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3/31/2003
Free Trade?Notice the stock ticker in the background and the cop's ungloved trigger finger resting on the HK MP5 sub machine gun. This picture sums up a great deal of the overt hypocrisy that has become an integral part of life in America since 9/11. Of course, the true ugliness, the system all of us built with our decades of apathy and sloth, is only now beginning to unfurl. Show your national ID card when you supersize the Freedom Fries and receive a free American flag armband! You get the idea:
posted by Kevin at 1:56 PM
U.S. Threatens Syria :.Yawn... If you have been reading this site, you already knew that Iraq was just the beginning: Secretary of State Colin Powell last night issued a new warning to Syria to end its support for "the dying regime of Saddam Hussein" in next-door Iraq, or face the consequences.
Powell's warning came two days after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld threatened to hold Syria accountable for "hostile acts" in allowing military gear to be shipped to Iraq.
"Syria can continue direct support for terrorist groups and the dying regime of Saddam Hussein or it can embark on a different and more hopeful course," Powell told the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. "Syria has the responsibility for its choices and for the consequences."
posted by Kevin at 12:07 PM
Peter Arnett Fails to Maintain Appearances :.NBC fired journalist Peter Arnett on Monday, saying it was wrong for him to give an interview with state-run Iraqi TV in which he said the American-led coalition's initial plan for the war had failed because of Iraq's resistance. Arnett called the interview a "misjudgment" and apologized.
Arnett, on NBC's "Today" show on Monday, said he was sorry for his statement but added "I said over the weekend what we all know about the war."Remember what I said to the journalist who was writing the story about Chris Albritton: Mainstream journalists, generally, will not challenge the consensus. Try it, and you'll see what happens....You know that you would be fired/blacklisted if you begin to touch on anything substantive; anything that begins to expose the underlying reasons of why things continue to get worse, who is responsible and what can be done to ameliorate the situation. Corporate media has absolutely no reason to ask the hard questions. To do so would be suicidal---and never mind the political dislocations... Nope, roll tape of 9/11, Support Our Troops and Supersize the Freedom Fries! Panem et circenses �ber alles! In Other News: Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie :.On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.Research Credit: CI
posted by Kevin at 11:28 AM
3/29/2003
Rumseld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq :.Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners that substantially more troops and armor would be needed to fight a war in Iraq, New Yorker Magazine reported.
Rumsfeld insisted at least six times in the run-up to the conflict that the proposed number of ground troops be sharply reduced and got his way.
"He thought he knew better. He was the decision-maker at every turn," the article quoted an unidentified senior Pentagon planner as saying. "This is the mess Rummy put himself in because he didn't want a heavy footprint on the ground."
posted by Kevin at 5:36 PM
Is Basra a Prelude to Baghdad? :.As crusty retired generals on cable news channels talk about deep penetration, total domination, and dealing with minor problems in our rear, one thing is becoming absolutely clear: Precision guided munitions are useless for taking over cities. Turn on the TV and you will hear a great deal of hype and bluster about the fact that the invaders control large swaths of empty desert and a small port city. But if things are so great and going according to plan, why have the live broadcasts from embedded media practically stopped? Indeed, the Pentagon simply imposed a blackout on most of the embedded media when the going got rough. With Iraq switching to unconventional warfare methods, less and less of the conflict will be suitable for broadcast: Ten days after U.S. Marines and British troops stormed into southern Iraq, Basra is still under siege. Iraqi army regulars and members of the Saddam's Fedayeen militia have interspersed themselves among civilians, leaving British commandos wondering aloud whether they will have to enter the city and face house-to-house combat with hard-core fighters.
As the stalemate drags on, many soldiers and even some nearby Iraqi villagers are asking: If Basra has proven so difficult, how much more problematic will it prove for U.S. troops to conquer Baghdad, President Saddam Hussein's capital and the seat of his Baath Party power?
"What's going to happen in Baghdad?" said Sgt. Stu Wickham, 34, of Watford, England. "I think it's going to be a problem in Baghdad."
"They said within 48 hours they would enter Baghdad," said an Iraqi employee of a local oil refinery outside Basra. "Now after seven or eight days, they can't even enter Basra."
posted by Kevin at 4:59 PM
State of the Union Remix MP3 :.It may not be real, but it's exactly how things are.
posted by Kevin at 2:25 PM
Iraq Moves to Kamikaze Strategy :.A bomber posing as a taxi driver summoned American troops for help, then blew up his vehicle Saturday, killing himself and four soldiers and opening a new chapter of carnage in the war for Iraq.
An Iraqi official said such attacks would be "routine military policy" in Iraq � and, he suggested chillingly, in America.
"We will use any means to kill our enemy in our land and we will follow the enemy into its land," Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said at a Baghdad news conference. "This is just the beginning. You'll hear more pleasant news later."
posted by Kevin at 9:51 AM
3/28/2003
Michael Moore Film to Examine 9/11, Bush, Bin Laden Connections :.According to Variety online, Moore is putting together a deal with actor Mel Gibson's production company to finance "Fahrenheit 911," a documentary that will trace the roots of terrorism against the United States.
But perhaps most shockingly, Moore will also spell out alleged dealings between two generations of the Bush and bin Laden clans, according to Variety.
"The primary thrust of the new film is what has happened to the country since Sept. 11, and how the Bush administration used this tragic event to push its agenda," Moore said in the Variety report.Research Credit: MR
posted by Kevin at 10:12 PM
Rumsfeld Issues Warning to Syria and Iran :.Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned both Syria and Iran not to interfere with the ongoing war Friday, saying Syria would be held "accountable" for night-vision goggles and other military equipment sent to Iraqi forces, and Iranian-funded troops inside Iraq would be dealt with as enemy combatants.
posted by Kevin at 9:57 PM
Iraq Body Count :.A website keeping a running tally of civilian deaths in the Iraq war is attracting a lot of traffic, and appears to be emerging as an authoritative source of information on the gruesome subject.
The Iraq Body Count website claims to attract 100,000 visitors a day, and is increasingly being cited as a source in news outlets such as The Boston Globe, the San Jose Mercury News and the Associated Press.
"We're the responsible recorders of what the bombs are doing," said John Sloboda, one of the site's co-founders. "We're making sure (civilian deaths) are not forgotten, each single one."
posted by Kevin at 8:32 AM
3/27/2003
U.S. Officials Think Iraq War Could Last Months :.What does the newspeak lingo actually mean? Coalition of the willing: Coalition of the killing, shilling and fiscally desperate for U.S. blood money. Pockets of resistance: Most cities in Iraq, with the biggest "pocket" being Basra, a city with a population of over one million people. Note: They haven't reached Baghdad yet. And what about the uprising we've been hearing about in Basra? Consider the primary source of this information: British military intelligence. I don't know about you, but British military intelligence does not constitute a reliable source, in my opinion. Coalition propagandists are trying to explain the heavy civilian casualties in Basra by saying the Hussein loyal forces are responsible. In the next breath, they admit British artillery is raining down on the city. Hmmm. Things are going exactly according to plan coupled with rolling start: Woops, the Iraqis are really trying to fight back, so send reinforcements fast. Our supply lines are long, thin and taking constant fire. U.S. forces are taking a breather: Forward units haven't slept in six days and have been engaged in running gunbattles the entire time. Ammo, fuel and water are running low. Dig in and await resupply. Coalition forces opening the northern front: Coalition forces are attempting to prevent Iran and/or Turkey from trying to take parts of northern Iraq. Also, Kurds must be kept away from Turkish forces. Shhhhh! Don't confuse the public with these details. And my personal favorite Shock and awe: War could last for months. And what, really, does "war" mean? The U.S. will have to shift to counter-insurgency mode just as soon as a "victory" is declared. In U.S. military parlance, counter insurgency is called Operations Other Than War. People, however, will continue to die despite the semantics. From the article: Some U.S. military officials are convinced the war in Iraq is likely to last for months and will require considerably more combat power than currently on hand in the country and in Kuwait, the Washington Post said Wednesday.
posted by Kevin at 3:59 PM
3/25/2003
Marines Line up on Iranian Border :.Well, this probably won't come as much of a surprise to Cryptogon readers. TR called me just a few hours ago and asked me if I knew where the next largest deposits of oil were located, after Saudi Arabia and Iraq. You'll never guess. Oh, it just happens to be Iran, another Axis of Evil country. Don't worry. This won't happen. It can't happen. Right? Naaahhh: Royal Marines were deployed to Iraq's border with Iran yesterday in a move that will unnerve Teheran's regime, which fears encirclement by American-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Defence said the Royal Marines were merely "securing their area of operations" after seizing at the Faw peninsula.
But with Iranian troops manning positions on the other side of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, British forces face a highly sensitive task.
Tensions were illustrated by a succession of border incidents. A rocket struck an Iranian oil refinery depot in Abadan, just across from Basra, on Friday injuring two people while there were reports on Monday that Iranian forces had fired on British troops on the Faw peninsula.
posted by Kevin at 5:49 PM
Boycott of American Goods Over Iraq War Gains :.This is how you fight a war! No more Coca-Cola or Budweiser, no Marlboro, no American whiskey or even American Express cards -- a growing number of restaurants in Germany are taking everything American off their menus to protest the war in Iraq.
The boycotts appear to be part of a nascent worldwide movement. One Web site, www.consumers-against-war.de, calls for boycotts of 27 top American firms from Microsoft to Kodak while another, www.adbusters.org, urges the "millions of people against the war" to "Boycott Brand America."
posted by Kevin at 5:40 PM
Reporter Contacts Me About Chris Albritton :.-----Original Message----- From: DELETED Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 1:54 PM To: kevin@cryptogon.com Subject: Chris Allbritton Hi, I�m writing an article on Chris Allbritton and his upcoming trip to Iraq. I saw your name in his list of contributors, and I'm writing to ask you a couple of questions:
There are hundreds of journalists in the Middle East right now, covering the war. Why did you make a donation to help Chris go to Iraq?
