Atlas Shrugs

Arrested Smuggling Ebola into the USA

Amaros sent this with the following key observations, "the story says that this was not a dangerous shipment. True in the sense that these vials did not contain the virus per se (he had no access to that) but they contained the genetic codes for the virus, which is required for manufacture. The CBC reported the gene info just now but stressed that this material is for producing vaccines. If you can make the vaccine, you can make the disease.

So while he claims he was taking them to help his new research, he could have also sold them to terrorists with labs.

He is facing 20 years jail. They don't give that to plagiarists."

Canadian scientist arrested for smuggling vials for Ebola research into U.S.

A Canadian scientist was stopped at the U.S. border last week after authorities found 22 vials used in Ebola research from Canada's National Microbiology Lab in his possession, officials said Wednesday.

The incident has sparked controversy and serious questions about security protocols at the Winnipeg lab that contains some of the world's most deadliest pathogens.

Konan Michel Yao, 42, was apprehended by U.S. officials as he attempted to enter the United States at the Pembina, N.D., border crossing from Manitoba on May 5.

Yao faces U.S. criminal charges for smuggling and is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals service.

[...]

"There was a small amount of genetic material from the Ebola virus in the material that he took off with, but it posed no risk of infection and no risk to the health of the public," he said.

"It's basically genetic material, some of which had an Ebola gene in it. It's just a gene. It's not infectious. The only thing he could've done with it was make an Ebola vaccine."

Dick Cheney, call your office

The leftards will be taking crash courses. This takes super weaponry to a whole new level. Dr. Paul J. Werbos,  "sounds plausible. It reminds me a little of the Terminator III scenario, which (bad though the movie was) is worth thinking about". Ya think? Here is some of their previous work.

A Heart Device Is Found Vulnerable to Hacker Attacks NY Times hat tip Lifeboat

To the long list of objects vulnerable to attack by computer hackers, add the human heart.

The threat seems largely theoretical. But a team of computer security researchers plans to report Wednesday that it had been able to gain wireless access to a combination heart defibrillator and pacemaker.

They were able to reprogram it to shut down and to deliver jolts of electricity that would potentially be fatal — if the device had been in a person. In this case, the researcher were hacking into a device in a laboratory.

The researchers said they had also been able to glean personal patient data by eavesdropping on signals from the tiny wireless radio that Medtronic, the device’s maker, had embedded in the implant as a way to let doctors monitor and adjust it without surgery.

OT but related: Will the bionic man have virus protection?

Gadi Evron, a prominent Israeli network security expert, has some questions about a future when we let software into our bionic, cybernetic bodies.

Say we really do start modifying ourself, he asked a late-night crowd here at the Chaos Computer Camp. Presumably, that means a bit of hardware, a bit of software. And as any security consultant knows, every piece of software ever written by an actual human is riddled with flaws and bugs, which translate all too easily into security flaws.

Suddenly a whole slew of problems familiar to the network security world appear. If someone finds a bug in a bionic body part, what are the ethical issues? Should it be reported widely? Just to the company producing the component? Hidden, or sold for profit?

And what about patches? Will people line up at schools for heart-implant fixes, like for today's flu shot? Will viruses distribute false patches, and infect body parts? Or an apocalyptic scenario: What if our cybernetic tools synchronized themselves with Outlook.

With wireless connections, viruses could even spread, well, through the air. What kind of intellectual property issues could arise? Pirates, crackers, ransom-artists, virus-writers, all focused on the body instead of the laptop.

 

ISLAM LEAFLET SCHOOL BUST: Convert or .....

Lone jihadi syndrome. Watch it morph. Many  forms, many shapes, many sizes. Ugh.

Coming to a school near you.  Helen points out this ran as a tiny item on page 20 of the NY Post and I didn't see it anyehre else.

ISLAM LEAFLET SCHOOL BUST NY Post

September 19, 2007 -- A Queens teen was arrested yesterday after placing fliers in his teachers' mailboxes asking them to convert to Islam - then made threats once he was caught, authorities said.

Yaseen Chowdhury, 17, of Woodside, wrote the fliers himself and put them in the mailboxes at the Renaissance Charter School in Jackson Heights, sources said.

