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CULTURE BLOG

all art/music/culture links (including music biz/file sharing news), fiction I'm reading and what I'm listening to and watching

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ABBREVIATIONS FOR SITES I OFTEN STEAL NEWS ITEMS FROM:

u = Progressive Review's Undernews

PUBLIC AFFAIRS/HISTORY READING:
(r) = re-reading

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The Buying of the President 2004: Who's Really Bankrolling Bush and His Democratic Challengers -- and What They Expect in Return

Arrogant Capital

Sam Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual: How to Rebuild Our Country So the Politics Aren't Broken and Politicians Aren't Fixed

American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush

Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism & Toxic Warfare

The Velvet Coup: The Constitution, the Supreme Court and the Decline of American Democracy

Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of the Free Press

Amazon Light

Just consider what current events will sound like two thousand years from now -- the greatest nation on Earth bombing some of the smallest and weakest for no clear reasons, people starving in parts of the world while farmers are paid not to plant crops in others, technophiles sitting at home playing electronic golf rahter than the real thing, and police forces ordered to arrest people who simply desire to ingest a psychoactive weed. People of that era will also likely laugh it all off as fantastic myths...

It is time for those who desire true freedom to exert themselves -- to fight back against the forces who desire domination through fear and disunity.

This does not have to involve violence. It can be done in small, simple ways, like not financing that new Sport Utility Vehicle, cutting up all but one credit card, not opting for a second mortgage, turning off that TV sitcom for a good book, asking questions and speaking out in church or synagogue, attending school board and city council meetings, voting for the candidate who has the least money, learning about the Fully Informed Jury movement and using it when called -- in general, taking responsibility for one's own actions. Despite the omnipresent advertising for the Lotto -- legalized government gambling -- there is no free lunch. Giving up one's individual power for the hope of comfort and security has proven to lead only to tyranny.

from Rule by Secrecy by Jim Marrs

You had to take those pieces of paper with you when you went shopping, though by the time I was nine or ten most people used plastic cards. . .It seems so primitive, totemistic even, like cowry shells. I must have used that kind of money myself, a little, before everything went on the Compubank.

I guess that's how they were able to do it, in the way they did, all at once, without anyone knowing beforehand. If there had still been portable money, it would have been more difficult.

It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time.

Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control.

I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen?

That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on.

. . . Things continued on in that state of suspended animation for weeks, although some things did happen. Newspapers were censored and some were closed down, for security reasons they said. The roadblocks began to appear, and Identipasses. Everyone approved of that, since it was obvious you couldn't be too careful. They said that new elections would be held, but that it would take some time to prepare for them. The thing to do, they said, was to continue on as usual.

from The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

By the time Oscar reached the outskirts of Washington, DC, The Louisiana air base had benn placed under siege.

The base's electrical power supply had long since been cut off for lack of payment. The aircraft had no fuel. The desperate federal troops were bartering stolen equipment for food and booze. Desertion was rampant. The air base commander had released a sobbing video confession and had shot himself.

Green Huey had lost patience with the long-festering scandal. He was moving in for the kill. Attacking and seizing an federal air base with his loyal state militia would have been entirely too blatant and straightforward. Instead the rogue Governor employed proxy guerrillas.

Huey had won the favor of nomad prole groups by providing them with safe havens. He allowed them to squat in Louisiana's many federally declared contamination zones. These forgotten landscapes were tainted with petrochemical effluent and hormone-warping pesticides, and were hence officially unfit for human settlement. The prole hordes had different opinions on that subject.

Proles cheerfully grouped in any locale where conventional authority had grown weak. Whenever the net-based proles were not constantly harassed by the authorities, they coalesced and grew ambitious. Though easily scattered by focused crackdowns, they regrouped as swiftly as a horde of gnats. With their reaping machines and bio-breweries, they could live off the land at the very base of the food chain. They had no stake in the established order, and they cherished a canny street-level knowledge of society's infrastructural weaknesses. They made expensive enemies. . .

