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4/30/2005

The Power of Nightmares: Baby It's Cold Outside :.

I haven't had a chance to watch all of this yet, but it looks excellent. I can't believe this escaped my attention when it was first released. Special thanks to SP for bringing it to my attention:

"Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us from nightmares. They say that they will rescue us from dreadful dangers that we cannot see and do not understand"

".... A threat that needs to be fought by a war on terror. But much of this threat is a fantasy, which has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians..."

"This is a series of films about how and why that fantasy was created, and who it benefits. At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neoconservatives, and the radical Islamists."


Related: BBC

Research Credit: SP



Upstate New York Man Gets the Poop on Outsourcing :.

Computer programmer Steve Relles has the poop on what to do when your job is outsourced to India.

Relles, one of a rising number of Americans seeking new opportunities as their work shifts to countries with cheaper labor, has spent the past year making his living scooping up dog droppings as the "Delmar Dog Butler."

"My parents paid for me to get a (degree) in math and now I am a pooper scooper," Relles, a 42-year-old married father of two told Reuters. "I can clean four to five yards in a hour if they are close together."


Relles, who lost his computer programming job about three years ago, got the idea of cleaning dog dirt from people's back yards from Mark Booth, a friend in Buffalo, New York.

Ralles has over 100 clients who pay $10 each for a once-a-week cleaning of their yard.

Relles competes for business with another local company called "Scoopy Do." Similar outfits have sprung up across America, including Petbutler.net, which operates in Ohio.



Genetic Mingling Mixes Human, Animal Cells :.

On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs.

The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab. He can't wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus' brain about two months ago.

"It's mice on a large scale," Chamberlain says with a shrug.

As strange as his work may sound, it falls firmly within the new ethics guidelines the influential National Academies issued this past week for stem cell research.

In fact, the Academies' report endorses research that co-mingles human and animal tissue as vital to ensuring that experimental drugs and new tissue replacement therapies are safe for people.


Related: Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy


4/29/2005

Cryptogon Reader Contributes $30

DT writes:
I just read your essay "Militant Electronic Piracy" and was very impressed. I have been reading cryptogon for years now and its about time I gave you something back for all your hard work! I hope you get to NZ before they take you out of service...
Thanks, DT!


4/28/2005

Exploding Toads :.

Uh...

More than 1,000 toads have puffed up and exploded in a Hamburg pond in recent weeks, and German scientists have no explanation for what's causing the combustion.

Both the pond's water and body parts of the toads have been tested, but scientists have been unable to find a bacteria or virus that would cause the toads to swell up and pop, said Janne Kloepper, of the Hamburg-based Institute for Hygiene and the Environment.

"It's absolutely strange," she said Wednesday. "We have a really unique story here in Hamburg. This phenomenon really doesn't seem to have appeared anywhere before."


Research Credit: EG



U.S. Navy Search for Operation SEASPRAY

The U.S. Navy user (host: gate4-hawaii.nmci.navy.mil, ip: 138.163.128.43) conducted the following Google search: seaspray cia.

Relavent Cryptogon Pages: seaspray cia.



UCLA Fusion :.

In 2002, nuclear engineers Rusi P. Taleyarkhan of Purdue University and Richard T. Lahey Jr. of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced that they had produced thermonuclear fusion by imploding tiny deuterium-rich gas bubbles with sound waves and neutrons. The news about their fusion method--dubbed sonofusion--made headlines worldwide. Yet many skeptics greeted it with scoffing. Now, after repeating the experiments with an improved apparatus, Taleyarkhan and Lahey have more convincing evidence.

In the May 2005 issue of IEEE Spectrum, they discuss their latest experiments in detail and also explain how they plan to turn their tabletop apparatus into a full-scale electricity-generating device. "If this proves possible--and it's still a big 'if'--sonofusion could become a revolutionary new energy source," they write.



Militant Electronic Piracy :.

This essay was previously distributed only to Cryptogon contributors. Today, stories are breaking that directly relate to this information:

The germ of this essay was a Wired article about electronic piracy called, "The Shadow Internet." The following Cryptogon analysis will focus on the nature of insurgency in the U.S. and critical national security aspects of electronic piracy that the article failed to address.

Related: Microsoft States Full TCP/IP Too Dangerous

Related: Bush Signs Law Targeting P2P Pirates


4/27/2005

Retrofit Motors Improve Wind Turbine Performance by 31% :.

Apache Electric used resources from the Boeing Aircraft Corporation in the development of this new motor, and hopes to increase their turbine efficiency to over 31 percent. Building a motor that can be retrofitted to Apache's older turbines will benefit the existing maintenance contracts for the company because they can update the turbines without a need for new infrastructure, according to USWF CEO William Telander.



Bush: Build Oil Refineries at Ex-Military Bases, and Nuke Plants :.

Someone give him a Dr. Seuss book to read before he hurts himself:

President Bush proposed allowing oil companies to build new refineries at abandoned military bases and encouraging new nuclear power plants in steps that critics said would do nothing to address America's immediate problem of high gasoline prices.

