Tuesday, May 30, 2006

More About Directed Energy and Microwave Weapons

Remember this? From just a few months ago:

sizzlin' gizzards: March 2006: "Finally! The scoop on Sandia Ray Gun Weapons!

I heard about it last year, but I could never quite track down the straight scoop—Until now.

I was a little concerned that this ray gun might be dangerous, but don't worry! The 95 GHz beam only penetrates 1/64 of an inch into your skin, just deep enough to reach those tender nerve endings, so your involuntary pain receptors take over. Remember, this is billed as a non-lethal directed energy weapon.

This intense heating sensation stops only if the individual moves out of the beam’s path or the beam is turned off. The sensation caused by the system has been described by test subjects as feeling like touching a hot frying pan or the intense radiant heat from a fire. Burn injury is prevented by limiting the beam’s intensity and duration.

Just limit the intensity or the duration—so, all you have to do is move out of the beam for the pain to stop! So simple. Of course, this pre-supposes that you've moved into the beam in the first place. What if you didn't move at all, but the beam was swept over you?

I first read about these directed beam weapons in relation to crowd control. Just imagine being in a crowd, like at a demonstration, and such a beam is turned on you. You respond as if you've touched a hot poker—all over your body. How does your autonomic nervous system know which way to go to get away? It doesn't. You just thrash around in horrible pain. Your goose is cooked.

But some of the other stuff that's termed non-lethal is only marginally better. How about this:

In 2004 American soldiers in Iraq were equipped with a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) used for land based and naval applications. LARD works like a highly directional, high power megaphone, able to blast sounds (such as crowd-dispersal instructions in Arabic) in a narrow beam and with great clarity at a deafening 150 decibels (50 times the human threshold of pain)"


Well. Here's something I just came across:

A video story about those and other similar weapons, and the possibility of them having already been tested in Iraq, similar to how Italian Fascists tested their advanced weapons on the Ethiopians during World War 2.

There are lots of experts interviewed, with lots of information. Some things to look up:
  • Zeus Laser Vehicle
  • Project Sherrif

Sunday, May 28, 2006

LiveScience.com - Light Travels Backward and Faster than Light

LiveScience.com - Light Travels Backward and Faster than Light: "'As the pulse enters the material, a second pulse appears on the far end of the fiber and flows backward. The reversed pulse not only propagates backward, but it releases a forward pulse out the far end of the fiber. In this way, the pulse that enters the front of the fiber appears out the end almost instantly, apparently traveling faster than the regular speed of light.'"

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Chinese and US Debt, and Dollar Hegemony

Asia Times Online :
The Chinese Ministry of Finance reported that the aggregate national debt balance rose to 3.26 trillion yuan in 2005, but it fell to only 18% of 2005 GDP of 18.23 trillion yuan. This reflects the effect on economic policy analysis with dynamic scoring in which the growth impact of the national debt on the economy can outstrip its nominal rise.

By comparison, the US national debt stood at $8.4 trillion as of April 13, 2006, or 65% of forecast GDP. About $4.9 trillion of the US national debt is held by the public and $3.5 trillion is held intra-governmentally. US national debt is about 20 times China's on a nominal basis, five times on a purchasing-power-parity basis, almost four times on a debt-to-GDP basis, and 100 times on a per capita basis. US per capita income is about 35 times that of China in 2005, which means each US citizen is carrying almost three times the national debt-to-income ratio as his or her Chinese counterpart. On average, US wages are about 50 times those of China because of higher income disparity in China.

[. . .]

Dollar hegemony eliminates default risk
Because of dollar hegemony, a peculiar phenomenon of the US dollar, a fiat currency, assuming the role of a key reserve currency for international trade and finance, US government securities do not carry default risks, as the United States can print dollars at will with little short-term penalty. The only risk US government securities carry is inflation, a prospect that the Federal Reserve, its central bank, can control through interest-rate policy. High Fed Funds rates can reduce dollar inflation under normal circumstances, unless the economy is plagued by a debt bubble, in which case high Fed Funds rates can actually add to inflation.

Government securities of other nations denominated in US dollars carry default risks, as these governments cannot print dollars. Even government securities denominated in local currencies that are freely convertible carry default risks because the foreign-exchange market limits the ability of these governments to print their own local currencies relative to the size of their foreign-exchange holdings. In that sense, dollar hegemony has reduced all freely convertible and free-floating currencies to the status of derivatives of the dollar.

The governments of such currencies have forfeited their monetary sovereignty with which to manage their economies. The currencies of these nations no longer derive their value only from the strength of their economies, but also from the value of the dollar, rising or falling against the dollar as a benchmark.

