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10/21/2006

"Conscious" Urban Consumers Lick Cheney's Toes, Call it a Revolution :.

Tired of frightening stories about genitically engineered pHood and weird toxins in mommy's breast milk? The Matrix doesn't just cater to your silly whims and fantasies. Enjoy some delicious and nutritious 'Organic' food from WalMart, Target or some other planet murdering corporation.

It's good, and good for you. Of course, Cheney gets a substantial cut, but never mind that:



Research Credit: Deconsumption



Won't You Be Our Neighbor? :.

This property is just a few minutes from where we are. It would be nice to get some more Cryptogonners in the area.

This land would be perfect for a small scale fruit and vegetable growing operation. You could sell your goods right from the little stand by the road (we've bought stuff from there before) and through the Bush Fairy Dairy, the organic food co-op a few hundred meters down the road.


10/20/2006

AUSTRALIA PLANS TO SHIP WATER... BY SHIP! :.

How much more absurd can this show get?

A FLEET of supertankers shipping in hundreds of millions of litres of water every week could be the solution to the drought threatening Australia's cities.

Ambitious plans are being developed to ship desperately needed water to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne from Tasmania, New Zealand or Papua New Guinea.

Proponents say it would cost a fraction of new dams, desalination plants or the pipeline between north Queensland and Brisbane being considered by the Beattie Government.

"This is how we have been shipping oil for years," said Robert Dane, chief executive officer of Solar Sailor, a company chaired by former prime minister Bob Hawke.

The firm is already in talks with the Tasmanian Government about buying fresh water from two sites near the coast in the north and west of the island – areas often soaked with rain. Much of it now runs off into the sea.

Solar Sailor is also in discussions with a firm which holds the right to water supplies in New Zealand.

The company is also investing tens of millions of dollars into developing electric-hybrid "Aquatankers" powered by solar wings which harvest energy from both sun and wind.



Rick Rescorla :.

This is a remarkable story, and a reminder to those who can see what's coming:

In 1992 Rescorla warned the Port Authority (owner of the World Trade Center) about the possibility of a truck bomb attack on the pillars in the basement parking garage, but was ignored. When Islamist terrorists [sic] used this method in the 1993 attack, Rescorla was instrumental in evacuating the building, and was literally the last man out. He and Dan Hill then prepared a report that warned of another attack, this time from a commercial aircraft crashing into the complex, but he was again ignored.

Rescorla recommended to his superiors at Morgan Stanley that the company leave Manhattan. Office space and labor costs were lower in New Jersey, and the firm's employees and equipment would be safer in a proposed four-story building. However, this recommendation was not followed as the company's lease at the World Trade Center did not terminate until 2006. At Rescorla's insistence, all employees, including senior executives, then practiced emergency evacuations every three months.



Who Is 'Any Person' in Tribunal Law? :.

Have no doubt about it, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 applies to Americans:

While it's true that some parts of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 target non-citizens, other sections clearly apply to U.S. citizens as well, putting citizens inside the same tribunal system with resident aliens and foreigners.

"Any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission," according to the law, passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in September and signed by Bush on Oct. 17.

"Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States ... shall be punished as a military commission ... may direct. ...

If the Times is correct that "this law does not apply to American citizens," why does it contain language referring to "any person" and then adding in an adjacent context a reference to people acting "in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States"?

Who has "an allegiance or duty to the United States" if not an American citizen? That provision would not presumably apply to Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda, nor would it apply generally to foreign citizens. This section of the law appears to be singling out American citizens.


Research Credit: anothernut



PROPOSAL: ALL TRAVEL TO AND FROM U.S. WOULD REQUIRE "CLEARANCE" FROM DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY :.

If you are planning on leaving the United States, you need to do it right now.

All fascist regimes restrict travel; that is, they prevent their citizens from escaping. So, it should come as no surprise that the U.S. Government now wants travelers to obtain "clearance" from the Department of Homeland Security before boarding any aircraft or vessel going to or from the U.S... Unless, of course, you're a mercenary or a spook involved with kidnapping and "rendering" people in undisclosed locations. Then you won't be subject to the new system.

Are you going to wait for the U.S. Government's Magic 8 Ball to approve your escape plans, or are you going to get the f*ck out of there before it's too late?

