Tag Archives: War

DoD seeks panacea for pandemics

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Traditional approaches to stemming outbreaks–isolate pathogen, craft a cure, distribute the cure–can take too long.

So DOD wants something that can handle anything, as it happens.

Photo: Brittany E. Flickr/CC

Photo: Brittany E. Flickr/CC

DARPA/DSO is soliciting research proposals that seek to develop highly innovative approaches to counter any known, unknown, naturally occurring or engineered pathogen. Proposed research will investigate novel technologies to prevent infection, extend survival until a curative response is available, provide transient immunity, or speed the onset of adaptive immunity. Methods proposed should not require prior knowledge of the pathogen and should be broadly applicable to multiple unrelated infectious agents.

via Defense Sciences Office.

Robots to eat useless eaters

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In fairness, new DoD killer robots are omnivores:

Robotic Technology Inc.’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that’s right, “EATR” — “can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment and other organically-based energy sources, as well as use conventional and alternative fuels such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar when suitable,” reads the company’s Web site.

via Military Robots to Feed on Human Flesh « Aftermath News.

DoD's autism epidemic

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Hoping for the best. Photo: CC/Jordan

One percent of Air Force/Army/Navy/Marine brats have autism. That’s double the rate for the general population.

So I’m not surprised to read the US Defense Department’s announcement of a $2.2 grant to help the military better treat its personnel, and their families, who’ve been affected by the disease.

It may be that military moms and dads are exposed to more heavy metals in their jobs, as well as chemical and biological weapons. That, and experimental vaccines.

As a military spouse who has been contributing to Age of Autism since it was Rescue Post, I am especially thrilled. We’ve seen growth here at Age of Autism, but we’ve also seen growth of the autism epidemic both in the military and civilian community. We’ve also seen a rise in the challenges, or problems, that come along with this heartbreaking rise. In the military community the most recent FOIA shows that as of 2007, one in every eighty-eight military dependent child of an active duty member has autism. This figure most likely doesn’t include my own boys because of how and when the stats for the FOIA were tracked. Currently we’re waiting on new statistics.

via AGE OF AUTISM: Age of Autism Adds Military Category.

Iraqi militias target gays in new pogrom

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I fear this is only the beginning for gays, not only in Baghdad, but globally, as desperately poor slobs everywhere start looking hard for scapegoats. (It’s not going too well for Jews either, if some of what I hear over the patriot radio airwaves are any indication.

And again, as in Pakistan and Afghanistan, we see that the U.S. government’s purported post 9/11 goal of creating freedom around the world was mere propaganda.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Two gay men were killed in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum, a local official said on Saturday, and police said they had found the bodies of four more after clerics urged a crackdown on a perceived spread of homosexuality.

Homosexuality is prohibited almost everywhere in the Middle East, but conditions have become especially dangerous for gays and lesbians in Iraq since the rise of religious militias after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein six years ago.

via Gays killed in Baghdad as clerics urge clampdown | International | Reuters.

The Taliban tortures, and some YouTubers have a laugh

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Warning: Disturbing footage. (Unlike the BBC’s video, this includes the girl’s cries for mercy.)

I am disgusted that my tax dollars are propping-up the tinpot dictators who permit miserable bastards, like these, to torture girls.

I’m also sickened by the YouTube commentators who either endorse this torture (one stupidly argues that flogging will solve America’s drug “problem”), or say the girl appears to be sexually aroused.

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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.

No fear factor: Another pill dulls the pain

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Nothing to fear. Photo: CC/Randy Son of Robert

Scientists have been chasing after a fear-numbing pill since my brother, Erik, reported in 2003 on efforts to create the “Guilt-Free Soldier.”

Now Dutch scientists believe the heart drug propranolol can double as a deadener of painful memories in people with PTSD.

Just knowing such a pill is out there, of course, might also encourage soldiers to commit atrocities, because they will no longer have to live with the pain they have created.

Beyond extinction: erasing human fear responses and preventing the return of fear

Merel Kindt1, Marieke Soeter1 & Bram Vervliet1

Animal studies have shown that fear memories can change when recalled, a process referred to as reconsolidation. We found that oral administration of the beta-adrenergic receptor antagonist propranolol before memory reactivation in humans erased the behavioral expression of the fear memory 24 h later and prevented the return of fear. Disrupting the reconsolidation of fear memory opens up new avenues for providing a long-term cure for patients with emotional disorders.

via Beyond extinction: erasing human fear responses and preventing the return of fear : Abstract : Nature Neuroscience.

Boston: Nuke target and breakaway state capital

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In a bizarre piece of uncredited fiction at the Telegraph, the U.S. becomes a fascist police state, and Boston is targeted by a “false flag” terrorist attack set-up by the federal government.

I guess I should be glad I got my speeding ticket yesterday (on the Jamaicaway, and what a whopper it was).

Next time, the police might be permitted to open fire on any suspicious vehicle…

Cryptogon’s covering Operation Blackjack, and notes the striking use of symbology in the online comic:

Remember the Kingstar (controlled demolition company) van near the exploded bus on the 7/7 London bomings? That’s what came to mind for me.

Also, the ‘fictitious’ attack occurs during the Summer solstice. What’s the name on the side of the van? New Dawn Presentations. And its logo? That’s right, the Sun.

One other thing: All the cool kids know that the Illuminati are fascinated with Ferris wheels near bodies of water. (Look, don’t blame me, I just work here.)

via cryptogon.com » Archives » Operation Blackjack: The Story of Terrorist Nuclear Attacks on Major Western Cities.

The white stuff kills

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The Noble Lie picks up today on the horror being wrought by Israel’s use of phosphorus weapons. This is unpleasant to watch. I must remember this, too, the next time some jerk starts talking about “peace through firepower,” as so many did before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

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