Archive for the 'Outsourced' Category
The Lear Jet Repo Man
June 6th, 2009Must read. Via: Slate: Nick Popovich is a repo man, but not the kind that spirits away Hyundais from suburban driveways. Popovich is a super repo man, one of a handful of specialists who get the call when a bank wants back its Gulfstream II jet from, say, a small army of neo-Nazi freaks. For […]
CIA Briefers Regularly Mislead Hill Intelligence Panels, Ex-Spy Charges
May 27th, 2009This has only been standard operating procedure for about the last 62 years. Via: Congressional Quarterly Politics: A former deep-cover CIA operative says the spy agency’s congressional briefers routinely shade the truth or hide facts altogether from congressional overseers. “They mumble, they dissemble, and there’s a lot of ‘on the one hand . . .’” […]
Allen Stanford: “May Have Been a U.S. Government Informer”
May 10th, 2009This has to get rolled up. This has to go away. —Cryptogon, 2/21/09 Allen Stanford would be very familiar with the story of how Barry Seal met his end; shot dead as he sat in his Cadillac, with George H.W. Bush’s personal phone number in a box of documents in his trunk. So, what precautions […]
Rent-A-Cops: Cash-Strapped Cities Using Private Armed Guards Instead of Police
April 21st, 2009Via: Wall Street Journal: Facing pressure to crack down on crime amid a record budget deficit, Oakland is joining other U.S. cities that are turning over more law-enforcement duties to private armed guards. The City Council recently voted to hire International Services Inc., a private security agency, to patrol crime-plagued districts. While a few Oakland […]
Obama Exempts CIA Torture Staff from Prosecution
April 17th, 2009Just following orders. Via: BBC: US President Barack Obama says CIA agents who used harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects during the Bush era will not be prosecuted. Mr Obama banned the use of methods such as sleep deprivation and simulated drowning in his first week in office. He has now released four memos detailing […]
How to Get a No-Bid Contract for Russian Choppers
April 13th, 2009Via: Wired: How did a company best known for its communications gear manage to get a $322 million, no-bid contract to supply the Iraqi military with Russian helicopters? Not even the Pentagon can come up with a convincing explanation. Yesterday, I spent an hour on the phone with two Defense Department officials who tried to […]
Blackwater Still Operating in Iraq
March 19th, 2009Via: Washington Times: Days after the Baghdad government decided it no longer wanted the company then known as Blackwater in Iraq, the State Department signed a $22.2 million deal in February to keep the embattled contractor working there through most of the summer, contract records show. The decision keeps Blackwater – since renamed Xe – […]
The More Roundup the U.S. Sprays on Colombia, the More Coca is Grown
March 14th, 2009How can this be? Monsanto’s Roundup product should wipe out the coca plans, right? The Mystery of the Coca Plant That Wouldn’t Die is a fascinating read. I’m going to post the spoiler ending below, but I encourage you to read the whole thing: Four weeks later, the scientist sends me an email saying that […]
The Invisible Hand of the Market: British Troops Seize £50 Million of Afghan Opium
February 18th, 2009What I think is happening here is that the USUK smack industrial complex has decided to drive up the street price of heroin. My theory will be confirmed if we hear that Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan includes counter-narcotics operations. Why now? First of all, heroin is cheap. Too cheap: A gram of […]
Biggest Fraud Ever: Iraq “Reconstruction”
February 17th, 2009Fraud. Top to bottom fraud, as we already knew. Via Independent: In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of […]
