:.
UPDATE, 6/29/04 04:30am PST: This Story Is Possibly/Probably DISINFO
OKOKOK. I'm officially putting the brakes on this. Fair enough, I should have added a "HIGHLY SPECULATIVE" tag to this story, as I routinely do when the info is this thin. In my own defense, when I posted this, I noticed the weird use of language in the article, but I thought, "Just because the guy writing the story is an idiot doesn't mean his information isn't true. It doesn't mean it is either." I actually wrote that in an email to AL, a long time Cryptogon reader and contributor, who wrote to me indicating that he didn't buy this at all.
Another long time Cryptogon reader, contributor and
oilempire.us editor, Mark R, followed up with:
dear kevin
"lets roll" is blatant disinformation
see http://www.oilempire.us/911intro.html#disinformation for an explanation (it falsely claims that blurry doctored video images "prove" an anomalous "pod" under the 767 that hit the south tower -- when there is no real evidence or reason for this).
lets roll is probably the LEAST trustworthy 9/11 site I have seen, breathlessly exuberant but blatantly in contradiction to actual provable facts
a "who is" search coupled with a reverse number / name lookup brings you the name of a local homeland security official. I haven't bothered to confirm that this person is the same as listed, but "lets roll" is blatant bullshit. It wouldn't surprise me if disinformation pretending to be real exposure was being pushed by the fed.gov -- it's sad that Alex Jones has been taking this sort of stuff seriously. Infowars has a lot of good material, but I don't consider them one of the best 9/11 sites since they don't bother with fact checking. Reader beware.
I NEVER base this sort of conclusion on a single piece of evidence.
It's interesting that Alex Jones's article about Col De Grand-Pre is then archived by the bogus letsroll site. It can get confusing to find the original source.
MarkSo, the moral of the story is: Beware of fast spreading, thinly sourced memes, and be thankful that your friends are quick to point out when you've stepped in it.
My original post follows:
I know I don't believe in coincidences, but I swear that I had no idea this news would break when I posted the story, earlier today, on
Understanding 911. The remarkable aspect of this is not that Flight 93 was shot down, but that the government has lied about its fate, even against the backdrop of the obvious physical evidence surrounding the incident. The U.S. government KNOWS that the public is so stupid that any lie, no matter how ridiculous, will be readily believed:
LetsRoll has discovered the name of the pilot as well as all other pertinent information regarding this incident;
"At precisely 0938 hours, an alarm was sounded at Langely Air Force Base, and those whom were on call, drinking coffee, were scrambled. Thus the 119th Fighter Wing was off for an intercept.
They, the Happy Hooligans, a unit of 3 F-16 aircraft, were ordered to head toward Pennsylvania. At 0957 they spotted their target; After confirmation orders were received, A one Major Rick Gibney fired two sidewinder missiles at the aircraft and destroyed it in mid flight at precisely 0958;
He was awarded a medal from the Governor one year later for his heroic actions. As well as Decorated by Congress on 9/13/2001. The Happy Hooligans were previously stationed in North Dakota, and moved to Langley Air Force base some months before 911 occured on a "Temporary assignment."Research Credit: NF
posted by Kevin at 4:45 PM
Welcome New Cryptogon Readers
If you're visiting Cryptogon for the first time because you received a
Deception Dollar at Fahrenheit 9/11, WELCOME!
Take a few moments to check out the types of stories I cover routinely on this site. It might seem random at first, but this stuff is all interrelated. The
ABOUT page is a good place to start, if you want to get a sense for my world view.
There's A LOT of information on here, so take it slow and don't get discouraged. This site doesn't have a beginning and an end. It's made up of patterns of events. You don't have to wade through the two years worth of
ARCHIVES, but you're welcome to. If you start reading the stories I post, you will soon start to see the patterns (if you don't already). Once you recognize the patterns, you will have a much greater insight on events and where things are headed.
The format for most entries is as follows:
The orange ':.' next to an entry title is a link to a story on another site. The text below the entry title is my commentary.
Italic text passages are direct excerpts from the story, on the other site, that I find important.
I've found that "understanding" has a lot to do with effective filtering and context fitting. That's what I do here. If this information resonates with you, I'd like to hear from you. And if it doesn't, I'd REALLY like to hear from you. This is all about approaching a more accurate understanding of events. If you don't agree with me AND you have compelling evidence to back your perspective, please share it with me.
posted by Kevin at 6:00 AM
My Observations on Fahrenheit 9/11
Overall, I thought F911 was a very powerful film. For me, however, the most shocking aspect of the film was how shocked the audience was! Having said that, I think the film went as far as it could go, given the cognitive constraints within which the vast majority of Americans form their worldview.
I saw F911 in a packed theater. I looked around at the audience as the scenes of dead Iraqi civilians were on the screen. There was a sense of genuine horror in the crowd. Obviously, none of this information was new to me, and if you've been reading this site, for any length of time, none of it will be new to you either. Remember, the average person hasn't been exposed to the images of the American caused atrocities. To get it all at once, on the massive movie screen, really rattled people. I think it's probably the case that if Moore had gone any further, the film would have been too shocking. I think the audience members had reached the limit of what they could reasonably handle, given their general lack of understanding of what U.S. foreign policy has done to people around the world over the last 50 years or so.
I found it interesting that
Alex Jones, someone with nothing like the resources of Michael Moore, put out an even more powerful documentary on the superset of events within which F911 takes place. And Alex Jones did this two years ago! Why wasn't
9/11 The Road to Tyranny selling out movie theaters back then? Well, that documentary wasn't in movie theaters at all... Alex Jones' film equally savages Republicans and Democrats. Moore's film spends about 90% of the time demonizing Bush, which is great and well deserved. I just wish he would would have gone more into the bipartisan nature of the beast we're facing.
What disturbs me, though, is that the film is being turned into a Kerry 2004 circus. It's really easy, watching F911, to lapse into the false belief that all of our ills have been caused by Bush and his regime. However, to Michael Moore's credit---if you pay close attention---the film does, directly and indirectly:
* Implicate the Democrats with complicity in allowing Bush to steal the presidency in the first place.
* Implicate the Democrats with complicity in the passage of the Patriot Act.
* Implicate the Democrats with complicity in the passage of the funding legislation that made the war with Iraq possible.
In other words, Democrats have been complicit with Bush in THE WORST ASPECTS of the Bush presidency.
I'm sorry, but you have to get it through your head that Kerry is not going to save us. Once you're over that hurdle, you should then start to realize that, in fact, the system serves to prevent us from electing anyone who is capable of significantly altering policy.
Mark R, who runs
oilempire.us, said it best in his email to me last night:
The 2004 "election" features a plutocrat from the occult Skull and Bones secret society who supports police state legislation, a new gas pipeline from north Alaska, more troops to Iraq, the war in Columbia, nuclear power, delaying fuel efficiency improvements in cars until 2015 and opposes the Kyoto Treaty. And then we have the incumbent, who is a war criminal, complicit in the murder of nearly 3,000 people in New York and countless Iraqis, Afghans and others.
The 2004 Presidential "election" makes the 2000 contest look honest in comparison -- at best, it will merely be "regime rotation" (replace Bush but keep the most important policies). The biggest way the election has been rigged is not phony computerized ballot machines (although they are a severe violation of democracy), but the manipulation of the process to ensure that Bush's cousin was picked as the opposition candidate. Bush, Kerry and Cheney are cousins, part of the American aristocracy.
Many more people who voted for Bush in 2000 have become disillusioned with him than the numbers of citizens who voted for Gore and now want to support Bush. The main question for the 2004 selection is whether Kerry is allowed to win or whether Team Bush will steal the election again.
Our dependence on a reality that has been fabricated by corporations is the problem. Bush and Kerry are the logical outcomes of this dependence. As long as we seek to exist in this fake, toxic and expensive reality, our leaders will emulate corrupt CEOs, and we will be robbed at gunpoint.
The solution involves decorporatizing yourself and your family to the extent possible. There are all kinds of minor things that individuals can do along these lines, however, the first really substantive step must be to remove corporations from our breakfast, lunch and dinner plates.
That's right.
The revolution begins with food. Start thinking less about politics and more about how you can obtain organically grown and raised vegetables, meat and dairy goods WITHOUT buying them from a market that has had them trucked in from hundreds or thousands of miles away. If you think electing decent politicians is difficult, consider the last sentence for a few minutes. This is a carefully worded challenge. I already know where this leads the individual, but, for now, I'll leave it up to you to turn over the implications.
As you think about, and solve, the basics of clean food and water, the political solutions will fall into place. Hint: You might find that you don't have much need for corporations, or the government that serves them.
It's incredible that when different types of people come to understand the exigencies of clean food and water, their politics suddenly become VERY congruent. If the first priorities are clean food and water, many areas of our present existence will become constrained. These limitations, however, lead to a sane, sustainable existence and an excellent quality of life.
In conclusion, I think F911 is a great film that should be seen by everyone. But, if this film only results in a Kerry presidency---that is, if we don't recognize the wider threats to our existence---our journey into oblivion will continue apace, just as it has under Bush.
posted by Kevin at 5:50 AM
Billions of Revenue from Oil 'Missing'
:.
A quiet corner of rural Ireland was encased in a steel cage tonight as military helicopters patrolled the skies above thousands of troops.
The normally tranquil Dromoland Castle in Co Clare became a fort as US President George W Bush touched down at the nearby Shannon Airport.
Anti-war protesters who gathered outside lines of more than 2,000 troops and heavy armour.
All routes to Shannon Airport and the luxurious castle grounds were sealed off and police officers paced roadsides keeping a watchful eye that no-one strayed into unapproved areas, while camouflaged army vehicles waited in the bushes.
Local people simply gazed on in amazement as the largest security operation in the history of the State swung into action and transformed their peaceful neighbourhoods into something not unlike a war film set.
The surreal atmosphere was compounded by the location of chemical toilets like those used at music festivals at road junctions to accommodate the needs of hundreds of troops and garda officers patrolling the remote countryside.
Previous American presidents had received a warm welcome to Ireland but Mr Bush was kept well away from the people of Shannon, the majority of whom were firmly against his visit.
posted by Kevin at 6:43 PM
Fahrenheit 9/11 Pamphletting, Meeting and Greeting
A guide for Cryptogon regulars:
Make a list of websites that you think people need to see and print fliers for distribution at the film! Mingle with people in line and just start talking and giving away your information. Fahrenheit 9/11 is an excellent opportunity to reach people who are ready to take the next step in understanding events. The film only goes so far, and I found that people are hungry for more. Every single Cryptogon reader should be engaging these Fahrenheit 9/11 audiences. Get your ass and your insights out from in front of that computer and onto the pavement. Share the information with others, face to face.
If you have Deception Dollars, use those. I gave my first stack of fifty away in under two minutes as I was waiting to see the film. I had absolutely no idea how many people would be at the theater. It was incredible. (More like shocking.) Multiple screens, sold out. This theater is usually dead, by the way. It shows mainly foreign, independent and documentary films. Throngs of people were all over it for Fahrenheit 9/11. I returned later, as the last showing was letting out. I gave out about two hundred more DDs at 12:30am.
If you're distributing information to a line-up of people, smile, be polite and ask, "Would you like more information about the film?" or, if you have DDs, "Would you like a Deception Dollar?" Since most people haven't seen DDs before, they're usually interested. I was actually surprised by how many people knew about them already. (About five people, out of hundreds.)
If you're distributing to a throng of people exiting the theater, I found that the following technique worked very well. (If you're shy, you'll get over that pretty fast.)
Hold your material over your head and say (loud enough to be heard above the ambient noise of dozens of people milling about):
"The film only shows 5% of the story. Here's free information about the rest."
Most people were receptive to taking the information. I found it interesting that a few people didn't want it at first, but then they came back and asked to take one. Some people asked to take a few. The more people who take info from you, the more people will want it from you. I reached a point where I couldn't give the DDs away fast enough. I was surrounded by outstretched hands. Definitely have a friend or two help you if you're distributing info to crowd exiting the theater.
Hint: I think it's more effective to distribute info to the lines of people waiting to see the film, than to the exiting crowds.
I was taking the pulse of the people I was talking to, in general, just to see where they were along the path. I learned that you, as an activist/dissident/teacher/whatever need to take things very gently. The people I spoke with, in general, want to believe that Kerry is the savior. I know. As incredible as it seems to you guys, that's the case. These conversations go in predictable ways, but my suggestion to you is to not press the facts too hard about how totally compromised and corrupt Kerry is. You'll lose people. Reassure them that Kerry will probably be the next president (even if you think there might not even be an election), because he probably will be the next president. I said, "Obviously, if Bush gets in again, we're in deep trouble, but if things continue to get worse under Kerry, and you want to know why, contact me." Obviously, we're in deep trouble for a lot of reasons, no matter who gets in. And you guys know all about those issues.
You can't really get away with, "The end of the oil age will throw all developed states into chaos," or "Did you hear about the genetic engineering experiment that nearly wiped out all plant life in North America?" No. You need to maintain appearances somewhat.
Take it slow...
