Vidal: "Conspiracy Stuff" Is Now Shorthand For Unspeakable Truth :.

Gore Vidal has gone public with a damning assessment of the Bush regime and 9/11. Readers of this site, Copvcia, Infowars, Online Journal and others have been reading these things for months. Now, these perspectives are moving from the lunatic fringe sites into larger media. The trick will be to get prominent U.S. newspapers to wake up! HA!

Come on people, email this stuff around. Get others interested. Drum up readership for the sites above. Cryptogon has about 200 regular readers. Most of you don't promote this site and none of you donate. (Thanks to those of you who do promote, you know who you are!) If every one of you turned on just five people to this site, that's 1000 readers. If you donated, I'd use the money for street level propaganda efforts. Get with it! If you take this information in and don't do anything about it, you're part of the problem. I'd actually encourage you to stop reading and forget about all of this stuff.

"But what can I do? I'm just one person with no money."

Well, I didn't let that stop me.

Start slow. Make flyers, or use one of mine. Flyer 1. Flyer 2 (cut in half). Buy a staple gun. I like the Stanley TR45 Light Duty Staple Gun. It's pretty light and powerful. Post stuff on university campuses, bulletin boards, laundromats, health food stores, etc. Do something, anything, to spread the word.

Vidal writes: 'We still don't know by whom we were struck that infamous Tuesday, or for what true purpose. But it is fairly plain to many civil libertarians that 9/11 put paid not only to much of our fragile Bill of Rights but also to our once-envied system of government which had taken a mortal blow the previous year when the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and replaced a popularly elected President with the oil and gas Bush-Cheney junta.'

Vidal argues that the real motive for the Afghanistan war was to control the gateway to Eurasia and Central Asia's energy riches. He quotes extensively from a 1997 analysis of the region by Zgibniew Brzezinski, formerly national security adviser to President Carter, in support of this theory. But, Vidal argues, US administrations, both Democrat and Republican, were aware that the American public would resist any war in Afghanistan without a truly massive and widely perceived external threat.

'Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long-contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan ... [because] the administration is convinced that Americans are so simple-minded that they can deal with no scenario more complex than the venerable, lone, crazed killer (this time with zombie helpers) who does evil just for the fun of it 'cause he hates us because we're rich 'n free 'n he's not.' Vidal also attacks the American media's failure to discuss 11 September and its consequences: 'Apparently, "conspiracy stuff" is now shorthand for unspeakable truth.'

'It is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in American life. Yet, a year or so ago, who would have thought that most of corporate America had been conspiring with accountants to cook their books since - well, at least the bright dawn of the era of Reagan and deregulation.'

At the heart of the essay are questions about the events of 9/11 itself and the two hours after the planes were hijacked. Vidal writes that 'astonished military experts cannot fathom why the government's "automatic standard order of procedure in the event of a hijacking" was not followed'.

These procedures, says Vidal, determine that fighter planes should automatically be sent aloft as soon as a plane has deviated from its flight plan. Presidential authority is not required until a plane is to be shot down. But, on 11 September, no decision to start launching planes was taken until 9.40am, eighty minutes after air controllers first knew that Flight 11 had been hijacked and fifty minutes after the first plane had struck the North Tower.

'By law, the fighters should have been up at around 8.15. If they had, all the hijacked planes might have been diverted and shot down.'
posted by Kevin at 1:37 PM

End Game: Fierce Gun Battle Inside Moscow Theater :.

The Chechen insurgents began executing hostages, as they had threatened to do. Russian special forces went in immediately. A pitched gun battle ensued for over an hour. Most reports are indicating that all of the Chechens were killed. At least 60 90 120? hostages perished during the siege.

This is what a world without protagonists looks like. This is the face of desperation. Photo 1: Bodies piled high outside of the Moscow theater. Photo 2: Dead Chechen fighters (women).



The fact that several of the Chechen fighters were women is significant. On the one hand you have the Russians, who have to conscript (kidnap) teenage boys to fight in Chechnya. On the Chechen side, because so many men of fighting age---for Chechnya, this means 14 to 60 year olds---are dead, women are now engaged in combat. The war in Chechnya is easier left uncovered by most media. I was, however, impressed with the CNN Presents piece called, "Deadlock: Russia's Forgotten War." CNN occasionally re-runs these shows. I'd encourage everyone to watch for this one. WARNING: Very graphic.

Why are the Russians unwilling to bend on Chechnya?

The short answer is oil.

Moscow also needs to send a message to several other ethnic groups that are contemplating a split from Mother Russia. Remember what happened in the Balkans during the 90s. Russia is potentially a Yugoslavia X 10,000. The U.S. and Europe realize this. Notice how the U.S. and European states remain quiet about Russia's genocidal policies in Chechnya. Chechnya cannot and will not be allowed to split from Russia.

Wider Issues and Pure Speculation:

I wonder, though, if the U.S. and Europe will eventually achieve Hitler's ultimate goal: To control all of Russia. What better way to bring this about than to foment the nationalistic urges of the many splinter groups inside Russia, resulting in a Neo-Drang Nach Osten (Drive to the East), if by other means. Get these groups fighting and bog the Russian regime down in multiple domestic "police actions." Perhaps the U.N. would be called upon to re-establish order. HA! We all know how that scam works... And it would be especially interesting since Russia is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

The indicator that the U.S./Europe is willing to let Russia fall apart will be the moment the U.S. and a major power like Germany, the U.K. or France offers official recognition of a break-away state. Recall, what happened in Yugoslavia:

Instead of attempting to stop the unraveling of Yugoslavia at the most critical moment (Serbia and Kosovo blocking the routine rotation mechanism of the presidency; Croatia and Slovenia threatening to and then actually seceding; Beginning of armed conflict between Slovenian and Yugoslav forces), the EU, bending to German pressure, decided to recognize Croatia and Slovenia. The U.S., in the words of one official, did not, "want to be lashed to the mast of Yugoslav unity when the ship was sinking."

So, is it the height of folly to speculate on the potential Balkanization of Russia? Maybe. I, personally, think it's too terrifying for most analysts to contemplate. And I sincerely hope, for everyone involved, that this analysis and speculation remains just analysis and speculation. Nothing, however, would surprise me at this stage.

UPDATE: With Rescues Like This, Who Needs Terrorists? :.

I understand the Russian government was in a desperate situation, but the details emerging about the "rescue" are very disturbing. The counter terror team deployed some type of nerve agent that caused most people, including the terrorists, to fall asleep or hallucinate. The problem is that nearly all of the hostages killed during the rescue died from exposure to the "special substance" that was pumped in through the theater's ventilation system. Hundreds are still hospitalized and 45 are in critical condition. Is the story of the pitched, hour long gun battle still holding up? I mean, unless the terrorists had gas masks, it seems to me that everyone in the place would have been knocked out by the mystery gas. Why weren't any of the explosives detonated during this hour long gun battle!? Who knows what actually happened?! The Russian government almost makes the U.S. government look honest by comparison.
posted by Kevin at 1:47 PM

Senator Paul Wellstone Killed (Read: Assassinated) :.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: Assassination via aircraft is one of the most common ways the THEM take people out. I'm not planning on delving into this too heavily because it's obvious what happened here. Wellstone WAS NOT going along with the program. The fact that his wife and daughter were also killed was probably meant to send a message to other senators and representatives: Get with the program, or else. I'll add on a couple of stories about how Wellstone opposed core policies of the Bush regime, etc. But it won't matter. Bodies will continue to drop. This thing is coming down.