Louisiana's ecologically blighted areas were ideal for proles. The disaster zones were also impromptu wildlife sanctuaries, since wild animals found chemical fouling much easier to survive than the presence of human beings. After decades of wild subtropical growth, Louisiana's toxic dumps were as impenetrable as Sherwood Forest.

from Distraction by Bruce Sterling

and s-integrator

Saturday, January 25, 2003

Davos protests break out

11:28 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, January 24, 2003

There is much to love about the Jersey GOP site: Republican pin-ups, a downloadable Bush Doctrine coloring book, and links to well-informed commentary [skimble]

Just stick a fork in my ear, I'm done.

Like I needed another reason to hate New Jersey.

Kind of sad to hear Patricia Heaton and Ashley Judd have become pod people, though.

3:39 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Also from xymphora: Cipro was chosen as the anti-anthrax antibiotic only because shrubco is buds with Bayer -- penicillin, tetracycline, and doxycycline work just as well, with fewer side effects

Please give me a reason not to be skeptical about anything shrubco has done.

3:23 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Short one on the details of short-selling on 3 airlines leading up to 9/11 [xymphora]

Why would KLM be included unless a KLM plane was going to be targeted?

3:10 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sharpton HQ torched

I'm no big fan of his, but the same thing happened after he announced he was running for the Senate eight years ago.

1:59 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

An example of how an elaborate and interconnected security apparatus can defeat its own purpose -- and make things much worse
Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of customers of Mobile TeleSystems OJSC, a Russian mobile phone company, have been discovering how that feels. The company acknowledged this week that it had suffered a huge security breach that led to pirated CDs, purportedly containing its entire database of 5 million customers, appearing on the streets of Moscow.

"We discovered it a few weeks ago," said Yeva Prokofiyeva, a spokeswoman for the company, which is known as MTS. "It's hard to determine where the leak came from. The measures to protect the database are very strict."

The breach may not have occurred at the company. Mobile phone operators and Internet services are required by law to hand over information about their customers to the police and to government agencies such as the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB.

There is widespread speculation that a low-paid employee at an agency may have sold the data.

1:48 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Resource Update
Stratiawire registration is now free. An interesting POV outside the mainstream.

Black Op Radio has archived RealAudio interviews with investigative journalists like Gerard Colby and Kristina Borjesson and conspiracy researchers like John Judge. In their 4th year. Lot of stuff on the JFK assassination. Haven't listened yet but looks good.

1:18 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, January 23, 2003

Venezuelan Supreme Court upholds constitution, suspends referendum

Carter's attempt to do an end-run around Chavez belied his true plutocratic colors.

3:01 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

White House rescinds ER access restriction rule hours before Senate challenge

2:56 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

UC Berkeley reverses decision to censor Emma Goldman Papers fund drive flyer

2:04 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

The New World Order Isn't Just for Christian Militias Anymore File:

SWAT teams round up truant kids

2:02 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

MDs get paid to allow BigPharma "shadows" to sit in on sessions with patients [u]

1:39 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sam Smith suggests the ascendance of Kevin Klose as NPR's head honcho might be the spectral hand behind the network's increasing mainstreaming and irrelevance

Have to admit that -- unlike Sam -- I do like Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. There is much else on the network I'd jettison before that show.

NPR news has been trumped by the Net, at least for me, since '99.

I think if the network weren't based in D.C. it would help. They're just too cozy with the Overclass Miasm to get the perspective they need.

1:30 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

World Economic Forum meets under heavy manners in Davos, as a 47 country poll shows "widespread lack of confidence in governments" -- and their plutocrat bosses

They're going to need more than the Swiss air force in the next couple years.

1:14 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Saudi government quietly making deals with Saudi and Iraqi tribal chiefs behind Saddam's back

12:59 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

As immigration laws tighten and tax havens start disappearing, I wonder what safety valves will emerge to replace them?

12:46 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

Fraud endemic at labs testing environmental effects of petroleates
"Several current lab fraud investigations involve severe manipulation of data used to evaluate the compliance of public water supplies with federal drinking water standards," the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general, Nikki Tinsley, reported last fall.

In a recent interview, Tinsley declined to identify locations under investigation but added, "If it was my drinking water I'd consider it very serious."

