Ye Shall Know Them By Their Trinkets

From Lisa Hix's 10-3-12 Collectors Weekly article entitled "Decoding Secret Societies:  What Are All Those Old Boys' Clubs Hiding?":

"Their members use secret handshakes and coded language. In temples, they don ancient regalia, helmets, or masks. Thanks to their veils of secrecy and archaic symbols like the All-Seeing Eye, outsiders find fraternal orders endlessly fascinating. But what does it all mean?

"By the early 20th century, nearly all of America’s white wealthy elite belonged to one secret society or another. That fueled suspicions—still rampant today—that Freemasons, Odd Fellows, and other fraternal members have employed occult rituals to gain or maintain their power. But a collector named AR8Jason, who has posted on Collector Weekly’s Show & Tell, thinks the appeal of such clubs was much more simple than that.

"'Some of these groups are simply the big-boy versions of the little boy clubs,' he says. 'As a little boy, I lived in a small town in Oklahoma. There, my friends and I started a club. We had the secret handshake, the passwords. Then, I grew up and I found out that grown men were doing the same thing. They just had better uniforms.'

"Recently, the fancy trappings of dwindling fraternal orders have caught the attention of Hollywood, pop stars, and interior designers alike. In 2004, the film 'National Treasure' posited that the Founding Fathers—many of whom were, in fact, Masons—sprinkled currency and documents such as the Declaration of Independence with clues to the location of an unimaginably vast treasure.

"Masonic symbols also pop up in music videos by Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, and Lady Gaga—these appearances are viewed by conspiracy theorists as evidence of a plot by the secret elite to brainwash the public into submission. And now, Masonic and Odd Fellows folk art, like hand-painted silk flags, are popping up in trendy Brooklyn restaurants as quirky decorative pieces.

"For some, Masonic and other fraternal items, particularly those from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, are simply sexy collectibles. For others, these groups are linked to devil-worship and sinister plots to install a New World Order, ideas fed by fictional films like 2006’s 'DaVinci Code' [...].

"Still, given all the forms of entertainment available today, fraternal orders per se have waned in popularity with Americans under the age of 40. But Lettelier says Masonic teachings continue to reach new audiences through other formats. Ever heard of a little movie called Star Wars? Lettelier recognizes Masonic ideas in the Jedi philosophy about mastering the Force. Perhaps the Masons have succeeded in taking over the world, after all."

To read Hix's entire article, click HERE.

Gangstalker: The T-shirt!

Is the phenomenon of gangstalking now being merchandised? 

Apparently, someone decided that would be an excellent idea.

Yes, indeed, for all your gangstalking needs....

For further info, click HERE.

Election Day

State of the Police State

From Glenn Smith and Andrew Knapp's 9-13-16 Post and Courier report entitled "Watched":

"Police forces across the United States are stockpiling massive databases with personal information from millions of Americans who crossed paths with officers but were not charged with a crime.

"A person can end up in one of these databases by doing nothing more than sitting on a public park bench or chatting with an officer on the street. Once there, these records can linger forever and be used by police agencies to track movements, habits, acquaintances and associations – even a person’s marital and job status, The Post and Courier found in an investigation of police practices around the nation.

"What began as a method for linking suspicious behavior to crime has morphed into a practice that threatens to turn local police departments into miniature versions of the National Security Agency. In the process, critics contend, police risk trampling constitutional rights, tarnishing innocent people and further eroding public trust.

"Law enforcement agencies have for decades used what’s known as field interview or contact cards to document everything from sketchy activity to random encounters with people on the street. But the digital age has greatly expanded the power and reach of this tool, allowing police to store indefinitely reams of data on those who draw their interest — long after any potential link to a crime has evaporated.

"'They pose a different threat than the NSA. ... But they can reveal a much more invasive picture of a person’s life,' attorney Stephanie Lacambra of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a California-based digital-rights advocacy group, said in response to the newspaper’s findings. 'The public should be concerned.'

"Some 35,000 people — roughly equal to a quarter of the city’s population – show up in the Charleston Police Department’sdatabase for field contacts, which includes everyone from suspected killers to toddlers and 99-year-olds. One man alone has more than 1,000 entries to his name."

To read Smith and Knapp's entire article, click HERE.

What follows is from Sadie Gurman and Eric Tucker's 9-29-16 The Big Story (Associated Press) report entitled "AP:  Across US, Police Officers Abuse Confidential Databases":

"Police officers across the country misuse confidential law enforcement databases to get information on romantic partners, business associates, neighbors, journalists and others for reasons that have nothing to do with daily police work, an Associated Press investigation has found.

