Big Brother is spying on you, even in our rural town in Luzon

here everyone has cellphones.

they still use cash, of course, but even here we have e commerce so we can buy stuff on line and have it delivered. And in the malls, you can use credit card or e cash apps on your cell phone.

Joy and Kuya have cellphones of various types to use for business. They are connected and use the cellphones for photos, memos, on line discussions etc. 

Well anyway, last year the government decided to demand registration of your SIM card for your cellphone. 

I keep asking how to do this, but no one seems to know how to do this.

Why worry? 

because excuse me but I suspect that hackers will be able to steal our identity. I mean, if my US Federal OPM file was hacked a couple years ago by Chinese hackers, why should I trust having my personal information on a database here in the Philippines?

And the video notes that some folk worry this will let the government punish those who oppose it.

Yes, the left is worrying about this too. They pointed out how this could be used to target those who might demonstrate or protest government policies 

Sort of like how the Canadian government punished the truckers protesting a ridiculous law about covid by closing their bank accounts. 

and of course it makes one wonder if this will be part of the way to implement e money in the near future, which means the next step will be to implement ways to gauarantee you are who you say you are... mark of the beast anyone?

So what happens when you eliminate cash money?

India, in 2016, eliminated much of their cash money with the excuse they were trying to stop tax evasion... 

and as this BBC report noted:

Curbing tax evasion is part of the agenda for the "aadhaar" scheme, a giant digital database designed to give hundreds of millions of Indians a unique ID, and of the new Goods and Services tax. And reducing tax evasion can only be good for India. The more money it raises in tax, the more it has to spend on useful stuff like roads, hospitals and schools.

But some are not so happy with it noting that the rich just hid their money in gold, real estate, or overseas banks. (I should note that gold confiscation was done a year or two earlier but hey, that law was mostly ignored).

India’s black money problem has not gone away. The economy has taken a beating, huge financial losses have been incurred, and the marginalized poor, least able to withstand adversity, have been negatively affected.

 italics mine.

 

unlike most official news sources, MarketSlant summarizes what really was going on, in detail Summary: it won't work completely because"crime will find a way".

and an article in today's IndiaExpress notes: it will not stop there, since big economies like China are pushing digital currancy.

Last month the Chinese Central Bank rolled out pilot testing for its home grown digital currency. The tests, slated to take place in the cities of Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu and Xiong’an, will involve transferring salaries to government workers in the form of the new Digital Currency (internally referred to as DC/EP) and tying up with a set of designated merchants to facilitate transactions using the currency.

UKGuardian in a 2021 article discusses e currancy by a governemt central bank vs e currancies by ordinary banks and notes the threats of bit coin to this.

except of course a lot of us suspect the bit coin shannanigans led to the recent bank failures (and bail outs) and are probably going to result in more government control of the money system. 

so what could go wrong?

Professor Carrington call your office. the sun is acting up again.

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update: The secretary registered my SIM card when she did the registration of all the SIM cards of our business.

So everything is okay with this.

 

Things that make you go HMMM...

 Elon Musk has positioned 100 Starlinks over Iran, which will let the protesters there go on the internet without the government stopping them.

......................

China expects half of their population to catch the latest (mild) strain of Covid, and they have lifted restrictions.

the idea is that since the latest Covid strain is much milder and more infectious than the original covid strain, to allow the virus to do it's thing and the result will be herd immunity.

The anti vaxxers don't recognize this, and gaslight you by saying that no restrcitions or shots should have been given when the more virulent strain was killing the young the old the pregnant etc.

..........................

China is sending planes into Taiwan's airspace, trying to provoke them into a war.

and their ships have been pushing around the Philippines in the West Philippine sea.

Just in case a war starts here in Asia: You have been warned.

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A bad snowstorm in the US. This has happened before but this time there are brownouts and failures of the electrical grid.

We have brown outs and lose power with storms and typhoons a couple times a yaer, but we aren't below Zero temperature so it's not as bad. In my prayers.

================

as a physician, I have noted before that the censorship of debate about covid policy in the social media actually made people more suspicious about the shots and policy increased people believing in what they said on fringe sites.

Now it turns out that the Biden administration was behind it. (and the Trump administration started it).

LINK

since when is it okay for the government to stifle experts with different opinions and claim disinformation instead of allowing an honest discussion of this?

The latest news (to anyone who doesn't read conspiracy theories) is that yes, it is true that reports of FBI/CIA etc snooping in on twitter is probably just the tip of the iceburg. Hmm... isn't there something about privacy in the bill of rights?

But of course, they are monitoring the social media for threats to the republic, 

Looking for dangerous Methodists I guess.

...........

