Month: December 2004

Mark your calendars…. April 13, 2029 is the date that asteroid 2004 MN4 — a quarter-mile wide chunk of rock — may hit the earth. (Of course, it’s already got a Wikipedia entry!) If you’re wondering if that is a Friday, I checked already; it is.

bq.

The risk rating for asteroid 2004 MN4 was raised Friday by NASA and a separate group of researchers in Italy. The asteroid’s chance for hitting Earth on April 13, 2029 has now been categorized as a 4 on the Torino Scale. The level 4 rating — never before issued — is reserved for “events meriting concern” versus the vast majority of potentially threatening asteroids that merely merit “careful monitoring.”

The Christmas Eve announcement was unusual in that the the Torino Scale rating went up, from 2 to 4. Most asteroids tend to drop on the scale following further examination.

I wonder if Bruce Willis has been put on alert yet.

From a Space.com story. [Gadgetopia]

It’s got a 1 in 45 chance of hitting Earth, but a few days ago it was 1 in 234. It’s not a good sign when the odds of something happening get better with time.

ARTHUR SILBER: No Kidding. In the Department of “News” We Already Knew If We’ve Been Paying Attention At All, I just came across this brief article:

America’s handling of the occupation of Iraq came in for scathing criticism Wednesday, with government officials accused of living in a “fantasyland” and failing to learn from mistakes made in Vietnam. A report issued by the independent Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington charged that the occupation had been handled by “ideologues” in the Bush… [Liberty & Power: Group Blog]

‘Metal Gear’ Symbian OS Trojan Disables Anti-Virus. Omniscientist writes “Just when you thought your Series 60 smartphones were safe, a trojan has surfaced with a two-pronged attack that also in turn disables any anti-virus protection available. Infosyncworld has news about a trojan masquerading itself as a port for the Metal Gear game that disables all anti-virus software on the phone and other necessary utilities like file managers. Also, it affects other phones nearby it via Bluetooth. This trojan has been dubbed ‘Metal Gear.a,’ quite aptly.” [Slashdot]

Interesting. Unfortunately the article doesn’t mention whether Symantec’s anti-virus product is affected.

#
Thom Hartmann at Common Dreams –

Hyping Terror For Fun, Profit – And Power – concerning a three
hour documentary,

The Power of Nightmares, written and produced by Adam
Curtis, that was aired by the BBC in October. Guess what? The current
war on “terror” is the second time that Rumsfeld and Cheney have
invented, out of whole cloth, a reason to pour billions of dollars
into their war-making companies. You can view the documentary

here (Real video). A better copy of the third hour is

here. A transcript, including links to Bit Torrents of the video
(which didn’t work for me), is

here. My mirror of the transcript is at

billstclair.com/nightmares. [root]
bq.
According to this carefully researched and well-vetted BBC
documentary, Richard Nixon, following in the steps of his mentor and
former boss Dwight D. Eisenhower, believed it was possible to end the
Cold War and eliminate fear from the national psyche. The nation need
no longer be afraid of communism or the Soviet Union. Nixon worked out
a truce with the Soviets, meeting their demands for safety as well as
the US needs for security, and then announced to Americans that they
need no longer be afraid.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon returned from the Soviet Union with a
treaty worked out by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the beginning
of a process Kissinger called “détente.” On June 1, 1972, Nixon
gave a speech in which he said, “Last Friday, in Moscow, we witnessed
the beginning of the end of that era which began in 1945. With this
step, we have enhanced the security of both nations. We have begun to
reduce the level of fear, by reducing the causes of fear–for our two
peoples, and for all peoples in the world.”

But Nixon left amid scandal and Ford came in, and Ford’s Secretary of
Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) and Chief of Staff (Dick Cheney) believed it
was intolerable that Americans might no longer be bound by
fear. Without fear, how could Americans be manipulated?

Rumsfeld and Cheney began a concerted effort – first secretly and then
openly – to undermine Nixon’s treaty for peace and to rebuild the
state of fear and, thus, reinstate the Cold War.

