The white plane, with its baby blue striping, spends hours and days circling over Lodi. But the plane isn't from the city. It's not even from California.

The plane has traveled all the way from Delaware to move in slow circles over Lodi. It hasn't exactly blended in.

The city is small enough that when a medical helicopter makes one pass overhead, citizens look up. When gang problems flare and local police officers team up with the California Highway Patrol to make use of a helicopter, police dispatchers are besieged with calls from citizens.

So, when white planes began circling over Lodi about four weeks ago -- around the same time scores of FBI agents converged on the city to conduct a terrorism investigation -- people took notice.

One of the planes circling over Lodi is registered to a Delaware company. Northwest Aircraft Leasing Corp. is based in Newark, Del., according to Federal Aviation Authority records.

NOTE: Earlier today, I posted some faulty analysis based on an assumption that turned out to be WRONG about the tail number on the aircraft in the story. This story is weird enough without me cocking up the details. Tip o' the hat to the editor of Free Internet Press for sorting me out.

Similar: The Torture Express: CIA Cut Out Operation Busted
posted by Kevin at 3:14 PM

The Labor Department kept secret for more than a year government studies that supported Democratic opponents of the Bush administration's new Central American trade deal, internal documents show.

The studies, paid for by the department, concluded that several countries the administration wants to be granted free-trade status have poor working conditions and fail to protect workers' rights. The agency dismissed the conclusions as inaccurate and biased, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
posted by Kevin at 11:55 AM

Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen has cracked the lock on Google's new in-browser video player.

Johansen, also known as 'DVD Jon' for his work on decrypting DVD security codes, has created a patch for the Google Video Viewer—less than 24 hours after the search giant shipped the video playback plug-in, a tool based on the open-source VideoLAN media player.
posted by Kevin at 10:57 AM

ML found value in Cryptogon and put his money where his browser is. Thanks for your support, ML!
posted by Kevin at 7:40 PM

Isn't that special?

Former Presidents Bush and Clinton teed off Tuesday for a round of golf on the second day of a get-together by the former political foes at Bush's summer home along the Maine coast.
posted by Kevin at 5:48 PM

NYMEX oil decapitates yesterday's longs. WOW! $2 gap back down into the $58 range.
posted by Kevin at 2:47 PM

Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.

Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.
posted by Kevin at 12:48 PM

Wal-Mart heir John Walton died Monday when his ultralight aircraft crashed after taking off from an airport in Jackson, Wyoming, the company announced.

Walton, 58, was the second son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and served on the board of directors of the world's largest retailer.

He was ranked No. 7 on the Forbes magazine list of the 400 wealthiest Americans in 2004, with a fortune estimated at $20 billion.
posted by Kevin at 7:24 PM

This actually means that food production has peaked in North America. Industrialized food production is based on fertilizer that is made out of natural gas.

Have a nice day:

"Gas production has peaked in North America," Chief Executive Lee Raymond told reporters at the Reuters Energy Summit.

Asked whether production would continue to decline even if two huge arctic gas pipeline projects were built, Raymond said, "I think that's a fair statement, unless there's some huge find that nobody has any idea where it would be."
posted by Kevin at 3:18 PM

In conjunction with the US Department of Homeland Security, Chelsea, Mass., plans to install 27 hidden surveillance cameras, which will record 24 hours a day in various parts of town.
posted by Kevin at 3:00 PM

Experimenter claims to derive free energy cleanly and safely from the dissociation and association of hydrogen atoms. Data posted from several tests. Plans, schematics, methods all listed openly to encourage replication and improvement of results. Based on decades-old concepts set forth by Nobel laureate.
posted by Kevin at 2:54 PM

After reading this story, I'm thinking about creating a new section called, "The Cryptogon Gallery of Horror."

As far as I can tell, this is a real story:

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.

US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.

Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.

Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, according to the Safar Centre.
posted by Kevin at 12:18 PM

KC took bold action to improve is health and his wealth, while helping Cryptogon at the same time! Thanks KC! Please be sure to let me know if you have any questions.
posted by Kevin at 11:10 AM

AS HIGH AS $60.95 TONDAY ON NYMEX. CURRENTLY $60.75.
posted by Kevin at 10:56 AM

The bottom line is this: The enemy your infant children will HAVE to fight won't bleed. And parts of the system from which that enemy will emerge are being built with money seized from drug raids. You already know who runs the drugs.

How long will it be before robots are deployed to investigate shooting incidents?

From PENTAGON PREPARES TO BUILD $133 BILLION ROBOT ARMY:

Gordon Johnson, of the US joint forces research centre, told the New York Times: "The American military will have these kinds of robots. It's not a question of 'if', it's a question of 'when'."

The Swords robots come in several versions, carrying either a machine gun, grenade launcher or a light anti-tank weapon.

It is controlled by a soldier from a distance of up to 1,000 yards.

"We were sitting there firing single rounds and smacking bull's-eyes," said Staff Sergeant Santiago Tordillos, who helped to design and test the robot. "We were completely amazed."

That human involvement has proved critical in convincing military lawyers that machines can be used on the battlefield. More advanced machines which can decide whether to kill would also be legal, said Mr Johnson.

"The lawyers tell me there are no prohibitions against robots making life-or-death decisions," he said.

Now, here's the latest from Chicago. This article has it all: Terminator technology, corrupt, grant swindling professors, drug money being used to pay for the deployed system... This is so incredible that I'm posting the full text:

June 26, 2005 - The police are watching. And in Chicago, they're listening, too.

City officials are using new technology that recognizes the sound of a gunshot within a two-block radius, pinpoints the source, turns a surveillance camera toward the shooter and places a 911 call. Officials can then track the shooter and dispatch officers to the scene.

Welcome to crime-fighting in the 21st century.

"Instead of just having eyes, you have the advantage of both eyes and ears," said Bryan Baker, chief executive officer of Safety Dynamics in Oak Brook, which makes the systems.

After a successful pilot program, Chicago officials have installed 30 of the devices alongside video surveillance cameras in high-crime neighborhoods, with 12 more on the way, and dozens more to follow, Baker said.

The system's formal name is Smart Sensor Enabled Neural Threat Recognition and Identification -- or SENTRI. And the technology is not just gaining favor in Chicago.

In Los Angeles County, the sheriff's department plans to deploy 20 units in a pilot test, and officials in Tijuana, Mexico, recently bought 353 units, Baker said. Police in Philadelphia and San Francisco are close to launching test programs of their own, and New Orleans and Atlanta have also made inquiries.

Safety Dynamics also works with the U.S. Army and Navy, developing projects that could detect a range of sounds like diesel trucks slowing in an unexpected location or breaking glass, Baker said. On Tuesday, a military contractor in Iraq responsible for detecting explosive devices contacted the company about mounting systems on vehicles that carry U.S. military personnel.

