User:Panic2k4/Sandbox/ShareMemory

(remember miscellaneous cut-pastes on User:Panic2k4/Sandbox/DumpingGround)

Rise of civilization

Ancient History/Human Evolution/Human Origins

The remarkable success of humanity as a species is not simply the result of a big brain, opposable thumbs, year-round sex, innovation or even language; it is also the result of social and cultural associations that act as a "network" for storing knowledge and good will--what we call technical and social capital.

– Charles Hugh Smith in Why I Am Hopeful (December 24, 2011).

The biological evolution of man

Man's biology is constantly evolving, recent studies have shown that high altitude native population like in the Himalayans have unique genetically differences that increase red blood cells (oxygen transporters) numbers well above the normal response to the environment.

Defining State Governance

Since Government does not have competitors for you as a customer, you are forced to use, and required by law, to fund it.

Government is a intrinsic part of the state. One cannot exist without the other.

Government is only a requirement because states have to compete with other states. In this reality a state that employs more than half its population becomes a failed state.

The state is the taxpayer money in action.

Government manages public money, it should aim to be cost effective and not aim to generate profit in any of its activities. If an activity is lucrative it should be privatized and taxed.

In a government system that permits private enterprises to fund and lobby its policy makers, several functions of the state should never be privatized, especially the banking, military and prison systems. This is a perfect formula to get a totalitarian government.

Sometimes Government interference into markets is a requirement to implement the will of the people. For instance in the matters of slavery, child labor, false and misleading advertising, dangerous products (including drugs), nuclear bombs, stolen property, pornography (including child pornography), buying votes, emergency services, military, gambling, prostitution, extortion, blackmail, land rights and immigration.

State control versus private ownership

The principal problem with state control is government corruption.

The principal problem of private ownership is resource waste.

The principal problem of privatization is its focus being on increasing revenue.

Mount Athos

w:Mount Athos. The self-governed region of the Holy Mountain. The Holy Mountain is governed by the "Holy Community" which consists of the representatives of the 20 Holy Monasteries, having as executive committee the four-membered "Holy Administration".

Toward a World Government

http://www.futurict.eu/ understand and manage complex, global, socially interactive systems, with a focus on sustainability and resilience.

   "I think the next (21st) century will be the century of complexity." Stephen Hawking
   "The crisis should motivate economists to think further about their modelling of human behaviour." Ben Bernanke
   "An economist who is only an economist cannot be a good economist."  Friedrich Hayek, Nobel Prize 1974
   "I urge students to read narrowly within economics, but widely in science." Vernon Smith, Nobel Prize winner 2002

Who runs the world ?

Network Analysis Reveals ‘Super Entity’ of Global Corporate Control

History of slavery

Slavery had long been practiced in Europe and the MidleEast before the exploration of the African continent and the discovery of the new world and the European exploitation of African people. Slavery, much it seems to the surprise of many in the US, is not restricted or dependent on racial traits.

If the intention is to be selective refer to it as African Slave Trade, and keep in mind that even before Europeans made a stride in Africa, slavery was already prevalent there, human labor was and will be always a resource and a trade commodity.

Cast systems and generational slaves

To ensure that a slave and his/hers children will be slaves.

Breed the perfect slave

Gladiators

w:Slave breeding in the United States

Debt slavery

No one can be a proper citizen while at the mercy of the current economic system.

Preference for married workers.

Debt Slavery – Why It Destroyed Rome, Why It Will Destroy Us Unless It’s Stopped

Corporatization of slavery

Corporate ownership of people.

US Student Loans Exceed $1 Trillion - Bankruptcy will not expunge debt. (Government will have to assure payment ?!?)

Should we trust Government

Government is the topmost institution of any nation and a fundamental part of the state, that is to say, a state is not defined only by its government and a nation is not indistinct from the its state.

The thing about any institution that one needs to always keep in mind is that their biggest and most important asset, is trust. The trust that people place on institutions is what enables them to function and is what prevents them from being substituted. A government, like any other institution, is also dependent on this rule.

Trust is a characteristic of social relations there may be trust between people (or animals) but trust can not mean the same when used in context of a relation with a entity that does not share a sense of self, since the implications and requirements would not be the same. Thrust is a two way relationship, you may respect an institution but you should not trust it.

