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1/26/2006

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Thanks, SA!



Millions in Georgia Without Heat :.

More than 4 million people in Georgia were without heat for a third straight day Tuesday after a series of blasts destroyed the Russian pipeline that supplied the country's natural gas needed for its central heating.


1/25/2006

Dollar Nosedives Versus Ruble :.

Dollar nosedives versus ruble?! Come on:

The U.S. dollar nose-dived against the ruble on the Moscow Inter-Bank Currency Exchange Tuesday to the level registered in late 2000.

The dollar's swift fall to 27.9898 rubles to the dollar in Tuesday's trading pushed the U.S. currency back to the level registered in December 2000 when the dollar/ruble rate was about 27.93-27.97. Since the start of 2006, the greenback has lost almost 50 kopecks, Russian forex experts said.

Experts say the dollar is largely under the influence of external factors but proportionally the dollar has weakened more considerably against the ruble than against the euro.

"The dollar's fall versus the ruble was extraordinary," Yelena Khrupova from BrokerCreditServis brokerage said. She added that the dollar's depreciation was facilitated by the active sale of the U.S. currency on the Russian forex market.

According to Khrupova, the dollar's plunge against the ruble showed that the Central Bank of Russia was in no hurry to give a helping hand to the U.S. currency. The analyst said the country's chief bank was more concerned about maintaining ruble stability against the dollar-euro currency basket and curbing inflation, which went out of control in the first ten days of January.


1/24/2006

Google Agrees to Censor Results in China :.

Don't do evil.

Online search engine leader Google Inc. has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country's free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet's fastest growing market.



A Growing Web of Watchers Builds a Surveillance Society :.

Total surveillance. Yep. For those of you who don't click through, this is the New York Times:

IT is strangely fitting that President Bush's no-warrant wiretapping came to light during the season of holiday gift buying, much of which took place online.

As Washington huffed and puffed over a new erosion of privacy, untold millions of us clicked just as fast as our little clickers could click through Google ads and Amazon checkout pages, unwittingly updating our "cookie" ID badges at every new screen. We bought our loved ones cellphones with built-in Global Positioning System and flocked to family gatherings in cars loaded with OnStar and EZ Pass. We paid for mostly everything with credit and debit cards. Out of convenience, we embraced technologies meant to track our every move.

There are important distinctions, of course, between government prying and the emerging web of consumer surveillance. But they share a digital universe that facilitates and rewards watching. Spam, spyware and identity theft are only a taste of how exposed we have all willingly become as we enjoy the benefits of the networked world.

If the American public seems a bit confused about the raging debate of security versus civil liberties - Bush/Cheney versus the A.C.L.U. - it may be because the debate itself has been outpaced by technology. In our post-9/11, protowireless world, democracies and free markets are increasingly saturated with prying eyes from governments, corporations and neighbors. For better and worse, free societies are fast entering the world of total surveillance.



Iris Scanning for New Jersey Grade School :.

National Institute of Justice?! WTF? I guess The Legion of Doom was busy.

In any event, it's for the children:

When a parent arrives to pick up their child at one of three grade schools in the Freehold Borough School District, they'll need to look into a camera that will take a digital image of their iris. That photo will establish positive identification to gain entrance into the school.

Funding for the project, more than $369,000, was made possibly by a school safety grant through the National Institute of Justice, a research branch of the U.S.
Department of Justice. "The idea is to improve school safety for the children," said Phil Meara, superintendent, Freehold Borough School District, on Monday. "We had a swipe-card system that operated the doors, but the technology was obsolete."

Installation of the iris technology began in October. The system is now operational after two months of testing. The Teacher-Parent Authorization Security System (T-PASS), a software application developed by Eyemetric Identity Systems, was installed on the front office computers at each of the three schools.

. . .

The platform provides entry-access controls, visitor management and the capability to scan a driver's license from 50 states and automatically import the information into the database.



U.S. Soldier Murders Iraqi General, Receives Fine :.

This is post number 4000 on Cryptogon. * sigh *

A military jury has recommended that an officer once facing up to life in prison for the interrogation death of an Iraqi general be given only a reprimand, a decision that drew applause from soldiers.

Initially charged with murder, Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. now faces no jail time, the forfeiture of $6,000 in salary and what amounts largely to a barracks restriction for 60 days.


1/23/2006

Bush to Attempt Unscripted Speeches to Handpicked Audiences :.

Wow. What's he going to do for his next trick? Roll over? Shake hands? Fetch a ball?

Move over, Oprah. President Bush is making himself into television's newest talk show host by featuring audience participation in his appearances.

Bush has been taking questions from audience members in recent speeches, and the White House says none has been prescreened even though the sessions are limted to invited groups.


1/22/2006

Mossad's Kidon Unit :.

In the process of learning that Spielberg's Munich is nonsense, we find out a thing or two about Kidon:

In reality, each execution was carefully planned by Mossad's "kidon" unit, its team of hand-picked, legally operating executioners.

Some of the terrorists died in their beds, others in souks and alleys that had no names. As well as bombs, the kidon delivered vengeance from a silenced handgun, garrotting with a cheese-cutting wire or a knife thrust into a larynx. Sometimes they used nerve agents which smelled of newly mown grass or spring flowers.