I found that even mentioning Skull & Bones in the public setting isn't a good idea. They don't want to believe it, and tended to think it was nonsense immediately. "Bush is evil," goes over well. "Kerry is the other face of Bush," well.... that's a harder sell. They're just not ready to see that; not yet anyway. But just wait....
This aided people in seeing it (because they already KNOW IT, deep down, they just don't want to admit it):
"If you wanted to take over a country, what would be the easiest way to go about it? Force a dictatorship on people or offer them a choice between two candidates who actually represented your interests? The choice is the mechanism of control. Since people think they have a choice, they forget about things continuing to get worse under both parties."
You'll see the light bulbs clicking on.
My final suggestion is to NOT spend too much time talking to other freaks, if you should encounter them. You know what I mean; people who already get it. It's really easy to start preaching to the choir. I think we do this to reassure ourselves that we're not alone. Try to remember that you're out there to reach people who are hungry for information. You're not out there to socialize with others who already have it. That feels good, everyone hold hands in a circle, etc. but focus on reaching people who are on the verge of getting it, but are looking for that little push. Save the socializing for times when hundreds of people aren't gathered together who could potentially be unplugged from The Matrix! And for God's sake, what ever you do, don't start arguing with anyone about anything. That's a waste of your time. Move on.
All in all, good stuff. Have fun out there and let me know what your experiences are like.
posted by Kevin at 3:27 AM
Cryptogon Two Years Old
The two year mark was actually on 6/23, but nobody noticed, including me. HA!
posted by Kevin at 3:23 AM
Irish Reporter Heckles Bush
:.
Conservative? A drug addict with three failed marriages. Hmm:
Conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh announced Friday that he and his wife, Marta, are divorcing.
The Limbaughs "mutually decided to end their marriage of 10 years" and have "separated pending an amicable resolution," according to a statement released by Limbaugh's publicist.
posted by Kevin at 1:24 PM
Feed and Post Title Update
My Blogger template has been an ugly, slapass, cut and paste, script kitty endeavor from day one. That trend continues with the l8EsT m0Dz.
When I started Cryptogon two years ago, Blogger was pretty primitive. Nowadays, though, it supports all kinds of keen features; for which none of the tags are included in my old, almost-from-scratch template!
So, the desire to have a correct looking Atom feed finally overcame my laziness when it comes to frigging with the code for this thing. The feed now has properly parsed XML. Yay. You also get a list of the last 10 stories on the right. Yay.
Oh yeah, the old link designator for stories ":." has been retired. If the story title is orange, it's a link. If the story title is just black, like this entry, there is no link. I hope you guys like the formatting changes.A couple of people bitched and complained within an hour of me getting rid of the ":.". I messed around with it, and determined that you can have your ":." and I can still have my feed look correct. What do the rest of you people think? Do you want the link as ":." at the top, as it has always been, or would you prefer a separate container at the bottom of each post that says something like, "source" or "story" or even the actual URL. And don't complain about the title being a little bigger. I'm not changing that. It stands out better now.
By the way, the complainer who has a return address at insightbb.com, your server returns:
Permanent Failure: 551_not_our_customer
Delivery last attempted at Sat, 12 Jun 2004 23:44:51 -0000Note: I really hope I haven't broken anything, but if I did (and it's very possible that I did with the antics I've been pulling) please let me know.
posted by Kevin at 1:07 PM
6/11/2004
The Best Defense Is a Good Armageddon :.The Bush administration is ramping up bioterrorism research that will press beyond traditional defenses against natural biowarfare germs to explore genetically engineered superbugs, as well as the means to mass-produce and disseminate them.
After spending almost $10 billion on biodefense research, defense scientists say broader studies of bioterror threats are needed to weigh the chances of certain attacks, tell U.S. intelligence what to look for and shore up defenses.
"If any other country set forth a program like this, U.S. intelligence undoubtedly would call it an offensive program," said Edward Hammond, head of the Sunshine Project, a group in Austin, Texas, that tracks bioweapons and biodefense issues.
"Our enemy now is not the Russians or Saddam. It's biotech itself. It's imagining what we can do to fight the technology," he said. "If you generate that mentality, it's sort of no-holds barred." Research Credit: Karen, and thanks for the excellent title! HAHA!
posted by Kevin at 6:27 AM
Wealthy U.S. Investors Avoiding Stocks :.Wealthy U.S. investors are optimistic about the outlook for the stock market but worries about terrorism and other geopolitical factors have kept them from opening their wallets, according to a survey released on Tuesday.
posted by Kevin at 5:49 AM
Old Bohemian Grove Picture from National Geographic :.Just boys having fun!
Power Party
Photograph by Gabriel Moulin, 1915
To purge himself of worldly concerns, a member of the elite Bohemian Club participated in a 1915 Cremation of Care ceremony�complete with candles and a robed and hooded comrade to guide him. This private club of influential men still meets annually north of San Francisco and uses this symbolic ritual to kick off its summer retreat. But today the ceremony involves burning a mummy-like effigy named Care at the foot of the group's mascot: a 40-foot-tall (12-meter-tall) concrete owl.
posted by Kevin at 5:44 AM
Blowing Money at Near Peak Cold War Levels! :.Sickening:
World military spending surged during 2003, reaching $956 billion, nearly half of it by the United States as it paid for missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror, a prominent European think tank said yesterday.
The money has been effective in waging war, but threats of terror and weapons of mass destruction still exist, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Military spending rose by 11 percent, which the group called a "remarkable increase." The amount was up 18 percent from 2001.
The $956 billion spent on defense costs worldwide corresponded to 2.7 percent of the world's gross domestic product, according to the annual report.
"It's very close to the Cold War peak in 1987," said SIPRI researcher Elisabeth Skoens, who co-authored the report.
posted by Kevin at 5:38 AM
Reagan Mourners Fail to Maintain Appearances :.Flip flops, fat guts, American flag t-shirts... and a decaying corpse? Lovely:
Ronald Reagan was a formal man. He would step off Marine One in a finely tailored suit, tossing a wave and a smile. Even as he cut brush at his Santa Barbara ranch, his jean jacket seemed freshly pressed, his pompadour impeccable.
The same can't be said for many of his mourners, some of whom trundled past his flag-draped coffin yesterday wearing flip-flops, cargo shorts and T-shirts, their flabby midsections exposed. Some young women wore ultra-mini skirts and halter tops. Altogether, the sweaty masses clashed with the crisp honor guard in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, perhaps America's most sacred secular site.
Bobby Golike, 20, showed up to pay his respects to the 40th president in shorts, sock-less sneakers and a black T-shirt that read, "Slackers Unite! Tomorrow."
posted by Kevin at 5:18 AM
6/10/2004
Low Speed Hydrogen-Electric Hybrid Car Planned :.Alternate Energy Corporation has come up with some kind of inexpensive material that produces hydrogen when placed in water. Of course, when you try to figure out how that works (here's the
FAQ), they don't say. They claim that nothing nasty is produced in the process. Their device is consuming some proprietary alloy to do this.
There is no reason why this technology couldn't be used on larger, 100% electric vehicles right now... If there were any around. Hint: If GM had allowed EV1 users to buy their vehicles. (There are a handfull of 100% electric
Toyota RAV-EVs out there, somewhere.) With the AEC hydrogen generator and the hydrogen burning internal combustion engine, that EV1 battery system could be taking a 3KW charge as soon as the batteries started to drain. Obviously, this wouldn't be enough power to allow an EV1 to run indefinitely, but having access to 3KW for charging at all times, on board the vehicle, would be an incredible leap forward! (In case you don't know, the EV1 battery system generated INSANE amounts of power, up to 102 kilowatts.)
I found out that
a 1.2KW charger would fully charge the EV1 in about 15 hours. So, if you were to strap that new AEC 3KW hydrogen system into an EV1... that's it. Your average to work/from work transportation needs would be easily met. For longer trips, perhaps there is an EV1 freak/engineer out there who could help us determine how long an EV1 could travel, continuously, before the batteries were depleted WITH a 3KW charge being applied the entire time*:
Alternate Energy Corporation (AEC), ticker symbol ARGY, announced Tuesday that they, together with Feel Good Cars Inc. and others, intend to produce a prototype hydrogen powered internal combustion engine electric vehicle.
With twelve prototype all-electric urban low speed vehicles on the road, Feel Good Cars (FGC) is preparing for production in September of this year, with two thousand in the first year, according to Ian Clifford, President of FGC. The ZENN plant is capable of manufacturing 10,000 cars a year.
Feel Good Cars intends to provide the platform and technical know-how relative to their ZENN electric technology, which stands for "Zero Emissions No Noise."
Limited to 25 miles per hour, the ZENN is a city-driving-only vehicle. As a low speed vehicle (LSV), the ZENN is governed by special licensing and registration stipulations that vary from state to state in the U.S.
Alternate Energy Corp (AEC) specializes in making hydrogen on the fly for a hydrogen-powered back-up power system for businesses. In this, their main project, they use a Ford 4.9-liter truck engine that is designed to run on hydrogen. They expect to be in production of these units also by the end of the year.
Now that they have met each other, AEC plans to retrofit a ZENN so it will run with electricity produced from an on-board 3-HP internal combustion engine that runs on hydrogen that is produced on the fly from water. They estimate that there will be not only enough electricity to recharge the battery, but also to run the motors.* How do I get 3KW? The test system (golfcart) for the hybrid car required 10 liters of hydrogen per minute to produce 1KW from the hydrogen burning generator. The ZENN car will require 30 liters of hydrogen per minute. I'm assuming that a generator using 3X the hydrogen will produce about 3X the amount of electricity, or 3KW.
posted by Kevin at 4:43 AM
BBC: Is the World's Oil Running Out Fast? :.This unnecessary crisis has been engineered to eventually create chaos:
If you think oil prices are high at $40 a barrel then wait till they are four times that much.
How will you pay to run your car? How will you get the children to school? How will you heat your house? How much will transported food go up in price?
How will we pay for plastics, metals, rubber, cheap flights, Simpson's DVDs, 3G phones and everlasting economic growth?
The basic answer is, we won't.
This is the message from the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO).Research Credit: JH
posted by Kevin at 4:02 AM
Global Ecophagy :.THEY call it "global ecophagy". That's "eating the Earth" to you and me. Rumour has it that this is what replicating nanostructures might do, and according to one estimate, they could gobble up the entire planet in about three hours flat.
So it's a mystery why the announcement by German chemist Gunter von Kiedrowski last December that he is on the brink of making self-replicating objects just nanometres across has passed off so quietly. No one batted an eyelid when von Kiedrowski and his team at the Ruhr University of Bochum reported they can copy the chemical information in complex molecules that are designed to assemble themselves into pre-defined structures.
posted by Kevin at 3:53 AM
Monsanto's GE Crops Spawn Superweeds Across Indiana :.Marestail populations that are immune to glyphosate were first identified in 2002 in the southeast Indiana counties of Jackson, Bartholomew, Clark, Jefferson and Jennings.
Recent field inspections by Purdue University researchers found the weeds in another 15 counties to the north and west, said Bill Johnson, Purdue Extension weed specialist.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in many herbicides, including Roundup.
Indiana farmers annually plant millions of acres in crops genetically modified to withstand Roundup applications. This year alone, 88 percent of the state's projected 5.45 million acres of soybeans are expected to be Roundup Ready varieties.
posted by Kevin at 3:49 AM
The Horror: Food Makers Changing Genes :.RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!
Food producers are turning to biotech to create designer foods with "improved mouth feel," ingredients with uniform flavor and even flatulence-free beans.
Genetic changes to cows and pigs are also on the horizon, according to companies at this week's Biotechnology Industry Organization show here. The goal is "branded meats that consumers will pay more for," said Ed Quattlebaum, president and CEO of MetaMorphix.
Monsanto will use the company's pig genome-mapping system to find the genome responsible for certain desired characteristics, such as marbling, tenderness and flavor. Marker-assisted selection tools may eventually be able to "certify a steak will be tender," Quattlebaum said.
DNA tracing is being used to ensure the safety of meat, including a DNA/RNA assay machine that can be put on the back of a pickup truck and taken to feedlots. "The closer we can get technology to the farm, the better," said Larry Schook, CEO of Pyxis Genomics, which is working to have totally traceable pork by July. The database will be searchable along the entire market stream, so that shoppers in Japan can scan a bar code on a packaged steak to find its source.Related: The Meatrix
posted by Kevin at 3:00 AM
Report: Pentagon Wasted $100M on Unused Airline Tickets :.Defense Department spent an estimated $100 million for airline tickets that were not used over a six-year period and failed to seek refunds even though the tickets were reimbursable, congressional investigators say.
The department compounded the problem by reimbursing employee claims for tickets bought by the Pentagon, the investigators said.
To demonstrate how easy it was to have the Pentagon pay for airline travel, the investigators posed as Defense employees, had the department generate a ticket and showed up at the ticket counter to pick up a boarding pass.
posted by Kevin at 2:08 AM
June Cryptogon Garden UpdateBounty:
Cukes!