If we look around the world we can safely state that all citizens are in a submissive situation in regards to their government, whatever type of government they have. This simple fact arises for the imparity in the relation, a citizen is a person while the government is not only several persons, but a collective formed around the purpose of guaranteeing the implementation of policies and laws, most of the governmental structures tend to form a hierarchy.

w:Martial law

Due to our level of interconnection of knowledge, news and economic resources any significant event that seems random or unpredictable is no longer incidental but circumstantial and so predictable to a certain degree, if not outrightly planed to occur by some players on the power networks.

Inalienable rights

Human rights

There are certain rights that all humans possess simply by being human...

Incumbent rights

There are certain rights that only a society can grant to its citizens and vice versa. These rights go beyond the inalienable rights, and are granted and recognized collectively as an obligation so that the society can function, these are especially important in relations between distinct societies.

Moving the goal posts

One of the powers a government has is the capability to produce and alter legislation, and establish policies.

As an examples, one of the claimed reasons that the USA and some other Western nations (not all), have difficulties dealing with most of the middle-east nations is the lack of democracy and the track record of respect for human rights. It then becomes paradoxical that they supported and still support much of those nations when it is on their economical interests. Even when there is a general election Palestine, they failed to support the recently elected government. So what is the standard ? We will how well that goes in Tunisia...

This type of hypocrisy gets even more blatant if we compare responses to situations like Libya or Syria and then compare it to Yemen, there the government is still supported by the same powers while killing unarmed protesters.

In fact the only guide we are left are not the arguments against Islamism, lack of democratic representation or failure to protect human rights, but simply that those that do not advance those powers interest in the region will be enemies and will offer temporary protection to collaborators. This is a fact when we look at Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden this is made even more clear on how the situation in Egypt developed in regards to the passing of power from Hosni Mubarak to the Military junta. Again we will still see how it goes...

Technically challenged

One of the major problems with most governmental bodies is that the representatives that get elected by popular vote are increasingly being selected not by their personal qualifications, past work or experience but by how good they can address and motivate the public, looks and apparency today have a higher degree of importance in governmental election than brains.

This of course does not need to be grave problem depending on how one's government is structured especially the final steps of the policy decision process, if a government permits, informs and lessens to the public opinion it could even be more representative, technology is probably moving to enable such types of governments. On the other side if the government leadership is seen as something as a figure head, a father/mother figure and the public treated like children, the lack of ability of those elected to exercise rational thinking and understand the complex world we life today will further move us into bad policies and instability, this can even be aggravated if they become exclusively dependent in non-elected bureaucrats for directions. Bureaucrats tend to be appointed and rarely because of qualifications but by the ability to fallow party lines, they also create a level of protection to the government leadership, since if the situation permits they will serve as a scapegoat to diffuse the situation.

Secrecy is a state cancer

Secrecy in the working of a state may be a necessity, but mostly only in matters of national security, because of global competition between nations. Like any decease or pathogen that attempts to compromise a system, secrecy may be kept in check by the existing checks if a government is healthy, but as soon as the working of the system starts to rely on secrecy for its survival the system can be determined to have entered into critical failure.

A Government the relies too much in secrecy can think it can get away with murder, literally...

w:USS Maine (ACR-1) - w:Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación - w:Río Negro Massacre

George W. Bush (and administration) lied to Congress and the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq. On July 15 The House forwarded the resolution to the Judiciary Committee with a 238 to 180 vote. That "Bush" lied about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s threat to the US is now beyond doubt. Former US federal prosecutor Elizabeth De La Vega documents the lies most thoroughly in her book U.S. Vs Bush, and numerous other researchers have verified Bush’s untrue statements.

A secret Justice Department memorandum from 2010, Obama administration, provided the justification for the operation involving the CIA, and military assets under CIA control for the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen in Yemen, despite an executive order banning assassinations, a federal law against murder, protections in the Bill of Rights and various strictures of the international laws of war. The Washington Post 2011/09/30

9/11 Unanswered Questions of 9/11: 911 Prewarnings, Building 7 Collapse, Flight 77 and the Pentagon, Israeli Involvement, United Airlines Put-options, War games, Atta and the $100,000, 9/11 Terrorists Still Alive

The US government controversial type of secret court order to force Google Inc. and small Internet provider Sonic.net Inc. under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, in place since 1986 that requires only that the government demonstrate reasonable grounds to request relevant records and material for an investigation. Secret Orders Target Email

