Guatemalans Deliberately Infected with Syphilis by U.S. Researchers
August 30th, 2011This is definitely not news to anyone who has looked into medical atrocities, but I like to note these stories as they recur in mainstream sources.
See Columbia University Brain Imaging Center Routinely Injected Mental Patients with Drugs that Contained Potentially Dangerous Impurities for several references on atrocities related to human medical experimentation.
Via: Global Post:
U.S. government researchers deliberately infected Guatemalans with syphilis and gonorrhea, and knew they were committing ethical violations, a U.S. presidential panel has found.
The researchers infected hundreds of Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases as part of research in the 1940s to study the effects of penicillin. They did so without telling the Guatemalans that it was being done or that they were participants in a study, BBC reports.
The research is a “shameful piece of medical history,” Amy Gutmann, head of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, said in a statement.
“It is important that we accurately document this clearly unethical historical injustice. We do this to honor the victims.”
Of the about 5,500 Guatemalans involved in the research, some 1,300 were infected with a sexually transmitted disease, the commission found. Of those, about 700 received treatment. Eighty-three participants died by 1954.
“In the government-sponsored studies conducted in Guatemala between 1946 and 1948, doctors tried to infect prisoners, soldiers and mental patients by giving them prostitutes who were carrying the diseases or were infected by the researchers. The researchers also scraped sensitive parts of subjects’ anatomy to expose wounds to disease-causing bacteria, poured infectious pus into subjects’ eyes, and injected some victims’ spines,” the Washington Post reports.
Scientists Sequence Black Death Bacteria DNA
August 30th, 2011Via: Ars Technica:
The bacteria behind the Black Death has a very unusual history. Its ancestor is an unassuming soil bacterium and the current strains of Yersinia pestis still infects thousands of people annually, but no longer cause the suite of horrifying symptoms associated with the medieval plagues. The radical differences between the two versions, in fact, led some to suggest that we have been blaming the wrong bacteria. Now, researchers have obtained DNA from some of London’s plague victims and confirmed that Y. pestis appears to be to blame. But the sequences also suggest that the strains of bacteria we see today may be different from the ones that rampaged through Europe.
What transformed soil bacteria into a human pathogen? One key event seems to have been the fact that it picked up a plasmid, a short, circular piece of DNA that can be copied separately from the rest of the organism’s DNA. In the case of Y. pestis, that plasmid contained three key genes: two that helped it kill off competing bacteria, and a third that helped it manipulate the human blood clotting system. So, when presented with the opportunity to obtain the DNA of plague victims, this is the DNA the authors decided to target.
The DNA came from 53 bones and 46 teeth from the East Smithfield, a mass burial site in London that dates to the first appearance of the Black Death in Europe, from 1347-1351. This is a key resource, since the different waves of plague that swept through Europe had somewhat different behavior, suggesting that Y. pestis was already adapting to its human hosts. To serve as controls, the authors obtained bones from a set of 10 human remains that predate the appearance of the plague.
Google Explores +1 Button to Influence Search Results
August 30th, 2011I’ll re-post my commentary on this from 2008: Google Planning to Enable Mob Rule Ratings for Search Results. Fill it to the rim, with grim:
Get Ready for New and Improved Google Results: Now Powered by the Zombie Consumer Death Cult!
I have to make jokes because this is very, very grim. If you want to understand what I mean, just spend some time using Reddit without filters.
The imbeciles found their way into the machine, and they’re clicking up and down arrows, deciding what’s on top, and what disappears. Google has now implemented a similar system and they want to use that data to influence search results.
* holding head in hands *
Via: Tekgoblin:
Google has proposed using data from its +1 button to help re-order search results and fight web spam. This move would take the entire search engine into the social arena.
Monsanto ‘Technology’ Breeding Superweeds and Pesticide Resistant Root Worms
August 30th, 2011This week is Environmental Terrorist Organizations.