The Federal Reserve of the US has become a super-national monetary authority through dollar hegemony, framing policies that prioritize the needs of the United States, from which the prosperity of the rest of the world must derive. This is why, after the abandonment of the Bretton Woods fixed-exchange-rates regime based on a gold-backed dollar, the US has been pushing a global floating-exchange-rates regime based on a fiat dollar in order to impose dollar hegemony on world finance.

Interest rate stability or money supply stability
Monetary-policy authorities have a choice between interest-rate stability and money-supply stability, but no monetary system that operates on fiat money can have both options. The national debt is the lowest cost at which a nation can borrow. Sovereign-debt interest rates act as a benchmark for other debts because sovereign credit is superior to private-sector credit under normal conditions. When the money supply is tight, interest rates on government bonds rise. This causes interest rates on all private debts to rise with them. High domestic interest rates usually exert upward pressure on the exchange rates of freely convertible currencies. "

Jet stream shift is expanding the Earth's tropics and deserts

USATODAY.com : "By Andrew Bridges, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — Deserts in the American Southwest and around the globe are creeping toward heavily populated areas as the jet streams shift, scientists reported Thursday.

The result: Areas already stressed by drought may get even drier.

Satellite measurements made from 1979 to 2005 show that the atmosphere in the subtropical regions both north and south of the equator is heating up. As the atmosphere warms, it bulges out at the altitudes where the northern and southern jet streams slip past like swift and massive rivers of air. That bulging has pushed both jet streams about 70 miles closer to the Earth's poles.

Since the jet streams mark the edge of the tropics, in essence framing the hot zone that hugs the equator, their outward movement has allowed the tropics to grow wider by about 140 miles. That means the relatively drier subtropics move as well, pushing closer to places like Salt Lake City, where Thomas Reichler, co-author of the new study, teaches meteorology.

'One of the immediate consequences one can think of is those deserts and dry areas are moving poleward,' said Reichler, of the University of Utah. Details appear in Thursday's Science Express, the online edition of the journal Science."

That Sinking Feeling

Did you hear the one about the world's financial markets crashing? Somehow, I missed this last week.

Asia Times Online ::
Liquidity contraction feeds bloodbathBy Jephraim P Gundzik

A global asset market correction has begun. This correction has been inordinately brutal on what were once the world's highest-flying stock and bond markets. The sudden downdraft in global asset markets appears to have been triggered by higher-than-expected US inflation.

However, rapidly contracting global liquidity is the real culprit. The contraction of global liquidity will accelerate over the next six months, which could push currently favored markets down a further 25-35% - at least.

The bloodbath in emerging market assets since mid-May has been remarkable - very few saw it coming. In the past three
months many of the world's largest investors in emerging market assets, even some so-called market gurus, have been beating the drum for continued strong price advances.

Curiously, none of these heavyweights has emerged from their bunkers yet. Hopefully they're extremely busy trying to understand why equity markets in Korea, Thailand and the Philippines dropped by 10% and those in India and Indonesia by 15% in the past two weeks.

Seemingly unstoppable equity markets in Latin America and emerging Europe have not been immune to this setback. Stocks in Mexico and Brazil have lost an average 12% of their value, while losses in Russia and Turkey are near 20%.

Emerging market bonds have been another casualty of the global asset market downdraft, with sector-wide indices losing about 15%. This downdraft, which has also ensnared asset markets in developed countries, has wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars of investor equity.

[. . .]

There's more potential bad news, though. A sharp decline in US stocks and bonds may begin to shake foreign investors, who hold over US$6 trillion worth of these assets. Foreign capital flight from the US, which has probably already begun, could prompt the devaluation of the dollar and a prolonged period of global economic weakness. With liquidity fast tightening in the world's largest economies, emerging market assets could well be poised for their worst performance in more than a decade.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Wonder Where Those Emails Went?

Wayne Madsen Report - Home:
"May 25, 2006 -- The most privacy-invasive technology that NSA is using to conduct vacuum cleaning of phone calls, e-mail, faxes, and Voice of IP calls is the use of downstream switches that disassemble and reassemble packets after they pass through commercial packet assemblers-disassemblers (PADs). By doing this, NSA can choose what transmissions are reassembled and sent on to their destination. Suspicious packets are held for storage and analysis. Internet users who are experiencing lost emails can thank this technology, which throws a virtual digital checkpoint on major Internet backbones. NSA is using downstream PADs provided by Narus, NICE, and Verisign.

