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1/8/2005

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JH (a different JH than the one who contributed $13) is helping out! Thanks!



If You Sent Email, Standby

Several of you have sent email and I haven't replied yet. I will soon. Thanks.



RUSSIA ASSISTS WITH EMERGENCY RESUPPLY OF MCMURDO STATION :.

Something is really wrong. It's Summer in Antarctica. This is the time when operations should be easiest down there. But no... It's either get help from the Russians or abandon the base!?

Then there is the story about the ice bergs off New Zealand... Just how much of that thing is breaking up?

Make your time, all your ice-base are belong to us:

Russian icebreaker the Krishna owned by the Far Eastern Sea Shipping Company () has crossed the Equator, passing half the way from Vladivostok to the place of operation to assist American Antarctic station McMurdo, which is the main scientific base of the US National Science Foundation's Antarctic program on the coast of the Ross Sea in Antarctica.

The press service said the Krishna icebreaker was to ensure that transport ships with fuel, food and medicine reach McMurdo Station; otherwise, the stations personnel would have to be evacuated.

This operation will be fulfilled on the instruction of the Russian Government following the request of the US Government, notes the press service. Its coordinator is the president of Polar Explorers' Association, Hero of the Soviet Union Arturo challengers.

challengers emphasized that "for the first time of polar stations' existence, the U, which considers itself the leader of Antarctic exploration, asked Russia for help."

Traditionally, ships providing McMurdo Station with all necessities are conducted by US Coast Guard icebreaker the Polar Sea and the Polar Star, whose power is several times less that that of the Krasin. But due to the fact that one of the American icebreakers is under repairs, and due to the deterioration of the ice situation and the threat of the station's blockade, the decision was made to urgently dispatch the Russian icebreaker to Antarctica, reads the statement.

The Krasin icebreaker left the port of Vladivostok on December 21. The meeting of the Russian and American icebreakers is expected to take place January 20.

DVMP General Director Yevgeny Ambrosov said that "the US Government addressed Russia for assistance not by chance. Russia has the most powerful icebreaker fleet in the world, and Russian icebreaker crews have the biggest experience of sailing in ice."



Weather

I just heard on KFI AM 640 (out of Los Angeles) that hundreds of cars have been stranded in snow in the local mountains around Big Bear Lake. People are being rescued with Sno-Cats. In case you don't know, a Sno-Cat is a tracked vehicle that can travel in any level of snow. They are typically used for grooming ski slopes. If they are being used to rescue people, it means the roads ARE TOTALLY IMPASSABLE BY OTHER VEHICLES. Several roads are closed until the end of the storm. I can't say, for certain, that this has never happened in these mountains, but I've never heard of this happening around here. If anyone can recall hundreds of people needing to be rescued with Sno-Cats in the San Bernadino mountains, please let me know the last time this happened.

Confirmed: Snow Strands Hundreds In Big Bear As Storm Pelts California

Deep snow stranded as many as 200 vehicles Saturday in the San Bernardino Mountains as the latest in a series of storms struck California, and more heavy snow shut down a pair of highways in the Sierra Nevada.

Snow piled up 3 to 4 feet deep along a 5-mile stretch of Highway 18 between the Snow Valley ski resort and the Big Bear dam in the mountains about 90 miles east of Los Angeles, said Tracey Martinez, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County fire department.

"People were panicking and calling 911 on their cell phones," Martinez said. "It's going to take us awhile to get all the folks out of there."

No serious injuries were reported as rescue crews used tracked vehicles to pick up the snowbound motorists.


Other Weird Weather News:

Watching out for 2 Feet of Rain in Santa Barbara/Ventura/Los Angeles?!

Snow on the Las Vegas Strip

Ice Bergs up tp 3KM Wide Spotted Off New Zealand



Iraq: U.S. Airstrike Kills 14 Civilians :.

Winning the hearts and minds of the civilian population in a guerilla war by bombing homes with fighter-bomber aircraft...

