Tuesday, September 05, 2017

5 September - Cryptogon

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1K followers10 articles per week#conspiracy#politics#alternative

Today

German ‘Flying Taxi’ Firm Lilium Raises $90 Million
Via: Reuters: Lilium, a German start-up with Silicon Valley-scale ambitions to develop a 5-passenger “flying taxi”, has raised a second, $90 million round of financing from top tech investors, making it one of the best-funded electric aircraft projects to date. The company, which took in $11.4 million only last year, has emerged as one of […]

Yesterday

Japan Preparing for Evacuation of Tens of Thousands in South Korea
Via: Japan Times: As tensions on the Korean Peninsula reach new heights with Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, Japan is planning for a possible mass evacuation of the nearly 60,000 Japanese citizens currently living in or visiting South Korea. “There is a possibility of further provocations,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a Monday meeting […]

Sep 03

Toxic Waste Sites Flooded in Houston Area
Via: physorg: Long a center of the nation’s petrochemical industry, the Houston metro area has more than a dozen Superfund sites, designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as being among America’s most intensely contaminated places. Many are now flooded, with the risk that waters were stirring dangerous sediment.
New Zealand: Polluted Paradise
Via: Al Jazeera: I also discovered that the country is harbouring a disturbing secret, little known to the rest of the world: its freshwater is in severe crisis. Two-thirds of New Zealand’s rivers are too polluted to swim in and half its lakes are irreversibly damaged. This pollution, say many independent environmentalists, scientists and economists, […]
North Korea Tests Nuclear Weapon
Via: Reuters: North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sunday, which it said was a successful detonation of an advanced hydrogen bomb, in a dramatic escalation of the isolated state’s stand-off with the United States and its allies. The announcement from Pyongyang came a few hours after international seismic agencies detected […]

Sep 02

Utah: Nurse Arrested for Refusing to Take Blood from Unconscious Patient for Police
Via: BBC: A US police officer who forcibly arrested a nurse for refusing to take a blood sample from an unconscious patient has been placed on administrative leave. An investigation is under way after footage of the incident at a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, emerged. It shows nurse Alex Wubbels screaming for help […]

Aug 31

Won’t You Be My Neighbour?
Hello, Neighbour! Are you interested in a relatively cheap getaway shack for when the living hell of Auckland gets to be too much to handle? Maybe a bugout location… Our friends are selling their property. The entire thing can flood during winter storms, but you can park in our driveway during floods if you want. […]
Motiva: Flooding Shuts Largest U.S. Refinery
Via: CNBC: The largest U.S. refinery was shutting down completely on Wednesday morning as heavy rains from Tropical Storm Harvey flooded the 603,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Port Arthur, Texas, plant, owner Motiva Enterprises said in a statement. “At 5 a.m. (CDT (1000 GMT) on Wednesday, Motiva began a controlled shutdown of the Port Arthur refinery in […]

Aug 30

‘The Story of Replika, the AI App that Becomes You’
Oh sure, share your most personal information with this Magic 8 Ball. In other news: On Internet Privacy, Be Very Afraid. Via: Quartz: Research Credit: GB

Aug 29

Pentagon Says Up to 30,000 National Guard Troops Prepared to Assist in Response to Harvey
Via: Los Angeles Times: Pentagon officials said Tuesday that National Guard assets are at full readiness to assist in the unfolding disaster in Texas wrought by Tropical Storm Harvey. Maj. Gen. James C. Witham, director of domestic operations for the National Guard, told Pentagon reporters that up to 30,000 guardsmen as well as a U.S. […]
Afghanistan: America’s Trillion Dollar War
Via: ZeroHedge: 16 years since the Bush administration launched its military intervention in Afghanistan, President Trump has announced his intention to increase the U.S. military presence in the country. As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, there are approximately 8,400 U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan and reinforcements could start arriving within days. Trump’s new strategy […]

Aug 27

Trump Expected to Lift Ban on Military Gear to Local Police Forces
Via: USA Today: The Trump administration is preparing to lift a controversial ban on the transfer of some surplus military equipment to police departments whose battlefield-style response to rioting in a St. Louis suburb three years ago prompted a halt to the program. The new plan, outlined in documents obtained by USA TODAY, would roll […]
Weekend Entertainment: Video Explorations Around Area 51
Visits to the various gates of Area 51 comprise an entire genre of videos on YouTube. Click bait titles and corny theremin soundtracks are par for the course here. If you are interested in the topic at all, you have probably seen many of these. I’ve watched dozens of videos where someone drives up to […]
Energy Storage: Lithium from Supervolcanoes?
Cobalt is a much more serious blocker than lithium. Via: Smithsonian: There’s no doubt that in coming years, we’re going to need a lot of lithium. The growing market of electric automobiles, plus new household energy storage and large-scale battery farms, and the current lack of any technology better for storage than lithium ion batteries, […]

