Amesj's Odditorium

[alkemical]

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/ripti...ies_to_use.php


Tacos are not recognized as legal forms of identification in the state of Florida [insert bad joke about immigration laws here]. Matthew Falkner found out the hard way after he passed out drunk in the drive-thru of a Jensen Beach Taco Bell and his car caught fire [insert bad joke about Taco Bell's fire sauce or volcano taco here].

The incident occurred in the early morning of October 1 in Jensen Beach, according to the blog Off the Beat. Falkner, 30, had apparently decided to make a run for a fourth meal after downing some beers, and he somehow made it all the way to the fast-food joint in his Chevy pickup, placed his order, and received his taco before falling asleep.

The Taco Bell manager had to call police because Falkner was out cold at the pick-up window and holding up customers behind him. Clearly this was not a victimless crime, and our hearts go out to the hungry folks who had to wait so long for their late-night munchies.

A deputy awoke Falkner and then asked for his ID. Falkner said no before reaching into his bag and presenting the officer with a taco. Another deputy clarified they were asking for an ID, not a taco. Falkner chuckled and began eating the taco.

Then deputies noticed Falkner had fallen asleep with his foot on the accelerator while his truck was in park. The engine had caught fire, and fire extinguishers were used to put it out.

Falkner's blood alcohol content was between .227 and .225, according to a breath test. That's three times the legal limit. He was hauled off to jail on DUI charges. No word on the fate of the taco.

Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes.

[alkemical]

http://ackelandassociates.com/cash-t...-by-louisiana/

Cash Transactions Banned by Louisiana

Government Takes Private Property Without Due Process

[alkemical]

Computer scientist Dennis Ritchie is reported to have died at his home this past weekend, after a long battle against an unspecified illness. No further details are available at the time of this blog post.

Wikipedia biography here.

He was the designer and original developer of the C programming language, and a central figure in the development of Unix. He spent much of his career at Bell Labs. He was awarded the Turing Award in 1983, and the National Medal of Technology in 1999.

"Ritchie's influence rivals Jobs's; it's just less visible," James Grimmelman observed on Twitter. "His pointer has been cast to void *; his process has terminated with exit code 0."

The news of Ritchie's death was first made public by way of Rob Pike's Google+.

Photo, below: Candlelight vigil for Dennis M. Ritchie. (thanks, Kevin)

[baja]

Wonder if this is another guy who knew too much like Steve Jobs.

[baja]

FBI Insider: Obama Administration Likely Manufactured Dubious Terror Plot

No information about plot exists within FBI channels
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, October 13, 2011
Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer says that an FBI insider told him the dubious terror plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador which has been blamed on Iran was likely manufactured by the Obama administration, because no information about the plot even exists within FBI channels.

