Because ur not quite bored of it yet... Deepwater exp0sed! via cryptome.org (along with that awesome Kissinger "bloated war criminal" photo above)

This is hugely damaging to the defense industry, and most damaging to Lockheed Martin who may end up having to pay the U.S. Government several billions of dollars due to their fraud, and executives within the defense industry could go to prison for the rest of their lives over this.

I understand that the case was filed quite some time ago, but that it was just unsealed last week, and that most of the case has already been proven in other venues.

Procurement fraud and government abuse at it's finest. http://cryptome.org/deepwater-fraud.pdf

More on this here. The main thing is that signals from systems like SIPRNET -- the main military/government Secret Internet -- was leaching out all over the ocean because Lockheed and Northrop Grumman didn't get shielded wires. HUGE security breach - bigger than a bunch o' spies!

To the average person not using shielded cable may not seem like a big thing. However, in reality it is almost like a bank employee who is tasked with locking up the bank at night but fails to close the vault, fails to lock the front door and declines to set the alarm systems. If nothing happened, it would still be grounds for immediate dismissal. If something did happen and funds were stolen, then he could be sued by the bank for recovery on the grounds of his willful negligence.

In the case of TEMPEST, they have left secure communication systems open to virtually anyone with a modicum of intelligence and technical equipment. To me, it raises concerns as to why there has been no action by the FBI and/or NCIS(NIS) on the grounds of national security. Whichever way you cut it, it comes off as willful misconduct and perhaps criminal negligence. Whatever the case, it just reminds me of Toshiba. Corporate types who would sell their soul for a dollar or, as alleged, sleeper agents posing as dishonest business types.

Either way, they should have been executed. It is ridiculous for people like Martha Stewart and Conrad Black to be doing federal prison time for what was quesionable conduct at worst, while people like those involved with TEMPEST are allowed to walk.

THE IAEA CASE: (or, Doc Brown & finding nuclear items: I traded them a case of pinball machine parts!!)The feds gave away quite a chestnut! Obama IAEA nuclear sites declaration for the United States, draft, 267 pages, 5 May 2009 - Wikileaks. My favorite notes on the IAEA doc were in NPR and Ars Technica, a lot of bearing on how these documents go around on the internet nowadays. SECRECY NEWS WIN! ;-)

Sibel Edmonds on 123 Real Change - Expose the MSM Mainstream Media dorks... Sibel set up a site to list all the bad journalists that have screwed whistleblowers. Michael Isikoff is her personal target. That guy is sketch. Etc Etc. Project Expose MSM Reports What is this about? 123 Real Change: Announcement. It was on Bradblog. Also how Edmonds got screwed by the Dems in US Congress. Couple notes from Coleen Rowley on it.

It goes like this, as Sibel posts:

Turner: “they’ve got all of it”
Higgins: “What did you do?”
Turner: “I told them a story, you play games, I told them a story”
Higgins: “Ah you, you poor dumb son of a bitch”, “You’ve done more damage than you know”
Turner: “I hope so”
Higgins: “You’re about to be a very lonely man”, “It didn’t have to end this way”
Turner: “Sure it did”
Higgins: “Hey Turner”, “How do you know they’ll print it?” “You can take a walk, but how far if they don’t print it?”
Turner: “They’ll print it”
Higgins: “How do you know?”

As it turns out the New York Times didn't usually print a damn thing. Terrible choice to trust.

More stuff....

Messing with Critical Mass riders in NYC, tactical media defenders savin the day! Video: Cops Ticket More Critical Mass Cyclists, Drive on Bike Path - Gothamist

Why did Porter Goss finger Jane Harman? | Capital J | JTA - Jewish & Israel News (See Hongpong.com on the Scandalplex for the early take on this AIPAC espionage story)

An excited busybody attempts to fix North Minneapolis: The Adventures of Johnny Northside

Hilarious voting system results in nothin but marijuana and birth certificate conspiracies. Damn you Internet!! :-D Open Government Brainstorm - by IdeaScale

Unbelievably bad Eurotrash video! People with more awesome desks than me.

Techbit: Google Releases Dev Chrome For Mac And Linux. But Doesn’t Want You To Use It. GIMME Google Wave API and Testing Google Wave: This Thing is Tidal. I wish I could goto DrupalCampWI | June 5th and 6th, 2009, Madison, WI

xkcd - A Webcomic - IN UR REALITY

For more: I'm In Ur

Cracked.com is nice: The 7 Most Bizarrely Unlucky People Who Ever Lived and 17 Great Historical Moments Ruined by Modern Technology

I ran into these devices the other day XBee-PRO 802.15.4 OEM RF Modules - Digi International- they are freakin awesome when applied!

Alt-economics: Organizing for a Better Economy And bookporn #41: books from heaven, books from earth « a historian’s craft.

Some random stuff from the huffpo that seems relevant somehow: An earned moment for Michael Moore, he calls for saving the industrial tools and building clean techs in the old GM factories: Michael Moore: Goodbye, GM

Yuck: Gov. David A. Paterson: The Moment for Public-Private Partnerships Is Now // Avarice! Washington politicos dish on summer plans

Drugz: They're trying to nix Murtha's bullshit drugz fusion center: House GOP Wants Cuts To Drug War also Daily Kos: States Leading Way on Industrial Hemp!

Submedia is at it again! ‘Hopium’ takes the West Coast by storm at subMedia

Nice Video: Who's culture jamming the Mexican election? Annul the vote!

Viddy: Dan Dennett on dangerous memes | Video on TED.com

This was snarky but pretty funny: Rantings of a Sandmonkey » The speech!

For everything including intel, oil and other items, you can't miss Sic Semper Tyrannis including Korea War - Round 2 part 2 by Neil Richardson and the referenced article about the new DARPA-drawn tactics such as secret tracker chips at "A New Kind of War Part 1" Richard Sale.

Bloody New Battles Suit Israel by Mel Frykberg -- Antiwar.com

For more on the Israel stuff, DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security is annoyed. DEBKA is written by weird Israeli intelligence people or something -- its a classic grains of salt source.

DEBKA on Lebanon spy rollup: This is a funny story about the Lebanese using fancy French gear to bust up the Israeli spies in Lebanon:

Tuesday, June 2, Beirut announced 9 more suspected spies had been detained with another haul of communications equipment and encoded computers. Western intelligence experts say all the Lebanese counter-espionage officers have to do is install the French bugs in one sector after another, wait for it to signal the presence of electronic gear and then pick up its holder. This accounts for their sudden success in rounding up alleged spies. Suspects who have dumped their equipment in time have managed to escape detection.

The harm to Western intelligence from Lebanese president's breach of promise to Paris has ramifications: Beirut has just passed its findings together with the captured electronic paraphernalia to Syrian and Iranian intelligence, handing them the data for overhauling their defenses against foreign espionage.

Urgent inquiries are now flying between Washington and Paris to find out how Western spy agencies operating in Lebanon came to relax their guard and failed to discover their exposure to the French bugs misused against parties against which Sakrozy meant no harm.

Either way, both Washington and Paris are forced to admit that, in the final reckoning, no office-holder in Lebanon may be trusted.

So it was OK for the French bugs to be used against Hezbollah, a domestic force, but foreign spies were supposed to be unbothered. That seems like a really fair deal.

