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11/6/2004

New Zealand Wind Farm Delivers 90 Mega Watts :.

KIWI POWER!

Meridian Energy's Te Apiti wind farm in the Tararua ranges is now capable of delivering its full 90 MW capacity to New Zealand's national grid, enough to power some 45,000 average homes. The project's 55th and last wind turbine has now been fully commissioned almost exactly a year after construction began on the country's -- and the Southern Hemisphere's -- largest wind farm.


11/5/2004

Americans Flock to Canada's Immigration Web Site :.

You can run, but you can't hide:

The number of U.S. citizens visiting Canada's main immigration Web site has shot up six-fold as Americans flirt with the idea of abandoning their homeland after President George W. Bush's election win this week.

"When we looked at the first day after the election, November 3, our Web site hit a new high, almost double the previous record high," immigration ministry spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi said on Friday.

On an average day some 20,000 people in the United States log onto the Web site, www.cic.gc.ca -- a figure which rocketed to 115,016 on Wednesday. The number of U.S. visits settled down to 65,803 on Thursday, still well above the norm.



Windfalls of War: Halliburton Contracts Balloon :.

The oil services company Halliburton, largely through its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root, has received more revenue from government contracts in the last year than from 1998 through 2002. In 2003, when the company had record revenue of $16.3 billion, Halliburton received contracts from the Department of Defense worth $4.3 billion, while in the previous five years it obtained less than $2.5 billion from the military, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity.

Research Credit: AM



HOW IS TONY BLAIR STILL IN POWER!? :.

I hope you Brits aren't using Diebold or Sequoia faith based voting systems:

THREE soldiers from the Black Watch were killed in a suicide bomb attack yesterday, the regiment’s first casualties since being redeployed to central Iraq.

Their deaths place yet more pressure on Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, over the government’s decision to agree to a United States request to move the unit to an area known as "the triangle of death".

The men died when their patrol group was targeted by what was described as a suicide bomb at a vehicle checkpoint. Subsequently, mortar rounds were fired at the position. There were unconfirmed suggestions last night that the dead soldiers were from north-east Fife. An Iraqi translator was also killed in the attack.



Analyst: U.S. Weapons Tests in Australia :.

Australia isn't actually an island in the South Pacific. It's really a large U.S. aircraft carrier made to look like a modern, pluralistic state! If you've mistaken Australia for an island in the past, don't feel bad. Many people also think Britain is an island. Don't be fooled! That's another American battle fortress! It's just parked off the coast of Continental Europe most of the time.

It's no surprise that most of Cryptogon's international readers are from Australia and Britain! I'm somewhat proud to know that people in the most doomed nations of "The West" manage to find my site:

American troops will train with new U.S. military equipment in Australia under a pact being negotiated by Washington and Canberra, a prominent defense analyst said Friday.

Ross Babbage, head of the Australian National University's Strategic Defense Studies Center, told New Ltd. newspapers that the agreement would include testing smart bombs and communications equipment.

Australian and U.S. troops also would train together in new warfare tactics, Babbage told Sky News on Friday.

"What effectively it will mean is we will have the most advanced capacity to test new ways of conducting military operations and potentially will have, even more than we now do, the very best defense force," he told Sky News.

Defense Minister Robert Hill did not immediately comment on Babbage's statements.

Babbage said the renewed evidence of close military links between Australia and its close ally, the United States, should not alarm neighbors in Southeast Asia.

He said that in the region "there's a general understanding and in fact deep respect for Australia's very substantial military capability, as shown most dramatically ... for many in the region in East Timor (news - web sites)."

Australian forces led an international troop contingent that restored order to the former Indonesian province of East Timor after pro-Jakarta militias rampaged there following a U.N.-sponsored vote for independence in 1999.

Washington and Canberra have pledged to cooperate more closely in military training in an agreement that includes Australia hosting more U.S. troop maneuvers.



Dollar Back on Course: Downward :.

I explained this in my rant from yesterday, but just in case you thought I was nuts, here's the same lesson from the International Herald Tribune:

Today, the dollar is at the center of a delicate interlocking web of international financial imbalances.