Crypto currancies, Big media manipulation, and other forms of control

 I know nothing about crypto currancies except that some countries have banned them, and apparantly a lot of countries worry about fraud and criminals and the ability of ordinary citizens to do money stuff where the gov't can spy on them. So a lot of countries are planning to stop private crypto currancies and have their central banks issue their own

From the UKGuardian:(Nov 2021):

The Indian government is preparing to ban private cryptocurrencies and allow the country’s central bank to launch an official digital currency.

The proposed legislation follows a crackdown on cryptocurrencies in China, where financial regulators and the central bank have made all digital currency transactions illegal.

UKGuardian article from last year (Sept 2021) about China's moves:

so could the yanks be far behind? Biden is looking into doing the same thing.(March 2022) presumably by executive order, since one doubts Congress would survive if people recognized the privacy implications of a digital curracny where your money can be tracked (and maybe in the future be linked to the ability to limit your money use if your social credit number is low).

All of this is about billions of illicit money stuff that goes on all the time despite laws: if caught, the banks shrug and pay the fine (which is a pittance compared to their profit for looking the other way) but of course few bankers go to jail.

CoreyDigs has a long article with links about the background to what is going on and tries to find links and connect the dots.

In the meanwhile, China and Russia are trying to partner with other countries to make an alternative to the US dollar for international trade.

AlJ report on the BRICS summit.

so what does this mean for you? 

I have no idea: as Bones would say: I'm a doctor, not an international financier.

But one does wonder if this will survive, given reports of China staying in covid shutdown, floods in China, over investment in ghost cities, and bank runs.

But it might mean China will be able to put more pressure on the Philippine so they can steal our asseets (petroleum, fish) and the ability to block the sea lanes in the West Philippine sea.

BongBong is being inaugurated today and big crowds of supporters and anti BBM demonstrators will be in Manila...(and we have a rice delivery in the Manila suburbs so security checks might delay our drivers delivering to the suburban Manila markets).

The US is doing their best to undermine him of course: he still has all that lovely money stolen from Yamashita's gold the Philippine people by his father. But a lot of folks just shrug, and like my husband, say: They're all crooks. And before you cast stones at the Philippines, maybe ask how all those folks in the US Congress became millionaires on their small gov't salary...

Another big kerfuffle today in the Philippines is that the courts might finally shut down the CIA  Omidyar funded news site Rappler because the law of the Philippines forbids foreign ownership of media companies.

Rappler can still go to the Court of Appeals (CA), which earlier upheld the original 2018 SEC revocation order, but remanded the case to the SEC to reevaluate the order as the involved foreign investor, Omidyar Network Fund, had donated on Feb. 28, 2018, the Philippine depositary receipts (PDRs) to Rappler to “cure” the defect found by the SEC.

This will be labled a war on the press (duh: big deal. Set up this English language press site on a different server)...this will not stop the news from getting out on private vlogs, but a lot of these are run by pro china bots, but never mind.

Something to remember about Omidyar: it was his funding of the media that helped overethrow the pro Russian president of the Ukraine (elected legally but maybe with massive fraud) and put in an anti Russian president who was very very corrupt, but pro American

Oliver Stone actually made a film about this,

more information on the Omidyar network fromThe Grey Zone: Rappler was not established just to try to destroy Duterte, but an experiment on how to track and manipulate people.

From the Rappler archive (2013):

Using a patented user engagement model and a community mapping data analytics tool, Rappler tracks how stories and emotions move through its community. It starts with a mood meter on every story, an effort to capture non-rational reactions. Developed with psychologists and sociologists, the mood meter is based on research that shows up to 80% of how people make decisions in their lives is not about what they think but how they feel. Every vote on the mood meter is aggregated by the mood navigator in the middle of the home page, a novel way of navigating a news site.

Big sister is watching you.

one problem: Rappler is in English, so doen't monitor the grass roots, only the netcitizens. And it was not the affluent English fluent netcitizens who elected BBM: It was the working class and poor, who remember how they had jobs when his father ran the Philippines.

But I didn't know Rappler was tracking me when I read articles on their website. 

Hmm:

But what if the major net outlets in the first world start doing this on their readers?

facebook already does this and offers this information to your business.

more about this on Wired.

now, if you really want to be paranoid, link this spying on what you read with a social credit system like they have in China, and guess what happens?

Mark of the beast, anyone?

 

Headlines below the fold

According to AlJ, hundreds of thousands of Syrians are returning home.

over half a million so far this year: Equal to the number in the entire year of 2016. But another 800 thousand were displaced internally in Syria so far this year: for many for the second or third time.

and ISIS is losing... not just to Assad but to others. Has Trumpieboy's okay of bombing them made a difference? And what about the Kurds? Turkey? Anyone?

as they say: It's complicated.

