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12/28/2002



Camping: No Updates for a Few Days

If something MAJOR happens, I ask that the usual suspects attempt to reach me on my mobile phone (which probably won't be working).





AC130 Gunship Combat Video with Sound :.

"I fragged him good."

I tried to come up with commentary for this, but I couldn't. Perhaps if more people saw how their tax money is used, they might wake up. Or, it might cause a "patriotic" fit requiring a trip to Walmart to buy more American flags made by slave labor in China. Seriously, does this video make anyone out there proud to be an American?

I don't know whether or not this video was authorized for public release by the U.S. Department of Defense. Please save local copies of this and mirror it on the web.





U.S. Tortures POWs, Hands Some Off to Experience "Brutal Methods" :.

This article is lengthy, but keep in mind: this is just what they're admitting to publicly. Your worst nightmares wouldn't begin to approximate what is actually happening:

At a Sept. 26 joint hearing of the House and Senate intelligence committees, Cofer Black, then head of the CIA Counterterrorist Center, spoke cryptically about the agency's new forms of "operational flexibility" in dealing with suspected terrorists. "This is a very highly classified area, but I have to say that all you need to know: There was a before 9/11, and there was an after 9/11," Black said. "After 9/11 the gloves come off."

The gloves came off? Why did CIA fly al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and then release a captured Taliban General? Hmmm. Curious.

Also: Guardian Covers U.S. Torture Tactics

Related: Prisoners Shot Inside Storage Containers

Wave your flags.





Shoot First, Look in the Mirror Later :.

This article is great:

If the apparatchiks couldn't stop a massive attack in broad daylight by 19 marked men -- we now know that most of them had been rumbled by various intelligence services, and two were even roommates of an FBI informant -- how can we possibly expect them to prevent some far more obscure but equally deadly threat: say, a disaffected player in the depths of America's gargantuan military complex shuffling some atrocious whizbangery to a well-heeled foreign terrorist? Or to a shifty middleman willing to buy -- and sell -- with no questions asked?

No, the genie is long gone from the bottle in regard to "shortcut technologies." They are out there, in endlessly mutable forms, with an almost infinite range of possibilities for their sale, transfer and deadly application in the "war against civilization." Of course, it was "civilization" that developed these technologies and loosed them on the world in the first place. They were expressly designed -- by the "civilized" world -- to kill large numbers of people as quickly and indiscriminately as possible: the precise strategy followed by the Sept. 11 hijackers.


Research Credit: MS





Best Satire Page Yet :.

All of these are suitable for framing!

World affairs today can sure be confusing!

President Bush tried his bestest to simplify the picture as Good vs. Evil, but it's still a jumble! Who knew all those crazy Dorkistan countries even existed?! Now The Infinite Jest rides to the rescue with a set of educational trading cards.


Research Credit: MS





Smile: Military Filming Protestors :.

Military Filming Protesters at D.C. Demonstrations (27-29 Sept 2002).





Smallpox Vaccination: New England Journal of Medicine Says Think Twice :.

A terrorist introduction of smallpox could produce a short outbreak of cases and deaths, but the current vaccination policy will provide little protection, and the cost in deaths from vaccine complications will outweigh any benefit.

Research Credit: JH


12/26/2002



Russia: Spawn and Get a Free House :.

The deal Natasha was offered was simple: prove she was fertile, that her husband was not an alcoholic and agree to having three children in five years.

In exchange the local council would buy her a house of her own. Providing she fulfilled her child-bearing obligations there would be no repayments to make, and, after five years, nothing owing.

The babies-for-houses scheme was introduced this year in Ahtubinsk, a poverty-stricken region of southern Russia. It is a desperate attempt to reverse the falling birthrate, that, if it is not checked, will depopulate swathes of the area.





Kid A: It's a Girl :.

Stand by for confirmation:

The human cloning cult Clonaid says a human cloned baby has been born.

Clonaid says the birth by Caesarean went well but there is no independent scientific confirmation the baby is a clone.






Not Even the Propellerheads Are Safe :.

One of the primary characteristics of our current suicide economy is the commoditization of labor and lack of anything resembling job security. You are subject to the whims of a system that doesn't care whether you and your family lives or dies. The goal is to extract as much productive output from your hide as possible, at the lowest possible cost, and then toss you aside and lower the pay scale even more. For your trouble, .gov steals 40% of what you manage to eek out, and in many cases, repatriates much of that to the richest 1% of people on the planet. The balance is used to pay for death squads in places most Americans have never heard of and military campaigns to steal natural resources from poor people. This deadly cycle is called Sound Business Practice. Never mind the fact that more prisons and cops are necessary every year to maintain appearances. (Hey, nobody said it was easy to maintain a system that allows billionaires to buy and sell politicians like cattle.)

So, who's safe in such a system?

A large number of smart people thought they would escape the jaws of the meat grinder by becoming engineers. They thought that, by spending several years cloistered away inside universities, learning arcane and difficult science and mathematics, they would be able to lead secure and prosperous lives.

