Williamknowsbest <William.M... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote innews:6b7ef4a8-db12-4738-9b46-d74e503ef826 at (no spam) c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com:

Would you notify authorities and tell others not to get on the site?

Absolutely.  Save the world, etc.

But exactly who would I inform, in thirty seconds time?  And get them
to listen?

Would you launch as many missiles as you could before the site was
taken down?

I'm not about to commit mass murder for any reason, against anyone.

Now if you come up with some way that I could deprive all drug
traffickers of their products and money, all at once, and drop the drugs
in a remote ocean area, money going directly to the US Treasury, yeah.
That's a fantasy I could endorse.

Would you notify authorities and tell others not to get on the site?

Would you launch as many missiles as you could before the site was
taken down?

On May 5, 6:22 am, Ian Parker <ianpark... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

On 5 May, 01:12, Williamknowsbest <William.M... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

On May 4, 7:11 pm, Damon Hill <damon1S... at (no spam) comcast.netnet> wrote:

Williamknowsbest <William.M... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote innews:6b7ef4a8-db12-4738-9b46-d74e503ef826 at (no spam) c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com:

Would you notify authorities and tell others not to get on the site?

Absolutely.  Save the world, etc.

Excellent response.

But exactly who would I inform, in thirty seconds time?  And get them
to listen?

The telephone numbers would be available with the intel reports.  I
think if you could repeat today's launch codes to someone on that list
you'd get their attention pretty quick.

Would you launch as many missiles as you could before the site was
taken down?

I'm not about to commit mass murder for any reason, against anyone.

Another excellent response!   This is my point I think.  I don't think
*anyone* would launch them.  I know, I know.  I thinke everyone would
be like Col. Petrov back in the mid 80s.  They'd stop and think just
what you did.

Now if you come up with some way that I could deprive all drug
traffickers of their products and money, all at once, and drop the drugs
in a remote ocean area, money going directly to the US Treasury, yeah.
That's a fantasy I could endorse.

Would this work?

(1) There's a guy from Harvard that developed this, but was then shot
down for it.  Set up all Emergency Rooms with drug response teams.
Anyone who presents who appears to have a drug problem, have them
evaluated and have them enter into a drug treatment program.  Drugs
themselves, for users of those drugs, become a powerful lever to
control their behavior.  So, giving a group of medical experts
training and access to drugs, to use to eliminate dependency in 90
days makes sense.  Several programs have been developed that are quite
effective.  So, basically, if anyone needs drugs, or wants drugs, they
can get them at their local ER.  The first time, by entering into the
program.  The second time, they go through a series of reinforcements
- successive approximation - that ends in them being drug free in 90
days.  Wherever this program has been tried, street crimes to support
drug habits have been eliminated.   Also, drug dealers have been so
harmed by this process where it has been tried, they've actually
attacked the ERs where the drugs are given away.  A clear sign of its
success.   A national program involving all ERs nationwide, would
seriously curtail drug sales and get about 60% of all drug users into
treatment.

(2) Use data gathered by the NSA to profile known drug traffickers and
then sign a Presidential order secretly interrupt banking services
worldwide of anyone who matches that profile.  Put out the word about
a glitch occuring and ask all who have trouble to come on in to be
interviewed by the bank to correct it.  Basically, force them to
convince you that they're legit.  If they can't do that and they're
upset, tell them to sue you - this interrupts cash flow. .

(3) DEA siezes 8% of all drugs  and destroys all drugs it siezes.  I
thought of this one after I read that Whataburger after killing two of
its customers with food poisoning nearly went out of business.  Take
all drugs siezed and infect them with deadly biological agents and
reintroduce them to the street.  Blame the environment, do not take
responsibility for this.  This gets the other 40% into treatment, and
halts sales altogether.  Put the word out that there is a new strain
of virus in the golden triangle that is infecting all drugs yada yada
yada - do this in a deniable way.

(4) Use the presence of the new deadly virus/bacteria/whatever to
highlight the importance of getting control of this issue.  Arrest
known traffickers for murder (because you sold them the drugs, you
have the chain of custody in front of you) and set up government
licensed recreational drug stores where quality is assured and drug
use is monitored and treatment is available (this includes alcohol and
nicotine sales)

(5) Do not allow drug advertising (including alcohol or nicotine) in
any shape for form, including 'placements' in movies TV shows and so
forth.

