Monday, March 31, 2008

march clearinghouse

russian general predicts april 6 attack on iran*
middle school kids threatened with terrorist watch list*
airport screening makeover promises soothing music, see-through x-rays*
urine tester guilty of using drugs*
paul campaign goes on*
why ron paul scares the gop*
obama: i don't carry a cfr card or know any 'special handshake'*
hope, change, & pissing in the wind, 'of obama, democrats, & the power elite'*
obama's family tree expanded to include the bushes*
echoes of 1968 return to haunt the divided democrats*
food stamp use nears record*
kids thumbscan for school lunch*
kids loaned out for rape cruises*
30 years of the billboard liberation front*
protesters arrested at anti-scientology event in atlanta*
church of scientology's 'operating thetan' documents leaked online*
scientology sets sights on african expansion*
banned film 'the profit' appears on web*
pentagon’s pain compliance & mind control weapons*
disaster action plan inspires hope*
national response framework, resource center*
study: 'natural' goods have petrochemical*
'body of war': new doc tells the story of a paralyzed iraq war veteran coming to terms with disability & speaking out against war*
sources: air marshals missing from almost all flights*
sirius plan to buy xm gets antitrust approval*
iraqi cleric bans pepsi & coca-cola*
banks face 'new world order'*
the vereflu bird flu detection chip unleashed*
government watch list includes thousands, some unexpected*
intelfusion: microsoft picks up where darpa left off*
frontline's timid traq retrospective*
frontline: bush's war*
fingerprint scans replace clocking in*
nyc cops beat the shit out of peaceful tibetan protesters*
trial scheme to breathalyse children*
police: US capitol gunman had bomb*
fdic plans staff boost for bank failures*
court says moore did not defame iraq war veteran with documentary*
is an international financial conspiracy driving world events?*
margaret cho questions 9/11*
patriot act used in drug case*
gmo & morgellons disease*
npr: national pentagon radio*
exercise tests communication in event of domestic crisis*
new centcom chief sworn in*
chase mortgage memo pushes 'cheats & tricks'*
9/11: the case for controlled demolition*
global hawk uav achieves record 33hr flight*
rfid credit card hacked*
wrong people arrested on iraq war anniversary*
feds tout new domestic intelligence centers*
america lauds mlk, but undermines his legacy every day*
cia: al qaeda recruits 'western' fighters*
bush booed as he throws inaugural pitch at nationals home opener*
US to step up pre-election security*
landroid robots to support communications in urban combat*
stratcom rules!*
mtv warns viewers of looming police state*
not an easy $40k for turdblossom*
president bush sings farewell tune at journalists' dinner*
riots hoarding & panic*
wiretapping focus shifts to email, as firms move data overseas*
north american union pr campaign confirmed*
a glimpse into the wilderness awareness school*
'cyberstorm' vendor hacked in attack on gamers*
state dept: anti-zionism is the new anti-semitism*
british teachers told to rewrite iraq invasion history*
nsa rebuilds tia*
air force using nazi, dead kennedys anthem*
who is rev. moon?*
the deployment of US troops inside canada*
the federal reserve is destroying america*
bernanke saves bear stearns while americans live in tents*
bush taps wainstein as new homeland security adviser*
iraq war protesters take to the streets*
rfid technology keeps track of school bus riders*
do street protests still work?*
man deficates in homeland security office*

military to 'recruit or hire bloggers' & intellipedia

military report: secretly 'recruit or hire bloggers'
military report: secretly 'recruit or hire bloggers'from danger room: A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers." Since the start of the Iraq war, there's been a raucous debate in military circles over how to handle blogs - and the servicemembers who want to keep them. One faction sees blogs as security risks, and a collective waste of troops' time. The other (which includes top officers, like Gen. David Petraeus and Lt. Gen. William Caldwell) considers blogs to be a valuable source of information, and a way for ordinary troops to shape opinions, both at home and abroad. This 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University, "Blogs and Military Information Strategy," offers a third approach - co-opting bloggers, or even putting them on the payroll. "Hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering," write the report's co-authors, James Kinniburgh and Dororthy Denning.

