cryptogon.com
   HOME
12/11/2004

Seeking Confirmation: DNA Biometrics on Driver's Licenses and Birth Certificates :.

Alex Jones linked to a story called, "US Adopts National ID: Homeland Security Now In Charge Of Regulations For All US States Drivers Licenses and Birth Certificates" by Jonathan Wheeler.

Wheeler states that all birth certificates and driver's licenses will contain biometric components:
Beginning in 2005, the Department of Homeland Security will issue new uniformity regulations to the States requiring that all Drivers Licenses and Birth Certificates meet minimal Federal Standards with regard to US citizen information, including biometric security provisions.

Added to currently existing Federal Laws and Supreme Court rulings American citizens when born will be issued a Social Security Number that will be included on their Birth Certificates, along with DNA biometric markers. All birth certificates will also be registered in a Federal Government database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. No child will be allowed enrollment to schools or be entitled to either State of Federal Government benefits programs without first presenting a certified Homeland Security registered Birth Certificate.

Drivers Licenses will also contain DNA biometric markers and include the holders Social Security Number and be required for receiving and applying for all State and Federal benefits programs.
While this sounds plausible, Wheeler doesn't provide any source information for the DNA-related statements. Can anyone provide me with confirmation of the validity of these statements?

While sections 1026 and 1027 of S. 2845 (National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004) do enable the federal government to set the "minimum standards" for birth certificates and driver's licenses, I don't see how Wheeler gets to DNA on birth certificates and driver's licenses.

Please don't think that I'm trying to assert that S. 2845 isn't a dangerous piece of legislation. IT IS. Will it result in the establishment of a de facto national ID card system? IT WILL. I just wish Wheeler would have included the source information for these statements about the DNA-based biometrics. (Obviously, if there is a plan to integrate DNA into identification systems, that is a deadly serious matter.) I've emailed the author for clarification.

Possibly Related: Falluja: DNA Testing for Residents



Tanker Splits in Two Near Wildlife Haven :.

THOUSANDS of gallons of heavy-duty oil were pouring from a grounded cargo ship off the Alaska coast last night in a disaster that appears to have claimed six lives and threatens an environmental catastrophe.

The 40,000-tonne Malaysian-registered Selendang Ayu, carrying 480,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil and 21,000 gallons of diesel, yesterday split in two off the coast of Unalaska island, a region near a wildlife refuge that is home to sea lions, seals, otters, halibut fishing stocks and several endangered species.


12/10/2004

Kerik Withdraws His Name for DHS Chief :.

These antics are so rotten, they don't even pass the Bush regime's smell test. Wow:

Former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, President Bush's choice to be homeland security secretary, has withdrawn his name from consideration, the White House announced late Friday.

Bush's nomination of Kerik quickly proved controversial. News reports in recent days focused on revelations that Kerik had made millions of dollars a stun gun company that sold weapons to the Homeland Security Department and which wants more business. The White House had said that Kerik would avoid any conflicts of interest.



U.S. Army Plagued by Desertion and Plunging Morale :.

WHILE insurgents draw on deep wells of fury to expand their ranks in Iraq, the US military is fighting desertion, recruitment shortfalls and legal challenges from its own troops.



He Lost an Arm in Iraq; the Army Wants Money :.

How many "Support Our Troops" bumper stickers did you see today?

He lost his arm serving his country in Iraq. Now this wounded soldier is being discharged from his company in Fort Hood, Texas, without enough gas money to get home. In fact, the Army says 27-year-old Spc. Robert Loria owes it close to $2,000, and confiscated his last paycheck.

"There's people in my unit right now – one of my team leaders [who was] over in Iraq with me, is doing everything he can to help me .... but it's looking bleak," Loria said by telephone from Fort Hood yesterday. "It's coming up on Christmas and I have no way of getting home."


UPDATE: Lawmakers Help Wounded Soldier Get Home After Dispute with Army

The PR firestorm wasn't good for maintaining appearances.



