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Cryptogon is under attack (DDOS). I’m attempting to deal with it. If the site is down, it means that I’ve needed to take it offline to get control, or my host is throttling my account to prevent other domains on the server from being affected. If you have encountered error messages or the “Please standby” message over the last couple of days, this is why.
Greenwich Village Couple Busted with Cache of Weapons, Bombmaking Materials
December 31st, 2012Via: New York Post:
The privileged daughter of a prominent city doctor, and her boyfriend — a Harvard grad and Occupy Wall Street activist — have been busted for allegedly having a cache of weapons and a bombmaking explosive in their Greenwich Village apartment.
Morgan Gliedman — who is nine-months pregnant — and her baby daddy, Aaron Greene, 31, also had instructions on making bombs, including a stack of papers with a cover sheet titled, “The Terrorist Encyclopedia,’’ sources told The Post yesterday.
People who know Greene say his political views are “extreme,” the sources said.
Cops found the stash in the couple’s West Ninth Street home Saturday when they went there to look for Gliedman, 27, who was wanted for alleged credit-card theft.
‘Clearly a Smash Hit’: Population Reduction Through ‘Long-Running Serialized Dramas’
December 31st, 2012Via: PeakProsperity:
Bill Ryerson: Well, you brought up Population Media Center. One of the things that we do – and that is the primary thing we do – is to use a strategy of communications that has turned out, from everything we have been able to measure, to be the most cost-effective strategy for changing behavior with regard to family size and contraceptive use on a per-behavior change basis of any strategy we have found on the planet. And this is the use of long-running serialized dramas, melodramas like soap operas, in which characters gradually evolve from the middle of the road in that society into positive role models for daughter education, delaying marriage and childbearing until adulthood, spacing of children, limiting of family size, and various other health and social goals of each country. And we have now done such programs in forty-five countries. And I can give you a couple of statistics.
For example, in northern Nigeria, a program we ran from 2007 to 2009 was listened to by 70% of the population at least weekly. It was a twice a week program. It was clearly a smash hit. And it was a smash hit because it was highly suspenseful and highly entertaining. But it had a storyline dealing with a couple deciding to use family planning, which is almost taboo in northern Nigeria because less than 10% of the people in that region use any modern method of contraception. We had eleven clinics have healthcare workers ask clients what had motivated them to come in for family planning, and 67% percent of them named the program as the motivation.
Chris Martenson: Congratulations.
Bill Ryerson: Our cost per family-planning adopter of that entire program, 208 episodes, writing, acting, production, and primetime air purchase, plus the research pre- and post-broadcast and the monitoring research, came out to 89 cents per family-planning adopter. That is the kind of thing that can dramatically change demographic trends globally. We need to greatly expand this type of work.
…
Chris Martenson: Well, maybe there are some things that work there as well. We are seeing changes in behaviors there, too. And if the story is right, if the narrative is correct, people will live into that narrative. And in the absence of a good narrative will default into – maybe I will call them more “primal” sort of behavior sets.
China Is Turning Its ISPs Into Internet Police
December 31st, 2012Via: ExtremeTech:
Scary new legislation that was recently approved will effectively turn China’s ISPs into the internet police. Now, ISPs will be forced to delete content deemed illegal and file a report with the government.
This troubling legislation requires individuals to register with ISPs using their real name and contact information — even a copy of their passports or IDs. While the Chinese government bills this as safeguarding “national security and public interests,” the power this grants the PRC leadership is worrisome. Not only will ISPs need to silence illegal content such as political dissent, but this also ties real-world information to that content. If internet users in mainland China start posting about Tiananmen Square or the freedom of Tibet, the Chinese government will be able to find them and punish them more easily while quickly silencing their message with compliant ISPs.
Even worse, the communist government is making it even harder to get around the Great Firewall of China by blocking VPN access.
DHS VIPR Team and Possible DHS Drone at Football Game
December 31st, 2012Via: HongPong:
Things are a little strange at the Vikings/Packers Game today. A drone has been photographed hovering around the Metrodome fan plaza on the west side, and a Homeland Security / TSA “VIPR” team has been hanging around as well, indicating the federal government is shifting into “protecting” the major Spectacles at taxpayer expense.
