Every time we buy something made in China we support evil... Try NOT buying things made in China:

China has been accused of blocking access to Google News by the media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders.

The Paris-based pressure group said the English-language news site had been unavailable for the past 10 days.

It said the aim was to force people to use a Chinese edition of the site which, according to the watchdog, does not include critical reports.
posted by Kevin at 11:22 PM

The federal government is considering the creation of a national database to collect information and track the progress of every college student in the country, triggering criticism from education and civil liberties advocates worried that it would amount to a loss of privacy for millions of Americans.

"An incredible potential exists for confidential information being used inappropriately" under the proposal, said Sarah Flanagan, vice president for government relations at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "There is a Big Brother aspect of all of this that concerns us."
posted by Kevin at 11:14 PM

To combat the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy, U.S. citizens have been forced to unearth new sources for information they once read in their daily newspapers. But thanks to a few dedicated individuals and not-for-profit groups---and the Internet---such material is easier to come by than ever before.

So is nonsense and propaganda... Stay vigilant.
posted by Kevin at 6:42 PM

If the mainstream media starts taking the U.S. election fraud situation seriously, brother, you better be ready. In a banking crisis, the government will move to stop a mass exodus out of dollars. Well, if you want to see how it could go, substitute the word Ukraine for U.S. in the following story:

Angry pensioners in eastern Ukraine jostled for a place in line to a bank Tuesday as a crisis over a bitterly disputed presidential election spilled into the financial sector.

"If only they would let me withdraw at least 1,000 hryvnas (190 dollars)," said 76-year-old Yulia Kopran, one of thousands of Ukrainians who have rushed to convert their hryvnas into foreign currency over the past few days.

The run on bank deposits was sparked by a crisis that followed a November 21 runoff presidential vote, including mass opposition demonstrations and threats of separatism by southeastern regions.

"This is an artificially created problem, it's the political instability that is making people do this," said Irina Panaseyko, chief accountant of the Ukrainsky Biznes Bank in Donetsk.

The rush to buy up dollars and euros prompted the central bank Tuesday to impose limits on purchases of foreign currency, barring individuals from buying more than 1,000 dollars at a single location.

"If individuals want to buy more than 1,000 dollars (755 euros) they have to wait until the next day," a spokeswoman said, but added that people could visit several exchange booths and change 1,000 dollars each time.

Meanwhile currency exchange booths throughout the city of Donetsk had stopped selling foreign currency and many of the city's bank machines had "out of order" signs taped to their windows.

Related: Need an E-Gold Account?
posted by Kevin at 5:03 PM

The collapse will be delicious:

The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, says its inventory of stock produced in China is expected to hit US$18 billion this year, keeping the annual growth rate of over 20 per cent consistent over two years.

The trend is expected to continue, company officials revealed.

"We expect our procurement stock from China to continue to grow at a similar rate in line with Wal-Mart's growth worldwide, if not faster," said Lee Scott, the president and CEO (chief executive officer) of Wal-Mart.

An unnamed company official also stated the firm will extend its procurement base from South China's Pearl River Delta to the North and East China in the coming few years.

A market rumour says the retailer has its eyes on a 340,000-square metre warehouse at a logistics garden of the Shanghai Waigaoqiao Bonded Area.
posted by Kevin at 4:56 PM

A large portion of the United States' milk and lettuce supply may be contaminated with potentially unsafe levels of a toxic chemical used in rocket fuel, according to data released by the Food and Drug Administration on Monday.

The data, part of a preliminary survey of milk and lettuce in 15 states, revealed perchlorate contamination in nearly 94 percent of reviewed samples. The results echo earlier findings by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that issued a warning about perchlorate contamination in California-produced milk in June.

"The study confirms what we and some other people have been saying for a while -- that perchlorate is not only a problem in areas with known water contamination but for anyone who eats food grown in the U.S.," said Bill Walker, vice president of the Environmental Working Group's West Coast operations.
posted by Kevin at 4:49 PM

Firefox users should notice the Live Bookmark icon on the bottom right corner of the browser window.

Read about Live Bookmark support in Firefox. WOW! Cool stuff.

A note on browsers:

Just a couple of years ago, Microsoft Internet Explorer accounted for 97% of traffic on Cryptogon. Today, it's down to 66%. Mozilla class browsers now represent nearly 20% of the traffic, up from about 2%! I like this trend.

I've been using Firefox for a while and I love it. It's mature, fast and packed with so many features that IE looks like a child's toy in comparison. Then there are the security issues associated with IE... * doh! * Anyway, check out Firefox if you're ready for the best browsing experience possible.
posted by Kevin at 5:04 AM

You're not going to believe this one!

EPA scientists and environmentalists said the two-year study, with $2 million in backing from a chemical makers' trade group, might encourage poor families to use more pesticides. Families that participated were to get $970 each plus a camcorder and children's clothes.
posted by Kevin at 3:07 AM

Is it a coincidence that US puppet Allawi is calling for the death penalty to be administered to the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) Sunni clerics who oppose elections, while, at the same time two of these clerics have been gunned down by unknown forces? This coincidence seems to be more intentional than coincidental. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turns out that these two men were killed by death squads employed by the US and its client government in Baghdad. John Negroponte, the current US ambassador to Iraq, organized such death squads while he was the ambassador to Honduras during the US wars in Central America and was quite successful at the endeavor. It is not a real stretch of the imagination to assume that he and his employer are up to the same thing in Iraq.
posted by Kevin at 3:02 AM

With the prospect of continued fighting in Iraq, the Marine Corps is offering bonuses of up to $30,000 - in some cases tax-free - to persuade enlisted personnel with combat experience and training to reenlist.
posted by Kevin at 2:58 AM

A third or more of the government property Halliburton was paid to manage for the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq could not be located by auditors, investigative reports to Congress show.

Bowen’s findings mark the latest bad news for Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company, which is the focus of both a criminal investigation into alleged fuel price gouging and an FBI inquiry into possible favouritism from the Bush administration.

FBI agents have extensively interviewed an Army contracting officer who last month went public with allegations that the Bush administration was improperly awarding contracts to Halliburton without competitive bidding.

Halliburton and the Pentagon deny wrongdoing, and say they are co-operating in all investigations.
posted by Kevin at 2:56 AM

The new law, officially called the DNA Fingerprint, Unsolved Crime and Innocence Protection Act, is expected to add the genetic data of 1 million people to California's databank over the five years, making it the largest state-run DNA databank in the country.

The law, approved by 62 percent of the state's voters in the Nov. 2 election, allows police to take DNA samples from every adult and juvenile convicted of a felony and from all adults arrested for specific felonies such as sexual assault and murder. In 2009, the law will be broadened to enable police to gather DNA data from anyone arrested for any felony -- ranging from residential burglary to murder -- whether or not they are ever charged or convicted with a crime.
posted by Kevin at 2:54 AM

A DOSSIER giving sickening new details of alleged abuse suffered by Army recruits at the notorious Deepcut training centre emerged yesterday.

A leaked police file lists 173 accusations of horrifying acts ranging from gang rape and sexual humiliation to racial bullying and beatings.
posted by Kevin at 1:45 AM

Put that in your hummer and smoke it:

Experimental study of glow discharge in light water with W electrodes
posted by Kevin at 6:24 PM

CIA 2004 = NSA 1985?

As part of the effort to keep America secure from future acts of violence, the U.S. is looking at monitoring Internet chat rooms to identify potential terrorists.

According to CNET News.com, the CIA is quietly funding research into surveillance of online discussion halls.

In April 2003, the intelligence agency reportedly agreed to finance a series of research projects that newly disclosed government documents indicate were intended to create "new capabilities to combat terrorism through advanced technology."

One of the projects at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., centers on profiling the behavior of those who talk in chat rooms.

The money is said to come from the National Science Foundation, but the CIA was part of the process for choosing which parties would receive the research grants.
posted by Kevin at 6:15 PM

The idiot Left is finally starting to get it:

Go to JohnKerry.com and you will find absolutely nothing about the mounting evidence of vote fraud- why? There is no mention of the official voting receipts found in the garbage, or about the vote suppression in Ohio, or about the GAO starting an investigation into the 57,000 reported cased of voting ’irregularities’ nationwide. 13 Members of Congress have asked for an investigation into the voting problems, heaven forbid JohnKerry.com mention that. Why is it that VoteNader.com and VoteCobb.org both address the voting problems right on the front page, but the Democratic ticket of Kerry and Edwards won’t address the issue at all?
posted by Kevin at 6:11 PM

Rise of the machines:

Boeing developers say a robotic airplane called Scan-Eagle has done more than a thousand hours of intelligence and reconnaissance work for the Marines in Iraq.
The unmanned aircraft was developed and built by the St. Louis-based defense unit of Boeing Co. and the Washington-based Insitu Group.

Boeing officials said they could not comment on specific Scan-Eagle missions. But they spoke generally of its use.