It took two years to find and kill all the Black September terrorists involved in the Munich massacre.



UBS CUTS TIES WITH IRAN :.

Well, it looks like this thing is going to go all the way:

Switzerland's largest bank UBS has stopped doing business with Iranian customers, according to a report in a Swiss paper yesterday.

A spokesman for the bank told SonntagsZeitung newspaper UBS had stopped dealing with Iranian individuals, businesses or state institutions since the beginning of the year, though Iranian exiles were not affected.

The bank refused to be drawn on whether the decision was directly linked to the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme.

The process leading to the termination of relations with Iranian clients had already begun last year, according to UBS.

Swiss radio reports said the bank was considering similar measures against Syrian customers.



BLASTS RIP THROUGH RUSSIA'S MAIN NATURAL GAS PIPELINE TO ARMENIA AND GEORGIA :.

Crisis:

Explosions have ripped through Russia's main natural gas pipeline to Armenia and Georgia as well as a power line, halting supplies amid freezing temperatures and sparking accusations of sabotage from Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Two explosions occurred on the Mozdok-Tbilisi gas supply pipeline in the Russian Caucasus province of South Ossetia early on Sunday, Russian officials said.

A third blast in the nearby province of Karachayevo-Cherkesskaya cut supplies along one of the main electricity cables supplying power from Russia to Georgia, the emergency situations ministry said.



IRAN SLOWING NATURAL GAS SHIPMENTS TO TURKEY :.

Technical problem? Or the beginning of World War III?

Iran reduced the amount of natural gas to Turkey to 6 million cubic meters giving 'cold weather' as a reason, based on an agreement, Iran has to pump 20 million cubic meters of gas per day to Turkey, Cihan news agency reports.

This latest development has alarmed the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources.

Meteorology officials warned that Siberian cold weather expected in western Turkey next week. In addition, the same cold weather threatens neighboring Iran.

The new cold weather wave which will hit Istanbul and Izmir on Monday is reported to be one of the coldest of the last 100 years.



Iranian Oil Bourse :.

It's drifting into mainstream news now. From UPI:

The world could be about to change much faster than we think, whether or not Iran tests an atomic device. There are other, possibly more devastating weapons available that could hit a financially vulnerable American where it hurts most.



AEROSPACE DEFENSE TRAINING PLANNED OVER POTOMAC :.

Just like the morning of 9/11... But They wouldn't pull that one again, would They? Probably not, but just in case:

WASHINGTON - Low-flying fighter jets and other military aircraft are scheduled to run a series of training exercises around Washington Sunday tonight and early Monday morning.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command is conducting the training exercises over the Potomac River and around the city.

The exercise is designed to test NORAD's ability to intercept and identify aircraft that could pose a threat to the nation's capital. It involves several small Cessna aircraft and Learjets as well as an F-16 fighter jet and a Blackhawk helicopter.

NORAD has conducted such exercises throughout the US and Canada since the September Eleventh terrorist attacks. The exercises also help prepare for major events including the president's State of the Union speech later this month.



Morales Takes Office in Bolivia, Vows to Control Gas :.

I'd expect bin Laden sightings to begin in Bolivia pretty soon:

Evo Morales, raising a clenched fist as tears streamed down his face, took office as Bolivian president today after promising to help the poor and seize control of the nation's energy reserves from international oil companies.



Email to Doug

Doug writes:
First of all, thanks for Cryptogon; it's a daily stop for me.

Last night, I posted a link on deconsumption to the same article of Petrov about the oil bourse. Even though I'm trained in mathematics, the one thing I can't get my head around: "America was able to tax the world indirectly, through inflation." If you know of any articles that would help me get a grip on this, I'd appreciate a link.
I wrote back:
Hi Doug,

I would explain that statement about inflation like this:

Decoupling the dollar from gold allowed Them to print money at will. Everyday, more and more dollars are put into circulation. What must happen over time, with more dollars put into circulation, rising debt and rising trade deficits?

Inflation.

Forcing oil transactions in dollars externalized the costs associated with American profligacy to the rest of the world. Even though the tangible value (buying power) of the dollar has been in decline for 30+ years, that decline has been orderly due, in part, to the constant demand for petrodollars.

Additionally, countries that are reliant on exporting goods to the U.S. have decided to strap themselves to the sinking U.S. dollar by buying all order of U.S. debt instruments. What other choice did they have?

This is simply a large scale Ponzi scheme, backed up with nuclear weapons and glitzy images out of Hollywood. And we all know what eventually happens to Ponzi schemes.

Or, do we?

The thing actually seems to have broken down in 2004, but They were ready to keep it going. Billions of dollars from private accounts in London and the Bahamas provided liquidity after the national banks of other countries tapped the mat. See:

Who Is Financing America's Current Account Deficit?

Maybe They can keep it up forever. I mean, why not? The thing is now $8.1 trillion in the hole.

Why not $10 trillion? Or $50 trillion? $100 trillion??? What's another order of magnitude when the thing isn't real to begin with?

Other articles:

US dollar hegemony has got to go

US DOLLAR HEGEMONY: THE SOFT UNDERBELLY OF EMPIRE

Kevin



Kuwait: Oil Reserves Half of Previous Estimate :.

HA! There goes the neighborhood.




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