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11/20/2004

Poll Results

A few days ago, I asked Cryptogon readers in the U.S. a question: To where will you flee?

Here are the results, as of today:



Interesting... this lock and load result.



Official Urges End to Stun Guns on Kids :.

Sipp, a Cryptogon reader, sent this story and writes, "A worthwhile debate - I feel the age limit should be raised to at least 8 years old." HA!

The head of Miami-Dade Schools is asking police to never again use stun guns on elementary school children, as officers have in at least two recent cases.

In a letter released Friday, Superintendent Rudy Crew told Miami-Dade Police Director Bobby Parker that "certain tactics should never be used in dealing with young children - particularly within a school."

The letter was released the same day Parker held a news conference to defend the use of a 50,000-volt stun gun on a 6-year-old boy in a school office, saying the child had cut himself twice with a shard of glass and was threatening further harm to himself.



U.S. DOLLAR: GREENSPAN WARNS AGAIN :.

Read it all very carefully:

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan delivered a blunt warning Friday that foreign investors might get sick of subsidizing the nation's widening trade and budget deficits, remarks that caused U.S. financial markets to tremble.

Greenspan's comments, delivered before an audience of central bankers in Frankfurt, Germany, sent the dollar near its record low against the euro, Europe's common currency. The three leading U.S. stock indexes each dived more than 1 percent, and long-term bond yields rose, making borrowing more expensive.

What rattled markets was Greenspan's warnings about the U.S. current account deficit, a broad measure of dollars Americans send abroad and foreigners send back to the United States. Most of the gap is made up of the trade deficit, the imbalance between the goods and services Americans import and what the nation sells abroad.

According to current account calculations, the United States went into hock by a record of more than $540 billion in 2003 and is on track to pass $600 billion in 2004 -- a deficit that, so far, largely has been underwritten by foreigners who send investment dollars back into this country. Much of those returning dollars have gone to buy U.S. government debt, helping finance the other gaping deficit in the U.S. economy -- the federal budget shortfall.

Greenspan Friday raised the question of how long that would go on. The Fed chief said foreign investors might grow wary of holding U.S. stocks, bonds and other investments, suggesting that could drive down demand for dollars.

"Given the size of the U.S. current account deficit, a diminished appetite for adding to dollar balances must occur at some point,'' the Fed chief told his audience.

If foreigners become less willing to lend to the United States, interest rates will have to rise to attract new money to finance the national debt, said Nariman Behravesh, an economist with the forecasting firm Global Insight in Massachusetts.


11/19/2004

Cryptogon Reader Contributes 1 Gram of Gold

AM supports Cryptogon! Thanks for being the first reader to donate gold!



Cryptogon Now Accepts Contributions in E-Gold and 1mdcGrams

I'm extremely impressed with the E-Gold system. All Cryptogon readers should consider the dire economic situation we're facing and check it out.

Additionally, 1mdc.com is a service that uses E-Gold, but avoids some of the fees associated with E-Gold.com. It also provides another layer of annonymity.

Please contribute using E-Gold or 1mdc today!



Arnold Exposed :.

Schwarzenegger for President? It seems like a joke...but so did Schwarzenegger for Governor.



Iraq War Topping $5.8 Billion A Month :.

The Pentagon is spending more than $5.8 billion a month on the war in Iraq, according to the military's top generals.

That is nearly a 50 percent increase above the $4 billion-a-month benchmark the Pentagon has used to estimate the cost of the war so far.



Outsourcing of Jobs is Accelerating in U.S. :.

Job movement overseas "is absolutely accelerating, and it's changing in its nature," said Kate Bronfenbrenner, a professor in Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, who prepared the report for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. "Whereas in 2001 it was almost all in manufacturing, now we see an increase in information technology, communications, financial services, and white-collar work, from research and design to back office." The report will be presented at public hearings in Seattle in January.

