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Did BP Assassinate This Man?

September 2nd, 2010 by DJ Pangburn

Are BP and the Obama administration involved in a massive cover up that resulted in the assassination of Bush energy advisor Matthew Simmons?

On August 8^th, 2010, sometime in the late evening, investment banker, oil industry insider and energy advisor to President George W. Bush, Matthew Simmons, put on a pair of swimming trunks, climbed into his hot tub at his Maine home and attempted to relax after a long day’s work. By 10:00pm Simmons had been found dead, floating in the hot tub of an apparent drowning.

The medical examiner later determined that Simmons had suffered a heart attack. What remains unclear is if Simmons suffered a heart attack that led to the drowning, or if he suffered a heart attack while drowning.

The former scenario would seem to be the most probable explanation, especially considering that Simmons was a 67-year-old man, to which these things happen. But, if he suffered a heart attack while drowning, it begs the question: How does a grown man drown in a hot tub? Let your imagination consider the possibilities.

Within hours of Simmons death, theories of what really caused his death began to emerge—conspiracy theories. Some in the blogosphere have suggested Simmons, a proponent of peak oil and a man critical of British Petroleum’s response to the BP Oil spill, had been targeted by the corporation.  Others suggested it had been the CIA—that Simmons had been put on a Kill List that the Obama administration keeps, allowing them to assassinate threats to national security. And then there were the fringe individuals who believe Simmon’s death was a conspiracy involving the federal government and BP.

Many have claimed a CIA-developed weapon was used on Simmons that stopped his heart remotely.  Video of an early design of this gun can be found in a governmental oversight video, which is proof enough for the conspiracy theorists, considering the video is from 1975 and the CIA has had 35 years to improve its methods.

The mind can go to fantastic places. As Thomas Pynchon taught us with The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity’s Rainbow, the brain can produce intricate systems of interlocking theories that seem to explain the function of power in civilizations, both corporate and governmental. In the absence of a satisfying truth for any given event, a unifying truth assembled from elements of fact and fiction, is superimposed upon the official history. It is here, in the mind, where the static event (JFK’s assassination, for instance) acquires its conspiratorial tentacles.

And, attractive as it may be, it is the province of conjecture. For such theories to enter into the world of fact, a revelation from several insiders with bona fides would be required, or an investigation into the matter by government. The former will not satisfy the skeptic, and will get the whistleblower branded a lunatic (or ironically, a conspiracy theorist), while the latter will raise suspicions in the conspiracy theorists themselves.

Matt Simmons: Conspiracy Theorist?
Matt Simmons was no stranger to a conspiracy theorist’s architecture of the mind. Many of his comments following the Deepwater Horizon explosion were riddled with conspiratorial inferences and unverifiable claims. In an interview with KPFK, an NPR station in Los Angeles, Simmons called the BP Oil spill “the biggest cover-up we have ever seen.” If Simmons were a bedroom conspiracy theorist, the comment might be easy enough to discount. However, Simmons was an energy insider and he’d been an advisor to W. So, this changes the very dynamic of the question. It might be helpful to think of Simmons as a Jeffrey Wygand that wasn’t so lucky.  [Wygand was a cigarette industry insider who turned whistleblower, a story later made into a film by Michael Mann with Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.]

Simmons was a complex man. He was born in Kaysville, Utah on April 7, 1943 to a family of Mormon heritage. Apparently, he remained a Mormon all his life. His father, Roy W. Simmons, was a chairman of the Utah-based Zions Bancorporation. Say what you will of the Latter Day Saints as a religion, but they do put their morality and heavenly salvation at a premium. Could Simmons have had a moment of moral clarity when he came into possession of information related to the BP Oil Spill? Did he feel that it was imperative as a righteous man to speak truth to power?

Yet, Simmons was the very same man who founded and was a chairman for thirty-five years of Simmons & Company International, an investment bank catering to the oil business, formed in the wake of the 1973 Oil Crisis.  For those thirty-five years Simmons was part of an apparatus that financed America’s dependency on oil.

Abruptly, in 2009, Simmons retired from Simmons & Company and devoted himself to the Ocean Energy Institute, which he founded in 2007—a think-tank and venture-capital fund that researches the viability of wind and tidal energy, for instance. Is it possible that Simmons’ controversial statements of BP’s Oil spill response were a bit of corporate maneuvering to turn public opinion further away from oil and toward his own alternative energy sources? As Cicero, quoting Lucius Cassius, once said in his defense of Roscius of Ameria, “Cui bono?” which translates “To whose benefit?”

