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They sat in the chapel and waited. They were still-only nine, and they were waiting for the tenth so that they could begin morning prayers. The elderly president of the congregation, Jacob Wasserman, was wearing his phylacteries, and the young rabbi, David Small, who had just arrived, was putting his on. He had withdrawn his left arm from his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeve to the armpit. Placing the little black box with its quotation from the Scriptures on the upper arm-next to the heart-he bound the attached strap seven times around his forearm, and then thrice around his palm to form the first letter of the Divine Name, and finally around his middle finger as a ring of spiritual betrothal to God. This, together with the headpiece which he now placed on his forehead, was in literal response to the biblical injunction: 'Thou shalt bind them [the words of God] for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be for a frontlet between thine eyes."
The others, who were dressed in silken-fringed prayer shawls and black skullcaps, sat around in small groups talking, glancing idly through their prayer books, occasionally checking their watches against the round clock on the wall.
The rabbi, now prepared for morning service, strolled up and down the center aisle, not impatiently, but like a man who has arrived early at the railroad station. Snatches of conversation reached him: talk about business, about family and children, about vacation plans, about the chances of the Red Sox. It was hardly the proper conversation for men waiting to pray, he thought, and then immediately rebuked himself. Was it not also a sin to be too devout? Was not man expected to enjoy the good things of this life? the pleasures of family? of work - and of resting from work? He was still very young, not quite thirty, and introspective, so that he could not help raising questions, and then questioning the questions.
Mr. Wasserman had left the room and now returned. "I just called Abe Reich. He said he'd be down in about ten minutes."
Ben Schwarz, a short, plumpish, middle-aged man, got up abruptly. 'That does it for me," he muttered. "If I have to be beholden to that sonofabitch Reich to make up a minyan, I'll do my praying at home."
Wasserman hurried over and halted him at the end of the aisle. "Surely you're not going now, Ben? That will leave us only nine, even when Reich gets here."
"Sony, Jacob," said Schwarz stiffly, "I've got an important appointment and I've got to leave."
Wasserman spread his hands. "You have come to say Kaddish for your father, so what kind of appointment can you have that can't wait a few minutes longer so you can pay respects to him?" In his mid-sixties, Wasserman was older than most of the members of the congregation, and he spoke with a faint accent which manifested itself not so much in mispronounced words as in the special care he took to pronounce them correctly. He saw that Schwarz was wavering. "Besides, I have Kaddish myself today, Ben."
"All right, Jacob, stop churning my emotions. I'll stay." He even grinned.
But Wasserman wasn't finished. "And why should you be sore at Abe Reich? I heard what you said. You two used to be such good friends."
Schwarz needed no prompting. "I'll tell you why. Last week-"
Wasserman held up his hand. "The business with the automobile? I heard it already. If you feel he owes you some money, sue him and get it over with."
"A case like this you don't take to court."
"Then settle your differences some other way. But in the temple we shouldn't have two prominent members who they can't even stand to be in the same minyan. It's a shame."
"Look, Jacob-"
"Did you ever think that's the real function of a temple in a community like this? It should be a place where Jews should settle their differences." He beckoned the rabbi over. "I was just saying to Ben here that the temple is a holy place, and all Jews who come here should be at peace with each other. Here they should make up their differences. Maybe that's more important for the temple than just a place to pray. What do you think?"
The young rabbi looked from one to the other uncertainly. He reddened. "I'm afraid I can't agree, Mr. Wasserman," he said. "The temple is not really a holy place. The original one was, of course, but a community synagogue like ours is just a building. It's for prayer and study, and I suppose it is holy in the sense that anywhere a group of men gathers to pray is holy. But settling differences is not traditionally the function of the temple, but of the rabbi."
Schwarz said nothing. He did not consider it good form for the young rabbi to contradict the president of the temple so openly. Wasserman was really his boss, besides being old enough to be his father. But Jacob did not seem to mind. His eyes twinkled and he even seemed pleased.
"So if two members of the temple quarrel, what would you suggest, rabbi?"
The young man smiled faintly. "Well, in the old days I would have suggested a Din Torah."
"What's that?" asked Schwarz.
"A hearing, a judgment," the rabbi answered. "That, incidentally, is one of the rabbi's main functions-to sit in judgment. In the old days, in the ghettos of Europe, the rabbi was hired not by the synagogue but by the town. And he was hired not to lead prayers or to supervise the synagogue, but to sit in judgment on cases that were brought to him, and to pass on questions of law."
"How did he make his decisions?" asked Schwarz, interested in spite of himself.
"Like any judge, he would hear the case, sometimes alone, sometimes in conjunction with a pair of learned men from the village. He would ask questions, examine witnesses if necessary, and then on the basis of the Talmud, he would give his verdict."
"I'm afraid that wouldn't help us much," said Schwarz with a smile. "This is about an automobile. I'm sure the Talmud doesn't deal with automobile cases."
"The Talmud deals with everything," said the rabbi flatly.
"But automobiles?"
"The Talmud doesn't mention automobiles, of course, but it does deal with such things as damages and responsibility. Particular situations differ from age to age, but the general principles remain the same."
"So, Ben," asked Wasserman, "are you ready to submit your case for judgment?"
"It wouldn't bother me any. I don't mind telling my story to anybody. The more the better. I'd just as soon the whole congregation knew what a louse Abe Reich is."
"No, I mean it seriously, Ben. You and Abe are both on the board of directors. You've both given I don't know how many hours of your time to the temple. Why not make use of the traditional Jewish way of settling an argument?"
Schwarz shrugged his shoulders. "As far as I'm concerned ..."
"How about you, rabbi? Would you be willing-"
"If Mr. Reich and Mr. Schwarz are both willing, I will hold a Din Torah."
"You'll never get Abe Reich to come," Schwarz said.
"I'll guarantee that Reich will be there," said Wasserman.
Schwarz was interested now, even eager. "All right, how do we go about it? When do you have this-this Din Torah, and where do you have it?"
"Is this evening all right? In my study?"
"Fine with me, rabbi. You see, what happened was that Abe Reich-"
"If I am to hear the case," the rabbi asked gently, "don't you think you ought to wait until Mr. Reich is present before you tell your story?"
"Oh sure, rabbi. I didn't mean-"
"Tonight, Mr. Schwarz."
"I'll be there."
The rabbi nodded and strolled away. Schwarz watched his retreating figure and then said, "You know, Jacob, when you come right down to it, this is a kind of silly thing that I've agreed to do."
"Why silly?"
"Because-because here I've agreed to what amounts to a regular trial."
"So?"
"So who is the judge?" He nodded in the direction of the rabbi, moodily, noting the young man's ill-fitting suit, his rumpled hair, his dusty shoes. "Look at him-a boy, like a college kid. I'm practically old enough to be his father, and I should let him try me? You know, Jacob, if that's what a rabbi is supposed to be-I mean, a kind of judge-then maybe Al Becker and some of the others who say we ought to have an older, more mature man, maybe they're right. Do you really think Abe Reich will agree to all this?" A sudden thought occurred to him. "Say, Jacob, if Abe doesn't agree, I mean if he doesn't appear at the what-do-you-call-it, does that mean the case goes to me by default?"
"There's Reich now," said Wasserman. "We'll begin in a moment. And about tonight, don't worry; he'll be there."
The rabbi's study was on the second floor, overlooking the large asphalt parking lot. Mr. Wasserman arrived as the rabbi drove up, and the two men went upstairs together.
"I didn't know you were planning to come," said the rabbi.
"Schwarz began to get cold feet, so I said I would be present. Do you mind?"
"Not at all."
"Tell me, rabbi," Wasserman went on, "have you ever done this before?"
"Held a Din Torah? Of course not. As a Conservative rabbi, how would I have been likely to? For that matter, in Orthodox congregations here in America, who thinks to go to the rabbi for Din Torah these days?"
"But then-"
The rabbi smiled. "It will be all right, I assure you. I am not entirely unaware of what goes on in the community. I have heard rumors. The two men were always good friends and now something has come up to upset their friendship. My guess is that neither one is very happy about this quarrel and both are only too anxious to make up. Under the circumstances, I ought to be able to find some common ground between them."
"I see," said Wasserman, nodding. "I was beginning to be a little worried. As you say, they were friends. And that for a long time. In all probability when the story comes out it will turn out to be the wives that are behind it. Ben's wife, Myra, she's a regular kochlefel. She's got a tongue on her."
"I know," said the rabbi sadly. "Only too well."
"Schwarz is a weak man," Wasserman went on, "and in that household it's the wife who wears the pants. They used to be good neighbors, the Schwarzes and the Reichs, and then Ben Schwarz came into some money when his father died a couple of years ago. Come to think of it, it must have been a couple of years ago today, because he came to say Kaddish. They moved out to Grove Point and began to hobnob with the Beckers and the Pearlsteins - that crowd. I suspect that a good part of this is just Myra trying to break away from her old associations."
"Well, we'll know soon enough," said the rabbi. "That must be one of them now."
The front door banged and they heard steps on the stairs. The outer door opened and closed again and in came Ben Schwarz and, a moment later, Abe Reich. It was as though each had waited to see whether the other would show up. The rabbi motioned Schwarz to a seat at one side of the desk and Reich at the other.
Reich was a tall man, quite handsome, with a high forehead and iron-gray hair brushed back. There was a touch of the dandy about him. He wore a black suit with narrow lapels and side pockets aslant in the continental style. His trousers were slim and cuffless. He was the division sales manager of a national low-price shoe company and he had an air of dignity and executive decisiveness. He strove to hide his present embarrassment by looking indifferent.
Schwarz, too, was embarrassed, but he tried to pass off the whole matter as a joke, an elaborate gag his good friend Jake Wasserman had cooked up and which he was prepared to go along with, as a good guy.
Schwarz and Reich had not spoken since entering the room; in fact they avoided looking at each other. Reich began by talking to Wasserman, so Schwarz addressed himself to the rabbi.
"Well," he said with a grin, "what happens now? Do you put on your robe and do we all rise? Is Jacob the clerk of the court or is he the jury?"
The rabbi smiled. Then he hitched up his chair to indicate that he was ready to begin. "I think you both understand what's involved here," he said easily. "There are no formal rules of procedure. Normally it is customary for both sides to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court and willingness to abide by the rabbi's decision. In this case I won't insist on it, however."
"I don't mind," said Reich. "I'm willing to abide by your-decision."
Not to be outdone, Schwarz said, "I certainly don't have anything to fear. I'll go along, too."
"Pine," said the rabbi. "As the aggrieved party, Mr. Schwarz, I suggest that you tell us what happened."
"There isn't very much to tell," said Schwarz. "It's pretty simple. Abe, here, borrowed Myra's car, and through sheer negligence he ruined it. I'll have to pay for a whole new motor. That's it in a nutshell."
"Very few cases are that simple," said the rabbi. "Can you tell me the circumstances under which he took the car? And also, just to keep the record clear, is it your car or your wife's? You refer to it as your wife's, but then you say you will have to pay for the motor."
Schwarz smiled. "It's my car in the sense that I paid for it. And it's her car in the sense that it's the one she normally drives. It's a Ford convertible, a 'sixty-three. The car I drive is a Buick."
"Nineteen sixty-three?" The rabbi's eyebrows shot up. "Then it's practically a new car. Isn't it still within the guarantee period?"
"Are you kidding, rabbi?" Schwarz snorted. "No dealer considers himself bound if the damage is due to the owner's negligence. Becker Motors where I bought the car is as reliable as any dealer in the business, but Al Becker made me feel like a damn fool when I suggested it to him."
"I see," said the rabbi, and indicated that he should proceed.
"Well, there's a group of us who do things together-go on theater parties, auto trips, that sort of thing. It all started as a garden club made up of a few congenial couples who lived near each other, but some of us have moved out of the area. Still, we meet about once a month. This was a skiing party to Belknap in New Hampshire and we took two cars. The Alberts drove up with the Reichs in their sedan. I took the Ford and we had Sarah, Sarah Weinbaum, with us. She's a widow. The Weinbaums were part of the group, and since her husband died we try to include her in everything.
"We went up early Friday afternoon-it's only a three-hour ride-and were able to get some skiing in Friday before nightfall. We went out Saturday-all except Abe here. He had caught a bad cold and was sneezing and coughing. Then, Saturday night, Sarah got a call from her kids-she has two sons, one seventeen and one fifteen-to the effect that they had been in an automobile accident. They assured her it was nothing serious, and that's how it turned out- Bobby had got a scratch, and Myron, that's the oldest boy, had to have a couple of stitches. Still, Sarah was awfully upset and wanted to go home. Well, under the circumstances I couldn't blame her. Since she had come up with us, I offered to let her take our car. But it was late and foggy out, and Myra wouldn't hear of her going alone. So then Abe here volunteered to drive her back."
"Are you in agreement with what has been said so far, Mr. Reich?" asked the rabbi.
"Yes, that's what happened."
"All right, proceed, Mr. Schwarz."
"When we got home Sunday night, the car wasn't in the garage. That didn't disturb me, because obviously Abe wasn't going to leave it at our house and then walk to his. The next morning, I went off in my own car and my wife called him to make arrangements about delivering her car. And then he told her-"
"Just a minute, Mr. Schwarz. I take it that's as far as you can go with the story from your own knowledge. I mean, from here on you would be telling what your wife told you rather than what you yourself experienced."
"I thought you said we weren't going to have any legalistic rules-"
"We're not, but since we want to get the story down first, obviously it would be better to let Mr. Reich continue. I just want the story in chronological order."
"Oh, all right"
"Mr. Reich."
"It's just as Ben told it. I started out with Mrs. Weinbaum. It was foggy and dark of course, but we drove along at a good clip. Then, when we were getting home, the car slowed to a stop. Fortunately, a cruising car came along and the cop asked what the trouble was. I told him we couldn't get started, so he said he'd get us a tow. About five minutes later, a tow truck came from an outlying garage and pulled us to town. It was late then, past midnight I guess, and there was no mechanic in attendance. So I called a cab and took Mrs. Weinbaum home. And wouldn't you know it, when we got there the house was dark and Mrs. Weinbaum had forgotten her key."
Then how did you get in?" asked the rabbi.
"She said she always left one of the windows unlatched and it could be reached by climbing the porch. The way I was feeling, I couldn't have made it up a steep flight of stairs, and of course she couldn't. The cabby was a young fellow but claimed he had a game leg. Maybe he did and maybe he didn't, and maybe he was afraid we were trying to get him involved in a burglary. But he did tell us that the night patrolman usually stopped for coffee and a cigarette at the milk plant about that time. By now Mrs. Weinbaum was almost frantic, so we sent the cabby after the cop, and just as they came back, who should drive up but the two boys. They'd gone to a movie in town. Well, I guess Mrs. Weinbaum was so relieved to see they were all right she didn't even bother to thank me, just swept into the house with them, leaving me to explain it to the cop."
Schwarz, sensing an implied criticism, said, "Sarah must have been very upset because normally she's very considerate."
Reich made no comment, but continued, "Well, I told the cop what had happened. He didn't say anything, just gave me that suspicious look they have. You can imagine how I felt by that time. My nose was stuffed up so I couldn't breathe, my bones ached, and I guess I was running a fever. I stayed in bed all day Sunday, and when my wife came home from Belknap, I was asleep and I didn't even hear her come in. The next morning, I still felt rotten so I decided not to go to the office. When Myra called, Betsy, my wife, answered. She woke me up and I told her what had happened and gave her the name of the garage, to give to Myra. Next thing I know, maybe ten minutes later, the phone rings again and it's Myra and she insists on talking to me. So I got out of bed and she tells me that she has just called the garage and they say that I ruined her car, that I ran it without oil and that the whole engine is junk and that she's holding me responsible, and so on and so forth. She was pretty rough over the phone, and I wasn't feeling too good, so I told her to do anything she darn pleased, and hung up on her and went back to bed."
The rabbi looked questioningly at Schwarz.
"Well, according to my wife, he said some other things too, but I guess that's about what happened."
The rabbi swiveled around in his chair and slid back the glass door of the bookcase behind him. He studied the books on the shelf for a moment, and then drew one out. Schwarz grinned, and catching Wasserman's eye, winked at him. Reich's mouth twitched as he suppressed a smile. The rabbi, however, was oblivious as he thumbed through the book. Every now and then, he halted at a page and skimmed through it, nodding his head. Occasionally, he massaged his forehead as if to stimulate cerebration. He looked about his desk nearsightedly and finally found a ruler, which he used to mark a place in the book. A moment later he used a paperweight to mark another. Then he drew out a second volume, and here he seemed more certain for he quickly found the passage he was looking for. Finally he pushed both volumes away and looked benignly at the two men before him.
"There are certain aspects of the case that are not entirely clear to me. I notice, for example, that you, Mr. Schwarz, speak of Sarah, whereas you, Mr. Reich, speak of Mrs. Weinbaum. Does this indicate merely a greater informality in Mr. Schwarz, or that the lady is closer to the Schwarzes than she is to the Reichs?"
"She was a member of the group. We were all friends. If any one of us had a party or an affair, they would invite her just as we did."
The rabbi looked at Reich. who said, "I'd say she was closer to them. We met the Weinbaums through Ben and Myra. They were particularly friendly."
"Yes, perhaps that's so," Schwarz admitted. "What of it?"
"And it was in your car that she drove up to the skiing area?" asked the rabbi.
"Yes, although it just worked out that way. What are you driving at?"
"I am suggesting that she was essentially your guest, and that you felt a greater sense of responsibility for her than did Mr. Reich."
Mr. Wasserman leaned forward.
"Yes, I suppose that's so," Schwarz admitted again.
"Then in driving her home, wasn't Mr. Reich in a sense doing you a favor?"
"He was doing himself a favor too. He had a bad cold and wanted to get home."
"Had he made any suggestions to that effect before Mrs. Weinbaum received the call?"
"No, but we all knew he wanted to get home."