Do you expect his coverage will be different than the coverage by mainstream media? If so, how?
What do you expect to learn from his reporting?
I would appreciate your comments, to include them in my article. Should you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me. Many thanks.
Reporter's name deletedI wrote back: Hello, Mainstream media should be thought of as consensus based media. And the operant consensus is that U.S. government and corporate behavior, while regrettable at times, is ultimately beneficial to all peoples, everywhere on the planet. That, of course, is ridiculous. You indicated that there are hundreds of journalists covering the war. The number of mainstream reporters in the field isn't the point. The question is, what will the editors print and broadcast? Editors are the problem. They are the chokepoints that prevent a more accurate understanding of events from emerging. Why, for example, have none of these pictures been broadcast on any of the cable news or national television networks? http://www.cryptogon.com/2003_03_23_blogarchive.html#91347083That was a rhetorical question, by the way. And I could ask a thousand more similar rhetorical questions about this war. Mainstream journalists, generally, will not challenge the consensus. Try it, and you'll see what happens. But with your degrees, I'm betting that you know better than to rock the boat. (I have a degree in International Relations too, but I couldn't stand the stench, so I didn't go to grad school.) You know that you would be fired/blacklisted if you begin to touch on anything substantive; anything that begins to expose the underlying reasons of why things continue to get worse, who is responsible and what can be done to ameliorate the situation. Corporate media has absolutely no reason to ask the hard questions. To do so would be suicidal---and never mind the political dislocations... Nope, roll tape of 9/11, Support Our Troops and Supersize the Freedom Fries! Panem et circenses �ber alles! >>>Why did you make a donation to help Chris go to Iraq? Quite simply, the U.S. government and the corporations it serves are hopelessly corrupt. Let it suffice to say that I support voices that take a more holistic view of events, consider the wider historical framework and find out who stands to gain. Chris is one of those voices. >>>Do you expect his coverage will be different than the coverage by mainstream media? If so, how? His reporting will be much different. How will it be different? Here are a few things to consider: 1) Chris doesn't have to worry about his access being pulled by the Pentagon. So when he sees things that might paint a less than positive picture of .gov and .mil, he can report them, freely, without having to risk explaining to his boss how he became un-embedded. 2) Chris isn't trying to sell the American Empire like mainstream media is. 3) Chris is openly biased, and I like his biases. He seems to be biased against liars, murders and frauds. Corporate media claims to be objective, unbiased, fair, etc. and that is ridiculous nonsense. >>>What do you expect to learn from his reporting? I don't expect anything. I'll assess what he reports and pass it through my own filter. His work will serve as another input on the mosaic of inputs that form my perceptions. Please feel free to write if you have any other questions or comments. NOTE: I have posted this to my web site to insure that nothing I've said can be quoted out of context. Best, Kevin The Cryptogon http://www.cryptogon.com
posted by Kevin at 5:35 PM
Newly Launched Al-Jazeera English Site Under Attack :.In case you haven't noticed, the U.S. government doesn't like Al-Jazeera. Interestingly enough, Al-Jazeera launched an English version of their site last night. The denial of service (DOS) attacks began almost immediately. Remember that the PSYOPS component of the war is EXTREMELY important: Hackers attacked the Web site of Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera on Tuesday, rendering it intermittently unavailable, the site's host said.
The newly launched English-language page, which went live Monday, was hardest hit in a bombardment of data packets known as a denial-of-service attack.
Ayman Arrashid, Internet system administrator at the Horizons Media and Information Services, the site's Web host, said the attack began Tuesday morning local time.
The Web host is based in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. The servers that host the Al-Jazeera site are in France and the United States. Only the U.S. servers were under attack, said Arrashid, so the attackers were likely in the United States.
posted by Kevin at 10:52 AM
Rumsfeld: The "Care" and "Humanity" Involved with U.S. Atrocities :."The targeting capabilities and the care that goes into targeting to see that the precise targets are struck and that other targets are not struck, is as impressive as anything anyone could see. The care that goes into it, the humanity that goes into it, to see that military targets are destroyed, to be sure, but that it's done in a way, and in a manner, and in a direction and with a weapon that is appropriate to that very particularized target."-Donald Rumsfeld, 3/21/03  
 
posted by Kevin at 6:44 AM
3/23/2003
Halliburton Makes a Killing on Iraq War :.As the first bombs rain down on Baghdad, thousands of employees of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, are working alongside US troops in Kuwait and Turkey under a package deal worth close to a billion dollars. According to US Army sources, they are building tent cities and providing logistical support for the war in Iraq in addition to other hot spots in the "war on terrorism."
While recent news coverage has speculated on the post-war reconstruction gravy train that corporations like Halliburton stand to gain from, this latest information indicates that Halliburton is already profiting from war time contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
posted by Kevin at 7:19 PM
U.S. Television Networks Show SportsPolls indicate that 70% of the U.S. population supports the war. That's actually understandable, when one considers the information that those polled are likely to have used to form their opinions. Indeed, on Sunday, March 23, 2003, as anti U.S. sentiment is exploding all over the world, and coalition forces begin to bog down in Iraq, America's four main television networks all ran sports. This is to be expected. It is part of the integrated PSYOPS campaign designed to insure that domestic public opinion does not devolve to the point where Americans begin to question the unnecessary and illegal nature of the conflict. Americans are egregiously ignorant and they have, quite literally, no idea of what is required to maintain their unconscious and profligate lifestyle. Perhaps if they see what happens to their own sons and daughters who are tasked with stealing other countries' resources, in order to maintain the status quo at home, they might become more reflective:
posted by Kevin at 3:12 PM
Al-Jazeera Video of Dead and Captured U.S. SoldiersAmericans have no concept of the consequences of war. They should view this video! Windows Media Player or RealMedia
posted by Kevin at 1:14 PM
3/22/2003
Looted Veteran Disability Funds :.As the media fawns over our beloved troops, consider the following: JH writes: Last night on the news there was another carefully manicured segment (interviews with old men in camis in front of mahogany paneling and a draped flag, video of a group of our boys running into shrubbery with their guns pointed, etc.) on how, if any of our guys are lost, they are so valuable that 'we' will do whatever it takes, risk however many lives, to rescue them. Meanwhile, we're paying for the war with looted veteran disability funds.From the article: By a vote along party lines, the majority members of the House Budget Committee passed and reported for a vote by the House a budget resolution that would cut $844 million from veterans� medical care next year and $9.7 billion over the next 10 years. In addition, the budget resolution would cut $15 billion from the disability compensation and other benefit programs over the next 10 years. The House leadership are pushing these cuts to offset the cost of the President�s $1.57 trillion tax reduction plan.Update: I just heard on MSNBC that a U.S. Marine just had both of his legs blown off due to a landmine incident. He survived. And his future benefits are going to be cut so that rich people can get tax breaks. Simply incredible.
posted by Kevin at 12:00 PM
Chevron Texaco to Suspend Operations in Nigeria :.I wonder if Al Qaeda will be found to be operating in Nigeria? <--- Sarcasm: The violence prompted the US oil company, Chevron Texaco, to suspend operations in the region on Thursday - slashing output levels in Africa's biggest producer by 13%.
Some reports said the Anglo-Dutch company Shell had also confirmed it would not be able to meet its contractual obligations on Friday.
posted by Kevin at 11:26 AM
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss :.Has the U.S. chosen an accused war criminal to eventually lead Iraq? This is almost too much to believe, even by my standards: FORMER Iraqi army chief Nizar al-Khazraji, who disappeared from his home in Denmark last week, was spirited away by CIA agents and taken to Saudi Arabia, a Danish newspaper has said.
Khazraji, believed to be the highest ranking officer to have defected from Iraq and touted by US media as a possible successor to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, was reported missing from his address on March 17.
Danish newspaper BT said the 64-year-old former general, who has been charged with war crimes for alleged chemical weapon attacks on Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s and was under house arrest in Denmark, was useful to US intelligence in their war against Iraq.
posted by Kevin at 10:03 AM
Turkey Sends Troops Into Northern Iraq :.There goes the neighborhood: This is slap to the United States, which has �cautioned� the Turks not to move into the region, but the negotiations between Turkey and the United States possibly grew so bitter that Turkey feels it now doesn�t trust the United States to watch out for its interests in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Qubad Jalal Talabani, the deputy representative of the PUK in Washington, appeared on BBC to explain his party�s viewpoint.
�It is very worrying for my people,� he said. �We believe that Turkish intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan is a recipe for disaster.�
posted by Kevin at 3:55 AM
Iraqis Hunted in Mexico :.Recall Armed Men of Unknown Origin Near the Southern U.S. Border. And now this: CIA sources have revealed that several Iraqis are being hunted in Mexico. The six suspects are thought to have chemical and biological weapons with them. According to reports, the men have tried to persuade smugglers, who profit from helping people cross the Mexican border into the US, to get them into America. Officials say they were given a tip off and are treating the reports seriously.And now: Mexico Denies Conducting Search for Iraqi Terrorists :.A Mexican security official has denied reports that authorities are searching for six Iraqis alleged to be transporting toxic gases.
Spokesman for the Secretary of Government Hector Villarreal said Friday there is no evidence of Iraqi terrorists in Mexico.
