Johanna Faust, a mixed race Jew, prefers to publish pseudonymously. She is committed: first, to preventing war, ecological disaster, and nuclear apocalypse; last to not only fighting for personal privacy & the freedom of information, but, by representing herself as a soldier in that fight, to exhorting others to do the same. She is a poet, always. All these efforts find representation here: "ah, Mephistophelis" is so named after the last line of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, whose heretical success flouted the censor for a time.

IN CASE YOU FORGOT ABOUT THAT NUCLEAR BOMB THAT WAS STOLEN IN 2007


I thought to get a few links together to refresh your memory.  Because the more of us know, the less chance of....

Let's just say the more of us know, the more of us know.


On this page: a few links.  If you know of another good one, please leave it in the comments below.


First, of course, my
repost of the now-disappeared Geronimo Manifesto's definitive write up.  You have to understand,  a nuclear bomb went missing, and the circumstances were fecklessly ignored by the main stream media.  These so called journalists that no doubt meet Diane Feinstein's superficial and purely socio-economic journalistic standards -- how more worthless could they be?  To a one, either they would report that six bombs left Minot AFB, or that five were discovered to have arrived at Barksdale after sitting around for 36 hours as I recall.  But not both.  Or if they said both, it was because there was obviously some confusion about how many were counted, no? You can see what I mean here: (PDF of Google search).   Otherwise see you after the jump, Gentle Reader.





And then what happened?  

Officially?  The hits, as it were, kept on coming.  (As you'll see, that phrase describes the 'unofficial' side of things equally well, hmmm....)  

Almost a year later, it was found that fuses that potentially could fit the missing device had accidentally been shipped to Taiwan before the Minot-Barksdale incident, from the other Air Force Base of note when ICBMs are the subject, F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming.  Emphasis will be mine, in red.





Francis E. Warren Air Force Base
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 90th Missile Wing, which was activated 1 July 1963, with the original designation of the 90th Strategic Missile Wing, became the nation's first operational Intercontinental Ballistic Missile base with the introduction of the SM-65D Atlas missile in 1958. Today, the 90th MW operates 150 LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBMs on full alert 24-hours a day, 365 days a year.

The 90 MW is organized into five groups:
Consists of more than 550 operators, facility managers, and support personnel. It is composed of three missile squadrons, an operations support squadron, a helicopter squadron and a standardization and evaluation element. Each tactical missile squadron is responsible for five missile alert facilities and 50 Minuteman III ICBMs. The units of the 90th Operations Group include:

Provides Minuteman III ICBMs along with command and control systems required to launch those missiles. The group maintains 150 missiles and associated launch facilities, as well as 15 launch control facilities spread between a three-state, 9,600 square-mile complex.
  • 90th Mission Support Group
Provides combat support to the 90th Missile Wing. The 1,000 men and women of the group provide civil engineering, transportation and logistics, communications, contracting, and personnel and services support.
  • 90th Security Forces Group
Provides continuous security for the 90th Missile Wing. The mission of the 90 SFG includes the protection of F. E. Warren AFB, 15 Missile Alert Facilities (MAFs) and 150 Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) on constant 24-hour alert throughout a 9,600 square-mile area spanning three states. The 90th SFG also sustains a combat-ready force deployable worldwide in support of wartime and peacetime taskings. The 90th Security Forces Group comprises five squadrons:
  • 790th Security Forces Squadron
  • 90th Ground Combat Training Squadron
  • 90th Missile Security Forces Squadron
  • 90th Security Forces Squadron
  • 90th Security Support Squadron

The 790th Missile Security Forces Squadron provides security for convoys and missile maintenance operations. The 90th Ground Combat Training Squadron is located in Guernsey, Wyo., and provides security, pre-deployment, and antiterrorism/force protection training for USAF personnel. The 90th Missile Security Forces Squadron provides security for 15 missile alert facilities and 150 launch facilities. The 90th Security Forces Squadron provides installation and weapons storage area security; police services; pass and registration functions; and reports and analysis duties. The 90th Security Support Squadron provides command and control for the missile field and access control for all missile field forces as well as all security forces training and equipment support.