…
I am just delighted that the national government had to borrow more money at interest from the Federal Reserve System in order to send out these guys and their fancy flying spy robot to the Vikings/Packers game. We get the twin benefits of national debt slavery AND a surveillance state with nothing useful to do!
Research Credit: HongPong
Lego Investing
December 31st, 2012I found this hilarious because I actually do this in a small way. I buy Lego sets for my sons that they won’t be ready to use for years; sets that I know will be discontinued, and that I wouldn’t want to have to acquire later on the auction sites. I’m guessing that I’m not the only old nerd dad who does this.
Via: USA Today:
Just as stock investors have portfolios of all different sorts of stocks, Lego investors hold massive collections of Lego sets and can make annual profits that beat stocks.
Investors understand the value of stocks and bonds. But Lego bricks?
Those ubiquitous interlocking bricks, usually seen stuffed in closets, tucked under toy boxes and scattered across playrooms, aren’t what most people typically think of as an investment. But to some, like David Schooley, Lego bricks are serious money, and buying them and selling them, just as some investors trade stocks, is turning into a way to turn a profit, brick by brick.
Schooley, a 49-year-old information technology professional in Memphis and father of six, is one of small but growing niche of people who buy and hold Lego bricks, not as toys, but investments that will appreciate when sold later.
Just as stock investors have portfolios of all different sorts of stocks, Lego investors hold massive collections of Lego sets. Schooley, for instance, has more than 3,000 Lego sets piled high in a climate-controlled storage facility. Most of the sets he bought years ago, with the plan of selling them a year from now for a profit. Doing this again and again generates Schooley a tidy 10% to 15% annual profit, he says. That tops even the 10% long-term average return of stocks.
“You start to realize these are worth a lot of money,” he says. “It’s more of an investment.”
Author’s Advance Payment for Graphic Novel Seized by U.S. Government
December 30th, 2012Via: War Is Boring:
Tim Hamilton, artist of the Eisner-nominated adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, had his advance payment for the upcoming graphic novel ARMY OF GOD, a non-fiction telling of Joseph Kony’s activities in the Congo, seized by the OFAC under suspicion that the money was being laundering for a terrorist organization.
The graphic novel, written by journalist David Axe, was originally serialized on the Website Cartoon Movement, and is being published next year by Public Affairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.
Hamilton’s money was seized early in December 2012 when his agent attempted to wire the advance payment for the extra chapters that the artist illustrated for the graphic collection. When Hamilton’s agent contacted the bank to find out more, he was told that the party holding the funds was the federal wire fraud unit, which suspected that the creators were laundering funds for a terrorist organization.
Research Credit: alvinroasting
Safe Green Tea?
December 30th, 2012I spent some time trying to find out if it was possible to buy green tea from Japan that was definitely fallout free. It took a while, but I eventually found o-cha.com. They have a number of teas that have been tested for radiation and they provide the laboratory reports on the website.
I have no relationship with o-cha.com except that I have ordered tea from them.
U.S. Sailors Sue Japan Over Fukushima Lies
December 30th, 2012Well, unless we’re expected to assume that a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier isn’t equipped to measure radiation levels (which would be a totally absurd assumption), the plaintiffs should name the U.S. Navy in the lawsuit as well. Hint: Good luck.
Via: Courthouse News Service:
The Fukushima nuclear disaster exposed Navy rescue workers to dangerous levels of radiation, which the government-owned power plant covered up, eight U.S. sailors claim in court.
Eight crew members of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, whose home port is San Diego, sued the Tokyo Electric Power Co. in Federal Court.
They claim the utility company, “a wholly owned public benefit subsidiary of the government of Japan,” misrepresented radiation levels to lull the U.S. Navy “into a false sense of security.”
Cryptogon Readers Send Contributions and Sign Up for Hosting with BlueHost in December
December 30th, 2012Thank you.
Pookie $75
JC $20
KL $100
TM $15
JB $20
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Thanks also go out to the owner of literacybackpacks.com for signing up for hosting with BlueHost.
