FLASH: WARRANTLESS POLICE SEARCHES IN LOUISIANA :.

Fascim fully unfurled:

It's a groundbreaking court decision that legal experts say will affect everyone: Police officers in Louisiana no longer need a search or arrest warrant to conduct a brief search of your home or business.

Leaders in law enforcement say it will provide safety to officers, but others argue it's a privilege that could be abused.

The decision was made by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Two dissenting judges called it the "road to Hell."

The ruiling stems from a lawsuit filed in Denham Springs in 2000.

New Orleans Police Department spokesman Capt. Marlon Defillo said the new power will go into effect immediately and won't be abused.

"We have to have a legitimate problem to be there in the first place, and if we don't, we can't conduct the search," Defillo said.

But former U.S. Attorney Julian Murray has big problems with the ruling.

"I think it goes way too far," Murray said, noting that the searches can be performed if an officer fears for his safety -- a subjective condition.

Defillo said he doesn't envision any problems in New Orleans, but if there are, they will be handled.

"There are checks and balances to make sure the criminal justce system works in an effective manor," Defillo said.
posted by Kevin at 9:36 PM

The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld, Set to Music :.

Rumseld: Madman? Poet? Both? This is just fantastic. Make sure you listen to the samples!

Last year, Donald Rumsfeld's pronouncements from Pentagon briefings and media interviews were arranged into poems. Now those poems have been set to music.

Columnist Hart Seely put the defense secretary's words to poetry in the book Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld. One poem, "The Unknown," was based on one of Rumsfeld's most famous phrasings: "There are known knowns. There are things we know we know..."

San Francisco-based pianist Bryant Kong set the poems to music in The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld, issued on his newly formed label, Stuffed Penguin Music.

No, Rumsfeld doesn't sing. That job falls to a soprano.
posted by Kevin at 10:28 AM

UNICEF Nigerian Polio Vaccine Contaminated with Sterilizing Agents :.

Don't vaccinate your children:

A UNICEF campaign to vaccinate Nigeria's youth against polio may have been a front for sterilizing the nation. Dr. Haruna Kaita, a pharmaceutical scientist and Dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, took samples of the vaccine to labs in India for analysis.

Using WHO-recommended technologies like Gas Chromatography (GC) and Radio-Immuno assay, Dr. Kaita, upon analysis, found evidence of serious contamination. "Some of the things we discovered in the vaccines are harmful, toxic; some have direct effects on the human reproductive system," he said in an interview with Kaduna's Weekly Trust. "I and some other professional colleagues who are Indians who were in the Lab could not believe the discovery," he said.

Related: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation :.

Did you know that Bill Gates gives hundreds of millions of dollars for vaccinations? The problem, however, is water borne diseases. Why not provide resources to clean up water? No, just line up to get a needle full of poison made by criminal pharmaceutical companies and paid for by B Gates! Yeah, right:

A $750 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched The Vaccine Fund, the financial lever for GAVI. Financial commitments from Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, The United States and private fundraising have increased assets to $1.079 billion.

The Vaccine Fund is the catalyst that converts intention into action. GAVI assesses potential recipient countries, and The Vaccine Fund streamlines program financing and execution. 98% of The Fund's resources go directly to the target countries.

Partners in GAVI are the Bill and Melinda Gates Children's Vaccine Program, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations (IFPMA) public health and research institutions, national governments, the Rockefeller Foundation, UNICEF, the World Bank Group and the World Health Organization (WHO).
posted by Kevin at 9:42 AM

Bush Thinks the Illegal War in Iraq is a Joke :.

War crimes for oil! HAHA! Get it?

Bush put on a slide show, calling it the "White House Election-Year Album" at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association 60th annual dinner, showing himself and his staff in some decidedly unflattering poses.

There was Bush looking under furniture in a fruitless, frustrating search. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," he said.

posted by Kevin at 10:56 AM

Ukrainian Missiles 'Gone Missing' :.

How does this one grab ya?

Ukrainian Defence Minister Yevhen Marchuk has said that several hundred of his country's missiles are unaccounted for. The weapons were supposed to have been decommissioned in the years that followed the break-up of the USSR.