The Egyptians also rolled up a bunch of sketchy Russians too, before Obama's speech. Another false flag possibility, or just another WMR conspiracy theory? June 1, 2009 - Did Egypt roll up a plot directed against Obama? - Wayne Madsen Report

The students rounded up in Egypt were asked about the sources of their money. It appears that the Russian students apprehended were not part of an official Russian and Egypt student program. The Council of Muftis of Russia stated that none of the Russian students taken into custody by the Egyptians were at Al-Azhar as part of any officially-sanctioned program of the council. Many of the students detained were at the university in violation of the visa regime in place and were not registered with Russian Muslim authorities. [.......]

On January 11, 2009, we reported on the supply of weapons to Hamas from Russian-Israeli mafia circles in Israel. WMR also reported on the strong links between Russian-Israeli mob tycoon Boris Berezovsky and the late Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London from polonium-210 poisoning, and Chechen guerrillas who were responsible for a number of terrorist attacks aimed at destabilizing the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, Berezovsky, in a major false flag operation, funded Chechen guerrillas by having Chechen warlords Shamil Basayev, Movladi Udugov, and Salman Raduyev kidnap people so that Berezovsky could finance them through the payment of ransoms totaling into the millions of dollars. Western intelligence linked "Al Qaeda" units to the Chechens funded by Berezovsky, providing yet another link between the Russian-Israel Mafia and "Al Qaeda." Berezovsky was also accused by Chechen leaders of financing extreme Wahhabi Kavkaz-TV television broadcasts designed to stir up anti-Russian passions among Chechen's Muslims. The Russian-Israeli fugitive billionaire, who enjoys asylum in Britain, was also linked to various Chechen terrorist attacks in Moscow. Berezovsky also supported Islamist radicals in the neighboring Russian Republic of Ingushetia, where some of the Chechen guerrillas found refuge.

The involvement of Russian Muslims in the Egyptian investigation of a potential threat against Obama, at the same time of souring relations between the Obama administration and Israel's government, which includes the extreme right-wing Moldovan-Israeli mob boss Avigdor Lieberman as Foreign Minister, is a strong indication that whatever the Egyptians uncovered about a threat against the President may have had "false flag" fingerprints all over it.

Using Russian and central Asian Muslims in Cairo in a false flag operation diected against Obama would have generated a backlash against Muslims and Arabs, something that Obama is trying to reverse by his speech and very presence in Cairo, and engendered both sympathy for Israel's Likud government and hostility towards Muslims from Egypt and Palestine to central Asia.

It is also likely that the Egyptian security services were tipped off by their American counterparts before the raid on Al-Azhar students. The question posed by the Egyptians to the Russians and other central Asians whether they planned a repeat of the Hussein Square bombing in February was likely prompted by either signals intelligence (SIGINT) intercepts by the National Security Agency (NSA), human intelligence evidence, or a combination of the two. A bombing anywhere in Cairo during Obama's visit would create a media frenzy that would place Egypt and Obama's wider Muslim and Arab audience in a bad light.

WHO CARES ABOUT OBL?! MORE FAKE PSYOPS VIDEO FOR FUN?: Plus just this week there were some videos supposedly from Osama bin Laden but it's kinda funny that nobody cares because the videos seem vaguely fake or irrelevant. Even gung-ho CNN seems depressed about the info punch -- an increasing trend as the War on Terror info memes burned themselves out. See Hongpong.com post on Anomalies with videos like this from exactly a year ago!

Obama took his shots at 9/11 Islamic conspiracy theories. As Jon Stewart aptly pointed out Thursday evening, he's trying to ease aside the militants in order to get engagement going with these societies. [So let's just lay conspiracies aside, and git er done... why not?]

Surely these awesome videos no one looks at anymore do not have watermarks from the IntelCenter, a shady op setup by one of Rumsfeld's go-to PSYOPS dudes, Jim Melnick. (as WIRED reported they got caught layering/messing with video logos apparently, see PrisonPlanet for a big pile of stuff on how this works, earlier Rummy stuff. etc etc)

[[Vague Backstory: Entities like IntelCenter are 4th Generation Information Warfare Fake News Machine or something, like MEMRI and the "SITE Institute", two spots that also peddle info products designed to suit the Beltway Hawk / neocon intel treadmill in Washington [PSYOPS agenda, stovepiping etc]. Slashdot last August on Tracking the Terrorists Online (in a bullshit way, it turns out).]]

Finally The Cost Of Winning In Minnesota | The Onion - America's Finest News Source. No better source. Only satire can save us now!

It was pretty cool to see that Obama is apparently willing to throw down against Benjamin Netanyahu, perhaps everyone can bring a bit easier -- a very certain brand of craziness got knocked down several notches.
The whole Israeli settler scene is one of the weirdest things going on out there. We're in a world with a lot of strange, irrational political projects (though it's also an intensely rational project -- within a pretty radical, and frequently apocalyptic total worldview). They've been growing like kudzu -- with no one really putting the brakes on.
The cool thing about the following link is that these guys managed to get an West Bank settler outpost run by crazed teenagers shut down via "tactical media" -- or essentially, PR pressure. The greasiness of a Netanyahu-led government -- he likes to look slick -- got placed in the position of having to fold or look ridiculous. Excellent move by the peaceniks (in this case Ta'ayush). Exclusive Video: The Radical Settlers Behind Israel's Clash with Obama | World | AlterNet
The video shows the big settler rally & these kids explaining Palestinians shouldn't be allowed to stay in the West Bank. Too bad the Hlll 26 outpost stuff isn't on the video.

Meanwhile Noam Chomsky was not impressed with Obama's speech. Seems a bit premature to me!
The whole West Bank thing certainly hasn't been set right, not by a long shot. But there's quite a literal line in the sand, which should drive the annexationists right up the Wall! (so to speak :)
The West Bank situation was one of the biggest things that motivated me to look critically at messaging, war, the modern engines and profits around conflict, as well as radicalized ideologies (and their normative political defenders).
Guys like the Anti-Defamation League say that all sorts of people are offensive and messed up and threatening, but when it comes down to autonomous militants roaming around the West Bank, the ADL ain't got jack to say. It's embarrassing, people! This is a huge loss for AIPAC's squad, and a big win for J Street and reasonable people everywhere. Neener neener!

[Additionally Hillary Clinton got a Hardball Award today for her brassy defense of the anti-settler line. Well earned Hillary, well earned. America doesn't look stupid, for a change. I haven't been much of a Hillary fan but she's handled Netanyahu and his minions with aplomb. Hat tip!]
Local militant racism as well! American Jewish World » Rabbi Manis Friedman’s contribution to Moment magazine sets off a controversy in the blogosphere

Not sure what to make of this but apparently one can distribute them professionally. And they are catching on in random countries. You touch the little Poken tapper things together, they exchange IDs, which you go take an accumulated list to the Poken website, which grants you in to whichever of your social networks they allow.

http://www.doyoupoken.com/PokenWeb/corporate/welcome.jsf
This Dutch video says it all.

I think weird foreign videos promoting tech should get put up here @ least once a week.

As posted http://www.politicsinminnesota.com/2009/may29/3251/freedom-consent-total-galactose-intellectual-property-minnesotas-infant-dna-mayo-gop

---

A new round of documents obtained from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) regarding the state's Newborn Screening Program (NBS) show interesting implications about the difference between its role catching certain dangerous genetic diseases, and the various genetic research and testing programs that the samples ultimately get sent to. There's quite a difference between the "trip-wire" disease screening program and the DNA studies; the role of DNA research as intellectual property suddenly pops up.