"If the call had not come, do you think he would have asked for your car?"
"Probably not."
"Then I think we may leave it that in driving Mrs. Weinbaum home he was doing you a favor, however advantageous it may have been to himself."
"Well, I don't see that it makes any difference. What of it?"
"Just this, that in the one case he would be in the position of a borrower, but in the second case he is in effect your agent, and a different set of rules applies. As a borrower, the responsibility of returning your car in good condition rests squarely on him, and to avoid liability he would have to prove that there was a flaw in the car and also that there was no negligence on his part. Furthermore, it would be his responsibility to make sure that the car was in good condition when he took it. As an agent, on the other hand, he has a right to assume that the car was in good condition and the burden of proof rests with you. It is you who has to prove that he was grossly negligent."
Wasserman smiled.
"I don't see that it makes much difference. I feel that in either case he was grossly negligent. And I can prove it. There wasn't a drop of oil in the car. That's what the garage mechanic said. Now, he let the oil run dry and that is gross negligence."
"How would I know the oil was low?" demanded Reich.
Until now, both men had addressed themselves to the rabbi, talking to each other through him. But now Schwarz swung around and facing Reich directly, said, "You stopped for gas, didn't you?"
Reich also turned in his chair. "Yes, I stopped for gas. When I got into the car I noticed you had less than half a tank, so after we'd been driving for about an hour, I pulled into a station and told him to fill her up."
"But you didn't tell him to check the oil," said Schwarz. "No, and I didn't tell him to check the water in the radiator or in the battery or the pressure in the tires. I had a nervous, hysterical woman on the seat beside me who could hardly wait until he finished pumping the gas. Why did I have to check everything out? It was practically a new car. It wasn't a jalopy."
"And yet Sarah told Myra that she mentioned the oil to you."
"Sure, after we had driven on about five or ten miles. I asked her why should I, and she said you had on the way up and that you had put in a couple of quarts. So I said. Then certainly we don't need any, and that ended that. She dozed off and didn't wake up until we got stalled and she thought we were home."
"Well, I would say it's customary when taking a long trip to check oil and water every time you stop," insisted Schwarz.
"Just a minute, Mr. Schwarz," said the rabbi, "I am no mechanic, but I don't understand why a new car would need a couple of quarts of oil."
"Because there was a small leak in the seal, but it was nothing serious. I noticed a few drops of oil on the garage floor and spoke to Al Becker about it. He said he'd take care of it but that I could drive all right until I got around to bringing it in."
The rabbi looked at Reich to see if he had anything to say in reply, and then leaned back in his swivel chair and considered. Finally, he straightened up with a jerk of his shoulders. He patted the books on the desk. "These are two of the three volumes of the Talmud that deal with the general subject of what we would call torts. The subject is treated very fully. This first volume treats of the general causes of damages, and the section that concerns an ox that gores, for example, goes on for about forty pages. A general principle is evolved which the rabbis applied broadly to all kinds of cases. It is the basic distinction they made between tarn and muad, that is, between the docile ox and the ox that has already earned a reputation as a vicious beast by virtue of having gored on several occasions in the past The owner of the latter was felt to be far more responsible in the event of a goring than the former, since he already had had warning and should have taken special precautions." He glanced at Mr. Wasserman, who nodded in corroboration.
The rabbi got up from behind his desk and began to pace the floor. His tone took on the singsong quality traditional with Talmudists as he followed the thread of the argument.
"Now in this case, you knew your car leaked oil. And I suggest, that, at least while it was being driven, it leaked more than just a few drops, since you found it necessary to add two full quarts on the trip up. If Mr. Reich had been a borrower -and we come now to this volume which deals with the subject of borrowing as well as the law of agency-if Mr. Reich, for example, had said that he did not feel well and wanted to go home and had asked to borrow your car for the trip, it would have been his responsibility either to ask you if it were in good condition, or himself to check it. And if he failed to do so, even if the circumstances had been precisely the same as they were, then he would have been responsible and liable for the damage done. But we have already agreed that he was not a borrower but essentially your agent, and hence the responsibility was yours to inform him that the car leaked oil and to watch and see that it did not drop below the safe level."
"Just a minute, rabbi," said Schwarz. "I didn't have to warn him personally. The car has a built-in warning device- the oil light. When a man drives a car, he's supposed to watch his instruments, and if he had. the red light would have told him he was getting dangerously low."
The rabbi nodded. "That is a good point. Mr. Reich?"
"As a matter of fact, the light did go on," he said. "But when it did we were on the open road without a station in sight, and before I could find one we'd stalled."
"I see," said the rabbi.
"But according to the mechanic, he should have smelled something burning long before," Schwarz insisted.
"Not if his nose was stuffed up with a bad cold. And Mrs. Weinbaum, you remember, was asleep." The rabbi shook his head. "No, Mr. Schwarz, Mr. Reich did only what the average driver would have done under the existing road conditions. Therefore, he could not be considered negligent, and if not negligent, then not responsible."
The finality in his tone indicated that the hearing was over. Reich was the first to rise. "This has been a revelation to me, rabbi," he said in a low voice. The rabbi acknowledged his thanks.
Reich turned uncertainly to Schwarz, hoping he would make some gesture of reconciliation, but he remained seated, his eyes focused on the floor as he rubbed the palms of his hands together in vexation.
Reich waited an awkward moment, then said, "Well, I'll be going." At the door he paused. "I didn't see your car in the parking lot, Jacob. Can I give you a lift?"
"Yes, I walked," said Wasserman, "but I think I'd like a ride home."
"I'll wait downstairs."
Only when the door closed did Schwarz raise his head. It was obvious he was hurt. "I guess I had the wrong idea of what this hearing was supposed to do, rabbi. Or maybe you had the wrong idea. I told you, or I tried to tell you, that I wasn't planning to bring suit against Abe. After all, I could afford the repairs a lot better than he could. If he had come forward with an offer of some kind I would have refused it, but we would have remained friends. Instead, he was nasty to my wife, and a man has to back up his wife. I suppose she gave him the rough side of her tongue. And I can understand now why he reacted the way he did." "Well then-"
Schwarz shook his head. "You don't understand, rabbi. I was hoping that this hearing would effect some kind of compromise, that it would sort of bring us together. Instead, you cleared him completely, which means that I must have been entirely in the wrong. But I don't feel I was all wrong. After all, what did I do? A couple of friends of mine wanted to get home in a hurry and I lent them my car. Was that wrong? It seems to me that you were not acting as an impartial judge, but more like his lawyer. All your questions and your arguments were directed towards me. I don't have the legal training to see the flaw in your line of reasoning, but I'm sure that if I had counsel here to represent me, he would. In any case, I'm sure he would have been able to work out some sort of compromise."
"But we did even better than that," said the rabbi. "How do you mean? You cleared him of negligence and I'm going to be several hundred dollars out of pocket."
The rabbi smiled. "I'm afraid that you do not grasp the full significance of the evidence, Mr. Schwarz. True, Mr. Reich was cleared of all negligence, but that doesn't automatically make you culpable."
"I don't get it."
"Let us consider what we have here. You bought a car with a leaking seal. And when you noticed the damage, you notified the manufacturer through his representative, Mr. Becker. Now, it is true that the fault was a minor one and that neither Mr. Becker nor you had reason to believe it might become more serious in the immediate future. The likelihood that it might become aggravated by a long trip evidently did not occur to him, else he would have warned you against it, in which case I'm sure you would not have used that car to go up to New Hampshire. But the fact is that driving for a long distance at a high rate of speed did result in expanding the leak, which is why you had to put in a couple of quarts of oil on the way up. Now, under these circumstances, the manufacturer can only require of you that you use normal caution. I think you will agree that Mr. Reich did nothing any cautious driver would not have-"
"So it was really their fault, rabbi?" Schwarz's face showed animation and there was excitement in his voice. "Is that what you're saying?"
Mr. Wasserman smiled broadly.
"Precisely, Mr. Schwarz. It is my contention that it was the fault of the manufacturer and that he must make good under his warranty."
"Well gee, rabbi, that's swell. I'm sure Becker will come across. After all, it's no skin off his nose. Then that makes everything all right. Look, rabbi, if I said anything that-"
The rabbi cut him off. "Quite understandable under the circumstances, Mr. Schwarz."
Schwarz was for taking everyone out for a drink, but the rabbi excused himself. "If you don't mind, some other night perhaps. As I was leafing through those books, I came across a couple of points that interested me. Nothing to do with all this, but I'd like to check them over while they're fresh in my mind." He shook hands with the two men and took them to the door.
"Well, what do you think of the rabbi now?" Wasserman could not help asking on the way downstairs. "He's quite a guy," said Schwarz. "A gaon, Ben, a regular gaon."
"I don't know what a gaon is, Jacob, but if you say so, I'll take your word for it."
"And what about Abe?"
"Well, Jacob, between me and you, it was mostly Myra. You know how women are about losing a few bucks."
From the window of his study, the rabbi looked down at the parking lot below to see the three men talking in obvious reconciliation. He smiled and turned from the window. The books on his desk caught his eye. Adjusting the reading lamp, he sat down behind the desk and pulled the books toward him.
••• 2 •••
Elspeth Bleech lay on her back and watched the ceiling slowly tilt, first to one side and then the other. She clutched at the bedclothes as though afraid she might fall out of bed. The alarm clock had awakened her as usual, but as she sat up the vertigo struck and she let her head fall back on the pillow.
The sun slanting in through the slats of the Venetian blind gave promise of a perfect June day. She shut her eyes tight to blot out the moving walls and ceiling, but she could sense the sun in a sort of red haze, and at the same time she felt as though the bed were rocking sickeningly under her. Although the morning was cool, her forehead was wet with perspiration.
By an effort of will she sat up again, and then without bothering to put on her slippers fled to the tiny bathroom. After a while she felt better, and came back and sat on the edge of the bed and dried her face, wondering dully if she ought not lie down for another half-hour or so. As if in answer there came a pound on the door and the children, Angelina and Johnnie, shouted, "Elspeth, Elspeth, dress us. We want to go out."
We'll find a way to reconvene online soon via Second Life and Teamspeak.
SPOILER ALERT!
Watching the playtest videos and reading the story text will spoil the playtest scenario for you! If you are thinking of GMing a playtesting group, read on. But if you are thinking of playing in a playtest group, avert your eyes and ask your prospective GM to read it instead.
The Story So Far
Session 1, Vancouver
Our first session went very well indeed.
The players all awoke as naked, enslaved prisoners on a Rocket Rig
bound for who knows what kind of body bank organ harvesting center.
They escaped from the guards and armed themselves with some weapons
and donned the guards' armor in an attempt to confuse their captors.
Unfortunately for them, they were spotted on security cameras and an
alarm was raised. They fought a second group of guards, attempted to
hack the camera system but were locked out, and made it above deck to
find themselves trapped between dozens of guards coming after them and
a sniper shooting at them from the bridge.
They chose to charge the bridge but one of them stayed behind to
sacrifice himself nobly and save the rest. He rammed into the first
group of guards buck naked carrying a metal locker door sideways and
succeeded in clotheslining some of them so that they all tumbled down
the stairs together. They were about to execute him on the spot when
one of the guards ordered them to hand him over for restraining. Little
did they know that the guard was a smooth talking escapee wearing guard
armor who narrowly rescued the man from certain death.
The rest of the group succeeded in dodging sniper fire until all but
two made it to the door leading into the bridge. One of those still
behind was pinned down behind a corner when the other ran past him
without realizing that he was heading straight into the waiting
crosshairs of the sniper, who fired an explosive shell right through
his shoulder. Luckily, he was so gaunt that it went through soft tissue
cleanly and came out the back before it detonated in the shipping
container behind him. One of the men who had made it already ran back
and confused the sniper because he was wearing guard armor and acted
like he was apprehending the downed man with cuffs. This caused enough
hesitation for them to make it to the safety of the door, which one of
them had hacked open.
They scrambled up the stairs just as grenade launcher rounds launched
by the persuing guards began detonating in the stairwell, spraying the
group with shrapnel and causing a myrid of light injuries. The hacker
sealed the door shut for temporary cover from the grenadiers and the
team prepared to assault the bridge.
A sharp-eared team member overheard voices upstairs whispering to
each other about ambushing the intruders when they topped the stairs,
so he silently stopped everyone and gestured upstairs indicating for
everyone to expect fire. They had no real alternative but to storm the
bridge so they charged up all at once with those who had taken pistols
leading the way guns blazing. They took out the bridge crew but got
shot from behind by the sniper who was up a side stairwell. One of the
team members leapt upwards, grabbed hold of a ceiling pipe and fired a
perfect shot that hit the sniper square in the forehead, but his
military grade armor deflected it and he scrambled away upstairs. The
team pursued him and finished him off.
Then they realized how screwed they were: One of the crew had
triggered the emergency self destruct sequence. The rig was swerving
off of the superconcrete highway into the rocky open desert towards an
apocalyptic crash.
A team member grabbed the sniper's anti-material rifle and fired
explosive shells into the Rig's engine intakes, causing it to swerve
left and then right as the thrusters died, but it was too late and the
rig's momentum was already carrying it off the pavement and into a
high-speed one-way transformation from rig to wreckage!
Calling All 10th Rantiversary Afternow RPG Playtesters!
I'm very excited to be getting this project started!
If you were part of the 10th Rantiversary Afternow RPG playtesting session, reply here! We had a big playtest group and I can't remember exactly who was and wasn't playing.
If you remember details about your character or even better if you wrote them down, please post them here.
Please post:
Your Name or alias
Name of your character
Details of your character
Where you live (for time zone considerations)
If you want to continue the playtesting campaign and game development process, please join the following group I have created for us.
Right now I am in the process of posting from my notes and fleshing things out so things are still in an unfinished state there but we'll have a workable draft of the rules soon from which to begin a collaboration and resume the playtesting campaign.
We'll probably be playtesting via Second Life or Teamspeak or both depending on what works for everyone.
Thank you for participating and I look forward to seeing what we create together!
Tyler: "If you're not on your way to becoming a vet in 30 days, you will be dead."
—Fight Club
No sooner did I meet a young woman on the bus who was aspiring to become a veterinarian than I came across a new game called My Animal Centre, a veterinarian game for Nintendo Wii and DS.
I'm not the "target demographic" for a pink game about ponies, but I wouldn't let marketing demographics stop me from playing "boy games" if I were a girl and I would certainly give this a try if I had a Wii and was interested in veterinarian medicine.
I'm mostly interested in empowering games that teach real-world skills. Although many games in this emerging category like Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney are more akin to interactive TV drama than cramming aids for law school exams, they are still inspiring ways to have fun while learning about actually viable life paths. For some reason I think young gamers have a better shot at becoming veterinarians than Blood Elf Shamans, no matter how good their Guild connections might be.
ORLANDO, Florida -- The U.S. Army has scores of bases scattered all
across the world. Soon, it'll be occupying virtual territory in a bid
to win recruits.
"Over the next 30 to 45 days you might, if you’re one of them Second Life avatar dudes, that likes to go populate islands within Second Life, you will find an Army island in Second Life,"
Gen. William S. Wallace, the commander of the U.S. Army Training and
Doctrine Command (TRADOC), said during a presentation at the 26th Army
Science Conference.
The Army Second Life effort will actually consist of two
virtual islands. One of them, will serve as a "welcome center" with an
information kiosk and the means to contact a recruiter, the other will
offer, says Wallace, "virtual experiences like jumping out of
airplanes, and rappelling off of towers and using a weapon, to see if
we can get some kind of recruiting benefit out of this social
networking."
The Army will even offer virtual tchotchkes to woo recruits. After
the presentation, Wallace told me "if you perform well in the
activities you get points and those points can be used to buy virtual
T-shirts and baseball caps."
Wallace says he's a realist when it comes to social networking
technologies. He admits they've probably been "oversold," but won’t
write them off either. The recruiting possibilities are just too
alluring. He notes, " there's about 4 million young people that
routinely interface in Second Life. [That's] the age group of the young people who we're trying to encourage to join the military." —Nick Turse
Akoha is a really cool play it forward game where you get mission cards for doing nice things and pass them on to others creating an online network of people taking real-world actions. This interview has some really good points and is well worth reading.
Empowering games are a new category and Akoha is doing something almost exactly like Empowerment's mission, idea, skill and tool cards will do.
Here's an excerpt:
There has been some information regarding the “make
your own” card feature. How exactly will work? What sort of limitations
do users have, or will have?
Right
now we are collecting great ideas for missions from the community. In
some cases missions are great ideas, but don’t fit our pay-it-forward
game model. These include things you do by yourself (for example bike
to work) that don’t involve interacting with someone else. In addition
we are developing a few basic principles to ensure missions are
appropriate, safe and fit within the type of community we are building.
Many of the missions being approved are great examples of our
players’ creativity, and we are adding them to the Mission Headquarters
as soon as possible. Users will then be able to add them to their
mission inventory, print them at home, or play them online or via email
with their friends.
In the future, mission cards can be assembled into decks that can be
ordered on demand, or put into a community store available for purchase
by other players.
The Guys over at Gizmodo have gotten the chance to play with RIM's new blackberry phone which has been discovered to also run apple iPhone OS if you can get installed. head over to their site and read up on how the iphone has started to inspire the phone industry.
Rumors are spreading that Apple is working on a new system for manufacturing Macbook pro laptops by using solid blocks of metal and simply machining them to size.The rumor and photos were posted on Engadget.com
Since we heard those "Brick" rumors
the other day, the mill has been all but silent... until now. It's hard
to tell exactly what we're looking at here, but damned if this doesn't
look like some fancy new MacBook Pro carved out of a single piece of metal
(except for those sides, so, there goes that theory). We'll let you
make your own decisions after giving this the once over, but if this is
what Apple has in store for us, our curiosity is definitely piqued.
If the rumors are true then it brings up the question "could technology manufacturing labor jobs become nearly extinct in the near future via full automation?"
