U.S. RAIDS IRANIAN CONSULATE IN IRAQ
January 11th, 2007In other words, the U.S. just attacked Iran.
Via: BBC:
US forces have stormed an Iranian consulate in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil and seized five members of staff.
The troops raided the building at about 0300, taking away computers and papers, according to Kurdish media and senior local officials.
The US military had no immediate comment on the raid, which comes amid high tension between Iran and the US.
The Bush administration accuses Iran of helping fuel violence in Iraq, as well as trying to develop nuclear weapons.
U.S. Will Engage Syria and Iran
January 11th, 2007Can anyone see how this will not result in World War III?
Via: BBC:
Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity – and stabilizing the region in the face of the extremist challenge.
This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq.
Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops.
We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria.
And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.
Venezuelan Stock Market and Currency Collapse
January 11th, 2007The wheels are coming off the cart. The New World Order is going to look like every-man-for-himself for the foreseeable future. HA! Chávez should demand payment for oil in gold, and then back a new currency with that gold. Can you imagine how fast the U.S. bombers would be scrambled?
Via: Times Online:
Venezuela’s stock market tumbled almost 19 per cent and its currency lost a third of its value in unofficial trading as investors took fright at President Chávez’s plans to nationalise utilities as part of his “Socialist revolutionâ€.
Apple iPhone Development: Deception Tactics Used to Maintain Secrecy and Control
January 11th, 2007I looked at the news about Apple’s new iPhone and felt a bit like Gollum. I felt the evil pull of that thing reaching out to me. I closed the browser window and went on to something else. Later in the afternoon, I was at a house with a TV and saw a news piece about the iPhone. Thousands of nerds were gathered around an illuminated obelisk thing, trying to catch a glimpse of the iPhone, taking digital pictures of it, mouths hanging open. It was like a scene out of Dawn of the Dead.
It just doesn’t appear that we can wield this stuff in any good way. If you doubt it, look at what the creators of the iPhone have become! Working at Apple seems eerily similar to working for the evil three letter agencies and their cutouts. It’s pure fascism.
Via: CNN:
Even so, Apple didn’t show Cingular the final iPhone prototype until just weeks before this week’s debut. In some cases, Apple crafted bogus handset prototypes to show not just to Cingular executives, but also to Apple’s own workers.
…
Pillow talk was a challenge at the other end of the spectrum. Keeping secrets from loved ones is especially hard. Those stresses were amplified by the frantic race over the past half year to get the iPhone ready for launch. As Macworld approached, dinners were missed, kids were not tucked in properly, and family plans were disrupted, especially over the holidays. And for what? “Sorry, that’s classified” is not considered a satisfactory answer in many households when Mom or Dad misses the school play or the big wedding anniversary dinner.
Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of marketing and one of the few Apple executives involved with the project from the start, said he had to keep the iPhone development secret even from his wife and children. When he left home for the official unveiling yesterday, Schiller said, his son asked, “Dad, can you finally tell us now what you’ve been working on?” Jobs paused during the keynote to acknowledge the strain and sacrifices that the past months have brought not just for the employees who kept the secrets so well, but also for their families. “We couldn’t have done it without you,” he said, with obvious sincerity.
Related: Microsoft Vista Developed with Help from U.S. National Security Agency
Related: Reality Distortion Field
Ignorance of the Invisible Law Is no Excuse…
January 10th, 2007Via: Wonkette:
In our brave new era of Imperial Stormtroopers marching in the Rose Bowl Parade and people put in prison forever for no reason, it’s no surprise that the Supreme Court declined to get involved in the 9th Circuit’s refusal to reveal the secret invisible law that requires us to show I.D. at the airport.
The law may not even exist. Nobody’s saying! Gazillionaire libertarian John Gilmore sued to reveal the magical anti-law, and he’ll probably learn his lesson in some Syrian CIA prison where he’ll be tortured forever.
Did we already say Let Freedom Reign today?
Yoga: Gateway to Satan
January 10th, 2007Via: CBC:
A school program to fight childhood obesity that includes yoga is drawing complaints from some Christian parents in the Quesnel area in B.C.’s Cariboo region.
They say yoga is a religion, and shouldn’t be taught in public schools.
Chelsea Brears, who has two children in the school system, said her son was asked to do different poses and “to put his hands together.”