The US government is showing interest in the concept advanced by the science fiction novelist Isaac Asimov more than 60 years ago, in his “Foundation” series, the new science labeled psychohistory combining history, mathematics and psychology as to predict (and manage) the future. Government Aims to Build a ‘Data Eye in the Sky’

The true structure of power

"What do all men with power want? More power." - The Oracle (from The Matrix)

Battling over intellectual property

Intellectual property has increasingly been raised in importance as a national and economical interest to be defended. Sadly the same does not seem to apply to the public domain and the access and liberties of the citizens over that type of material. Most non profit oriented public interests and especially creative works under the public domain, rarely get any state defense, something that is the obligation of the government.

US elevated Canada on the piracy watch list to back the adoption of vexing copyright legislation

trademark, copyright, and patents.

Ask the Smithsonian to withdraw copyright claim on public domain images

Canadian Tories admit that Canadians don't want DRM rules, push for them anyway

ACTA Signed By 8 of 11 Participating Countries

Innovation

Innovation does not happen in a vacuum.

"The public's interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests." - George Lucas in 1998 speech before Congress.

"People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians,..." - George Lucas in 1998 speech before Congress.

"Attention should be paid to the interest of those who are yet unborn, who should be able to see this generation as it saw itself, and the past generation as it saw itself." - George Lucas in 1998 speech before Congress.

Recent moves by the the US culminating in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, recently passed by an almost unprecedented super-majority, demonstrates that US legislators and political appointees are shifting away from protecting the rights from inventors towards the right of property of filers. This distinction is important because not all inventors can afford to fill a patent and so it favors larger firms with well-established internal patenting procedures. This erodes the capacity to invent of the common citizen.

OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) representing 34 states. OECD work on patent statistics

The only true benefit of patents is that they document the specifics of innovations, and that aspect does not actually require any grant of exclusivity.

patents

• encourage innovation

It is a very strange belief that a bureaucracy will enforce the exclusive profit of singular entities within a society of billions of creative individuals.

• protect innovators - Any new product or innovation will have an army of lawyers descend to destroy it. Leading to patent portfolios of a handful of the biggest corporations. What about innovations that are developed independently but simultaneously?

Examples of concurrent independent development abound. newyorker.com: Calculus - Newton and Leibniz. Evolution - Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. Oxygen - Carl Wilhelm and Joseph Priestley. Colour photos - Charles Cros and Louis du Hauron. Logarithms - John Napier, Henry Briggs, Joost Burgi. Sunspots - Fabricius, Galileo, Harriott, Scheiner. Piston engine plane - the Wright brothers and Santos Dumont. And so and so on.

Cross licensing escalates the problem by permitting the aggregation of interests in blocks, and so patents will only "serve" and "protect" closely connected groups- Where conflicting groups will be left with not choice to seek patent equilibrium to keep peace.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4pdIrxQ7BuoJ:fabianmejia.blogspot.com/2008/09/codeblocks-and-opengl.html+code::blocks+and+OpenGL&cd=5&hl=pt-PT&ct=clnk&gl=pt&client=firefox-a

On state sponsored crimes

There is a clear distinction to be made about the moral implications in regards to the effective control citizens over their governments. In a totalitarian regime the blame should fall only on those that were responsible or aware of the actions, but at least in a democracy all citizens should have their share of the blame, since it was their obligation to question and establish controls that would prevent the facts.

w:Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación w:Project MKULTRA w:Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior 'Hell on earth': Detailed satellite photos show death camps North Korea still deny even exist USA covert intervention in Chile

War

War crimes

w:War crimes

w:Allied war crimes during World War II

w:Japanese war crimes

Radioactive Weapons with Long-Term Health Risks Dropped Into Libya

Atrocities

w:Tuskegee syphilis experiment

w:Unit 731

w:Bulu prison massacre

Religion as a problem

Failing to recognize the messenger

Computational Linguistics: Figuring Out Who Wrote The Bible

The UFO phenomena

Defining UFO

A UFO, meaning unidentified flying object, is just as it is labeled, any object that fails to get identified by an observer can properly be given this label.

The label of UFO also does not restrict the object to a factual flying object, it only requires the appearance of movement or even hovering capacity. The definition is of course very broad, for instance there are reports of UFOs exiting or entering water and even outside of Earth's atmosphere.