If you're not going to leave the U.S., expect internal passports to be required at some stage. Internal passports are another common "required for your safety" feature of fascist states:

Should you have to ask for permission from the government before you are allowed to get on a plane or cruise ship? ("Mother, may I?")

The USA Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed that airlines cruise lines, and operators of all other ships and planes -- including charter flights, air taxis, fishing vessels, etc. -- be required to get individual permission ("clearance") from the DHS for each passenger on all flights or ocean voyages to, from, or via the USA. Unless the answer is "Yes" -- if the answer is "no" or "maybe", or if the DHS doesn't answer at all -- the airline wouldn't be allowed to give you a boarding pass, or let you or your luggage on the plane.


More: Excerpts

From Regulatory Assessment for the proposed rulemaking - Passenger Manifests for Commercial Aircraft Arriving in and Departing from the United States; Passenger and Crew Manifests for Commercial Vessels Departing from the United States RIN 1651-AA62:
The recently enacted Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-458) requires that a notice of proposed rulemaking be issued to allow for predeparture vetting for aircraft passengers and cruise vessel passengers and crew. Under this proposed rule, CBP intends to modify the requirements for arriving and departing aircraft passengers and passengers and crew on board departing vessels such that that information is transmitted at least 60 minutes prior to departure. Alternatively, air carriers may adopt, in conjunction with CBP, APIS Quick Query (AQQ)---a system that allows the carriers to vet passengers individually during the check-in process. These changes will enhance the ability of CBP and other law enforcement agencies to plan and coordinate a more effective response to intercept high-risk individuals before boarding aircraft and before vessels depart.

...

The carrier will be able to transmit data as soon as passengers begin checking in for their flight, as early as 2 hours prior to departure and in some instances earlier. CBP will send a "board" or "no board" instruction within minutes of the carrier's transmission, and carriers will not issue a boarding pass to any passenger who has not been cleared for boarding. The carrier will confirm by electronic receipt a "no board" instruction. The carrier may then provide information to CBP about the questionable passenger to pursue clearance to board. CBP may resume the query and will reply to the carrier as soon as possible with either a confirmation or a correction. When there is not enough time for CBP to do so, however, the carrier will be bound by the "no board" instruction and may not issue a boarding pass for that passenger.
Research Credit: CF and ME



A Dangerous New Order :.

Once President Bush signed the new law on military tribunals, administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time giving Americans a taste of the new order created by this unconstitutional act.

Within hours, Justice Department lawyers notified the federal courts that they no longer had the authority to hear pending lawsuits filed by attorneys on behalf of inmates of the penal camp at Guantánamo Bay. They cited passages in the bill that suspend the fundamental principle of habeas corpus, making Mr. Bush the first president since the Civil War to take that undemocratic step.



Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Rumsfeld Is Inspired by God :.

It's not Jesus Camp, it's Jesus Death Camp:

The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.

"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.



Note on the Put Options on the Dow Diamonds

It appears that all of the out of the money put option activity that I've been following was related to hedging long equity positions. These options expired (valueless) at the close of trading today.



Asymmetric Warfare Tactics in Iraq :.

"You will kill 10 of our men, and we will kill one of yours, and in the end it will be you who will tire of it."

---Ho Chi Minh
I recently viewed the Iraqi insurgency's PSYOP piece on the Baghdad sniper known as Juba [CAUTION: Shows killing of multiple U.S. soldiers]. If you're curious about how asymmetric warfare is being used against the U.S. occupation in Iraq, this video makes it abundantly clear.

I want to avoid the hysteria and emotional blather that surrounds this video. Occupiers should expect to be targeted at will by people defending their country, no? Besides, Juba has just taken a few pages out of the various U.S. sniper playbooks.

What we are seeing is the tried and true method of removing a vastly more powerful occupier's tanks, troop carriers, air forces and navy by killing one soldier at a time. Notice how the sniper is content to kill just one U.S. soldier at a time, when he could easily kill more during the attacks? This is key to understanding why the U.S. has already lost the war in Iraq.

At the beginning of the real war, after Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" stunt, the insurgency tried to openly engage U.S. forces. The insurgents were slaughtered, cut down by the U.S. military's overwhelming firepower.

