American Stonehenge: Monumental Instructions for the Post-Apocalypse

·The Georgia Guidestones may be the most enigmatic monument in the US: huge slabs of granite, inscribed with directions for rebuilding civilization after the apocalypse. Only one man knows who created them—and he's not talking.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-05/ff_guidestones

The strangest monument in America looms over a barren knoll in northeastern Georgia. Five massive slabs of polished granite rise out of the earth in a star pattern. The rocks are each 16 feet tall, with four of them weighing more than 20 tons apiece. Together they support a 25,000-pound capstone. Approaching the edifice, it's hard not to think immediately of England's Stonehenge or possibly the ominous monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Built in 1980, these pale gray rocks are quietly awaiting the end of the world as we know it.
Called the Georgia Guidestones, the monument is a mystery—nobody knows exactly who commissioned it or why. The only clues to its origin are on a nearby plaque on the ground—which gives the dimensions and explains a series of intricate notches and holes that correspond to the movements of the sun and stars—and the "guides" themselves, directives carved into the rocks. These instructions appear in eight languages ranging from English to Swahili and reflect a peculiar New Age ideology. Some are vaguely eugenic (guide reproduction wisely—improving fitness and diversity); others prescribe standard-issue hippie mysticism (prize truth—beauty—love—seeking harmony with the infinite).

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Web Bot Project Update - April 18, 2009

This is the Webbot's last report. Cliff and George will be taking some time-off.
Part 6 is not being released to the public, hmmmmmm...

Mattel's Mind Over Matter Game: 'Mind Flex'

And to see the competition's (UMI) version, go here...

[In the washingtonpost.com's UMI-version video above, there's an out-of-key reference linking mind control technology and the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, D.A.R.P.A.

...and underneath a snippet from their own web page...]
In 1972, the Agency was renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and emphasized directed energy programs, information processing (the precursor to the Internet or ARPANET)[!!!], research in artificial intelligence, speech recognition, signal processing and tactical technologies.

Dalai Lama discusses global economy at UC Santa Barbara

·'This crisis is good,' Tibetan leader says, because it reminds people that money has limitations. He also speaks about arcane aspects of Buddhist history and philosophy.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dalai25-2009apr25,0,7264017.story

Reporting from Santa Barbara -- The Dalai Lama, in a ringing denunciation, declared Friday that the ailing global economy is the result of "too much greed, and lies and hypocrisy."
"These are some of the factors behind the global crisis," he said at a news conference at UC Santa Barbara. "Those people who feel that money is the most important thing in life, when economic crisis hits, learn that it is only one way to be happy. There is also family, friends and peace of mind."
"Therefore, this crisis is good," he added with a laugh, "because it reminds people who only want to see money grow and grow that there are limitations."

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Fighting Deadly Flu, Mexico Shuts Schools

·The World Health Organization planned to consider raising the world pandemic flu alert to 4 from 3. Such a high level of alert has not been reached in recent years, even with the H5N1 avian flu circulating in Asia and Egypt.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/world/americas/25mexico.html?_r=1&hpw

MEXICO CITY — Mexican officials, scrambling to control a swine flu outbreak that has killed as many as 61 people and infected possibly hundreds more in recent weeks, closed museums and shuttered schools for millions of students in and around the capital on Friday, and urged people with flu symptoms to stay home from work.
“We’re dealing with a new flu virus that constitutes a respiratory epidemic that so far is controllable,” Mexico's health minister, José Ángel Córdova, told reporters after huddling with President Felipe Calderón and other top officials on Thursday night to come up with an action plan. He said the virus had mutated from pigs and had at some point been transmitted to humans.
The new strain contains gene sequences from North American and Eurasian swine flus, North American bird flu and North American human flu, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A similar virus has been found in the American Southwest, where officials have reported eight nonfatal cases.
Most of Mexico’s dead were young, healthy adults, and none were over 60 or under 3 years old, the World Health Organization said. That alarms health officials because seasonal flus cause most of their deaths among infants and bedridden elderly people, but pandemic flus — like the 1918 Spanish flu, and the 1957 and 1968 pandemics — often strike young, healthy people the hardest.

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If no buyers are found for government bonds, debt interests could bankrupt the UK

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6164694.ece

[ ... ]

As John Wraith, the head of sterling rates product development at RBC Capital, says: “If investors get worried, and start to think this is the norm, they may sell the market or demand much higher yields. At the moment, interest payments on the national debt are 3 per cent of GDP, but you could easily see it get to 6 per cent. Six per cent of £1.2 trillion is more than £70 billion — and that’s just the interest bill.

“That is unaffordable. If you get to that, that is IMF territory — it means that you, as an economy, have gone bankrupt and can no longer afford to run your country’s finances. That’s a scenario, not a forecast, but it’s a perfectly feasible one.”

For the time being, most international investors see the current crisis as still being global, rather than Britain’s fault. But the Government — or a Conservative successor — will need to make tough decisions in coming years to prove that it has brought the fiscal situation under control.

If not, it is perfectly possible that the IMF will do it for them, relegating Britain to the stature of a Latin American banana republic in the process.

Read all of it, here...

Police caught on tape trying to recruit Plane Stupid protester as spy

·Climate change activist taped men who offered cash for information about group's members and activities.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/24/strathclyde-police-plane-stupid-recruit-spy
[Juliana Napier, Tilly Gifford and Dan Glass with some of the recording equipment they used.]

Undercover police are running a network of hundreds of informants inside protest organisations who secretly feed them intelligence in return for cash, according to evidence handed to the Guardian.

They claim to have infiltrated a number of environmental groups and said they are receiving information about leaders, tactics and plans of future demonstrations.

The dramatic disclosures are revealed in almost three hours of secretly recorded discussions between covert officers claiming to be from Strathclyde police, and an activist from the protest group Plane Stupid, whom the officers attempted to recruit as a paid spy after she had been released on bail following a demonstration at Aberdeen airport last month.

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[To find the downloadable recordings, click underneath; and if you go straight to the transcripts, you'll read things like,]

'We don't discuss money, we don't discuss salaries.'