Unidentified objects are the default state of every observed phenomena. As we take notice of things around us we automatically utilize our knowledge base and experience to provide an identity, a function, an explanation and assessment, for what we observe. Really abnormal, or rare, phenomena stands outside of this methodology that our brain uses as a way to permit us to deal with the perceived reality we must function in. These types of phenomena will require verification of records, since rarity of the events will puts them outside of one or more lifetimes of the observer, preventing him to provide a valid identification or even to rely in others around him for it. New phenomenas on the other hand, will not be present on record, they will be truly new experiences, and so require the creation of valid documentation, as a way to share and validate what was observed and hopefully repetition, so science can provide an explanation to it. In this case providing only a untestable hypothesis will not suffice to declare the phenomena as identified, but can serve as a tentative response to inquiring minds and open the path for the application of the scientific method.

Other factors of providing valid identifications, is the effect of imagination and culture. These human capabilities will at times provide a framework to create a reasonable explanation to what is observed, at least one that satisfies the observer, but in fact may not reflect reality. This increases the problem on relying on others for a report of the observation as it increases error. This is especially true when dealing with unexplained and unexpected events, as this will be a point of collision, between the factual observer and someone that is only getting the report in second hand. The other side of the problem is that some observations of unexplained events can also be dismissed as explained even more so if the observer is unable to mentally deal with it or primed to label it in another way.

Do UFOs exist ?

Yes they do, always have and probably will always exists, there is no expectation that we will ever be able to explain all the phenomena that can happen in nature, even if we reduce the range to those that occur in the atmosphere that mimic flight, every new explained phenomena will undoubtedly open up the possibility for even more discoveries.

As man first looked into the vast skies all things seemed strange and fascinating, the moon and the starts could only be speculated about, even the other planets on our solar system have been first tentatively labeled as something else, even stars and over the ages a myriad of hypothesis where put forward to explain those direct observations.

The pertinence about UFOs todays is special in two fronts, first we can now fly and with flight we must be concerned with collisions and other atmospheric phenomena that can be dangerous to that activity. The second one is security, since the sky was until very recently the uppermost higher ground it permitted observation and even attacks on national interests, especially during the cold war, and with the development and testing of new spy and stealth technologies.

How far back in time do UFOs reports go?

The supernova SN 185 was observed in 185 CE, near the direction of Alpha Centauri, between the constellations Circinus and Centaurus, by Chinese astronomers, as reported in the Book of Later Han, and was visible for eight months.

Attempts to study the phenomena

w:Project Blue Book

Until something is understood no valid response can be conceived.

Still, no real scientific scrutiny ?

Most Governments engage in misinformation and deception programs around UFO sightings, and the hierarchy gives clear directives for military personal to suppress information, even to government authorities. There is somewhat of a opening in South America, France, Belgium and United Kingdom in regards to access to civilian authorities and military reports.

Ufology

Ufology is an activity, a field of study, specifically of UFOs, not a science. In that pursuit of understanding UFOs many sciences are useful to Ufology, like Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, History, Mathematics or Psychology.

History

The observation and questioning about the nature of UFOs has certainly been persistent across human history. Most object in the skies have had at one time or another caused awe and even fear. Fear and curiosity are probably the most powerful motivators to the advancement of mankind.

To conquer fear we needed to understand (or at least justify) the nature of what we observed and with that create a feeling of control and predictability, allowing us to function amidst the unknown.

All unknown phenomena at first started to be categorized as mystical and secret, and ultimately adopted as the cornerstone or religions across the word. Only with the advent of philosophy and then astronomy, was it possible to provide some understanding about the planets and the working of our solar system, and even to create notions about the self and the meaning of life, mathematics on the other hand helped to provide a fixed and understandable model to reality, not only augmenting certainty but even to extrapolate the unobservable.

Only in recent times and with the decline of religion in the West did the more technological advancements permit to formulate the question about life elsewhere, something that strangely older and less technological advanced cultures did take for granted. With improved telescopes it was possible to observe even stranger phenomena, the observation of the channels in mars was probably the topmost promoter in the west that life could exist beyond earth this soon fallowed by the discovery of the radio, lead to the now anecdotic notion that Martians were attempting to communicate with us and so the speculation became common and with it not only rich fields for science but for literature and even new religions.