The study project authorizations approved by the Department of Health involve DNA research; critics of the policies around the newborn DNA samples want to know what happens to all the genetic data, and who might profit from it. Two big players around here, the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota, do work on the blood samples. The operative contracts, which include defining the "intellectual property" of what could almost be called the "derivative works" of newborn DNA, of the U of M and Mayo were obtained by lawyer Nathan Hansen, working in concert with the Citizens Council on Health Care, via Data Practices requests.

Here is the University's newborn screening contract and the Mayo's [PDFs]. Fans of cellular rights might find the parts on the State apparently owning their chromosomes a bit profound! [PIM combined all of Hansen's PDFs, now searchable via optical character recognition. Get it now: 105 MB - Acrobat 8+ required!]


The puzzle over infant DNA data handling revolves around a conflict between the state's 2006 genetic privacy law, which is fairly protective of individual rights, and the statute that controls the newborn screening program. In March 2007, administrative law judge Barbara Neilson ruled that the Department of Health was not compliant with the privacy law, and in 2008, SF3138, a bill that leaned towards the program (and backed by the Mayo) got vetoed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty over privacy concerns.

From where should the basic principles about intellectual ownership of one's DNA come, especially when dealing with the property of people that were just born? Parental informed consent is the pathway out. To reform the legally hazy situation, DFLers have basically wanted to make a more clear consent form available to new parents, and roughly speaking, tighten up the sample rules.

If the DNA samples are considered "anonymized" in various ways (generally, but not always, the bloodspots get tied to ID numbers, not with demographic or personal information), then the studies can be exempted from Institutional Review Board examination usually under "Category 4" of 45 CFR 46. This is kind of a misleading idea, though: all those data fields they leave off are just bytes assigned by society; forking out someone's DNA tells everything about them, to a rather serious extent.

It's a salient public issue: CCHC Director Twila Brase and Tom Emmer (R-Delano) appeared on the national Glenn Beck show to chat about the nebulous legal nature of the situation. (CCHC also has a infant DNA website up.)

The CCHC is pleased they've stopped the latest legislation this year from Rep. Paul Thissen (DFL-Minneapolis), even though Thissen sees his bill as a clarification, tightening rules on sample destruction and the parental consent system.

We'll make a dare for the Department of Health to try: the new parental informed consent form should have a separate checkbox: if the DoH is going to offer their child's DNA to research programs, all derivative works and intellectual property should be under the "Creative Commons" license -- none of this scooting off the chewed up data into the sphere of corporate patents and trade secrets!

One other factor: as public-private partnerships have moved into the area of genetic research, the compensation structures of various researchers have been shifting. The proposed, so-called "Tubby Smith" shift in data classification of public employee outside compensation would obscure how these are set up -- and indeed, if the "derivative works" from the infant DNA data isn't always traced (let alone handled in a comprehensive ethical framework), what's really happening to those little red spots? As always, who profits?

One program serves to improve a commercial "Total Galactose" testing kit from the Finnish group Perkin Elmer [PDF], in effect doing the R&D runs. On the documentation like the MDH Institutional Review Board (IRB) "Re-Reviews of Exempt Research," sometimes children are marked affirmatively on the "Vulnerable Populations Checklist" and, at least on some studies, they are supposed to be evaluated because they "are either not competent or not free to give their own consent;" so why are the studies inconsistent as to whether children are actually involved? In any case, the exhaustive social and economic effect of having their DNA poured into to research projects isn't fully traced in these IRB approvals.

Hansen's sharing more about where else the paper trail leads at his blog. One funny item from the letters Hansen got from Lynn Belgea at the MDH legal office said MDH [PDF] "does not conduct 'DNA collection' from infant children; the department collects dried infant bloodspots, of which DNA is one constituent."

On one IRB review's HIPAA checklist, it was noted the MDH is not a "covered entity" under HIPAA, and "any health information that MDH has collected or received for public health purposes is not PHI [Protected Health Information] in MDH's possession." PHI doesn't seem to extend to the idea of personal ownership of DNA as a kind of "individually identifiable health information" (PHI is described as stuff about payments, health care provisions or the "health condition of an individual") -- but even if PHI included your DNA rights, the MDH wouldn't have any problem distributing it under current HIPAA rules, because it all came in for "public health purposes."

[Get the whole, fully searchable multi-part PDF here, 105 MB including the U of M and Mayo Contracts, the total galactose project, MDH correspondence, years of NBS meeting agendas, and other items. Acrobat 8+ required.]

New Frontiers of Social Control incl. killa robots, ECHELON, new FBI 9/11 timeline, USAID for Bolivian separatists, drugging students for the Cube & more!

It just never gets old... Smedley Butler War is a Racket. (online in full here)

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.

I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

First up: Defender O Freedom Nathan Hansen finds the secret DNA stash run by the state of Minnesota. Globalism and Pandemics: The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, WHO, et al vs. Individuals and the Sovereignty of Nations.

The mechanics of the UK-USA/ECHELON international eavesdropping apparatus got laid out here in the Nicky Hager book Secret Power, now available as PDF. YUMZ! (h/t as always Cryptogon.com)

WIN - another great moment for hierarchies, and authority as well! UN wants 'flood of drugs' in Afghanistan to devalue opium | guardian.co.uk Splendid! Bravo nascent global government & information warriors... meanwhile Tpaw kills MJ.

New Bolivian synthetic Contra-style movement underway. USAID Win!! Bolivia Rising: Newly declassified documents reveal More than $97 million from USAID to separatist projects in Bolivia. We can has Evidence Filez PDF NOMS Index /2008-USAID! Anyone who can guess how they'll pay for this can roll up the $20 and put it up the schnoz :-D [...these pawn separatists have been popular in the Andean / Condor region & its transnational rightwing paramilitary apparatus, or whatever you want to call it. See also earlier Venezuela Declares Solidarity with Bolivia's Government in Face of Separatist Effort.

Killa Robots as promised: PW Singer spooky in precise outlines of prerequisite for Rise of the Machines scenario.Gizmodo - Why the Terminator Uprising (Probably) Won't Ever Happen - terminator. Meanwhile also Google's Creepy New Algorithm Knows If You're Going to Quit Your Job Before You Do.

The Police State Gravy Train Continues! Tom Burghardt does it again! Democracy Going Dark: The Electronic Police State:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's budget request for Fiscal Year 2010 reveals that America's political police intend to greatly expand their high-tech surveillance capabilities.

According to ABC News, the FBI is seeking additional funds for the development of "a new 'Advanced Electronic Surveillance' program which is being funded at $233.9 million for 2010. The program has 133 employees, 15 of whom are agents."

Known as "Going Dark," the program is designed to beef up the Bureau's already formidable electronic surveillance, intelligence collection and evidence gathering capabilities "as well as those of the greater Intelligence Community," ABC reports....

[ See also America's growing surveillance state | guardian.co.uk ]

Boring Yet Serpentine PR Stunts in Lebanese Election: Meanwhile in Lebanon, the perpetually dumb propaganda battle over "who blew up Rafik Hariri?!©" took a funny turn as the German magazine Der Speigel announced a bunch of draft papers floating around the almighty UN truthfinding committee, the Mehlis Commission, proved that Hezbollah blew up Hariri.