The United States imports much more than it exports. Asian countries — some of the biggest exporters — send the proceeds back into the United States as investments, mostly in government bonds. That keeps interest rates low, fueling spending and leading Americans to import even more goods and services from the rest of the world. Both sides benefit from this arrangement. The Asian money allows Americans to spend beyond their means. At the same time, dollar purchases by Asian central banks depress the value of Asian currencies, stimulating their exports to the American market.


11/4/2004

Exit Polls and 'Actual' Results Don't Match :.

An analysis of the original AP exit polling, which showed Kerry with a tighter margin and leading in myriad states, raises serious questions about the authenticity of the popular vote in several key states, RAW STORY has learned.

Since the actual outcome of the votes have been called, AP has changed nearly all of their exit polling to tighten the margin. A reason has not been given.

The analysis, first conducted by a poster at the popular Democratic Underground, suggests possible voter fraud in states that do not have electronic voting receipts, and those that limit the media's access to polls.

Two inquiries placed by RAW STORY with the media contact for the six-network exit polling consortium at NBC News has received no response.


11/3/2004

White House: Debt Ceiling Must Be Raised :.

Do you get it yet?

The Bush administration announced Wednesday that it will run out of maneuvering room to manage the government's massive borrowing needs in two weeks, putting more pressure on Congress to raise the debt ceiling when it convenes for a special post-election session.

Treasury Department officials announced that they will be able to conduct a scheduled series of debt auctions next week to raise $51 billion. However, an auction of four-week Treasury bills due to be completed on Nov. 18 will have to be postponed unless Congress acts before then to raise the debt ceiling.

"Due to debt limit constraints, we currently do not have the capacity to settle our four-week bill auction scheduled to settle on Nov. 18," Timothy Bitsberger, acting assistant Treasury secretary for financial markets, said in a statement.

Congress is scheduled to return for a lame-duck session beginning on Nov. 16 to deal with the debt ceiling, an omnibus spending plan for the rest of this budget year and other matters.

The Republican-controlled Congress put off dealing with the debt ceiling before adjourning in October, preferring not to force members to vote on the politically sensitive issue of adding to the national debt before the November elections.



A Message from an American to the Rest of the World

I'm starting to get a little irritated at the tone of media in other countries who think Americans are totally to blame for the expanding nightmare here and abroad.

The international media is full of stories about the ignorance/stupidity of Americans for voting for Bush. HA! That's a good one. Look at your own consumer habits and governments! America is a convenient target for all of this animosity because America is the biggest criminal operator. Like all major criminal operators, though, America has accomplices. So don't cast stones in glass houses, dear members of the international media... you and your governments are in on it too!

Oh yes you are.

If you don't agree with George Bush, stop your governments and central banks from buying U.S. debt instruments. The U.S. is the largest single market in the world. Why is that? BECAUSE YOUR GOVERNMENTS PROVIDE LIQUIDITY TO IT BY BUYING U.S. DEBT INSTRUMENTS! Stop selling your finished goods in America. Stop doing business with American corporations. Stop buying products that are made in the U.S., or that benefit U.S. corporations. Sell dollars. Vote out politicians that allow the U.S. military basing and flyover rights in/over your country. Stop doing business with countries that have strategic bilateral trade relationships with the U.S. (especially Japan, China and Saudi Arabia). Until you accomplish all of this, SHUT UP, because you sound as stupid as the stupid Americans who voted for Bush.

Yeah, it's easy to blame stupid Americans for Bush, U.S. foreign policy and the rest of it. But who makes it all possible? Look in the mirror. American tax revenue can't fund this horror show anymore. We're too broke. If you live in a state that has formal banking and business relationships with the U.S., you have stupid American values by default, whether you want to admit it or not.

Hear me, brother: The countries responsible for most of the economic activity of the planet have strapped themselves to the mast of the sinking ship called America, and have no doubt about it, this thing is going down. Point fingers all you want, you're profoundly complicit with it.