Of course, the massacres and wars there have gone on for 3500 years, so don't blame religion.

---------------------------

Well, sweetie, don't get your knickers in a knot: it's a southern thing to call someone sweetheart or honey instead of hey you.

my husband Lolo used to call everyone "honey", including the dogs. And since he is from northern Luzon, I suspect the practice is not limited to the southern US.

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remembering the 1925 eclipse.

--------------------

Josh Caplan spotted this outside google's offices in California: on twichy via Instapundit.

the difference between the US and China is that in the US, hysterical easily upset females can shut you down: in China, it is the government. and India is banning some Internet archives sites on the wayback machine because... copyright.

side note: The film The Circle has a chilling view of the future with everyone interconnected, but also shows the good side of this.

Ah, but the good side in the film assumes that the gatekeepers will be benign... even when they put a 'search for this person" it is usually only done for criminals.. but then one guy dies fleeing a mob after someone just wants to see where he is..

it is a boring film but makes you think. Emma Watson plays it emotionless, but the best character is Tom Hanks playing an evil twin of Steve Jobs...

------------------
why Kitties make terrible spies.

Stories below the fold

somalia is in danger of massive deaths from a local famine. Like most "famines", it is war/corruption, not global warming behind the problem (although climate change related drought has been a problem in the region for about 10 thousand years.)

A few days ago, AlJ, which is full of American leftists, complained that the west was not giving enough to Somalia, and that they should follow Turkey's lead.

I suspected they were missing something, and they were: Turkey can shoot the bad guys stealing all the aid money and food and get away with it (whereas if the west did this, the Arab press would be in an uproar).

StrategyPage confirms this:

The local outlaws and Islamic terrorists quickly found that the Turks were as tough as their reputation implied. Al Shabaab still makes threats against the Turks in Somalia, but usually chooses a less dangerous target.

they also discuss the new Somali president who is trying to fight both the bad guys and the rampant corruption there.

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Over 100 bomb threats were phoned etc to Jewish community centers etc. in the US in the last six months. The MSM blamed a Trumpie supporter, of course.

But more recent reports said the threats were from overseas. The alt/r press blamed the Muslims, of course.

ALJ now reports the suspect has been arrested: An American Israeli kid who was angry because the Israeli army turned him down.

------------------------------------

Improbable research notes a 1908 paper saying that 40 percent of people can learn how to wiggle their ears.

Wilson found that around 40% of experimental subjects were able to move the outer rim of their pinnae, 2-3 mm or so, by purposely shifting their eyes either extreme left or extreme right.*

-----------------------------------
The Daily Wire on the wiretap stories. 

analyzes the spin. Of course someone was spying. They spy on everyone. The problem is not the spying but that someone released the information for political purposes.

and not only is big brother quietly watching you (but keeping quiet about what he reads) but three days before Trump became president, President Obama made a rule that the information could be shared with a lot of other agencies, which is the government equivalent of a "free TVs" sign. (steal and leak please).

headsup Instapundit


UPDATE: Wikileaks page on Vault7 release.

hmm... maybe I should go back to using Ubuntu.

-------------------------

related item: Senate moves to stop privacy rules. Now your cable company doesn't have to ask if they can steal your private data.

But it is not about you, it is about they are mad because Google and Facebook can know everything about you but they can't.

Cable companies, cellphone carriers and the advertising industry attacked the rules as an overreach. If the permissions requirements went into effect, it may have been more difficult for telecom companies to build advertising businesses that could serve as stiffer competition to Google and Facebook, as they want to do. Internet companies like Google doesn't have to ask users' permission before tracking what sites they visit.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-03-senate-votes-undo-privacy-user.html#jCp

----------------------
te "casino heist", where Bengladesh money was transferred to the Philippines to a casino bank account and then whisked away by Chinese gamblers, has taken another twist: WSJ vis the Manila Bulletin: It has a North Korean link:

Federal prosecutors are building cases that would accuse North Korea of directing one of the biggest bank robberies of modern times, the theft of $81 million from Bangladesh’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York last year, according to people familiar with the matter.
 The charges, if filed, would target alleged Chinese middlemen who, prosecutors believe, helped North Korea orchestrate the theft, the people said....

includes backstory:

Private security researchers have traced the Bangladesh heist to a hacking group known as Lazarus, which, they say, was also behind the Sony hack. In 2014, the FBI blamed North Korea for the Sony breach, which exposed embarrassing emails and led the studio to pull from theaters a movie that involved a plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “The whole security community has said that the attack tools and techniques used in Sony are the same ones used in Bangladesh,” said Eric Chien, an engineer with security vendor Symantec Corp. 