Fake drinking water tests are only part of the problem.

The fraud has caused millions of people to fill their cars with substandard gasoline that may have violated clean air standards. Officials making decisions at hazardous waste cleanup sites have relied on companies that fraudulently tested air, water and soil samples.

4:13 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Schroeder aligns with France against UN war resolution

Is this just jockeying for more concessions re post-war Iraqi assets?

4:09 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Long but worthy Gordon Logan piece on MI6's faking pro-Palestinian bombings to dissuade the Saudis from financing the Palestinians [og]

Fascinating reading, though hard to corroborate. Very Tailor of Panama.

Logan adjudges MI6 to be the tool of the White House and Sharon, which may be; though I tend to believe they're all on a pretty level footing at this level of subterfuge.

The story, if true (and not hard to believe actually), does give a good idea how "terrorist bombings" can be manipulated by the intelligence agencies of the countries which are supposedly waging a War on Terror.

4:02 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

The investigation of the Bank of England's connections with BCCI is just starting in the UK

Readers of Forbidden Truth have an idea how deeply BCCI was implicated in funding Islamic terrorist groups.
Now [the BOE] faces a giant lawsuit brought in London by BCCI's victims, who claim it is guilty of negligence amounting to 'misfeasance', or wilful misconduct. The Bank has fiercely denied the charge, and made every effort to get the legal action thrown out.

And no wonder. BCCI's creditors are claiming up to �1bn in damages. They are also breaking new ground by challenging the Bank's statutory immunity against being sued.

The Government's worries do not stop there. It will have to answer potentially embarrassing questions over what Ministers, civil servants and the regulator knew about BCCI before it crashed. The Bank's most senior officials, past and present, are expected to go into the witness box, and the High Court will also consider evidence from John Major, the former Prime Minister, as well as former Chancellors Norman Lamont, Nigel Lawson and Denis Healey.

Then there is the small matter of the role played by Britain's intelligence services, whose relationship with BCCI has long been questioned. Did MI6 use accounts at the secretive bank to pay sources and operatives around the world? Did BCCI channel Western funds to Mujahideen fighters in the Eighties - or even, as some conspiracy theorists have surmised, to Osama bin Laden?

3:16 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Entertaining dissection of US cable news coverage of the antiwar protests [og]
It's clear that MSNBC is devoting the most resources and air time to the protests, CNN is now stuck in Money Line -- when it breaks for a Headline, it's the Iraqi scientist again, not the protests -- and Fox continues with its biased jabs. The patterns are set, the editorial decisions were made days before the event itself, and this is how it will play out. A major event, but not the headliner. One of many happenings on a Saturday afternoon, to be replayed moderately throughout the evening -- the most on MSNBC, snippets on CNN headline, less on "objective" CNN and dowright hostile Fox. The rallies will surely run on the evening news, but not the lead, probably.

...MSNBC gave excellent reports at the beginning of the Washington rally, as it just did for the San Francisco protest, and C-Span did its wall-to-wall "silent" coverage of the speakers in Washington. These two channels were far superior to the two larger networks, CNN and Fox.

3:01 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Warlord Rumsfeld was on the Board of Directors of Asea Brown Bovari Ltd (ABB) -- contracted in 2000 to design 2 nuclear reactors in North Korea -- until February 2001 [og]

Meanwhile, last week shrubco asked Congress for $3.5mil for KEDO, the development organization building the reactors, to keep it going til the standoff with the North Koreans is over. Principal members are the US, South Korea, Japan and the EU.
The pledge shows the U.S. is still pursuing its commitments to North Korea even as the two countries are squaring off over U.S. allegations North Korea essentially annulled the agreement by covertly enriching uranium for weapons use. [link]

As an aside, I wonder why in this timeline (click on logo at bottom) ABB claims it divested its nuclear power business in 1999 to focus on sustainable energy?

In any case, it's doubtful there will be any rumble involving North Korea, since there are serious US/EU financial interests invested there. Never mind that the whole thing seems to be posturing on both sides, with the freezing and hungry North Korean citizenry in the middle.