Mr. Villarreal was responding to news reports Thursday, which said local officials in Tamaulipas state had received news of the alleged search. The reports said the terrorists were planning to cross the border into the United States with toxic gases. Uhhh: Mexico Detains Three Iraqi-Born Men Near U.S. Border :.Mexico has detained three Iraqi-born men who were planning to cross into the United States, authorities said on Saturday, adding that the men wanted to seek political asylum rather than carry out terror attacks.
The men were picked up late Friday in a bus depot in the city of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego in California, because their Mexican immigration papers were not in order, authorities said.
"One is a U.S. national of Iraqi origin who was guiding the other two, who are seeking political asylum in the United States," said an official from the National Immigration Institute. "They have nothing to do with terrorists or anything and there are no charges against them."This is extremely weird. Nobody is able to keep this story straight, but there's enough noise on this to know that something big is happening.
posted by Kevin at 2:42 AM
Friends Rerun More Popular than Live War Coverage :.Complete oblivion: U.S. television networks, facing a bill of up to $20 million each per day to cover the Iraq war, found that "Friends" are more popular than enemies as a repeat episode of the top sitcom on Thursday night beat live war cover on ABC in the ratings.
posted by Kevin at 2:06 AM
3/21/2003
Rocket Hits Oil Refinery Depot in SW Iran :.A rocket hit an oil refinery depot in southwestern Iran close to the border with Iraq and two people have been injured, Iranian government sources told Reuters on Friday.
The sources said it was not clear where the rocket, which hit the depot in the city of Abadan, had come from. Abadan is about 30 miles east of the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
It hit the building around 7:45 p.m. local time, they said.
posted by Kevin at 12:20 PM
"This is a regime that is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people." --- Donald Rumsfeld, Press Briefing Today Never forget: Research Credit: MS
posted by Kevin at 11:04 AM
Shock and Awe: Federal Deficit Soars to Record :.The government ran up a deficit of $193.9 billion in the first five months of the 2003 budget year, nearly three times the deficit for the same period a year earlier.
In February alone, the deficit was $96.3 billion, the largest on record.
The latest figures, released Thursday by the Treasury Department, highlighted the government's deteriorating fiscal situation.
posted by Kevin at 7:58 AM
More Than 1,000 Arrests in San Francisco :.Protests are raging all over the world. Police arrested more than 1,000 people in San Francisco on Thursday -- the most demonstrators taken into custody on a single day in the city in 22 years -- as tens of thousands protested across America against the U.S. war in Iraq.
"If this was happening in every city, there would either be martial law or an end to war," said one Berkeley student who chained himself to 16 others on a major San Francisco street.
posted by Kevin at 6:48 AM
3/20/2003
WARNING TO LOS ANGELES ACTIVISTSBlack Bloc Anarchist elements have put out a call to show up at the Federal building in Westwood to mix with the peaceful protestors. These guys will have .gov/police agents mixed in with their ranks. The purpose of Black Bloc in a crowd is to give the cops an immediate excuse to shut down the protest. Local media is reporting U.S. Army aircraft over Los Angeles. Part of this could be the SPECOPS controllers that have been observed during Black Bloc actions. Be careful.
posted by Kevin at 6:13 AM
China and Russia Demand Immediate End to U.S. AggressionChina: The Chinese foreign ministry has urged the USA to immediately stop military action in Iraq and return to peaceful means of settling the Iraqi issue, Kong Quan, an official foreign ministry spokesman, told a briefing in Beijing. Russia: Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded Thursday that the United States quickly end its attack on Iraq, and said the use of military force against Saddam Hussein was not justified.
Russia, along with France and Germany, opposed any resolution in the U.N. Security Council that would have sanctioned the use of force. President Bush withdrew the resolution on Monday.
"Russia demands the swiftest end to military action," Putin said at the start of a meeting with top officials. "The military action against Iraq is a big political mistake."
posted by Kevin at 5:08 AM
Pentagon Threatens to Kill Independent Reporters in Iraq :.The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon officer had said: "Who cares....They've been warned."
According to Ms. Adie, who twelve years ago covered the last Gulf War, the Pentagon attitude is: "entirely hostile to the the free spread of information."
"I am enormously pessimistic of the chance of decent on-the-spot reporting, as the war occurs," she told Irish national broadcaster, Tom McGurk on the RTE1 Radio "Sunday Show."Research Credit: JH
posted by Kevin at 3:54 AM
Roundups of Iraqis Beginning in U.S. :.Several dozen Iraqis in the United States believed to pose a wartime threat will be detained by the FBI using new powers to arrest people on immigration violations ordered by Attorney General John Ashcroft.
posted by Kevin at 3:35 AM
Scalia Accepts Free Speech Award, Recordings and Video Banned :.An ironic rule was in force as Justice Antonin Scalia accepted a free speech award from a Cleveland public affairs organization yesterday: At the justice's insistence, no video or audio recorders were allowed during his speech.
Some saw the decision to exclude those media from Scalia's talk as inconsistent with the City Club of Cleveland's self-description as "the oldest continuous free speech forum in the country."
Terry Murphy, vice president and executive producer of C-SPAN, wrote the club to express "disappointment and bewilderment" at the camera ban, adding that "any insistence that television cameras not cover the event . . . seems to be in conflict with the award itself. How Free is Speech if there are limits to its distribution?"
posted by Kevin at 2:03 AM
3/19/2003
U.S. Army Blackhawk Helicopters Patrolling Los AngelesI just saw a report on KNBC TV that U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopters are actively patrolling the skies over LA. They didn't say anything about it, but they also showed video tape of what looked like a CH-47 Chinook troop carrier/air lift helicopter.
posted by Kevin at 11:21 PM
Jeremiah 51:2-4I will send foreigners to Babylon to winnow her and devastate her land; they will oppose her on every side in the day of her disaster. Let not the archer string his bow, nor let him put on his armor. Do not spare her young men. Completely destroy her Army. They will fall down slain in Babylon, fatally wounded in her streets.
posted by Kevin at 5:27 PM
Rachel Corrie: How She Died :.People all over the world are choosing how they want to go down. Read about Rachel Corrie's last moments and behold the true nature of one of America's closest allies: Israel. In Chinese Try Mobile Death Vans, I said that the blood of the woman being taken away for execution was on all of our hands, because we buy the goods that support China's murderous, fascist regime. The blood of Rachel Corrie is also on all of our hands, because our tax money is funneled to Israel's murderous, fascist regime: "Rachel had been staying in Palestinian homes threatened with illegal demolition, and today Rachel was standing with other non-violent international activists in front of a home scheduled for illegal demolition. According to witnesses, Rachel was run over twice by the Israeli military bulldozer in its process of demolishing the Palestinian home. Witnesses say that Rachel was clearly visible to the bulldozer driver, and was doing nothing to provoke an attack."More: Teargas and Stun Grenades at Memorial Service for Rachel Corrie :.Israeli forces fired teargas and stun grenades yesterday in an attempt to break up a memorial service for Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist killed by an army bulldozer in Gaza on Sunday.
Witnesses including several dozen foreigners and Palestinian supporters say Israeli armoured vehicles tried to disperse the gathering at the spot in Rafah refugee camp where Ms Corrie was crushed to death.
posted by Kevin at 5:00 PM
3/18/2003
Is Martial Law Imminent? :.Here we go, folks. This is so shocking that I decided to post the entire story: Red alert? Stay home, await word
Sunday, March 16, 2003
By TOM BALDWIN
Gannett State Bureau
TRENTON
If the nation escalates to "red alert," which is the highest in the color-coded readiness against terror, you will be assumed by authorities to be the enemy if you so much as venture outside your home, the state's anti-terror czar says.
"This state is on top of it," said Sid Caspersen, New Jersey's director of the office of counter-terrorism.
Caspersen, a former FBI agent, was briefing reporters, alongside Gov. James E. McGreevey, on Thursday, when for the first time he disclosed the realities of how a red alert would shut the state down.
A red alert would also tear away virtually all personal freedoms to move about and associate.
"Red means all noncritical functions cease," Caspersen said. "Noncritical would be almost all businesses, except health-related."
A red alert means there is a severe risk of terrorist attack, according to federal guidelines from the Department of Homeland Security.
"The state will restrict transportation and access to critical locations," says the state's new brochure on dealing with terrorism.
"You must adhere to the restrictions announced by authorities and prepare to evacuate, if instructed. Stay alert for emergency messages."
Caspersen went further than the brochure. "The government agencies would run at a very low threshold," he said.
"The state police and the emergency management people would take control over the highways.
"You literally are staying home, is what happens, unless you are required to be out. No different than if you had a state of emergency with a snowstorm."Research Credit: MR
posted by Kevin at 6:32 PM
Cryptogon Plan During the WarI'm not going to focus on topics that will be endlessly hyped by corporate media sources. I want to know about: 1) Verifiable, U.S. caused atrocities in Iraq. 2) Indications that the war is spreading, or involving combatants from neighboring countries inside Iraq. 3) U.S. legislation that is passed after the war starts: Those whores in Congress are going to be up to something ugly, I'm almost sure of it. If there is an attack in the U.S., all bets are off. They'll roll out Patriot Act 2 and that thing will be law. Who knows, sites like this, and their operators, might just go away. *poof* Which leads me to #4... 4) Secret arrests, detentions and other extra-Constitutional weirdness. 5) Israel: Israel is out of control in the Palestinian areas. Israel may use the fog of war in Iraq as an opportunity to commit more war crimes at home. Sharon knows the media spotlight will be pointed far away from Gaza and the West Bank. And if Iraq flings something at Israel, uhh... All large U.S. cities are increasing security. Los Angeles and New York are stepping up efforts to lock things down. I don't want to sound nuts, but if anything happens within the U.S., as a shooting war is underway, who knows what kind of frightening executive orders and secret PDDs (Presidential Decision Directives) might be triggered?!? I guess there isn't really a lot left to do but hold on and stay alert. More: Details on New York Lockdown (Operation ATLAS)CNN just showed video tape from Manhattan. Cops wearing ski masks and brandishing loaded machine guns are walking around on the streets.
posted by Kevin at 6:35 AM
The Primacy of PSYOPS in Modern Warfare :.Psychological operations are a critical component of all U.S. military activities; not only PSYOPS directed at the enemy, but PSYOPS directed at Americans. Try to keep this in mind and they break out the big flat screens, sophisticated graphics, makeup and tits. Don't expect to see close quarters battle, urban warfare and incinerated civilians. That stuff is not part of the script: One of the first major ground campaigns in the war against Iraq will be the seizure of the country's largest southern city, Basra, to capitalize on any scene of liberation that can be beamed to a skeptical world.