Well it seems they have caught the Anon "hacker" that was able to exploit the lost password system of yahoo mail to get into Sarah Palin's private email account in order to see what kind of conversations she was having and if any were illegal. It seems like he might serve a good amount of time in prison, the legitimacy of the charges should be discussed in the upcoming Newsgather after Newsreal in SecondLife!
Looks like functional clothing is going to become a fashion, lucky for us the sane won't start wearing patrol boots and wearing tactical belts anytime soon.
By Claudia Gaillard
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Tired of running out of batteries and
having to find a socket to charge your mobile phone or iPod? An
Argentine fashion designer may have the answer: a timeless jacket with
a built-in solar panel.
Julieta Gayoso's line of "intelligent" clothing acknowledges
technology's constant presence in the modern world and the annoyance
caused by dead batteries.
"Today, technology is more and more mobile. It has the freedom of
wireless connection, but when batteries run out you have to plug into
the grid. So this is a way to have mobile energy and, of course, it's
clean," Gayoso, 36, told Reuters Television earlier this week.
Enter Gayoso's innovative solar-panel jacket. A cable runs from the
panel to a battery in the inside pocket where up to eight electronic
devices can be recharged at the same time whenever there is sunshine.
That's not all Gayoso has come up with. Her Indarra.dtx
(http://www.indarradtx.com) clothing line includes pants and jackets
with wireless control devices that let users skip songs or pump up the
volume with their MP3 players stowed safely at the bottom of a backpack.
It may sound gimmicky, but her clothes are not futuristic catwalk
creations. They are deliberately classic in style -- utilitarian
garments built to be worn over time.
"We're focusing on products that are not seasonal, that can be used
during the winter, during the summer," she said. "It's a classic style.
The pants aren't too tight or baggy, but made so you want to wear them
for years."
Gayoso started the project in late 2006 and launched the first line of clothing earlier this year.
She is now working on a second collection and hopes to export next year.
Server spoke to me the other night and told me about a little known ally of the Wogs and Self Empowerment. They call themselves the Venus Project and seem to be working on designing self sustainable cities out in the ocean. Please read what they have to say about themselves and perhaps they could help us and we could help them as they seem to have certain things figured out that we havn't even looked at.
The Venus Project presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails
nothing less than the total redesign of our culture. There are many people
today who are concerned with the serious problems that face our modern
society: unemployment, violent crime, replacement of humans by technology,
over-population and a decline in the Earth's ecosystems. As you will see,
The Venus Project is dedicated to confronting all of these problems by
actively engaging in the research, development, and application of workable
solutions. Through the use of innovative approaches to social awareness,
educational incentives, and the consistent application of the best that
science and technology can offer directly to the social system, The Venus
Project offers a comprehensive plan for social reclamation in which human
beings, technology, and nature will be able to coexist in a long-term,
sustainable state of dynamic equilibrium.
The plans for the Venus Project offer society a broader spectrum of choices
based on the scientific possibilities inherent in current technology and
direct that knowledge toward a new era of peace and sustainability for
all cultures. Through the implementation of a resource-based economy,
and a multitude of innovative and environmentally friendly technologies
directly applied to the social system, The Venus Project proposals will
dramatically reduce crime, poverty, hunger, homelessness, and many other
pressing problems that are common throughout the world today.
One of the cornerstones of the organization's findings is the fact that
many of the dysfunctional behaviors of today's society stem directly from
the dehumanizing environment inherent in the existing monetary system.
Moreover, the currently utilized random implementation of automation and
other technologies have resulted in a fragmented, self-defeating trend
occurring throughout the manufacturing and high-tech sectors of today's
global economy--namely the technological replacement of human labor by
machines. The Venus Project proposes a social system in which automation
and technology would be intelligently applied and integrated into an overall
social design where the primary function would be to maximize the quality
of life rather than profits. This project also introduces a set of workable
and acceptable human values that are more appropriate and in balance with
our present state of technology.
The new Zeitgeist movie has been released, well worth watching. Educate yourself on how the economy works and more. Almost frightening how the world works now.
It has been passed by both houses and signed by the president. Every citizen of the USA is now the prowd owner of over $2000 worth of bad mortgages and "mortgage related assets"[1]. Thats over $4500 per job. On a more positive note, the mortgage crisis continues, with experts saying that within a year, 40% of all mortgage holders will owe more than their house is worth.
The transition from capitalism to socialism has historically been tried with two different methods. The comunists have dove in head first and for the most part failed. Many nations have tried getting their feet wet first and are now swimming around in the big kids section. America just dove head first into the kiddie pool.
My ass hurts already.
[1]In this case either mortgages that have been re-packaged based on how risky they are, and other junk bonds that are secured with the bad mortgages.
The researchers, led by Associate Professor Ana Maria Cuervo,
blocked the ageing process in mice livers by stopping the build-up of
harmful proteins inside the organ's cells.
As people age their cells become less efficient at getting rid of
damaged protein resulting in a build-up of toxic material that is
especially pronounced in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other
neurodegenerative disorders.
The researchers say the findings suggest that therapies for boosting
protein clearance might help stave off some of the declines in function
that accompanies old age.
In experiments, livers in genetically modified mice 22 to 26 months
old, the equivalent of octogenarians in human years, cleaned blood as
efficiently as those in animals a quarter their age.
By contrast, the livers of normal mice in a control group began to fail.
BEIJING, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Chinese regulators have told
domestic banks to stop interbank lending to U.S. financial
institutions to prevent possible losses during the financial
crisis, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.
The Hong Kong newspaper cited unidentified industry sources
as saying the instruction from the China Banking Regulatory
Commission (CBRC) applied to interbank lending of all currencies
to U.S. banks but not to banks from other countries.
"The decree appears to be Beijing's first attempt to erect
defences against the deepening U.S. financial meltdown after the
mainland's major lenders reported billions of U.S. dollars in
exposure to the credit crisis," the SCMP said.
"Our goal is to create a collaborative community of individuals, businesses, and non-profits. We feel that the content is the invitation into this community and we didn ’t want to make the invitation too expensive. We thought about what we like and respect, and we decided that what Radiohead did meshed with where our heads are at."
So... 120lbs of carbon fiber and Kerosine, 35km of water, 12 minutes, and a leap from an airplane at 2700 meters feet ... what could possibly go wrong?
I was researching myspace users with an interest in A. I. and
came across your profile.
I represent a new website developed through the Terasem
Movement Foundation called lifenaut. com which is a web-based
storage space for organizing and preserving critical
information about one's unique and essential
characteristics. The purpose in creating this ex-vivo
consciousness storage is to preserve one's individual
consciousness so that it remains viable for possible
uploading with consciousness software into a cellular
regenerated or bionanotechnological body by future medicine
and technology. This technology may develop within the next
20 to 30 years.
With Lifenaut. com you get 7 gigs of space to store images,
movies, sounds, documents, etc. There is absolutely no cost
to this and no obligation. Please feel free to check it out
and let us know what you think after trying it.
It's a 2004 news story but one you probably never heard of but should. In Indiana, many pizza delivery drivers are arming themselves like the Deliverators from Neal Stephenson's book Snow Crash.
"When they gave him the job, they gave him a gun. The deliverator never
deals in cash, but someone might come after him anyway—might want his
car, or his cargo. The gun is tiny, aero-styled, lightweight, the kind
of gun a fashion designer would carry; it fires teensy darts that fly at
five times the velocity of an SR-71 spy plane, and when you get done
using it, you have to plug it into the cigarette lighter, because it
runs on electricity.
The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger, or in fear. He pulled it
once in Gila Highlands. Some punks in Gila Highlands, a fancy burbclave,
wanted themselves a delivery, but they didn't want to pay for it.
Thought they would impress the Deliverator with a baseball bat. The
Deliverator took out his gun, centered its laser doohickey on that
poised Louisville Slugger, fired it. The recoil was immense, as though
the waepon had blown up in his hand. The middle third of the baseball
bat turned into a column of burning sawdust accelerating in all
directions like a bursting star. Punk ended up holding this bat handle
with a milky smoke pouring out the end. Stupid look on his face. Didn't
get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator..."
—Snow Crash
Owners of Ohio pizza-deliveries, which have posted
discriminatory signs banning concealed handgun license-holders, need to
read about how well-adjusted most of their peers in Indiana are when it
comes to self-defense.
July 16, 2004 Indianapolis StarWritten by Jeff Garvas, Sunday, 18 July 2004
Chains won't let workers carry guns, but local eateries say employees need protection from robbery hazards.
Personal protection has become just as much a part of the pizza delivery business as pepperoni and tomato sauce.
But even in a field that is among the nation's most dangerous, workers,
managers and safety experts remain divided on whether guns provide
additional protection against robberies and other forms of violence.
Many national chains bar drivers from carrying weapons, saying firearms
are too risky. Yet most local restaurants contacted by The Indianapolis
Star will not stop a worker from taking a gun along if the employee can
do so legally.
Driver Norman McCormick, who works for a Papa John's franchise on the
Southside of Indianapolis, does not carry a gun, but he realizes the
risks in his line of work.
"This job can be dangerous," said McCormick, "particularly if you work in an area that has high crime."
Studies underscore that the danger drivers face is real. The U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics ranks delivery work more lethal than the
roofing or construction trades, and safer only than careers in
aviation, fishing, logging and steel-working.
"My sense is it's getting worse," said Steve Coomes, editor of
PizzaMarketplace. com, an industry Web site. "The violence of the
crimes committed is increasing."
The hazards came to the forefront in Indianapolis this summer when
Pizza Hut driver Ronald B. Honeycutt shot a man who investigators say
tried to rob him.
Honeycutt was not charged in the Far-Eastside slaying, but he lost his job. Pizza Hut bars drivers from carrying guns.
That incident was one of at least 33 robbery attempts against pizza
delivery drivers in Marion County since January, according to figures
from the Indianapolis Police Department and Marion County Sheriff's
Department.
A check showed many nationwide firms, such as Pizza Hut and Domino's
Pizza, ban guns at work. Officials at Papa John's did not return calls
for comment.
A manager at a Northside Noble Roman's restaurant, Tessa Collins, said
her shop does let drivers carry guns as long as they follow all gun
laws.
Officials at the chain's Indianapolis headquarters were unavailable to comment on the company's policy.
No organization tracks how many pizza delivery drivers are armed, but
locally owned restaurants seemed more accepting of gun-carrying
drivers. Managers at several such shops reported no policies
prohibiting drivers from having concealed handguns.
At Piezanos Pizza on the Northwestside and at Aunt Polly's on the
Eastside, managers said drivers who possess legal permits would be
allowed to have their weapons on the job.
Aunt Polly's manager Scott Webb said three of his 10 or so delivery drivers carry handguns.
"If your guys have a gun permit, let them have it," said Robert Taylor, owner of Taylor Made Pizza in Downtown Indianapolis.
He sometimes makes deliveries and says he carries a gun, although he
has never had to use it. "A lot of times, that cell phone is more
important than a gun."
One industry expert said he believes the number of drivers with guns is relatively small, even when employers allow weapons.
"I would bet that the average is lower than for the general populace,"
said J.W. Callahan, head of the Association of Pizza Delivery Drivers.
"Many people obviously follow the rules at work. If the majority of
drivers didn't follow the rules, there would be more dead pizza driver
robbers."
George Ralph, Domino's national director of safety and security, said he doesn't believe carrying guns is the answer.
"Law enforcement will tell you that if a person is carrying a weapon,
there's more likelihood that that weapon will be taken away from them
and used against them," Ralph said. "There's a greater chance for a
violent act to occur."
Delivery work is getting more dangerous. U.S. Department of Labor
statistics showed an increase in deaths among pizza and other delivery
drivers, from 27 per 100,000 in 2000 to 38 per 100,000 in 2002, the
most recent year for which numbers are available. That includes laundry
route drivers, vending machine stockers and milk delivery drivers.
Many of the fatalities are from traffic crashes, but an increasing share -- almost a quarter -- are a result of crime.
"You're more likely to be robbed than doing anything else," said Callahan.
So far, the veteran pizza deliveryman has 600 members interested in forming a drivers union.
The fears about personal safety may be higher among pizza delivery
drivers than among other types of delivery workers. Indianapolis floral
drivers, for example, sometimes encounter trouble but say they have few
concerns.
"No risk at all," said Jack Hagan, who delivers for Andrews Florists' Downtown location. "There's nothing there."
Part of the difference is that flowers are usually delivered during the day, while most pizza is delivered at night.
Also, flower deliveries often go to such places as offices, hospitals
and funeral homes, while pizzas go to houses and apartments.
And those differences are among the reasons some local drivers believe they need guns to lessen the dangers of their jobs.
"We haven't had that much trouble, but everyone knows I allow my guys
to carry a gun," said Taylor. "Pizza Hut has trouble because they're
not allowed to carry guns -- that's why they get picked on."
Lok-Ek has announced a new kit system for people to purchase so that all they need is to get some shipping containers and they can build a house. They have also developed a larger housing system called the CHS system which is designed for large apartment style complexes consisting of many containers.
Fit Club is coming back. What is Fit Club, you ask? Well it all began with a fitness rant by SKTFM. Sean Kennedy is a strong believer in health and fitness as essential to survival. One particular strength training method he tried and liked in the past is called Max Contraction. I decided to try it.
I bought the Max Contraction books, studied them, recruited friends and started a strength training club using the methods. We began recording detailed numbers and noticing measurable results. We continued for a year until I moved to Indianapolis and cancelled my 24 Hour Fitness membership.
Now we are working to renew the Fit Club with the Indianapolis crew combining strength training, running and brazilian jiu jitsu.
The idea of fit club is to make exercise a fun social activity to look forward to. If you enjoy working out, you'll stick with it in the long run and achieve your fitness goals.
Fit club is fun. If you're already doing training or want to get started and want to start your own Fit Club, let us know and we'll all benefit by communicating with each other and sharing lessons learned.
This fall, SEE launches its
programming by offering one of Stanford
’s most popular sequences: the three-course Introduction to Computer
Science taken by the majority of Stanford’s undergraduates and seven
more advanced courses in artificial intelligence and electrical
engineering.
New evidence comes to light on recycling. Penn and Teller did a great show on it and have better resources then I can find
The fact is that it takes more energy and creates more pollution to recycle things than it does to place it in a landfill. Recycling paper creats more carbon than making new paper, landfills are more energy efficent now, and the only thing worth recycling is metal. Everything else, glass, paper (especially paper; recycling paper kills more trees than making new paper from tree farms does
Penn and teller: Bullshit! 29 April 2004
(Season 2, Episode 5)
Toronto has an ambitious plan to reduce waste to landfill by 70% by
2010. This means that consumption of one-time use containers will have
to decrease dramatically. As you can see in the above picture from the Star,
trash on city streets is made up of plastic bags, coffee cups, and fast
food containers. Just imagine what would happen to New York City’s
trash volume if Starbucks forced all their patrons to bring their own
cups!
According to the Toronto Star, the city is considering three options:
An outright ban.
A levy or tax on the items. (Charging extra would presumably influence consumers to use recyclable cups or containers.)
A deposit-return program similar to the provincial bottle return
program, whereby consumers get at least a portion of their money back
if they turn in the container, making the seller responsible for
recycling it.
Toronto’s ambitous plans are spurred by a landfill that’s nearing
capacity and the desire to avoid incineration, which can release toxic
gases and large amounts of global warming gases. But will their
initiative work?
Reducing waste to landfill through legislation
Let’s take a look at the three options presented by the Toronto government, as well as their possible pros and cons:
Ban: Considering that the ban would take place on
a business level, I think it would be very successful. All one would
need to do is pop into any coffee shop and see if they’re handing out
disposable cups, then slap a big fine on the company. Since this ban
eliminates consumer choice, there are actually very few points of
mediation between the government and potential offenders (limited to
business owners). However, jumping from no regulation to ban at
breakneck speed leaves little room for consumers or businesses to
change their habits, and will likely lead to ill will and resistance,
even amongst those who agree with the cause in principle.
Tax: I think taxes are the best solution here. No
one likes taxes, and they may not affect the type of person who goes
into a coffee shop for a $4 mocha latte, but that fact is that taxes
get things done. Would you bring your favorite coffee mug to get coffee
on the way to work if it meant saving a dollar a week? I would. And for
all those people who don’t want to conserve and would rather pay the
tax, that money can go to recycling or waste management programs to
otherwise deal with the problems caused by disposable food containers.
Deposit: Deposits sound nice in principle, but
when was the last time anyone ever turned in a can for deposit? There
is a program in my state, but I’m too lazy to do it, so I just put my
recycling out and expect nothing in return. Plus, because most of the
waste in question here is food waste, the return system would have to
be handled within the place of business, which would not only
inconvenience people grabbing food and leaving, but the businesses that
now have to collect and store trash in a new way, as well as issue
deposit refunds. I actually think this would be more burdensome than an
outright ban, and would eventually fail insofar as it would not affect
any real change.
How would you handle Toronto’s current trash problem?
The
spokesperson of the German Pirate Party saw his house raided after the
party published a leaked document which showed that the government uses
a homemade “trojan” to wiretap Skype conversations. In addition, a
server from another party member was seized.
The
Pirate Party is known for it’s battle against the ever increasing
government surveillance on the public. So, when an anonymous
whistleblower sent them a internal document which showed that the
government went as far as installing trojans on computers, they didn’t
hesitate to publish it.
German authorities weren’t too happy about the leak, which might be illegal according
to a criminal law specialist, and went after the source. Earlier this
week police searched the home of the Pirate Party spokesperson where
they hoped to find more information. In addition to the home search, a
server from another party member was seized. The server, however, was
fully encrypted, so chances are low that it will uncover the
whistleblower.
In a response, Andreas Popp, Chairman of the Bavarian Pirate Party
said: “A brave person leaks documents to the Pirate Party, to inform
the public about a procedure of the Bavarian Government, which is
highly likely to violate the constitution. Now this persons is hunted
like a criminal. Private rooms are raided, servers get seized.”
