Ted Kaczynski and the CIA?
December 21st, 2010This is pretty flimsy so far, but it’s Part 1. Maybe the story will get more interesting.
Via: Times Union:
Was my brother, Ted Kaczynski (AKA “the Unabomber”), a sort of “Manchurian candidate” – programmed to kill by our government in a CIA-funded thought-control experiment gone awry?
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The Harvard study my brother participated in was called “Multiform Assessments of Personality Development Among Gifted College Men.” It was overseen by the noted psychologist Henry Murray, who during WWII worked for the OSS (which later became the CIA), where he developed methodologies for interrogating prisoners of war. In his professional life, Murray was known for his brilliance and his grandiosity. In his personal life, according to his biographer, he displayed sadistic tendencies. His research on college men bears a certain resemblance to his research on prisoners of war. He was quite a big wheel in his day, perhaps as well known and influential in military and government circles as he was in academia.
Were the so-called “Murray experiments” part of MK Ultra? It may be that no one living knows the answer to this question. We know that the experiments were highly unpleasant for my brother and for some others who participated. We know that the basic premise of the research was to study how bright college students would react to aggressive and highly stressful attacks on their beliefs and values.
Research Credit: ltcolonelnemo
State Budgets: The Day of Reckoning
December 20th, 2010Via: CBS News / 60 Minutes:
By now, just about everyone in the country is aware of the federal deficit problem, but you should know that there is another financial crisis looming involving state and local governments.
It has gotten much less attention because each state has a slightly different story. But in the two years, since the “great recession” wrecked their economies and shriveled their income, the states have collectively spent nearly a half a trillion dollars more than they collected in taxes. There is also a trillion dollar hole iln their public pension funds.
The states have been getting by on billions of dollars in federal stimulus funds, but the day of reckoning is at hand.
Research Credit: JH
U.S. Government Storing Information on Americans in Vast Surveillance Database
December 20th, 2010Via: Washington Post:
Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.
The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation’s history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing.
The government’s goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency in the country feed information to Washington to buttress the work of the FBI, which is in charge of terrorism investigations in the United States.
Related: The Last Roundup: MAIN CORE
Research Credit: WS
Probable Carcinogen Hexavalent Chromium Found in Drinking Water of 31 U.S. Cities
December 20th, 2010Add it to the list:
Can You Do This With Your Tap Water?
Via: Washington Post:
An environmental group that analyzed the drinking water in 35 cities across the United States, including Bethesda and Washington, found that most contained hexavalent chromium, a probable carcinogen that was made famous by the film “Erin Brockovich.”
The study, which will be released Monday by the Environmental Working Group, is the first nationwide analysis of hexavalent chromium in drinking water to be made public.
It comes as the Environmental Protection Agency is considering whether to set a limit for hexavalent chromium in tap water. The agency is reviewing the chemical after the National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, deemed it a “probable carcinogen” in 2008.
The federal government restricts the amount of “total chromium” in drinking water and requires water utilities to test for it, but that includes both trivalent chromium, a mineral that humans need to metabolize glucose, and hexavalent chromium, the metal that has caused cancer in laboratory animals.
Britain May Require ISPs to Block Internet Pornography by Default
December 20th, 2010I wonder how long it will take for other categories of sites to be added to this blacklist?
Via: IT Pro Portal:
The government has urged UK Internet service providers to block pornographic websites in order to help protect children.
UK communications minister Ed Vaizey is expected to meet representatives from UK ISPs BT, TalkTalk and Virgin Media to discuss the possibility of blocking pornographic websites at homes with children by default.
Under the plans, access to such websites will be blocked unless a person of appropriate age opts-in to regain access to pornographic content on the web.
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However, the Open Rights group has voiced its concerns over a blacklist being controlled by the government as they fear that it would turn into a front for blocking websites like WikiLeaks.
Cable Search: Full Text Search of Released Wikileaks State Department Documents
December 20th, 2010Cable Search is automatically adding documents as WikiLeaks makes them available.
Via: cablesearch.org:
CABLESEARCH is an attempt for an user friendly search engine of already published documents from Wikileaks.
Research Credit: RB
Slumtube
December 19th, 2010Via: Inhabitat:
Remember the efficient and affordable Pallet House from last spring? Well designers Andreas Claus Schnetzer and Pils Gregor have bested their original design with an even lower-cost shipping pallet home that was completed this year in South Africa. The ‘Slumtube’ utilizes discarded pallets along with other local materials like clay and straw to make an insulated and affordable home that can withstand the extremely hot and cold temperatures of Johannesburg.
Overstock Accuses Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch of Racketeering
December 19th, 2010Via: Reuters:
Overstock.com Inc plans to amend a lawsuit it filed in early 2007 to include racketeering claims against Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, the online retailer said on Thursday.
The original lawsuit, filed in the California superior court in San Francisco, alleged that Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch unit engaged in a “massive, illegal stock market manipulation scheme” that involved so-called naked short-selling.
Pfizer Targeted Nigerian Attorney General to Undermine Suit Over Fatal Drug Tests
December 17th, 2010Via: Democracy Now:
Diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer hired investigators to find evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general to pressure him to drop a $6 billion lawsuit over fraudulent drug tests on Nigerian children. Researchers did not obtain signed consent forms, and medical personnel said Pfizer did not tell parents their children were getting the experimental drug. Eleven children died, and others suffered disabling injuries including deafness, muteness, paralysis, brain damage, loss of sight, slurred speech. We speak to Washington Post reporter Joe Stephens, who helped break the story in 2000, and Musikilu Mojeed, a Nigerian journalist who has worked on this story for the NEXT newspaper in Lagos.
Related: Deadly Medicine: Lethal Profit Machine
CIA Gave Torturers $5 Million Legal Shield
December 17th, 2010Via: AP:
The CIA agreed to cover at least $5 million in legal fees for two contractors who were the architects of the agency’s interrogation program and personally conducted dozens of waterboarding sessions on terror detainees, former U.S. officials said.
The secret agreement means taxpayers are paying to defend the men in a federal investigation over an interrogation tactic the U.S. now says is torture. The deal is even more generous than the protections the agency typically provides its own officers, giving the two men access to more money to finance their defense.
It has long been known that psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen created the CIA’s interrogation program. But former U.S. intelligence officials said Mitchell and Jessen also repeatedly subjected terror suspects inside CIA-run secret prisons to waterboarding, a simulated drowning tactic.