Rots!
posted by Kevin at 2:01 AM
Britain: Frustration of the Do-It-All Women :.Ahhh, the fruits of "women's liberation" have amounted to unrelenting gloom, sheer frustration, misery and disgust. Everything in this article sounded vaguely familiar to me. I thought for a second, and then I remembered where I'd seen this story before. Way back in 1992, I took a Russian Society and Culture class in college. The professor assigned a book called
Soviet Women: Walking the Tightrope, by Francine Du Plessix Gray.
Gray found that Soviet women felt that they had been scammed. While having jobs and equal rights as men, they wound up having to bare the same household responsibilities they had before their socialist "liberation." This is from the book's synopsis on Amazon:
The subtitle reflects the attitudes of Soviet women, who are constitutionally guaranteed full equality with men, but who after decades of working harder than most members of the opposite sex are willing to be a little less equal and have a lot less work to do. The geographically, culturally, and economically diverse group of women interviewed herein are bound by the recurring theme of lack of time and often lack of energy to accomplish all the tasks expected of them. Working women have essentially two jobs-the one they go to and the one they return to.Well, well, well... The Soviet System is alive and well...in Britain:
It is a picture of unrelenting gloom that will only delight cosmetic surgeons. The dominant emotion experienced by modern women in Britain is sheer frustration as they struggle through a miasma of misery, including disgust with their bodies, exhausting and unrewarding work, childcare, chores, haphazard finances and unsatisfying sex lives.
More than a quarter of 2,000 women interviewed for a survey of women's lifestyles said they "intended" to have plastic surgery to ameliorate their poor body image. That cosmetic solution is one of several ways 81% of women wish they could change their life, including quitting their jobs and moving abroad.Note: It's the same in the U.S.
posted by Kevin at 12:39 AM
6/9/2004
Bush/Zombie Reagan 2004 :.Get out the Vote!
It's Morning in America... Again! Difficult times call for great leaders -- men of vision, strength and courage. Men like George W. Bush and the shambling, reanimated corpse of Ronald Reagan. Welcome to the official Web site of Bush/Zombie Reagan 2004, Inc., home of the new Republican presidential ticket!Research Credit: Karen
posted by Kevin at 9:50 PM
COUP D'ETAT: The Real Reason Tenet and Pavitt Resigned from the CIA on June 3rd and 4th :.Look, anytime you choose to utilize junk yard dogs to accomplish some task, you need to be prepared for the reality that they may, at some point, decide to go off on their own and refuse your orders to return to their filthy pen. I think it is very likely that this is what has happened in the Bush administration. They followed the 9/11 script, but then They went off the reservation when They invaded Iraq. Will Senior, The Prince of Darkness himself, be called upon to eat his own son and Cheney?
It's very possible.
I've been bewildered, for months, over the fact that no WMDs have been found in Iraq. Isn't that curious?
Why wouldn't They just fly in a planeload of that stuff and then make the announcement that They found it?
The answer might be that the CIA wasn't/isn't allowing any of these antics to take place because that invasion shouldn't have happened in the first place. The answer might be that the CIA was/is preparing to eat Bush and Cheney because they refused to stand down when told to do so.
If the CIA is actually pushing this hard, we can only assume that Bush and Cheney, et. al. will push back. Remember, there are no protagonists here. This is a fight between ratfucking murderers and criminals of the highest order. The ultimate question becomes: Who is going to feed of whom, first? And what if it doesn't go the way of Nixon-style coup? What if it goes the way of JFK-style coup?
What happened to John F. Kennedy after he went off the reservation (in those days, it was his handling of Cuba, Vietnam and Executive Order 11110)?
The CIA blew his head off in public.
You have to believe that if the CIA is actually doing what Ruppert documents in his report, they will have a backup plan in the event that the Bush junta refuses to go quietly. That backup plan may involve a cast of thousands, if you know what I mean. If the CIA has painted bullseyes on them, your guess is as good as mine as to how big the primary blast radius will need to be.
While I'd like to believe that this will go down in an impeachment hearing, like Mike Ruppert believes it will, it just might go down on CNN, with a flash and a ball of fire:
Why did DCI George Tenet suddenly resign on June 3rd, only to be followed a day later by James Pavitt, the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations (DDO)?
The real reasons, contrary to the saturation spin being put out by major news outlets, have nothing to do with Tenet's role as taking the fall for alleged 9/11 and Iraqi intelligence "failures" before the upcoming presidential election.
Both resignations, perhaps soon to be followed by resignations from Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, are about the imminent and extremely messy demise of George W. Bush and his Neocon administration in a coup d'etat being executed by the Central Intelligence Agency. The coup, in the planning for at least two years, has apparently become an urgent priority as a number of deepening crises threaten a global meltdown.
Based upon recent developments, it appears that long-standing plans and preparations leading to indictments and impeachment of Bush, Cheney and even some senior cabinet members have been accelerated, possibly with the intent of removing or replacing the entire Bush regime prior to the Republican National Convention this August.Research Credit: MR, NF, Karen, Dave
posted by Kevin at 8:14 AM
AudioBlogger :.I would encourage all Blogger users to set this up and make sure it's operational. It's hard to know when or how this could come in handy, but I think it just might at some point. This feature is free for Blogger users.
I think this is a very powerful tool. With a mobile phone, you can instantly post an audio message to your website that is accessible by anyone on the Internet. That is incredible.
You better believe that this capability will, at some point, pose a national security threat to the United States government. A potential problem exists with the fact that
They can remove your audio messages at will. If anything
interesting gets posted, people should immediately save the audio file or files locally and then create mirrors of the material.
The good news, besides the fact that it's free, is that you can have unlimited 5 minute posts, and never use any space on your server. That's kinda keen. In any event, I think it's worth it to set this up and keep it handy,
just in case:
posted by Kevin at 4:48 AM
Total Information Awareness System Fully Operational :.Unfurled:
Lt. Col. Doug Dyer, a program manager for DARPA, defends TIA as a necessary sacrifice in the war on terrorism.
"Americans must trade some privacy for security," he says. "Three thousand people died on 9/11. When you consider the potential effect of a terrorist attack against the privacy of an entire population, there has to be some trade-off."
The trade off means virtually every financial transaction of every American is now recorded and monitored by the federal government. Any bank transaction, all credit card charges plus phone records, credit reports, travel and even health records are captured in real time by the DARPA computers.
"Basically, TIA builds a profile of every American who has a bank account, uses credit cards and has a credit record," says security expert Allen Banks. "The profile establishes norms based on the person's spending and travel habits. Then the system looks for patterns that break from the norms, such of purchases of materials that are considered likely for terrorist activity, travel to specific areas or a change in spending habits."
Patterns that fit pre-defined criteria result in an investigative alert and the individual becomes a "person of interest" who is referred to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, Banks says.
posted by Kevin at 4:45 AM
American Corporations and the Third Reich :.* Yawn * Is any of this news to you people anymore?
America certainly deserves credit for its important contribution to the hard-fought victory that was ultimately achieved by the Allies. But the role of corporate America in the war is hardly synthesized by President Roosevelt's claim that the US was the "arsenal of democracy." When Americans landed in Normandy in June 1944 and captured their first German trucks, they discovered that these vehicles were powered by engines produced by American firms such as Ford and General Motors. 1 Corporate America, it turned out, had also been serving as the arsenal of Nazism.Related: What Really Caused World War 2?Research Credit: TR
posted by Kevin at 4:24 AM
GREENSPAN: FED READY TO ACT ON INFLATION :.Yeah baby:
Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, on Tuesday indicated that interest rates might have to rise faster than expected to keep inflationary pressures under control.
Speaking from Washington via satellite link to a conference in London, Mr Greenspan said he remained confident that the Fed could afford to remove monetary stimulus from the US economy gradually but that he was ready to take stronger action if necessary.
posted by Kevin at 4:14 AM
MARTIAL LAW: BODY BAGS SEEN AT G8 LOCKDOWN :.Could anyone even sit down and make this stuff up?
"How did this happen?" asks local teacher David Ray Dockery ("Hairy Dave" to his friends), hurling industrial quantities of organic cereal and dog food into his pick-up in preparation for the exodus to the mainland. "We're just a little-bitty island. No one ever thought we'd be put in a position where we'd have a bullseye on our back."
Paranoia, perhaps. But there's nothing like the chunter of helicopters to put the wind up a generation raised on M*A*S*H . The skies along the coast, normally the arena for spectacular aeronautics by brown pelicans, are black with military aircraft, swooping low over the houses on endless security sorties. Roadside checkpoints, manned by cheery grunts cradling machine-guns, are scarcely more reassuring.
"This is real scary shit," says Jay Thompson, a Delta flight attendant, who has decided to sit out the siege at home. "We never had a war here. We're not used to seeing tanks and guns on American soil. This is stuff you see in movies."
Larry, editor of The Great Speckled Seagull, a "semi-underground" periodical, is a gentle radical who wears a cowboy hat with a feather in it and carves weirdly beautiful faces in the island's trees. He has just heard a rumour that 2,000 body bags have been delivered to the clapboard Chamber of Commerce across the road from the bookstore. This intelligence is passed around like a joint at a fortysomething party, a delicious whiff of recreational danger. Five minutes later, one of the island's fire chiefs drops by, fresh from a briefing. It's not a rumour. The body bags are here, together with a refrigerated lorry to take away the corpses. "I liked it better when it was a rumour," says Larry.
posted by Kevin at 4:06 AM
FATHER TAKES SON OFF SPEED (RITALIN), MAY FACE CHILD ABUSE CHARGES! :.Man, it is over! Put a fork in it!
When Chad Taylor noticed his son was apparently experiencing serious side effects from Ritalin prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, he decided to take the boy off the medication. Now, he says he may be accused of child abuse.
In February, 12-year-old Daniel began displaying some symptoms that his father suspected were related to the use of Ritalin.
"He was losing weight, wasn't sleeping, wasn't eating," Taylor told ABC News affiliate KOAT-TV in New Mexico. "[He] just wasn't Daniel."
So Taylor took Daniel off Ritalin, against his doctor's wishes. And though Taylor noticed Daniel was sleeping better and his appetite had returned, his teachers complained about the return of his disruptive behavior. Daniel seemed unable to sit still and was inattentive. His teachers ultimately learned that he was no longer taking Ritalin.
School officials reported Daniel's parents to New Mexico's Department of Children, Youth and Families.Then a detective and social worker made a home visit.
"The detective told me if I did not medicate my son, I would be arrested for child abuse and neglect," Taylor said.
posted by Kevin at 3:58 AM
School Kids Told to Make Passing Out a Passing Fad :.WTF is going on in public schools? Take your kids out of these nut houses!
Teachers and parents in Cape Elizabeth are warning middle school students about the dangers of deliberately making themselves pass out, a developing trend among youngsters in the community.
The strange behavior became an issue last week at Cape Elizabeth Middle School when teachers learned that students were going through a regimen in which they blocked the flow of oxygen to their brains, which caused them to lose consciousness. Students told staff members that it gave them a "rush" or a "good feeling."
posted by Kevin at 3:45 AM
Suicide by Pseudoscience :.I've been waiting for weeks for this to get posted online. It's not just U.S. media that's being compared to Stalin's propaganda machine; check out what this
Wired article has to say about the U.S. scientific establishment. Wow:
The Union of Concerned Scientists in a February report pointed out something the science press has known for years: The Bush administration has no respect for science. Ideologues prefer to make up the laws of nature as they go.
Presidential science adviser John Marburger complained that the UCS's account sounded like a "conspiracy theory report." That's because it is one. As the report amply documents, the Bush administration has systematically manipulated scientific inquiry into climate change, forest management, lead and mercury contamination, and a host of other issues. Even as Marburger addressed his critics, the administration purged two advocates of stem-cell research from the President's Council on Bioethics.
When politicians dictate science, government becomes entangled in its own deceptions, and eventually the social order decays in a compost of lies. Society, having abandoned the scientific method, loses its empirical referent, and truth becomes relative. This is a serious affliction known as Lysenkoism.
Trofim Lysenko was Joseph Stalin's top stooge in Soviet agricultural science, a field that was mercilessly politicized by fanatics. His specialty was inventing nutty schemes - things like stimulating the evolution of trees by overcrowding them to get them to cooperate, as though they were communist minions. This totalitarian huckster spent his whole career promising exciting results and bringing about only disaster. But the party never judged itself on results, so he always got a free pass.
Politics without objective, honest measurement of results is a deadly short circuit. It means living a life of sterile claptrap, lacquering over failure after intellectual failure with thickening layers of partisan abuse. Charlatans like Lysenko can't clarify serious, grown-up problems that they themselves don't understand.
State-sponsored pseudoscience always fails, but slowly, like a wheat field choked with weeds. (This is a particularly apt comparison, because Lysenko claimed that the weeds infesting Soviet wheat fields had evolved from the wheat itself.) It fails in predictable ways, and these are the very ways in which the Bush science policy is going to fail.
posted by Kevin at 3:34 AM
6/8/2004
TRIPOD II AND FEMA: Lack of NORAD Response on 9/11 Explained :.For six weeks I have been investigating a number of other 9/11 wargames that link directly to the work done by Global Free Press on Tripod II and other wargames. I am not exaggerating when I say that we may be close to the Holy Grail of 9/11.
