, try to imagine what the NSA has humming along in their football field sized Ops centers:

The petabox by the Internet Archive is a machine designed to safely store and process one petabyte of information (a petabyte is a million gigabytes). The goals-- and current design points are:
* Low power-- 6kWatts per rack, and 60kWatts for the whole system
* High density-- 100 Terabytes per rack
* Local computing to process the data-- 800 low-end PC's
* Multi-OS possible, linux standard
* Colocation friendly-- requires our own rack to get 100TB/rack, or 50TB in a standard rack
* Shipping container friendly-- Able to be run in a 20' by 8' by 8' shipping container
* Easy Maintainance-- one system administrator per petabyte
* Software to automate mirroring with itself
* Inexpensive design
* Inexpensive storage

This thing is actually powerful enough to run Microsoft Longhorn. *snicker*
posted by Kevin at 5:02 PM

American Execution Situation...

I watched the unedited video of this execution. I was planning to link to it, but after watching it, I decided not to. I don't know what to tell you people. I don't have anything to add. What's the point of speculation? This is probably some sort of PSYOP thing, but I'm starting to wonder: Why try to understand this? It doesn't matter who is behind it.

We're all trapped on a bus that's ghost riding down a steep hill. The steering wheel is gone, and so are the brakes. We might as well enjoy the scenery on the way down. There's no reason to have nightmares before the real nightmare begins.

Here's the clearing house of possible theories from Alex Jones, if you're interested. I don't have the energy to sort this nonsense out. I think the facts are unknowable on this one.
posted by Kevin at 5:00 PM

Church Group Wants U.N. to Take Over Iraq :.

Alex Jones called this one long before anyone else; over a year ago. Paul, of Aftermath News, started saying it as soon as the torture story broke. HAHAHA! I can almost hear Alex Jones and my lunatic Christian readers (you know I love you guys) going nuts over this one. While I don't always agree with the Bible crowd, I don't always disagree with them either. (You won't see me in that line-up to get chipped.) You've got to hand it to these guys: mainstream Christianity is starting to look more and more like what some Christians call, "The Anti Christ Religion," which is part of a U.N. based global government.

Whatever the details, I'm with them on this: It's The End!

A national religious group representing 36 Protestant and Orthodox denominations said Tuesday that U.S. foreign policy is "dangerous" and urged President Bush to turn over authority in Iraq to the United Nations.

The National Council of Churches, which has been highly critical of the war, acknowledged that Christians disagree on the issue, but said that giving control to the U.N. was the only way to create "lasting peace."
posted by Kevin at 4:50 AM

Lou Dobbs and Bill Moyers Unfurl on CNN :.

Lou Dobbs' level of insubordination is insane!

DOBBS: And your book is, I must say, I consider myself a rather straightforward fellow, but you get right to it, in talking about the idea that democracy is dying. What do you mean by that?

MOYERS: Well, I mean that the soul of democracy is representative government. We can't all make policy. We can't all keep a watch on things. We elect representatives who go to Washington and we expect them to make their best measured judgment in our behalf. We won't agree with them all the time. We won't disagree with them all the time.

But when they go to Washington now, Lou, you know as well as I do that they more often follow the dictates of their big donors than they do of their voters. Whether it's in our Middle East policy, tax policy, trade policy or whatever. The people who buy access are the ones who get the last word. And that's what I mean by that. The rich have every right to buy as many homes as they want, as many cars as they want, as many gizmos as they want, but they do not have the right to buy more democracy than the rest of us.

Book: Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times by Bill Moyers
posted by Kevin at 4:33 AM

Leaked Military Email Re: Taguba Report :.

If this is real, and I have no reason to believe that it isn't, it is, simultaneously, one of the funniest and most pathetic things I have ever read in my life. At some point, someone on the inside of this beast might really let some of the family jewels slip out onto the floor for everyone to see. Maybe Cheney has an Internet Kill Switch in his undisclosed location (SiteR).

On a serious note, I hope this indicates that people are waking up inside the U.S. Government, and that they understand that the only way to save the village is to burn it down (to put the situation in terms the Department of Defense can understand):

SUMMARY
Fox News and other media outlets are distributing the Tugabe report (spelling is approximate for reasons which will become obvious momentarily). Someone has given the news media classified information and they are distributing it. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED. ALL ISD CUSTOMERS SHOULD:

1) NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY
2) NOT comment on this to anyone, friends, family etc.
3) NOT delete the file if you receive it via e-mail, but
4) CALL THE ISD HELPDESK AT 602-2627 IMMEDIATELY

This leakage will be investigated for criminal prosecution. If you don't have the document and have never had legitimate access, please do not complicate the investigative processes by seeking information. Again, THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED; DO NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY.