Simmons stood to benefit from BP’s bungle, in particular, and the collateral damage of the oil industry, in general. Even so, Simmons still had personal investments in the oil industry at the time, telling Fortune in the month following the spill that he shorted the BP stock; a point that he reiterated in a Bloomberg television interview on July 21, 2010. In the very same Bloomberg interview, Simmons claimed he had never shorted a stock in his life, and that he did so only because he was convinced BP would go out of business due to projected Gulf clean-up costs that would amount to around $1 trillion.

Now, this is just Simmons’ business activity in recent months. He was also an outspoken proponent of sealing the leak by dropping a small nuclear bomb down the well, the intense heat of which would melt the surrounding oceanic rock into essentially a glass cork. This isn’t some unheard-of Strangelovian mad science. The Soviets used the technique a number of times in natural gas leaks, and Obama had Energy Secretary Steven Chu chair a group that included nuclear scientists to assess the feasibility of the Soviet technique, amongst other considerations. Yet, Simmons was lambasted for being a Doctor Doom of sorts, even as this nation’s President and a Nobel Laureate, in Steven Chu, openly considered the idea.

When BP reported initial estimates of the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf as 5,000 barrels per day, Simmons—working on scientific data from National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—estimated that a more accurate figure would be 120,000 barrels per day.

The NOAA estimates were later determined to be more accurate, in fact, than BP’s initial estimates. In an interview on CNBC dated July 7, 2010, Simmons claimed that the Gulf of Mexico had lost 40% of its oxygen. (Although this claim could not be corroborated, a potential drop in the Gulf’s oxygen levels has been a concern.)  He also claimed that the relief wells would be ineffective in stopping the oil leak from the Macondo Prospect wellhead.

This is where things start to become interesting in the Simmons vs. BP and U.S. government story. On July 15, 2010, in the KPFK interview cited above, Simmons made claims that BP’s footage of the oil leak was essentially smoke and mirrors — a diversion. He claimed the real leak was not being reported by either BP, the government or the media. It’s here we enter the Land of Conspiracy.

Simmons believed footage like this was fake

Did the BP Oil Spill Happen Where BP and the Government Told Us It Did?
To understand Simmons claim, a basic explanation of the Deepwater Horizon rig “blow-out” itself is necessary. The Deepwater Horizon rig was positioned over the Macondo Prospect, a region 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana. The critical distinction here is that the crew had just succeeded in drilling an exploratory well, and that the well was not operational. Attached to deep-sea oil exploration wells are marine risers, which are fixed to the oil rigs on the ocean’s surface. It is a flexible pipe that circulates fluids between the ocean floor and the rig to relieve pressure. After this has been done, the crew installs casing so that the well can be produced at a later date.

The plan was to set a cement plug once the casing had been installed, then the rig would temporarily abandon the well and make further explorations. According to Transocean executive Adrian Rose, the Deepwater Horizon crew was installing the casing and cementing it into place when pressure built up in the riser (possibly from gas) and shot up at great speed, expanding rapidly and then igniting once it reached the rig’s deck. The crew felt the impact and had about five minutes to escape the inferno.

Back to Simmons’ claims. According to Simmons’ interpretation of data—and his apparent conversations with scientists—NOAA’s research vessel, the Thomas Jefferson, discovered evidence of a leak anywhere from 5 to 10 miles from the leaking riser, which is located where the Deepwater Horizon rig eventually sunk.

It should also be noted that a brave rig operator had been able to move the rig approximately 1600 feet in the minutes after the explosion. Simmons’ claimed that the wellbore (the hole leaking oil) is 5 to 10 miles away from the rig and the riser pipe would seem to indicate that the rig had moved even further away before it sunk. However, this claim could not be corroborated.

Did the rig drift that distance or was it helped along by other means? I haven’t been able to make heads or tails of the truth in the official story or Simmons’ interpretation of events. BP and the government have said the rig and riser lie roughly 1600 feet from the wellbore. Simmons thought a distance of at least 5 miles separates the rig and riser from the leak, and he was apparently quoting NOAA scientists aboard the Thomas Jefferson research vessel and oil insiders who are under confidentiality agreements.  (Again, to date, this claim has not been corroborated.)

Simmons thought the Deepwater rig was at least five miles from the actual leak

NOAA reports seem to support Simmons assessment that oil has congregated miles away, but only to the extent that there are underwater plumes several miles from the Deepwater Horizon Macondo well.