Oh what a difference a few years makes...

The insurgency has moved fully to asymmetric methods and is not only killing as many U.S. soldiers as ever, but is, more importantly, causing the U.S. political establishment to flinch. Even the masses of brain dead zombies who were behind this criminal war to begin with aren't so keen now. Juba knows that a slow and steady stream of U.S. corpses will win the race.

The U.S. may have the military capability to destroy the planet several times over, but a single man, with a Soviet era sniper rifle, can kill individual U.S. soldiers, like fish in a barrel, by the dozens, with impunity. Juba can't defeat the U.S. military, but his tactics will lead to the eventual withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq.

This is power of asymmetric warfare:

They have never seen Juba. They hear him, but by then it's too late: a shot rings out and another US soldier slumps dead or wounded.

There is never a follow-up shot, never a chance for US forces to identify the origin, to make the hunter the hunted. He fires once and vanishes.


Related: Even Bush Admits: Iraq Like Vietnam


10/19/2006

Dermot is Off to Canada :.

The great blogger exodus from the U.S. is expanding by the day!

Maybe there is a God. If so, thankee very muchee Lordy Lordy Hallelujah, for today I received notification that yours truly has qualified for a (WAIT FOR IT):
Drum-roll...
CANADIAN WORK PERMIT!!!
Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, it's off to New Brunswick I go,
I'll work all day
I'll get some pay
But I'll pay most of it in taxes for health care, eh?

...

As I'm an Irish national, I'm one presidential brain-fart away from having my left nut in a mangler. Is it likely that I'll be arrested and tortured? No. Is it possible? In a country where the Secret Service interrogates 14 year-old schoolgirls - hey - anything's possible.

"Anything's possible" used to be one of the good things about America. No more. I'm out of this open-air madhouse, and if you've any sense - you'll do the same.



Cryptogon Reader Signs Up for Hosting with Blue Host!

Cryptogon receives $65!

Thanks so much rasheedally.com!

Related: Hosting with Blue Host



FDA Is Set To Approve Milk, Meat From Clones :.

Meat and dairy Mengele lab. Yummy!

Three years after the Food and Drug Administration first hinted that it might permit the sale of milk and meat from cloned animals, prompting public reactions that ranged from curiosity to disgust, the agency is poised to endorse marketing of the mass-produced animals for public consumption.



Olbermann: Beginning of the End of America :.

Olbermann again unfurls in a chilling manner!

There must be some kind of major rift opening amongst the elite. Some of Them must realize that the wheels have come off the cart, and They're afraid. They didn't want that to happen.

Sure, bloggers can get on the Internet and we can toot our horns until the cows come home---as we've been doing. This is different. This is on the idiot box. The idiot box!

Again, I can't believe it:

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.


10/18/2006

Olbermann: The Day Habeas Corpus Died :.

I can't believe this ran over a mainstream, corporate news broadcast! I can't believe it...

Today, 135 years to the day after the last American President (Ulysses S. Grant) suspended habeas corpus, President Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006. At its worst, the legislation allows President Bush or Donald Rumsfeld to declare anyone --- US citizen or not --- an enemy combatant, lock them up and throw away the key without a chance to prove their innocence in a court of law. In other words, every thing the Founding Fathers fought the British empire to free themselves of was reversed and nullified with the stroke of a pen, all under the guise of the War on Terror.

More...

Turley: "People have no idea how significant this is. Really a time of shame this is for the American system. The strange thing is that we have become sort of constitutional couch potatoes. The Congress just gave the President despotic powers and you could hear the yawn across the country as people turned to Dancing With the Stars. It's otherworldly..People clearly don't realize what a fundamental change it is about who we are as a country. What happened today changed us. And I'm not too sure we're gonna change back anytime soon."

Related: Alternate Video Link



U.S. Military Vet Murders Girlfriend, Cooks Her Severed Body Parts, Jumps to His Death :.

What is happening to U.S. military veterans? Is it weird that Zachery Bowen and Addie Hall were featured in several news stories about the Katrina aftermath, and now this? Is it weird that this role playing game site lists an email address for a Zachery Bowen as Zachery@dont-explode.com? And is dont-explode.com some kind of spam related thing, or a numbers station?

