Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Futures Market on Terror QUOTE OF THE DAY "Can you imagine if another country set up a betting parlor so that people could go in ... and bet on the assassination of an American political figure, or the overthrow of this institution or that institution?'' Senator Byron Dorgan (D - North Dakota) KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JULY 30th 1965 - President Johnson signed into law the Medicare bill, which went into effect the following year. John W. Gardner (d.2002), a member of Johnson's cabinet, was responsible for starting medicare. RHINO HERE: I've been reading the amazing book, "Fast Food Nation" recently. One segment tracks the history of how drive-in restaurants with car hops delivering food on ceramic dishes through car windows at midnight, evolved into your favorite franchise burger corporations. One line says, "...and when you mix late nights & cars & food & waitresses in short dresses, you get...". So the answer was lots of business, but also lots of broken & stolen dishes. Well, let me ask you all this. What do you get when you mix convicted felon military officers in charge of huge computer banks & corporate rip off artists so successful at stealing their shareholders investments that they're looking for more entertaining ways to make money & the glitzy, shrub produced shock & awe war on terror? For the answer, read today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE. It seems like something out of a bad movie, but these guys actually thought they'd get to run an internet gambling parlor on terror. And speaking of crazed ex-military officers, the School Of The Americas graduate & former Guatemalan murderer/dictator, Efraín Ríos Montt has taken up a new profession: politician. Guatemalan journalists: We're being targeted When TV cameraman Héctor Estrada arrived to cover a protest last week, a mob of hooded men was already burning tires in support of Efraín Ríos Montt -- a former Guatemalan dictator fighting to get his name on the November presidential ballot. Estrada turned on the camera, but machete-wielding protesters chased and doused him with gasoline. He escaped before anyone lit a match. Soon after Estrada escaped, another reporter, Héctor Ramírez of Channel Notisiete, suffered a fatal heart attack as a mob chased him, some shooting guns into the air, his family said. During two days of protests in support of Ríos Montt, journalists were attacked, robbed of their equipment and intimidated by crowds yelling, "Journalist spotted. Journalist dead.'' On Saturday, 70 journalists -- wearing white arm bands and chanting ''Long live X,'' a nickname for Ramírez -- filed a complaint with the government saying Ríos Montt and other government officials were behind the attacks. READ THIS Miami Herald STORY AT: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/6402220.htm Sorry, not enough money for teachers or national health care, but it's okay for John Poindexter & friends to spend 600,000 U.S. taxpayer dollars & a planned additional 149,000 more this year (the Pentagon has requested $3 million more for next year &$5 million for the following) to set up a website for individuals to wager on where or when or what the next international terrorist incident will be. Rhino sez "sick, sick, sick." You say you don't believe it? Check out DARPA's FutureMap Web site: http://www.darpa.mil/iao/FutureMap.htm And read today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE from the Associated Press. 6:39:17 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Pentagon's Futures Market Plan Condemned Pentagon's Futures Market Plan Condemned US News, Monday, July 28, 2003 WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is setting up a stock-market style system in which investors would bet on terror attacks,assassinations and other events in the Middle East. Defense officials hope to gain intelligence and useful predictions while investors who guessed right would win profits. Two Democratic senators demanded Monday the project be stopped before investors begin registering this week. "The idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it's grotesque,'' Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said. The Pentagon office overseeing the program, called the Policy Analysis Market, said it was part of a research effort ``to investigate the broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks.'' It said there would be a re-evaluation before more money was committed. The market would work this way. Investors would buy and sell futures contracts - essentially a series of predictions about what they believe might happen in the Mideast. Holder of a futures contract that came true would collect the proceeds of investors who put money into the market but predicted wrong. A graphic on the market's Web page showed hypothetical futures contracts in which investors could trade on the likelihood that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would be assassinated or Jordanian King Abdullah II would be overthrown. Although the Web site described the Policy Analysis Market as``a market in the future of the Middle East,'' the graphic also included the possibility of a North Korea missile attack... READ IT ALL AT: Futures Market on Terror Attacks "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. 6:11:03 AM    comment

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