Pirate Parties around the world will continue to speak out against these, and other privacy threats. The trojan in question (German) was able to tap into Skype calls and intercept traffic to encrypted websites.
Here's a news story about how people are using online tools to log their lives in order to get perspective on how they're using their time and energy. Sun Tzu said if you know yourself and your enemy, you will prevail. This is a way to know yourself. And Empowerment is developing towards a kind of aspirational life logging in which people can plot their progress in the game of life as they gain new experience and capabilities and accomplish their goals only to set new ones.
When San Francisco couple Brynn Evans and Chris Messina
heard of a new Web site called BedPost, they registered an account
before the site was even out of beta. BedPost was created to
map users’ sex lives online — everything from partner to duration of
the encounter to descriptive words, which could later be viewed as a
tag cloud….After all, they already use project-management site Basecamp to chart the nonsexual parts of their relationship.
They use location tracker BrightKite.com to study where they’ve been.
They track their driving habits on MyMileMarker.com, their listening
habits on Last.fm, and their Web-surfing habits, to the minute, on
RescueTime.com.
“Brynn uses a service to track her menstruation,” says Messina
helpfully. (Two of them, in fact: MyMonthlyCycles.com and
Mon.thly.info). Some of these trackings are visible to other people,
but mostly the couple monitors the information just for themselves.
Before BedPost, they’d been using an Excel spreadsheet to
track each interlude since the beginning of their six-month
relationship, though they found the interface limiting. They
saw BedPost and thought, “Oh, look, this guy’s doing this, too, and
he’s actually making plots of it. Plotting was cool,” says Evans.
…
Messina and Evans prefer the term “data junkies,” spoken with the self-effacing self-awareness that comes from months of meticulous self-study.
Self-trackers like Messina and Evans could spend hours online, charting, analyzing, tracking. Life as a series of pure, distilled data points, up for interpretation.
It’s not about tracking what you do, they say. It’s about learning who you are.
…
In San Diego, statistics student David Horn already belongs to
BrightKite, Last.fm and Wakoopa.com, which tracks his Internet usage.
He’s also experimented with Fitday.com to map food intake and calorie
expenditure…Horn is working with his engineer girlfriend, Lisa
Brewster, to develop an all-encompassing life tracker, under the
working title of “I Did Stuff.”
“I’d like to track the people I talk to,” says Brewster, “and how
inspired I am six hours later. And definitely location history — where
I am, what time — ”
“Correlated with weather history,” interjects Horn. “And allergy data, pollen and mold in the air.”
Plus, “Web sites I read and their effect,” says Brewster.
…
These ideas are the types of heady possibilities that will be discussed by the members of a new group in San Francisco called Quantified Self.
Members plan to meet monthly to share with one another the tools and
sites they’ve found helpful on their individual paths to
self-digitization. Topics include, according to the group invite:
behavior monitoring, location tracking, digitizing body info and
non-invasive probes.
And on it goes.
What are they odds that we have readers in the Bay Area heading along to Quantified Self? Hit us back with a report if you go!
It's not interesting that Microsoft is building epic datacenters to compete with Google in the Great Datacenter Arms Race. It's interesting that they're building them out of sealed shipping containers full of servers. They run them till they fail then they send them back and replace them.
Microsoft's new data-centres are comprised of entire sealed shipping
containers that are slotted into racks and left to run until a critical
mass of their processor units have failed, then are swapped out.
Starting
with a Chicago-area facility due to open later this year, Microsoft
will use an approach in which servers arrive at the data center in a
sealed container, already networked together and ready to go. The
container itself is then hooked up to power, networking, and air
conditioning.
"The trucks back 'em in, rack 'em, and stack 'em," Chief Software
Architect Ray Ozzie told CNET News. And the containers remain sealed,
Ozzie said. Once a certain number of servers in the container have
failed, it will be pulled out and sent back to the manufacturer and a
new container loaded in.
There are Empowerment and Afternow role-playing game projects underway and the whole Empowerment project originally started as a D20-inspired activism RPG that went from realistic to real. Now that we're coming full-circle and doing RPGs again, the question is, what system should we use? Up until recently, I hadn't given it much thought, but as fate would have it, no sooner did I start looking than True20 found me.
I love the True20 system and I plan on using it as a starting point for future Empowerment role-playing game systems. It makes D20 simpler and more realistic in one clean sweep that clears away the cruft and sacred cows of 1970s roleplaying like hit points and rigid classes. I plan on making some optional modifications to make it even more realistic and calling those something like Real20.
At Gencon I met up with True20's Green Ronin Games designer Steve Kenson. I picked his brain about his inspirations for the
system and possibilities for adding a simulationist-level optional
combat system. Great guy, great company, great system. True20 is the
utopian Vault in which to survive the D&D 4pocalypse.
There will be many empowering game projects and many systems used, but this one works for me right now.
True20: D&D With a Twist
By John BaichtalJune 09, 2008 | 7:00:00 AMCategories: RPGs
For
a lot of gamers, Dungeons & Dragons serves as something of a
default game system. Certainly, it is by far the most popular, though
some would argue the system suffers in comparison to other RPGs. After
all, there are countless systems out there, some of them very different
than D&D. For instance, game designer Jonathan Tweet created Over
The Edge, a system with no skills or attributes, as well as Everway, a
game with no dice. Of course, fans of the White Wolf's World of
Darkness series of games prefer their system, and GURPS-players like
theirs.
However, in the end, D&D's ubiquity won out. Wisely, D&D
publisher Wizards of the Coast licensed out the game system, calling it
d20 and inviting small publishers to design products for it. The terms
of the agreement, called the Open Gaming License (OGL) even allows
publishers to tinker with the rules.
True20 started as a d20 variant designed for use in Blue Rose: The Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy.
In the True20 rulebook's introduction, developer Steve Kenson describes
the game this way: "The idea behind Blue Rose was to introduce new
players to fantasy roleplaying with an untapped genre and a simpler,
more self-contained system than is currently available under the Open
Gaming License."
True20
keeps the OGL rules but has simplified and consolidated them. Every
roll only involves a single 20-sided die. Attributes aren't absolute
numbers, like in D&D, but rather serve purely as modifiers to that
roll -- for instance, my Strength could be +2 while my Constitution -1.
Skills work as modifiers as well, maxing out at the character's current
level +3. Most of the rules will seem familiar with veteran d20
players, there are levels and feats, and the attributes are the same as
D&D. However, the rules' simplicity has put a unique spin on d20
that a lot of people like.
"The release of Blue Rose met with success," Kenson continued in his
intro, "and the True20 system found many fans even among those who
weren't interested in a Romantic Fantasy RPG." Eventually, True20
publisher Green Ronin decided to sell the standalone rules in PDF
format, and that PDF quickly became their #1 electronic product.
Meanwhile, they had released a print version of the rules complete with coverage of multiple genres (e.g., sci fi, etc.)
Not only does Green Ronin have numerous True20 products, the system
has become so successful, it has even spun off its own license to help
game designers create their own products using the rules. Here are a
couple of examples:
What if... magic had been discovered by the Romans of
the third century? What if the Chinese had developed their alchemy and
discovered immortality during the Han Dynasty? What if the
Scandinavians had Thor, Freya and Odin living amongst them, guiding
them?
Blood Throne, by Reality Deviants, a dark setting where a typical fantasy world has been utterly ravaged by demonic invaders:
For ten long years the people of Simarra have lived in
fear. For ten long years the people of this war torn world have hidden
themselves away from the evil which spreads across the land, the vile
Keza-Drak -- invaders from another world -- have come to Simarra
seeking nothing short than the total domination of this world. Their
forces, bolstered by the dreaded Sundaari, have spread across the face
of Simarra, bringing slavery and death to all who oppose them.
If you're interested in learning more about True20, check out the game's website, which has information and a number of free PDF downloads that can get your feet wet.
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MARCH
AIR RESERVE BASE, Calif. - The Air National Guardsmen who operate
Predator drones over Iraq via remote control, launching deadly missile
attacks from the safety of Southern California 7,000 miles away, are
suffering some of the same psychological stresses as their comrades on
the battlefield.
Working in air-conditioned trailers, Predator pilots observe the
field of battle through a bank of video screens and kill enemy fighters
with a few computer keystrokes. Then, after their shifts are over, they
get to drive home and sleep in their own beds.
But that whiplash transition is taking a toll on some of them
mentally, and so is the way the unmanned aircraft's cameras enable them
to see people getting killed in high-resolution detail, some officers
say.
In a fighter jet, "when you come in at 500-600 mph, drop a
500-pound bomb and then fly away, you don't see what happens," said
Col. Albert K. Aimar, who is commander of the 163rd Reconnaissance Wing
here and has a bachelor's degree in psychology. But when a Predator
fires a missile, "you watch it all the way to impact, and I mean it's
very vivid, it's right there and personal. So it does stay in people's
minds for a long time."
He said the stresses are "causing some family issues, some
relationship issues." He and other Predator officers would not
elaborate.
But the 163rd has called in a full-time chaplain and enlisted the
services of psychologists and psychiatrists to help ease the mental
strain on these remote-control warriors, Aimar said. Similarly,
chaplains have been brought in at Predator bases in Texas, Arizona and
Nevada.
In interviews with five of the dozens of pilots and sensor
operators at the various bases, none said they had been particularly
troubled by their mission, but they acknowledged it comes with unique
challenges, and sometimes makes for a strange existence.
"It's bizarre, I guess," said Lt. Col. Michael Lenahan, a Predator
pilot and operations director for the 196th Reconnaissance Squadron
here. "It is quite different, going from potentially shooting a
missile, then going to your kid's soccer game."
Among the stresses cited by the operators and their commanders: the
exhaustion that comes with the shift work of this 24-7 assignment; the
classified nature of the job that demands silence at the breakfast
table; and the images transmitted via video.
A Predator's cameras are powerful enough to allow an operator to
distinguish between a man and a woman, and between different weapons on
the ground. While the resolution is generally not high enough to make
out faces, it is sharp, commanders say.
Often, the military also directs Predators to linger over a target after an attack so that the damage can be assessed.
"You do stick around and see the aftermath of what you did, and
that does personalize the fight," said Col. Chris Chambliss, commander
of the active-duty 432nd Wing at Creech Air Force Base, Nev. "You have
a pretty good optical picture of the individuals on the ground. The
images can be pretty graphic, pretty vivid, and those are the things we
try to offset. We know that some folks have, in some cases, problems."
Chambliss said his experience flying F-16 fighter jets on bombing
runs in Iraq during the 1990s prepared him for his current job as a
Predator pilot. But Chambliss and several other wing leaders said they
were concerned about the sensor operators, who sit next to pilots in
the ground control station. Often, the sensor operators are on their
first assignment and just 18 or 19 years old, officers said.
While the pilot actually fires the missile, the sensor operator uses laser instruments to guide it all the way to its target.
On four or five occasions, sensor operators have sought out a
chaplain or supervisor after an attack, Chambliss said. He emphasized
that the number of such cases is very small compared to the number of
people involved in Predator operations.
Col. Rodney Horn, vice commander of the 147th Reconnaissance Wing
at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base near Houston, said his unit went
out of it way to impress upon sensor operators the sometimes lethal
nature of the job. "No one's walking into it blind," he said.
Master Sgt. Keith LeQuire, a 48-year-old sensor operator here, said
the 163rd asks prospective sensor operators whether they are prepared
for the deadly serious mission. "No one's been naive enough to come in
to interview but not know about that aspect of the job," he said.
Unlike Soldiers living together in the war zone, the Predator
operators do not have the close locker-room-style camaraderie that
allows buddies to talk about the day's events and blow off steam. But
many Predator operators at Creech employ a decompression ritual during
the long ride home, said Air Force Lt. Col. Robert P. Herz.
"They're putting a missile down somebody's chimney and taking out
bad guys, and the next thing they're taking their wife out to dinner,
their kids to school," said Herz, a Ph.D. who interviewed pilots and
sensor operators for a doctoral dissertation on human error in Predator
accidents.
"A lot of them have told me, `I'm glad I've got the hour drive.' It
gives them that whole amount of time to leave it behind," Herz said.
"They get in their bus or car and they go into a zone - they say, `For
the next hour I'm decompressing, I'm getting re-engaged into what it's
like to be a civilian.'"
Col. Gregg Davies, commander of the 214th Reconnaissance Group in
Tucson, Ariz., said he knows of no member of his team who has
experienced any trauma from launching a Predator attack.
Himself a Predator pilot, Davies said he has found the work
rewarding. The Arizona Air National Guard unit flies Predators in both
the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones. It has often provided protection
for American convoys, and its personnel have seen insurgents planting
roadside bombs.
"If we can have an effect there where we can take people out,
that's a real plus in terms of saving American lives," Davies said.
"Our folks look at it as they're in the fight, they're saving lives.
They don't feel too bad about that."
Until now, the effectiveness of the cloaking has been demonstrated only in thin, two-dimensional materials.
Now at a National Science Foundation lab at the University of
California, Berkeley, Jason Valentine, Jie Yao, Xiang Zhang and others
have create a multilayered, "fishnet structure" that "unambiguously
exhibits negative refractive index," they write.
"This straightforward and elegant demonstration enhances our ability
to mould and harness light at will," according to a statement from the
journal Nature.
Im a little late in mentioning it, but it seems that php version 5.3, which just had it's first alpha release on the first of this month, will finally fupport closures.
Closures are a vital language feature that allow programmers to treat functions and their enclosing context as variables. Many powerfull languages, such as lisp, perl, ruby, and c# have had them since the languages were created. Others like Java and C++ are having them added now. Php, though, will probably feel the change the most. At present, php's implimentation will be somewhat silly (like the rest of the language) and slightly gimpped, but it's better than using eval().
It has been a long, rough ride, but php finally sprouted it's first chest hair.
(Downloadable podcast audio file will be posted soon)
Welcome to Newsgather, the wog global meetup with the news we need to
become the media for our communication and collaboration. This is
episode 1, and it's still in alpha so bear with us and help us make it better.
Newsgather is a live podcast show recorded in Second Life after the show Newsreal with Sean Kennedy. Newsreal is the wog global sitrep with the news you need to stay alive and you can listen in at www.rantmedia.ca/newsreal.
Newsreal fans are already gathering in Second Life to listen to
Newsreal live, and now we're sticking around afterwards to do a
followup show. The Newsgather show begins when the Newsreal show ends.
We gather and use Second Life Podcasting to discuss news we care about and projects we are working on.
If you want to Attend in Second Life, NewsReal usually happens live on Thursdays
around 7PM Pacific and goes for about an hour. Newsgather starts after
the show ends and goes for about an hour as well.
How can you attend?
Visit our Second Life HQ (with Second Life download instructions).
How can you contribute news stories for discussion?
[14:09] mephyt Gothly: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/the-office-of-t.html
[14:13] mephyt Gothly: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/08/05/226329/nasa-to-test-plas...
[14:14] bigbrother Lord: nice
[14:14] phantasamagoria Merryman: next step warpspeed he he
[14:14] mephyt Gothly: close to it
[14:15] Yugosaki Coronet: now we just need to hijack it
[14:15] bigbrother Lord: gasoline?
[14:15] mephyt Gothly: http://www.yff365.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2162281%3ABlogPost%3A5863
[14:18] bigbrother Lord: why cant they leave the internet alone? seriously
[14:18] Yugosaki Coronet: because it is dangerous to them
[14:18] bigbrother Lord: oh yeah
[14:18] phantasamagoria Merryman is Offline
[14:18] Legion Rosenman: its about the only dangerous thing to them
[14:19] Yugosaki Coronet: well, guns are too
[14:19] Yugosaki Coronet: that's the b-plan
[14:19] bigbrother Lord: the rantnet
[14:19] Mindy Starek: oh yes.
[14:20] Mindy Starek: great title :)
[14:20] bigbrother Lord: I thought so
[14:21] mephyt Gothly: http://www.caboodle.hu/nc/news/news_archive/single_page/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=5487
[14:21] Drachen Ranger: so hijack a plane and conqour a tropical island?
[14:21] bigbrother Lord: MEPH
[14:21] Legion Rosenman: crash and conquer
[14:21] mephyt Gothly: ?
[14:21] Mindy Starek: ......:)
[14:21] Yugosaki Coronet: MICROPHONE
[14:21] bigbrother Lord: your mics on
[14:22] mephyt Gothly: fuck, off
[14:22] mephyt Gothly: all good now
[14:22] bigbrother Lord: oh lawdy we MAKE THC?
[14:22] bigbrother Lord: nice
[14:23] Yugosaki Coronet: great. people gonna start smoking their peeling skin
[14:23] bigbrother Lord: ehhhh I wouldnt go that far
[14:23] bigbrother Lord: Members Of Congress Demand An End To Federal Pot Possession Arrests. The Use Of Cannabis “Ought To Be None Of The Government's Business,” Lawmakers Say At Capitol Hill Press Conference
Hemp is useful
[14:23] bigbrother Lord: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7670
[14:25] Yugosaki Coronet: they would stop and be all to interested in the wife's shiny necklace
[14:25] bigbrother Lord: "dude, where did you get this necklace? It's...Shiney"
Artificial Eyeballs
[14:26] mephyt Gothly: http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn14477-artificial-eyeba...