Military and allied officials familiar with the planning of the upcoming campaign say they hope that a successful and "benign" occupation of Basra that results in flag-waving crowds hugging British and American soldiers will create an immediate positive image worldwide of American and British war aims while also undermining Iraqi resistance elsewhere in the country.
With this strategic goal, part military and part political, White House and senior Pentagon officials are seeking to trump the negative imagery associated with a contentious Security Council debate over the legal authority for commencing the war in the face of significant international opposition, the officials said.
posted by Kevin at 6:28 AM
Armed Men of Unknown Origin Near the Southern U.S. Border :.Americans are being subjected to every possible type of ridiculous surveillance, patdowns, checkpoints and the southern border of the U.S. is basically a wide open free for all!?!? I suggest carrying this story on your person at all times, just in case you get stopped or accosted because of measures related to "homeland security." Say something like, "I wish we had officers like you down on the border, where unidentified military personnel and terrorists can move about freely. I'm just carrying my meager groceries home, after working all day for penury, but golly, I hope those guys down there weren't bringing in parts for a thermonuclear bomb or radiological dispersal weapon. Have a nice day, officer, you're making me feel really safe." What the Hell is this? A southern Texas sheriff is warning the public that unidentified armed men dressed in military fatigues have been spotted on numerous occasions in his county near the border with Mexico.
For the "country's safety," Sheriff Erasmo Alarcon Jr., of Jim Hogg County, published a letter in a local newspaper to alert citizens of reports he has received for some years from ranchers who have spotted the unknown troops, equipped with "professional backpacks" and walking together in a military cadence.
posted by Kevin at 6:27 AM
Germany's Top Neo-Nazis Are German Intelligence Operatives :.Every resistance movement with a command structure WILL be infiltrated with government agents. These groups are very useful when it comes time for the government to pass some new nightmarish legislation. The terrorists are the government: One in seven of Germany's top neo-Nazis is a secret service agent, the government has admitted in an attempt to sustain faltering efforts to ban a far-Right political party.
Government lawyers have offered the information in the hope that it will save agents from being identified in court.
posted by Kevin at 6:25 AM
3/17/2003
Prime Directive to Iraqis from Bush: Don't Destroy Oil Wells :.Oil wells are higher on the list of priorities than the use of chemical and biological weapons!? What was the main reason for going to war? If it was to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing and using weapons of mass destruction, why did Bush mention the oil wells first? <--- That's a rhetorical question, by the way. Quote from the speech: And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning: In any conflict, your fate will depend on your actions. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."Such a subtle, yet very telling, blunder. What an imbecile.
posted by Kevin at 5:44 PM
A Note on Today's UpdatesThis batch is dark, folks. And there's a lot of it. My goal is not to get you to stop reading. I know that when you go about your daily lives, many of you see no evidence that any of this stuff is happening. Keep in mind that the rockets and bombs the U.S. is about to unleash on Iraq are part of the litany of nightmares that make the world appear "normal" to Americans. Without exporting horror abroad, things would be very different at home. What we must understand, if we are to survive, is that we have a relationship to the horror our government spreads around the world. We pay for it. We are responsible for it. We will ultimately be held accountable for it. Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative states, "act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." In other words, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Would it seem right for Iraq to invade America, level its cities and annihilate its civilian population in order to steal its natural resources? Well, America has already done that to Iraq, has been doing it for years and is about to ramp up the effort with over 250,000 troops and billions of dollars worth of otherworldly weapon systems. Have no doubt about it: If the U.S. launches this invasion of Iraq, the U.S. will have insured its own doom. We will be demonstrating to the world just how depraved and desperate we have become. No state can get away with something this egregious without paying a VERY heavy price. And just as the world came together against Saddam Hussein during the first Persian Gulf War, perhaps the world will unite against a much more powerful and frightening opponent, the United States of America, as it prepares to do to Iraq what Iraq did to Kuwait in 1990. Indeed, where will America strike next after Iraq? Get focused, get quiet, get clear and pray, meditate or think on an outcome to this situation that is Good, True and Beautiful.
posted by Kevin at 5:12 AM
Chinese Try Mobile Death Vans :. The next time you visit Walmart, Ikea, Target, Kmart or any other chain store, try to notice the blood dripping down the walls and smeared all over the floor. What!? You can't see it? Oh, it's there. Just take a look at where most of the products are made. Chinese elites have sold out their people to other global elites and allowed China to be used as a slave camp for the production of finished goods for export. Look at the picture of the woman being taken away for execution. Take a good look. That woman's blood is on my hands. It's on your hands. And it's on the hands of just about everyone else in the West (including Japan). When we buy products that are made in China, we support the most overtly fascist regime on the planet. What can we do about it? I'll repeat the familiar mantra: Get self sufficient, create local economies, buy things used, buy things that will allow you to get out of the cycle of death that is our economic system, reduce, reuse, recycle. But when it comes time to buy something, try to buy things that aren't made in China! Good luck. I am, of course, a hypocrite. Knowing everything I know about this stuff, I bought a $7 lamp from Ikea a couple of months ago. At first glance, one would marvel at the apparent bargain. It certainly is a nice lamp. It is sufficiently well-made. It has an appealing look. There's one problem. The lamp is drenched in blood. Invisible blood of dead Chinese people. Like all of the other lamps at Ikea, and all of the lamps at the other stores, the one I bought was made in China. I could have found a lamp that wasn't made in China. Perhaps if I made it my sole mission in life for a week, fed Dick Cheney by burning up a tank of gasoline and hardened myself to the weird reactions I'd get from sales people when I'd ask, "Do you have any lamps that aren't made in China?" maybe I could have found a simple floor lamp that wasn't made in China. But I didn't do that. I bought the $7 lamp from Ikea because to exist in this system requires that we support and propagate evil. While we are in this system, we support slavery and brutal regimes like China's. While we are in this system, nothing is cheap, except human life. If you're still reading at this point, which I would find hard to believe, here's the point: While we are in this system, paying taxes, driving gas burning cars, buying imported manufactured goods, nearly everything we do supports evil. If we can't leave the system, or change it, what we must do is limit our support of evil. The only substantive power we have is related to the choices we make when we buy things. When you spend money, try not to support the kind of activity you see in this picture. I'll try to do the same. From the article: China is equipping its courts with mobile execution vans as it shifts away from the communist system's traditional bullet in the head, towards a more "civilised" use of lethal injection.
Intermediate Courts of the southern province of Yunnan were issued with 18 new execution vans on February 28 and a court official said some have already been used.
"We cannot tell you how many executions so far, otherwise you could work out from the daily rate how many we carry out," the official said.
Chinese authorities keep execution numbers a secret, but Western human rights monitors believe it is about 15,000 a year, more than the rest of the world's judicial executions combined.
The death penalty can apply for serious crimes against the person, armed robbery, drug trafficking, major cases of corruption and political violence.
Many public executions have been held in football stadiums so traditional execution methods are no secret. The condemned criminal is taken by open truck to the execution ground and made to kneel with hands cuffed and head bowed, before being shot in the head. Families who want to reclaim the body are charged for the bullet.Note: If that picture goes away, it means the WalMart legal mafia made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
posted by Kevin at 3:43 AM
More on the Real Economic Stimulus Package :.You guys read it here long ago. Here it is again: The Bush administration's audacious plan to rebuild Iraq envisions a sweeping overhaul of Iraqi society within a year of a war's end, but leaves much of the work to private U.S. companies, Monday's Wall Street Journal reported.
The Bush plan, as detailed in more than 100 pages of confidential contract documents, would sideline United Nations development agencies and other multilateral organizations that have long directed reconstruction efforts in places such as Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Kosovo. The plan also would leave big nongovernmental organizations largely in the lurch: With more than $1.5 billion in Iraq work being offered to private U.S. companies under the plan, just $50 million is so far earmarked for a small number of groups such as CARE and Save the Children.Remember, socialism is bad, unless you are an evil corporation. Then the U.S. government will kill people and give you handouts.
posted by Kevin at 3:37 AM
Israel Murders Peace Activist :.In a matter of months, Rachel Corrie went from the orderly peace movement of this small liberal city to a deadly world of gunfire, bulldozers and violent political conflict.
