All people everywhere should have fre energy sources. Electric Power is everywhere present in unlimited quantities and can drive the worlds machinery wihtout the need for coal, oil, or gas. -Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was not in this for the money. He wanted to give the world free energy. If we are to ipmlement free energy in the tradition of Nikola Tesla, then we ned to replicate not only his science but his humanity.
-Sterling D. Allen
NEW series with Dr. Lustig “The Skinny on Obesity” http://www.uctv.tv/skinny-on-obesity. Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin. Series: UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public [7/2009] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 16717]
Dr Lustig graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster PA and then completed medical school at Jefferson Medical College. He completed 2 years of internal medicine training at New York Medical College followed by 2 years in the United States Navy. He returned to Philadelphia and completed his residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He practiced radiation oncology at Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center in Camden New Jersey and was on the faculty of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He came to the University of Pennsylvania in 1998 and specialized in the treatment of brain tumors and head and neck cancer. He was appointed a Fellow of the American College of Radiology and has been co-chairman of the Quality Control Committee of the Radiation Therapy Oncology group which is a national organization developing and managing clinical trials in radiation therapy. He is a member of the board of the Pediatric Proton Foundation.
In my consulting practice, I constantly hear people complain about how they rarely get what they want in life. They claim that when they do receive an answer to a wish or prayer, it falls short of the expected goal. Very frustrating, indeed!
Many researchers state that most human beings use just 10% or less of their brain capacity. What is even more shocking, humans only use 3% of their total DNA instructions, leaving the remaining 97% to be called “junk DNA” by scientists.
Russian researchers claim that the way the protein bases of DNA, (cytosine, adenine, guanine and thymine) are put together, that they actually appear like syntax in language. This research led to the idea that perhaps your words, vocalized or even simply thought, can affect your DNA. Research on this is still conducted in many countries.
You may have also heard the term “thoughts are things.” This is because thoughts can be measured electromagnetically. An electroencephalograph measures brain waves and indicates that a brain is alive. Science and medicine recognize that as long as brainwaves are active and projecting out, a person is living.
What would happen if you were able to open up a portion of the brain capacity and DNA storage that you don’t use? What abilities or powers would you have? Is this what psychics can do?
I use an analogy of how you can create your body and experiences using only your thoughts.
Think of it like this:
Thoughts are like film.
The brain is the projector.
Physical reality is the screen.
If you don’t like the “movie” that is playing around you, all you need to do is change the “film,” which takes you right back to your thoughts.
Sounds simple, but is it?
When you have specific thoughts and ideas most of your life, you may find it challenging to change your conditioned way of thinking. You are conditioned by your parents, school, church, friends and media. You are conditioned to have specific thoughts in a specific way.
For example, if mother said you need to change your socks every day, then as you become an adult, after following this thought path daily, you may feel strange or even guilty if you don’t do as you have been conditioned.
How do you modify your thoughts?
One way that seems to work well is by the use of affirmations. These are positive statements that a person thinks constantly to change or override a foundational thought or mind-pattern. Some people like to write them down constantly. The act of writing them over and over embeds the thought in your mind.
Keep your affirmations positive and in the current moment. For example, let’s say that you want to buy a home. Use this affirmation:
“I now own the most perfect home for me to live in.” Or…
“I now have the funding to purchase my most perfect residence.”
You can create your own versions of this. Just follow the rules of keeping it personal, current and only with positive words.
You can even do a visualization where you see a big, brown X through any negative thought that you feel holds you back from achieving your goals. Then, once you have brown X’ed it out, immediately replace it with the affirmation you have created.
Another way to create your desires and goals is to actually visualize your brain as a projector. Then, remove the “film” that is running through it and replace it with new film that contains what you want.
Or, visualize a DVD player in your mind. Replace the disc with a new one. On that disc see a label with what you want to create. Then, simply see the new disc running like a software in your mind.
Be as creative as you like. Visualize whatever you feel will help you to achieve this change in thinking. Make it a fun process. Make a list of the goals and end results that you wish to accomplish. You will be amazed at what you can do and never realized before!
You may claim that you are not able to concentrate or visualize. This may be due to stress, medications, fatigue, injuries or even just thinking that you can’t. But, if you can daydream, you can visualize.
Everyone daydreams. Some more than others. However, you often don’t even realize that you are daydreaming. Visualization simply means becoming aware of your daydreams and focusing on them to create your dreams into your reality. Practice makes perfect. Keep trying!
Do you like the “movie of your life” that is playing before your eyes? Want to make changes? Replace the “film.” You are the producer, director and editor. You cast all roles. Happy movie-making!
According to two Merck scientists who filed a False Claims Act complaint in 2010 — a complaint which has just now been unsealed — vaccine manufacturer Merck knowingly falsified its mumps vaccine test data, spiked blood samples with animal antibodies, sold a vaccine that actually promoted mumps and measles outbreaks, and ripped off governments and consumers who bought the vaccine thinking it was “95% effective.”
According to Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski, both former Merck virologists, the Merck company engaged in all the following behavior:
• Merck knowingly falsified its mumps vaccine test results to fabricate a “95% efficacy rate.”
• In order to do this, Merck spiked the blood test with animal antibodies in order to artificially inflate the appearance of immune system antibodies. As reported in CourthouseNews.com:
Merck also added animal antibodies to blood samples to achieve more favorable test results, though it knew that the human immune system would never produce such antibodies, and that the antibodies created a laboratory testing scenario that “did not in any way correspond to, correlate with, or represent real life … virus neutralization in vaccinated people,” according to the complaint. (http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/06/27/47851.htm)
• Merck then used the falsified trial results to swindle the U.S. government out of “hundreds of millions of dollars for a vaccine that does not provide adequate immunization.”
• Merck’s vaccine fraud has actually contributed to the continuation of mumps across America, causing more children to become infected with mumps. (Gee, really? This is what NaturalNews has been reporting for years… vaccines are actually formulated to keep the outbreaks going because it’s great for repeat business!)
• Merck used its false claims of “95 percent effectiveness” to monopolize the vaccine market and eliminate possible competitors.
• The Merck vaccine fraud has been going on since the late 1990’s, say the Merck virologists.
• Testing of Merck’s vaccine was never done against “real-world” mumps viruses in the wild. Instead, test results were simply falsified to achieve the desired outcome.
• This entire fraud took place “with the knowledge, authority and approval of Merck’s senior management.”
• Merck scientists “witnessed firsthand the improper testing and data falsification in which Merck engaged to artificially inflate the vaccine’s efficacy findings,” according to court documents (see below).
US government chose to ignore the 2010 False Claims Act!
Rather than taking action on this false claims act, the U.S. government simply ignored it, thereby protecting Merck’s market monopoly instead of properly serving justice. This demonstrates the conspiracy of fraud between the U.S. government, FDA regulators and the vaccine industry.
Chatom Primary Care sues Merck for Sherman Act monopolization, breach of warranty, violation of consumer protection laws
Following the unsealing of this 2010 False Claims Act, Chatom Primary Care, based in Alabama, smelled something rotten. Three days ago, Chatom filed a lawsuit against Merck. That lawsuit record is available here: www.naturalnews.com/gallery/documents/Chatom-Lawsuit-Merck-Mumps.pdf
It alleges, among other shocking things:
[Merck engaged in] …a decade-long scheme to falsify and misrepresent the true efficacy of its vaccine.
Merck fraudulently represented and continues to falsely represent in its labeling and elsewhere that its Mumps Vaccine has an efficacy rate of 95 percent of higher.
In reality, Merck knows and has taken affirmative steps to conceal — by using improper testing techniques and falsifying test data — that its Mumps Vaccine is, and has been since at least 1999, far less than 95 percent effective.
Merck designed a testing methodology that evaluated its vaccine against a less virulent strain of the mumps virus. After the results failed to yield Merck’s desired efficacy, Merck abandoned the methodology and concealed the study’s findings.
…incorporating the use of animal antibodies to artificially inflate the results…
…destroying evidence of the falsified data and then lying to an FDA investigator…
…threatened a virologist in Merck’s vaccine division with jail if he reported the fraud to the FDA…
…the ultimate victims here are the millions of children who every year are being injected with a mumps vaccine that is not providing them with an adequate level of protection. And while this is a disease that, according to the Centers for Disease Control (‘CDC’), was supposed to be eradicated by now, the failure in Merck’s vaccine has allowed this disease to linger, with significant outbreaks continuing to occur.
Chatom Primary Care also alleges that the fraudulent Merck vaccine contributed to the 2006 mumps outbreak in the Midwest, and a 2009 outbreak elsewhere. It says, “there has remained a significant risk of a resurgence of mumps outbreaks…”
This investigation is only beginning
NaturalNews has only begun to investigate this incredible breaking news about Merck and the vaccine industry. We are pouring through the court documents to identify additional information that may be relevant to this case, and we plan to bring you that information soon.
For the record, Merck denies all allegations. Is anyone surprised?
Totalitarian governments, like persistent forms of cancer, have latched onto the long history of man, falling and then reemerging from the deep recesses of our cultural biology to wreak havoc upon one unlucky generation to the next. The assumption by most is that these unfortunate empires are the product of bureaucracies gone awry; overtaken by the chaotic maddening hunger for wealth and power, and usually manipulated by the singular ambitions of a mesmerizing dictator. For those of us in the Liberty Movement who are actually educated on the less acknowledged details of history, oligarchy and globalized centralism is much less random than this, and a far more deliberate and devious process than the general unaware public is willing consider.
Unfortunately, the final truth is very complex, even for us…
One cannot place the blame of despotism entirely on the shoulders of globalists. Sadly, the crimes of elites are only possible with a certain amount of complicity from subsections of the populace. Without our penchant for apathy and fear, there can be no control. That is to say, there is no power over us but that which we give away. We pave the road to our own catastrophes.
In the end, a tyrant’s primary job is not to crush the masses and rule out of malevolence, but to obtain the voluntary consent of the citizenry, usually through trickery and deceit. Without the permission of the people, subconscious or otherwise, no tyranny can survive.
As with the oppressive regimes of the past, America has undergone a dramatic transformation, heavy with fear and ignorance. Our tradition of elections has been corrupted and negated by the false left/right paradigm, and the leaderships of both defunct parties now seek only to elevate a select minority of men bent on globalization. Our Constitutional liberties have been dismantled by legal chicanery. Our principles have been diluted by intellectual games of rationalism and moral relativism. Our country is ripe for conquest.
