-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Today's Lesson from The True Believer by Eric Hoffer Slaves are poor; yet where slavery is widespread and long-established, there is little likelihood for the rise of a mass movement. The absolute equality among the slaves, and the intimate communal life in slave quarters, preclude individual frustration. In a society with an institution of slavery the troublemakers are the newly enslaved and the freed slaves. In the case of the latter it is the burden of freedom which is at the root of their discontent. Freedom aggravates at least as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual. And as freedom encourages a multiplicity of attempts, it unavoidably multiplies failure and frustration. Freedom alleviates frustration by making available the palliatives of action, movement, change and protest. Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, "to be free from freedom." It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility? ===== Nuclear Accidents Japan's Reactor Said to be Under Control Ummm, maybe you should take a shower anyway. Japan early today appeared to have brought its nuclear crisis under control, after halting the accidental chain reaction at a uranium processing plant near Tokyo. In the most serious nuclear accident in the country's history, 27 people were taken to hospital, three of them seriously ill, as radiation leaked from the plant. Radiation around the plant near Tokaimura, 140km north-east of the capital, was reported to be up to 20,000 times normal levels during the night, but later fell sharply. Residents within a 10km radius - about 313,000 people - were told to stay in their homes. Those living within a 350-metre radius of the plant were evacuated. A 3km radius was closed to traffic, and people caught in the light drizzle falling in the area were told to shower immediately as the rain could be radioactive. The Vienna-based International Atomic Agency said the leak appeared extremely serious. The apparent end to the crisis came after an emergency night-time operation, in which employees went into the plant to remove cooling water, which was helping to feed the nuclear reaction. Earlier reports had suggested the attempt was only partially successful because the workers - employees of JCO, a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining - had been able to spend only minutes at a time inside the building to keep down their exposure to radiation. The accident occurred at a JCO testing facility at 10.35am yesterday. JCO officials said an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction seemed to have occurred when workers mixed 16kg of uranium oxide - instead of the normal 2.4kg - with nitrate solution and transferred it to a precipitation tank. Experts subsequently worked to remove the nitrate water from the cooling equipment placed around the tank to suppress further nuclear fission reactions. The accident is a blow to the already tarnished reputation of Japan's nuclear industry, which supplies about a third of all Japanese electricity needs. The government at one stage asked US forces stationed in Japan for assistance. Japan's Defence Agency said the Americans initially declined, explaining they did not have equipment to deal with such an accident. But President Bill Clinton later said the US would co-operate with the Japanese authorities. Bill Richardson, US energy secretary, said the US and Russia had formed a team of experts to assist. As the crisis mounted yesterday Keizo Obuchi, the prime minister, set up an emergency taskforce and called off a cabinet reshuffle scheduled for today. He said: "This is an intense situation in which there is a concern over the continued effects of radiation. We must be certain to prioritise the safety of residents." Last night Hiromu Nonaka, chief cabinet secretary, warned: "There are fears that the effects of the radiation leak are continuing." The nuclear power sector has been plagued by accidents in recent years. Greenpeace, the environmental group, yesterday called for the country's nuclear facilities to be closed. The Financial Times, October 1, 1999 Organized Crime Globestar Close to FBI Pact on Wiretaps Big Brother FCC connives with the FBI A satellite phone firm is close to an agreement with federal law enforcement officials who had threatened to delay its service if the FBI couldn't wiretap phone conversations, company officials say. Officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been concerned that Globalstar and other satellite phone companies could undermine their ability to listen in on suspected criminals' telephone calls by sending the transmissions across national borders--and outside U.S. jurisdiction. The issue had threatened to hold up Globalstar's long-awaited launch date, scheduled for later this month. FBI officials had even raised the possibility that the company would have to move several of its expensive land-based transmission stations from Canada into the United States--an option that would have dramatically raised costs and delayed service for the fledgling firm. The FBI's scrutiny of the satellite phone business has proved rocky for the struggling industry. Few providers can afford to restructure their network to satisfy law enforcement concerns, and many in the industry are watching Globalstar to see if a cheap technical solution to federal demands can be found. After several months of negotiations with U.S. and Canadian officials, the company may have found a way to deal with the law as well as stay financially afloat. In a recent meeting, FBI officials and Globalstar executives agreed to pursue a technological fix that appears likely to satisfy the FBI's needs to tap into the satellite calls, company officials now say. "We have tentatively agreed on a technical solution," said Andy Radlow, a spokesman for Vodafone AirTouch, the company that is managing Globalstar's North American operations. "We don't get any indication that they intend to hold us up." An FBI spokesman confirmed that the agency is in discussions with satellite phone providers, but declined to comment specifically on negotiations with Globalstar. Aside from federal concerns, Globalstar is just the latest player to enter an industry that has seen two of its early pioneers fall by the wayside. The firm's largest competitor, Iridium, has already filed for bankruptcy protection and is undergoing a company reorganization. Another smaller competitor has also filed for bankruptcy protection. Not quite a borderless world Globalstar is run by a coalition of companies including Loral Space and Communications, Vodafone AirTouch, and Qualcomm, among others. With satellites already in orbit around earth, the company has said it plans to begin offering telephone service by the end of September. By the time its $3.9 billion satellite system is complete, the company will be able to serve customers almost anywhere on Earth. But before it can begin serving customers in the United States, it needs to win approval from the Federal Communications Commission--and that's where the trouble starts. The FCC has already held up a license for at least one smaller Canadian satellite phone company based on concerns that the FBI would not be able to tap and trace telephone calls made over the system. FCC officials say they have wanted to allow negotiations between the phone companies and the FBI to proceed before acting on the license