HIGH OCTANE SPECULATION OF SPACEPORTS, BLACK PROJECTS, HIDDEN FINANCES, AND NON-EXISTENT FLYING STUFF: PART ONE

January 4, 2014 By Joseph P. Farrell  / http://gizadeathstar.com/2014/01/high-octane-speculation-spaceports-black-projects-hidden-finances-non-existent-flying-stuff-part-one/

Black Budget: US govt clueless about missing Pentagon $trillions ~  $8,500,000,000,000 has gone since the mid-1990s:

As many regular readers here know, I’ve been advancing the idea that there is a hidden system of finance, beyond even that of the black budget, and that it has been used both as a political slush fund to finance covert activities, and that it has been used as a totally off-the-books source of finance for black research projects. In short, I am proposing the existence of a system beyond the “normal” black budget.
With  that in mind, while trolling the internet recently, looking for more information, I came upon a few things that I thought were worth sharing by way of fleshing out the above high-octane speculation  scenario a bit more fully. A number of these things bear upon assumptions being made in the ufology community, and some of them bear directly upon the hypothesis of a hidden system of finance, and some bear upon all at the same time.
Let’s begin here, with a short (four minute) video from Russia Today about the size of the U.S. defense budget, and the fact that the Pentagram will not acknowledge where $8,500,000,000,000 has gone since the mid-1990s:

Now, it is entirely possible that the the Pentagram doesn’t know where all this money went, at least, partially. And here we have to pause again, to understand why this might be so, and how the structure of the black budget is such that it would be comparatively easy for an entirely independent group to use the very system of security compartmentalization to create, in effect, a breakaway civilization, with hidden sources and avenues of funding, to do “covert research.”
The reason is “cost-plus” financing of government defense contracts. What this means is simply that the government bears all costs of research, then tacks on an arbitrary figure for the “profit” of the company conducting contracted research for the military. Profits are built into the system, and thus, it would be a simple matter to hide items in the normal budget. Splitting sensitive projects up into components and parceling them out to various companies means that only those placing the contracts in the first place really know what the final goal of the project may be. All that is required is final assembly of parts(this 3d printing in this context too, folks). It could be feasible to piggyback secret research of one project known only to such a group on the back of another “legitimate” project of the black projects world being done for the government.
We can even perhaps envision how easily it might be accomplished: an officer or scientist with ‘clearance’ in a given project approaches a component research entity and asks it to “look into” an allied problem, and guarantees the financing, in a “while you’re at it” situation. Orders are placed for “parts” and shipped to destinations: purpose unknown. My point here is that compartmentalization would actually be the fertile soil on which a rogue group, or breakaway civilization, could grow. And if one balks at the idea of such a group, it is worth recalling the strange words of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev after the downing of Francis Gary Powers’ U-2: he blamed the act not on Eisenhower nor even on the US military, but precisely upon such a “rogue group.”
Cost plus financing, in other words, is the tip of a very large iceberg (and it really isn’t even yet into “black budget” territory), and its potentialities and implications for the type of exploitation are immense.
But what about that eight and a half trillion dollars the Pentagram cannot account for? What’s going on? It is perhaps relevant that $8.5 trillion would be just about the amount of money represented in the Spanish and Italian bearer bonds scandals (6 and 2 trillion respectively, and some “loose change”, which would be the mere “billions” part).
But what happens when, occasionally, an item does appear that shouldn’t have appeared?
That will have to wait for tomorrow…

Obama Administration Issues New "Executive Actions" On Guns

Obama Administration Issues New "Executive Actions" On Guns

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

On Friday January 3, the Obama administration announced two new “executive actions” which infringe even further on the rights of Americans who wish to own firearms. The new actions are “aimed at strengthening federal background checks for gun purchasers, with a particular focus on limiting firearm access for those with mental health issues.”

According to reports coming from outlets such as AP, the new executive actions include a rule change that will “clarify terminology used by federal law to prohibit people from purchasing a firearm for mental health reasons.” The Obama Administration claims that states have been complaining that the current wording of the rule is unclear, causing them undue hardship in determining “who should be blocked from buying a weapon.” Of course, nowhere in the alleged discussion between the states and the federal government has there been talk of the fact that all American citizens have a right to keep and bear arms and that bureaucrats and government officials do not have the right to “determine who should be blocked from buying a weapon.”