I am certain that it will not be too long before these wargames receive serious coverage in the mainstream press. If they are reported on while still linked to the FEMA myth, the Bush administration will have a free shot to discredit the Tripod story (and all of the wargame stories) by disproving the FEMA part to the press and then asking, "Why should we even respond to the rest?"
The wargames will tie Bush and/or Cheney and Rumsfeld directly into a complete paralysis of fighter response on 9/11. I have gone directly to many NORAD, DoD, NRO, and other sources and questioned them. I have knocked on many doors and I have even obtained some documents. I have obtained an on-the-record statement from someone in NORAD, which confirmed that on the day of 9/11 The Joint Chiefs (Myers) and NORAD were conducting a joint, live-fly, hijack Field Training Exercise (FTX) which involved at least one (and almost certainly many more) aircraft under US control that was posing as a hijacked airliner. That is just the tip of what I have uncovered.
There never was a stand down order issued. That would have been way too incriminating and risky a piece of evidence. And it also might have been ignored by eager fighter pilots who had trained their whole lives to respond to a hostile aircraft killing Americans. There are several statements that the "new" NORAD procedures transferring scramble authority to Rumsfeld on June 1, 2001 were ignored by several NORAD commanders on 9/11 including General Larry Arnold. That's exactly what I would have expected.
posted by Kevin at 5:32 AM
Rise of the Machines: Polymorphic Robots :.Oh yeah, this sounds great!
"The concept is that you build a robot that can automatically change its shape and size according to environmental feedbacks," Dr. Shen said at a recent meeting in suburban Boston. "If it sees a hole in the wall or a pipe, it can become a snake, go through the pipe. If it needs to climb on stairs ... it can literally grow legs. Or if the terrain is downhill, it can become a ball and roll down."
"There's no fixed brain in this particular robot," Shen noted � if you cut the robot in half, the modules will detect the change and adjust their behavior accordingly.
"You can cut off the robot's head and the rest of the body will select a leader and go from there," he said.
CONRO has many possible applications. "You can apply it directly to homeland security and military applications," Shen said, "and you can apply it to explore an unknown environment where you do not know beforehand what kind of shape is best for the environment. You let the robot decide."
posted by Kevin at 5:18 AM
Stanford Business Professor Says MBA Is Worthless :.HA!
Somewhere in the world, I'm sure there are many thousands of people who invested loads of time and money in getting a master's degree in business administration and who are now glad they did. However, they are not the people who have been writing to me lately. One reader says he used his MBA to line his African gray parrot's birdcage. Others decry the degree as a "joke," the "biggest waste of time and money imaginable," and a "confidence game." In all, the mail is running about 95 to 1 against. Let's suppose you are not in this group. They're just a bunch of soreheads, you say? Think again: Jeffrey Pfeffer is on their side, and he's a professor at the graduate business school at Stanford.
posted by Kevin at 5:14 AM
Hydrogen Reactor Improves Fuel Mileage by 15 to 20 Percent :.This is no long term solution to our energy problems, but it's a quick and easy way to increase mileage by as much as 20%. This is extremely simple, actually. Pipe the gas output from a conventional electrolysis system into the air intake for the engine. That's it. You might have encountered the substance that Dynamic Fuel Systems calls Jetfuel. It's water.
Before you send me emails saying this is BS, consider the fact that Dynamic Fuel Systems just completed a
deal in the European Union for CDN $60 million:
The JetstarTM gasifies our hydrogen compatible JetfuelTM by separating the hydrogen and oxygen molecules creating hydrogen and oxygen gases. These gases are produced only while the engine is running. The automatic fill system with primary and secondary safety components is simultaneously monitored within the JetstarTM. The gases are produced under a slight pressure to ensure a consistent flow to the engine. A hose from the JetstarTM delivers the gas to the intake of the vehicle, allowing the gas and fuel vapor to mix resulting in a more complete burn.
posted by Kevin at 4:48 AM
Threat of Terror Colors Plans for Security at Funeral Events :.I've been watching, in stunned amazement, at the outpouring of emotion from the numbnut hordes over the death of Reagan.
As frightening as this is to do, put yourself in the minds of the people who carry out false flag operations. Might the Reagan burial events be too much of a tempting target for Them to resist? What would happen if the CIA/Mossad/MI6/al-Quaeda did
something?
How do we begin to imagine the troglodyte response if someone so much as farts at this Reagan thing?
The terrorists attacked us as we were mourning the Gipper!? * voices quivering * hands shaking * Kicking us while we're down?! Cut to little girl holding an American flag, "Daddy, why do the terrorists hate us?"
I think it's safe to say that soccer moms would be signing up for martyrdom operations! Praying to God for the quick implantation of microchips in their pink spawn. Tripling the number of Jesus fish and American flag stickers on the back of their SUVs. Demanding martial law. Etc...
I'm not saying that this is going to happen, just that if it does, we are going to see bedlam piled on top of chaos.
I was wondering if They were planning on hitting the G8 gathering... But think of it in terms of maximum numbnut impact. The average American probably can't even name the G8 member states. But those same numbnuts are turning out by tens of thousands for this Reagan thing. Millions will be watching on TV in the U.S. and around the world. Live. If you have a way of recording TV shows, I'd just let it roll on CNNMSNBCFOXABCetc the entire time. You never know what might slip out if something happens during a live feed.
Probably, and hopefully, nothing will happen. But I've kinda just got a bad feeling about the end of this week. Can They resist taking advantage of something like this? We don't have to wait long to find out:
WASHINGTON, June 7 - For Lyndon B. Johnson's funeral here in 1973, security consisted primarily of police officers at the viewing, the service, the airport and the routes in between. The officers did not have radiation detectors on their belts, automatic weapons on their shoulders or gas masks at the ready.
As official Washington prepares to pay tribute to former President Ronald Reagan at its first state funeral in more than 30 years, the threat of terrorism looms large over three days of events starting Wednesday. Though the police say there is no specific indication that the events will be targets, the presence of almost every major federal officeholder, hundreds of foreign dignitaries and thousands of onlookers has the authorities moving into overdrive.
"For L.B.J.'s funeral, the only security was police with sidearms," said Richard A. Baker, the Senate historian. "That was about as sophisticated as it got. It was nothing compared to the sophistication and the resources we have today."
Led by the Secret Service, local police departments, government agencies and the military are canceling days off and scrambling to deploy thousands of people. There will be snipers on rooftops, bomb-sniffing dogs on the ground, plainclothes officers roaming the crowds and helicopter surveillance - and that is just what might be seen. The authorities also promise covert efforts, as well as teams of specialists in the wings to deal with everything from a nuclear response to chemical dangers.
At the Capitol, where Mr. Reagan's remains will lie in state for more than 24 hours beginning Wednesday evening, the police will use a dozen metal detectors to screen as many as 200,000 mourners. Events are being scripted down to the smallest detail for a memorial service there that will draw Vice President Dick Cheney and hundreds of other public officials, including members of Congress and Supreme Court justices.
posted by Kevin at 2:52 AM
6/7/2004
Saudi Arabia Top Buyer of UK Arms :.The U.S. and Britain, partners in hypocrisy:
Britain continues to supply large quantities of arms to countries whose policies the government says it disapproves of, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, according to the latest annual report on weapons exports, published yesterday.
Human rights groups immediately seized on the document as evidence that the government was ignoring its own guidelines by approving arms sales to such countries as Indonesia, Colombia and Nepal.
The report reveals that Britain exported more than �992m worth of arms last year, with Saudi Arabia topping a list in which other traditional British strategic allies also feature prominently. They include Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
posted by Kevin at 11:33 PM
Experts: Americans Would Trade Rights for Security :.I was talking with
TR on the phone. We were discussing how people will simply go along with everything they're told to do. If the point ever arrives where they come to think, "Wait a minute, enough is enough," it will be far too late to do anything. Hint: It's already far to late to do anything:
In today's America, prisoners are held incommunicado for years, newspapers can't photograph soldiers' coffins returned from Iraq and the government can secretly track the books citizens read and the movies they watch.
But civil liberties can erode much further before Americans will say enough is enough, say experts in social history and political behavior.
Fear struck by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks helped launch the curtailment of civil liberties in the name of national security, and that fear keeps Americans willing to trade away rights for safety, they say.
"We're at war," said Ken Weinstein of the Hudson Institute, a policy think tank. "That's why it doesn't bother us."
Nor is there a clear "tipping point" to swing opinion the other way, added Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the American Enterprise Institute. "We don't seem to be anywhere near it at this time."
Just after Sept. 11, 2001, polls showed two-thirds of Americans felt it would be necessary to give up some civil liberties to protect the nation. A year later, that number still stood at about half, Bowman said.
"Most people don't see a broader threat," she said. "People seem to be pretty comfortable with the general state of affairs regarding civil liberties."
posted by Kevin at 7:37 PM
Administration Lawyers Argued Bush Has Authority to Legally Order Torture :.A group of lawyers in the Bush administration argued in a paper last year that the president has supreme authority over the questioning of terrorist suspects, and can legally order interrogators to torture or commit other crimes against them.
The lawyers, not identified by name, were part of a working group writing a policy governing interrogation techniques to be used at the prison for terrorist suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.Research Credit: BW
posted by Kevin at 7:29 PM
Book: U.N. Sex Orgies, etc. :.There we are, now:
Despite efforts by the U.N. to block it, three field workers are publishing "Emergency Sex & Other Desperate Measures: A True Story From Hell on Earth."
The book talks of sex fueled by fear -- or boredom -- and that is what the authors call emergency sex.
The stories are first hand accounts by three U.N. staffers who worked in hotspots like Cambodia, Somalia and Rwanda for nearly a decade.
Among the strongest allegations in the book is the one that says some U.N. officials demanded local workers hand over 15 percent of their salaries.
Another is that Bulgaria freed prison inmates to serve as peacekeepers in Cambodia.
One of the authors describes the Bulgarians as "a battalion of criminal lunatics ... They're drunk as sailors, rape vulnerable Cambodian women and crash their U.N. Land Cruisers with remarkable frequency."
posted by Kevin at 5:12 PM
George H.W. Bush on Reagan :.Well, well, well:
"And sure enough, a lot happened on his watch that was very, very positive towards a new world order, toward a peace."
posted by Kevin at 1:49 PM
Not Even a Hedgehog :.Christopher Hitchens unfurls on Reagan:
The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump. He could have had anyone in the world to dinner, any night of the week, but took most of his meals on a White House TV tray. He had no friends, only cronies. His children didn't like him all that much. He met his second wife�the one that you remember�because she needed to get off a Hollywood blacklist and he was the man to see. Year in and year out in Washington, I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with such an obvious phony and loon.
posted by Kevin at 1:33 PM
Killer, Coward, Conman - Good Riddance, Ronnie Reagan :.Greg Palast unfurls on Reagan:
The New York Times today, in its canned obit, wrote that Reagan projected, "faith in small town America" and "old-time values." "Values" my ass. It was union busting and a declaration of war on the poor and anyone who couldn't buy designer dresses. It was the New Meanness, bringing starvation back to America so that every millionaire could get another million.
"Small town" values? From the movie star of the Pacific Palisades, the Malibu mogul? I want to throw up.
And all the while, in the White House basement, as his brain boiled away, his last conscious act was to condone a coup d'etat against our elected Congress. Reagan's Defense Secretary Casper the Ghost Weinberger with the crazed Colonel, Ollie North, plotted to give guns to the Monster of the Mideast, Ayatolla Khomeini.
Reagan's boys called Jimmy Carter a weanie and a wuss although Carter wouldn't give an inch to the Ayatolla. Reagan, with that film-fantasy tough-guy con in front of cameras, went begging like a coward cockroach to Khomeini pleading on bended knee for the release of our hostages.
Ollie North flew into Iran with a birthday cake for the maniac mullah -- no kidding --in the shape of a key. The key to Ronnie's heart.
Then the Reagan roaches mixed their cowardice with crime: taking cash from the hostage-takers to buy guns for the "contras" - the drug-runners of Nicaragua posing as freedom fighters.
I remember as a student in Berkeley the words screeching out of the bullhorn, "The Governor of the State of California, Ronald Reagan, hereby orders this demonstration to disburse" ... and then came the teargas and the truncheons. And all the while, that fang-hiding grin from the Gipper.
In Chaguitillo, all night long, the farmers stayed awake to guard their kids from attack from Reagan's Contra terrorists. The farmers weren't even Sandinistas, those 'Commies' that our cracked-brained President told us were 'only a 48-hour drive from Texas.' What the hell would they want with Texas, anyway?
Nevertheless, the farmers, and their families, were Ronnie's targets.
In the deserted darkness of Chaguitillo, a TV blared. Weirdly, it was that third-rate gangster movie, "Brother Rat." Starring Ronald Reagan.
Well, my friends, you can rest easier tonight: the Rat is dead.
Killer, coward, conman. Ronald Reagan, good-bye and good riddance.
posted by Kevin at 1:20 PM
Iraq: U.S. Loses Presidential Battle :.Oh really? Cui Bono?
