LINKS: 6 NOV 09

Some items of interest:

• Narco-evangelicals. From the UK to Mexico.
• "The Mexicanization of US Law Enforcement."   Interesting, Killebrew from CNAS is using my terminology: "The drug lords... are seeking to “hollow out our institutions, just as they have in Mexico.”  NOTE:  Of course, this pales in comparison to a similar "hollowing out" perpetrated by the financial services industry on US legal/regulatory institutions.
• Another item, right out of "Power to the People":  Goldman Sachs gets a bigger H1N1 vaccine allotment than a hospital.  For those dependent on the global economy, your security will increasingly depend on who you work for.  
• Hyper local production.  Ghana's unlicensed gunsmiths have the ability to produce 200,000 weapons a year, some of which are at a quality equal to global manufacture (h/t Duncan Kinder).  I suspect that the quality and quantity of local manufacture will eventually greatly exceed global manufacture as events progress.
• Synthetic neurobiology.   MIT's Ed Boyden.
• Factor E-Farm releases its compressed earth brick machine.  9 bricks per minute.  Kits for sale.
• A map mash-up of global shipping traffic, down to the hour (h/t Coming Anarchy).
• This could have been retitled, "The Men that Stare at Military Theory" to the same effect.  ;-> 
• Unemployment tops 10.2% in official numbers (which are fluffy).  Graph relative to previous recessions (this is the worst on record since D1).  People forced into part-time work is still large and growing.  The big hole in these numbers (since they were built for the last century and not this one) is the massive number of self-employed consultants that aren't generating anything close to what they did 2 years ago.  
• Canary in the coal mine.  Lone gunmen in Orlando.

Comments

[JT]

Re. "Mexicanization"

"Beheadings and amputations. Iraqi-style brutality, bribery, extortion, kidnapping, and murder...This is modern Mexico..."

..And thus is the entire economic and cultural life of a society of 111 million people crudely reduced to a sensationalistic lede for cheap attention-getting purposes. This is the same Judy Miller of NYT-Iraq-WMD infamy, there's a good reason why Fox News is the only media outlet that will employ her!

Also, "law enforcement officials on the take from drug lords" is by no means a nascent phenomenon, it has been a well-established feature of the drug war from the outset.

[Justin Long]

That map of shipping... that's an open source intelligence tool anyone can use... wonder if they've thought through the ramifications of that. Pity they can't also map pirate boats!

[NietzschesGhost]

That's a good point, Justin. I would be surprised if someone wasn't sitting behind a laptop and a satellite internet connection in Somalia right now, getting paid to watch traffic through the Gulf of Aden.

Who knows? Maybe they even have operatives working at port facilities in the area feeding them intelligence.

[Ben Hill]

I think you should read the "H1N1 vaccine allotment" story again, especially the comments section.

Looks like a lot of rage over a misunderstood story, the banks are not getting preferential treatment.

[Greg Burton]

"Men that Stare at Military Theory" for the win.

[Seerov]

The Mexicanization of US law enforcement story is quite concerning. As the power of the cartels spread, one can see where the demand for resilient communities will increase.

I was watching the History Channel's program called "Gangland." They discussed the "Zetas" Cartel which are ex military types who took over Mexico's most powerful cartel. These guys can do whatever they want in Mexico and US border cities. They're much harder than anything American organized crime has ever produced, as they kill cops, kids, reporters.

When I watched this program it made me realize that the resilient community model is really the only defense against such a spread of crime, terror, and chaos. The RC model allows people to control their geography.

Even with all the possibilities of technology, the future will still be about controlling geography.

[Hugh G. Rection]

the linked article >>> "The Mexicanization of US Law Enforcement." was written by THAT JudyJudyJudy Miller, formerly of the new york times and prime disseminator of dick cheney's Weapons of Mass Destruction BULLSHIT and LIES in order for the usa to invade, occupy and Steal Iraq's OIL !!!

why she still has a job is a gd joke.

i wouldn't wipe my dog's ass with the paper that this article is printed on.

[BoogetyBoogetyBoogety]

A series of power outages affecting millions of people in Brazil in 2005 and 2007 were the result of cyber attacks, "60 Minutes" has learned. The two-day event in Espirito Santo State affecting more than three million people in 2007 and another, smaller event in three cities north of Rio de Janeiro in January 2005 were perpetrated by hackers manipulating control systems.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/06/60minutes/main5555565.shtml

Former Chief of U.S. National Intelligence Retired Adm. Mike McConnell believes it could happen in America. "If I were an attacker and wanted to do strategic damage to the United States, I would either take the cold of winter or the heat of summer," he tells Kroft. "I would probably sack electric power on the U.S. East Coast, maybe the West Coast and attempt to cause a cascading effect."

If hackers did attack the U.S. power grid, "The United States is not prepared for such an attack." says McConnell.

[Duncan Kinder]

"If hackers did attack the U.S. power grid, "The United States is not prepared for such an attack." says McConnell."

If a few non-hackers dynamited the locks on the Ohio and or Mon Rivers, thereby denying coal barge transport to the plants along those rivers, then the power grid for the eastern half of the country, if not the entire country, would be destroyed.

Following John Robb, we could refine this analysis: Doubtlessly one could provoke a cascade by taking out only a few of these dams. Equivalent cascades might be effected by taking out coal tipples instead. Simply sinking several barges in the middle of the river very well might obstruct river traffic sufficiently. Going after barge companies or operators might be another approach.

There just all sorts of vulnerabilities out there. And not all of them are ultra-high tech.