Americans battle over whose side is most to blame; Democrat or Republican, while ironically being disenchanted with both entities. For some people, the thought of holding each party equally accountable, or accepting that they are essentially the same animal, never crosses their minds.
While this irrelevant farce of a debate rages on, the true culprits plotting the demise of our Republic gain momentum, and implement policy initiatives that the public should and must take note of. In the past year alone, many blatant steps towards the Orwellian gulag have been openly administered. A carnival of peddlers and freaks and greasy popcorn overwhelms our senses, but the stench of this cheap circus still tickles our noses, and if we use our eyes for even a moment, certain dangerous trends reveal themselves. Here are just a few recent events that bear a dire warning; the ultimate assault on freedom in this nation grows near…
Acclimation To Subservience
Every totalitarian state worth its salt has its own goon squad. The Nazi’s had the “Brownshirts”, the Soviets had the “Militsiya” and the “Voluntary People’s Brigade”, the Communist Chinese have the “Chengguan”, etc. In America, however, all tyrannical measures are given innocuous bureaucratic labels to mislead and distract the masses. In this country, we have the Transportation Security Administration…
The TSA has become the most hated alphabet agency in the U.S. in perhaps the fastest time on record. It has violated the personal rights of more people on a daily basis in my view than the IRS, DEA, and the ATF combined. Clearly, this slobbering demon child of the Department of Homeland Security is being molded for something quite terrible and grand.
When confronted by the public on the use of irradiating and intrusive naked body scanner technology, the agency responded by allowing their blue handed ghoul army with to molest our nether-regions. When confronted by state and local governments on their absurd tactics, the TSA threatened economic blockades and airport shutdowns. The organization then began expanding its jurisdiction to bus and train stations and even our highways when it introduced the VIPR program and implemented random roadside checkpoints in Tennessee last year. But, this behavior is nothing compared to what is next on the horizon: a compromise…
Beware of government agencies bearing gifts. The TSA along with the International Air Transport Association has announced a new methodology of “less intrusive” passenger screening measures, in order to address the concerns of the public over pat downs and irradiating naked body scanners. This SOUNDS like a step in the right direction, and a proper response to the grievances of the citizenry. Instead, it turns out to be a refined example of totalitarianism in motion, and a perfect lesson in how the masses can be duped into handing over their inherent freedoms.
Revamped security protocols call for biometric data collection, including fingerprint and retina scans, and a tunnel which combines multiple detection systems into one area (who knows how radioactive this will end up being):
The mainstream article above makes this development sound like a win/win scenario for everyone, painting biometric data collection as a matter of convenience, but it also reveals the true design of the system; to illicit voluntary subservience:
“The key to speeding up checkpoints and making security less intrusive will be to identify and assess travelers according to the risks they pose to safety in the skies. The so-called riskiest or unknown passengers would face the toughest scrutiny, including questioning and more sensitive electronic screening. Those who voluntarily provide more information about themselves to the government would be rewarded with faster passage…”
They enforce destructive anti-personal rights policies then pretend to acquiesce by replacing them with a technocratic nightmare grid which requires the cataloging of our very genetic essence in order to function. The only remaining injustice left would be to apply this grid to the rest of the country outside of the airports and train stations, which I assure you, they plan to do.
Militarization
Last week, I covered the disturbing use of armored vehicles (APC’s or urban tanks) in open training regiments on the streets of St. Louis by the U.S Army, despite the fact that all of their exercises could have easily been accomplished on any number of military bases across the country. The action is an obvious attempt to condition the American populace to the sight of military units operating in a policing capacity:
I received multiple letters from current serving military who stated that in all their years in the armed forces they had never seen such a brash mishandling of public relations or an overstepping of bounds when it came to the restrictions of Posse Comitatus. It was encouraging to hear from military men and women who did not agree with or condone this kind of psyop activity on the part of our government.
Though the St. Louis event is not isolated, I believe it does represent an escalation.
Remember the controversy over the Mayor of Toledo and his refusal to allow 200 Marines to conduct urban combat drills on the public streets of his city in 2008? The media clamored to crucify this public official; one of the few who had any sense whatsoever in his head:
During each one of these events, city officials and local media attempted to inoculate the public with claims that they were “simply exercises”. This argument misses the point entirely. Whether or not these are “exercises” is not the issue. The issue is that this training could be done ON BASE. Using public streets and running drills within cities is absolutely unnecessary given the vast resources already available to the military, unless, of course, the goal is to BE SEEN by the public and to influence them to view the sight of armed troops around them as “normal”.
Add to this the fact that many of these military training exercises are being conducted in tandem with local police department, and you have a recipe for the utter militarization of our society, turning peace officers into combat soldiers, and combat soldiers into law enforcement mechanisms; a juxtaposition that will soon lead to unmitigated disaster.
Arms Race Against the People?
When a country is quietly preparing for war, the first signs are usually revealed by a disclosure of armaments. If stockpiling is taking place without a warranted threat present from a legitimate enemy, there is a considerable likelihood of aggression on the part of that nation. America has gone well beyond the psychological process of militarization and has begun the extensive arming of particular agencies whose primary purpose revolves around the domestic.
The DHS, for instance, placed an order for over 450 million rounds of hollowpoint .40 cal ammunition in April of this year:
While local police through federal programs (like the 1033 Program) are being given millions of dollars in free military equipment, including body armor, night vision equipment, APC’s, aircraft, first aid supplies, weapons, surveillance equipment, Kevlar helmets, gas masks and filters, vehicles, etc.:
All of this equipment, though issued to state agencies, is still heavily tracked and regulated by the federal government, making it clear that these “gifts” come with strings attached:
And finally, new FAA regulations will soon allow the dispersion of tens of thousands of predator drones with armament capability in the skies of the U.S. over the course of the next few years:
Now, anyone with any logic would ask who it is that the government is arming itself and local police to fight against? Al Qaeda? Let’s not be naïve…
The passage of the NDAA and its provisions for the indefinite detainment of ANY person, even an American citizen, under the laws of war has ended the debate over government intent in terms of domestic action. FBI Director Robert Mueller’s admission that he “did not know” if assassination programs would be used against American citizens also heaped evidence on the matter. The bottom line? Our government wishes to label and treat citizens as enemy combatants. Of course they would then organize armaments to follow through on their policy.
Pulling The Trigger
All despotic systems have another distinct similarity; they each began with a series of trigger events which opened the door to tighter controls over the population. The most immediate trigger event for the U.S. is the looming peril of a collapsing economy followed by inevitable civil unrest. With the EU currently in debt shambles, global markets are on the verge of a considerable breakdown. The Federal Reserve response will be predictable; QE3 and massive stimulus all around to mitigate the crisis. This time, though, the go-to Keynesian quick fix will not work in the slightest. In fact, it will make matters more untenable by placing the world reserve status of the dollar at risk.
Everything that has happened so far in the markets this year has been easy to foresee. Alt-Market predicted the economic slowdown around the world and the collapse of overall demand using the Baltic Dry Index as a gauge back in January:
If alternative economic analysts can predict these developments despite the manipulated statistics spewed out by the government every month, then I think the government and our central bank has a tremendously transparent view of what is coming down the road in terms of financial distress. I believe the establishment is very well aware of a potential crisis event, economic or otherwise, that is barreling down upon the U.S. I believe the evidence shows that they are preparing for this eventuality in a command and control fashion, without alerting the public to the coming implosion. I believe they will use the despair that flows forth from the fiscal wreckage as an excuse to institute martial law.
Call it “crazy”. Call it “conspiracy theory”. Call it “coincidence”. Call it “fear mongering”. Whatever you like. I find it far more insane to shrug off the strange and twisted behavior of our power structure, and simply hope that it’s all irrelevant to the future. Whenever I run into starry eyed historical romanticists who look back in astonishment at the tyrannies of the past and wonder out loud, “How could those people have not known where their country was headed?!!”, I think of where we are today…
Brandon Smith is the founder of Alt-Market is an organization designed to help you find like-minded activists and preppers in your local area so that you can network and construct communities for mutual aid and defense. Join Alt-Market.com today and learn what it means to step away from the system and build something better or contribute to their Safe Haven Project. You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com
EFF Asks Court to Reject Stale State Secret Arguments So Case Can Proceed
San Francisco – Three whistleblowers – all former employees of the National Security Agency (NSA) – have come forward to give evidence in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF’s) lawsuit against the government’s illegal mass surveillance program, Jewel v. NSA.
In a motion filed today, the three former intelligence analysts confirm that the NSA has, or is in the process of obtaining, the capability to seize and store most electronic communications passing through its U.S. intercept centers, such as the “secret room” at the AT&T facility in San Francisco first disclosed by retired AT&T technician Mark Klein in early 2006.
“For years, government lawyers have been arguing that our case is too secret for the courts to consider, despite the mounting confirmation of widespread mass illegal surveillance of ordinary people,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. “Now we have three former NSA officials confirming the basic facts. Neither the Constitution nor federal law allow the government to collect massive amounts of communications and data of innocent Americans and fish around in it in case it might find something interesting. This kind of power is too easily abused. We’re extremely pleased that more whistleblowers have come forward to help end this massive spying program.”
The three former NSA employees with declarations in EFF’s brief are William E. Binney, Thomas A. Drake, and J. Kirk Wiebe. All were targets of a federal investigation into leaks to the New York Times that sparked the initial news coverage about the warrantless wiretapping program. Binney and Wiebe were formally cleared of charges and Drake had those charges against him dropped.
Jewel v. NSA is back in district court after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it in late 2011. In the motion for partial summary judgment filed today, EFF asked the court to reject the stale state secrets arguments that the government has been using in its attempts to sidetrack this important litigation and instead apply the processes in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that require the court to determine whether electronic surveillance was conducted legally.
“The NSA warrantless surveillance programs have been the subject of widespread reporting and debate for more than six years now. They are just not a secret,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien. “Yet the government keeps making the same ‘state secrets’ claims again and again. It’s time for Americans to have their day in court and for a judge to rule on the legality of this massive surveillance.”
After the explosion in use comes the demonization. Then the press, despite a total lack of causal evidence, parrots the outlandish accusations.