It travels above insurgent positions and sends real-time video images to Marines on the ground. The unmanned craft can relay facial expressions on enemy soldiers. It can transmit in such detail that it shows steam rising from their coffee.

Boeing officials say the four-foot-long aircraft has a ten-foot wingspan and can fly up to 15 hours at a time on less than two gallons of fuel.
posted by Kevin at 6:08 PM

Of all the revelations that have rocked the Israeli army over the past week, perhaps none disturbed the public so much as the video footage of soldiers forcing a Palestinian man to play his violin.

The incident was not as shocking as the recording of an Israeli officer pumping the body of a 13-year-old girl full of bullets and then saying he would have shot her even if she had been three years old.

Nor was it as nauseating as the pictures in an Israeli newspaper of ultra-orthodox soldiers mocking Palestinian corpses by impaling a man's head on a pole and sticking a cigarette in his mouth.

But the matter of the violin touched on something deeper about the way Israelis see themselves, and their conflict with the Palestinians.

The violinist, Wissam Tayem, was on his way to a music lesson near Nablus when he said an Israeli officer ordered him to "play something sad" while soldiers made fun of him. After several minutes, he was told he could pass.
posted by Kevin at 6:46 AM

I commented on an incident that occurred back in May that might be related to this. You may wish to check that out before continuing.

Thieves strolled into a Verizon datacenter in White Plains, NY and removed 150 network interface cards from equipment kept in the heavily guarded facility.

Oh sure...

I wrote the following back in May:

It would be impossible to enter/exit the rackspace in a datacenter like this without passing through (probably armed) security guards, keyscanners and maybe even biometric access control measures. Security cameras would be everywhere... In other words, it shouldn't be a mystery as to who was in the "cage" where these DS-3 units were located at the time of the outage.

Are you with me so far?

Now, consider what the Verizon spokesman said about the latest incident:

Dan Diaz Zapata, a spokesman for Verizon, said the building had many levels of security - from video cameras to security badges to on-site guards - and that the company was cooperating with local and federal authorities.

How did a couple of guys manage to stroll into a facility like this AND remove 150 carrier class network interface cards from caged and locked client rackspace?

Brother, something stinks!

THERE IS NO WAY THIS IS A SIMPLE BURGLARY CASE! I'm sorry. It's impossible. All I can tell you is that something very weird happened here. The left hand wasn't communicating with the right hand and these guys got busted. It's kinda like when $30 million worth of cocaine gets discovered on a Walmart truck, or Italian Customs intercepts an illegal shipment of 8,000 AK-47s headed to private U.S. company, or George Bush Senior's plane crashes immediately before he was supposed to board the thing. The media reports this stuff like it's everyday news---nothing to see here, move along---and then it just disappears. (The Cryptogon archives are packed with stories like this.)

These are glitches in the Matrix. We are catching fleeting glimpses of events that are so far outside the realm of "normal news" that we can't even begin to imagine the puzzle within which the pieces fit. All we can do is pay attention when veil between worlds becomes thin and make the connections when we can.

If anyone has experience with carrier class network interface hardware, I'd like to know just how anonymous this stuff is. My guess is NOT VERY ANONYMOUS. Some unnamed, bullshit source in the story said, "There apparently is a strong, robust black market for this stuff."

Apparently. Imagine that!

Or, apparently, the burglary story was the quickest thing the spook perception management team could come up with on short notice. Come on guys, how stupid do you think we are? This is a lie that is feeble at best. Are you drunk when you write this nonsense?

Ever hear the one about the "renegade" NSC officer who went around to wealthy "patriotic" Americans and asked permission to steal their aircraft for U.S. covert operations? We'll steal it, and then you can file a claim with the insurance company. *wink* *blink* *nod* God Bless America!

Never heard that one, eh? The "renegade" NSC officer was Col. Oliver North. And in order for the Contra/Cocaine operations to get off the ground (no pun intended), Ollie and the boys needed some aircraft. Also remember that when a covert op gets too big, the spooks need to bring in increasingly older, drunker and/or less competent contractors in order to get to job done. Eugene Hasenfus looked pretty stupid being perp walked through the jungle... As Bush was talking about how NO Americans were involved with the nastiness in Nicaragua. The point, for our purposes, is that these things sometimes blow up in the Their faces. See Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed.

Ponder on that one the next time the New York Times tries to convince you that a couple of guys bypassed multiple layers of high security in a Verizon datacenter and then nearly sauntered off with $1 million plus worth of carrier class networking gear. (At least it wasn't Hasenfus. He's been busy with other matters.)

If I had to guess, I'd say these "thefts" are probably related to some sort of Internet related terror attack that is nearing operational readiness. Consider the Federal Reserve's recent move to a packet switched (Internet) system and the decline of the dollar... Maybe the next "big" one will be the excuse for "The" financial collapse. The Big One. Who will have time to think about that national debt closing in on $8 trillion if terrorists wreck the financial system with a cyberwar attack? Hmm.

I don't want to get into how the hardware in question might be used in such an attack (mentioning offensive cyberwar techniques will result in a door knock from the feds), but it's not difficult to see the angles.

I've included the entire NY Times story below because the entire matter will disappear soon:

A Burglary Foiled by Calls That Didn't Reach 911
By MARC SANTORA

Published: November 27, 2004

The plan seemed simple enough. The building had been cased and the burglars knew exactly what they wanted - advanced computer circuit panels that could be sold on the black market for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The night before Thanksgiving, about 8 p.m., they entered the Verizon building in White Plains undetected and set to work.

But as the criminals removed the panels, they soon triggered problems across Westchester County. Most problematic, 911 systems across the region began to crash. By the time some 150 panels were removed, roughly 25,000 people had lost 911 service.

At 9:51 p.m., the White Plains Police received a call alerting them to the fact that there might be a problem at the Verizon building. Still unaware that burglars were at work inside, a patrol car rolled up to the site, according to Inspector Daniel Jackson.

"Literally, the two guys were walking out the door," Mr. Jackson said. They were carrying two large boxes when the officer shouted for them to stop. The men dropped the stolen boxes, fled on foot and were eventually run down by the officer and arrested, Mr. Jackson said.

The two men were identified in a criminal complaint as Larry D. Davis, 43, of Brooklyn, and Gailican Phillips, 34 of Manhattan.

They have been charged with conspiracy to commit interstate shipment of stolen property, a federal crime with a maximum sentence of five years in jail, according to the complaint.

Mr. Jackson said that the burglary itself was not as disturbing as the widespread effect it had on the 911 system.

The police are working with the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security on the case. Terrorism has been ruled out as a possible motive.

Although the burglary occurred in the Verizon building, the stolen equipment belonged to some half-dozen other telecommunications companies that use the premises to house part of their operations. No Verizon customers were affected, a company official said.

Dan Diaz Zapata, a spokesman for Verizon, said the building had many levels of security - from video cameras to security badges to on-site guards - and that the company was cooperating with local and federal authorities. Mr. Zapata said that Verizon had redundancy capabilities built into its system that would have prevented a theft of their own equipment from having such a wide impact.

Mr. Jackson said that there had been a theft at the building once before, in 2003, and the police had reason to believe one of the two men involved Wednesday also took part in that operation. He would not elaborate on other details in that case. However, much less was stolen then.

According to the complaint filed in Southern District of New York, the circuit boards ranged in value from $5,000 to $70,000 each and, all told, were worth in excess of $1 million. The plan was to deliver them to an unnamed co-conspirator who, in turn, planned to sell them to an unnamed company in California, according to the complaint.

"There apparently is a strong, robust black market for this stuff," said a federal law enforcement official, who insisted on anonymity for fear of saying something that would compromise the investigation.

There have been two other similar burglaries in New York City and New Jersey in recent years, according to Mr. Jackson. Those thefts were much smaller in scale.

National Infrastructure Coordination Center of the Department of Homeland Security is also working with local police because of concern that the 911 system could be relatively easily compromised.

After arresting the two men and photographing the stolen circuit panels, the police returned them to the companies that owned them. Once reinstalled, the 911 problems ended, and by 7 a.m. the system was back to normal, Mr. Jackson said.

Police said the panels that were stolen were each about the size of a legal pad and are used by telecommunications companies to transmit data and connect calls. There is an industry standard for the panels and they can easily be transferred from one computer to another.

Potential buyers of the panels on the black market range from small telecommunications companies to overseas clients, the police said.
posted by Kevin at 6:05 AM

A Cryptogon reader signed up for an E-Gold account through Cryptogon. E-Gold will pay me a few specs of gold based on the normal fees associated with the account. Thanks!
posted by Kevin at 3:42 AM

Don't squash that bug! Cockroaches, beetles, spiders and worms may be the U.S. government's next line of defense in the war on terror.

Backed by the Pentagon, scientists are recruiting insects, shellfish, bacteria and even weeds to act as "bio-sentinels," which give early warning of biological and chemical attacks, detect explosives or monitor the spread of contamination.