Some economists cite growing numbers of U.S. jobs transplanted overseas as the main reason for slow employment growth during the current economy recovery. Another 400,000 jobs added to the total 1.8 million jobs created in the United States in 2004 would be "a big deal," Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, said. But Shang-Jin Wei of the International Monetary Fund said that when a company employs people overseas, lower costs and high profits enable it to hire elsewhere in the organization. "We create one job for every job lost," he estimated.

Greater ease in Internet and phone transmission, spiraling health care costs to cover U.S. employees, and more experience employing people abroad are fueling overseas hiring for jobs that once would have remained in the United States. The most compelling incentive remains the disparity between wages earned in the United States and in less-developed countries. In India, a computer programmer with a college degree and two or three years of experience earns about $20,000 a year, according to companies that employ workers there. Call-center workers there earn about $1,200 a year, compared with Brightman's $40,000 salary from AT&T.



TSA Seeks Face Crime Detection System :.

The TSA is seeking information about technologies for detecting suspicious behavior, their state of development, and their applicability to the aviation security domain. Proposed technologies would sense patterns of individuals' physiological response(s) and/or overt behavior that are reliably associated with malicious intent. Proposed technologies may be applicable to the screening of travelers or of employees of transportation facilities (e.g., airports, rail stations, and bus terminals) and carriers. Ideally, proposed technologies will be non‑invasive, remote, covert, passive, automatic, and suitable for area, as well as portal use.


11/18/2004

House Debates $800 Billion Debt-Limit Increase :.

Democrats and Republicans clashed over deficits and tax cuts Thursday as Congress moved toward sending President Bush an $800 billion boost in the government's debt limit.

The bill would increase the debt ceiling from its current $7.38 trillion, marking the third massive increase since Bush took office in 2001. The government reached the cap last month, paying its bills since with cash from a civil service retirement account, which it plans to repay.

The Senate approved the legislation Wednesday by a near party-line 52-44 vote. With no alternative but an unprecedented federal default, the House debated the bill Thursday and planned an evening vote.

Democrats were ready to oppose the measure en masse, saying it should have been accompanied by a requirement that tax cuts or new spending be paid for with budget savings. They blamed Bush's tax cuts for the relentless increase in government debt, a trend analysts expect to continue indefinitely, and noted that Republicans delayed the vote until after the Nov. 2 elections.

"That didn't take long," said Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass. "On just the third legislative day after the election, we are yet again confronting the need to raise the nation's debt limit."



E-Gold

Over the years, a handful of readers have tried to convince me to use E-Gold. While I liked the idea, in theory, the fees associated with national currency in/national currency out discouraged me from using it.

But...

I think it's clear that U.S. dollar holders are standing on the edge of an abyss. Short of taking physical possession of metal, E-Gold seems like the next best option.

Would E-Gold users let me know which market makers they use? I'd especially like to know which services are best for converting E-Gold to national currencies.

Thanks.


11/17/2004

GREENSPAN, FED GOVERNORS WARN ON SPENDING :.

This article is a warning of imminent financial collapse:

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says the growing U.S. budget deficit could destabilize the economy. Fed Governor Susan Bies says Congress spends like it's dipping into a "a cookie jar." St. Louis Fed President William Poole says Social Security is in jeopardy.



The Dangerous Dollar :.

The Washington Post is now using terms like dollar crash and terrifying global slump. Maybe those jackballs have been reading Cryptogon lately:

George Bush hasn't much discussed what could be his biggest economic problem. It's not budget deficits or jobs. It's the possible crash of the dollar on foreign exchange markets. Even if Bush understood it, he would be hard-pressed to explain it to the public. Worse, there are no obvious ways to prevent it. Nor is it certain how big the threat is. Little wonder Bush hasn't said much. If John Kerry had won, the situation would have been the same. But a dollar crash, if it occurred, could trigger a terrifying global slump.



Dollar Collapse Continues, Inflation Rising :.