Drug scares, like the seasons, are cyclical. Here in the US, we had media firestorms over crack in the 80’s, meth in the 90’s, and prescription painkillers in the 00’s. Right on schedule, the latest demon drug that is supposedly tearing our society apart has entered stage left: bath salts.
Bath salts really just means a drug that is a combination of two stimulants—MDPV and mephedrone. Sold online and via headshops as a cheap, legal alternative to cocaine and ecstasy, mephedrone was first synthesized in 1929 while MDPV came along in 1969. Both were rediscovered in 2003 and they were perfect drugs for the Internet age—an ideal alternative to pricy illegal drugs that could be obtained legally with nothing more than a credit card and the click of a mouse.
The exact pharmacology of bath salts can vary, as compounds are constantly tweaked by chemists to stay one step ahead of the law. “Most of these substances seem to be cathinone derivatives, and as such are central nervous system stimulants that act through interruptions of dopamine, norepinephrine and—to a more limited extent—serotonin function,” explains Dr. Adi Jaffe, an addiction specialist at UCLA. While noting that actual research on these substances is in its early stages and reports are limited, Jaffe says that “at low to moderate doses the most common effects for MDPV can be thought of as meth-like: stimulation, euphoria and alertness. Mephedrone seems to act more like MDMA than meth.”
While the chemistry may change, one thing that has remained consistent is the ballooning popularity of this sector of the drug market.
After the explosion in use, the next phase of the drug scare comes in the form of demonization, and the authorities have certainly wasted no time in making some pretty wild allegations about the supposed effects of bath salts; recently we’ve heard that these drugs can causes cannibalism, a la the infamous Miami face-eater, pedophilia and evencross-dressing goat abuse.
The third part of any good drug scare happens when the press, despite a total lack of causal evidence, parrots these outlandish accusations. In the Miami cannibal case, the link between bath salts originated from a statement made by someone with no direct involvement with the case—the president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, Armando Aguilar—despite the fact that an autopsy and toxicology had yet to be performed on attacker Rudy Eugene.
In the case of Shane Shuyler, the Miami man accused of exposing himself to children while “allegedly” under the influence of bath salts, the evidence was no less hazy. The police said they found something that “appeared” to be bath salts in his wallet (i.e. an unidentified white powder). And then there was this strange quote from a detective giving evidence against Shuyler: “Upon talking to him, he made some statements to me which led me to believe that he was cooling off in a fountain by the tot-lot, because he was hot, which was consistent with ingesting bath salts.” The logic being that since bath salts cause users body temperatures to rise, then cooling off by a water fountain is evidence of bath salts use. Never mind the fact that the incident took place in June, in Miami, where the average temperature is 88.1 degrees.
After the hype comes the crackdown, which means that high-profile cases like these have created a push from both the media and law enforcement for a federal ban on the sale of bath salts.
Florida Republican Rep. Sandy Adams is one of the politicians who helped push the Combating Dangerous Synthetic Stimulants Act of 2011 through the House last December. The bill would federally ban MDPV and mephedrone, the two chemicals found in bath salts, as well as outlawing dozens of other chemicals found in synthetic drugs. The reasoning? “Looking at the Miami incident, we’ve seen people do some very bizarre acts on bath salts,” Adams told the U.S. News and World Report. If he gets his way, bath salts would be categorized alongside heroin and LSD.
So can bath salts really cause ordinary normal people to cannibalize strangers, expose themselves to children, or murder goats? And if they can, why on earth would anybody take them? A drug that has been described variously as “super powered LSD” and “PCP on crack” seems like a confusing proposition. So which is it?
“The reason for the contrasting descriptions is most likely the small but very significant difference in the specific chemicals involved,” says Dr. Jaffe. “Meth and ecstasy are very close chemical cousins but obviously cause very different effects for the user; the same is true here.”
To better get a handle of what is happening here in the US, I looked toward the United Kingdom, which has recently been through a similar cycle of shock horror media coverage of the “bath salt epidemic,” followed by a rush to ban. Bath salts were known under various aliases in the UK, including M-Kat, Meow-Meow and Bubbles, so for the sake of clarity, I’m going to use their chemical name of the most common compound: mephedrone.
“The issues in the US and UK are very similar, except that, as in many things, the US hype is even more over the top than that in the UK,” says Danny Kushlick, founder of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, a charitable think tank that attempts to draw public attention to the fact that drug prohibition is the major cause of drug-related harm. “I mean, we never got so far as cannibalism.”
Yet at its height, the mephedrone scare in the UK was still pretty lurid; according to some of the coverage, it was linked to overdose, patricide and at least one case of self scrotum tearing. Many of these stories would later be disproved (the scrotum story, unsurprisingly was revealed as a hoax) and the two deaths that started the whole media scare—that of Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19—turned out to be totally unrelated to the use of the drug. By the time the toxicology report on Wainwright and Smith had been published, however, it was too late: the drug had been banned a month earlier by the UK parliament, after a one-hour debate and no vote on the matter.
Kushlick, who is on the council of the International Harm Reduction Association, and is a member of the British Society of Criminology’s Advisory Council, was a vocal opponent of the rush to ban mephedrone in the UK. In the months following the ban, he saw harm actually increase and not reduce because, he said, “when mephedrone was banned, the price increased and it was sold not by legitimate retailers but by non-tax paying unregulated dealers. It was also immediately replaced by a more potent compound and traded as Ivory Wave, which users had little experience with so they were more likely to get into trouble.”
These sentiments are echoed by Dr. Fiona Measham, a senior lecturer on Criminology at Lancaster University and the author of several books on drug use in young people. Her groundbreaking research into the use of mephedrone in the UK has provided some of the only hysteria-free data into mephedrone and the people who use it. Her paper, “Tweaking, Bombing, Dabbing and Stockpiling; the emergence of mephedrone and the Perversity of prohibition” (2010 Measham, et al), is the definitive account of the UK’s experience with the drug from the perspective of the people who actually use it.
“The government might claim that the ban was successful because mephedrone use and deaths have fallen,” says Measham, “but for me the question to ask is: what are users taking instead? In the UK, the rise and fall of mephedrone in 2009 and 2010 tracked the fall and now rise in the purity of cocaine, ecstasy pills and MDMA powder. [Since the ban], pills are back, big time, and the legal highs—whether now banned or not—just don’t compete for most recreational users.”
Despite the hazy evidence that it would have any effect at all on the level of drug use among young people, a federal ban is something that many in politics and law enforcement are in favor of here in the States. All it really seems guaranteed to do is drive up prices, lower purity and criminalize young people who continue to use the drug. At best, the use of the drug might be reduced as users switch over wholesale to different drugs. But in the politics of the drug war, no one ever let the truth get in the way of an expansion of hostilities. The police, Drug Enforcement Agency and court system will always welcome a new front in the war.
The big motivation, as always, is money. Local authorities want more money to “fight the war on drugs” even if they are fighting against a phantom menace. Already there are dark rumblings from the cops about needing more resources to fight against this army of bath salts crazed cannibals who are seemingly about to smash down your door and devour your children.
“The cities are deeply involved [in banning synthetic drugs] because the state can’t seem to get on top of it,” Pembroke Pines Commissioner Angelo Castillo said in an illuminating interview with Inquisitir.com. “We see cities jumping in to handle it because the state isn’t. Otherwise people die and people’s faces get chewed off.” Castillo added, “This is the next horizon in the war on drugs and we need to gear up and deal with it.”
Kushlick, who has seen firsthand the lack of effect that “gearing up to deal with it” has had on levels of use, suggests a more pragmatic approach. “The wiser move would have been to leave meph on the market and monitor its effect in order to ascertain its costs and benefits,” he tells me. “We know from experience that the Iron Law of Prohibition means that milder drugs will be replaced by more potent ones. That’s what happened under alcohol prohibition in the US as bootlegged spirits replaced beer. Conducting research on its effects and how people were using it could have been used to provide information to current and potential new users.”
The bottom line is this: more and more new users are trying bath salts, at least in part because of the attention thrust on the drug by the hysterical press coverage. When they discover that it doesn’t cause them to chew off peoples’ faces or tear off their own genitals, then they are more inclined to ignore all warnings about these drugs’ potential dangers. Kushlick’s advice to users is less likely to get the press excited but more likely to reduce harm. “As with any drug, if you are not used to using meph, you should take a small amount to assess its effects on you as an individual,” he says. “Always take new drugs with someone who is an experienced and trusted friend. Just because you have a good effect from the dose you’ve taken, do not assume that you can double the fun by doubling the dose.”
Tony O’Neill is the author of several novels, including Digging the Vein and Down and Out on Murder Mile andSick City. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Hero of the Underground (with Jason Peter) and the Los Angeles Times bestseller Neon Angel (with Cherie Currie). O’Neill has also covered Jerry Stahl and abstinence, among many other topics, for The Fix.
The Skinny: This insanely symmetrical, moat-surrounded masterpiece was designed by architect Charles Sieger. While it lacks a working drawbridge, simply destroying the only path that leads into the compound would be a logical first step.
Bonus Zombie Defense Feature: The rapper Birdman filmed a music video here, so there’s likely to be an automatic weapon or two that got left behind.
The Skinny: For a home that can withstand a zombie apocalypse, not to mention a nuclear apocalypse and other various apocalypses, $750,000 is a freakin’ bargain. Anyway, it’s a former nuclear silo-turned-luxury home. How cool is that?
Bonus Zombie Defense Feature: Paved air-strip gets a nod, but the real bread and butter is the former launch control center that sits behind doors made of three-inch concrete and mesh, 125 feet underground. Oh, and there’s a Jacuzzi down there, too.
The Skinny: This crazy compound is the (paranoid?) masterpiece of one AI V. Corbi, the founder of a company called SAFE (Strategically Armored & Fortified Environments) that specializes in stuff like mounting lasers on sharks, build missile-proof yachts, line Escalades with tank armor, panic rooms, etc. It’s also set on a private hilltop behind a pair of gates, and has a helipad.
Bonus Zombie Defense Feature: Property includes not only a dock, but also a helicopter pad for making your escape, which might come in handy if the zombies pull a “Dawn of the Dead” reboot and figure out how to make a ship out of corpses.