--Damon- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Look, there are areas where secrecy is needed for the simple reason
that people need to be protected. Credit card and pin numbers (In
Britain you have a PIN number, I understand the US has yet to catch
up).

Let me go on. It is debatable whether or not it would be a good thing
to know the precise details of military strength and strategy, but let
us take another thing along the same lines as credit cards. The
President carries a briefcase containing nuclear launch codes. If you
made that public knowledge any Tom, Dick or Harry could launch a
nuclear missile.

I have responded to "space age banking" in a sinilar vein. Not enough
attention is paid to security on the Web. The Clay Mathematics
institute has some 1 million dollar problems. One of them is that all
problems can be solved in polynomial time

 P = NP  or P<NP

My friend, if P = NP and the products of large primes can be
factorized in polynomial time - Heaven help us!

  - Ian Parker- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

There is public secrecy and private secrecy.  Individuals have a right
to keep certain things private.  This does not give them the right to
withold information about wrong-doing.,  The government has the right
to keep things private as well, but that right is more limited than an
individual's right.  It also does not give the government the right to
withold information about wrong-doing in the name of secrecy.  Nobody
argues that the government doesn't have secrets to keep.  The big
question is who decides in a democracy?  Who assures that wrong-doing
is reported?   Who determines if there is too much or too little
secrecy?

Today's world in many ways reflects the world of the middle-ages.
Trust in democracy and the people to make decisions is a joke.
Everything reverts to raw power.  The idea that knowledge is best left
in the public domain is passe'  at best and laughably naive' at
wrost.  Science is no longer an open subject.

The secret agencies that run this planet, CIA and KGB being formost
amont them, can be considered the latter day royalty of the modern
world.  The 9.5 million millionaires who fund it all, might be
considered the Barons that serve the new scientific royalty.  World
Peace is the mantra in the nuclear age that is invoke to maintain the
power - instead of the body and blood of Christ -  the parallels are
endless.

This is not a sustainable situation - that's my only beef.  We are
fighting a war on terror today because we were attacked by Al Queda
operatives with great success.  The reason they were successful is
that they received training when they wre organized under the Taliban
to kick the Russians out of Afghanistan.  Who trained them?  The CIA.
Try to talk about this and you get shouted down by 'truthers' so
called.  Reasonable discussion of our shortcomings seem to always be
polluted by obviously extremist and anti-American lunacy.  So, its
hard to see what's going on and make rational decisions in these
areas.  This is so consistent and constant - one has to wonder if the
lunacy isn't being promoted as a smokescreen to avoid scrutiny.  The
fact of the matter is the intelligence communities of this world NEED
scrutiny - if we are to survive their systemic failures they are blind
to.

George Bush 1 was former CIA director.  Putin was former KGB
director.  China has a similar history.  Democracy as we believe it to
be is dead or dying.  We are fighting problems of our own creation.

So, when someone says the government has a right and a need to
secrecy,I agree with these caveats.  The government also needs the
oversight of an informed citzenry and periodic reviews of its
activities.

When J Edgar Hoover died, a tiny intelligence op by President Nixon
became publicly known and spun out of control.  It ended his
presidicency, and brought to light briefly just a few excesses that
were known to exist in the CIA at that time.  These have since become
known as the family jewels. IT would be naive to think that this is
the worst that these agencies have gotten up to, and naive to think
that nothing untoward has happened since.

The steady progress that was the hallmark of scientific advance prior
to world war two has been halted - arrested in its tracks - since that
time.  Energy costs which declined from the 1850s through the 1950s -
began rising at an accelerating pace in the 1960s.  Commodity prices
ditto.  Some would say this is a natural consequence of limited
resources.  I say its a natural consequence of limited thinking.
Thinking by who?   By those who really control this planet.  The
100,000 or so royals that work in the various intelligence
communities.  They are not given to flights of fancy or visionary
mission statements.  If anything they are hard nosed realists - they
have to be.  For them to be anything else is to invite disaster.  But
as a society, as a species, we cannot survive if we cede ALL power to
these sorts of people.  Taking no risk is the biggest risk of all.

