*Equip your vehicle with a Smoke Screen, Armor.

Have a dense smoke fog eject from your vehicles exhaust pipe, without damaging your engine. I saw this in a show called “Ultimate Bulletproof Car”. It’s quite simple and cheap by my estimation.

The concept is simple: add a 2nd sort of windshield washer fluid tank under your hood, fill it with everyday radiator ‘antifreeze’, and hook it the exhaust manifold with copper piping. In-line you’ll need either an electronic valve, or perhaps a pump, but I’m not sure; 12 volt either way. The kit this site sells only uses a valve to release, but their pricey can of smoke solution is aerosol, so a pump might be the more likely part needed in an antifreeze setup. For you big screen TV pillaging survivalists: ‘antifreeze’ primarily consists of ethylene glycol, the same nasty fluid found inside the 3 projector lenses, in high grade form, which happens to be the largest problem in waste disposal from scrapping out rear projection TV’s. BTW: projector lens coolant costs about 10 times as much as vehicle radiator fluid.

To hook into the exhaust manifold I recommend using a brass flare fitting, and you’ll need a matching “Tap and Die” bit to create the threads. I haven’t yet done any this, so it’s possible the manifold walls are too thin to tap proper threads into. In this case a ‘bulkhead’ method might be required which could suck, requiring removal of the manifold. I’m also unsure of whether or not a sprayer nozzle is required inside the manifold chamber, but if so a salvaged fuel injector sprayer would likely be ideal.

Without major complication, I can see this project being completed in a Sunday afternoon for less than a hundred dollars. I also see where people experienced in this practice could make some decent side cash by outfitting others vehicles after showing off with this ‘James Bond’ tech. I imagine there might be several sites containing more detailed info on the process, but the one I linked above is the best one I found in about 5 minutes of searching.

========

Vehicle Armor: I’ve seen some episodes from the new show “Weaponizers”. In one episode they do armor tests using plate steel. I can’t remember if it was 1/4″ or 1/2″ plating, but the results weren’t too impressive using 30 cal. rounds, especially not for the weight added to the vehicle. But this reminded me of a show I watched many years ago on ‘Armored Cars’, the type used for cash transportation between banks and so on.They don’t use steel. Instead they use several layers of thin aluminum, and achieve better results using less weight. The bullet resistance is dramatically higher than if they were t use a solid thick aluminum layer of the same thickness.

A key form of bulletproof glass also uses layering (of actual glass), but higher grade bulletproof glass is one thick layer of polycarbonate. So with these lessons I figure that stacking thin layers of steel, aluminum and polycarbonate might get the best weight vs. bullet resistance, especially if tough adhesives (2 part adhesives and paints are always the best) are used to stack the layers together. Without proper adhesives, the metals might work better by using all idenitcal materials, and ‘weld-riveting’  them together, as welds are typically stronger than than the materials themselves. The main point is the more layers the better, which gives true samurai swords their ‘edge’ over other swords of the same thickness.

-Inventor Denied Patent For Human ‘Killer Chip’.

While my older works from long ago made frequent mention to these types of technologies, I’m no longer too worried about them. A mandate to enforce them on the social scale would almost instantly erupt into total rebellion, in my view. If anything, I see them as being a sort of sign. My real concerns lie in nanobot implants, which can be injected into you via something like a vaccine, or even in your drinking water without you even knowing it. The difference is these may be able to control your mind, relatively soon, not just merely track your whereabouts or whatever. None-the-less, this is still an important story:

TheLocal.de:

A Saudi Arabian inventor has filed for a patent on a potentially lethal science fiction-style human tracking microchip, the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) told The Local on Friday.

But the macabre innovation that enables remote killing will likely be denied copyright protection.

“While the application is still pending further paperwork on his part, the invention will probably be found to violate paragraph two of the German Patent Law – which does not allow inventions that transgress public order or good morals,” spokeswoman Stephanie Krüger told The Local from Munich.

The patent application – entitled “Implantation of electronic chips in the human body for the purposes of determining its geographical location” – was filed on October 30, 2007, but was only published until last week, or 18 months after submission as required by German law, she said.

“In recent times the number of people sought by security forces has increased,” the Jeddah-based inventor wrote in his summary.

The tiny electronic device, dubbed the “Killer Chip” by Swiss daily Tagesanzeiger, would be suited for tracking fugitives from justice, terrorists, illegal immigrants, criminals, political opponents, defectors, domestic help, and Saudi Arabians who don’t return home from pilgrimages.

“I apply for these reasons and for reasons of state security and the security of citizens,” the statement reads.

After subcutaneous implantation, the chip would send out encrypted radio waves that would be tracked by satellites to confirm the person’s identity and whereabouts. An alternate model chip could reportedly release a poison into the carrier if he or she became a security risk.

“Foreigners are allowed to apply for patents in Germany through a native representative, in this case it was a Munich law firm,” Krüger told The Local. “Most people apply for a patent in several countries, and this inventor probably did too.”