cia & google team up again for more spying
cia & google team up again for more spyingfrom steve watson: Google is supplying the software, hardware and tech support to US intelligence agencies who are in the process of creating a vast closed source database for global spy networks to share information. Google is selling storage and data searching equipment to the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, and other intelligence agencies, who have come together to build a huge internal government intranet. Google is also providing the search features for a private Wikipedia-style site, called Intellipedia.
flashback: google ranked 'worst' on privacy

Sunday, March 30, 2008

syria & saudi's ready, war profiteering & protest

syria says ready in case of US military action
syria says ready in case of US military actionfrom afp: Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said on Sunday that Damascus was prepared for all scenarios in its worsening relationship with Washington, including the use of US military force. "A prudent person must make all his calculations, especially when we have to deal with an administration which knows how to strike but does not know how to withdraw," Muallem told reporters at the end of an Arab summit in Damascus.

saudi kingdom 'braces for nuclear war'
saudi kingdom 'braces for nuclear war'from press tv: Saudi Arabia is reportedly preparing to counter any 'radioactive hazards' which may result from a US strike on Iran's nuclear plants. Popular government-guided Saudi newspaper Okaz recently reported that the Saudi Shura Council approved of nuclear fallout preparation plans only a day after US Vice President Dick Cheney met with the Kingdom's high ranking officials, including King Abdullah.

police arrest 80yr old anti-war protester at mall
from newsday: An 80-year-old church deacon was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday in a wheelchair and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War. Police said that Don Zirkel, of Bethpage, was disturbing shoppers at the Lake Grove mall with his T-shirt, which had what they described as "graphic anti-war images."

john cusack movie takes on war profiteers
john cusack movie takes on war profiteersfrom raw story: John Cusack was on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher and spoke about his upcoming film, War. Inc., which according to Cusack focuses on the military-industrial complex. The film, says Cusack, differs from other films inspired by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because, it "has a much more absurdist take on [war]."

flashback: cusack: coffin photo ban 'most cowardly political act'

Saturday, March 29, 2008

fbi focusing on 'about 4' suspects in anthrax attacks

fbi focusing on 'about 4' suspects in anthrax attacksfrom fox news: The FBI has narrowed its focus to "about four" suspects in the
6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army’s bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned. Among the pool of suspects are three scientists - a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist - linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.

only users lose guns (& laptops): dea plagued by loss

only users lose guns (& laptops): dea plagued by lossfrom washington times: More than 90 weapons and 230 laptop computers belonging to the Drug Enforcement Administration have turned up missing over the past five years and, despite efforts by the agency to address weaknesses in tracking the items, "significant deficiencies" remain, a report said yesterday. The lost and stolen weapons include pistols, rifles, shotguns and a submachine gun, said a 105-page report by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General The Drug Enforcement Administration's Control Over Weapons and Laptop Computers Follow-up Audit, Audit Report 08-21, March 2008 (1.08mb PDF), which also noted that DEA officials could not say how 198 of the 231 laptop computers came to be missing.

nga eyeing power grid

nga eyeing power gridfrom upi/daily dose of terror: The agency that manages data from U.S. spy satellites is exploring ways to map the nation's entire electric grid as part of efforts to protect infrastructure. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency wants to create an "electric energy infrastructure dataset," including the geographical locations of all transmission lines, power plants, substations, and generating units, to show the way power flows through the system and where the control points are, the agency said this week in procurement documents... The database is being established, the notice says, "in support of the federal level homeland security, homeland defense, and emergency response and recovery missions to protect the nation's infrastructure."

treasonous treasury to give fiat fed more power

treasonous treasury to give fiat fed more powerfrom new york times: The Treasury Department will propose on Monday that Congress give the Federal Reserve broad new authority to oversee financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system. The proposal is part of a sweeping blueprint to overhaul the nation’s hodgepodge of financial regulatory agencies, which many experts say failed to recognize rampant excesses in mortgage lending until after they set off what is now the worst financial calamity in decades.