HA! To you unemployed/almost unemployed/barely employed/miserably employed engineers out there: Welcome to the Sucker Club. Don't worry, this club has hundreds of millions of members, so you won't be alone.

But engineers may not need to think about making any drastic changes just yet. The multiple SUVs, endless trips to the mall and empty, vapid lifestyles may be secured, at least for the next few months or years, by serving The Beast. All fascist regimes need people to create weapons, surveillance systems and other resource wasting boondoggles in order to imprison their populations. You guys may have to wear an arm band or submit to body cavity searches, but hey, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.

My friend, a senior wireless communications engineer, works for an electronics company that is on the brink of bankruptcy. He recently told me, "Everyone in the office knows we're headed for .mil and .gov as soon as the bottom falls out." Yep. Makes sense. That's an artificial system, run by a crime syndicate, so it may offer some relief for a time. Anyone who has read Darkness at Noon, however, knows that fascist regimes, like organized crime families, wind up turning on their own eventually. (Rubashov thought he was safe because of his service to the regime.) So, to those of you with your "safe" government and government subsidized jobs, don't be surprised when that knock on your door wakes you up in the middle of the night.

Dissatisfaction with the field is growing rapidly. Layoffs, the influx of foreign workers, and offshore outsourcing of jobs have caused the pocket-protector set to either leave the profession in large numbers or seek new careers after being laid off.

Even Dilbert creator Scott Adams, himself a former engineer, has an eye on the trend. "The general balance of power has swung. Engineers had it for a while, now the bosses have it back," says Mr. Adams, whose comic-strip boss has hair shaped like a pair of horns on either side of his balding head.


12/24/2002



Attack Date: February 1, 2003 :.

I've been monitoring traffic from all over the infoverse and the Beginning-of-February time frame for the war in Iraq seems to be holding. Recall, Cryptogon sources revealed this information well in advance of other media. Whether or not the attack will actually come during this time frame is, of course, speculation. But for those of us preparing for possible repercussions, this is the best guess available at this time. If you have any information with regard to the timetable of the attack, please let me know.

Apparently, the holiday retail sales are shaping up to be the worst in 30 years. Look for the voices of economic doom and gloom to ring in the new year. Surely, Joe and Jane Six Pack will be dazzled by the war and the rockets and bombs will make Iraq safe for economic rape by the United States and Britain. Will Bush and the gang be able to pull this thing off without starting World War III? Maybe. Maybe not. But then again, with North Korea and Iran beginning to fire up their nuclear reactors... Well, folks, I'm sick of thinking about it for the moment, so I'm going to commence a Heineken induced drunk and watch a couple of DVDs. Merry Apocalypse and Happy End Days.

Israel's Military Intelligence chief Major General Aharon Ze'evi told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee �Tuesday� that �he expects the United States to attack Iraq at the beginning of February, shortly after the U.S. government reviews the U.N. inspectors' weapons report expected to be presented by January 27.





What is Iraq?

Greetings MTV viewers! Here are several Cryptogon stories on Iraq that may interest you.

Note to regular Cryptogon readers: I was flipping channels and I can across MTV. They were running a piece called "What is Iraq?" They were mentioning some basic facts about the previous U.S. relationships with Saddam Hussein, etc. I thought I'd try to attract 1 or 2 of those viewers when they go to Google to search for more information. Google will index my site again soon, so... that's the logic behind this post.





Iraq's Dealers :.

Is the U.S. military going to rain fire and death down on any of these companies as part of the campaign to disarm Iraq?

Honeywell, Spectra Physics, Semetex, TI Coating, Unisys Sperry Corp., Tektronix, Rockwell, Leybold Vacuum Systems, Finnigan-MAT-US, Hewlett-Packard, Dupont, Eastman Kodak, American Type Culture Collection, Alcolac International, etc.

Research Credit: TR





Does Israel Have Plans for a "Final Solution" in Palestine? :.

Earlier this year, 187 Israeli professors signed an "Urgent Warning" letter titled "The Israeli government may be contemplating crimes against humanity." As of today, 800 American professors have signed a similar document, warning of coming Israeli ethnic cleansing.

Released on 29 September 2002, the original Israeli letter began by stating, "We, members and friends of Israeli academe, are horrified by US buildup of aggression towards Iraq and by the Israeli political leadership's enthusiastic support for it. We are deeply worried by indications that the 'fog of war' could be exploited by the Israeli government to commit further crimes against the Palestinian people, up to full-fledged ethnic cleansing."


Related: www.professorsofconscience.org

Research Credit: TR





New Jersey Passes "Smart" Guns Law :.

Under the New Jersey law, smart-gun technology will be required in all new handguns sold three years after the state attorney general determines a smart gun prototype is safe and commercially available.

The New Jersey Institute of Technology is developing a smart gun prototype that would use sensors on the pistol grip to identify a user.

The owner would have his or her grip programed at a gun shop or police range by practice-firing the weapon.

A microchip in the weapon would remember the grip and determine in an instant whether the authorised user was holding the weapon. If not, the gun would not fire.