What Cryptogon Service Would You Be Most Likely To Pay For?


What Cryptogon service would you be most likely to pay for?
The RSS feed
A premium content area, topic index, message boards, maybe a weekly video news summary, etc.
Open Souce Intelligence Service, where you task my research and analysis
I'll never pay for anything


Free polls from Pollhost.com



.Mil and .Gov Cryptogon Hits, Past Few Days

Greetings, Gentlemen... Do you feel like unburdening your soul? My PGP key is here.

.mil

relay8.nga.mil
bluecoat01.randolph.af.mil
fwa160069.ak.pac.army.mil
gateway.uscg.mil
gate5-hawaii.nmci.navy.mil
gate2-hawaii.nmci.navy.mil
ce1.leavenworth.army.mil
webcache.irwin.army.mil
gate16-sandiego.nmci.usmc.mil
gate11-sandiego.nmci.usmc.mil
ce2.leavenworth.army.mil
ce.vicenza.army.mil
walker-cache.korea.army.mil
gate18-sandiego.nmci.usmc.mil
mirbluecoat2.afspc.af.mil
buc064068.pac.army.mil
host3.stratcom.mil
gate14-quantico.nmci.usmc.mil
gate15-sandiego.nmci.usmc.mil
nosc1.pacaf.af.mil
wcs2-cbus.nipr.mil
ncnc.northcom.mil
malice.ramstein.af.mil
fuel3.nasni.navy.mil
wcs2-mcpherson.nipr.mil
falcon3.langley.af.mil
px0o.wpafb.af.mil
scuhqgw1.hq.southcom.mil
gate4-norfolk.nmci.navy.mil
netcache2.redstone.army.mil

.gov

bowie-fc.census.gov
internet1.irs.gov
ancient.inel.gov
nwg001-ce2.customs.treas.gov
res1.gtwy.uscourts.gov
vicce003.net.gov.bc.ca
host-22.hants.gov.uk
gatekeeper4.fcc.gov
scott-pc.mel.nist.gov
host-11.hants.gov.uk
elia.larc.nasa.gov
bcccache6-1.tco.census.gov
digger1.defence.gov.au
ip202006.niehs.nih.gov
internet3.irs.gov
hscpx.hsi.dhs.gov
internet2.irs.gov
host.199-75-185-103.gsa.gov
wcdc.ocio.usda.gov
housegate5.house.gov
deptvass-cp.va.gov
n021.dhs.gov
wdcsun24.usdoj.gov
pc04174160529.jpl.nasa.gov
nat.nbc.gov
clayton.state.gov
ostsd-29893.ad.dot.gov



GPS Used to Track Teens' Driving :.

Oh sure:

Retired Gen. Tommy Franks has signed on to be the spokesman for a company that uses global positioning system technology in teens' cell phones to let parents know how fast they're driving.

Research Credit: Mike



Falluja Gallery of Horrors :.

WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC.

Anyone want to bare witness to the "liberation" of Falluja?



Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly :.

The number of Americans filing initial claims for jobless pay grew unexpectedly last week to 357,000, Labor Department (news - web sites) data showed on Thursday, but an official said an increase in the week after a public holiday was typical. <--- HAHA!



Halliburton's Iraq Contracts Now Worth Over $10 Billion :.

The value of Halliburton's Iraq contracts has crossed the $10 billion threshold. Halliburton has now received $8.3 billion in Iraq work under its LOGCAP troop support contract and $2.5 billion under its no-bid Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) contract, a total of $10.8 billion.


12/9/2004

Several Military Recruiting Vehicles Burned in Recent Days :.

Fire investigators in three area counties are trying to determine whether government passenger cars used by military recruiters are being targeted for arson.

The three latest cases involved cars authorized for Army use that were parked outside of a recruiting office in the 8,200 block of Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring. They were burned early Monday.