Corrie, 23, a student at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, died Sunday in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah while trying to stop a bulldozer from tearing down a Palestinian physician's home. She fell in front of the machine, which ran over her and then backed up, witnesses said.
posted by Kevin at 3:15 AM
Passenger Finds 'Chilling' Note from Bag Handler :.I've always said that American fascism would be particularly ugly once it started to gather speed. Hold on because we've super sized the freedom fries, pushed the accelerator on the SUV to the floor, pointed her down the road to oblivion and flung the steering wheel out the window! Yeee-HA! Kick ass! Support our troops! God Bless Ame..... What we are seeing now is run of the mill jingoism coupled with fat asses, empty brains and corporate logos. Consider people who dine in gas stations and talk with great interest about what happens on television. That's America, man. Love it or leave it! We are moving into the next phase of fascism, where dissents will be shunned by "average, patriotic, law abiding citizens." Soon, people who question U.S. foreign and domestic policies will be arrested. Oh, woops, that's already happening: An airline passenger who had two "No War with Iraq" signs in his suitcase says the federal security agent who opened his luggage inserted a note criticizing his "anti-American attitude."
"I found it chilling and a little Orwellian to have received this message," said Seth Goldberg, 41, of Cranbury, New Jersey.
posted by Kevin at 3:09 AM
FBI 'Nightstalkers' Track Terror Suspects :.Shocking: The FBI has a fleet of aircraft, some equipped with night surveillance and eavesdropping equipment, flying America's skies to track and collect intelligence from suspected terrorists.
The FBI will not provide exact figures on the planes and helicopters, but more than 80 are in the skies. There are several planes, known as "Nightstalkers," equipped with infrared devices that allow agents to track people and vehicles in the dark.
Other aircraft are outfitted with electronic surveillance equipment so agents can pursue listening devices placed in cars, in buildings and even along streets, or listen to cell phone calls. Still others fly photography missions, although officials would not describe precise capabilities.
posted by Kevin at 2:47 AM
U.S. and France Supplied Iraqi Bioweapons Materials :.Yawn. Here it is ONE MORE TIME, in case you didn't get it previously: The document shows that the American and French supply houses shipped 17 types of biological agents to Iraq in the 1980's that were used in the weapons programs. Those included anthrax and the bacteria needed to make botulinum toxin, among the most deadly poisons known. It also discloses that Iraq had tried unsuccessfully to obtain biological agents in the late 1980's from other biological supply houses around the world.
The quantities of the agents were described in terms of ampuls, which are sealed glass or plastic containers about the size of test tubes.
Iraq has acknowledged that it used the American and French germ samples to produce tons of biological weapons in the 1980's.
posted by Kevin at 2:46 AM
South African 'Smart Gun' :.If this is the future of firearms, you should be stockpiling baseball bats, pitchforks, large kitchen knives, rocks, etc. I could say more, but I won't. Draw your own conclusions as to where you think this is heading: The IFA, as it�s known, uses a biometric sensor located just above the handgrip to activate its firing capability. The sensor is encoded with the thumbprint of an authorised user (or users): unless it recognises the imprint, it remains inoperative. As Van Zyl says, an unauthorised person could use it to clobber someone over the head, but that�s about it.
�This is the first firearm to enter the electronics age in terms of authorised use. It could be used for personal protection, or in a responsible peacekeeping role. There is a real need for a gun like this.�
In conjunction with the biometric sensor, the electronic chip located in the gun�s pistol grip will be encoded with a range of additional information regarding the user�s personal details, including fingerprints, identity number, and licence status (that is, whether the firearm is for personal protection, hunting, police or military use).
The device is designed to empower a country�s authorities with absolute control over the gun�s life history, says Van Zyl. When the firearm is issued, it can be �loaded� with one or more authorised users� details. This data is stored in a fixed memory that cannot be changed. And it records each and every shot fired by the IFA.
posted by Kevin at 2:45 AM
3/14/2003
Democracy in Iraq Doubtful :.A classified State Department report expresses deep skepticism that installing a new regime in Iraq will foster the spread of democracy in the Middle East, a claim President Bush has made in trying to build support for a war, according to intelligence officials familiar with the document. Research Credit: BW
posted by Kevin at 8:19 AM
Risking Everything for Independent Journalism :.All of you should read the incredible story of Christopher Allbritton, an independent journalist who is raising money through his weblog so that he can bring his readers direct reports from Iraq. No filters. No editors. No limits to what he can say. Obviously, he will be risking his life to bring this information out of Iraq. The list of potential threats he will face on an expedition like this could probably fill volumes. For example, his satellite phone may draw fire from U.S. military forces. But never mind all of that; he's willing to go. All he needs is money. This is what journalism is all about. I hope all of you give the guy some money! I'm too embarrassed to reveal how much (actually, how little) I donated, but that's not the point. I donated. I would like nothing more than to bankroll his entire trip. Well, actually, if I was in a position to do that, I'd pay his way and then I'd go myself. <---That was a hint to you rich folks who read this site. I'm a very competent photographer. So if any of you want to pay to get me into Iraq with a satellite phone and a Canon EOS1D, let me know. I'd be willing to risk my life for a chance to get images that might be useful for prosecuting Bush, Rumsfeld, Franks, et al for war crimes. From the Wired story on Chris: Allbritton, a former New York Daily News reporter living in the East Village, plans to file stories directly to his weblog, Back to Iraq 2.0, next month as part of an independent news-gathering expedition to Iraq.
Allbritton says he wants to cover the humanitarian effects the likely U.S.-Iraq war will have on civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan, which is protected by a U.S.-imposed no-fly zone over northern Iraq.
While "embedded" reporters with backing from major news outlets bump along on prearranged Hummer rides and report what they see in the mainstream media, Allbritton will hitchhike and bribe his way through an area that could become the most dangerous place in Iraq outside Baghdad.
posted by Kevin at 5:49 AM
Verint Watches Over You :.If you're under FBI surveillance, there's a good chance your phone calls and Internet traffic are traveling over the equipment of Verint Systems -- a company that's doing very well these days, writes SecurityFocus' Kevin Poulsen.
New York-based technology firm Verint Systems recently launched a product called "IntelliFind" that claims impressive capabilities. The system is designed to be attached to the phone lines at a company's call center, where it silently monitors every telephone call, and -- using advanced voice recognition technology -- picks out conversations in which certain keywords are spoken, dumping a digital recording into a searchable database. "You can decide you want to see all the calls where product 'xyz' was mentioned, and then you can pick one and listen to that entire call," says Alan Roden, Verint's VP of corporate development.
posted by Kevin at 2:58 AM
U.S. Jobs Jumping Ship :.Over the past two decades, most of the jobs sent overseas were in the manufacturing sector. Not anymore. Companies are increasingly hiring cheap foreign labor for engineering and computer jobs. In case you missed the free trade bullshit propaganda: Those were the types of jobs that were supposed to stay in the U.S. Think about it! The point of hiring cheap labor is to produce goods at a lower cost. Fine. Who buys these finished goods? There's the problem. Since more Americans are being fired from their jobs, fewer Americans will be buying those Nike shoes. And how many pairs of Nike shoes will be purchased by a Chinese factory worker making a dollar per day? This is the Oh Shit moment. This is the point at which you come to realize that the entire system is flawed. This system is based on the ability of companies to produce goods at a minimum apparent cost without any consideration of how people are going to get the money to buy the finished goods. American slaves have allowed their jobs to be exported and are relying on the momentum of the past to be able to afford the goods produced by lower paid slaves abroad. And companies are now trying to export the professional echelons of their staffs to the lowest possible bidders. Again, the simple question: Who's going to be left to buy the finished goods? I'm beginning to wonder if the elite are planning to destroy the United States, and shift their primary markets to Europe or Asia. Americans may turn out to be too much trouble to be included in the fully locked down, global prison camp. (If you want to know why I think this is the case, email me and I'll send the paragraph I deleted from this entry.) ---Paragraph Deleted--- From the CNN/Money article: As painful as February's big job cuts were, what's even more painful is that many of those jobs are never coming back, as U.S. employers in a wide range of industries move more and more jobs overseas.
That's old news for manufacturers, who have been cutting jobs and moving them offshore for decades, but it's a trend that's also starting to gather steam in a number of service industries, especially information technology, formerly one of America's best-paying industries.More: Sony Shifts PS2 Production to ChinaJapanese workers aren't safe either: Sony is to shift the production of its PlayStation 2 console to Chinese production facilities next year in a bid to reduce costs, the company announced this week, prompting speculation that the company will pass on the cost savings to consumers in the near future.
Spokesman Koichiro Katsurayama said the company would move production to Chinese plants run by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. and Asustek Computer Inc, and cease production in Japan, where half of its current PS2 output is based.
On a cost basis, the move makes a huge amount of sense for Sony Computer Entertainment; with average labour costs in China around one twentieth of that in the US, according to official US and Chinese labour statistics.
posted by Kevin at 2:00 AM
3/13/2003
Elizabeth Smart :.I try to make a point of not delving into the weird areas of cults and the sexual deviance and perversion of elites. And as weird as the Elizabeth Smart case is, I planned on sticking to my policy of avoiding the subject. But I came across a picture associated with the case that was so weird that I had to mention it. Take a look at this picture: Daniel Trotta poses on his bed, where he says Elizabeth Smart slept for nearly a week in October. (Fred Hayes -- AP)Well, folks, I can't help it: Look at the Joy Division poster on the back wall of that room. Read this collection of links that show military/intelligence/cop/elite connections to sex slaves, prostitution, etc. and then tell me how Elizabeth Smart happened to find accommodations in a room with a poster on the wall of a band named after groups of women who were forced to have sex with Nazi officers during World War II. If you think I've lost it, don't worry, I'm just going to go watch Pi again. More: Photos of PartyGoogle may not have indexed these photos yet, but I want to see the photos of Smart and her kidnappers at the party. If you find these, let me know. The photographer's name was Dan Gorder: In September, Mitchell appeared at a late-night party in a downtown Salt Lake City apartment, said freelance photographer Dan Gorder, who snapped shots of the wandering preacher chugging a beer. Mitchell was accompanied by two women dressed in white, veils covering all but their eyes, Gorder said.