Regardless, the rule change also helps “states determine what information may be shared with the federal background check system for firearms transfers.” In other words, the new change allows even greater cooperation between state registration systems and the federal version, and thus a greater ability to justify the prevention of a larger number of firearm purchases.

According to the Huffington Post, “The first proposed rule change, by the Department of Justice, expands the definition of the statutory term ‘committed to a mental institution’ to clarify that the prohibition on firearms purchases applies to people subjected to involuntary outpatient as well as inpatient commitments.” Considering the extreme ease in which a person may be involuntarily committed to either inpatient or outpatient mental health facilities, this new rule will clearly affect many more average Americans that most are willing to believe.

Such was the case of David Sarti who went to his doctor because he was experiencing chest pains. After making a simple joke, Sarti was declared “mentally defective,” subjected to forcible “mental evaluation,” and stripped of his Second Amendment rights.

The second rule change, however, is somewhat more concerning since it “would give hospitals and other entities covered by patient privacy provisions more flexibility in the information they provide to the background check system.”

Clearly, this rule change would allow for the furthering of the merger between healthcare providers/healthcare institutions and law enforcement and Big Brother, as well as the ultimate goal of using “mental health” as a justification for the prevention of firearms purchases. Although the administration predictably denies that this will be the case, the fact is that the medical industry is already so closely related to the governmental and law enforcement community that it more accurately appears to be no more than another division of the same system.

In what serves as an unfortunate historical guide, it is important to remember that “mental health” and psychiatry were used for many years in the Soviet Union for the disappearance and disarmament of dissidents. The mental health profession continues to be used in both modern day Russia as well as the whole of the Western world for means of control, particularly in places like the United Kingdom.

For those individuals who may have believed that the fight for gun rights was over with the recent failure of the administration to push oppressive and unconstitutional federal gun control laws through Congress, the fact is that the fight is far from over.

Indeed, recent unconstitutional legislation passed in California, New York, and Connecticut has resulted in the mass registration, re-registration, and some instances the confiscation of guns owned by law-abiding citizens. This confiscation has taken place in true Communo-Fascist style with little opposition from the American people or the gun rights community.

Nevertheless, those expecting a public declaration of total gun illegality and martial law confiscation will be ringing their hands in anticipation for a very long time. Of course, while they ring their hands and anticipate the declaration of outright war against gun owners, their guns are being slowly stripped from their hands in an incremental fashion. Slight rule changes and isolated confiscations will continue to take place over time until the public has been properly acclimated to them as a fact of life, at which point the public’s line in the sand will be moved slightly forward once more. Again, the line will be crossed, but only slightly. Eventually, Americans will wake up to find themselves completely disarmed and neutered in a land in which they once believed they were free. At that point, with a completely defenseless population, the thin veneer of freedom will be lifted.

It is time for gun owners and gun rights activists to go on the political offensive. In 2014, it is no longer a legitimate mode of activism to be content to defend your already attenuated freedoms. It is time to make demands. It is time to throw compromise out the window.

Read other articles by Brandon Turbeville here.

Super high tech replacement for the legendary SR-71 Blackbird plane that can travel from New York to LA in 45 minutes

• The SR-71 Blackbird flew faster than any other production plane
• Its successor, the SR-72, will go twice as fast
• A demo version of the SR-72 could be ready by 2018
• The new aircraft will blaze across the sky at around Mach 6
• Plane would perform high-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions but also be capable of carrying out strikes on targets

By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 11:03 EST, 2 November 2013 | UPDATED: 07:24 EST, 3 November 2013

Lockheed Martin has unveiled plans for a hypersonic spy plane that could fly at Mach 6, twice as fast as its famed SR-71 Blackbird, and said a missile demonstrating the new technology could fly as early as 2018.

Brad Leland, the Lockheed engineer who has headed the seven-year research effort, said the new aircraft, dubbed the SR-72, was designed using off-the-shelf materials to keep it affordable in the current tough budget environment.

He said the new plane offered game-changing capabilities to the military - and a twin-engine demonstrator jet that could reach any target in an hour could be developed for under $1 billion in five to six years.
The jet accelerates by way of a two-part system. A conventional jet turbine helps boost the aircraft up to Mach 3, at which point a specialized ramjet takes over and pushes the plane even faster into hypersonic mode.
Scroll down for video

Flying high: A successor is being developed to the Blackbird spy plane. The SR-72 will use a new hypersonic engine and will be twice as fast with a cruising speed of Mach 6

In a hurry? The SR-72 will fly at Mach 6 (around 4,000 mph)

'Hypersonic is the new stealth,' Leland said. 'Your adversaries cannot hide or move their critical assets. They will be found. That becomes a game-changer.'