WMR has also been informed that unconfirmed US ambassador to the UN continues to use NSA intercepts to target the delegations of nations who are not supporting various Bush administration efforts to reorganize the UN and have it fall into line with US foreign policy goals. Bolton, Michael Hayden, and then-US ambassador to the UN John Negroponte, engaged in a surge surveillance of UN Security Council and other delegations prior to the Iraq war. That surveillance has now reportedly been extended to journalists, including American citizens, who are accredited to cover the UN. Cell phone and other calls to and from UN offices in New York are considered international since UN headquarters is recognized as international territory."

Friday, May 19, 2006

Puny Human! We Laugh At Your Rights!

This should make everyone who hears about it ashamed and disgusted.

from Raw Story:

CIA 'torture' lawsuit thrown out
Khaled al-Masri
Mr Masri was seeking damages and an apology
A US court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a German citizen who says he was kidnapped and beaten by the CIA.

Khaled el-Masri aimed to sue former CIA chief George Tenet and other officials for their alleged role in the "extraordinary rendition" programme.

Mr el-Masri says he was picked up in Macedonia in 2003 and flown to Kabul, Afghanistan, where he alleges torture.

The judge did not rule on the truth of the allegations, but said letting the case proceed might endanger security.
(. . .)

In his ruling, Judge TS Ellis stressed that by rejecting Mr el-Masri's lawsuit he made no judgement on the strength or otherwise of his allegations.

"[The result reached here] is in no way an adjudication of, or comment on, the merit or lack of merit of Mr el-Masri's complaint," he said.

"Further, it is also important that nothing in this ruling should be taken as a sign of judicial approval or disapproval of rendition programmes.

"In times of war, our country, chiefly through the executive branch, must often take exceptional steps to thwart the enemy."

His case has attracted the attention of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who raised the issue with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Ms Rice has admitted that the US has used so-called "extraordinary rendition" - or secret flights - to move suspects across international borders.

But the US has refused to discuss individual cases and insists it does not condone torture.

We don't dispute that facts that this poor guy was kidnapped, shipped off to another country, and tortured. But we can't allow any consequences, since that would damage our national security.

Yeah, it's damaging to our national security to reveal what dangerous liars and idiots we've become, while claiming to live under the "rule of law." Sort of like the ruling that counting all the Florida votes in 2000 would be damaging to the presidency of Bush, which of course didn't exist yet.

Rule of Law is great, right up until it becomes inconvenient.

This should make everyone who hears about it ashamed and disgusted.

Whereas Soldiers Who Commit War Crimes Are No Big Deal

Scotsman.com News - UK - Soldiers to get life in jail for refusing to act as occupiers
"SOLDIERS who object to taking part in a military occupation of a foreign country will face life in prison under measures due to be rubber-stamped in the House of Commons on Monday."
thanks to the Cosmic Iguana for pointing this out. It's far worse to the powers that be to have people dare to refuse to do their dirty work than to actually do the dirty work itself.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Of Course! Now I Understand!


www.physorg.com:
"Researchers Look Beyond the Birth of the Universe

The figure represents our expanding universe as the right branch of the arc. Our time now is located at the 1.8 grid mark on the right side of the drawing. According to Ashtekar's team's calculations, when looking backward throughout the history of the universe, 'time' does not go to the point of the Big Bang but bounces to the left branch of the drawing, which describes a contracting universe. Singh explains, 'The state of the universe depicted by its wavefunction is shown in space (\mu) and time(\phi). The big bang singularity lies where space vanishes (goes to zero). Our expanding phase of the universe is shown by the right branch which, when reversed backward in time, bounces near the Big Bang to a contracting phase (left branch) and never reaches the Big Bang.'"
The astounding thing about this article is that it's not some kind of science fiction. Supposedly it's genuine science, from some guys at Penn State.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Exporting Democracy to Mexico

Narco News:

US political mudslingers Dick Morris and Rob Allyn are up to no good in Mexico.

Is Another Waco About to Happen?

The Electric New Paper, Singapore -
"As police and prosecutors arrived to investigate Warren Jeffs' 10,000-strong enclave in Colorado City in Arizona this week, some residents were seen hurriedly moving out."

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Water Falling on a Rotating Plate Spontaneously Forms into Polygons


This one is mind blowing.

Taking on a New Shape:
"While the first polygon experiment Bohr did involved stationary polygons, the most recent effort shows rotating polygons. “Not only are these shapes rotating,” says Bohr, “but they are rotating at a different speed than the plate beneath them.” "

Could Someone Look Up "Conflict of Interest" and Then Explain This to Me?

Bushes' Assets May Top $20 Million; Cheneys', $94 Million:
"The Cheneys reported owing $529,636 on taxable income of $1,961,157 in 2005, according to their tax return, released last month. The couple's total income in 2005 was $8.8 million, largely as a result of stock options Cheney, 65, received before stepping down as chairman of Houston-based Halliburton Co., the world's largest oil-field services company, to run for vice president in 2000."