Rejoice in The End

Anyone who thinks a Kerry administration would have led to a substantially different system than what we're going to get is nuts. Kerry might have bought us all a little more time as the technologies of control were further developed and implemented. Frankly, I think humanity has a better chance of survival if the collapse happens sooner rather than later. And another Bush administration will almost certainly speed us closer to collapse.

I know Democrats want to believe that massive vote fraud led to Kerry's defeat. Maybe. BUT MAYBE NOT. Look at the popular vote. Look at the House and Senate votes! HAHA! I think a more probable reality is that idiots stick with their own, and since most Americans are idiots, the obvious choice was Bush. A sack of shit should have been able to beat Bush, but Kerry lost to that retard! How is it possible that Kerry emerged as the candidate in the first place!? LOOK AT THAT GUY! LISTEN TO WHAT HE WAS SAYING! Bush is so nuts that the Democrats couldn't even see how terrifying Kerry was. Dems need to ponder on that one for a while and see the political process for what it is: a massive waste of time.

Every act of the Bush administration has been a lie, a fraud or a give-away to the richest people in the world. While Kerry wouldn't have been any better, he atleast offered the troglodytes the false consolation of being able to "vote the rascals out" without leading to any substantial shift in policy. But in pre-collapse America, we have reached the point where the people like the rascals, their lies and their disastrous policies. So give'em what they want, hallelujah and pass the ammunition!

For those of us who aren't nuts, take solace in knowing that The End of this despicable system can't be far off now.

After all, the people have spoken.



Would you Believe...

Add up the numbers of electoral votes right now:

Kerry, 252 (2+5+2) = 9

Bush, 254 (2+5+4) = 11

HAHAHA! Good one.



Election Post Mortem... Postponed

I had written a short piece on this election, but as I was getting ready to post the thing, I looked at the count and saw Bush with 254 and Kerry with 252 electoral votes.

I don't believe it, but here we are.

If Bush wins, I think it means that America's economic problems have become untenable and that we are going to be taken down in short order.

A Kerry win would mean that They are trying to maintain appearances for as long as possible. Kerry would work to get the global federal system (commonly referred to as the New World Order) back on track.

Kerry would slowly implement a 1984-style nightmare. A second Bush administration, on the other hand, would lead to increased chaos, more wars and economic ruin.

Take your pick! Either way, we all lose.


11/2/2004

Global Monitors Find Faults with Election Procedures :.

HA!

The global implications of the U.S. election are undeniable, but international monitors at a polling station in southern Florida said Tuesday that voting procedures being used in the extremely close contest fell short in many ways of the best global practices.

The observers said they had less access to polls than in Kazakhstan, that the electronic voting had fewer fail-safes than in Venezuela, that the ballots were not so simple as in the Republic of Georgia and that no other country had such a complex national election system.

"To be honest, monitoring elections in Serbia a few months ago was much simpler," said Konrad Olszewski, an election observer stationed in Miami by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

"They have one national election law and use the paper ballots I really prefer over any other system," Olszewski said.


11/1/2004

Cancer-Free 'Designer Babies' Get Approval :.

PEOPLE with inherited forms of cancer have won the right to select embryos free from genes that might trigger the disease in future generations, The Times has learnt.

Four couples affected by a genetic form of bowel cancer will start the procedure by the end of the year, after the Government’s fertility watchdog allowed a London clinic to screen IVF embryos for the disorder.



China, Iran Sign Biggest Oil & Gas Deal :.

Attack on Iran = Attack on China:

China's oil giant Sinopec Group has signed a $70 billion oil and natural gas agreement with Iran, which is China's biggest energy deal with the No. 2 OPEC producer.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed Thursday, Sinopec Group will buy 250 million tons of liquefied natural gas over 30 years from Iran and develop the giant Yadavaran field.

Iran is also committed to export 150,000 barrels per day of crude oil to China for 25 years at market prices after commissioning of the field.

Iran's oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh, who is on a two-day visit to Beijing pursuing closer ties, said Iran is China's biggest oil supplier and wants to be its long-term business partner.