Via: Mother Jones:
Over the past decade and a half, as Monsanto built up its globe-spanning, multi-billion-dollar genetically modified seed empire, it made two major pitches to farmers.
The first involved weeds. Leave the weed management to us, Monsanto insisted. We’ve engineered plants that can survive our very own herbicide. Just pay up for our patented, premium-priced seeds, spray your fields with our Roundup herbicide whenever the fancy strikes, and—voilà!—no more weeds.
The second involved crop-eating insects. We’ve isolated the toxic gene of a commonly used bacterial pesticide called Bt, Monsanto announced, and spliced it directly into crops. Along with corn and soy, you will literally be growing the pesticide that protects them. Plant our seeds, and watch your crops thrive while their pests shrivel and die.
Monsanto focused its technology on three widely planted, highly subsidized crops: corn, soy, and cotton. Large-scale farmers of these commodities, always operating on razor-thin profit margins, lunged at the chance to streamline their operations by essentially outsourcing their pest management to Monsanto. And so Monsanto’s high-tech crops essentially took over the corn/soy- and cotton-growing regions of the country.
But now the pitches are wearing thin. Dumping a single herbicide onto millions of acres of farmland has, predictably enough, given rise to weeds resistant to that herbicide. Such “superweeds” are now galloping through cotton and corn country, forcing farmers to resort to highly toxic herbicide cocktails and even hand-weeding. More than 11 million acres are infested with Roundup-resistant weeds, up from 2.4 million acres in 2007, reckons Penn State University weed expert David Mortensen.
And now insects are developing resistance to Monsanto’s insecticide-infused crops, reports the Wall Street Journal. Fields planted in Monsanto’s Bt corn in some areas of the Midwest are showing damage from the corn rootworm—the very species targeted by Monsanto’s engineered trait. An Iowa State University scientist has conclusively identified Bt-resistant root worms in four Iowa fields, the Journal reports.
Research Credit: minerva
Japan: Nuclear Plant Worker Dies of Acute Leukemia
August 30th, 2011Mmm hmm.
Via: Kyodo:
A worker in his 40s who had been engaged in recovery work at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has died of acute leukemia, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Tuesday.
Tokyo Electric said the worker’s death is not linked with his work at the plant, citing results of medical examination by doctors.
Wikileaks Suffers a Major Leak
August 30th, 2011Via: Inquirer:
WHISTLEBLOWING WEB SITE Wikileaks has suffered a major setback with a leak of fully unredacted US State Department cables including sources’ details surfacing online, thanks to a blunder by its founder, Julian Assange.
The leak occurred sometime after Assange shared the password of an encrypted ‘insurance’ file stored online with a contact believed to have been trustworthy. This individual then used the password to decrypt the collection of 250,000 US diplomatic cables, which include details that could identify US State Department sources, according to the German newspaper Der Spiegel.
Wikileaks had previously released many of the cables, but it redacted them to omit sensitive information including the names of informants. However, an encrypted file containing the cables with no censorship was stored online, which meant that all that was needed was the encryption key, which Assange willingly gave to trusted individuals.
Wikileaks was heavily criticised by the US government for potentially putting the lives of informants and agents at risk with the publication of the cables last year, but Assange was able to defend its leaks by showing that such potentially damaging information was being redacted from the leaks. Now that the decrypted cables are out in the wild, however, many informants lives could be in danger, a serious matter that will likely change how many view the whistleblowing web site.
It’s not clear who the person behind the leak is, but it’s likely that Assange might be aware. The problem is that this cock-up started long before the password was obtained or used, because the unredacted cables should not have been put online in the first place, even in encrypted form. Allegedly Assange accidentally uploaded them in a cache of old materials, but that’s a mistake that seems amateurish for someone with such technical competence and organisational responsibilities.
Wikileaks is now rushing to release the cables in redacted form before the unredacted versions get into too many hands, but now that they’re out in the wild there’s little Assange or Wikileaks can do to prevent them from being shared with all and sundry, with no concern for the safety of US sources cited in the cables.