A Tiny Revolution

Jonathan Schwarz writes stuff that's so clever, so insightful, that so much makes me think "Gosh, I wish I'd written that" that, well, I don't have to write it, because he already did.

I hadn't checked his blog in a day or two, and it's overwhelming how much clever stuff he's posted lately.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

One Way To Protest

Daily Kos: State of the Nation:
"Condoleezza Rice at Boston College? I quit
By Steve Almond | May 12, 2006

An open letter to William P. Leahy, SJ, president of Boston College.

DEAR Father Leahy,

I am writing to resign my post as an adjunct professor of English at Boston College.

I am doing so -- after five years at BC, and with tremendous regret -- as a direct result of your decision to invite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be the commencement speaker at this year's graduation.

Many members of the faculty and student body already have voiced their objection to the invitation, arguing that Rice's actions as secretary of state are inconsistent with the broader humanistic values of the university and the Catholic and Jesuit traditions from which those values derive.

But I am not writing this letter simply because of an objection to the war against Iraq. My concern is more fundamental. Simply put, Rice is a liar...."

The "Missing Gun" Story Continues

Guardian Unlimited
Small arms shipped from Bosnia to Iraq 'go missing' as Pentagon uses dealers

Ian Traynor in Zagreb
Friday May 12, 2006
The Guardian

The Pentagon has secretly shipped tens of thousands of small arms from Bosnia to Iraq in the past two years, using a web of private companies, at least one of which is a noted arms smuggler blacklisted by Washington and the UN.

According to a report by Amnesty International, which investigated the sales, the US government arranged for the delivery of at least 200,000 Kalashnikov machine guns from Bosnia to Iraq in 2004-05. But though the weaponry was said to be for arming the fledgling Iraqi military, there is no evidence of the guns reaching their recipient.

Senior western officials in the Balkans fear that some of the guns may have fallen into the wrong hands.

A Nato official described the trade as the largest arms shipments from Bosnia since the second world war.

The official told Amnesty: 'Nato has no way of monitoring the shipments once they leave Bosnia. There is no tracking mechanism to ensure they do not fall into the wrong hands. There are concerns that some of the weapons may have been siphoned off.'

European administrators in Bosnia, as well as NGOs working to oversee the stockpiling and destruction of weapons from the Bosnian war of the 1990s, are furious that the Pentagon's covert arms-to-Iraq programme has undermined the disarmament project.

'It's difficult to persuade people to destroy weapons when they're all holding back and waiting for Uncle Sam to arrive with a fistful of dollars,' said Adrian Wilkinson, a former British officer overseeing a UN disarmament programme in former Yugoslavia."
Later in the story:
The Moldovan air firm which flew the cargo out of a US air base at Tuzla, north-east Bosnia, was flying without a licence. The firm, Aerocom, named in a 2003 UN investigation of the diamonds-for-guns trade in Liberia and Sierra Leone, is now defunct, but its assets and aircraft are registered with another Moldovan firm, Jet Line International.
Yes, Jet Line. Yes, Victor Bout. Again.

Anyone Know If This Is True? I Wonder Who We Could Ask...

Wayne Madsen Report :
"May 11, 2006 -- Israeli Gestapo-like security personnel intimidate travelers from Europe coming to the United States. According to European journalists, Israeli citizens and European nationals who are employees of the airport passenger screening firm ICTS -- International Consultants for Targeted Security -- an Israeli firm based in the Netherlands, routinely intimidates journalists who are visiting the United States, demanding to know what stories they are working on and with whom they will be talking. ICTS currently has contracts with Delta Airlines at Paris Charles deGaulle, Gatwick in London, Continental out of Milan and Barcelona, and 100 other airlines operating out of 50 European airports in 12 countries and the firm employs some 5000 personnel. Many of the firm's officers are ex-Mossad and Shin Bet officers.

In one incident, an Israeli ICTS screener at deGaulle accused a boarding journalist of being like all other journalists in 'causing disruption' by spreading untrue stories and being 'arrogant.' The passenger was repeatedly warned by the screener and the manager that an 'instant deportation' from the U.S. Homeland Security Department would be in store for failing to answer questions about the nature of the story being investigated. When passengers shows 'arrogance,' ICTS screeners place red ICTS tags on their luggage and ticket envelope."

Friday, May 12, 2006

200 Middle East Experts Against Military Option in Iran

Sari Gelzer |
" Middle East Experts Against Military Option in Iran

t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 12 May 2006

On May 9th, 200 American Middle East experts sent a letter to the White House warning President Bush against threatening US military action against Iran.