2:35 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

"Paging Dr Icke. . ."

Creepy snake/lizard goggles adopted by UK tank regiment [drudge]

7:05 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Some good background on Undersecretary
of Border and Transportation Security nominee Asa Hutchinson in Friday's Undernews
His nomination, though, has raised the ire of some DEA officials, who contend Hutchinson's reign at DEA has been marked by endless self-promotion, intolerance and racial bias. The sources asked that their names not be used because they feared they would be retaliated against for blowing the whistle on Hutchinson. The DEA whistleblowers are alleging that Hutchinson has appropriated an agency Lear jet and crew in order to travel to thinly disguised publicity events designed to bolster his national visibility for future political opportunities.

He was also up to his neck in the Mena AR drug operation in the 80s, along with the DynastyBush and Clinton.

Perfect guy for the DEA. Perfect guy to "watch the borders."

7:00 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Massachusetts Masons introduce CHIP project to catalogue kids IDs "for parents." [cryptogon]

That's CHild Identification Program, BTW. But obviously the implanted chip can't be far behind.

2:47 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

AP photographers beaten and threatened while taking shots of Israeli paramiltaries using human shields

2:35 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Twilight of Empire File:

It's what you do, not what you say that people pay attention to now, lizardboy

2:28 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

From cicentre:

Shadowy UK private spy agency Hakluyt under suspicion for murder and being a "deniability" shill for MI6.

Cagey ol' MI6 exposes their own Cayman cell and manages to let the money launderers they were chasing go free.

Spy tales galore from the past at the US News site: Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Remote Viewers, Kim Philby, the Civil War spies, OSS operative Julia Child & more.

2:31 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Steven Aftergood of the FAS suggests an "enterprise zone" to test new security methods that might be (and almost always are) immediately thrown over by the bureaucrats in the bloated and often ineffective intel matrix when any change is broached by Congressional committees or whoever

2:04 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

This review of Chuck Barris's "autobiography" asks "What would the CIA want with a self-loathing neurotic who has no detectable skills or military training and is incapable of holding down a job for more than a few months at a time?"

Um. . .exactly who else would they be interested in? Who was Lee Harvey Oswald before he was scooped up by whatever Intel handlers set him on his ride to hell? Yeah, he had some military training, he was a Marine, I believe. But a little training/brainwashing and this describes a certain type of operative I think commonly used by intel agencies and the New Mercenary Companies like Dyncorp quite well.

Try watching The Parallax View, Ms Burke.

None of which is to say that Barris acutally was an agent, mind you.

1:53 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Kidnapping for tuition: someone is abducted once every 6 hours in Mexico, second only to Columbia
If you are a corporate executive heading for a remote eco-tourist lodge or a shopowner staying late for inventory-taking, armed abductors are apt to lurk somewhere close. One group of Mexican law students impulsively grabbed a 12-year-old girl at a neighborhood market last year, figuring they might pay off their tuition more quickly by splitting a fat ransom fee. For neophyte thugs, kidnapping is a quick way to raise venture capital for more elaborate schemes, such as drug smuggling. Professor Ana Maria Salazar, an authority on law enforcement and judicial reform, observes a troubling trend: Social sanctions against kidnapping are breaking down, and it is viewed as one step up from impetuous shoplifting -- just a means to frighten people into handing over cash without actually harming them. "It's very worrying that individuals of apparently the same social class have such access and opportunity [to kidnap]," she says. "It's a crime that requires a little sophistication, a certain knowledge of the victim. They don't get caught, but they should."

1:21 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

There something surreal about the DoJ investigating alternative press companies on anti-trust charges and claims they are cutting back on news coverage

First off, the conglomeration of BigMedia doesn't seem to faze them.

Second, critical coverage of Ashcroft & co. would be one of the primary targets of alternative investigating, one would think.

Third, there is a conglomeration and flattening of coverage in alt weeklys, according to what I read in Progressive Review and elsewhere. Style and catering to upscale demographics are definitely taking precedence over political journalism.