posted by Kevin at 10:19 PM
Military and Intelligence Agency Outsourcing :.With war in the air and a new market in homeland security booming, many private firms are looking to expand their government work. Which is why Computer Sciences Corporation, a California-based technology services company, came to this part of the Beltway to do a bit of Christmas shopping. On a Friday in mid-December, CSC announced it would buy a little-known contractor named DynCorp in an acquisition worth nearly $1 billion. Ranked 13th in the dollar value of its federal business - and dwarfed by Lockheed Martin by a factor of 16 - DynCorp has operated in the shadows of the capital for five decades. It is neither the most visible nor the most powerful of the companies that rely on government contracts. But it has thoroughly mastered the byways of Washington, and its purchase by CSC shines a spotlight on the modern military techno-industrial complex.
posted by Kevin at 2:34 PM
Serbian Prime Minister Assassinated in Belgrade :.Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, chief organizer of the October 2000 democratic revolution that toppled Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, was shot and killed today by snipers as he approached the door of his government headquarters in Belgrade. JM writes: It's interesting that the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria took place in Serbia that exoterically sparked the First World War. It took place in Sarajevo, but the plotting occurred in Belgrade by a group called The Black Hand.
posted by Kevin at 3:24 AM
Cheney is Still Getting Paid by Halliburton :.Halliburton, the Texas company which has been awarded the Pentagon's contract to put out potential oil-field fires in Iraq and which is bidding for postwar construction contracts, is still making annual payments to its former chief executive, the vice-president Dick Cheney.
The payments, which appear on Mr Cheney's 2001 financial disclosure statement, are in the form of "deferred compensation" of up to $1m (�600,000) a year.
posted by Kevin at 3:22 AM
Benetton to Weave Tracking Chips Into Clothes :.Can I get some Freedom Fries with my RFID tagged t-shirt??? So, where do we go next, now that CLOTHES ARE SPYING ON US? By placing a radio frequency ID tag in the labels of its clothing items, Benetton hopes to tie customer information to purchases in their computer systems. The radio frequency ID tags are about the size of a grain of sand, but they can hold much more information than the washing instructions that are written on the labels themselves. Once a purchase is made, the buyer's personal information is linked to the item bought in Benetton's database. It's only a matter of time before targeted products start appearing whenever that clothing item is worn.
posted by Kevin at 3:21 AM
World's First Brain Prosthesis Revealed :.Things are getting really weird: No one understands how the hippocampus encodes information. So the team simply copied its behaviour. Slices of rat hippocampus were stimulated with electrical signals, millions of times over, until they could be sure which electrical input produces a corresponding output. Putting the information from various slices together gave the team a mathematical model of the entire hippocampus.
They then programmed the model onto a chip, which in a human patient would sit on the skull rather than inside the brain. It communicates with the brain through two arrays of electrodes, placed on either side of the damaged area. One records the electrical activity coming in from the rest of the brain, while the other sends appropriate electrical instructions back out to the brain.A neuroscience researcher sent in this response: These guys are professional grant scammers and bozos who have conned the media into pumping up their nonsense so they can get more funding. To simulate the rat cortex they did single-cell recording. There's one problem in developing a human version of this chip: it's unethical to do single-cell recordings in humans--unless mass-murder and torture in the name of progress becomes an accepted practice (which it might). Also, notice that all they did was build the chip. It has not been tested in a rat. My guess is that they could not possibly have accounted for all the possible input-output combinations that the hippocampus performs. And how many of those unaccounted for combinations are crucial to normal functioning is unknown. I would imagine that when they plug this chip into the rat it will start having seizures and drop dead. Oh well, add dead, tortured rat #1,435,953 to the trash heap. Back to the drawing board. I suppose the creation of terminator drones and troglidyte workers will have to wait another year.
posted by Kevin at 2:42 AM
3/12/2003
German Minister Calls Bush a Dictator :.GERMANY clashed with the United States again yesterday over the Iraq crisis after a Junior Defence Minister in Berlin described President Bush as a dictator.
The comments made by Walter Kolbow are sure to complicate further the troubled relationship between the Bush Administration and Gerhard Schr�der, the German Chancellor.
During the German election campaign last year, Mr Bush was furious after one minister compared him to Hitler and another leading Social Democrat politician accused him of behaving like a Roman Emperor.
posted by Kevin at 3:38 AM
U.S. Military Strategy in Iraq: Create a Radiological Catastrophe :.And the U.S. government is worried about terrorists using a "dirty" bomb in America??? Uh, the U.S. uses "dirty" munitions as part of standard military practice: U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf may be armed with radioactive bombs and missiles hundreds of times more potent than similar weapons used during the Gulf War and the U.N. military campaign in Bosnia.
As evidence that the United States is expanding its use of depleted uranium weapons beyond the relatively small 30-millimeter to 120-millimeter armor-piercing bullets and shells used by tanks and tank-killer aircraft in the Gulf and Balkans, weapons watchdogs cite the so-called "bunker-buster" bombs and missiles unleashed on Afghanistan.
posted by Kevin at 3:20 AM
New Ed McCabe Book: Flood Your Body with Oxygen :.Do you have a chronic disease? Do you know someone who does? How many people do you know who have had cancer, or died from it? Hint: Start with this book. Why doesn't your doctor know anything about this?! Hmmm... Flood Your Body with Oxygen by Ed McCabe: Our too-low cell oxygen levels encourage toxic buildups and the growth of anaerobic (can�t live in active oxygen) microbes such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other pathogens inside us and inside our animals and pets, and in our plants. Anaerobes and toxicity slowly building up and overtaking us until we break down are the ultimate cause of most human, animal, and plant health problems as well as being the precursors to the whole list of �incurable� diseases.
There are proven, safe, and effective re-oxygenating and re-mineralizing techniques not presently taught in our medical schools and they�re not just simply breathing oxygen from a tank and eating dirt. These little known (in our country) techniques have been used safely and effectively on the international scene daily for over 50 years by thousands of doctors.
posted by Kevin at 3:09 AM
Supersizing Absurdity: French Freedom Fries :.Read Orwell's 1984. Note the references to Victory Gin and Victory Cigarettes. Well, in the real world, we now have Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast. The End: The cafeteria menus in the three House office buildings changed the name of "french fries" to "freedom fries," in a culinary rebuke of France stemming from anger over the country's refusal to support the U.S. position on Iraq.
Ditto for "french toast," which will be known as "freedom toast."Research Credit: JH, TR
posted by Kevin at 2:53 AM
3/11/2003
Libraries Post Patriot Act Warnings :.Along with the usual reminders to hold the noise down and pay overdue fines, library patrons in Santa Cruz are seeing a new type of sign these days: a warning that records of the books they borrow may wind up in the hands of federal agents.
The signs, posted in the 10 county branches last week and on the library's Web site, also inform the reader that the USA Patriot Act "prohibits library workers from informing you if federal agents have obtained records about you."
"Questions about this policy," patrons are told, "should be directed to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. 20530."
posted by Kevin at 12:44 AM
3/10/2003
Another U.S. Diplomat Resigns Over Iraq :.They're losing the ability to maintain appearances over at the State Department: John H. Brown, who joined the U.S. diplomatic corps in 1981 and served in London, Prague, Krakow, Kiev, Belgrade and Moscow, said in a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell made available to the media: "I cannot in good conscience support President Bush's war plans against Iraq.
"Throughout the globe the United States is becoming associated with the unjustified use of force. The president's disregard for views in other nations, borne out by his neglect of public diplomacy, is giving birth to an anti-American century," the diplomat added.I couldn't have said it better myself! See other recent resignations from the U.S. State Department.
posted by Kevin at 6:02 PM
3/9/2003
GCHQ Arrest for NSA UN Operations Leak :.In NSA Spooks Target U.N. Members, I wrote that, "If this is real, someone is going to swing by their nuts for leaking it." Well, that person may be a woman: An employee at the top-secret Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has been arrested following revelations in The Observer last weekend about an American 'dirty tricks' surveillance operation to win votes at the United Nations in favour of a tough new resolution on Iraq.
Gloucestershire police confirmed last night that a 28-year-old woman was arrested last week on suspicion of contravening the Official Secrets Act. The woman, from the Cheltenham area, has been released on police bail pending further inquiries. More arrests are expected.
posted by Kevin at 10:30 PM
Software to Support Human Rights :.The way things are going, we might need to start using something like the Martus Human Rights Bulletin System in the United States: The Benetech Initiative, a Silicon Valley nonprofit, today announced the release of The Martus Human Rights Bulletin System, an open source technology tool designed to assist human rights organizations in collecting, safeguarding, organizing and disseminating information about human rights abuses. Through a partnership with The Asia Foundation, a U.S.-based nonprofit working on the ground in Asia, Martus will first be implemented in the Philippines to provide better resources to groups combating hundreds of human rights violations per year.
posted by Kevin at 3:21 PM
Irish Activists Stop U.S. Military Airlift Operation in Shannon :. (Article in German) I don't know what's more shocking; the fact that these people were able to pull this off, or that there's no English version of this article available!? In any event, NICE ONE IN SHANNON!!! Info gathered from Indymedia.org: Companies stop using Shannon Airport for military transports
The Irish airport Shannon was one of the major bases for the US to fly soldiers and material to the Middle East. Now three of the four US companies that undertake those flights, have stopped all traffic (de) through Shannon for safety reasons. On three occasions in the last weeks, activists got on the airport and into the hangars, and demolished planes with hammers and colour, making them unfit to fly. Flights will now continue via Frankfurt Aiport in Germany.
posted by Kevin at 12:42 PM
3/8/2003
Summing It All Up :.Just about everything in this article has been mentioned on Cryptogon, but seeing it all in a single artcle is sobering. The Washington Post tells us that U.S. embassies around the globe are inundating Washington with cables saying that the world both hates and mistrusts this "dry drunk", megalomaniac who would be laughable except for the fact that he represents a power structure as demented as he is. As if to go Tony Blair ... who recently plagiarized a graduate research paper to compile his sensitive intelligence dossier on Iraq ... "one better", George W. recently cited figures to support his tax cut from a report that doesn't exist. He was caught in that lie by NewsDay's James Toedtman. And retired Air Force Chief of Staff Tony McPeak is publicly saying on a Portland, Oregon TV station that Bush should admit he's made a mistake and that, as far as Iraq is concerned, "I regard the nuclear threat as zero. I regard the connection between Saddam and al-Qaida as less than zero."Research Credit: MR
posted by Kevin at 3:39 PM
Gas Shortages Hit Phoenix, AZ :.I think the Oh Shit moment for most Americans will happen when gas hits $3 per gallon. Where I am (in California), we could be days or weeks away from that: Many independent stations run by Costco, Safeway and Albertsons were out of gas Thursday, even as the average price of regular unleaded in the Phoenix area hit another record at $1.77 per gallon.