'We started the letter out of a sense of frustration that the experts in the field were not being consulted as the US develops policy toward Iran,' explained Professor Ahmad Sadri, the coordinator of the project. 'This is the same mistake the US government made before going to Iraq. We're saying don't do that again.'

This group of scholars, academics, commentators, and former US government officials called on the Bush administration to enter into face-to-face negotiations with the government in Tehran.

'As the International Atomic Energy Agency has found no evidence of research or diversion of materials toward atomic weapons in Iran, concerns about future dual use of nuclear technology ought to be addressed in face to face negotiations,' said the letter."

Hope the warning works better than it did last time.

Rice, Rumsfeld block access to secret detainees-ICRC�|�Reuters.com

How can any rational human being support this? Oh, I forgot. "Rational" is so pre-911. I guess "human" is, too.

Reuters.com:
"GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States has again refused the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to terrorism suspects held in secret detention centers, the humanitarian agency said on Friday.

The overnight statement was issued after talks in Washington between ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger and senior officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

'Mr. Kellenberger deplored the fact that the U.S. authorities had not moved closer to granting the ICRC access to persons held in undisclosed locations,' the Geneva-based agency said.

Kellenberger said: 'No matter how legitimate the grounds for detention, there exists no right to conceal a person's whereabouts or to deny that he or she is being detained.'"

How Many Flaws in Diebold Machines Does This Make Now?

Because I've lost count.

Inside Bay Area
"Scientists call Diebold security flaw 'worst ever'
Critics say hole created for upgrades could be exploited by someone with nefarious plans
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

Computer scientists say a security hole recently found in Diebold Election Systems' touch-screen voting machines is the 'worst ever' in a voting system.

Election officials from Iowa to Maryland have been rushing to limit the risk of vote fraud or disabled voting machines since the hole was reported Wednesday.

Scientists, who have conferred with Diebold representatives, said Diebold programmers created the security hole intentionally as a means of quickly upgrading voting software on its electronic voting machines.

The hole allows someone with a common computer component and knowledge of Diebold systems to load almost any software without a password or proof of authenticity and potentially without leaving telltale signs of the change.

'I think it's the most serious thing I've heard to date,' said Johns Hopkins University computer science professor Avi Rubin, who published the first security analysis of Diebold voting software in 2003. 'Even describing why I think it's serious is dangerous. This is something that's so easy to do that if the public were to hear about it, it would raise the risk of someone doing it. ... This is the worst-case scenario, almost.'

Diebold representatives acknowledged the security hole to Pennsylvania elections officials in a May 1 memo but said the 'probability for exploiting this vulnerability to install unauthorized software that could affect an election is considered low.'

California elections officials echoed that assessment Friday in a message to county elections chiefs. "


Whew! I feel better already!

AT&T, Bell South, and Mike McCurry Set Up Fake "Grassroots Internet Preservation" Group

Free Press :
"No where throughout this propaganda do they identify the nation’s largest telecom companies as the money behind the production. Instead, they dress up www.dontregulate.org as an authentically amateur effort — complete with hand-drawn cartoons, a scraggly, counter-culture net-guy as protagonist and a David vs. Goliath subtext.

They frame the issue as pitting corporations against the people, the rich guy against you, and stifling bureaucracy against the free market. They even give the URL a “dot-org” tag to cover their corporate tracks.

They paint the SavetheInternet coalition as seeking drastic regulation of the Internet. In fact, this group of more than 500 organizations, bloggers, educators and small businesses is asking only that Congress preserve Net Neutrality, the guiding principle that has kept the Internet free and open since its beginning.

It is AT&T and BellSouth that are asking Congress to radically re-regulate the Internet by stripping Net Neutrality from the wires. It’s the largest phone and cable corporations — with their monopoly control of broadband access across more than 50 percent of America — that pose the biggest threat to the free and fair enterprise and democratic discourse.

Remember, these same companies have handed over to the National Security Agency the personal phone logs of tens of millions of ordinary Americans, in violation of their customer privacy agreements. And now they’re asking us to trust them with the Internet?"

Thursday, May 11, 2006

More on the Story Below

Jeff Wells of Rigorous Intuition:
"Amnesty chief spokesman Mike Blakemore said: 'It's unbelievable that no one can account for 200,000 assault rifles. If these weapons have gone missing it's a terrifying prospect.' American defence chiefs hired a US firm to take the guns, from the 90s Bosnian war, to Iraq.

