cryptogon.com
   HOME
4/19/2003



Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq :.

Was there ever any doubt about this!? HA! The story seems to indicate that the new Iraqi government will have an option on whether or not the U.S. gets to stay. HAHA! That's a good one:

The United States is planning a long-term military relationship with the emerging government of Iraq (news - web sites), one that would grant the Pentagon (news - web sites) access to military bases and project American influence into the heart of the unsettled region, senior Bush administration officials say.

American military officials, in interviews this week, spoke of maintaining perhaps four bases in Iraq that could be used in the future: one at the international airport just outside Baghdad; another at Tallil, near Nasiriya in the south; the third at an isolated airstrip called H-1 in the western desert, along the old oil pipeline that runs to Jordan; and the last at the Bashur air field in the Kurdish north.





650 Million U.S. Dollars Found in Iraq :.

That is a lot of cash. If that cash is real, it probably represents one of the single largest stockpiles of paper U.S. currency anywhere. I would LOVE to know the real story behind this one:

Quite a find by two Army sergeants in Iraq.

The Los Angeles Times says they stumbled across US cash -- mountains of it -- in a Baghdad neighborhood where senior Baath party and Republican Guard officials once lived.

Searches have turned up an estimated 650 (m) million dollars.


The U.S. is going to drastically alter the look of its paper currency starting by the end of this year. Making the new currency (NexGen) different colors will allow the U.S. government to invalidate all of the older "green" money at its whim. People sitting on, oh, I don't know, several hundred million dollars in illicit cash will have a difficult time trying to convert it into the new and improved rainbow stuff:

In keeping with their strategy of maintaining the security of Federal Reserve notes by enhancing the design of U.S. currency every seven to ten years, the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (Bureau) and the Federal Reserve Board today announced plans to release the next generation of redesigned notes, with improved security features to deter counterfeiting.

The new design, referred to as NexGen, affects the $100, $50, and $20 notes. Circulation of the NexGen series could begin as early as fall 2003 with the introduction of the redesigned $20 note. The $100 and $50 notes will follow in twelve to eighteen months. Consistent with past design changes, the NexGen notes will remain the same size and use similar portraits and historical images to maintain an American appearance. The NexGen designs will include the introduction of subtle background colors. While color is not in itself a security feature, the use of color provides the opportunity to add additional features that could assist in deterring counterfeiting. The introduction of additional colors will also help consumers to identify the different denominations.


More: L.A. Times story. The link will probably die soon, but it's a rather incredible read, espcially if you're poor. Search the L.A. Times for:

Soldiers Stumble on Outrageous Fortune by David Zucchino on 4/19/03.


4/18/2003



Liberation: U.S. Troops Open Fire on Iraqi Crowds :.

Community leaders in Mosul appealed for calm yesterday after US forces became involved in a lethal firefight in the city centre for the second day running.

Doctors at Mosul's emergency hospital said at least three people were killed and 12 injured, including two children, after US troops responded to what a military spokesmen described as "aimed fire".

On Tuesday 10 people were killed and at least 16 wounded in a similar incident.





Liberation: Bush's Cultural Aides Quit in Disgust :.

Two senior cultural advisers to President Bush have resigned in fury at the US military's failure to prevent the looting of antiquities from Baghdad's national museum.
The resignations of Martin Sullivan, chairman of the president's advisory committee on cultural property, and Gary Vikan, a committee member, became public yesterday as the FBI announced it had dispat-ched agents to Iraq to help try to recover the stolen artefacts.

"It didn't have to happen. In a pre-emptive war that's the kind of thing you should have planned for," said Mr Sullivan, who has chaired the panel for eight years.

Mr Vikan, director of Baltimore's Walters Art Gallery, referring to 80,000 tablets in the Baghdad museum's collection, said: "If we understood the value of Sumerian cuneiform tablets to our past, as we do with oil getting us somewhere in our cars, I don't think this would have happened."


4/16/2003



Greer Comes Clean :.

I must admit: I was hopeful when Steven Greer declared that he had located, "what appears to be a suitable energy device that could replace fossil fuels." TR, a long time Cryptogon contributor, said, "Bullshit." That was back in January. Well, after waiting all these months, it appears that TR was right. HA! I guess there's always something when it comes to THE device.

I don't feel mad at Greer. I feel sorry for him. To have floated that BS on nationally syndicated radio and then to come up this far short... What would the guy have to gain from doing something like that? I suppose it's possible that his organization was targeted for discreditation from the beginning. If that was the case, the ratf*ckers did a great job. In any event, I'll continue to monitor the situation:

As all of you know, SEAS identified a promising over unity technology in January of this year, and subsequently negotiated an agreement to acquire the technology. Since then, previously undisclosed business interests of the inventor have surfaced and have stopped the acquisition process. For this reason, to date we have not been able to acquire the device for further testing or reproduce its performance. We have been negotiating for 6 weeks to resolve the issues raised by these other interests, a process that has involved parties in three countries.