And these two men – 1974 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Ford
Chief of Staff Dick Cheney – did this by claiming that the Soviets had
secret weapons of mass destruction that the president didn’t know
about, that the CIA didn’t know about, that nobody but them knew
about. And, they said, because of those weapons, the US must redirect
billions of dollars away from domestic programs and instead give the
money to defense contractors for whom these two men would one day
work.

…

But the neocons said it was true, and organized a group –

The Committee on the Present Danger – to promote their
worldview. The Committee produced documentaries, publications, and
provided guests for national talk shows and news reports. They worked
hard to whip up fear and encourage increases in defense spending,
particularly for sophisticated weapons systems offered by the defense
contractors for whom neocons would later become lobbyists.

And they succeeded in recreating an atmosphere of fear in the United
States, and making themselves and their defense contractor friends
richer than most of the kingdoms of the world.

The Cold War was good for business, and good for the political power
of its advocates, from Rumsfeld to Reagan.

Similarly, according to this documentary, the War On Terror is the
same sort of scam, run for many of the same reasons, by the same
people. And by hyping it – and then invading Iraq – we may well be
bringing into reality terrors and forces that previously existed only
on the margins and with very little power to harm us.

Curtis’ documentary suggests that the War On Terror is just as much a
fiction as were the super-WMDs this same group of neocons said the
Soviets had in the 70s. He suggests we’ve done more to create terror
than to fight it. That the risk was really quite minimal (at least
until we invaded Iraq), and the terrorists are – like most terrorist
groups – simply people on the fringes, rather easily dispatched by
their own people. He even points out that Al Qaeda itself was a brand
we invented, later adopted by bin Laden because we’d put so many
millions into creating worldwide name recognition for it.

Watching “The Terror of Nightmares” is like taking the Red Pill in the
movie The Matrix.
[End the War on Freedom]

No matter how strange or despicable you act, I can do one better, because I work for the government.

Million Dollar Hotel

A Bad Day For Civil Liberties. America died a bit last week, as the Supreme Court ruled against a citizen’s right to sue a police officer for wrongful arrest, or for inappropriate use of deadly force. This is the latest nail in the coffin of our… [About Civil Liberties]

That’s not entirely true–people still have the right to resist criminal acts by the police using deadly force in exactly the same way that they can resist private-sector criminals. The Supreme Court’s ruling simply means that people have no peaceful means of redress, leaving them no choice but to either submit helplessly to any abuse–or shoot dead any thugs who attack them, regardless of whether the thugs are wearing black uniforms or red bandanas.

ARTHUR SILBER: DON’T “CURE” US! JUST LEAVE US ALONE!. I have occasionally mentioned the work of Thomas Szasz, a man who is one of my great personal heroes. Dr. Szasz’s dedication to genuine human freedom and his ongoing resistance to the widespread destruction caused by the “therapeutic state” constitute one of the truly great achievements of our time, and his work deserves your very careful consideration. Look over his website, and read some of the many illuminating articles you will find there.

In connection with the story discussed… [Liberty & Power: Group Blog]

A very good article on the trend to treat behavior that people don’t like as a “mental disease” and inflicting treatment on the “sick” person against their will. This is especially common as a new form of child abuse, and in this case the article focuses on autism.

Mosul: The New Front Line. This attack on an Iraqi-American forward base near Mosul signals that there still some effective insurgent military forces in area,… [Hit and Run]

I wouldn’t be too sure that the attack was effective, rather than just lucky. Iraqis have been firing mortars and rockets at Fed bases more or less constantly, and they usually miss because they aren’t aimed. Sooner or later someone had to get a lucky hit.

Price Controls in Iraq–Still!. The Economist reports that “Baghdad’s petrol stations are drier this month than they have been since just after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Some drivers wait for as much as 24 hours, sleeping in their vehicles.” The US-controlled puppet state continues to enforce price controls that require petrol be given away (1 cent per litre). Did the Soviets ever do anything this stupid when they invaded and conquered a country? (pointer from MargRev) . A shortage of petrol in Iraq is like a shortage of Mesquite in West Texas, but somehow US central planners pulled it off.
[Mises Economics Blog]

There’s a saying that a great salesman could “sell ice to an eskimo.” Well, a politician could create an ice shortage among eskimos.