But air traffic controllers in Baghdad have no record of the flights, which supposedly took off between July 2004 and July 2005. A coalition forces spokesman confirmed they had not received 'any weapons from Bosnia' and added they were 'not aware of any purchases for Iraq from Bosnia'. Nato and US officials have already voiced fears that Bosnian arms - sold by US, British and Swiss firms - are being passed to insurgents. A NATO spokesman said: 'There's no tracking mechanism to ensure they don't fall into the wrong hands. There are concerns that some may have been siphoned off.' This year a newspaper claimed two UK firms were involved in a deal in which thousands of guns for Iraqi forces were re-routed to al-Qaeda.

The Moldovan airline is Aerocom, and yes, it's one of Victor Bout's."

Who is Victor Bout?

Here's a compilation of articles about him, up through June of 2005. Suffice it to say, if you're interested in smuggling dope or guns, he's your guy.

How to Make Sure a War Continues

Mirror.co.uk - News - 10 May 2006
"SOME 200,000 guns the US sent to Iraqi security forces may have been smuggled to terrorists, it was feared yesterday.

The 99-tonne cache of AK47s was to have been secretly flown out from a US base in Bosnia. But the four planeloads of arms have vanished.

Orders for the deal to go ahead were given by the US Department of Defense. But the work was contracted out via a complex web of private arms traders.

And the Moldovan airline used to transport the shipment was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia, human rights group Amnesty has discovered."

Monday, May 08, 2006

Let's Make the US a Third World Country!

Jonathon Schwarz—A Tiny Revolution:
What they're trying to do is not force government revenue down so that spending will then be prudently cut. They think Americans are too attached to their disgusting unearned Social Security, Medicare, food, etc. to ever do that. However, they do believe they may be able to crush social spending if there's a gigantic fiscal catastrophe.

So, they've set out to create one. This requires planning and effort over decades, particularly for a country as economically powerful as the U.S. But they've gone a very long way to succeeding.

The most likely motor for such a welcome financial panic is our gigantic foreign debt. The longer this debt accumulates, the more likely it is there will be a rapid collapse in the dollar. Then the fed will jam up interest rates, the economy will stagger, and with the government already heavily indebted there won't be much room to maneuver.

Believe me when I tell you they are already preparing for such a day. When it comes, they will have an explanation they will scream from every TV and editorial page in America: THIS IS THE FAULT OF AMERICA'S GREEDY WELFARE RECIPIENTS. The only solution, they'll explain, is a massive cram-down of government-funded pension and medical benefits.

Of course, it won't be the fault of greedy normal people. Nor will slashing government benefits solve anything; just the contrary. But this is a game plan they've successfully executed in many third world countries. There's no reason it can't work here, particularly given that they've been laying the groundwork for it for years and we're completely unprepared.

True, this will be disastrous for the U.S. as country. But that's the last thing Norquist & co. care about. What matters to them is their relative power within the U.S. They'd far rather be the upper class in a poor country like Ecuador than the upper class in a rich, developed country. And that's what they're shooting for:

My family and I rented an apartment in the new section of Quito... Beyond the office towers, up along the valley walls, were lavish new condominiums and golf courses and tennis clubs. A good French dinner ran about fifteen dollars, a full-time, live-in house servant about twenty-five dollars a month.

I called them servants; one of my neighbors, Alex, called them slaves...
For someone like Alex—that is, for anyone, American or Ecuadorian, who works in the white-collar end of the petroleum business... Ecuador's ever-increasing poverty was a windfall. The price of slaves kept dropping. 'The debt?' Alex said. 'I love the debt.'"

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Bush's best moment in office?




Reeling in
big perch—
Reuters.co.uk:

"BERLIN (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush told a German newspaper his best moment in more than five years in office was catching a big perch in his own lake.

'You know, I've experienced many great moments and it's hard to name the best,' Bush told weekly Bild am Sonntag when asked about his high point since becoming president in January 2001.

'I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound (3.402 kilos) perch in my lake,' he told the newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Bush said the worst moment was September 11 when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

'In such a situation it takes a while before one understands what is happening,' Bush said. 'I would say that this was the hardest moment, once I had the real picture before my eyes.'"

LiveScience.com - Walk a Quarter-Mile or Die

LiveScience.com -

If you can walk a quarter-mile, odds are you have at least six years of life left in you, scientists announced today.

And the faster you can do it, the longer you might live."

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Did Colbert "Bomb?" or perhaps just use noise-cancelling microphones?