When confronted there about the fliers, he made unspecified verbal threats, according to the sources.

Chowdhury was charged with aggravated harassment as a hate crime.

A Department of Education spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.

The student's religion was not immediately known.

The last line is da money.

UPDATE: Another lone jihadi story;

"A Muslim dentist made a woman wear Islamic dress as the price of accepting her as an NHS patient, it is alleged.

Omer Butt is said to have told the patient that unless she wore a headscarf she would have to find another practice."

Doomsday Thoughts

Our near future.

Above is how I see the planet around the middle of the year 2020. A dead planet, with no biosphere, even no atmosphere, and covered with grey goo. I believe that world after world throughout the universe has been destroyed by science out of control and therefore there are no advanced aliens out there like in the Star Wars or Star Trek movies. (Billions of worlds have likely been destroyed this way.)

Who am I? I am Eric Klien, founder of the Lifeboat Foundation. What is grey goo? It is a very small (think cell sized) robot that takes apart the biosphere to make copies of itself. Why am I posting here? Because Pamela, who is on our advisory board invited me. Do Pamela or other board members agree with me that the world will end in about 13.5 years? No, but they are concerned enough about bad things coming our way to help us fight the good fight against evil forces coming our way. Is Lifeboat Foundation a right-wing organization? No, our cause is too important for just right-wingers to be involved. People from across the planet with a wide range of views are joining our cause. Our board is brimming with top scientists, Nobel Laureates, deep thinkers, and other influential people. In fact more people wish to join than I have time to type in bios for.

Although I am a bit of right-winger (think InstaPundit to guess my political views), our advisors range from right-wingers such as Pamela, Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit, and Jim Pinkerton from Fox News Watch, to left-wingers such as Peter Singer (who believes that sometimes abortions should be legal AFTER the kid is born) and Juan R. I. Cole (who Yale thought was too left-wing to be allowed to teach there), to the majority of our board which is composed of nonpartisan folks (well most are probably libs but I can't prove it).

RELIGION OF SCIENCE

What exactly will be the cause of our demise? It will be the Religion of Science. While I agree that the Muslim Religion will be responsible for quite a few deaths in the near future (check out our Nuclear Terrorist page), it is the Religion of Science that will do us in. What are the beliefs of the Religion of Science? They are that all scientific advancement is good under all circumstances. If worrying about a potential danger might cause scientific funding to be reduced by even 1%, this religion will do whatever it takes to quiet people mentioning such a danger.

To give you an example of the power this religion is getting, during WW II, scientists worked on developing the powerful atomic bomb. Because the Religion of Science was weaker back then, this work was classified because it was understood that the world would be a better place if EVERYONE didn't have nuclear bombs. The latest weapons available, even more dangerous than nuclear bombs, are bioweapons which could easily be used to kill tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of people at a time. But now that the Religion of Science is more powerful, they have decreed that the world would be a better place if EVERYONE had access to such weapons. (Especially Al Qaeda!)

Because these weapons were developed recently (actually the most deadly stuff won't be available for a couple more years), the Religion of Science was able to influence the politicians and convince them that a world where everyone had bioweapons would be a good idea. So the U.S. Department of Health said, O.K., if Al Qaeda wants to create ebola here is the recipe for it. Hmm, maybe Al Qaeda wants something that spreads easier? Well here is a recipe for smallpox then. Or better yet, Al Qaeda could create a Frankenstein virus that combines smallpox and ebola! You think that is science fiction? One of the Lifeboat Foundation scientists has *ALREADY* created a Frankenstein virus that is part AIDS and part another virus and he used it to infect macaques who are immune to the AIDS virus. (Don't be mean to him about this, he had a good reason.)

COMING DANGERS

The 1918 flu virus which killed 50 million people was also posted by the U.S. Department of Health on the internet. Above picture is a death scene caused by this virus.

While it is unlikely that bioweapons will kill all of us (even killing 90% of us would be a bit surprising), the way the Religion of Science is putting virtually no controls on bioweapons shows us how the next class of weapons will be treated. Starting around 2020, nanotechnology, which is the ability to design stuff atom by atom, will be viable. It could easily be used to create doomsday weapons of both the replicating and nonreplicating variety. This will happen with virtually no controls and then human life (and most likely all life on this planet) will end.