12/8/2004

'Brainwave' Cap Controls Computer :.

A team of US researchers has shown that controlling devices with the brain is a step closer.

Four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, successfully moved a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes.

Previous research has shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes implanted into their brain.



Pro-War Christians Should Come Clean :.

If "Evangelical Christians" were some lunatic cult, off in the woods somewhere, I wouldn't care too much about what they were saying. There are, however, something like 60 million of them in the U.S. As a thinking person, you might be laughing off these folks as purely nuts and/or harmless. Years ago, when I needed a laugh, I'd turn on the local Jesus freak channel for some entertainment. It's so nuts and such an obvious fraud that I'd laugh at it for a while, turn off the TV and then not think anything more about it.

But if you take the time to actually examine the twisted doctrine emerging from the Evangelical movement, you're going to be in for the shock of your life. If you ever needed proof of the existence of Satan, look no further than the leadership of the "Evangelical Christian" movement in the U.S.:

Leading up to the war in Iraq, evangelical Christians became perhaps the most enthusiastic advocates of imperium. Though politicians have often abused "Just War theory," it is still an integral part of Christian ethics when examining issues of war and peace. Thus, one must ask, was the Iraq war "just" based on the criteria of historic Just War theory?

Lets look at a sampling of comments proffered by Evangelical leaders leading up to the war.



Former Marine: U.S. Routinely Slaughters Unarmed Iraqis :.

A former United States marine told a refugee hearing for an American war dodger Tuesday that trigger-happy U.S. soldiers in Iraq routinely killed unarmed women and children, and murdered other Iraqis in violation of international law.

In chilling testimony intended to bolster the asylum claim of compatriot Jeremy Hinzman, former staff sergeant Jimmy Massey recounted how nervous soldiers trained to believe that all Iraqis were potential terrorists often opened fire indiscriminately.

"I was never clear on who the enemy was," Massey, 33, told the hearing.

"If you have no enemy or you do not know who the enemy is, what are you doing there?"

On several occasions, his soldiers pumped hundreds of bullets into cars that failed to stop at U.S. military checkpoints, killing all occupants - who were later found to be unarmed, Massey said.

On another occasion, marines reacted to a stray bullet by killing a small group of unarmed protesters and bystanders, said Massey, who said he suffers from nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I was deeply concerned about the civilian casualties," he said.

"What they were doing was committing murder."



Sharp Dollar Gains, Watch Out Below :.

This is probably a short squeeze. Hold on for the next leg down:

The dollar reached a three-week high against the yen and rallied versus the euro, Canadian dollar and a dozen other major currencies as some traders reduced bets the U.S. currency would decline.



Texas to Florida: White House-Linked Clandestine Operation Paid for "Vote Switching" Software :.

I haven't read anything like this since the days of Danny Casolaro. The Octopus is still up to its old tricks:

The story of this corruption is nothing new. What is new is the purpose. The use of this old and covert tranche of money for a special Bush operation to deny the American people their right to a free and fair vote was not the typical illegal sale of arms to a terrorist nation, the overthrow of a foreign government, or the payment of bribes to foreign potentates. It was a high crime in every constitutional sense. The target was the American political system and not just in 2004 but also in 2003, 2002, and 2000. The scandal goes right up to the White House and the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee. It involves an extremely crooked Florida national politician and other Florida state government officials. And, as with all modern American political scandals, we have at least one dead body, a number of whistleblowers and anonymous "Deep Throats," powerful but corrupt politicians, counterfeit and real documents, con men, and a money trail tied to off-shore foreign bank accounts.

Research Credit: AL



Waiting for the Gun :.

A USC engineer uses his expertise with nerve cells to create a surveillance system that can recognize the sound of a nearby gunshot - and identify the shooter. In a unique pilot program, L.A. and Chicago will deploy test units in high-crime areas.

Research Credit: JL



Homeless Iraq Vets Showing up at Shelters :.