Wayne Madsen Report - Home:
"May 4, 2006 -- What you didn't hear at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Comedian Stephen Colbert's slam on George W. Bush at last Saturday's White House Correspondents Dinner was met with thunderous laughter but not from representatives of the Bush administration and many members of the media. The microphone used at the dais was a 'noise canceling' microphone -- the same type used in Howard Dean's campaign rally hall in Iowa in 2004. The microphones cancel out all other ambient noise except for the speaker. With 2700 attendees and hundreds of hotel staff gathering plates and utensils from tables, C-SPAN viewers could only hear Colbert and what sounded like dead silence. However, according to people in attendance, Colbert's remarks were met with laughter and applause, none of which was picked up by the sound system installed at the dais. Members of the media were more concerned about irritating some of the corporate media moguls present if they laughed at Colbert's remarks. The penalty for such indiscretions might include being dis-invited from the such after-banquet chi chi events like the Bloomberg party held near the Hinckley Hilton."

Mobile-phone signals reveal rainfall—and maybe a lot more

news @ nature.com: Transmissions wobbles create weather data...
"Research carried out by Hagit Messer and her colleagues at Tel Aviv University in Israel shows that it is possible to gauge rainfall by analysing the signal fluctuations of mobile-phone base stations. The group believes that by using information that is already collected by mobile-phone companies it should be possible to create much more accurate weather models. 'What we are offering is better accuracy and better coverage,' says Messer.

It is a well known phenomenon that rain can affect mobile-phone transmissions: droplets in the air reduce signal strength, with different-sized droplets affecting specific frequencies in the signal. This is so firmly established that base stations now automatically compensate for signal attenuations as the atmospheric conditions change, says Messer, whose work is published today in Science."
(Messer H., Zinevich A., Alpert P. Science, 312. 713 (2006).)
(. . .)
Mobile-phone signals themselves have also been harvested for other information in the past. Some researchers, such as Microsoft's Eric Horvitz, have looked at using such signals as a way of monitoring how much traffic is clogging the roads, simply by using mobile-phone transmissions as proxies for the number of cars. And in 1999 during the conflict in Kosovo, it is widely thought that some sort of disturbances in mobile-phone networks were used to help Serbian forces detect US Air Force F-117 stealth fighters, and shoot one down, when they couldn't be seen on radar.
Remember when the Chinese Embassy was "accidentally" bombed by the US in Yugoslavia? I remember hearing a student being interviewed on KPFA claim he had discovered how, using electronic equipment easily obtained from Radio Shack, one can use distortions of radio waves caused by Stealth Fighters and Bombers to track them. He described it as the planes causing "ghosts" in the TV signals, like when your antenna is not adjusted correctly. Sounded reasonable to me. After Milosevic's residence was bombed, the only radio signals being sent in the area were from the Chinese Embassy's television transmitters. Therefore, to enable our attack to proceed, the Embassy had to be bombed. I've never found mention of this anywhere— on or off the net—but I just found this:

From Pacificnews.org, 1999:

Now, five months later, two newspapers -- the Observer in London, Politiken in Copenhagen -- jointly reported October 17 that several NATO officials and military officers have admitted that U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was deliberate.

The reporters also quoted a NIMA source as saying that the "wrong map" story was "a damned lie."

"Nearly everyone involved in NATO air operations or (radio) signals command knows that the embassy bombing was deliberate," said Jens Holsoe of Politiken, lead investigative reporter on the team.

The seasoned Danish journalist said he could not make sense of the claim that NATO based its targeting on old city maps, but "couldn't figure out in my own mind why NATO would deliberately bomb the embassy."

However, soon after he entered Kosovo with the first contingent of KFOR troops, he met a NATO electronic intelligence (Elint) officer who told him the Chinese Embassy was being used as a rebro (re-broadcasting) center.

"NATO had been hunting the radio transmitters in Belgrade," the officer said. "When the President's (Milosevic) residence was bombed on 23 April, the signals disappeared for 24 hours. When they came on the air again, we discovered they came from the embassy compound."

Oddly enough, I just found this online, from MIT, from 2001:
“Televisions have improved quite a bit, and comb filters have gotten better,” said Duckworth. “On older TV sets, though, when an airplane goes over your house, a reflective wave from the aircraft ends up interfering at your antenna, and you see lines and artifacts on your screen. To the extent that a stealth aircraft does not absorb the wave, the remnants of it still interact with the airplane and result in detectable interference patterns.”

