Imposter Sits in On Aussie Defense Meetings
March 16th, 2007This is hilarious, but it’s also a good lesson in social engineering.
Via: Yahoo / Reuters:
A truck driver who was once jailed for armed robbery posed as an army officer, mixed with the top brass and talked his way into high-level security meetings, an Australian court has been told.
Peter Bennett, 54, started his 10-month fantasy military career in September 2005 when he wore formal military dress to gain entry to an air force base dinner, where he chatted to Australia’s air force chief, Air Vice-Marshal Geoffrey Shepherd.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Confession
March 16th, 2007A few readers submitted stories about the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confession antics. Yes, I saw it. No I didn’t post about it. Why? Sometimes, I just can’t force myself to take the nonsense seriously enough formulate a response, or even do a copy-paste post.
This, however, is the best commentary I’ve seen yet on this absurd episode.
Via: Electric Monkey Pants Intergalactic News Network:
This is an Electric Monkey Pants Intergalactic News Network special report!
Porn-star Ron Jeremy has confessed to masterminding the attacks of September 11, 2001 along with his long-lost brother Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. “We did it,” Ron Jeremy wrote in his confession, calling the mysterious collapse of the towers “the money shot.”
Also confessing was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (or “KSM” as he is known to lazy Americans). KSM had long eluded capture by the Americans by disguising himself as a grizzly bear. Later it was revealed that it wasn’t a disguise; he is just really, really hairy. He twice escaped captivity by pretending to be a dog with rabies, but was recaptured while picking nits and lice out of his fur.
Calling themselves the Hairy Brothers of Destruction, Mr. Jeremy and KSM confessed to a long list of crimes against humanity.
UK: Jails Inside Malls, Supermarkets for Short-Term Confinement, DNA Collection
March 15th, 2007Via: Times Online:
Short-term “jails†are planned for supermarkets and town centres to deal with yobs and shoplifters under Home Office proposals to ease the burden on police. Discussions have already started about building a “retail jail†inside the Selfridges store in Oxford Street, London.
Suspects would be held for up to four hours in a small room with a clear plastic front so they were visible to custody officers at all times during their detention.
Ministers are also proposing a huge expansion of police powers to take fingerprints, DNA and other samples from offenders and store them on national databases. People caught speeding, failing to wear a seat belt, allowing their dog to foul the footpath and dropping litter could be forced to give fingerprints or DNA to police for checking against other databases.
The Home Office proposals for a network of “short-term holding facilities†in shopping malls and high streets aim to help police to process high-volume crimes such as shoplifting. The move to speed up the handling of suspects and save money was outlined in a consultation paper on rules to govern how suspects are treated by police.
The paper also suggests another radical change to existing rules by allowing police to question suspects after they have been charged.
The proposal for short-term holding facilities is intended to facilitate cases where suspects’ identity cannot readily be confirmed.
“A potential solution in dealing with high-volume offending is to enable the police to make use of short-term holding facilities located in shopping centres and town centres,†the paper said.
The facilities would be secure but would not be the same as standard cell design, it added.
“Persons detained would be subject to detention to a maximum period of four hours to enable fingerprinting, photographing and DNA sampling,†the paper, Modernising Police Powers, said.
“The aim would be to locate the short-term holding facility in busy areas to allow quick access and processing of suspects to enable the officer to resume operational duties as quickly as possible,†it added.
As well as its plan for Selfridges, the Metropolitan Police is understood to be interested in placing units in other stores and is planning custody units in every London borough.
Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army
March 14th, 2007Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill
Via: Amazon:
From Publishers Weekly
Scahill, a regular contributor to the Nation, offers a hard-left perspective on Blackwater USA, the self-described private military contractor and security firm. It owes its existence, he shows, to the post–Cold War drawdown of U.S. armed forces, its prosperity to the post-9/11 overextension of those forces and its notoriety to a growing reputation as a mercenary outfit, willing to break the constraints on military systems responsible to state authority. Scahill describes Blackwater’s expansion, from an early emphasis on administrative and training functions to what amounts to a combat role as an internal security force in Iraq. He cites company representatives who say Blackwater’s capacities can readily be expanded to supplying brigade-sized forces for humanitarian purposes, peacekeeping and low-level conflict. While emphasizing the possibility of an “adventurous President” employing Blackwater’s mercenaries covertly, Scahill underestimates the effect of publicity on the deniability he sees as central to such scenarios. Arguably, he also dismisses too lightly Blackwater’s growing self-image as the respectable heir to a long and honorable tradition of contract soldiering. Ultimately, Blackwater and its less familiar counterparts thrive not because of a neoconservative conspiracy against democracy, as Scahill claims, but because they provide relatively low-cost alternatives in high-budget environments and flexibility at a time when war is increasingly protean.
Book Description
Meet BLACKWATER USA, the world’s most secretive and powerful mercenary firm. Based in the wilderness of North Carolina, it is the fastest-growing private army on the planet with forces capable of carrying out regime change throughout the world. Blackwater protects the top US officials in Iraq and yet we know almost nothing about the firm’s quasi-military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and inside the US. Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire ex- Navy Seal named Erik Prince, the scion of a wealthy conservative family that bankrolls far-right-wing causes.