Friday, March 28, 2008

media monarchy episode069

listen live to the revere radio network



episode069 of media monarchy features carlyle, comcast, killer karolina kops, suicide bots, huxley, tibet, taiwan, icbm, nwa, miami drones, shock bracelets, 2nd gun, 9/11 silverstein & operation dark winter, music by ministry and tons more...

download/digg/stream/subscribe

listen live to the portland radio authoritymedia monarchy is originally broadcast on the portland radio authority every friday at 10am pacific/1pm eastern and can also be heard on the revere radio network every sunday at 4pm pacific/7pm eastern...

plus, you can always get podcasts of previous episodes thanks to radio4all.net & archive.org

Thursday, March 27, 2008

oldest recorded voice heard for 1st time in 150yrs

oldest recorded voice heard for 1st time in 150yrsfrom bbc: An "ethereal" 10 second clip of a woman singing a French folk song has been played for the first time in 150 years. The recording of "Au Clair de la Lune", recorded in 1860, is thought to be the oldest known recorded human voice... The new "phonautograph", created by etching soot-covered paper, has now been played by US scientists using a "virtual stylus" to read the lines. "When I first heard the recording as you hear it ... it was magical, so ethereal," audio historian David Giovannoni, who found the recording, told AP. "The fact is it's recorded in smoke. The voice is coming out from behind this screen of aural smoke."

download the phonautograph recording from 1860 of 'au clair de la lune' The Phonautograph Recording from 1860 of 'Au Clair de la Lune' (130kb MP3)

9/11: larry, billy, david & yukihisa + lies & coverups

silverstein wants more more more!
from new york times: Larry A. Silverstein, who has won nearly $4.6 billion in insurance payments to cover his losses and help him rebuild at the World Trade Center site, is seeking $12.3 billion in damages from airlines and airport security companies for the 9/11 attack... The size of Mr. Silverstein’s claim was revealed last week at a status conference on the litigation in United States District Court in Manhattan.

bill clinton confronted on wtc7

plus: hillary's 9/11 fabrication
from dick morris: Now that Hillary Clinton has been nailed in an outright fabrication of her role in Bosnia, it is time to remind ourselves of another, even more galling fantasy that Hillary tried to sell the voters... Interviewed on the "Today" show one week after 9/11, she spun an elaborate yarn. The kindest thing we could say was that it was a fantasy. Or a fabrication.

conspiracy theologian
conspiracy theologianfrom ventura county reporter: When David Ray Griffin conceived his first book regarding the events of Sept. 11, 2001, his interpretation of what transpired that day revolved around the concept of blowback, that the attacks were a byproduct of America’s decades of aggressive foreign policy toward the Middle East. In short, at the time, he bought the official story of 9/11. He wasn’t letting the United States government off the hook for their role in the attacks, but he wasn’t placing culpability where he would eventually place it: squarely on the shoulders of the Bush administration.

yukihisa fujita at oz 2008 9/11 truth conference
from 9/11 tv: Japanese MP Yukihisa Fujita of the Democratic Party of Japan, a member of the House of Councillors in the Diet of Japan is the single most important person to step forward to ask hard questions about 9/11 and the “War on Terror” this year. Among the many topics he covered, he called upon the 9/11 Truth movement to extend their presence beyond the Internet to the masses. He recommended the showing of films in public concerning 9/11 so as to create an awareness concerning the realities of September 11, 2001.


asce accused of wtc cover-up
asce accused of wtc cover-upfrom paul joseph watson: The American Society of Civil Engineers - an organization that was funded by FEMA to investigate the collapse of the twin towers on 9/11 - has been accused of engaging in a cover-up to protect the government, with critics charging the organization falsified conclusions that skyscrapers could not withstand getting hit by airplanes.

new evidence reasserts 2nd shooter killed rfk


from raw story: Forty years after Democratic rising star Robert F. Kennedy was killed at a Los Angeles hotel during his presidential run, new evidence suggests the man serving a life sentence for his murder did not fire the shots that killed the charismatic senator.


ford 'memoir' fuels jfk plot buffs
ford 'memoir' fuels jfk plot buffsfrom grand rapids press: Over the last four decades of his life, President Gerald Ford insisted there was no evidence anyone but Lee Harvey Oswald was involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy. That's why Ford's friends, family and biographers are casting doubt on a book publisher's claim that in his last days the president confided that Oswald did not act alone and that the CIA destroyed documents about Kennedy's murder.