Read more


More of the official version:

U.S. accidentally sent ballistic missile parts to Taiwan

New York Times, Asia Pacific edition

At a news conference, the secretary of the air force, Michael Wynne, said the misshipped items were four electrical fuses for nose cone assemblies for ICBMs. He also said they had been delivered to Taiwan in 2006 and were sent instead of helicopter batteries that had been ordered by Taiwan. Wynne said the investigation was meant to sort out what had happened and how.
The fuses were manufactured for use on a Minuteman strategic nuclear missile but contained no nuclear materials.
It is the second nuclear-related mistake involving the air force in recent months. In August an air force B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown across several states. At the time, the pilot and crew were unaware that they had nuclear arms aboard.
Wynne emphasized that the mistaken shipment to Taiwan did not include nuclear materials, although the fuses are linked to the triggering mechanism of the Minuteman nuclear missile.
Read more






And again, Gentle Reader, that you get a feel for this: This time, a page from Wired's Danger Room.   (Snafu?!??)

Shipping Snafu Sends ICBM Parts to Taiwan



    WIRED, DANGER ROOM
Well, it’s not as bad as mistakenly sending nuclear-armed cruise missiles for a ride across the United States, but it’s not good either. The Pentagon today announced that it had mistakenly sent fuses for intercontinental ballistic missiles to Taiwan. Oops.
No nuclear components were involved, however.
Apparently, Taiwan was supposed to get helicopter batteries. Instead they got the fuses. It makes you wonder how these boxes are marked.
The Pentagon, based on news reports, appears to be emphasizing the fact that the sale is not part of a strategic shift in arms sales to Taiwan, i.e. we’re not selling ICBMs to Taiwan. Yeah, that’s important, too, but it’d also be nice to know what went wrong in the inventory system that led to this mix-up.
The LA Times reports from today’s news conference: "It could not be construed as being nuclear material," [Air Force Secretary Michael] Wynne said. "It is a component for the fuse in the nose cone for a nuclear system. We are all taking this very seriously."
Apparently it was Taiwan, not the United States, that first noticed the error.



Oh dear, I seem to have accidentally posted the whole article.  Oops -- didn't expect it to be so short, I guess. 

Read -- in original context.



Could have said so much.... and did not. Not that for which I have grown accustomed to expect from them. Should have been good, and detailed.  Was instead surprisingly like to that which has sold out. To repeat, it wasn't so much parts as the trigger mechanism.  And it may have been discovered (when the Taiwanese said something) in 2008 -- but the fuses were actually taken in 2006, before the bomb went missing. 

Now the following, from Cherchez la Verite, is the kind of thinking of which I would be speaking: too bad he trusts the infamous Sorcha Faal.  No doubt he will learn; I like the way he thinks.  We had the triggers, and the missile; now something to target it, perhaps?

Hidden Nuke, Crashed Satellite

Reports of a "meteorite" impact in Peru, September 15, 2007.

I have no idea how much Pu-238 is onboard such satellites as a power source. However, the decay heat of Pu-238 is 0.56 W/g; so, for example, a one kilowatt source would require just 1.8 kg of this extremely radioactive material (half-life 88 years). This amount of Pu-238 might account for reports boiling water in the crater (links above). On the other hand, if it actually was the KH-13 satellite and its fuel continued to burn all the way to the impact point, heated metal parts could have boiled the water for a brief time. In any event, all impact-crater experts would agree that boiling water in the crater doesn’t make any sense if the impactor was a meteorite, because ones of this size always arrive from outer space “stone cold.”

The link below explains why a full-scale air attack on Iran would provoke Iranian retaliation with modern Mach-2.5 “Sunburn” and “Yakhonts” anti-ship missiles which, as already proved in a recent U.S. war game, are virtually certain to sink the entire U.S. Fifth Fleet! And the neocons seem to be good with that ...because they are growing desperate for yet another Pearl Harbor. (The God damned traitorous bastards!!!)


So, what now? Unfortunately, it remains very likely that one of those nuclear-armed AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles from Minot actually WAS stolen. The initial reports from Barksdale were that only 5 of the original 6 missiles arrived there. Then there is the fact that the obvious reason for intentionally downing the KH-13 would have been to prevent its imminent use for targeting the purloined AGM-129 against Iran. (Remember, the Peruvian impact was September 15th whereas the limit on the $900 million options bet was September 21st.)

I sincerely hope that the publicity given the B-52 incident will prevent the use of the stolen warhead on American soil! Of course, the one person who still retains the motive, means, and opportunity to circumvent the sophisticated multi-layer security system protecting our nuclear weapons is the insane Dick Cheney. Hopefully, however, enough of our high-ranking military officers are sane and know who the real threat is.

Read more


Oh but there's more.