The dollar fell to a record against the euro for the fourth time in two weeks and dropped versus the yen as U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow signaled he won't back any agreement to stem the currency's slide.

Related: Gold at $444, 16 Year High



SearsKmart or WalMart? :.

Take your pick on where you buy your plastic shit made in China with slave labor. Either way, we all lose:

Kmart Corp. is acquiring Sears, Roebuck & Co. in an $11 billion merger that aims to merge the best of both brands and create a low-priced shopping haven in malls.



Are You Getting Out of the United States?

To the Americans who read Cryptogon, I'm just curious about what some of you guys are thinking. The U.S. is obviously in a downward spiral. So, when the wheels finally come off the cart, what's your plan?

Note: I'd be asking the same question no matter who was president. Look at the economic and technology related stories... The question of the U.S. president is more of a waste of time than anything else at this stage.


To Where Will You Flee?
Remote Location in the U.S.
Canada
Mexico
Australia
New Zealand
Europe/Eastern Europe
South/Central America
Asia
Not fleeing
Not fleeing, lock and load
Free polls from Pollhost.com



Three Cryptogon Readers Each Contribute $20

MW, CB and SF are keeping me alive!

I'm not sure if you guys know what $60 means to someone like me. It's a big deal. Thank you all.



Fannie Mae Warns of Possible $9B Loss :.

Fannie Mae can't go down. Right?

Shares of Fannie Mae slipped Tuesday as the mortgage giant's outside auditor KPMG refused to sign off on its third-quarter earnings report, causing the company to miss a regulatory deadline for filing it.

Research Credit: SS



California DMV Chief Backs Tax by Mile, GPS Tracking :.

HA! Tax drivers by the mile. Sure. Try to stick that tracker box in my car. Try it:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday appointed a new Department of Motor Vehicles director who has advocated taxing motorists for every mile they drive — by placing tracking devices in their cars.

The idea would mean a significant overhaul of how California collects taxes to maintain its often-crumbling roads. Under the plan, the state gas tax — now 18 cents a gallon — would be replaced with a tax on every mile traveled by each car and truck.



RFID FOR ALL KIDS IN TEXAS SCHOOL, IMPLANTABLE MICROCHIPS ADVOCATED :.

"They do see broader possibilities, such as implanting RFID tags under the skin of children to avoid problems with lost or forgotten tags."

Those of us who have been warning about this have always said that it will be done FOR THE CHILDREN. We have always said that it will be ID cards first and then implants, because the cards will get lost/stolen/left behind. Well, it's not just weirdos on obscure radio stations (in the middle of the night) or webpages from the backwaters of the Internet talking about it now.

This story appeared in the New York Times!

This overt, sickening form of social control is beyond the pale, and what do the parents have to say? Nothing. They're letting it happen.

I can't wait until the "Good Christians" begin handing over their spawn to be microchipped by the state. That will be a delicious moment.

Read your own book! Revelation 13:

16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.


I'm not a Christian in the talking in tongues, Jerry Falwell, hypocrite, SUV/American flag sticker sort of way, but if I had kids and this nonsense was happening to them, there would be an immediate and SERIOUS problem...

How far away are we from the implantation of microchips in kids? Weeks? Months? Years?

I'll have to make a point of listening to Alex Jones this morning. He's going to be off his rocker over this one:

In front of her gated apartment complex, Courtney Payne, a 9-year-old fourth grader with dark hair pulled tightly into a ponytail, exits a yellow school bus. Moments later, her movement is observed by Alan Bragg, the local police chief, standing in a windowless control room more than a mile away.

Chief Bragg is not using video surveillance. Rather, he watches an icon on a computer screen. The icon marks the spot on a map where Courtney got off the bus, and, on a larger level, it represents the latest in the convergence of technology and student security.

Hoping to prevent the loss of a child through kidnapping or more innocent circumstances, a few schools have begun monitoring student arrivals and departures using technology similar to that used to track livestock and pallets of retail shipments.