At Virginia Commonwealth University, biologist Karen Kester uses bugs as "flying, crawling Q-Tips" that can check their habitats for noxious materials from anthrax to chemicals more thoroughly, cheaply, and reliably than man-made sensors.

"You look at what these animals have picked up or ingested while going about their day-to-day activities," said Kester, whose work is funded by a million-dollar grant from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. The exact details of the funding were not disclosed.

Research Credit: AM, AL
posted by Kevin at 5:46 AM

The U.S. borrows money from Japan and China to pay for this:

An Israeli army officer who repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza dismissed a warning from another soldier that she was a child by saying he would have killed her even if she was three years old.

The officer, identified by the army only as Captain R, was charged this week with illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and other relatively minor infractions after emptying all 10 bullets from his gun's magazine into Iman al-Hams when she walked into a "security area" on the edge of Rafah refugee camp last month.
posted by Kevin at 3:07 AM

People who think this is an investment in physical metal are mistaken:

Given GLD’s recent launch, I was therefore interested to learn from its prospectus how GLD had been changed to provide the necessary assurances of integrity that the fund’s gold bullion assets really exist. More specifically, I was interested to learn how the WGC had improved the custodial controls so that GLD met the same standard that the SEC applies to other mutual funds. The answer came quickly. It didn’t.

Even before starting the prospectus, I downloaded the 2-page fact sheet from http://www.streettracksgoldshares.com, and there on the first line was an eye-opener laying out the essential nature of GLD: “Objective: Designed to track the price of gold”.

Its objective is not to provide investors with the opportunity to own gold bullion by investing in the shares of an ETF. Rather, GLD is designed to track the price of gold. That objective is no different than what is accomplished by a gold futures contract or any of the dozens of numerous gold derivatives available these days. More to the point, futures and derivatives are sold even if the seller does not own the underlying gold bullion needed to deliver on its obligation. They are in practice fractional reserve systems, which allow liabilities for gold to far exceed the quantity of gold owned by the seller of that liability.

Notwithstanding the numerous news accounts that described GLD as a means of investing in gold bullion, GLD cannot be accused of false advertising. Based just on their 2-page fact sheet, the WGC has by its own description created a security which has been designed to bet on the price of gold, not to enable investors to own physical gold bullion. My subsequent reading of the prospectus confirmed this conclusion because on the face of it, the weaknesses I identified in my December 2003 article have not been corrected. GLD has the same loose custodial controls described in the early draft prospectus.
posted by Kevin at 10:30 PM

Were the Them trying to make a point about the theft of the election? I have been speculating privately that Bush and the Gang have gone completely off the reservation with this election theft... Draw your own conclusions:

Washington, Nov. 23 (NNN) : A private jet has crashed in the US state of Texas on its way to pick up former US President George HW Bush, killing all three people on board.

The Gulfstream G-1159A plane went down on Monday morning after clipping a light tower in thick fog on the approaches to Houston airport.

Bush, 80, was planning to travel to Ecuador to speak to business leaders, but has now cancelled the trip. He said he was saddened by the deaths of the crew, whom he knew well.

Bush, who is the father of current US President George W Bush, is a resident of Houston.

The jet, owned by a charter firm in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was on its way from Love Field in Dallas. It hit a light tower on a main road in Houston at around 0615 local time 2.5km from the airport.

The aircraft lost part of its wing, and scattered debris over a 100-yard area. Part of the road was sealed off. The two male pilots and a female flight attendant were killed.
posted by Kevin at 10:16 PM

This article sums it up, in case you still don't get it:

Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish.

But you should hear what he's saying in private.

Roach met select groups of fund managers downtown last week, including a group at Fidelity.

His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic "Armageddon."

Press were not allowed into the meetings. But the Herald has obtained a copy of Roach's presentation. A stunned source who was at one meeting said, "it struck me how extreme he was - much more, it seemed to me, than in public."

Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that "we'll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual Armageddon."

The chance we'll get through OK: one in 10. Maybe.

In a nutshell, Roach's argument is that America's record trade deficit means the dollar will keep falling. To keep foreigners buying T-bills and prevent a resulting rise in inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will be forced to raise interest rates further and faster than he wants.

The result: U.S. consumers, who are in debt up to their eyeballs, will get pounded.
posted by Kevin at 10:08 PM

This story has been making the rounds on the newsgroup/bulletin board circuit for a while, but I wanted to have more confidence that it was real before I posted it. Looks pretty real.

This is from the South Bend Tribune:

November 22, 2004

Area man stirs debate on WTC collapse
South Bend firm's lab director fired after questioning federal probe

By JOHN DOBBERSTEIN
Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND -- The laboratory director from a South Bend firm has been fired for attempting to cast doubt on the federal investigation into what caused the World Trade Center's twin towers to collapse on Sept. 11, 2001.

Kevin R. Ryan was terminated Tuesday from his job at Environmental Health Laboratories Inc., a subsidiary of Underwriters Laboratories Inc., the consumer-product safety testing giant.

On Nov. 11, Ryan wrote a letter to the National Institute of Standards and Technology -- the agency probing the collapse -- challenging the common theory that burning jet fuel weakened the steel supports holding up the 110-story skyscrapers.

Related: UL Executive Speaks Out on WTC Study
posted by Kevin at 9:50 PM

I was checking the logs and I noticed a .gov machine name that kept showing up:

nwg001-ce2.customs.treas.gov

My stats viewer doesn't list IP numbers for me when it's set to resolve the host's domain name. It just lists the domain name, not the IP number. I find the IP manually when I'm interested in something and then use that to find the activity in the raw log.

But this was a weird one. I wasn't able to determine the IP for this treas.gov system. When I did a dig, I found this:

11/23/04 19:22:36 dig nwg001-ce2.customs.treas.gov @ 68.4.16.25
Dig nwg001-ce2.customs.treas.gov@ns21.treas.gov (199.196.132.3) ...
Authoritative Answer
Recursive queries supported by this server
Query for nwg001-ce2.customs.treas.gov type=255 class=1
nwg001-ce2.customs.treas.gov MX (Mail Exchanger) Priority: 5 mx2.dhs.gov
nwg001-ce2.customs.treas.gov MX (Mail Exchanger) Priority: 5 mx1.dhs.gov

What does that mean?! This thing is listed as a mail exchanger for the Department of Homeland Security.

Still, I had no IP for nwg001-ce2.customs.treas.gov. Try it. See if you can determine that thing's IP number.

Can't ping it. Can't nslookup it. Can't whois it. Can't tracert it. Can't dig it. Pretty slick, eh?

I looked at the time he showed up on the log viewer and then checked that moment in the raw log file. Sure enough, there he is:

63.167.255.31 - - [23/Nov/2004:08:48:43 -0700]
"GET /2004_04_18_blogarchive.html HTTP/1.0" 200 102566 "http://www.google.com/search?q=photograph+al+qaeda+training+manual+
agriculture&hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&start=30&sa=N"
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 4.0)"

The user conducted a Google search for: photograph al qaeda training manual agriculture.

Was this really a Treasury hit? * Hmm *

That seems much more like a dhs.gov search than a treas.gov search. Also, if it's a mail exchanger, why is someone doing Google searches about al Qaeda from it? I wonder if any mail related ports are even running on that thing? I sure as hell wasn't willing to nmap it to find out.

Any comments?

P.S. If you want a real treat, do a Google search on 63.167.255.31 and check out some of the "work" these feds are accomplishing with our tax money!

My personal favorite is:

http://www.batcho.net/PersianGuestBookView.htm

Name:
BRANDY
Email:
BEELOU13@YAHOO.COM
Remote Name:
63.167.255.31
Date:
06 Oct 2004
Comments
HI KERRIE, YOUR BABIES ARE BEAUTIFUL. I HAVE LOVED PERSIANS SINCE I WAS A CHILD BUT HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO HAVE ONE. THEY ARE VERY HARD TO FIND IN VERMONT!! I RESCUED A BUFF TABBY CAT LAST YEAR AND I AM LOOKING TO FIND SOME KITTY FRIENDS FOR HIM. I RAN ACROSS YOUR WEBSITE AND IT IS VERY CLEAR THAT YOUR BABIES ARE WELL LOVED AND TAKEN CARE OF. I NOTICED THE PICTURE OF JELLY AND I AM INTERESTED IN BRINGING ONE OF YOUR CATS INTO MY FAMILY. COULD YOU PLEASE EMAIL ME SOME INFORMATION. FOR SOME REASON I CAN'T DIRECTLY EMAIL YOUR SITE. THANK YOU AND KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!