What was earlier seen as supernatural phenomena, the field of religions and Gods was now open to the recently acquired freedom to reason and express divergent views and even publish them, leading to the rise of science.

Today it is not uncommon to speculate that some UFOs have extraterrestrial origin, not because of the nature of the phenomena but because we already much of what normally occurs, somethings that would before been simply explained as a signal of Gods, angels and daemons require not an explanation based on faith but in science.

Organizations

Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS)

Unexplainable UFO reports

• The 25-year-old Kentucky Air National Guard Thomas Mantell pilot crash and death in January 7, 1948. A local journal from Dayton, Ohaio, reported in April 27, in the article mentions parts of the report assembled at Wright-Patterson Air Force base. Including several quotes, one stating that the flying saucers "are not a joke".

• July 1952, UFOs over Washington D.C. With fighter pilots engaging in chases that lasted up to 6 hours. Objects were picked up by radar.
• 1976 September, Iran. Two F4 try to intercept an UFO and shoot it down. Weapons and communications are disabled. Event documented by the USA State Department.
• Mexico City 1992, world's largest metropolitan area.

w:Hermann Oberth

Reports

The increasing problem of the Media ridiculing any reported observation, especially if linked to aliens or extraterrestrials, generates a powerful motivation for self censure and ultimately suffering, not only for the witnesses themselves, but to the advance of science and general understanding of phenomena.

Most mass sightings, in regards to witnesses and objects seen, seemingly occur in waves.

• Roswell, New Mexico, USA, July 1947 - In July 8 and 9 most media outlets across the globe made the first and last announcement that the USA Government had captured a flying saucer.

Steve Schiff, Congressman, New Mexico (2004 PRG Political Courage Award): "I cannot say that the Roswell incident was a cover-up. But I can certainly say that the government back then, and today, acted as like it was a cover-up and has been subject to been accused of a cover-up."

Eye witness

USA Presidents

Jimmy Carter; Ronald Reagan

Images

Krawetz: Image analysis and forensics - http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/bh-usa-07-krawetz.pdf

Video

Uncensored and reliable public video broadcasts

• NASA Space Shuttle mission STS-48, 12 September 1991, during Commander John O. Creighton camera filming of the planet's horizon, for a live broadcast of the images, many viewers could see a UFO. Since then NASA no longer allowed public access to live video broadcasting from shuttle missions.

UFOs and nukes

• 1945 USA first atomic bomb test.

The trade of lies

When a population is kept in general state of ignorance, their judgment can more easily be controlled or even discarded as irrelevant without any internal opposition.

Any information is only valid if it is based in facts and any views expressed can be sourced, useful information is one that is relevant to the consumer, and not artificially artificially made relevant, to be transparent it must presents multiple view points and enables the viewer to make it own mind about those reelvant subjects.

Propaganda

One thing that anyone will understand as a given fact is that any war will be preceded and accompanied by a propaganda campaign, it is also expectable and an almost inevitability, that this campaigns will be even more utilized and effective, toward nations hose political systems depend on popular support.

"...among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages."

– Samuel Johnson, The Idler, 11/11/1758

Propaganda by itself may not constitute a lie, but undoubtedly will only serve to promote the view or interests of the propagandist.

An example of propaganda is the use of mass media to spread misinformation. This is done by governments and interest groups to promote their views to the public. In this instance simple disinformation becomes propaganda because it is backed up and promoted by the institutional powers as reality.

Youtube Video of RT.com report on statements made by Hillary Clinton, that the US Losing Information War to Alternative Media, rt.com, is an Internet service published by the Autonomous Non-Profit Organisation (ANO) “TV-Novosti” (Russia).

w:William Randolph Hearst - w:Yellow journalism - w:Propaganda of the Spanish–American War - Duck and cover and nuclear safety

Disinformation

Disinformation can serve to propagate lies, misdirect, confuse or weaken opposing views. Consider the damage one can create to the discussion of a topic if one can direct the opposition toward topics that are easily refuted or make the portraying the opposing side stupid by defending those issues.

Disinformation is closely related to the definition and motives why people lie and what is the truth, most of the time the truth is not a static objective notion, and this makes it easier to shift viewpoints about what the reality is.