Treason of the Highest Order
By Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research

On October 27, 2010, a computer failure emerged at the FE Warren Air force Base in Wyoming. “Mr President we’ve lost control of FIFTY nuclear warheads.” Pentagon chiefs were stunned to discover that a U.S. air force base had lost control of 50 nuclear, inter-continental missiles.  A power failure meant that one-ninth of America’s nuclear arsenal went offline for three-quarters of an hour, it emerged yesterday. Minuteman missile: Computer breakdown meant the U.S. Air Force lost control for 45 minutes
As multiple error codes appeared on the computer control system at FE Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, the Minuteman III missiles went into ‘LF Down’ status, which meant that officers were unable to communicate with them.
Defence officials insisted yesterday there was never any danger of an accidental launch. But the incident was deemed serious enough for Barack Obama to be briefed on it...
Read more

Almost as if it was planned. And that's not all (and this is only the offiial version....  wait till you uncover all the dead airmen.)  Because, you see, even if you stay on rhe beaten path, things just weren't, uh, kosher,,,

US air force strips 17 officers of power to launch nuclear missiles


The Guardian

The US Air Force has stripped an unprecedented 17 officers of their authority to oversee nuclear missiles, after a string of failings that the group's deputy commander said stemmed from "rot" within the ranks. The suspensions followed a March inspection of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, that resulted in a "D" grade for the team tested on its mastery of the Minuteman III missile launch operations system.


"We are, in fact, in a crisis right now," the group's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jay Folds, wrote in an internal email that was obtained by the Associated Press and confirmed by the Air Force. The Air Force had publicly described the inspection as a success.
The news follows a series of incidents in recent years that have uncovered major problems with the oversight of the US's nuclear arsenal. In 2007, airmen at Minot accidentally loaded a B-52 with six nuclear weapons. The aircraft then flew to Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. In another incident, nuclear weapons parts were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan. The defense department learned of the error in 2008, 18 months after the fuses for nuclear warheads were shipped.
Minot's crew are supposed to stand ready 24-hours a day to launch missiles on the president's command. A crew member was disciplined in 2008 for falling asleep on duty, while watching nuclear launch-code components.
Read more
I will leave you with some odds and ends on the subject. Here are the ones I have in my tabs right now:

Other links of interest, in loose chronological order





Interesting, no?  Scares the shit out of me, the child in me, actually: the little girl who used to have recurring nightmatres, very realistic, in which she experienced nuclear anhillation in excruciating detail.

There could be more, but that's all I can do for now; I have to stop and go out in the sun or something. Please feel free to leave links in the comments. Hope I helped you to appreciate your day, with your mind and body reasonably healthy I hope, happy I hope, and free, and under the governance of your own choosing. If any of these are in question, I hope you are well on your way to resolving it in your favor.  


Heaven help us all.

Be seeing you.

DIS-INTER-Face-Book-MEDI-A-TION


Last Streetlamp Before The Long Dark Way -- a faustian original


or, Musings on the intersection of a certain social media website with the eagerly awaited, and hopefully inevitable, triumph of disintermediation over evil. A reasonably passionate and scarcely ranting faustian op-ed.


i understand that many find Facebook useful as a tool, and agree that organization in the face of the Panopticon, like living well, is a most excellent way to tell it to get fucked.  where i begin to object is to that organization happening primarily in that virtual environment, instead of a point being made to make the organizational center one that makes no assumptions of membership prerequisite to use, to full functionality.
First Streetlamps Marking The Way Back Home -- a faustian original
my objection to FB isn't (just) because of the ubiquitous and now (at last!) publicly acknowledged surveillance state.  not even primarily.  

it is, for me, an intuitive understanding of the unexamined and unrestrained use of such traitorous corporate bullshit. of the self loathing that is a predictable consequence.  of the alienation, the feelings of worthlessness and despair, the subliminal reinforcement of which is structurally built in, taken for granted, assumed, by anyone wanting to make use of this so called "tool."

what does it say to fully embrace social media that denigrates, disregards, and openly mocks those qualities of human communication, of the human spirit, that it cannot effectively monetize, influence, and/or control?

no, wait: it mocks those over which it does exercise control just as thoroughly. perhaps more so: if you are a faithful Facebook fan,  it mocks you, mocks your loyalty, and mocks love.

