Category Archives: Terrorism

Defense experts: Prepare for sudden, destabilizing, crises

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Photo: CC/David Lisbona

Photo: CC/David Lisbona

Military brass and scholars this May will meet to discuss a frightening near-future scenario, filled with loose nukes, bioweapons and untraceable terrorists.

This year’s symposium will examine the nation’s preparedness to prevent or manage four WMD crises that could transform U.S. security:

* Collapse of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime, in which a number of current, unresolved nuclear proliferation challenges threaten to unleash a sudden and destabilizing wave of proliferation;

* Failure of a WMD-Armed State, creating unprecedented risks that radical actors will obtain WMD and unprecedented challenges for prevention;

* A Biological Terror Campaign, in which terrorists employ deadly biological pathogens to strike at multiple cities; and

* A Nuclear Detonation in a U.S. City, delivered covertly and leaving great uncertainty about who did it, will it happen again, and how we should respond.

via Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction – National Defense University.

ABC News: Army Orders Pain Ray Trucks; New Report Shows 'Potential for Death'

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After years of testing, the Active Denial System — the pain ray which drives off rioters with a microwave-like beam — could finally have its day. The Army is buying five of the truck-mounted systems for $25 million. But the energy weapon may face new hurdles, before it’s shipped off to the battlefield; a new report details how the supposedly non-lethal blaster could be turned into a flesh-frying killer.

ABC News: Army Orders Pain Ray Trucks; New Report Shows ‘Potential for Death’

The Independent to 9/11 conspiracists: "Go to Hell"

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London Independent science editor Steve Conner reports a theory from the UK Atomic Energy Authority as indisputable fact, and pronounces the 9/11 case closed:

The discovery that unusual magnetic forces within the girders made them weak at temperatures of about 500C explains away the conspiracy theories that have spread like wildfire since the disaster.

Sergei Dudarev, of the UK Atomic Energy Agency, found that steel loses its strength above 500C because its molecules undergo a physical transition from one state to another due to magnetic fluctuations.

9/11 truthers, however, quickly rounded-up evidence that seems to contradict Dudarev’s assertions about the Twin Towers collapse.

Dudarev takes his paycheck from taxpayers, via the financier Lady Barbara Judge (left), who is chairman of the UKAEA.

Dudarev’s findings reportedly came out of an unrelated study he was conducting for the UKAEA, which is charged with decommissioning nuclear weapons, and promoting nuke energy.

Magnetic forces to blame for 9/11 tower collapse – Science, News – The Independent.

Vaccine will combat weaponized plague

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Another mandatory prick is on the way

(First, it was smallpox. Photo: Steven Stehling)

from Mark:

Plague is a terrorist threat, the University of Central Florida says.

According to the university: In 2005, plague killed 56 people in the Congo, “and another 124 were infected before the epidemic was stopped.”

The disease is more likely to kill you, than if you were infected with smallpox. Mortality rates for untreated plague are well over 50 percent. For smallpox, the mortality rate is about 30 percent.

UCF has new vaccine for plague, however, which can be taken orally: making it more useful in the case of a terrorist plague attack, something scientists, writing for the Lancet last year, is something for which we should be prepared.

UCF professor develops vaccine to protect against black plague bioterror attack
A University of Central Florida researcher may have found a defense against the Black Plague, a disease that wiped out a third of Europe’s population in the Middle Ages and which government agencies perceive as a terrorist threat today.

UCF Professor Henry Daniell and his team have developed a vaccine that early research shows is highly effective against the plague. Findings of his National Institutes of Health and USDA funded research appear in the August edition of Infection and Immunity. The vaccine, which is taken orally or by injection, was given to rats at UCF and the efficacy was evaluated by measuring immunity (antibody) developed in their blood.

All untreated rats died within three days while all orally immunized animals survived this challenge with no traces of the plague in their bodies. The rats were exposed to a heavy dose of Yersinia Pestis bacteria, which causes the plague, at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland. It is one of a few labs in the world authorized to store and work with the highly dangerous agent.

Boston shrinks will challenge association's "ethics"

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from Mark:

Boston area shrinks this month will protest the American Psychological Association’s weak stance against torture.

The APA’s ethics code (see excerpt, below) is giving shrinks a free pass to help U.S. forces commit war crimes at Guantanamo Bay, protester organizers say.

Psychologists have a long history of participating in torture.

The entire “positive psychology” movement, for example, is rooted in sadistic animal experiments by former APA president Martin Seligman, who coached  CIA interrogators (unwittingly, Seligman says) on torture techniques.

Seligman decades ago electrically shocked dogs until they stopped trying to save themselves: a state he called “learned helplessness.”

More recently, Seligman explained his theories at a CIA-organized event. At least CIA two psychologists at Guantanamo credit Seligman with inspiring their torture protocols.

Psychologists Won’t Let Go of Torture Debate – World of Psychology
“If the conflict (between a psychologist’s moral duties and a government order) is unresolvable via such means, psychologists may adhere to the requirements of the law, regulations, or other governing legal authority.” It is worth noting that this new option is absolute and unqualified and applies not just to the specific requirements enumerated in the code but more generally to all “ethical responsibilities.”