"They want to put 20 of them on Humvees to be able to detect gunshots," Baker said. "The soldiers, they're getting shot at, but they don't know where the shots are coming from."

In Chicago, police hope the gunshot detection systems will add momentum to a technology-fueled crackdown on guns and gang violence. The city in 2004 reduced its homicide rate to its lowest level since 1965 and police seized 10,000 guns -- successes that were in large part credited to a network of "pods," or remote-controlled cameras that can rotate 360 degrees and feed video directly to squad-car laptops. The SENTRI systems are an addition to that network.

"They have been extremely successful," said Monique Bond, spokeswoman for the Chicago Office of Emergency Management. "We've been able to see the benefits that cameras and advanced technology bring to the community."

The American Civil Liberties Union in Illinois said it is somewhat concerned about privacy rights being violated because the city's camera system is so prevalent.

Spokesman Ed Yohnka said officers need to be properly trained in monitoring the cameras and only record activity in public spaces, such as sidewalks and streets.

"That it could someday gravitate toward the violation of individual rights, that applies no matter what system it is, including these," Yohnka said of the pods with the sound detection systems.

As long as the cameras and SENTRI system are set up in public spaces, they do not violate the law, said Northwestern University School of Law professor Robert W. Bennett.

"You don't have much in the way of privacy issues when you're in a public area," Bennett said.

And local officials said it's hard to argue with the results.

"The crime rates in Chicago are the lowest in 40 years. The price of keeping the community safe far outweighs civil liberty issues," Bond said.

Baker stresses that Chicago SENTRI are only programmed to recognize gunshots, not record conversations or "bug" private homes.

"The microphones can't be used for listening, there's no mechanism for other sounds like human voices," he said.

SENTRI is the brainchild of Safety Dynamics and Dr. Theodore Berger, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Each SENTRI contains a library of acoustical patterns, or "sound signatures," which Berger developed over several years.

Four microphones in the system differentiate gunshots from other noises like traffic and construction by measuring the unique decibel level of a bullet being shot out of a gun, and comparing the sound to its library. That way, a gunshot would activate the system, but a siren or a car backfiring would not, Baker said.

"We take recordings of the target sound and you take as many different recordings as you can from as many different types of scenarios as you can," he said. "But it's a little bit like fingerprinting. The more precise the sound we get, the greater the possibility that we eliminate some potential gunshots."

Adding the SENTRI to an existing surveillance camera is not cheap. The system costs between $4,000 and $10,000 per unit, but in Chicago they and the accompanying cameras are paid for with forfeiture money.

Police Superintendent Phil Cline told an audience at a recent U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting, "the drug dealers are actually paying to surveil themselves."
posted by Kevin at 6:12 PM

The only question is: Who strikes first, the U.S. or Israel? Wake me up when the missiles are in the air:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has criticized Iran's president-elect, who won a strong victory in run-off elections Friday. Meanwhile, in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to pursue moderation, not extremism.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Secretary Rumsfeld blasted the election in Iran.

"The fact that they had a mock election, and elected a hard-liner ought not come as a surprise to anybody, because all the other people were told they could not run - it is against the law," said Mr. Rumsfeld.

U.S. officials, including President Bush, had denounced the elections beforehand, pointing out that more than one-thousand potential candidates, many of them reformers and women, were excluded by the Guardian Council, an unelected body of clerics that vets political candidates.
posted by Kevin at 6:02 PM

The matrix usually breaks all the rules when it is directly threatened like this. Joe Banister winning this case was an unthinkable outcome for .gov, but it happened anyway. This is an astonishing development:

On Thursday June 23, a jury found former IRS Criminal Investigative Division (CID) Special Agent and CPA Joseph Banister not guilty of all counts alleging federal criminal tax fraud and conspiracy related to actions he took on behalf of a California business owner who had openly defied the IRS by stopping withholding of all income and employment taxes from the paychecks of his workers.

During the trial the Department of Justice was unable to put forth any evidence that Banister had either engaged in a conspiracy or had acted unlawfully when he shared legal research with business owner Al Thompson concluding that he had no legal obligation to withhold taxes from his workers, or when he (Banister) prepared corrected tax returns for Thompson claiming his taxable income was, under U.S. law, zero.

During the trial, Banister's former supervisor at IRS's San Jose CID office, Robert Gorini (who testified via video recording) when pointedly asked, was unable to cite any U.S. law that explicitly required Banister to pay income taxes.
posted by Kevin at 3:00 PM

"Our military strategy is clear, we will train Iraqi security forces so they can defend their freedom and protect their people, and then our troops will return home with the honour they have earned. The political track of our strategy is to continue helping Iraqis build the institutions of a stable democracy."

In other news...


posted by Kevin at 1:52 AM

WTC janitor pulls burn victim to safety after basement explosion rocks north tower seconds before jetliner hit top floors. Also, two other men trapped and drowning in a basement elevator shaft, were also pulled to safety from underground explosion...

"Seconds after the first massive explosion below in the basement still rattled the floor, I hear another explosion from way above," said Rodriguez. "Although I was unaware at the time, this was the airplane hitting the tower, it occurred moments after the first explosion."

But before Rodriguez had time to think, co-worker Felipe David stormed into the basement office with severe burns on his face and arms, screaming for help and yelling "explosion! explosion! explosion!"

David had been in front of a nearby freight elevator on sub-level 1 about 400 feet from the office when fire burst out of the elevator shaft, causing his injuries.

"He was burned terribly," said Rodriguez. "The skin was hanging off his hands and arms. His injuries couldn't have come from the airplane above, but only from a massive explosion below. I don't care what the government says, what scientists say. I saw a man burned terribly from a fire that was caused from an explosion below.

"I know there were explosives placed below the trade center. I helped a man to safety who is living proof, living proof the government story is a lie and a cover-up.
posted by Kevin at 4:18 PM

Yep, I'm monitoring the Prophet Yahweh mess, believe it or not. So far, he has just issued a bunch of insane religious rants that are a waste of time to read. This video, however, shows some wild chemtrail action over Las Vegas; no UFOs though. :(

It's interesting to see how the mind of a madman works. Prophet Yahweh (real name, Ramon Watkins) thinks the military is spraying the chemtrails in the sky to hide the UFOs he's summoning.

Was the point of this entire show to make anyone who mentions chemtrails appear nuts, you know, like that lunatic in Las Vegas who summons UFOs?

If you want to see the video, the link is on the right side of the page. It says:

Right Click and select 'Save Target As' to save
posted by Kevin at 4:00 PM

KH sent $30 along with the following:

Subject: A contribution to the "Get While the Gettin's Good" fund...

Note: So which part of NZ will it be - Hobbiton or Rohan?? I'm pretty sure you haven't chosen the Mt Doom area - it would take waaay too much compost...

:D
Let me know when you get that yurt park up & running!