Or maybe this from the venerable Prophetic Dreams site:

http://members2.boardhost.com/mydreams/msg/3146.html

Re: what does my dream mean
Posted by elizabeth on 11/19/2004, 9:01 am, in reply to "what does my dream mean"
63.167.255.31

I had a bad dream lastnight, I dreamed that I was being fallowed by some hit men, I was trying to hide from them. I found myself under a truck just waiting for them to come by the truck and when one of them did come by I found myself with a shot gun and a hand gun, I shot at his knees to disable him. I than made my way out from under the truck. I stood in front of him saw him face to face and then I got my shot gun and finished him off. At this time ran into a cargarage to hid from the rest of the men. I ended getting into a cross fire with the rest of the men and I finished them off aswell. However, While the cross fire was going on there were two toddlers twins in the middle of it. Nothing happened to them. Funny thing is I don't know why I was wanted by thise hit men.

It means you're wasting taxpayer money, you twit!

Anyway, I didn't bother looking through all of it.
posted by Kevin at 7:32 PM

This is old news, but in case you didn't know:

According to experts, several printer companies quietly encode the serial number and the manufacturing code of their color laser printers and color copiers on every document those machines produce. Governments, including the United States, already use the hidden markings to track counterfeiters.

Peter Crean, a senior research fellow at Xerox, says his company's laser printers, copiers and multifunction workstations, such as its WorkCentre Pro series, put the "serial number of each machine coded in little yellow dots" in every printout. The millimeter-sized dots appear about every inch on a page, nestled within the printed words and margins.

"It's a trail back to you, like a license plate," Crean says.
posted by Kevin at 5:23 AM

Hint: This is a counter insurgency system.

Gang members in Chicago who fire off a few rounds at their rivals are likely to find cops on the scene in minutes, thanks to new gunshot-detection devices being installed in 80 locations around the city before the end of the year.

The devices, mounted on telephone poles in specific neighborhoods, listen for the distinctive sound of a gunshot and immediately alert a police dispatcher when one is detected. A video camera in the device allows the dispatcher to keep an eye on the scene until officers arrive.

In Chicago's case, the analysis program, developed by Illinois-based Safety Dynamics with a grant from the Department of Defense, uses an algorithm originally developed for neurobiology research to determine whether the sound was caused by gunfire. In the Redwood City, Glendale and Charleston systems, the analysis is done by a modified earthquake-detection program developed by California-based ShotSpotter.

"You can see it as having a robotic policeman on the street," said Safety Dynamics chief scientist Ted Berger, who developed the company's sound-analysis system while at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering. "You can use it like a force multiplier in high-crime neighborhoods where drug dealing is a problem."
posted by Kevin at 5:12 AM

Those of us who have formally studied international political economy have known about this swindle for years, but now the story is conveniently presented on the pages of a single book... Will anyone read it?

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man reveals a game that, according to John Perkins, is "as old as Empire" but has taken on new and terrifying dimensions in an era of globalization. And Perkins should know. For many years he worked for an international consulting firm where his main job was to convince LDCs (less developed countries) around the world to accept multibillion-dollar loans for infrastructure projects and to see to it that most of this money ended up at Halliburton, Bechtel, Brown and Root, and other United States engineering and construction companies. This book, which many people warned Perkins not to write, is a blistering attack on a little-known phenomenon that has had dire consequences on both the victimized countries and the U.S.
posted by Kevin at 7:18 PM

Who's to blame if idiotic creditors give money to these guys! Why wouldn't Trump take the money? If you were to offer a drunk a free bottle of booze, would you expect him to politely decline? In the U.S., where the national debt will soon cross $8 trillion, Trump should be recognized as a champion in the race to the bottom!

Donald J. Trump's casino empire has filed for bankruptcy protection after months of negotiations with bondholders over restructuring a crushing debt.

Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. and numerous related operations filed for protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code on Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, N.J. The Trump casino business consists mainly of three Atlantic City properties and a riverboat casino in Indiana and are only a small part of Trump's overall real estate empire.

The filings come even as Trump, the celebrity developer and best-selling author, has returned to the spotlight with the television show "The Apprentice," which turned "You're fired" into a national catch phrase.
posted by Kevin at 7:08 PM

A new bill before Congress may eventually have DVD-viewers thinking twice before fast-forwarding through the ads and previews.

The proposed legislation would make fast-forwarding through those ads illegal -- not only in theaters, but also at home, NBC News reported.

The bill allows technology that lets families edit out explicit scenes or material to track the DVD use. But broadcast companies have lobbied hard to keep commercials and movie trailers off limits.

"Their concern is if it becomes easy for people to skip ads, then their whole business model goes down the drain," said Gigi Sohn, of a consumer advocacy group called Public Knowledge.

Public Knowledge is fighting the bill and Sohn said families have been skipping ads ever since the early days of the VCR.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, agreed, saying: "Do we really expect to throw people in jail for behavior they've been engaged in for more than a quarter century?"

Media executives said that's not their goal. The Motion Picture Association said it supports other parts of the act, "particularly those provisions that will help combat the theft of motion pictures," NBC News reported.
posted by Kevin at 6:57 PM

Interesting dollar and gold charts.
posted by Kevin at 6:53 PM

'A' supports Cryptogon! Along with the generous contribution, 'A' wrote:

Put me down as just A, if you don't mind. A friend turned me on to your site a month or so ago and I spent entirely too much time going through the archives. Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks we're rapidly on the way to becoming a banana republic.

I voted "lock and load". My SO and I already have country property with our own water supply, arable land and ponds that I plan to stock next spring. I've recently purchased a 2000 Jetta TDI and there is a co-op nearby that sells bulk 100% biodiesel. While I can't run that in the winter here, you bet I will be as soon as the weather gets good again. Hell, I've even moved all my 401(k) money into offshore investments. If I could, I'd be buying gold with it.

I thought I should support your site as long as I have a few bucks available. Keep up the good work!

What if America had 1,000,000 people like 'A' who were willing to allocate resources to values? In the words of Col. Walter E. Kurtz, "Our troubles here would be over."
posted by Kevin at 4:32 AM

All dissidents, of all stripes, everywhere, need to understand something:

YOUR COMPUTERS ARE BEING TARGETED BY INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES.

What's interesting about LEAF is not so much the fact that it happened, but rather the candor with which it's being discussed. Operations like LEAF represent standard operating procedure for ALL intelligence agencies. This is day-to-day, bread-and-butter type stuff. Totally routine.

Note that Nicky Hager, one of the authors breaking details of LEAF, wrote the infamous and remarkable book, Secret Power - New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network. He is the Kiwi equivalent of authors such as Seymour Hersh and James Bamford in the U.S.:

A group of dissident spies has launched an unprecedented attack on the SIS, saying it has misused its powers by bugging law-abiding Maori for political intelligence.

The SIS's Operation Leaf, they say, has been used to find "dirt" on individuals, and intelligence about iwi divisions, finances and Treaty claims. Now they question the service's leadership and strategy.

Spies have never before broken ranks in New Zealand. Now three have done so and say they have evidence of a scandal.

Their claim that the SIS has bugged "decent, law-abiding New Zealanders" has been made many times by liberal and left-wing activists. But now, for the first time, the accusation comes from within the intelligence community.

Their testimony also shows disagreements about the SIS' strategy and its operation, and about its handling of major issues such as the Zaoui affair. Some also criticise the leadership of SIS director Richard Woods. This, too, is unprecedented news from inside the castle. It seems not all is well in the kingdom of secrets.

"Peter", one of the spies interviewed in an Asian capital, said he broke the SIS code of silence because he felt guilty.

His work on Operation Leaf - a widespread bugging operation against Maori individuals and organisations - had been a burden on his conscience and he felt "cleansed" by speaking about it.

He seemed in conflict about his role as whistle-blower. On the one hand, he remains a "loyal New Zealander" and a supporter of the service. But he says he was disgusted when told to bug ordinary people.

He offered to apologise to the Maori whose computers he had targeted. He had grown up in the area, he explained, and had friends in the Maori community. Remarkably, the people whose computers he claims to have bugged agreed to co-operate with the newspaper and not to divulge his real name. The iwi organisation allowed the newspaper to do a thorough search of its accounts and computer records. Invoices and diary entries provided a paper trail of all Peter's work on home and office computers over three years.
posted by Kevin at 4:30 AM

You can't even shake a stick at it!
posted by Kevin at 4:26 AM

It's pure fascism now:

Lillian Willoughby, a Deptford Quaker who will turn 90 in January, went to jail Wednesday to protest the war in Iraq.

Shortly before noon, Willoughby rose from her wheelchair, gave her husband of 64 years, George, a hug and a kiss, and disappeared into the federal detention center at Seventh and Arch streets here.

Reporting with her were five other peace activists, including a young couple from Camden, Cassie Haw, 22, and her husband, Chris, 23. All were convicted of obstructing the entrance to the federal building in Philadelphia on March 20, 2003, the day the United States invaded Iraq.

Lillian Willoughby, a Deptford Quaker who will turn 90 in January, is helped by George, her husband of 64 years, as she prepares to go to jail Wednesday in Philadelphia for obstructing the entrance to the city's federal building during an anti-war protest last year. (Courier-Post Photo/Richard Pearsall)

Given a choice between a $250 fine and a seven-day jail term, the six chose jail.