But the law firm, DTS Munich, is no longer responsible for the application.

“We resigned from representation of this case last week,” a spokesman said without stating why.

*Don’t Ignore The Blue Sky.

I realize that many of the things I try to ‘expose’ here are technically “Blue Sky” technologies, but since such alarms aren’t known to be existing technologies does that make them any less critical? This is a look into “Blue Sky” technologies becoming reality in the short term if Artificial General Intelligence succeeds.

First and foremost, I must point out that my warnings in areas such as Skynet’esque ‘AGI’ aren’t my own predictions. Instead, those are the predictions of those trying to make it happen, which I try to warn everyone about. I will add that they have compelling arguments in their favor, and the constant and ‘predictable’ technological progress that they cite does hit home in their favor. So while overall I might be a theorist of sorts, the ‘theories’ I’ve always put the most energy towards are in fact the theories of those I’m against.

My entire motivation is based on the fact that such AGI / Technological Singularity notions are openly stated and well funded goals by the government and the bankster run Corporatocracy that controls it. To me, this alone is the cause for concern, even if they didn’t have compelling arguments that they might actually succeed. Look into the National Debt and realize that this nation is already bankrupted. We can’t even afford to fund such programs even if they could ensure the whole “Terminator” or “Matrix” scenario could actually be avoided (the AGI advocates all admit that it can’t).

My concerns would still exist even if we could afford it, and if there was no such thing as the “New World Order” or “Neocommunism” (designed to bankrupt all of society to ensure that the masses will never be able to afford to reap the benefits of the technologies their tax dollars are being spent to create). Humanity still faces being run over by a freight-train juggernaut machine, even those realities aside. After countless thousands of hours of research in recent years, I’m convinced that the tyrannical Ruling Establishment is perpetrating what most call the “New World Order”. Due to this, the implications of the Blue Sky are vastly more alarming.

Some would argue that if such a control freak establishment were in control as I can almost literally prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, then why would they risk their control? The easy answer would be they believe they’ll be “gods” via such technolgies, with the nanobot neural implants jacked in the Google God machine, but I argue much further…

The motivations I speak of are quite beyond just mere neural enhancement driven collective consciousness. So many times in the past, here and there, I’ve argued that a key motivation is in kick-starting the Technological Singularity.After passing that “Event Horizon”, the technological progress of multiple exotic ‘new’ technologies such as bio and nanotechnology will go into overdrive. That would inherently mean that whatever sorts of possibilities there ar ein terms of Life Extension and other things could come in a few or so years instead of decades.

I apply the same reasoning to whatever other Blue Sky technologies one could imagine. A couple years ago at “ATS”, I argued that the AGI agenda is also about other “Blue Sky” tech’s such as Weather Control. I add to that other things such as Light Speed and beyond, and things like Time Travel. Whatever is actually possible would become reality ‘lightyears’ faster with the advent of AGI.

In regards to Weather Control,  there already exists methods and materials to modify weather in certain ways. I argue, and history shows that the dream of military commanders would be to control weather. I argue that this would require not only specialized satellites, but also vast networks of intelligent computational machines to be able to calculate such. While it wouldn’t surprise me if “They” actually could control storms, I don’t think they can yet do it under computational technologies that we know about actually existing.

The implications of weather control in the hands of a tyrannical global hegemonic empire should be obvious. What I’m concerned even more about is actually Time Travel. In particular, anyway of sending people, materials or even simply messages of whatever sort back in time is of maximum concern. I’d be concerned about anyone getting this actually, but the current masters of the world getting such power are to be feared most.

No one knows how things really work, if there are in fact parallel universes, meaning that if they went back and changed something it would just apply to some other reality that wouldn’t effect us. For all we know they could already be doing it. Imagine that nightmare. There’s no telling what would happen. Even if there are parallel universes why should some other worldwide reality be subject to such potential tyranny? Given enough time, such tyrants could infect and desolate virtually limitless possibe realities.

That would be terrible in itself, but as far as we’re all concerned what if whatever they change only affects us? Would we even be able to notice or prove such occurences? If there were any chance, would we be even more dumbed down and indoctrinated into deeper mindsets of absurdity to have any chance of awakening to the evil and fighting back?

These ideas are but more reason why the advent of AGI is the most important and potentially devastating path humanity must consider. Over the years I’ve extensively proven the Technological Establishment’s AGI Manhattan Project, as chronicled in my site here. The only theory about it is their own, that they can do it.

I refuse to sit back and wait for the results, but for now there exists no national or global debate. They’re attempting to march us head first into this thing, while bankrupting us all on the way there. Meanwhile a global dictatorship worldwide Police State is being built as the platform. In my view, it’s easy to guess what such an AGI would become, according to its own designs.

In conclussion, don’t ignore the Blue Sky. Don’t wait for it to fall.