Today disinformation is all around us, directed by those that control the media channels in order to advance their goals and reduce visibility of subjects that they would prefers not being public knowledge. Well made disinformation dissemination will avoid being too obvious (unless that also serves a purpose). One easy way to detect disinformation is to find reputable source for the information, and corroborating reports. This of course leads to the intentional shift of the efforts of disinformation from the real data to the data sources in an attempt to discredit them.

Recent events in Libya in 2011 for instance when relating the ware-abouts of Kadhafi suns or even statements statements regarding the progress of the rebels that can serve as a clear example how the progress, strengths and feats was being amplified, at the same time wile governments negated that on TV international forces where on the ground helping the rebels.

Another interesting case is the USA and UK media pressure and negativism regarding the euro currency. It is clearly unbalanced if you consider the origin and its interests and those countries national situations and the original sinners in this economic chaos. It would be expected that if someone should panicking it would be China since it has brought much of the euro debt and would suffer locally if the euro collapsed, to some degree China is strengthening its internal consumption, even creating internal imbalances. We could even argue that it would be in the national interests of the USA-UK coalition to have a fragile China and increase its dependency on them for exports. The paradox here is that the USA is also dependent on a strong Europe for trade (http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0003.html) and military support (NATO).

Censorship

The suppression of information, is also part of a process of disinformation, it not only negates access to information but promotes the value of the remaining information solely by the fact that it accessible.

Media control

The easiest way of ensuring control over information is the creation of artificial choke points and dependencies.

Documentary on how the media lies to manipulate us by Brian Springer

Books

The Press

Radio

Television

The Internet

The creation of the Internet has brought forth evidential prof of the efforts governments and commercial interests are willing to exert in the control of information. Control over access, movement and even creation of information in a distributed medium is something new and still evolving.

From simpler indexer, search engines have evolved beyond general information gatherers and portals into complex information channels, they now can monitor personal behaviors, location and interests, this shift for a personalized interaction arouse for the need to generate revenue, not by monetizing access but by the creation of indirect revenue streams. It started by simply permitting sites to get higher relevance to the addition of adds and now users have become also a commodity, where the data points they generate when interacting with the service is a valuable resource that others are willing to pay to have access.

With the rise of the social network...

Fabricated events

• Invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, justified by a border conflict.
• USA attack on Vietnam, the actions used for justification.
• USA lead intervention on Kosovo (Kosovo War), justified by claims of the existence of atrocities.
• USA lead attack on Iraq, justified by a claim of existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

w:False Flag

Censorship

Censorship is the suppression of information.

Understanding earthquakes

Fish deaths may precede quakes due to temperature shifts and general alteration on the quality of water induced by vibrations. Underground water table/tidal effects.

Richter scale

Why buildings collapse

Vibratory liquefaction

Quake prediction

w:Earthquake prediction w:Jim Berkland

Could electron count escalation high in the atmosphere serve to detect major earthquakes

Quakes and volcanoes

Quake activity may trigger volcanic activity. In 27 February 2010, the magnitude 8.8 Maule, Chile earthquake trigged hundreds of volcano tectonic earthquakes at Uturuncu, a Bolivian volcano.

Volcano tectonic earthquake

w:Volcano tectonic earthquake

Deconstructing the War on Drugs

Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa speaks during the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative meeting on September 20, 2011 in New York urging the U.S. to consider legalizing drugs

Most government agencies that deal with security and crime have to provide evidences that they are effective as a justification to continue to exist, to validate their spendings and to obtain more funding. It becomes then a priority to guarantee results (especially directed to the metrics used in performance evaluation), maintain a sense of urgency and increase the importance to their field of action. This will most often lead to quantity, but not quality and also to the direct or indirect generation of a symbiotic interdependent relation between the agencies and the target of their action.

We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies

Towards the Heart's core

w:Tectonics w:Plate tectonics [Geotimes - February 2008 - Plate tectonics on a planet far, far away]

Mathematical curiosities

Fractals

Benoit Mandelbrot - Hunting the Hidden Dimension Nova (2008)

A look into eugenics

The Complex William Jennings Bryan

All about nothing

the word nothing defines emptiness

the inexistence of emptiness

what is vacuum

Environmental influences on the human body

You are what you eat Foodstuff genetic material, microRNA, of has been detected in the human blood stream. Animal trials in mice demonstrated that they change how genes are expressed

Metabolomics

the impact of natural birth to the baby immune system (the problem with cesareans)

teeth and mouth flora

the tonsils

epigenetic modifications

stomach flora

the human toleration to non-human milk

the function of the appendix

Towards Immortality

An examination of trans-humanism

w:Transhumanism

Investment strategies before and after a calamity

Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasures.