A U.S. warplane has mistakenly bombed a house in northern Iraq, killing several people in an attack likely to inflame anti-American anger ahead of controversial elections due at the end of the month.

Furious residents of the village of Aaytha, south of the city of Mosul, said the air strike on Saturday flattened a villa and killed 14 civilians. Reuters television pictures showed 14 freshly dug graves after the bombing in the early hours of Saturday.


1/7/2005

Toyota Will Cut Manufacturing Costs to Chinese Levels Using Advanced Robotics :.

100% robotic assembly line is planned:

Toyota Motor will introduce robots which can work as well or better than humans at all 12 of its factories in Japan to cut costs and deal with a looming labour shortage as the country ages, a report said on Thursday.

The robots would be able to carry out multiple tasks simultaneously with their two arms, achieving efficiency unseen in human workers and matching the cheap wages of Chinese labourers, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

Japan's top automaker currently uses 3 000 to 4 000 less advanced robots at its domestic factories but their use has been confined mostly to welding, painting and other potentially hazardous tasks, the economic daily said.

The new robots would also be used in finishing work, such as installation of seats and car interior fixtures, that have been too complex for conventional robots up to now, the daily said.

Toyota plans to become the first in the automobile industry to use the advanced robots in all production processes in the future, it said without giving the timeframe.

"We aim to reduce production costs to the levels in China," the daily quoted an unnamed company official as saying.

Toyota also took into account the looming labour shortage in Japan due to a declining birthrate, the report said.

Japan's population is forecast to peak by 2006 with the average number of children a woman has during her lifetime standing at a post-World War II low of 1.29, according to the latest government data.

Japan has so far rejected calls to open up to large numbers of unskilled immigrants, fearing the effects on the country's social framework.

Toyota has been increasingly turning to robot development and plans to welcome visitors to its pavillion at the World Expo in Japan in March with humanoid robots jamming in a brass ensemble and performing hip-hop.



Monsanto Fined $1.5 Million for Bribery :.

This is standard operating procedure:

The US agrochemical giant Monsanto has agreed to pay a $1.5m (£799,000) fine for bribing an Indonesian official.

Monsanto admitted one of its employees paid the senior official two years ago in a bid to avoid environmental impact studies being conducted on its cotton.

In addition to the penalty, Monsanto also agreed to three years' close monitoring of its business practices by the American authorities.

It said it accepted full responsibility for what it called improper activities.

A former senior manager at Monsanto directed an Indonesian consulting firm to give a $50,000 bribe to a high-level official in Indonesia's environment ministry in 2002.

The manager told the company to disguise an invoice for the bribe as "consulting fees".

Companies cannot bribe their way into favourable treatment by foreign officials
Christopher Wray, assistant US attorney-general

Monsanto was facing stiff opposition from activists and farmers who were campaigning against its plans to introduce genetically-modified cotton in Indonesia.

Despite the bribe, the official did not authorise the waiving of the environmental study requirement.

Monsanto also has admitted to paying bribes to a number of other high-ranking officials between 1997 and 2002.



Paging Dr. Mengele: U.S. Army Doctors Participated in Torture :.

We've gone totally off the rails:

A medical journal says U.S. Army doctors violated the Geneva Conventions by helping carry out abusive interrogations of prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere.

The doctors gave military interrogators access to patient medical files and collaborated with interrogators and guards to use psychological and physical means of breaking down prisoners' resistance. According to the article in the Jan 6. issue of the New England Journal of Medicine the doctors cooperated both at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba,

The article was written by a Georgetown University law professor and a British bioethics professor. They reviewed documents obtained from the government by the American Civil Liberties Union and interviewed military personnel.

The military sought and received from the Pentagon and White House additional latitude in interrogating particularly recalcitrant prisoners captured in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Clearly, the medical personnel who helped to develop and execute aggressive counter-resistance plans ... breached the laws of war," the article states.