"I don't believe supporting the war in any way," Willoughby said Wednesday.

Addressing a group of about 50 supporters who gathered a block away, Willoughby said nonviolence isn't something that just happens.

"You have to learn to do it," she said, "to train for change," whether it's dealing with violence on the street or violence between nations.

Marion Brown, 59, of Northeast Philadelphia, one of those who would go to jail with Willoughby a few minutes later, recalled how she told the federal judge who sentenced them that she'd pay the fine if "you can use the money to provide clean drinking water to children in Iraq or to lessen our grandchildren's tax burden for paying for this war."

"He said, 'No,' " Brown said. "He said he didn't think I was in any position to negotiate."
posted by Kevin at 4:21 AM

Halliburton Bids for UK Deal... The more likely scenario is that Cheney walks in with a briefcase full of photographs (and or videotape) of certain goings-on and makes the filthy officials an offer they can't refuse:

Halliburton, the oil services giant once run by US vice-president Dick Cheney, has emerged as a leading contender to manage the construction of two British aircraft carriers, The Sunday Telegraph said.

The ministry of defence would not confirm or deny the report that Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) was one of two companies to have won the recommendation of MoD officials to take on a "physical integrator" role in what the Sunday paper said was a £9bn carrier program.

The ministry said on Sunday that a statement would be made soon.

"The recommendation of KBR is highly controversial and is likely to spark strong opposition from Britain's defence industry," said The Sunday Telegraph.

Halliburton is under investigation in the United States for possible violation of army procurement rules in Iraq.

The Sunday Telegraph said defence industry executives fear that if KBR does win the integrator role it could have consequences for the future of Britain's shipbuilding industry.

Research Credit: AM
posted by Kevin at 4:12 AM

Called the Eliica - short for Electric Lithium-Ion battery Car - this radical 800bhp eight-wheeler from Japan is proof that electric vehicles can be fast and fun to drive, too. Boasting a four-second 0-60mph sprint and seven-second 0-100mph time, the Eliica is faster than a Porsche 911 Turbo.
posted by Kevin at 4:09 AM

Is that a colostomy or catheter bag in Cheney's pants? Like everything involving Cheney, there's something that's just not right about this. (Nevermind the fact that he's allowed to be in the presence of small children.) We know about Cheney's questionable cardiac conditions, but does his piss himself regularly as well?

Note: I thought about hosting this image locally... but I just can't bring myself to do it. If the link dies, and you don't see this, you shouldn't go searching for it. Count yourself as one of the lucky ones and go buy a lotto ticket.
posted by Kevin at 3:40 AM

Karma's a bitch, isn't it? I'm sure the fearless Israeli military is planning to shoot a few young girls and old men to deal with the problem:

Millions of locusts swarmed through Israel's Red Sea resort town of Eilat on Sunday, devouring crops and flowers in the country's south.

Israeli agriculture officials sent crop dusters into the air to spray against the locusts that swept in from North Africa in the first such invasion since 1959. Eilat residents reported clouds of locusts eating palm trees bare and wiping out entire gardens.
posted by Kevin at 3:15 AM

We all have selfish habits, right? One of mine is using incandescent bulbs instead of more energy efficient fluorescent lights. I hate fluorescents. No matter how manufacturers try to tint them, I always seem to notice the grey-green spectra and flicker.

Is there an energy efficient solution that doesn't involve fluorescents!? (Don't say candles, you smartasses out there.)

LED lights! This technology makes so much sense. These lights aren't cheap, but... My birthday was last week; if anyone wants to send a belated gift, I'd love one of these! ;)

Enlux is a designer and manufacturer of LED-based lighting solutions. Enlux has released the world´s first LED-based drop-in replacement for incandescent and halogen floodlights offering similar performance. Enlux´s LED floodlight has an estimated lifetime of 50,000 hours. The long life offers considerable savings on replacement and maintenance costs.
posted by Kevin at 2:54 AM

Nice:

In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins.

In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human.

In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls.

These are not outcasts from "The Island of Dr. Moreau," the 1896 novel by H.G. Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists, stretching the boundaries of stem cell research.

Biologists call these hybrid animals chimeras, after the mythical Greek creature with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail. They are the products of experiments in which human stem cells were added to developing animal fetuses.
posted by Kevin at 2:17 AM

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

Here are the results, as of today:



Interesting... this lock and load result.
posted by Kevin at 5:54 PM

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

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

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

The letter was released the same day Parker held a news conference to defend the use of a 50,000-volt stun gun on a 6-year-old boy in a school office, saying the child had cut himself twice with a shard of glass and was threatening further harm to himself.
posted by Kevin at 5:45 PM

Read it all very carefully:

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

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

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

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

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

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

If foreigners become less willing to lend to the United States, interest rates will have to rise to attract new money to finance the national debt, said Nariman Behravesh, an economist with the forecasting firm Global Insight in Massachusetts.
posted by Kevin at 5:41 PM

AM supports Cryptogon! Thanks for being the first reader to donate gold!
posted by Kevin at 6:24 PM

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

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

Please contribute using E-Gold or 1mdc today!
posted by Kevin at 1:15 PM

Schwarzenegger for President? It seems like a joke...but so did Schwarzenegger for Governor.
posted by Kevin at 1:04 PM

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

That is nearly a 50 percent increase above the $4 billion-a-month benchmark the Pentagon has used to estimate the cost of the war so far.
posted by Kevin at 11:58 AM

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

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

Greater ease in Internet and phone transmission, spiraling health care costs to cover U.S. employees, and more experience employing people abroad are fueling overseas hiring for jobs that once would have remained in the United States. The most compelling incentive remains the disparity between wages earned in the United States and in less-developed countries. In India, a computer programmer with a college degree and two or three years of experience earns about $20,000 a year, according to companies that employ workers there. Call-center workers there earn about $1,200 a year, compared with Brightman's $40,000 salary from AT&T.
posted by Kevin at 11:46 AM

The TSA is seeking information about technologies for detecting suspicious behavior, their state of development, and their applicability to the aviation security domain. Proposed technologies would sense patterns of individuals' physiological response(s) and/or overt behavior that are reliably associated with malicious intent. Proposed technologies may be applicable to the screening of travelers or of employees of transportation facilities (e.g., airports, rail stations, and bus terminals) and carriers. Ideally, proposed technologies will be non‑invasive, remote, covert, passive, automatic, and suitable for area, as well as portal use.
posted by Kevin at 1:26 AM

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

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

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

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

"That didn't take long," said Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass. "On just the third legislative day after the election, we are yet again confronting the need to raise the nation's debt limit."
posted by Kevin at 9:33 AM

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

But...

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

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

Thanks.
posted by Kevin at 7:32 AM

This article is a warning of imminent financial collapse:

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says the growing U.S. budget deficit could destabilize the economy. Fed Governor Susan Bies says Congress spends like it's dipping into a "a cookie jar." St. Louis Fed President William Poole says Social Security is in jeopardy.
posted by Kevin at 7:13 AM

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

George Bush hasn't much discussed what could be his biggest economic problem. It's not budget deficits or jobs. It's the possible crash of the dollar on foreign exchange markets. Even if Bush understood it, he would be hard-pressed to explain it to the public. Worse, there are no obvious ways to prevent it. Nor is it certain how big the threat is. Little wonder Bush hasn't said much. If John Kerry had won, the situation would have been the same. But a dollar crash, if it occurred, could trigger a terrifying global slump.
posted by Kevin at 6:36 AM

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

Related: Gold at $444, 16 Year High
posted by Kevin at 6:13 AM

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

Kmart Corp. is acquiring Sears, Roebuck & Co. in an $11 billion merger that aims to merge the best of both brands and create a low-priced shopping haven in malls.
posted by Kevin at 6:03 AM

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

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

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

posted by Kevin at 5:27 AM

MW, CB and SF are keeping me alive!

I'm not sure if you guys know what $60 means to someone like me. It's a big deal. Thank you all.
posted by Kevin at 4:39 AM

Fannie Mae can't go down. Right?

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

Research Credit: SS
posted by Kevin at 4:20 AM

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

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

The idea would mean a significant overhaul of how California collects taxes to maintain its often-crumbling roads. Under the plan, the state gas tax — now 18 cents a gallon — would be replaced with a tax on every mile traveled by each car and truck.
posted by Kevin at 4:09 AM

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

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

This story appeared in the New York Times!