More Israeli spies surface in Lebanon - UPI. Hezbollah accused Der Spiegel of being dumb & conspiring with a cheesy Mossad PR stunt, which it does appear to be. Sheikh Nasrallah, who has been playing things pretty carefully lately, said " Hezbollah accuses German magazine of conspiring with Israel - CNN::

"It is all about the timing; the Israelis and Americans are talking about their worries of these elections. So what can they do? Here, they have Der Spiegel ready," he said. ... later: "The danger here is not in the timing but in the strategy. When Hariri was assassinated, they wanted to first accuse the Shiites of the crimes. Now they are accusing Hezbollah. They are telling the Sunnis that whether you like Hariri or not, Hezbollah is the one who killed your leader. Your revenge is with them, your war is with them, so go and fight them. They are your new enemies."

Lebanese elections are really interesting - there is some convoluted ethnic/religious power sharing deal in their Parliament. And furthermore I don't know if anyone gets why the Hariri blame is such a big deal - people get blown up all the time, it's obvious the only prize is some propaganda mileage. BORING! [More interesting is the secret US Lebanese airbase construction agenda...]

Suspicious false flag incident scheduled for May 31 border operation etc. More AFP May 18:"If Israel plans on pulling anything during the manoeuvres (May 31 to June 4), we're sending it a message that we stand ready and they will fail," he added. "We will not bury our heads in the sand."

Shady Business in FBI-sponsored NYC fake synagogue bomber thing: Informant offered liver transplant for Bronx terror suspect's brother, sez mom. One sad layer after another in this FBI sham. Weak sauce. This lets Dick Morris claim that domestic terror is real!! What a shame. FBI Lured “Jihadis” with Piles of Cash, Gifts, Weed. Ah yes, the vaunted FBI False Flag Stoner Bomber gig -- how the fuck do you put that on your resume?

Really Uber Awesome FBI 9/11 timeline gets out via FOIA, proving hijackers kicked it with a Saudi "aviation support contractor". This was really good stuff. The FBI put together some big 9/11 Timeline that the 9/11 Commission thought was just fantastic (their report has dozens of footnotes to it) yet until now, the timeline hadn't been released.

ATS Forum: FBI documents contradict 9/11 Commission report. It's a solid 300 pages and includes the nifty bits about how two of the 9/11 hijackers met up right away with some weird Saudi dude (rather than 2 weeks later as the Commission claimed). This of course proves yet again the obvious angle that foriegn intelligence ties were all over 9/11. SHhh!

Full story here. The FBI Report! Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 . 9/11 Commission Panel member John Lehman said Karl Rove was filtering all the presidential documentation. Good times.

Social control and drugs for the boys: Ritalin and the Cubicle-directed education system: NYT WIN! The Case for Working With Your Hands - NYTimes.com

A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic rather than to accumulate academic credentials is viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive. There is a pervasive anxiety among parents that there is only one track to success for their children. It runs through a series of gates controlled by prestigious institutions. Further, there is wide use of drugs to medicate boys, especially, against their natural tendency toward action, the better to “keep things on track.” I taught briefly in a public high school and would have loved to have set up a Ritalin fogger in my classroom. It is a rare person, male or female, who is naturally inclined to sit still for 17 years in school, and then indefinitely at work.

What a great graf. Way to go Matthew Crawford.

Misc Jumble & Techs: Red Bull is full of cocaine traces. I didn't like some of this crazy article (icky Zionist paranoia etc) but it is about FBI informants & their widespread use by Chris Bollyn. Meanwhile mysterious: Occult Symbols in Corporate Logos « Dprogram.net. Funny roundup from Big Dan's Big Blog. haha!

Mashable: Top 10 Social Media Stories You Missed this Weekend More techtips: Hashtags 101: How-To Use hashtags. I never saw Lunch.com before. It is some collaborative thing.

How digging up expense reports led a journalist to clobber British govt - Boing Boing. Also this was interesting b/c I haven't yet looked @ the WetPaint collaborative service: Twittering in the trenches - Computers, Freedom, and Privacy

Can't knock it: UNDERNEWS: A SHORT HISTORY OF CIA LIES TO CONGRESS // Chucklz from my friendly associate Mr Deeran: Dealing with Conspiracy Theorists | BNET which led to these laff hit pieces straight from the Feds: Rumors, Myths, and Fabrications | A Guide to What Isn’t True » Structure of Conspiracy Theories - Engaging the World - America.gov

Localz: MN Stories: Stencil mural thing. More art: Finger Painting: New Yorker Blog. How Technicolor and Color spaces work.

Lulz: Right wing guy can't figure out to tame feral cat family. Feed them ALL out the back door dude. Jeesh. I wanted to send him an email for the sake of the poor kittens but the damn site is useless. Patriarchy/authoritarianism nexus is strong with this one.

In a popular culture that has gotten more sympathetic to conspiracies, things that nagged at us out on the shady Internets have been shot into the mainstream in a weird way lately - it seems people like Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann are "gatekeeping" around very weird stories -- they inject a bunch of crazy spin to some very strange, but real, facts, leaving a messy ideological wreckage behind, leaving existing small Internet communities of thoughtful observers dazed and confused...

(the leading recent example here would be how Alex Jones tried to raise alarm about the "FEMA Camp" federal paperwork and policies out there, and Bachmann and Beck parachuted in and made it all seem crazy, which caused the documentation-driven alarm from Jones to get totally overrun with nonsense. Not that Jones' analytic framework is necessarily good all the time - but in this case it was substantive).

But no one like Beck or Bachmann will stir up the loose change left behind by Danny Casolaro or the Octopus. You can bet on it.

*****

One of the great figures in the whole Iran-Contra/BCCI/Savings&Loan scandal complex mix was Danny Casolaro, a journalist who got into what he called the Octopus. Casolaro was abruptly murdered by someone like Oliver North's henchmen, or something roughly along those lines.

A new Octopus tentacle, which happens to match pretty well with an old one, washed up dead in Switzerland. Robert Nichols' name goes right back through everything, and it matches nicely the latest turn -- sadly, he turned up dead in February. From there, it gets into the Original Big Murky Ink Cloud.

One angle to this whole thing is that corrupt and powerful people can sometimes obtain really awesome letters of credit from government entities, and stash them away. The notes can then be used to build new financial instruments and complex frauds - Al Martin's book The Conspirators (almartinraw.com) had a bunch of stuff about the Bush family doing this in the 1980s.

So it made a very certain sense to me when I caught this story - off a site that seems to be run by Casolaro's daughter (or someone else whose parent was murdered in the broader Iran Contra/Octopus mix). Haters of the Federal Reserve, check it out!

$250 Billion Treasury Note Cloaked in Mystery – Evades Public Scrutiny | Desertfae

It all started with a Bloomberg News article entitled “Bayou’s Israel Cheated in Scam,” published on July 15, 2008 by court reporters David Glovin and Bob Van Voris.http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601127&sid=aLCwdJsx0V3M&refer=law

The article talked about Samuel Israel of Bayou Management Group LLC being cheated by Robert Booth Nichols, “who in a 1993 lawsuit claimed to have worked for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for 20 years. Nichols was also the target of a 1987 probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of organized crime in the entertainment industry,” wrote Bloomberg.

An excerpt of the article read as follows: “As Samuel Israel grew desperate to raise money in 2004 to save his Bayou Group LLC hedge fund firm, he turned for help to a Hawaii man who promised a windfall and then conned him out of $10 million, said a U.K. investigator.

“Robert Booth Nichols cheated Israel, later convicted in his own $400 million theft, in a ‘prime bank’ fraud, a scheme used by con-artists promising quick riches in secret markets, the U.K. investigator said in a document filed in June in federal court in New York. U.S. prosecutors seeking to recover funds for Bayou investors won a British judge’s ruling in November freezing $1 million Nichols held there, and they may be pursuing millions more in Singapore, Nichols’s lawyer said.”