9 U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq :.

A roadside bomb killed seven U.S. soldiers in northwest Baghdad, and two Marines were killed in action in western Iraq on Thursday, the deadliest day for American forces since a suicide attack last month, the U.S. military said.



Rumsfeld Seeks Broad Review of Iraq Policy :.

The Pentagon is sending a retired four-star Army general to Iraq next week to conduct an unusual "open-ended" review of the military's entire Iraq policy, including troop levels, training programs for Iraqi security forces and the strategy for fighting the insurgency, senior Defense Department officials said Thursday.

The extraordinary leeway given to the highly regarded officer, Gen. Gary E. Luck, a former head of American forces in South Korea and currently a senior adviser to the military's Joint Forces Command, underscores the deep concern by senior Pentagon officials and top American commanders over the direction that the operation in Iraq is taking, and its broad ramifications for the military, said some members of Congress and military analysts.



Reservists May Face Longer Tours of Duty, More Frequent Call-Ups :.

A draft!? Why would there be a draft?! There's not going to be a draft! There isn't! There isn't!

Army leaders are considering seeking a change in Pentagon policy that would allow for longer and more frequent call-ups of some reservists to meet the demands of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior Army official said yesterday.

Reservists are being used heavily to fill key military support jobs, particularly in specialty areas, but Army authorities are having increasing difficulty limiting the active-duty time of some normally part-time soldiers to a set maximum of two years, the official said. He described the National Guard's 15 main combat units as close to being "tapped out."

To avoid pushing reserve forces to the breaking point, the official also said, a temporary increase of 30,000 troops in active-duty ranks that was authorized last year will probably need to be made permanent, especially if U.S. troop levels in Iraq remain high. He said significant troop levels may be required in Iraq for four or five more years.


Remember all the stories about a possible draft in the Spring of 2005? I first mentioned it back in April 2004. Well, well, well...

The official declined to be named because of the political sensitivity of the troop issue and the lack of decisions. But he said that the Army probably will ask Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in the next several months to change the policy on mobilization of reservists. "It's coming," he told a small group of Pentagon reporters. "I think we're going to have this discussion this spring."

The reservists aren't going to be the only issue on the agenda. In other words, hide your sons and daughters.



Cryptogon Reader Contributes $15

NS is on board! Thanks man!



18 Year Old Cryptogon Reader Contributes $50!

Wow!

I don't post too many Cryptogon praise letters, but this one means a great deal to me. You see, I was 18 when I started down this path. I hope DB doesn't have too much trouble maintaining appearances at school and work as a result of Cryptogon. It's definitely not easy to do if you choose to actually look at what's happening. But nobody said it was going to be easy!

DB writes:
Hey Kevin,

I've been meaning to put in a contribution for a while now and you offering your new essay to donators only made me get my ass in gear ;)

I'm an 18yo long time Cryptogon reader from UK. I must credit you and your work to getting me into most of what I understand and preach now. Cryptogon was one the first sites I read regularly after leaving the mass media. (yeah, that was quite a transition from Sky News to Cryptogon, haha). Cryptogon (and some of the other sites I read daily like GNN, WRH, Indymedia and Ran's great site) are responsible for opening my eyes to much of what I now know, so take this as repayment and a sign of my gratitude.

Thanks, and keep up the great work! (Be sure to let me know how you spend this)

DB
How will I spend the money? I'll send another $5 to the Red Cross. The local farmer's market is tomorrow. My girlfriend and I buy all our fruit and vegetables directly from organic growers. My car is out of gas... So, I'll fill it up. ;) I only fill up the car about once per month.

Oh, I bought a coffee maker today. Wow. That was a thrill. It's a big deal when I actually go shopping for something other than food. Try to find a coffee machine that's not made in China! TRY IT! I drove around to a few places.