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

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

Read your own book! Revelation 13:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Advocates of the technology said they did not plan to go that far. But, they said, they do see broader possibilities, such as implanting RFID tags under the skin of children to avoid problems with lost or forgotten tags. More immediately, they said, they could see using the technology to track whether students attend individual classes.
posted by Kevin at 12:45 AM

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

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

The new system will allow emergency workers to receive instant real time video and audio information from 2,000 cameras and microphones stationed around the city. The system won’t be fully operational until spring.
posted by Kevin at 12:43 AM

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

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

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

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

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

Research Credit: TR
posted by Kevin at 6:08 PM

DC supports Cryptogon!
posted by Kevin at 5:24 PM

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

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

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

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

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

Sites said the shot prisoner "did not appear to be armed or threatening in any way".
posted by Kevin at 4:16 PM

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

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

John McLaughlin, the agency’s deputy director, a 32-year CIA veteran, announced at the weekend that he was quitting. Stephen Kappes, the deputy director of operations, is expected to announce his resignation today.
posted by Kevin at 6:55 AM

JK supports Cryptogon!
posted by Kevin at 4:00 AM

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

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

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

"It's basically a bar code that barks," said one expert, Robin Koh, director of applications research at the Auto-ID Labs of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The technology, Mr. Koh said, could "make supply chains more efficient and more secure."
posted by Kevin at 3:26 AM

The letter raises disturbing questions, pointing out that the temperatures of fuel fires in the towers on September 11 appear to have been far too low to cause a failure of the structural steel.
posted by Kevin at 2:33 AM

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

The original link to this video is here. That will go down soon. Guaranteed. His ISP will kill the account momentarily since this file is linked by Drudge.
posted by Kevin at 7:15 PM

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

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

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."
posted by Kevin at 6:54 PM

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

The 50-plus killed this week is indicative of a growing insurgency likely to spread to previously peaceful cities. Over twenty of the deaths occurred in Baghdad, Mosul, Abu Gharb, and Babli province (just south of Baghdad). This indicates that the violence is only spreading. Although the military concedes that "winning" in Fallujah won't quell the insurgency, they continue to pursue policies that suppose there exists a static number of Iraqis willing to fight the occupation: if they could only kill them all, democracy and calm would flourish. Of course, it is more likely that these incursions will create more insurgency.
posted by Kevin at 6:42 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A cheaper dollar reduces the value of American securities, making them less attractive to foreign investors. That could eventually precipitate what Robbins called "the doomsday scenario" — Japan and China not only refusing to buy U.S. bonds, but selling some of their $1.3 trillion in reserves.
posted by Kevin at 7:51 AM

I just want to see how much traffic the above words generate. Move along. Nothing to see here.
posted by Kevin at 1:37 AM

Take the worst case scenario and multiply it by 1000.
posted by Kevin at 1:10 AM

I couldn't make it up if I tried!

Rubin, his graduate students and a colleague from Rice University found other bugs, that the administrator's PIN code was "1111" and that one programmer had inserted, "This is just a hack for now."
posted by Kevin at 11:57 PM

Japanese company Oji Paper announced November 8 that it has jointly developed technology to embed semiconductor chips in paper during papermaking processes. This invention was co-developed with two other companies FEC Group and Toppan Forms.

According to the JCN network, the embedded chip is 0.5x0.5mm and comes with a built-in antenna for wireless transmission at frequencies of between 13.56MHz to 2.45GHz. This breakthrough technology enables mass production of chip-embedded paper.
posted by Kevin at 11:37 PM

The bottom line is that Dyn Corp aircraft are spraying RoundUp-Ready coca plants! Coca yields are higher than ever. The article seems to conclude that the plants were not genetically engineered, and that this happened through natural selection. But it just indicates that the plants don't use the RoundUp-Ready gene. There is a possibility that some other type of genetic manipulation has taken place, but that would take "groundbreaking" scientific research and development.

Well, when I asked a friend of mine how many geneticists could be purchased with $500 billion cash per year, he said, "All of them, and their mothers."

Just think about how convenient these circumstances are. Sure, maybe the coca farmers just got lucky. Maybe Mother Nature delivered a gift to them. I mean, anything is possible:

The war on Colombia's drug lords is losing ground to an herbicide-resistant supershrub. Is it a freak of nature - or a genetically modified secret weapon?
posted by Kevin at 1:20 PM

Going off the rails on a crazy train:

An accelerating thaw of the Arctic may open vast regions for oil and gas exploration but that brings worries of spills in the fragile environment, experts said Thursday.

Research Credit: DS
posted by Kevin at 11:14 AM

This is not supposed to be happening. Appearances are not being maintained. Keith Olbermann is on fire!
posted by Kevin at 11:04 AM

Nice one!
posted by Kevin at 10:37 AM

Some safety and privacy experts are reacting with apprehension, others with all out condemnation over a recent ruling by the National Transportation Safety Board (search) to require electronic data recorders or "black boxes" in all new cars manufactured in the United States.
posted by Kevin at 10:31 AM

Alex Jones has the video and several still images. The L.A. Times is running some nonsense about the armored vehicles being a part of some Veteran's Day parade. Oh yeah! Tell me another one. Two U.S. Marine fighting vehicles get lost on the streets of Westwood and park in front of a protest. Situation normal. Nothing to see here. Move along.
posted by Kevin at 6:12 AM

The Iraqi insurgents have no command and control system... Well, almost no command and control system. Surrounded by the U.S. military, and running out of ammo, the insurgents are using flags to coordinate last ditch attacks.

The U.S. military is not only bristling with technology and the latest weaponry, it has the ability to re-supply its troops; unlike the insurgents, who are totally cut off inside Falluja.

Incredibly, men wearing t-shirts and flip flops and armed mostly with machine guns and rocket propelled grenades are managing to kill U.S. soldiers, disable tanks and shoot down helicopter gunships.

The U.S. is spending $177 million per day to kill people who are running around in tattered clothes and using small arms!

There is no way the U.S. can win this war.

Forget the military futility of it. (And it is futile, consider France/Vietnam, France/Algeria, U.S./Vietnam, USSR/Afghanistan, Russia/Chechnya and dozens of smaller conflicts around the world.) The U.S. will bankrupt itself before it has a chance to wipe out the insurgency in Iraq. The U.S. loves to talk about asymmetric warfare. It's asymmetric alright... THE COSTS ARE ASYMMETRIC! What does it cost the "enemy" in Iraq to fight the United States? My guess is that it's less than $177 million per day! About $177 million less:

But these marines did see a black flag pop up all at once above a water tower about 100 yards away, then a second flag somewhere in the gloaming above a rooftop. And the shots began, in a wave this time, as men bobbed and weaved through alleyways and sprinted across the street. "He's in the road, he's in the road, shoot him!" Sergeant Brown shouted. "Black shirt!" someone else yelled. "Due south!"

The flags are the insurgents' answer to two-way radios, their way of massing the troops and - in a tactic that goes back at least as far as Napoleon - concentrating fire on an enemy. Set against radio waves, the flags have one distinct advantage: they are terrifying.

The insurgents are coordinating their attacks at a time when they have nowhere left to run. American forces have pushed south of Highway 10, the boulevard that runs east to west and approximately bisects Falluja. American intelligence officers believe that many of the insurgents have retreated as far as the Shuhada, a relatively modern residential area that is the southernmost neighborhood in Falluja.
posted by Kevin at 2:45 AM

This request for assistance can be summed up in one sentence, so I'll cut to the chase for all the gearheads out there:

I want to start with an MPEG2/AC-3 file and wind up with an MPEG2/48000 Hz - 16 bit - Stereo file.

If you want to know more, read on:

I'm working on the documentary and I'm learning the technical aspects of digital filmmaking...the hard way. Actually, the only reason it's hard is because I'm using multiple media formats and codecs. If all of the footage was DV, this would be a snap.... Anyway, it's not, so here I am.

I'm using MainConcept's MPEG Pro plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro. This allows for native editing of MPEG2 clips. I'm pulling clips off the TV and the problem is that my DVD+RW recorder produces MPEG2 files that use AC-3 audio. THE MAINCONCEPT MPEG PRO PLUGIN does not support AC-3 audio. Of course.

So....

DVDDecrypter is a really handy tool. It allows me to easily demux the AC-3 audio stream from my DVD+RW MPEG2 files into a separate AC-3 file. I then use BeSweet to transcode the AC-3 file into a .wav. In Premiere, I sync up the audio and video separately.

This is a huge pain in the hole (even if the results are great), especially since I have to do this with lots of material.

Now, I know there's a better way to do this since I have one MPEG2 file with audio that just works! Yep. I import the file into PremierePro/MainConcept and the audio is right there. It works because this file doesn't use AC-3 audio. According to Premiere's clip properties, the file's Source Audio Format shows 48000 Hz - 16 bit - Stereo.

Here's the question: Does anyone know of a tool that will allow me to transcode my DVD+RW MPEG2 files' AC-3 audio into 48000 Hz - 16 bit - Stereo in one step? i.e. without having to demux, transcode and sync up the separate A/V files in Premiere??? <--- It sucks doing it this way.

Bottom line: MPEG2/AC-3 file in. MPEG2/48000 Hz - 16 bit - Stereo file out.

Something tells me VirtualDub-MPEG2mod might be able to do this, but if it can, I don't see how. Can DVDDecrypter do it somehow? Thanks for any assistance.