"Criminal-history and driver databases give officers critical information about people they encounter on the job. But the AP's review shows how those systems also can be exploited by officers who, motivated by romantic quarrels, personal conflicts or voyeuristic curiosity, sidestep policies and sometimes the law by snooping. In the most egregious cases, officers have used information to stalk or harass, or have tampered with or sold records they obtained.

"No single agency tracks how often the abuse happens nationwide, and record-keeping inconsistencies make it impossible to know how many violations occur.

"But the AP, through records requests to state agencies and big-city police departments, found law enforcement officers and employees who misused databases were fired, suspended or resigned more than 325 times between 2013 and 2015. They received reprimands, counseling or lesser discipline in more than 250 instances, the review found.

"Unspecified discipline was imposed in more than 90 instances reviewed by AP. In many other cases, it wasn't clear from the records if punishment was given at all. The number of violations was surely far higher since records provided were spotty at best, and many cases go unnoticed."

To read Gurman and Tucker's entire article, click HERE.

The MEDUSA Weapon

From David Hambling's 7-6-08 Wired article entitled "The Microwave Scream Inside Your Skull":

"The U.S. military bankrolled early development of a non-lethal microwave weapon that creates sound inside your head. But in the end, the gadget may be just as likely to wind up in shopping malls as on battlefields, as I report in New Scientist.

"The project is known as MEDUSA – a contrived acronym for Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio. And it should not be confused with the Long Range Acoustic Device and similar gadgets which simply project sound. This one uses the so-called 'microwave auditory effect': a beam of microwaves is turned into sound by the interaction with your head. Nobody else can hear it unless they are in the beam as well.

"The effect has long been a laboratory curiosity, with no application. But, over the years, the military has been intrigued. The idea (dubbed 'the telepathic ray gun') was mentioned in a 1998 US Army study, which turned up in a recent Freedom of Information Act document dump. Five years later, the Navy decided to put some R&D dollars into the project. Now, as I note on the New Scientist website, Dr. Lev Sadovnik of the Sierra Nevada Corporation has provided more details.

"There are health risks, he notes. But the biggest issue from the microwave weapon is not the radiation. It’s the risk of brain damage from the high-intensity shockwave created by the microwave pulse.

"Clearly, much more research is needed on this effect at the sort of power levels that Dr. Sadovnik is proposing. But if it does prove hazardous, that does not mean an end to weapons research in this area: a device that delivered a lethal shockwave inside the target’s skull might make an effective death ray.

"Dr. Sadovnik also makes the intriguing suggestion that, instead of being used at high power to create an intolerable noise, it might be used at low power to produce a whisper that was too quiet to perceive consciously but might be able to subconsciously influence someone. The directional beam could be used for targeted messages, such as in-store promotions. Sadovnik even suggests subliminal advertising, beaming information that is not consciously heard (a notion also spotted on the US Army’s voice-to-skull page)."

Scientists Watch Thoughts Form in the Brain

From Sara Chodosh's 8-24-16 Scientific American article entitled "Mind Aglow:  Scientists Watch Thoughts Form in the Brain":

"When a single neuron fires, it is an isolated chemical blip. When many fire together, they form a thought. How the brain bridges the gap between these two tiers of neural activity remains a great mystery, but a new kind of technology is edging us closer to solving it.

"The glowing splash of cyan in the photo above comes from a type of biosensor that can detect the release of very small amounts of neurotransmitters, the signaling molecules that brain cells use to communicate. These sensors, called CNiFERs (pronounced 'sniffers'), for cell-based neurotransmitter fluorescent engineered reporters, are enabling scientists to examine the brain in action and up close.

"This newfound ability, developed as part of the White House BRAIN Initiative, could further our understanding of how brain function arises from the complex interplay of individual neurons, including how complex behaviors like addiction develop. Neuroscientist Paul Slesinger at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, one of the senior researchers who spearheaded this research, presented the sensors Monday at the American Chemical Society’s 252nd National Meeting & Exposition."

To read Chodosh's entire article, click HERE.

Words of Unwisdom from the Mad Hatter

"Really, now you ask me," said Alice, very much confused, "I don't think--"

"Then you shouldn't talk," said the Hatter.

--Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, Chapter VII:  "A Mad Tea-Party," 1865