The new aircraft would travel three times as fast as current fighter jets, which can reach speeds of Mach 2, twice the speed of sound, and it could be outfitted with light weapons to strike targets.

 

More...

• China reveals its ability to nuke the US: Government boasts about new submarine fleet capable of launching warheads at cities across the nation

Aviation Week first reported Lockheed's work on the project in a cover article entitled 'Son of Blackbird.' Lockheed developed the supersonic SR-71 Blackbird, a long-range manned spy plane, 50 years ago. A few of those planes remained in service until 1999. 

SR-71 Blackbird: Worlds fastest and highest flying aircraft

Replacement: The SR-72 supersedes SR-71 Blackbird. For more than 25 years, the aircraft provided the nation with demonstrated strategic reconnaissance capability

SR-71 Blackbird : When the last SR-71 Blackbird was grounded in 1998 it was a double blow. Not only did aviation lose one of the most advanced aircraft ever built, but also one of the most beautiful

When the last SR-71 Blackbird was grounded in 1998 it was a double blow. Not only did aviation lose one of the most advanced aircraft ever built.
The SR-71 Blackbird is one of history’s great aircraft. It was built during the Cold War in the early 1960s by Lockheed at its secret Skunk Works facility and flew from 1966 to 1998.
With black paint covering its unprecedented titanium fuselage, it was designed as a reconnaissance platform capable of flying 2,900 nautical miles (5,400 km) at sustained supersonic speeds at an altitude of 80,000 ft (24,000 m).
The Blackbird could fly so fast and so high that it could literally outrun enemy missiles, and routinely did..
Using a new hypersonic engine design that combines turbines and ramjets, the company says that the unmanned SR-72 will be twice as fast as its predecessor with a cruising speed of Mach 6.

Hypersonic: The SR-72¿s purpose is to provide the United States with not only a hypersonic recon platform, but also a strike aircraft as well

How it works: The upper engine is a turbine, which is used to power the SR-72 as it takes off from a conventional runway and accelerates it to Mach 3. Then the lower dual-mode ramjet takes over and accelerates the plane to Mach 6

The SR-72’s purpose is to provide the United States with not only a hypersonic recon platform, but also a strike aircraft as well.
'Hypersonic aircraft, coupled with hypersonic missiles, could penetrate denied airspace and strike at nearly any location across a continent in less than an hour,' says Brad Leland, Lockheed Martin program manager, Hypersonics.
'Speed is the next aviation advancement to counter emerging threats in the next several decades. The technology would be a game-changer in theater, similar to how stealth is changing the battle space today.'
In an interview with Aviation Week, which broke the story, Leland explained that the retirement of the SR-71 left significant gaps in the satellites, subsonic manned and unmanned platforms meant to replace it, which the SR-72 will fill.
The article went on to point out that the SR-72 program is meant to dovetail with the Pentagon’s hypersonic research and weapons programs, which has dictated the timetable and many design parameters.

Bye bye Blackbird: By bye Blackbird: The SR-72 is the replacement for the SR-71 blackbird (pictured). The Blackbird was built during the Cold War in the early 1960s by Lockheed at its secret Skunk Works facility and flew from 1966 to 1998

According to Leland, a Mach 6 platform would not only leave very little time for an enemy to respond, but it also be a very effective way to launch hypersonic missiles. Since these wouldn't need a booster rocket when launched at six times the speed of sound, they can be of much lighter and simpler construction.
No new technologies needed to be invented for the SR-72 so a demonstration aircraft could fly by 2018, and the plane could be operational by 2030.
Details of the new hypersonic spy plane project emerged days after Lockheed, the Pentagon's biggest supplier, teamed up with No. 2 supplier Boeing Co (BA.N) to develop a bid for the Pentagon's new long-range bomber.

Lockheed, Boeing and other big weapons makers are pressing the Pentagon to continue funding new aircraft development programs despite big cuts in military spending, arguing that a retreat from such projects could undercut U.S. military superiority in years to come.