Aug 25

Elon Musk’s Boring Company Wins Approval to Dig a Two-Mile Test Tunnel in California
Via: The Verge: The City Council in Hawthorne, California voted four to one last night in favor of a plan from Elon Musk’s Boring Company to dig a two-mile-long underground test tunnel. The Boring Company, which operates from SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne outside Los Angeles, had until now only dug into and under its own […]

Aug 24

Most Americans Live Paycheck to Paycheck
Via: CNBC: No matter how much you earn, getting by is still a struggle for most people these days. Seventy-eight percent of full-time workers said they live paycheck to paycheck, up from 75 percent last year, according to a recent report from CareerBuilder. Overall, 71 percent of all U.S. workers said they’re now in debt, […]

Aug 23

Bill Gates and Richard Branson Back Startup That Grows ‘Clean Meat’
haha oh sure! Via: Bloomberg: Cargill Inc., one of the largest global agricultural companies, has joined Bill Gates and other business giants to invest in a nascent technology to make meat from self-producing animal cells amid rising consumer demand for protein that’s less reliant on feed, land and water. Memphis Meats, which produces beef, chicken […]

Aug 22

A Glut Has Used-Car Depreciation Accelerating
Via: Bloomberg: Car sales in the U.S. have been rising for seven consecutive years now, and it’s denting the value of whatever is currently parked in your garage or driveway. With so many new cars rolling out of dealerships lots and instantly becoming used cars, the secondary market is glutted and the pace of depreciation […]

Aug 21

Magneto-Thermal Genetic Deep Brain Stimulation of Motor Behaviors in Awake, Freely Moving Mice
Via: eLIFE: Establishing how neurocircuit activation causes particular behaviors requires modulating the activity of specific neurons. Here, we demonstrate that magnetothermal genetic stimulation provides tetherless deep brain activation sufficient to evoke motor behavior in awake mice. The approach uses alternating magnetic fields to heat superparamagnetic nanoparticles on the neuronal membrane.
Killer Robots: Experts Warn of ‘Third Revolution in Warfare’
I was warning about this 15 years ago. Nowadays, I’m more into yawning and wondering why the mushroom clouds haven’t gone up yet. Via: BBC: More than 100 leading robotics experts are urging the United Nations to take action in order to prevent the development of “killer robots”. In a letter to the organisation, artificial […]
Journalist Who Helped Expose Jimmy Savile Dies After Stroke
Via: BBC: Ex-BBC News correspondent Liz MacKean has died after suffering a stroke. MacKean, 52, worked for the corporation for more than 20 years but left in 2013 amid a row over the decision to shelve her investigation for Newsnight about disgraced DJ Jimmy Savile. She began her career at BBC Hereford and Worcester, before […]
Eclipse
I think the past few days have been the lightest posting period in fifteen years of running Cryptogon. People are wondering if I’m still alive. By the time I’ve read through 10 million headlines about Trump, the statues and the sign wavers, it starts to seem like not much is happening. I think that I […]

Aug 18

CIA ‘Torture Psychologists’ Avoid Trial with Secret Settlement
Via: AFP: Two psychologists who helped design the CIA’s post-9/11 interrogation program settled a lawsuit Thursday by detainees alleging they were illegally tortured. The secret settlement in the suit, brought on behalf of two living ex-detainees and one who died of hypothermia after brutal questioning in US custody, avoided what would have been the first […]

Aug 17

Call from Tesla
Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — I had a call from a Tesla energy specialist yesterday. She confirmed what we learned a few days ago about the Powerwall 2’s ability to island grid tied inverters for backup purposes. She also said that Powerwall 2 demand is, “Extreme,” and far in excess […]

Aug 14

Fleas Found to Carry the Plague in at Least 2 Arizona Counties
Really? In other news: Imagine the coincidence… A plague expert, with links to the DoD bioweapons milieu, is involved with a weird murder along with a foreign national, who happens to be from the same country where this happened several years ago: Britain: Scientists Reconstruct Black Death Plague with Genetic Material Taken from Ancient Corpses […]

Aug 13

Confirmed: Grid Tie Inverter Continues to Generate Electricity During Grid Failure with Powerwall 2
Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Man, I’ve been waiting a long time to see this confirmed. Here it is! Tesla remains silent on generator backup options, but I have no doubt that people are going to start rolling their own if Tesla doesn’t address it. In any event, very special […]

Aug 12

WTF Is Happening in Charlottesville?
Scroll down, check out the photo gallery!? Via: Daily Mail: At least one person is dead after a driver intentionally plowed into a group of anti-fascist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, following violent clashes that erupted between white nationalists and activists on Saturday. James Alex Fields Jr, of Maumee, Ohio, is being held at the Albemarle-Charlottesville […]
“Is Alexa Spying On Us? We’re Too Busy to Care”
Oblivion. Via: McClatchy: It’s an experience every computer or smart phone user has had. After downloading new software or an app, a window pops up with a legal agreement. At the bottom is an “I agree” button. One click, and it’s gone. Most users have no clue what they’ve agreed to. That single action can […]