"The problem is clear. This problem did not develop overnight, and it's not going to be fixed overnight," Bush said in lowering expectations for immediate relief.


4/26/2005

Do Good Fellas Wear Crappy Shoes? :.

Nahhhh, they just take bribes from the criminals who run the dungeons!

A former vice president of Vans Inc., who admitted that he obtained $4.7 million in bribes and kickbacks from Chinese factories that manufactured Vans shoes and clothing, was sentenced this morning to 71 months in federal prison.

Scott Andrew Brabson, 50, of Goleta, California, was sentenced by United States District Judge John F. Walter.

The second defendant in the case, Jay William Rosendahl, 48, of Lake Oswego, Oregon, also was sentenced this morning by Judge Walter to 71 months in federal prison.

In addition to the prison sentences, Judge Walter ordered both defendants to pay $4.7 million in restitution to Vans.

Earlier this year, each defendant pleaded guilty to four felony charges: conspiracy, foreign travel to promote bribery, "honest services" wire fraud and money laundering.

Brabson and Rosendahl met with owners and managers of Chinese factories and informed them that in order to continue receiving product orders from Vans, the factories would have to send kickbacks amounting to 3 percent of Vans' orders. The defendants provided the factories with the number of a Hong Kong bank account, and the factories wire-transferred the kickbacks into the account they had established under the name StreamFlow Holdings Limited.

Shortly after Brabson left Vans, he moved almost $3 million of the money into accounts at a Luxembourg bank. Brabson then transferred about $1.3 million into different Hong Kong bank accounts controlled by Rosendahl. Each defendant withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash along the way.


When he pleaded guilty earlier this year, Brabson acknowledged that he fabricated e-mails and other communications that purported to be internal Vans documents and which appeared both to exonerate him in the bribery scheme and implicate other Vans executives in allegations of inflated earnings made by shareholders in a class-action against the shoemaker.

This matter was investigated by IRS-Criminal Investigation Division, the United States Postal Inspection Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.


Research Credit: SA



Microsoft to Add 'Black Box' to Windows :.

Nice!

In a move that could rankle privacy advocates, Microsoft said Monday that it is adding the PC equivalent of a flight data recorder to the next version of Windows, in an effort to better understand and prevent computer crashes.

The tool will build on the existing Watson error-reporting tool in Windows but will provide Microsoft with much deeper information, including what programs were running at the time of the error and even the contents of documents that were being created. Businesses will also choose whether they want their own technology managers to receive such data when an employee's machine crashes.


4/25/2005

Make Your Time




Driving a Hybrid Car and the Activist/Idiot Mentality :.

Get yourself a Che Guevara iPod case and slap a Kerry-Edwards sticker on your Toyota Prius! HAHAHA! Have you seen nonsense like this? I have. Limousine liberals have funny and predictable ways of maintaining the status quo. They do nothing and make a lot of noise about doing nothing. This, obviously, accomplishes nothing. This variety of twit is the 180-degrees-out-of-phase version of the Hummer-driving, Bush-Kerry species of twit. It might look, sound and smell a little bit different, but it's the same damn twit.

(Actually, I haven't seen a Che Guevara iPod case, but I could probably make a fortune if I had them for sale. I could pull the same stunt as Apple; appearing all touchy feely, while, at the same time, behaving like a serial killer. Have you read the bottom of an iPod box lately? "Designed in California. Made in China." I wonder, what is Steve Jobs' position on the mobile death vans?)

Sure, drive the hybrid if you think it will accomplish some tactical goal---like saving money on gas---but as far as substantive activism... Uh... What if I offered to sell you a Che Guevara iPod case for $9.99?

All the hybrid does is drive down the cost of gas for the Hummer drivers. Think about it. It frees up more fuel for them to burn at their whim. So, go ahead, stick your dumb slogans on your Prius and keep pretending that you're doing something. The fact that there isn't a single, viable all-electric solution is proof that this entire catastrophe is a scam. But never mind that... The Matrix has you, hybrid or Hummer.

I'm looking at cheap electric scooters to ride to and from work. I want to save money on gas so I can get my land even faster. Do I think of myself as an activist for doing this? Hell no. The bottom line is that this thing is coming down. You will either be in an environment that is conducive to survival, or you won't. Put that in your activist pipe and smoke it.

I would say to use whatever technology you have at your disposal to speed the construction of an alternate reality for you and your family. Slapping another bumper sticker on your hybrid... Man, that's an even bigger waste of time than reading Cryptogon:

Lonnie Miller, director of analytical solutions for Polk, said federal and state tax credits for fuel-efficient vehicles have helped spur hybrid sales. More people also are buying into the idea that driving a hybrid is socially responsible.

"What's different about this than other types of vehicles is that hybrids are about what people want to give back and what they want to feel they're doing with their vehicles," Miller said.



Oil Tanker Fights Off Pirates :.

It's almost unbelievable how fragile the present system actually is. I wonder why al Quaeda, the Axis of Evil, and/or The Legion of Doom haven't pulled off something like this. Maybe the firehose defenses are too robust?