Greatly missed: The retirement of the SR-71 Blackbird (pictured) left significant gaps in the satellites, subsonic manned and unmanned platforms meant to replace it, which the SR-72 will fill

Leland, who works for Lockheed's Skunk Works advanced development arm, said missiles based on the new technology could be ready for operational use in 2020, at a cost only slightly more than the current Tomahawk or JASSM missiles.

Lockheed declined to say how much it had invested in the SR-72 project to date, or what the new airplane might cost if it is ever built. But it said it had tried to keep the current tight budget environment in mind while working on the project.

'What we are doing is defining a missile that would have a small incremental cost to go at hypersonic speed,' Leland said. He said about 20 Lockheed employees had worked on the project.

One key factor in keeping the new project affordable was a decision to limit speed to Mach 6, rather than reaching for higher speeds that would require more expensive materials such as those used on the space shuttle, Leland said.

He said top Pentagon officials had been briefed on the program's progress and they were very interested in the new technology as a possible way to counter work by potential adversaries on technologies that could detect stealth aircraft.

He said the company and its partners had developed and tested key components of the proposed new aircraft using their own internal research funding, but the program needed additional funds to move ahead with larger-scale demonstrations of the technologies involved.

Rob Stallard, analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said in a note on Friday that the new aircraft could help the U.S. military quickly identify or hit targets that were intentionally hidden or protected by an enemy's air defenses. He said the previous SR-71 was "the coolest airplane ever made, rivaled only by fictional aircraft."

Leland said Lockheed had worked closely with Aerojet Rocketdyne, a unit of GenCorp Inc (GY.N), to develop a propulsion system for the new aircraft, which uses an off-the-shelf turbine with a scramjet engine to reach the hypersonic speeds.

The project builds on HTV-3X, an earlier hypersonic project funded by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that was canceled in 2008 after its turbojet engines were found not ready for further development.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2484451/Super-high-tech-replacement-legendary-SR71-Blackbird.html#ixzz2pShHifoX

Keiser Report: NSA manipulates bank accounts? (E541)

Lights, Camera… Covert Action: The Deep Politics of Hollywood

January 3, 2014 /   http://www.blacklistednews.com/Lights%2C_Camera%E2%80%A6_Covert_Action%3A_The_Deep_Politics_of_Hollywood/31703/0/38/38/Y/M.html

Source: Orwell Was Right

A great overview of Hollywood propaganda from Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham writing over at Global Research. I read Alford's excellent book Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy a couple of years ago – indeed, I wrote a review which you can read here– it's a fascinating insight into both the dynamic between the Pentagon and movie studios and the way in which the propaganda itself manifests on the silver screen. 