-FBI “Going Dark” Program to add $234M in new surveillance technology.

ABC News:

The release of the 2010 budget request has shed more light on some FBI surveillance programs the bureau is currently developing and testing.

The budget request shows that the FBI is currently developing 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.

According to the budget documents released Thursday, the program, otherwise known as “Going Dark,” supports the FBI’s electronic surveillance intelligence collection and evidence gathering capabilities, as well as those of the greater Intelligence Community. Read entire article

Related:

FBI “Going Dark.” Budget Request for High-Tech Surveillance Capabilities Soar

Big Increases for Intelligence and Pentagon “Black” Programs in 2010

-Google Wants You to Profile Yourself.

WIRED:

Google’s information appetite is never-ending , and now the search-and-advertising giant wants your help in building a profile page that will show up anytime anyone searches on your name.

Be afraid.

The Google Profile service is intended to let you tell Google how to index you. You tell it (or hide from it) your picture, your bio, and links to your pages around the web — such as your Facebook account, Wikipedia page or your Twitter feed. It also includes a handy feature to let people email you, without actually giving out your email address.

Right now, those profiles show up low in regular search results, but as people begin to fill them out, Google will likely make them the top result for your name.

That puts Google even more firmly in control of the index of your online life. In fact, Google’s power will make it imperative for you to fill out your profile, lest you give Google all of the control over what people find about you on the net (see Google’s profile search, for instance)

-Researchers use brain interface to post to Twitter.

In early April, Adam Wilson posted a status update on the social networking Web site Twitter – just by thinking about it.

LINK

-US Army’s spy on citizens guidelines document leaked.

Among other matters, the document reveals that the US Army is using structuring tricks to work around intelligence oversight rules that would normally prevent domestic spying and hoarding of data on anti-war protesters.

Here’s another:

Spying RNC Convention Protests

-Google joins Bilderberg cabal.

World Net Daily is reporting on Googe CEO Eric Schmidt having attended. Infowars reports that he was already there last year, in D.C. Last years June visit interests me, as that was the same meeting Obama ditched his press core to secretly attend, as proven by The Obama Deception.

Later that year Schmidt had joined the Obama Campaign in sorts, even flying around with him to campaign stops. After the election he became part of Obama’s special transitionary economic team with (architects of the New Great Depression) Federal Reserve and Goldman Sachs luminaries.

For more info on the Bilderbergs check out Endgame.

-Google: More People Will Die From Swine Flu If We Cannot Retain Search Data.

Rough Type:

It’s amazing that, before Google came along, any of us was able to survive beyond childhood. At the company’s Zeitgeist conference in London yesterday, cofounder Larry Page warned that privacy-protecting restrictions on Google’s ability to store personal data were hindering the company from tracking the spread of diseases and hence increasing the risk of mankind’s extinction. The less data Google is allowed to store, said Page, the “more likely we all are to die.” (This is a particularly sensitive issue for Page, as he’s a big backer of the Singularitarians’ attempts to secure human immortality.)

Infowars:

Google has cited a possible influenza pandemic as a reason why it should be allowed to permanently retain users’ search data without restrictions.

There is an ongoing debate within the European Commission as to how long web companies should be able to keep such data, with privacy advocates suggesting it be wiped after six months.

However, Google co-founder Larry Page has suggested that the company should not be hindered in retaining search data, rather ludicrously suggesting that the more restrictions there are on data retention, the “more likely we all are to die”.

“Our up-to-date influenza estimates may enable public health officials and health professionals to better respond to seasonal epidemics and pandemics,” Page is reported to have claimed at Google annual Zeitgeist conference in London.

He said Google’s ability to plot and predict potential pandemics would not be possible if the firm had to delete search data after six months, the BBC reports.

Sci-Tech website The Register points out that Google has previously boasted that its flu estimates are available each day because Google search queries can be automatically counted very quickly.

Which raises a question: if the point of using web searches to track disease is that the data is instantly available, how does data that is more than six months old help, let alone make us all less likely to die? The Register asks.

Only hardened cynics (ahem) would suggest that the push for long term retention of search data is intrinsically tied to Google’s mass profit making target advertising campaigns.

Google Searches For Flu Spiked Before Outbreak Was Announced

*CAPTCHA as an AGI enabler.

In the past I’ve tried explaining ways that we in effect make Google God smarter by using its services, or even just by browsing the web. It turns out that by solving “CAPTCHAS” we’re now also helping advance AI fields such as Machine Vision.

CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

What I’m arguing here is that it goes beyond the reality of hackers / spammers from developing AI to beat the CAPTCHAS, and then CAPTCHA developing better AI in response. First it must be noted the developers interest in their technology advancing their AI goals. Take the following Carnegie CAPTCHA document for example, and be sure to also note how they like their kind call not having AI a “problem”:

We introduce captcha, an automated test that humans can pass, but current computer programs can’t pass: any program that has high success over a captcha can be used to solve an unsolved Articial Intelligence (AI) problem.