– Rumi, the poet.

Gears of History

w:Gear

The Antikythera mechanism

Antikythera mechanism

Mechanical Clock

w:Clock

On spies and stratagems

"no time ever spent in reconnaissance is ever wasted"

The agency

For an organization to be declared as a spy agency, involved in espionage, it only suffices that a structure exists that permits for agents working in its behalf engage in sanctioned covert operation. Most if not all spy agencies are also referenced as intelligence agencies or services. It is not uncommon for police forces, criminal organizations and even private investigators to function and use spy techniques and procedures in operations that focus in gathering and processing of information, infiltration of other organizations and the subversion of the competition. Police forces even attempt "to turn" operators from the opposing side, these are in fact double agents.

It is common for spies to never talk about the agency by name outside of a secure involvement, they will use a less obvious nomenclature like "the family", "the shop", "the circus", "the firm" and other terms that will be mutually understood by those in the know but innocuous to third parties listening in on the conversation. This is also standard operating procedure (SOP) for most undercover, criminal and secret organizations.

• Mossad
• United States Secret Service
• CIA
• KGB
• Stasi
• Interpol

Cold wars

Economic warfare

Agency fronts

Covers

The spy

In the spy world the phrase "only the paranoid survive" gets an heightened meaning. A spy should trust no one, sensitive information should only be transfered across the spy network on a need to know basis and only the agency approved parties. Most spy networks are resemble a top down tree structure information is mostly shared only to the root operative not to equal level spies.

The superior of a spy is the controller or handler, the last could also be indicative that the spy is low ranking or not fully vetted by the agency. The term "his men" may be used to indirectly indicate that the spy is working for a specific controller/handler.

A spy should not be a creature of habits, easy to track and predict, unless that serves a purpose.

There is also other terms that have the same meaning as spy, like operative, covert agent, hood, spook, ghost. Note that other functions could also indicate a spy activity, even if not exclusive to spies, from the simple actions of sabotage (as a saboteur) to subversion (as an agent provocateur), public killing civilian assets (or non-acknowledge agents) of the opposition (a terrorist). It is also not uncommon that most diplomatic functionaries, to be or act as spies, gathering information and advancing the interests of their own nations in foreign lands, or even more complex actions under diplomatic protection.

Cover

Concealment

Being "burnt"

Procedures

The procedure of details Inspection, consists in carefully examining all the possession and aspect of oneself to assert that all conforms to the cover one is using. For instance discarding items that would jeopardize the cover and the operation, brand items, rings, currency, etc.

Some times there is need for the spy to be intentionally detected by the opposition. This intentional visibility is illustrated by the term "trailing his coat", an indication that the spy is intentionally attempting to catch attention to itself. This can be to divert attentions, identify the opposition or to plant the spy as a triple agent.

Double agent

A spy that reports on his own agency to a concurrent is declared a double agent. Double agents can be traitors to the agency or triple agents if the agency is aware of that one is a double agent, this does not imply that the situation was intentionally created, those would be defined as a plant.

A spy that is turned (have is loyalty compromised), is said to have come over to the new agency, to the original agency it is a mole (the term indicates that he is deeply infiltrated and has access to highly sensitive information) it can also be referred as a rotten apple since there is a risk that a double agent will not only report on the his original agency but turn other assets of that agency.

w:Double agent

The target

Intelligence classification

Solid intelligence

Exchange

"making a drop "

"dead drop"

A dead drop is an indirect delivery or even exchange. The object will be of a physical nature, information media or specific hardware. The dead drop is defined by pre-establishing a specific location for dropping the package, this will sometimes also include some sort of protocol to indicate that the drop will take place to the receiver, and may also include countermeasures in case the agent that will execute the drop thinks he is under observation, as to indicate that the content is false or that the receiver should stay away as to avoid himself being identified or captured.

Counter intelligence

"to turn someone"

The direct action for the subversion of an opposing agent, the creating a defector, to "bring over" that asset to work toward the agency objectives, is a good operation to advance counter intelligence not only as a source of intelligence but also as a way to infiltrate the opposition.