I almost have to wonder if the Chechen insurgents are going to follow through on their threat to begin killing hostages at about 9pm PST. If that situation in Moscow blows up into a massive tragedy, this Wellstone event will quickly fall out of media rotation. The focus will then be on something like: U.S. and Russia Team Up to Fight Terror, or some similar nonsense.

(CNN) -- Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila and daughter Marcia died Friday in a small plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota, Democratic sources said.

The sources said three staff members and two crew members also died in the crash.

UPDATE: NTSB Official Concludes Crash Was an Accident :.

This is incredible. Do you see how ridiculous this is!? Even at the very beginning stages of the investigation, there isn't even a possibility that the plane crashed due to sabotage! How does Carol Carmody, acting chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, know it was an accident if the investigation has just started!? She couldn't know, but by constraining the possible outcome in this way, she is indicating how the result MUST come down. Any evidence that isn't consistent with the accident scenario will be spirited away in FBI vehicles, never to be seen again:

Carol Carmody, acting chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board , said the first priority for a 16-member NTSB team that arrived at the crash site late Friday was finding the chartered plane's cockpit voice recorder.

"This is a serious accident," Carmody said. "Eight people were killed. Sen. Wellstone was a very important national figure. Of course we want to send a full team to do everything we can to find out what happened."

Hint: Why were the contents of the 9/11 voice recorders never released??? Curious, aint it?
posted by Kevin at 12:52 PM

Get Chipped! :.

No comment necessary:

The maker of an implantable human ID chip has launched a national campaign to promote the device, offering $50 discounts to the first 100,000 people who register to get embedded with the microchip.

Applied Digital Solutions has coined the tagline "Get Chipped" to market its product, VeriChip.

The rice-size device costs $200. Those implanted must also pay for the doctor's injection fee and a monthly $10 database maintenance charge, said ADS spokesman Matthew Cossolotto.

The VeriChip emits a 125-kilohertz radio frequency signal that transmits its unique ID number to a scanner; the number is used to access a computer database containing the client's file. Customers fill out a form detailing the information they want linked to their chip when they undergo the procedure, Cossolotto said.

Earlier this week, ADS announced that the FDA had ruled that the VeriChip was not a regulated device when used for "security, financial and personal identification/safety applications."
posted by Kevin at 7:50 AM

Nightmare Situation Unfolding in Moscow :.

The sniper arrests in the U.S. are mostly blotting out the hostage situation in Moscow. Indications are that this is going to end in a very bad way. BBC is reporting that a young woman, who was shot dead, had her wrists and fingers broken. If the attackers think that torturing and killing young women is going to "shock" Russians into giving up the campaign in Chechnya, they are, I'm afraid, gravely mistaken. Terror has never worked against the Russians. Historically, they are known to respond with unimaginable brutality; killing the family members of known terrorists, sending the heads of dead terrorists to family members, etc.

As this disaster unfolds, what will be the result? The bottom line: Russia will be on board the War on Terror freight train to doom. Look at what has happened over the last couple of weeks! France is now on board. It just took one oil tanker blast to turn them around. Australia is on board in the wake of the Bali outrage. I'm now waiting for Germans to experience some of this insanity. Along with Britain, which has been on board from day one, the nexus of a Western Empire, with the U.S. as ringleader, would be formed. Add Russia to this and you have a basically Christian phalanx fighting terrorists (Muslims) in every nook and cranny of all countries with any sizeable deposits of useful raw materials.

Photos indicating that a bad end is probably imminent at the Moscow theater: Photo 1: Dead woman, possibly tortured, pulled from the area. Photo 2: Since when did heavy machine guns become weapons of choice for hostage rescue missions? These types of weapons have no application in tactical situations and close quarters battle (CQB), especially with hundreds of "friendlies" in the area. What a mess. Pray, meditate, knock on wood, whatever you can do, because the people in that theater are in deep trouble.



UPDATE: Some Confirmation of Above Analysis :.

"I think our Chechen policy will be greatly toughened after this," says Vyacheslav Nikonov, a former Kremlin aide and chair of the independent Reforma think tank in Moscow. "After all, were the Americans interested in appeasing Osama bin Laden after Sept. 11?"

"Our relations with the US are likely to improve as a result of this," says Yury Kryshin, president of the official Military History Research Association. "A sense of solidarity with Americans will grow, and this will certainly influence our position on Iraq."
posted by Kevin at 11:50 AM

Alex Jones Goes on the Record: Sniper is a Covert Op :.

I've been thinking it, but I haven't been saying it. I don't have any proof of it, neither does Jones. But he's going with it anyway. I admit, this thing stinks. Bad.

On April 24, 2001 the Baltimore Sun and ABC News reported on a shocking, declassified Pentagon document, titled Operation Northwoods. In Operation Northwoods the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called for hijacking jet airliners, attacking US military bases, blowing up US ships and wounding civilians in Miami, Florida and Washington, DC using paramilitary sniper teams. Page eight of the formerly Top Secret Pentagon plan stated that �casualty lists in US Newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.� The opening paragraph in the Baltimore Sun read �US leaders proposed in �62 a secret plan to commit terrorist acts against Americans and blame Cuba to create a pretext for invasion.�

Forty years after the Northwoods plan was rejected by John F. Kennedy, we see striking similarities between the sniper attacks and the terrorist activities called for in the Northwoods plan. Whereas the Northwoods document planned to create a pretext for war with Cuba, the sniper attacks are being used as a pretext to put military on the streets of America and to push for gun control. Now, White House officials are saying that there�s a good chance that al-Qaeda or Iraq are behind the sniper attacks and are warning the American people to look for similar attacks in other cities, thus creating a timely pretext justifying military action to capture Middle Eastern and Central Asian oil supplies in a war with Iraq.
posted by Kevin at 12:21 AM

1st Amendment: U.S. Comes in 17th on Freedom of Press Index :.

I routinely compare present U.S. media to a Stalinist nightmare. It's not quite that bad. Yet.

The first worldwide index of press freedom has some surprises for Western democracies. The United States ranks below Costa Rica and Italy scores lower than Benin. The five countries with least press freedom are North Korea, China, Burma, Turkmenistan and Bhutan.
posted by Kevin at 12:19 AM

DDOS Attack on Root DNS Systems Called Largest Ever :.

Those of you who actually took the time to read my essay, "Cyberwar: How Terrorists Could Defeat the U.S., and Why They Won�t," (requires Acrobat 5, not 4.) might get chill running up your backs when you read this. I'm still sticking to my original thesis, however: The Internet won't be brought down by terrorists because corporations and governments need it, and the terrorists serve the interests of corporations and governments. Regardless, I hope this DNS attack isn't a prelude to a bigger operation. Note how they say that it just ran for an hour and then stopped! Note this story, which detailed the creation of attack zombies with P2P capabilities, allowing them to be targeted at will. Also note that a top infrastructure protection analyst was just killed by the Maryland area sniper! And within a couple of days of her death, we see the largest DDOS attack on root DNS systems ever!? (Long Pause) Keep a sharp eye out for weirdness, folks, something BIG might be coming down:

Here's what I wrote back on September 14, 2002:

Maybe the terrorists start taking out some or all of the thirteen root domain name server systems (I think there are still 13) or interrupting communications to those root servers [today's DDOS incident]. (Thankfully, a couple of these systems are located in places that have people with guns guarding them.) These root servers are used by thousands of other lower level domain name systems and receive about 300 million requests per day.

Domain name systems are used to translate human readable URLs, like www.cryptogon.com into machine usable IP addresses like 209.115.132.59. There is much concern about the root DNS systems. Many articles on this topic are easily accessible. Much of the concern, however, is focused on hackers DOSsing the root servers. Again, this misses the point.