U.S. veterans from the war in Iraq are beginning to show up at homeless shelters around the country, and advocates fear they are the leading edge of a new generation of homeless vets not seen since the Vietnam era.

"When we already have people from Iraq on the streets, my God," said Linda Boone, executive director of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. "I have talked to enough (shelters) to know we are getting them. It is happening and this nation is not prepared for that."



Disgruntled Troops Complain to Rumsfeld :.

I wonder, how many people in the military are there because they saw it as a way to get food and shelter?

In a rare public airing of grievances, disgruntled soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday about long deployments and a lack of armored vehicles and other equipment.

"You go to war with the Army you have," Rumsfeld replied, "not the Army you might want or wish to have."



Who Poisoned Yushchenko? :.

MEDICAL experts have confirmed that Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s opposition leader, was poisoned in an attempt on his life during election campaigning, the doctor who supervised his treatment at an Austrian clinic said yesterday.

Doctors at Vienna’s exclusive Rudolfinerhaus clinic are within days of identifying the substance that left Mr Yushchenko’s face disfigured with cysts and lesions, Nikolai Korpan told The Times in a telephone interview.

Specialists in Britain, the United States and France had helped to establish that it was a biological agent, a chemical agent or, most likely, a rare poison that struck him down in the run-up to the presidential election, he said.



Get Ready to Hide Your Kids: Army Recruitment Misses Requirements by 50% :.

By the end of this recruiting year, the Regular Army, Reserves and Guard could fall short more than 50 percent of its projected requirement, or about 60,000 new soldiers. And according to many recruiters, quality recruits are giving way to mental midgets who have a hard time telling their left foot from their right.

Moms and dads are outraged about desperate Army recruiters on a relentless campaign to sign up their teenagers. High-school kids are actually running away from recruiters like they were George Romero’s living dead.

Unless a miracle happens and the new Iraqi security force decides to stop running and start fighting, we’ll be in Iraq for a long time. Most likely with a draftee force.



Half of All Workers Make $2 a Day or Less :.

Meanwhile, executive pay has never been higher:

A record number people are working in the global economy but half of them make $2 a day or less, according to a report published yesterday.



Cingular Plans Massive Layoffs :.

Cingular Wireless LLC, the nation's largest cell phone company, will cut about 10 percent of its 68,000 jobs over the next 12 to 18 months as it combines operations with the recently acquired AT&T Wireless, Cingular's chief executive said Tuesday.

Many of the 7,000 or so job cuts will come from administrative ranks, while relatively few if any would come from customer service, CEO Stan Sigman told The Associated Press.



Colgate to Close Factories, Eliminate 4,400 Jobs :.

Colgate-Palmolive, the U.S. consumer products company, has said that it plans to close about a third of its factories and cut more than 4,400 jobs over the next four years as part of a major restructuring effort to increase profit margins.



Chinese Corporation Buys IBM's PC Unit :.

Lenovo, China's largest personal computer maker, will pay US$1.75 billion (HK$13.65 billion) in cash, stock and assumed debt for IBM's struggling PC operations in a move that will make it the world's third-biggest PC manufacturer and fulfil its long-held ambition to become a global force.


12/7/2004

hEy d0()D i ain't gots no gUbment CHeeze :.

You'll have to read this one to believe it. We've now reached the point where some people entering the workplace with graduate degrees are functionally illiterate!

R. Craig Hogan, a former university professor who heads an online school for business writing here, received an anguished e-mail message recently from a prospective student.

"i need help," said the message, which was devoid of punctuation. "i am writing a essay on writing i work for this company and my boss want me to help improve the workers writing skills can yall help me with some information thank you".



181,000 Voters in U.S. Elections Were Dead :.

More than 181,000 dead people were listed on the rolls in swing states for the Nov. 2 U.S. presidential election, the Chicago Tribune reported Sunday.