Much like research in cryptography has had a positive impact on algorithms for factoring and discrete log, we hope that the use of hard AI problems for security purposes allows us
to advance the field of Artificial Intelligence.

In this paper we will present constructions of captchas based on certain AI problems and we will show that solving the captchas implies solving the AI problems.

Now their latest version of it seeks to take it beyond the spam war and in effect declare war on you.

THINK+UP:

The computer scientists at Carnegie-Mellon and IBM who came up with the idea of Captchas and have promoted their public use noted in a widely-read 2000 research paper that “either the Captcha is not broken and there is a way to differentiate humans from computers, or the Captcha is broken and a useful AI problem is solved.” In any case, progress will be made.

Yet another Carnegie-Mellon approach turns the solution of Captchas into a good deed. With some 200 million Captchas being solved by humans every day, and each one requiring maybe 10 seconds of time, researchers thought why not get some useful work done, too? Their answer was to make Captchas based on snippets of optically scanned text from old books and newspapers that legitimate computers have been unable to correctly recognize. But how does the computer know if someone has interpreted the old text properly? Each reCaptcha presents a challenging sample of old text next to a standard Captcha image for which the answer is already known. It’s assumed that anyone who solves the latter will also have entered a correct answer for the former. The two main sources of old texts are those in the Internet Archive (www.archive.org), a vast collection of freely-accessible digitized media, and scanned editions of the New York Times.

Other players are also developing their own, like Microsoft and Google. As its Google’s bread and butter to have you teach their systems for them, you can bet that people will be helping them solve their problems via their “Socially Adjusted CAPTCHAs“.

These sorts of things really irritate me. In my vision, the day is approaching that the only solution to remain human in a Transhumanist dominated world would be to resort to “Neo-Amish” communities. The idea is to build permaculture type cities but where we can still enjoy things like the Internet and so on, unlike actual the Amish. But by ‘them’ designing the Web where we can’t use it without helping them advance their march is like an act of war against humanity, in my view.

-Must See Film: TechnoCalyps.

Here’s one I should have posted long ago. It was apparently made in 2006 but managed to slip under my radar until about a year ago. This is probably the best one out there on the whole Transhumanism / AGI type dimension, but I don’t think its too popular amongst their movement with it being the only one I can think of that is balanced and shows both sides of the coin. I did add it the other day to the new “Films to Watch” section in the left panel, but decided to underscore this great film here.

Be sure to check out the parts where the Life Extension advocate screams that you’ll have to kill him in order to stop him from becoming a god.

Film comes in 3 one hour parts:

TechnoCalyps – Part I – TransHuman

TechnoCalyps – Part II – Preparing for the Singularity

TechnoCalyps – Part III – The Digital Messiah

*Neurogrid Neuron Chips.

This is a National Institutes of Health funded Stanford project. Each ‘Neurocore’ has
65,536 programmable neurons, and 16 of them connected together equals over one million neurons operating in real time. They’re not quite finished building it yet, but they seem confident that soon a 16 core Neurocore array will fit into a device about the size of an iPod costing $40,000 dollars. Now one of these 1st generation devices aren’t going to take over the world, but it will put a radical development tool into the hands of the AGI related community to help accelerate their goals.

This sounds like an extrodinary feat, as the following BlueGeneL supercomputer containing some 4,000-8,000 IBM CPU’s can only handle something like 10,000 neurons:

The current Blue Gene driven “Blue Brain” project claims to be able to handle up to 10 million neurons and half a billion synapses. It would cost Neurogrid roughly $400,000 to match it. They say a human brain is 3,000 times more complex than the Blue Brain, meaning it would cost $1.2 billion to match those raw numbers using Neurogrid.

-Kurzweil co-founded Google / NASA’s “Singularity University”.

Cutting Edge:

Co-founded by noted futurist Ray Kurzweil and X Prize CEO and chairman Peter Diamandis, Singularity University will begin offering a 10-week interdisciplinary course in exponentially growing technologies this summer.

Starting this summer, some of the world’s leading thinkers in exponentially growing technologies will be gathering annually at NASA Ames Research Center, in the heart of Silicon Valley, for 10 weeks of discussions on how to change the future. And you could join them.

The gatherings will be part of what is known as Singularity University, a brand-new academic institution co-founded by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, X Prize chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis, and former Yahoo Brickhouse head Salim Ismail, and anyone can apply.

Singularity University is less a traditional university and more an institution that will feature intensive 10-week, 10-day, or 3-day programs examining a set of 10 technologies and disciplines, such as future studies and forecasting; biotechnology and bioinformatics; nanotechnology; AI, robotics, and cognitive computing; and finance and entrepreneurship.

The founders anticipate that students will come from all over the world, and they hope the program results in the founding of new companies, the evolution of scientific and technological thinking, and the solidifying of professional and personal networks among the highly-accomplished students and faculty.