This is the very essence of Simmons’ cover-up accusation: The official NOAA story—that there are plumes miles from the leak—may not be the reality. The plumes could be coming from a leak that is not being acknowledged officially by BP or U.S. Government through NOAA and White House press releases. And so the $60,000 Question that needs to be answered publicly—determined of course by independent underwater research—is how far the sunken rig and riser are located from the actual wellbore, where the crude oil is leaking.

What does this mean if Simmons’ claims hold any truth? Well, that BP has been manipulating public perception by conveniently showing footage of the leaking riser torn from the wellbore—a riser which would eventually run out of residual crude anyway, allowing BP to claim they’ve capped the leak (which they have now), when, in fact, the real leak lies miles away, unleashing 120,000 barrels of crude into the gulf daily.

What Simmons is suggesting is that BP has carried out a monumental sleight-of-hand. And if the Obama administration and Congress are aware of this fact, then they are complicit in the magic show—a magic show designed to minimize fallout from a leaking vent that has turned the Gulf of Mexico seabed into a lake of oil.

Which raises yet another question: Why would the Obama administration aid and abet BP in the “cover-up,” as Simmons termed the oil spill’s aftermath? A simple answer might be that the US government has military fuel contracts with BP that keep the military supplied with BP oil. According to a report in the Washington Post dated July 5, 2010, “BP has fuel contracts with the US military worth at least $980 million.” The contracts are handled by the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC).

This is not good publicity for the Obama administration—not with mid-term elections in November.  Why hasn’t the Washington Post article been picked up by major news networks? One would think that at least Fox News would run with the story because it would draw attention to the Obama administration’s ethics.

Obama was slow to respond to the crisis. What was he really doing in Louisiana?

What Does It All Mean?
What is to be done with this information? You must enter into the looking glass, to quote Oliver Stone’s “JFK.” The fact that the U.S. government is in bed with BP is superficial: it’s all just scenery. If Simmons is whistle blowing about BP’s control of public perception, and the US government is locked into contracts with BP for military purposes, is that not a matter of national security (in the mind of the administration)?

Did that make Matt Simmons a threat to national security, if suddenly a nation’s war-making capability is crippled for lack of fuel? Perhaps it is a stretch of logic, but it is within the realm of possibility no matter how much it wreaks of conspiracy theory at a fundamental level. This would seem to support the theory that Simmons was put on the Kill List and assassinated by the CIA.

The Washington Post went on to say the following:

“Jeanne Pascal, a former EPA lawyer who until recently oversaw the review of BP’s possible debarment [after an Alaskan oil spill in 2006 and a Texas refinery explosion in 2005], has said she initially supported taking such action but held off after an official at the Defense Department warned her that the Pentagon depended heavily on BP fuel for its operations in the Middle East.”

In the same article, Pascal elaborated, “My contact at the DESC, another attorney, told me that BP was supplying approximately 80 percent of the fuel being used to move U.S. forces… BP was very fortunate in that there is an exception when the U.S. is involved in military action or a war.”

As a shareholder in BP stock, Simmons must have known the extent of BP’s contracts with the DOD. Even if the contracts were not common knowledge to shareholders, then someone of Simmons insider status would surely have known of the relationship. Why?  Well, people talk—even higher-ups. The oil industry is really just a fraternity of sorts, and fraternity brothers are consummate gossipers.

It must be a point of pride for BP that they have 80% of Defense Department fuel contracts locked-up, making them the big swinging dick of our War On Terrorism. BP spokesman Robert Wine has been quoted as saying BP and the Pentagon signed at least one “big contract” after the BP Oil Spill. At least one? How many contracts did the Pentagon sign with BP after the spill, all under the nose of the Obama administration? At some point even the skeptic must ask what the fuck is going on?!

As I noted in my article on the testing of invisible vapors in Boston’s subway system, there is the truth ready for public dissemination and that which is not.  There are levels of truth—stratified layers might be more appropriate since we’re dealing here with matters geological.

Even former Shell CEO John Hofmeister has been weighing in, though not nearly as conspiratorial in tone as Simmons.  Hofmeister hasn’t addressed the question of the rig and riser’s distance from the wellbore, but he did offer a telling quote when interviewed by NBC’s Brian Williams:

“Will [the] cap lead to more breaches, if there are breaches, or what exactly is going on in the well itself? It’s a confidence game. And where do you believe, who do you believe, what they have to say?”

Back at the Beginning
What do we know now? On August 21, 2010, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts, led by Richard Camilli, published a peer-reviewed study in the journal Science.