The Tribune reviewed voter data from New Mexico, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota. The newspaper found numerous errors in the integrity of voter rolls.

In addition to the registered deceased, thousands of voters were registered to vote in two locations, which could have allowed them to cast more than one ballot. More than 90,000 other voters in Ohio cast ballots without a valid presidential choice. Either they decided not to choose a candidate, the machine failed to register their choice, or they mistakenly voted for more than one candidate.

The FBI was investigating allegations that Republicans in Florida mounted a large-scale campaign to tamper with ballots.


Research Credit: AM



WHISTLEBLOWER AFFIDAVIT: Programmer Built Vote Rigging Prototype at Republican Congressman's Request :.

Well, there goes the neighborhood:

The programmer claims that he designed and built a "vote rigging" software program at the behest of then Florida Congressman, now U.S. Congressman, Republican Tom Feeney of Florida's 24th Congressional District.

Clint Curtis, 46, claims that he built the software for Feeney in 2000 while working at a sofware design and engineering company in Oviedo, Florida (Feeney's home district).

Curtis, in his affidavit, says that as technical advisor and programmer at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) he was present at company meetings where Feeney was present "on at least a dozen occasions".

Feeney, who had run in 1994 as Jeb Bush's running-mate in his initial unsuccessful bid for Florida Governor, was serving as both corporate counsel and registered lobbyist for YEI during the period that Curtis worked at the company. Feeney was also concurrently serving as a Florida state congressman while performing those services for YEI. Feeney would eventually become Speaker of the Florida House before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002. He is now a member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

At an October 2000 meeting with Feeney, according to the affidavit and BRAD BLOG interviews with Curtis over the past three days, Feeney inquired whether the company could build a "vote fraud software prototype".

At least three YEI employees are said to have been present at that meeting; Curtis, company owner, Mrs. Li Woan Yang, and her executive secretary, Mike Cohen. Two other YEI employees may have come in and out at different points of the meeting according to Curtis.

Curtis says that Feeney "was very specific in the design and specifications required for this program."

"He detailed, in his own words, that; (a) the program needed to be touch-screen capable (b) the user should be able to trigger the program without any additional equipment (c) the programming to accomplish this needed to stay hidden even if the source code was inspected."

Though there was no problem with the first two requirements, Curtis explained to the Congressman that it would be "virtually impossible to hide such code written to change the voting results if anyone is able to review the uncompiled source code"

Nonetheless, he was asked at the meeting by Mrs. Yang to build the prototype anyway.



China Cancels New Zealand Union Leader's Visa Over Labor Practices :.

All trade with China should be outlawed. In fact, New Zealand should pull its diplomatic staff out of China and expel Chinese government personnel. What negotiations are possible with a criminal gang? When the Chinese regime figures out what century it's living in, re-open negotiations.

Hey, the Kiwis had the balls to slap Israel in the face over that Mossad nonsense. Why not tell the Chinese regime where they can stuff their products made with slave labor?

The Greens are calling on the Labour Government to call off trade negotiations with China in response to the Chinese Government cancelling CTU President Ross Wilson's visitor's visa.

The Chinese Government has cancelled an OECD seminar in Beijing next week which was due to discuss raising labour standards in China. Mr Wilson was to attend the seminar.

"This is tantamount to a gagging order," Green Co-Leader Rod Donald said. "It illustrates that the Chinese Government will not allow open discussion of its pitiful and exploitative labour standards.

"It is meaningless for the Government to say it intends to discuss labour and environmental standards in trade talks with China, when the Chinese regime refuses to allow union leaders from OECD countries, including New Zealand's Ross Wilson, to talk about those very issues..

"Labour must take a principled stand against China's attempt to stifle free speech. If it does not call off trade talks with China, it will have sold out workers in both New Zealand and China.

"What will it take for the Government to face the fact that it is dealing with an oppressive regime that has no respect for labour or environmental standards, for freedom of speech, or for the basic human rights of its own citizens?