FB interposes its unique corporate fascist sickness between you and anything you desire; you can be sure it will squeeze between every single one of its users and any other thing whatsoever.

nor has there been, to my knowledge, an attempt made to disguise its unwavering and obvious original purpose (which was, may i add, a screaming success): an opt-in, always-on, depthless and fickle intermediation as useless as a form of true creative expression as it is a source of real nourishment.  

the medium is the message, yes?

at the perhaps excuseable age of nineteen, the ceo of FB called the very end users upon whose aggregate data he made several fortunes "dumb fucks." looking back on how his empire has... (progressed?  developed?) ...aged, i think we can safely remove that 'excuse' option.  clearly there will be no need. 





from "Whistleblower," from The Rap News by Juice Media.  See this whole episode here.


i realize i am ranting.  i feel, however, that rants such as this are needed.  every individual and unique soul's version of such a rant, displayed prominently wherever and whenever faces are booked, would be the beginning of a much needed healing.  

a counterweight. so we can open the windows.  so we can communicate freely.  so we can begin to refuse to be sold without our fully informed, self respecting consent.

Going Before The Break Of Day -- a faustian original



Be seeing you.

Think Of It As Two Months To Avert An Extinction Level Event


"'Round Midnight" by Timothy Valentine. Creative Commons.

Needs no introduction.  Link to petition after article for your convenience.


Humankind’s 
Most Dangerous Moment: 
Fukushima Fuel Pool at Unit 4. 
“This is an Issue of Human Survival.”
Global Research, September 20, 2013

We are now within two months of what may be humankind’s most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
There is no excuse for not acting. All the resources our species can muster must be focussed on the fuel pool at Fukushima Unit 4.
Fukushima’s owner, Tokyo Electric (Tepco), says that within as few as 60 days it may begin trying to remove more than 1300 spent fuel rods from a badly damaged pool perched 100 feet in the air. The pool rests on a badly damaged building that is tilting, sinking and could easily come down in the next earthquake, if not on its own.
Some 400 tons of fuel in that pool could spew out more than 15,000 times as much radiation as was released at Hiroshima.
The one thing certain about this crisis is that Tepco does not have the scientific, engineering or financial resources to handle it. Nor does the Japanese government. The situation demands a coordinated worldwide effort of the best scientists and engineers our species can muster.
Why is this so serious?
We already know that thousands of tons of heavily contaminated water are pouring through the Fukushima site, carrying a devil’s brew of long-lived poisonous isotopes into the Pacific. Tuna irradiated with fallout traceable to Fukushima have already been caught off the coast of California. We can expect far worse.
Tepco continues to pour more water onto the proximate site of three melted reactor cores it must somehow keep cool.Steam plumes indicate fission may still be going on somewhere underground. But nobody knows exactly where those cores actually are.
Much of that irradiated water now sits in roughly a thousand huge but fragile tanks that have been quickly assembled and strewn around the site. Many are already leaking. All could shatter in the next earthquake, releasing thousands of tons of permanent poisons into the Pacific.
The water flowing through the site is also undermining the remnant structures at Fukushima, including the one supporting the fuel pool at Unit Four.
More than 6,000 fuel assemblies now sit in a common pool just 50 meters from Unit Four. Some contain plutonium. The pool has no containment over it. It’s vulnerable to loss of coolant, the collapse of a nearby building, another earthquake, another tsunami and more.
Overall, more than 11,000 fuel assemblies are scattered around the Fukushima site. According to long-time expert and former Department of Energy official Robert Alvarez, there is more than 85 times as much lethal cesium on site as was released at Chernobyl.
Radioactive hot spots continue to be found around Japan. There are indications of heightened rates of thyroid damage among local children.
The immediate bottom line is that those fuel rods must somehow come safely out of the Unit Four fuel pool as soon as possible.
Just prior to the 3/11/11 earthquake and tsunami that shattered the Fukushima site, the core of Unit Four was removed for routine maintenance and refueling. Like some two dozen reactors in the US and too many more around the world, the General Electric-designed pool into which that core now sits is 100 feet in the air.
Spent fuel must somehow be kept under water. It’s clad in zirconium alloy which will spontaneously ignite when exposed to air. Long used in flash bulbs for cameras, zirconium burns with an extremely bright hot flame.
 Each uncovered rod emits enough radiation to kill someone standing nearby in a matter of minutes. A conflagration could force all personnel to flee the site and render electronic machinery unworkable.
According to Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with forty years in an industry for which he once manufactured fuel rods, the ones in the Unit 4 core are bent, damaged and embrittled to the point of crumbling. Cameras have shown troubling quantities of debris in the fuel pool, which itself is damaged.
The engineering and scientific barriers to emptying the Unit Four fuel pool are unique and daunting, says Gundersen. But it must be done to 100% perfection.
Should the attempt fail, the rods could be exposed to air and catch fire, releasing horrific quantities of radiation into the atmosphere. The pool could come crashing to the ground, dumping the rods together into a pile that could fission and possibly explode. The resulting radioactive cloud would threaten the health and safety of all us.
Chernobyl’s first 1986 fallout reached California within ten days. Fukushima’s in 2011 arrived in less than a week. A new fuel fire at Unit 4 would pour out a continuous stream of lethal radioactive poisons for centuries.
 Former Ambassador Mitsuhei Murata says full-scale releases from Fukushima “would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival.”
Neither Tokyo Electric nor the government of Japan can go this alone. There is no excuse for deploying anything less than a coordinated team of the planet’s best scientists and engineers.
For now, we are petitioning the United Nations and President Obama to mobilize the global scientific and engineering community to take charge at Fukushima and the job of moving these fuel rods to safety.
If you have a better idea, please follow it. But do something and do it now.
The clock is ticking. The hand of global nuclear disaster is painfully close to midnight.