Appeals Court to Weigh NSA Dragnet Surveillance
August 30th, 2011Via: Wired:
Whether the federal government and the nation’s telecommunication companies can be held accountable for allegedly funneling every American’s electronic communication to the National Security Agency without warrants is the subject of oral arguments scheduled for a federal appeals court Wednesday.
At issue is a Jan. 31, 2006 lawsuit, and others that followed, alleging violations of the Fourth Amendment right to be free from warrantless searches and seizures. The cases, about three dozen which will be consolidated into two oral arguments, have been thrown out of court on a variety of grounds, chiefly the government’s claim that the lawsuits would expose state secrets, and a 2008 law that immunized the nation’s telcos from such lawsuits.
Nearly six years later, the merits of the lawsuits have never been addressed. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which brought the leading cases, appealed, and contends that the litigation should never have been dismissed.
“As far as we know the surveillance is ongoing,” says Cindy Cohn, the EFF’s legal director, who will be arguing before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle. “I think it is tremendously important that Americans not be subject to dragnet surveillance by the government. I think the Fourth Amendment, the right to privacy, is important for this country.”
Threat Level will cover the arguments from the courtroom Wednesday afternoon. The hearing is expected to begin at 2:00 p.m. and last at least two hours.
The Obama administration is set to urge the court to let stand the lower-court decisions dismissing the lawsuits. What’s more, the government contends, litigation against the government and the telcos must die because it threatens to expose government secrets and undermine national security.
“Congress made a legislative policy judgment that, if litigation of this kind were permitted to proceed, firms that may have assisted the nation at a critical time would be improperly burdened and sensitive classified information might be improperly disclosed,” Thomas Bondy, a Justice Department attorney, told the appeals panel in a court brief.
The EFF’s allegations are based in part on internal AT&T documents allegedly outlining secret rooms in AT&T offices that route internet traffic to the NSA. Every major telecom carrier in the United States is now named in at least one of the surveillance lawsuits for allegedly cooperating with the government’s warrantless surveillance program.
The Bush administration, and now the Obama administration, have neither admitted nor denied the allegations. Instead, they have declared the issue a state secret — one that would undermine the nation’s national security if exposed.
Related: Mark Klein
Norwegian Police Conducted Drill for ‘Practically Identical Scenario’ Right Before Utoya Attack
August 29th, 2011Update: English Translation
J, a Danish Cryptogon reader, with family connections to Norway, kindly sent this translation. He says that native Norwegian speakers may find issues with it. Thank you, J, we appreciate your effort.
—
//Trained for Utøya scenario July 22
Only hours before Anders Behring Breivik began shooting children on Utøya, the
police emergency squad concluded an exercise where they practiced an almost
identical situation.
Ray: – The police were interested in British cells
The trial of Behring Breivik might be conducted in the Oslo Courthouse
The police wanted to sell the boat that had experienced engine failure en route to
Utøya
Four days in advance, and also the same Friday the attack was carried out, the
police special unit trained on an ongoing terror campaign that was approximately
equal to the situation that hours later, met the 22 police officers within the
emergency squad on Utøya.
//Aftenposten have confirmation from key sources in the Oslo police management that
the exercise was terminated at 3PM that very Friday.
All officers from the emergency squad that participated in the government quarter
after the car bomb and later came ashore on Utøya, arresting Anders Behring Breivik,
had earlier that same day and in the days ahead participated in training on an
identical scenario.
The police barely completed the exercise, before what they had been training for,
became reality.
As far as Aftenposten has been informed, the training transcended directly into what
the policed then faced in the Tyrifjord that very day; a mobile terror attack, in
which one or more perpetrators only goal was to shoot as many people as possible and
then shoot the police when they arrived.
– It was very close to facit. Chance would have it that way, says a key police
source, who declined to quoted by name.
//Massacre
The police did not train on a scenario including as many victims as they met on Utøya.