The plot, an assassination attempt against Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, was pinned on an Iranian-American used-car salesman from Texas and subsequently linked by the Obama administration to a wider conspiracy controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
According to the administration, used car salesman Mansour J. Arbabsiar tried to hire assassins from a Mexican drug gang to carry out the murder, but the head of the drug gang turned out to be a DEA agent posing as a Mexican Los Zetas gangster. The story has all the hallmarks of classic FBI entrapment tactics that have characterized almost every major terror bust in recent times.
Having personally interrogated Iranians, Shaffer doubted the fact that members of the elite Quds Force would risk carrying out an assassination in the United States when it would be far easier to conduct such a plot in the middle east.
“It does not smell correctly,” Shaffer told Fox Business host Andrew Napolitano, adding that it was doubtful a successful used car salesman who has been part of the community for 15 years would suddenly become embroiled in an international assassination plot.
Asked by Napolitano if Arbabsiar was the victim of another FBI sting, Shaffer responded, “I think that’s part of it.”
“The FBI’s had a record lately and I did talk to one of my inside guys and he is saying he thinks the same thing, you know why, because he can’t find any real information and he’s got a clearance – so that tells him that there’s something going on that’s extraordinary by the fact that he’s an inside investigator, knows what’s going on and yet, I’m gonna quote here, ‘There’s nothing on this within the DOJ beyond what they’ve talked about publicly’ – which means to him that there’s something very wrong with it,” said Shaffer.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Even the New York Times is now reporting that the dubious nature of the plot has caused “a wave of puzzlement and skepticism from some foreign leaders and outside experts.”
The military-industrial complex has long been searching for a pretext that could be used to justify military strikes against Iran.
In a 2009 report entitled “Which Path to Persia?”, the elitist Brookings Institution wrote, “It would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be.”
The dubious plot has been instantly seized upon by the likes of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to push for Iran to be further isolated by the international community. Kerry’s comments were perhaps the most bellicose, telling reporters yesterday, “I don’t think anything should be taken off the table at this point in time.”
It has also served as a useful distraction for Attorney General Eric Holder, who is currently under investigation for his role in the infamous Fast and Furious program, which saw the federal government deliver thousands of military-grade weapons to leaders of Mexican drug gangs.
“That the current “alleged” plot pinned on Iran revolves around yet another undercover federal agency conducting a long-term sting operation defies belief,” writes Tony Cartalucci. “That we are expected to believe one of Iran’s most elite military forces left such a sensitive, potentially war-starting operation to a used-car salesman and a drug gang reported in the papers daily for its involvement with US government agencies (and who turns out to actually be undercover DEA agents) is so ridiculous it can only be “made up” as Secretary Clinton puts it. More accurately, it is the result of an impotent US intelligence community incapable of contriving anything more convincing in the face of an ever awakening American public, to bolster its morally destitute agenda. The cartoonish nature of the plot and the arms’ length even its proponents treat it with to maintain plausible deniability is indicative of a dangerously out of control ruling elite and an utterly incompetent, criminally insane government.”




http://www.prisonplanet.com/fbi-insi...rror-plot.html

[alkemical]

Originally Posted by baja

Wonder if this is another guy who knew too much like Steve Jobs.

I think it's like they are checking out before the shift.

[baja]

Assassination Plot Was Pushed By DEA Informant

Arbabsiar thought he was involved in a drug deal
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Friday, October 14, 2011
Details emerging from the dubious Iranian terror plot strongly suggest that the plan to assassinate a Saudi ambassador was concocted not by Mansour J. Arbabsiar, who thought he was overseeing a drug deal, but by the DEA informant working on behalf of the federal government.

“The legal document describing evidence in the case provides multiple indications that it was mainly the result of a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sting operation,” reports Asia Times’ Gareth Porter.
The document confirms that the assassination plan was “originated with and was strongly pushed by an undercover DEA [Department of Drug Enforcement] informant, at the direction of the FBI”.
Geopolitical experts have almost universally questioned why the highly professional Iranian Quds Force would hire a washed up used care salesman who had a drinking problem and a propensity for hookers to be the “mastermind” behind such a sophisticated operation, and why that operation would take place in the United States when it would be far easier to carry out the assassination in the middle east.
It now appears that Iranian-American patsy Mansour Arbabsiar thought he was merely involved in a drug deal to sell large amounts of opium from Afghanistan, and that the terrorist angle was introduced by “CS-1″ – the DEA informant working on behalf of the FBI.
“On May 24, when Arbabsiar first met with the DEA informant he thought was part of a Mexican drug cartel, it was not to hire a hit squad to kill the ambassador. Rather, there is reason to believe that the main purpose was to arrange a deal to sell large amounts of opium from Afghanistan,” writes Porter.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
The legal document fails to list any single example directly attributable to Arbabsiar where he mentions killing the Saudi ambassador.
“Both that language and the absence of any statement attributed to Arbabsiar imply that the Iranian-American said nothing about assassinating the Saudi ambassador except in response to suggestions by the informant, who was already part of an FBI undercover operation,” adds Porter.
Indeed, the record shows that it is the informant who constantly refers to the assassination. When Arbabsiar wired $100,000 dollars to an account in New York in August, he still did so under the impression that the money would be used in connection with the drug deal, the legal document shows.
The DEA informant himself was under pressure to pull off the sting because he had already been charged with a narcotics offense and was posing as a drug cartel operative in return for the charges against him being dropped.
It appears as though the entire plot was, similar to a myriad of previous terror cases, a case of entrapment where the FBI deliberately chooses an individual down on his luck and promises him money and importance, radicalizing him in the process and convincing him to commit criminal activities. Even so, there is no specific example where Arabsiar directly advocates killing the Saudi ambassador.
As we reported yesterday, an FBI insider who spoke with retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer told Shaffer that no details of a terror plot existed within the Department of Justice files, indicating that the story was largely fabricated by the Obama administration as a pretext to give Israel the green light to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, which many geopolitical observers are warning is only weeks away.