The Skinny: A massive and secluded mountain castle that could potentially provide residence for the masses. Also includes a six-floor “Gate’s Keeper” cottage, great hall and other structures.
Bonus Zombie Defense Feature: A pair of guard towers and other tall structures for scouting and medieval archer (and sniper) defense.
The Skinny: Concrete façade and a rooftop deck for headshot contests. Just under 4 acres and over 12,500 square feet provides enough room to take in a roaming survivor or two, you know, to help fight off forces, grow crops, repopulating Earth, etc. Pick and choose wisely, folks.
Bonus Zombie Defense Feature: 200-foot wood and steel escape home that leads from the main home to a private boathouse on the lake.
Bonus Zombie Defense Feature: If you manage to get this thing running, you might be able to contact an extraterrestrial life force to do one of two things: 1) kill the zombies or 2) repopulate the earth with half-human, half-alien beings.
No Body Of Men Has The Right To Deny The Technological Evolution Of Mankind… If a civilization truly wishes to consider itself civilized, it must embrace all technological and scientific advances. The suppression of any technological advance, can not be tolerated if we wish to be a ‘civil’ization. we must ask ourselves if we are working for the benefit of all mankind, or working for the benefit of a few businessman and politicians. The fact that we are unnecessarily poisoning our planet, our home, when their are numerous solutions, raises several questions as to why these technologies are being suppressed. The root of the problem is almost entirely one thing, greed. We as a society can no longer focus our entire efforts into what is profitable, because what is profitable is not always right, and what is right is not always profitable.
This contains a 7-part movie covering various inventors and suppressed inventions. such as, Nikola Tesla, Marco Rodin, Stan Meyers, John Hutchison, Water powered cars(HHO gas) water, dirt, and air batteries, “kelvins thunderstorm”, Stirling engines, the “n-machine”, and several others, well worth watching, even if you know a lot about “free energy” you may learn something you didn’t know.
David Wilcock reveals the stunning scientific proof that DNA and biological life emerge directly out of the Source Field… a universal matrix of energy creating all space, time, matter, energy, biological life and consciousness — and we are indeed about to experience the Greatest Moment of All Time. Learn about the pineal gland, Illuminati, government conspiracy, UFOs, DMT, the Mayan Calendar and more!
Due to overwhelming need elsewhere or lack of access to your neighborhood, you may be on your own for several days after a major disaster. A well-stocked kit can help you survive and be more comfortable during a major event such as an earthquake, flooding, power outages, etc.
What will you need to survive for a week? Two weeks?
Australian research scientists have developed a strategy for fighting Dengue fever, a viral disease spread by mosquitoes that affects more than 50 million people annually and causes fever and crippling joint and muscle pain—and in some cases even death.
Dengue kills FAR more people worldwide than influenza, yet it is rarely even mentioned by Western media.
A bacterium named Wolbachiapipientis naturally infects many insect species and has the ability to interfere with its host’s reproductive ability in such a way that entire populations become infected within just a few generationsi. When Wolbachia infects mosquitoes, the mosquitoes’ ability to transmit Dengue virus is almost completely blocked.
Researchers are encouraged that these bacterially infected mosquitoes are safe to humans and, once set loose, are capable of spreading on their own and overtaking the wild mosquito populations that transmit disease to humans.
In two northern Australian towns, between 10,000 and 20,000 of these infected mozzies were released (“mozzie” is Australian for mosquito), and wild mosquito infection rates neared 100 percent—meaning, mosquitoes that can infect humans were almost completely replaced by the ones that can’t.
This approach is a change from the swarms of genetically engineered mosquitoes being bred by companies like Oxitec, a British biotechnology company that has released millions of mutant mosquitoes into the fields of unsuspecting Australians.
Oxitec has found a way to genetically manipulate Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species mainly responsible for transmitting Dengue and yellow fever viruses to humans. These “frankenskeeters” represent a new and terrifying twist in potential GMO (genetically modified organisms) dangers—another product of modern science outpacing common sense when big money is thrown into the equation.
Dengue is a Far Worse Problem than Influenza
Dengue fever is on the rise worldwide and spreading faster than any other insect-borne viral disease. It is a threat to people in more than 100 countries, potentially affecting 2.5 billion people worldwide. Dengue infection typically causes high fever, crushing headache, severe pain behind your eyes, rash, and excruciating pain in your joints and spine, which is why it’s sometimes called “break bone fever.” Dr. Renu Daval-Drager of the World Health Organization says some cases of Dengue can be fatal, particularly the more serious Dengue hemorrhagic fever.
This under-recognized infectious disease used to be restricted to tropical areas; however, it has recently made its way into Texas, Florida and other southern states and is endemic in 125 countries. And Dengue has reached epidemic levels in Central America.
Outbreaks of Dengue virus occur primarily in areas where Aedes aegypti and sometimes Aedes albopictus mosquitoes live and breed. This includes most tropical areas of the world—the same places where malaria is found. Dengue is also spread by travelers who become infected while visiting Dengue-infested regions.
In the Americas, all four Dengue virus types are now present. Worldwide, there are about three to five million cases of influenza annually. However, there are about 100 million cases of Dengue fever annually, worldwide—20 times more cases than influenza!
In the past, the best means for preventing the spread of Dengue involved sustainable, community-based, integrated mosquito control, with limited reliance on chemical insecticides. However, new high-tech strategies are being developed to further combat the spread of this deadly virus. Some of these strategies involve genetically manipulating mosquitoes and then releasing them back into the wild, which can have any number of unforeseen consequences.
No Biotechnology is Without Some Risk
The scientific community has expressed concern about introducing a new type of mosquito that is infected with a bacterium that could be transmitted to humans. However, researchers claim Wolbachia bacterium is completely benign to humans.
According a report by Institute of Science in Society (ISIS)ii:
“In our research Wolbachia-infected insects are feeding on our researchers all the time and there is no sign of any human illness associated with insect Wolbachia. Wolbachia is an insect bacterium that has not been detected living inside humans or any other vertebrates. It can be made to infect human tissue culture cells in the laboratory but these laboratory systems are very artificial and do not predict the actual ability of Wolbachia to infect an actual human being.”
However, Daniel Strickman, national program leader for veterinary and medical entomology at the US Department of Agriculture, remains unconvinced. Strickman expresses some discomfort with releasing an agent that could spread out of control, in a way that does not occur in nature. He states there is a risk that, by making the mosquitoes less susceptible to dengue infection, they may become more susceptible to other viruses such as Japanese encephalitis.
Lead Australian Wolbachia researcher Scott O’Neill claims this problem is “extremely unlikely” as mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia are actually less susceptible to a wide range of pathogens they would normally transmit.iii
One thing can be said for certain—this approach to combating Dengue fever renders all attempts at genetically engineered (transgenic) mosquitoes obsolete. Transgenic mosquitoes are less effective, less efficient, more costly and far more risky.iv Unfortunately, GE “mutant mosquitoes” have already been released into the environment, without public consent, in several countries.
How all these changes affect other species consuming these altered insects remains to be seen.
Genetically Modified “Suicide Mosquitoes” Secretly Released in Grand Cayman Island
Can scientists simply release flying, human-biting genetically modified creatures into the air anytime they wish? Apparently, the answer to this question is “yes.” And they have.
Oxitec has created male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that live long enough in the wild to mate, but their offspring die before reaching adulthood, reducing the rates at which they can transmit Dengue virus to humans. The genetically engineered bugs contain a gene that kills them unless they are given tetracycline, a common antibiotic. In the lab, with tetracycline provided, multiple generations of the mosquitoes can be bred. Males are then released into the wild, where tetracycline is not available, and their offspring die without it.
The company claims the technique is safe because only the males are released into the environment—it’s only female mosquitoes that bite and spread diseases.
The problem is, millions of these GE bugs have been released into the open air by Oxitec as a means of field-testing their new “Dengue-proof” mosquitoes, without sufficient review and public consultation. They have conveniently chosen several countries with weak regulations. In 2009, Oxitec released their designer insects onto Grand Cayman Island, an island in the Caribbeanv.
The experiment will go down in scientific history as the first release of GM insects that could bite humans. Not surprisingly, it was conducted in secret.
Once the locals got wind of this, they responded with a fair amount of public outrage—and rightly so! But it didn’t stop there. Oxitec subsequently released their frankenskeeters in Malaysia, Brazilvi, Panama, India, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. And they are seeking approval from the US Agriculture Department to perform similar open-air testing in the Florida Keys.
Even supporters of this technology worry that public reaction will be similar to the one that has stalled acceptance of genetically engineered crops. Regulation has not caught up with science, and GE insects are a brand new adversary in this brave new world of genetic modification. Many companies are “making hay” while regulations are lacking.
Oxitec reports the results of their open-air testing exceeded expectations. The genetically engineered males were found to be only half as successful in mating as the wild ones, which is a rate sufficient to repress the population. Oxitec also reports that a 2010 trial on Cayman Island reduced the population of the targeted mosquitoes by 80 percent for three months. But what is the price of this progress? What will be the cost to humans and to the environment?
Just as with genetically engineered (GE) foods, the long-term effects of GE insects are completely unknown—the Earth and its inhabitants are being used as a laboratory for grand scale genetic experiments. It’s a blatant violation of human rights with regard to human experimentation.
Antibiotic-Dependent, Blood-Sucking Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes… What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Unfortunately, like so many other things, neither the government nor the biotech companies can offer peer-reviewed scientific proof of the safety of their biotechnology—they have blithely rushed ahead without any concern about the long-term effects. Once released, these insects cannot be “recalled.” There are several problemsvii with the assumption that these genetically engineered bugs are safe for the human population. For starters:
The potential exists for these genes, which hop from one place to another, to infect human blood by finding entry through skin lesions or inhaled dust. Such transmission could potentially wreak havoc with the human genome by creating “insertion mutations” and other unpredictable types of DNA damage.viii
According to Alfred Handler, a geneticist at the Agriculture Department in Hawaii, mosquitoes can develop resistance to the lethal gene and might then be released inadvertently. Todd Shelly, an entomologist for the Agriculture Department in Hawaii, said 3.5 percent of the insects in a laboratory test survived to adulthood, despite presumably carrying the lethal gene.
The sorting of male and female mosquitoes is done by hand. As a result, up to 0.5 percent of the released insects are female. Even that small of a percentage could lead to a temporary increase in the spread of Dengue—not to mention potentially transmitting the altered gene to humans.