[14:26] bigbrother Lord: love how the first thing was policing
[14:27] Yugosaki Coronet: this means that when they perfect eye to brain data transmission, you will be able to see like you had normal eyes
[14:27] Yugosaki Coronet: i.e. peripheral vision
[14:27] Venus Enoch is Online
[14:28] BSV Dreadlow: cyber eyes the blind or if you want better eyes
[14:28] mephyt Gothly: http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/21175/?a=f
[14:28] Venus Enoch is Offline
[14:30] bigbrother Lord: I can see people using this to say "your brains not wired right here look"
[14:30] mephyt Gothly: yep
[14:30] mephyt Gothly: could be a bad thing
[14:30] bigbrother Lord: I loved that movie
[14:31] Yugosaki Coronet: i got it from a litle movie store, they wouldn't sell it to me so i rented it "lost" it and paid them for it
[14:31] Yugosaki Coronet: then i magically 'found' it again
[14:31] bigbrother Lord: lol
[14:32] bigbrother Lord: I never liked that movie
[14:32] mephyt Gothly: btw, josie... check out equilibrium... ;)
[14:32] bigbrother Lord: smooth
[14:32] mephyt Gothly: fear and loathing too, maybe...
[14:33] mephyt Gothly: http://www.physorg.com/news137088634.html
[14:33] Yugosaki Coronet: we can't stop here, this is bat country
[14:33] bigbrother Lord: I got half way though the movie and turned it off
[14:35] bigbrother Lord: like the "suicide rant"?
[14:35] Yugosaki Coronet: along with the weapons segment of patrolling
[14:35] Yugosaki Coronet: minus the aliens stuff
[14:35] Mindy Starek: um hum ive ;istened to wayof the masters clips
[14:36] bigbrother Lord: got a link mindy?
[14:36] Mindy Starek: yep 1 sec
[14:36] bigbrother Lord: maybe cimm could
[14:37] mephyt Gothly: cimm could fit through the keyhole
[14:37] bigbrother Lord: lol
[14:37] Yugosaki Coronet: they lock you up i'll broadcast the next newsreal
[14:37] Yugosaki Coronet: a big "fuck you"
EU should share terrorism information with the US to pool drones and profiles into a combined force to tackle terrorism, organized crime and illegal immigration, forming armed interventionary world police force
Daily Hack: Binaural Beats that give you a mental drug-like effect, ambient sounds that affect your brain waves
[14:53] bigbrother Lord: http://www.i-doser.com/
[14:53] bigbrother Lord: there you go sean if you ever read the chat
[14:53] Drachen Ranger: I had a buddy who tried to work that sort of music into the music his band was putting out...he didn't get too far.
[14:53] Legion Rosenman: http://www.bwgen.com/
[14:53] bigbrother Lord: same idea I used when I made my music
[14:54] bigbrother Lord: OMG
[15:49] bigbrother Lord: they're all cracked and uploaded
[15:49] bigbrother Lord: Let me say this
[15:49] bigbrother Lord: as someone who has tried them
[15:49] bigbrother Lord: they do NOT work that well
[15:49] Mindy Starek: :)
[15:49] Legion Rosenman: is it the same thing as brainwave generator?
[15:49] Soy Source is Online
[15:49] bigbrother Lord: you're listening to STATIC
[15:49] bigbrother Lord: no
[15:49] bigbrother Lord: you have to be in a quiet room with headphones
[15:50] bigbrother Lord: also it sounds exactly like static
[15:50] bigbrother Lord: but I've messed with a lot of binural beats
[15:50] bigbrother Lord: and in my exteriments I havent found they work much
[15:50] bigbrother Lord: i'll find it
[15:52] Yugosaki Coronet: afk
[15:52] phantasamagoria Merryman is Offline
[15:52] bigbrother Lord: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4041686/I-doser_songs_in_mp3_format
[15:53] bigbrother Lord: Hate to say it but mp3 is a lossy format so any 'sharpness' to the really LOW beats are lost
Gathered Stories
HD DVDs with a chat room for any given fanbase
what is acceptable use of the chatroom?
Joe Arpaio's Tent City Prison Camps
Project Updates
What We're Up To at Empowerment HQ
Gen Con
Lor is coming Saturday
BSV will stay at Empowerment HQ starting Thursday night
Outro
Thank you for listening to this pilot episode of Newsgather. Just by
listening, you are fighting back against mainstream mind-control media,
but you can do more than just listen! Come join us.
Recent news of homeless debtors moving to tent cities and have left many wondering how long it will be before debtors get put into debtor prisons directly. Well it turns out that in Arizona they're celebrating the 15th anniversary of tent city prisons and plan to build more. All that's missing is another law to stiffen penalties for bankruptcy.
Amazing revelations have emerged concerning already existing government
plans to overhaul the way the internet functions in order to apply much
greater restrictions and control over the web.
Lawrence Lessig, a respected Law Professor from Stanford University
told an audience at this years Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in
Half Moon Bay, California, that “There’s going to be an i-9/11 event”
which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law
pertaining to the internet.
Lessig also revealed that he had learned, during a dinner with former
government Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, that there is already
in existence a cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act, an “i-Patriot Act”
if you will, and that the Justice Department is waiting for a cyber
terrorism event in order to implement its provisions.
During a group panel segment titled “2018: Life on the Net”, Lessig stated:
There’s going to be an i-9/11 event. Which doesn’t necessarily mean an
Al Qaeda attack, it means an event where the instability or the
insecurity of the internet becomes manifest during a malicious event
which then inspires the government into a response. You’ve got to
remember that after 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within
20 days and it was passed.
The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice
Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly,
and of course the answer was that it has been sitting in the drawers of
the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event
where they would pull it out.
Of course, the Patriot Act is filled with all sorts of insanity about
changing the way civil rights are protected, or not protected in this
instance. So I was having dinner with Richard Clarke and I asked him if
there is an equivalent, is there an i-Patriot Act just sitting waiting
for some substantial event as an excuse to radically change the way the
internet works. He said “of course there is”.
Watch Lessig reveal the details at 4.30 into the following video:
Lessig is the founder of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet
and Society. He is founding board member of Creative Commons and is a
board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and of the Software
Freedom Law Center. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal
restrictions on copyright, trademark and radio frequency spectrum,
particularly in technology applications.
These are clearly not the ravings of some paranoid cyber geek.
The Patriot Act, as well as its lesser known follow up the Domestic
Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as USA Patriot Act II, have
been universally decried by civil libertarians and Constitutional
scholars from across the political spectrum. They have stripped back
basic rights and handed what have been described by even the most
moderate critics as “dictatorial control” over to the president and the
federal government.
Many believed that the legislation was a response to the attacks of
9/11, but the reality was that the Patriot Act was prepared way in
advance of 9/11 and it sat dormant, awaiting an event to justify its
implementation.
In the days after the attacks it was passed in the House by a majority
of 357 to 66. It passed the Senate by 98 to 1. Congressman Ron Paul
(R-Tex) told the Washington Times that no member of Congress was even
allowed to read the legislation.
Now we discover that exactly the same freedom restricting legislation has already been prepared for the cyber world.
An i-9/11, as described by Lawrence Lessig, would provide the perfect
pretext to implement such restrictions in one swift motion, as well as
provide the justification for relegating and eliminating specific
content and information on the web.
Such an event could come in the form of a major viral attack, the
hacking of a major city’s security or transport systems, or some other
vital systems, or a combination of all of these things. Considering the
amount of unanswered questions regarding 9/11 and all the indications
that it was a covert false flag operation, it isn’t hard to imagine
such an event being played out in the cyber world.
However, regardless of any i-9/11 or i-Patriot Act, there is already a
coordinated effort to stem the reach and influence of the internet.
We have tirelessly warned of this general movement to restrict, censor,
control and eventually completely shut down the internet as we know it,
thereby killing the last real vestige of free speech in the world today
and eliminating the greatest communication and information tool ever
conceived.
Our governments have reams of legislation penned to put clamps on the web as we know it. Legislation such as the PRO-IP Act of 2007: H.R. 4279, that would create an IP czar at the Department of Justice and the Intellectual Property Enforcement Act of 2007: S. 522, which would create an entire ‘Intellectual Property Enforcement Network’. These are just two examples.
In addition, we have already seen how the major corporate websites and social networks are decentralizing and coming together
to implement overarching identification, verification and access
systems that have been described by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as
“the beginning of a movement and the beginning of an industry.”
Some of these major tech companies have already joined efforts in
projects such as the Information Card Foundation, which has proposed
the creation of a system of internet ID cards that will be required for
internet access. Of course, such a system would give those involved the
ability to track and control user activity much more effectively. This
is just one example.
In addition, as we reported yesterday, major transportation hubs like
St. Pancras International, as well as libraries, big businesses,
hospitals and other public outlets that offer wi-fi Internet, are
blacklisting alternative news websites and making them completely
inaccessible to their users.
These precedents are merely the first indication of what is planned for
the Internet over the next 5-10 years, with the traditional web
becoming little more than a vast spy database that catalogues people’s
every activity and bombards them with commercials, while those who
comply with centralized control and regulation of content will be free
to enjoy the new super-fast Internet 2.
We must speak out about this rampant move to implement strict control
mechanisms on the web NOW before it is too late, before the spine of
the free internet is broken and its body essentially becomes paralyzed
beyond repair.
Welcome to Newsgather, the wog global meetup with the news we need to become the media for our communication and collaboration. This is episode 0, and it's an alpha test so it would be amazing if everything worked smoothly. It hasn't been done before, and that's why it's going to work.
Newsgather is a live podcast show recorded in Second Life before and after Newsreal with Sean Kennedy. Newsreal is the wog global sitrep with the news you need to stay alive and you can listen in at www.rantmedia.ca/newsreal. Newsreal fans are already gathering in Second Life to listen to Newsreal live, and now we're sticking around afterwards to do a followup show. The Newsgather show begins when the Newsreal show ends. We gather and use Second Life Podcasting to discuss news we care about and projects we are working on.
If you want to Attend in Second Life, NewsReal usually happens live on Thursdays
around 7PM Pacific and goes for about an hour. Newsgather starts after
the show ends and goes for about an hour as well.
How can you attend?
Visit our Second Life HQ (with Second Life download instructions).
How can you contribute news stories for discussion?
SAMAS news: Kiwi Ducted Fan Jet Pack, 30 minutes of flight
Thank you for listening to this pilot episode of Newsgather. Just by listening, you are fighting back against mainstream mind-control media, but you can do more than just listen! Come join us.
Several Wal-Mart employees have reported that they were pressured by
their employer to withdraw their support for the democratic party in
the upcoming election. Most people who believe in democracy would find
this highly inappropriate. Wal-Mart spokesman Dave Tovar feels
differently. Tovar explained to the AP that “We regularly educate our
associates on issues which impact our company, and this is an example
of that.”
With all this new solar tech, it bears asking the question: What is the footprint of solar? What kind of waste does it generate? Dig up what you can find and post it here as comments.
Two research teams have independently developed methods to produce
nanowires that could lead to a dramatic improvement in solar
photovoltaic cell efficiency. In both cases, the basic concept is the
same, to use nanowires for more efficient conduction of electrons from
the collection surface of a solar cell to an electrode.
The first technique, developed by researchers at UC San Diego,
creates ‘hairy’ solar cells, only visible at a microscopic level. In
fact, the hairs are nanowires, tiny metallic or silicon structures used
to complete very small circuits. Researchers were able to grow
nanowires directly onto a cheap conductive surface made of indium tin
oxide. Nanowires were then coated with an organic polymer.
The second team, a consortium between three German universities
(Jena, Gottingen and Bremen) and Harvard, has developed a technique to
bond nanowires with spun glass. The approach is based on a kind of
high-tech ‘sandwich,’ whereby nanowires are placed between a highly
conductive bottom layer and a metallic top one, with spun-on glass
forming a ‘spacer layer’ to prevent the circuit from shorting. This
means that current can run smoothly along the nanowires and could lead
to a completely new class of efficient integrated circuits.
There are still a few teething problems with the San Diego approach,
the chief one being that the polymer layer currently degrades when
exposed to air. However, if either approach can be made to work on a
commercial scale, it could lead to smaller, cheaper and easier to
install panels. Perhaps we’ve just moved one small step closer to a
solar future.
Parking lots, like landfills, aren't ecogeek's favourite places in
the world. But because neither the car nor garbage is disappearing any
time soon, it's good to know that technology is making parking lots a
little more green.
The Envision Solar Grove
is a customized photovoltaic-integrated parking lot solar system. Think
of it as a grove of solar panels shading the lot. And instead of
creating leaves and nuts and stuff...it creates electricity.
Each of the "Solar Trees", a term the San Diego-based company has
trademarked, is 10 feet tall at the low end and 13 feet tall at the
high end. At the site for Kyocera Solar, the canopy comprises 64 solar
modules, approximately 30' by 40' and tilted at five degree angles.
The canopy can be situated in any direction and unlike a traditional
carport structure, each canopy can tilt towards the sun in order to
maximum the energy production and economic value. Every Solar Tree
provides shaded parking for six vehicles which could also lead to
reduced air conditioning use. “Now is the time to get serious about
solar power,” says Robert Noble, CEO of Envision. “We've all heard
about global warming and we know it's a reality.”
As other fuels become increasingly expensive, Mr. Noble said it is
increasingly economical to produce energy from the sun. The Solar Grove
reduces light pollution by trapping light underneath the canopy while
simultaneously lighting the parking lot. Cleaning is also a snap
because the Solar Trees can be washed down if they accumulate dust.
In addition, the tilted canopies can route rainwater into bio-swales
porous, organic material that filters pollutants from park lot run-off.
The energy savings would eventually work out. The Solar Grove parking
lot can pay for itself in as little as five years, the company
estimates. But that sounds a bit optimistic to us.
The US military is looking to cut back on two things in Iraq:
fuel consumption and trash. So they’re finally getting on board with
alternative fuel sources, using the trash they don’t want to get the
fuel for electricity they need.
In March, we let you know that trash-to-fuel generators were getting shipped to Iraq. Well, they've arrived and are being tested.
If you’ve ever worked for the military, you know they don’t speak
English, but Acronymish. So, the generator is called TGER (“tiger”) and
the acronym stands for Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery. The
prototype, which uses a variety of technologies to run an electrical
generator, will be tested until August. If it works, more are on the
way to smaller camps and possibly to disaster relief sites.
Right now, the military burns the trash in incinerators, emitting
icky emissions and eating up a lot of fuel, time, and human power since
it takes quite a few people to run one. Also, cutting down on the use
of diesel fuel is especially important since the trucks that haul the
fuel are basically moving targets sure to make huge bangs. Decreasing
casualties is a priority, and what better reason to get on to using
waste as fuel?
The prototype accepts trash in a chute at one end, and the wet and
dry wastes are separated. The dry trash is crushed, pelletized, and fed
into a gasifier where the pellets are heated until they’re turned into
synthetic gas, which then fuels the generator. The wet waste is
converted with the use to enzymes into hydrous ethanol, which is then
blended with synthetic gas to boost the generator’s output to 55 kw.
There are hopes to improve the technology so that literally all trash
goes in one end, and electricity comes out the other – kinda the goal
we all have for waste-free living. And the improvements are needed,
since start-up time is a full 6 hours, and takes up about 1 gallon of
diesel fuel an hour. But once started, it is reported that it runs at
90% efficiency. I’m a little incredulous about that, but we’ll see what
folks say at the end of August.
With folks like BlueFire
and others already working on this, it seems like highly efficient,
easy to use trash-to-electricity technology is on the cusp of being
large scale reality.
RawSolar is emerging just at the right moment in the solar industry. While public projects are on hold,
smaller systems for private lands can get some room on the solar
industry playground. Incubated at MIT, RawSolar has a
solar-concentrating dish prototype that looks promising, and they’re
starting in on their business plan in (relatively) sunny Berkeley, CA.
Back in May we covered how the dish works, and it’s great to see the team making some progress on the business end of the project. While they aren’t the only low-cost solar concentrating system
in the works, they’re taking a unique angle on its use. Rather than
producing electricity, RawSolar is focusing on selling steam power that
can heat buildings or be applied to manufacturing processes. The dish
has a 12-foot-long tube rising from the center that has water running
through it and, when pointed at the sun, can turn that water in to
steam immediately. RawSolar hopes to covert companies using thermal
power to steam power, utilizing power purchase agreements that are
cheaper than what the companies spend on natural gas for thermal power.
Concentrated solar is getting a lot of eyes turned its way because
it is generally space-efficient and cost-efficient. Because RawSolar’s
dish can be easily constructed from inexpensive and easily obtained
materials, with minimal labor and technical knowledge involved, it
promises to be one of the most practical and cost-efficient
solar-concentrating systems. David Pelly, MIT Sloan School of
Management lecturer, stated that this is the cheapest set-up he’s seen
to a solar energy system, and notes that the fact that it is made of
inexpensive materials available anywhere in the world makes global use
of the product possible. It’ll be exciting to see where the team takes
this venture.
The bay area is attractive to RawSolar because there are fewer solar companies there than in other areas of California, and, of course, the area is ripe with engineering talent. Plus, close proximity to San Jose may prove to be lucrative.
The company is looking for funding and is hoping to have its first
pilot program up and running with a customer by year’s end. Bummer
they’re a little late to capture the long summer sun…
In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a
marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT
researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power:
storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.
Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source,
because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively
expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT
researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient
process for storing solar energy.
Requiring nothing but
abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the
most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the
nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera,
the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a
paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power
has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think
about solar power as unlimited and soon."
Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab,
have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's
energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later,
the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating
carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day
or night.
The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is
a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst
produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt
metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity
-- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source
-- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin
film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.
Combined with
another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from
water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that
occurs during photosynthesis.
The new catalyst works at room
temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said.
"That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement,"
he said.
House Resolution 5843, titled the Personal Use of Marijuana by
Responsible Adults Act of 2008, would express support for "a very small
number of individuals" suffering from chronic pain or illness to smoke
marijuana with impunity.
According to NORML, marijuana can be
used to treat a range of illnesses, including glaucoma, asthma,
multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS and seizures.
Frank, who is
chairman of the Financial Services Committee, said that about a dozen
states have approved some degree of medical marijuana use and that the
federal government should stop devoting resources to arresting people
who are complying with their states' laws.