------------------------------

  in times of trouble, people prefer macho men to wimps:

new research from Aarhus BSS at Aarhus Universit shows that support for dominant leaders is not born of fear, but of a wish to handle the country's problems by aggressive means.... "Our research indicates that supporting a dominant leader is a sign that you are prepared to solve conflicts by offensive rather than defensive means. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-03-people-conflict-dominant-leaders-stage.html#jCp

Forget the NSA Microsoft Windows 10 is spying on you

LINK

I went and fixed the problem. My windows 10 was automatic because I bought my lousy (chinese manufactured Lenovo) computer during the transition.

And I have already removed the Chinese spyware from it (Or the spyware that was found and forced the manufacterers to get a program to remove it).

Now, if I can only stop "sticky keys" from messing up my blog posts

Salon on wikileaks.

One of the most interesting disclosures concerns how the CIA can cover its tracks by leaving electronic trails suggesting the hacking is being done in different places — notably, in Russia. In fact, according to WikiLeaks, there’s an entire department dedicated to this. Its job is to “misdirect attribution” by leaving false fingerprints. If you’ve been at all skeptical about the recent levels of Russia-related hysteria, promoted heavily by U.S. intelligence agencies, alarm bells are probably going off in your head.

more HERE.

Latest WikiLeaks dump reveals CIA can hack computers, smartphones, even TVs

AGGH!

>

Cashless in India: Reality bites?

the independent blogsite Global Voices has a long article summarizing what is going on in India after they decided to go "cashless".

India stopped people from using "large" bills of money, and to prove they didn't even need cash, decided to declare certain areas fully "cashless".

Emergence of cashless villages

In the months since the demonetization, a number of villages have been declared newly cashless. In a number of cases, the transformation was driven by local NGOs with the help of banks and local authorities. Some 11 remote villages in India have been adopted by the United Bank of India (UBI) under a pilot project to transform them into cashless villages, for instance.

the Times of India article:

Here are the six villages in India are the first to go cashless. This means all adults have bank accounts, use sms-based banking and plastic money while businesses use swipe machines for cashless transactions. Banks are also linking their Aadhaar cards to accounts to ensure benefits gets transferred directly to the beneficiaries.

all of which will allow lots of smart hackers to get rich I'm sure.

I don't live in India, but I do live in the rural Philippines, with cash and vendors and open air markets. So I presume this means the small vendor won't be able to sell stuff because they can't afford a machine.

and do locals really want to go cashless?

Here in the Philippines, people just don't trust the government, and want the cash in hand. We are only beginning to use credit cards here: I had a credit card for years in the US but only got a local one two years ago, and the main place I can use it is in the upscale shops at the mall, (with two pieces of photo ID). We are also starting to use it for e commerce: for things we can't find locally... mainly my granddaughter is doing this, since you have to verify your purchase with your smartphone, and I don't own one but she does.

but twice in the US I had my purse stolen from work and had to cancal my credit card. And that doesn't include on line scams, or identity theft. I mean, if hackers can steal my personnel file from the federal government, don't you think that there will be a lot of fraud and stealing with all these paperless purchases?

then there is the question: what if the internet etc fails? Floods, electrical brownouts, typhoons, landslides are common, alas.

And what would happen if an earthquake takes out the internet cables, as one large one did about ten years ago.

The Economic Times of the Times of India wonders the same thing:

It is a myth that an advanced society must necessarily be cashless. In Germany, a country which knows the perils of authoritarianism, more than 80% of transactions are in cash, as citizens safeguard their privacy and freedom. Even in the US, 45% of transactions are in cash. Note that Germany and the US actually have the banking and technological infrastructure to enable cashlessness. In India, 600 million people have no bank account, and less than 20% of all Indians have a smartphone. Internet  .. Read more at:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/56045647.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

so who the heck made a decision for India's one billion people? This is not China, after all: India is a democracy.

Forbes article here.

India’s demonetization scheme was a unilateral initiative that was planned in secret — in a back room of Prime Minister Modi’s home, in fact — by a small group of insiders tied-in with the upper echelons of India’s government. 

it was done to stop the hoarding of cash (invisible to the tax man) and stop the black market.

But I wonder: As my husband used to say about the Philippine politicians: they're all crooks. So, is anyone in India getting rich off this scheme? Besides the hackers and those who steal someone's identity to steal their money I mean.

this was touted as anti corruption.

One of Modi’s main brands is that of a corruption fighter, and his demonetization initiative was rushed into effect in an attempt to catch the black market off guard — which could potentially lead to a big payday for the central bank if large amounts of illicit cash wasn’t redeemed. That plan flopped, as almost all of the recalled notes were officially accounted for one way or another.