Matt Homan, who runs stations at six Safeway grocery stores, said most of his stations were out of premium and mid-grade Thursday, with no prospects of more until Sunday or Monday.
"The weekend is going to be rough," he said. Rough? That guy better watch Road Warrior again...
posted by Kevin at 3:31 PM
3/7/2003
Bush "Question and Answer" Speech Scripted :.I don't expect you guys to read Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West by John Ralston Saul, but the following passage from the book should be kept in mind as the US presidency takes on increasingly Stalinist characteristics: Uncontrolled words are consistently more dangerous to established authority than armed forces.From the article: At today's White House news briefing, WND asked presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer about the scripted nature of President Bush's press conference last night.
WND: Last night, after the fifth time he had looked down at an apparent list of reporters, [President Bush] smiled and he said, "This is scripted."
FLEISCHER: Are you going to complain he didn't call on you?
WND: No, no, no. No, no. Which surely suggests that he did not write that script, which gave two questions to one network, two questions to one wire service, and one to other vague and wealthy media � but left all the rest, including [veteran White House journalist] Helen Thomas, ruled out in advance of any chance to ask and left us to serve only as window dressing.
And my question is, since you are always fair, Ari, in recognizing all of us, who was it that wrote that script that the president confessed to? Was it Karl Rove or Karen or who?
FLEISCHER: It was me who gave the president a suggestion on the reporters to call. And the president called on all reporters; the president did not call on any columnists.
Mark.
WND: Wait a minute �
FLEISCHER: No, Lester, we're going to go to the � Lester, we're moving on.More... Ask the Wrong Questions and You Soon Won't be Asking Any Questions :.A long-running Washington tradition apparently ended last night when, for the first time in memory, the doyenne of the White House press corps was not called on in a presidential press conference.
Syndicated columnist Helen Thomas, who has covered every president since John F. Kennedy, was relegated to the third row in last night's East Room event and � if the memory of press corps veterans is accurate � received her first presidential snub.
One reporter who has covered the past six presidents said: "I don't remember a press conference in which [Mrs. Thomas] didn't get a question."
posted by Kevin at 5:47 PM
Nigerian Radiological Theft was from Halliburton Facility :.Back on 3/3/03, I noted the "strategic theft" of radiological materials in Nigeria. What I didn't know at the time was that the stuff was stolen from Halliburton, US Vice President Dick Cheney's former company. All together now: Hmmmmm, isn't that interesting?Halliburton Co., the world's No. 2 oil field services firm, said Thursday it has started a probe involving U.S. and Nigerian government officials over theft of a radioactive device used at its Nigerian operations.
A report by the Wall Street Journal Thursday said officials were concerned that the device's radioactive material could be used to create a "dirty bomb," an explosive device designed to scatter radioactivity in a densely populated area.Research Credit: TR Oh, but wait, there's more... Halliburton Wins Contract on Iraq Oil Firefighting :.A Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root has won the contract to oversee any firefighting operations at Iraqi oilfields after any U.S.-led invasion, a Defense Department source said on Thursday.
KBR was widely viewed by many in the oilfield services industry as the likely candidate to oversee firefighting in Iraq's oilfields. Halliburton does extensive logistic support work for the U.S. military.
Vice President Dick Cheney served as Halliburton's chief executive officer from 1995 to 2000.
posted by Kevin at 3:25 PM
Hussein Wants Look-Alike Uniforms? :.Something very dark is about to happen. The USUK fascist alliance is setting up a way to explain away the genocide they are about to unleash on Iraq. Saddam-Did-It will be an especially convenient explanation for destroyed hospitals, schools, etc., especially since he will be executed within hours of the beginning of the war by USUK special forces. President Saddam Hussein is seeking uniforms that are "identical down to the last detail" to those worn by American and British troops, so that atrocities carried out by Iraqi forces could be blamed on the allies, a senior Defense Department official said Thursday.
James R. Wilkinson, chief spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said Hussein had ordered the uniforms for use by members of his paramilitary force, Fedayeen Saddam.
These forces, Wilkinson said, "would wear them when conducting reprisals against the Iraqi people so that they could pass the atrocities off as the work of the United States and the United Kingdom."
posted by Kevin at 3:02 PM
U.S. Military Tortures POWs to Death :."International law is the law which the wicked do not obey and which the righteous do not enforce." ---Abba Eban American military officials acknowledged yesterday that two prisoners captured in Afghanistan in December had been killed while under interrogation at Bagram air base north of Kabul � reviving concerns that the US is resorting to torture in its treatment of Taliban fighters and suspected al-Qa'ida operatives.
posted by Kevin at 2:40 PM
3/6/2003
Rainbow Money Announced :.Alex Jones called this one LONG LONG LONG ago: The federal government will unveil a new $20 bill that will introduce a predominant but subtle color into the background, marking the first time in modern history that a U.S. bill will feature a color other than green.
posted by Kevin at 3:09 AM
3/5/2003
Man Arrested for Wearing Peace T-Shirt :.A lawyer was arrested late Monday and charged with trespassing at a public mall in the state of New York after refusing to take off a T-shirt advocating peace that he had just purchased at the mall.
According to the criminal complaint filed on Monday, Stephen Downs was wearing a T-shirt bearing the words "Give Peace A Chance" that he had just purchased from a vendor inside the Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, New York, near Albany.
"I was in the food court with my son when I was confronted by two security guards and ordered to either take off the T-shirt or leave the mall," said Downs.
When Downs refused the security officers' orders, police from the town of Guilderland were called and he was arrested and taken away in handcuffs, charged with trespassing "in that he knowingly enter(ed) or remain(ed) unlawfully upon premises," the complaint read.
posted by Kevin at 11:49 AM
3/4/2003
The Pathetic British Role in America's Dirty Work :.AMERICAN forces will play the key role in the capture of Baghdad, with British troops being confined to the south of Iraq. �It won�t be the Union flag flying over Baghdad,� one British defence source said.
US Marines and armoured divisions will be given the role of advancing as rapidly as possible on the Iraqi capital.
The Pentagon hopes that it will not be necessary to conduct a street-fighting operation to capture the city. However, if there has to be an assault on Baghdad to overcome resistance by Iraq�s Republican Guard, the mission will be carried out exclusively by American forces, the sources said.
A senior British Army source said: �This decision is part political, part military, but the Americans have made it clear Baghdad is their prize.�More... Could Tony Blair Look at the Internet Now, Please?Cryptogon readers are sick of hearing about this, but one more dose won't kill you guys. Just in case you haven't been paying attention, the plan to rape Iraq was drawn up in 1997... The Grand Chessboard... American Primacy... Geostrategic Imperatives... Zbigniew Brzezinski... New American Century... Pax Americana... blah blah... I'm even sick of repeating it all. The Prince of Darkness must have made Tony Blair an offer he couldn't refuse. Forget about the fact that he's politically dead and hated in his own country, he'll be spending the rest of eternity in a VERY warm place: It's heart-warming to hear Tony Blair's concern for the plight of the Iraqi people and how the only possible way to help them is to bomb them with everything the Americans have.
Mr Blair's sudden sympathy for the Iraqis' political aspirations comes as a welcome relief after all these years of US, UK-led sanctions, which have caused the deaths of over half a million Iraqi children, according to the UN.
But I'm a bit worried that Tony may be deluding himself that his friends in the White House share his altruistic ideals. I'm sure Tony has been reading all the recent stuff about PNAC - "The Project For The New American Century" - but has he looked at their website? (www.newamericancentury.org)
As everybody knows, the PNAC is a think-tank founded in 1997 by the people who are now closest to President Bush - Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush and so on. It's a pretty safe bet that what PNAC think is what George W. Bush thinks. PNAC represents the thinking of the men now in power in the United States.
posted by Kevin at 4:09 AM
Pentagon Calls for Massive New Covert Operations Capability :.Remember the Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War? The CIA designated people for execution and... that was it. The vision for the future is a type of macro scale Phoenix Program with paramilitary spooks executing and torturing people all over the planet. Boy, I'll sleep better knowing Rumsfeld is wielding that type of power: The effort stems in large part from frustration within the Pentagon over the extent to which the military was forced to rely on the CIA in the opening stages of the war in Afghanistan. It also reflects concern that there are too few CIA officers deployed around the world, and that they are not adequately focused on collecting intelligence that is useful to the military, several officials said.