Sheikh Ghazi's appointment marks an extraordinary rise to power for the former vice-president of a telecommunications firm in Saudi Arabia, even if his post is a largely ceremonial one.
Born in 1958, in Mosul, he is a Sunni Muslim and sheikh of the Shammar tribe, one of the largest in the Arab world.
The tribe extends over several Arab nations and provides powerful bonds of kinship in the Middle East.
The mother of Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, was from the Shammar.
Sheikh Ghazi left Iraq to study engineering, first in Saudi Arabia and then at Georgetown University in Washington before returning to the Middle East.
Acquaintances during his 15-year residency in the Saudi kingdom describe him as a conservative family man.
"He has lived the life of a tribal sheikh, which meant he didn't have to work for money," said Jawhar Sourchi, a Kurdish businessman.
Members of the Saudi royal family, to whom Sheikh Ghazi is related, invested heavily in his telecommunications firm. Until his return to Iraq last year, he played little role in politics, staying out out of the inter-party squabbling of Iraq's opposition-in-exile.Research Credit: FadE
posted by Kevin at 6:45 AM
The Evacuation of Saudi Arabia :.My previous comments on Saudi Arabia add useful datapoints to this piece from Jane's Defense.
Back in August of 2002, I
wrote:
Saudi Arabia, not Iraq, is the actual crown jewel in the eyes of U.S. geostrategists... Think in terms of a U.S. imperial strategy. Saudi Arabia WILL NOT be allowed to come under control of a radical Islamic regime. Absolutely, positively, will not. However, the House of Saud knows it's in dire trouble. I would not be surprised, at all, if the U.S. military was introduced into Saudi Arabia to, in effect, insure the "stability" of the criminal Saudi Regime.A little later, I
wrote:
We all know what is going to happen to Iraq. That is a done deal.
What is less clear is what is going to happen to Saudi Arabia. Take a look at a map of the region... Is there anyone out there who thinks that the establishment of U.S. Central Command less than three hundred miles from Riyadh is a coincidence?And now this, from Jane's Defense:
The steady exodus of expatriate workers from Saudi Arabia is set to gather pace in the coming weeks following the latest terrorist assault against foreigners in the Kingdom. JID assesses whether Al-Qaeda's long-standing strategy of destabilising the increasingly embattled House of Saud stands any real prospect of success.
Although the ousting of the Saudi royals has been predicted for some years the monarchy in the desert Kingdom has managed to survive thanks to support from the USA and its own policy of buying off or otherwise silencing its domestic opponents. However, with the US Department of State now urging its citizens to leave and the British Foreign Office issuing warnings to its own expatriates, the steady outflow of skilled Western workers is almost certain to gather pace - raising serious questions about the impact of an exodus of foreign technicians on the country's oil industry.
Of course, that is precisely the reaction that those who planned the attacks in Khobar on Sunday which left 22 dead are hoping. Of equal concern is the escape of three of the assailants amid mounting allegations by survivors that a deal was done between the militants and the Saudi security forces in return for the release of the remaining 41 hostages.
For some experienced Middle East analysts, there are significant parallels between the current situation in Saudi Arabia and the final months of the Shah of Iran before his flight into exile, followed by the Islamic revolution which swept the ayatollahs into power (and cost the USA one of its key regional allies). As one foreign policy veteran told JID: "The collapse of authority tends to be the end result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once there is the perception that the old regime is doomed, it is usually a matter of time before it actually collapses. We saw precisely this sequence of events in Iran in 1979."
There is mounting concern among Western intelligence agencies that Al-Qaeda's next move will be to target the Kingdom's oil infrastructure in order to disrupt production. Any incident which threatens to reduce Saudi exports is almost certain to fuel the escalating price of oil - which reached a 21-year high at the end of May (although in real terms, this is still lower than the peaks reached during the 1973 oil crisis).Research Credit: DG
posted by Kevin at 5:53 AM
Advertising Damages Mental Health :.One of the best-known advertising ideologues, Jacques Sequeles from the Euro-RSCG agency formulated: "Advertising conquers everything and has become the schoolmaster of our children. They only sit for hours with their teachers but enthusiastically watch the television for a thousand hours. They sit glued or spellbound to our spots. Thus advertising becomes the schoolmaster for life."
The power of pictures of visual communication is also unbroken in adult age. This power of virtual pictures is stronger than logical arguments. Even if you feel elevated above this, the tirade of advertising pictures is still drilled into you.
posted by Kevin at 5:40 AM
Bill Joy: Chances of a "Civilization-Changing Event" as High as 50% :.The people who can see what is about to happen are all screaming, "Watch out!" but it's like we're whispering in a windstorm. Oh well:
In an earlier conversation, Joy had singled out James Watson, who discovered with Francis Crick the double helix of DNA, as a scientist who rejects Joy's arguments for weighing benefits against bad outcomes. Watson has indeed said that it makes little sense to stop research on account of unspecified risks or "evil." In the name of science and discovery, he says, we are ethically obliged to go forward. "That position has to be wrong," Joy insists. In his view, we are ethically bound to slow down.
This is not an easy case to make. In his last unpublished manuscript, speaking of those in the science and business communities who dispute the catastrophic potential of their work, Joy said, "I wonder where these people hide their fear." I asked Joy about this in another e-mail message. Where is the fear today? A few days after, at 2:10 a.m., Joy wrote: "I think our lack of pandemic experience is the key. We don't know what it feels like. It seems like Hollywood. It isn't real enough to us that we demand action, we just file the catastrophic thought and tolerate its dissonance and that it conflicts with other things we believe. As humans we do this so well. And, of course, there is Bertrand Russell's experience. . . . But I hope that we can transcend his bitter experience, somehow, now. We must try."
Some weeks later, he sent a note to point out that a SARS research lab in China had been shut down that day. A safety breach had led to several infections. "This is the reality of handling such dangerous things," he wrote. He had wanted to remind me. Accidents will happen.
posted by Kevin at 5:20 AM
USA Patriot Act Check Required for Home Purchases :.With the passage of the USA Patriot Act of 2001, which required that financial institutions create anti-money-laundering compliance programs, anyone purchasing property must be checked against a list of names of known and suspected terrorists. The list has been around since before the September 11 attacks, but increasingly the ritual closing ceremony has involved writing yet another check to the title company that runs the homebuyer�s name against that list.
What's behind it? The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control maintains the "specifically designated nationals" (SDN) list of people blocked from participating in "any transaction or dealing in property or interests" within the United States. These people have been identified "to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism," according to White House Executive Order 13224, which was issued Sept. 24, 2001. Although the blocked-persons list has been around in some form for about a decade, under the order private individuals (be they jewelers, pawnbrokers or suburban families) buying or selling property are now considered "financial institutions" by the government. And the responsibility has fallen to the title companies to check all parties involved in a transaction against the list.
posted by Kevin at 5:11 AM
Artists Subpoenaed Under USA Patriot Act :.Three artists have been served subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury that will consider bioterrorism charges against a university professor whose art involves the use of simple biology equipment.
The subpoenas are the latest installment in a bizarre investigation in which members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force have mistaken an art project for a biological weapons laboratory (see end for background). While most observers have assumed that the Task Force would realize the absurd error of its initial investigation of Steve Kurtz, the subpoenas indicate that the feds have instead chosen to press their "case" against the baffled professor.Research Credit: MH
posted by Kevin at 4:53 AM
Webmaster Charged with "Terrorist" Weblinks :.Link to the wrong material, and you could be hauled off by guys wearing ski masks and armed with machine guns. Yes. That's right. You see, of course, that we are now living in a system of arbitrary law enforcement. They can take any of us down, for any reason, at their whim:
Al-Hussayen maintained a number of web sites, including those associated with the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA) (a non-profit charity organization) and the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation (a charity group based in Saudi Arabia). The government charges that some of the content on these web sites included articles, links, and posts to content "justifying and encouraging violent jihad." And, according to the government's twisted argument, Al-Hussayen's work as webmaster for those sites makes him guilty of "material support" for terrorism.
posted by Kevin at 4:51 AM
Your Wasted Tax Dollars: Military "Boneyards"Billions and billions and billions of dollars.... gone. * poof * I think Reagan should be buried in one of these boneyards. A good deal of this junk was built under his watch:
Eyeballing Burial of Submarine ReactorsEyeballing US Warplane Graveyard 1Eyeballing US Warplane Graveyard 2
posted by Kevin at 4:34 AM
Film: Supersize Me :.WARNING: Contains spoilers. Don't read what follows if you want to experience the full effect of the shock and awe that this film delivers.
I saw the film,
Supersize Me, last night with a friend (a really smart girl from New Zealand who has been gardening her entire life and doesn't own a television). I highly recommend this astonishing documentary to everyone. It touches on many topics that are familiar to Cryptogon readers. As your humble Cryptogon editor, however, I think that the horror of this thing was worse for me than the average audience member, since I'm familiar with how wide and deep all of it goes. I'm sure you will see what I'm talking about if you watch this film.
The three points that resonate in my mind after seeing
Supersize Me are:
1) Heavily processed "fast food" is not just unhealthy, it is toxic and can kill you.
2) Doctors are generally clueless as to how dangerous and addictive bad diets are. Note the evolution of the perspectives from the medical doctors as this experiment unfolds. At the beginning, they didn't think much of anything would happen to Morgan Spurlock, the filmmaker. None of these MDs imagined that, by the end of the 30 day period, he would be, quite literally, taking his life in his hands by eating at McDonald's. I espcially liked the mention of McDonald's outlets inside hospitals! HAHA!
Also note the vitamin and mineral numbers mentioned by the registered dietitian (an occupation on par with psychiatry in terms of quackiness). Dietitians use the U.S. recommended daily allowance (USRDA) as a guide to health. The RDA provides baseline minimums that would theoretically keep people alive; never mind staying healthy or optimizing health. The point is: Spurlock's blood work showed that he was deficient by as much as 50% in some categories ON THE RDA SCALE.
3) Children are a high-value target for corporations. The weapon of choice that these corporations use to hunt kids: Television.
If you allow your children to watch commercial television, you might as well allow them to play with loaded firearms. I AM NOT KIDDING. The television is destroying their minds and encouraging them to consume dangerous, addictive poisons that will destroy their bodies.
It's one thing to read about all of this, but it's quite another to see it unfurled on the big screen. All in all, I felt that
Supersize Me was an extremely effective film. While much of the information preaches to the Cryptogon choir, you might use it to try to shock a McDonald's-eating friend or family member into seeing the danger of their behavior. If eating nothing but McDonald's "food" for 30 days can nearly kill a healthy young man, what does eating it a few times per week do to you?
Nothing good.
Indeed, I have to wonder if people who see this film will ever step foot inside a McDonald's again.
posted by Kevin at 3:44 AM
6/6/2004
Report: WalMart Growth Often Subsidized by Taxpayers :.Wal-Mart Stores have enjoyed more than $1 billion in economic development subsidies from state and local governments across the United States, according to a new study released by a Washington, D.C.-based research group.
Good Jobs First, a research group monitoring state and local job subsidies, found 244 cases in which Wal-Mart retail stores or the distribution centers that service them have received state or local economic development subsidies. The subsidies amounted to just over $1 billion according to the report released Sunday.Related: WalMart DungeonsRelated: $30 Million Worth of Cocaine on WalMart TruckRelated: Chinese Try Mobile Death VansRelated: WalMart Culture: Piss and Shit on WallsRelated: All Walmart Stories on Cryptogon
posted by Kevin at 5:37 PM
6/5/2004
Oceans Choking on Plastic
:.
About 250 billion pounds of raw plastic pellets are produced annually worldwide and turned into a tremendous variety of products, from cars and computers to packaging and pens.
About 20 percent of the plastic in the oceans comes from ships or offshore platforms; the rest is blown, washed off the land or intentionally dumped, according to a preliminary report issued April 2004 by the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy. Not only does plastic kill marine animals that eat it or get tangled in it and drown, but it also damages and degrades their habitat.
posted by Kevin at 5:54 PM
Ronald Reagan Dies :.Ronald Reagan was one of the key figures in modern American mythology. A tool of the Bush Dynasty, Reagan tripled the national debt and unleashed multiple U.S. sponsored genocides around the world. He is credited with bringing down the Soviet Union, although, the fact that the "Evil Empire" was a low grade dictatorship, incapable of even producing enough food to sustain its own population, is lost on many observers. (The U.S. insured that the "Evil Empire" didn't collapse into famine by providing grain shipments for decades. Additionally, the Soviets rarely made any breakthroughs in weapons technology, relative to the U.S. As such, the U.S. routinely transferred technology to the USSR in order to maintain appearances and justify the continued looting of wealth from working Americans. See,
The Best Enemy Money Can Buy, by Antony C. Sutton.)
In actuality, under Reagan, the U.S. sold its soul to private bankers. The result was that a core group of people in the armaments business managed to accumulate increasingly obscene and destabilizing amounts of wealth. As Reagan yammered incoherently about the benefits of smaller government, the U.S. government swelled to proportions never before seen in our history. (This trend continues under both Democratic and Republican regimes.) And what about the gap between rich and poor, that was widening by the month? "Trickle down economics," would sort out that problem... soon... as long as we, "Stay the course."
