U.S. Navy Conceals Nuclear Weapons Production in California
March 4th, 2010I thought Pantex was the only facility where this type of work was done. If anyone is in a position to call BS on this Indymedia piece, let me know.
Via: Indymedia:
A U.S. nuclear weapons assembly plant in California is off limits to any kind of photography, information gathering, or reporting. Local residents are unaware of the plant’s existence and its potential radiological hazards.
The United States Navy and Lockheed Martin have been concealing the assembly and movement of nuclear warheads in the densely populated San Francisco Bay Area for decades… It is internally identified as a Naval Industrial Reserve Ordnance Plant (NIROP), one of several across the country.
Inside a single sprawling industrial building of approximately 100,000 square feet at the corner of 5th Avenue and Mathilda Avenue in Sunnyvale, California individual W88 nuclear warheads are assembled for the Trident II (D5) submarine-launched missile. Labeled externally by Lockheed Martin’s designation simply as Building 181, the facility contains loading docks shielded from view from streets for trucks to load and unload their sensitive cargoes away from the eyes of the public or even from aircraft and reconnaissance satellites. Once loaded onto unmarked trucks, often under cover of darkness, the warheads may be moved to or from any of a number of nuclear weapons laboratories around the country or to the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Support Base in Georgia, just north of Jacksonville, Florida. That is where they are loaded onto Trident II missiles at the submarines’ home base.
…
Aerial photographs reveal the below-ground ramps along the western wall and near the south eastern corner of Building 181. From ground level, the declining ramps are concealed by privacy slats in the chain link security fence. Nowhere else does the chain link perimeter fence contain privacy slats, indicating that there was a deliberate decision to specifically conceal the below-ground ramps and the loading docks that they lead to.
Meanwhile, numerous high-resolution video cameras track anyone who attempts to look too closely at Building 181, at any activity inside the perimeter fence, or even anyone approaching the perimeter fence from the public streets.
Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, which has operated the property continuously since acquiring it, apparently sold the property to the U.S. Navy at the latter’s request on December 27, 1957. With the intent to use the building for the engineering and assembly of advanced nuclear warheads, the Navy deemed it necessary to buy the property in order to enforce provisions of U.S. Code Title 18 applicable only to U.S. government property to prevent photography and data collection about the facility. Confounding measures were also taken, such as deliberately mislabeling the street address as “1233 North Mathilda” when the actual recorded street address is 1235 North Mathilda Avenue. Nevertheless, the change in ownership did not alter Lockheed Martin’s exclusive custody of the property and use of its facilities.
Research Credit: ottilie
Microsoft Windows 7 / Vista Advanced Forensics Guides for Law Enforcement
March 4th, 2010Via: Public Intelligence:
Law Enforcement Sensitive
Also On: Cryptome
Original Tenant of Building Allegedly Attacked by Joe Stack was Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation
March 3rd, 2010Updating the Joe Stack post:
UPDATE: Original Tenant of Building Allegedly Attacked by Joe Stack was Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation
The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation just happened to be Bobby Ray Inman, former Director of the National Security Agency and former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The former Director of the NSA headed a company that leased space in the Echelon Office Park… It’s a nice touch.
Don’t look at me. I just work here.
Again, thanks to Ofgoatsandmen for the tip.
Via: Statesman:
When Girard Kinney learned Thursday morning that a small plane had flown into the Echelon I office building, he knew the building well.
Kinney, an architect, helped design the building at 9430 Research Blvd. some 30 years ago. Built in 1983, the four-story Echelon I was the first of four buildings in the Echelon Office Park.
The original tenant was one of Austin’s first high-tech firms, the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corp. research consortium, Kinney said.
The 64,000-square-foot building, which has an exterior clad in black glass and a two-story atrium, won several design awards, Kinney said.
The Internal Revenue Service now occupies much of the building, with some businesses on the first floor, as well as some unoccupied space.
The building is nearly 88 percent leased, according to CoStar, a commercial real estate data provider.
—End Update—
Greenhouse Gas Taxes to Push Gasoline to $7 a Gallon?
March 3rd, 2010Via: New York Times:
To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.
To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving must simply increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
New Ghost Towns: Industrial Communities Teeter On The Edge
March 3rd, 2010Via: USA Today:
Whether it’s textiles in the Carolinas, paper in New England or steel in the Midwest, most industrial cities and mill towns “are on pins and needles,” says Donald Schunk, an economist at Coastal Carolina University. “Day to day, week to week, any manufacturing facility seems vulnerable. People don’t know if they’ll be there.”