KH

HEHE!
posted by Kevin at 2:11 PM

During the RUN 75, the average power output measured was 66,5 Watt with only 12,5 Watt at the input. The delta T was 4,6C with an average cooling water flow of 0.24 L/min. The average efficiency measured was 526 % during this test.
posted by Kevin at 1:05 PM

The Internal Revenue Service is investigating whether unauthorized people gained access to sensitive taxpayer and bank account information but has not yet exposed any privacy breaches, an official said on Friday.

The U.S. tax agency -- whose databases include suspicious activity reports from banks about possible terrorist or criminal transactions -- launched the probe after the Government Accountability Office said in April that the IRS "routinely permitted excessive access" to the computer files.

The GAO team was able to tap into the data without authorization, and gleaned information such as bank account holders' names, social security numbers, transaction values, and any suspected terrorist activity. It said the data was at serious risk of disclosure, modification or destruction.

"There is no evidence that anyone who was not authorized accessed the data outside the GAO," said Sheri James, a spokeswoman for the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which is working with the IRS to address the concerns of the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.

"The assessment remains ongoing at this time," James said.
posted by Kevin at 12:49 PM

It might go something like the scenario descried in this piece. I tend to believe, however, that tactical planning for The End is impossible. The thing to do is to get into a situation where you are content and relatively secure no matter what happens. If the bigtop comes down tomorrow, fine. If it doesn't, fine.
posted by Kevin at 12:39 PM

A suicide car bomber and gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying female U.S. Marines in Fallujah, killing two Marines and leaving another four American troops presumed dead, the military said Friday. At least one woman was killed and 11 of 13 wounded were female.

Related: Military Recruiters Use Pink T-Shirts to Attract Girls
posted by Kevin at 5:48 PM

I'd like a Double Western Mad Cow Cloned Cheesburger please:

Meat and milk from cloned farm animals is about to be declared safe for human consumption by the US Food and Drug Administration, one of the world's most powerful regulatory bodies.
posted by Kevin at 12:20 AM

This thing is very fragile:

Rats gnawing through cable helped cripple telecommunications services across New Zealand for more than four hours, an investigation has found.

But the rodents will go unpunished as the telco instead goes after the humans who were unwitting collaborators in the shutdown.

Telephone, mobile, Internet and eftpos services affecting about 100,000 customers were lost on Monday and the nation's stock exchange closed for most of the trading day because of the outage.

The interruption occurred after two service pipelines on the North Island were knocked out within hours of each other -- one by a power company post-hole digger, the other by industrious rodents.
posted by Kevin at 12:13 AM

I need to convert my savings (US$) into falling New Zealand Dollars in the next couple of days. Can any FOREX experts out there tell me where I'm likely to get filled on a NZ$ bid over the next few days? Or do I count myself lucky, take the little bonus and pull the trigger now?

If you deal with FOREX and would like to share your opinions on the NZ$, please email me:

New Zealand's dollar declined amid speculation a report today will show economic growth is slowing, making it less likely the central bank will raise its benchmark interest rate anytime soon.

First-quarter gross domestic product probably rose 2.7 percent from the same quarter a year earlier, the slowest pace in two years, according to the median of 10 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The release follows yesterday's current account report showing the deficit widened more-than-expected to a record as exports lagged imports.

"It is possible the expected increase in GDP will be lower due a larger-than-expected net export drag," said Sue Trinh, currency strategist at Bank of New Zealand Ltd. in Wellington. "The current account numbers reinforce to us that the top has been seen in the New Zealand dollar."
posted by Kevin at 6:52 PM

The other day, Becky---my fiancee---and I were driving through the lovely, master-planned community of Irvine, California. Irvine is a weird place. Everything is just perfect in Irvine. Perfect fake blond hair. Perfect fake boobs. Perfect fake tans (it's sunny most days). Perfect SUVs. Thousands of perfect homes that all look the same. All the perfect, little hyperactive brats gets perfect doses of psychiatric drugs from the perfect pharmacies located at any of the hundreds of millions of perfect strip malls.

You get the picture.

Perfection is difficult to maintain. For example, surveillance cameras are present at most intersections. There are LOTS of cops. If you want to have a garage sale in some parts of Irvine, the dictates of perfection require you to post "community approved" garage sale signs. There are also "community approved" For Sale signs when it comes time to sell your perfect dream stucco box in Irvine.

The appearance of the "natural world" in Irvine is especially weird. Countless numbers of man hours and God only knows how much money goes up in smoke just to make sure that every blade of grass is cut and manicured according to some Nazi specification. All trees and bushes are carved into Euclidian solid shapes by gangs of men armed with gas powered tools...

Which brings me to the reason why I'm writing this rant to all of you.

As Becky and I were making our way through the perfect, community approved gridlock traffic, we noticed a sign posted on a concrete planter/island in the middle of the road. The sign said, "Grass under renovation."

Grass under renovation.

It really hit both of us, at the same time: We have to get out of here.

And, as fate would have it, we're making damn fine progress on actually getting out of here.

Part of getting out of here involves sending all of our savings out of the U.S. to New Zealand.

After looking into how to avoid being defrauded by my bank when it comes to wire fees and the bogus exchange rate it provides to its customers/victims, I decided to sign up for a foreign exchange account at XE.com.

Now, which one of the following do you think would involve the most red-tape?

A) Getting a driver's license

B) Buying a gun

C) Setting up a corporation

D) Establishing a daytrading account to trade stocks and options on margin (that is, with money you don't have)

E) Having the ability to send your money out of the U.S. at will

Hmmm??? Any guesses?

'E' is the correct answer.

In order to open an account at XE, they have to verify that the applicant is not a terrorist, money launderer or other international criminal. They required scanned images of my driver's license and a major credit card (both sides). They required all of my banking information in order to contact the bank manager where the account was opened. A couple of contracts had to be printed out, signed and faxed back to XE. Then there was a phone interview where the account rep had me verify everything again. Also, why do I need this account?

It's routine for house pets to receive pre-approved credit card offers. Many people "buy" homes for hundreds of thousands of dollars with no money down. Years later, they refinance those homes with interest only loans and take cash out in order to buy groceries, SUVs etc. Sure! Haul your fat ass down to WalMart and let it rip! You're a patriotic American with equity...

But try to take your chips off the table and get the hell out of this horror show before the big top collapses and suddenly you're dealing with a national security matter.

The moral of the story is this: When the music stops playing, don't get caught without a chair... And at least five quality acres surrounded by good neighbors.

By the grace of God (or dumb luck, depending on your perspective), it is still possible to get to a place that is more conducive to sanity and survival. Please use this time to procede to the nearest exit in an orderly manner. Either you move through that exit now, while it's relatively easy, or you try to get out with millions of other people who waited for clarity.

After all, there's nothing to see here.

Situation normal.

Grass under renovation.
posted by Kevin at 6:50 PM

You either buy food from corporations, or you're with the terrorists!

Related: Ran's Comments :.

