James Patterson and the Clinton-CIA Connection

According to the New York Times, bestselling novelist James Patterson is now collaborating on a hefty novel of "intrigue, suspense, and behind-the-scenes global drama" with former President Bill Clinton.  The novel is entitled The President Is Missing and is scheduled to be published in June of 2018. 

One can only wonder if the aforementioned "behind-the-scenes global drama" will draw upon such potentially melodramatic raw material as Clinton's shadowy connections to the Central Intelligence Agency.  If Clinton's advance from Alfred A. Knopf isn't quite astronomical enough to unlock such plot-rich details from the former President's brain, perhaps Patterson should instead collaborate with investigative journalist Jon Rappoport, who would no doubt supply far more intriguing plot twists for Patterson's interminable fiction mill.  Patterson could, for starters, refer to Rappoport's 11-7-16 No More Fake News post entitled "The Clintons and the CIA:  Deep Relationship":

"Let us return to the period when Bill Clinton was the Governor of Arkansas—and a 1995 book titled Compromised, by Terry Reed (former CIA asset) and John Cummings (former Newsday reporter).

"Buckle up.

"According to the authors, Bill Clinton was involved with the CIA in some very dirty dealings in Arkansas—and I’m not just talking about the cocaine flights landing at the Mena airport.

"It seems Bill had agreed to set up secret CIA weapons-making factories in his home state, under the radar. But because Arkansas, when it comes to money, is all cronies all the time, everybody and his brother found out about the operation and wanted in. Also, Bill was looking for a bigger cut of the action.

"This security breach infuriated the CIA, and a 1986 meeting was held to dress down Bill and make him see the error of his ways. His CIA handlers told him they were going to shut down the whole weapons operation, because Bill had screwed up royally. A screaming match ensued—but the CIA people backed off a bit and told Bill he was still 'their man' for the upcoming 1992 run for the Presidency...."

To read Rappoport's entire post, click HERE.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie/And with strange aeons even death may die.”

--H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu," 1928
From Jasmin Fox-Skelly's 5-4-17 BBC.com article entitled "There Are Diseases Hidden In Ice, and They Are Waking Up":

"Throughout history, humans have existed side-by-side with bacteria and viruses. From the bubonic plague to smallpox, we have evolved to resist them, and in response they have developed new ways of infecting us.

"We have had antibiotics for almost a century, ever since Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. In response, bacteria have responded by evolving antibiotic resistance. The battle is endless: because we spend so much time with pathogens, we sometimes develop a kind of natural stalemate.

"However, what would happen if we were suddenly exposed to deadly bacteria and viruses that have been absent for thousands of years, or that we have never met before?

"We may be about to find out. Climate change is melting permafrost soils that have been frozen for thousands of years, and as the soils melt they are releasing ancient viruses and bacteria that, having lain dormant, are springing back to life.

"In August 2016, in a remote corner of Siberian tundra called the Yamal Peninsula in the Arctic Circle, a 12-year-old boy died and at least twenty people were hospitalised after being infected by anthrax.

"The theory is that, over 75 years ago, a reindeer infected with anthrax died and its frozen carcass became trapped under a layer of frozen soil, known as permafrost. There it stayed until a heatwave in the summer of 2016, when the permafrost thawed...."

Click HERE to read the entire article.

MK ULTRA: THE MUSICAL!

From Judith Mackrell's 4-21-17 Guardian article entitled "MK Ultra Review--Adam Curtis Doc Dominates Rosie Kay's Illuminati Dance":

"Against a rising tide of fake news and conspiracy theories, choreographer Rosie Kay and film-maker Adam Curtis have found a timely subject for their new collaboration, MK Ultra. Splicing together documentary footage and a pumped-up stream of dance and music, this two-hour work tells the story of how a generation of under-25s have come to believe in the Illuminati, a shadowy cult they say is attempting world domination through mass brainwashing...."

To read Mackrell's entire piece, click HERE.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, THOMAS PYNCHON!

From Michael Corrigan's 5-7-17 Idaho State Journal article entitled "The Elusive Thomas Pynchon Turns 80":

"In 1963, a 26 year-old student from Cornell and an ex-Navy man, Thomas Pynchon, published a book called 'V.'  The book displayed a remarkable knowledge of pop culture, history, science, with a quest at the center of the novel, a man named Herbert Stencil searching for the true identity of a mysterious woman known only as V.  V takes many shapes during the novel, but she is never found..."

To read the rest of Corrigan's piece, click HERE.

A Single Entity with Many Eyes: Robotic Surveillance Teams

From Bill Steele's 4-10-17 Cornell Chronicle article entitled "Research Link Robots Into Surveillance Teams":

"If you were monitoring a security camera and saw someone set down a backpack and walk away, you might pay special attention – especially if you had been alerted to watch that particular person. According to Cornell researchers, this might be a job robots could do better than humans, by communicating at the speed of light and sharing images.

"The researchers are developing a system to enable teams of robots to share information as they move around and, if necessary, get help in interpreting what they see, enabling them to conduct surveillance as a single entity with many eyes [...].

"'Once you have robots that cooperate you can do all sorts of things,' said Kilian Weinberger, associate professor of computer science, who is collaborating with Silvia Ferrari, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the project’s principal investigator, and Mark Campbell, the John A. Mellowes ’60 Professor in Mechanical Engineering.

"Their work, 'Convolutional-Features Analysis and Control for Mobile Visual Scene Perception,' is supported by a four-year, $1.7 million grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR). The researchers will call on their extensive experience with computer vision to match and combine images of the same area from several cameras, identify objects and track objects and people from place to place. The work will require groundbreaking research, Weinberger said, because most prior work in the field has focused on analyzing images from just a single camera as it moves around. And often, Ferrari added, a camera that doesn’t move at all. The new system will fuse information from fixed cameras, mobile observers and outside sources. 

"The mobile observers might include autonomous aircraft and ground vehicles and perhaps humanoid robots wandering through a crowd. They will send their images to a central control unit, which might also have access to other cameras looking at the region of interest, as well as access to the internet for help in labeling what it sees [...].

"While the Navy might deploy such systems with drone aircraft or other autonomous vehicles, the Cornell researchers won’t be involved with any direct application of technology."

If you want to read the entirety of Steele's article, click HERE.