12/22/2002



New Monkey Trap Technology: Bay Area Signs Listen to Car Radios :.

TR recently told me about the monkey trap parable. This is a good one:

When one wishes to capture a monkey, there is a very simple way of going about it. Place a banana inside a jar or vase (a coconut is also commonly used) with an opening just big enough for the monkey�s hand to fit through. Affix the container to a sturdy object such as a large rock or tree. When the monkey sees the delectable fruit inside the container, he will reach inside and grab it.

Caught!

With his hand wrapped around the banana, he can�t pull himself free of the trap. Monkeys will howl and jump around for hours attempting to get free from the container with the fruit.

Now, here�s the interesting part. All the monkey has to do to get free is let go of the banana, pull his hand out of the container and walk away. The overwhelming majority of monkeys will not let go of the banana, even to avoid capture as humans approach.

You now have more of an understanding of global political and economic affairs than you will ever get from any university or collection of eloquent, well researched texts. Our societies are nothing more than complex matrices of monkey traps. At every turn, and at all levels, you are bombarded by things that look good, but, in reality, collectively form the four walls of your prison cell. The banana is a metaphor for anything that can trap you, especially ideas. Most of us are hopelessly ensnared and incapable of realizing that all we need to do to get free is LET GO.

So, with the story of the monkey trap as a foundation, let us now turn to a commentary on the current article:

Our suicide economy is near end game. The global financial system, especially since about the mid 1980s, has been based on people going deep into debt to buy things they didn�t actually want, or need. This shortsighted and destructive behavior succeeded in little more than accelerating the transfer of wealth from the lower tiers of the pyramid up to the top.

No scam works forever, and companies are finding this out the hard way. Rather than realizing the system itself is flawed, and trying to determine alternative courses of action, companies are turning to increasingly desperate methods to capture and maintain market share. Like the monkeys, they are unwilling to let go of their previous programming and remain trapped in a pattern of behavior that serves their short sighted interests and ultimately dooms them.

You have a decision to make. Are you going to continue to let the monkey part of your brain determine your behavior? Or, are you going to transcend your basic programming and find another course of action? Admittedly, doing the right thing is not going to be easy. There are more monkey traps than ever, and they are scientifically engineered to change, morph and adapt based on your most primitive, hardwired programming (genetics), and your unconscious environmental conditioning (world view).

There is hope, though. A very small number of monkeys realize they can walk away from the trap if they just let go. The trick is to get more than a couple of us monkeys to do this. Hey, nobody said it would be easy, but securing freedom never is:

The billboard is listening.

In an advertising ploy right out of Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report," electronic billboards in the Bay Area and Sacramento are being equipped to profile commuters as they whiz by -- and then instantly personalize freeway ads based on the wealth and habits of those drivers.

For example, if the freeway were packed with country music listeners, the billboards might make a pitch for casinos. If National Public Radio were on, the billboards could change to ads for a high-quality car or a gourmet grocery.

The billboards -- in Palo Alto, Daly City and Fremont -- will pick up which radio stations are being played and then instantly access a vast databank of information about the people who typically listen to those stations. The electronic ads will then change to fit listener profiles.




Google


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Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture by Andrew Kimbrell Readers will come to see that industrial food production is indeed a "fatal harvest" - fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors such as E. coli and "mad cow disease" find their way into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate farms.

Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Myron Gross This is a relatively short but extremely cogent and well-argued treatise on the rise of a form of fascistic thought and social politics in late 20th century America. Author Bertram Gross' thesis is quite straightforward; the power elite that comprises the corporate, governmental and military superstructure of the country is increasingly inclined to employ every element in their formidable arsenal of 'friendly persuasion' to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans through what Gross refers to as friendly fascism.

The Good Life
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Helen and Scott Nearing are the great-grandparents of the back-to-the-land movement, having abandoned the city in 1932 for a rural life based on self-reliance, good health, and a minimum of cash...Fascinating, timely, and wholly useful, a mix of the Nearings' challenging philosophy and expert counsel on practical skills.

Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth by David Bollierd In Silent Theft, David Bollier argues that a great untold story of our time is the staggering privatization and abuse of our common wealth. Corporations are engaged in a relentless plunder of dozens of resources that we collectively own—publicly funded medical breakthroughs, software innovation, the airwaves, the public domain of creative works, and even the DNA of plants, animals and humans. Too often, however, our government turns a blind eye—or sometimes helps give away our assets. Amazingly, the silent theft of our shared wealth has gone largely unnoticed because we have lost our ability to see the commons.

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide by John Seymour The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the only book that teaches all the skills needed to live independently in harmony with the land harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.

When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten When Corporations Rule the World explains how economic globalization has concentrated the power to govern in global corporations and financial markets and detached them from accountability to the human interest. It documents the devastating human and environmental consequences of the successful efforts of these corporations to reconstruct values and institutions everywhere on the planet to serve their own narrow ends.

The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener This expansion of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables, with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock, the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other topics.