They make ecological excuses but the real reason is to keep people dependent on the domination system for their food. Police threaten to destroy the crops, and they urge people to plant flowers and lawns! Here in America we have the same rule, but it's enforced with subtle propaganda associating flowers and nice lawns and clean (dead) supermarket food with higher social status. In a few years when we get desperate, they might have to use the police, or robot aircraft loaded with herbicides.
posted by Kevin at 2:19 PM

The Defense Department began working yesterday with a private marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches.

The program is provoking a furor among privacy advocates. The new database will include personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.

Privacy advocates said the plan appeared to be an effort to circumvent laws that restrict the government's right to collect or hold citizen information by turning to private firms to do the work.
posted by Kevin at 1:44 PM

Buy more sh*t from Walmart, you patriotic Americans!

What the fascist, criminal Chinese regime can't buy, it will eventually try to take by force. The End:

A bold offer by a state-owned company here to outbid Chevron and take over a major California oil group suggests that China's rising economic clout has hit harder and faster than even many optimists predicted.

The $18 to $20 billion offer by China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) to secure Unocal, which has oil and gas reserves in Asia, underscores the magnitude of the energy needs of China as it continues its manufacturing juggernaut on the world stage. The bid is part of China's so-called energy diplomacy, which in recent years has witnessed a host of Chinese leaders, including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, making deals worth tens of billions in Australia, Sudan, Iran, Khazakhstan, Venezuela, and Canada.
posted by Kevin at 12:46 PM

Property Ownership in America = Pay property taxes forever, or until corporate criminals get corrupt state and local officials to send people with guns to your house with an eviction notice.

If you can't see where this is headed, you will.

Wave your flag and have a nice day:

A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.

The 5-4 ruling - assailed by dissenting Justice Sanday Day O'Connor as handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled in America - was a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.
posted by Kevin at 12:02 PM

In case you haven't made time to download all of the Downing Street Memos, we at the RS Blog would like to offer our Cliffs Notes.
posted by Kevin at 10:42 PM

Bankrupt grocery chain Winn-Dixie said Tuesday it would close about a third of its 913 stores and cut 22,000 jobs as part of a plan to restructure and emerge from bankruptcy.

The job cuts represent about 28 percent of Winn-Dixie's total work force. The cuts will affect stores as well as corporate offices, the company said in a statement.
posted by Kevin at 11:42 PM

By the end of the year, America's bubbling housing prices will likely flatten or pop, causing an economic slowdown, economists warned in a flurry of reports yesterday and today.

Red flags issued by such diverse sources as the Merrill Lynch investment firm, the University of Maryland and the UCLA Anderson Forecast warn that a stumble in housing prices could take a major bite out of economic growth, damaging the already weak job market.

Rising housing prices, as witnessed in Chula Vista and throughout the county, have been a key engine of the economy, with refinancings and home equity loans fueling retail sales and construction activity.

Other signs of economic trouble also loomed yesterday. The price of oil surged to a 20-year high of almost $60 a barrel and the nation's leading economic indicators fell twice as much as had been projected.

But the economists warned that the most serious problem is in the overpriced housing market.

"Policy-makers need to reckon with the end of the housing boom, which has been holding up consumer spending and the economy," said Peter Morici, economist at the University of Maryland. "With so many buyers benefiting from creative and highly questionable mortgage schemes, and regulators expressing concern about those practices, a pullback in the housing sector seems inevitable. When that happens, growth will skid."
posted by Kevin at 7:32 PM

FRONTLINE returns to Iraq, this time to embed with Halliburton/KBR, and to take a hard look at private security contractors like Blackwater, Aegis and Erinys, who play an increasingly critical role in running U.S. military supply lines, providing armed protection, and operating U.S. military bases. These private warriors are targeted by insurgents and in turn have been criticized for their rough treatment of Iraqi civilians. Their dramatic story illuminates the Pentagon's new reliance on corporate outsourcing and raises tough questions about where they fit in the chain of command and the price we are paying for their role in the war.
posted by Kevin at 7:27 PM

The ultra-violent, U.S.-trained elite, Mexican paramilitary commandos known as the "Zetas," responsible for hundreds of murders along the border this year, have expanded their enforcement efforts on behalf of a drug cartel by setting up trafficking routes in six U.S. states.

A U.S. Justice Department memo says the U.S.-trained units have recently moved operations into Houston, San Antonio and the states of California, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. They have been operating in Dallas for at least two years, according to the feds.
posted by Kevin at 7:22 PM

The bookish calm of a public library might not seem like the most obvious place to hunt for terrorists, but according to a report, the FBI and other US law enforcement agencies involved in counter-terrorism have made more than 200 requests for information about borrowers from libraries since September 11.
posted by Kevin at 7:19 PM

Don't take any flights, Mr. Naudin. Please don't take any flights.
posted by Kevin at 3:13 PM

In other news, mercenaries, employed by the U.S. government, represent the second largest military presence in Iraq, after the U.S. military. Have a nice day:

Many insurgents conducting attacks in Iraq are primarily motivated by money instead of ideology, and can receive $150 for setting a bomb and more for other types of assaults, a top U.S. general asserted Tuesday.
posted by Kevin at 11:03 AM

Anyone waiting for a pullpack to buy some out of the money long contracts for fall?

UPDATE 12PM PST: August Contract Hit $60.10.
posted by Kevin at 10:58 AM

As I read this, I wondered: Have any leading biologists died in the last few days?

The World Health Organization (WHO) is attempting to clarify from China, reports that the government there encouraged farmers to use a human anti-viral drug to treat birds infected with a deadly strain of avian flu.

This action would be breaking international guidelines.

Scientists have long feared the bird flu, which although infectious in birds, does not spread easily among humans, could mutate into a form capable of generating a pandemic in which millions of people without immunity could die.

According to reports, Chinese farmers, acting with government encouragement, had tried to suppress major bird flu outbreaks among chickens with amantadine, which would possibly make it useless in fighting human influenza.
posted by Kevin at 10:27 AM

* gasp *
posted by Kevin at 10:39 PM

Even though I haven't made a black and white print since 1991, this news made me a bit sad:

Ending a century-old tradition, Eastman Kodak Co. will soon stop making black-and-white photographic paper, a niche product for fine-art photographers and hobbyists that is rapidly being supplanted by digital-imaging systems.
posted by Kevin at 12:39 AM

$60 might be a tough nut to crack, but when it does.... Watch out:

CRUDE oil futures soared to record highs today as worries over Nigeria combined with already heightened concern over fuel supplies later this year.

The July contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange surged as high as $US58.60 a barrel, eclipsing the April 4 record of $US58.28 a barrel.

It then settled at $US58.47, the highest close on record and a jump of $US1.89.
posted by Kevin at 3:20 PM

You'll feel safer... Or something:

The U.S. Department of Justice is quietly shopping around the explosive idea of requiring Internet service providers to retain records of their customers' online activities.