A suicide note in the pocket of a man who jumped off the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel late Tuesday led police to the grisly scene of his girlfriend's murder, where they found her charred head in a pot on the stove, her legs and feet baked in the oven and the rest of her dismembered body in trash bag in the refrigerator, according to police and the couple's landlord.

The man, Zackery Bowen, a tall man in his mid 20s with long blond hair, claimed in the note to have killed his girlfriend, Adrian "Addie" Hall, on Oct. 5, according to police. Hall was also in her mid 20s.

In the five-page note, Bowen claimed he strangled Hall in the bathtub, then dismembered her body before taking it in pieces to the kitchen, police said. An autopsy conducted today shows that Hall was in fact manually strangled, police said. It also appears that Hall's body was cut up after she died, police said.

"He appeared to clean up the bathroom a lot after he did it," one officer said.

Police found the victim's head burned beyond recognition in a pot on top of the stove, and her legs and feet in the same condition in pans inside the oven, police said.

Bowen was from Los Angeles, but apparently had lived in the New Orleans area for quite a while, police said. Friends said he served in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan and displayed both pride and bitterness over that experience.


Related?: Four Fort Bragg Soldiers Kill Wives



The World Is not Enough: Neocons in Space :.

In many ways, it's sad that humanity is doomed. However, it's comforting to know that we're trapped here and that we will exterminate ourselves before we have a chance to destroy any other worlds:

President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone "hostile to U.S. interests."

The document, the first full revision of overall space policy in 10 years, emphasizes security issues, encourages private enterprise in space, and characterizes the role of U.S. space diplomacy largely in terms of persuading other nations to support U.S. policy.

"Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power," the policy asserts in its introduction.

National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said in written comments that an update was needed to "reflect the fact that space has become an even more important component of U.S. economic, national and homeland security." The military has become increasingly dependent on satellite communication and navigation, as have providers of cellphones, personal navigation devices and even ATMs.


Related: Kardashev Scale

Related: A Pale Blue Dot



Lack of Essential Oils, Violence, Mental Illness :.

Over the last century most western countries have undergone a dramatic shift in the composition of their diets in which the omega-3 fatty acids that are essential to the brain have been flooded out by competing omega-6 fatty acids, mainly from industrial oils such as soya, corn, and sunflower. In the US, for example, soya oil accounted for only 0.02% of all calories available in 1909, but by 2000 it accounted for 20%. Americans have gone from eating a fraction of an ounce of soya oil a year to downing 25lbs (11.3kg) per person per year in that period. In the UK, omega-6 fats from oils such as soya, corn, and sunflower accounted for 1% of energy supply in the early 1960s, but by 2000 they were nearly 5%. These omega-6 fatty acids come mainly from industrial frying for takeaways, ready meals and snack foods such as crisps, chips, biscuits, ice-creams and from margarine. Alcohol, meanwhile, depletes omega-3s from the brain.



Israel's New Secret Weapon :.

Doctors in Gaza have reported previously unseen injuries from Israeli weapons that cause severe burning and deep internal wounds often resulting in amputations or death.

The injuries were first seen in July, when the Israeli military launched a series of operations in Gaza following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants.

Doctors said that, unlike traditional combat injuries from shells or bullets, there were no large shrapnel pieces found in the patients' bodies and there appeared to be a "dusting" on severely damaged internal organs.


10/17/2006

FM 30-31B :.

Do you get it yet?

"US army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations which will convince Host Country Governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger."

Research Credit: Rigorous Intuition



NEXT MAJOR SECURITY THREAT: DISAFFECTED AMERICANS USING INTERNET :.

Lots of us have seen this coming for a very long time and none of it is surprising in the least. That doesn't make it any less frightening.

Additionally, there is a 100% chance that "radical ideologies" will come to include small scale organic food production and livestock ownership. If you think you are going to quietly "disappear into the hills" somewhere in the U.S., you must be clear about one thing: They are eventually going to come for you. Only you can decide how to respond when that happens.