And with the blogosphere taking up the slack in some ways, it all somehow seems less important. Not that we don't need the coverage. It just seems like there's less and less to choose between BigMedia and the alternative press than there used to be. This would have been a much bigger story even ten years ago.

12:54 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Monday, January 20, 2003

Disinformation on antiwar protest in Washington compounded by flyover restrictions which hampered media view of protest

Police also cordoned off part of the Mall, forcing protesters out of camera range.

Total protesters: over 100,000.

1:58 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Canberra bushfire disaster
Millions of dollars worth of damage was caused including the loss of the Mount Stromlo Observatory at a cost of more than $20 million. The replacement of homes will cost at least $80 million. More than half the ACT's pine plantations were wiped out. Other casualties included Holder High School, ACT Public Health laboratories, the Australian Defence College and a fire and ambulance station at Kambah.

There are now concerns about public health safety as sewage threatens to spill over into the Murrumbidgee and Molonglo rivers, due to damage caused to the Lower Molonglo Water Quality Control Centre. And 15 per cent of Canberra was still without power last night.

Mr Stanhope said the fire was the worst disaster to hit Canberra and would force a review of whether it could continue to be the Bush Capital, with the natural and urban environments so closely enmeshed.

[...]

Mr Castle said more manpower was requested from NSW on Saturday but it did not arrive in time. However, he said it would not have mattered how many firefighters there were available.

"It was a firestorm. Some individual said he and his son were on the roof and a fireball came and knocked them off the roof and jumped their house and went to the one behind them. That is the sort of circumstance we were dealing with," he said.

1:48 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

shrubco puff piece on economic package is form letter appearing in newspapers across country

Incublogula is listed on my culture site, but it has posts about political stuff sometimes too. Like this one about Eldershrub's taped blurb on country group Alabama being booed by the audience -- and the booing being deleted from the broadcast at the AMA awards.

Also: adding worthy Eschaton (mentioned in post linked above) to bloglist.

1:09 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, January 19, 2003

Many office thermostats may be fake [u]

6:00 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

98% of burglar alarm calls are false, and the number of calls is huge; so cops are starting to not bother answering them or the calls are being out-sourced to private companies [u]

5:44 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

The real meaning of jihad [u]
The word "jihad" comes from the three-letter root of j, h, and d. The j, h, and d of jihad when grouped together mean "effort." Consequently, the word "jihad" means struggle, endeavor, undertaking, and journey. When someone is asked to perform his best in any endeavor, the common verb is jahid.

The world today faces a jihad of sorts: the jihad of peace. The word "jihad," as originally used by the Prophet Mohammad, was meant to shed light on the incredible struggle and effort individuals, and mankind as a whole, must undertake to cleanse themselves of pains, illicit desires, anger, wantonness and violence. It is easy to strike out in anger; it is easy to beat a child when he/she misbehaves. It is easy to roll down the window and curse the slow driver in the fast lane.

However, it becomes a jihad to restrain oneself from anger and employ patience, humility, and compassion to deal with situations.

5:31 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Call to Conscience: site for veterans and active duty personnel to register opposition to Iraq War [u]

5:22 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Terrorist baby shower snuffed

Cops from 4 precincts pepper spray 50 at Long Island baby shower -- in a black community, natch

5:13 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Patients treated with radioactive isotopes setting off hidden radiation detectors in NYC subway stations [u]

5:05 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

6 year-old Belgian paedophile network case blocked at highest levels of government; the Belgian public, which had demonstrated in the thousands, now assumes fix is in and shrugs [Newsmakingnews]

From the transcript of a May 2002 BBC exposé
00.00.02
Olenka Frenkiel
In 1996 this woman came forward to tell the Belgian authorities she'd spent her childhood years as the victim of a paedophile network.

00.00.11
Olenka Frenkiel
She described a world of organised sexual abuse, torture and even murder.

00.00.18
Regina Louf
It was terrible, you didn't believe your eyes and I didn't believe that humans could do that.

00.00.28
Olenka Frenkiel
She talked of violent child sex orgies with politicians, judges and influential businessmen; a Belgian underworld in which the establishment has refused to believe.