Tetracycline and other antibiotics are now showing up in the environment, in soil and surface water samples. These genetically engineered mosquitoes were designed to die in the absence of tetracycline, assuming they would NOT have access to that drug in the wild. With tetracycline exposure (for example, in a lake) these mutant insects would actually thrive in the wild, potentially creating a nightmarish scenario.
The problem is that genetically modified female mosquitoes can still bite humans. This means the protein, which kills their own larvae, might be injected into humans when the mosquitoes suck their blood, with unknown and potentially ghoulish consequences.
And those are just the mosquitoes…
Moths, Too
Oxitec is also the creator of genetically engineered pink bollworm moths, and swarms of this creature have already been unleashed over the fields of Arizona in an effort to overtake natural bollworm populations, which are a pest.5 The company appears to be edging its way toward becoming the next “Monsanto,” already having a monopoly on genetically modified insects. Their next frankenbug is a genetically engineered diamond-back or cabbage moth, slated for release over England.
Other groups are also developing genetically modified insects. One group has created Anopheles mosquitoes that are immune to the malaria parasite they normally carry, and also manufacturing male Anopheles that lack sperm.9
Realizing genetic engineering is risky technology, the World Health Organization is finalizing new guidelines about how GE insects must be deployed in developing countries, which it expects to release by the end of 2012ix.
Your Best Defense Against Dengue
Building a strong immune system is your best defense against this nasty virus. Your immune health depends on the lifestyle choices you make every day. By supporting your body’s own natural ability to defend itself against pathogens, you will not only have resistance to Dengue fever but to every other infectious illness that comes your way. Make sure you address each of the following:
Consume a diet rich in fresh, whole foods with abundant organic vegetables, pasture-raised meats, organic eggs and raw dairy; avoid sugar, chemicals and processed foods; be sure to get plenty of omega-3 fats; refer to my nutrition plan for more dietary information
Optimize your vitamin D level
Exercise regularly
Address your stress, and make sure to get plenty of sleep
Since the 1900′s the vast majority of the American population has dreamed about saying “NO” to the Unconstitutional, corrupt, Rothschild/Rockefeller banking criminals, but no one has dared to do so. Why? If just half of our Nation, and the “1%”, who pay the majority of the taxes, just said NO MORE! Our Gov’t would literally change over night.
Why is it so hard, for some people to understand, that by simply NOT giving your money, to large Corporations, who then send jobs, Intellectual Property, etc. offshore and promote anti-Constitutional rights… You will accomplish more, than if you used violence. In other words… RESEARCH WHERE YOU ARE SENDING EVERY SINGLE PENNY!!! Is that so hard? The truth of the matter is… No other modern Nation on earth, except the Icelanders, have carried this out successfully. Not only have they been successful, at overthrowing the corrupt Gov’t, they’ve drafted a Constitution, that will stop this from happening ever again. That’s not the best part… The best part, is that they have arrested ALL Rothschild/Rockefeller banking puppets, responsible for the Country’s economic Chaos and meltdown. What does all this have to do with? The answer… AGENDA 21. If you’re not educated, about Agenda 21, please watch these short videos now: http://www.freedumbnation.com/?p=1130
Last week 9 people were arrested in London and Reykjavik for their possible responsibility for Iceland’s financial collapse in 2008, a deep crisis which developed into an unprecedented public reaction that is changing the country’s direction.
It has been a revolution without weapons in Iceland, the country that hosts the world’s oldest democracy (since 930), and whose citizens have managed to effect change by going on demonstrations and banging pots and pans. Why have the rest of the Western countries not even heard about it?
Pressure from Icelandic citizens’ has managed not only to bring down a government, but also begin the drafting of a new constitution (in process) and is seeking to put in jail those bankers responsible for the financial crisis in the country. As the saying goes, if you ask for things politely it is much easier to get them.
This quiet revolutionary process has its origins in 2008 when the Icelandic government decided to nationalise the three largest banks, Landsbanki, Kaupthing and Glitnir, whose clients were mainly British, and North and South American.
After the State took over, the official currency (krona) plummeted and the stock market suspended its activity after a 76% collapse. Iceland was becoming bankrupt and to save the situation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) injected U.S. $ 2,100 million and the Nordic countries helped with another 2,500 million.
Great little victories of ordinary people
While banks and local and foreign authorities were desperately seeking economic solutions, the Icelandic people took to the streets and their persistent daily demonstrations outside parliament in Reykjavik prompted the resignation of the conservative Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde and his entire government.
Citizens demanded, in addition, to convene early elections, and they succeeded. In April a coalition government was elected, formed by the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left Green Movement, headed by a new Prime Minister, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir.
Throughout 2009 the Icelandic economy continued to be in a precarious situation (at the end of the year the GDP had dropped by 7%) but, despite this, the Parliament proposed to repay the debt to Britain and the Netherlands with a payment of 3,500 million Euros, a sum to be paid every month by Icelandic families for 15 years at 5.5% interest.
The move sparked anger again in the Icelanders, who returned to the streets demanding that, at least, that decision was put to a referendum. Another big small victory for the street protests: in March 2010 that vote was held and an overwhelming 93% of the population refused to repay the debt, at least with those conditions.
This forced the creditors to rethink the deal and improve it, offering 3% interest and payment over 37 years. Not even that was enough. The current president, on seeing that Parliament approved the agreement by a narrow margin, decided last month not to approve it and to call on the Icelandic people to vote in a referendum so that they would have the last word.
The bankers are fleeing in fear
Returning to the tense situation in 2010, while the Icelanders were refusing to pay a debt incurred by financial sharks without consultation, the coalition government had launched an investigation to determine legal responsibilities for the fatal economic crisis and had already arrested several bankers and top executives closely linked to high risk operations.
Interpol, meanwhile, had issued an international arrest warrant against Sigurdur Einarsson, former president of one of the banks. This situation led scared bankers and executives to leave the country en masse.
In this context of crisis, an assembly was elected to draft a new constitution that would reflect the lessons learned and replace the current one, inspired by the Danish constitution.
To do this, instead of calling experts and politicians, Iceland decided to appeal directly to the people, after all they have sovereign power over the law. More than 500 Icelanders presented themselves as candidates to participate in this exercise in direct democracy and write a new constitution. 25 of them, without party affiliations, including lawyers, students, journalists, farmers and trade union representatives were elected.
Among other developments, this constitution will call for the protection, like no other, of freedom of information and expression in the so-called Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, in a bill that aims to make the country a safe haven for investigative journalism and freedom of information, where sources, journalists and Internet providers that host news reporting are protected.
The people, for once, will decide the future of the country while bankers and politicians witness the transformation of a nation from the sidelines.
Ever wondered why your cell phone reception suddenly becomes terrible at protests? Ever worried that police could use electronic spoofing devices to suck up your mobile data because you are in the streets exercising your rights?
You might have been onto something.
Mobile “IMSI catchers”, currently on the market and being pushed to police and intelligence agencies worldwide, enable these creepy, stealth spying tactics. And if they build it and hawk it, history tells us police will buy it and deploy it.
On Tuesday, July 3, 2012, electronic privacy advocate and technology researcher Chris Soghoian tweeted a link to a photograph of a talk he gave at TED in Scotland in late June. Behind him in the photograph is another image, this one taken by privacy researcher Eric King at a surveillance trade show. (King’s Twitter bio contains a quote from a representative of the notorious ISS World — a global surveillance trade firm that often hosts such trade shows: the rep called him an “Anti-lawful interception zealot blogger.” High praise.)
Look at the slide behind Soghoian; that’s the photo in question. It shows an IMSI catcher strapped onto a model, under the model’s shirt.
IMSI stands for “International Mobile Subscriber Identity”. The technology is essentially a mobile phone tower with “a malicious operator”. It mimics the behavior of a cell tower and tricks mobile phones into sending data to it, instead of to the tower.
As such it is considered a Man In the Middle (MITM) attack. It is used as an eavesdropping device used for interception and tracking of cellular phones and usually is undetectable for the users of mobile phones.
Once it has made a connection with the phone and tricked it into thinking it is a mobile tower, the IMSI catcher forces the phone to drop its encryption, enabling easy access to the contents of the device. The tool then lets the attacker listen in on mobile conversations and intercept all data sent from a mobile phone, remaining undetected. In some cases the tool also allows the operator to manipulate messages.
Here’s a creepy video that a purveyor of IMSI catchers made to advertise its product:
Please note that by playing this clip YouTube and Google will place a long term cookie on your computer.
Police in the United States claim they do not need a warrant to use an IMSI catcher or other spoofing device to track your location. A case to determine whether or not the courts agree is working itself through the system.
Privacy International’s Eric King took the photo on the slide behind Soghoian at a surveillance trade show, where he says the tool was “pitched to me as being perfect for covert operations in public order situations.” In other words, at protests.
The FBI uses IMSI catchers and claims it does so legally, even though it says it doesn’t need a warrant to deploy them. The Electronic Privacy Information Center is currently pursuing FOIA litigation to find out exactly how the bureau uses the “Stingray” (a brand name IMSI catcher); unsurprisingly, the FBI wasn’t forthcoming with documents to reveal its legal standard or other information about how it uses the tool. Stay tuned for more information as that case makes its way through the courts.
Meanwhile, how can you protect yourself against IMSI catchers? Unfortunately, you probably can’t. And the threats are not just from government. As Soghoian and others warned in a friend of the court brief,
Finally, the communications privacy of millions of law-abiding Americans is already threatened by the use of this and similar interception technologies by non-US government entities, such as stalkers, criminals, and foreign governments engaged in espionage. As such, the public interest is best served by greater public discussion regarding these tracking technologies and the security flaws in the mobile phone networks that they exploit, not less.
Yet again, we are faced with a situation in which our technology has outpaced our law reform. It’s time for Congress to change that.
To get a more detailed sense of how the technology actually works, watch this excellent talk from DefCon 2011, with Chris Paget: “Practical Cellphone Spying”. He spoofs the phones of the people in the audience during the talk; it’s well worth watching if you have some time.
For more on IMSI catchers and the state of the law, click here.
Just what we need.. Another flying death robot.. in space. -DCMX Editor
Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) was awarded a $636 million development and sustainment contract to provide the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle to The Boeing Company, which is the prime contractor for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program. Raytheon booked the award during its second quarter.