Research Credit: KH
posted by Kevin at 4:15 AM

Monsanto Abandons Worldwide GM Wheat Project :.

For the moment, we shuffle back a few inches from the edge of the abyss. If you think Monsanto will just throw up its hands, take its ball and go home... you're dead wrong. This corporation is the epitome of evil. And evil always comes back to fight another day:

Monsanto has abandoned plans to introduce GM wheat on to the world market despite spending seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing the crop.

The decision, announced yesterday, is a major fillip for the anti-GM lobby and follows pressure from US and Canadian farmers who feared the introduction of GM wheat would lead to the collapse of their billion-dollar markets in Europe and Japan.

Monsanto, the world's biggest seller of GM seeds, had looked to the development and introduction of GM wheat to fulfil a dream of dominating the world's bread market.

The company had proved that GM wheat increased yields by 5% to 15% but consumer resistance to the idea of eating GM bread - particularly in Europe - meant the biggest part of the US export market would disappear overnight.
posted by Kevin at 4:08 AM

Mario Savio Audio Clip :. (mp3)

Man!!! Savio's level of insubordination was insane! This stood the hair on my arms on end when I heard it!

Feel free to send this to your PHB. It might rattle his or her chicklets after the morning espresso has had a chance to percolate:

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even tacitly take part; and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."
posted by Kevin at 3:54 AM

ANOTHER Cryptogon Reader Contributes $25

This is incredible. I'm ready to call this an outpouring of generosity.

In the last week, alone, thank you:

EA $25
AS $10
JS $25
EB $50

If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to know what it was that convinced you folks to contribute. Not just the four readers above, but all of you guys who have contrinuted. I'm curious, on a personal level, more than anything else. There are, at minimum, about 500 REGULAR readers of Cryptogon. In nearly two years, slightly more than a dozen of you have chosen to actively support this site with cold, hard cash. Considering the fact that there are between 600 and 700 unique visits to this site per day, any contribution is a big deal. A couple of you have given $50. Mike sends me $50 every three months! I've noticed that several cash contributors came from women (including an ex girlfriend), although I get virtually no email from women. Karin, however, routinely sends articles and has contributed money.

It's weird, thinking about what would be possible with money. I don't think about it too often, but seeing as how my Cryptogon warchest is up in the $180 range, I closed my eyes for a few seconds and wondered what we could do if the balance in my account was $180,000, or $1,800,000...

What would be our first project? Provide potable water systems for any one of about 100 countries in the world that need them? Design a car that runs on water and sunlight? Produce a non-fiction Matrix movie? Build a weird village, complete with a yurt complex, organic farm, chicken tractors, windmills, fuel cells, composting toilets and a school to teach others about living in a sane manner.

Any of these things are easily doable...with some money.

Doesn't it seem strange that people who have the kind of money that could make these things happen, just don't do it? The rich people I know seem most concerned with not appearing to be rich and never saying anything (in public) to offend anyone. These are real rich people, not leased BMW "rich" people. I don't think that all rich people are evil, but are they afraid? Are they ignorant? Are they content with the way things are? Are they physically prevented from upsetting the apple cart? Does someone sit down with people like BGates or MDell and say something like, "No fuel cell cars, or else."????

Maybe I'm so willing to do things that will upset the apple cart because I have nothing to lose. (And besides, this show is coming down before our eyes.) Rich people have a lot to lose. I'm wondering if my priorities would be different if I had money. I mean, would I really live in a yurt if I had a million dollars!? I guess I might go for a nicer geodome thing, or a professionally designed underground house. I'd buy the $5000 Thermomax solar hotwater system rather than the half ass, wood stove/copper pipe thing that I'll probably wind up doing. A fuel cell instead of lead acid batteries to store up the solar, wind and hydro power. That's about the extent of my lunatic fringe, extravagant fantasies. I have no desire for expensive cars, big houses, or 60" plasma screen TVs. I did have one experience with a "luxury" item, though. I used to wear a Rolex watch. I lived on the money from the sale of that Rolex for about three months. That's fine because my 15 year old Casio G-Shock keeps better time.

I read an article a while ago about a company called Orbital Development. They are looking for someone willing to spend $6 million to have them shoot a payload of stuff to the moon. Yep. Just crash land a pile of stuff on the surface of the moon for $6 million. Here's what the president thinks about the potential investor:

Gregory Nemitz, president of Orbital Development, said: "The MoonCrash Project would probably be attractive to some bored rich guy, who is tired of playing with his radio-controlled model airplanes and wants to move up to the next level."