Then Ikea. They should fly a Chinese flag outside of that thing, not a Swedish flag. EVERYTHING I looked at in there was made in China. Everything. They didn't have coffee machines, but I considered a French coffee press, but guess where that was made. *sigh* I left Ikea and went to the next place, in search of my Not Made in China coffee maker.

Finally, I wound up in some Bed Bath and Beyond thing. Pretty much the same story. Made in China. Made in China. Made in China.

I noticed that the corporations are trying a new trick. Remember when you used to see American flags on products to indicate that the stuff was made in the U.S.? Get this: I saw a coffee maker with an American flag on it. Holy sh*t! Stop the presses! I grabbed it and read the small print underneath the flag. It says:

"American Based Company."

"No..." I squinted at the box. "They wouldn't try such a feeble PSYOP swindle! Would they?"

I flipped the box over.

"Made in China." HAHAHAHAHA!

Finally, I found one that was made in Mexico. I considered it. Conditions are marginably better for workers in Mexico. Barely better. Slightly better. Then I started thinking about Juarez. Ok. It might not be much better. So, I was standing there in the store, holding the $20 coffee maker, trying to talk myself into thinking it was ok to buy the thing.

"Well," I actually said outloud, "I don't think Mexico uses mobile death vans."

I was laughing to myself, thinking, "This thing is coming down! All of this plastic sh*t in here is made out of oil!"

(I'd love to see the security camera footage of me going through this process in the store: flipping over all the boxes, shaking my head, then setting them down; mumbling to myself like a deranged lunatic because everything in the place is made in some dungeon or another.)

I made for the checkout area with my possibly, slightly, hopefully less evil, Made in Mexico coffee maker.

Ahhh, consumer bliss.



Icebergs Spotted off New Zealand :.

Do you think, someday, far in the future, people will find these messages on old harddrives and be able to make sense of what happened?

Icebergs have been spotted in New Zealand waters for the first time in 56 years, with some of them as large as two miles wide, a scientist said today.



Outlaw Sink :.

The Nazis ran death camps. This thing doesn't want to do that. (Not yet, anyway.) It wants to rob you at gunpoint. It wants to take you for everything you've got. It sets up stupid rules that should be ignored by all thinking people, and if you don't comply, it whips out a gun and says, "F*ck you, pay me!"

When a police cruiser and three town officials arrived with a search warrant at Barbara Burbank’s Hampton home on Nov. 19, she asked, "Is this a drug raid or are you afraid we’re washing dishes?"

Empowered with the warrant to search the home Burbank shares with her daughter and 95-year-old aunt, Myrtle Woodward, the town officials were indeed afraid the women were washing dishes. Their warrant, issued through Hampton District Court, authorized a search for evidence of an illegal apartment in the women’s single-family home.

"There had been gossip that I’d put a kitchen sink in," said Burbank. "I knew what they were there for. They were searching for a sink."

As a result of that search, during which Burbank said there was no evidence of anything illegal, Hampton Building Inspector Kevin Schultz filed legal action against the women for zoning violations.

The action, filed Dec. 13 in Rockingham County Superior Court, asks a judge to order the women to demolish everything not approved by the town, prohibit further construction, and pay the town’s costs and attorney’s fees. It also asks that the town be reimbursed for time the building department spent on the case and that the women be fined $275 per day, for every day since Feb. 27, 2003, when they allegedly violated their permit.

Burbank estimates the cost of the civil penalties alone to be $185,075, as of Thursday.

"My aunt will be 96 in February, and she loves this old house. I promised not to put her in a nursing home, and my daughter lives here, too, but is allergic to my aunt’s long-haired cats," said Burbank, explaining why they wanted to build a separate apartment for her daughter. "Now I have to spend the money to fight them. I have no choice."



U.S. to Buy Ammunition from Taiwan :.

Every week, the U.S. borrows billions of dollars from Japan and China... so it can buy rifle cartridges from Taiwan... to kill Iraqis?

Is this the most piss poor empire the world has ever seen!? The absurdity of this is beyond belief!