Their findings indicate a “continuous plume over 35km [22 miles] in length” at a depth of 1100 feet that persisted for months “without substantial biodegradation.” The team determined the plume was 200 meters thick and 2 kilometers wide.

Camilli said it was created by the Deepwater Horizon well and not by naturally occurring gas and oil seepage. The plume has not dissipated. Other plumes have been found, including one by the University of South Florida that is approximately 6 miles in length. USF researchers have determined the oil is not degrading and possibly toxic enough to affect the entire food chain.

BP fuels the U.S. military

The leak from the riser has been capped, but who benefits in this confidence game? Did Simmons, when he was alive, benefit from criticizing BP’s cleanup and public relations efforts, all the while shorting the stock and hoping the backlash might prop up his business at the Ocean Energy Institute?  Maybe. Was he a conspiracy theorist? It’s certainly a possibility.

Did BP, the Pentagon and the Obama administration, in particular, benefit from a silenced Matt Simmons? Most definitely, given the potential that the Pentagon’s military contracts with BP could prove toxic to Obama in the mid-term elections. Did BP and the U.S. government cover up the true nature and extent of the oil spill? It is not outside the realm of possibility, especially given BP’s desire to control information, as when they released doctored photos of their “command center.”

Does this prove a conspiracy to assassinate Matt Simmons? No. But, it certainly makes you wonder, ‘Who benefits?’

John Cusack to Play Poe

August 31st, 2010 by DJ Pangburn

A few days ago John Cusack twittered that he was set to play Edgar Allan Poe in a psychological thriller called “The Raven,” to be directed by James McTeigue (“V for Vendetta” and “Ninja Assassin”).

Apparently, this script has been around for a while, stuck in development hell. The original story was scripted by Hannah Shakespeare and Ben Livingston, but has since undergone revisions. It would follow Poe during the last five days of his life, as the brooding author attempts to find a serial killer who uses Poe’s own fiction as a murderous methodology.

The idea calls to mind Alan Moore’s graphic novel From Hell, a darkly kaleidoscopic vision of London during the Jack the Ripper killings, which was made into a rather underrated film by the Hughes Brothers starring Johnny Depp. (Seriously, watch “From Hell,” it’s good.) Naturally, “The Raven” will pair Cusack’s Poe with a detective and set the two against the ticking click of Poe’s heart and the pressure to capture the fiendish killer (Screenwriting 101). It is hoped, by me especially, the very mysterious circumstances of Poe’s death will factor into the story.

“The Raven” will be set in Poe’s adopted home of Baltimore, a city which, as the show “The Wire” so ably demonstrated, has the kind of disintegrating social, architectural and cultural atmosphere that is necessary for a good psychological thriller. Think of how cities double as characters in films like “Se7en” and “Zodiac” or the “Third Man” and Michael Mann’s Los Angeles in “Heat.” To see Baltimore in the mid-1850’s through the lens of an author who knew well the psychogeographical dimensions (to borrow a term from Guy Debord) of cities should be a treat.

Whether McTeigue is up to the task visually and narratively is still up in the air. His work on “V for Vendetta” would seem to indicate he understands cities as characters, what with the underground lairs, hidden byways and alleys, and so forth. But, much of the credit has to go to comic writer Alan Moore, whose writing is so rich in detail and always aided by ace illustrations. McTeigue’s work on “Ninja Assassin” was messy, to say the least.  The audience was never able to get a good sense of the landscape, the geography traversed by the characters.

McTeigue also hasn’t exactly displayed the type of facility with narrative that is required for this type of film—the narrative artistry of, say, David Fincher, Carol Reed or Michael Mann. Can he coach actors into delivering performances that are nuanced and three-dimensional, not simply flesh cartoons set amidst glossy stylization? In other words, can he make Edgar Allen Poe come alive even as he’s got one foot in the grave?  “V for Vendetta” had some solid acting, though McTeigue was playing with John Hurt, Stephen Fry (always great), Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving, who all managed to deliver fine performances. But, he somehow managed to make Stephen Rea boring as the cardboard cut-out inspector.

And what of John Cusack as the author himself? There is something of a resemblance in their dark hair, the facial features, especially as the actor’s face has aged. No doubt Cusack is much more handsome than Poe, but this is of little consequence. Look at the photographs of Poe, and what will appear to you is a man who was nothing if not interesting-looking. Cusack is certainly able to tap into the darker impulses of the mind, which is essential in conveying Poe’s beautiful or, one might call it, beatific gloom.