We need to change the way we handle these problems.  Arguing about
rights won't solve them.  That'll only continue them until we are no
more.

Someone suggested that this shold be our new mantra for the coming age
of progress;

We are all one
There is always enough

We have common problems that we all must work together to resolve, and
there is enough to go around if we allow ourselves the creativity to
create whatever we need.

This approach seems more workable than the failed approaches of the
past - and doesn't require the degree or breadth of secrecy we take
for granted today.

We can decide what kind of world we want to live in.  One of conflict
turmoil and secrecy.  Or one of cooperation, peace and openess.
Secrecy is needed in both worlds.  The nature in each is different
however.

Now if you come up with some way that I could deprive all drug
traffickers of their products and money, all at once, and drop the drugs
in a remote ocean area, money going directly to the US Treasury, yeah.
That's a fantasy I could endorse.

But once we've finally gone to a cashless society, that won't matter
much (would the dealers turn to barter, or some other medium?).  Still,
it's a thought worth contemplating.

But once we've finally gone to a cashless society, that won't matter
much (would the dealers turn to barter, or some other medium?). Still,
it's a thought worth contemplating.

Dropping $100 bill can be done sooner and more easily than moving to
completely cashless society.

Now if you come up with some way that I could deprive all drug
traffickers of their products and money, all at once, and drop the
drugs in a remote ocean area, money going directly to the US
Treasury, yeah. That's a fantasy I could endorse.

Not quite as much as you want, but here is an idea.

US Treasury must abandon $100 bill.

$100 bills have become a de facto currency of international crime
syndicates. At any given time, most of their wealth is in $100 bills.
OTOH, it is of very little use to an honest US citizen. Almost all
legitimate transactions over $100 are done by check or credit card. So
declare $100 no longer valid currency. A 30 days grace period to bring
$100 bills to a bank and exchange them is plenty of time for anyone --
anyone legitimate, that is. Whereas drug cartels, human traffickers,
black market weapon dealers, etc. will be forced to either bring in
suitcases full of $100 bills -- thus screaming "investigate me!", --
or watch their wealth turn into worthless paper after 30 days. In
effect, by shrinking world's supply of dollars and thus raising their
value, this wealth will be transferred to US Treasury.

On 5 May, 13:38, Williamknowsbest <William.M... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

Mook manifesto/rant:
There is public secrecy and private secrecy. �Individuals have a right
to keep certain things private. �This does not give them the right to
withold information about wrong-doing., �The government has the right
to keep things private as well, but that right is more limited than an
individual's right. �It also does not give the government the right to
withold information about wrong-doing in the name of secrecy. �Nobody
argues that the government doesn't have secrets to keep. �The big
question is who decides in a democracy? �Who assures that wrong-doing
is reported? � Who determines if there is too much or too little
secrecy?

Today's world in many ways reflects the world of the middle-ages.
Trust in democracy and the people to make decisions is a joke.
Everything reverts to raw power. �The idea that knowledge is best left
in the public domain is passe' �at best and laughably naive' at
wrost. �Science is no longer an open subject.

The secret agencies that run this planet, CIA and KGB being formost
amont them, can be considered the latter day royalty of the modern
world. �The 9.5 million millionaires who fund it all, might be
considered the Barons that serve the new scientific royalty. �World
Peace is the mantra in the nuclear age that is invoke to maintain the
power - instead of the body and blood of Christ - �the parallels are
endless.

This is not a sustainable situation - that's my only beef. �We are
fighting a war on terror today because we were attacked by Al Queda
operatives with great success. �The reason they were successful is
that they received training when they wre organized under the Taliban
to kick the Russians out of Afghanistan. �Who trained them? �The CIA.
Try to talk about this and you get shouted down by 'truthers' so
called. �Reasonable discussion of our shortcomings seem to always be
polluted by obviously extremist and anti-American lunacy. �So, its
hard to see what's going on and make rational decisions in these
areas. �This is so consistent and constant - one has to wonder if the
lunacy isn't being promoted as a smokescreen to avoid scrutiny. �The
fact of the matter is the intelligence communities of this world NEED
scrutiny - if we are to survive their systemic failures they are blind
to.