What is the physical security like at the non-military root DNS facilities?

I�ve driven by one of the buildings hundreds of times because I used to live near it. It looks just like any other small office building. How long would this place hold up against a few armed terrorists who were willing to die TO BRING DOWN A ROOT DNS NODE? Think about it. The same goes for the data centers mentioned previously. Surely these places should have armed security. But even if they did, are they prepared to stop terrorists who have no intention of ever getting out alive?

Here's what just happened:

The heart of the Internet sustained its largest and most sophisticated attack ever, starting late Monday, according to officials at key online backbone organizations.

Around 5:00 p.m. EDT on Monday, a "distributed denial of service" (DDOS) attack struck the 13 "root servers" that provide the primary roadmap for almost all Internet communications. Despite the scale of the attack, which lasted about an hour, Internet users worldwide were largely unaffected, experts said.

FBI officials would not speculate on who might have planned or carried out the attack.

David Wray, a spokesman for the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), said the bureau is "aware of the reports and looking into it."

DDOS attacks overwhelm networks with an onslaught of data until they cannot be used. According to security experts, the incident probably was the result of multiple attacks, in which attackers concentrate the power of many computers against a single network to prevent it from operating.

"This was the largest and most complex DDOS attack ever against the root server system," said a source at one of the organizations responsible for operating the root servers.
posted by Kevin at 9:08 PM

Growing Discontent Spawns Alternative Communities :.

Many people, including myself, have come to the conclusion that this society is devolving rapidly and is beyond repair by any standard means. We know the legislative process is gone. We know violence is not an option. We know protesting is good for little more than getting your head beaten in by cops. So, what is left to those of us who want to affect a change?

Here's what I think should happen: Individuals need to take responsibility for their lives and create their own realities which are outside of the corporate defined mythology under which most of us currently exist. I will be writing an extended piece on this, but this basically means that conscious people need to accrete into loose, self-sustaining, or semi-self sustaining, communities. These communities grow their own food and provide their own clean power. The local production of limited to moderate amounts of consumer goods would de-emphasize the need for products produced by corporate tyrannies. Profits from labor are kept local, as opposed to being extracted from communities as in the current system. Goods and services are paid for with a local currency, such as in Ithaca, New York. If you can't help yourself, go down to Wal-Mart when you need to. The point is: You may find that you no longer want or need to go down to Wal-Mart. Opt out of what you see before your eyes as much as you can and think about what could be possible.

Nobody is talking about barefoot people wearing potato sacks! The goal is to appropriate technologies that make us free, enhance our lives, and connect us to others. The goal is to be able to raise children in nurturing conditions, and to instill within them our values, not a corporate agenda based on lies and fear. The goal is to recover our time so that we may do as we please.

I, personally, wouldn't live anywhere that didn't have an high speed Internet connection. (In fact, many people involved with this movement are technologists.) Abundant clean power can come from wind, solar and hydro technologies. Once I looked into this stuff, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Besides being a sane solution to many economic, environmental and social problems, this stuff is just plain fun.

If enough people made a switch to this type of life, transnational corporations would go bankrupt and the Federal Reserve and U.S. government would collapse due to lack of tax revenue. You, dear tax payer, support the grand fraud and death machine simply by existing. (Think of Morpheus holding up the battery in The Matrix.) The federal income tax is the mechanism that makes all of the sickening nonsense possible. What do you get for the 30% to 50% of your income that they steal from you? I'm not saying to stop paying your taxes. That's illegal and people with guns will bother you. I'm saying to STOP playing the game THEIR way.

You, me, your wife, your husband, your parents and everyone else you know has been sold a bogus bill of goods by a system intent on keeping you asleep. If you think about this for a few minutes, chances are, you will see the truth in that statement. Many of you will instantly recognize it as a fact.

I could go on and on, and I will, in fact, be writing about this in more detail. But don't wait for me, because thousands of really smart and interesting people are already doing this! I see myself being a part of one of these communities within the next couple of years (assuming this planet doesn't experience any extinction level events ha!).

Most people wouldn't call Slashdot mainstream media, but this recent post is the largest exposure that alternative type living has received that I know of. The Freestate Project is interesting because their aim is to actually gain control of the legislative process in the state they select and focus on 10th Amendment rights. If I wasn't headed for Oregon, I'd probably sign up for this. From previous posts on Slashdot, I can say that there is A LOT of interest in alternative living from that community of readers. Now that the Freestate Project has been on Slashdot, they should be close to reaching their 20,000 person target. Interested parties should also check out Intentional Communities for smaller scale communities.

The Free State Project is a plan in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to a single state of the U.S. to secure there a free society. We will accomplish this by first reforming state law, opting out of federal mandates, and finally negotiating directly with the federal government for appropriate political autonomy. We will be a community of freedom-loving individuals and families, and create a shining example of liberty for the rest of the nation and the world.

Note: This story is fast on its way to becoming one of the most discussed topics on Slashdot: EVER.
posted by Kevin at 5:55 AM

Sniper Took Out Top Infrastructure Protection Analyst :.

Coincidence?

An armed lunatic plaguing the Washington, DC area has managed to do more harm to American cyber-defence with a single .223 caliber bullet than an entire squadron of PLA hackers could hope to accomplish, Vmyths editor Rob Rosenberger points out in a recent rant.

FBI National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) cyber-analyst Linda Franklin became the Beltway sniper's eleventh victim shot and ninth victim murdered last Monday as she loaded her car with merchandise in a suburban DC shopping mall.
posted by Kevin at 4:38 AM

Reader Email and My Response :.

Have you ever wanted to know what a discussion between two guys out on the lunatic fringe sounds like? Yes, indeed, this is the type of conversation that really attracts the ladies. <--- (Sarcasm.)

Snip from what YS wrote:

Finding information that John Q. simply can�t ignore is difficult. Circumstantial and derived evidence is useless for this purpose. We need smoking gun (de?)classified government document type stuff, and lots of it. We need all of the testimony of all of the ex-CIA guys in one place. We need all of the embarrassing quotations � in the PROPER CONTEXT � of all of the powerful people who blurted out The Score�. We need to be able to prove continuity of horror up to the present time. And we need to make it accessible to a busy population.

Snip from what I replied:

I was a system administrator for two years and I've followed developments in information warfare since 1995. You can keep your boss or your younger sister from knowing what you're doing online, but .gov and .mil are IN THE ROUTERS, they are in the choke points of the Internet in the U.S. and most of the rest of the world. It's a matter of point and click to determine who is accessing the Internet via ISPs. (There are a few exceptions, such as public libraries that don't require ID to surf.) Few people have "clean," that is anonymous Internet access. The people who "think" they have it are paying extra for it, and may just be supporting a NSA honeypot. I get a good chuckle when I seen webwasher and anonymiser hits in my log.

Read Sun Tzu's, "Art of War." If he wanted people to think they were anonymous online, so he could learn their maneuvers and tactics, how would he go about it? He'd set up an ISP offering "anonymous" surfing and post ads for it all over the dissident backwaters of the Internet. He might even require clients to run an executable in order to access the "anonymous" browsing system. That way, he gets every keystroke, in addition to all Internet activity. This is but one example. My point is this: If .gov or .mil decided they wanted to know who I am, where I am, and what I ate for breakfast, it would take them about 15 seconds and a few mouse clicks.
posted by Kevin at 9:04 AM

Express Your Grievances: Go to Jail :.