NOTE: It's not a matter of installing the AC-3 filter.
posted by Kevin at 4:32 PM

The U.S. dollar slumped to a new all-time low Wednesday against the euro, which briefly rose above $1.30 for the first time after data showed the U.S. trade deficit above $50 billion in September for the fourth straight month.
posted by Kevin at 4:11 AM

The End:

LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2004 - At 7:50 PM two armored tanks showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood. The tanks circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered. Enraged, some of the people attempted to block the tanks, but police quickly cleared the street. The people continued to protest the presence of the tanks, but about ten minutes the tanks drove off. It is unclear as to why the tanks were deployed to this location. Uploaded here is video from the event.
posted by Kevin at 5:48 PM

Global warming has disrupted the lives of dozens of types of animals, birds and insects in the United States and will soon make the Arctic nearly unrecognizable, according to two reports released this week.

The reports document sweeping "you-can-see-them-with-your-own-eyes" ecological changes underway and offer dire predictions of massive species extinctions, an elevation of sea level by 3 feet and widespread disruptions to Earth's life-support systems.
posted by Kevin at 4:15 AM

"The enemy has a face. It is Satan's. He is in Fallujah, and we are going to destroy him."

- Colonel Gary Brandl, US Marines

President George W Bush is "reaching out" to Fallujah - the first major foreign policy initiative of the second Bush administration. The name: Operation Phantom Fury. The strategy: precision-strike democracy. The message: kill them all, and let God sort them out.

Former US intelligence asset turned prime minister without a parliament Iyad Allawi - widely known in Baghdad as "Saddam without a moustache" - has got himself another title: the Butcher of Fallujah. On Sunday, before co-launching with the Pentagon the biggest urban war since the storming of Hue in 1968 Vietnam, Allawi installed de facto martial law in Iraq for 60 days. Historians and political scientists are breathlessly trying to explain to the world that no democratic election can possibly be preceded by a state of siege.

To add insult to injury, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld is saying that Allawi is responsible for all major military decisions regarding Fallujah: only the Bible Belt may be gullible enough to believe that an Iraqi civilian without an army rules over the Pentagon. So it's the Vietnam tragedy all over again, replayed as farce - a biblical crusade in Mesopotamia. Those who learned their lessons from history know full well what happened after Hue.

Related: Holy War: Evangelical Marines Prepare to Battle Barbarians
posted by Kevin at 5:58 PM

After seven months in Iraq's Sunni triangle, for many American soldiers the opportunity to avenge dead friends by taking a life was a moment of sheer exhilaration.

As they approached their "holding position", from where hours later they would advance into the city, they picked off insurgents on the rooftops and in windows.

"I got myself a real juicy target," shouted Sgt James Anyett, peering through the thermal sight of a Long Range Acquisition System (LRAS) mounted on one of Phantom's Humvees.

"Prepare to copy that 89089226. Direction 202 degrees. Range 950 metres. I got five motherf****** in a building with weapons."

Capt Kirk Mayfield, commander of the Phantoms, called for fire from his task force's mortar team. But Sgt Anyett didn't want to wait. "Dude, give me the sniper rifle. I can take them out - I'm from Alabama."
posted by Kevin at 5:30 PM

If this is what happens to a girl who usually writes about Harry Potter, I wonder what awaits me when They finally decide to punch my ticket...

I've noticed a couple of interesting things lately. Machines that don't resolve to any specific domain have been archiving every file on Cryptogon. All of it. (No, they're not robots.) Probably nothing... Additionally, on November 1st, there was a black SUV parked outside my house. The guy sitting in the vehicle alternated between watching my house and reading a newspaper. This went on for about two hours. I don't know how long he'd been sitting there before I saw him. I pretended to leave, but then circled back. He was still there, but left about five minutes after I returned. Again, probably nothing... But you wonder as you hear about girls getting door-knocked in the middle of the night by the SS.

If there are any lawyers in the Southern California area who wouldn't mind getting a call from me in the middle of the night, pro-bono-style, please email me your contact details. To all cops, feds, spooks, etc. who read Cryptogon daily, I have nothing to say to you. If you want to show up for a chat, save your time. If you want to arrest me (for what I don't know), I will not resist arrest. I will invoke my 5th Amendment privilege and request the presence of an attorney.

I say these things to let all of you know that if I go down, you will know how I behaved when the knock arrived on my door:

A WRITER on popular blog site LiveJournal has posted of her nightmare ordeal with the US Secret Service, an event spurred by a posting she made to her blog criticising George Bush prior to the Presidential Election earlier this week.

Agents told her that they had received a report (presumably saying that someone had dared to question the motives, sanity or intellectual capacity of The War President) from another blogger who had been reading Annie's site, and therefore followed up. Achtung!

The tale is a lesson to us all. Number one lesson is that what happens on the internet can and will bite you on the ass in real life. We've seen it time and time again with internet affairs and sordid emails - now, you'd better watch where you put your political commentating toes.

Her post of this incident is here:

What happened to me CAN happen to you. This is really the main reason why I am posting this publicly. I WANT you to make an example out of me. I want you to tell your friends to be CAREFUL about what they say on the Internet, because someone IS reading it and it CAN come back and bite you on the ass. And as nice as the Sekkrit Service dudes were (and honestly, they WERE very nice we even gave them coffee and shit, and they laughed with us and were generally very cool about the entire situation), you don't want them coming to your house. It's just not very fun.
posted by Kevin at 4:15 PM

There is now ample evidence to confirm this discrepancy -- and that Senator Kerry won the 2004 Presidential election in both the popular vote and Electoral College. Exit polls in Ohio, Florida, Iowa, New Mexico and Nevada predicted a Kerry win, yet Bush was declared the winner. In several other states, the point spread was significantly different between the polls and the results, helping ensure that Bush was given the popular vote. (The 2000 election fraud was embarrassing for Bush, and claiming that millions more voted for him than for Kerry, despite a stronger Democratic voter registration drive, provides a veneer of legitimacy for what is about to happen.)

The Democratic Party let this theft happen.
posted by Kevin at 6:16 AM

Using a variety of criminal methods that they have perfected over the past four years, the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney-Karl Rove syndicate stole another election, and extended their illegal occupation of the White House. Experienced, informed and unblinking observers were not fooled by any aspect of this utterly predictable goose-step towards full dictatorship.

But to those who are "shocked" as they watched the election night numbers mysteriously slip away amidst controversy; those who are struggling to understand "what happened", let this cold realization serve as bracing edification.

Welcome to hell. Welcome to the horrifying reality that whistleblowers have suffered and fought through every day, over lifetimes. No more illusions. This is reality.

It Is a Rigged Game

The US political and economic system, exemplified by Bush-Cheney, is deeply criminalized. It is designed to profit by killing things. It thrives on war and oppression. It is sustained by collusion, fraud, lies, cover-up, and the indoctrination and manipulation of minds. It does not, and never has, represented its people. Its operatives heed no laws. They "make" law. These facts must be burned into the consciousness of every decent human being.
posted by Kevin at 6:14 AM

Greetings, Gentlemen:

ptohidec.uspto.gov
sherman.state.gov
gatehouse.cambridgema.gov
cftcfw.cftc.gov
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wwwcache.lanl.gov
gatekeeper4.fcc.gov
ares.fppc.ca.gov
poes.ipo.noaa.gov
proxy.nla.gov.au
fernwood-arbiter-b.net.nih.gov
wdcsun23.usdoj.gov
alfw.doeal.gov
secfwopc.sec.gov
dal.net.va.gov
amcproxy.jccbi.gov
nwvcprojmac.er.usgs.gov
wdcsun19.usdoj.gov
smtp.csdf-cde.ca.gov
tias-gw1.treas.gov
wdcsun30.usdoj.gov
nwg001-ce2.customs.treas.gov

ce.ansbach.army.mil
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nsfw-mstr.js.pentagon.mil
posted by Kevin at 5:32 AM

On PBS tonight. Check the broadcast time in your area:

FRONTLINE takes an in-depth look at the 'persuasion industries' — advertising and public relations. To cut through mass-media clutter and to overcome consumers' growing resistance to their pitches, marketers have developed new ways of integrating their messages deeper into the fabric of our lives, using sophisticated market research techniques to better understand consumers, and turning increasingly to the little-understood techniques of public relations to make sure their messages come from sources we trust. A documentary essay, 'The Persuaders' also explores how the culture of marketing has come to shape the way Americans understand the world and themselves, and how the techniques of the persuasion industries have migrated to politics, shaping the way our leaders formulate policy, influence public opinion, make decisions and stay in power.
posted by Kevin at 4:11 AM

This is an extra weird one for those who follow government/cult connections:

A religious cult of German immigrants has broken decades of isolation from a world shocked by sex-abuse scandals in the group, the flight of its secretive leader and reports it once helped Chile's military government torture political prisoners.