George Bush 1 was former CIA director. �Putin was former KGB
director. �China has a similar history. �Democracy as we believe it to
be is dead or dying. �We are fighting problems of our own creation.

So, when someone says the government has a right and a need to
secrecy,I agree with these caveats. �The government also needs the
oversight of an informed citzenry and periodic reviews of its
activities.

When J Edgar Hoover died, a tiny intelligence op by President Nixon
became publicly known and spun out of control. �It ended his
presidicency, and brought to light briefly just a few excesses that
were known to exist in the CIA at that time. �These have since become
known as the family jewels. IT would be naive to think that this is
the worst that these agencies have gotten up to, and naive to think
that nothing untoward has happened since.

The steady progress that was the hallmark of scientific advance prior
to world war two has been halted - arrested in its tracks - since that
time. �Energy costs which declined from the 1850s through the 1950s -
began rising at an accelerating pace in the 1960s. �Commodity prices
ditto. �Some would say this is a natural consequence of limited
resources. �I say its a natural consequence of limited thinking.
Thinking by who? � By those who really control this planet. �The
100,000 or so royals that work in the various intelligence
communities. �They are not given to flights of fancy or visionary
mission statements. �If anything they are hard nosed realists - they
have to be. �For them to be anything else is to invite disaster. �But
as a society, as a species, we cannot survive if we cede ALL power to
these sorts of people. �Taking no risk is the biggest risk of all.

We need to change the way we handle these problems. �Arguing about
rights won't solve them. �That'll only continue them until we are no
more.

Someone suggested that this shold be our new mantra for the coming age
of progress;

We are all one
There is always enough

We have common problems that we all must work together to resolve, and
there is enough to go around if we allow ourselves the creativity to
create whatever we need.

This approach seems more workable than the failed approaches of the
past - and doesn't require the degree or breadth of secrecy we take
for granted today.

We can decide what kind of world we want to live in. �One of conflict
turmoil and secrecy. �Or one of cooperation, peace and openess.
Secrecy is needed in both worlds. �The nature in each is different
however.

I agree largely with what you are saying. There is quite a lot of
wrong doing. In Austria there have been 2 cases of prolonged unlawful
imprisonment. In the first case it is widely suspected that senior
Christian Democrat politicians were implicated. I agree very mch about
this.

Where I think we might differ is in terms of the operational details
of the war against Al Qaeda. Quite clearly AQ should not be tipped off
if arrests are imminant. Although as I have said before I think, the
role of the CIA in building up AQ and OBL during the Soviet war should
NOT be secret. In fact a hell of a lot has already leaked out.

- Ian Parker

Now if you come up with some way that I could deprive all drug
traffickers of their products and money, all at once, and drop the drugs
in a remote ocean area, money going directly to the US Treasury, yeah.
That's a fantasy I could endorse.

Not quite as much as you want, but here is an idea.

US Treasury must abandon $100 bill.

$100 bills have become a de facto currency of international crime
syndicates. At any given time, most of their wealth is in $100 bills.
OTOH, it is of very little use to an honest US citizen. Almost all
legitimate transactions over $100 are done by check or credit card. So
declare $100 no longer valid currency. A 30 days grace period to bring
$100 bills to a bank and exchange them is plenty of time for anyone --
anyone legitimate, that is. Whereas drug cartels, human traffickers,
black market weapon dealers, etc. will be forced to either bring in
suitcases full of $100 bills -- thus screaming "investigate me!", --
or watch their wealth turn into worthless paper after 30 days. In
effect, by shrinking world's supply of dollars and thus raising their
value, this wealth will be transferred to US Treasury.

On May 8, 2:11 pm, il... at (no spam) rcn.com wrote:



Now if you come up with some way that I could deprive all drug
traffickers of their products and money, all at once, and drop the drugs
in a remote ocean area, money going directly to the US Treasury, yeah.
That's a fantasy I could endorse.

Not quite as much as you want, but here is an idea.

US Treasury must abandon $100 bill.