[alkemical]

Go figure, eh.

[mosca]

Originally Posted by alkemical

http://ackelandassociates.com/cash-t...-by-louisiana/

Cash Transactions Banned by Louisiana

Government Takes Private Property Without Due Process

Great. So now there's absolutely no chance you'll be able to track down your stolen **** at the pawn shop - the crackheads are gonna be forced to sell everything on the black market if they weren't already. Stupid law.

[alkemical]

Originally Posted by mosca

Great. So now there's absolutely no chance you'll be able to track down your stolen **** at the pawn shop - the crackheads are gonna be forced to sell everything on the black market if they weren't already. Stupid law.

Not only that - but you are going to see barter come back - which is one of the reasons they are crashing down on CA with their "dispensaries"....

[alkemical]

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/10/sadda...ed-to-do-porn/

Ever feel as though you’re trapped in a waking nightmare? An ordinary Egyptian man’s terrible saga, via Huffington Post:

An Egyptian man who looks like Saddam Hussein says a gang of Iraqi kidnappers tried to force him to act in a pornographic film.

After refusing a $330,000 offer to play Hussein in a sex tape — which was purportedly planned to be sold to the media as an authentic recording of the deceased Iraqi dictator — Mohamed Bishr told al-Ahram that three men in black suits attempted to abduct him as he walked to a cafe in Alexandria on Sunday.

“The three men, who had guns hanging from their belts, forced me out of my car and shoved me into a van, hitting my head,” Bishr told the publication. For some reason, the abductors began arguing with each other and tossed him out of the vehicle, Bishr claims.

While plotting ways to destabilize Hussein before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the CIA considered concocting a hoax video featuring a Hussein look-alike having sex with a teenage boy.

[alkemical]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/...rticle2198408/

Does the thought of puppy sandwiches trigger your gag reflex or bring a sympathetic tear to your eye? Well, British celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says if you eat other types of meat, you should get a grip. He says he'd have no problems with a "high-welfare organic puppy farm," according to the Guardian.

"You can't object, unless you object to the farming of pigs," he says.

Mr. Fearnsley-Whittingstall wouldn't eat dog steak himself (he's recently become a vegetarian) but took the controversial stance to point out the hypocrisy among meat eaters who are happy to eat animals traditionally raised as livestock but are vehemently opposed to eating those raised as pets.

Our culture's opposition to eating puppies is based on a shaky foundation, he argues. At some point, we decided dogs would make great household companions and pigs (and cows and chickens) would be raised on farms and then grilled, fried and baked.

Surprise, surprise: not everyone's a fan of his stance.

[alkemical]

http://mises.org/daily/5759/Decrimin...he-Average-Man

Decriminalize the Average Man

If you reside in America and it is dinnertime, you have almost certainly broken the law. In his book Three Felonies a Day, civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate estimates that the average person unknowingly breaks at least three federal criminal laws every day. This toll does not count an avalanche of other laws — for example misdemeanors or civil violations such as disobeying a civil contempt order — all of which confront average people at every turn.