EKV represents the centerpiece for the Missile Defense Agency’s GMD as the intercept component of the Ground Based Interceptor, also known as GBI, which is designed to engage high-speed ballistic missile warheads in space.
“When it comes to developing, testing and deploying technologies that enable the intercept of threats in space, Raytheon is a world leader,” said Dr. Taylor W. Lawrence, Raytheon Missile Systems president. “We are proud to contribute to our nation’s first line of defense against the threat of ballistic missiles.”
Under conditions of the contract, which extends through November 2018, Raytheon will provide EKV development, fielding, testing, system engineering, integration, configuration management, equipment manufacturing and refurbishment, and operation and sustainment.
About the EKV
Leveraging more than two decades of kill vehicle technology expertise, the EKV is designed to destroy incoming ballistic missile threats by colliding with them, a concept often described as “hit to kill.”
EKV has an advanced multi-color sensor that is used to detect and discriminate incoming warheads from other objects.
The EKV also has its own propulsion, communications link, discrimination algorithms, guidance and control system and computers to support target selection and intercept.
EKV is deployed and operational today.
EKV has had eight successful intercepts throughout the life of the program.
Yasser Arafat died on November 11, 2004, of a mysterious ailment. His enemies spread the rumor he had AIDS: David Frum, with typical classiness, claimed he had contracted AIDS as a consequence of having sex with his bodyguards. Now, however, it has been revealed Arafat was poisoned: the cause of his death was exposure to very high levels of polonium-210 [pdf], a rare radioactive substance. An investigation conducted by Al Jazeera showed Arafat’s personal items, released to the media organization by his widow, contained several times the normal level of polonium that would normally be detected on such items. The Palestinian leader’s terminal symptoms were similar to those experienced by victims of polonium poisoning: the substance targets the gastrointestinal tract and the subject wastes away.
Arafat’s Ramallah compound had been bombed several times by the Israelis, and they had the place surrounded – yet still he persisted. They couldn’t get him out. Worse, his plight was becoming a metaphor for the condition of his people, who were – and still are – prisoners in their own land. A former adviser claimed he was poisoned by the Israelis, who detained the Palestinian ambulance used to deliver Arafat’s medications to the Ramallah compound. At the time, one tended to write this off as a purely polemical exercise: in light of the new evidence, however, the question has to be asked.
Simply by continuing to exist in the face of such a sustained assault, Arafat was defeating the Israelis every day. They had to get rid of him. Did they? We’ll never know for sure, but it is worth noting that Israeli threats to kill him preceded his untimely death by less than a year. As is well-known, Israeli intelligence has carried out numerous assassinations: it is simply another tool in their international operations, one they have never hesitated to utilize. A passport-falsification scheme involving New Zealand, Britain, France, Spain, and a number of other countries was widely believed to have been meant to equip the Mossad’s crack team of assassins, who could slip into – and out of – target areas at will.
The Israelis hated Arafat with a particular passion, for two reasons:
1) His longevity – The Palestinian movement is thick [pdf] with factions, but thin when it comes to recognizable leaders. Arafat was the principal leader, and no one since his death has achieved his stature. He was a political survivor, having lived through numerous assassination attempts, and deflected the schemes of internal enemies to displace him. Simply by sticking around for so long, he became a living symbol of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination – and that is one big reason why the Israelis got rid of him.
2) His secularism – The Israelis encouraged the growth of groups such as Hamas in the beginning, in order to split away the more religious elements from the decidedly secular Palestine Liberation Organization/Fatah, which Arafat headed. It is easy to sell the Palestinians as crazed jihadists when a group like Hamas or Islamic Jihad is the most visible champion of their cause: the secular PLO presented the Israelis with a public relations problem. There’s another reason for the Israelis to have knocked him off.
One aspect of this case is extremely odd: polonium-210 is the same poison Alexander Litvinenko was dosed with. Litvinenko, a former KGB official, converted to Islam, joined the Chechen rebels, and became an associate of Boris Berezovsky, the notorious Russian oligarch wanted on charges of embezzlement in his home country. Litvinenko and Berezovsky are the Russian version of 9/11 Truthers: they believe practically every terrorist attack on Russian cities has been “staged” by Vladimir Putin in order to keep him in power. When he became ill, Litvinenko charged the Russian spy agency with poisoning him – although that seemshighlyunlikely.
Polonium-210 isn’t something you can buy off the shelf at your local Walmart. It isn’t even something a mad scientist might cook up in his home lab. About 100 grams are produced each year for specialized technical uses. The only entities with access to this sort of thing are state actors, or, at least, a private organization with very substantial resources at its disposal.
What’s interesting is that a diplomatic cable, dated Dec. 26, 2006 and published by WikiLeaks, details the conversation of a US diplomat with Russian spook Anatoly Safonov in which Safonov claims the Russians told the British about the importation of “nuclear materials” into London during the Litvinenko affair – and were told that the whole thing was “under control before the poisoning took place.” In the course of the same conversation, Safonov – Putin’s chief representative on terrorism-related matters – went on to describe a number of threats and their possible sources:
“Safonov noted the daunting number of countries that posed particular terrorism threats, mentioning North Korea, Pakistan, South Africa, Libya, Iran, India, and Israel (sic?). He described a range of dangers, stressing the more immediate threats posed by nuclear and biological terrorism, but also acknowledging the risks of chemical terrorism.”
While the use of “sic” is meant to indicate our diplomat’s incredulity at the inclusion of Israel in this list, what we now know about how Arafat died should tear away the blinders from several sets of eyes – yes, even at the US State Department.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
I note with sadness and a real sense of loss the departure of Scott Horton, the host of Antiwar.com Radio, from our staff. We wanted to keep him on, but we just couldn’t afford him anymore. Times are tough, but this is a big blow: Scott’s interviews with the Big Names in the foreign policy universe are always informed, and in his inimitable style he always laced his programs with humor and a keen intelligence. I can’t even begin to tell you how much he will be missed, but that’s life these days, unfortunately.
At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists.
Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world.
These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended.
Thoe with the darkest fears became the most powerful
Together they created today’s nightmare vision of an organized terror network.
A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.
The rise of the politics of fear begins in 1949 with two men whose radical ideas would inspire the attack of 9/11 and influence the neo-conservative movement that dominates Washington.
Both these men believed that modern liberal freedoms were eroding the bonds that held society together.
The two movements they inspired set out, in their different ways, to rescue their societies from this decay. But in an age of growing disillusion with politics, the neo-conservatives turned to fear in order to pursue their vision.
They would create a hidden network of evil run by the Soviet Union that only they could see.
The Islamists were faced by the refusal of the masses to follow their dream and began to turn to terror to force the people to “see the truth”‘.
The Power of Nightmares will be broadcast over three nights from Tuesday 18 to Thursday, 20 January, 2005 at 2320 GMT on BBC Two. The final part has been updated in the wake of the Law Lords ruling in December that detaining foreign terrorist suspects without trial was illegal.
People say if farmers don’t want problems from Monsanto, just don’t buy their GMO seeds.
Not so simple. Where are farmers supposed to get normal seed these days? How are they supposed to avoid contamination of their fields from GM-crops? How are they supposed to stop Monsanto detectives from trespassing or Monsanto from using helicopters to fly over spying on them?
Monsanto contaminates the fields, trespasses onto the land taking samples and if they find any GMO plants growing there (or say they have), they then sue, saying they own the crop. It’s a way to make money since farmers can’t fight back and court and they settle because they have no choice.
And they have done and are doing a bucket load of things to keep farmers and everyone else from having any access at all to buying, collecting, and saving of NORMAL seeds.
1. They’ve bought up the seed companies across the Midwest.
2. They’ve written Monsanto seed laws and gotten legislators to put them through, that make cleaning, collecting and storing of seeds so onerous in terms of fees and paperwork and testing and tracking every variety and being subject to fines, that having normal seed becomes almost impossible (an NAIS approach to wiping out normal seeds). Does your state have such a seed law? Before they existed, farmers just collected the seeds and put them in sacks in the shed and used them the next year, sharing whatever they wished with friends and neighbors, selling some if they wanted. That’s been killed.
In Illinois, which has such a seed law, Madigan, the Speaker of the House, his staff is Monsanto lobbyists.
3. Monsanto is pushing anti-democracy laws (Vilsack’s brainchild, actually) that remove community’ control over their own counties so farmers and citizens can’t block the planting of GMO crops even if they can contaminate other crops. So if you don’t want a GM-crop that grows industrial chemicals or drugs or a rice growing with human DNA in it, in your area and mixing with your crops, tough luck.
Check the map of just where the Monsanto/Vilsack laws are and see if your state is still a democracy or is Monsanto’s. A farmer in Illinois told me he heard that Bush had pushed through some regulation that made this true in every state. People need to check on that.
4. For sure there are Monsanto regulations buried in the FDA right now that make a farmer’s seed cleaning equipment illegal (another way to leave nothing but GM-seeds) because it’s now considered a “source of seed contamination.” Farmer can still seed clean but the equipment now has to be certified and a farmer said it would require a million to a million and half dollar building and equipment … for EACH line of seed. Seed storage facilities are also listed (another million?) and harvesting and transport equipment. And manure. Something that can contaminate seed. Notice that chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not mentioned.
You could eat manure and be okay (a little grossed out but okay). Try that with pesticides and fertilizers. Indian farmers have. Their top choice for how to commit suicide to escape the debt they have been left in is to drink Monsanto pesticides.
5. Monsanto is picking off seed cleaners across the Midwest. In Pilot Grove, Missouri, in Indiana (Maurice Parr), and now in southern Illinois (Steve Hixon). And they are using US marshals and state troopers and county police to show up in three cars to serve the poor farmers who had used Hixon as their seed cleaner, telling them that he or their neighbors turned them in, so across that 6 county areas, no one talking to neighbors and people are living in fear and those farming communities are falling apart from the suspicion Monsanto sowed. Hixon’s office got broken into and he thinks someone put a GPS tracking device on his equipment and that’s how Monsanto found between 200-400 customers in very scattered and remote areas, and threatened them all and destroyed his business within 2 days.