Bin Laden: Goal is to Bankrupt U.S. :.

Hey there, I wasn't planning to post anything for a couple days, but I thought this was pretty interesting.

So, the big bad bin Laden says that the goal is to bankrupt the U.S. That's interesting, because the U.S. is already bankrupt. How much more bankrupt than $7.5 trillion in the hole can you get? So, maybe the next "event" will be the excuse for the economic collapse. And never mind the decades of profligate greed and waste:

The Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera released a full transcript Monday of the most recent videotape from Osama bin Laden in which the head of al Qaeda said his group's goal is to force America into bankruptcy.

Al-Jazeera aired portions of the videotape Friday but released the full transcript of the entire tape on its Web site Monday.

"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.



Election

At this point, I don't have much more to say about this nonsense. It's all been said before. I just hope that a decisive result emerges fast.

I'm off to an undisclosed location with my girlfriend to watch the antics on TV. I'll have my laptop with me in case the urge to rant becomes overwhelming. Otherwise, I'll be back in a couple of days.



Robots Learn 'Robotiquette' Rules :.

Robots are learning lessons on "robotiquette" - how to behave socially - so they can mix better with humans.

By playing games, like pass-the-parcel, a University of Hertfordshire team is finding out how future robot companions should react in social situations.


Research Credit: AM


10/31/2004

Hermit Fires-It-Up On Los Alamos National Labortory Land :.

I don't have much use for the pot plants, but the rest of this show sounds pretty good. Nice going, Mike! You escaped the clutches of a PHB and rent for four years! You may not have solved the mysteries of the universe quite yet, but you pulled off a pretty good one just the same!

I love stories like this, so the full text follows:

Roy Michael Moore, a 56-year-old who grew up in Amarillo, said he came to Los Alamos about four years ago for a "very distinct reason": to get the attention of scientists working on the most complex cosmological problems of the universe and introduce them to his unifying theory.

Mike, as he calls himself, has come to be known as either the "caveman" or the "hermit," depending on to whom you talk, since he was discovered on Oct. 13 living in a well-appointed cave in a deep, wooded canyon on Los Alamos National Laboratory property.

Firefighters and LANL's security force discovered Moore and his cave when they were called to investigate a plume of smoke wafting up the 100-foot canyon wall. The smoke was spotted by an Energy Department employee, who works at DOE's Los Alamos headquarters, about 100 yards back from the canyon's cliff, almost directly above Moore's cave.

"I think it is just heaven on earth," he said about his former home. What the intruders found was a bit startling. Moore had made himself a home in a south-facing cave— "the most beautiful views in town, no irritating neighbors"— complete with photovoltaic solar panels, batteries to store the solar energy, satellite radio, wood-burning stove, a bed and a glass door sealed across the cave's entrance.

By his own account he'd been living there for close to four years but said he doesn't keep good track of time, mostly because he devotes his energy and thoughts to intensive cosmological problem solving. He said he earns spending money doing odd jobs around town and worked at Los Alamos Music for two years.

To avoid detection, Moore said he was careful to avoid creating walking paths through the wooded canyon to his hideout, where Moore was growing marijuana— 10 plants, each about 18 inches tall, according to police records. Police also found and confiscated 21 ounces of dried marijuana in baggies and a homemade metal marijuana pipe.

Fire crews called police because Moore was trespassing on restricted federal property. DOE officials have said Moore posed no security threat and that the area where the cave was located— about half a mile from downtown Los Alamos— has been decommissioned as an active site for years.

He was arrested on charges of possession of a controlled substance, a fourth-degree felony, and possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor. Those charges were dropped on Thursday pending further investigation, according to court documents.

Los Alamos County Magistrate Court Judge Pat A. Casados said she signed the order dropping the charges against Moore at the request of a prosecutor. She said it is not unusual for the District Attorney's Office to dismiss felony charges in Magistrate Court and then refile them in state District Court or take the case to a grand jury.

Moore, who contended he has done nothing wrong, said DOE officials confiscated all of his aforementioned possessions, including his long pants, coat, socks and his prized walking stick— which he says supported him along more than 8,000 miles of trekking.