Data retention rules could permit police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity months after Internet providers ordinarily would have deleted the logs--that is, if logs were ever kept in the first place. No U.S. law currently mandates that such logs be kept.
posted by Kevin at 2:21 PM

Don't keep those profits in paper denominated assets, or you'll be out your house and your winnings:

Looking to cash in on a red-hot housing market that has lifted prices an estimated $5 trillion in the past decade, some homeowners are selling and pocketing the profit.

Home values have more than doubled in the past five years in some states, and the median price of existing homes nationwide topped $200,000 for the first time.

Real estate agents in hot markets say more of their clients have sold their homes to lock in gains or are considering the move.

Although it's impossible to quantify such activity, and the National Association of Realtors estimates the numbers are small, anecdotal evidence suggests house-rich folks are cashing out. Unlike a typical situation where sellers take profits and plow them into bigger homes, some people worried about an upcoming price drop are getting out of real estate altogether...
posted by Kevin at 10:52 AM

The Darkness is unfurling. If you think, "It just can't be"... Think again:

"Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."
posted by Kevin at 9:10 PM

MW is helping to send Becky and me to a small farm in New Zealand.

Wanna see the house we're trying to buy? It's on five beautiful acres in the far North. Note: Bullaphants not included. They belong to the neighbor. Becky's mum is sending us an article about selecting good bulls! Oh yeah, there's a Kiwi bird reserve nearby.

Hopefully, we will find a bank that will give us a loan. It's a weird situation, since neither of us is in NZ at the moment. Becky's parents are frantically trying to find us a lender on that end that will help us.

If you happen to know someone who can get results out of a bank in NZ, please don't hesitate to contact me. I have impeccable credit, a decent job and money saved for the downpayment. The problem is: I'm in the U.S. and not showing any income in NZ. We will have 20% of the purchase price when it comes time to pull the trigger. * Please * If there is anyone out there with banking connections in NZ, let me know.

We got approval for the loan. We heard late last night (from Becky's mom) that the bank changed its mind. The offer is going in very soon. Cross your fingers for us.
posted by Kevin at 8:26 PM

* yawn *

Hi Kevin,

Thank you for your note. We apologize for our delayed response. We have reviewed www.cryptogon.com and cannot include it in Google News at this time. We appreciate your willingness to provide your articles to us, and we will log your site for future consideration.

Thank you for your interest in Google News.

Regards,
The Google Team

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
From: kevin at c r y p t o g o n dot com
Subject: Potential News Source
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 22:10:32 -0000

Some of my readers are wondering why cryptogon.com isn't included as a source on Google News. I don't have a good answer for them.

Cryptogon has been around since 2002. It's updated daily with news and original analysis. I'm well known for having material around that .gov and .mil users are looking for. Googlebot crawls about every couple of days and I get about 2000 unique visits per day.

Thanks,
Kevin Flaherty
posted by Kevin at 8:19 PM

PT is a regular and very generous contributor. Thanks so much, PT!

I'm sending $10 of this contribution to Jeff Wells of Rigorous Intuition. All Cryptogon readers should make a point of reading Rigorous Intuition daily, and supporting Jeff's work.
posted by Kevin at 12:41 PM

A former Bush team member during his first administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11.

Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is "bogus" and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7.

Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas and is now professor emeritus at Texas A&M University said, "If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling."

Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings."

Related: Alex Jones Full Coverage
posted by Kevin at 7:32 PM

This is incredible:

Almost 50 Chinese people held in Australian immigration detention centres were put in isolation for up to 2.5 weeks last month and interrogated by officials of the Chinese Government.

Refugee advocates say it raises disturbing questions about the Federal Government's complicity with China and whether its actions have endangered the detainees and their families.

Some of the detainees interviewed were political dissidents and members of Falun Gong in the middle of asylum claims, the advocates said. Others were preparing appeals.

The extraordinary lockdown of Chinese detainees began on May 16 at Villawood detention centre, where about 20 were put into the isolation wing - unable to contact lawyers or supporters or accept visitors.

Research Credit: Pixelated Semantics
posted by Kevin at 2:40 PM

Trusted version of Gentoo, anyone? Hey, if Torvalds likes DRM, why not? HAHAHA!

Make your time:

Microsoft has recruited the father of a popular Linux distribution, under a continuing mission to further understand - some would argue "extinguish" - the open source operating system.

Daniel Robbins, founder and chief architect of the Gentoo distribution, is moving to Redmond to help Microsoft "understand open source and community-based projects" according to OSNews.

Related: Gentoo Is Rice

Research Credit: ME
posted by Kevin at 7:10 PM

A House bill has been introduced that would change the 22nd amendment and enable George Bush to remain President for the rest of his political life.

The bill would repeal limitations on a President holding office for a maximum of two terms.
posted by Kevin at 2:14 PM

The Horror. The Horror:

Apple could use the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip to ensure that only Mac computers can run its OS X operating system, according to a news analysis from Gartner.

The TPM is an open industry standard governed by the Trusted Computing Group, a non-profit organisation which develops security standards.

The chip is used to securely store and encrypt information. Because each chip has a unique identifier code, it could also be used to distinguish a Mac computer from a model made by Dell or any other Windows vendor.

Apple revealed last week that it is to switch from IBM's Power PC architecture to Intel's x86 models. The first Intel computers are expected to be available before June 2006 and Apple's entire product line will have switched architectures by 2007, the company said at its annual World Wide Developers Conference.

With Macs and Windows machines sharing the same hardware platform, users could theoretically install any software on the PCs, running Windows on a Mac or OS X on a Dell.

But Apple has stated that it would prevent users from installing OS X on non-Mac hardware.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment for this story, saying that the company it is not yet ready to reveal product specifications.

A spokeswoman for the TPG confirmed to vnunet.com that there is nothing preventing Apple from implementing the module.

Vendors of enterprise desktop and laptop computers, including Dell, HP and IBM/Lenovo, are already using the TPM. IBM, for instance, uses the chip securely to store user passwords and encrypt the contents of the hard drive.

The upcoming Longhorn version of Windows relies on the TPM for a technology dubbed Secure Startup, which blocks access to the computer if the content of the hard drive is compromised. This prevents a laptop thief swapping out the hard drive, or booting the system from a floppy disk to circumvent security features.

Using the TPM is not without controversy, however. The module has raised privacy concerns, and has been criticised because it could be used to enforce digital rights management technologies.

Gartner also advised enterprises to continue with purchasing plans for Apple hardware, but warned that managers should "consider delaying software purchases until vendors offer a clear roadmap for upgrades to Intel-compatible versions".

Sales of Apple computers typically drop prior to the launch of a new product as users delay purchases to get their hands on the new model.

Related: DRM Coverage on Cryptogon
posted by Kevin at 10:37 AM

Funny?

Frightening?

Both?