* Sigh *
I'm convinced the man, quite literally, had no idea of what he doing most of the time he was in office. His simple, meaningless rhetoric appealed to average, ignorant Americans who had no more of a concept of what was happening in the world back in the 1980s than they do today. I find it ironic that with so much noise being made about Reagan saving us from the Soviet Union, our own media is now routinely compared to the state propaganda mechanisms of Stalinist Russia. The glowing eulogies spewing out of most media outlets at the moment are proof that the U.S. has completely lost its grasp on reality.
Reagan's criminal negligence and charismatic personality were weaponized and used---by diabolical forces lurking just beneath the surface---to drive the last nails into America's coffin. Eventually, historians will view Reagan as a tool and vassal of the people who looted America and ultimately destroyed it. Rest in pieces, Ronny. May the Myth of your greatness soon follow you into oblivion:
Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States largely credited with ushering in an era of conservative politics and pursuing a foreign policy that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, died Saturday at his home in California after a 10-year struggle with Alzheimer's disease. He was 93.
posted by Kevin at 5:37 PM
Cryptogon Reader Sends $20AL, a long time Cryptogon reader and contributor of story ideas, has sent $20.... All the way from Australia! Thanks, man, much appreciated!
posted by Kevin at 5:07 PM
Incredible Story: Survivalist Dad and His Homeschooled Daughter :.Frank for President!
A man and his 12-year-old daughter spent the last four years living in a remote hillside in Portland's Forest Park, police said.
A rope swing, a tilled vegetable garden and a small creek were nearby.
The man and girl told police they had lived in the park for four years. The pair appeared clean, well-fed and healthy, Barkley said, and the girl was well-spoken beyond her years.
The man, who identified himself as Frank, told police he was a 53-year-old Marine Corps veteran and college graduate who served in Vietnam.
He came to Oregon with his daughter, Ruth, from Tacoma with no job and virtually no money. Frank told police that the girl's mother was institutionalized in New Hampshire, and the two now lived on a $400-a-month disability check.
Rather than live on the streets and expose Ruth to alcohol and drugs, Frank said, they hiked deep into Forest Park and built a lean-to.
The pair went into the city twice a week to stop by the bank, attend church, buy groceries and clothes from Goodwill. Frank, a devout Christian, said he taught his daughter using the old encyclopedias.
They grew vegetables and used the nearby creek to keep clean. They stored perishable foods in a small pool of water at the creek's edge.
A pediatrician found the girl free of any illness, any signs of physical or sexual abuse - and no cavities. A criminal background check came up empty, according to police reports.
Even though the child and father lived for such a long time disconnected from society, the girl had been home schooled and was in good physical shape.
In fact, the girl received a very good education from her father while living among the trees. Officials said the girl, who would be normally in 7th grade, is at a 12th grade equivalency.
"When we interviewed this little girl, she was very impressive. She really was very responsible, and she really looked as though she was way advanced in her years," said Portland Police Cmdr. Scott Anderson said.
Police persuaded them to leave the camp, promising help them find food and shelter.Uhhh, maybe I missed something, but it seemed to me like they had been doing fine without the help of the police...
I hope Frank and Ruth manage to get their own land some day.
Research Credit: NF
posted by Kevin at 5:00 PM
6/4/2004
Emails on Minato EngineI got a ton of emails on that thing. I haven't written anyone back, but I will. Thanks for your comments!
posted by Kevin at 6:51 AM
Bio-Corn Is Coming to Colorado :.Everyone is so concerned about the children in Africa that Dr. Mengele would be proud of the solutions we're coming up with to cure their diseases! Of course, you don't hear anyone in the media explaining that the primary cause of child death in the world is SHIT IN DRINKING WATER! The last time I checked, you don't need drugs pHarmed in corn to remove the shit from the drinking water.
Less genetic engineering, more clean water:
Colorado will soon have its first crop of bio-corn.
The Department of Agriculture has granted Iowa State University permission to grow a small experimental crop of the biopharmaceutical plant somewhere in Logan County.
Researchers hope to create a vaccine from the bio-corn that will be used to treat a viral infection that kills thousands of kids every year in developing countries.
Opponents of the technology worry that bio-corn isn't safe and that wind could carry pollen or seeds from the treated plants and contaminate conventional crops.
posted by Kevin at 6:17 AM
Good Old Fashioned Death Squads: U.S. Training a New Iraqi Military Force to Battle Guerrillas at Their Own Game :.Nothing changes. The MO has been the same for 50 years. Why mess with,
uhhhh, success?
American military advisers are forming an all-Iraqi counterinsurgency force and training it in guerrilla tactics like ambushing trucks and hiding alongside the road camouflaged as bushes.
The new force, called the Iraqi National Task Force, is the most ambitious effort yet to fight the uprising using Iraqis, and it already has 1,000 soldiers, with plans to grow to 7,000.
It is being created as a response to the refusal of a group of regular Iraqi soldiers to face insurgents in Falluja two months ago. That breakdown culminated in a tense standoff on an airfield with eight American marines surrounded by an angry group of 200 armed Iraqis who refused to board helicopters.
"Basically, that scene was the trigger," said Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, the senior military adviser in charge of training Iraqi security forces. "It was our fault. We tried to send the Iraqi Army into Falluja before they were ready, and they pushed back. After that, we realized we needed a force that was specially designed to fight in urban areas and ready to fight fellow Iraqis."
posted by Kevin at 6:08 AM
Bush is Nuts, End of Story :.Off the rails:
In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as "enemies of the state."
Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.
"It reminds me of the Nixon days," says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. "Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That�s the mood over there."
In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be "God's will" and then tells aides to "fuck over" anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration.
God may also be the reason Attorney General John Ashcroft, the administration's lightning rod because of his questionable actions that critics argue threatens freedoms granted by the Constitution, remains part of the power elite. West Wing staffers call Bush and Ashcroft "the Blues Brothers" because "they're on a mission from God."
"The Attorney General is tight with the President because of religion," says one aide. "They both believe any action is justifiable in the name of God."
But the President who says he rules at the behest of God can also tongue-lash those he perceives as disloyal, calling them "fucking assholes" in front of other staff, berating one cabinet official in front of others and labeling anyone who disagrees with him "unpatriotic" or "anti-American."
posted by Kevin at 5:44 AM
Bilderberg Group Marks 50th Anniversary :.Yawn. Is there anyone left who doubts where we're all headed? Put a fork in it. This BBC piece is stupid, but Prison Planet's commentary is worth noting:
Comment: Don't read this nightmare piece of 'journalism' before you go to bed or you'll have bad dreams. This criminally bad report links anyone that thinks Bilderberg have power with world-renowned terrorists. There's also the rudimentary 'Jewish conspiracy' tactic used, a pathetic worn out attempt to brand anyone who thinks 200 world leaders meeting in secret is interesting as a racist. If Bilderberg has no power, perhaps 'Jonathan Duffy' can explain to me how Bilderberg's own archives discuss the creation of the EU and the single currency years before the EU even existed. Perhaps Mr. Duffy should talk to his colleagues at the BBC because they reported on it a year ago.
posted by Kevin at 5:36 AM
Microwave Beam Weapons Coming Soon :.This one has been in the works for a long time. The pigs won't have to clean up any pepper spray residue anymore! Oh sure, it just causes the skin to redden. Right. Just like, rubber bullets don't kill. Let's see, how do we resist against an opposing force that is fielding directed energy weapons? Hmm:
Test subjects can't see the invisible beam from the Pentagon's new, Star Trek-like weapon, but no one has withstood the pain it produces for more than three seconds.
People who volunteered to stand in front of the directed energy beam say they felt as if they were on fire. When they stepped aside, the pain disappeared instantly.
The long-range column of millimeter-wave energy is known as the "Active Denial System" for its ability to prevent an aggressor from advancing. Senior military officials, who plan to deliver the device for troop evaluation this fall, say years of testing has produced no sign it will lead to health effects beyond perhaps causing skin to temporarily redden.
It is among the most potent of a new generation of futuristic, "less-than-lethal" weapons being developed by the Defense Department - tools that could dramatically alter the way police control riots and soldiers fight wars.
posted by Kevin at 5:22 AM
GlaxoSmithKline: Criminal Quackery :.Eliot Spitzer, the combative Attorney General of New York State, yesterday turned his fire on GlaxoSmithKline, suing the world's second-largest drug maker, which he claims suppressed studies that its leading anti-depressant, Paxil, might make children suicidal.
The medical authorities in both the US and the UK - where the drug is known as Seroxat - banned doctors from prescribing the product to under-18s last year after finally examining the GSK studies.
posted by Kevin at 5:17 AM
U.S. Told Saudis to Let Al-Qaida Gunmen Escape :.Saudi authorities gave safe passage to three al-Qaida gunmen after the they killed 10 of the hostages they were holding at a hotel in the oil hub of Khobar, a senior security official said.
The Saudi official said upon hearing hostages had been killed, US officials advised the Saudis that letting the militants go would avert a bigger catastrophe.Related: U.S. Releases Terror Suspect Despite Evidence Of 'Martyr' Attack
posted by Kevin at 5:06 AM
Seven Carriers Among Dozens of Ships to Sail :.Just an exercise, or is something up?
Seven aircraft carriers - more than half the nation's flattops - along with several dozen escort ships and about 40,000 sailors will be at sea starting this week for the first demonstration of the Navy's emergency deployment plan.
Known as Summer Pulse 04, the exercise includes two carrier strike groups with San Diego ties: the Stennis flotilla, which deployed from North Island Naval Air Station last week on a regular deployment, and the Navy's newest carrier, the Ronald Reagan, which is heading for its new home port in San Diego.
The seven carriers - virtually every aircraft carrier that can sail - will be at sea during all or part of the exercise, which ends in August. Besides the local warships, the George Washington, Kitty Hawk, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Enterprise strike groups will participate. Most of the carriers will be escorted by four to six smaller ships. Related? Rumors Of Unusual Naval Deployments? :.If I'd had fewer beers, I wouldn't have posted this. In fact, I'm not going to quote from it. If anyone in .mil wants to set things straight, let me know.
posted by Kevin at 3:37 AM
Tennet Quits :.Blah:
After being dogged by heavy criticism over questionable intelligence on Iraq and terrorism since the September 11, 2001 attacks, George Tenet resigned Thursday as the director of the CIA.Weird: Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) James Pavitt Quits :.Ok, this is weird. The director of the CIA and the CIA's director of covert operations both quit within 24 hours of each other:
A second senior official of the US Central Intelligence Agency is expected to announce his retirement.
It comes less than a day after the surprise resignation of George Tenet, the agency's Director.
James Pavitt is the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations.
A spokesman for the CIA said Mr Pavitt's decision was unrelated to the departure of Mr Tenet.
Mr Pavitt had decided to leave the agency before Mr Tenet made his surprise announcement yesterday.
posted by Kevin at 3:33 AM
6/3/2004
DARPA Builds Quantum Cryptography Network :.A few weeks ago, I commented on the European Union's
plan to implement a quantum cryptography system in order to defend against the USA/UK's ECHELON surveillance system. I said that the EU's solution was potentially flawed because they were only going to use the quantum cryptography network to exchange keys. This assumes that A) the encryption schemes that use the keys are not compromised out of hand and B) that the stated key strength correlates to the actual entropy of the key. In my opinion, this is assuming a lot.
This is what I said the EU would have to do if they wanted to effectively thwart an attacker such as the U.S. National Security Agency:
The thing to do would be to send all of the high value traffic over a quantum crypto system, not just the keys. Now that would be a TFA (Through F*cking Around) solution. Obviously, this would be prohibitively expensive and cumbersome.HAHAHA! I suppose that it's not prohibitively expensive and cumbersome if you have God-Like powers! DARPA, drawing on its unholy alliances with private corporations and universities, has been quietly building a network that I thought would be too costly and complex to be built by anyone! But they did it.
Notice how the elite are using OUR MONEY to create technology that will be used to secure and enhance their God-Like powers. Believe me when I say that you do not want these people to have technology like this:
BBN Technologies announced that it has built the world's first quantum cryptography network and is now operating it continuously beneath the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Today the DARPA Quantum Network links BBN's campus to Harvard University; soon it will stretch across town to include Boston University as a third link. The Harvard University Applied Physics Department and the Boston University Photonics Center have worked in close collaboration with BBN to build the network under Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsorship.
Information traveling over open networks such as the Internet is often encrypted to prevent unauthorized eavesdropping. Currently, complex mathematical algorithms are the most common method used to scramble (encrypt) and de-scramble (decrypt) messages that require secure transmission. Although this method can provide high levels of security, it is not infallible. In contrast, the DARPA Quantum Network introduces extremely high levels of security for Internet-based communications systems by encrypting and decrypting messages with keys created by quantum cryptography.
Quantum cryptography, invented by Charles Bennett and Giles Brassard in the 1980s, prepares and transmits single photons of light, through either fiber optic cable or the atmosphere, to distribute cryptographic keys that are used to encrypt and decrypt messages. This method of securing information is radically different from methods based on mathematical complexity, relying instead on fundamental physical laws. Because very small (quantum) particles are changed by any observation or measurement, eavesdropping on a quantum cryptography system is always detectable.