In a shot at Republicans, Frank said it was strange that those who support limited government want to criminalize marijuana.
Asked whether the resolution's passage would change his personal
behavior, Frank quipped, "I do obey every law I vote for" but quickly
said he did not use marijuana, nor does he encourage it.
"I
smoke cigars. I don't think other people should do that. If young
people ask me, I would advise them not to do it," he said.
If HR 5843 were passed, the House
would support marijuana smokers possessing up to 100 grams -- about 3½
ounces -- of cannabis without being arrested. It would also give its
blessing to the "nonprofit transfer" of up to an ounce of marijuana.
The resolution would not address laws forbidding growing, importing or
exporting marijuana, or selling it for profit. The resolution also
would not speak to state laws regarding marijuana use.
Facebook will be releasing a Cocoa framework for the iPhone that will integrate with Facebook Connect, according to a TechCrunch report.
The
framework is expected to be released sometime in the fall, and will
take the form of an SDK that can be used by developers of iPhone applications. Facebook Connect allows applications to integrate the facebook platform and the identity of users into their own applications.
thejournal.com —Based
on research conducted by the University of Central Florida (UCF),
immersive educational video games can improve students' math skills and
comprehension and raise scores on district-wide benchmark exams.
<!--start-->
Indianapolis will become a "mock battlefield" for the
next three weeks according to local press, as over two thousand
marines will stage a huge urban warfare training exercise in and
around the city.
About 2,300 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary
Unit, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., will conduct urban warfare
training from Wednesday through June 19 in and around Indianapolis,
reports the Indy
Star.
The marines have been granted permission by state,
federal and local authorities to fire weapons, conduct patrols,
run vehicle checkpoints, react to ambushes and employ nonlethal
weapons after landing helicopters and deploying throughout various
parks, stadiums and fairgrounds.
“We don’t want anyone thinking that
there’s an invasion happening or that we declared martial
law or something like that,” Debbi Fletcher of the Indianapolis/Marion
County Emergency Management Agency commented.
“Our aim in Indianapolis is to expose our
Marines to realistic scenarios and stresses posed by operating
in an actual urban community, thereby increasing their proficiency
in built-up areas,” Col. Mark J. Desens, commander of the
26th MEU, said in a statement. “While some of the activity
will take place around Camp Atterbury, residents in many areas
can expect to see helicopters flying overhead, military vehicles
on the roads and Marines patrolling on foot,” Desens said.
Indianapolis is seemingly welcoming the marines with open arms,
in stark contrast to the last story of this nature we
reported on in Toledo, Ohio where Mayor Carty Finkbeiner
expelled the members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines
back in February because he did not think it a good idea to have
uniformed soldiers drilling in a highly visible area as it may
have disrupted and frightened residents.
The Mayor was subsequently castigated by the mainstream media
for taking the decision.
In response to the criticism and even small protests in Toledo,
Finkbeiner said “Anybody who suggests that this man is in
some way, shape, or form not loyal to this country or not loyal
to the military of this country, well that person is just a plain
baboon who doesn’t know me in any way, shape, or form and
what I stand for,”
It is a well documented that the use of military for law enforcement
violates
the Posse Comitatus Act. The increased spate of urban
warfare drills has many fearing that this long standing law is
slowly being eroded and everyday Americans becoming acclimatized
to the idea of an active military in their towns and cities.
The military has purpose
built facilities for training, it is unacceptable
and unlawful to have troops training on the streets of towns and
cities in America. Nevertheless, the media routinely castigates
the idea of preventing it from occurring.
Reporting on this saga, Jim
Kouri of NewsWithViews.com interviewed former and
current police chiefs who believe the motive for training US troops
inside American cities is more sinister:
“The police power has traditionally been reserved for the
states. The fact that we’re allowing military troops to
train in US cities is a violation of that tradition. We don’t
need federal troops to intervene in matters that should be handled
by local police officers, state troopers and the National Guard,”
one former detective states.
“The increasing use of Urban Warfare Training Exercises,
I believe, desensitizes both the public to the deployment of military
forces in their own neighborhoods,” warns a police chief,
whose mayor endorses the use of military forces within the US.
“It also desensitizes military and police personnel so
that they will accept what was once considered unacceptable,”
another police chief comments.
We have previously documented the coordinated program of urban
warfare drilling in America and how such activity has increased
in tandem with an growing effort to erode the ancient law of Posse
Comitatus.
In 911: The Road
to Tyranny Alex Jones presents footage of troops training
to put Americans into Concentration Camps. This footage includes
interrogations and a retired Marine admitting that in 1988 he
was kicking down doors in Norfolk, Virginia. The Marines would
be ordered to the local Police station where they would don Police
uniforms. They would then go to the local gun shop or dealers
home and "Take Them Down."
<!--end-->
<!--start-->
In Alex Jones' feature Police
State 2000he covers Operation
Urban Warrior where actors posed as American citizens
who were Unconstitutionally seized from their homes by the military
and police. These Americans: were rounded up and confined behind
barbed-wire.
The actors were told to demand to be let free and state that
they had rights. They were also told to demand food and water.
The troops in turn were taught to ignore them and to order them
to behave in an orderly fashion. "Civil disobedience will
not be tolerated" was one of the many disturbing statements
heard to emanate from the military's loud speakers.
Over the years there have been countless drills of this nature.
The media simply reports them as training for dealing with foreign
enemies, yet the volunteers and the participants are always told
differently.
<!--end-->
<!--start-->
In 2005 details of just one of many Military operations on American
soil was exposed in the run up to Bush's second coronation. A
secret counterterrorism program code-named Power
Geyser. A small group of super-secret commandos were hidden
among 13000 police and troops and "stood ready with state-of-the-art
weaponry to swing into action.".
There have been literally thousands of these kind of operations
in the planning and going on for years now. Many designed to use
the military on the streets of American cities in direct violation
of Posse Comitatus. The Pentagon has a full Command in operation
working on these activities, the
Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
We have seen how new provisions will effectively
nullify the U.S. constitution, and a recent spate of executive
orders, in particular PDD 51, outline preparations
for the implementation of open martial law in the
event of a declared national emergency.
That this is even being considered is a sign of how far we have fallen. First republicans shit all over the constitution, the electoral college, and common law. Now we are actually considering using recorded consations between the acused and his attorneys...
For instance, on a Nov. 11, 2006, call between attorney Maria Baier
and Renzi, Baier says "just for the record" she should remind whoever
is listening that the call is privileged. "You're my counsel," Renzi
said.
In a call three days later, Renzi begins the call by saying, "If anybody's listening, this is privileged, by the way."
By any rational interpretation of the right to privileged speach, any prosecutors that even heard those conversations shouldn't be involved in the case.
How far are we willing to go to punish dirty politicians? It would be nice if instead of sinking to their dispicable level, we would just stop electing them in the first place.
Or should I just be glad that they at least bothered to get a warrant?
"One person in the group gets the motivation to quit, and it starts to cascade and ripple through the group," said Fowler.
Jill Palmer, 28, was a one-pack-a-day smoker until she checked into a
cessation program last year at the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
where she works. She took nicotine gum and worked with a counselor to
set a "quit date."
Several days after Palmer went smoke-free, her husband threw away his last pack.
"It was spurred by my timing. He didn't want to be a smoker anymore,"
said Palmer, who credits her nonsmoking co-workers with persuading her
to enroll in the cessation program.
The researchers also found,
by analyzing random samples of smoking clusters, that whole groups
became nonsmokers over time. People who remained smokers found
themselves moving to the fringes of their social circles.
Cigarette smoking kills about 400,000 people in the United States every
year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 45 million U.S. adults are smokers, though the prevalence has
fallen dramatically since the 1960s.
newsstory
posted by Agent Pugsly Mon, 2008-05-19 18:49
It first really dawned on me that American Concentration
Camps may exist during the hurricane. I saw the footage of the
national guard going door to door and taking guns from people, and
everyone without a home hustled into a large central location. and I
thought for the first time "Hey, these guys are trained to do exactly
this!". During the aftermath of the social and political dynamo that
the suffering of so many people created I noticed a trend in some of
the ways prosecution of law was being used, and it reaffirmed it a
bit. Now, after some research into FEMA and Operation : Endgame I feel
very confident that not only do american concentration camps exist, but
that it's common knowledge.
I assume we all already know about some of the things going on in american law that can legalize the resettlement of entire populations. I had no idea that "Resettlement of a Population" was a term that was still used in modern days to describe an operation for the populace of developed countries, but after reading some of the legislation that has come out in the last few years I've come to find many phrases from the Indian Erradication Project (that's my term) are actually still alive and well in the memesphere of american law.
A few orders and laws of intrest
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990
allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995
allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997
allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998
allows the government to seize all means of
transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind
and total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10999
allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000
allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001
allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002
designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003
allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004
allows the Housing and
Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with
public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new
locations for populations.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005
allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051
specifies the responsibility of the Office of
Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders
into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic
or financial crisis.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310
grants authority to the Department of Justice to
enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial
support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all
aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise
and assist the President.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049
assigns emergency preparedness function to
federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive
Orders issued over a fifteen year period.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921
allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency
to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production
and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the
flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national
emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared
by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. The
Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of
the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil Security
Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as a "new
frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from
assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage
and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from gaining
access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis."
FEMA's powers were consolidated by President Carter to incorporate
the...
National Security Act of 1947
allows for the strategic relocation of
industries, services, government and other essential economic
activities, and to rationalize the requirements for manpower, resources
and production facilities.
1950 Defense Production Act
gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy.
Act of August 29, 1916
authorizes the Secretary of the Army, in time of
war, to take possession of any transportation system for transporting
troops, material, or any other purpose related to the emergency.
International Emergency Economic Powers Act
enables the President to seize the property of a
foreign country or national. These powers were transferred to FEMA in a
sweeping consolidation in 1979.
====================
begin source dump
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990
allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995
allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997
allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998
allows the government to seize all means of
transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind
and total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10999
allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000
allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001
allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002
designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and
Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with
public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new
locations for populations.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005
allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051
specifies the responsibility of the Office of
Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders
into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic
or financial crisis.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310
grants authority to the Department of Justice to
enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial
support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all
aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise
and assist the President.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049
assigns emergency preparedness function to
federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive
Orders issued over a fifteen year period.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921
allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency
to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production
and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the
flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national
emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared
by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. The
Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of
the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil Security
Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as a "new
frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from
assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage
and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from gaining
access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis."
FEMA's powers were consolidated by President Carter to incorporate
the...
National Security Act of 1947
allows for the strategic relocation of
industries, services, government and other essential economic
activities, and to rationalize the requirements for manpower, resources
and production facilities.
1950 Defense Production Act
gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy.
Act of August 29, 1916
authorizes the Secretary of the Army, in time of
war, to take possession of any transportation system for transporting
troops, material, or any other purpose related to the emergency.
International Emergency Economic Powers Act
enables the President to seize the property of a
foreign country or national. These powers were transferred to FEMA in a
sweeping consolidation in 1979.
Where are these camps?
ALABAMA
Opelika - Military compound either in or very near town.
Aliceville - WWII German POW camp - capacity 15,000
Ft. McClellan (Anniston) - Opposite side of town from Army Depot;
Maxwell AFB (Montgomery) - Civilian prison camp established under
Operation Garden Plot, currently operating with support staff and small inmate population.
Talladega - Federal prison "satellite" camp.
ALASKA
Wilderness - East of Anchorage. No roads, Air & Railroad access only. Estimated capacity of 500,000
Elmendorf AFB - Northeast area of Anchorage - far end of base. Garden
Plot facility.
Eielson AFB - Southeast of Fairbanks. Operation Garden Plot facility.
Ft. Wainwright - East of Fairbanks
ARIZONA
Ft. Huachuca - 20 miles from Mexican border, 30 miles from Nogales Rex '84 facility.
Pinal County - on the Gila River - WWII Japanese detention camp. May be renovated.
Yuma County - Colorado River - Site of former Japanese detention camp
(near proving grounds). This site was completely removed in 1990
according to some reports.
Phoenix - Federal Prison Satellite Camp. Main federal facility expanded.
Florence - WWII prison camp NOW RENOVATED, OPERATIONAL with
staff & 400 prisoners, operational capacity of 3,500.
Wickenburg - Airport is ready for conversion; total capacity unknown.
Davis-Monthan AFB (Tucson) - Fully staffed and presently holding
prisoners!!
Sedona - site of possible UN base.
ARKANSAS
Ft. Chaffee (near Fort Smith, Arkansas) - Has new runway for aircraft,
new camp facility with cap of 40,000 prisoners
Pine Bluff Arsenal - This location also is the repository for B-Z nerve
agent, which causes sleepiness, dizziness, stupor; admitted use is for
civilian control.
Jerome - Chicot/Drew Counties - site of WWII Japanese camps
Rohwer - Descha County - site of WWII Japanese camps
Blythville AFB - Closed airbase now being used as camp. New wooden
barracks have been constructed at this location. Classic decorations -
guard towers, barbed wire, high fences.
Berryville - FEMA facility located east of Eureka Springs off Hwy. 62.
Omaha - Northeast of Berryville near Missouri state line, on Hwy 65
south of old wood processing plant. Possible crematory facility.
CALIFORNIA
Vandenburg AFB - Rex 84 facility,
located near Lompoc & Santa Maria. Internment facility is located
near the oceanside, close to Space Launch Complex #6, also called
"Slick Six". The launch site has had "a flawless failure record" and is
rarely used. Norton AFB - (closed base) now staffed with UN according
to some sources.
Tule Lake - area of "wildlife refuge", accessible by unpaved road, just
inside Modoc County.
Fort Ord - Closed in 1994, this facility is now an urban warfare
training center for US and foreign troops, and may have some "P.O.W. -
C.I." enclosures.
Twentynine Palms Marine Base - Birthplace of the infamous "Would you
shoot American citizens?" Quiz. New camps being built on "back 40".
Oakdale - Rex 84 camp capable of holding at least 20,000 people. 90 mi.
East of San Francisco.
Terminal Island - (Long Beach) located next to naval shipyards operated
by ChiCom shipping interests. Federal prison facility located here.
Possible deportation point.
Ft. Irwin - FEMA facility near Barstow. Base is designated inactive but
has staffed camp.
McClellan AFB - facility capable for 30,000 - 35,000
Sacramento - Army Depot - No specific information at this time.
Mather AFB - Road to facility is blocked off by cement barriers and a
stop sign. Sign states area is restricted; as of 1997 there were barbed
wire fences pointing inward, a row of stadium lights pointed toward an
empty field, etc. Black boxes on poles may have been cameras.
COLORADO
Trinidad - WWII German/Italian camp being renovated.
Granada - Prowers County - WWII Japanese internment camp
Ft. Carson - Along route 115 near Canon City
CONNECTICUT, DELAWARE
No data available.
FLORIDA
Avon Park - Air Force gunnery range,
Avon Park has an on-base "correctional facility" which was a former
WWII detention camp.
Camp Krome - DoJ detention/interrogation center, Rex 84 facility
Eglin AFB - This base is over 30 miles long, from Pensacola to Hwy 331
in De Funiak Springs. High capacity facility, presently manned and
populated with some prisoners.
Pensacola - Federal Prison Camp
Everglades - It is believed that a facility may be carved out of the
wilds here.
GEORGIA
Ft. Benning - Located east of Columbus
near Alabama state line. Rex 84 site - Prisoners brought in via Lawson
Army airfield.
Ft. Mc Pherson - US Force Command - Multiple reports that this will be
the national headquarters and coordinating center for foreign/UN troop
movement and detainee collection.
Ft. Gordon - West of Augusta - No information at this time.
Unadilla - Dooly County - Manned, staffed FEMA prison on route 230, no
prisoners.
Oglethorpe - Macon County; facility is located five miles from
Montezuma, three miles from Oglethorpe. This FEMA prison has no staff
and no prisoners.
Morgan - Calhoun County, FEMA facility is fully manned & staffed -
no prisoners.
Camilla - Mitchell County, south of Albany. This FEMA facility is
located on Mt. Zion Rd approximately 5.7 miles south of Camilla.
Unmanned - no prisoners, no staff.
Hawkinsville - Wilcox County; Five miles east of town, fully manned and
staffed but no prisoners. Located on fire road 100/Upper River Road
Abbeville - South of Hawkinsville on US route 129; south of town off
route 280 near Ocmulgee River. FEMA facility is staffed but without
prisoners.
McRae - Telfair County - 1.5 miles west of McRae on Hwy 134 (8th St).
Facility is on Irwinton Avenue off 8th St., manned & staffed - no
prisoners.
Fort Gillem - South side of Atlanta - FEMA designated detention
facility.
Fort Stewart - Savannah area - FEMA designated detention facility
HAWAII
Halawa Heights area - Crematory
facility located in hills above city. Area is marked as a state
department of health laboratory.
Barbers Point NAS - There are several military areas that could be
equipped for detention / deportation. Honolulu - Detention transfer
facility at the Honolulu airport similar in construction to the one
in.Oklahoma (pentagon-shaped building where airplanes can taxi up to).
IDAHO
Minidoka/Jerome Counties - WWII Japanese-American internment facility
possibly under renovation.
Clearwater National Forest - Near Lolo Pass - Just miles from the
Montana state line near Moose Creek, this unmanned facility is reported
to have a nearby airfield.
Wilderness areas - Possible location. No data.
ILLINOIS
Marseilles - Located on the Illinois
River off Interstate 80 on Hwy 6. It is a relatively small facility
with a cap of 1400 prisoners. Though it is small it is designed like
prison facilities with barred windows, but the real smoking gun is the
presence of military vehicles. Being located on the Illinois River it
is possible that prisoners will be brought in by water as well as by
road and air. This facility is approximately 75 miles west of Chicago.
National Guard training area nearby.
Scott AFB - Barbed wire prisoner enclosure reported to exist just
off-base. More info needed, as another facility on-base is beieved to
exist.