Breathtaking Devastation: Chile, Three Days Later
March 3rd, 2010Via: Boston Globe Big Picture Gallery:
Three days after one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded struck the South American nation of Chile, the massive extent of the damage is becoming clearer, and the number of known victims has climbed to 723 deaths so far, many thousands still missing, and nearly 2 million displaced. World governments made immediate pledges of aid after Chilean President Michelle Bachelet requested mobile bridges, field hospitals, satellite phones, electrical generators, disaster assessment teams, water purification systems, field kitchens and restaurants, UN officials said. Collected here are recent photos from areas in Chile damaged by Saturday’s 8.8-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami.
European Court Set to Give Public Figures Chance to Gag Press on Damaging Stories
March 2nd, 2010Via: Independent:
It could spell the end of the kiss and tell: public figures might, within 18 months, have the power to stifle bad news stories before they are published, a senior lawyer has warned.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is currently fast-tracking a landmark case, brought by Max Mosley, to tighten UK privacy laws. Mark Stephens, a lawyer acting for a group of media and free speech organisations opposing Mr Mosley in court, believes that the extraordinary pace with which it is proceeding suggests that the judges are about to rule in the former Formula One boss’s favour.
That would mean a change in the law that would force the press to contact anyone that they are intending to run a story about to warn them if it could potentially breach their privacy, giving public figures a chance to gag newspapers before publication.
Research Credit: J
Cops & Judges Caught Using Secret Codes On Tickets
March 2nd, 2010This one is originally from Federal Jack, but I can’t find it over there.
Via: Black Listed News:
Wall Street Journal Piece Encourages Jingle Mail
March 2nd, 2010Via: Wall Street Journal:
Millions of Americans are now deeply underwater on their mortgage. If you’re among them, you need to stop living in a dream world and give serious thought to walking away from the debt.
No, you shouldn’t feel bad about it, and you shouldn’t feel guilty. The lenders would do the same to you—in a heartbeat. You need to put yourself and your family’s finances first.
How widespread is this? More than 11 million families are in “negative equity”—that is, they owe more on their home than it is worth—according to a report out this week by FirstAmerican Core Logic, a real-estate data firm. That’s a quarter of all families with mortgages. And for more than five million of those borrowers, the crisis is extreme: They are more than 25% underwater—the equivalent of having a $100,000 loan on a property now worth just $75,000 or less. That’s true for a fifth of mortgage holders in California, nearly a third in Florida and an incredible 50% in Nevada.
Are you in this situation? Are you still battling to pay the bills each month, even when it may make little financial sense to do so?
It’s time for some tough talk.
Stop trying to chase your lost equity. That money is gone. Don’t think like the gambler who blows more and more cash trying to win back his losses. That’s how a lot of people turn a small loss into a big one.
And do the math. Even if you hope the real estate market is near the bottom—it’s possible, but by no means certain—it may still take years to see any meaningful recovery. If you are 25% underwater, your home will have to rise by 33% just to get you back to even.
Is that likely? And over what time period? Even if home prices rose by 5% a year from here, that would still take six years. And during that time you could instead be building fresh savings elsewhere.
If you are reluctant to give up on “your” home, realize that it isn’t “yours.” If you are in negative equity, it’s the bank’s home. You’re just renting it. And right now you may be paying way above market rates. You need to be ruthless about your cash flow.
Are you worried about the legal consequences of walking away? Certainly, you should check with a lawyer before doing anything, but the consequences will probably be more limited than you think.
GERMAN GOLD FOUNDRY APPARENTLY DISCOVERED A TUNGSTEN FILLED GOLD BAR THAT WAS DUE FOR MELT
March 2nd, 2010Why not name the bank that it came from?
The English translation on the ProSieben video is very rough accurate. Cryptogon has many readers in Germany. I think we would all appreciate a high confidence German to English translation of what is being said in the video.
Note that this is not a London Good Delivery bar. It’s too small. The minimum weight of a London Good Delivery gold bar is, “350 troy ounces (approximately 10.9 kilograms).” The tungsten/gold bar shown in the video is 500 grams.
Update: Confirmation of Statements Made in Video
Felix, of fefe.de, sent the following:
The translation in the video is accurate, but it’s only the white subtitles, the yellow ones are apparently from the site who uploaded the video.
There is not much content there. It is a fluff piece about the company that deals with the gold and the CEO (?) shares this anecdote about how one bank bought this gold bar that was filled with tungsten and one of his guys detected it on a hunch (?!?). They verified by cutting it open.
You’d think that they have more sophisticated measuring equipment than hunches of their workers.
They don’t mention when this bar was found, could have been a long time ago.
—End Update—
Via: ZeroHedge:
German TV station ProSieben finds what appears to be some evocative proof of gold counterfeiting, in the form of tungsten gold substitutes coming to the W.C.Heraeus foundry, which is the world’s largest privately-owned precious metals refiner and fabricator, located in Hanau, Germany. The foundry has isolated at least one 500-gram tungsten bar due for melting, originating from a (so far) unnamed bank, which as the head of the foundry stated made the unpleasant discovery that “not all the glitters is gold.”
Research Credit: uranian