Robert Booth Nichols, 65, denied wrongdoing and sought to retain the $1 million in London. He said in court papers that he helped Israel invest in a legitimate, though unspecified “project” involving U.S. government obligations. Nichols said he had no reason to believe Israel was engaged in fraud.

“He was asked to find something, and he found it,” Nichols’s lawyer, Joseph Bainton, told Bloomberg, declining to elaborate. “There are very few people capable of performing this service, for which he was paid a lump sum of $10 million.”

Nichols said in court papers that he believed the investment was on behalf of Israel personally, that Nichols was told his services “involved matters of national interest,” and that a first cousin of President G. W. Bush, John P. Ellis, vouched for the legitimacy of the transaction. Nichols said the deal required him to contact representatives of foreign governments that he knew, according to court documents.

Nichols’ lawyer told Bloomberg that “Mr. Ellis attended some meetings and gave Mr. Nichols some assurance with respect to the approval of the United States.” Ellis worked at GH Venture Partners in 2004, according to Nichols’ court documents.

The criminal case is U.S. v. Israel, 05cr1039, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

The bankruptcy case is In re Bayou Group LLC, 06-22306, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District New York (White Plains).

The missing link in the above story is the $250 Billion Treasury Note secured by 2,500 metric tons of gold at the Atlanta Federal Reserve, Serial Number SC 3040-20. Robert Booth Nichols’ lawyer described this to Bloomberg as an unspecified “project” involving U.S. government obligations. However, the reporters had no knowledge at the time they wrote the story that the “project” for which Nichols was paid $10 million allegedly involved Nichols locating and obtaining the Treasury Note for Samuel Israel and depositing it at the London Safe Deposit Box Company Ltd. http://londonsafedeposit.co.uk/

Yumz. Now we are getting somewhere. Christopher Story (Worldreports.org) also talked a lot about this certain raid against the London safe deposit boxes - the idea is that several months ago the London Metropolitan Police raided a huge bunch of safe deposit boxes, and these boxes contained all sorts of weird items, blackmail, leverage, the shadow wealth of a bunch of players who believed themselves untouchable.

But London Metro managed to take their stuff, and thereby actually, roughly speaking, damaged a huge chunk of the shady "intelligence power" as Mr Story likes to call it.

So that is one side... i will leave it there for now. Wayne Madsen had stuff on it too.

Anyway the Desert Fae blog has a lot of backstories like for example the Frank Sinatra mob stuff - Dr Nichols is showing up at the Cabazon Indian Reservation in the 1980s (Cabazon was where, according to the great Iran Contra Octopus tapestry, they were hacking PROMIS backdoors, something about weird weapons and the Contras, it was quite a classic set of data points that you find, when you go looking....)

Meanwhile running attached is The Octopus Wiki! Not too shabby!! It sort of suggests that major drug cartels and the Italian mob are subsets or sub-pathways of the Octopus. From the Wiki front page, just a few of the angles you need to nibble at:

The Inslaw Affair

Danny Casolaro, Michael Riconosciuto, Robert Booth Nichols, and others were mentioned rather prominently in the final House of Representatives Report #102-857 released to the public on September 10, 1992. The Investigative Report, put together by the Committee on the Judiciary headed by Senator Jack Brooks of Texas, entitled “The Inslaw Affair,” summarized a three year investigation into the theft of the PROMIS software from Bill and Nancy Hamilton, owners of Inslaw Corporation in Washington D.C. (The investigators who handled the three-year probe were listed on the Report as James E. Lewin, Chief Investigator, and John D. Cohen, Investigator.)

As a result of media exposure, Inslaw’s owners, Bill and Nancy Hamilton, had received information which subsequently led them to believe that the Department’s actions were part of a high level conspiracy within Justice to steal the “enhanced” version of PROMIS.

Inslaw alleged that former Attorney General Edwin Meese and Deputy Attorney General Lowell Jensen forced Inslaw into bankruptcy by intentionally creating a sham contract dispute over the terms and conditions of the contract which led to the withholding of payments due Inslaw by the Department.

Two federal court judges and the House Judiciary Committee ultimately concluded that “the United States Department of Justice‎ acted willfully and fraudently” and “took, converted and stole” Inslaw’s enhanced PROMIS software by “trickery, fraud and deceit.”

EXCERPTED from High Times Magazine, August 2001 issue, Vol. No. 313 – Title of article: "The Ghost ofDanny Casolaro.” [3]

“ --- Danny Casolaro's tragic death essentially opened a Pandora's Box which the DOJ was never able to close. During the last week of his life, Danny had discovered a connection between Mike Abbell, a former director of international affairs for the Justice Department, the Cali Drug Cartel, and Robert Booth Nichols, an international intelligence operative whom he had been interviewing extensively for months. Danny's last phone bills indicated he'd spent hundreds of hours on the phone with Nichols, most of the calls averaged one to two hours. This in effect, was one tentacle of the Octopus.

“Danny had confronted Nichols about Mike Abbell and the Cali Cartel while staying in Martinsburg. It was the last conversation Danny ever had with Nichols, and with Bob Bickel, a friend whom Danny confided in. Bickel subsequently confirmed the conversation, but for reasons unknown, the Abbell - Cali Cartel connection was never published in any of the official investigative reports on Danny's death. These included the DOJ report of September 27, 1994.

“In fact, a note handwritten by Danny four days before his death, found by relatives, read as follows: ‘Bill Hamilton - August 6. MR … also brought up 'Gilberto.’ Unknown to anyone outside the DOJ at that time, a [secret]FBI investigation of Mike Abbell was underway at the time of Danny's death. Years later, an indictment unsealed in Miami on June 6, 1995 charged Abbell with laundering money for the Cali Cartel. Surveillance reports indicated he'd made frequent visits to the home of Gilberto Rodriguez, leader of the Cali Cartel in Bogota, Columbia.

Top notch.

PROMIS was originally Prosecutor's Management Information System - early in the era, it seems to have been a kind of nice IT case management system that would let the suits tie into various government databases. According to reams of odd stuff out there (yet never definitively presented to the American public) it got stolen from INSLAW and mutated by the CIA and other assorted lunatics. (American intelligence sold a backdoor'd PROMIS to the RCMP and the Mounties were fucking pissed when they found out - I want Dan Aykroyd to play the Mountie boss in the film.)

From there PROMIS sort of seems to morph into a magic skeleton key into all types of data mining - by extending its ability to probe around into all government databases.

It seems too much the handy conspiracy program: It sort of plays like a MacGuffin or other placeholder "program that all the players have, to dominate reality in bizarre and invisible ways." There's no other program out there in the Internet conspiracy world I know of that compares to PROMIS. But I don't get what that means!

The idea from Chris Ketcham is that PROMIS became extended into MAIN CORE, the master NSA program that was spun out of DARPA's Total Information Awareness effort. Check this out - it does have the areas about "Continuity of Government" -- which is often an odd kind of logistical code or cipher for hardcore martial law, it seems, especially in the REX84 era (also Operation Sledgehammer, and Ollie North's Civilian Labor Inmate Facility [CLIF] proposal) --- myahhh I'm getting caught up in keywords now.