Well, if any "bored" rich guys or girls want to do something substantive with their money, instead of just blowing it, I've got a few ideas that you might find interesting. Hell, if these Orbital Development jokers have the balls to ask for $6 million to launch Bozo's rocket ship on a pointless, doomed mission, I don't feel bad tossing around the idea of someone funding a project that could potentially do some good in the world.
posted by Kevin at 3:23 AM

U.S. Powerless to Halt Iraq Net Images :.

I don't think I totally agree with this assessment of the situation in this piece; mainly, that the U.S. can't control its own C4I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence) systems. Remember, the Pentagon document from 1995, Strategic Assessment: The Internet. The DoD knew, early on, that the Internet would be used for PSYOPS. Charles Swett states:

The Internet could also be used offensively as an additional medium in psychological operations campaigns and to help achieve unconventional warfare objectives. Used creatively as an integral asset, the Internet can facilitate many DoD operations and activities.

Armed with this knowledge, do you honestly believe that the military hasn't thought about the implications of allowing soldiers to use open Internet connections in a warzone!? Impossible. The article has a cavalier tone about the use of the Internet by troops. It's almost as if the author of the piece assumes that soldiers have a right to use the Internet to talk to their families. If the military was ACTUALLY concerned about PSYOPS implications of Internet use, why is it available? Why not simply eliminate it? Any number of schemes could be implemented to lock down the systems such that only plain text emails of a certain length (with content screened by AI filters) could be sent. Etc. Etc. Perhaps, however, there is a PSYOPS objective in allowing the soldiers to use the Internet.

We, the public, as consumers of allegedly "unauthorized" materials, must use our skills of discernment more than ever. Remember, the DoD built the technologies that became the Internet. They thought it all up in the first place. They have roomfulls of men and women who design perception management campaigns and write propaganda as their full time jobs. That is, they think about attaining strategic objectives via the use of memes. Since the Internet is the ultimate meme propagation system, it would be foolish to believe that the U.S. military and intelligence community have not done heavy research into the SIW (Strategic Information Warfare) implications of this technology.

Some intelligence operations are often predicated on the fact that the target of a meme payload believes that they have come into possession of privileged information by some unauthorized means. This came to mind as most people (me included) automatically assumed that the torture images we have all been bombarded with lately are, 1) authentic, and 2) unauthorized.

Consider the fact that the torture story grew legs and ran because the television enabled media took it from the Internet backwaters of sites like mine, and thousands of others, and made it a "real" story in the consciousness of Joe and Jane Sixpack. Why did that happen? Why did they start driving that meme? The same types of horrific torture occurs routinely in U.S. prisons. Why isn't that a big story?

Bottom line: Do I think the pictures from Iraq are authentic? Yes.

Do I think their release was unauthorized? No. They let this stuff out. These are scientifically engineered stimuli that were designed to provoke unthinking, emotional responses. Not only is this a setup, but it's an inside job. And the media are fully in on it.

I tend to believe that if U.S. intelligence wanted to keep what happened at Abu Ghraib a secret, most of us wouldn't have ever heard of the place. Even if the material eventually found its way onto the Internet, without the television meme driving, these data would have simply languished in obscurity on the Internet.

For example, there are thousands of sites dedicated to covering the chemtrail situation, yet you NEVER see anything in the media about it, unless it's some silly thing trying to maintain the witless, status quo dogma on the subject. There are all order of sites that showcase easily viable alternative energy technologies. Where is the hard driving, never ending news coverage?

No... It's TORTURE, TORTURE, TORTURE. Standard operating procedure of U.S. forces/clients for easily 50 years. Taught to special forces as a matter of routine. So, why now? Why is this a big deal to the media at this point?

Mr Rumsfeld was indignant at the publication of such images: "We're functioning with peacetime constraints, with legal requirements, in a wartime situation in the Information Age, where people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise."

However, he admitted that he had not realized the seriousness of the allegations until the pictures were leaked to the media.

The internet has been acting as an unofficial clearing-house for all sorts of unapproved images of conflict in Iraq.
posted by Kevin at 10:04 PM

Top Brass 'Picked Man Who Ordered Torture' :.

They'll need a Neo-Oli North to fall on his sword; he'll say, "I did it. I ordered it." Just like the Contra operation and the rest of it, this stuff originates with the president and is carried out through the NSC (National Security Council):

THE torture tactics used to "soften up" Iraqi detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail began under orders from the highest level of the US defence administration, it was claimed yesterday.