�The CIA doesn�t have the number of assets to be doing what the secretary of Defense wants done,� said one Pentagon official familiar with the plans. �This is a capability the secretary wants the Department of Defense to have.�
posted by Kevin at 3:47 AM
Tips for Ugly Americans Abroad :.Ahh, there's nothing like being hated by the rest of the world. Thanks, Dubya. No, really, thanks. From Spanish plazas to Parisian metros, American tourists are being quizzed, grilled and even spat on by people who do not approve of the Bush administration's drive for a war against Saddam Hussein.
posted by Kevin at 3:30 AM
3/3/2003
Afghanistan Displaces Myanmar as Top Heroin Producer :.All together now: Hmmmmm, isn't that interesting?Afghanistan has toppled Myanmar as the world's top source of illicit opium, but the southeast Asian state is streaking ahead as the region's prime producer of amphetamines, the United States said Saturday.
In a major drugs strategy report, Washington backed up figures released by the United Nations last week showing an increase in poppy cultivation since the ouster of Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers.
" The size of the opium harvest in 2002 makes Afghanistan the world's leading opium producer, the report said.
posted by Kevin at 11:55 PM
Warren Buffett to Investors: Assume the Crash Position :.It's not easy being the world's second richest man: Warren Buffett is poised to issue his most doom-laden forecast for the state of the world economy yet, including a damning verdict on the derivatives industry he fears could cause a global financial crisis.
In the upcoming annual letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, Mr Buffett drops his usual folksy style to warn that banks do not understand the hidden risks lurking on their balance sheets.Oh, in case you don't get the Make Your Time comment, click here.
posted by Kevin at 11:24 PM
U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation :.It took this guy 20 years in the Foreign Service to figure it out? Come on! I saw it by the time I was a junior college: The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America�s most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.Research Credit: JM Woops: Lost Another One :.They're dropping like flies over at the State Department: Beers hinted that she found her job -- selling the policies of the U.S. government to the Islamic world -- an uphill struggle.
"The gap between who we are and how we wish to be seen and how we are in fact seen, is frighteningly wide," Beers told the committee.
posted by Kevin at 2:28 AM
The Guns of March :.The war with Iraq now seems almost certain. Even the gray city weather, filled with the threat of winter storms, seems to express the hopeless mood. The killing and the dying are right ahead of us, and there seems to be little we can do about it. A great unraveling of the world could be upon us, and if you are of a certain age, you recognize once again a big sad truth: Nobody ever learns anything.
Or, to make a qualification, no men of power ever learn anything.
posted by Kevin at 2:10 AM
"Radiological Emergency" in Nigeria :.A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency is on the ground in Nigeria for what it describes as a "radiological emergency."
Sources say radioactive and highly toxic material that could be used to build a "dirty bomb" was stolen from a Nigerian oil company.
Agency workers arrived Feb. 16, an agency representative said on condition of anonymity.
The Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Agency admitted earlier this week that devices used to X-ray oil pipelines for cracks were lost, but sources tell Fox News that officials now believe the disappearance of the material was a "strategic theft."
posted by Kevin at 2:05 AM
3/1/2003
NSA Spooks Target U.N. Members :.Maybe, but this leak may not be real. Read on. What the article doesn't mention is that this type of thing is standard operating procedure. The goal is to determine how to compromise individuals so that when told to jump, they ask, "How high?" Pictures/video/evidence of diplomats snorting cocaine, diddling little boys/girls, or accepting bribes, for example, allows CIA case officers to make VERY compelling arguments for these folks to see a situation a particular way. The email message describing the operation appears to be real, but the usual caveats apply. Since this message could only have been leaked after being decrypted into plain text, this would indicate someone inside NSA is outing details of current intelligence operations; not exactly a trivial matter. If this is the case, the person is putting their life on the line to bring this information out. You might want to save the page from the Observer locally. If this story is real, the British government may invoke the Official Secrets Act. This means that when British media goes to far, the government simply makes a phone call and the story disappears. *poof* This should only apply to British secrets, but since the US and UK are joined at the hip, the NSA operation in question almost certainly involves British GCHQ/MI6 officers. Or, this entire story could be bullshit. Take your pick: The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq.
Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer.
The disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official at the National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts communications around the world - and circulated to both senior agents in his organisation and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking for its input.
The memo describes orders to staff at the agency, whose work is clouded in secrecy, to step up its surveillance operations 'particularly directed at... UN Security Council Members (minus US and GBR, of course)' to provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for Bush officials on the voting intentions of UN members regarding the issue of Iraq.
posted by Kevin at 6:44 PM
U.S. Plan: Threat Level for Every Flier :.Civil liberties groups are objecting to a government plan for a new system that would check background information and assign a threat level to everyone who buys a ticket for a commercial flight.
Activists see the potential for unconstitutional invasions of privacy and for database mix-ups that could lead to innocent people being branded security risks.
"This system threatens to create a permanent blacklisted underclass of Americans who cannot travel freely," said Katie Corrigan, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.
There also is concern that the government is developing the system without revealing how information will be gathered and how long it will be kept.
posted by Kevin at 5:58 PM
Flashback 9/15/02: Bush Planned Iraq 'Regime Change' Before Becoming President :.As the rockets and bombs begin to fly, try to remember that this thing was planned before Bush was president: A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power in January 2001.
The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'Original Cryptogon coverage on this story is here.
posted by Kevin at 5:57 PM
Updated Daisy Cutter = Tactical Nuke :.When and if the United States does go to war, military sources say the United States is preparing a monster new weapon to be used during the first nights.
It's called MOAB, short for "massive ordnance air burst" bomb. It is a modern, bigger version of the 15,000-pound "Daisy Cutter" used in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War and Afghanistan.
Sources say MOAB � still experimental � is a 21,000-pound bomb that will be pushed out the back of a C-130 transport and guided by satellite. Because it is not dropped by parachute, as was the old Daisy Cutter, the aircraft can let it go from far higher altitudes, making it safer for U.S. pilots.
The MOAB's massive explosive punch, sources say, is similar to a small nuclear weapon.
posted by Kevin at 5:55 PM
eBay Rolls Over, Compromises Its Users :.Who needs a subpoena? "We don't make you show a subpoena, except in exceptional cases," Sullivan told his listeners. "When someone uses our site and clicks on the `I Agree' button, it is as if he agrees to let us submit all of his data to the legal authorities. Which means that if you are a law-enforcement officer, all you have to do is send us a fax with a request for information, and ask about the person behind the seller's identity number, and we will provide you with his name, address, sales history and other details - all without having to produce a court order. We want law enforcement people to spend time on our site," he adds. He says he receives about 200 such requests a month, most of them unofficial requests in the form of an email or fax.
The meaning is clear. One fax to eBay from a lawman - police investigator, NSA, FBI or CIA employee, National Park ranger - and eBay sends back the user's full name, email address, home address, mailing address, home telephone number, name of company where seller is employed and user nickname. What's more, eBay will send the history of items he has browsed, feedbacks received, bids he has made, prices he has paid, and even messages sent in the site's various discussion groups.
posted by Kevin at 5:52 PM
When Pigs Fly: FBI Surveillance Plane Circles Town :.BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) - A small airplane is circling this college town several times a day, raising fears of terrorism, but aviation officials say it is conducting law enforcement surveillance and no one should be alarmed.
Local and state police and the FBI, however, said they knew nothing about the aircraft.
The white, single-engine propeller airplane has been spotted at least since Feb. 19 making passes overhead about noon, in the late evening and after midnight.
posted by Kevin at 5:50 PM
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:. Reading
 Fatal
Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture by Andrew Kimbrell
Readers will come to see
that industrial food production is indeed a "fatal harvest"
- fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors
such as E. coli and "mad cow disease" find their way
into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff
from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to
genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield
monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our
farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate
farms.
 Friendly
Fascism: The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Myron Gross
This is a relatively
short but extremely cogent and well-argued treatise on the rise
of a form of fascistic thought and social politics in late 20th
century America. Author Bertram Gross' thesis is quite straightforward;
the power elite that comprises the corporate, governmental and
military superstructure of the country is increasingly inclined
to employ every element in their formidable arsenal of 'friendly
persuasion' to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans
through what Gross refers to as friendly fascism.
 The
Good Life
by Scott and Helen Nearing Helen
and Scott Nearing are the great-grandparents of the back-to-the-land
movement, having abandoned the city in 1932 for a rural life based
on self-reliance, good health, and a minimum of cash...Fascinating,
timely, and wholly useful, a mix of the Nearings' challenging
philosophy and expert counsel on practical skills.
 Silent
Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth by David Bollierd
In Silent Theft, David Bollier
argues that a great untold story of our time is the staggering
privatization and abuse of our common wealth. Corporations are
engaged in a relentless plunder of dozens of resources that we
collectively own—publicly funded medical breakthroughs,
software innovation, the airwaves, the public domain of creative
works, and even the DNA of plants, animals and humans. Too often,
however, our government turns a blind eye—or sometimes helps
give away our assets. Amazingly,
the silent theft of our shared wealth has gone largely unnoticed
because we have lost our ability to see the commons.
 The
Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics
Guide by John Seymour The
Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the only book that
teaches all the skills needed to live independently in harmony
with the land harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops
and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and
wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.
 When
Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten
When Corporations
Rule the World explains how economic globalization has concentrated
the power to govern in global corporations and financial markets
and detached them from accountability to the human interest. It
documents the devastating human and environmental consequences
of the successful efforts of these corporations to reconstruct
values and institutions everywhere on the planet to serve their
own narrow ends.
 The
New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques
for the Home and Market Gardener
This expansion
of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended
for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes
practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables,
with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock,
the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other
topics.
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