Check the Ketcham article for how MAIN CORE grew from PROMIS:   The Last Roundup : Information Clearing House - ICH

More goods:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Core
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19871.htm
http://digitizedrevolution.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/christopher-ketcham-the-last-roundup-2/
(great google ads at the end of this one ^ )
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/05/hbc-90002972
http://cryptogon.com/?p=2590

Excerpt of Wayne Madsen: http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20090508

May 8-10, 2009 -- Was Clan Bush involved in looting of other Federal Reserve Banks?

There is additional information to report on the Treasury Note that is secured by $250 billion in gold (2500 metric tons) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. After the sudden resignation of New York Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Stephen Friedman, a one-time top economic adviser to President George W. Bush and someone who apparently profited from the government's bailout of Goldman Sachs while he served as both Chairman of the New York Fed and as a board member for Goldman Sachs, the entire Federal Reserve Bank system appears to be involved in a massive ploy to loot the United States of its gold and cash reserves.

On May 5, 2009, WMR reported: "According to WMR's sources, the FBI and London police are working together on a case that involved a $250 billion U.S. Treasury Note seized by the FBI from a London safety deposit box company, London Safe Deposit Company, Ltd. The box was reportedly placed at the London firm by self-described 20-year CIA veteran Robert Booth Nichols, who reportedly died in Geneva, Switzerland on February 14, 2009.

A heart attack was believed to have been the cause of death but there was a blow to Nichols's head. A 'friend' of Nichols, a New York stockbroker who was reportedly helping Booth move a large sum of cash, bonds and gold in Geneva, arranged for a quick cremation of Nichols's body and the U.S. embassy in Bern was notified. ........

Well, consider yourself educated at least in a few classic slices of Octopus lore, and how, in theory, they fit into the modern NSA panopticon. That's the damn thing about these freakkin conspiracies:

the same people pop up over and over and over. It's really fuckin' annoying.

Something awesome: Яolcats

Kapitan, there was an accident in the research facility! It’s imperative we reach the acid baths… [source]

I have been informed that these translations are not really right. The original site is @ Котоматрица: Главная страница  [photo source]

That's OK. The LOLcats are taking over, up in ur rational frameworks, makin ur reality look weirder. Reality seems to be curving away into some other odd direction, yes.

I was diggin this column from Frank Rich (h/t my dad) The American Press on Suicide Watch - NYTimes.com

One of the freshest commentators on Internet culture, Clay Shirky, has written, correctly, that nobody really knows what form journalism will take in the evolving post-newspaper era. Looking back to the unpredictable social and cultural upheavals brought about by Gutenberg’s invention of movable type, he writes, “We’re collectively living through 1500, when it’s easier to see what’s broken than what will replace it.” So who will do the heavy journalistic lifting? “Whatever works.” Every experiment must be tried, professional and amateur, whether by institutions like The Times or “some 19-year-old kid few of us have heard of.”

Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable etc....

This guy went to cover a baseball game and got fired while he was there. RealClearSports - Articles - Press Box Layoff: How the Baltimore Sun Fired Me

I would like to see some good satire - stuff like the famed Report from Iron Mountain. I think Richard Cook didn't realize (though he sort of accounts for the possibilty). The Report from Iron Mountain Revisited | AfterDowningStreet.org.

I could post more, but why bother? It's clear who's winning.

"Baxter is the only flu vaccine manufacturer to work with wild type flu viruses, felt to be more dangerous than the altered and attenuated (weakened) viruses other manufacturers use." --Canadian Press [link]

Too bad we don't have wizards anymore. I'd ask one if it's a good idea to make a new devil in order to make a new spell against it.

Smarter wizards probably knew it was better to keep it cool: the bastards -- once incarnated -- have a way of slipping out during the process.

****

A modern past-time, Mashable.com for tracking the first Web2.0 mashable epidemic: HOW TO: Track Swine Flu Online Also neat: Alltop - Top Swine Flu News

I was always kinda fascinated with the idea of "Biohazard"... All the varieties of influenza viruses, put together, is kind of like an operating system with a bunch of toggles ('H' and 'N' denote major ones). It is hard for nature to flip a bunch of toggles at once, but genetic scientists, and drugged up pigs, each can flip a ton of toggles very frequently, in their own way.

...Alright so evidently there is a bit of concern that I've lost my mind grumbling about the damn "swine flu" and its sketchiness. I am not flippin about this nasty bug. I say it is probably more than 10 times worse than SARS, but definitely not 100 times worse....

To combine two popular memes: Ron Paul's commentary on the swine flu, how he voted against the Gerald Ford mandatory swine flu vaccine (that killed a bunch of people in the most typical vaccine way), as well as questioning why the hell the Department of Homeland Security is calling the shots (so to speak) with public health.

Often conspiracy-friendly journalist Wayne Madsen sells the "engineered" angle on this as well. More: http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20090425

April 25-26, 2009 -- SPECIAL BULLETIN. New swine flu feared to be weaponized strain

According to two mainstream media journalists, one in Mexico City and the other in Jakarta, who spoke to WMR on background, they are convinced that the current outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in Mexico and some parts of the United States is the result of the introduction of a human-engineered pathogen that could result in a widespread global pandemic, with potentially catastrophic consequences for domestic and international travel and commerce.

The journalists have been told by top officials of the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) about the grave dangers posed by the new and deadly swine flu strain, known as A-H1N1. The flu, never before seen by scientists, has already killed up to 68 people in Mexico ...... [.........]

Our Mexico City source said a top scientist for the United Nations, who has examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as HIV/AIDS victims, concluded that H1N1 possesses certain transmission "vectors" that suggest that new flu strain has been genetically-manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon. The UN expert believes that Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and the current A-H1N1 swine flu virus are biological warfare agents. [impossible!!]

Our Jakarta source said WHO officials are afraid that the presence of gene segments from dreaded H5N1 bird flu in the A-H1N1 swine flu strain could mean that the new swine flu strain was engineered to "jump species." WMR has been informed that the CDC and U.S. Army dug up the body of an Inuit woman who died in 1918 in Brevig Mission, Alaska from an outbreak of Spanish flu. The influenza pandemic that year killed up to 100 million people worldwide in an 18-month period. Brevig Mission saw 72 of its 80 residents die within five days, the worst case recorded anywhere in the world. WMR has been told the genetic material recovered by the U.S. government from the corpse of the Inuit woman provided the basis for the development of the H5N1, or bird (avian), flu strain at the U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland, the point of origin for the Ames strain of anthrax used in the 2001 bio-war attacks against the U.S. Congress and the media.

Sooo... that's the biggie theory, then. The political question is whether the nasty petri dishes at CDC and USAMRIID will be seen in any kind of critical light.

*****

What bugs me is: an accident with one of the beastly lab bugs they create nowadays would look EXACTLY like this. The structure of the virus basically reeks of human genetic engineering, not random chance in nature. I don't know if it originated synthetically rather than organically -- who does? It's not important - what's important is that the synthetic flu could strike (again?).

The style of this "influenza A swine H1N1" thing seems just like the other weird flu virus hybrids that labs are synthesizing in huge amounts. I don't like the sound of this at all. Anything involving viruses and stuff gives the creepy-crawlies, and it should - we're talking about powerful, cascading pathogens.

The possibility of lab accidents with novel viruses and life forms (let alone "mad scientists" or evil schemes) is, to me, a greater likely source of weird viruses getting out and sparking pandemics than Mexican swine farms. [Comparable, but...]

If there's a critical stance to take, it's that the biological sciences industries want to keep chugging away and secretly ("competitively") mixing this stuff around in order to have stocks of new lifeforms and pathogens that are marketable. With pandemic vaccine development in particular, scientists often want to whip up the very combinations of proteins (and other traits) that they most fear arising in the wild.