00.00.41
Claude Eerdekens
Voice over

Regina Louf is a pathological liar; she's a woman who's invented a series of scenarios, which just don't stand up.

00.00.49
Olenka Frenkiel
A campaign followed to discredit her evidence. But now, in an exclusive interview, the policeman assigned to investigate her claims has broken his silence.

00.00.58
Olenka Frenkiel
He says the enquiry was blocked because it threatened to reveal too much.

00.01.03
Rudy Hoskens
I'm convinced that she has been a victim -- that's for sure.

12:36 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Taxpayers lend oil companies billions to build pipelines, under guise of providing new jobs -- but BigOil is virtually unaccountable and has actually cut its workforce
But while the government is helping oil companies tap new markets, the public financing is doing little to achieve its stated goal of creating jobs. Since 2000, the two largest oil companies subsidized by Ex-Im [the Export-Import Bank] -- ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco -- have actually slashed their workforces by more than 20,000. Oil and gas companies that apply for financing are not required to submit any information on the economic impact of their projects, and many of the documents they do provide are kept secret even from those charged with monitoring the agencies. "We don't have a lot of confidence in the process," says Thea Lee, the AFL- CIO's chief international economist, who sits on an Ex-Im advisory committee. "There's simply no way to know whether it's helping support U.S. jobs."

12:00 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

There was little fanfare about the announcement that the Navy will end its use of Vieques for training in the spring, after a many protests by locals; now the whitewash about contamination kicks in
Since exercises began in 1947, sailors and Marines have introduced napalm, depleted uranium and a possibly carcinogenic chemical intended to simulate the nerve agent VX into the environment. The USS Killen, a destroyer used as a target ship during nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, lies sunk 150 yards from shore.

During the 1990s, the Navy reported levels of the heavy metals arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, manganese and mercury, sometimes hundreds of times above permit limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency, in the waters around the island.

Heavy metals -- often found in military munitions -- can remain in human tissue for years. Some may be associated with asthma and illnesses of the central nervous system, kidneys, lungs, heart and brain. Prolonged exposure to abnormal levels of arsenic, cadmium and chromium has been linked to cancer.

[...]

The Navy did not respond to several requests this week to address environmental contamination or health problems on Vieques for this report. Navy officials have said in the past that military activities on Vieques have not harmed the environment or the population.

11:50 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Medicaid ER access deniable

shrubco tells states "Go ahead and hurt the poor!"

10:35 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Isn't this what happened on Dark Angel?

EM pulse-armed missiles "newest US weapon"
HPM engineers call it "dial-a-hurt." But that hurt can cause unintended problems: beyond taking out a tyrant's silicon chips, HPMs could destroy nearby heart pacemakers and other life-critical electrical systems in hospitals or aboard aircraft (that's why the U.S. military is putting them only on long-range cruise missiles). The U.S. used a more primitive form of these weapons -? known as soft bombs -- against Yugoslavia and in the first Gulf War, when cruise missiles showered miles of thin carbon fibers over electrical facilities, creating massive short circuits that shut down electrical power.
It's a "top secret program" that Time magazine clearly knows all about, so this is hardly the "latest" thing.

10:29 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

REVIEWS

from Sassafrass (9/23/02)
"Unconventional viewpoints at 'charging the canvas'

Opinions that will ruffle feathers, from someone who clearly knows their way around information and the blogosphere."

Blog of the Day
1/18/02

WEEKLY QUOTE

In the eyes of posterity it will inevitably seem that, in safeguarding our freedom, we destroyed it; that the vast clandestine apparatus we built up to probe our enemies' resources and intentions only served in the end to confuse our own purposes; that the practice of deceiving others for the good of the state led infallibly to our deceiving ourselves; and that the vast army of intelligence personnel built up to execute these purposes were soon caught up in the web of their own sick fantasies, with disastrous consequences to them and us.

-- Malcolm Muggeridge

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

-- Mark Twain

NOT IN OUR NAME
(link to list against Iraq War)

CULTURE LINK

Philip K. Dick

DEEPER NEWS LINK

PR Watch

charging the canvas

The Link Section