“Human Experiments of a Type Not Easily Justifiable on Medical-Therapeutic Grounds”
May 12th, 2010Via: Wired:
More than 30 years after it was written, the Pentagon has released a memorandum detailing its involvement in the CIA’s infamous Cold War mind-control experiments.
…
The 17-page document (.pdf), “Experimentation Programs conducted by the Department of Defense That Had CIA Sponsorship or Participation and That Involved the Administration to Human Subjects of Drugs Intended for Mind-Control or Behavior-Modification Purposes,” was prepared in 1977 by the General Counsel of the Department of Defense and released on May 6 after a Freedom of Information Act request.
Most of the details have been revealed in earlier CIA papers. And if anything, the Pentagon’s recap is a reminder of how little the Department of Defense cops to knowing about the CIA projects.
Still, there are some tantalizing new details. Take the origins of MK-ULTRA, the notorious CIA program that dosed thousands of unwitting participants with hallucinogenic drugs.
Initially funded by the Navy, the project set out to study the effects of brain concussion. Soon after, scientists noted that a blow to the head prompted amnesia, leading to the pursuit of a drug-based technique to “induce brain concussion … without physical trauma.” Shortly thereafter, the project was transferred entirely to the CIA, because it involved “human experiments … not easily justifiable on medical-therapeutic grounds.”
Other programs, described briefly focused on mind control. MK-NAOMI was after “severely incapacitating and lethal materials … [and] gadgetry for their dissemination,” and MK-CHICKWIT was designed to “identify new drug developments in Europe and Asia,” and then “obtain samples.”
Edgewood Laboratories, where many of the programs were carried out, is also identified as having tested an incapacitating chemical on prisoners and military personnel without the agency’s approval. The drug, EA#3167, was “appl[ied] to the skin” of subjects using an adhesive tape.
Another program, MK-OFTEN, started as a study on dopamine. But the scope was soon expanded to evaluate ibogaine, a hallucinogen, and then several more drugs, in hopes of creating “new pharmacologically active drugs affecting the central nervous system [to] modify men’s behavior.”
And the Navy is reported to have “obtain[ed] heroin and marijuana” in an effort to develop speech-inducing drugs for use on defectors and prisoners of war. The drugs were eventually tested on 14 people: six volunteer research assistants, and eight unwitting Soviet defectors.
…
Not surprisingly, the released report also doesn’t address darker questions that persist about the specifics of the CIA projects. Last year, a group of vets sued the agency for illnesses and trauma caused by the “diabolical and secret [MK-ULTRA] testing program,” which they allege included experiments with nerve gas, psychochemicals, and brain implants.
Bill Gates Funds Geoengineering Company That Will Make Clouds Out of Sea Water
May 12th, 2010Via: Mother Nature Network:
Basically a fleet of ships equipped with screens & vacuums pump up millions of gallons of ocean water and using high-powered water canons introduce the water some 3000 feet in the air, where clouds are formed. The added moisture content would increase the thickness of the water vapor, making the clouds whiter and thus more reflective.
Of course this, as all other geoengineering solutions, are not without environmental impacts. No one really knows exactly what happens when humans alter the atmosphere in such a way. A global coalition of environmentalists called HOME (Hands Off Mother Earth) is calling for a moratorium on geoengineering experiments until the international laws on geoengineering being discussed this week in a UN scientific meeting in Nairobi are clarified.
Europe Rewrites its Rule Book in Creating Fund to Contain Financial Crisis
May 12th, 2010Via: Washington Post:
The massive emergency fund assembled to defend the value of the euro is backed by a political gamble with an uncertain outcome: that European governments will rewrite a post-World War II social contract that has been generous to workers and retirees but has become increasingly unaffordable for an aging population.
The trillion-dollar program, to be underwritten largely by the 16 nations that use the euro and by the International Monetary Fund, represents a virtual discarding of Europe’s rule book.
Under the rescue unveiled early Monday, governments that broke the currency union’s spending restrictions are being offered a commitment of solidarity, with weak links such as Greece and Portugal supported by the creditworthiness of Germany’s strong economy.
The European Central Bank will act as a bond broker of last resort for troubled European governments, a role so distant from its conservative, inflation-fighting personality that Jean-Claude Trichet, the bank’s president, emphasized that the ECB remained “fiercely and totally independent” of political concerns.
Swiss Artist Catalogs Mutant Insects Around Nuke Plants
May 12th, 2010Via: Wired:
Conventional wisdom holds that nuclear power stations don’t leak enough radiation to create malformed organisms. But in some locations, Hesse-Honegger discovered mutations — curtailed feelers, misshapen legs, asymmetrical wings — in as many as 30 percent of the bugs she gathered. That’s 10 times the overall rate of about 3 percent for insects found in the wild.
Senate Votes 96-0 to Audit Federal Reserve
May 12th, 2010Senate Passes Watered Down Sanders Amendment to Audit the Fed 96-0
Via: Los Angeles Times:
The Senate voted 96 to 0 on Tuesday to authorize a congressional audit of the secretive Federal Reserve Board’s emergency aid program and full disclosure of who got the money, a plan that could reveal more details about government help for embattled investment firm Goldman Sachs.
Under the plan, Congress’ Government Accountability Office would conduct a top-to-bottom audit of all the Federal Reserve’s emergency activities since the economic crisis began in December 2007. The Fed also would have to post on its website all recipients of money from the more than $2 trillion in emergency aid that’s been disbursed since then.