All they have to do is lose a few grains of their test virus batches - or even worse, let some get combined in a hapless lab animal or lab worker - and then you have a totally new entity.

Nature can only make these virus remixes at a low rate; the CDC and other labs are turbocharging evolution and randomly throwing stuff together.

From the engineering side, viruses are not even that big, compared to full cells. If one has access to a lot of different types of diseases, the patterns can be found and mixed around, then amplified into huge quantities of brand-new pathogens.

The nasty Mexican swine farms and everything could also act as viral (and bacterial) amplifiers and mixers, certainly. Factory farming, with its doses of antibiotics, turbocharges bacterial and viral evolution.

*****

Conspiracy fun with homeland security bird flu trucks! It's a bit of a bummer to see people freaking out, but maybe some alarm is actually directed in a useful way. Never fear - there is plenty of fun conspiracy stuff going around. Something about Homeland Security moving around bird flu on PowerHour. Why not? Plenty of names and details for the true fans :-D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSV7jVOjIwQ
Includes some sort of Syracuse CIA front. How depressing would it be to work in a Syracuse CIA bio-scheme front? hah.

*****

I have been giving Baxter a hard time. Mainly, the Baxter incident shows that no one really wants to raise alarm about the risk of lab-created bugs. Now, they are looking all prime & ready to go:

Baxter to work to contain Mexico flu outbreak April 25, 2009 2:28 PM

Deerfield-based medical product giant Baxter International Inc. is working with the World Health Organization on a potential vaccine to curb the spread of the swine flu outbreak in Mexico, the company confirmed today.

Baxter, which has a growing vaccine business, has worked with foreign countries in the past to develop vaccines for the H5N1 virus commonly known as bird flu. Baxter has a cell-based technology that allows the company to more rapidly produce vaccines in the event of a pandemic than a decades-old method that uses eggs to process vaccines and can take weeks or even months longer.

"Upon learning about the swine flu outbreak in Mexico yesterday, Baxter requested a virus sample from WHO to do laboratory testing for potentially developing an experimental vaccine," company spokesman Christopher Bona told the Tribune this afternoon. "Baxter has research and development and manufacturing pandemic planning expertise to rapidly develop candidate vaccines against potentially emerging influenza viruses."

In the past, Baxter has developed vaccines and worked with countries to stockpile vaccines even while they undergo experimental testing. The idea behind the government stockpiles, in the case of the bird flu, for example, is to prepare against outbreak.

The company would not say whether the U.S. or other countries have contacted Baxter. Other companies, too, develop vaccines and have been used to stockpile vaccines. It's unclear whether other vaccine makers have also contacted the WHO.

Because it's so early in the vaccine development process, Baxter would not estimate on when a candidate vaccine would emerge for potential use.

The Mexican government is working to control a swine flu outbreak that has killed more than 65 people and potentially infected more than 1,000 in recent weeks, according to government and news reports. -- Bruce Japsen

The problem with Baxter, and this whole scene, is that Baxter sent out live avian flu and human flu, in the same cases, all over Europe, and no one seems to give a damn or realize what that might have done.

Thanks, Canadian Press!

How were bird flu viruses sent to unsuspecting labs? Updated Thu. Feb. 26 2009 7:45 AM ET The Canadian Press

Officials are trying to get to the bottom of how vaccine manufacturer Baxter International Inc. made "experimental virus material" based on a human flu strain but contaminated with the H5N1 avian flu virus and then distributed it to an Austrian company.

That company, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then disseminated the supposed H3N2 virus product to subcontractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany. Authorities in the four European countries are looking into the incident, and their efforts are being closely watched by the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Control.

Though it appears none of the 36 or 37 people who were exposed to the contaminated product became infected, the incident is being described as "a serious error" on the part of Baxter, which is on the brink of securing a European licence for an H5N1 vaccine. That vaccine is made at a different facility, in the Czech Republic.

"For this particular incident ... the horse did not get out (of the barn)," Dr. Angus Nicoll of the ECDC said from Stockholm.

"But that doesn't mean that we and WHO and the European Commission and the others aren't taking it as seriously as you would any laboratory accident with dangerous pathogens - which you have here."

Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses - if that indeed happened - could have resulted in dire consequences. Nicoll said officials still aren't 100 per cent sure the mixture contained live H5N1 viruses. But given that ferrets exposed to the mixture died, it likely did.

H5N1 doesn't easily infect people, but H3N2 viruses do. They are one of two types of influenza A viruses that infect people each flu season.

If someone exposed to the mixture had been co-infected with H5N1 and H3N2, the person could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people. That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.

Research published last summer by scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that in the laboratory, H5N1 and H3N2 viruses mated readily. While less virulent than H5N1, a number of the offspring viruses appeared to retain at least a portion of the killing power of their dangerous parent.

Baxter International, which is based in Deerfield, Ill., said the contamination was the result of an error in its research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.

The facility had been contracted by Avir Green Hills to make what Baxter refers to as "experimental virus material" based on human H3N2 viruses.

Christopher Bona, Baxter's director of global bioscience communications, said the liquid virus product was not a vaccine and was developed for testing purposes only. He deferred questions about the purpose of the testing to Avir Green Hills, but said the batch was to be used in animals and was never intended for use in humans.

Avir Green Hills said in an email that it took possession of the material in late December. It later sent the product to the sub-contractors. The email said the material was stored and handled throughout under high biosafety conditions.

Alarm bells rang in early February when researchers at the Czech sub-contractor inoculated ferrets with the material and the animals promptly died. Baxter learned about the problem on Feb. 6, Bona said from Deerfield.

Ferrets are susceptible to human flu strains, but they don't die from those infections. Preliminary investigation found the material was contaminated with H5N1 flu virus, which is lethal to ferrets.

Nicoll said the fact the ferrets died supports the working assumption that there were live H5N1 viruses in the material Baxter produced.

Bona said Baxter has identified how the contamination happened and has taken steps to ensure it doesn't happen again. He said Austrian authorities audited Baxter's Orth-Donau research operations after the problem came to light and are satisfied with the steps taken.

Baxter is the only flu vaccine manufacturer to work with wild type flu viruses, felt to be more dangerous than the altered and attenuated (weakened) viruses other manufacturers use.

The company uses what is known as BSL3 level precautions in all its vaccine research facilities, Bona said. (Researchers at the U.S. CDC use BSL3-plus biocontainment when working with H5N1 viruses, a spokesperson for the agency said.)

People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses have somehow co-mingled in the Baxter research facility. That should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.

The company isn't shedding much light on how it did.

"It was a combination of just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure," Bona said. When asked to elaborate, he said to do so would give away proprietary information about Baxter's production process.

Bona said when Baxter realized its error, it helped the various companies destroy the contaminated material and clean up their facilities. And staff who had been exposed to the contaminated product were assessed and monitored by infectious diseases doctors. They were also offered the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu).

Baxter's error is reminiscent of a 2005 incident where a U.S. manufacturer of kits used by laboratories to test their detection capabilities included vials of H2N2 virus in several thousand proficiency kits. H2N2, the virus that caused the 1957 pandemic, has not circulated since 1968 and is thought to be a prime candidate to cause the next pandemic. That mistake, discovered by Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory, set authorities around the world scrambling to retrieve and destroy the vials of virus, which had been sent to labs in 18 countries.