"Labour should be ashamed to negotiate a preferential trade deal with a regime that tries to silence the very international labour movement our government claims to strongly identify with."


Research Credit: RT



OPEC Nations Seen Cutting Worldwide Deposits in Dollars :.

Heat, water, food. In that order. Start thinking along those lines:

Member nations of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have cut the proportion of their deposits denominated in dollars by more than 13 percentage points in the past three years, mainly to the advantage of the euro, the Bank for International Settlements said Sunday.



JAPAN THREATENS HUGE DOLLAR SELL-OFF :.

There are no protagonists in this tale of woe. It's easy to point fingers at the drunk uncle (America) and talk in solemn tones about fiscal responsibility and maintaining appearances. But who has been responsible for keeping the drunk uncle out of the gutter for the last 20 years? The Europeans and the Japanese deserve every bit of the pain they're going to endure for getting hooked on selling their goods to bankrupt Americans.

Europe and Japan allowed this to happen. IT COULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED WITHOUT THEM. As the drunk uncle repeatedly stumbled and teetered on the brink of collapse, there was Europe and Japan offering to buy the drunk uncle's booze for a few more weeks. But now, America is getting increasingly ugly and out of hand. Penniless, slurring and belligerent, the drunk uncle expects the offerings of free booze to not only continue, but to increase!

Europe and Japan are, only now, starting to question the logic of providing the drunk uncle with free booze?

In a situation like this, who's to blame: The drunk uncle, or those who have given him the free booze? Like I said, there are no protagonists in this tale of woe:

Japan is warning the White House that there will be 'enormous capital flight' from the dollar if the Bush administration maintains its laissez-faire approach to the mounting currency crisis.

Tokyo fears that Japan's strongest economic recovery in a decade could be derailed by the sudden appreciation in the yen against the greenback.

The criticism of President Bush's inaction, by a senior member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, will be taken as a veiled threat that Japan could start to sell off its multi-billion-dollar holdings of US Treasuries. 'The Japanese government is going to ask for a strong dollar policy; if it continues to fall, there would be enormous capital flight from the dollar,' said Kaoru Yosano, chairman of the LDP's policy council, adding that Japan would be calling on its fellow G7 governments to demand the US deal with the massive fiscal deficit that has helped to prompt the dollar's decline.


Research Credit: AM



Cover of The Economist: The Disappearing Dollar :.

THE dollar has been the leading international currency for as long as most people can remember. But its dominant role can no longer be taken for granted. If America keeps on spending and borrowing at its present pace, the dollar will eventually lose its mighty status in international finance. And that would hurt: the privilege of being able to print the world's reserve currency, a privilege which is now at risk, allows America to borrow cheaply, and thus to spend much more than it earns, on far better terms than are available to others. Imagine you could write cheques that were accepted as payment but never cashed. That is what it amounts to. If you had been granted that ability, you might take care to hang on to it. America is taking no such care, and may come to regret it.

America has habits that are inappropriate, to say the least, for the guardian of the world's main reserve currency: rampant government borrowing, furious consumer spending and a current-account deficit big enough to have bankrupted any other country some time ago. This makes a dollar devaluation inevitable, not least because it becomes a seemingly attractive option for the leaders of a heavily indebted America. Policymakers now seem to be talking the dollar down. Yet this is a dangerous game. Why would anybody want to invest in a currency that will almost certainly depreciate?


Research Credit: DG



Company Lets U.S. Travelers 'Go Canadian' :.

This would be funny, if it wasn't so sad:

An American T-shirt company has a solution for their fellow citizens who want to vacation in Europe without having to answer questions about U.S. politics -- pose as Canadians.

For $24.95, T-shirtKing.com offers the "Go Canadian" package, full of just the kind of things an American traveler needs to leave their country and its politics behind.