The creation of torture units was the consequence of orders by the Defence Department � headed by Secretary Donald Rumsfeld � to prise information out of prisoners.
posted by Kevin at 5:00 PM

Oral Sex Lessons for U.K. Teens :.

The Brits are consistently out in front of the rest of the world, in terms of the degenerate race to oblivion. Get the kids hooked on speed (Ritalin) by age five, stick a mobile phone to their skulls by age ten and get them going down on each other by age 15! The End:

Encouraging schoolchildren to experiment with oral sex could prove the most effective way of curbing teenage pregnancy rates, a government study has found.

Pupils under 16 who were taught to consider other forms of 'intimacy' such as oral sex were significantly less likely to engage in full intercourse, it was revealed.

Britain's teenage pregnancy rate is the highest in Europe. In 2002 there were 39,286 teen pregnancies recorded. The government has spent more than �60 million to tackle the problem but so far failed to halt the rise.

A sex education course developed by Exeter University trains teachers to talk to teenagers about 'stopping points' before full sex.
posted by Kevin at 12:18 PM

Chemtrail Story Pretending to be a Contrail Story :.

Oh sure... all of those are just normal old contrails. You bet your bippy. How do these rocket scientists explain the fact that normal contrails disappear in seconds, while other jets, in the sky at the same time, are leaving grid patterns that stick around for up to an hour or more, and then turn the entire sky a grey/green color? Hmm...
posted by Kevin at 6:14 AM

Former U.S. Diplomat: Irish Media Responsible for 9/11 :.

Have you noticed that the pro-war and 9/11 "official story" mythologists are starting to sound like psychopaths in a nut house?

Oh yeah, the Irish media would be the first place I'd be looking to place blame for 9/11. HAHAHAHA! And what?! Depleted uranium is not a toxic substance!? This guy would have you believe that sprinkling it on your corn flakes would be a great idea. Man, at this point, I have heard it all.

It's easier for George Depmsey to believe that members of the Irish media have gone insane rather than admit to himself that he has been serving the moral equivalent of the Third Reich for his entire career. The shrill, hysterical bloviation emerging from these nutters would almost be funny if they were representing some dodgy banana republic, with corrupt officials at every level, and a capital that resembled an armed camp. Ohhh, uh... woops.

Well, at least the U.S. banana republic has nuclear weapons! Does that count for anything?

FYI: If I had a way of surviving there, I'd move to Ireland in a second. I like it there. And it probably wouldn't come as a shock to Mr. Dempsey that I like RTE and the Irish Times can be pretty good. Oh yeah, these are hot beds of enemy combatant activity for sure:

A former American diplomat has accused the Irish media of playing a part in the terrorist attacks of September 11th by stirring up "anti-Americanism" internationally.

Mr George Dempsey, first secretary of the US embassy in Dublin from 1988 to 1992, said "dishonest" stories circulated by Irish newspapers and broadcasters had helped to fuel terrorism in the Arab world.

A spokeswoman for the US embassy said Mr Dempsey was entitled to his views, but "his views are entirely his own, and he does not speak for the embassy".

In a book to be published next month, on the eve of President Bush's visit to Ireland, Mr Dempsey criticised what he described as "witless pandering to Arab irrationality and intransigence" in the Irish media.

Of the attacks on September 11th, he writes: "Let us be clear about this. The Irish media, in general, bear their share of responsibility for what happened in the United States.

"For far too long in this country there has been a prevailing view, which denigrates and condemns and even vilifies American foreign policy.

"Many of these venomous falsehoods - such as claims that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed in the Gulf war - have continued to spill out over Irish airwaves this last week. The hatred of America, which drove the suicidal terrorists, doesn't flourish in a global vacuum."

Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday from his home in Sacramento, California, Mr Dempsey - who lived in Dublin for 15 years - said he did not object to criticism of US foreign policy. Rather, he opposed its "deliberate mischaracterisation" in the Irish media.

One "dishonest" claim widely asserted following the 1991 Gulf War was that depleted uranium shells were causing cancer in Iraq - a "scientific nonsense", he said. Another lie, he said, was "that UN sanctions were responsible for children being killed in Iraq when anyone who paid attention in the world knew it was Saddam's manipulation of the sanctions which caused the misery.

"Why do people say things they know not to be true? I offer a number of suggestions. People in authority in the media came of age intellectually when universities were heavily leftist, and lying about the United States is par for the course for liberal leftists, as it is for extremes on the right."

Same story on the Guardian.
posted by Kevin at 5:31 AM

Cryptogon Reader Contributes $25, Another Contributes $10

There have been more individual contributions over the last month than in the previous two years that I've been running Cryptogon. What's going on out there? I mean, I know what's going on, but why now? What's different? Whatever it is, thank you for your generosity.