'road to dallas': a treat for jfk theorists
'road to dallas': a treat for jfk theoristsfrom chicago sun-times: There have been so many analyses, fantasies and theories devoted to the assassination of John F. Kennedy that anything purporting itself as a fresh perspective runs the risk of suffocation. Anything less than a smoking gun - or two - will cause many casual readers to shrug with the frustration that they've heard it all before. The Road to Dallas... is laboriously comprehensive at times and shockingly illuminating at others. It may not prove the conspiracy it suggests - that while Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman he wasn't alone in planning the assassination - but it provides unusual substance to its argument because of the nature of the material and the background of the author.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

global tensions: bombers, beijing, suez & subs

russian bombers fly close to US border
russian bombers fly close to US borderfrom afp: Russian bombers accompanied by Nato fighter jets have completed a patrol off the north west coast of the United States, the Russian air force said on Wednesday, Interfax reported. "NATO fighter jets accompanied the planes of long range aviation in the area of Alaska during the air patrol," Alexander Drobyshevsky, assistant to the head of the Russian air force, was quoted as saying... Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in August 2007 that Moscow was resuming with immediate effect the Cold War practice of sending strategic bombers on long-range flights well beyond its borders.

taiwan plans drills simulating china invasion
taiwan plans drills simulating china invasionfrom afp: Taiwan's defence ministry Tuesday unveiled plans to hold annual war games simulating a Chinese invasion of the island, despite president-elect Ma Ying-jeou's pledge to ease tensions with Beijing. According to draft plans, this year's war games will begin with a computerised drill in April and peak in September with a large-scale live-fire military exercise, the ministry said. "The exercises are aimed to counter the growing Chinese communist threat," defence ministry spokeswoman Chi Yu-lan said, without providing further details.

US cargo ship fires in suez canal
from ap: An American cargo ship under contract to the U.S. Navy opened fire on a small Egyptian boat while moving through the Suez Canal, the U.S. military said Tuesday in a statement. Egyptian authorities said at least one man was killed, but the U.S. said it had no reports of casualties. The Global Patriot, which was under short term charter to the navy's Military Sealift Command, entered the canal from the Red Sea at Suez after dark Monday when it was approached by several small boats, according to both U.S. and Egyptian officials.

US 'deploys nuclear sub to persian gulf'
US 'deploys nuclear sub to persian gulf'from press tv: An American nuclear submarine has crossed the Suez Canal to join the US fleet stationed in the Persian Gulf, Egyptian sources say... The deployment comes as recent reports allege that US Vice President Dick Cheney is seeking to rally the support of Middle Eastern states for launching an attack on Iran. This is while US officials deny that Cheney's Mideast tour is linked to a possible military attack on Iran.

fema occupies town for advanced 'terror training'

residents of new mexico town say they are used to the 'background noise'
fema occupies town for advanced 'terror training'from steve watson: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is spending $22 million dollars per year on a terror training program within a real town in New Mexico where helicopters buzz overhead in the middle of the night, mock nuclear explosions are drilled and "suicide bombers" are taken down by SWAT teams who pull citizens out of their homes.

The AP reports that what makes Playas, New Mexico an ideal training ground is the fact that it is a real town with real people living there.

There are a number of families in the town that are totally unconnected to the training and go about their daily lives while martial law scenarios are played out around them.

"Just a few years ago it was a ghost town abandoned after a large mining company pulled out," the AP's Rich Matthews reports. "Today, it's a training ground for the unthinkable: Nuclear attacks, invasions and suicide bombings in the United States."

"We have helicopters in the middle of the night flying overhead and explosions that can take place at all hours," resident Kim Kvame says. "It gets to be a part of the background noise that just lets you know you're home after a while."

truant tracking, shock bracelets, miami drones & rfid radio

omnilink gets students back in school
omnilink gets students back in schoolfrom gps daily: Truancy not only keeps students from getting an education, it also acts as a gateway to the commission of illegal activities, such as vandalism, theft or more serious crimes. That's why getting students back in school is so important to the Midland County Justice Court in Texas, where they announced the use of Omnilink's electronic monitoring devices on at-risk truant students to track whether they are attending school.

shock bracelet to control dissenting americans?
shock bracelet to control dissenting americans?from paul joseph watson: The Department of Homeland Security is pursuing the introduction of a device known as the Security Bracelet, a wearable tag that would allow authorities to inflict pain compliance on suspects from a distance, while also recommending law enforcement applications and potential use in "crowd control situations". Introduced ostensibly to combat airline terrorism, a creepy promo video courtesy of the patent holders Lamperd FTS exploits shocking 9/11 imagery to push the torture device as a solution to countering potential hijackers by inflicting "Electro-Muscular Disruption" and presumably giving the rest of the passengers a debilitating shock at the same time.