If the world isn't a mass of smoldering rubble after the collapse of the U.S., people are going to scratch their heads and say, "Was that thing really the most powerful country in the world?"

Nearly eight trillion dollars in the hole, and having to buy ammo from Taiwan... Man oh man, TELL ME ANOTHER ONE! I couldn't even make it up:

The United States is planning to buy hundreds of millions of bullets from Taiwan in the first such deal as its supplies are running low after wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a report said Thursday.

Citing Taiwanese military sources, the United Evening News said Washington had made the request to acquire some 300 million 5.56-millimeter bullets for rifles for an estimated two billion Taiwan dollars (62.5 million US).

The deal was yet to be finalized pending price negotiations, it said.

An unnamed general quoted by the paper said it would be the first time for Washington, Taiwan’s leading arms supplier, to acquire arms from the island.

In line with its usual practice, Taiwan’s defense ministry declined to comment on the report.



Bill Gates Eats it Again :.

I love it:

Bill Gates's legendary luck failed him during his keynote presentation at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

His demonstration of Microsoft Media Center crashed during the presentation on integrating digital photography, and later a Microsoft product manager failed to access the internet with a Tablet PC.

A new game, Forza Motor Sport, also triggered the dreaded Windows blue screen of death.

The presentation started on a jokey theme, with late-night TV host Conan O'Brien presenting a mock version of his own show and a video diary of his and Bill's 'lost weekend' in Las Vegas.

"I got too drunk, I woke up with a hooker," O'Brien said. "Bill got too drunk, he woke up with an Apple computer."



Experimental License-Plate Scanners Track Cars on Highways :.

At its start, the experiment was denounced by civil liberties interests, on the grounds that it could be used to compile surveillance records of all vehicular activity.

Jeff Gamso, the Ohio legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said he is "still skeptical" that the technology's application won't eventually be extended beyond identifying stolen cars or wanted drivers.

"Good for them for having recovered stolen cars," Mr. Gamso said. "But I remain concerned about the incremental invasion of people's privacy."

While the highway patrol promises that any data about vehicles that doesn't generate a "wanted" match is not retained, Mr. Gamso said, "What I'd like to know is that they're continuing to 'lose' that information three years from now."


1/5/2005

Three Storms Threaten to Strike U.S. at Once :.

Could be a pretty good one this weekend... Yep, it just might be the weather that takes this thing out, afterall:

Moisture-laden storms from the north, west and south are likely to converge on much of America over the next several days in what could be a once-in-a-generation onslaught, meteorologists forecast yesterday.

If the gloomy computer models at the U.S. Climate Prediction Center are right, we'll see this terrible trio:

• The "Pineapple Express," a series of warm, wet storms heading east from Hawaii, drenching Southern California and the far Southwest, already beset with heavy rain and snow. Flooding, avalanches and mudslides are possible.

• An "Arctic Express," a mass of cold air chugging south from Alaska and Canada, bringing frigid air and potentially heavy snow and ice to the usually mild-wintered Pacific Northwest.

• An unnamed warm, moist storm system from the Gulf of Mexico drenching the already-saturated Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi valleys. Expect heavy river flooding and springlike tornadoes.



Militant Electronic Piracy: Non-Violent Insurgency Tactics Against the American Corporate State

This extended analysis is available only to readers who have financially supported Cryptogon over the last year. If you have made a contribution, you will receive this essay via email within 24 hours. Thank you for your generous support.

Title: Militant Electronic Piracy: Non-Violent Insurgency Tactics Against the American Corporate State

Length: 7 pages

Sample:

INTRODUCTION

The germ of this essay was a Wired article about electronic piracy called, "The Shadow Internet." The following Cryptogon analysis will focus on the nature of insurgency in the U.S. and critical national security aspects of electronic piracy that the article failed to address.