An article in the Economist (July 22, 2010) entitled "Too many laws, too many prisoners" states,

Between 2.3m and 2.4m Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under "correctional" supervision. As a proportion of its total population, America incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan.

By contrast, in 1970, less than one in 400 Americans was incarcerated. Why has the prison population more than quadrupled over a few decades? Why are you, as an average person and daily felon, more vulnerable to arrest than at any other time?

There is a simple answer but no single explanation as to how the situation arose or why it continues to accelerate out of control. The answer: a constant flood of new and broadly interpreted laws are criminalizing entire categories of daily life while, at the same time, the standards required for arrest and conviction have been severely diluted. The result is that far too many people are arrested and imprisoned for acts that should not be viewed as criminal at all or should receive minimal punishment.

In some cases, the violated laws are so obscure, vague, or complicated in language that even the police are ignorant of them. In other cases, outright innocence is not sufficient to escape the brutality of detention.

(cont'd on site) -

[alkemical]

I hit up the #Occupy HBG, Lanc & York this weekend:

Was interesting. Yep, there were some young people - but to me that's a given. Smiley I sort of "ignore" them a little bit. But was interesting to talk to some of them and just gauge where they are at. Most of them don't have any "answers", but they are genuinely concerned for the future. From speaking with them, I get the impression that they put their trust more in Gov't, than "Corporate". I shared some information with them about the ideas of collusion between big $ & Gov't and while the perception of corporate greed is valid - don't forget to focus on empowering the citizens and taking responsibility for gov't. Also gave them some stuff to read to just "food for thought it": (As in, be a student of business. Learn how it works. Don't get stuck making bad deals due to lack of knowledge.)

Also noticed many 30's, 40's, 50's there, met some vets, etc.

It wasn't NYC that's for sure. Was just a lot of people who don't understand why things are so difficult. Many of the sentiments of "bail me out", is a direct response of the Wall St/Bank Bail outs. I can understand the frustration. In our "system", only the very upper, and very lower ends of our society get "much" of the benefit with a lower pay out.

I grabbed some literature. Seen that the AFL-CIO is trying to "co-opt" their way in (ala the way the Tea-Party was). But, much of the actual #Occupy literature actually put Obama to blame on problems as well.


Just interesting on how it doesn't always match up with what is being "sold".


Oh!!! One other quick thing: I met my first ever Agent Provocateur! It was interesting. I heard him with some of the other people there and I had invited him to come over and chat with me. He did, and he didn't stay long. But it was pretty interesting.

[alkemical]

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Crack...3/nH4IsuFk2gI/

3 Types of Wall Street Protesters Hurting Their Own Cause

[alkemical]

http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...therish-future

Gov't cameras in your car? E-toll patent hints at Big Brotherish future
By Bob Sullivan

Imagine that you couldn't drive on major highways without agreeing to put a camera in your car -- one that could film either the occupants or the vehicle’s surroundings and transmit the images back to a central office for inspection.

You don't have to read George Orwell to conjure up such an ominous surveillance state. You just have to skim through filings at the U.S. Patent Office.

It's hard to imagine Americans would tolerate such a direct, Big-Brotherish intrusion. But they might not notice if the all-seeing cameras were tucked inside another kind of government tracking technology that millions of Americans have already invited into their cars.

Kapsch TrafficCom AG, an Austrian company that just signed a 10-year contract to provide in-car transponders such as the E-Z Pass to 22 electronic highway toll collection systems around the U.S., recently filed a patent on technology to add multi-function mini-cameras to their toll gadgets. Today, transponders are in about 22 million cars around the U.S. Adding inward and outward facing cameras to the gadgets would create surveillance capabilities far beyond anything government agencies have tried until now.

The stated reason for an inward-pointing camera is to verify the number of occupants in the car for enforcement of HOV and HOT lanes. The outward-pointing camera could be used for the same purpose, helping authorities enforce minimum occupant rules against drivers who aren't carrying transponders.

