NATIONAL SECURITY NOTES: summary
ASSORTED FIENDS, CRIMINALS & KOOKS
Download non-working Internet recipe
for ricin to make unwanted friends and influence people! A collection of recent news items.
"Two lesbian lovers who authorities said confessed to several failed murder plots after they were arrested in Imperial County with the poison ricin in their car pleaded guilty to attempted murder [on August 9] reported the San Diego Union Tribune. Also tales of an autistic man, a gun nut, a berserker and an anonymous demon.
MICE SAVED FROM RICIN
The U.S. military has been immunizing rodents to ricin for some time. Different teams at Ft. Detrick have published on it and even Porton Down, Britain's old chemical and biowarfare center, has announced scientific papers proclaiming the immunization of rats. And two years ago University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center published success in immunizing mice against injected ricin with another vaccine, although one -different- than Ft. Detrick's.
Such vaccine efforts are driven by statements like "[large] stockpiles of ricin, a protein produced by castor beans, have been found in several Middle Eastern countries," which
accompany press releases.
THE DAILY SCAREMONGER
If you have been going to the movies lately you may have noticed that documentaries like "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Outfoxed" make points about the right using fear to hector and goad
the polity into supporting rash adventures. However, the phenomenon of the daily scaremonger
is a truly bipartisan thing. That is, both left and right from the media to the national security complex embrace the spreading of fear of attack from every side.
The Daily Scaremonger is usually delivered as a report from a committee, or a news story, or a piece of intelligence too pressing in importance to keep from the people. This month's Scaremonger focus is "agroterrorism."
And more stuff, too. Full stories:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/nsn/nsn-040901.htm
― George Smith, Thursday, 2 September 2004 16:13 (twenty years ago)
I do think someone sells a small titanium bunker, ready for installation in your house. Don't recall the name of the company but a couple months after 9/11 they were on television news off and on.
Now you know why someone stole "The Scream." So they could hang it on the wall on the inside of their titanium bunker.
― George Smith, Thursday, 2 September 2004 16:54 (twenty years ago)
A little something to while away the time with.
Got the CD, BTW. Bemusing.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:02 (twenty years ago)
why would the google-probkem you identify not be adequately addressed by sufficient manpower and/or boolean searching?Because it's a simple-minded technical solution that has been offered in various forms for close to a decade. That, and the fact that such a network won't be in any way as transparent as Google earching. And, finally, the problem can't be fixed by technical means because it's a social one having to do with the cult of secrecy in our intelligence and security bureaucracies.
― George Smith, Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:29 (twenty years ago)