The crew of a Japanese oil tanker have used powerful fire hoses tofend off an attack by pirates in the Singapore Strait.

The International Maritime Bureau said pirates in seven fishing boats accosted the east-boundtanker near Indonesia's Karimun Islands on Tuesday afternoon -- the third attack on a Japanesevessel in three weeks in the busy shipping lane which carries more than a quarter of world trade.

Jayant Abhyankar, deputy director of the IMB said pirates from one of the boats steered closeto the Japanese vessel and attempted to board the tanker while the remaining six hoveredaround it.

But the small craft was beaten off by strong water jets from fire hoses used by the crew. Thetanker then increased speed and fled.

The centre could not confirm the total number of pirates or if they were armed, but said alltwenty-five crew members of the vessel were safe.

The Singapore and Indonesian coast guards have been alerted, said Abhyankar.

The watchdog has repeatedly warned of a "potential human and environmental catastrophe" ifan oil tanker is hijacked in the strategic sea lane.



Pope Benedict Vows New Battle for Souls :.

Keep an eye on your kids at all times. Don't let them out of your sight:

Pope Benedict pledged the Roman Catholic Church to a new push for converts on Monday on his first papal visit outside the Vatican to the shrine of Christianity's first missionary.

Fresh from a jubilant audience with German pilgrims that shed the stress of his election and inauguration, the Pope, 78, journeyed to the southern suburbs of Rome to pray at the 4th century Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

The church, the largest in Rome after St. Peter's Basilica, has associations with the theme of Christian unity.

The Pope, however, used his visit to the reputed burial place of St. Paul, the co-founder of the Church with St. Peter and its first evangelizer, to make clear he saw a pressing need to revitalize the quest to spread the Catholic message.

"This is a pilgrimage I very much desired to make ... a pilgrimage, so to speak, to the roots of the mission," the Pope, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said in his homily.

"The Church is by its very nature missionary, its first task is evangelization," he said. "At the start of the third millennium, the Church feels with renewed vigor that the missionary mandate from Christ is more current than ever."

Earlier in the day, Benedict seemed almost overcome by joy and a touch of stage fright as he strode down the aisle of the Paul VI audience hall through a crowd of several thousand German pilgrims who had made the trip to Rome for his inauguration.



Same as it Ever Was :.

Jeff does it again:

Secular modernity is a comfort to some, that dispells chthonic darkness and the superstition of our ancestors. But it's wafer thin, and just beneath it rests ages of living hermetic tradition transmitted by secret societies and elite orders from which are recruited future leaders for the cryptocracy. Aristocrats and their mystery religions remain with us, as does their inclination to regard the "herd" with utilitarian disdain.



Palestinian Farms Poisoned :.

The technical term for this is genocide:
(iv) Intentional starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival as well as the wilful impeding of relief supplies. The intentional starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is an act prohibited under Protocol I and II Additional to the Geneva Conventions; and impeding of relief supplies may result in starvation of civilians. UNHCR's own experiences demonstrate that in many modern-day conflicts the denial of humanitarian access to vulnerable populations is often intentional and used as an instrument of warfare. Such acts lead to grave suffering and, in certain situations, to the death of innocent civilians.
Unfortunately, Israel executes journalists and other investigators who attempt to look into these situations:

Amnesty International has called on Israel to investigate the deliberate contamination of Palestinian farmland - allegedly by Jewish settlers.

The human rights group said that toxic chemicals had been spread on fields in the Hebron region of the West Bank.

Farm animals had died and farmers had been forced to quarantine their flocks, the organisation said.

It also demanded that Israel put an end to "increasingly frequent" attacks on Palestinians by West Bank settlers.

"These poisoning incidents appear to be part of a deliberate attack on the livelihood of Palestinian farmers in the West Bank," said Kate Allen of Amnesty International UK.

"The Israeli authorities should mount a full investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice."

Rat Poison

The chemicals were spread on fields near the villages of Tuwani, Um Faggara and Kharruba in March and April, the group said.

Sheep, gazelle and other animals have been contaminated by the chemicals, and farmers livelihoods had been affected, the organisation said.

According to Amnesty, Israeli and Palestinian scientists who analysed the chemicals spread on the fields found two types of rat poison - one of which is banned in Israel.

Amnesty says that the Israeli authorities have made no attempt to remove the chemicals safely from the fields or to investigate the poisonings.



Human Liver Gene is Put Into Rice :.

Madness:

Scientists have begun mixing human genes with rice in an attempt to take genetically modified crops to the next level.

Researchers have inserted into rice a gene from the human liver that produces an enzyme which is good at breaking down harmful chemicals in the human body.

They hope the enzyme, CYP2B6, will do the same to herbicides and pollutants when combined with rice.

But anti-GM campaigners say using human genes will scare off consumers worried about cannibalism and the idea of scientists playing God.

Sue Mayer of GeneWatch UK said: 'I don't think anyone will want to buy this rice.

"People have already expressed disgust about using human genes and already feel that their concerns are being ignored by the bio-tech industry. This will just undermine their confidence even more."




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