The Wired article does not mention that there is now a strong ideological motivation driving some actors in the piracy scene. Back in the 1980s, piracy was mostly for the fun of it, as the article indicates. Now, though, some militant anarchists see piracy as a way of bankrupting corporations and view their activities as a form of warfare against corporations and the governments that serve them. The supporting material for this statement is available on the Internet. I will not provide direct links to information related to the operational aspects of militant electronic piracy because doing so could subject me to criminal prosecution.

This analysis will use the term "militant electronic piracy" to refer to the high level, massive theft and distribution of copyrighted material for purposes of politico-economic warfare. This may be viewed in stark contrast to the more ubiquitous activity of "file trading," where individuals use peer-to-peer software to download music, movies and software for free. Casual file traders ascribe no political motivation whatsoever to their actions. "The American Corporate State," (ACS) refers to the existing power structure in the U.S. This system is characterized by the fascist convergence of corporate and government interests.

In order to understand the national security implications of militant electronic piracy, an examination of conventional insurgency against the American Corporate State is necessary.

Contents:

DISCLAIMER

INTRODUCTION

THE NATURE OF ARMED INSURGENCY AGAINST THE ACS

- Political Activism and the ACS Counterinsurgency Apparatus
- ACS Full-Spectrum PSYOP Dominance

MILITANT ELECTRONIC PIRACY: MILITARY-STYLE DAMAGE WITH NON-VIOLENT TACTICS

- Bankrupt ACS
- Casual Downloaders Unknowingly Assist Insurgency
- Militant Electronic Piracy Operations
- Just Kids Having Fun?

THE ACS RESPONSE

CONCLUSION

NOTES



No Place to Hide: Behind the Scenes of Our Emerging Surveillance Society :.

Commentary from yesterday:
Believe it or not, the problems facing humanity now are nothing compared to what we will see if They manage to keep this thing from collapsing.
Oh... Just wait:

George Orwell envisioned Big Brother as an outgrowth of a looming totalitarian state, but in this timely survey Robert O'Harrow Jr. portrays a surveillance society that's less centralized and more a joint public/private venture. Indeed, the most frightening aspect of the Washington Post reporter's thoroughly researched and naggingly disquieting chronicle lies in the matter-of-fact nature of information hunters and gatherers and the insatiable systems they've concocted. Here is a world where data is gathered by relatively unheralded organizations that smooth the way for commercial entities to find the good customers and avoid dicey ones. Government of course too has an interest in the data that's been mined. Information is power, especially when trying to find the bad guys. The mutually compatible skills and needs shared by private and public snoopers were fusing prior to the attacks of 9/11, but the process has since gone into hyperdrive. O'Harrow weaves together vignettes to record the development of the "security-industrial complex," taking pains to personalize his chronicle of a movement that's remained (perhaps purposefully) faceless. Recognizing the appeal of state-of-the-art systems that can track down a murderer/rapist with heretofore unimaginable speed, the author recognizes, too, that the same devices can mistakenly destroy reputations and cast a pall over a free society. In a post-9/11 world where homeland security often trumps personal liberty, this work is an eye-opener for those who take their privacy for granted.

Related: The Business of Fighting Terror



Cryptogon Readers Contribute $35 and $13

MW with $35 and JH with $13!

Guys, thanks for starting 2005 off right!

I will immediately contribute $5 of this to the Red Cross for the South Asian tsunami victims. I'd like to give more, but I kinda need to eat somehow as well.


1/4/2005

U.S. Military Aircraft in Iranian Airspace :.

I hate to say I told you so, but remember my commentary back on 4/4/03 about the superbase in Iraq... At the time, the "news" was that it as a victory for human rights as the base would be used to ferry humanitarian supplies to the Iraqi people... Here was Cryptogon's response to that one:
The U.S. now controls a strategic jumping-off point to the rest of the region. I love how they mention how useful the long runways will be for bringing in humanitarian aid. HA. This is the gateway to the rest of what's left to conquer beyond Iraq. All your base Superbase are belong to us U.S.
Flash forward to today:

U.S. military warplanes flew over Iranian air space, raising Tehran's concerns preparations are being made to knock out its nuclear facilities, according to Iranian news media reports.