Note on previous donations: I used $5.95 to buy a month subscription to prisonplanet.tv and I just sent $10 to Paul of Aftermath News Service. I know, it seems like I'm getting reckless with finances on this end, giving away $16 of YOUR money to other people out here on the edge. But this is the right thing to do, as these guys are working hard to bring this stuff out everyday.

Thanks again for your generosity.
posted by Kevin at 4:14 AM

Japanese Nikkei Drops Nearly 5% in One Session :.

Fasten your seat belts, return your seat backs to their upright position:

The yen slumped on the foreign exchange market on Monday as overseas investors continued to pull out of the Tokyo stock market.

The Nikkei 225 crashed 4.8 per cent overnight, its third straight session of heavy losses, amid concerns Japan's export-led recovery could be blown off course by ill winds from China, where the authorities are keen to damp growth, and the US, where borrowing costs may start to rise as early as June. The effects of rising oil prices, now at a 14-year high, also weighed on sentiment, particularly with Japan importing 100 per cent of its oil.
posted by Kevin at 4:10 AM

USA: Pattern of Brutality and Cruelty - War Crimes at Abu Ghraib :.

In an open letter to US President George W. Bush today, Amnesty International said that abuses allegedly committed by US agents in the Abu Ghraib facility in Baghdad were war crimes and called on the administration to fully investigate them to ensure that there is no impunity for anyone found responsible regardless of position or rank.

Amnesty International said that it has documented a pattern of abuse by US agents against detainees, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, stretching back over the past two years.

Despite claims this week by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to be "stunned" by abuses in Abu Ghraib, and that these were an "exception" and "not a pattern or practice", Amnesty International has presented consistent allegations of brutality and cruelty by US agents against detainees at the highest levels of the US Government, including the White House, the Department of Defense, and the State Department for the past two years.

Last July, the organization raised allegations of torture and ill-treatment of Iraqi detainees by US and Coalition forces in a memorandum to the US Government and Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq. The allegations included beatings, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, hooding, and prolonged forced standing and kneeling. It received no response nor any indication from the administration or the CPA that an investigation took place.

Despite repeated requests, Amnesty International has been denied access to all US detention facilities.
posted by Kevin at 1:47 AM

Mistreatment of Prisoners Routine in U.S. :.

I mentioned this fact, almost in passing, a couple of days ago. If you were looking for some data to backup what I was saying, this NY Times article is actually decent.

Why should we assume that Iraqi prisoners of war/detainees/etc. should receive better treatment than American prisoners in American prisons?

When I took International Law in college, one of the concepts that I found interesting was the way the treatment of prisoners reflected a TRUER picture of the government in question. Guess who routinely scores at the bottom, in terms of prison conditions, along with China, Russia, etc.?

Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern, according to corrections officials, inmates and human rights advocates.

In Pennsylvania and some other states, inmates are routinely stripped in front of other inmates before being moved to a new prison or a new unit within their prison. In Arizona, male inmates at the Maricopa County jail in Phoenix are made to wear women's pink underwear as a form of humiliation.

At Virginia's Wallens Ridge maximum security prison, new inmates have reported being forced to wear black hoods, in theory to keep them from spitting on guards, and said they were often beaten and cursed at by guards and made to crawl.

The corrections experts say that some of the worst abuses have occurred in Texas, whose prisons were under a federal consent decree during much of the time President Bush was governor because of crowding and violence by guards against inmates. Judge William Wayne Justice of Federal District Court imposed the decree after finding that guards were allowing inmate gang leaders to buy and sell other inmates as slaves for sex.

The experts also point out that the man who directed the reopening of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq last year and trained the guards there resigned under pressure as director of the Utah Department of Corrections in 1997 after an inmate died while shackled to a restraining chair for 16 hours. The inmate, who suffered from schizophrenia, was kept naked the whole time.
posted by Kevin at 11:52 PM

Acoustic Cryptanalysis :.

Just slide the food under the door:

A powerful method for extracting information from supposedly secure systems is side-channel attacks: cryptanalytic techniques that rely on information unintentionally leaked by computing devices. Most side-channel attack research has focused on electromagnetic emanations (TEMPEST), power consumption and, recently, diffuse visible light from CRT displays. The oldest eavesdropping channel, namely acoustic emanations, has received little attention. Our preliminary analysis of acoustic emanations from personal computers shows them to be a surprisingly rich source of information on CPU activity.
posted by Kevin at 11:47 PM