 Yup. Anti corruption... except the big shots found ways around the ban to hide their money (I posted about this in an earlier blogpost)...

more here, here and here.

Techasia has a report on being caught during the turnover. Summary? It F***s the working class but won't stop the crooks

So maybe demonetization puts a dent of mysterious size in upper-class black money movers. It’s an inconvenience to the middle class. But it fucks over the working class – the rickshaw drivers, the guy who brings you water, and the lady who owns your trusty but tiny corner store....

Finally, more money flitting around digitally means a greater risk for cybersecurity breaches. Arguably, this risk comes with the reward of a cashless society, but it’s not a fight easily won. The US$81 million Bangladesh Bank heist in February last year is not the last time digital money – and a lot of it – is going to be compromised. (And let’s not forget that last year a single power outage grounded a Fortune 500 airline.) Demonetization – crowds of people opening bank accounts, exchanging cash, and signing onto fintech services – is a hacker’s paradise.
“We invest millions of dollars a year in data security – it’s one of the big risks of digitalization,” cross-border payments startup Payoneer CEO Scott Galit tells Tech in Asia. If there’s opportunity, hackers will come – ready or not.

ah but the WashingtonPost thinks it is honkey dory and has an article how first India had to get everyone finger printed and given a identification number so they could get bank accounts (and not be part of the economy that doesn't pay taxes) and a lot about smartphone money transfer is in the article.

In recent polls and elections the problems and frustrations of ordinary Indians from this policy shows that Modi is still popular.

so presumably no one there is worried if the government is monitoring their purchases and bank account

But would this work in the prickly west, where people simply don't trust the government and big brother?

privacy? what privacy?

and when the CIA/NSA (not to mention facebook) can snoop into everything you do, why am I suspicious that this is just one more "big brother" item?

and of course, there is the problem of security.

I mean, if the Chinese hackers could steal my federal personnel file, then maybe there is a minor problem with cybersecurity that someone should worry about.

but the WaPost says that the big shots in Davos says everyone has to join the cashless society.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that the United States should follow Modi’s lead in phasing out currency and moving toward a digital economy, because it would have “benefits that outweigh the cost.” Speaking of the inequity and corruption that is becoming an issue in the United States and all over the world, he said: “I believe very strongly that countries like the United States could and should move to a digital currency so that you would have the ability to trace this kind of corruption. There are important issues of privacy, cybersecurity, but it would certainly have big advantages.”

my stepson, along with a lot of other fundamentalist wackos would say this is the mark of the beast and make a fuss. My geeky grandson would say neato.

As for me, well as my mother used to say: Who died and made you king?

The idea that a big shot can radically implement policies with little input fro the ordinary folk is one of the reasons for Brexit and the Trumpsters.

and when a google of the subject shows nearly every story on the subject seems to be positive stories saying almost the same thing about becoming cashless society, it makes you wonder about "fake news". 

I mean, when even "Scientific American" argues for a cashless society because there are germs on money, it makes you wonder who is controlling the news.

Spies R Us

StreetwiseProfessor quotes Henry II and notes how Clintonesque manipulation of language is being used by the press and Obama's minions in their war against Trump.

the FISA court would not unilaterally issue such an order: it would only do so in response to a request from the executive branch. ...
Maybe he merely hinted, a la Henry II–“will no one rid me of this turbulent candidate?” (And “turbulent” is a good adjective to apply to Trump.) But regardless, there is no way that such a request to the court in such a fraught and weighty matter would have proceeded without Obama’s acquiescence.

 one overseas comment says cyinically:

call me a simple-minded foreigner, but I don’t understand the fuss. Of course they were spying on him.The only interesting questions are (i) was it legal? and (ii) does it matter whether it was illegal; surely Obama is above the law?

ah, but that is the point.

When "they" can spy on everyone for any reason, it would be naive to say there was no spying. The problem: The spying is supposed to be secret, and vague, i.e. only looking closely if there is a question of national security.

You know, like downloading Suicide Squad illegally.

Gizmodo on internet security.

Someone could be spying on every call, Facebook message, snapchat, text, sext, each single keystroke you tap out on your phone, and you'd never know. I'm not talking about the NSA (though that too); I'm talking about software fine-tuned for comprehensive stalking—"spyware"—that is readily available to any insecure spouse, overzealous boss, overbearing parent, crazy stalker or garden-variety creep with a credit card. It's an unambiguously malevolent private eye panopticon cocktail of high-grade voyeurism, sold legally. And if it's already on your phone, there's no way you can tell.

Factoid of the day: Palantir

Palantir is a computer program that analyzes information.