If “The Raven” is to be a great entry into the genre, it will all have to start with the screenplay. If it is well written, vivid and not compromised at any point by meddling execs, then McTeigue should be able to translate the vision from page to screen. He’s no David Fincher, but neither is he a hack.

The film will be produced by Intrepid Pictures and FilmNation and is scheduled to begin shooting later this fall in Serbia. Really, Serbia? That’s where the tax breaks are these days? Well, with the country’s storied history of political killings and war, it should lend the film a nice, murderous vibe.

A Corporate Education: 10 Universities Coming to You From Your Favorite Corporations

August 27th, 2010 by DJ Pangburn

Move over Harvard. Here come the corporations.

When it was reported a few days ago that Disney has opened an English-language school in Shanghai, China, using Disney characters and songs as mnemonics, it got me thinking about the future of education, generally. With the news of the Disney school, it seems that civilization has taken the first step toward manifesting the world of Mike Judge’s film “Idiocracy.”

What if other corporations were to make entries into the education industry? Oh, it’s not so very strange at all. There ismoney to be made in the field. There are also precious little minds onto which they must imprint corporate logos and philosophies, guaranteeing brand-loyal drones.

Here is a list of 10 corporations that are also planning everything from their own corporate elementary schools and graduate programs to online universities and technical colleges.

BP Centre for Environmental Design & Resource Development
BP is already, to an extent, engaged in the educational system by attempting to educate the public about how microscopic oceanic organisms are cleansing the BP Oil Spill. They’ve already teamed up with universities and professors to advance this convenient theory—why not simply open up a college instead? The BP Centre for Environmental Design & Resource Development will be built on an artificial island (just as BP did off the coast of Alaska for oil drilling).

This picturesque location will serve a dual purpose: 1) It will be out of any nation’s jurisdiction, and 2) The clean, oil-free coastlines will keep the student population calm and servile. “Go to school on an island.” This will be a public relations coup and an excellent way to cultivate a fleet of BP scientists at the ready to talk scientific nonsense to Fox News.

Goldman Sachs School of Finance
Why go to a prestigious business school like Harvard when you can forego tuition fees and whore yourself straight away at Goldman Sachs School of Finance? Once there you will be on a fast track to nefarious financial dealings. Admission will be very selective—more selective, in fact, than any Ivy League university.

The Goldman Sachs School of Finance will run a recruiting program that rivals most athletics programs, by scouring the country for the most unethical children and teenagers, enrolling them (after high school graduation) in a four-year trainee program and transitioning them into full employee upon graduation. The Goldman Sachs School of Finance will be for the Gordon Gekko type of child.  Recognize a huckster or potential financial scam artist in your child? Call a Goldman Sachs rep to pay a visit to your home and assess the kid’s potential. The school’s motto is “You can never find an investment banker too soon.”

Virgin Academic
The Virgin Group aims to expand its brand to the commercially neglected education industry, and school uniforms will never look better. With offerings for every stage of development from Virgin Nursery to Virgin University, young people will now have the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in the brand that signifies hip. Using the integrated technology that has proven so lucrative in air and train travel, students will use touch-screen devices built into their desks to order school lunches, alert attractive teachers, and message-in answers to innovative pop quiz questions. Morning announcements will be delivered by the charismatic, inspiring and animated figure of Sir Richard Branson. There will surely be critics, as once can imagine, when a horrified parent will have to answer their six year old’s question, “Mommy, what is a virgin?” And what will parents think at Virgin High’s football games when teenage boys are running on field to chants of “Virgin! Virgin! Virgin!”

Kraft Culinary Institute
Do you have a mild passion for semi-creative cooking? Could you compromise it for a lucrative career to become the next Sandra Lee the Casserole Queen? Are you one of the few enlightened souls who can see through the “real,” “locally sourced” and “organic” foods charade? If you can say “yes,” the Kraft Culinary Institute is the place for you! Since the early 20th century, Kraft has been at the forefront of over-processing and over-packaging food* to make it more convenient for the everyday consumer. Kraft Culinary Institute will be gastronomically committed to the cause of consolidating the cheese product, snack and confectionary industry one company at a time. Degree programs will be available in the areas of Food* Science, Culinary Arts, and International Food* and Beverage Business. Course offerings will include: “Improving Upon Nature,” “Factory Operations in the Mid-East,” “Retaining Customers While Lowering Costs After a Takeover,” “If It’s Not Cheese, What Is It?” and “The Development and Creative Use of Powdered Food* Products.” Fill out an application today and show the Culinary Institute what you can do with a Kraft Single!  Kraft Culinary Institute also plans to produce its own version of Top Chef called Top Kraft.