So, after demanding that seed cleaners somehow be able to tell one seed from another (or be sued to kingdom come) or corrupting legislatures to put in laws about labeling of seeds that are so onerous no one can cope with them, what is Monsanto’s attitude about labeling their own stuff? You guessed it – they’re out there pushing laws against ANY labeling of their own GM-food and animals and of any exports to other countries. Why?
I just heard that some seed dealers urge farmers to buy the seed under the seed dealer’s name, telling the farmers it helps the dealer get a discount on seed to buy a lot under their own name. Then Monsanto sues the poor farmer for buying their seed without a contract and extorts huge sums from them.
Here’s a youtube video that is worth your time. Vandana Shiva is one of the leading anti-Monsanto people in the world. In this video, she says (and this video is old), Monsanto had sued 1500 farmers whose fields had simply been contaminated by GM-crops. Listen to all the ways Monsanto goes after farmers.
Do you know the story of Gandhi in India and how the British had salt laws that taxed salt? The British claimed it as theirs. Gandhi had what was called a Salt Satyagraha, in which people were asked to break the laws and march to the sea and collect the salt without paying the British. A kind of Boston tea party, I guess.
Thousands of people marched 240 miles to the ocean where the British were waiting. As people moved forward to collect the salt, the British soldiers clubbed them but the people kept coming. The non-violent protest exposed the British behavior, which was so revolting to the world that it helped end British control in India.
Vandana Shiva has started a Seed Satyagraha – nonviolent non-cooperation around seed laws – has gotten millions of farmers to sign a pledge to break those laws.
American farmers and cattlemen might appreciate what Gandhi fought for and what Shiva is bringing back and how much it is about what we are all so angry about – loss of basic freedoms. [The highlighting is mine.]
The Seed Satyagraha is the name for the nonviolent, noncooperative movement that Dr. Shiva has organized to stand against seed monopolies. According to Dr. Shiva, the name was inspired by Gandhi’s famous walk to the Dandi Beach, where he picked up salt and said, “You can’t monopolize this which we need for life.” But it’s not just the noncooperation aspect of the movement that is influenced by Gandhi. The creative side saving seeds, trading seeds, farming without corporate dependence–without their chemicals, without their seed.
” All this is talked about in the language that Gandhi left us as a legacy. We work with three key concepts.”
” (One) Swadeshi…which means the capacity to do your own thing–produce your own food, produce your own goods….”
“(Two) Swaraj–to govern yourself. And we fight on three fronts–water, food, and seed. JalSwaraj is water independence–water freedom and water sovereignty. Anna Swaraj is food freedom, food sovereignty. And Bija Swaraj is seed freedom and seed sovereignty. Swa means self–that which rises from the self and is very, very much a deep notion of freedom.
“I believe that these concepts, which are deep, deep, deep in Indian civilization, Gandhi resurrected them to fight for freedom. They are very important for today’s world because so far what we’ve had is centralized state rule, giving way now to centralized corporate control, and we need a third alternate. That third alternate is, in part, citizens being able to tell their state, ‘This is what your function is. This is what your obligations are,’ and being able to have their states act on corporations to say, ‘This is something you cannot do.’”
” (Three) Satyagraha, non-cooperation, basically saying, ‘We will do our thing and any law that tries to say that (our freedom) is illegal… we will have to not cooperate with it. We will defend our freedoms to have access to water, access to seed, access to food, access to medicine.’”
The High Court of New Zealand has ruled that the police raid on Kim Dotcom’s mansion was unlawful along with seizure of the hard drives that were later cloned and illegally taken from New Zealand to the US by the FBI.
The warrants issued to search Dotcom’s mansion were general and did not clearly describe the offences they stipulated, ruled Justice Helen Winkelmann.
“They were general warrants, and as such, are invalid,” she explained.
The New Zealand police force is currently holding talks with the Crown Law on the next course of action and has refrained from commenting on the judgment.
The ruling released on Thursday by Justice Helen Winkelmann insists the warrants were too vague concerning the scope of the search and the items authorized to be seized by police.
The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an annual, unofficial, invitation-only conference of approximately 120 to 140 guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are people of influence.[1][2] About one-third are from government and politics, and two-thirds from finance, industry, labour, education and communications. Meetings are closed to the public.
The original conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem in the Netherlands, from 29 to 31 May 1954. It was initiated by several people, including Polish politicians Józef Retinger and Andrew Nielsen, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, who proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting Atlanticism – better understanding between the cultures of the United States and Western Europe to foster cooperation on political, economic, and defense issues.[3] Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands who agreed to promote the idea, together with former Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland, and the head of Unilever at that time, Dutchman Paul Rijkens. Bernhard in turn contacted Walter Bedell Smith, then head of the CIA, who asked Eisenhower adviser Charles Douglas Jackson to deal with the suggestion.[4] The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one of each to represent conservative and liberal points of view.[3] Fifty delegates from 11 countries in Western Europe attended the first conference, along with 11 Americans.[5]
The success of the meeting led the organizers to arrange an annual conference. A permanent Steering Committee was established, with Retinger appointed as permanent secretary. As well as organizing the conference, the steering committee also maintained a register of attendee names and contact details, with the aim of creating an informal network of individuals who could call upon one another in a private capacity.[citation needed] Conferences were held in France, Germany, and Denmark over the following three years. In 1957, the first US conference was held on St. Simons Island, Georgia, with $30,000 from the Ford Foundation. The foundation supplied further funding for the 1959 and 1963 conferences.[4]
Role
The role of the Bilderberg meetings in the flow of events since its founding in 1954 is a matter of debate among scholars and journalists, such as G. William Domhoff and Caroline Moorehead. In his 1980 essay The Bilderberg and the West, researcher Peter Thompson argues that the Bilderberg group is a meeting ground for top executives from the world’s leading multinational corporations and top national political figures to consider jointly the immediate and long-term problems facing the West. According to Thompson, Bilderberg itself is not an executive agency. However, when Bilderberg participants reach a form of consensus about what is to be done, they have at their disposal powerful transnational and national instruments for bringing about what it is they want to come to pass. That their consensus design is not always achieved is a reflection of the strength of competing resisting forces outside the capitalist ruling class and within it.[6]
Meetings are organized by a steering committee with two members from each of approximately 18 nations.[7] Official posts, in addition to a chairman, include an Honorary Secretary General.[8] There is no such category in the group’s rules as a “member of the group”. The only category that exists is “member of the Steering Committee”.[9] In addition to the committee, there also exists a separate advisory group, though membership overlaps.[10]
A 2008 press release from the ‘American Friends of Bilderberg’ stated that “Bilderberg’s only activity is its annual Conference. At the meetings, no resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued” and noted that the names of attendees were available to the press.[12] The Bilderberg group’s unofficial headquarters is the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.[13]
The membership of the Bilderberg group is drawn largely from West European and North American countries.[21] Writing in 1980, policy analyst Holly Sklar noted that, from the 1950s, elites in the West became concerned that the United Nations was no longer controlled by Western powers, and that this concern was expressed in the participant selection process of the Bilderberg group.[21] Sklar also quoted observations from human rights journalist Caroline Moorehead in a 1977 article critical of the Bilderberg group’s membership, who in turn quoted an unnamed member of the group: “No invitations go out to representatives of the developing countries. ‘Otherwise you simply turn us into a mini-United-Nations,’ said one person. And, ‘we are looking for like-thinking people and compatible people. It would be worse to have a club of dopes.'”[16][21] In her article, Moorehead characterized the group as “heavily biased towards politics of moderate conservatism and big business” and claims that the “farthest left is represented by a scattering of central social democrats”.[16]
2008 (5–8 June) at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia, United States[12][25]
2009 (14–16 May) at the Astir Palace resort in Athens, Greece[26][27]
2010 (3–7 June) at the Hotel Dolce in Sitges, Spain[28]
2011 (9–12 June) at the Suvretta House in St. Moritz, Switzerland
2012 (31 May – 3 June) at Westfields Marriott hotel in Chantilly, Virginia, USA
Privacy
The meeting hotels are inaccessible for any other guest for the full period of the conferences and sentineled by private security staffs as well as by local police authorities. During the Bilderberg Meeting at Vouliagmeni (Greece) in 2009, for instance, the British Guardian reporter Charlie Skelton was arrested twice after having taken pictures of vehicles.[29]
Conspiratorial interpretations of Bilderberg Group activities
According to chairman Étienne Davignon, a major attraction of Bilderberg group meetings is that they provide an opportunity for participants to speak and debate candidly and to find out what major figures really think, without the risk of off-the-cuff comments becoming fodder for controversy in the media.[30] However, partly because of its working methods to ensure strict privacy, the Bilderberg group is accused of conspiracies.[30][31][32][33][34] This outlook has been popular on both extremes of the political spectrum, even if they disagree on what the group wants to do. Some on the left accuse the Bilderberg group of conspiring to impose capitalist domination,[35] while some on the right have accused the group of conspiring to impose a world government and planned economy.[36]
In 2001, Denis Healey, a Bilderberg group founder and, for 30 years, a steering committee member, said: “To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn’t go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing.”[37] In 2005 Davignon discussed these accusations with the BBC: “It is unavoidable and it doesn’t matter. There will always be people who believe in conspiracies but things happen in a much more incoherent fashion… When people say this is a secret government of the world I say that if we were a secret government of the world we should be bloody ashamed of ourselves.”[34]
In a 1994 report Right Woos Left, published by the Political Research Associates, investigative journalist Chip Berlet argued that right-wing populist conspiracy theories about the Bilderberg group date back as early as 1964 and can be found in Schlafly’s self-published book A Choice, Not an Echo,[38] which promoted a conspiracy theory in which the Republican Party was secretly controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the Bilderberger group, whose internationalist policies would pave the way for world communism.[39] Also, in August 2010 former Cuban president Fidel Castro wrote an article for the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma in which he cited Daniel Estulin’s 2006 book The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club,[40] which, as quoted by Castro, describes “sinister cliques and the Bilderberg lobbyists” manipulating the public “to install a world government that knows no borders and is not accountable to anyone but its own self.”[35]
G. William Domhoff, a research professor in psychology and sociology who studies theories of power,[41] sees the role of international relations forums and social clubs such as the Bilderberg group as a place to share ideas, reach consensus, and create social cohesion within a power elite.[42] He adds that this understanding of forums and clubs such as the Bilderberg group fits with the perceptions of the members of the elite. Domhoff warns progressives against getting distracted by conspiracy theories which demonize and scapegoat such forums and clubs.[42] He argues that the opponents of progressivism in the United States are conservatives within the corporate elite and the Republican Party.[42] It is more or less the same people who belong to forums and clubs such as the Bilderberg group, but it puts them in their most important roles, as capitalists and political leaders, which are visible and therefore easier to fight.[42]
Politico journalist Kenneth P. Vogel reports that it is the “exclusive roster of globally influential figures that has captured the interest of an international network of conspiracists,” who for decades have seen the Bilderberg meetings as a “corporate-globalist scheme”, and are convinced powerful elites are moving the planet toward an oligarchic “new world order”.[43] He goes on to state that these conspiracist’s “populist paranoid worldview”, characterized by a suspicion of the ruling class rather than any prevailing partisan or ideological affiliation, is widely articulated on overnight AM radio shows and numerous Internet websites.[43]
Author James McConnachie comments that conspiracy theorists have a point, but that they fail to communicate it effectively.[44] He argues that the Bilderberg group acts in a manner consistent with a global conspiracy, but does so without the same “degree of nefariousness”, a difference not appreciated by conspiracy theorists, who “tend to see this cabal as outright evil.”[1] McConnachie concludes: “Occasionally you have to give credit to conspiracy theorists who raise issues that the mainstream press has ignored. It’s only recently that the media has picked up on the Bilderbergers. Would the media be running stories if there weren’t these wild allegations flying around?”[1]
^ “Japan–U.S. Relations—Past, Present and Future”. The Daily Yomiuri. 8 December 1991. “Rockefeller: The idea (of creating the Trilateral Commission) was incorporated in a speech that I made in the spring of 1972 for the benefit of some industrial forums that the Chase held in different cities around Europe,… Then Zbig (Zbig Brzezinski) and I both attended a meeting of the Bilderberg Group … and was shot down in flames. There was very little enthusiasm for the idea. I think they felt that they had a very congenial group, and they didn’t want to have it interfered with by another element that would—I don’t know what they thought, but in any case, they were not in favor.”