But it is now being claimed that there is no record of them being destroyed.

This is being blamed on accounting problems during the period of transition that followed the country's independence in 1991.

"Unfortunately strange things happen," Mr Marchuk said in an interview for the Ukrainian newspaper Den.
posted by Kevin at 9:00 AM

Cryptogon Server Change Today

My ISP will be moving Cryptogon to a new server today. If something gets set up the bomb, know that I'll get it fired back up ASAP.
posted by Kevin at 4:48 AM

Fox Questions Why British Military Were in Mexico :.

What's this all about?

Mexican President Vicente Fox said Wednesday he wants to know why members of the British military were in his country for a cave expedition, but never notified his government.

Six members of a British cave exploration team, including four members of the British military, have been trapped in a cave for a week after flash-flooding prevented their exit.

All are in good health and their lives are not believed to be in jeopardy.

Fox said the British team entered Mexico as tourists and didn't notify the government that some of them were members of the British military and that they were going on an expedition.
posted by Kevin at 3:49 AM

I Have a Degree in Computer Science: Would You Like Fries With That? :.

Undergraduates in U.S. universities are starting to abandon their studies in computer technology and engineering amid widespread worries about the accelerating pace of offshoring by high-technology employers.

A new study, to be published in May, shows there was a dramatic drop-off of enrollment in those fields last year -- 19 percent -- and some educators warn about the potential consequences for America's global competitiveness.

Enrollment in undergraduate computer-science courses continued to grow after the collapse of the dot-com bubble until the sharp decline in the 2002-03 academic year, according to the Washington-based Computing Research Association. The number of newly declared majors in computer science also showed a sudden 23 percent plunge last year.
posted by Kevin at 3:45 AM

DOJ Asked FBI Translator to Change Pre 9-11 Intercepts :.

FBI translator, Sibel Edmonds, was offered a substantial raise and a full time job in order to not go public that she had been asked by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to retranslate and adjust the translations of [terrorist] subject intercepts that had been received before September 11, 2001 by the FBI and CIA.
posted by Kevin at 3:09 AM

Britain Unfurling, Building 15ft Concrete Wall Around Parliament :.

Cops with shoot-to-kill orders, razor wire, blah blah:

A HUGE concrete wall is to go up around the Houses of Parliament to ward off terror attacks.

The planned replacement of Westminster's historic iron railings by a forbidding 15ft-high barrier topped with razor wire is stark evidence of the security threat now facing Britain.
posted by Kevin at 3:01 AM

Drivers in Wisconsin Forced by Police to Give Blood Samples :.

Wave your flags, eat your freedom fries and wait for the cops to hold you down to extract your blood:

In the past, police routinely asked suspected drunk drivers to blow into devices that extrapolated their blood's alcohol content from their breath. Now, authorities in most states are taking blood, by force if necessary.
posted by Kevin at 2:41 AM

Who Would Jesus Bomb? :. (mp3)

A song by David Rovics.
posted by Kevin at 1:47 AM

The End of Globalism :.

John Saul's eloquent essay places The End of the current iteration of society within the historical context that is so often lacking from conventional accounts of what is happening before our eyes. This is probably the most important document mentioned on Cryptogon. Please set aside some time to read this essay carefully, and if you're capable of building an arc, I would be about that business as soon as possible:

The wild open-market theory that died in 1929 had a run of just over 30 years. Communism, a complete melding of religious, economic and global theories, stretched to 70 years in Russia and 45 in central Europe, thanks precisely to the intensive use of military and police force. Keynesianism, if you add its flexible, muscular form during the Depression to its more rigid postwar version, lasted 45 years. Our own Globalisation, with its technocratic and technological determinism and market idolatry, had 30 years. And now it, too, is dead.

Of course, grand ideologies rarely disappear overnight. Fashions, whether in clothes or food or economics, tend to peter out. Thousands of people have done well out of their belief in Globalisation, and their professional survival is dependent on our continued shared devotion to the cause. So is their personal sense of self-worth. They will be in positions of power for a few more years, and so they will make their case for a little longer. But the signs of decline are clear, and since 1995 those signs have multiplied, building on one another, turning a confused situation into a collapse.
posted by Kevin at 2:51 AM

Keepers of the Crypt :.