The police special unit trains continuously. But every quarter, they have “sections”
where they train for different types of scenarios.
These are different scenarios police envisions might occur where the emergency squad
must be inserted. There may be actions indoors, in cities or outside in other
environments.
According to police, this is a scenario they train on several times a year and has
trained for, for several years, especially after specific events in other countries.
//26 minutes
Only 26 minutes after the emergency squad´s training had concluded, the car bomb
went off in the government quarter. The Emergency Squad arrived early on the scene.
At 3.30PM, the staff at the Oslo police learned about a shooting at Utøya. They put
so much trust in the the message, that the emergency squad entered the cars, already
positioned in the government quarter and cars that came from the police station at
Grønland in Oslo.
On the way they had problems contacting the North Buskerud Police District, but at
6.02PM, six minutes before they arrived, they established contact and agreed to meet
at Storøya.
Once there, seven people from the emergency squad and three police officers from
Nordre Buskerud Police District boarded a 4.9 meter long rubber dinghy. This was so
heavily loaded that it began taking in water. The police were assisted by a civilian
boat and sailed towards Utøya.
—End Update—
If anyone from Norway would like to send in a reliable English translation of this Aftenposten piece, I’d appreciate it.
Via: Northern Trumpet:
Just hours before Anders Behring Breivik launched his deadly attack at a political summer camp on Utoya island on July 22, police had conducted a drill for a “practically identical scenario”, Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reports.
Sources within the top level management of the police in Oslo have confirmed to Aftenposten that the drill finished at 15:00 that same Friday. The bomb attributed to Breivik went off only 26 minutes after the anti-terror drill finished, according to officials.
According to Aftenposten all of the officers from the anti-terror unit who took part in the action and arrest of Breivik had a full week training on a mobile terrorist attack scenario in which one or more perpetrators only goal is to shoot as many people as possible and then shoot the police when they arrive.
“Chance would have it that way”, a key police source who wishes to remain anonymous, told Aftenposten.
Related: Google Translation of Aftenposten Article
The Yearly Bill for The Pentagon’s No-Bid Contracts: $140 Billion
August 29th, 2011Mission Accomplished.
Via: Wired:
The bomb fighting contract is a small example of a problem that’s been exacerbated by ten years of war: awarding contracts without competition. While Pentagon statistics say the overall level of competition has remained steady during the past decade, publicly available data show that Defense Department dollars flowing into non-competitive contracts have almost tripled since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. According to analysis by the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News, the value of Pentagon contracts awarded without competition topped $140 billion in 2010, up from $50 billion in 2001. That’s almost 40 percent of all Pentagon contract dollars.
Battle for the California Desert: Why is the Government Driving Folks off Their Land?
August 29th, 2011No mortgage: Check.
Not paying utility companies: Check.
Agenda 21?
In any event, this definitely isn’t a new phenomenon. Twenty years ago, I knew people who were playing cat and mouse with code enforcement nonsense way, way further out in that bone dry wasteland than Antelope Valley, which is a built-up metropolis compared to what that desert becomes further to the east.
Via: Reason.tv:
The Antelope Valley is a vast patch of desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, and a segment of the few rugged individualists who live out there increasingly are finding themselves the targets of armed raids from local code enforcement agents, who’ve assembled into task forces called Nuisance Abatement Teams (NATs).
The plight of the Valley’s desert dwellers made regional headlines when county officials ordered the destruction of Phonehenge: a towering, colorful castle constructed out of telephone poles by retired phone technician Kim Fahey. Fahey was imprisoned and charged with several misdemeanors.
But Fahey is just one of many who’ve been targeted by the NATs, which were assembled at the request of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich in 2006. LA Weekly reporter Mars Melnicoff wrote an in-depth article in which she exposed the county’s tactic of badgering residents with minor, but costly, code violations until they face little choice but to vacate the land altogether.
“They’re picking on the the people who are the most defenseless and have the least resources,” says Melnicoff.