I've said it a few times and I'll say it again: I'll continue to broadcast for as long as possible, know that there will be pockets of survivors and hope that they don't make the same mistakes we did. But I want to add something else this time: My ability to update Cryptogon could be eliminated without warning. It is now publicly acknowledged that the American military is engaging what it considers to be hostile information sources. Those idiots know better than to try to argue the finer points of their false flag terror BS and torture strategies with me. They may, instead, just pull the plug. While I don't know what the likelihood is of that eventuality, with an entity as powerful as the American Corporate State, anything is possible.

My guess is that the mass roundups of people will begin immediately following the next false flag operation inside the U.S. Speaking out after 9/11 has only made it easier for the fascists to identify those who need to be rounded up. Again, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Back in 1995, the few of us who studied information warfare read this in a Pentagon document:
The Internet could also be used offensively as an additional medium in psychological operations campaigns and to help achieve unconventional warfare objectives. Used creatively as an integral asset, the Internet can facilitate many DoD operations and activities.
Those of us who came out of the woodwork to say everything we've been saying over the past several years have succeeded only in painting bulls' eyes on our chests. Now they know who we are. And, more importantly, they know who you are; the thought criminals who read sites like Cryptogon. With this latest news, it's clear that the U.S. wants to start actively using the intelligence they're gleaning from the biggest honey pot of them all to take down critics of the regime. See China.

My advice to all Cryptogon readers is to stop reading Cryptogon (and similar sites) from Internet connections that are attributable to you. This means connections from work, connections that you pay for and even some free connections such as those provided by libraries. This may or may not buy you more time to get out, but it can't hurt. If you haven't sent email to me in the past, don't start now. They are almost certainly building relational databases/proximity charts (like this, but different) out of the email traffic. The name of the game in the post Military Commissions Act of 2006 world is fake trials, fake evidence, confessions under torture, hearsay and guilt by association. It's all in play now. The ugly, Darkness at Noon style endgame. And just wait until the dust settles after the next false flag operation...

This isn't paranoia, tin foil hat stuff, people. They're letting everyone know. They're saying it on the record: If you disagree with this regime, we're coming to get you!

One final thing, the article below uses the phrase, intelligence fusion centers. Last year, Cryptogon was visited by a machine that I traced back to something called fusion.mil. I have not been able to determine what fusion.mil is. There's a subdomain on the Defense Technical Information Center called horizontalfusion.dtic.mil. Is it related? Who knows? But if you dare, check out the FAQ at http://horizontalfusion.dtic.mil/faq/ and then read the story below about the next major U.S. security threat:

BOSTON (Reuters) - Disaffected people living in the United States may develop radical ideologies and potentially violent skills over the Internet and that could present the next major U.S. security threat, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Monday.

"We now have a capability of someone to radicalize themselves over the Internet," Chertoff said on the sidelines of a meeting of International Association of the Chiefs of Police.

...

To help gather intelligence on possible home-grown attackers, Chertoff said Homeland Security would deploy 20 field agents this fiscal year into "intelligence fusion centers," where they would work with local police agencies.

By the end of the next fiscal year, he said the department aims to up that to 35 staffers.



BREAKING: NORTH KOREA PLANS SERIES OF NUCLEAR TESTS

Brace for impact:

[IFR Forex Watch][SQUAWK BOX][00:00 NEWS: No.Korea Plans Series Of Nuclear Tests - NBC]

Tokyo, Oct 18. Also over Reuters. North Korea has informed China that it intends to continue to conduct nuclear tests.



Ex-FDA Chief Pleads Guilty in Stock Case :.

Imagine my shock!

Former FDA commissioner Lester Crawford pleaded guilty Tuesday to conflict of interest and falsely reporting information about stocks he owned in food, beverage and medical device companies he was in charge of regulating.

Crawford appeared before U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson and admitted falsely reporting that he had sold the stock when he continued holding shares in the firms governed by FDA rules.

The charges -- conflict of interest and false reporting -- are misdemeanors and each carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison. Robinson set Crawford's sentencing for January 22.

"This was my fault, no one else's," Crawford told reporters after his court appearance.

As head of the Food and Drug Administration, Crawford oversaw regulation of products that account for an estimated 25 cents of every dollar spent each year by U.S. consumers.