There's a Canadian flag T-shirt, a Canadian flag lapel pin and a Canadian patch for luggage or a backpack. There's also a quick reference guide -- "How to Speak Canadian, Eh?" -- on answering questions about Canada.


12/6/2004

Cryptogon Reader Contributes 1 Gram of 1mdc Gold

Thanks AM!



Two British Bankers Murdered On December 2 :.

Any guesses? Speculation? What were these guys up to?

Monckton was Knights of Malta. He was also into corporate bonds. Knights of Malta + Corporate bonds = Vatican money laundering (if I had to guess). Any word on Wilson's secret society affiliation/s? At least these guys weren't found hanging from a bridge, like God's Banker and P2 member, Roberto Calvi...

Murder One:

JOHN ROSS Thu 2 Dec 2004 THE four-year-old son of murdered banker Alistair Wilson saw his father dying on their doorstep after being gunned down by a killer who has yet to be found.

Andrew Wilson and his younger brother Graham, two, had just been put to bed by their parents on Sunday evening when the gunman came to their door in Crescent Road, Nairn.

Mr Wilson’s wife, Veronica, answered the door to the murderer, who asked for her husband by name. She returned inside but then heard three shots.

She ran out to find Mr Wilson, 30, with wounds to this head and body from which he died soon afterwards.


Murder Two:

A WEALTHY and highly respected City of London financier was stabbed to death and his wife was left seriously injured after two knife-wielding intruders burst into their multi-million pound townhouse in Chelsea.

John Monckton’s family were "profoundly shocked" by the murder and described him as an "incredibly gentle and thoughtful man".

The couple’s nine-year-old daughter, Isobel, alerted emergency services after finding her parents fighting for their lives after the incident on Monday night. Detectives believe it could have been an attempted burglary, but were keeping an open mind on the motive for the attack.

Yesterday, shocked residents of the exclusive and close-knit area, where actors, rock stars and the aristocracy live next to leading lawyers and businessmen, spoke of a spate of burglaries, robberies and assaults in recent years.

Mr Monckton, 49, died in hospital shortly after the attack. His wife, Homeyra, 45, who was also stabbed, was in a stable condition at St Thomas’ Hospital last night after undergoing "significant surgery" for her injuries. She is not expected to be discharged for a week. The couple’s other daughter, Sabrina, 12, was at her boarding school, St Mary’s Ascot, at the time of the murder. She travelled to be with her mother and sister yesterday.

A respected director with financial giant Legal and General and a leading City authority on the corporate bond market, Mr Monckton was also well-known for his deeply held religious beliefs and charitable work. The cousin of Rosa Monckton, a close friend of the late Princess Diana and wife of Dominic Lawson, the Sunday Telegraph editor, Mr Monckton came from a well-established Catholic family and was active in the Knights of Malta charity, which helps the poor.



Kerry Won the Election by At Least 1.7 Million Votes :.

Brad Menfil is not my real name. I work for the RNC. I fear reprisals if I'm found out.

The truth about this election is this: Florida and Ohio had to go for Bush in order for him to "win" the election. In reality he lost both states. In fact, he did not even win the popular vote. He lost the national popular vote by at least 1,750,000. This shows you the scale of the fraud.



Just How Cheap Is Chinese Labor? :.

Trade with China should be outlawed:

The cost of Chinese factory labor is a paltry 64 cents an hour. Although that figure is rough, since it's pieced together from sketchy statistics, it's still the most thorough estimate ever compiled. It includes both wages and employer contributions for benefits and social insurance. And it covers not just city factory workers, who get the most attention, but the more numerous rural and suburban factory workers as well. For comparison, hourly factory compensation in the U.S. in 2002 was $21.11, and an average of $14.22 in the 30 foreign countries covered by the existing BLS report.



Heroin Traffic Finances Bin Laden :.

It's a good thing the U.S. restored the heroin flow out of Afghanistan after the Taliban wiped out opium production in July of 2000. What would bin Laden do without so much help from the U.S.?