Palantir Intelligence is a complete, proven solution that is used throughout the intelligence community to efficiently, effectively, and securely exploit and analyze data, leading to more informed operational planning and strategic decision-making.

This is a commercial app. But this is the back story on the big brother elites that have all your personal information as discussed in the previous webcast.

At this point, listen to previous podcast link, 
on how it allows them to run your life on many levels.

Tolkien would be aghast: One theme of LOTR is the danger of experts running your life (read Scouring of the Shire, which was left out of the movie).

however, like all tools it is valuable to analyze threats to the public.

Strategypage discusses how troops prefer to use the  commercial app Palantir over the government app when they analyze intelligence. This annoys the bureaucrats, the main sin in todays US Military.

All your DNA is belong to us

A couple days ago I warned about a study about "post partum depression" that collected your DNA (but claimed your name would be kept private by the researchers).

Well, now (AP LINK) I read the USGov't is pressuring genetic databases to get your DNA. These are data bases that find your ancestral background, not medical ones.

And the gov't already has a database of millions of folks who got DNA taken when arrested or were in the armed forces etc.

most of the cases cited in the article were released by court order, but you can see the potential for abuse...

X file madness: The CIA has a Blog?

The X files are back. They are on TV here too.

So expect an upsurge in UFO discussions on late night radio.

David Reneke's site mentions that

“To help navigate the vast amount of data contained in our FOIA UFO collection, we’ve decided to highlight a few documents both sceptics and believers will find interesting,” the (CIA) agency’s blog explains.

Link to blog HERE

Heh. Even the CIA has a blog?

the problem is that most of these reports were from the 1950's...
back then, the AirForce investigation was called Project Blue Book. And I remember reading an expose on all the UFO sightings back then.

One thing I remembered from the reports in the 1950's and 1960's: When people were captured, they were examined on the examining table, and they described a huge machine was lowered over them to scan them.

Strangely, the next time I bothered to check UFO sightings, the folks said they were scanned by being put inside a tube like scanner.

For those of you not familiar with medicine, the first machine described is an ordinary X ray machine. The second machine is the newer CT scan (or MRI scanner).

Isn't it amazing that the E.T's changed their technology just like we do?

This alone alerts me that these things are probably psychological, perhaps distorted memories of medical procedures...

My second question is why some Christian sites mentioned that if they try to abduct you, and you stop them in the name of Jesus, they let you alone.
These sites insist UFO's and ET's are diabolic.

Come to think of it, Angels and demons are "extraterrestrials" by definition, and I've seen plots on Startrek and of course in "out of the silent planet" that posits what we call angels or demons as actual beings that live parallel to us.

And no, belief in angels, demons, other beings living with us (elves, leprechauns, ghosts, etc)  is pretty well universal, not limited to Christians.

But again it sounds more like a psychological thing, with believers channeling distorted memories and using their belief system for protection.

So nowadays, we hear about UFO abductions but in the past the experience would be channeled and explained by the belief system of their society.

The Tolkien professor, notes that if a person went out in the woods and was abducted and came back with a vague story in medieval times, the locals would attribute it to being kidnapped by fairies (elves). Like UFO abductions, often these were frightening (which is why in Northern legends elves are often included among evil creatures) but some of them were good.

myself? I have no opinion, but like visions and prophecies in religious folks, I suspect five percent of these episodes are fraud, 93 percent are imaginary construct similar to "false memory syndrome" where the memory changes with each telling  (or the psyche making up a memory to explain something that happened, like mistaking Venus for a UFO or losing time because you went into a trance state driving and can't remember the trip so you decide you were abducted, or maybe you just were drunk or high).

The problem is the same as those of "visions" or "prophecies": about two percent probably are real.

Many of the reports are planets or normal weather phenomena...others were probably supersonic spy planes...and the mind uses UFO template to interpret what was seen.

When I was living on the Apache reservation near White Sands, the locals ignored the many UFO's they saw, because they figured they were experimental aircraft being tested.

What is interesting is that Roswell is on the other side of the Apaches: The locals knew the UFO wasn't from the air base there, but I wonder if it was from White Sands and the gov't coverup made the story evolve to a UFO...

Why didn't the Apaches evolve similar stories? Maybe because unlike the patriotic "Anglos"  the Apache was used to government lies.

Big Brother alert take two.

from Fanbuzz Via Dave Barry:

The U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority put the kibosh on this wine commercial and its innuendo produced by Premier Estates Wine of Australia. The wine, this attractive young woman says, is so much like Australia that “some say you can almost taste the bush,” a statement accompanied by this photo.

So how big was the outcry?