Here we build a prima facae case supporting the idea that Hollywood continues to be a target for infiltration and subversion by a variety of state agencies, in particular the CIA. Academic debates on cinematic propaganda are almost entirely retrospective, and whilst a number of commentators have drawn attention to Hollywood’s longstanding and open relationship with the Pentagon, little of substance has been written about the more clandestine influences working through Hollywood in the post-9/11 world. As such, our work delves into the field of what Peter Dale Scott calls “deep politics”; namely, activities which cannot currently be fully understood due to the covert influence of shadowy power players.
 The Latest Picture
A variety of state agencies have liaison offices in Hollywood today, from the FBI, to NASA and the Secret Service. Few of these agencies, though, have much to offer in exchange for favourable storylines, and so their influence in Hollywood is minimal. The major exception here is the Department of Defense, which has an ‘open’ but barely publicized relationship with Tinsel Town, whereby, in exchange for advice, men and invaluable equipment, such as aircraft carriers and helicopters, the Pentagon routinely demands flattering script alterations. Examples of this policy include changing the true identity of a heroic military character in Black Hawk Down (2001) due to his real-life status as a child rapist; the removal of a joke about “losing Vietnam” from the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), and cutting images of Marines taking gold teeth from dead Japanese soldiers in Windtalkers (2002). Instances such as these are innumerable, and the Pentagon has granted its coveted “full cooperation” to a long list of contemporary pictures includingTop Gun (1986), True Lies (1994), Executive Decision (1996), Air Force One (1997), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Transformers (2007), Iron Man (2008), as well as TV series such as JAG (1995-2005).
Such government activity, whilst morally dubious and barely advertised, has at least occurred within the public domain. This much cannot be said of the CIA’s dealings with Hollywood, which, until recently, went largely unacknowledged by the Agency. In 1996, the CIA announced with little fanfare the dry remit of its newly established Media Liaison Office, headed by veteran operative Chase Brandon. As part of its new stance, the CIA would now openly collaborate on Hollywood productions, supposedly in a strictly ‘advisory’ capacity.
The Agency’s decision to work publicly with Hollywood was preceded by the 1991 “Task Force Report on Greater CIA Openness,” compiled by CIA Director Robert Gates’ newly appointed ‘Openness Task Force,’ which secretly debated –ironically– whether the Agency should be less secretive. The report acknowledges that the CIA “now has relationships with reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly, and television network in the nation,” and the authors of the report note that this helped them “turn some ‘intelligence failure’ stories into ‘intelligence success’ stories, and has contributed to the accuracy of countless others.” It goes on to reveal that the CIA has in the past “persuaded reporters to postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security interests…”
These admissions add weight to several reports and Congressional hearings from the 1970s which indicated that the CIA once maintained a deep-rooted and covert presence in national and international media, informally dubbed “Operation Mockingbird.” In its 1991 report, the CIA acknowledged that it had, in fact, “reviewed some film scripts about the Agency, documentary and fictional, at the request of filmmakers seeking guidance on accuracy and authenticity.” But the report is at pains to state that, although the CIA has “facilitated the filming of a few scenes on Agency premises,” it does “not seek to play a role in filmmaking ventures.” But it seems highly implausible that the CIA, whilst maintaining a decades-long presence in media and academia, would have shown no interest in the hugely influential Cinema industry.
Indeed, it should come as no surprise that the CIA has been involved in a number of recent blockbusters and TV series. The 2001 CBS TV series, The Agency, executive produced by Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, Air Force One) was actually co-written by ex-CIA agent and Marine Bazzel Baz, with additional ex-CIA agents working as consultants. The CIA gladly opened its doors to the production, and facilitated both external and internal shots of its Langley headquarters as the camera gazed lovingly at the CIA seal. This arrangement was comparable to the Feds’ efforts on the popular TV series The FBI (1965-74) which was shaped by the Bureau in cooperation with ABC and which thanked J. Edgar Hoover in the credits of each episode. Similarly, The Agency glorified the actions of US spooks as they fought predictable villains including the Russian military, Arab and German terrorists, Columbian drug dealers, and Iraqis. One episode even shows the CIA saving the life of Fidel Castro; ironically, since the CIA in real life had made repeated attempts to assassinate the Cuban President. Promos for the show traded on 9/11, which had occurred just prior to its premiere, with tag lines like “Now, more than ever, we need the CIA.”
A TV movie, In the Company of Spies (1999) starring Tom Berenger depicted a retired CIA operative returning to duty to save captured Agency officers held by North Korea. The CIA was so enthusiastic about this product that it hosted its presentation, cooperated during production, facilitated filming at Langley, and provided fifty off-duty officers as extras, according to its website.
Espionage novelist Tom Clancy has enjoyed an especially close relationship with the CIA. In 1984, Clancy was invited to Langley after writing The Hunt for Red October, which was later turned into the 1990 film. The Agency invited him again when he was working on Patriot Games (1992), and the movie adaptation was, in turn, granted access to Langley facilities. More recently, The Sum of All Fears (2002) depicted the CIA as tracking down terrorists who detonate a nuclear weapon on US soil. For this production, CIA director George Tenet gave the filmmakers a personal tour of the Langley HQ; the film’s star, Ben Affleck also consulted with Agency analysts, and Chase Brandon served as on-set advisor.