I like to watch / CopVision is a program that watches television. Specifically, it watches COPS on Fox. It is not a video, it is a software process that tries to make sense of a live video feed. COPS is all it has ever known, and it probably thinks it is COPS. It has started to watch television as the show.

CopVision learns its language from closed captioning subtitles transmitted in the television signal. Everything that is said on COPS is tucked away in its memory to help it understand what it's seeing. It analyzes every frame, searching the field for outlines that remind it of something it has seen before. When it recognizes a contour it tags it with a guess as to what might be going on, gathered from its experience of words and pictures that go together. It sometimes tries to put words in the mouths of the characters. CopVision is funny when commercials come on because it doesn't know that it isn't COPS, and it keeps watching the same way.

Research Credit: PW
posted by Kevin at 9:45 PM

The only way this will work is if They blow something up and blame the terrorists:

THE United States would "have to face" a painful dilemma on restoring the military draft as rising casualties saw the number of volunteers dry up, a senator warned today.

Joseph Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made the prediction after new data released by the Pentagon showed the US Army failing to meet its recruitment targets for four straight months.

"We're going to have to face that question," he said on NBC's Meet the Press TV show when asked if it was realistic to expect restoration of the draft.

"The truth of the matter is, it is going to become a subject, if, in fact, there's a 40 per cent shortfall in recruitment. It's just a reality," he said.

The comment came after the Department of Defence announced the army had missed its recruiting goal for May by 1661 recruits, or 25 per cent. Similar losses have been reported by army officials every month since February.

Experts said the latest figure was misleading because the army had quietly lowered its May recruitment target from 8050 to 6700 people. It has been suggested the real shortfall is closer to 40 per cent.
posted by Kevin at 5:00 PM

Take your pick of hundreds of stories hailing the benevolence of the G8 re: "debt relief" for the poorest countries. Sure, the G8 will forgive your debt if you allow private corporations to show up and financially rape your population. You know, force people to pay for things like water; austerity measures, little details like that. See how kind we are!

All of this is very ironic since the U.S., the acting Mafia Don of the G8, is nearly $8 trillion dollars in debt itself!

The G-8 Finance Ministers announced this afternoon a new proposal to advance toward the cancellation of part of the multilateral debt claimed of 18 South countries, mostly in Africa but also including Bolivia, Honduras, and Nicaragua. While some of them celebrated the announcement as a "historic" step that would make possible a "new beginning" in the relations between enriched and impoverished countries worldwide, other Ministers admitted that the agreement had more to do with the needs of the international financial institutions (IFIs) themselves to salvage their credibility and initiate a new cycle of indebtedness.
posted by Kevin at 12:26 PM

Jeff's latest essay reminds me of a song that I like. People don't seem to get it when I play it. You guys will:

Last week I had the strangest dream
Where everything was exactly how it seemed
Where there was never any mystery of who shot John F. Kennedy
It was just a man with something to prove
Slightly bored and severely confused
He steadied his rifle with his target in the center
And became famous on that day in November

Don't wake me I plan on sleeping
Don't wake me I plan on sleeping in

---Sleeping In, The Postal Service

Don't wake me I plan on sleeping:

Last week the body of Dr Leonid Strachunsky, described as "World Health Organization expert and head of the anti-microbe Therapy Research Institute," was found in his Moscow hotel room. He had arrived from Smolensk, en route to the United States, and died of blunt-force trauma to the head. (Some stories identify the murder weapon as a champagne bottle.) His laptop and mobile phone were missing.

According to MosNews, "some sources link Wednesday's murder of...Strachunsky, who specialized in creating microbes resistant to biological weapons, to [a] hepatitis outbreak" which, according to the latest report, has afflicted more than 500 people in Russia's Tver region. However, a Moscow police source tells Interfax that the murder was "probably domestic violence."
posted by Kevin at 10:40 AM

A truly profound debate about American safety and security is flying far below the public radar.

At issue is whether the United States should change its decades-old nuclear policy and pursue a new class of "small nuclear weapons" that could be the size of Blackberries.
posted by Kevin at 10:24 AM

Users of Microsoft's new China-based Internet portal have been blocked from using the words "democracy", "freedom" and "human rights" in an apparent move by the US software giant to appease Beijing.

Other words that could not be used on Microsoft's free online blog service MSN Spaces include "Taiwan independence" and "demonstration".

Bloggers who enter such words or other politically charged or pornographic content are prompted with a message that reads: "This item should not contain forbidden speech such as profanity. Please enter a different word for this item".

Officials at Microsoft's Beijing offices refused to comment.

Internet sites in China are strongly urged to abide by a code of conduct and self-censor any information that could be viewed by the government as politically sensitive, pornographic or illegal.
posted by Kevin at 9:40 AM

On June 9th, I wrote:

"My guess is that the lunatics will have Apple development builds of this thing running on $200 white boxes within weeks to months."

I won't be etching another notch into my pistolgrip on this call... BECAUSE IT ONLY TOOK THREE DAYS! HAHAHA!

A reader who for obvious reasons wishes to remain anonymous just demonstrated to me that the software is, in fact, already available on Internet software piracy sites.

Is this really a stealth marketing move on Apple's part? Maybe. That makes more sense than any other scenario at this point.

It's all fun and games until the Empire Strikes Back with Intel's LaGrande chipset.
posted by Kevin at 3:56 PM

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan this week added to a chorus of worry about the growth of home loans seen as far riskier than the 30-year mortgage that has been U.S. housing's bedrock for decades.

Those alternatives, called "exotic" by the Fed chief on Thursday, have played a big role in sustaining the four-year housing boom by making homes more affordable, which in turn stoked demand and drove prices higher and higher.

But these hundreds of alternative mortgage products have also injected more risk into the market -- both for lenders and borrowers, according to regulators and some analysts.

Of most concern are loans that require little downpayment and delay big principal payments, leaving homeowners highly leveraged for longer just as rates appear poised to rise.

"The dramatic increase in the prevalence of interest-only loans, as well as the introduction of other relatively exotic forms of adjustable-rate mortgages are developments of particular concern," Greenspan told Congress.
posted by Kevin at 2:21 PM

The monster wants to arrest you, kidnap your children and poison their bodies with radiation:

Child welfare officials seized a 12-year-old cancer patient from her parents, saying they were blocking radiation treatment that doctors say she needs.
posted by Kevin at 4:30 PM

A senior official said several sets of blueprints for uranium centrifuges - the so-called P-1 and more advanced P-2 systems which were peddled by the Khan network - have gone missing.

"We know there were several sets of them prepared," said the official. "So who got those electronic drawings? We have only actually got to the one full set from Libya. So who got the rest, the copies?

"We have no evidence they were destroyed. One possibility is another client. We just don't know where they are."