spy-in-the-sky drone sets sights on miami

spy-in-the-sky drone sets sights on miamifrom reuters: Miami police could soon be the first in the United States to use cutting-edge, spy-in-the-sky technology to beef up their fight against crime. A small pilotless drone manufactured by Honeywell International, capable of hovering and "staring" using electro-optic or infrared sensors, is expected to make its debut soon in the skies over the Florida Everglades. If use of the drone wins Federal Aviation Administration approval after tests, the Miami-Dade Police Department will start flying the 14-pound (6.3 kg) drone over urban areas with an eye toward full-fledged employment in crime fighting.

az lawmakers take issue with hybrid driver's licenses
az lawmakers take issue with hybrid driver's licensesfrom fcw: Opposition is building in Arizona’s Legislature to Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano’s plan to authorize a hybrid driver’s license that also would serve as a border-crossing card and would comply with the Real ID Act... The new Arizona license would contain a radio frequency identification tag that can be scanned at a distance. Opponents have raised concerns about privacy and intrusiveness, as well as cost.

'the suspect society'
'the suspect society'from cbc radio: The Surveillance Society. The New Authoritarianism. The Age of Paranoid Politics. These are just a few of the ways writers and thinkers describe the age we’re now living in. The signs of anxiety and fear in this post 9/11 era are all around us. School lock-downs are called the new fire-drill. But what are we to make of all of this? We know that video cameras can, in specific situations, help solve crimes but must everybody be watched all the time? And what’s at stake?

listen to 'the suspect society' part1 & part2

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

pentagon mistakenly sends icbm parts to taiwan

pentagon mistakenly sends icbm parts to taiwanfrom danger room: Well, it's not as bad as mistakenly sending nuclear-armed cruise missiles for a ride across the United States, but it's not good either. The Pentagon today announced that it had mistakenly sent fuses for intercontinental ballistic missiles to Taiwan. Oops. No nuclear components were involved, however. Apparently, Taiwan was supposed to get helicopter batteries. Instead they got the fuses. It makes you wonder how these boxes are marked... Apparently it was Taiwan, not the United States, that first noticed the error.

update: pentagon orders nuclear inventory
from bbc: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has ordered a full inventory of US nuclear arms after parts of ballistic missiles were mistakenly sent to Taiwan. He said a report, that would also include checks of related materials, should be completed within 60 days.

navy fires admiral accused of lying

navy fires admiral accused of lyingfrom abc: A top Navy admiral has been fired for misleading Pentagon investigators looking into allegations he had an inappropriate relationship in 1990 while assigned to the White House as the military aide to then-President George H. W. Bush.

Vice Adm. John "Boomer" Stufflebeem was relieved of his position as director of the Navy staff on Friday by the Navy's top officer, Adm. Gary Roughead, according to Navy spokesman Rear Adm. Frank Thorp...

Shortly after Sept. 11, Stufflebeem became a familiar face at Pentagon press briefings when he served on the Joint Staff and routinely briefed reporters in the early months of the war in Afghanistan.

Monday, March 24, 2008

pilot's gun goes off on flight from 'new world airport'


pilot's gun goes off on flight from 'new world airport'from danger room: For those who always thought that arming pilots on commercial flights was a bad idea, today's incident will hardly come as a surprise: a gun accidentally went off in the cockpit of a U.S. Airways flight. ABC News reports: "The pilot, who both the TSA and US Airways declined to identify, was a member of the Federal Flight Deck Officer program, an initiative put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The initiative allows authorized members of cockpit crews to carry weapons on board."


update1: pilot whose gun fired suspended; no word on bullet's fate
from charlotte observer: US Airways has grounded the pilot whose gun discharged accidentally during a flight from Denver to Charlotte over the weekend, the airline said Monday... Citing the ongoing investigation and security concerns, airline and federal officials remained tight-lipped Monday about many of the details surrounding the incident. They declined to discuss the damage to the plane, where the bullet struck and why the gun fired.