At the same time, Crawford, through his broker, oversaw an investment portfolio that included tens of thousands of dollars in shares in PepsiCo Inc., Sysco Corp., Kimberly-Clark Corp. and other companies that posed a conflict between his personal finances and his responsibilities as head of the federal agency.

Federal regulations prohibited Crawford from owning shares in companies considered to be "significantly regulated" by the FDA.

Crawford, a veterinarian and food-safety expert, abruptly resigned from the FDA position in September 2005 but gave no reason for leaving. He had held the job for two months, following his confirmation by the Senate and had been acting head of the agency for more than a year.

Crawford currently works for Policy Directions Inc., a Washington lobbying firm.



Judge Vacates Conviction of Ken Lay :.

Enron is starting to make BCCI look like a Sunday School session. Researchers will be picking over the bones of this thing for years to come.

And Pappy Bush rides off into the sunset once again:

A federal judge Tuesday vacated the conviction of Enron's late founder Kenneth Lay, wiping out a jury's verdict that he committed fraud and conspiracy in one of the biggest corporate frauds in U.S. history.

Lay was convicted of 10 counts of fraud, conspiracy and lying to banks in two separate cases on May 25. Enron's collapse in 2001 wiped out thousands of jobs, more than $60 billion in market value and more than $2 billion in pension plans.

Lay died of heart disease July 5 while vacationing with his wife, Linda, in Aspen, Colo.

U.S. District Judge Sim Lake, in a ruling Tuesday, agreed with Lay's lawyers that his death required erasing his convictions. They cited a 2004 ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found that a defendant's death pending appeal extinguished his entire case because he hadn't had a full opportunity to challenge the conviction and the government shouldn't be able to punish a dead defendant or his estate.

Tuesday's ruling thwarts the government's bid to seek $43.5 million in ill-gotten gains prosecutors allege he pocketed by participating in Enron's fraud. The government could still pursue those gains in civil court, but they would have to compete with other litigants, if any, also pursuing Lay's estate.



Bank of Japan to Increase Monitoring of Carry Trades :.

I watched this unwind in the FOREX markets today and it was incredible. This rattled several currency pairs. Is a significant source of funds needed to keep the global ponzi scheme going about to dry up? The Bank of Japan is, "proceeding cautiously." Well, there you have it:

NEW YORK, Oct 17 (Reuters) - The Bank of Japan plans to beef up monitoring of "carry trades," and is concerned about how hedge funds and other investors are helping push down the yen, the Nihon Keizai newspaper reported.

Japan's leading business daily said in its Wednesday edition that the BOJ was concerned about a trend in which investors are borrowing funds cheaply in Japan to invest in higher-yielding assets overseas.

The central bank is proceeding cautiously though, and is aware that suddenly eliminating such trades through actions such as further interest rate rises may destabilize markets, the Nikkei said without citing sources.



Unholy Trinity Set to Drag Us Into the Abyss :.

We are about to experience the convergence of three of the great issues confronting humanity. Climate change, the peaking of oil supply and water shortage are coming together in a manner which will profoundly alter our way of life, our institutions and our ability to prosper on this planet. Each is a major issue, but their convergence has received minimal attention.



Why Is Bush Waiting On Military Commissions Act? :.

The big question at the moment is why Bush has delayed signing the legislation even in the midst of fast-tracking other bills of little significance?

It was reported by the Washington Post over the weekend that Bush and Karl Rove are "inexplicably upbeat" about the upcoming midterm elections and expected the Democrats to easily fall short of the 15-seat threshold that would see them recapture the House.

In the face of scandals piled atop scandals and the universal unpopularity of the ongoing quagmire in Iraq, how on earth can Bush and Rove expect to employ successful damage limitation, absent some intervening event or the "October surprise" that Rove himself promised.

The arrogance of the Neo-Cons has led many to fear that HR 6166 is being maintained in a holding position in anticipation of a major event that will give the Bush administration carte blanche to expand its provisions and sharpen its focus to further target American citizens.



Only 16% of Americans Think the Government is Telling the Truth About 9/11 :.

No "They did it" option?

Many adults in the United States believe the current federal government has not been completely forthcoming on the issue of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to a poll by the New York Times and CBS News. 53 per cent of respondents think the Bush administration is hiding something, and 28 per cent believe it is lying.