The DARPA Quantum Network has improved on these techniques to create a highly robust, six-node network that is both extremely secure and 100% compatible with today's Internet technology. Patent-pending BBN protocols pave the way for robust quantum networks on a larger scale by providing "any to any" networking of quantum cryptography through a mesh of passive optical switches and cryptographic key relays.I think the top level domains of most universities need to be changed: harvard.mil, mit.mil, yale.mil, usc.mil, berkeley.mil, stanford.mil, caltech.mil, ucla.mil, bu.mil, uci.mil, etc. These universities are little more than money laundering organizations for the Forces of Darkness.
posted by Kevin at 4:15 PM
Fahrenheit 911 Trailer :. (Could be slow.)
I'll like the movie, except for any parts that advocate voting for Kerry. I like that the film appears to portray American politics as an absurd nightmare. I just hope the bipartisan nature of the disaster isn't lost in Moore's freakish tendency to support Democrats in the midst of their obvious complicity in all of this.
posted by Kevin at 7:24 AM
U.S. Releases Terror Suspect Despite Evidence Of 'Martyr' Attack :.This is incredible. Read this carefully:
Nabil al-Marabh, once imprisoned as the No. 27 man on the FBI's list of must-capture terror suspects, is free again.
He's free despite telling a Jordanian informant he planned to die a martyr by driving a gasoline truck into a New York City tunnel, turning it sideways, opening its fuel valves and having an al-Qaida operative shoot a flare to ignite a massive explosion.
Free despite telling the FBI he had trained on rifles and rocket propelled grenades at militant camps in Afghanistan and after admitting he sent money to a former roommate convicted of trying to blow up a hotel in Jordan.
Free despite efforts by prosecutors in Detroit and Chicago to indict him on charges that could have kept him in prison for years. Those indictments were rejected by the Justice Department in the name of protecting intelligence. Even two judges openly questioned al-Marabh's terror ties.
The Bush administration in January deported al-Marabh to Syria - his home and a country the U.S. government long has regarded as a sponsor of terrorism.
The quiet end to al-Marabh's case provides a stark contrast to other cases in which the Bush administration has held suspects without lawyers as enemy combatants. It also contrasts with the terms FBI agents used to describe al-Marabh in internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.Related: Israeli Movers In Sub Base Security Scare Freed
posted by Kevin at 5:44 AM
ATTACK ON KEY SAUDI OIL TERMINAL COULD DESTABILIZE WEST :.We can't even conceive of the chaos this would cause. It's unthinkable, and it could happen at any moment:
As fears of upheaval in Saudi helped set world crude oil prices to 21-year highs of $42.45 per barrel ahead of an Opec ministerial meeting today, there were fewer willing to scoff at Mr Gheit.
"I cannot think of any more logical target for terrorists. It [Ras Tanura] is the nerve centre for the Saudi oil trade but also for global exports. If you can blow up the Pentagon in broad daylight, then it cannot be impossible to fly a plane into Ras Tanura - and then you are talking $100 [per barrel] oil," he says.
Saudi Arabia is the linchpin for world crude supplies, a key to setting prices and yet sitting on a political tinderbox due to internal dissent and having trouble securing itself against terrorism.
The repressive desert kingdom is the birthplace of Osama bin Laden, provided 15 out of the 19 attackers on 9/11 and its future problems could ultimately make petrol too expensive for us to take our cars out of the garage.This is all going to happen on purpose. Ordo ab chao. Order from chaos. Don't you forget it.
posted by Kevin at 4:11 AM
Army Widens 'Stop-Loss' Program :.Do you feel a draft?
The Army will prevent soldiers in units set to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan from leaving the service at the end of their terms, a top general said Wednesday.
The announcement, an expansion of an Army program called "stop-loss," means that thousands of soldiers who had expected to retire or otherwise leave the military will have to stay on for the duration of their deployment to those combat zones.Research Credit: DG, KH
posted by Kevin at 3:28 AM
France: Public Assembly Banned in Paris for Bush Visit :.The hatred of Bush is so intense that countries have to declare martial law when he visits:
Demonstrations have been banned in central Paris throughout this week to ensure no hostile protests are in evidence to disturb President George W. Bush's brief presence in the French capital on Saturday, where he will be dining with President Jacques Chirac.
This blanket ban cannot conceal the groundswell of French hostility to the US president and the unpopularity of his policies on Iraq and the broader Middle East.
It nevertheless underscores Mr Chirac's determination to make Mr Bush's stay in France for the 60th anniversary of the D-Day celebrations a friendly occasion and a chance to improve the chilly state of Franco-American relations.
posted by Kevin at 3:24 AM
NSA ECHELON Intercept Analyst Job OpeningI was checking out an evil corporation called Titan (www.titan.com). The quickest way to figure out if a company like this is an intelligence agency contractor is to check out the locations where they have job openings. It's not like it was a difficult task to get the gist of what Titan is all about. This company, though, is so enmeshed in military and intelligence projects, their domain name might as well be titan.mil.
I'm posting this for two reasons. First, it's interesting to note that NSA is contracting out ECHELON analysts to a private corporation. Second, I want someone to tell me what the "High Density Target Language" refers to. [See below.] Other Titan job postings refer to the "Low Density Target Language." They then go on to specify various languages like Arabic, Chinese, etc. The only references I can turn up via Google and Dogpile refer back to these Titan Corporation job postings.
Could these terms refer to the words and phrases that the intelligence agencies are interested in sifting out of the communications traffic? [Nope. See below.]
High Density--Language Professional
------------
Location: Ft. Meade, MD Req. No.: TOSG29A
Division: Technical & Operational Support Group
------------
Job Description:
Scan materials to identify items that require further processing. Categorize and prioritize materials for further processing. Recover EEIs. Provide Gists, Extracts, Full and Verbatim Transcripts. Scan written materials to identify items that require further processing. Perform further processing of material in the format required. Produce translations of printed materials
Background and Experience: (including education, skills, work activities)
(a) Minimum required:
Language Professionals shall have a minimum of four (4) years cryptologic or related experience. Language Professionals shall have the linguistic proficiency of the High Density Target Language and the specific knowledge, talent, and skills necessary to perform the assigned voice and/or graphic tasks with minimal supervision. An ability to compile and update operational working aids and databases with minimal supervision. A basic command of the High Density Target Language [Arabic(MSA), Chinese Mandarin, French, Korean, Russian and Spanish] as well as excellent verbal and written American English language capabilities (grammar, vocabulary, idioms, spelling) because linguist work products are prepared in both languages. Language Professionals shall have a language proficiency rating of 3/3, as measured by the DLPT. U.S. citizenship. TS/SCI clearance or clearable, plus a willingness to take and pass a polygraph. An ability to work in a mixed environment consisting of multi-service personnel, DOD civilians and Govt contractor personnel.
(b) Desired:
A working knowledge of the High Density Target Language cultural, geopolitical, and economic issues.Note: TS/SCI means Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information. This is an above Top Secret clearance that is routinely required for personnel involved with intelligence community projects.
Cryptogon Reader Clarifies High and Low Density Language ReferencesSubmitted by Doug:
Hi Kevin
The following URL has several refs to high and low density languages for people training to be Marine Corps cryptolinguists (which would probably qualify them one day to work for Titan). High density seems just to mean "critical"
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/1992/BJ1.htm
Other sites hit on a search for "High Density Language" +translation seemed to indicate that high density languages (English, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, German, etc.) have more speakers, more published works, better representation on the WWW, etc. than do low density languages (Farsi, Mongolian, Mapudungun).
Keep up the good work.
Doug
posted by Kevin at 1:55 AM
Enron Traders Brag About Swindling :."He just fucks California," says one Enron employee. "He steals money from California to the tune of about a million."
"They're fucking taking all the money back from you guys?" complains an Enron employee on the tapes. "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"
"Yeah, grandma Millie, man"
"Yeah, now she wants her fucking money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her asshole for fucking $250 a megawatt hour."
One trader is heard on tapes obtained by CBS News saying, "Just cut 'em off. They're so fucked. They should just bring back fucking horses and carriages, fucking lamps, fucking kerosene lamps."...Yep. Don't forget the yurts, pigs, goats and chickens.
posted by Kevin at 1:31 AM
NSA Procurement Spending Doubled Since 2000 :.Don't you feel safe?
The National Security Agency has doubled procurement spending since 2000 and will do so again by the end of this decade, according to Harry Gatanas, the organization's senior acquisition executive.
Also, Gatanas noted, NSA is building a massive data storage facility in Colorado, which will be able to hold the electronic equivalent of the Library of Congress every two days.
posted by Kevin at 12:34 AM
Cryptogon Readers Contribute $15, Dinner and CookiesPW $15
JH Dinner and a bag of organic chocolate chip cookies
posted by Kevin at 12:30 AM
6/2/2004
Canadian Engineering Student Interested in Generator ProjectOne individual has requested more information on the possible
generator project. I can't believe that his was the only email I received on this matter! I prepared myself for a deluge of negative emails. Nobody even wrote in to say that I was insane to think this was possible! That actually concerns me.
posted by Kevin at 4:57 AM
QATAR MINISTER: PUMP OIL AT WILL TO AVOID CRISIS :.Balls to the wall:
OPEC should pump oil at will in the next few months, Qatar's energy minister said as the group's president called for efforts to cause a "significant" drop in record oil prices.
Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, will ensure markets have enough supply, said the nation's oil minister, Ali al- Naimi. The Qatari minister, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, said OPEC is near a consensus to boost its output quota by 2.5 million barrels a day, or 11 percent, a plan also backed by Kuwait.
posted by Kevin at 4:05 AM
Georgia: Martial Law Declared in Six Counties :.A new city law in Brunswick gives police the power to halt protests during the G-8 summit now that the governor has declared a pre-emptive state of emergency in coastal Georgia through June 20.
Activists said the change allows authorities to squelch lawful dissent without reason when President Bush meets with world leaders June 8-10 at nearby Sea Island. Brunswick's mayor and Gov. Sonny Perdue's top lawyer denied any such intent.
Perdue signed an order May 7 declaring a state of emergency in six coastal counties beginning Monday, citing "potential danger ... from unlawful assemblages, threats of violence and otherwise."Related: SHOOT TO KILL ORDERED AT G8, DNC, and RNC
posted by Kevin at 3:21 AM
Over 1/4 Of Americans Mentally Ill :.I find it interesting that Americans spend the most time working, have the fewest number of vacation days and have the highest rate of mental illness.... but this study won't go there. Here's an idea for an interesting research project. Correlate the rates of mental illness in each of the countries with the amount of days individuals work per year:
Mental illnesses including anxiety disorders and depression are common and under-treated in many developed and developing countries, with the highest rate found in the United States, according to a study of 14 countries.
"Better health care systems and training" are needed to address the problem, Ustun said. <--- That is nonsense! Spend less time working for a criminal
PHB and watch how great you feel!
posted by Kevin at 3:03 AM
Biodiesel Boom Well-Timed :.Biodiesel fueling stations are sprouting like weeds across America, where production of the alternative fuel rose 66 percent in 2003. Experts say the rapid growth of the renewable fuel will stretch the country's tenuous petroleum supply while helping people breathe a little easier.
Damon Toal-Rossi of Iowa City, Iowa, jumped on the biodiesel bandwagon after a friend outlined the benefits of using a fuel made from soy or vegetable oil. The software programmer liked the idea of a cleaner-burning fuel that reduces dependence on foreign oil so much that he traded in his gasoline-powered pickup truck for a diesel-powered Volkswagen Golf.
After a few months of driving 10 miles to a biodiesel fueling station, Toal-Rossi went online to find a recipe and began making his own fuel. Because Toal-Rossi gets the primary ingredient -- used cooking oil -- from a nearby restaurant for free, he spends just 41 cents per gallon to make his 12-liter batches of biodiesel.
"I feel good about reducing my environmental impact, and besides, it's a great fuel for my car," said Toal-Rossi, noting that he now gets 44 miles per gallon, a big improvement over his 14-mpg pickup.
posted by Kevin at 2:54 AM
Outsourcing Intensive Care Units (ICUs) :.Oh sure, why not?
"I know these patients better than anyone on the floor right now," asserts critical-care specialist Dr. Joseph T. Cooke, who's checking up on 38 ICU patients at New York-Presbyterian hospital--from across the street. Welcome to the electronic ICU, where bedside manner means ringing a doorbell before observing patients via video camera, then checking vital signs on four remotely located monitors. Surreal? Sure. But it's telemedicine that seems to be, gingerly, living up to the hype. The system's developers, Visicu, have installed e-ICUs in eight hospitals nationwide, with eight more in the works. Most agree that traditional ICUs are costly and hard to manage: ICU admissions account for only 10 percent of inpatient beds and 30 percent of hospital costs. And up to 20 percent of ICU patients never check out. The e-ICU, where one doctor and nurse can keep 24-hour watch on as many as 50 patients at once, is boosting chronically short-staffed on-site care.
posted by Kevin at 2:50 AM
Big Bucks for Biometric Screening :.Accenture got it!? More antics in Bermuda!? The open criminality of this is beyond the pale!