Brears, a Christian, said she doesn’t want her children exposed to another religion during class time.
“It’s not fair to take prayer out, and yet they’re allowing yoga, which is religion, in our schools.”
Local rancher Audrey Cummings doesn’t believe Christian children should be doing yoga at all.
“There’s God and there’s the devil, and the devil’s not a gentleman. If you give him any kind of an opening, he will take that.”
Idiocracy
January 10th, 2007Via: CinemaBlend:
Mike Judge’s first movie since 1999’s massive cult hit Office Space rolls out in eight cities this weekend, almost as an afterthought. Actually, afterthought isn’t the word. Idiocracy is being treated like a red-headed step-child. Fox is intentionally and inexplicably trying to kill it. Idiocracy arrives without a movie trailer or even an official poster. 20th Century Fox hasn’t bothered to let anyone review it, and in fact until about a week ago when some executive decided to change his mind, the movie wasn’t going to be released at all. Usually when a movie gets this kind of treatment it’s because it’s a piece of crap, but Idiocracy is one of the best movies of the year.
Judge is a brilliant satirist, and anyone who thought “Beavis and Butt-Head” was glorifying the stupidity of America’s teenagers probably shouldn’t bother seeing this. Or maybe you should, since this movie is aimed squarely at all of you.
Modern science fiction usually portrays the future world as a shiny utopia of science and advanced learning. Either that, or it’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland ravaged by science gone amok or man’s own arrogance. Idiocracy takes a look at where the world’s headed right now and says forget it. None of that’s going to happen, we’re just going to get really stupid.
More: Watch Clips from Idiocracy on YouTube
History Professor Thrown to the Ground, Arrested for Asking Cop for ID
January 10th, 2007Via: HNN:
On Thursday, just after noon, the Tufts historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto was arrested by Atlanta police as he crossed the middle of the street between the Hilton and Hyatt hotels. After being thrown on the ground and handcuffed, the former Oxford don was formally arrested, his hands cuffed behind his back. Several policemen pressed hard on his neck and chest, leaving the mild-mannered scholar, who’s never gotten so much as a parking ticket, bruised and in pain. He was then taken to the city detention center along with other accused felons and thrown into a filthy jail cell filled with prisoners. He remained incarcerated for eight hours. Officials demanded bail of over a thousand dollars. To come up up with the money Fernandez-Armesto, the author of nineteen books, had to make an arrangement with a bail bondsman. In court even the prosecutors seemed embarrassed by the incident, which got out of hand when Fernandez-Armesto requested to see the policeman’s identification (the policeman was wearing a bomber jacket; to Fernandez-Armesto, a foreigner unfamiliar with American culture, the officer did not look like an officer). The prosecutors asked the professor to plead nolo contendere. He refused, concerned that the stain on his record might put his green card status in jeopardy. Officials finally agreed to drop all charges.
Mexican Army Disarms Tijuana Police
January 9th, 2007That thing is D O W N. And it’s all happening within sight of the United States.
Via: TVNZ:
Local police patrolled without their guns in Mexico’s tough border city of Tijuana on Saturday after soldiers disarmed them to check if the weapons had been used in drug gang crimes.
In the latest stage of a national crackdown on drug-related violence, more than 4,000 soldiers, sailors, federal and state police this week poured into Tijuana, where some members of the poorly paid municipal police force are suspected of helping drug hitmen in a war between rival gangs.
The army confiscated the local police’s handguns and rifles on Thursday and Friday to run ballistics tests. Many of the 2,300 municipal cops briefly stayed away from work, but most were back on the streets by Saturday, minus their weapons.
“We feel unprotected,” said 32-year-old city police officer Juan Betancourt.
“This is our main tool,” he said, brushing a hand over his empty holster as he walked along the tawdry Avenida de la Revolucion, lined with dingy bars and strip clubs.
…
The Tijuana police force was under orders to call in support from armed federal and state police in case of an armed incident they could not handle without their guns.
Microsoft Vista Developed with Help from U.S. National Security Agency
January 9th, 2007What exactly did NSA do for Microsoft? Well, that can’t be disclosed…
Apple, Novell and other companies routinely request and get assistance from NSA…
I almost fell out of my chair after I read this one. I was mumbling things. My wife was asking, “What? What’s that, Honey? Microsoft, did what?”