It's getting old, I know:

Presidential hopefuls have long feared the skeletons in their closet. But this year's contenders may have reason to rest easy: If they've got skeletons, at least some are safe in the hands of their fellow Bonesmen.

That would be the men of Skull and Bones, the secret society at Yale University to which both President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry belonged as students - an exclusive club composed of 15 elite seniors at an already-elite school, campus hotshots whose many talents included the ability to guard each other's private lives to the grave.

Inside the tomb, as the society's meeting place is called, the two men bared their souls. Decades later, only select details about their experiences rise from the crypt - and most hew closely to their official campaign script.
posted by Kevin at 1:02 AM

I Declare: CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight is a Semi-Legitimate Source of Information

Lou Dobbs has been making sense for weeks. Today, he interviewed John Ralston Saul, one of the most important living authors in the world, in my opinion. I nearly passed out from shock when I saw Saul on CNN. Among several other books, he wrote, Voltaire's Bastards, which I highly recommend, and the the brand new, On Equilibrium.

From CNN Tonight with Lou Dobbs, 3/24/2004. I'm posting an extended snip of it for my own reference. This is a generally poor transcription, obviously done by an incompetent college intern, but if you decide to read it, I think you'll see why I want to keep it handy:

John Ralston Saul joins me now. I have to tell you it's a great pleasure to be here.

JOHN RALSTON SAUL, AUTHOR, "ON EQUILIBRIUM": Great to be here.

DOBBS: A brilliant article. I don't do this too often, but if I may I'm going to recommend to our viewers that they pick up this edition of "Harper's" and read, because whether they agree with you or not it's proactive and good stuff. [Saul's essay, The End of Globalism.]

SAUL: It's good to get people thinking even if they don't agree.

DOBBS: Absolutely. It's always nice to have them agree.

SAUL: Fifty percent or what's ever.

DOBBS: The idea that globalization is dead particularly in the concept of these times in which we're dealing with the issues of outsourcing, immense trade deficit, a difficult world given terrorist threat, what do you mean by that?

SAUL: Well, you know, economic ideologue, you know, it's an ideologue when people say it's inevitable and there's no way back, you know your into dream lands. The more you hear that it's inevitable the more you know you're near end. And they usually last 25 to 50 years. The Soviet Union had a little longer run, but they had a secret service. They had a lot of guns. But most -- you know, even Keynesian lasted about half a century. And the last time we did deregulated markets from 1890 to 1929, so really this is really sort of a technocrat's version of what ended in 1929, and, you know, basically if you try to look at the world through the prism of economics, things like families, life, democracy, gets pushed to the edge and you get into a greater and greater instability and eventually it sort of kills itself. I guess that's sort of where -- we're near that edge now.

DOBBS: That edge, and some might even say we've crossed that edge for it strikes me now in this campaign year here, this country, the idea that there is an issue of free trade versus economic isolationism creating polar extremes, neither is true. But perfectly labeled. The idea that the inevitability about free trade and globalization. You don't hear people talking about any other part that the markets will take care of it, that free trade is the panacea for every ill. How do we get to that point?

SAUL: I think after 9/11 when the world started dropping into the most terrible depression. And the people who were supposed to save the day, which was the marketplace, the natural balance, the leaders of the trans-national corporations sort of disappeared because they had to look at their own bacon. We were pulled out of that basically by the governments of the nation states. So suddenly the nation states rediscovered themselves.

And actually quite successfully stopped us from going into this depression. I suppose we're at a stage now where the effects of a certain kind of deregulation and of trying to see the world almost entirely through trade, is leading to things like cheap money, chasing cheap jobs or money chasing jobs, jobs chasing money. And it leads to the return of kind of boom and bust cycles but there are new kinds of boom and bust cycles and one of them is instability of communities because jobs move around so fast. They're going to move but not so fast.