Do you get it yet?

Osama bin Laden is using cash from the Afghanistan heroin market to finance his life on the run, paying bodyguards and buying off warlords in Pakistan, says a congressman who has visited the region.

Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois Republican, said in an interview that bin Laden's al Qaeda terror organization is reaping $28 million a year in illicit heroin sales. Some of the money is funding bin Laden's fugitive status as he pops back and forth between Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal areas and Afghanistan's eastern mountain regions.



U.S. Executing Those Who Count Dead Civilians in Iraq :.

Dear Mr Johnson, On November 26, your press counsellor sent a letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence read: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies." Of particular concern was the word "eliminating".

The letter suggested that my charge was "baseless" and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or provide "evidence of this extremely grave accusation". It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly involve themselves in the free press of a foreign country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no intention of withdrawing it. Here, instead, is the evidence you requested.



Lockheed and the Future of Warfare :.

This is an incredible article:

LOCKHEED MARTIN doesn't run the United States. But it does help run a breathtakingly big part of it.

Over the last decade, Lockheed, the nation's largest military contractor, has built a formidable information-technology empire that now stretches from the Pentagon to the post office. It sorts your mail and totals your taxes. It cuts Social Security checks and counts the United States census. It runs space flights and monitors air traffic. To make all that happen, Lockheed writes more computer code than Microsoft.

Of course, Lockheed, based in Bethesda, Md., is best known for its weapons, which are the heart of America's arsenal. It builds most of the nation's warplanes. It creates rockets for nuclear missiles, sensors for spy satellites and scores of other military and intelligence systems. The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency might have difficulty functioning without the contractor's expertise.

But in the post-9/11 world, Lockheed has become more than just the biggest corporate cog in what Dwight D. Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex. It is increasingly putting its stamp on the nation's military policies, too.

Lockheed stands at "the intersection of policy and technology," and that "is really a very interesting place to me," said its new chief executive, Robert J. Stevens, a tightly wound former Marine. "We are deployed entirely in developing daunting technology," he said, and that requires "thinking through the policy dimensions of national security as well as technological dimensions."

To critics, however, Lockheed's deep ties with the Pentagon raise some questions.

"It's impossible to tell where the government ends and Lockheed begins," said Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group in Washington that monitors government contracts. "The fox isn't guarding the henhouse. He lives there."



Falluja: DNA Testing for Residents :.

The US military is drawing up plans to keep insurgents from regaining control of this battle-scarred city, but returning residents may find that the measures make Fallujah look more like a police state than the democracy they have been promised.

Under the plans, troops would funnel Fallujans to so-called citizen processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and retina scans. Residents would receive badges displaying their home addresses that they must wear at all times. Buses would ferry them into the city, where cars, the deadliest tool of suicide bombers, would be banned.


Related: Falluja Residents to be Finger Printed, Retina Scanned and Issued ID Cards



Bugmenot.com :.

Are you sick of filling out gibberish in nag screens to get access to news stories? Cryptogon reader JM just told me about the Bugmenot plugin for Firefox. Quite simply, it's the dog's bollox. Thanks, JM!



Slashdot Poll: What Will Kill the Internet? :.

Backhoe. About 15% of Slashdotters are getting it right.

Related: Cyberwar: How Terrorists Could Defeat the U.S., and Why They Won't

Note: I don't think the "Why They Won't" part still applies, but this essay continues to be useful for understanding how vulnerable the global information infrastructure is to physical attack. The Elite now view the Internet as a threat, and with the economic situation nearing the endgame phase, there might be more to be gained from destroying the Internet than allowing it to continue to exist in its present form. Obviously, a new "secure" (locked down) Internet would rise from the ashes.


12/5/2004

Navy SEAL Prisoner Abuse Photos from Iraq :.

More scenes of liberation.




Google


cryptogon.com
www

:. 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.