There are many ways to avoid "being turned". The spy should reduce ones attachments or at least reduce the access to information about one's life, since they can be used to exert pressure, also, by not living shamefulness life that can be used to blackmail or in other ways compromise the spy.

Assassination

The spy is often required to perform assassination, to "take down", terminate or retire someone.

The ET question

Mankind has the unique ability to ignore the obvious, specially when the facts reveal a disturbing truth. Statistically speaking, odds are there is intelligent life somewhere in the Universe. There is even evidence that life may at least have existed elsewhere in our own solar system. It is therefore an inevitability that at some point in the future we will have to face the implications of that reality.

Drake equation The Condon Report

Since chances are that will be here (or they may already be here) long before we find them on our terms, the questions that first arise are:

• Where are they coming from?
• What are they doing here?
• What can we do about it?

Cultural background

There is an intrinsic need in human society to explain all the phenomenons we live surrounded by, that explanation needs to be only as good as we need need it to be, as technology and cultures evolve so does the need for depth and logic on what we cannot readily explain.

Folk tales and legends have been in several occasions proven to describe not only real events but to offer plausible explanations for the events to those lived near the time they occurred, this tales, that have been passed from generation to generations have been an immense repository of knowledge before the written word and after in a time were alphabetization was very low, and the practice is still relevant to some cultures from all around the world.

Government

For a government to retain their authority and comply to their obligations to the citizen and to the preservation of the state, any acknowledgment of a power, especially of a technological nature, that is superior to them and outside of their control is an anathema.

United States of America

The Brookings Institution report from December 14, 1960, funded by the USA Federal Government states "Earth's Civilization Might Topple if Faced by a Race of Superior Beings".

A federal law passed by congress in 1969 makes it illegal for any American to make contact with any extraterritorial, and defines the whoever willfully violates it should be fined by $5,000 or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both (1211.108 Violation).

In the 1995 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) manual, named "Fire Officer's Guide To Disaster Control" by William M. Kramer, Ph.D. and Charles W. Bahme. J.D, published in 1992, Chapter 13 is dedicated to teaching techniques to communicate with aliens and deal with a crashed extraterrestrial craft.

Science

Scientific verification

To be possible to verify the existence of extra terrestrial life, there must be something that can be repeatedly observed by scientific methods and in a scientific setting. We can not forget that scientist are ultimately humans, prone to error and other human fragilities, repetition of the experience and equality in the findings is what validates a scientific discovery. Even more that an acceptance by its pears, reporting the exact findings on a correctly performed scientific investigation is how ultimately human knowledge evolves, even in fields that do not rely primarily in the scientific method. Those who succeed in adding new findings to the human knowledge are diffidently immortalized.

Witnesses

First Contact

United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOoOSA)

w:United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs - w:Mazlan Othman

Abductions

There is also the issue that hypnosis is used to recovered "lost" memories, the problem with using hypnosis in this tasks is that the operator (the hypnotist) can easily, even unwilling, direct the subject to create false memories or interpretation, under hypnosis memory is extremely fluid and missing details are often recreated by imagination, but nevertheless the sheer number of subjects with similar reports would still constitute a good indication of a repeated phenomenon. Purportedly abducteess, report that most abductions start in childhood and continue for many many years, even across generations.

Most people have had at least one experience of night-terrors, these are often presented as an explanation for the reports of the phenomenon or an entry point to the later recovering of "lost" memories, this can be a possible explanation to some cases, for instance per-technological societies labeled these cases incubus, sucubos and other types of mystical and fantastic creatures, it could be that today easy of access to information helps the subjects to report so cases, dialogs and settings that are extremely similar with each-other. But then we are faced with the case of reported medical anomalies and implants on these same subjects.

Criminality in the 21st Century

The decline of cash

Robing a slaughter house for the meat will have a greater return and a lesser risk that to steal a motorcycle.

Psychedelic reality

Santo Daime, ayahuasca

Out of the box

A work about believable ideas, and supporting theories, that failed to fully materialize, by simple physical impossibility or lack of resources (time, contextual practicality) and other factors.

The human creativity is endless, as we imagine the impossible we extend the boundaries of reality. (me)

w:Dean drive, w:Hieronymus machine