At this point we do not know if or when the inventor will fulfill his obligations to SEAS under the original agreement. We will let you know as soon as the technology has been submitted to us for further development and verification and the results of that process are known.





White House Seeks to Expand DNA Database :.

It's starting to get really ugly, but just wait. We haven't seen anything yet:

DNA profiles from juvenile offenders and from adults who have been arrested but not convicted would be added to the FBI's national DNA database under a Bush administration proposal.

Genetic samples from juvenile offenders... like the 12-year-old who was arrested for stomping in rain puddles?





Terrorism Sponsored by Britain :.

There is little stamina in the political establishment for what are increasingly dubbed "these old cases". Blair, whose greatest achievement may be peace in Northern Ireland, will dissemble the inevitable case for a public inquiry. His crusade against state-sponsored terrorism does not, it seems, extend to our own islands. If he refuses to be bold, he will staunch our society's opportunity to know itself and change itself.





U.S. Shuts Off Oil Supply to Syria :.

The importance of oil, which Rumsfeld says belongs to the Iraqi people, was clear again Monday when the U.S. Central Command formally announced that the U.S.-led coalition had taken the last Iraqi oil field.

"The intention is to Americanize the Iraqi oil operation completely and put it under the control of the U.S.-run administration in Iraq," said Michael Klare, a world security studies professor at Hampshire College.

"The U.S. will decide how that oil will be marketed," he told the Star last night.

"And the decision to cut off oil to Syria was just the first realization that they have taken that control."

The last few days of hostile language over Syria � buttressed by yesterday's oil pipeline shutdown � has raised the tension level internationally, and particularly in the Middle East.

At a briefing for foreign reporters yesterday, an Egyptian journalist asked Powell "who's next?" in the region, and whether the "U.S. has a plan to spread a set of values at gunpoint."

"There is no list," said Powell. "There is no war plan right now ... to go attack someone else, either for the purpose of overthrowing their leadership or for the purpose of imposing democratic values."





Biodiesel :.

MH wrote in to say that he doesn't buy gasoline. He buys biodiesel, "from some hippies in Ukiah, CA." Right on MH! I'd never heard of biodiesel before. It's fascinating:

Biodiesel is the name of a clean burning alternative fuel, produced from domestic, renewable resources. Biodiesel contains no petroleum, but it can be blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend. It can be used in compression-ignition (diesel) engines with little or no modifications. Biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics.


4/15/2003



2004: Vote Skull and Bones for President :.

I kept stumbling across Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry's "regime change" comments and how he is now "under fire" from the Republicans. That's an interesting bit of theater because John Kerry is a member of Skull and Bones, just like George W. Bush! Not only are they both members, but they were inducted within two years of each other, Kerry in 1966 and Bush in 1968.

Behold, the theater of the free:

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry came under fire from top congressional Republicans for saying the United States, like Iraq, needs a regime change. Kerry would not back down.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the statement by the Massachusetts senator called into question Kerry's fitness to be the nation's chief executive.

"Free and open discourse is one thing, but petty, partisan insults launched solely for personal political gain are highly inappropriate at a time when American men and women are in harm's way," Frist said in a statement Thursday.

In a speech Wednesday in Peterborough, N.H., Kerry said President Bush so alienated allies prior to the U.S.-led war against Iraq that only a new president can rebuild damaged relationships with other countries.

"What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States," Kerry said.


When you're through living in the bullshit dream world of Republican vs. Democrat, you come to the same realization that Carroll Quigley did when he wrote, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time:

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can "throw the rascals out" at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.

Election Day 2004??? Yawn. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.





Playstation 3 Will Employ Supercomputing Architecture :.

I sent this story to a friend of mine who does artificial intelligence research at a large university. This was his response:

Biotechnology? Parallel computing? Maybe the next Playstation will be based on Quantum Computing? Some people are tough to please. This is hilarious since lately I've been playing Backgammon on my Pentium III. Yep, a 3,000 year old game on a 5 year old computer. It runs great! What I can't understand is how spawn could be pacified a hundred years ago by a couple of wood playing pieces and now they need more computing power than the NSA?





A Note on Work

Unfortunately, I have to get a job. If I disappear, don't worry. It just means I'm too tired to maintain the site. If anyone knows of a way to survive that doesn't involve the support of evil, please let me know. I think I may have found something to do that is relatively innocuous, but it's completely devoid of anything thoughtful or interesting. Apparently, anything that involves thinking that pays money directly supports evil, or requires one to be in the presence of/take orders from perpetrators of evil. I guess when one views most organizations as corrupt, it puts one in quite a bind when it comes down to trying to survive. So, if you're through being a victim of evil, and you're unwilling to victimize others with evil, what's left to do? Well, that's where the rubber meets the road, I guess.

If you make a living doing something that doesn't support evil, please let me know. I'd be curious to learn more about it. Is there anyone out there who doesn't buy gasoline? Anyone living totally off grid? If so, I'd really like to hear from you.