^ ab Hatch, Alden (1962). “The Hôtel de Bilderberg”. H.R.H.Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands: An authorized biography. London: Harrap. ISBN B0000CLLN4. “The idea was to get two people from each country who would give the conservative and liberal slant”
^ ab Valerie Aubourg (June 2003). Organizing Atlanticism: the Bilderberg Group and the Atlantic Institute 1952–63.
^ Daniel Estulin, Los secretos del club Bilderberg (Ediciones del Bronce, 2006).
^ Domhoff, G. William (2005). Who Rules America? Power, Politics, and Social Change. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 5 edition. ISBN0-07-287625-5.
In two independent experiments that defy the notions of Einstein, researchers have been able to stop, then restart a beam of light.
Ordinarily, light travels at the speed of 186,282 miles per second, but the research team of Lene Hau, a professor of physics at Harvard, who in 1999 was able to slow light down to 38 miles per hour, has been able to trap light in a cloud of sodium atoms super-cooled to near ‘absolute zero.’
“It’s nifty to look into the chamber and see a clump of ultracold atoms floating there,” Hau says. “In this odd state, light takes on a more human dimension; you can almost touch it.” [1]
In an independent experiment, an easier approache was tried by the team of Ronald Walsworth and Mikhail Lukin at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).
They shot laser beams through a dense cloud of rubidium and helium gas. (Rubidium, in its solid or natural form, is a soft, silver-white metal.) The light bounced from atom to atom, gradually slowing down until it stopped. No supervacuum or ultra-cold was needed. In fact, the chamber where the light stopped was at a temperature of 176 degrees F. [1]
Both experiments accomplish almost the same thing, however, in the CfA experiment researchers were only able to store about half of the incoming light, and the storage time was about half that of Hau’s experiment.
Think of both contraptions as sophisticated light switches that control not just light but information. Incoming light can carry information expressed by changes or modulations of its frequency, amplitude, and phase. When the light stops, that information is stored just like information is stored in the electronic memory of a computer. To access the information, you turn on a control laser, and out it comes. [1]
Remarkably, scientists are somewhat uncertain about the implications and practicality of this research.
“We hope for wonderful things,” says David Phillips, who worked on the CfA “stop light” project. “Our imagination hasn’t figured out what the possibilities are yet.” [1]
However, there appear to be clear implications for using experiments like this to ultimately improve the speed of computers, potentially creating the possibility to shift from binary computing to quantum encoding of data.
Computers operating by these so-called quantum effects are much more efficient that those available today, or even on the drawing board. (“Quantum” refers to changes in the energy levels of the atoms.) Today’s machines represent information in bits, electronic combinations of zeros and ones. Bits represented by quantum states of atoms could carry much, much more information. Cubic inch for cubic inch, quantum computers could tackle problems that would stymie the most super of conventional computers. For example, they could perform many calculations simultaneously. [1]
The eminent physicist Albert Einstein theorized that it was impossible for light to travel at a speed faster than 186,282 miles per second, and in this case he has not yet been proven wrong.
Watch the following video for amazing footage of Hau’s research:
This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.
Enrique “Ricky” Prado’s resume reads like the ultimate CIA officer: veteran of the Central American wars, running the CIA’s operations in Korea, a top spy in America’s espionage programs against China, and deputy to counter-terrorist chief Cofer Black — and then a stint at Blackwater. But he’s also alleged to have started out a career as a hitman for a notorious Miami mobster, and kept working for the mob even after joining the CIA. Finally, he went on to serve as the head of the CIA’s secret assassination squad against Al-Qaida.
That’s according to journalist Evan Wright’s blockbuster story How to Get Away With Murder in America, distributed by Byliner. In it, Wright — who authored Generation Kill, the seminal story of the Iraq invasion — compiles lengthy, years-longinvestigations by state and federal police into a sector of Miami’s criminal underworld that ended nowhere, were sidelined by higher-ups, or cut short by light sentences. It tracks the history of Prado’s alleged Miami patron and notorious cocaine trafficker, Alberto San Pedro, and suspicions that Prado moved a secret death squad from the CIA to Blackwater.
“In protecting Prado, the CIA arguably allowed a new type of mole — an agent not of a foreign government but of American criminal interests — to penetrate command,” Wright writes.
In this sense, there are two stories that blur into each other: Prado the CIA officer, and Prado the alleged killer. The latter begins when Prado met his alleged future mob patron, Alberto San Pedro, as a high school student in Miami after their families had fled Cuba following the revolution. Prado would later join the Air Force, though he never saw service in Vietnam, and returned to Miami to work as a firefighter. But he kept moonlighting as a hitman for San Pedro, who had emerged into one of Miami’s most formidable cocaine traffickers, according to Wright.
San Pedro hosted parties for the city’s elite, lost a testicle in a drive-by shooting outside of his house, rebuilt his house into a fortress, tortured guard dogs for sport, and imported tens of millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine into the United States per year, Wright adds. His ties reportedly included an aide to former Florida Governor Bob Graham, numerous judges, lobbyists and a state prosecutor. His ties also included a friendship with former CNN anchor Rick Sanchez, then a local TV reporter.
Prado, meanwhile, was dropping bodies, alleges Wright. Investigators from the Miami-Dade Police Department’s organized crime squad suspected him of participating in at least seven murders and one attempted murder. He attempted to join the CIA, but returned to Miami after not completing the background check (due to his apparent concern over his family ties). But was admitted after the Reagan administration opened up a covert offensive against leftist Central American militants, where he reportedly served training the Contras.
More startling, the Miami murders allegedly continued after Prado joined the CIA. One target included a cocaine distributor in Colorado who was killed by a car bomb. Investigators believed he was killed over concerns he would talk to the police.
Years later, in 1996, Prado was a senior manager inside the CIA’s Bin Laden Issue Station, before the Al-Qaida mastermind was a well-known name. Two years later, the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania elevated Prado to become the chief of operations inside the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, headed by then-chief Cofer Black, later an executive for the notorious merc firm Blackwater. “As the title implied, the job made Prado responsible for all the moving pieces at the CTC — supervising field offices on surveillance, rendition, or other missions, and making sure that logistics were in order, that personnel were in place,” according to Wright.
Prado was also reportedly put in charge of a “targeted assassination unit,” that was never put into operation. (The CIA shifted to drones.) But according to Wright, the CIA handed over its hit squad operation to Blackwater, now called Academi, as a way “to kill people with precision, without getting caught.” Prado is said to have negotiated the deal to transfer the unit, which Wright wrote “marked the first time the U.S. government outsourced a covert assassination service to private enterprise.” As to whether the unit was then put into operation, two Blackwater contractors tell Wright the unit began “whacking people like crazy” beginning in 2008. Prado also popped up two years ago in a report by Jeremy Scahill of The Nation, in which the now ex-CIA Prado was discovered to have built up a network of foreign shell companies to hide Blackwater operations, beginning in 2004. The Nation also revealed that Prado pitched an e-mail in 2007 to the DEA, explaining that Blackwater could “do everything from everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations,” carried out by foreign nationals, “so deniability is built in and should be a big plus.”
But it’s hard to say where Prado’s alleged criminal ties end. It’s possibly his ties dried up, or moved on. Even mobsters, like Alberto San Pedro, retire. Another theory has it that Prado wanted to break his ties to the Miami underworld — and San Pedro — all along, and sought out legitimate employment in the military, in firefighting and the CIA as an escape. But, the theory goes, he stayed in because he still owed a debt to his patrons.
The other question involves the CIA itself. It’s no secret the agency has associated with dubious types, but the agency is also “notoriously risk averse,” Wright writes. Yet the agency is also protective. And letting Prado on board wouldn’t be the agency’s first intelligence failure.
The Plot Thickens: Debt Collector; Obama’s Social Security number reserved for Connecticut applicants also tied to an alias Harrison J Bounel. The debt collector also claims Obama has used two other Social Security numbers in Illinois. This interview covers several issues ranging from O’s SS# to his property tax filings in Chicago to 50+ different addresses tied to Obama and Michelle across the country. The interview aired on TruNews Radio 5/18/2011. – http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2011/05/plot-thickens-debt-collec… –
Thoe with the darkest fears became the most powerful