update2: bullet fired by pilot pierced cockpit wall
bullet fired by pilot pierced cockpit wallfrom charlotte observer: A bullet fired by a US Airways pilot Saturday as his plane was preparing to land in Charlotte penetrated the left side of the cockpit and went through the aircraft’s fuselage. According to a report by Charlotte airport police and photos of the Airbus A319 jet, the bullet pierced the left side of cockpit’s wall and exited to the left of the aircraft’s nose. Although the fuselage was punctured, air safety experts said most planes can withstand such a breach and continue flying normally.


update3: US airways pilot identified; holster suspected in shooting
from mcclatchy: The pilot who accidentally fired a pistol while his US Airways flight was landing last weekend in Charlotte has been identified as a 55-year-old former Air Force pilot who lives in Pittsburgh, Pa. The pilot, James Langenhahn, declined to discuss the shooting Thursday night. "As much as I'd like to talk about it," he said. "I can't right now."

related: police won't be outgunned
police won't be outgunnedfrom washington times: Some jurisdictions across the United States have been arming rank-and-file officers with high-powered assault rifles for a decade or more. But law-enforcement officials say that trend has accelerated in the last year because of greater numbers of shootouts, standoffs in which police were outgunned, rising officer deaths and mass shootings of civilians by heavily armed gunmen. "If you get into a firefight, you want to be the winner," said Scott Knight, police chief of Chaska, Minn., and chairman of the firearms committee for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "Our departments are moving to those weapons out of necessity across the country."

tibet protesters disrupt olympic flame ceremony

tibet protesters disrupt olympic flame ceremonyfrom guardian: Pro-Tibetan protesters today disturbed a high security ceremony to light the Olympic flame in Greece. International dignitaries were gathered at Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympics, when three members of the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders ran onto the field to disrupt a speech by Liu Qi, president of the Beijing organising committee and Beijing Communist party secretary. The demonstrator who got nearest to Liu Qi was carrying a banner showing the Olympic Rings as handcuffs but failed to unfurl it before being arrested.

ex-ccp official accuses china of staging violent riots
ex-ccp official accuses china of staging violent riotsfrom paul joseph watson: A former Chinese Communist Party official has accused China of staging violent riots in Tibet in order to demonize Tibetans in the eyes of the international community, justify a brutal paramilitary police crackdown and force the Dalai Lama to resign. Ruan Ming, who was a speechwriter for top CCP officials during the 80's, now lives in Taiwan and serves as diplomatic advisor to President Chen Shui-bian. During his time in the Communist Party, Ming was admired by democracy activists as a reformer. In an interview carried on the Epoch Times website, Ming warns that the Chinese government is orchestrating some of the more violent riots in an attempt to demonize peaceful Tibetans and justify a greater crackdown. He blames the Chinese Communists for violence witnessed during the riots in Lhasa on March 10th and argues that a wider agenda is unfolding.

update: gchq confirms violent riots staged by chinese
gchq confirms violent riots staged by chinesefrom paul joseph watson: Britain's GCHQ spy agency has confirmed the fact that Chinese People's Liberation Army agents posing as monks staged violent riots in Tibet in order to justify a brutal crackdown, but that the demonstrations have now escalated beyond Beijing's control. According to a report in today's Epoch Times, "GCHQ analysts believe the decision was deliberately calculated by the Beijing leadership to provide an excuse to stamp out the simmering unrest in the region, which is already attracting unwelcome world attention in the run-up to the Olympic Games this summer."

'brave new world' for hollywood

'brave new world' for hollywoodfrom london times: When Leonardo DiCaprio was a young boy, he used to play hide-and-seek in the overgrown gardens of a Hollywood Hills mansion owned by the family of the visionary British author Aldous Huxley.

Now, 30 years later, the star of Titanic and The Aviator is paying back the hospitality by putting his Hollywood muscle behind the first big-screen production of Brave New World, Huxley’s most enduring novel.

The Universal Studios movie, which Sir Ridley Scott wants to direct, has become possible only because years of wrangling over the terms of Huxley’s will have finally been settled, his granddaughter Tessa confirmed last week. “There is now nothing stopping this film,” she said.


related: are we headed for a sci-fi dystopia?