Media sources indicate that the CIA also worked on the Anthony Hopkins/Chris Rock feature Bad Company (2002) and the Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster Enemy of the State (2001). However, no details whatsoever about these appear to be in the public domain. Similarly, Spy Game director Tony Scott’s DVD commentary for said film indicates that he visited Langley whilst in pre-production but, according to one report, endorsement appeared to have been withheld after Chase Brandon read the final draft of the script.
More details than usual emerged about CIA involvement in the Tom Hanks movie Charlie Wilsons War (2007) and Robert De Niro’s The Good Shepherd (2006) – but not many. Milt Beardon had traveled to the Moscow Film Festival with De Niro and claims the pair then “disappeared and hung out with the mob and KGB crowd for a while. I introduced him to generals and colonels, the old guys I had been locked with for so many years.” De Niro later tagged along with Beardon to Pakistan. “We wandered around the North-West Frontier Province,” Bearden recalls, “crossed the bridge [to Afghanistan] I built years ago, hung out with a bunch of guys firing off machine guns and drinking tea.” Still, The Good Shepherd didn’t fulfill the CIA’s earnest hopes of being the CIA equivalent ofFlags of Our Fathers (2006), which the Agency’s official historian says it should have been – all in the interests of what he calls a “culture of truth.”
Charlie Wilson’s Wardepicted the United States’ covert efforts to supply arms to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union in the 1980s which had the real-life consequence of America’s old ally turned against it in the form of al-Qaeda (as Crile explains in the book of the film). However, Beardon, who was the CIA agent who supplied the weapons, worked as consultant on the film and said prior to its release that it “will put aside the notion that because we did that, we had 9/11.” CIA involvement in the film therefore appears to have paid dividends.
The real reasons for the CIA adopting an “advisory” role on all of these productions are thrown into sharp relief by a solitary comment from former Associate General Counsel to the CIA, Paul Kelbaugh. In 2007, whilst at a College in Virginia, Kelbaugh delivered a lecture on the CIA’s relationship with Hollywood, at which a local journalist was present. The journalist (who now wishes to remain anonymous) wrote a review of the lecture which related Kelbaugh’s discussion of the 2003 thriller The Recruit, starring Al Pacino. The review noted that, according to Kelbaugh, a CIA agent was on set for the duration of the shoot under the guise of a consultant, but that his real job was to misdirect the filmmakers: “We didn’t want Hollywood getting too close to the truth,” the journalist quoted Kelbaugh as saying.
Peculiarly, in a strongly-worded email to the authors, Kelbaugh emphatically denied having made the public statement and claimed that he remembered “very specific discussions with senior [CIA] management that no one was ever to misrepresent to affect [film] content – EVER.” The journalist considers Kelbaugh’s denial “weird,” and told us that “after the story came out, he [Kelbaugh] emailed me and loved it… I think maybe it’s just that because [the lecture] was ‘just in Lynchburg’ he was okay with it – you know, like, no one in Lynchburg is really going to pay much attention to it, I guess. Maybe that’s why he said it, and maybe that’s why he’s denying it now.” The journalist stands by the original report, and Kelbaugh has pointedly refused to engage us in further discussion on the matter.
Early Screening
Clandestine agencies have a long history of interference in the cinema industry. Letters discovered in the Eisenhower Presidential Library from the secret agent Luigi G. Luraschi (identified by British academic John Eldridge), the Paramount executive who worked for the CIA’s Psychological Strategy Board (PSB), reveal just how far the CIA was able to reach into the film industry in the early days of the Cold War, despite its claims that it sought no such influence. For instance, Luraschi reported that he had secured the agreement of several casting directors to subtly plant “well dressed negroes” into films, including “a dignified negro butler” who has lines “indicating he is a free man” inSangaree (1953) and in a golf club scene in the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis vehicle The Caddy (1953). Elsewhere, CIA arranged the removal of key scenes from the film Arrowhead (1953), which questioned America’s treatment of Apache Indians, including a sequence where a tribe is forcibly shipped and tagged by the US Army. Such changes were not part of a ham-fisted campaign to instill what we now call “political correctness” in the populace. Rather, they were specifically enacted to hamper the Soviets’ ability to exploit its enemy’s poor record in race relations and served to create a peculiarly anodyne impression of America, which was, at that time, still mired in an era of racial segregation.
Other efforts were made. The PSB tried –unsuccessfully– to commission Frank Capra to directWhy We Fight the Cold War and to provide details to filmmakers about conditions in the USSR in the hope that they would use them in their movies. More successfully, in 1950, the CIA –along with other secretive organizations like the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) and aided by the PSB– bought the rights to and invested in the cartoon of George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1954), which was given an anti-Soviet spin to satisfy its covert investors. Author Daniel Leab has pointed to the fact it took decades for the rumours about CIA involvement in Animal Farm to be properly documented; this, he observes, “Speaks volumes about the ability of a government agency to keep its activities covert.”
Additionally, the production of the Michael Redgrave featureNineteen-Eighty Four (1956) was in turn overseen by the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, which was supervised by the CIA. Key points in the movie were altered to demonise the Soviets.