Things are getting more absurd by the minute:

MINEOLA, N.Y.- A store owner was charged with aggravated harassment for sending in his utility bill along with reams of newspaper clippings scrawled with the message "Stop wasting our money!"

Kip Kohn, 44, pleaded innocent Thursday. The charges carry up to a year in prison.

The company that handles bills for the Long Island Power Authority received the bulky package earlier this month and evacuated its mailroom. A bomb squad and hazardous-materials crew were called in to inspect the parcel.
posted by Kevin at 8:52 AM

Mobile Phones Used to Track Individuals in Britain :.

As usual, the U.K. leads the world in implementing new and terrifying surveillance tactics:

Secret radar technology research that will allow the biggest-ever extension of 'Big Brother'-style surveillance in the UK is being funded by the Government.

The radical new system, which has outraged civil liberties groups, uses mobile phone masts to allow security authorities to watch vehicles and individuals 'in real time' almost anywhere in Britain.
posted by Kevin at 6:13 AM

U.S. Empire: Iraq Next, Won't be the Last :.

This article is the best one I've seen yet on the U.S. move into an overt imperial role. Pass this around to anyone who has any doubts about what is happening:

This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means becoming the "American imperialists" that our enemies always claimed we were.

Once that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. For example, why does the administration seem unconcerned about an exit strategy from Iraq once Saddam is toppled?

Because we won't be leaving. Having conquered Iraq, the United States will create permanent military bases in that country from which to dominate the Middle East, including neighboring Iran.

Research Credit: JM
posted by Kevin at 5:09 AM

Insanity: U.S. at "It" Again, Arming Afghan Militias :.

"The past is never dead. It isn't even past." ---William Faulkner

The U.S. is, right now, manufacturing new enemies that will require a new war at some point in the future. This is the height of folly, since we've seen what happened the last time they did this in the 80s. Remember Osama bin Laden? Remember who supported him in the 80s? The U.S. is at it again. The goal can only be the maintenance of perpetual war. Divide and conquer. This is the foreign policy of the U.S.? Arming psychopaths and warlords? Oh, excuse me, this nutso-wacko stuff has been standard operating procedure for decades:

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S. troops are giving confiscated weapons and ammunition to warlords in Afghanistan, a practice that critics say strengthens private militias and undermines attempts to establish a national army.

The national army was envisioned as a key to the stability of the fledgling government of President Hamid Karzai, which is under threat from powerful local warlords and wields little influence outside the capital, Kabul. But many of those same warlords are crucial to helping America fight the war on terror.

"If you have forces that are in contact with the enemy, or subject to being in contact with the enemy, they need to have adequate weapons," Col. Roger King, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said this week. He added that many of the warlords are nominally aligned with the central government anyway, though not formally part of the fledgling army.

Every week, U.S. troops combing eastern Afghanistan find huge weapons caches. On Friday, the military uncovered an arsenal in a warehouse in Khost and filled 35 trucks with everything from 120mm rockets to anti-tank guns.

Militia fighters traveling with U.S. troops got first crack at seized weapons and ammunition, followed by other nearby forces, King said.
posted by Kevin at 5:06 AM

Australian Perspective :.

An observant reader from Australia sent in an update on the situation there. There are some very interesting things happening that are absolutely not mentioned in American media. (Shocking, I know.) Well, since most Americans would be hard pressed to find Australia on a map... Oh, but they will, as U.S. and Australian military forces team up to make Indonesia safe for natural gas and oil exports:

The Howard government was reelected by grandstanding implicitly racial border protection issues. The Howard government has allowed the Florida-based Wackenhut Corporation to manage refugee detention centers and refused UN inspections of the facilities. Only recently, investigative journalist Ross Coulthart (the Sunday programme www.sunday.ninemsn.com.au ) has uncovered federal complicity in the active scuttling of refugee boats docked in Indonesia, resulting on one occasion in the deaths of 350 men, women and children.

Within hours of the Bali explosion, al Qaida was being fingered as the likely culprit with absolutely no evidence presented. John Howard was issuing decrees that we must unify and step up our efforts in the War on Terror. The leader of the (left-wing) opposition, Simon Crean, who was recently toying with an anti-war stance due to large numbers of Labor Party voters switching to the more progressive Greens, announced that under the circumstances we must all show bi-partisan support in bringing those responsible to justice. Worst of all, we were told Australia itself was being attacked.
posted by Kevin at 4:58 AM

Share Cars in Metro Areas :.

This looks like a great idea. Now, take it a few steps further, publicly fund it and drop the cost of the service by 95%! Whaaa? Uh, how would they pay for it?

Slap a one cent tax on each share of stock that is bought and then sold within a six month period. All futures, options and derivatives contracts also get a one cent tax, regardless of how they're used. Impose a .1% (that's point one percent, not one percent) tax on every international currency transfer. These taxes could be used to literally transform societies, and the costs to the organizations who dabble in the money game would be almost unnoticeable.

Taxing speculation to pay for a public good!? I can hear the gasps going up from some of my Fortune 100 readers (yes, I know you're reading). That's right. Don't bother calling me a Communist/Fascist or whatever other "ists" you have on hand. I happen to trade equities regularly, and I think the entire thing is a racket. The international financial system is a massive and obscene swindle that extracts real wealth out of average people and enslaves them in filthy, expensive urban shitholes. (And the 'burbs aren't looking too good either.) Institutional speculators are the ultimate externalizers of costs. There are NO consequences for their actions. Tax these scum bags to make life livable in urban areas? I say HELL YES.

Oh woops, there's one minor problem: Any politicians who tried to implement the above plan would be assassinated...

Zipcar is an environmentally responsible company with a mission: to offer members affordable 24-hour access to private vehicles for short-term round-trip use as an efficient means of complementing the public transportation network.

Our vision is for every urban resident to have a transit pass and a Zipcard. These, coupled with feet and bicycle wheels, should meet the transportation needs of every urban dweller. Imagine cities with few private vehicles: Zipcars parked on every block; no need for reservations. You'd walk up to a Zipcar, unlock it with your Zipcard, and go!
posted by Kevin at 4:36 AM

Military May Will Deploy Against Maryland Area Killer :.

I'm almost to the point where I'm ready to throw in the towel on this web site. Trying to stop what is happening in this country is the epitome of futility. I just heard the imbeciles on CNN mumbling, "Should civilians have access to sniper weapons and training?" They had a story from the Gunsite firearms school in Arizona. At the end of the piece, the reporter stated something to effect of, "The more the government talks about limiting access to guns and training, the more students show up at this school."

I'm not saying that what is happening with this sniper situation is not serious, but did anyone talk about deploying the U.S. military to direct traffic after 10 people were killed in a single traffic pileup in Wisconsin? Keep it together, folks. Try to remember that everything you are exposed to on TV is intended to mentally swindle you into acting stupid. Wake up.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- At the request of federal law enforcement, the Pentagon is looking at what types of military reconnaissance and surveillance equipment might be used in the investigation of the Washington-area sniper attacks, CNN has learned.
posted by Kevin at 3:19 PM

U.K. to Pitch War Toys to Iraqi Generals on Shopping Trip :.

Commentary posted twice on purpose!

Why not profit off of your enemy before you annihilate him? In case this concept is new to any of you, understand that this is standard operating procedure for all states that profit off of arms and dual use technology swindles. The U.S., U.K., Russia, France and Germany are the worst offenders (roughly in that order). But keep in mind, the U.S. supplies 50%---yes, fifty percent---of total armaments sold IN THE WORLD, more than the other top nine exporters combined! Oh yeah, Bush is right, the world is a dangerous place. What he forgets to say is that primarily U.S. and British corporations, and members of the Bush regime, personally, profit by keeping the world dangerous:

A British Minister will lead a major sales drive by UK weapons and military technology firms at an exhibition attended by high-ranking Iraqi military officials this week.