When the Lifeboat Foundation worked on our NanoShield report, it was rather discouraging that both of the primary authors said they could not guarantee it would handle all replicating nanoweapons and they were quite sure that it couldn't handle all nonreplicating nanoweapons. (Read the report to see why there are worse nanoweapons than grey goo.)

The reason this was particularly discouraging is that as I said before, few people believe the world is going to end like I do and I strongly doubt that these authors believe the world is going to end either. Yet a massive NanoShield proposal which included utility fog curtains capable of establishing filters for the separation of the world's atmosphere into compartments, orbiting satellites capable of emitting penetrating radiation and localized heating, quintillions of smart dust (a small spying device) everywhere so we can finally watch Pamela shower, electromagnetic pulse devices, and much more, was not guaranteed by these optimists to protect us against a weapon that WILL be available in the near future. For the record, there is no reason to believe that a massive NanoShield as described in our report will be created in the near future, it would just be too expensive. The question was: "Could something at least be theoretically designed to protect us?"

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO SAVE US ALL?

You can check out our site and then join our cause. What are we doing that will make a difference? We are working at encouraging the building of defenses while also trying to expose the dangers that are coming. I should point out that to date most of our funding has come from libs so it would be nice if a few conservatives got off their lazy butts and gave us a few bucks. If Lifeboat Foundation does not become a huge organization over the next decade or so, we will all die.

I GUARANTEE IT!

33,000 Exposed to Radiation, so far

Smells like we've embarked on a new era in WMD. A thousand little cuts.

33,000 BA passengers alerted over radiation The Telegraph hat tip Eric

British Airways is trying to contact all 33,000 passengers who may have been exposed to radioactive traces that were found on two of its planes.

Thousands of BA passengers were caught in the radiation scare last night after traces of a substance, thought to be the same that killed the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, were found on the planes.

A spokesman for the airline said that, so far, 2,500 of the 33,000 passengers who are believed to have flown on 221 flights across Europe since the traces were found have called in to BA's dedicated helpline.

The Government grounded one plane on Tuesday and another yesterday. A third is in Moscow awaiting tests.

Police are focusing on flights from Moscow to Heathrow Airport on Oct 25 and 31 and in the other direction on Oct 28 and Nov 3. Since then, the planes, all Boeing 767s, have flown to Barcelona, Dusseldorf, Athens, Larnaka, Madrid, Vienna, Istanbul, Frankfurt and Stockholm.

BA has set up a helpline for affected passengers and those with symptoms of radiation poisoning, such as vomiting or bleeding gums, were advised to telephone NHS Direct. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said the risk to the public was low.

Mr Litvinenko was killed by polonium 210, which must be swallowed to be lethal. The search of the planes points the finger of suspicion more firmly at Moscow.

Moscow is mighty busy. Mighty busy. Seems to me all the evidence is pointing to Putin. He is killing any dissenters.

Mystery illness hits former Russian PM

Yegor Gaidar, Russia’s former prime minister and the architect of the country’s market reforms, last week suffered a sudden, unexplained and violent illness on a visit to Ireland, a day after Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB spy, died in London from an apparent radiation poisoning.

Remember, Putin is a huge supporter of Iran.

Super Weapons: The End of the World as we know It

Something for you to chew on while chewing on your Memorial Day ribs;

In futures studies, a technological singularity represents an "event horizon" in the predictability of human technological development past which present models of the future cease to give reliable or accurate answers, following the creation of strong artificial intelligence or the amplification of human intelligence. Futurists predict that after the Singularity, humans as they exist presently will cease to be the dominating force in scientific and technological progress, replaced with posthumans, strong AI, or both, and therefore all models of change based on past trends in human behavior will be obsolete.

From Wikipedia: A posthuman or post-human is a hypothetical future being whose capabilities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer human by current standards. A posthuman can also be described as the creature that results from radical human enhancement. In these ways, the difference between the posthuman and other hypothetical sophisticated non-humans is that a posthuman was once a human, either in its life time or in the life times of some or all of its direct ancestors. More here

Why should you care? Superweapons, that's why. Can American minds grasp the concept of post-nuclear weapons?