To Kurzweil, Singularity University is a place to problem-solve and talk about the results of the most recent iterations of the exponentially growing technologies that have shaped modern life. Among them, he said, are vacuum tubes, integrated circuits, chips and microprocessors.

Now, he said, we are on the threshold of an explosion of the newest such technology, including 3D and self-organizing molecular circuits. And to Kurzweil, the ability to bring together the leaders in this wide range of fields is a rare opportunity to jump-start the future. (The program’s name is based on the theories Kurzweil popularized in his best-selling book The Singularity is Near.)

For Diamandis, who previously co-founded the International Space University (a space studies program on which Singularity University will be modeled), the idea of building an interdisciplinary academic institution around the concepts of exponentially growing trends seemed natural–and powerful.

So, after bringing together 50 leading thinkers for a founding conference at NASA Ames, Kurzweil, Diamandis, and Ismail got the backing of Ames’ director, Pete Worden, and a commitment of space at the center–a highly visual Silicon Valley landmark along highway 101–for the annual summer programs.

In addition to the core 10-week course, which will be open to graduate and post-graduate students, Singularity University will also offer 3-day and 10-day executive programs. The shorter version will be targeted at CEOs and CTOs, while the 10-day program will be aimed at rising-star executives who want to add to their knowledge and networks.

“These programs are there to give executives a look at what’s in the lab today,” said Diamandis, “and what is likely to hit the marketplace in the next 5 to 10 years.”

This summer, Singularity University will kick off with just 30 or so students and will piggyback on the International Space University, which will host 120 students at NASA Ames. But in following years, the new institution is expected to expand to about 120 students, each of whom could be the next Larry Page or Sergey Brin.

“If we do our job correctly,” Diamandis said, students “will meet, (discover their) common visions, and start companies together. They’ll have a chance to match a nanotech expert from Russia with an AI expert from Silicon Valley and see what magic happens at the boundaries.”

A stellar faculty
As evidence of how seriously many people in the fields of focus take Singularity University, it has pulled together what can only be described as a very impressive roster of faculty.

Among them are The Sims and Spore creator Will Wright; George Smoot, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics; Dan Kammen, co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore; Vint Cerf, Google’s chief Internet evangelist; and Stephanie Langhoff, NASA Ames’ chief scientist.

Befitting the serious nature of the program, its curriculum is not for the faint of heart. The first phase, said Diamandis, is a series of plenary lectures in which all students take the same coursework and learn together about each of the 10 disciplines.

“It’s about learning the vocabulary” of the disciplines, Diamandis said, “the basic principles, so they can communicate better between themselves.”

In the second phase, students will take deep dives into one of the 10 tracks, typically not one in which they already specialize, learning together in 10-person classes.

And in the final phase, the entire student body will come together to work on a team project.

“This is where the student body will focus as a group in taking on one of the world’s grand challenges,” said Diamandis, dealing “with global hunger, pandemics, climate change,” or something similar.

And while the program’s students can expect to work very hard and be deeply immersed in their studies, the faculty will be equally challenged.

“It caused all of us who were invited to be faculty to pause and think about it,” said Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley-based forecaster who is teaching in the Singularity University program. “We’re expected to be there for the full nine weeks, which is a breathtaking commitment of time.”

But for Saffo, who is helping to organize the future studies and forecasting track with Kurzweil, being intimately involved with the program at every level is precisely the point.

“The real benefit of teaching is being able to participate,” Saffo said. “It would be a waste of time to just show up, give a couple of lectures, and leave.”

And while their involvement at any level would bring Singularity University the prestige it needs to recruit talented students and faculty, both Kurzweil and Diamandis said they would be teaching each summer.

For Kurzweil, that means teaching some of the future studies and forecasting classes, and for Diamandis, it means helping to build the curriculum and teaching where he is needed.

The students, meanwhile, will need to pony up some serious money to take part in Singularity University. The base fee for the 10-week program is $25,000, though Diamandis said that there will be a significant number of full and partial scholarships available, funded by private companies, and other contributors.

Ultimately, the results of Singularity University won’t be known for some time. But given the people behind it and the likelihood of a steady stream of highly talented students, the odds of it producing the kind of deep thinking and world-changing technology the founders hope for are good.

“I have no doubt that society gets ever more complex, and the consequences of ever-growing technology become ever more difficult to anticipate and respond to,” said Saffo. “So having a 10-week program of smart, committed people looking at the challenges from an interdisciplinary point of view can only be a good thing.”

-Patent reveals Google’s book-scanning advantage.

Cutting Edge:

Sometimes overlooked in the Sturm und Drang about Google Book Search is any consideration of the mechanics of economically scanning the books in the first place, but a patent awarded to Google gives insight into how the search behemoth accomplishes the task.