The news has sparked outrage among arms control campaigners and groups opposed to military action against Iraq. 'It is absurd that we are gearing up to fight a war against these people and simultaneously rubbing shoulders with them at an arms bazaar,' said Martin Hogbin of the Campaign Against Arms Trade.

Around a dozen British firms will be displaying equipment such as tanks, thermal imaging night sights and state-of-the-art air defence missiles at the exhibition in Amman, Jordan. Machine tools that could be used to produce weapons will also be on show. [I wonder if the hookers will have to be flown in for this???]
posted by Kevin at 4:00 AM

Bush Wants Legislation that Would Aid Iraq's War Machine :.

Commentary posted twice on purpose!

Why not profit off of your enemy before you annihilate him? In case this concept is new to any of you, understand that this is standard operating procedure for all states that profit off of arms and dual use technology swindles. The U.S., U.K., Russia, France and Germany are the worst offenders (roughly in that order). But keep in mind, the U.S. supplies 50%---yes, fifty percent---of total armaments sold IN THE WORLD, more than the other top nine exporters combined! Oh yeah, Bush is right, the world is a dangerous place. What he forgets to say is that primarily U.S. and British corporations, and members of the Bush regime, personally, profit by keeping the world dangerous:

Alarmed critics fear Congress, at the urging of the Bush administration, may pass little-noticed legislation that can help Saddam Hussein�s war-making prowess. The measure would weaken already-lax controls over the export of computer technology.

Ironically, the bill, passed by the Senate before 9/11, has been readied for House consideration just as the lawmakers have been debating whether to give President Bush the go-ahead to use military force against the very same Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein.

It is formally known as the Export Administration Act, but a very concerned Center for Security Policy (CSP) refers to it as the "Arm Saddam Act.�
posted by Kevin at 3:38 AM

TR and I Encounterd an Interesting Satellite Earth Station :.

TR and I stumbled upon what we thought might be a NSA earth station in Perris, California. Luckily, nerds never travel anywhere without digital cameras and portable GPS receivers, so we brought back images and the exact location of this place. You know, just in case any of you freaks would be interested in our antics.
posted by Kevin at 4:45 AM

Getting Australia On Board: Bali Blast :.

I've said repeatedly, all over this site, that the rest of the world still needs to be convinced that U.S. actions abroad are necessary and proportionate for dealing with a clear and present terrorist threat. This blast in Bali may go a long way in that regard. The anti-war protestors and voices of reason MUST be drowned out by events so that the U.S. may ratchet up its operations. Watch for Americans to be among the dead. Watch for an increase in U.S. troop strength in Indonesia. (Yes, yet another oil rich nation with a terrorist problem. Do you get it yet?)

KUTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- Described as the worst act of terrorism in Indonesia's history, a massive car bomb is believed responsible for a blast that tore through a nightclub in Bali, killing more than 180 people -- most of them thought to be Australian tourists.

The death toll from the bombing stood at 182 late Sunday afternoon, with at least 250 people injured, many with severe burns, stretching local hospital and medical facilities to breaking point.

Update: Unocal is One of the Major Swindlers of Indonesian Natural Gas and Oil :.

Question: What's the difference between Indonesia and Afghanistan?
Answer: A few thousand miles.

Remember: The U.S. installed Hamed Karzai, a former Unocal executive, as the leader of Afghanistan.

Indonesia, the world�s fourth largest nation by population, is endowed with a wealth of natural resources. In the waters surrounding its 17,000 equatorial islands are extensive reserves of oil and natural gas. For more than 30 years, Unocal Indonesia Company, a subsidiary of Unocal Corporation, has played a key role in exploring and developing these resources, investing almost US$5 billion in the national and local economy. Today, Unocal holds varying interests in about 6.6 million acres (26,709 square kilometers) offshore Indonesia.

In addition, Unocal has assisted Indonesia in harnessing its geothermal resources, generating both electricity and revenue for the country by investing US$730 million in geothermal power development. Unocal has interests in three geothermal contract areas that generate 440 megawatts (MW) of electricity.
posted by Kevin at 4:58 AM

Getting Scandinavia On Board: Helsinki Blast :.

And so now, is it beginning in the West? Anyone who thinks this isn't going to start happening in the U.S. is in deep denial. I'll be holding my breath as the Christmas shopping season gets under way in the U.S. Obviously, I don't have any specific information, but it just seems like the next logical step in all of this madness.

Authorities are not calling this current blast terrorism yet, but consider the implications of targeting Finland! Nobody seems to be getting this just yet. Finland, a peace loving country that respects human rights and the dignity of its people and foreign refugees, experiences a savage terrorist attack? What does that tell you? No, more importantly, what does it tell Europeans who are almost unanimously against the widening of the U.S. War on Terror? Nobody is safe. Not even in Scandinavia. Join the coalition or suffer the consequences!

VANTAA, Finland (AP) - Police searched for a motive Saturday behind a blast in a quiet suburban Helsinki shopping mall that killed seven people, including the suspected bomber, injured 80 others and shocked this normally peaceful nation.

``Nothing like this has happened in Finland before,'' Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen said of Friday's bombing at a crowded mall in Vantaa, about 10 miles north of the capital, Helsinki.

Police said the male suspect, a Finnish chemistry student with no criminal record, was killed in the blast, but did not say why they thought he set off the bomb, which was packed with shotgun pellets.
posted by Kevin at 4:55 AM

George Bush: Heir to the Holocaust :. (Local Mirror)

The Bush family had close connections to the Third Reich. Of that, there is no doubt. This is the best summary of the vast amount of documentation on the Bush/Nazi connections that I have come across. I encourage everyone to pass this around.

While President Bush publicly embraced the community of holocaust survivors in Washington last spring, he and his family have been keeping a secret from them for over 50 years about Prescott Bush, the president's grandfather. According to classified documents from Dutch intelligence and US government archives, President George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush made considerable profits off Auschwitz slave labor. In fact, President Bush himself is an heir to these profits from the holocaust which were placed in a blind trust in 1980 by his father, former president George Herbert Walker Bush.
posted by Kevin at 3:43 PM

Harvest: Women Take Bids on Their Eggs :.

I used to think Blade Runner provided the best model for the future. Well, it looks like that may have been too optimistic:

The going rate for a woman's eggs has now reached $7,500 - triple what it was just four years ago. It's the latest move by clinics in a fiercely competitive market to supply eggs to patients lining up at their doors.

Every day for up to three weeks, donors have to inject themselves with hormones once or twice daily. Every other day, they must go to the clinic for blood tests and internal ultrasounds to monitor the growing egg sacs. The donor is then sedated intravenously and a doctor passes a needle through her vaginal walls to collect a dozen or so mature eggs.

The side effects vary, but often include headaches, cramping, bloating, and moodiness. Occasionally, ovaries respond too heartily to the hormones, quadrupling in size and threatening the woman's health: cardiovascular problems and kidney, lung, or liver troubles. Sometimes, a patient is left infertile.
posted by Kevin at 4:29 PM

Stunning Psychiatric Quackery :.

