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12/17/2005

NIH Uses Live Viruses for Bird Flu Vaccine :.

How much weasel speak can they fit into one article!?

In an isolation ward of a Baltimore hospital, up to 30 volunteers will participate in a bold experiment: A vaccine made with a live version of the most notorious bird flu will be sprayed into their noses.

First, scientists are dripping that vaccine into the tiny nostrils of mice. It doesn't appear harmful - researchers have weakened and genetically altered the virus so that no one should get sick or spread germs - and it protects the animals enough to try in people.

This is essentially FluMist for bird flu, and the hope is that, in the event of a flu pandemic, immunizing people through their noses could provide faster, more effective protection than the troublesome shots - made with a killed virus - the nation now is struggling to produce.

And if it works, this new vaccine frontier may not just protect against the bird flu strain, called H5N1, considered today's top health threat.


12/16/2005

Al-Zarqawi Caught, Released :.

Tell me another one:

Authorities didn't realize prisoner was terrorist mastermind...

More: The King of Terror


12/15/2005

Bush Unleashed NSA on Americans :.

* yawn *

Not a word about ECHELON in any news stories on this. Watch the limo libs jump up and down about this, and then fail to mention ECHELON:

President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States - without getting search warrants - following the Sept. 11 attacks, the New York Times reports.

The presidential order, which Bush signed in 2002, has allowed the agency to monitor the international phone calls and international e-mails of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States, according to a story posted Thursday on the Times' Web site.


Related: The Almost Six Year Old 60 Minutes ECHELON Piece

If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency and four English-speaking allies: Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

The mission is to eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries, terrorist groups and drug cartels. But in the process, Echelon's computers capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world.



Winter Fuel Crisis Could Darken Homes and Factories :.

Damage to rigs, pipelines, and processing facilities means a shortage of natural gas, the fuel that heats 52 percent of U.S. homes. The industry says 2.3 billion cubic feet per day, or 23 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's natural-gas production, will be offline through March. But even before the deadly storms struck, the country was consuming more natural gas than it produced and prices were at record highs. Demand grew nearly 16 percent from 1990 through 2004, driven mainly by the companies that generate electric power. Policymakers viewed natural gas as cleaner than coal and more palatable than nuclear, so it was easy to get required government approvals to build much-needed electric power plants that run on natural gas. And everyone bet heavily--and incorrectly--that prices would stay cheap. The United States now relies on Canadian imports by pipeline and has begun to call on a new source, tankers from Africa and the Middle East filled with liquefied natural gas, or LNG. But the imports haven't been enough. "The hurricanes--they hit a sick patient," says Roger Cooper, executive vice president of the American Gas Association, representing utilities. "We're vulnerable. If we were hit in the 1990s, we would not have been in this situation. But when you are consuming 100 percent of your supply, there's not much room to maneuver."


12/14/2005

The End of Anonymity on the Internet? :.

There is almost no anonymity on the Internet today; not if we're talking about anonymity from .gov. It is still, however, possible to conceal your identity from Them, if you know what your're doing. The point of TPM is to close the few loopholes that still exist:

The TPM chip was created by a coalition of over one hundred hardware and software companies, led by AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft and Sun. The chip permanently assigns a unique and permanent identifier to every computer before it leaves the factory and that identifier can't subsequently be changed. It also checks the software running on the computer to make sure it hasn't been altered to act malevolently when it connects to other machines: that it can, in short, be trusted. For now, TPM-equipped computers are primarily sold to big corporations for securing their networks, but starting next year TPMs will be installed in many consumer models as well.



Aussie Youths Too Stoned, Too Fat to Join Military :.

YOUNG Australians are becoming too drugged and too fat to serve their country in the military.

Increasingly unhealthy lifestyles - coupled with the ageing population and competition from private sector jobs - are hindering efforts by the Australian Defence Force to attract enough physically and mentally fit recruits to defend the nation.


Research Credit: hereticfig.com


12/13/2005

SECURITIES FRAUD LITIGATION FILED AGAINST DIEBOLD :.

Imagine my shock:

The complaint alleges that defendants violated provisions of the United States securities laws causing artificial inflation of the Company's stock price. According to the complaint, during the Class Period, the Company lacked a credible state of internal controls and corporate compliance and remained unable to assure the quality and working order of its voting machine products. It is further alleged that the Company's false and misleading statements served to conceal the dimensions and scope of internal problems at the Company, impacting product quality, strategic planning, forecasting and guidance and culminating in false representations of astonishingly low and incredibly inaccurate restructuring charges for the 2005 fiscal year, which grossly understated the true costs and problems defendants faced to restructure the Company. The complaint also alleges over $2.7 million of insider trading proceeds obtained by individual defendants during the Class Period.



Israel Readies Forces for Strike on Nuclear Iran :.

Potential End Days scenario brewing:

ISRAEL'S armed forces have been ordered by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military sources have revealed.



Cryptogon Reader Contributes $25

Thanks PT!


12/12/2005

GOLD $544 :.

UPDATE: GAPDOWN TO $528.90 Shaking the apple tree.

Gold futures surged as much as $14 an ounce Monday, gaining for an eighth-consecutive session amid fresh reports of investment fund demand in Asia and the Middle East.

"Incessant demand for gold from speculators and investors alike continues to swell metal prices with the entire complex pushing on to fresh highs ... extending the gains made Friday," said James Moore, an analyst at TheBullionDesk.com, in a note to clients.

Gold for February delivery climbed to a high of $544.540 an ounce in overnight trading, a level not seen in the futures market since April 1981. The contract was last at $538.60, up $8.40 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.


12/11/2005

Harold Pinter: Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2005 :.

This is an astonishing and biting presentation that is well beyond the comprehension of most people at this late stage of the game. If you dare, spend the next three quarters of an hour reading or watching the lecture of Nobel Laureate, Harold Pinter:

...The majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.

....

The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.


Research Credit: FV



The Myth of the Machine: Laptops Required for Elementary School Children :.

The profligate and unquestioned use of computers in all aspects of education is designed to facilitate the easy transition of the commoditized worker from school room to cubicle. Corporations need braindead zombies who know how to follow orders and point and click with maximum efficiency. Crackpot technocrats in public schools have responded by killing the minds of children in order to create workers who can "complete globally." In other words, the parts of your child's consciousness that the TV fails to destroy at home must be destroyed by machines at school. This must happen. The Machine demands it.

The fact that parents are willingly handing over their children for this type of indoctrination and brain damage is a testament to the pervasiveness and power of the Myth of the Machine:
In proposing the program, McCune said, he knew he was inviting controversy: "I'm willing to take some appropriate risks for the right reasons. If these kids are going to compete globally, they need to have the tools."
I wonder if this twit has ever heard the story of Frank and his daughter, Ruth. You might want to familiarize yourself with it before you send your children off to technocrats like superintendent McCune.

Related: The Underground History of American Education




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