The CIA also tampered with the 1958 film version of The Quiet American, provoking the author, Graham Greene, to denounce the film. US Air Force Colonel Edward Lansdale, the CIA operative behind Operation Mongoose (the CIA sabotage and assassination campaign against Cuba) had entered into production correspondence with director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who accepted his ideas. These included a change to the final scene in which we learn that Redgrave’s anti-hero has been hoodwinked by the Communists into murdering the suspicious American, who turns out not to be a bomb-maker as we had been led to believe, but instead a manufacturer of children’s toys.
 Behind the Scenes
It would be a mistake to regard the CIA as unique in its involvement in Hollywood. The industry is in fact fundamentally open to manipulation by a range of state agencies. In 2000, it emerged that the White House’s drug war officers had spent tens of millions of dollars paying the major US networks to inject anti-drug plots into the scripts of primetime series such as ER, The Practice, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Chicago Hope. Despite criticism for this blatant propagandizing, the government continued to employ this method of spreading its message on drugs.
The White House went to Tinsel Town again the following year when, on November 11, 2001 a meeting was held in Hollywood between President Bush’s then Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, and representatives of each of the major Hollywood studios to discuss how the film industry might contribute to the ‘War on Terror.’ Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America said with a straight face that, “content was off the table”, but Rove had clearly outlined a series of requests. It is hard to gauge the consequences of the meeting, but a Rambo sequel, for instance, was certainly discussed, and duly produced. Similarly, several series with national security themes emerged within a short time of the meeting including She Spies (2002-2004) and Threat Matrix(2003).
The meeting was, in fact, just one in a series between Hollywood and the White House from October to December, 2001. On October 17, in response to 9/11, the White House announced the formation of its “Arts and Entertainment Task Force,” and by November, Valenti had assumed leadership of Hollywood’s new role in the ‘War on Terror’. As a direct result of meetings, Congress sought advice from Hollywood insiders on how to shape an effective wartime message to America and to the world. In November 2001, John Romano, writer-producer of the popular US TV series Third Watch, advised the House International Relations Committee that the content of Hollywood productions was a key part of shaping foreign perceptions of America.
On December 5, 2001, the powerful Academy of Television Arts & Sciences convened its own panel entitled “Hollywood Goes to War?” to discuss what the industry might do in response to 9/11. Representing the government at the meeting were Mark McKinnon, a White House advisor, and the Pentagon’s chief entertainment liaison, Phil Strub. Also in attendance, among others, were Jeff Zucker, President of NBC Entertainment, and Aaron Sorkin, creator and writer of the White House drama The West Wing (1999-2006). Immediately after, Sorkin and his team set about producing a special episode of the show dealing with a massive terrorist threat to America entitled “Isaac and Ishmael”. The episode was given top priority and was successfully completed and aired within just ten days of the meeting. The product championed the superiority of American values whilst brimming with rage against the Islamist jihadists.
The interlocking of Hollywood and national security apparatuses remains as tight as ever: ex-CIA agent Bob Baer told us, “There’s a symbiosis between the CIA and Hollywood” and revealed that former CIA director George Tenet is currently, “out in Hollywood, talking to studios.” Baer’s claims are given weight by the Sun Valley meetings, annual get-togethers in Idaho’s Sun Valley in which several hundred of the biggest names in American media –including every major Hollywood studio executive– convene to discuss collective media strategy for the coming year. Against the idyllic backdrop of expansive golf courses, pine forests and clear fishing lakes, deals are struck, contracts are signed, and the face of the American media is quietly altered. The press has yet to be granted permission to report on these corporate media gatherings and so the exact nature of what is discussed at the events has never been publicly disclosed. It is known, however, that Tenet was keynote speaker at Sun Valley in 2003 (whilst still CIA head) and again in 2005.
Conclusions
Many would recoil at the thought of modern Hollywood cinema being used as a propagandist tool, but the facts seem to speak for themselves. Do agencies such as the CIA have the power, like the Pentagon, to affect movie content by providing much-sought-after expertise, locations and other benefits? Or are they able to affect script changes through simple persuasion, or even coercion? Do they continue to carry out covert actions in Hollywood as they did so extensively in the 1950s, and, beyond cinema, might covert government influence play some part in the creation of national security messages in TV series such as 24 and Alias (the star of the latter, Jennifer Garner, even made an unpaid recruitment video for the CIA)? The notion that covert agencies aspire to be more open is hard to take seriously when they provide such scant information about their role within the media, even regarding activities from decades past. The spy may have come in from the cold, but he continues to shelter in the shadows of the movie theatre.
Matthew Alford(PhD: University of Bath) lectures on Film and Television at the University of Bristol and is currently writing a book about propaganda in Hollywood. Robbie Graham is Associate Lecturer in Media at Stafford College. They can be contacted at: matthewalfordphd@gmail.com andrbbgraham@aol.com respectively. References available on request.