Pekin - This Federal satellite prison camp is also on the Illinois
River, just south of Peoria. It supplements the federal penitentiary in
Marion, which is equipped to handle additional population outside on
the grounds.
Chanute AFB - Rantoul, near Champaign/Urbana - This closed base had
WWII - era barracks that were condemned and torn down, but the medical
facility was upgraded and additional fencing put up in the area. More
info needed.
Marion - Federal Penitentiary and satellite prison camp inside Crab
Orchard Nat'l Wildlife Refuge. Manned, staffed, populated fully.
Greenfield - Two federal correctional "satellite prison camps" serving
Marion - populated as above.
Shawnee National Forest - Pope County - This area has seen heavy
traffic of foreign military equipment and troops via Illinois Central
Railroad, which runs through the area. Suspected location is unknown,
but may be close to Vienna and Shawnee correctional centers, located 6
mi. west of Dixon Springs.
Savanna Army Depot - NW area of state on Mississippi River.
Lincoln, Sheridan, Menard, Pontiac, Galesburg - State prison facilities
equipped for major expansion and close or adjacent to highways &
railroad tracks.
Kankakee - Abandoned industrial area on west side of town (Rt.17 &
Main) designated as FEMA detention site. Equipped with water tower,
incinerator, a small train yard behind it and the rear of the facility
is surrounded by barbed wire facing inwards.
INDIANA
Indianapolis / Marion County - Amtrak
railcar repair facility (closed); controversial site of a major alleged
detention / processing center. Although some sources state that this
site is a "red herring", photographic and video evidence suggests
otherwise. This large facility contains large 3-4 inch gas mains to
large furnaces (crematoria??), helicopter landing pads, railheads for
prisoners, Red/Blue/Green zones for classifying/processing incoming
personnel, one-way turnstiles, barracks, towers, high fences with razor
wire, etc. Personnel with government clearance who are friendly to the
patriot movement took a guided tour of the facility to confirm this
site. This site is located next to a closed refrigeration plant
facility.
Ft. Benjamin Harrison - Located in the northeast part of Indianapolis,
this base has been decomissioned from "active" use but portions are
still ideally converted to hold detainees. Helicopter landing areas
still exist for prisoners to be brought in by air, land & rail.
Crown Point - Across street from county jail, former hospital. One wing
presently being used for county work-release program, 80% of facility
still unused. Possible FEMA detention center or holding facility. Camp
Atterbury - Facility is converted to hold prisoners and boasts two
active compounds presently configured for minumum security detainees.
Located just west of Interstate 65 near Edinburgh, south of
Indianapolis.
Terre Haute - Federal Correctional Institution, Satellite prison camp
and death facility. Equipped with crematoria reported to have a
capacity of 3,000 people a day. FEMA designated facility located here.
Fort Wayne - This city located in Northeast Indiana has a FEMA
designated detention facility, accessible by air, road and nearby rail.
Kingsbury - This "closed" military base is adjacent to a state fish
& wildlife preserve. Part of the base is converted to an industrial
park, but the southern portion of this property is still used. It is
bordered on the south by railroad, and is staffed with some
foreign-speaking UN troops. A local police officer who was hunting and
camping close to the base in the game preserve was accosted, roughed
up, and warned by the English-speaking unit commander to stay away from
the area. It was suggested to the officer that the welfare of his
family would depend on his "silence". Located just southeast of
LaPorte.
Jasper-Pulaski Wildlife Area - Youth Corrections farm located here.
Facility is "closed", but is still staffed and being "renovated". Total
capacity unknown.
Grissom AFB - This closed airbase still handles a lot of traffic, and
has a "state-owned" prison compound on the southern part of the
facility.
UNICOR
.
Jefferson Proving Grounds - Southern Indiana - This facility was an
active base with test firing occuring daily. Portions of the base have
been opened to create an industrial park, but other areas are still
highly restricted. A camp is believed to be located "downrange".
Facility is equipped with an airfield and has a nearby rail line.
Newport - Army Depot - VX nerve gas storage facility. Secret meetings
were held here in 1998 regarding the addition of the Kankakee River
watershed to the Heritage Rivers Initiative.
Hammond - large enclosure identified in FEMA-designated city.
IOWA
No data available.
KANSAS
Leavenworth - US Marshal's Fed Holding
Facility, US Penitentiary, Federal Prison Camp, McConnell Air Force
Base. Federal death penalty facility.
Concordia - WWII German POW camp used to exist at this location but
there is no facility there at this time.
Ft. Riley - Just north of Interstate 70, airport, near city of
Manhattan.
El Dorado - Federal prison converted into forced-labor camp, UNICOR
industries.
Topeka - 80 acres has been converted into a temporary holding camp.
KENTUCKY
Ashland - Federal prison camp in
Eastern Kentucky near the Ohio River.
Louisville - FEMA detention facility, located near restricted area US
naval ordnance plant. Military airfield located at facility, which is
on south side of city.
Lexington - FEMA detention facility, National Guard base with adjacent
airport facility.
Manchester - Federal prison camp located inside Dan Boone National
Forest.
Ft. Knox - Detention center, possibly located near Salt River, in
restricted area of base. Local patriots advise that black Special
Forces & UN gray helicopters are occasionally seen in area.
Land Between the Lakes - This area was declared a UN biosphere and is
an ideal geographic location for detention facilities. Area is an
isthmus extending out from Tennessee, between Lake Barkley on the east
and Kentucky Lake on the west. Just scant miles from Fort Campbell in
Tennessee.
LOUISIANA
Ft. Polk - This is a main base for UN troops & personnel, and a
training center for the disarmament of America. Livingston - WWII
German/Italian internment camp being renovated?; halfway between Baton
Rouge and Hammond, several miles north of Interstate 12.
Oakdale - Located on US route 165 about 50 miles south of Alexandria;
two federal detention centers just southeast of Fort Polk.
MAINE
Houlton - WWII German internment camp in Northern Maine, off US Route 1.
MARYLAND, and DC
Ft. Meade - Halfway between the District of Criminals and Baltimore. Data needed.
Ft. Detrick - Biological warfare center for the NWO, located in Frederick.
MASSACHUSETTS
Camp Edwards / Otis AFB - Cape
Cod - This "inactive" base is being converted to hold many New
Englander patriots. Capacity unknown.
Ft. Devens - Active detention facility. More data needed.
MICHIGAN
Camp Grayling - Michigan Nat'l Guard
base has several confirmed detention camps, classic setup with high
fences, razor wire, etc. Guard towers are very well-built, sturdy.
Multiple compounds within larger enclosures. Facility deep within
forest area.
Sawyer AFB - Upper Peninsula - south of Marquette - No data available.
Bay City - Classic enclosure with guard towers, high fence, and close
to shipping port on Saginaw Bay, which connects to Lake Huron. Could be
a deportation point to overseas via St. Lawrence Seaway.
Southwest - possibly Berrien County - FEMA detention center.
Lansing - FEMA detention facility.
MINNESOTA
Duluth - Federal prison camp facility.
Camp Ripley - new prison facility.
MISSISSIPPI
These sites are confirmed hoaxes.
Hancock County - NASA test site
De Soto National Forest. "These two supposed camps in Mississippi do
not exist. Members of the
Mississippi Militia have checked these out on more than one occasion
beginning back when they first appeared on the Internet and throughout
the Patriot Movement." - Commander D. Rayner, Mississippi Militia
MISSOURI
Richards-Gebaur AFB - located in
Grandview, near K.C.MO. A very large internment facility has been built
on this base, and all base personnel are restricted from coming near
it.
Ft. Leonard Wood - Situated in the middle of Mark Twain National Forest
in Pulaski County. This site has been known for some UN training, also
home to the US Army Urban Warfare Training school "Stem Village".
Warsaw - Unconfirmed report of a large concentration camp facility.
MONTANA
Malmstrom AFB - UN aircraft groups stationed here, and possibly a detention facility.
NEBRASKA
Scottsbluff - WWII German POW camp (renovated?).
Northwest, Northeast corners of state - FEMA detention facilities - more data needed.
South Central part of state - Many old WWII sites - some may be renovated.
NEVADA
Elko - Ten miles south of town.
Wells - Camp is located in the O'Niel basin area, 40 miles north of
Wells, past Thousand Springs, west off Hwy 93 for 25 miles. Pershing
County - Camp is located at I-80 mile marker 112, south side of the
highway, about a mile back on the county road and then just off the
road about 3/4mi.
Winnemucca - Battle Mountain area - at the base of the mountains.
Nellis Air Force Range - Northwest from Las Vegas on Route 95. Nellis
AFB is just north of Las Vegas on Hwy 604.
Stillwater Naval Air Station - east of Reno . No additional data.
NEW HAMPSHIRE / VERMONT
Northern New Hampshire - near Lake Francis. No additional data.
NEW JERSEY
Ft. Dix / McGuire AFB - Possible
deportation point for detainees. Lots of pictures taken of detention
compounds and posted on Internet, this camp is well-known. Facility is
now complete and ready for occupancy.
NEW MEXICO
Ft. Bliss - This base actually
straddles Texas state line. Just south of Alomogordo, Ft. Bliss has
thousands of acres for people who refuse to go with the "New Order".
Holloman AFB (Alomogordo)- Home of the German Luftwaffe in Amerika;
major UN base. New facility being built on this base, according to
recent visitors. Many former USAF buildings have been torn down by the
busy and rapidly growing German military force located here. Fort
Stanton - currently being used as a youth detention facility
approximately 35 miles north of Ruidoso, New Mexico. Not a great deal
of information concerning the Lordsburg location. White Sands Missile
Range - Currently being used as a storage facility for United Nations
vehicles and equipment. Observers have seen this material brought in on
the Whitesands rail spur in Oro Grande New Mexico about thirty miles
from the Texas, New Mexico Border.
NEW YORK
Ft. Drum - two compounds: Rex 84 detention camp and FEMA detention facility.
Albany - FEMA detention facility.
Otisville - Federal correctional facility, near Middletown.
Buffalo - FEMA detention facility.
NORTH CAROLINA
Camp Lejeune / New River Marine Airfield - facility has renovated,
occupied WWII detention compounds and "mock city" that closely
resembles Anytown, USA. Fort Bragg - Special Warfare Training Center.
Renovated WWII detention facility.
Andrews - Federal experiment in putting a small town under siege. Began
with the search/ hunt for survivalist Eric Rudolph. No persons were
allowed in or out of town without federal permission and travel through
town was highly restricted. Most residents compelled to stay in their
homes. Unregistered Baptist pastor from Indiana visiting Andrews
affirmed these facts.
NORTH DAKOTA
Minot AFB - Home of UN air group. More data needed on facility.
OHIO
Camp Perry - Site renovated; once used as
a POW camp to house German and Italian prisoners of WWII. Some tar
paper covered huts built for housing these prisoners are still
standing. Recently, the construction of multiple 200-man barracks have
replaced most of the huts.
Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus - FEMA detention facilities. Data
needed.
Lima - FEMA detention facility. Another facility located in/near old
stone quarry near Interstate 75. Railroad access to property, fences
etc.
OKLAHOMA
Tinker AFB (OKC) - All base personnel are prohibited from going near
civilian detention area, which is under constant guard. Will Rogers
World Airport - FEMA's main processing center for west of the
Mississippi. All personnel are kept out of the security zone. Federal
prisoner transfer center located here (A pentagon-shaped building where
airplanes can taxi up to). Photos have been taken and this site will
try to post soon!
El Reno - Renovated federal internment facility with CURRENT population
of 12,000 on Route 66. McAlester - near Army Munitions Plant property -
former WWII German / Italian POW camp designated for future use.
Ft. Sill (Lawton) - Former WWII detention camps. More data still
needed.
OREGON
Sheridan - Federal prison satellite camp northwest of Salem.
Josephine County - WWII Japanese internment camp ready for renovation.
Sheridan - FEMA detention center.
Umatilla - New prison spotted.
PENNSYLVANIA
Allenwood - Federal prison camp
located south of Williamsport on the Susquehanna River. It has a
current inmate population of 300, and is identified by William Pabst as
having a capacity in excess of 15,000 on 400 acres.
Indiantown Gap Military Reservation - located north of Harrisburg. Used
for WWII POW camp and renovated by Jimmy Carter. Was used to hold
Cubans during Mariel boat lift.
Camp Hill - State prison close to Army depot. Lots of room, located in Camp Hill, Pa.
New Cumberland Army Depot - on the Susquehanna River, located off Interstate 83 and Interstate 76.
Schuylkill Haven - Federal prison camp, north of Reading.
SOUTH CAROLINA
Greenville - Unoccupied youth prison camp; total capacity unknown.
Charleston - Naval Reserve & Air Force base, restricted area on naval base.
SOUTH DAKOTA
Yankton - Federal prison camp
Black Hills Nat'l Forest - north of Edgemont, southwest part of state. WWII internment camp being renovated.
TENNESSEE
Ft. Campbell - Next to Land Between the Lakes; adjacent to airfield and US Alt. 41.
Millington - Federal prison camp next door to Memphis Naval Air Station.
Crossville - Site of WWII German / Italian prison camp is renovated;
completed barracks and behind the camp in the woods is a training
facility with high tight ropes and a rappelling deck.
Nashville - There are two buildings built on State property that are
definitely built to hold prisoners. They are identical buildings - side
by side on Old Briley Parkway. High barbed wire fence that curves
inward.
TEXAS
Austin - Robert Mueller Municipal airport has detenion areas inside hangars.
Bastrop - Prison and military vehicle motor pool.
Eden - 1500 bed privately run federal center. Currently holds illegal aliens.
Ft.
Hood (Killeen) - Newly built concentration camp, with towers, barbed
wire etc., just like the one featured in the movie Amerika. Mock city
for NWO shock- force training. Some footage of this area was used in
"Waco: A New Revelation"
Reese AFB (Lubbock) - FEMA designated detention facility.
Sheppard AFB - in Wichita Falls just south of Ft. Sill, OK. FEMA designated detention facility.
North Dallas - near Carrolton - water treatment plant, close to interstate and railroad.
Mexia - East of Waco 33mi.; WWII German facility may be renovated.
Amarillo - FEMA designated detention facility
Ft. Bliss (El Paso) - Extensive renovation of buildings and from what
patriots have been able to see, many of these buildings that are being
renovated are being surrounded by razor wire.
Beaumont / Port Arthur area - hundreds of acres of federal camps
already built on large-scale detention camp design, complete with the
double rows of chain link fencing with razor type concertina wire on
top of each row. Some (but not all) of these facilities are currently
being used for low-risk state prisoners who require a minimum of
supervision.
Ft. Worth - Federal prison under construction on the site of Carswell AFB.
UTAH
Millard County - Central Utah - WWII Japanese camp. (Renovated?)
Ft. Douglas - This "inactive" military reservation has a renovated WWII concentration camp.
Migratory Bird Refuge - West of Brigham City - contains a WWII
internment camp that was built before the game preserve was established.
Cedar City - east of city - no data available.
Wendover - WWII internment camp may be renovated.
Skull Valley - southwestern Camp William property - east of the old
bombing range. Camp was accidentally discovered by a man and his son
who were rabbit hunting; they were discovered and apprehended. SW of
Tooele.
VIRGINIA
Ft. A.P. Hill (Fredericksburg) - Rex 84 / FEMA facility. Estimated capacity 45,000.
Petersburg - Federal satellite prison camp, south of Richmond.
WEST VIRGINIA
Beckley - Alderson - Lewisburg -
Former WWII detention camps that are now converted into active federal
prison complexes capable of holding several times their current
populations. Alderson is presently a women's federal reformatory.
Morgantown - Federal prison camp located in northern WV; just north of Kingwood.
Mill Creek - FEMA detention facility.
Kingwood - Newly built detention camp at Camp Dawson Army Reservation. More data needed on Camp Dawson.
WASHINGTON
Seattle/Tacoma - SeaTac Airport: fully operational federal transfer center
Okanogan County - Borders Canada and is a site for a massive
concentration camp capable of holding hundreds of thousands of people
for slave labor. This is probably one of the locations that will be
used to hold hard core patriots who will be held captive for the rest
of their lives.
Sand Point Naval Station - Seattle - FEMA detention center used actively during the 1999 WTO protests to classify prisoners.
Ft. Lewis / McChord AFB - near Tacoma - This is one of several sites
that may be used to ship prisoners overseas for slave labor.
WISCONSIN
Ft. McCoy - Rex 84 facility with several complete interment compounds.
Oxford - Central part of state - Federal prison & staellite camp and FEMA detention facility.
WYOMING
Heart Mountain - Park County N. of Cody - WWII Japanese interment camp ready for renovation.
Laramie - FEMA detention facility
Southwest - near Lyman - FEMA detention facility
East
Yellowstone - Manned internment facility - Investigating patriots were
apprehended by European soldiers speaking in an unknown language.
Federal government assumed custody of the persons and arranged their
release.
OTHER LOCATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES
There are
many other locations not listed above that are worthy of consideration
as a possible detention camp site, but due to space limitations and the
time needed to verify, could not be included here. Virtually all
military reservations, posts, bases, stations, & depots can be
considered highly suspect (because it is "federal" land). Also fitting
this category are "Regional Airports" and "International Airports"
which also fall under federal jurisdiction and have limited-access
areas. Mental hospitals, closed hospitals & nursing homes, closed
military bases, wildlife refuges, state prisons, toxic waste dumps,
hotels and other areas all have varying degrees of potential for being
a detention camp area. The likelihood of a site being suspect increases
with transportation access to the site, including airports/airstrips,
railheads, navigable waterways & ports, interstate and US highways.
Some facilities are "disguised" as industrial or commercial properties,
camouflaged or even wholly contained inside large buildings
(Indianapolis) or factories. Many inner-city buildings left vacant
during the de-industrialization of America have been quietly acquired
and held, sometimes retrofitted for their new uses.