Here's the fucked-up thing: it is damn near impossible for nature to recombine a lot of things, frequently. Certainly nature is constantly messing around, but it can't make a huge batch of a special three-part influenza hybrid. The odds are astronomical.

But now we've got these research labs making all the hypothetical possible flu combinations, so that they can, perhaps, have vaccine lines ready to go.

So all you gotta do to market your product is spill it on some buses in Mexico City, or whatever.

I'm ticked off about this. Some damn links.
step 1: don't open those live mashup packages from Baxter Where does anyone draw the dang line about 'bio weapons proliferation'???? Remember "bio-weapons"? Where did that concept slip off to - oh yes, we left it behind the beakers in the Bio-business lab. and yes the fabulous Illinois company, Baxter, with its spiffy special patented vaccine dev setup, is going to step up and research what's going on.
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/04/baxter-to-pursue-swine-flu-vi... except they sent out the hot stuff before - along with the other cultures you'd want to make a mix
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Still-Think-They-re-Not-Tr-by-Mr-M-0903...

scientists find it an obvious brew - AP
http://www.prisonplanet.com/medical-director-swine-flu-was-cultured-in-a...
Bloomberg: "New version" excellent choice of words
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=avEHg48g1qUg&refer=h...
National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/federal/stratergyimplementationplan.html

Right now, i am watching Red Dawn. hehe - the soviet spectres of doom come drifting thru the air, like a virus...

Blah... I have been going all over doing who knows what this month. A lot of cool things accomplished, but many badass items are stuck at 70% completion. Yet I constantly want to shuffle onto more nifty projects. There are so many radical changes going on that it's hard to try and keep tabs on everything.

Anyway. Time for tons of links.

If you complain about Comcast online, you may get them to give you the secret discounts. My Twitter Comcast Story | zarzax the blog This guy also bailed on Drupal for Wordpress. (so sad). Really tho, Drupal and Wordpress have different purposes, and it's more suited for the linear personal blogs (and the plugins have certainly gotten pretty good).

White House Using Google Moderator For Town Hall Meeting. And AppEngine. And YouTube.

Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler : Full Commanding Denial

and also: Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler : What Next?

The collapse of complex systems is actually predicated on the idea that the systems would mutually reinforce each other's failures. This is now plain to see as the collapse of banking (that is, of both lending and debt service), has led to the collapse of commerce and manufacturing. The next systems to go will probably be farming, transportation, and the oil markets themselves (which constitute the system for allocating and distributing world energy resources). As these things seize up, the final system to go will be governance, at least at the highest levels.
     If we're really lucky, human affairs will eventually reorganize at a lower scale of activity, governance, civility, and economy. Every week, the failure to recognize the nature of our predicament thrusts us further into the uncharted territory of hardship. The task of government right now is not to prop up doomed systems at their current scales of failure, but to prepare the public to rebuild our systems at smaller scales.

Police raid home of Wikileaks.de domain owner over censorship lists - Wikileaks

The Easiest Way to Use Any Font You Wish - Nettuts+

MinnPost - Braublog: The man who 'out-Sid' Sid Hartman

James K. Galbraith: No Return to Normal - Why the economic crisis, and its solution, are bigger than you think | The Agonist

Between Kunstler and Kurzweil | The Agonist

Kurzweil has a weird movie coming out:

The weirdo filez: Educate-Yourself.org:The Freedom of Knowledge; The Power of Thought

WE heard the Israelis were wack but this is serious: Gaza_pregnant_woman.jpg picture by tr_gentry - Photobucket

Economic madness: Tomgram: A Second 9/11 in Slow Motion

The feds must investigate AIG's fishy $12.9 billion payment to Goldman. - By Eliot Spitzer - Slate Magazine

Florida sneeky business: sketch guy who wound up with the Terror Flight School hangar in Florida also ran a ponzi scheme. Bernie Madoff, "Mini M," & Mohamed Atta

Drugs and "loophole airlines" as well! Charter Company Ran Second Jet Off Runway

Check this! The Fed Did Indeed Cause the Housing Bubble at The Catherine Austin Fitts Blog

My company served as lead financial advisor to the Federal Housing Administration between 1994 and 1997. I watched both the Administration and the Federal Reserve aggressively implement the policies that engineered the housing bubble. These are described at my website and in my on-line book,Dillon Read & the Aristocracy of Stock Profits(http://www.dunwalke.com).

One story, for example, is the following:
“In 1995, a senior Clinton Administration official shared with me the Administration’s targets for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage volumes in low- and moderate-income communities. We had recently reviewed the Administration’s plans to increase government mortgage guarantees — most of these mortgages would also be pooled and sold as securities to investors. Even in 1995, I could see that these plans would create unserviceable debt loads in communities struggling with the falling incomes expected from globalization. Homeowners would default on mortgages while losses on mortgage-backed securities would drain retirement savings from 401(k)s and pension plans. Taxpayers would ultimately be hit with a large bill . . . but insiders would make a bundle. I looked at the official and said that the Administration was planning on issuing more mortgages than there were houses or residents. “Shut up, this is none of your business,” the official snapped back.”

From: “Sub-Prime Mortgage Woes Are No Accident” (http://solari.com/news/announcements/08-07-07/)

One of the dirty little secrets behind the housing bubble is the long standing partnership of narcotics trafficking and mortgage fraud and the use of the two in combination to target and destroy minority and poor communities with highly profitable economic warfare. This model is global. It is operating in counties throughout the world as well as in US communities.

Of all the actions that the Federal Reserve took to engineer this housing bubble, the one that I would note is Mr. Greenspan’s efforts to pacify Congresswoman Waters regarding allegations of government sponsored narcotics trafficking at a time when open Congressional hearings would have contributed to an important discussion of the operations engaging in mortgage fraud in minority communities. See, “Financial Coup d’Etat,” Chapter 16, Dillon Read & the Aristocracy of Stock Profits which was written in 2005 and published in April 2006, drawing from an article I first published in May 1999.

“On December 18, 1997, the CIA Inspector General delivered Volume I of their report to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding charges that the CIA was complicit in narcotics trafficking in South Central Los Angeles. Washington, D.C. ’s response was compatible with attracting the continued flow of an estimated $500 billion–$1 trillion a year of money laundering into the U.S. financial system. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in January 1998 visited Los Angeles with Congresswoman Maxine Waters — who had been a vocal critic of the government’s involvement in narcotics trafficking — with news reports that he had pledged billions to come to her district. In February Al Gore announced that Water’s district in Los Angeles had been awarded Empowerment Zone status by HUD (under Secretary Cuomo’s leadership) and made eligible for $300 million in federal grants and tax benefits.”

But wait - there's more! Fitts sez to some dumb square who says he was an honest narc, in the comments:

Perhaps you would like to explain to us how a half a trillion military and intelligence establishment is helpless up against all those African-American teenagers? Or why the NY Fed/Fed wires and clearing systems that aggregate and control all wire transfers and clearance are helpless to notice $500 billion - $1 trillion plus of annual money laundering.

The reality is that no one needs to waste time running in circles on evidence games related to one particular narcotics trafficking operation. The truth is so obvious and the corruption so blatant that we can just use our common sense.

Who is running the high margin, profitable businesses? The people with the money or the poor people?

As someone once said to me, “I know how organized crime works. I dealt with the mafia when I was growing up. All I need to know when I watch the Harvard Endowment operate, is that I am watching the mafia model. Once I get over that I was the patsy and really did not know that the system was not legitimate, it is relatively easy to understand my world.”

Good times! Stand by for a little more along these lines! :-)