New High Tech GrowCubes Offer Indoor Gardening Solutions

folks we have it in ourselves to make this planet a better place for ALL of us !  Just STOP & think who/what it IS that doesn't want us 2 ?!?   if we work together  ...what the fuck can't we do ?    ..lets try that  .... one 

Friday, January 3, 2014 9:25

(Before It's News)

by Natural Blaze
There is an Internet of farming taking shape that is relying on the same open source approach demonstrated in the Hackerspace community.
First, it is important to know what a Hackerspace is. The video below is a short introduction that explains the background and benefits of open source creativity.
As you will see, while applications are based around computer systems and tech, the real central theme is cooperative invention that sets out to offer solutions to make the planet a source of abundance. Agriculture is a fantastic place to start.

Open Source Creativity - Hackerspaces: Science on the SPOT

It is this very mentality that has led to magnificent inventions that hold promise for ushering in an age of abundance and self-determination, rather than the paradigm of scarcity and dependence which we are currently experiencing.
Back in August we reported on a novel new solution to combating GMOs and water scarcity through a system called Vi-Aqua, which converts a small amount of electricity to a radio signal that can charge water, leading to an increase in food production and a decrease in resource consumption.
The Vi-Aqua system holds real promise for large-scale agriculture. However, small-scale agriculture is a place where we all can begin to make changes. Current solutions such as aquaponics and aquaculture are fantastic for realizing food production in a limited space and on a limited budget.
A novel idea that takes indoor gardening to the next level is being put forth by creator Chris Beauvois from a Hackerspace in Brooklyn, New York called NYC Resistor. The concept is called aeroponics. Through a system of GrowCubes, they propose efficient indoor growing for a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. And the best part? This can be done with 95 percent less water and a built-in resistance to diseases and pests!

GrowCubes grow plants with 95 percent less water than traditional gardening methods by relying on aeroponics. There’s no soil or streaming water involved. Instead, the plants are watered via a fine mist that contains all the nutrients they need. The cubes are also pressurized and lit with UV lights to kill off bacteria, parasites and fungi.

[...]

At four feet by four feet, the cubes are about the size of a dishwasher, meaning they could fit in most homes.

A software program underpins the system, offering a detailed Internet-connected analysis and customization platform to obtain and fulfill the optimal level of nutrients and maintenance.
Here is a video showing this fascinating new concept.

GrowCubes - Engadget InsertCoin 2013

It doesn’t take much imagination to see how this can help offer high production and low cost in urban areas, and other areas susceptible to challenging environmental elements.
For now, the Kickstarter program is focusing on bringing this to single users in 2014, but the hope is that with additional “hacking” the concept can be interconnected to form much larger warehouse operations that could attain a large-scale capacity that could serve entire communities:

“That would really be ideal if we were able to partner municipalities and cities to build a large scale integration of GrowCubes. It’s great to have one at home, but it’s great to reap the benefits without having to buy them or take up the space. They’re more practical if we scale the growth for you and you benefit from food delivery weekly,” Beauvois said. “I would love to see adoption by cities like the city of New York or San Francisco or Detroit; cities that don’t produce anywhere near the percentage of the food they consume.”

With all of the negatives that one can associate with technology in our modern-day world, this serves as a prime example of how technology can combine with human innovation to offer a level of freedom and self-empowerment that we are only just beginning to imagine.
For more information on Hackerspaces and other projects, please visit Local Org, and/or feel free to share your own experiences in the comment section below. Do you have a project that you would like us to feature? Contact us here.
And for more information about GrowCubes, please visit their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/GrowCube
Article source:
http://gigaom.com/2014/01/01/grow-a-garden-in-your-kitchen-or-create-a-new-form-of-csa-with-growcubes/