Tag Archives: Government

9 Reasons Why You Could Be a Terrorist

Posted on by
Reply

James Wesley, Rawles has been in law enforcement for the past 18 years. He recently wrote a blog on SurvivalBlog expressing his concern with law enforcement teachings, specifically in regards to potential domestic terrorism.

Wesley points out the change of law enforcement training sponsors.
Before they were supported by the “local community” but now Big Brother ( represented here by the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Transportation Security Agency) dominates the training sessions and is concerned with profiling potential terrorists.

According to Wesley this list contains traits and characteristics that Big Brother believes make you a potential terrorist:

  1. Holding Second Amendment-oriented views. (NRA or gun club membership, holding a CCW permit)
  2. Reading survivalist literature. (fictional books such as “Patriots” and “One Second After” are mentioned by name)
  3. Being self-sufficient (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies)
  4. Fearing economic collapse (buying gold and barter items)
  5. Holding religious views concerning the book of Revelation (apocalypse, anti-Christ)
  6. Expressing fears of Big Brother or big government (Oops)
  7. Being homeschooled
  8. Declaring Constitutional rights and civil liberties
  9. Believing in a New World Order conspiracy

Wesley observes how easy it can be to target someone as a potential terrorist. Here he remembers a lecture that uses a plumber as an example:

The officers were told how to use his employment as a plumber as further evidence of terrorism.  The suspect’s employment would be described as an elaborate scheme to justify possessing pipes and chemicals so as to have bomb making materials readily available

To drive the point home Wesley puts it in laymen’s turns:

It is easy to frame anyone for possessing bomb making materials (or other crimes) if the officer knows what items to list in the report and how to link these items to terrorism.

Wesley goes on to provide multiple ways to calm polices’ phobia of anything without a badge. But after reading this article, meant to enlighten us on how to avoid an ignorant fascist militant dictatorship, my fear of Big Brother’s constant oppressive presence has only been reinforced.

Via: Survival Blog

Fed. science official wants to de-develop US

Posted on by
Reply

White House Science and Technology Director John P. Holdren wants to do something about our consumption habits. Photo: Paulien Osse/Flickr CC

Conservative news outlet reminds us of Obama appointee’s quirky vision for moving backward:

“De-development means bringing our economic system especially patterns of consumption into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation,” Holdren and the Ehrlichs wrote.

via White House Science Czar Says He Would Use ‘Free Market’ to ‘De-Develop the United States’ | CNSnews.com.

Bright lights? Big cancer risk

Posted on by
Reply

Photo: tourist_on_earth/Flickr CC

U. of Haifa scientists have found that LAN, or “light at night,” suppresses the secretion of melatonin in mice, which leads to rises in certain cancers.

This comes as more bad news to people finding themselves forced by Agenda 21-inspired urbanization schemes into dense cities that never sleep, where streetlights and other sources of artificial ambient light crash in through apartment windows.

From U. of Haifa  announcement, today:

Earlier studies in which Prof. Haim has participated at the University of Haifa, have shown that people living in areas that have more night-time illumination are more susceptible to prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women. The researchers’ hypothesis was that LAN harms production of melatonin, a hormone that is released from the pineal gland during the dark part of the 24h cycle and which is linked to the body’s cyclical night-day activity and seasonality. When this hormone is suppressed, the occurrence of cancer rises.

via Connection Between Light at Night LAN and Cancer Revealed.

Lazy press watch: Just what are "global communications," anyway?

Posted on by
Reply

Orwell advises against using the vague language found in the Independent’s story about the dead MI6 guy, saying Gareth Williams worked for an MI6 division that “eavesdrops on global communications.”

Better to have said “international calls and email messages,” or “between the UK and other countries.” “Global,” though often used, is so vague as to be meaningless.

The Independent (link and excerpt, below) also seems in a hurry to shoot down, based on no evidence either way, any suggestion the agent’s murder might be work-related:

The reality, however, is likely to be more mundane. Sources within the murder inquiry led by the Metropolitan Police’s Homicide and Serious Crime Command insisted that “the suggestion there are terrorism or national security links to this case is pretty low down the list of probabilities”. They are believed to be concentrating on Mr Williams’ private life.

via Mystery of the MI6 man who was found dead in his bath – Crime, UK – The Independent.

Guidance counselors will scan brains for career choices

Posted on by
1

Photo: Anthony Joh/Flickr CC

When I told my eighth grade guidance counselor I was going to be a professional hockey player, and I didn’t need a “backup plan,” she scoffed, looked at my mom, and announced she would be writing in my record, “business.”

As it turns out, the counselor was right about the hockey. But she was wrong about the business. (Although I write for the Business section of the Boston Globe, I cannot say I am much of a businessman.)

Now University of California scientists are saying that brain scans might prove more effective than aptitude tests at guessing what you will be good at…

“A person’s pattern of cognitive strengths and weaknesses is related to their brain structure, so there is a possibility that brain scans could provide unique information that would be helpful for vocational choice. Our current results form a basis to investigate this further.”

via Medical Daily: Brain scans may help guide career choice.