Here in a growing middle- and working-class suburb just north of Houston, the effort is undergoing its most ambitious test. The Spring Independent School District is equipping 28,000 students with ID badges containing computer chips that are read when the students get on and off school buses. The information is fed automatically by wireless phone to the police and school administrators.

It is "naïve to believe all this data will only be used to track children in the extremely unlikely event of the rare kidnapping by a stranger," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the A.C.L.U.

Mr. Steinhardt said schools, once they had invested in the technology, could feel compelled to get a greater return on investment by putting it to other uses, like tracking where students go after school.

Advocates of the technology said they did not plan to go that far. But, they said, they do see broader possibilities, such as implanting RFID tags under the skin of children to avoid problems with lost or forgotten tags. More immediately, they said, they could see using the technology to track whether students attend individual classes.



2,000 Cameras To Watch Chicago :.

Watch the video for this story on the site. It's terrifying!

Mayor Daley officially opened a new city operations center Tuesday that will include a dramatic increase in camera surveillance on Chicago’s streets. The new addition to the 9-1-1 center will help manage and coordinate in response to emergencies such as a terrorist attack.

The new system will allow emergency workers to receive instant real time video and audio information from 2,000 cameras and microphones stationed around the city. The system won’t be fully operational until spring.


11/16/2004

McDonalds Can Read Your Mind :.

As far as I can tell, this story is real:

HyperActive Technologies, a Pittsburgh start-up, is testing technology at fast-food restaurants to give kitchen workers a good indication of what customers want before the hungry souls even get close enough to place an order.Known as HyperActive Bob, the system is in place in several restaurants around Pittsburgh in a primitive form. It tells employees when they are about to get busy, and even how much food to put on the grill.

The system uses rooftop cameras that monitor traffic entering a restaurant's parking lot and drive-through. Currently, the system is all about volume: if a minivan pulls in, it's likely there will be more than one mouth to feed.

This time next year HyperActive Technologies expects to have in place software that notes the type of vehicle entering the parking lot to determine whether the customers will order, say, a burger or a chicken sandwich.

The currently installed technology – the predictive system is only running simulations for now – is wowing seasoned veterans.


Research Credit: TR


11/15/2004

Cryptogon Reader Contributes $10!

DC supports Cryptogon!



U.S. Marine Executes Injured, Unarmed Iraqi on Camera :.

A television pool report by U.S. network NBC says that a U.S. Marine shot dead an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner in a mosque in Falluja.

The Iraqi was one of five wounded prisoners left in the mosque after Marines had fought their way in on Friday and Saturday. There was no immediate comment from the Pentagon on Monday's report.

A Marine can be heard saying on the pool footage provided to Reuters Television: "He's fucking faking he's dead. He faking he's fucking dead."

"The Marine then raises his rifle and fires into the man's head. The pictures are too graphic for us to broadcast," Sites said. No images of the shooting were shown in the footage provided to Reuters.

The report said the Marine, who had returned to duty after being shot in the face a day earlier, had been removed from the field and was being questioned by the U.S. military.

Sites said the shot prisoner "did not appear to be armed or threatening in any way".



Top Spies Threaten to Leave the Fold Over CIA Reform :.

THE CIA’s top spies are on the brink of revolt seven weeks after the arrival of President Bush’s new Director.

Porter Goss and his newly imported aides have had a series of bruising showdowns with established CIA figures that have left the agency in turmoil.

John McLaughlin, the agency’s deputy director, a 32-year CIA veteran, announced at the weekend that he was quitting. Stephen Kappes, the deputy director of operations, is expected to announce his resignation today.



Cryptogon Reader Contributes $20!

JK supports Cryptogon!



Drugs: RFID Roll Out Continues :.