Research Credit: AM
posted by Kevin at 3:49 AM

I'm looking to meet people involved with neuroscience, computer science/AI or robotics who have worked on projects that have direct or potential law enforcement, intelligence or military applications. You must be located somewhere between San Diego, CA and Eugene, OR.

Why?

Write in and I'll tell ya.

In a couple of sentences, let me know a little bit about your background, level of education and the types of projects you've dealt with. I'm especially interested in hearing from graduate students who are working on projects that are funded with government grants.

Nothing you communicate to me in these initial messages will be revealed on Cryptogon. This is just an initial attempt to meet people involved with the fields listed above. If you require PGP, my public key is here.

Thanks.
posted by Kevin at 4:08 AM

I could go on for several pages about why this is too little too late, but for now, let's just pretend this can make a difference. A little good news is better than no good news at all! Why spoil it with the details?

Hundreds of homeowners in California never worry about paying their electric bills on time. It's not because they are careless; it's because they live in new "zero-energy" homes that produce as much electricity as they consume. These homes are not multimillion-dollar prototypes -- they are entry-level homes using commercially available products.
posted by Kevin at 4:01 AM

Gold reached a 16-year high in London after concern that the September U.S. trade shortfall held near a record drove the dollar to its lowest-ever versus the euro.

A weaker dollar makes gold, which is denominated in the U.S. currency, less costly for holders of other currencies and increases its attraction as a hedge against declines is U.S. assets. A government report Nov. 10 may show the trade deficit was $54 billion in September, matching the second-biggest ever, according to the median of 46 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey.
posted by Kevin at 2:51 AM

Heavily armed idiots with Bibles killing for Jesus... Not much changes over the centuries. Let the eagles soar and Hallelujah In Fallujah!*

Evangelical Christianity represents a clear and present danger to the United States and the world. This thing is a macrocult comprised of millions of retrograde, easily manipulatable and deeply ignorant people. Many of them are not only hypocrites, they are, quite literally, nuts. They are as nuts as Wahabi Muslims, Orthodox Jews and Satanists.

What's the difference between a full-tilt "Christian" and a paranoid schizophrenic who's languishing in a psychiatric hospital lockdown? The nutter in the lockdown won't be issued an assault rifle and sent to carry out the whims of evil men lurking behind the scenes!

To all of you non-nuts Christians, Jews, Muslims or ______ <--- (insert name of your religion here), join me in a prayer for God to save humanity from His alleged followers:

NEAR FALLUJAH - With US forces massing outside Fallujah, 35 marines swayed to Christian rock music and asked Jesus Christ to protect them in what could be the biggest battle since American troops invaded Iraq last year.

Men with buzzcuts and clad in their camouflage waved their hands in the air, M-16 assault rifles beside them, and chanted heavy metal-flavoured lyrics in praise of Christ late on Friday in a yellow-brick chapel.

They counted among thousands of troops surrounding the city of Fallujah, seeking solace as they awaited Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's decision on whether or not to invade Fallujah.

"You are the sovereign. You're name is holy. You are the pure spotless lamb," a female voice cried out on the loudspeakers as the marines clapped their hands and closed their eyes, reflecting on what lay ahead for them.

The US military, with many soldiers coming from the conservative American south and midwest, has deep Christian roots.

Comforting

In times that fighting looms, many soldiers draw on their evangelical or born-again heritage to help them face the battle.

"It's always comforting. Church attendance is always up before the big push," said first sergeant Miles Thatford.

"Sometimes, all you've got is God."

Between the service's electric guitar religious tunes, marines stepped up on the chapel's small stage and recited a verse of scripture, meant to fortify them for war.

One spoke of their Old Testament hero, a shepherd who would become Israel's king, battling the Philistines 3 000 years ago.

"Thus David prevailed over the Philistines," the marine said, reading from scripture, and the marines shouted back "Hoorah, King David," using their signature grunt of approval.

The marines drew parallels from the verse with their present situation, where they perceive themselves as warriors fighting barbaric men opposed to all that is good in the world.

"Victory belongs to the Lord," another young marine read.

Their chaplain, named Horne, told the worshippers they were stationed outside Fallujah to bring the Iraqis "freedom from oppression, rape, torture and murder ... We ask you God to bless us in that effort."

Holy oil

The marines then lined up and their chaplain blessed them with holy oil to protect them.

"God's people would be anointed with oil," the chaplain said, as he lightly dabbed oil on the marines' foreheads.

The crowd then followed him outside their small auditorium for a baptism of about a half-dozen marines who had just found Christ.

The young men lined up and at least three of them stripped down to their shorts.

The three laid down in a rubber dinghy filled with water and the chaplain's assistant, navy corpsman Richard Vaughn, plunged their heads beneath the surface.

Smiling, Vaughn baptised them "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

Dripping wet, corporal Keith Arguelles beamed after his baptism.

"I just wanted to make sure I did this before I headed into the fight," he said on the military base not far from the city of Fallujah.

* Mark Robinowitz sent me a warning about John Kaminski. Honestly, I've only ever read Kaminski's Hallelujah In Fallujah essay. I didn't know about Kaminski's other antics. (Search page for Kaminski.) I don't follow the 9/11 disinformation operations too closely (because there's so much nonsense), but Robinowitz keeps track of most of it.

Related: Should a Christian Join the Military?
posted by Kevin at 1:31 AM

KIWI POWER!

Meridian Energy's Te Apiti wind farm in the Tararua ranges is now capable of delivering its full 90 MW capacity to New Zealand's national grid, enough to power some 45,000 average homes. The project's 55th and last wind turbine has now been fully commissioned almost exactly a year after construction began on the country's -- and the Southern Hemisphere's -- largest wind farm.
posted by Kevin at 3:33 AM

You can run, but you can't hide:

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

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

On an average day some 20,000 people in the United States log onto the Web site, www.cic.gc.ca -- a figure which rocketed to 115,016 on Wednesday. The number of U.S. visits settled down to 65,803 on Thursday, still well above the norm.
posted by Kevin at 4:41 PM

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

Research Credit: AM
posted by Kevin at 4:38 PM

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

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

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

The men died when their patrol group was targeted by what was described as a suicide bomb at a vehicle checkpoint. Subsequently, mortar rounds were fired at the position. There were unconfirmed suggestions last night that the dead soldiers were from north-east Fife. An Iraqi translator was also killed in the attack.
posted by Kevin at 4:02 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Washington and Canberra have pledged to cooperate more closely in military training in an agreement that includes Australia hosting more U.S. troop maneuvers.
posted by Kevin at 3:35 PM

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

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

The United States imports much more than it exports. Asian countries — some of the biggest exporters — send the proceeds back into the United States as investments, mostly in government bonds. That keeps interest rates low, fueling spending and leading Americans to import even more goods and services from the rest of the world. Both sides benefit from this arrangement. The Asian money allows Americans to spend beyond their means. At the same time, dollar purchases by Asian central banks depress the value of Asian currencies, stimulating their exports to the American market.
posted by Kevin at 6:25 AM

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

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

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

Two inquiries placed by RAW STORY with the media contact for the six-network exit polling consortium at NBC News has received no response.
posted by Kevin at 4:21 AM

Do you get it yet?

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

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

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

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

The Republican-controlled Congress put off dealing with the debt ceiling before adjourning in October, preferring not to force members to vote on the politically sensitive issue of adding to the national debt before the November elections.
posted by Kevin at 8:25 PM

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

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

Oh yes you are.

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

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

Hear me, brother: The countries responsible for most of the economic activity of the planet have strapped themselves to the mast of the sinking ship called America, and have no doubt about it, this thing is going down. Point fingers all you want, you're profoundly complicit with it.
posted by Kevin at 5:43 PM

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

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

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

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

After all, the people have spoken.
posted by Kevin at 1:30 PM

Add up the numbers of electoral votes right now:

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

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

HAHAHA! Good one.
posted by Kevin at 3:21 AM

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

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

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

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

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

Take your pick! Either way, we all lose.
posted by Kevin at 2:45 AM

HA!

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

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

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

"They have one national election law and use the paper ballots I really prefer over any other system," Olszewski said.
posted by Kevin at 11:04 PM

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

Four couples affected by a genetic form of bowel cancer will start the procedure by the end of the year, after the Government’s fertility watchdog allowed a London clinic to screen IVF embryos for the disorder.
posted by Kevin at 7:04 PM

Attack on Iran = Attack on China:

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

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

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

Iran's oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh, who is on a two-day visit to Beijing pursuing closer ties, said Iran is China's biggest oil supplier and wants to be its long-term business partner.
posted by Kevin at 6:55 PM

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

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

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

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

"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.
posted by Kevin at 6:29 PM

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

I'm off to an undisclosed location with my girlfriend to watch the antics on TV. I'll have my laptop with me in case the urge to rant becomes overwhelming. Otherwise, I'll be back in a couple of days.
posted by Kevin at 2:43 AM

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

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

Research Credit: AM
posted by Kevin at 1:38 AM