CANADA
Our Canadian friends tell us that
virtually all Canadian military bases, especially those north of the
50th Parallel, are all set up with concentration camps. Not even half
of these can be listed, but here are a few sites with the massive land
space to handle any population:
Suffield CFB - just north of Medicine Hat, less than 60 miles from the USA.
Primrose Lake Air Range - 70 miles northeast of Edmonton.
Wainwright CFB - halfway between Medicine Hat and Primrose Lake.
Ft. Nelson - Northernmost point on the BC Railway line.
Ft. McPherson - Very cold territory ~ NW Territories.
Ft. Providence - Located on Great Slave Lake.
Halifax - Nova Scotia. Dept. of National Defense reserve.... And others.
OVERSEAS LOCATIONS
Guayanabo, Puerto Rico - Federal prison camp facility. Capacity unknown.
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - US Marine Corps Base - Presently home to 30,000
Mariel Cubans and 40,000 Albanians. Total capacity unknown.
Former Congressman Warns Of Martial Law
Camps In America
San Francisco Chronicle
Rule by fear or rule by law?
Lewis Seiler,Dan Hamburg
Monday, February 4, 2008
"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating
any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of
his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all
totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."
- Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943
Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal
government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide
swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people
without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency
influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new
programs."
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid
contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build
detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The
government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of
railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport
detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part
of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the
removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."
Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained
about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to
taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What kind of "new
programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities
in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps
millions of people?
Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of
the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power
to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the
president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural
disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in
which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the
extent that state officials cannot maintain public order."
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before
the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone
who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist"
organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law
calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.
Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential
Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government" in the event of
what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency." Should the
president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is
empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure "continuity of
government." This could include everything from canceling elections to
suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet
to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.
U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new
way to expand the domestic "war on terror." Her Violent Radicalization and
Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House
by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine and
report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent radicalism and
extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.
According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues
from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a native brand of
terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping investigative power to
combat it.
A clue as to where Harman's commission might be aiming is the Animal
Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who "engage in sit-ins,
civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal
rights" as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion
protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists,
peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights supporters ... the list goes on
and on. According to author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center
holds the names of roughly 775,000 "terror suspects" with the number
increasing by 20,000 per month.
What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency
plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?
The Constitution does not allow the executive to have unchecked power under
any circumstances. The people must not allow the president to use the war on
terrorism to rule by fear instead of by law.
Lewis Seiler is the president of Voice of the Environment, Inc. Dan Hamburg,
a former congressman, is executive director.
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he
deems to be "enemy combatants" has moved him from merely being a political
embarrassment to being a constitutional menace.
Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him
to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip
them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring
them enemy combatants.
The proposed camp plan should trigger immediate congressional hearings and
reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for this important office. Whereas
Al Qaeda is a threat to the lives of our citizens, Ashcroft has become
clear and present threat to our liberties.
The camp plan was forged at an optimistic time for Ashcroft's small inner
circle, which has been carefully watching two test cases to see whether
this vision could become a reality. The cases of Jose Padilla and Yaser
Esam Hamdi will determine whether U.S. citizens can be held without charges
and subject to the arbitrary and unchecked authority of the government.
Hamdi has been held without charge even though the facts of his case are
virtually identical to those in the case of John Walker Lindh. Both Hamdi
and Lindh were captured in Afghanistan as foot soldiers in Taliban units.
Yet Lindh was given a lawyer and a trial, while Hamdi rots in a floating
Navy brig in Norfolk, Va.
This week, the government refused to comply with a federal judge who ordered
that he be given the underlying evidence justifying Hamdi's treatment. The
Justice Department has insisted that the judge must simply accept its
declaration and cannot interfere with the president's absolute authority
in "a time of war."
In Padilla's case, Ashcroft initially claimed that the arrest stopped a plan
to detonate a radioactive bomb in New York or Washington, D.C. The
administration later issued an embarrassing correction that there was
no evidence Padilla was on such a mission. What is clear is that Padilla
is an American citizen and was arrested in the United States--two facts
that should trigger the full application of constitutional rights.
Ashcroft hopes to use his self-made "enemy combatant" stamp for any citizen
whom he deems to be part of a wider terrorist conspiracy.
Perhaps because of his discredited claims of preventing radiological
terrorism, aides have indicated that a "high-level committee" will recommend
which citizens are to be stripped of their constitutional rights and sent
to Ashcroft's new camps.
Few would have imagined any attorney general seeking to reestablish such
camps for citizens. Of course, Ashcroft is not considering camps on the
order of the internment camps used to incarcerate Japanese American
citizens in World War II. But he can be credited only with thinking
smaller; we have learned from painful experience that unchecked authority,
once tasted, easily becomes insatiable.
We are only now getting a full vision of Ashcroft's America. Some of his
predecessors dreamed of creating a great society or a nation unfettered
by racism. Ashcroft seems to dream of a country secured from itself,
neatly contained and controlled by his judgment of loyalty.
For more than 200 years, security and liberty have been viewed as coexistent
values. Ashcroft and his aides appear to view this relationship as lineal,
where security must precede liberty.
Since the nation will never be entirely safe from terrorism, liberty has
become a mere rhetorical justification for increased security.
Ashcroft is a catalyst for constitutional devolution, encouraging citizens
to accept autocratic rule as their only way of avoiding massive terrorist
attacks.
His greatest problem has been preserving a level of panic and fear that would
induce a free people to surrender the rights so dearly won by their ancestors.
In "A Man for All Seasons," Sir Thomas More was confronted by a young lawyer,
Will Roper, who sought his daughter's hand. Roper proclaimed that he would
cut down every law in England to get after the devil.
More's response seems almost tailored for Ashcroft: "And when the last law was
down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws
all being flat? ... This country's planted thick with laws from coast to
coast ... and if you cut them down--and you are just the man to do it--do
you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"
Every generation has had Ropers and Ashcrofts who view our laws and traditions
as mere obstructions rather than protections in times of peril. But before
we allow Ashcroft to denude our own constitutional landscape, we must take
a stand and have the courage to say, "Enough."
Every generation has its test of principle in which people of good faith can
no longer remain silent in the face of authoritarian ambition. If we cannot
join together to fight the abomination of American camps, we have already
lost what we are defending.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at
latimes.com/archives. For information about reprinting this article,
go to
LA Times Rights and Permissions: Homepage .
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational "The Rex 84 Program was
established on the reasoning that if a mass exodus of illegal aliens crossed the
Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention
centers by FEMA. Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed
down and to be turned into prisons"
Heres the full article
**************************************************
Web site of Concentration Camps made for you! One of the U.S. Plans for NWO "New
world Order"
U.S. CONCENTRATION CAMPS
FEMA AND THE REX 84 PROGRAM
There over 600 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to
receive prisoners. They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they
are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management
Agency) should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States.
The Rex 84 Program was established on the reasoning that if a mass exodus of illegal
aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in
detention centers by FEMA. Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed down and to be
turned into prisons.
Operation Cable Splicer and Garden Plot are the two sub programs which will be implemented
once the Rex 84 program is initiated for its proper purpose. Garden Plot is the program to
control the population. Cable Splicer is the program for an orderly takeover of the state
and local governments by the federal government. FEMA is the executive arm of the coming
police state and thus will head up all operations. The Presidential Executive Orders
already listed on the Federal Register also are part of the legal framework for this
operation.
The camps all have railroad facilities as well as roads leading to and from the detention
facilities. Many also have an airport nearby. The majority of the camps can house a
population of 20,000 prisoners. Currently, the largest of these facilities is just outside
of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaskan facility is a massive mental health facility and can
hold approximately 2 million people.
A person named Terry Kings wrote an article on his discoveries of camps
located in southern California. His findings are as follows:
Over the last couple months several of us have investigated three soon-to-be prison camps
in the Southern California area. We had heard about these sites and wanted to see them for
ourselves.
The first one we observed was in Palmdale, California. It is not operating as a prison at
the moment but is masquerading as part of a water facility. Now why would there be a
facility of this nature out in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no prisoners? The
fences that run for miles around this large facility all point inward, and there are large
mounds of dirt and dry moat surrounding the central area so the inside area is not visible
from the road. There are 3 large loading docks facing the entrance that can be observed
from the road. What are these massive docks going to be loading?
We observed white vans patrolling the area and one came out and greeted us with a friendly
wave and followed us until we had driven safely beyond the area. What would have happened
had we decided to enter the open gate or ask questions?
This facility is across the street from the Palmdale Water Department. The area around the
Water Department has fences pointing outward, to keep people out of this dangerous area so
as not to drown. Yet, across the street, the fences all point inward. Why? To keep people
in? What people? Who are going to be it’s occupants?
There are also signs posted every 50 feet stating: State of California Trespassing
Loitering Forbidden By Law Section 555 California Penal Code.
The sign at the entrance says: Pearblossom Operations and Maintenance Subcenter Receiving
Department, 34534 116th Street East. There is also a guard shack located at the entrance.
We didn’t venture into this facility, but did circle around it to see if there was
anything else visible from the road. We saw miles of fences with the top points all
directed inward. There is a railroad track that runs next to the perimeter of this fenced
area. The loading docks are large enough to hold railroad cars.
I wonder what they are planning for this facility? They could easily fit 100,000 people in
this area. And who would the occupants be?
Another site is located in Brand Park in Glendale. There are newly constructed fences (all
outfitted with new wiring that point inward). The fences surround a dry reservoir. There
are also new buildings situated in the area. We questioned the idea that there were four
armed military personnel walking the park. Since when does a public park need armed
guards?
A third site visited was in the San Fernando Valley, adjacent to the Water District.
Again, the area around the actual Water District had fences logically pointing out (to
keep people out of the dangerous area). And the rest of the adjacent area which went on
for several miles was ringed with fences and barbed wire facing inward (to keep what or
who in?) Also, interesting was the fact that the addition to the tops of the fences were
fairly new as to not even contain any sign of rust on them. Within the grounds was a huge
building that the guard said was a training range for policemen. There were newly
constructed roads, new gray military looking buildings, and a landing strip. For what?
Police cars were constantly patrolling the several mile perimeter of the area.
From the parking lot of the Odyssey Restaurant a better view could be taken of the area
that was hidden from site from the highway. There was an area that contained about 100
black boxes that looked like railroad cars. We had heard that loads of railroad cars have
been manufactured in Oregon outfitted with shackles. Would these be of that nature? From
our position it was hard to determine.
In searching the Internet, I have discovered that there are about 600 of these prison
sites around the country (and more literally popping up overnight do they work all night).
They are manned, but yet do not contain prisoners. Why do they need all these
non-operating prisons? What are they waiting for? We continuously hear that our current
prisons are overcrowded and they are releasing prisoners because of this situation. But
what about all these facilities? What are they really for? Why are there armed guards yet
no one to protect themselves against? And what is going to be the kick-off point to put
these facilities into operation?
What would bring about a situation that would call into effect the need for these new
prison facilities? A man-made or natural catastrophe? An earthquake, panic due to Y2K, a
massive poisoning, a panic of such dimensions to cause nationwide panic?
Once a major disaster occurs (whether it is a real event or manufactured event does not
matter) Martial Law is hurriedly put in place and we are all in the hands of the
government agencies (FEMA) who thus portray themselves as our protectors. Yet what happens
when we question those in authority and how they are taking away all of our freedoms? Will
we be the ones detained in these camp sites? And who are they going to round up? Those
with guns? Those who ask questions? Those that want to know what’s really going on?
Does that include any of us? The seekers of truth?
When first coming across this information I was in a state of total denial. How could this
be? I believed our country was free, and always felt a sense of comfort in knowing that as
long as we didn’t hurt others in observing our freedom we were left to ourselves.
Ideally we treated everyone with respect and honored their uniqueness and hoped that
others did likewise.
It took an intensive year of searching into the hidden politics to discover that we are as
free as we believe we are. If we are in denial, we don’t see the signs that are
staring at us, but keep our minds turned off and busy with all the mundane affairs of
daily life.
We just don’t care enough to find out the real truth, and settle for the hand-fed
stories that come our way over the major media sources television, radio, newspaper, and
magazines. But it’s too late to turn back to the days of blindfolds and hiding our
heads in the sand because the reality is becoming very clear. The time is fast approaching
when we will be the ones asking "What happened to our freedom? To our free speech? To
our right to protect ourselves and our family? To think as an individual? To express
ourselves in whatever way we wish?"
Once we challenge that freedom we find out how free we really are. How many are willing to
take up that challenge? Very few indeed, otherwise we wouldn’t find ourselves in the
situation that we are in at the present time. We wouldn’t have let things progress
and get out of the hands of the public and into the hands of those that seek to keep us
under their control no matter what it takes, and that includes the use of force and
detainment for those that ask the wrong questions.
Will asking questions be outlawed next? Several instances have recently been reported
where those that were asking questions that came too near the untold truth (the cover up)
were removed from the press conferences and from the public’s ear. Also, those that
wanted to speak to the press were detained and either imprisoned, locked in a psychiatric
hospital, slaughtered (through make-believe suicides) or discredited.
Why are we all in denial over these possibilities? Didn’t we hear about prison camps
in Germany, and even in the United States during World War II? Japanese individuals were
rounded up and placed in determent camps during the duration of the War. Where was their
freedom?
You don’t think it could happen to you? Obviously those rounded up and killed
didn’t think it could happen to them either. How could decent people have witnessed
such atrocities and still said nothing? Are we going to do the same here as they cart off
one by one those individuals who are taking a stand for the rights of the citizens as they
expose the truth happening behind the scenes? Are we all going to sit there and wonder
what happened to this country of ours? Where did we go wrong? How could we let it happen?
Archived:
http://web.archive.org/web/20001019053553/http://www.abovetopsecret.com/camps.htmlpurposes.)
It is 3:30AM so I'm going to go to sleep. Soon there will be news gathering going on here and next Newsreal we will do a pre and post show recording for a podcast. Start posting news stories!
First off, this page really should not display ALL news stories that we have. It's already unmanageably long.
Second, We need to have a better show notification system. Text messages, phone call trees, and so on. This can be done immediately easily.
Example of a show format.
0:00 to 0:06 - Introduction audio clip and prerecorded show intro
0:06 to 0:10 - Spoken introduction
0:10 to 0:16 - Quick recap of news stories from newsreal summarized and spoken in natural language. After each recap allow participants to vote yay or nay if they are interested in opening discussion of that news story later in show.
0:16 to 0:20 - Quick recap of news stories from newsgather site. After each story allow participants to indicate intrest in discussing that story further.
0:20 to 0:26 - First Story - details and clarifications in the first 2 minutes
0:26 to 0:32 - Second Story - details and clarifications in the first 2 minutes
0:32 to 0:38 - Third Story - details and clarifications in the first 2 minutes
0:38 to 0:44 - Fourth Story - details and clarifications in the first 2 minutes
0:44 to 0:52 - Fifth Story - details and clarifications in the first 2 minutes
0:52 to 0:54 - Recap of stories that require more research and ongoing research
0:54 to 0:56 - Thanks to everyone involved and updates on empowerment HQ
0:56 to 1:00 - Outtro audio
Issues? I believe that the things you have written there are a little bit too over reacted. You should reconsider your ideas.
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Newsgather: A live podcast show recorded in Second Life before and after 
ORLANDO, Florida -- The U.S. Army has scores of bases scattered all
across the world. Soon, it'll be occupying virtual territory in a bid
to win recruits.
Starting
with a Chicago-area facility due to open later this year, Microsoft
will use an approach in which servers arrive at the data center in a
sealed container, already networked together and ready to go. The
container itself is then hooked up to power, networking, and air
conditioning.
"The trucks back 'em in, rack 'em, and stack 'em," Chief Software
Architect Ray Ozzie told CNET News. And the containers remain sealed,
Ozzie said. Once a certain number of servers in the container have
failed, it will be pulled out and sent back to the manufacturer and a
new container loaded in.
For
a lot of gamers, Dungeons & Dragons serves as something of a
default game system. Certainly, it is by far the most popular, though
some would argue the system suffers in comparison to other RPGs. After
all, there are countless systems out there, some of them very different
than D&D. For instance, game designer Jonathan Tweet created Over
The Edge, a system with no skills or attributes, as well as Everway, a
game with no dice. Of course, fans of the White Wolf's World of
Darkness series of games prefer their system, and GURPS-players like
theirs.
<!--start-->
Indianapolis will become a "mock battlefield" for the
next three weeks according to local press, as over two thousand
marines will stage a huge urban warfare training exercise in and
around the city.
<!--start-->
In Alex Jones' feature 
<!--start-->
In 2005 details of just one of many Military operations on American
soil was exposed in the run up to Bush's second coronation. A
secret counterterrorism program code-named 
What does the True20 roleplaying game have to do with Empowerment? True20 just scored a Gen Con 08 Ennie Award for Best Supplement, a WIRED.com feature article, and they've won my game designer heart for our own game developments.
There are Empowerment and Afternow role-playing game projects underway and the whole Empowerment project originally started as a D20-inspired activism RPG that went from realistic to real. Now that we're coming full-circle and doing RPGs again, the question is, what system should we use? Up until recently, I hadn't given it much thought, but as fate would have it, no sooner did I start looking than True20 found me.
I love the True20 system and I plan on using it as a starting point for future Empowerment role-playing game systems. It makes D20 simpler and more realistic in one clean sweep that clears away the cruft and sacred cows of 1970s roleplaying like hit points and rigid classes. I plan on making some optional modifications to make it even more realistic and calling those something like Real20.
At Gencon I met up with True20's Green Ronin Games designer Steve Kenson. I picked his brain about his inspirations for the system and possibilities for adding a simulationist-level optional combat system. Great guy, great company, great system. True20 is the utopian Vault in which to survive the D&D 4pocalypse.
There will be many empowering game projects and many systems used, but this one works for me right now.