The television analogy is particularly apt, since Lockheed has been working on a project that operates on the same principles as Roke Manor’s anti-stealth system. In this project, called Silent Sentry, FM radio stations and VHF television broadcasts are used to provide the dense network of radio waves that interacts with stealth aircraft. While there are fewer FM and VHF transmission towers than cell phone towers, each individual station transmits much more powerfully. The smaller number of stations would also reduce the computational requirements of the system.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

The Dubious Success of the Iraq War

Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community:
"The Iraq War is a success

by Sirocco
Tue May 2nd, 2006 at 01:29:51 AM EST
[promoted by BooMan]

Three years ago, the US President co-piloted a fighter aircraft onto the deck of the USS Lincoln to declare 'the end of major hostilities' in Iraq. Above him a banner proclaimed, 'Mission Accomplished.' Today, a humble 9 percent of Americans believe that the mission has really been such.

Though I respect the majority view, I have to say that it is, in fact, mistaken."
Then there follows the most comprehensive list I've seen of facts, spelling out in excruciating detail the horrorific results of this "battle against terror." And one little joke.

This Booman place has lots of interesting stuff. Somehow the internet keeps presenting more and more interesting stuff. And yet, there are still only 24 hours in a day—!

Congress Not Authorized to Hear Whistleblower

Secrecy News: from the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy:
There is no excuse for unauthorized disclosures of classified information, it is argued, because whistleblowers who have legitimate complaints about classified government misconduct can use official channels to convey those concerns on a classified basis.

But as a practical matter, those channels are often blocked or ineffectual.

That is what former National Security Agency employee Russell D. Tice discovered when he attempted to initiate contact with the Senate and House Intelligence Committees to report what he believed to be 'probable illegal conduct' by the NSA.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) did not respond to Mr. Tice's approach at all.

House Intelligence Committee staffers met with Mr. Tice but concluded that neither they nor any member of the Committee had the requisite security clearances to receive his complaint.

See several letters to Congress (pdf) sent by Mr. Tice last week, summarizing his conundrum.

In an astonishing letter (pdf) sent last January, the NSA itself advised Mr. Tice that the congressional intelligence committees were not cleared to receive his information, which involve Department of Defense Special Access Programs, and that he should not convey any classified information to them without prior coordination.

While affirming 'unequivocally' that Mr. Tice has 'every right to petition Congress' as 'guaranteed to you by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,' the NSA proceeded to warn Mr. Tice not to contact the committees without first providing a statement of his complaint to the Department of Defense Inspector General or the NSA Inspector General.

Thereafter, the NSA said, he should follow the instruction of the Secretary of Defense 'on how to contact the intelligence committees in accordance with appropriate security practices.'"

Monday, May 01, 2006

How About Setting the Stage for a "Terrorist" Attack?

Wayne Madsen Report - Home:
"The FAA has already had to cede control of the airspace over the U.S.-Mexican border to the Department of Homeland Security for border patrol operations involving unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). That and the Pentagon's desire to put UAVs in operation over some of America's busiest commercial airspace has tempers running even higher in the FAA. Military sources also report another potential danger involving UAVs. If a UAV, particularly a Predator, 'accidentally' strikes a commercial passenger plane in mid-air, the ground destruction would mimic that from an attack by a surface-to-air missile. Depending on the height of the collision, the presence of weapons on the UAV, and the composite materials of the drone, there would be little or no trace of the drone material left after such an impact, the sources claim. Given the Bush administration's push for another 'terrorist' incident in order to advance its agenda, an 'accident' involving a UAV and commercial jetliner, perhaps over a heavily populated area, would be quickly blamed on 'terrorism' involving the U.S. enemy du jour."

The Observer | Business | New oil shock ahead as $100 spike looms

The Observer: Oliver Morgan and Heather Stewart| New oil shock ahead as $100 spike looms:"
Oliver Morgan and Heather Stewart
Sunday April 30, 2006

The growing international crisis over Iran's nuclear programme could trigger a catastrophic oil price spike, sending crude prices over $100 a barrel, senior Wall Street analysts are warning.

With prices already at around $72 a barrel, such an increase could mean drivers facing prices of 110p a litre on forecourts, according the the Petrol Retailers Association. Last week Lord Browne, chief executive of BP, warned that prices could rise to �1 as he unveiled bumper $5.27bn profits for the first quarter."

Again, no reason for this other than sheer speculation. Holland Tulip Speculation kind of prices.

Energy Secretary: up to three years of fuel pain - The Energy Equation - MSNBC.com

The Energy Equation - MSNBC.com:
"Bodman said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the shortfall was a sign of a stronger economy under President Bush, but he acknowledged that, at least for now, “the suppliers have lost control of the market.”

“The oil has gone up because the suppliers are unable to make the flows equal to the demand,” he said. “... Clearly, it’s going to be a number of years, maybe two to three years, before suppliers are going to be able to keep up with those demands.”
Compare this to the article three down from this one about how there is no shortage of oil right now. Interesting, eh?

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