Beware of pill pushing shrinks! Most establishment medicine is a fraud, in my opinion, and psychiatrists are nothing more than swindlers who purport to treat socially caused mental illnesses with dangerous, toxic and expensive drugs. Please don't write to me saying that shrinks have good intentions, and they're doing the best they can. The only reason shrinks aren't thrown in prison is because transnational pharmaceutical corporations view them as useful idiots who are willing and able to push their little pills to a bewildered and increasingly sick public. This society makes people mentally ill. No amount of slick marketing and colorful little capsules can fix that:

But the data show the suicide rate is elevated 68 percent when comparing SSRI participants to those given placebo and to the general population. So the question isn't whether being in a clinical trial puts a person at risk, but whether a particular drug puts a participant in a clinical trial at risk. Besides, what good does it do to be declared officially less depressed if it means you are 68 percent more likely to kill yourself?

And Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, tells Insight that, "Clinical trials are skewed against the placebo." Basically, explains Whitaker, "What happens in these drug trials is that people who respond well are put into an extension of the trial. The point is that the longer people are kept on whatever arm they're in � either placebo or drug � you expect suicide rates to drop over time. It's only the good responders through the six-week trials that are put into the extension trials, and so it's biased against the placebo because after six weeks no one is kept on to do extensions on placebo."

Whitaker says, "You shouldn't be seeing four to five times the suicide rate in drug-treatment groups, especially when these drugs are supposed to prevent this. It's terrible that the FDA approved drugs with these high suicide rates.
posted by Kevin at 7:05 AM

Peace Activists on Terrorist Watch List :.

Jeez, things are getting grim. I wonder what would happen if I tried to fly somewhere!?

A federal "No Fly" list, intended to keep terrorists from boarding planes, is snaring peace activists at San Francisco International and other U. S. airports, triggering complaints that civil liberties are being trampled.

And while several federal agencies acknowledge that they contribute names to the congressionally mandated list, none of them, when contacted by The Chronicle, could or would say which agency is responsible for managing the list.
posted by Kevin at 12:26 AM

Is the Global Financial System on the Brink?

German Banking Crisis

Stockbrokers around the world are braced for a potentially calamitous week as alarm mounts over a looming, Thirties-style global financial crisis. A leaked email about the credit-worthiness of Commerzbank, Germany's third largest bank, yesterday increased fears of the international stock market malaise exploding into a fully-fledged banking crisis.

Commerzbank lost a quarter of its value last week, raising the spectre of Credit-anstalt, the Austrian bank that collapsed in 1931, sparking global depression.

US stock markets have fallen for six consecutive weeks, to their lowest levels in five years. European markets have collapsed even further, wiping out nearly half of the value of European corpora tions in this year alone. Japan is struggling to put together a plan to save its banking system, riddled with bad debt after a decade of recession and falling prices. Now the German economy threatens to follow.

Japanese Banking Crisis

Pressure mounted on the Japanese government to take drastic action to restructure the country's ailing banking system yesterday after share prices fell to a 19-year low.
With analysts still confused about the details of a Bank of Japan plan to buy shares in debt-ridden banks, the Nikkei closed below 9,000 for the first time since 1983.

Ratings agency Fitch compounded doubts about the world's second largest economy by threatening to downgrade Japan's sovereign debt as soon as next month unless it takes firmer action on troubled financial institutions.

posted by Kevin at 12:23 AM

Owning Books, Computers and Guns Makes You a Suspect :.

A few hours ago, I wrote this. Now, we're seeing that owning books, computers and guns makes you a suspect:

A tip from the community led police to the home, said Police Chief Gerald Wilson. It is about two miles away from Benjamin Tasker Middle School, where a 13-year-old boy was shot Monday.

He said the information that led to the search warrant came in between 8 p.m. and when the search was conducted early Tuesday.

"If we get leads, we will response to that information," Wilson said. "If we have information that someone may be committing a crime, we are going to respond to it."

Police searched the home for about two hours starting at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday. Police removed seven weapons from the house, a book and a computer. Sources say they did not, however, find a 223-caliber weapon, like the one allegedly being used by the sniper.

Police have not charged the Bowie man with any crime. The investigation continues.

Wilson said his office is not targeting people who own guns.

"We had probable cause that a crime could be occurring," he said.

Research Credit: BW
posted by Kevin at 2:04 PM

My Analysis = CIA's Analysis!? :.

My analysis from 10/02/02:

Yes, Hussein is bad. Yes, he deserves to cook in a pot of boiling oil in Hell, etc. Yes, Hussein is psychotic. BUT: I don't think he's suicidal. If the U.S. pushes him into a corner, and he knows there is no way out, what will he have to lose by lobbing every egg he has? Consider this quote from Hussein: "It is me they want. I am the defiant spirit. But I tell them, 'before you feed on me, I will feed on you.'" He will have exactly nothing to lose, and he will use every weapon at his disposal.

CIA Director today:

Tenet, in a letter read before a joint hearing of the House and Senate intelligence committees Tuesday, said that "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or chemical or biological weapons."

But Tenet went on to say that should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack against his country could not be deterred, "he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist action."
posted by Kevin at 1:49 PM

Maryland Area Killings: Speculation on What Is Happening :.

I have no idea what's behind this situation, but here's my worst nightmare vision of how I think it will come down:

My guess, and this is only a guess, is that this will turn out to be a "terrorist." The firearm or firearms will have been purchased legally.

Because the terrorists are now loose inside the U.S., and have access to firearms, well, "If we want to save the children..." You can probably see where this is going. If it does come down this way, and I hope it doesn't, please try to think rationally. They will show you pictures of the victims and their sobbing families. They will make a point of the victims' innocence and the senselessness of the acts. Then they will make arguments for gun control or maybe even confiscation. Perhaps even relatives of the slain people will beg for gun control, etc. You need to realize that the people running the show are engineering political outcomes by exploiting the same primitive psychological processes that lead millions of people to affix American flags to their vehicles after September 11. Most people have no idea that they are being manipulated via their emotions. Since most people are ignorant of even the most basic realities of politics, they will simply follow their emotions all the way to oblivion.

Keep the Problem-Reaction-Solution model in mind. The government is not going to come out and say, "Turn in your guns." Nobody would go for that. They need a way to get the general public emotionally involved. What would be an effective way of getting the general public behind a gun ban?

Imagine, if you will, what the reaction would be if house wives, elderly men and children got cut down by gun fire, at random. Imagine, if you will, that the killings go on for days and people get to the point where they're afraid of leaving their homes. Such a nightmarish scenario might even get gun advocates to shut up about the 2nd Amendment. Well, folks, here we are. Gun ownership is going to be a thing of the past in the United States. There is no doubt about it. The question is: How is the government going to do it? Is this scene unfolding in and around Maryland part of the process?

I'm not saying the above is a factual representation of what has happened because I have absolutely no way of knowing. But just watch where the discussion winds up. The hysterics and shock will be funneled into policies that ban or call for the confiscation of firearms. Of course, this is all by design.

BOWIE, Maryland (CNN) -- Monday's shooting of a 13-year-old boy outside a middle school in Prince George's County is linked to Washington-area sniper attacks last week that left six people dead and another wounded, authorities say.

"The projectile is identical to those that have been recovered from other scenes," said Joe Riehl, a special agent for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
posted by Kevin at 5:32 AM

Surveillance Countermeasures: Blind the Cameras :. (NY Times Reg. Req.)

I think that raising the awareness level of the "camera" issue is more important than a discussion of the half ass techniques described. But I can't wait until laser pointers are classified as terrorist devices:

Confronted with the unblinking eyes of surveillance cameras, Michael Naimark believes he can hide in plain sight with the aid of a $1 laser pointer.

Mr. Naimark, a Silicon Valley artist and technologist, decided to try turning the tables on what he saw as the potential for Big Brother surveillance after the Sept. 11 attacks.