In short, Google has come up with a system that uses two cameras and infrared light to automatically correct for the curvature of pages in a book. By constructing a 3D model of each page and then “de-warping” it afterward, Google can present flat-looking pages online without having to slice books up or mash them onto a flatbed scanner.

This diagram shows patented Google technology for correcting for curved pages while scanning books.

… Read more

-U.S. cybersecurity head quits, citing growing role of spy agencies.

UPI:

WASHINGTON, March 10 (UPI) — The official in charge of coordinating the U.S. government’s cybersecurity operations has quit, saying the expanding control of the National Security Agency over the nation’s computer security efforts poses “threats to our democratic processes.”

“Even from a security standpoint,” Rod Beckstrom, the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cyber Security Center, told United Press International, “it is unwise to hand over the security of all government networks to a single organization.”

“If our founding fathers were taking part in this debate (about the future organization of the government’s cybersecurity activities) there is no doubt in my mind they would support a separation of security powers among different (government) organizations, in line with their commitment to checks and balances.”

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano last week, Beckstrom said the NSA “dominates most national cyber efforts” and “effectively controls DHS cyber efforts through detailees, technology insertions and the proposed move” of the NCSC to an NSA facility at the agency’s Fort Meade, Md., headquarters.

“I believe this is a bad strategy on multiple grounds,” wrote Beckstrom in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by UPI. “The intelligence culture is very different than a network operations or security culture. In addition, threats to our democratic processes are significant if all top-level government network security and monitoring are handled by any one organization.”

PAGE 2

-Boy Scouts being trained by Homeland Security for ‘anti-terror’ operations.-

SEE ALSO:
*Why a pro-draft Chief of Staff is a big deal.
-”America’s Army” war recruitment tool video games going to US high schools.

The story didn’t surprise me when I seen this the other night, but I found these NYTimes photos mindblowing:

“Before it was more about the basics,” said Johnny Longoria, a Border Patrol agent here. “But now our emphasis is on terrorism, illegal entry, drugs and human smuggling.”

“Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”

Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.

That said, the Explorers have faced problems over the years. There have been numerous cases over the last three decades in which police officers supervising Explorers have been charged, in civil and criminal cases, with sexually abusing them.

The law enforcement posts are restricted to those ages 14 to 21 who have a C average, but there seems to be some wiggle room. “I will take them at 13 and a half,” Deputy Lowenthal said. “I would rather take a kid than possibly lose a kid.”

Of course they make children being trained as domestic military officers as a good thing:

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

“Our end goal is to create more agents,” said April McKee, a senior Border Patrol agent and mentor at the session here.

They have 2,000 “law enforcement posts” nationwide, with 35,000 stooges.

Infowars:

Given recent concerns over the DHS definition of “right wing extremists” and the agency’s penchant to affiliate veterans, gun owners, Ron Paul supporters and even those who question the mainstream media with terrorists, one wonders exactly who the boy scouts are being trained to target.

The Explorer program also touches close to home with recent concerns regarding President Barack Obama’s promised “civilian national security force”.

-

In Nazi Germany, the Hitler Youth succeeded the Boy Scout movement. Hitler Youth training was militarized in comparison to the Boy Scout network, which was largely based around education. Boys aged fourteen and upwards, as well as a separate branch aged 10-14, were trained at preparatory schools to become future Nazi leaders. At its height in 1940, and after it had become mandatory to join, the Hitler Youth boasted no less than 8 million members.

Apparently in a shift away from the traditional Boy Scouts activities of sports, camping, survival skills and team leadership, the government is now training children “to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence” under the banner of the Explorers program, with the aid of military-style exercises aimed at subduing insurgents.

The 2007 film, “Riddles In Stone” sheds interesting light on the founder of the Boy Scouts of America.

MORE:

Boy Scouts Train to Become Homeland Gestapo

*Obama nominates AI pioneer as Pentagon Director of Defense Research & Engineering.

Obama, who likes to talk about innovation in technological revolutions, has nominated one Zachary Lemnios as DoD Director of Defense Research & Engineering. This guy helped setup DARPA’s IPTO to spearhead the type of AI you see in the movies. Danger Room has more details. In other recent Obama-DARPA news, they might be nominating one Regina Dugan as DARPA chief, although her story is far less interesting.She’s not an AI/AGI ‘pioneer’ as is Lemnios, but he’s her boss along with the rest of the DoD science R&D machinery:

SEE ALSO:

*Obama’s NBIC (nano-bio-info-cogno convergence) Agenda.

-Pentagon Preps Soldier Telepathy Push.

Like I said 3 years ago in my “They Want Your Soul” film that Google Video recently removed, this is the ‘mental telepathy’ that many 2012 ‘Profits’ like to talk about. I’m not sure how many of them realize they’re actually (self-fulfilling) prophets for the NWO transhumanist neural implant and artificial general intelligence cognitive computer agenda, but that is the role they are serving. (TWYS can be downloaded in full quality here.) [More info on the ONR image they used below found here.]