In 2003, the Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) assessed the level of knowledge of-not of "super-higher mathematics," and not even that of higher mathematics, but of ordinary mathematics for school pupils of 14, "near the end of mandatory school education." Participating were about 250,000 school pupils of 29 countries, including over 5,000 pupils in more than 250 U.S. schools.

The best results were attained by 5 countries, including South Korea (a non-Western country!) and the worst results by 5 countries, including the U.S., which took 24th place among 29 participating countries, which did not include China, Russia, or Arab countries.

Is there a Super weapon?

Imagine the implications of a weapon that could knock out tanks, ships, and planes as fast as the speed of light. The same technology, with modifications, could disorient and even tranquilize military personnel, rendering them virtually helpless in the battle zone.

For more than 50 years, the threat of nuclear war has riveted the world. With the terror of assured mutual destruction, scientists have been searching for new types of weapons that offer the promise of winning battles without the deadly aftereffects of nuclear weapons. More here

But the very phrase "Mutual Assured Destruction," once widely used, has now been forgotten in the West, and hence the forthcoming possession of nuclear weapons in Iran has become a sufficient cause for a (nuclear) attack on Iran.

Let us recall the mathematical perception before the advent in the West of the "higher mathematics" of Newton and others. Before, numbers had been added, subtracted, multiplied and divided. That had been clear. But differentials or integrals? What on earth were THOSE?

Bearden and Weeks think in terms of "higher geostrategy," which involves new superweapons in China and Russia. But today's U.S. political and military establishment does not understand these weapons – what on earth are they talking about? Militarily and hence politically, the Western countries are becoming backward – "underdeveloped" – while China, in alliance and in cooperation with Russia, is regaining its position of the "Center of the World" ("Middle Kingdom").

At the same time, the U.S. military establishment cannot stop the mouth of its retired Lt. Col. Bearden on the plea that he is insane (of which Einstein was also accused), since his U.S. military research background is impeccable.

Lt. Col. Thomas E. Bearden (U.S. Army, retired) is one of the two U.S. high military officers (the other is Col. Byron Weeks, M.D., U.S. Army, retired) who deal with today's "higher geostrategy," in contrast with the Pentagon, the U.S. government, the CIA and the mainstream media,

all of which deal with a fairytale. More here.

There is much I counter (his harsh take on Rumsfeld for example) but politics aside - the idea of genetics, nanotechnology, robotics   entropy, information theory, and moving  towards a technological singularity creates a new future reality with frightening implications;

Bearden's book. Its three "final urgent commentaries" are:

The darkest days in the history of our republic lie immediately ahead of us.

If we are to survive, we shall need the most strenuous and rapid effort in our history, NOW.

God bless and keep America! We pray for its survival.

It is clear that Bearden is not an intellectual anarchist, baiting the establishment. He continues to do what he did in the U.S. Army: Defend America. But defending America requires knowing what superweapons the enemy may have and understanding today's "higher geostrategy."

You and I will have to look more deeply into this .............right now must dash with the kids to a  Memorial Day BBQ where I won't be discussing this as the revelers will absolutely look at me as if I had two heads or more probably see me as something of a  posthuman.

We cannot rely on trial-and-error approaches to deal with existential risks... We need to vastly increase our investment in developing specific defensive technologies... We are at the critical stage today for biotechnology, and we will reach the stage where we need to directly implement defensive technologies for nanotechnology during the late teen years of this century... A self-replicating pathogen, whether biological or nanotechnology based, could destroy our civilization in a matter of days or weeks." - Ray Kurzweil ......More here

Ray Kurzweil justifies his belief in an imminent singularity by an analysis of history from which he concludes that technological progress follows a pattern of exponential growth. He calls this conclusion The Law of Accelerating Returns. He generalizes Moore's law, which describes exponential growth in integrated semiconductor complexity, to include technologies from far before the integrated circuit.

I am sure Israel is all over this (this is so their bailiwick.) And while it all sounds terribly anti-religious  - you can't believe in G-d if you're dead.