But it's easy to imagine other uses. The patent says the transponders would have the ability to store and transmit pictures, either at random intervals or on command from a central office. It would be tempting to use them as part of a search for a lost child, for example, and law enforcement officials might find the data treasure trove irresistible. The gadget could also be instructed to take pictures when the acceleration of a car "exceeds a threshold," or when accidents occur, so it could be used like an airplane cockpit flight recorder.

It's important to note that a patent filing is a far cry from the invention and manufacturing of a new product. Many patent filings are nothing more than a defensive measure taken to protect the farthest reaches of intellectual property. Officials at Kapsch declined to be interviewed for this story, but in a statement said that citizens shouldn't read too much into the filing.

“This patent filing is part of the standard intellectual property protection process followed by every company that invests in research and development," said Erwin Toplak, chief operating officer of Kapsch, in an e-mail. "Kapsch, for example, files approximately 20 patent applications a year. This process protects our unique ideas; it does not signify that a commercial product is in development or even contemplated .”

[alkemical]

http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=17158

The Mysterious Black Stone of Kaaba - Worship of a Meteorite?

Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, is one of the greatest religious observances in Islam. This year, Hajj is expected to fall between November 4-9.

People often associate Hajj with the familiar image of devout Muslims making the journey to the Kabaa, and seven-times circling the ancient stone building towards which they pray. The gathering in the plain of Arafat symbolises the climax of the hajj pilgrimage, and in 2010 two million Muslims were at the site together on a single day.

What is less commonly known is the presence of a holy relic - literally a cornerstone - that is part of the worship. The origins of the dark stone remains a mystery to not only Muslims but geologists, scientists and historians alike.

Does the black stone reveal pagan goddess-worshiping roots of Islam?

The Black Stone of Ka’aba - al-Hajr al-Aswad



**** An interesting read if you are interested in these sorts of things.

[alkemical]

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/10/five-...n-wall-street/

1. Break up the monopolies. The so-called “Too Big to Fail” financial companies – now sometimes called by the more accurate term “Systemically Dangerous Institutions” – are a direct threat to national security. They are above the law and above market consequence, making them more dangerous and unaccountable than a thousand mafias combined. There are about 20 such firms in America, and they need to be dismantled; a good start would be to repeal the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and mandate the separation of insurance companies, investment banks and commercial banks.

2. Pay for your own bailouts. A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about. It would also deter the endless chase for instant profits through computerized insider-trading schemes like High Frequency Trading, and force Wall Street to go back to the job it’s supposed to be doing, i.e., making sober investments in job-creating businesses and watching them grow.

3. No public money for private lobbying. A company that receives a public bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer’s own money to lobby against him. You can either suck on the public teat or influence the next presidential race, but you can’t do both. Butt out for once and let the people choose the next president and Congress.

4. Tax hedge-fund gamblers. For starters, we need an immediate repeal of the preposterous and indefensible carried-interest tax break, which allows hedge-fund titans like Stevie Cohen and John Paulson to pay taxes of only 15 percent on their billions in gambling income, while ordinary Americans pay twice that for teaching kids and putting out fires. I defy any politician to stand up and defend that loophole during an election year.

5. Change the way bankers get paid. We need new laws preventing Wall Street executives from getting bonuses upfront for deals that might blow up in all of our faces later. It should be: You make a deal today, you get company stock you can redeem two or three years from now. That forces everyone to be invested in his own company’s long-term health – no more Joe Cassanos pocketing multimillion-dollar bonuses for destroying the AIGs of the world.

[alkemical]

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/10/the-o...eorge-project/

Occupy George is a (presumably illegal) attempt to convey the reality of wealth distribution in the United States to the public by adding pertinent information to paper currency and circulating it as needed. Now your money will have informational as well as purchase value. Download their templates or order the custom stamps, and you can begin minting your own Occupy George bills at home:

Money talks, but not loud enough for the 99%. By circulating dollar bills stamped with fact-based infographics, Occupy George informs the public of America’s daunting economic disparity one bill at a time.