WIRED Danger Room:

Forget the battlefield radios, the combat PDAs or even infantry hand signals. When the soldiers of the future want to communicate, they’ll read each other’s minds.

At least, that’s the hope of researchers at the Pentagon’s mad-science division Darpa. The agency’s budget for the next fiscal year includes $4 million to start up a program called Silent Talk. The goal is to “allow user-to-user communication on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals.” That’s on top of the $4 million the Army handed out last year to the University of California to investigate the potential for computer-mediated telepathy.

Before being vocalized, speech exists as word-specific neural signals in the mind. Darpa wants to develop technology that would detect these signals of  “pre-speech,” analyze them, and then transmit the statement to an intended interlocutor. Darpa plans to use EEG to read the brain waves. It’s a technique they’re also testing in a project to devise mind-reading binoculars that alert soldiers to threats faster the conscious mind can process them.

The project has three major goals, according to Darpa. First, try to map a person’s EEG patterns to his or her individual words. Then, see if those patterns are generalizable — if everyone has similar patterns. Last, “construct a fieldable pre-prototype that would decode the signal and transmit over a limited range.”

The military has been funding a handful of  mind-tapping technology recently, and already have monkeys capable of telepathic limb control. Telepathy may also have advantages beyond covert battlefield chatter. Last year, the National Research Council and the Defense Intelligence Agency released a report suggesting that neuroscience might also be useful to “make the enemy obey our commands.” The first step, though, may be getting a grunt to obey his officer’s remotely-transmitted thoughts.

– Katie Drummond and Noah Shachtman

[Photo: ONR]

ALSO:

• DARPA to Map Monkey Brains
• Feds Turn to ‘Brain Music’ to Boost Emergency Worker Performance …
• Darpa: Heat + Energy = Brains. Now Make Us Some.
• Top Pentagon Scientists Fear Brain-Modified Foes
• Monkey Brain Controls Walking ‘Bot
• Pentagon Begins Fake Cat Brain Project
• Darpa’s Math Quiz: Model the Brain, Find Biology’s Laws, Solve …
• Pentagon’s PCs Bend to Your Brain
• Binoculars that Tap the Brain
• Army Funds ‘Synthetic Telepathy’ Research
• Darpa Wants Brainy Machines to Replace Bored G.I.s

-Police State Study Ranks US As 6th Worst In The World.

UK in 5th, behind only the most ardent dictatorships

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Tuesday, May 12, 2009

A study designed to rank countries in terms of how aggressively they monitor their populations electronically, has placed the US as 6th and the UK as 5th on a global index.

The two countries lag behind only China, North Korea, Belarus and Russia in terms of governmental surveillance.

The report, titled The Electronic Police State, (PDF link) was compiled from information available from different organizations such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House, the Ludwig von Mises Institute and The Heritage Foundation.

52 countries were rated on 17 criteria with regard to how far down the line they are toward a total electronic police state.

The study was undertaken by a private company called “CryptoHippie“, which specializes in privacy technologies.

“In an Electronic Police State, every surveillance camera recording, every e-mail you send, every Internet site you surf, every post you make, every check you write, every credit card swipe, every cell phone ping… are all criminal evidence, and they are held in searchable databases, for a long, long time,” the report states.

“Whoever holds this evidence can make you look very, very bad whenever they care enough to do so. You can be prosecuted whenever they feel like it – the evidence is already in their database,” the report continues. “Perhaps you trust that your ruler will only use his evidence archives to hurt bad people. Will you also trust his successor? Do you also trust all of his subordinates, every government worker and every policeman?”

“If some leader behaves badly, will you really stand up to oppose him or her? Would you still do it if he had all the e-mails you sent when you were depressed? Or if she has records of every porn site you’ve ever surfed? Or if he knows every phone call you’ve ever made? Or if she knows everyone you’ve ever sent money to?” the report asks.

“This system hasn’t yet reached its full shape, but all of the basics are in place and it is not far from complete in some places,”.

The report contains a colour coded world map, with red representing the most advanced electronic police states, orange for strongly developing electronic police states and yellow for nations that are further behind in terms of surveillance:

It is no surprise to see the UK ranking higher than the US, with it’s estimated 4.5 million CCTV cameras, it’s active DNA database, and given that the British government has openly announced the fact that it wants the authority to monitor and store all phone calls, text messages and emails, a practice already strongly rumoured to be in operation.