Via: Washington Post, full text follows:
For Windows Vista Security, Microsoft Called in Pros
By Alec Klein and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 9, 2007; D01
When Microsoft introduces its long-awaited Windows Vista operating system this month, it will have an unlikely partner to thank for making its flagship product safe and secure for millions of computer users across the world: the National Security Agency.
For the first time, the giant software maker is acknowledging the help of the secretive agency, better known for eavesdropping on foreign officials and, more recently, U.S. citizens as part of the Bush administration’s effort to combat terrorism. The agency said it has helped in the development of the security of Microsoft’s new operating system — the brains of a computer — to protect it from worms, Trojan horses and other insidious computer attackers.
“Our intention is to help everyone with security,” Tony W. Sager, the NSA’s chief of vulnerability analysis and operations group, said yesterday.
The NSA’s impact may be felt widely. Windows commands more than 90 percent of the worldwide market share in desktop operating systems, and Vista, which is set to be released to consumers Jan. 30, is expected to be used by more than 600 million computer users by 2010, according to Al Gillen, an analyst at market research firm International Data.
Microsoft has not promoted the NSA’s contributions, mentioning on its Web site the agency’s role only at the end of its “Windows Vista Security Guide,” which states that the “guide is not intended for home users” but for information and security specialists.
The Redmond, Wash., software maker declined to be specific about the contributions the NSA made to secure the Windows operating system.
The NSA also declined to be specific but said it used two groups — a “red team” and a “blue team” — to test Vista’s security. The red team, for instance, posed as “the determined, technically competent adversary” to disrupt, corrupt or steal information. “They pretend to be bad guys,” Sager said. The blue team helped Defense Department system administrators with Vista’s configuration .
Microsoft said this is not the first time it has sought help from the NSA. For about four years, Microsoft has tapped the spy agency for security expertise in reviewing its operating systems, including the Windows XP consumer version and the Windows Server 2003 for corporate customers.
With hundreds of thousands of Defense Department employees using Microsoft’s software, the NSA realizes that it’s in its own interest to make the product as secure as possible. “It’s partly a recognition that this is a commercial world,” Sager said. “Our customers have spoken.”
Microsoft also has sought the security expertise of other U.S. government and international entities, including NATO. “I cannot mention any of the other international agencies,” said Donald R. Armstrong, senior program manager of Microsoft’s government security program, citing the wishes of those agencies to remain anonymous.
Microsoft’s concerns extend beyond the welfare of its software when it seeks the security expertise of government agencies. “When you get into an environment where a Microsoft product is used in a battlefield situation or a government situation where if a system is compromised, identities could be found out,” and it could be a matter of life and death, Armstrong said.
Other software makers have turned to government agencies for security advice, including Apple, which makes the Mac OS X operating system. “We work with a number of U.S. government agencies on Mac OS X security and collaborated with the NSA on the Mac OS X security configuration guide,” said Apple spokesman Anuj Nayar in an e-mail.
Novell, which sells a Linux-based operating system, also works with government agencies on software security issues, spokesman Bruce Lowry said in an e-mail, “but we’re not in a position to go into specifics of the who, what, when types of questions.”
The NSA declined to comment on its security work with other software firms, but Sager said Microsoft is the only one “with this kind of relationship at this point where there’s an acknowledgment publicly.”
The NSA, which provided its service free, said it was Microsoft’s idea to acknowledge the spy agency’s role.
The NSA’s primary mission is signals intelligence — monitoring the communications of foreign powers, terrorists and others. But its secondary objection is “information assurance,” under which the security of Microsoft’s operating system falls.
Industry observers suggest that both the NSA and Microsoft have good reason to disclose their relationship. For Microsoft, the NSA’s imprimatur may be viewed as a vote of confidence in the operating system’s security.
“I kind of call it a Good Housekeeping seal” of approval, said Michael Cherry, a former Windows program manager who now analyzes the product for Directions on Microsoft, a firm that tracks the software maker.
Cherry says the NSA’s involvement can help counter the perception that Windows is not entirely secure and help create a perception that Microsoft has solved the security problems that have plagued it in the past. “Microsoft also wants to make the case that [the new Windows] more secure than its earlier versions,” he said.
Armstrong, the Microsoft manager, said: “The entire crux of Vista was security. . . . Security is at the forefront of our thoughts and our methods in developments and is critically important to our customers.”