*The term “food” refers to any product fit for human consumption, regardless of chemical or biological origins.

**Kraft will not assume responsibility for any costs resulting from Gastric Bypass Surgery following enrolment at the Culinary Institute.

Berkshire-Hathaway Online University
Since Buffet likes to think he can educate the entire world on matters financial anyway; his company—Berkshire-Hathaway—will go viral with the Berkshire-Hathaway Online University. Buffet himself will be the Dean and write all of the course books himself. Short-selling investment strategies will be the primary focus at Berkshire-Hathaway Online University. Buffet’s university will work in conjunction with the Goldman Sachs School of Finance, offering Buffet’s students summer internships in exchange for Buffet’s ‘donation’ to Goldman Sachs’ investment bank.

Wal-Mart School of Merchandising
All classes will be held at Wal-Mart. All pre-existing outlets will be retrofitted with educational facilities. Naturally, school supplies, backpacks, lunches, juice boxes, toys, recreational objects and firearms will be supplied by Wal-Mart (free of charge). Retirees will greet the students at the sliding doors and escort the children to the educational wing inside of shopping carts. Recess will be held in a textile and sewing facility where older Wal-Mart clerks will ensure the children are learning properly.  The clerks, of course, will hold Wal-Mart brand rulers and whack the children on the hands if they waste fabric.

Mac School of Design
Every desk will actually be a modified iPad called an iDesk. There will be no flesh and blood teacher.  Instead, a holographic iBoard stretching across the front of the classroom will display an iTeacher. No traditional books will be allowed in the room. Apple’s design department will ergonomically design all chairs with Apple’s trademark metal. And, in keeping with Mac’s product philosophy, all classrooms will have a rough planned obsolescence of about three years. Tuition will be outrageously high. Technical support will always be free to answer student’s questions, provided they fill out a digital note and submit it by an iDrop-box positioned in the lower right hand corner of their iDesk. It’s generally assumed that Steve Jobs will introduce the Mac School of Design at next year’s Macworld.

Mansanto-Syngenta School of Biotechnology, Agriculture & Corporate Espionage
A school co-founded by the Mansanto and Syngenta corporations. This school will admit both Biotech and Agricultural post-graduates who are interested in how to biologically engineer foods and squeeze every last bit of productivity out of farms.  Students will be on the cutting edge of genetic-modification of seeds. A secret course will be taught in sabotage, in which students will be instructed in the various covert methods of destroying smaller farms. And if that doesn’t work, more incendiary tactics will be discussed and likely employed.

Raytheon College of Modern Warfare:
Don’t know what to do with your child’s obsession with video games, particularly first-person shooters?  Want them to be the next Dr. Strangelove? Send them to Raytheon College of Modern Warfare, where instructors will teach children how to test weapons systems remotely via simulation, and then move onto controlling actual drones and robots. Graduation from the Raytheon College of Modern Warfare will guarantee a job designing new systems of death from above (and anywhere else imaginable). Considering the excellent long-term forecast of warfare, your child should never want for a job.

General Motors Technical College (GM Tech)
At GM Tech, students will use typewriters and abacuses for classes. The college will also boast a state-of-the-art word processor. Professors will all wear pale yellow short-sleeved shirts with transition lens glasses. Classes will be taught in a dilapidated Detroit building, where students will be enrolled in and study on a two-year long assembly line. Thesis projects for each student will be business proposals on how General Motors can survive through the 21^st century.

Graphics and additional reporting by Liza Cucco.

TRIM5a: HIV Assassin

August 25th, 2010 by DJ Pangburn

A possible cure for HIV has been discovered by American researchers.

TRIM5-alpha makes one think of TrimSpa, the appetite suppressant—just one of the medicinal upsides of the Hoodia gordonii plant. TRIM5a, however, is no magic pill but it is a protein that has been found to absolutely annihilate the HIV virus in Rhesus monkey cultures. Loyola researchers believe that the protein should do the same in the HIV strain present in humans. Bono should be excited as well.

The research team, led by Edward M. Campbell, Ph.D, used a $225,000 piece of equipment called a wide-field “deconvolution” microscope, slid a culture of HIV beneath its lens, attached proteins colored with fluorescent particles to make the TRIM5a cultures effectively glow and observed the results. What they saw was stunning: six previously identified amino acids—out of 500—were working in unison to inhibit the virus.