Harvey Wasserman is Senior Editor 
of the Columbus Free Press and Free Press
He edits Nuke Free.

Original article copyright © 2013 Global Research



You don't have to sign this one.  But please do something.  All of us need to.  Now.


Be seeing you.  




Don't forget.  Please.

UPDATE: the RIGHT Cyber-Industrial Post-Apocalyptic Video Eye Candy


Does it matter what is inside, with that packaging?

Well yes it does.  I was going to describe what exactly was being wrapped as an "Ethical Question" but then I realized that any visual experience this lush makes even yours truly ask the question above. 

This cinematic trailer, though quite divergent in moral and ethical complexity from the game for which it was made, f*cking ROCKS. Sure is different even from other trailers -- 

And this time I posted the correct one.




Sarif or ...sans-Sarif?



Be seeing you.

F.N.S.A.I.P.S.:Makes Data Self-Destruct If Viewed ByThe NSA




As long as they don't disable scripts or sandbox it, and as long as they are using office computers to view it and don't just fetch the source code directly, and as long as their IP addresses are on the list....

....then the page they were trying to view will self-destruct, leaving no ttrace, not even in history.

Guess they will have to reload the source, no?  The back button surely is not the way to go.  Pretty neat.  Here is a demo of what it would look like from their perspective. Intended more as a gesture -- a form of communication, if you will.  Effective communication.  You can help me by adding IP addresses to the list

update:  'they' did something to it; the shortened links were disabled (shouldn't have used them, huh).  Get the updated, working code here.  



Its a work in progress.  As soon as I figure out gists at github, I'll put it up.  Many friends, acquaintances, and strangers helped me to hack this together.  The ultra minified highly base-64-encoded source is here; if anyone wants the actual source files, drop me a comment.



















Be seeing you.

Fear: iPhone Fingerprinting Functions to Force Failure of the Fifth


A most perspicacious observation by Marcia Hoffman over at Wired: the unintended cnsequences looming with that the new iphone 5's dependence on fingerprints, instead of pins or passwords, for security.   Sure, one would expect this to result in spoofed prints, chopped off fingers, and otherwise gruesome false positives -- but I for one didn't  expect it to threaten what little is left of the Bill of Rights....



Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

Because the constitutional protection of the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees that “no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” may not apply when it comes to biometric-based fingerprints (things that reflect who we are) as opposed to memory-based passwords and PINs (things we need to know and remember).
 The privilege against self-incrimination is an important check on the government’s ability to collect evidence directly from a witness. The Supreme Court has made it clear that the Fifth Amendment broadly applies not only during a criminal prosecution, but also to any other proceeding “civil or criminal, formal or informal,” where answers might tend to incriminate us. It’s a constitutional guarantee deeply rooted in English law dating back to the 1600s, when it was used to protect people from being tortured by inquisitors to force them to divulge information that could be used against them.
For the privilege to apply, however, the government must try to compel a person to make a “testimonial” statement that would tend to incriminate him or her. When a person has a valid privilege against self-incrimination, nobody — not even a judge — can force the witness to give that information to the government.
But a communication is “testimonial” only when it reveals the contents of your mind. We can’t invoke the privilege against self-incrimination to prevent the government from collecting biometrics like fingerprints, DNA samples, or voice exemplars. Why? Because the courts have decided that this evidence doesn’t reveal anything you know. It’s not testimonial.
Read more




Be seeing you.