DOBBS: As you point out in your article, these laissez-faire wonderful free market solutions, quote, unquote, these aren't exactly new. Going back to the 20s, much of the same thinking was at hand?

SAUL: Yes. There has never been a successful civilization in the West that didn't have a healthy free market. The free market is absolutely essential to a healthy stable society. On the other hand, the free market really only works in a kind of calm situation, it's as if it is jumping up and down on a spring bed. Well, the mattress is a solid civilization, it's a proper regulation, it's things which mean that you're not going to get a company's racing about looking for a better place. Look at northern Mexico, you know, it looked like everything was going to northern Mexico. As soon as northern Mexico standards started to rise, because things were going there, something moved on somewhere else.

DOBBS: When manufacturers discovered that there was cheaper labor.

SAUL: Somewhere else. DOBBS: In China, than the $2.50 that many were making...

SAUL: So that in ten years, the last ten years the real value of the minimum wage in Mexico has gone down by 21 percent. It's a very temporary gain. The idea that taking more care about the way one does trade will actually harm (UNINTELLIGIBLE) isn't true. We have to take more care in general about how we do trade which doesn't mean closing the borders.

DOBBS: A suggestion that, for example, citizens of this country or any other are more than just consumers or investors or workers, they are actually citizens who have lives, families, needs that are to be met by the nation state as well as the economy.

SAUL: We just, you know, I do think that the heart of democracy is the citizen. That's where legitimacy lies. If the citizen can't find some kind of stability inside their community, then democracy can't work. Remember that Argentina, up until about 1930 had a higher per capita standard of living than places like Canada and Australia. It was a dream. What went wrong? What went wrong in many ways was it lost that sense of the power of the small citizen. That sense of stability.

DOBBS: That citizen in this country is generally referred to as the middle class, working men and women in this country which has always been the pride, the foundation of both our society as well as our economy. The middle class in this country is under an assault that it hasn't seen since certainly the 1930s. What would be your thoughts about the future for both the middle class, the relevance of the middle class, the success of this country and it's future?

SAUL: You know, the 20 Western democracies, their stability is all based on success and size of middle class. That's how you get out of the kind of Marxist versus fascist argument. If you have a big solid middle class. They are actually under threat in all 20 countries. That is what is so fascinating. I think what we have to do is really quite simple. For 25 years we put in place at the international level very successful binding regulations relating to trade. Very difficult to do. But what we didn't do was put in place at the international level regulations to do with taxation, to do with labor conditions, do with the environment, et cetera.

In other words, the nation state is based on a balance between the market place, internal trade labor conditions, taxation, so on. That balance which is -- an election is really about you want it to move a bit this way or that way. We took one big piece out and put it at the international level. If we want that trade to work we have to take...

DOBBS: You're talking about the World Trade Organization?

SAUL: Generally the trade agreements. They are very brilliant but you have to take taxation or labor at the international level or else it backfires.

DOBBS: We thank you very much. SAUL: Wonderful to be here.

DOBBS: John Ralston Saul, thank you. Next, we'll have the results of our poll. Stay with us.
posted by Kevin at 4:04 PM

Gas Pump Prices Hit All-Time High :.

It's much higher in California than in the rest of the U.S. I've seen it as high as $2.30 for regular. Although, I can hear the European Cryptogon readers laughing their asses off. They would love to be able to buy gas for $2.30/gallon:

U.S. average retail gasoline prices hit an all-time high on Tuesday as a tight-fisted OPEC policy and rising demand constricted supplies, according to the American Automobile Association.

The average price for regular gasoline at the nation's pumps was $1.738 per gallon, up less than a cent from the previous record hit last September, according to the motorist group's survey of more than 60,000 stations.
posted by Kevin at 2:04 PM

Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death :.

This is it. This is the big one:

In Afghanistan, filmmaker Jamie Doran has uncovered evidence of a massacre: Taliban prisoners of war suffocated in containers, shot in the desert under the watch of American troops.

The film has been broadcast on national television in countries all over the world and has been screened by the European parliament. Human rights lawyers are calling for investigation into whether U.S. forces are guilty of war crimes. But no U.S. media outlet has broadcast the film.