The GAO also would look into whether the financial deals involved conflicts of interest. It’s common for members of the board of directors of the powerful Federal Reserve Bank of New York, for example, also to be executives or directors of banks that got government bailout money.
The Fed also is locked in a court fight over a Freedom of Information Act suit to force it to identify all institutions that secretly got rescue money.
The White House and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke had opposed the Fed audit but relented after two concessions were made: It will be done only once and the list of funding recipients won’t appear on the Internet until Dec. 1, rather than 30 days after enactment.
The vote Tuesday was on an amendment to a financial overhaul package making its way through the Senate.
Gold Hits New Record High
May 12th, 2010Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
Spot Gold, Weekly Interval
Internet Approaches Addressing Limit
May 12th, 2010I wouldn’t be too concerned about this one.
IPv6 has been in roll out phase for several years. Modern operating systems support IPv6. Windows XP, by far the most popular operating system, has supported IPv6 since Service Pack 1. While XP is the most popular OS, it is dropping slowly every month now, mostly because of uptake of Windows 7, which includes native support for IPv6.
There are latency issues with running both addressing schemes at once, but, believe me, once push comes to shove, the move will be made and new network operators will say things like, “IPv6 only,” etc.
IT organizations are notorious for foot dragging when it comes to making major changes, but when there’s no choice (the PHBs usually have to get bloody as a result of ignoring the warnings from the IT department) the changes will be implemented.
So, why bother mentioning this?
September 9, 2011 is the date that the IPv4 addresses are expected to run out.
Have a nice day!
Via: BBC:
In less than 18 months there will be no more big blocks of net addresses to give out, estimates suggest.
Predictions name 9 September 2011 as the date on which the last of those tranches is released for net firms and others to use.
Everything connected to the net needs an “IP address” to ensure data reaches the right person or device.
Experts say that the net’s entire existing address space will be exhausted about a year after that date.
A newer scheme is being rolled out but many firms and countries are being slow to switch, experts warn.
Small pool
The net is built around version four of the Internet Protocol addressing scheme (IPv4) which has space for about four billion addresses. Its successor – IPv6 – has trillions available.
Research Credit: PH
18 Missiles, 14 Dead in Latest Drone Attack
May 11th, 2010Via: Wired:
There was a massive drone attack in Pakistan today — one involving multiple unmanned aircraft and “up to 18 American missiles,” according to the Associated Press. 14 people are dead.
This second robotic strike in three days is the latest sign that the American drone war in Pakistan has reached a new peak. There have been 34 reported attacks in Pakistan in the first 19 weeks on 2010. That’s almost as many as the 36 strikes carried out in all of 2009. And these strikes are no longer against specific, named terrorists. Signs of militant activity are enough to bring in the drones.
The latest target, according to AFP: a training camp “run by militants attached to Taliban-linked Afghan warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who is reputed to control up to 2,000 fighters who attack U.S.-led forces over the border in Afghanistan.” CNN’s national security desk wonders whether the strike is in “retaliation” for the attempted Times Square bombing — which was allegedly inspired, at least in part, by the drone attacks in Pakistan.
American Reaper drones typically fly with four weapons stations. Each of those stations can carry two, 100-pound Hellfire missiles. Last month, however, the Washington Post reported that the CIA had begun outfitting their unmanned attackers with smaller, 35-pound glide bombs. So it’s tough to tell exactly how many drones were involved in the latest strike.
Eric Holder: Miranda Rights Should Be Modified For Terrorism Suspects
May 11th, 2010Via: Huffington Post:
Attorney General Eric Holder said for the first time today on ABC’s “This Week” that the Obama administration is open to modifying Miranda protections to deal with the “threats that we now face.”
“The [Miranda] system we have in place has proven to be effective,” Holder told host Jake Tapper. “I think we also want to look and determine whether we have the necessary flexibility — whether we have a system that deals with situations that agents now confront. … We’re now dealing with international terrorism. … I think we have to give serious consideration to at least modifying that public-safety exception [to the Miranda protections]. And that’s one of the things that I think we’re going to be reaching out to Congress, to come up with a proposal that is both constitutional, but that is also relevant to our times and the threats that we now face.”
America’s system of Miranda rights developed out of a 1966 Supreme Court ruling which found that the Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights of an alleged rapist and kidnapper, Ernesto Arturo Miranda, had been violated during his arrest and trial (Miranda was later retried and convicted).
The Court ruled that before being interrogated, a person in custody must (among other things) “be clearly informed that he or she has the right to remain silent, and that anything the person says will be used against that person in court,” and that they “must be clearly informed that he or she has the right to consult with an attorney and to have that attorney present during questioning.”
Food-Stamp Tally Nears 40 Million, Sets Record
May 11th, 2010Via: Reuters:
Nearly 40 million Americans received food stamps — the latest in an ever-higher string of record enrollment that dates from December 2008 and the U.S. recession, according to a government update.
Food stamps are the primary federal anti-hunger program, helping poor people buy food. Enrollment is highest during times of economic distress. The jobless rate was 9.9 percent, the government said on Friday.
The Agriculture Department said 39.68 million people, or 1 in 8 Americans, were enrolled for food stamps during February, an increase of 260,000 from January. USDA updated its figures on Wednesday.