A European diplomat privy to western intelligence on the Khan network added: "This is what keeps people awake at night. It's very sensitive. The fact that there are [nuclear] proliferation manuals kicking around is deeply disturbing."
posted by Kevin at 3:24 PM

Umm yeaahhh. My guess is that the lunatics will have Apple development builds of this thing running on $200 white boxes within weeks to months:

It's believed that Apple will likely add a specialized chip to the motherboard of its Intel-based systems that the Mac OS X must first detect prior to booting. Either that or the company will contract a proprietary motherboard chipset from Intel that will perform a similar function.
posted by Kevin at 2:37 PM

ME sent $25 and PW sent $20.

These guys (and a handful of other readers) are keeping Cryptogon free for all of you filthy, useless takers who show up, day-after-day and contribute nothing, zero, zilch, nada in return.

Note: You're going to have Karma, it's up to you to determine which kind.

Have a nice day.
posted by Kevin at 5:25 PM

The show is windin' down:

General Motors will cut 25,000 American workers from its factory floors in the next three years as the world's largest car maker struggles to slim down to match declining demand for its vehicles.
posted by Kevin at 5:43 PM

Shooting a movie about martial law... Or martial law?

On a recent trip to NY City (last weekend) three gun-mounted, armored tanks/vehicles were driving through the streets of Manhattan. I took these pictures with my camera phone (hence the crappy quality).

I couldn't believe how many people just waved at the armed soldiers peeking out of the top, many even cheered loudly in support. Nobody took the time to say, "why the hell are armed soldiers and tanks rolling down the middle of the street?!?

Update: It's Fleetweek

Research Credit: JS
posted by Kevin at 11:05 AM

WARDENS have issued the first £50 fine for dropping chewing gum in Manchester as part of a new Big Brother-style litter clampdown.

A man was caught on surveillance cameras spitting out the gum in Piccadilly Gardens. CCTV camera operators saw the incident and alerted city centre wardens, who were given a description of the offender. They approached the man and issued him with a £50 fixed penalty notice. It is understood he plans to appeal.
posted by Kevin at 11:03 AM

Citigroup just can't catch a break. Now it's lost the account data of 3.9 million of its customers.

The financial services giant has attempted to stay out of the headlines since rankling regulators on several continents last year for everything from lax account controls to maverick dealings by a handful of fixed income traders. The U.S. Federal Reserve even told Citi, the king of mergers, that it couldn't do any big transactions until it got its compliance and control act together.

So it must have been particularly galling for Chief Executive Charles O. Prince--who has made shoring up internal controls his priority--that Citi was forced on Monday to disclose a data breach involving 3.9 million accounts in its CitiFinancial consumer lending operations.

Research Credit: SA
posted by Kevin at 3:01 AM

I received the following from Cryptogon reader MN. Nice find:

Australian SBS TV has a international current affairs program called Dateline and sent a reporter to Italy. One man with a dv cam. He got an interesting story from Camorra Italy. The part that may interest you is from a criminologist and expert on organised crime as he talks about arms sales and - Berettas.

Open the feature: Code of the Camorra

"To explain his point about collusion between organised crime and state authorities, Lamberti points to recent arms deals in the Middle East, in violation of international sanctions.

AMATO LAMBERTI, (Translation): If I were to go to Iran, I'd see that the Iranian police have an Italian Beretta in the holster. Who sold it to them? In Iran, the guided missiles, the anti-tank ones, they are Italian-made. It is written on them, BPD (Bomprini, Parodi and Delfino). How did those missiles arrive in Iran from Italy? Arms factories are controlled by the state and by the customs police, nothing can escape them. How do they get there? There's a link between industry, state and organised crime. They organise the traffic and its all money that goes into the state coffers."

Related: Iraqi Insurgents Carrying Covert Ops Bump Guns
posted by Kevin at 2:42 AM

Ordo Ab Chao: The circle is nearly complete.

For the last five years, Apple has been secretly developing x86 versions of Mac OSX and all of their applications in parallel to their regular commercial releases, "Just in case," as Steve Jobs puts it. In an astonishing, live demonstration, Jobs announced that he was giving his keynote presentation on a Pentium 4 system, complete with a money shot of "About this Mac" showing the Pentium 4.

I know. I nearly fell out of my chair.

Now, take a guess who was working with Apple on the Xcode development environment as it related to portability to x86?

After witnessing that little trick with OSX on the PC, I was in such a state of shock that I nearly missed the significance of a single sentence that was spoken a little later, not by Steve Jobs, but by Roz Ho, the manager of the Macintosh Business Unit at Microsoft.

"Our team has been working closely with Apple engineers on Xcode so we can make the transition."

Did you catch that, all of you iTwits out there? B Gates sent his minions deep into the nether realms of Apple's skunkworks (surly, there's a crypt somewhere inside 1 Infinite Loop) to assist with the development of Xcode, the key to Apple's transition to Intel's hardware.

This thing is going to be Longhorn with pretty widgets and iTunes.
posted by Kevin at 4:23 PM

One DRM architecture to rule them all!

Apple Computers will have Intel inside by this time next year said the company's CEO Steve Jobs at a gathering of software developers in San Francisco Monday.

Specifically, Apple said it "plans to deliver models of its Macintosh computers using Intel microprocessors by this time next year, and to transition all of its Macs to using Intel microprocessors by the end of 2007."

In doing so, the firm will abandon the PowerPC chip platform it has used, in partnership with Motorola and IBM, since the early 1990s.

I looked through my archives and found this little gem from 2002:

I personally don't believe that Apple will be able to resist the DRM scheme for long. The powers behind the DRM freight train are too big and too powerful. Microsoft, Intel and AMD are all for it. This means that they will buy legislation to make non DRM hardware illegal.

They won't have to declare non DRM hardware illegal. There won't be any non DRM hardware.

Have a nice day.
posted by Kevin at 12:33 PM

The latest INGSOC directive:

British motorists face paying a new charge for every mile they drive in a revolutionary scheme to be introduced within two years.

Drivers will pay according to when and how far they travel throughout the country's road network under proposals being developed by the Government.

Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Transport, revealed that pilot areas will be selected in just 24 months' time as he made clear his determination to press ahead with a national road pricing scheme.

Each of Britain's 24 million vehicles would be tracked by satellite if a variable "pay-as-you-drive" charge replaces the current road tax.
posted by Kevin at 11:02 PM

The people who write this sh*t are obviously worn out. Five-year-olds routinely cook up better stories than this. My personal favorite is the urine-flying-through-the-air-vent trick. HAHAHAHAHA! I don't know what's worse, the laughable, fabricated nonsense, or the fact that CNN offers this up as objective news!?

CNN---what a joke. I might as well link to Mad Magazine:

A U.S. military investigation into the mishandling of the Muslim holy book at the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists has determined that detainees -- not U.S. soldiers -- attempted to flush the Quran down the toilet there.

However, the report did find four confirmed incidents in which U.S. personnel at the base mishandled the Quran, including guards kicking a detainee's Quran; a guard's urine "splashed" a detainee and his holy book after coming through an air vent; and guards got in a water balloon fight that resulted in two detainees' Qurans getting wet.