Related: A Drive to Death in the Desert
posted by Kevin at 3:31 AM

H.R. 3077: The International Studies in Higher Education Act :.

What? And turn an International Relations degree into an even bigger joke? The thing is already barely suitable for use as toilet paper:

This act advocates a seven-member advisory board, similar to a Warren Commission with the power to recommend cutting federal funding for colleges and universities that are viewed as harboring academic critics of the foreign power lobbying this resolution. Simply put, if this foreign power finds the professor to be teaching anything failing to fit the agenda or cultivated image that country wants, the professor may be censored and the school eligible for fines through the removal of federal funds.

The groups & individuals behind HR 3077 are:

The Country: Israel

It's Lobbies in the US on this Resolution
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B�nai B�rith,
The American Jewish Congress
American Jewish Committee

Martin Kramer, a professor of Arab studies Tel Aviv University
Stanley Kurtz, a contributor: (anti-) Arab National Review Online
Daniel Pipes: Campus Watch, (This group conducts witch hunts against professors. See our article: Killing the First Amendment for a graphic example of its purpose and what they want to censor)

The Congressmen who drafted and Championed the Resolution: Rep. Peter Hoekstra (MI), Rep. John A. Boehner (Ohio), Rep. John R. Carter (Texas), Rep. Tom Cole (Oklahoma), Rep. James Greenwood (Penn.), Rep. Howard (Buck) McKeon (Calif.), Rep. Patrick J. Tiberi (Ohio), Rep. Joe Wilson (South Carolina)
posted by Kevin at 3:21 AM

Stasi, British Style :.

I like this bit the most, "Peter Clarke, head of the force's anti-terrorist branch, said terrorists needed places to live, vehicles, and money." Hmm. It sounds like I'd be a suspect since I need a place to live, a vehicle and money. Hmmm. You know what? That sounds like just about every "productive" member of a "modern society." So, if terrorists have the same requirements as average citizens, does that mean all average citizens are potential terrorists? HAHA! Simple logic shows the state's posture to be insane.

The quicker these governments collapse, the better:

Scotland Yard will today launch an unprecedented campaign urging the public to report individuals they suspect of being terrorists.

As the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir John Stevens, called for a much more coordinated European security force effort in the wake of the Madrid bombings, UK citizens were asked to register any suspicious activity by phoning a hotline.

Sir John has already warned of the considerable terror threat, saying an attack on London is "inevitable", and urging people to report unattended bags on trains, pubs, clubs and other public places.

The Life Savers campaign goes much further, asking people to consider whether the behaviour of those they encounter, through work or socially, gives them any reason to think they might be planning terrorist attacks.

The Met's deputy assistant commissioner, Peter Clarke, head of the force's anti-terrorist branch, said terrorists needed places to live, vehicles, and money.
posted by Kevin at 6:42 PM

Muslim Fury, Western Condemnation at Yassin Killing :.

I'm almost afraid to think about what I'm going to be reading when I wake up again:

Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin Monday was greeted with Palestinian vows of revenge, fury in the Islamic world, condemnation in Europe and traces of dissent even in the Israeli cabinet.

"The battle is open and war between us and them is open. They are the killers of prophets and today they killed an Islamic symbol," said senior Hamas political leader Abdel-Aziz al Rantissi.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction and like Hamas responsible for past suicide bombings inside Israel, called for "war, war, war on the sons of Zion. An eye for an eye. There will be a response within hours, God willing."

On the less militant end of the Palestinian political spectrum, Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie called the missile attack on the spiritual leader of Hamas as he left dawn prayers in a wheelchair "a crazy and very dangerous act."

"It opens the door wide to chaos. Yassin was known for his moderation and he was controlling Hamas. Therefore this is a dangerous, cowardly act," Qurie said.
posted by Kevin at 4:50 AM

Leaders Condemn Yassin Killing :.

"I understand that Israel defends its own country. However the picture of a wheelchair-bound person who was killed with a rocket is probably not the best way of promoting Israeli security," Cimoszewicz said.
posted by Kevin at 4:32 AM

Israel: The Unmentionable Source of Terrorism :.