The U.S. jets reportedly flew out of bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the latest coming Saturday when a fighter buzzed at low altitude an area in the northeastern province of Khorrasan, which borders Afghanistan.


"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
-Bob Dylan



U.S. Fails to Make List of World's Freest Economies :.

Maybe the U.S. military will bomb the The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal for their insolence:

The United States is missing for the first time from an annual ranking of the world's 10 freest economies.

The Index of Economic Freedom, published by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal since 1995, finds that the United States is letting Big Brother grow obese as other countries get lean and fit. Chile, Australia and Iceland improved enough to leave the U.S. in a tie with Switzerland for 12th place.

"The United States is resting on its laurels while innovative countries around the world are changing their approaches and reducing their roadblocks," said Marc Miles, a co-editor of the book, along with Ed Feulner and Mary Anastasia O'Grady. "The U.S. is eating the dust of countries that have thrown off the 20th-century shackles of big government spending and massive federal programs."

The top 10: Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Estonia (yes, the former Soviet "republic"), Ireland, New Zealand, U.K., Denmark, Iceland and Australia, followed by Chile.



Renewable Energy Deployment Becomes a National Security Matter... In Polite Circles :.

Believe it or not, the problems facing humanity now are nothing compared to what we will see if They manage to keep this thing from collapsing:

If one actionable priority could be distilled from the chorus of support expressed for renewables at last week's conference of the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE), it's that the time has come to shift the nation's priorities from an era of research and development to one of major deployment. And the one mantra rising above the conference chatter that might create enough political muscle to kick-off that shift can be summed up in two words: National Security.

At the packed conference, 24 national leaders spoke to over 500 experts from industry and finance in the Cannon Caucus Room of the U.S. House of Representatives, sharing their experience, expertise, and hopes for the various renewable energy technologies that scatter the broad energy landscape. The conference was convened primarily to acknowledge that the past three decades of research and development in the U.S. have yielded positive results and that it's time to move into a new phase -- a broad and deliberate deployment phase.



U.S. Central Command Hits Cryptogon... Again

The CENTCOM user (host: cumulus.centcom.mil, ip: 192.31.19.50) conducted the following Google search: RAND: Counterinsurgency in El Salvador.

HINT to the CENTCOM user: If you're an analyst trying to use analogical reasoning to link the tactics that resulted in "success" for the U.S. in El Salvador to Iraq, you can forget it. The U.S. will bankrupt itself, economically and politically, before an El Salvador-type horror show could ever work. Besides, El Salvador was a covert war. Iraq is much more in the spotlight. How many U.S. trained death squad members did it take to terrorize El Salvador into semi-submission? Scale that up to the Iraqi situation. The FMLN never had the level of public support the Iraqi insurgency has now. And, the last time I checked, FMLN guerrillas weren't willing to use their bodies as weapons delivery platforms in suicide attacks by the thousands... but I digress.

Wow, brother, it's not going to be easy to torture all those women and children to death... Maybe you should think about letting Saddam out of his cage so he could get up to his old tricks, eh? Maybe keep him on his leash this time?

What? You don't find my humor amusing? Well, all that's left to do at this stage is make jokes about the absurd state of reality, so, get used to it.

Why don't you consider a different line of work? Surely, by now, you know your education and your career have been a fraud. You must also know that the beast you're serving will eventually eat you.

Related: The Other CENTCOM Hit from a Couple of Days Ago...

The CENTCOM user (host: cumulus.centcom.mil, ip: 192.31.19.50) conducted the following Google search: map of fiber optic network in Iraq.



Group 13 :.

