Long Beach Police Department Claims Authority to Detain People for Taking Pictures “With No Apparent Aesthetic Value”
August 17th, 2011The U.S. horror show is plumbing new depths of fascism now. This one will definitely cause you to skip a beat. Even I had to pause and re-read this one in disbelief.
Via: Long Beach Post:
Police Chief Jim McDonnell has confirmed that detaining photographers for taking pictures “with no apparent esthetic value” is within Long Beach Police Department policy.
McDonnell spoke for a follow-up story on a June 30 incident in which Sander Roscoe Wolff, a Long Beach resident and regular contributor to Long Beach Post, was detained by Officer Asif Kahn for taking pictures of
a North Long Beach refinery.
“If an officer sees someone taking pictures of something like a refinery,” says McDonnell, “it is incumbent upon the officer to make contact with the individual.” McDonnell went on to say that whether said contact becomes detainment depends on the circumstances the officer encounters.
McDonnell says that while there is no police training specific to determining whether a photographer’s subject has “apparent esthetic value,” officers make such judgments “based on their overall training and experience” and will generally approach photographers not engaging in “regular tourist behavior.”
Who—and What—Are Behind the “Official History” of the Bin Laden Raid?
August 17th, 2011I just included a tiny piece of this. Click through, but be ready to for a lengthy and careful meditation on total absurdity of this fabricated spectacle.
Via: Who What Why:
The establishment media just keep getting worse. They’re further and further from good, tough investigative journalism, and more prone to be pawns in complicated games that affect the public interest in untold ways. A significant recent example is The New Yorker‘s vaunted August 8 exclusive on the vanquishing of Osama bin Laden.
A Clock That Can Run for 10,000 Years Is Being Built Inside a Mountain Owned by Jeff Bezos
August 17th, 2011I’ll note a few bullet points about this 10,000 year clock project that stood out for me. This is not an exhaustive list and I’m sure that people who know more about these topics will uncover other interesting features.
First, does anybody know about rituals that involve time and a participant wearing a blue hooded robe?
The photo below appears in Kevin Kelly’s Technium story on the 10,000 year clock. The caption text is quoted from there as well:
Stewart Brand, just back from Morocco, stands before the prototype clock minutes before it rings in the year 2000.
Kevin Kelly notes:
At Long Now Foundation we’ve always resisted the idea of turning the institution into a religion — even though religions may have the best track record for long-term endurance. But the comparison to monks devoting their lives to maintain a remote and long-lived clock is hard to avoid, especially if you show up at a momentous clock event in a hooded robe.
…
Stewart Brand, co-founder of the Long Now Foundation, had just returned from a vacation in Morocco the day before so he was wearing a djellaba.
So, it’s just a bunch of wealthy, fun loving atheists, one of whom happened to have been visiting Morocco and kept his djellaba on for the big gong show at the strike of midnight… The resemblance of this scene to some sort of religious ritual is an unfortunate coincidence…
Ok, then, moving on: This clock is actually a celestial instrument. Here’s the face of the clock (also from Kevin Kelly):
Labeled Face of 10,000 Year Clock
The “capstone” of the device, if you will, is a sapphire glass cupola that transmits energy from the Sun to mechanisms inside the mountain. This is the only part of the device that is above ground.
Jeff Bezos established 10000yearclock.net to serve as the official website for this clock project. Let’s look at the quotes that greet visitors to 10000yearclock.net. Here’s a screenshot from the homepage:
We are as gods...
Yep, that’s old Stewart again, the guy wearing the blue robe in the picture above. I’d guess that, if asked directly, who he means by “we,” he’d say that he means humans, in general. I’d be careful, though, in thinking that people like you and me are part of Brand’s we-are-as-gods statements. I don’t dress up in a hooded robe to ring in the new year, in front of a celestial clock, or hang out with billionaires. Do you? I also wouldn’t be squandering precious time and resources on what amounts to a macro scale art object inside a mountain while the world goes to hell in a handbasket. Would you?
This is from a 1998 interview with Stewart Brand:
JB: What’s happening with the clock?
BRAND: Three years we’ve been working on building a 10,000-year clock and as of ’98, we’re building a prototype eight feet tall, probably about the size of two refrigerators back to back. We’ve got an invitation to debut it at the World Economic Forum in Davos next January, ’99 — the perfect place to get world leaders and corporate leaders and so on thinking in 10,000-year terms.
Definitely be careful with assumptions about who we refers to.
What’s the name of the mountain range in which the Long Now clock is located? It’s the Sierra Diablo Mountain Range. (You knew that the Debbil was going to pop up here somewhere.) I have not looked into it, but my guess is that there’s some ley line and/or geomantic component to the site that was selected.
How much will the project cost? $42 million. A 42 million dollar project in the Devil’s Mountains? Really? You gotta love these guys.
Finally, there’s the spiral staircase that surrounds the clock.
Now, these are just a handful of interesting things that I happened to notice, and I’m not even into this stuff very much. Let me know if you come across a full freak analysis of this thing. I’d like to know more.