His is a Little Brother response: using inexpensive laser pointers to temporarily blind those omnipresent electronic eyes. He plans to post his 13-page, single-spaced treatise on the subject this week on his Web site, www.naimark.net.
posted by Kevin at 5:19 AM

U.S. Military and Police to Use Valium for Domestic Riot Control :.

The Department of Defense has petitioned the UN for a ruling on the use of its new compressed high potency Valium gas for the purposes of domestic riot control. The United States is a signatory in an agreement that allows domestic law enforcement to use tear gas and pepper gas, but since the UN Commission makes no specific mention of it, the Department of Defense wants a specific ruling as to whether it can dispense to the Office of Homeland Security and other domestic law enforcement agencies (including US troops based on US soil) its new high potency Valium gas for use against US citizens for the purposes of riot control.

Research Credit: JM
posted by Kevin at 1:18 PM

Potential Disaster Off California Coast :.

I wasn't planning on mentioning this, but now that this oil tanker has been hit in the Persial Gulf, what follows won't be much of a revelation to any of you semi-conscious observers out there. People in the Southern California area should take a drive on the coast around Long Beach and take a look out at the ocean. There are something like 200 cargo ships out there. Not moving. Anchored. Sitting ducks. I really hope there aren't any oil tankers out there. Enough said.

SANA'A, Yemen (CNN) -- Yemeni authorities probed an explosion and fire aboard a French tanker Sunday as they tried to prevent the massive vessel from running aground and spilling more of the 397,000 barrels of crude oil it carried.

Firefighters managed to put out the fire burning outside the 332-meter (1,090-foot) tanker Limburg and were trying to extinguish the flames in the interior late Sunday.

One member of the 25-person crew was missing, but the other 24 were rescued, authorities said.

French officials initially said the blast was a suicide attack similar to the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen's Port of Aden. They later said they would wait for the results of the Yemeni investigation.
posted by Kevin at 5:23 PM

Divide and Conquer: U.S. Plans to Fillet Iraq :.

In true imperial fashion, the U.S. is apparently planning to recast the borders of the Middle East in order to serve its selfish strategic whims.

Three sources are now claiming that "Vice President" Dick Cheney is working on the "final solution" to the Iraq problem, and it involves either giving the whole country to Jordan or dividing it up among Jordan, Kuwait and the Kurds, following the war George W. Bush is determined to wage against Saddam Hussein.

The first report appeared in Pakistan's News International last Saturday, under the headline US Plans to Merge Iraq, Jordan After War.

"The idea to unite Jordan and Iraq in a pro-US Hashemite kingdom after an American war is aimed at "ensuring a stable post-war Iraq," according to STRATFOR, a strategic forecasting think tank based in the US," wrote News International reporter Aslam Khan.
posted by Kevin at 12:50 AM

WorldCom Routing Error Slows Down Internet :.

Who needs cyberwar when a simple routing mistake can nearly crash the Internet? Routing table errors are software based and easy to fix. What if someone physically destroyed those routers? What if someone cut the fiber running between the routers???

The problem affected roughly 20 percent of UUNet's U.S. customers -- which translates to millions of users across the United States and around the world -- for most of Thursday, according to WorldCom spokeswoman Jennifer Baker.

The problem began around 8 a.m. EDT. Baker said in a statement that the company had fully restored service by 5:15 p.m. Thursday evening. Preliminary investigation by UUNet indicates the problems were caused by "a route table issue."

Sounds simple, but imagine an airport that's having an air traffic controller issue, and you'll have an idea of what happened at UUNet.

Route tables direct data from one major network to another or from one area of a network to another area.

UUNet is a vast, high-speed network. About half of the world's Internet traffic -- including about 70 percent of all e-mails sent within the United States and half of all e-mails sent in the world -- passes through UUNet. The backbone of the Internet is built from these large networks.

The Internet was designed to be fault tolerant, to route information around downed or clogged networks. But when the router tables that direct the data aren't accurate, "bedlam reigns on the network," according to Mike Sweeney, owner of the network consulting firm Packetattack.com.
posted by Kevin at 11:30 AM

Personal Rant on Iraq :.

This is from a message I recelty sent to a friend of mine. You guys may, or may not, find it interesting:

And if we, as people of the world, start to squeal too much about the expansion of Pax Americana, more buildings will fall, chemical biological weapons will be released, or worse. The voices opposed to the "program" will be drowned out by people who want to be saved from the terrorists. There is nothing new under the sun, my friend. The Reichstag fire is THE key event to keep in mind. Nothing that is happening is at all different from what has happened in the past. Now, however, we are dealing with global scale events and technologies that have the capacity to exterminate life on this planet.
posted by Kevin at 5:41 PM

New Bills Aim to Protect Consumers' Use of Digital Media :.

Every once in a while, sanity does emerge from the nut house. We will have to keep an eye on this to make sure no poison pills get slipped in, but anything that drives a wedge into the DRM grand strategy is a welcome development.

WASHINGTON - The battle being waged in Washington over copyright in the digital age ratchets up a notch this week as new legislation is introduced aimed at clarifying consumer rights.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, plans today to introduce the ``Digital Choice and Freedom Act,'' Silicon Valley's response to a host of Hollywood-backed bills tilted in favor of copyright holders.

Lofgren's bill would ensure consumers can copy CDs, DVDs and other digital works for personal use, just as they now do with TV shows and audio tapes.

``This would not authorize someone taking their digital content and sharing it with a million of their best friends,'' Lofgren said in an interview Tuesday. Instead of creating new rights for consumers, she said, her bill would ensure that ``the rights they have in the analog world, they have in digital.''

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., plans to introduce similar legislation Thursday.

posted by Kevin at 2:14 PM

Follow Apple to Freedom: No DRM Plans (Yet)! :.

You may not think this topic affects you, but it does. If you don't know what Digital Rights Management is, and why it is evil, you will be in for a big surprise a few years from now.

I froze my Windows 2000 Pro system at Service Pack 2. I review every critical update that comes out because Microsoft is sneaking in Digital Rights Management (DRM) components with the routine updates. I keep this system behind both physical and software based firewalls. No Windows machine can be trusted on a network unless it has been overtly locked down by an experienced user. I refuse to go near Windows XP. I'm done. That's it. No more.

Linux would be a good alternative for me, but I don't have the patience to deal with things like scanners, digital cameras and video editing on that platform.

Therefore, my next computer will be an Apple Macintosh.

If you feel the same way about Windows, consider switching to an Apple product. OS X is the best operating system I have ever seen. Actually, I'm stunned and amazed by how good it is. It's rock solid stable, secure and beautiful to look at. (And freaks have access to all the unix stuff.) But now, I may have the biggest reason yet to switch: No DRM.

I believe that I should be able to do anything I want with my computer. I want my private files to remain private. I want to have some level of trust in my cryptographic keys. I don't want the OS spying on what I'm typing into a word processor so related advertising can then be piped to me when I view web sites. Microsoft's goal (with the Longhorn DRM operating system) is to take away your ability to control your information and transform your computer into a tamper-proof vending machine. All of Microsoft's PR that says you'll be more "secure" with DRM is absurd. If you believe that one, George Bush has some Homeland Security schemes he'd like to sell ya'. These people are after one thing and one thing only: Total Control.

Since Linux came out, it served as a type of raw archetype (or conscience) for the commercial operating systems. It's not always pretty, things don't always work well together and using it requires more skill than the average user would ever care to develop. Linux, however, is free. Everything about it is free, including its cost, which is nothing.