Only 16 per cent of respondents say the government headed by U.S. president George W. Bush is telling the truth on what it knew prior to the terrorist attacks, down five points since May 2002.



Housing Slowdown Creating 'Ghost Towns' :.

Stucco box nightmare:

The housing slowdown has turned some parts of the Phoenix and Las Vegas metropolitan areas into "ghost towns," where many unsold homes stand empty, Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, said Monday.

Yellen said that she heard the ominous description from a "major home builder," who told her that the share of unsold homes in some subdivisions around the two Southwestern cities has topped 80%.



Police Want Spy Planes to Fight Anti-Social Behaviour :.

A police force is considering using unmanned aerial surveillance drones to fly over troubled local council housing estates to help tackle anti-social behaviour in respective areas.

The police force for Merseyside, in western England, has formed a new Anti-Social Behaviour Task Force which will have a budget of one million pounds (1.85 million dollars, 1.5 million euros), and a staff of 137, drawn from both the local police and fire services, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

"It's a cheap way of doing aerial surveillance, it's a cheap way of doing intelligence and evidence gathering. Put over an anti-social behaviour hotspot, it is quite a significant percentage cheaper than the force helicopter," said Superintendent John Myles, the joint-head of the task force.


10/16/2006

BREAKING ON FOREX WIRE: NORTH KOREA MAY TEST ANOTHER NUCLEAR WEAPON

UPDATE: Diamond Put Options

I just checked the action on the out of the money put options on the Diamonds from today's session. It gapped from 12X the previous day to 19X the number of out of the money puts to calls today.

It's only tinfoil if you're on the outside. If you're on the inside, it's just business.

- - - - -

This is off a real-time news wire for FOREX trading, so there's no link. Look to the big mainstream news sites for further as this unfolds:

[IFR Forex Watch][SQUAWK BOX]

ABC news reporting that North Korea may be about to test another nuclear device. Truck and troop movements are being observed near the site of the previous test, and this is seen giving rise to talk of another blast.


10/15/2006

Airport to Tag Passengers :.

Do you get it yet?

Airport security chiefs and efficiency geeks will be able to keep close tabs on airport passengers by tagging them with a high powered radio chip developed at the University of Central London.

The technology is to be trialled in Debrecen Airport in Hungary after being in development for two-and-a-half years by University College London as part of an EU-funded consortium called Optag.

...

People will be told to wear radio tags round their necks when they get to the airport. The tag would notify a computer system of their identity and whereabouts. The system would then track their activities in the airport using a network of high definition cameras.



White House Upbeat About GOP Prospects :.

With the spineless Democrats, who needs people to vote for Republicans? Or, Diebold electronic voting machines. The choice is yours! Can you feel the Democracy!?

I'm still watching the options on the Diamonds, by the way. It's running about 14X the number of puts vs. calls:

Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove.



Northland Power Outage :.

It's amazing how fragile the power infrastructure is here in Northland, New Zealand. All of the power for the region is supplied over a single transmission line. Yesterday, some boneheads at a rock quarry lit off some explosives that threw rocks and debris into... yes... that power line.

By some miracle, the power didn't drop immediately. The company that runs the thing kept it operational, but told everyone that the juice would be cut at 7am the following day.

So we had a day without power. Becky and I hardly noticed because we were working outside. Here's the interesting thing. Generators were sold out in Kaitaia (the small town up here). Rental units were snapped up as well.

This was for one day without electricity...

Man, it's going to get weird as we head into global powerdown:

Power has been restored to around 10,000 customers in the Far North.

Electricity was cut off at 7am on Sunday morning to allow Transpower to repair cabling damaged by rock blasting at a local quarry on Friday.

The repairs were expected to take until 7pm, but Transpower's Chris Roberts says repairing the damage took less time than expected and the fault was fixed by about 2.30pm.

He says everyone was well aware the outage was a major inconvenience to people in the region and the contractors have done a fantastic job.

The transmission line is the only power supply into the Far North and had to be removed from service to allow wires damaged on Friday to be replaced. Local lines company Top Energy said the affected area was north of a line from the Mangamuka Ranges, Hokianga and Taupo Bay.




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