EIGHT COMPLAINTS.

in other words, a mere eight people can shut down a commercial.
Of course, if they didn't, it would become a two minute hate in facebook/twitter.

sigh. But then, I'm old enough to remember the "only her hairdresser knows for sure" (about hair dye).

The point is that it is only funny if you have a dirty mind.

I plead guilty.

And I am still waiting for someone to notice the non PC vocabulary used by Dain's in the Hobbit 3...(apparently his British/Scots profanities went over the heads of the US censors and most of the audience here in the Philippines).

Hmm...maybe one should make Dain the symbol for free speech...

Illustration: otis frampton

here is the clip of Dain in battle.





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in a related item: one big trend in romance novels is love with the brawny Scotsman.

Blame Outlander. 

Big Brother is watching you.

GetReligion has a report on what is the motivation of some of those on campus in Missouri. A very nice report.

Words do hurt, and random racist words hurt.

But professional protesters have taken over the protest to inflame passions, and there seems a coordination between these groups and incidents in other campuses.

Instapundit has lots of links to the free speech kerfuffle.

yes, it is the 1960's redux, and will alas lead to the same results.

and of course it will distract you from the jobs destroyed by canceling the Keystone pipeline and implementing the latest global warming regulations that will destroy the economy, and keep you from the job destroying details in the Pacific Trade agreement.,

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when surveillience cameras are not enough:

UK council given night googles to detect those who let their dogs poop without bothering to collect the stuff.

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Who owned that blimp that was causing brownouts in Pennsylvania?

StrategyPage has the details: it carries radar to detect low flying aircraft (below regular radar) but hasn't been very successful, so they are trying to fix the bugs in the system since it is cheaper than using a drone.

Cyberwar for Dummies

...

some of this sounds like the DieHard film where all the infrastructure was shut down by hackers.

Lots more at StrategyPage. Their most recent stuff:

LINK
Russian hackers know where you live

LINK
Americans got lots of stuff on ISIS bad guys because they don't use secure computers..

and China etc. doesn't worry because there is little push back for stealing.

my federal records were among those stolen, and so I now have "insurance" just in case they steal my money.

And of course, this doesn't include the problem that anyone with half a brain can go to our family page on Facebook and find that Lolo graduated from Frostbite Falls High school.

You want something scary? Look at your "history" of searching or viewing and remember someone can find them all.



PBS is due to have a special on it. Since we don't get PBS, and it takes a couple of years for NOVA to get on youtube, it means I will have to illegally download it or try to watch it on a streaming site (which here go on and off thanks to lousy connectivity).

Except there are rumors about that Pacific trade agreement which could stop illegal downloads (which merely means we have to buy new movies, straight from the Chinese pirates, at the Palenke for fifty pesos)

Mad Dads one, drones zero

Don't use a drone to spy on sunbathing daughters, at least in Kentucky. Those guys don't like peeping Toms:

VanMeter has a 16-year-old daughter who lays out at their pool. She says a drone hovering with a camera is creepy and weird. “I just think you should have privacy in your own backyard,” she said. Merideth agrees and said he had to go see for himself. “Well, I came out and it was down by the neighbor’s house, about 10 feet off the ground, looking under their canopy that they’ve got under their back yard,” Merideth said. “I went and got my shotgun and I said, ‘I’m not going to do anything unless it’s directly over my property.’” That moment soon arrived, he said. “Within a minute or so, here it came,” he said. “It was hovering over top of my property, and I shot it out of the sky.”

yes he was arrested, but I doubt he'll be convicted if any parents are on the  jury

via theotherMcCain

NGOs

StrategyPage has a long article on NGO's.

The red cross is the "oldest" NGO, but they note:

 Actually, the Catholic Church could be considered one of the first major NGOs, as it organized large scale charity efforts over a thousand years ago.

 ah but the problem?

 Several decades ago, the main thing these outsiders brought with them was food and medical care. The people on the receiving end were pretty desperate, and grateful for the help. But NGOs have branched out into development and social programs.
These new activities caused unexpected problems with the local leadership. Development programs disrupt the existing economic, and political, relations. This is especially the case if the NGOs try to change the way things are done. The local leaders are often not happy with this, as the NGOs are not always willing to work closely with the existing power structure. While the local worthies may be exploitative, and even corrupt, they are local, and they do know more about popular attitudes and ideals than the foreigners

so although one sees a lot of criticism of churches that push religion with aid, a lot of NGO's push western ideas with aid instead.