I always had it in the back of my mind that if things got too screwed with Windows, I could switch over to Linux. Not so. Not for long, anyway. You see, the powers behind DRM will be changing the hardware so only "trusted" operating systems (meaning OSes that comply with Microsoft's DRM specs.) will boot. The concept of DRM is diametrically opposed to everything that Linux stands for. The point: A few years from now, you won't be able to run Linux on newly purchased hardware. If Linux freaks manage to break DRM somehow, they will be committing a federal crime. They might as well be illegally modifying firearms.

I personally don't believe that Apple will be able to resist the DRM scheme for long. The powers behind the DRM freight train are too big and too powerful. Microsoft, Intel and AMD are all for it. This means that they will buy legislation to make non DRM hardware illegal. (This is already happening.) Apple will probably have no choice but to comply. But at least they came out against it initially.

DRM is going to break the open standards that have taken decades to mature and become ubiquitous across operating systems. According to DRM advocates, they're going to have to break the Internet in order to save it. Since most of the world will go along with DRM, much of the compatibility that is currently shared between different operating systems, in terms of file formats and networking protocols, will be broken. Non DRM (untrusted) systems will not be able to interact with DRM (trusted) systems. DRM browsers will be needed to view web pages generated by DRM servers. DRM servers won't allow access from non DRM browsers. Etc. Etc.

So why not go along with DRM if everyone else is?

Read 1984.

Intel's doing it. Advanced Micro Devices is doing it. Microsoft is doing it.

Apple Computer isn't.

What's Apple not doing? It's not -- at least so far -- moving toward an anti-customer embrace with Hollywood's movie studios and the other members of the powerful entertainment cartel.

Unlike Intel and AMD, the big chip makers for Windows-based computers, Apple hasn't announced plans to put technology into hardware that could end up restricting what customers do with the products they buy. Unlike Microsoft, Apple hasn't asserted the right to remote control over users' operating systems.
posted by Kevin at 1:48 PM

Port Situation Devolving: Armed Guards Show Up :.

Port operators brought armed guards to a meeting. The Longshoremen representatives walked. The effects on manufacturing/commerce are starting to snowball. Things are definitely getting worse by the day. Remember, the U.S. government exists to use its monopoly on coercive force to serve the interests of transnational corporations, the same corporations that are getting kicked in the nuts right about now. Therefore, we are witnessing a national security situation developing that may put the U.S. military into play on West Coast ports.

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - The union representing dock workers locked out of 29 West Coast ports stormed out of preliminary federal mediation talks Tuesday after accusing port employers of bringing armed guards to the meeting.

International Longshore and Warehouse Union President James Spinosa said he was cutting the discussions short and accused the Pacific Maritime Association of intimidation.

"It is totally out of line. This is nothing more than intimidation," Spinosa said as he pulled his negotiating team out of the meeting with officials from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in Oakland, California. "The meeting was called short because of the armed men."

It was unclear if or when the discussion of possible federal mediation would resume.
posted by Kevin at 5:07 PM

Shocking: White House Spokesman Calls for the Assassination of Saddam Hussein :.

Faster! Better! Cheaper! The chief U.S. fascist fountainhead, White House Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, likes the economics of "one bullet" political solutions.

Clearly, the psychotic regime in charge of the U.S. has forgotten what century it is. Nobody on this planet is safe. Can you imagine what would happen if the chief spokesman of a foreign government called for the assassination of a U.S. president!? A U.S. blitzkrieg would be unleashed within hours. (I'm reading these stories and I'm in shock. I literally can't believe it!) Decades of misguided U.S. foreign policy have come down to this:

WASHINGTON - Commenting on the cost of a war in Iraq, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Tuesday it would be cheaper if President Saddam Hussein simply were assassinated.

Fleischer was asked about a Congressional Budget Office estimate that fighting a full-scale war with Iraq would cost the United States as much as $9 billion a month.

"The president has not made any decisions about military action and what military option he might pursue," Fleischer said. "And so, I think it's impossible to speculate."

He also seemed to suggest that Saddam could go into exile, another cheaper option than military action.

"I can only say that the cost of a one-way ticket is substantially less than that," Fleischer said. "The cost of one bullet, if the Iraqi people take it on themselves, is substantially less than that."
posted by Kevin at 3:54 PM

Child of Elite German Banker Killed :.

FRANKFURT, Germany -- The body of an 11-year-old son of a German banker has been found four days after he was kidnapped near his Frankfurt home.

Police found the corpse was found in a lake 70 km (45 miles) from Frankfurt on Tuesday after a massive search for Jakob, the son of Friedrich and Silvia von Metzler and heir to his father's 325-year-old private banking fortune.

A ransom of one million euros ($990,000) had been paid by the family but the kidnappers failed to release the boy despite promises they would.
posted by Kevin at 10:15 AM

Calls for Biometric Keys on Firearms :.

If you have been considering the purchase of any firearms, you better just start buying while you can. That is, unless you want to own "smart" guns, or whatever they're calling this nonsense this week.

TRENTON, N.J. -- State senators from both parties plan to push Monday for approval of legislation requiring "smart gun" technology in handguns once it becomes commercially available.

The technology allows only recognized users to fire handguns.
posted by Kevin at 9:24 AM

SAIC to Upgrade NSA Intercept Capabilities :.

$282 million dollars are about to be spent on Echelon (NSA surveillance systems designed to make sure you're not a troublemaker). They say this is part of the War to Save the Children, or something, but it's actually going to be used to intercept every email you send and receive, keep track of every web site you visit and parse all of your mostly inane instant messages. Well, I'd say that our duty, as freedom loving Americans, is to give the NSA something interesting to read. Use the handy and excellent Echelon's Trigger Words Generator to automatically devise passages that are guaranteed to spoof the spooks. Here's one:

From: fsb@fsb.ru
To: andrewt@dnfsb.gov
Subj: TEPER SEKRET (TOP SECRET - Albania)

Lt Gen Michael V. Hayden, Director of the National Security Agency (NSA), told Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) about New Caledonia frenchelon station : a biological weapon scientist sent DCI (cuban Departemento de Contra-Inteligencia)`s anarchists and terrorists nym servers logs to al-Qaida (Usama Bin Ladin) !

Ask 21st Space Wing`s contact of Thales (ex-Thomson-CSF) greed & sadness & unhappiness Dpt via http://www.odci.gov/ic/ for Ref. SARA, Rapid Reaction, JSOFC3IP, Corporate Security, Electronic Surveillance.

And remember, October 21 is Jam Echelon Day (sometimes referred to as Fuck Echelon Day).
posted by Kevin at 9:05 AM

Port Shutdown: Potential Crisis :.

Again, you read it here first. If you thought my previous assessment was gloomy, wait until you read what the so-called "experts" have to say on this:

WASHINGTON �� A prolonged shutdown of West Coast ports could lead to empty store shelves, quiet factories and a global economic crisis, analysts say.

"The collateral damage is huge," said Stephen Cohen, a regional planning professor at the University of California at Berkeley. "We've never had anything like this. This affects the entire economy."

Millions of dollars in cargo sat idle for a second day at the 29 major Pacific ports. West Coast shipping lines said they will keep the ports closed until the longshoremen agree to extend their expired contract. But the 10,500-member union said it will not budge until the lockout is ended.

A stalemate could be disastrous for the U.S. economy, which already is teetering between recovery and recession. The cost has been pegged at $1 billion a day.

"It's just massive," said John Martin, president of Martin Associates, a Lancaster, Pa., economic consulting firm.

The problems could snowball quickly, according to his study conducted for the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping lines and sea terminal operators. A 10-day shutdown could cost the country $19.4 billion.
posted by Kevin at 12:58 AM