$100 bills have become a de facto currency of international crime
syndicates. At any given time, most of their wealth is in $100 bills.
OTOH, it is of very little use to an honest US citizen. Almost all
legitimate transactions over $100 are done by check or credit card. So
declare $100 no longer valid currency. A 30 days grace period to bring
$100 bills to a bank and exchange them is plenty of time for anyone --
anyone legitimate, that is. Whereas drug cartels, human traffickers,
black market weapon dealers, etc. will be forced to either bring in
suitcases full of $100 bills -- thus screaming "investigate me!", --
or watch their wealth turn into worthless paper after 30 days. In
effect, by shrinking world's supply of dollars and thus raising their
value, this wealth will be transferred to US Treasury.

While I agree with your analysis for low level criminals, it takes a
cubic yard of $100 billis to add up to $1 billion. Organized crime
profits are measured in the trillions of dollars.

It is my understanding that diamonds are used for large transactions.
You can buy diamonds and sell diamonds rather innocuously, and diamond
dealers travel the same circle as drug dealers. I mean Amsterdam and
Paris are drug centers in part because of their connection to
diamonds.

Transport of diamonds occursrather easily. $100 million worth of
diamonds can be sewn into the hem of a garment, or in a belt.

This is not news. I spoke with the FBI and Interpol nearly 20 years
ago about an interferometric technique to identify diamonds by their
optical fingerprint.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/8g2mk63fm07v8uur/

While a perfect diamond produces no signals, real diamonds are never
perfect. Even one atom out of place can be detected by this
interferometer - and patterns of dislocations - specific to each
diamond - are easily recognized by this sort of setup.

While they concluded this was technically possible, and easily
afforded by diamond dealers, the project was quietly shelved. No word
as to why.

the US dollar is being replaced by the Euro anyway...

Currency composition of official foreign exchange reserves '95
'96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 '05 '06
'07
US dollar 59.0% 62.1% 65.2% 69.3% 70.9% 70.5% 70.7% 66.5% 65.8% 65.9%
66.4% 65.7% 63.3%
Euro 17.9% 18.8% 19.8% 24.2% 25.3% 24.9% 24.3% 25.2% 26.5%
German mark 15.8% 14.7% 14.5% 13.8%
Pound sterling 2.1% 2.7% 2.6% 2.7% 2.9% 2.8% 2.7% 2.9% 2.6% 3.3% 3.6%
4.2% 4.7%
Japanese yen 6.8% 6.7% 5.8% 6.2% 6.4% 6.3% 5.2% 4.5% 4.1% 3.9% 3.7%
3.2% 2.9%
French franc 2.4% 1.8% 1.4% 1.6%
Swiss franc 0.3% 0.2% 0.4% 0.3% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.4% 0.2% 0.2% 0.1%
0.2% 0.2%
Other 13.6% 11.7% 10.2% 6.1% 1.6% 1.4% 1.2% 1.4% 1.9% 1.8% 1.9% 1.5%
1.8%
Sources: 1995-1999, 2006-2007 IMF: Currency Composition of Official
Foreign Exchange ReservesPDF (80 KB)
Sources: 1999-2005, ECB: The Accumulation of Foreign ReservesPDF (816
KB) v • d • e

If value of the notes are any measure, the Swiss Franc and Euro would
be in greater demand than the dollar. They have a 1,000 franc note,
and a 500 euro note, which is worth 8x the value of the $100 bill.
The Swiss Franc and Euro are both reserve currencies.

So, the big question is - why aren't Euros and Swiss Francs used more
by organized crime? The answer is simple; the Europeans spend less
money on drugs than Americans while the Europeans have stronger
banking laws and more features in their currency that make the
currency unsuitable for such tranactions.

Rather than drop the $100 bill, we should re-introduce the $500 bill,
but do so, along with changes in the notes themselves, and in banking
rules, (and tracking diamonds and ownership in the diamond trade)
that combine to make it more difficult to transacti illegal business.
These steps along with an effective campaign to do something about US
drug use and gambling rates, would do a lot to undermine organized
crime in America. Of course the last fellow who ran on an effective
anti-crime platform (Robert Kennedy) was assasinated - just like they
do in the bananna republics in Central and South America.