Reading

Information Liberation by Brian Martin. (full text)

Anyone considering college (or anyone in college who smells a rat) must read Chapter 7: The Politics of Research.

Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy by Robert Michels. (full text)





12-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Stomping in Puddles :.

Formal education is nothing more than indoctrination by government and/or other similarly corrupt institutions. Your children's brains are being ground up and reconstituted into a single non-thinking mob consciousness. Oh yeah, make sure you pay your taxes so pigs like the one who arrested this child can stay on the job long enough to apply for a private pig job at Dyn Corp:

In Inverness, Florida, a 12-year-old boy was cuffed, arrested, and taken in a patrol car to jail where he was held for two hours. His crime? You aren't going to believe it! Kyle Fredrikson was walking back to class from lunch when Deputy Tim Langer saw the boy "purposely stomping in the water" after being told numerous times by school personnel to stay with the group and out of the rain.


4/14/2003



Next Stop Enroute to Oblivion: Belfast, Ireland :.

When I was watching Bush in Belfast, I was thinking, I'd be willing to bet he wouldn't be able to point to where he is on a map of the world right now. Well, I may not have been too far off. And, oh yes, nice one, Ari. What will you do for your next act?

Announcing President Bush's trip here, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer accidentally said last week that Bush would be visiting Dublin. ''I'm sorry, I'm sorry,'' he quickly apologized, saying the trip was really to Belfast. ''I was not a geography major.''

Yesterday, White House staff members made another faux pas: Official credentials and schedules for the trip declared in bold letters that it is ''the Trip of the President to Belfast, Ireland.'' Belfast is in Northern Ireland, and is part of the United Kingdom. The distinction has been the root of strife in the region for decades.





Cisco Training Afghan Network Engineers :.

Now that Pipelinistan (Afghanistan) has been made safe for overt and covert plunder, computer networks must be created to assist the swindlers in their diabolical endeavors. So, with U.S. corporations chomping at the bit to pilfer Afghanistan's natural gas and petroleum and with the CIA ramping up opium production to record levels, it's finally time for Afghanistan to move into the digital age.

Oh yeah, and don't forget the IT outsourcing opportunities! Increasingly, corporations are hiring Indians for IT positions and firing their American and European employees. Yes, friends, the race to the bottom is really picking up speed. Forget those pesky and expensive Indians. Now your IT department can profit from the Women's Lib Movement...Afghan Style! Afghan women are so free now that the evil Taliban are gone! Well, they're not totally free, but for five to ten dollars per day, they're a damn good bargain:

On Tuesday, Nabila became one of the first 17 Afghans trained in their own country to earn industry standard certificates in computer networking skills and part of what her government hoped would be a growing talent pool of badly needed information technology specialists.

More than two decades of war have meant Afghanistan was largely bypassed by the IT and Internet revolution.

A U.N.-supervised programme largely funded by computer giant Cisco Systems aims to create a core of specialists to take the country into the digital age.

It is also seen as a means to boost opportunities for women in what remains, despite the demise of the Taliban, a heavily male dominated society.

Of the 17 students who received certificates from the university's Cisco Networking Academy on Tuesday, six were women. It aims to train 200 students by the year-end.


Research Credit: TR


4/13/2003



Walmart Dungeon :.

The daily work shift at the Qin Shi Factory is 12 to 14 hours, seven days a week, 30 days a month. At the end of the day the workers return �home� to a cramped dorm room sharing metal bunk beds with 16 other people. At most, workers are allowed outside of the factory for just one and one half hours a day. Otherwise they are locked in.

Working up to 98 hours a week, it is not easy to find the time to go out. But the workers have another fear as well. Before entering the Qin Shi factory, management confiscates the identification documents of each worker. When someone goes outside, the company also takes away their factory I.D. tag, leaving them with no identification at all. If you are stopped by the local security police you could be detained and deported back to your rural province as an illegal migrant.

When you need to use the bathroom the company again confiscates your factory I.D. and monitors the time you spend. If you are away from your workstation for more than eight minutes you will receive a severe fine.

Average wage - 3 cents an hour! Highest wage 10 cents an hour, 46% of the workers earn nothing at all and in fact owe the company money.


Research Credit: TR





Syria: The U.S. Propaganda Remix Available Now :.

US President George W Bush has warned Syria against harbouring fugitives from Saddam Hussein's ousted regime in Iraq.

America, he said, expected Iraq's western neighbour to "co-operate" with the US-led coalition and he added that he believed Syria possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD)- the charge against Iraq which sparked the war there.

"We believe there are chemical weapons in Syria," the president said, speaking to press on the White House lawn.

A senior Syrian diplomat went on US TV on Sunday to deny his country was either producing WMD or assisting Iraqi fugitives and terrorists.




Google


cryptogon.com
www

:. Reading

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

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

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

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

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

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

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