. NGOs are no longer seen as just charitable foreigners come to help. The local leadership often sees the NGOs as a potential threat. While the material aid the NGOs bring is appreciated, the different ideas are not. And there are more NGOs showing up with more agenda than physical aid

Pushing birth control as part of the agenda is a big thing: I had to laugh when the flooding in Manila left many taking shelter in schools, and the UN came and gave out condoms...the locals were insulted, because it implied our women were sex crazed and couldn't refrain themselves. Then the UN defended this by saying it was because of rape, which locals got even more upset, since it implied Filipino men were sexually crazed rapists.

of course, if the aid is given to local politicians etc. a lot of it ends up in their pockets.

Yet paying huge salaries to western aid workers increases the overhead cost too.

 Often more than a third of it disappears into the pockets of government officials, their kin and friends. But letting the donors, and NGOs (Non-governmental organizations, like the Red Cross), handle the money also sees about the same portion lost. (italics mine)

This is because these donations often come with requirements that much of the money be spent on goods and services from the donor nation. This particularly bothers the locals as it means a lot of highly (especially by local standards) paid Western aid workers are supervising whatever is done in in the aid receiving nation. The higher NGO pay standards are very visible because the Westerners tend to live much better than locals.

StrategyPage is observing, not criticizing. Without the NGO's and church charities, the place would be worse, especially in times of disaster.

Big Brother Alert

Professor Mary Beard discovered that she is being spied on: By her coffee machine.
she discovered this after sending the machine in for repair:

The funny thing was that the machine was returned with a record of use. Somehow, from the inner chip, the excellent engineer was able to tell us that in the last three years we had made 9266 cups of coffee, using 1796 litres of water, and that we had descaled the appliance 28 times (one of the preliminary repair questions had been "do you descale regularly?"; we had said "yes", but now we see that they could have called us out on that.. "sorry our records say that you have only descaled twice in te last x months ..").

Stories below the fold

The tax dispute about Pacquiao continues....but this part explains why his latest fight was in Macao instead of Las Vegas.

According to the US Internal Revenue Service, a foreign athlete must pay a 30 percent income tax on earnings made in the US including compensation for a game, endorsements, sale of merchandise, royalty or other income related to an athletic event.

I wonder how many jobs were lost in Vegas because of the tax code.

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Related item: US tax code taxes US citizens income overseas.

No big deal here: we don't have an income except our pensions, and last year the accountant told us not to file last year since we haven't paid tax for five years, and it costs us 280 dollars a year to have him file.

yet if there was a simple tax code, we would probably file it anyway.

The problem: The IRS wants the bank to report miniscule amounts of interest/income to them. Since the law insists that "overseas" income be reported, presumably the 60 dollars a year interest from my three bank accounts here in the Philippines should be reported. That probably takes 20 dollars of paperwork for the bank.

And if the small family business was still in Lolo's name, we would have to pay double taxes...but like most OFW, he had a relative "own" and run it while he was in the US, and so he doesn't "own" it.

Given the typhoons (two out of the last 6 harvests destroyed by typhoons, plus buildings and our car/machinery damaged in the latest typhoon in October) for the last two months, we have been subsidizing the business and using our pension for living expenses.

If the IRS goes against Lolo for this, I suspect he would renounce his citizenship, since he is a dual citizen as a "Balikbayan" (returning citizen) too.

As for me, as a foreigner, I can't own land or business here by local law, so it doesn't affect me.

Most American expats here who run businesses are married to locals, so they put the business in the name of their spouse. Others, like myself, have only a small pension as income.

But I can understand why some Americans who retire here will renounce their citizenship in fear of having the IRS confiscate their life savings because someone made a mistake on the complicated forms.

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Whoops. Found this at the end of a story:

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Shhhh...don't dare even mention the story or they will come after you...

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The Anchoress mentions another religious blogger on Patheos.

Somehow this strikes me as a bad idea: it makes all the major religious/atheist blogs vulnerable to hacking and/or having the entire site being taken down by the NSA/copyright police if one of them prints the wrong thing.

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This fad is nonsense: you may be ingesting a lot of bacteria or viruses, especially if you had prolonged labor or a premature infant.

Approximately half of second-trimester placentas harbor organisms within the chorionic plate.

link 2 says it's only 30 percent of "normal" deliveries, but link3 notes that culture techniques might miss some infections.


and despite the hype that it is done by "primitive" people: not among those I worked with. Our midwives in Africa buried them.

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To more kitties rescued from the street...they look just like the kitty we rescued two weeks ago...
one is covered with paint, so may not live.

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Big Brother is watching your LOL cat emails

From Wired: The NSA is watching you.

for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration—the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net. And, of course, it’s all being done in secret. To those on the inside, the old adage that NSA stands for Never Say Anything applies more than ever.

presumably they will try to decode "the Lol Cat" emails that I send to Africa, Iran, the US and the UK, trying to figure our if it is a terrorist plot.