[alkemical]

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/10/the-r...-robot-author/

The Robot Author Has Arrived




Posted by JacobSloan on October 17, 2011

dadoesWe can all agree that it’s O.K. for robots to take over unpleasant jobs — like cleaning up nuclear waste. But how could we have allowed them to commandeer one of the most gratifying occupations, that of author?

Via the New York Times, Pagan Kennedy looks into the phenomenon of android authors, and finds that their works are already being published and sold on Amazon:

One day, I stumbled across a book on Amazon called “Saltine Cracker.” It didn’t make sense: who would pay $54 for a book entirely about perforated crackers? The book was co-edited by someone called Lambert M. Surhone — a name that sounds like one of Kurt Vonnegut’s inventions. According to Amazon, Lambert M. Surhone has written or edited more than 100,000 titles, on every subject from beekeeping to the world’s largest cedar bucket. He was churning out books at a rate that was simply not possible for a human being.

So who was Lambert M. Surhone? Just looking at the numbers, you could argue that he’s one of the most prolific creators of literature who ever lived. But was he even human? There are now software programs — robots, if you will — that can gather text and organize it into a book. Surhone might be one of them.

Whatever he was, Lambert M. Surhone worked under the auspices of a German company, VDM Publishing. In addition to selling conventional books, VDM also extrudes thousands of paperbacks every year using content available without cost on the Internet. These books, or booklike products, lie in wait for the distracted shopper, someone who might think, Oh good, I really need a tome on Spearman’s law of diminishing returns, so I’ll just go ahead and pay $84. And with one overhasty click on the “Place your order” button, the shopper can pay a lot of money for a book that turns out to be warmed-over Wikipedia.

VDM Publishing puts a notice on the cover of its books, boasting “high-quality content by Wikipedia articles!” Still, not every buyer sees the disclaimer. Librarians, for instance, report that they must be vigilant in order to avoid wasting money on the robot-books. Readers complain that the books proliferate like kudzu in online stores.

But the invasion of robot-books is unsettling for another reason. I think we can all agree that it’s O.K. for robots to take over unpleasant jobs — like cleaning up nuclear waste. But how could we have allowed them to commandeer one of the most gratifying occupations, that of author?

***Cont'd on site/linked article

[alkemical]

Who Lobbies In Washington? (http://www.disinfo.com/2011/10/who-l...in-washington/)

Posted by JacobSloan on October 17, 2011

OpenSecrets has a wealth of information concerning private lobbying of federal and state government in the United States. However, it may be best to begin by looking at where the lobbying money is coming from. The FIRE (finance, insurance, and real estate) sector leads the field in terms of lobbying funds spent from 1998-2011.

[alkemical]

The 'agent provocateur' who infiltrated Occupy Wall Street
Among the protesters pepper-sprayed while storming a D.C. museum this weekend was a conservative aiming to "mock and undermine" the movement

http://theweek.com/article/index/220...py-wall-street

[alkemical]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/17/g...y-ten-seconds/

GE's new factory will push out one solar panel every ten seconds

[alkemical]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/18/o...r-touchscreen/

OmniTouch projection interface makes the world your touchscreen (video)



Sometimes you just want to make notes on your forearm. Put that permanent marker down though, because PhD student Chris Harrison et al at Microsoft Research have created a new system that allows touchscreen interaction on hairy and uneven surfaces. It uses a short-range depth camera instead of the infrared sensor we've seen on similar devices, which allows it to gauge the viewing angle and other characteristics of surfaces being used -- and it can even handle pinch-to-zoom. There's a video after the break, if you fancy a bit of wall-based digital finger painting.

[alkemical]

http://presidentialpickuplines.tumblr.com/