How exactly does the TRIM5a protein kill HIV? TRIM5a latches onto HIV and then unleashes its various constituent amino acids, which, like a frenzied mob, devastate the retrovirus. Think of it as a Trojan Horse with the protein acting as the horse and the amino acids as the pillaging Greeks hidden inside.

The researchers found the amino acids in a rarely studied area of the TRIM5a protein. Apparently, through human evolution, the inhibitive potential of the protein was essentially shut off and TRIM5a could no longer fight HIV in human cells. It makes one wonder if gene therapy might one day be able to turn back on the protein’s innate ability to destroy viruses.

For now, the hope is that researchers will be able to isolate one amino acid or combination that could destroy HIV, and then engineer a TRIM5a protein that would be effective in humans.  Naturally, pharmaceutical corporations will waste no time in researching ways to mimic the protein and profit on their investment.

Perhaps it’s too early to be raising questions of the money to be made off of TRIM5a’s therapeutic potential. Rest assured, though, that systems are already in place that will bring a financial windfall to the pharmaceutical industry and corrupt Third World nations. It behooves us as a civilization to explore alternative systems to finance and distribute any antiviral therapies that come of Loyola’s TRIM5a breakthrough.

Look for a full article in the September 15^th issue of the journal Virology, which is available online.

The Futurological Homeland

August 24th, 2010 by DJ Pangburn

Why is the Department of Homeland Security secretly experimenting on the American public?

It’s Boston. Late summer of 2010. Pedestrians weave across the streets, descending stairwells into the tunnels of the MBTA subway system—America’s oldest subway. They pay for the tickets, slide past the turnstiles that click behind them: a chorus of metal percussion and footsteps.  Groups flood in and off the cars.

There is a beep, then the robotic voice of the intercom system. The train hisses and lurches forward. Outside the train there is a subsonic hiss. And the hiss is coming from invisible and non-toxic fluorescent particles that float and surge through the tunnels. The moving train pulls some of this mixture along its path, while pushing other portions into the faces of waiting commuters. Other trains thunder through the subway, repeating the process.

The particles and gases wind their way through the tunnels, up the stairs, through vents and pipes and onto street level where they mingle with the air and are inhaled by pedestrians. In-take vents of surrounding buildings pull the gases and fluorescent particles into air-conditioned cubicles and offices. All the while, men inside the tunnels and on the surface are taking measurements.

This may sound like storytelling: the opening scene of a screenplay perhaps, or the first paragraph of a speculative fiction novel. But this is not fiction. What was just described actually happened in Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) this past Friday. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ran a simulation on unsuspecting Boston citizens. Granted, officials stood around and looked, well, official, while various instruments released and studied airflow perturbations on the gases and particles; but this was, for all intents and purposes, unannounced.

It seems the fine folks at DHS, presumably on the order of the president (who else could authorize the directive?), were simulating a terror attack on a major metropolitan transportation system.  The official story is that this simulation was the government’s study of how invisible contaminants and pathogens might float through enclosures, and will aid in developing methods of containment in the event of a terror attack. DHS states, “Though the study focuses on the deliberate release of chemical or biological agents, it also will help researchers understand airflow characteristics for smoke or unintentional spills of chemicals or fuels.”

Does it not seem problematic that a government agency is gathering information on airflow of vapors? That officials will have full knowledge of how invisible gases and particles work on populations? And nobody seems to be talking about the parallels of these experiments with the 1950 Army program that released vaporized LSD into the New York Subway System.

All of this is strikingly similar to the CIA’s MK Ultra program and Project Artichoke, which, amongst other things, involved unknowingly dosing subjects with mind-altering drugs and observing the effects. Prostitutes administered it to their clients while Agency officials watched through double mirrors. One subject, Frank Olson, was so effected by the drug that he leaped through a window to his death. Some subjects were given LSD for 77 days, which is excessive by any definition of the word.

Yes, there is a logical jump involved here from the DHS’s terror simulations to MK Ultra-style covert operations. DHS isn’t attempting to alter minds but protect the citizenry—to test response measures in the event of a biological terror attack.

The government has deemed Homeland Security’s program safe for public dissemination, which makes one wonder what secret programs are currently underway that might overstep ethical boundaries? The MK Ultra and Artichoke programs surely began with the best intentions, assuming governments have the best intentions, but they descended rather quickly into perverse anti-worlds, the province of fictional paranoia.