Yep:

The current threat of attacks in countries whose governments have close alliances with Washington is the latest stage in a long struggle against the empires of the west, their rapacious crusades and domination. The motivation of those who plant bombs in railway carriages derives directly from this truth. What is different today is that the weak have learned how to attack the strong, and the western crusaders' most recent colonial terrorism exposes "us" to retaliation.

The source of much of this danger is Israel. A creation, then guardian of the west's empire in the Middle East, the Zionist state remains the cause of more regional grievance and sheer terror than all the Muslim states combined. Read the melancholy Palestinian Monitor on the Internet; it chronicles the equivalent of Madrid's horror week after week, month after month, in occupied Palestine. No front pages in the West acknowledge this enduring bloodbath, let alone mourn its victims. Moreover, the Israeli army, a terrorist organisation by any reasonable measure, is protected and rewarded in the west.
posted by Kevin at 4:17 AM

Spooked: Interesting and Entertaining Radio Theater :.

Many of the background facts in this audio mosaic are, indeed, easily verifiable. But the overall premise, that a CIA/NSA AI was harvested from discarded government contractor computers and further developed by "renegade programmers," is pretty silly. I wonder how much weed went up in smoke as these guys put this program together? Anyway, it held my attention through both parts:

On the nights of January 22nd and 29th, 1999, an amazing piece of radio history was made. The usually placid, late-night sounds emanating from the left-wing KPFA radio station were unexpectedly transformed into a devastating horror show of realism and uncovered "official" secrets.

It was "SPOOKED", a ground-breaking expose of the CIA, with terrifying insights provided by a voice-disguised, self-professed former "agent" of the CIA named "Raymond". It was later revealed that Raymond was not actually a human agent, but rather the deceptive musings of a piece of artificial intelligence.

But not just any artificial intelligence. Raymond claimed "he" was created by the CIA and NSA sigint people for the purposes of cyber-spying: An intelligent virus designed to infiltrate networks of all kinds, gather sensitive data, and return it to a "mother" programming for decryption and interpretation.

Now you too can hear this incredible radio show, with Raymond spilling his guts on every spooky topic known to the spooks: The CIA's shady past, money laundering, LSD, cryptanalysis, goverment-sponsored murder, the power structure of the shadow government, torture, and dozens of other spy-related topics.

Note: If you go to save the MP3s, it looks like there was a little confusion in the numbering sequence... "A lot of weed," is the answer to the question above.
posted by Kevin at 4:13 AM

Cryptogon Reader Account: Ralph Nader and Alex Jones, in Crawford, TX, March 20, 2004 :.

well, overall, the mood was... educational. i don't think much changed as far as people's core opinions. yet everyone learned something new, whether some minor piece of societal or cultural info or real hard data. yet, even the minor info helped dispell major myths, at least for me. the people i spoke with didn't agree with everything alex said... but were glad he was doing something. i like that attitude... and glad i met some people who expressed it.
posted by Kevin at 3:31 AM

Taiwan Stock Exchange Plunges Limit Down on Election Dispute :.

WOW!

Taiwan's benchmark stock index had its biggest decline in eight years as the Nationalist Party organized street protests to challenge President Chen Shui-bian's re-election, calling for a recount and a probe into whether he faked an assassination attempt.

The TWSE Index plunged 6.7 percent, the biggest drop since January 1996, to 6359.92 at the close in Taipei. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest supplier of made-to-order computer chips, and the 15 other most actively traded stocks fell almost 7 percent, their daily limit.

posted by Kevin at 1:13 AM

Hamas Founder Killed in Airstrike :.

This might have the potential to blow the lid off the entire situation:

Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was killed in an apparent airstrike by Israeli forces Monday morning as he was being driven from a mosque, Hamas and Palestinian security sources told CNN.

Five others were killed in the strike, sources said.

Yassin's car and the cars carrying his bodyguards were hit by three rockets as they left the mosque after prayers.

Thousands of angry Palestinians gathered around his minutes after the attack, calling for revenge against Israel.
posted by Kevin at 9:02 PM