Sunday, March 23, 2008

US death toll in iraq reaches 4,000

US death toll in iraq reaches 4,000from ap: A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000. The grim milestone came on the same day that rockets and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone, underscoring the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups despite an overall lull in violence.

flashback: 'operation dark winter'

'operation dark winter'from killtown: On June 22-23, 2001, just under 3 months before 9/11, the U.S. military held a senior-level war game at Andrews Air Force Base called Dark Winter. The scenario of this bio-terrorism drill was designed to simulate a smallpox attack in three states in which one of these states would be Pennsylvania.

As a part of this war game, scripted TV news clips were made to help make this drill as realistic as possible. In one of these clips (clip 3), the TV anchorwoman actor mentions that no groups have claimed responsibility yet (just like with 9/11) and then goes on to blame two groups for the attack. Get a load of which two groups this war game blames for their simulated attack:

Wow, the writers of this pre-9/11 war game named the exact same people that the U.S. government would blame for 9/11! Maybe it should be no surprise as one of the "key player" participants in Dark Winter who played the CIA Director was none other than former CIA Director James Woolsey who was one of the main voices that suggested that Iraq might be involved with 9/11.

Another interesting participant in this drill was controversial New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who would be a victim of a bio-attack by having an anthrax hoax letter sent to her shortly after 9/11, had access to top U.S. government officials and helped pushed the Iraq WMD threat propaganda, and was jailed for not revealing her source in the Valerie Plame CIA leak scandal.

killer karolina kops & a suicide robot

s. carolina cops mow down suspects with cruisers

s. carolina cops mow down suspects with cruisersfrom kprc: Videos have surfaced showing two members of the South Carolina Highway Patrol using their cruisers to ram fleeing suspects, just weeks after two leaders of the agency resigned because of a furor over a trooper's use of a racial slur. In one of the two new dash-cam videos, which were first reported Wednesday by The Post and Courier of Charleston, Lance Cpl. Steven C. Garren drives after a man on foot, striking him when he crosses in front of Garren's cruiser... "You better run... because I'm fixin' to kill you."


n. carolina teen dies from taser at grocery store
n. carolina teen dies from taser at grocery storefrom ap: A Charlotte teenager has died after being shocked with a Taser during a confrontation with police at the grocery store where he worked. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said 17-year-old Darryl Wayne died Thursday. An autopsy is pending. The Charlotte Observer reported Friday that officers responded to a call at a Food Lion and saw Turner throwing something at a store manager. Police said Turner appeared agitated, refused their commands and advanced toward an officer before the Taser was used.

australian man kills himself with homemade robot
from times online: An elderly man has killed himself by programming a robot to shoot him in the head after building the machine from plans downloaded from the internet. Francis Tovey, 81, who lived alone in Burleigh Heads on the Australian Gold Coast, was found dead in his driveway. According to the Gold Coast Bulletin, he had been unhappy about the demands of relatives living elsewhere in Australia that he should move out of his home and into care.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

comcast cameras to start watching you?

comcast cameras to start watching you?from newteevee: If you have some tinfoil handy, now might be a good time to fashion a hat. At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room.

The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is theholy grailbecause it could help serve up specifically tailored ads. Yikes.

Kunkel said the system wouldn’t be based on facial recognition, so there wouldn’t be a picture of you on file (we hope). Instead, it would distinguish between different members of your household by recognizing body forms. He stressed that the system is still in the experimental phase, that there hasn’t been consumer testing, and that any rollout “must add value” to the viewing experience beyond serving ads.

Perhaps I’ve seen Enemy of the State too many times, or perhaps I’m just naive about the depths to which Comcast currently tracks my every move. I can’t trust Comcast with BitTorrent, so why should I trust them with my must-be-kept-secret, DVR-clogging addiction to Keeping Up with the Kardashians?

Kunkel also spoke on camera with me about fixing bad Comcast user experiences, the ongoing BitTorrent battle and VOD. But he mostly towed the corporate line on these issues (the monitoring your living room came up after my camera was put away).


update: comcast denies plan to monitor consumers
comcast denies plan to monitor consumersfrom paul joseph watson: Comcast has denied that it is developing camera devices built in to cable boxes that monitor consumers as they enter the room, despite the fact that Vice-President Gerard Kunkel admitted to a journalist that such a move would represent a "holy grail," and rival companies like TiVo and Microsoft have already filed patents for similar technology. A firestorm of controversy erupted last week after industry website newteevee.com carried an article by Chris Albrecht which revealed that Comcast was, "experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room".

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