To what ends will Homeland Security go to ensure a safe and secure homeland? Is it harmonious with the average American’s conception of safety and security? And, if this sort of activity is allowed, at what point does the terror become self-inflicted?

This is not to suggest that the DHS will release harmful vapors like the Army did in 1950, but surely a degree of terror had its genesis this past Friday in the mere sight of strange instruments in Boston’s subway. In police standing guard while scientists took readings like Egon, Ray and Venkman.

As invisible vapors wound through subway tunnels and into the atmosphere above, and building vents took in the particles and spit them into a matrix of cubicles where mothers and fathers work to keep the economic daydream in perpetual motion. Is that not terror? The more insidious sort that aims to herd people like cattle with the call of fear as in an Orwellian nightmare?

This is the realm of fiction. Yet, the best of fiction has always played second fiddle to the unfolding of historical events, which undergo perceptual filtration and informational control. To put it more simply, there is that which is fit for a public revelation and that which is not.

Author Stanislaw Lem seems to have foreseen this scenario in his wonderful novella, “The Futurological Congress,” which may one day be seen as the work of a prophet. In it, humanity—in an effort to save itself—takes to releasing invisible vapors onto an unwitting citizenry. Like Homeland Security’s experiments in major subways, Lem’s government agents carry out their initial efforts in the tunnels of a hotel. And before the characters know what has hit them, a new reality has been constructed—all for the greater good.

As Lem’s classic satirical creation Ijon Tichy exhorts in “The Futurological Congress” when this constructed world is laid bare to him, “A nightmare!… But even so, pax orbi et urbi has been established, so perhaps it’s worth it.”

But is it worth it?

The Dust Bin: Air's 10,000 Hz Legend

February 24th, 2010 by DJ Pangburn

I’m going to go ahead and say it right now: 10,000 Hz Legend is the best Air album. Perhaps more important than that, it is simultaneously the best and worst thing that happened to Air’s career. Now that I’ve knocked the wind out of you, I’m going to kick you in the balls and tell you—as I grin over your fallen body—that Moon Safari is no challenge to like. It’s an easy record. Put those grooves on for your grandmother, and she will pick up her knitting kit, hum along and make you a nice pair of socks. Now, if you let 10,000 Hz Legend rip on her old gramophone, your grandmother will knit herself a self-contained, air-recycling, zero-gravity space suit, step inside it, disappear in a beam of light and land several star systems away but be back home in time to bake you a fuckin’ cake before midnight. I’ve seen it happen. Not content with proclaiming it Air’s best album, I’m going to go a step further and say it’s on the short list for best of the last decade. 10,000 Hz Legend easily bests the overrated and not-as-cutting-edge-as-everyone-thinks-it-was Kid A. Both albums were released in the same year, but Radiohead received a surplus of masturbatory accolades from critics who somehow forgot that synthesizers were in use before 2001, and that Thom Yorke and Co. basically lifted their entire sound from Aphex Twin and Squarepusher. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m not out to call into question the supreme artistry of the Yorkshire Puppy. Smile Thom, the world is a lovely place. Read the rest of this entry »

Best CD We Got In The Mail: Fuck Buttons Tarot Sport

September 29th, 2009 by DJ Pangburn

Fuck Buttons open Tarot Sport in brilliant fashion with “Surf Solar,” simultaneously taking us into the future and back into retro territory. Bubbling synths coated in layers upon shimmering layers of reverb give way to buried shoegaze noise and razor-like arpeggios, reminiscent of those spun so effortlessly by Underworld in their electronic epics of yore. Imagine, if you will, “Juanite/Kiteless/To Dream of Love” run through an array of equalizers, then recorded onto cassette tape and blasted out of Skywalker Labs’ most heinous digital soundsystem. This is the sonic equivalent of visible light breaking the laws of eletromagnetism and optics, refusing to be bent into its constituent colors, and scattering itself across oblivion. (Read the rest after the jump!)

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Foreign Born "Lights, Camera, Action"

September 10th, 2009 by DJ Pangburn

“I was a hotel spy for a week filling in for my friend,” Matt Popieluch tells me during my interview with the band he fronts, nascent pop rockers Foreign Born. “I would go around to these hotels in the morning, for three hours every day of the week, and I’d walk around and look at the kiosk where they were showing who was meeting there that day, like Verizon Wireless in the Veranda Room. I would say it into the tape recorder, and these messages would be mailed to some company in Nebraska.”  Read the rest of this entry »