A group led by Accenture won a U.S. government security contract worth up to $10 billion on Tuesday to track foreign visitors using digital photographs, fingerprints and other "biometric" information.
The U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program aims to tighten borders as part of an effort to prevent another Sept. 11-type attack.
The contract, awarded by the Homeland Security Department, covers five years with five one-year options after that. The package could be worth up to $10 billion, Homeland Security officials said.
One lawmaker objected to the government's award of the lucrative contract to a company headquartered in Bermuda.
"They have a great deal of experience just visiting the USA -- entering to skim off government contracts and leaving to dodge federal taxes," said Texas Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett.Google Search: Enron Bermuda
posted by Kevin at 2:38 AM
6/1/2004
UPDATE, 6/2/04, 10:00PM(PST): PROPANE TANKERS FOUNDALERT: STOLEN PROPANE TANKERS :.This is just starting to peak up out of the noise. If the material in these tankers was distributed in a skillful manner, the resulting fuel air mixture could unleash an explosive yield commensurate to that a tactical nuclear weapon:
FBI agents in Texas issued a nationwide alert on Tuesday for two stolen propane tanker trucks, laden with thousands of gallons of the volatile liquefied gas.
A San Antonio gas company discovered the trucks, one carrying 3,000 gallons and the other carrying 2,500 gallons, had been stolen after employees returned on Tuesday from the U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend, the FBI said.
The thefts could have occurred as early as May 25, FBI Agent Patrick Patterson said.What follows is pure speculation and not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instruments:As I predicted, privately, to a handful of Cryptogon readers, the "smart money" used the pullback in the price of oil over the last several days as an opportunity to get long again before another leg to the upside commenced. The "terror" attack in Saudi Arabia over the weekend caused a massive jump in oil today, after days of declines. Is another news driven push to the upside planned?
If these propane trucks are used for an attack, based on my analysis of the oil markets, I would expect refinery capacity to be targeted. Texas is full of potential energy related targets.
If anyone out there is conducting forensic financial analysis, look at the traders who took long positions in New York Light Crude Oil futures (especially out of the money long shot bets) after the price crossed down sharply below $41 near the end of May. A few of these trades will have been completed by skilled technical traders, a few of them will be lucky gamblers, but there are others involved with this market who obviously knew that news would be breaking and positioned themselves accordingly.
Of course, "smart money" positions are taken every day in the financial markets. This is the bread and butter of corporate criminals who routinely act on inside information. What's unusual, though, is for positions to be taken based on pre-knowledge of political events. The number of people in a position to profit on this type of intelligence is very small.
Now, the question is: Are They going to stay long because They know something else is going to happen?
Just eyeballing the chart, and stripping all other information out of the picture, I'd say that a massive spike to the upside is very possible in the short term. One might call the beginnings of a head and shoulders chart pattern, with the left shoulder built firmly in. Although, if there is no news event, I find it difficult to believe that the "head" will be formed. Without some obvious supply scare, the price will probably drop sharply.
Information relating fuel air explosive yield equivalency to tactical nuclear weapons:Fuel-Air Bomb: How Serious a Threat? :.An effective half-ton fuel-air bomb, Dodds said, would be "equivalent to a low-yield battlefield nuclear weapon of about 10 tons explosive yield."Fuel-Air Explosive Simulation of Far-Field Nuclear Airblasts :.Fuel-air explosions (FAE) have been investigated in the context of far-field nuclear airblast simulation. The objective of the investigation is to determine the feasibility of a reusable FAE simulator at the one kiloton level. Two issues have been researched in parallel efforts. These are the mechanisms by which largescale FAE clouds of controlled shape can be reliably and repeatedly formed and detonated, and the quality of nuclear airblast simulation that is achieved when such FAE clouds are detonated. The formation of hemispherical clouds by simultaneous, impulsive liquid fuel injection through a large number of radially directed, centrally clustered nozzles is discussed in detail. Specific fuel dispenser designs are considered and use experience with two of these is described. Survey experiments dealing with the atomization and penetration characteristics of large-diameter, implulsively formed single liquid jets are discussed. Small-scale hemispherical cloud formation experiments are also discussed. A new reusable facility for testing FAE simulation of nuclear airblasts at the 1/4-ton scale is described. Preliminary surface-burst experiments at that scale using propylene oxide and heptane as fuels are discussed. The results from these experiments are scaled and compared with 1 kt nuclear curvefits. The agreement is judged to be reasonable at this scale. Numerical calculations of the airblast that emerges from a detonated heptane-air cloud have also been carried out.
Limitations: APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
Description: Final rept. 9 May 77-31 Dec 79
Pages: 244
Report Date: 31 DEC 1979
Report number: A240531
posted by Kevin at 5:49 PM
OIL GAPS UP TO NEAR RECORD :.U.S. oil prices surged over $2 to set successive record highs on Tuesday after an attack in Saudi Arabia by Islamic militants killed 22 people, heightening fears about political instability in the world's biggest oil exporter.
U.S. light crude closed up $2.44 at $42.32 a barrel, just six cents shy of its all-time high of $42.38 struck toward the close following an attack on Saturday by suspected al Qaeda militants on the offices of Western companies in the Saudi oil city of Khobar.
posted by Kevin at 2:20 PM
Cryptogon Labs: Power Generator Based on Minato EngineAs you probably know, I follow developments in alternative energy on a daily basis. In the wake of the murder of
Dr. Eugene Mallove, and the increasing evidence that an energy crisis is being engineered to create chaos, I have decided that I, personally, have to make an attempt to do something.
I conducted an exhaustive survey of every alternative energy technology I had heard about in an attempt to determine what would be buildable by average individuals TODAY.
The goal is to unleash a state of uncontrollable energy anarchy that would rattle the foundations of the petroleum paradigm to the ground. In order to do this, we need a technology that is:
1) Easy to build.
2) Verifiable and viable.
3) Unpatentable, free, open. (Due to Point #1, if necessary.)
There are two technologies that are absolutely real and capable of shattering the established paradigm TODAY:
Tom Bearden's MEG and
R.M. Santilli's MagneGas (AquaFuel, BingoFuel, etc.). Unfortunately, both of these technologies fail my 1ST and 3rd criteria. The inventors are holding out on their proprietary rights to these technologies in an attempt to realize massive profits. Additionally, and unfortunately, both the MEG and the MagneGas systems require substantial engineering skill to implement.
What these patent holders may or may not understand is that WE HAVE RUN OUT OF TIME. All of us have to take matters into our own hands and TAKE BACK OUR LIVES AND OUR DESTINY BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. Nobody is coming to save us. Either we transform this system now, or things are going to get very ugly later. Energy anarchy might buy us all some time.
I think that
United States Patent 5,594,289, Magnetic Rotating Apparatus, by Kohei Minato (January 14, 1997) will probably work as a starting point if the right engineering skills could be leveraged to solve rudimentary design issues related to energy recovery.
The technical hurdles to making this work seem almost trivial. Minato's device gives us the ability to do work with a very low amount of power input, relative to the energy that may be recovered.
The patent provides a concise definition:
According to the magnetic rotating apparatus of the present invention, rotational energy can be efficiently obtained from permanent magnets. This is made possible by minimizing as much as possible current supplied to the electromagnets, so that only a required amount of electrical energy is supplied to the electromagnets.That's it, folks, in a nutshell.
If you want to understand this in grossly simplified, linear terms, check out the
SMOT. Watch the steel ball climb the hill. How much external power is input into that system in order to make the ball climb the hill? Zero. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. The Minato engine uses the same magnetic properties as the SMOT.
Minato left out the design specifications of how to recover electricity from his simple concept. However, the efficient recovery of power from this design would be a trivial matter for a competent electrical engineer, or even a skilled lay person.
The last sentence of the patent states:
It should be understood that many modifications and adaptations of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art and it is intended to encompass such obvious modifications and changes in the scope of the claims appended hereto. I'm not an engineer and I already have several ideas about how to make this work.
We need to determine if the plans for the energy recovery aspect of this device can be Copylefted or Antipatented. If the answer is "No," we must place the information in the public domain in a form that would allow individuals to BUILD DEVICES IMMEDIATELY, regardless of who or what patents the thing. This will prevent the technology from disappearing into black holes created by corporations or individuals.
I'd like to enlist the help of anyone in the Southern California area to help me build this thing.
I'm looking for people with experience in electromagnetism, inductors, bifilar coil design, generator design, stator design, simple electronic circuit design (power recovery, battery charging from coils), etc. An electrical engineer who possesses a deep understanding of
Lenz's Law, and someone who is very adept with visualizing magnetic flux would be very helpful. The physical design of this device will either make or break it. As such, someone with the ability to fabricate high precision, lite weight, high strength materials might help us attain success faster.
There's nothing magical about this idea. This thing is so simple it's practically ridiculous. It uses techniques and ideas from other devices I have seen that get a "Close, but no cigar" because of Lenz's Law. We're not trying to beat Lenz's Law with this thing. Here's a hint: The entire time we're pulling current from the device (and Lenz's Law is opposing the rotor) we're inputting nothing (zero power) into the machine. We need to overcome the regauging effect at JUST ONE POINT during the rotation of our rotor. The rest of the time that the rotor is spinning, it is acting as a generator. Let that bake your noodle for a while.
I need some help, primarily, with coil design and properly quantifying what is happening. I need to know if there are techniques that can be used to maximize induced power while minimizing the "drag" effect of Lenz's Law. Is Tesla's bifilar coil design of any assistance in this area? Does it make sense to piggy-back a recovery (generator) coil on the back of the stator coil?
My idea for generator coil placement is to offset them from the permanent magnets such that the effect of Lenz's Law is minimized at the exact moment that the stator fires. That is to say, there is no power generation occurring (and hence, no generator flux "drag" on the rotor) at the instant that power is applied to the stator. This should minimize the amount of power required to overcome the attraction of the last permanent magnet toward the ferrous metal core of the stator.
Get it. Got it. Good. Build it.
If nobody responds, I'll build this thing myself. I'll figure it out through experimentation, brute force, rapid prototyping and caffeine. It would be nice to have skilled engineers helping me with this, but it's not absolutely necessary.
I'm not constrained by a religious belief in theories presented in universities and nonsense printed in corrupt publications. I experiment. If you remember, in Science 101: Observed data wins over theory, every time. I never planned on trying to become an engineer, but unfortunately, engineers have refused to personally take a look at, and become proponents of, obvious solutions. I'm forced to do it myself at this point. I never planned on
growing my own food, or
curing my own skin cancer, but I did. So why not add engineer of energy devices to my bag of tricks? After all, Minato isn't an engineer, by training. He's a musician.
More Information:Video: Minato Operating OU Toyota AC UnitMinato's Fans Going into Production
posted by Kevin at 4:54 AM
CNN Says Saudi Attack Was a Conspiracy :.I was going to say it, but even I thought I sounded nuts. Well, I didn't have to say it:
I was just watching CNN International and they admitted that the Saudi attack looked like a 'conspiracy of collusion' between the Saudi government and the 'terrorist group' - commenting that the 'terrorists' were wearing military uniforms and they were allowed to escape.
I also heard a mainstream British radio report today that also stated that three of the four terrorists were allowed to escape after a deal had been struck, although I can't find anything in print which confirms this at the moment.
posted by Kevin at 3:30 AM
Does Rapid Money Supply Expansion (M-3) Portend Doom? :.Let me just say from the outset that the Federal Reserve has confirmed our Stock Market Crash forecast by raising the Money Supply (M-3) by crisis proportions, up another 46.8 billion this past week. What awful calamity do they see? Something is up. This is unprecedented, unheard-of pre-catastrophe M-3 expansion. M-3 is up an amount that we've never seen before without a crisis - $155 billion over the past 4 weeks, a $2.0 trillion annualized pace, a 22.2 percent annualized rate of growth!!! There must be a crisis of historic proportions coming, and the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States is making sure that there is enough liquidity in place to protect our nation's fragile financial system. The amazing thing is, the Fed's actions mean they know what is about to happen. They are aware of a terrible, horrific imminent event. What could it be?
posted by Kevin at 3:24 AM
Killer Rash Breaks Out in New York :.A vicious skin infection resistant to all but the most powerful antibiotics has jumped out of New York City hospitals and onto the streets.
The "superbug," as health officials refer to it, can cause anything from reddening of the skin, to abscesses, tissue loss, amputation or even death in severe cases, doctors said.
For decades confined to hospitals, where it preyed on patients and built up immunity to antibiotics, the bug - known officially as Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus or MRSA - has also grown in strength.
"Usually with infections you need a break in the skin to pass it," said Dr. Howard Grossman, who has a private practice in Chelsea.
"Not with this. It gets through unbroken skin with casual contact."
posted by Kevin at 1:47 AM
Cryptogon took a hit from a U.S. Military Central Command machine named gargamel.orha.centcom.mil.
Faaaaaaaaaantastic!