The 17 criteria that were used to define an electronic police state are listed below:

1. Daily documents: How much is required day-to-day for residents to present state-issued identity documents or registration.
2. Border issues: What is demanded for a border entry.
3. Financial tracking: The state’s ability to search and record financial transactions.
4. Gag orders: The penalties for revealing to someone else the state is searching their records.
5. Anti-crypto laws: Bans on cryptography.
6. Constitutional protections: Either a lack of protections or someone overriding them.
7. Data storage: The state’s ability to record and keep what it uncovers.
8. Data search: The processes to search through data.
9. ISP data retention: The demand for ISPs to save customers’ records.
10. Telephone data retention: States’ requirements for communications companies to record and save records.
11. Cell phone records: The saving and using of cell phone users’ records.
12. Medical records: Demands from states that medical records retain information.
13. Enforcement: The state’s ability to use force (SWAT teams) to seize someone.
14. Habeus corpus: Either an absence of such rights or someone overriding them.
15. Police-Intel barrier: the absence of a barrier between police and intelligence organizations.
16. Covert hacking: State operatives meddling in data on private computers covertly.
17. Loose warrants: Warrants that are being issued without careful review of police claims by a truly independent judge.

========================================

FROM THE DOCUMENT:
Here are the 52 states and their rankings:
1. China
2. North Korea
3. Belarus
4. Russia
5. United Kingdom: England & Wales
6. United States of America
7. Singapore
8. Israel
9. France
10.Germany
11.Malaysia
12.Ireland
13.United Kingdom: Scotland
14.Netherlands
15.South Korea
16.Ukraine
17.Belgium
18.Australia
19.Japan
20.New Zealand
21.Austria
22.Norway
23.India
24.Italy
25.Taiwan
26.Denmark
27.Hungary
28.Greece
29.Canada
30.Switzerland
31.Slovenia
32.Poland
33.Finland
34.Sweden
35.Latvia
36.Lithuania
37.Cyprus
38.Malta
39.Estonia
40.Czech Republic
41.Iceland
42.South Africa
43.Spain
44.Portugal
45.Luxembourg
46.Argentina
47.Romania
48.Thailand
49.Bulgaria
50.Brazil
51.Mexico
52.Philippines

*Nearly Zero-Impact Garden Watering.

A few ways to beat water issues. Lets get right to it:

Rainwater Capture:

I’ve been wanting to do this post for a couple weeks but held off until I had this part of my water project set up. The best thing I’ve come up with is using 275 gallon liquid “Totes”, but 55 gallon drums work too. Totes are the size up answer to drums. They have cool cages wrapped around them with undersides designed for forklifting, with a large 8″ screw off lids in the center of the top, with a 2″ ball valve drain spigot on the bottom front side.

Gravity is key for water pressure. To water my loading dock garden I needed to elevate it considerably, so I went with pallets. Note the base & top platforms are plywood with 2″x6″ planks running longways. The way the pallets happened to stack non-flush worked out well on the slope in leveling the top platform out.

I don’t have the piping for it setup yet, but a friend does and he confirmed the ball tapper threads are standard 2″ PVC threads. We managed to get 5 of them for a combined $300 off of Craigslist. I always recommend buying things in bulk, and trying to pool money with others to get the best deals possible.

Next you just need less than $10 in gutter downspout fittings and tubing, and then I’m confident you can figure out the rest from there.

You can also place other open topped containers, such as old aquariums, underneath areas where the water pours over or leaks out of the roof / gutters.

Sink Water Capture:

This is probably most practical if you do a considerable amount of your sink work out of a laundry size sink. During the first several weeks of starting my seedlings I was able to water almost exclusively using captured sink water, mainly from washing my hands or rinsing off dishes etc.

You basically just need a suitable rubbermade style bins that fill about half of the bottom of the sink just right, and large plastic containers on wheels. Seal any holes with liquid nails for durability, let it dry, and then go over that with silicone for water protection.

A few designs:

Roll around toolbox thing with lid and insides removed.

Sturdy storage box on top of "4 Wheel Dolly".

More flexible storage bin, in/on base part of a cabinet from a scrapped out 60" Phillips rear projection TV. It has castor wheels underneath it.

You can also place these under roof-water pour-over spots if convenient.

Hose Fittings:

I adhere to a spend a few dollars extra to save lots of time ethic, although I do prefer to build anything I can myself. If you’re running different hoses for different things then I advise shopping around to find a good deal on quick disconnect fittings. Also cutoff valves wherever you would disconnect to prevent the water rushing out every time you switch lines. Be sure to use hose fitting gaskets and teflon tape everywhere you can.

Seedlings:

Don’t start seeds right in large pots or the ground. I wont explain why. You can use things like those “Jiffy Strip” trays, at $3+ per 50 plants, and keep the $1 trays after the paet pots are removed later. I did this at first and used graph/grid paper for a good way to catalog what was in what.

But I later decided that using small cups is better for a number of reasons. I bought a bag of 455 2″ cups at a Costco type store (BJ’s) for $8, and I can reuse them. They need something around their edges to keep them all from tipping. Be sure to use a solder iron to poke holes in the cups.

About 260, my last wave of plants for this years first season.

Mulch:

Use mulch. If you have a budget get cedar/eucalyptus. If no budget search around for tree guys. Even with mulch having value, most will gladly deliver free mulch.