Aug 11

Audits Show Lax Oversight by Wisconsin Agency Counting Foxconn Jobs
From, Taiwan’s Foxconn, Assembler of iPhones, Considering Wisconsin Plant: My guess is that the plant will be centered around robotic manufacturing and the thousands of workers thing is being thrown out there for political fodder to secure corporate welfare from the state. And now… Via: Reuters: The Wisconsin agency tasked with holding Foxconn accountable for […]
Trump Threatens Venezuela with Unspecified ‘Military Option’
Via: Reuters: U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday threatened military intervention in Venezuela, a surprise escalation in Washington’s response to Venezuela’s political crisis. Venezuela has appeared to slide toward a more volatile stage of unrest in recent days, with anti-government forces looting weapons from a military base after a new legislative body usurped the authority […]
Guam: ‘Take Cover, Avoid Bomb Flash’
Via: Reuters: Guam posted emergency guidelines on Friday to help residents prepare for any potential nuclear attack after a threat from North Korea to fire missiles in the vicinity of the U.S. Pacific territory. Pyongyang’s state-run KCNA news agency said on Thursday its army would complete plans in mid-August to fire four intermediate-range missiles over […]
North Korea Warns of Nuclear War, Trump Says U.S. Is ‘Locked and Loaded’
Via: Reuters: President Donald Trump issued a new threat to North Korea on Friday, saying what he called U.S. military solutions were “locked and loaded” as Pyongyang accused him of driving the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war. Russia, China and Germany expressed alarm at the escalating rhetoric from Pyongyang and Washington, while […]

Aug 10

Tesla Is Looking to Test Self-Driving, Electric Trucks With No Driver On Board
Via: Reuters: Tesla Inc is developing a long-haul, electric semi-truck that can drive itself and move in “platoons” that automatically follow a lead vehicle, and is getting closer to testing a prototype, according to an email discussion of potential road tests between the car company and the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), seen by […]

Aug 09

‘You Will Get Chipped – Eventually’
Mmm hmm. Via: USA Today: You will get chipped. It’s just a matter of time. … “It will happen to everybody,” says Noelle Chesley, 49, associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “But not this year, and not in 2018. Maybe not my generation, but certainly that of my kids.” Related: Cyborgs at […]
Americans Are Dying Younger, Saving Corporations Billions
#missionaccomplished Via: Bloomberg: Steady improvements in American life expectancy have stalled, and more Americans are dying at younger ages. But for companies straining under the burden of their pension obligations, the distressing trend could have a grim upside: If people don’t end up living as long as they were projected to just a few years […]
Monsanto’s Weed Killer Crisis
Via: Reuters: As the U.S. growing season entered its peak this summer, farmers began posting startling pictures on social media: fields of beans, peach orchards and vegetable gardens withering away. The photographs served as early warnings of a crisis that has damaged millions of acres of farmland. New versions of the herbicide dicamba developed by […]
Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews
Via: Bloomberg: Academic papers vindicating its Roundup herbicide were written with the help of its employees.

Aug 08

The Strange Case of Wyndham Lathem, Andrew Warren and Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau
Update: Latham Was Denied Security Clearance to Work in France I wonder if French intelligence suspected or knew that he was contracting for U.S. DoD or intel agencies… This article suggest that, “It may have been due to internal politics at the institution.” Although, if it was some sort of hissy fit at the institution […]

Aug 07

Americans Now Have the Highest Credit-Card Debt in U.S. History
I had this open in another tab, I wonder if it’s related: In 2016, Drug Overdoses Likely Killed More Americans than Wars in Vietnam and Iraq #greenshoots Via: MarketWatch: American consumers just hit a scary milestone. They now collectively have the most outstanding revolving debt — often summarized as credit card debt — in U.S. […]
New Zealand: Solar Battery Packs May Have to Be Stored Outside in Fireproof Enclosure Under Proposed New Rules
Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Behold, the batshit insane machinations of an out of control retail electricity cartel in its death throes. Via: Stuff: A new proposed battery safety standard would stop the installation of solar power systems’ battery packs, which have been described as the “future of energy”. Consultation […]

Aug 06

Blackwater Founder Wants to Provide a “Turn Key” Mercenary Air Force for Afghanistan
Via: The Drive: Though a debate remains over the exact reasons why, it’s increasingly widely accepted that the United States and its allies are not winning the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan at the moment. One suggestion for how to turn things around – unsurprisingly proffered up by the infamous Erik Prince and Stephen A. […]

Aug 05

This Mysterious Military Spy Plane Has Been Flying Circles Over Seattle For Days
Via: The Drive: A very unique USAF surveillance aircraft has been flying highly defined circles over Seattle and its various suburbs for nine days now. Nobody at the DoD seems to know who the aircraft belongs to or what exactly it is doing flying so many missions over the Seattle are

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