"So, I am camping with almost nothing at all," he said, adding that he is in the process of "negotiating several situations" with the many friends he has made.

Moore, who said he as an undergraduate biology degree from Texas Tech and also studied electronics and computers, said he doesn't consider himself homeless. He sold all his possessions in 1996— his house, his car, everything— so he could focus all his energy and thought toward solving large, complex problems.

Moore even maintains several Web sites— one is www.micromike.com/index.htm— where he explains his theories in detail and provides a brief autobiography.

He headed for Los Alamos, he said, because it is one of the smartest towns in the country, with a dense population of physicists working at LANL.

Using marijuana to help him solve problems inherent to the mysteries of space and time, Moore said, constitutes his "pursuit of happiness."

"I just dedicated myself to staying here forever until I die to try to get this work done," he said.



New Study Shows Correlation Between Decline of IQ and Rise of GOP :.

In my opinion, the fact that alleged "smart" people support Kerry is much more frightening than the fact that idiots support Bush:

"Stupid people love Bush" new study proves According to the prestigious Southern California think tank, The Gluton Group, stupid people prefer President George W Bush over Senator John Kerry by a 4-to-1 margin. As Chief Resident Dr. Louis Friend characterized the results of the research, "the less intelligent you are, the more you like Bush." This landmark study, conducted over a 5 month period, involved 2400 likely voters bridging all economic stratas in the 17 states generally considered up for grabs on November 2nd. Participants were tested for intelligence, then asked to fill out a 12 page series of questions involving the Presidential candidates with results released earlier this week.

The consensus: the higher the IQ, the less people trust Bush and respect the job his administration has done. The lower the IQ, the more people admire his steadfastness. "It was pretty much a slam dunk. There's no nice way to say this. Dumb people like him. They think his unwavering nature is a positive personality trait. They even venerate him for never admitting mistakes, even when he's wrong. On the other hand, smart people think he's a lying bully. I mean, c'mon, you have a deserter accusing a decorated veteran of treason. Who's going to buy that besides stupid people?"



Kurt Vonnegut: The End is Near :.

Remember, Vonnegut was one of a handful of people to emerge from Dresden alive after the U.S. and British blitzkrieg during World War 2 flattened the place. In case you don't know, he was held prisoner by the Germans in a meat-locker under a slaughterhouse as the bombs rained down. See Slaughterhouse Five.

Now, it's one thing for me to say it's The End, which I've been doing for years on this site! But it's another thing altogether when Vonnegut does it:

I am writing this before the election, so I cannot know whether George W. Bush or John F. Kerry will be our President, God willing, for the next four years. These two Nordic, aristocratic multi-millionaires are virtually twins, and as unlike most of the rest of us as a couple of cross-eyed albinos. But this much I find timely:
Both candidates were and still are members of the exclusive secret society at Yale, called "Skull and Bones."

That means that, no matter which one wins, we will have a Skull and Bones President at a time when entire vertebrate species, because of how we have poisoned the topsoil, the waters and the atmosphere, are becoming, hey presto, nothing but skulls and bones.

Poetry!



Trade Towers Rescue Hero Files 9-11 RICO Suit :.

Another lawsuit has been filed against top officials in the Bush administration, accusing them of complicity in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

William Rodriguez, a former maintenance worker at the World Trade Center, has filed suit in a Philadelphia federal court naming George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others as being complicit in the 9-11 attacks. Rodriguez claims that top officials either planned the attacks or had foreknowledge of the attacks and permitted them to succeed for the purpose of exploiting a “New Pearl Harbor” in order to launch wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.

The lawsuit—Rodriguez v. Bush, et al., Civil Action No. 04 CV 4952—was filed in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia on Oct. 22.



Off Topic: Zorb :.

My girlfriend is a Kiwi, and I just sent her an email indicating that a visit to the Zorb freaks needs to be near the top of the list of things to do when we go to New Zealand. Check out the National Geographic video of the Zorb. Excellent!




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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.