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Last year, Bilderberg was held in Vouliagmeni, on the coast just south of Athens. The Greek minister of finance attended, the minister of foreign affairs, and the governor of the National Bank of Greece. A few months later, Greece was bankrupt and Athens was in flames. So … good luck, Madrid!

Police are already stretching their red stripy tape around the hotel, and zipping up and around the local roads in their squad cars, sniffing for trouble. I’m really hoping there’s none to find. The Spanish are promising a beach party and an “awareness camp”, with political discussion forums and meditation zones.

I plan to spend at least part of Friday sitting cross-legged in a campsite, sending beams of white light up the hill and into the hotel. Feel my love, Marcus Agius – Chairman of Barclays and senior non-executive director on the BBC’s new executive board. Let it surround you, Queen Sofia of Spain. Don’t fight it, president of the World Bank. You can’t beat the love.

Stephanie Mueller, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, said that neither Energy Secretary Steven Chu nor anyone else was thinking about a nuclear blast under the gulf. The nuclear option was not — and never had been — on the table, federal officials said.

“It’s crazy,” one senior official said.

It’s important to listen to de Garis because he is one of those rare scientific researchers that actually considers the implications of his work. In de Garis’ view, in the late 21st century humanity will have the technological ability to create the Artilects. At that point, humans will be divided into three camps: the Terrans, who will attempt to violently prevent the creation of the Artilects; the Cosmists, who think building them is a good idea; and the Cyborgists, who will attempt to merge with the Artilects to preserve some shred of their humanity. These three camps will fight it out and the winner will decide the fate of the planet. Since the war will be fought with late 21st century weaponry, the death toll is expected to be in the billions.

In a Forbes article, Hugo de Garis describes this coming Artilect war:

I differ sharply with well-known futurist Ray Kurzweil on his over-optimistic prediction that the rise of the artilect this century will be a positive development for humanity. I think it will be a catastrophe. I see a war coming, the “Artilect War,” not between the artilects and human beings, as in the movie Terminator, but between the Terrans, Cosmists and Cyborgists. This will be the worst, most passionate war that humanity has ever known, because the stakes–the survival of our species–have never been so high. Given the period in which this war will occur, the late 21st century, with late 21st century weapons, the scale of the killing will not be in the millions, as in the 20th century (the bloodiest in history, with 200-300 million people killed in wars, purges, holocausts and genocides) but in the billions. There will be gigadeath.

For six months, Ken Abbott managed BP’s engineering documents for “Atlantis,” BP’s deep water platform nearly 200 miles south of New Orleans. He turned into a BP whistle-blower in February 2009 after finding what he says were thousands of Atlantis engineering documents and drawings that were neither complete nor reviewed properly by BP. That, Sawyer now says, was a serious safety violation.

Abbott and his lawyer quickly hired Mike Sawyer, a safety engineer consultant, who examined the BP documents in question. Sawyer tells CNN that oil rig “engineering drawings and specification are the primary means that workers use to ensure that they can operate the platform safely, and can ensure that they can shut it down or at least control any unsafe event.” Atlantis’ engineering documents and drawings, says Sawyer, were so incomplete that he fears another environmental disaster from BP.

Abbott shared his information with Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, who found it so disturbing that he and 18 other lawmakers sent a letter to the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the agency that regulates the oil industry.

“…This platform [Atlantis],” they wrote, “may be operating without crucial engineering documents, which, if absent, would increase the risk of a catastrophic accident…”

BP told us in a statement it conducted its own investigation after Abbott filed a false claims lawsuit in 2009. The government declined to join that lawsuit. A few weeks ago, a judge ordered the case to go forward.

BP still insists though “Atlantis … absolutely is safe…”

But, that’s not enough any more. The consumer advocacy group Food and Water Watch posted this Web ad after joining forces with Abbott. Together, they’ve filed a lawsuit against MMS for failing to provide proof Atlantis is “absolutely safe.”

Food and Water Watch’s Wenohah Hauter says, “BP Atlantis should be shut down until the safety information can be verified … [and] there should be an investigation of all the operating platforms, beginning with BP’s, to be sure that their safety information is available and is in order.”

But the Obama administration – and MMS – have no plans to order Atlantis to halt operations. MMS now says it has “launched its own investigation into safety operations on the Atlantis…”

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an officer’s visual estimation of speed is enough to support a conviction if the officer is trained, certified by a training academy, and experienced in watching for speeders. The court’s 5-1 decision says independent verification of a driver’s speed is not necessary.

Greer was arrested by Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents this morning at his Oviedo home about 9:15 a.m. and booked into the Seminole County jail about 45 minutes later.

At a lunchtime press conference in Orlando, Statewide Prosecutor William Shepherd said Greer developed a scheme to take money from the Republican Party through a shell company he created, Victory Strategies. He used the money for his personal expenses — at least $100,000, Shepherd said.

A statewide grand jury indicted Greer on six felony charges: organized scheme to defraud, money laundering, and four counts of grand theft.

Greer was forced to resign in January amid allegations of extravagant overspending.

Since then, he’s become the subject of a criminal investigation for income he earned from Victory Strategies LLC, a fund-raising company that kept 10 percent of all major donations it raised for the party. Greer owned a 60-percent stake of the company.

Shepherd also said Greer sent e-mails directing additional party funds to Victory Strategies, “per the chairman.” He did not specify how much.

Greer was backed for the chairmanship job in 2006 by then-Gov. elect Charlie Crist, and an Orlando Sentinel analysis of party spending found Greer dramatically increased spending and the use of American Express charge cards during his three-year tenure.

The high spending, frequent national travel, and Greer’s decision to endorse Crist in his U.S. Senate primary against Marco Rubio ultimately prompted party leaders to seek his ouster.

But it was only after Greer announced his resignation that details of a secret fundraising contract came to light.

The contract for Victory Strategies to take over major donor fundraising was withheld from top GOP finance officials. It led Attorney General Bill McCollum and legislative leaders to dismiss former party executive director Delmar Johnson and hand over documentation of the contract and payments to Greer to state investigators in March.

The Pentagon’s far-out research arm has been zeroing in on the danger of mutating pathogens, and the corresponding problem of drug resistance, for years now. The agency is already funding tobacco-based vaccine production, a seven-day plan to thwart biothreats, and prescient viral infection detectors. And they’ve even set their sights on psychic medics, with a 2007 program that sought to turn docs into all-knowing illness predictors.

Now, Darpa wants the powers of premonition to wipe out viral threats altogether. They’re hosting a workshop for a new program, called “Prophecy,” that’ll develop methods to predict the rate, location and likely mutations of viral agents.

First, the agency wants novel lab-based methods to reproduce “virus-host interactions,” in different environments. After that, researchers will sequence different viral genomes, and test how they adapt and change under diverse conditions.

Ideally, that’ll yield a host of algorithms, capable of accurately predicting “the rate, direction and phenotype of viral mutations.” From there, scientists will be able to develop appropriate attack strategies in the right geographic locations. Most notably, Darpa wants to see mere mortals outdo the forces of nature, by creating “high energy evolutionary boundaries” that keep genetic mutations at bay.