Blackwater is the dark story of the rise of a powerful mercenary army, ranging from the blood-soaked streets of Fallujah to rooftop firefights in Najaf to the hurricane-ravaged US gulf to Washington DC, where Blackwater executives are hailed as new heroes in the war on terror. This is an extraordinary exposé by one of America’s most exciting young radical journalists.
Cryptogon Reader Contributes $20
March 14th, 2007Thanks, MW, for your generous support over the years.
DARPA Grant Recipient: “We Can De-Animate People”
March 13th, 2007Paging Dr. Mengele… Dr. Josef Mengele, please pick up a white courtesy phone.
Via: Wired:
Darpa’s human-enhancement programs were looking promising. In February 2002, Darpa asked Congress for a new, $78 million-per-year push for research including “the development of biochemical materials for enhancement of performance.†That was on top of $90 million to explore how “biological systems … adapt to wide extremes.†The human being, a Darpa fact file proclaimed in April 2002, “is becoming the weakest link in Defense systems.†Strengthening that chain meant “sustaining and augmenting human performance,†as well as “enabling new human capabilities.†Darpa was going to figure out how to build a better soldier.
Related: Chimeras
Related: Zombie Dogs Saving Lives
Related: Real Frankensteins
Related: The DNA So Dangerous it Does Not Exist
Related: DARPA: Monsters Inc
Related: “Brain” in Dish Flies Simulated Fighter Jet
Tears and Praise for Champion of the Green Movement: Walmart
March 13th, 2007I’ve written, repeatedly, that things were going to get weirder than any of us could imagine. Just how weird, exactly?
In 2005, I wrote:
Walmart built its empire by destroying the planet and turning human beings into nutrient agar… And now, Walmart as posterchild of the green revolution?… Watch the idiot Left slobber all over this.
Here you go, watch the idiot Left, greenwashing, enemy collaborator, boot licking, limousine liberals praise Walmart for saving the planet.
I’m getting sick of this issue. I called this years ago. I’ve been right. Enough. (Now I’ll get Becky to duct tape my hands to the desk so I can’t write any more posts about fake environmentalism and clean green fascism.)
Via: Business Week:
In recent years, the TED conference has gained a reputation for blissfully big ideas buoyed by unrelenting optimism. So few conference goers were prepared for venture capitalist John Doerr to choke up with emotion as he kicked off the second day of talks on Mar. 9.
“I’m scared,” he told the audience, looking down at his 15-year-old daughter in the front row. “I don’t think we’re going to make it.”
Doerr issued a passionate call to action for everyone to make environmental concerns their “next big thing.” As one of several positive examples, he praised Wal-Mart for making great moves to address what he called the three largest energy drains in business—heating and cooling systems, lighting, and refrigeration. The giant’s initiative forced its 60,000 suppliers to focus on environmental issues as well, he said.
UK: Raise Interest Rates or Face Economic Disaster
March 13th, 2007Via: Daily Mail:
Interest rates need to go above eight per cent to control booming house prices, a leading economist has warned.
Martin Weale said that unless the property market is restrained it will suffer a crash, devastating those who look upon their home as their pension.
He spoke out as official figures revealed that average prices are rising by more than £4,100 a month. If they kept up this pace, they would leap by almost £50,000 this year, more than double the average worker’s salary.
Mr Weale is director of the long-established National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which advises both the Treasury and the Bank of England. He believes the property market is a “bubble” which is turning into an economic “disaster”.
AT&T: Spying Too Secret for Court
March 13th, 2007Via: Wired:
AT&T told an appeals court in a written brief Monday that the case against it for allegedly helping the government spy on its customers should be thrown out, because it cannot defend itself — even by showing a signed order from the government — without endangering national security.
A government brief filed simultaneously backed AT&T’s claims and said a lower court judge had exceeded his authority by not dismissing the suit outright.
Because plaintiffs’ entire action rests upon alleged secret espionage activities, including an alleged secret espionage relationship between AT&T and the Government concerning the alleged activities, this suit must be dismissed now as a matter of law,” the government argued in its brief.
Neuroscientists Induce Selective Amnesia in Rats
March 13th, 2007Via: Nature:
A single, specific memory has been wiped from the brains of rats, leaving other recollections intact.
…
The brain secures memories by transferring them from short-term to long-term storage, through a process called reconsolidation. It has been shown before that this process can be interrupted with drugs. But Joseph LeDoux of the Center for Neural Science at New York University and his colleagues wanted to know how specific this interference was: could the transfer of one specific memory be meddled with without affecting others?
“Our concern was: would you do something really massive to their memory network?” says LeDoux.
Scary music
To find out, they trained rats to fear two different musical tones, by playing them at the same time as giving the rats an electric shock. Then, they gave half the rats a drug known to cause limited amnesia (U0126, which is not approved for use in people), and reminded all the animals, half of which were still under the influence of the drug, of one of their fearful memories by replaying just one of the tones.
When they tested the rats with both tones a day later, untreated animals were still fearful of both sounds, as if they expected a shock. But those treated with the drug were no longer afraid of the tone they had been reminded of under treatment. The process of re-arousing the rats’ memory of being shocked with the one tone while they were drugged had wiped out that memory completely, while leaving their memory of the second tone intact.
LeDoux’s team also confirms the idea that a part of the brain called the amygdala is central to this process – communication between neurons in this part of the brain usually increases when a fearful memory forms, but it decreases in the treated rats. This shows that the fearful memory is actually deleted, rather than simply breaking the link between the memory and a fearful response.