requests. In Globalstar's case, two of the four ground stations--places where equipment sends calls to and from the satellite network--serving the United States will be located across the border in Canada. This has worried FBI officials, who don't want to have to seek approval from foreign governments when tapping telephones. Seeking permission from Canadian officials to conduct surveillance of U.S. suspects--a likely outcome if the FBI had to physically put taps in Globalstar's Canadian stations--would be a serious breach of national security, officials say. The fix that Globalstar and the FBI are reportedly discussing would allow law enforcement officials a way to tap into the satellite system without having to cross the U.S. border. The technical details are still being finalized, but Qualcomm--the company that provides the land station and handset equipment to Globalstar--has assured the Justice Department that the fix will satisfy their concerns, Radlow said. "We feel we're going to continue to have a good relationship on the federal and local level with law-enforcement," Radlow said. Once the FBI has officially signed off, Globalstar can go to the FCC for its license without much fear of delay. The company is running up against its own stated deadline to begin rolling out service this month, however. But the North American version of the service still plans a "soft launch" this November and appears likely to make this deadline despite the wiretap concerns. CNET, September 13, 1999 Spy Tech The CIA's Venture Capital Firm Say, wasn't CEO Gilman Louie at the Cabazon Indian Reservation? WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA, not wanting to be left behind in the Internet age or be outsmarted by tech-savvy adversaries, is teaming up with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to invest in companies developing computer technologies that could assist in intelligence gathering. Forgoing its usual clandestine ways, the agency has set up its own venture capital firm - with money appropriated by Congress - with offices in Washington and Palo Alto, Calif. It will invest in promising new start-up hi-tech companies. The CIA picked a fanciful name for the new company: In-Q-It. The ``In'' stands for intelligence. The ``It'' stands for information technology. And the Q? That's the code name of the James Bond character who comes up with all the gadgets that the fictional British spy uses. ``We do have a sense of humor,'' Central Intelligence Agency spokesman Bill Harlow said today, confirming the existence of the new company. Harlow said the venture capital company ``is clearly tied to us, but they make a big point of being independent.'' The venture, first reported by The Washington Post and The New York Times in today's editions, was actually set up last February as a nonprofit organization. But it is just now getting organized, with its own board of directors, according to the new chief executive officer, Gilman Louie. Louie said in an interview that the company would be small, with about 20 to 25 employes, and is being started with $28 million appropriated by Congress last year as part of the classified budget for the agency. Both Louie and the CIA said that the venture capital company would only work on unclassified projects. Mainly, In-Q-It will invest in some high-tech companies and form joint ventures with other ones where the companies are working on promising technological projects that could benefit the CIA. This includes ways of helping the CIA to use the Internet more effectively and securely. It also will try to find promising technologies that will help the CIA better use the information it already possesses in a variety of forms, from paper to computer files. He cited the May 7 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia - a target picked by the CIA - as "the manifestation of the worst result that could happen if you don't have all your information lined up." Louie, 39, founded his own electronic game company - MicroProse Inc. - that was later bought by Hasboro. At Hasboro, Louie has been an executive with the toy company's online business group. He said he has no experience in espionage "and I want to keep it that way." The company's board of directors includes John Seely Brown, director of the Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center; Norm Augustine, chairman of Lockheed Martin; William Perry, the former defense secretary; and Jeong Kim of Lucent. The Associated Press, September 29, 1999 Digital Society Problem with Girlfriend Upgrade More proof we live in the Kali Yuga. To: TECH SUPPORT Subject PROBLEMS WITH UPGRADE Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 and noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. No mention of this phenomenon was included in the product brochure. In addition, Wife 1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during system initialisation, where it monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Poker Night 10.3, Drunken Boys Night 2.5 and Saturday Football 5.0 no longer run, crashing the system whenever selected. I cannot seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run some of my other favourite applications. I am thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0, but the uninstall does not work on this program. Can you help me, please?!? Thanks, Joe ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: TECH SUPPORT To: JOE Dear Joe: This is a very common problem men complain about but is mostly due to a primary misconception. Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 with the idea that Wife 1.0 is merely a UTILITIES & ENTERTAINMENT program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and designed by its creator to run everything. It is unlikely you would be able to purge Wife 1.0 and still convert back to Girlfriend 7.0. Hidden operating files within your system would cause Girlfriend 7.0 to emulate Wife 1.0, so nothing is gained. It is impossible to uninstall, delete, or purge the program files from the system once installed. You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is not designed to do this. Some have tried to install Girlfriend 8.0 or Wife 2.0 but end up with more problems than the original system. Look in your manual under "Warnings-Alimony/Child Support." I recommend you keep Wife 1.0 and just deal with the situation. Having Wife 1.0 installed myself, I might also suggest you read the entire section regarding General Partnership Faults (GPFs). You must assume all responsibility for faults and problems that might occur, regardless of their cause. The best course of action will be to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE. In any case, avoid excessive use of the Esc key because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the operating system will return to normal. The system will run smoothly as long as you take the blame for all the GPFs. Wife 1.0 is a great program, but very high maintenance. Consider buying additional software to improve the performance of Wife 1.0. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Chocolates 5.0. Do not, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3. This is not a supported application for Wife 1.0 and is likely to cause irreversible damage to the operating system. Best of luck. Tech Support. The Internet ------ Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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