Here are some non-woowoo links about the clock:
Kevin Kelly: The Clock in the Mountain
Wired: How to Make a Clock Run for 10,000 Years
Sarkozy Calls for Tax on Financial Transactions to Fund Global Development
August 16th, 2011Via: AFP:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday called for a tax on all financial transactions at the UN Millennium Goals summit to pay for global development.
“Finance has globalized, so why should we not ask finance to participate in stabilizing the world by taking a tax on each financial transaction,” Sarkozy told the summit.
The French leader said he would press for a global tax when France is president of the Group of 20 countries next year.
Doubling Down: Germany, France Propose Collective Government for Eurozone Led by EU President
August 16th, 2011HAHA. What could possibly go wrong?
Via: CBC:
The leaders of Germany and France are proposing collective governance for the euro zone led by the European Union president.
Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy announced the proposal Tuesday after meeting in Paris, as new figures showed economic growth in the region all but stalled even before last week’s turmoil on the financial markets.
Sarkozy said he and Merkel want a “true European economic government” that would consist of the heads of state and government of all eurozone nations.
The leaders are also pushing all 17 nations that use the euro to enshrine balanced budgets in their constitutions.
The new body would meet twice a year and be led by EU President Herman Van Rompuy.
MABEL: University of Michigan Demonstrates Running Bipedal Robot—Sort Of
August 16th, 2011This is from the description of the University of Michigan MABEL video on YouTube:
In our opinion, this is the most realistic, human-like running achieved on a robot.
Call me old fashioned, but most humans that I’ve seen running don’t require a boom to keep them from toppling over as they run. And they usually don’t run in circles—unless Tequila is involved.
But what I want you to do here is push the play button, close your eyes and listen to the sounds that it makes…
WOOOOH! That ought to get your pilomotor reflex going!
Shell Finds Second Oil Leak in North Sea
August 16th, 2011Via: Guardian:
A second oil leak has been discovered from an offshore platform in the North Sea.
An estimated 216 tonnes (1,300 barrels) has already spilled into the sea after the initial spill, which began at the Gannet Alpha platform 112 miles east of Aberdeen last Wednesday.
Glen Cayley, technical director of platform operator Shell’s exploration and production activities in Europe, said the main leak was “pretty much dead” but a small secondary leak was proving a challenge.
Around two barrels a day are leaking into the sea, compared with hundreds of barrels a day at the start of the incident, Shell said.
Cayley said: “The leak that we’ve stemmed was in the flow line so job number one was to close in the wells and isolate the reservoir, which of course is the large volume from the leak.
“We’re confident that it’s under control. The residual small leak is in an awkward position to get to. This is complex sub-sea infrastructure, and really getting into it among quite dense marine growth is proving a challenge.
“The primary leak in the flow line is pretty much dead.
“There is a small secondary leak created by that which is the small flow of two barrels a day which is proving a little difficult to get to and isolate.”
He said it is not known how the leak initially happened, and it was first spotted by a helicopter flying overhead.
Cyber Recruits Key Part of NSA Hiring Blitz
August 16th, 2011Via: Federal News Radio:
The National Security Agency is on a hiring blitz. The cryptologic intelligence agency — home to the government’s chief codemakers and breakers — announced its intention to hire as many as 3,000 people over the next two years, many of them cybersecurity experts.
In fact, NSA recruiters even took a trip to Las Vegas in the last few weeks to look for potential hires at DefCon, a high-profile hacker conference there.
ATF Promotes Operation Fast and Furious Supervisors
August 16th, 2011Via: Los Angeles Times:
The ATF has promoted three key supervisors of a controversial sting operation that allowed firearms to be illegally trafficked across the U.S. border into Mexico.
All three have been heavily criticized for pushing the program forward even as it became apparent that it was out of control. At least 2,000 guns were lost and many turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and two at the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona.
The three supervisors have been given new management positions at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. They are William G. McMahon, who was the ATF’s deputy director of operations in the West, where the illegal trafficking program was focused, and William D. Newell and David Voth, both field supervisors who oversaw the program out of the agency’s Phoenix office.
McMahon and Newell have acknowledged making serious mistakes in the program, which was dubbed Operation Fast and Furious.
“I share responsibility for mistakes that were made,” McMahon testified to a House committee three weeks ago. “The advantage of hindsight, the benefit of a thorough review of the case, clearly points me to things that I would have done differently.”
Three Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesmen did not return phone calls Monday asking about the promotions. But several agents said they found the timing of the promotions surprising, given the turmoil at the agency over the failed program.
Britain: Police Could Get New Curfew Powers
August 16th, 2011Via: Guardian:
New powers allowing police to clear the streets and create “no-go” areas for the public are being considered, the home secretary, Theresa May, has said.
May said it was time to consider whether the police needed a power “to impose a general curfew in a particular area” in the aftermath of last week’s riots.
The home secretary said the government was also contemplating tougher powers to impose curfews on individual teenagers under the age of 16.
In a speech in London, she said the power to declare a general curfew was needed because existing dispersal powers only allowed the police to declare a “no go” area with advance notification.