Noble Resolve 08: a U.S. homeland wargame

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The U.S. Joint Forces Command ends its massive domestic wargames exercise with international forces today. JFCOM’s people have been blogging updates to their website (excerpt, below). Nongovernmental organizations, such as World Cares — which, in an emergency, will mobilize millions of “volunteers” — are also participating. — mb

News From USJFCOM: Liveblogging: Noble Resolve 08
Situated in the middle of all of the action (and over 100 computer screens), today I should be able to provide an insider’s look at what’s going on here, especially when it comes to who’s communicating with who, how they’re communicating and ultimately, what information is shared during a crisis.

To date, the campaign has examined issues involving the handling mass population movements during a crisis, improving maritime domain awareness, and several other critical issues that may occur during a domestic crisis.

PS. Noble Resolve, according to the DoD, “includes representatives from Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Morocco, Portugal, South Korea, Romania, Spain and Sweden, as well as NATO Allied Command Transformation.”

Live long and prosper? We might do neither

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Biotech body snatchers. A genetically “inferior” underclass. Increased terrorist attacks. Futurists will “make it so.“

(Marketing buzzword alert: “Futuring,” a verb, is the act of exploring of the future, according to those who do it. Photo: Futurist Thornton A. May flashes the three-finger “Sustainability Symbol.” More about this strange hand signal shortly. Credit: Dragonpreneur, under a Creative Commons license.)

from Mark:

A new book by a futurist and adviser to three U.S. presidents portrays a horrific near future scenario filled with body snatchers, a booming “neuromarket” for false memory implants, and a self-aware internet that rebels against humanity.

The author of “The Extreme Future,” James Canton, Ph.D. (below), was a student of Alvin Toffler, according to Publisher’s Weekly. He will be speaking at the U.S. Army War College this fall, at a conference aimed not at predicting, but shaping, the future.

“The goal of futuring (exploring the future) is not to predict the future but to improve it,” reads a quote from futurist Edward Cornish, on the U.S. Army War College’s website.

For more about how futurists plan our futures, see these blurbs and broadcasts by Alan Watt.

Bloggers from the military and intel communities are talking about the book. Here is an excerpt from one dot-mil blog:

(Dr.) Canton…includes “Top Ten” lists detailing everything from Energy Trends to Robo-Futures.

In THE EXTREME FUTURE, Dr. James Canton predicts that:

• The high cost of oil will force the West to invent new alternatives to oil and lead to depressed OPEC economies, leading to more terrorism against the West

• Radical life extension will create a two-class global society of those who live over 150 years and of those who cannot afford to

• The Internet will develop an awareness of itself and its own personality and rebel against human controls

• Human cloning will become the ultimate in identity theft

• A nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India is more likely then not

• Copy-cat products from Asia—from drugs to auto parts—will perform better then the original branded products they’re based on

• Radical life extension will reshape entire markets and society

• The new global Innovation Economy will deliver widespread prosperity and wealth

Running against the reptilians

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The candidate: David Icke is standing for a parliamentary seat. Photo: Jack Cutting

(Update: Steve, in his excellent comments, below, says I mischaracterized David Icke’s spiritual views in this post. In short, Icke believes that he is a Son of God, not “the” Son, a state he shares with any other human being. — mb)

from Mark:

Red Ice this week made international news of David Icke’s anti-Big Brother campaign for British Parliament.

Icke, the former sportscaster, footballer and a Son of Godreincarnation of Jesus Christ (so he says), does not want the job, actually.

Rather, he seeks to call attention to Britain’s alarming cascade into a full-blown police state.

As the Palmgren brothers note at Red Ice, The Times of London, a Rupert Murdoch paper (that I’ve written for), mocked Icke’s announcement, noting the conspiracy researcher’s assertion that the Royal family and other world leaders are members of a reptilian master race.

The Times lists Icke alongside a beauty queen and the gag candidate, Mad Cow-Girl, as the candidates for the available seat.

David Icke’s Media Conference In ‘Big Brother’ By-Election Update (Video) In case you’ve missed it, David Icke will stand under the title ‘Big Brother – The Big Picture’ with David Davis in the upcoming parliamentary by-election in Haltemprice and Howden. Listen to our radio program from July 1st with David Icke to get the background. The following video is the presentation David Icke gave at the press conference July 2nd:[googlevideo=http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-972704915352925347]

CCTVs don't cut crime

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They were supposed to fight crime–the ubiquitous cameras, which in London appear to be on every lamppost and crossing signal. But the billions the police have spent creating an all-seeing eye are proving worthless.

The police are building a database of CCTV images, however (see excerpt, below), which might have been their plan in the first place.

CCTV boom has failed to slash crime, say police | UK news | The Guardian
A new database of images which is expected to use technology developed by the sports advertising industry to track and identify offenders.

· Putting images of suspects in muggings, rape and robbery cases out on the internet from next month.

· Building a national CCTV database, incorporating pictures of convicted offenders as well as unidentified suspects. The plans for this have been drawn up, but are on hold while the technology required to carry out automated searches is refined.

Spy watch for insta-DNA testing?

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Parallelnormal is back on-line after a recent “health scare.” Please keep your comments and feedback coming! — mb

Scientists in authoritarian-ruled Singapore say they’ve developed a DNA identification assay-on-a-chip that also preps a drop of blood for sampling. This means any one of us might be just a pinprick away from being instantly Identified as a threat. (The watch, below, is one possible form-factor for the DNA tester.)

Wiley

From the Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology:

…a rapid test for genetic diagnosis that combines the preparation of biological samples with a polymerase chain reaction PCR on one chip. As they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the “laboratory device” for all steps in this system is a single drop containing magnetic nanoparticles, which is moved across the chip by a magnetic field.