This article also mentions a deep black NSA assassination team called I-3. That's a new one on me, but it has long been suspected that NSA runs the very blackest ops simply because of its isolation from oversight, both in terms of activities and budget. Very interesting article:

It is the number that carries the most occult significance. Throughout Europe it has historically been regarded as an ill omen. In Norse mythology, the number 13 often signifies death. Today, in the United Kingdom, there exists a paramilitary unit called Group 13. The sole purpose of this ultra secretive unit is deniable assassination and it operates in the world of shadows. So little is known about them, that it is exceptionally hard to document its activities with any certainty.

One individual - a former civilian undercover agent for the security services, recounted his story of a encounter with Group 13. Gary Murray, author of “Enemies of the State” had decided to research Group 13 to write a book on them. He soon changed his mind. One day during his research phase he was forcibly dragged in to the back of a Transit van and had a gun stuck to his head. A voice told him it would be unwise to continue his project. Sensibly, he decided to abandon the project and instead write a book on an altogether different subject.



Intelligence Satellites: Billion Dollar Boondoggles :.

For military and intelligence communities, outer space has become a highground, hide-and-seek arena -- a kind of "now you see me, now you don't" espionage playing field.

Over the decades, spying from space has always earned super-secret status. They are the black projects, fulfilling dark tasks and often bankrolled by blank check.

"There is a certain inequity built into the multi-billion dollar intelligence appropriations process. Industry lobbyists holding security clearances are free to advocate for their preferred programs. But critics or skeptics are not even permitted to know what is at issue. So it is not surprising that there will be enormous boondoggles from time to time," Aftergood said.



Governor of Baghdad Region Shot Dead :.

Things seem to be shaping up well for the election later this month:

Gunmen killed the governor of the Baghdad province, Ali al-Haidari, and six of his bodyguards on Tuesday, officials said.

Al-Haidari's three-vehicle convoy was passing through Baghdad's northern neighborhood of Hurriyah when gunmen opened fire, said the chief of his security detail, who asked only to be identified as Maj. Mazen.



Eli Lilly Covered Up Prozac Suicide Risk :.

The 1988 document indicated that 3.7 percent of patients attempted suicide while on the blockbuster drug, a rate more than 12 times that cited for any of four other commonly used antidepressants.

The document, which cited clinical trials of 14,198 patients on fluoxetine -- the generic name for Prozac -- also stated that 2.3 percent of users suffered psychotic depression while on the drug, more than double the next-highest rate of patients using another antidepressant.


1/3/2005

New Essay Soon

I'm preparing an extended essay related to an emerging insurgency against the American Corporate State.

I'd like to hear from people who have made financial contributions to Cryptogon in 2004: Would you guys like to receive the analysis exclusively, or should I release it publicly? Since most Cryptogon readers don't contribute anything, I feel like I should be doing something for the people who do contribute. Since this latest analysis examines a pretty interesting and weird issue, I felt obligated to offer it you folks exclusively, or to at least give you a chance to chime on on what should happen when material like this emerges. Besides, it's marginably unsuitable for public posting. ;)



U.S. Central Command Hits Cryptogon

The CENTCOM user (host: cumulus.centcom.mil, ip: 192.31.19.50) conducted the following Google search: map of fiber optic network in Iraq.


1/2/2005

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Bohemian Grove :.

Los Angeles Times, 12/31/2004:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of gifts since joining the high court, including $1,200 worth of tires, valuable historical items and a $5,000 personal check to help pay a relative's education expenses.

The gifts also included a Bible once owned by the 19th century author and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass, which Thomas valued at $19,000, and a bust of President Lincoln valued at $15,000.

He also took a free trip aboard a private jet to the exclusive Bohemian Grove club in Northern California — arranged by a wealthy Texas real estate investor who helped run an advocacy group that filed briefs with the Supreme Court.

Those and other gifts were disclosed by Thomas under a 1978 federal ethics law that requires high-ranking government officials, including the nine Supreme Court justices, to file a report each year that lists gifts, money and other items they have received.


Research Credit: Mark R




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