Verizon's "Rule the Air" message: "Be the surveillance you fear"

Posted on by
Reply

Rules nothing. Photo: Ed Yourdon/Flickr CC

Given that Verizon allowed the NSA to secretly tap millions of calls in the past decade, it’s stunning to see the company selling surveillance as sexy and empowering.

I am referring, of course, to Verizon’s new “Rule the Air” campaign.

In what might pass for a scenes from a remake of John Carpenter’s “They Live,” Verizon’s ads have buildings, a parking meter and other objects flowering into antennae that stalk cell phone-wielding models.

One blogger (excerpt and link below), notes the disturbing surveillance theme in “Rule the Air.”

But it is not enough to say that “Rule the Air” is Orwellian, just because it evokes a surveillance state nightmare. (Invariably, when people say, “Orwellian,” they are referring to “1984.”)

Even more insidious, and Orwellian, is the ad campaign’s vague and contradictory slogan. (Orwell warns of the perils of using imprecise language in his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language.”)

The truth, dear Verizon customers, is that you rule nothing.

Rather, as you can read here, Verizon and the US Federal Communications Commission “rule you.”

If you ask me the whole thing seems a bit Orwellian and the Verizon red coupled with the vintage logo and the tag line, “Rule the air”, strangely evoked old-time war propaganda to me, but the effects are cool—and who doesn’t like the concept of reception everywhere.

via Verizon Sets Out to “Rule the Air”.

BP's oil busting chemical not so bad for animals, kids,suggest feds

Posted on by
Reply

EPA, NIH: Corexit 9500 might not be so bad for her, after all. Photo: Mark Baard/Flickr CC

EPA and NIH report that the most widely used dispersant (soap) being used to make big oil blobs into smaller ones in the Gulf of Mexico, is not an endocrine disruptor.

Corexit 9500, the currently used product, does not contain NPEs and did not show any ER activity. Cytotoxicity values for six of the dispersants were statistically indistinguishable, with median LC50 values 100 ppm. Two dispersants, JD 2000 and SAF-RON GOLD, were significantly less cytotoxic than the others with LC50 values approaching or exceeding 1000 ppm.

via Analysis of Eight Oil Spill Dispersants Using Rapid, In Vitro Tests for Endocrine and Other Biological Activity – Environmental Science & Technology ACS Publications.

The Secret Sun sees a new symbol in ISS

Posted on by
Reply

Christopher Knowles (The Secret Sun), taking his typically sweeping, epic view of the symbols being hurled at us, notes that the otherwise ugly International Space Station resembles the cross of Lorraine, the alchemical symbol to which some have attributed the religious meaning, “As above, so below.”

From Knowles’ blog:

But it’s all good. Very clever, actually- keep the malcontents busy with celebrity gossip while the real action goes on under our noses – or over our heads. For instance, we all know about ISiS- the International Space Station- but did you know it was shaped like the Cross of Lorraine?

via The Secret Sun.

China syndrome: Media sanitizes brutal spacecraft return

Posted on by
Reply

Photo: Mike Licht/Flickr CC

In case you’d forgotten how weird and controlling the Chinese government is, and how much of the news in China is the product of stagecraft, there’s this reminder, from The Raw Feed:

According to the official, Yang was subject to enormous G-forces during re-entry, splitting his lip and covering his face with blood. When the hatch was opened and the crew saw his bloody face, they cleaned him up, strapped him back in the seat and did a do-over for the cameras. The sanitized version of the hatch opening was presented to the Chinese viewing public as the live first-opening of the hatch.

via How China staged space capsule opening – The Raw Feed.

Smart appliances will tell Google when you rise, and hit the shower

Posted on by
1

Now that we know Google — the search engine giant and revolving door operation for CIA analysts — has been spying on Wi-Fi laptop users, we can expect corporations and governments to next target so-called smart appliances: toasters, clock radios (such as this prototype, left) and dishwashers connected directly to the Internet.

Add these gadgets to the smart meters being promoted by the likes of the Boston-based “consumer group,” ConsumerUnited.com (actually, the organization lists utility companies as its “partners”), and you will find it impossible to flip a switch in your house without someone knowing about it.

Here’s a bit from my column this week, below the fold, about a Wi-Fi (and therefore, apparently, vulnerable) alarm clock that factors-in your commute time, and the time it takes you to shave and shower before work, to calculate when you wake up:

“The Dynamically Programmable Alarm Clock will not make getting out of bed easier. But it will do a better job than your current bedside gadget to make sure you’re on time for that meeting.

The DPAC (egaertner.com/dpac), as its developers at Northeastern University call it, connects to Google Calendar via Wi-Fi. It then grabs your first task of the day as a starting point for its calculations.”

Note: Special thanks to Alan Watt (and his Cutting Through the Matrix listeners) for sharing your thoughts about my research, here.

via Power up, with juice from the yard – The Boston Globe.