In a fifth confirmed incident, it could not be determined whether a guard or a detainee wrote a two-word obscenity in a detainee's Quran.
posted by Kevin at 9:41 PM

Man summons UFOs, Deep Throat revealed...

Apple switching to Intel!?

What could possibly be next?

I apologize if you don't follow computer news, but, if this is true, it's the most important story in the history of Apple Computer.

I like OSX, but I don't use Mac systems because they are expensive and slow compared to the garbage I can slap together on the x86 platform under Windows and Linux.

Now, before the iTwits (those Apple users who have swallowed Steve Jobs' KoolAid) get on my case, know that I grew up using an Apple ][e and that I started using Macs when they were released in 1984. In 1996, I switched to Windows because the Mac OS had gotten THAT bad. Can you imagine, seeking relief in Windows 95? A couple of years ago, I bought a Titanium Powerbook (running OSX) because I really wanted to return to the Mac. The problem was, Windows 2000 just wasn't that bad, since I knew how to lock it down and it was/is really fast! I sold my Powerbook after a couple of months because the thing started to feel like it was stuck in the mud.

It's not just me.

I guess Steve Jobs finally got fed up with articles like this; articles that show the Mac's performance to be joke, relative to similar class gear from Intel.

If you're not getting speed when you buy a Mac, what are you getting? The Mac OS is very secure by default and users don't need to know anything about security to avoid being set-up-the-bomb. This is probably the strongest argument for Apple's offerings. (On Windows, the average user WILL experience pain. It's only a matter of time.) Additionally, there is tight integration between apps, and, of course, OSX is nice to look at.

But before you get too excited about the prospect of Intel based Macs... Consider the gloomy bits:

These new Macs will be stuffed full of all the evil DRM hardware that the rest of the world is already starting to choke down. My guess is that, in a dark crypt somewhere, hooded figures are saying something like, "One DRM architecture to rule them all!" That's right! Since Microsoft and Intel designed it, Apple will have to implement the thing for Mac OS to run on those chips. And the non DRM Linux holdouts, who will probably figure out a way to get around the DRM hardware mess, will be hunted down and thrown in a gulag with the other terrorists.

So it goes... The End of general purpose computing:

Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it's scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel's microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned.

Apple has used IBM's PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel's chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said.

The announcement is expected Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steve Jobs is giving the keynote speech. The conference would be an appropriate venue: Changing the chips would require programmers to rewrite their software to take full advantage of the new processor.

IBM, Intel and Apple declined to comment for this story.
posted by Kevin at 7:54 PM

The baked-on matte finish hasn't been grinded down?! Almost certainly, these weapons were never stamped in the first place:

The report forwarded by American intelligence officers is brief and to the point. "Hostiles" in Iraq are toting Berettas. Insurgents have a large number of Italian-made side arms, all recent-model weapons, and what is even more disturbing, with illegible or non-existent serial numbers. Apparently, these phantom weapons were manufactured in the recent past. Investigators are unable to attribute them to legal imports during the early 1980s.

The crucial detail is the erasure of the serial numbers. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed. Instead, the guns seem to have come off the production line without any serial numbers at all, or to have had them erased with industrial technology. The detail suggests to investigators that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing.
posted by Kevin at 4:04 PM

This would make a great additive to the chemtrails that are raining down on all of us:

Shakespeare told us to "love all, trust a few," even to "trust none, for oaths are straws." Despite such warnings, trust has always been at the centre of all human dealings -- romantic, commercial, or political -- even if the reasons for it have been murky.

But now Swiss researchers say they have finally isolated the secret: In oxytocin, we trust.

University students who inhaled the hormone in a nasal spray were discovered to be far more trusting of one another -- eager, in fact, to hand over money to strangers in investment deals.

The results suggest trust can be bottled and used to forge commercial relationships. Oxytocin levels have long been known to spike with sexual climax or influence the production of mothers' milk, but the new study suggests they are also "the biological basis of trust among humans."

"We find that intranasal administration of oxytocin causes a substantial increase in trusting behaviour," a research team said.

The team was led by Dr. Michael Kosfeld of the University of Zurich, whose findings appear in the journal Nature.

"Of course, this finding could be misused to induce trusting behaviours that selfish actors subsequently exploit," the team wrote. "However our findings may have positive clinical implications for patients with mental disorders."
posted by Kevin at 10:08 AM

What if it was down for days? Remember Silent Horizon, the CIA cyberwar game from a few days ago:

A communications outage at the New York Stock Exchange in the critical final minutes of trading on Wednesday and the exchange's refusal to immediately detail what went wrong frustrated customers and exposed frailties of its electronic systems.

"I don't think last night's event was fraught with potential disaster," said Robert Morris, director of equity investments at Lord, Abbett & Co., which manages assets of about $90 billion.

"On the other hand, it does make you wonder" what would happen "if we had a market-driven event where things are going at a thousand miles an hour," he said, adding that his traders were "miffed" because of the pressure to get good prices.
posted by Kevin at 9:53 AM

Woops:

Wachovia Corporation has apologized for its ties to slavery after disclosing that two of its historical predecessors owned slaves and accepted them as payment.
posted by Kevin at 8:31 AM

Update: Google Cache of this Story

Nope, that link wasn't broken when I posted this. It's actually an old story that goes back to around 2000. This Google search finds several references.

Ananova:

A US man who had part of his brain erased by a psychiatrist who was training an army of zombie-like killers has won massive damages.

Neuropsychiatrist Donald Dudley used drugs and hypnosis to form a militia of murderers from the ranks of his patients.

A jury at Pierce County Court in Washington state has awarded autistic patient Stephen Drummond, who did not attend the hearing, $2.1 million.

Psychiatrist Dudley died last October. A lawyer representing his estate has refused to comment, reports the News Tribune.

Mr Drummond's mother, Jeanie, said, "It's very fair and reasonable. There's no amount of money that can make up for his losses."

Mr Drummond's parents filed the lawsuit on his behalf in 1998.

Drugs Dudley prescribed made his patient psychotic and delusional - symptoms not usually associated with autism.

Dudley's files state he intended to erase part of his brain and implant a new one.

When Mrs Drummond confronted the medic over her son's treatment he said he was going to take over hospitals, police forces and schools, and that she was fortunate he wanted her son to be one of his trained soldiers.

Dudley's license to practice was suspended in 1993 after he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

In addition, Bellevue police found him with an arsenal of guns in a hotel room where he was treating a suicidal 15-year-old boy.

Research Credit: psychotronicatx.tripod.com
posted by Kevin at 8:21 AM

Woops:

The Netherlands emphatically rejected the European Union constitution in a referendum on Wednesday, potentially killing off a treaty already spurned by France and plunging the bloc deeper into crisis.
posted by Kevin at 2:33 PM