The Food and Drug Administration and several major drug makers are expected to announce initiatives today that will put tiny radio antennas on the labels of millions of medicine bottles to combat counterfeiting and fraud.

Among the medicines that will soon be tagged are Viagra, one of the most counterfeited drugs in the world, and OxyContin, a pain-control narcotic that has become one of the most abused medicines in the United States. The tagged bottles - for now, only the large ones from which druggists get the pills to fill prescriptions - will start going to distributors this week, officials said.

Experts do not expect the technology to stop there. The adoption by the drug industry, they said in interviews, could be the leading edge of a change that will rid grocery stores of checkout lines, find lost luggage in airports, streamline warehousing and add a weapon in the battle against cargo theft.

"It's basically a bar code that barks," said one expert, Robin Koh, director of applications research at the Auto-ID Labs of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The technology, Mr. Koh said, could "make supply chains more efficient and more secure."



UL Executive Speaks Out on WTC Study :.

The letter raises disturbing questions, pointing out that the temperatures of fuel fires in the towers on September 11 appear to have been far too low to cause a failure of the structural steel.


11/14/2004

Falluja Raw Combat Video :.

I'll host this for a few days. Don't count on it being here permanently. If you want to save it -> right click -> save as, etc.

The original link to this video is here. That will go down soon. Guaranteed. His ISP will kill the account momentarily since this file is linked by Drudge.



White House Orders CIA to Purge Officers Disloyal to Bush :.

If you would like to read an excellent account of how totalitarian regimes eat their servants, Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler, is excellent:

The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."



55 U.S. Soldiers Killed This Week :.

In a flurry of weekend press releases, the Department of Defense named another 23 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. These deaths bring the total killed since Nov. 8 to 55. Such facts may conflict with "official numbers" released to the unquestioning media. However, in an apparent response to this article, the DoD is now reporting that 38 US troops have died in Fallujah. The discrepancy in numbers may stem from unreported deaths. We will only know after the troops' names are officially released.

The 50-plus killed this week is indicative of a growing insurgency likely to spread to previously peaceful cities. Over twenty of the deaths occurred in Baghdad, Mosul, Abu Gharb, and Babli province (just south of Baghdad). This indicates that the violence is only spreading. Although the military concedes that "winning" in Fallujah won't quell the insurgency, they continue to pursue policies that suppose there exists a static number of Iraqis willing to fight the occupation: if they could only kill them all, democracy and calm would flourish. Of course, it is more likely that these incursions will create more insurgency.



Dollar's Decline Is Reverberating :.

I've been talking about this for years on Cryptogon, but just in case you think I'm nuts, here's the same lesson from the LA Times:

During a routine sale of U.S. Treasury bonds in early September, one of the essential pillars holding up the economy suddenly disappeared.

Foreigners have been regularly buying nearly half of all debt issued by the U.S. government. On Sept. 9, for the first time that anyone could remember, they stayed home.

"Thoughts of panic flickered out there," said Sadakichi Robbins, head of global fixed-income trading at Bank Julius Baer.

The foreigners returned in force at the next Treasury auction, and Sept. 9 was quickly dismissed as an aberration.

But the episode demonstrated how much the U.S. economy is dependent on other countries to bankroll its free-spending ways. That fragility is becoming even more precarious because of recent declines in the U.S. dollar to multiyear lows, some economists say.

Amid worries about bulging U.S. budget and trade deficits, the greenback dropped last week to a record low against the 5-year-old euro, a 12-year low against the Canadian dollar and a nine-year low against an index of major currencies. Many analysts don't see anything that will stop the decline.

A cheaper dollar reduces the value of American securities, making them less attractive to foreign investors. That could eventually precipitate what Robbins called "the doomsday scenario" — Japan and China not only refusing to buy U.S. bonds, but selling some of their $1.3 trillion in reserves.



Off Topic: Half Life 2 Crack ISO

I just want to see how much traffic the above words generate. Move along. Nothing to see here.




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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.