Just ten years ago the issues were so simple, the arguments so clean. The concept of hackers was cute and quaint, best understood through Hollywood thrillers like ‘War Games.’ The major media had yet to use the word ‘cyberspace,’ a term just then created by William Gibson in Neuromancer, his first masterpiece in a strange … Read more
Kim Besly Kim Besly died in July. A brief notice appeared in the Guardian on 30 July 1996. Besly was one of the pioneers in this country in the campaign to alert people to the dangers of electromagnetic technology. I met Besly only once but Harlan Girard knew her better and, in response to her … Read more
[…] major difference which seems to emerge between the Soviet armed forces and those of the United States is the US soldier’s access to a wider variety of drugs. His Soviet counterpart seems stuck with alcohol and its substitutes such as boot polish. Maybe the occupation of Afghanistan will introduce hashish to a wider section […]
Frost/Nixon Or, a load of old dick When Frost/Nixon first appeared at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London back in 2006 I wondered why on earth anyone would want to stage, to recreate, what was, essentially, a non-event. Why indeed? One can imagine mere actors relishing the opportunity to ‘interpret’ Frost and Nixon but who … Read more
[…] to drive…'(33) However, neither he nor Wingfield – despite sitting next to Henri Paul in the Ritz – realised that Henri Paul was under the influence of drugs and alcohol. ‘There was absolutely nothing at all in behaviour, in his speech. He was behaving exactly the same as he had that morning.'(34) Rees-Jones has […]
[…] Engineering and Research, had bought the weapons from Werbell. He didn’t tell them that he was Werbell’s partner in Defense Weapons International, or that Werbell and international drugs smuggler Ken Burnstine had manufactured hundreds of Ingrams without serial numbers for shipment to Chile when the CIA was providing aid to the military junta. If […]
The three Arrigos In the last Lobster (‘Spookaroonie’, p. 26) I noted the comments on <intelforum.org> of Maria Arrigo, a ‘social psychologist with experience in [intelligence] operations’ asking for evidence of ‘covert weapons experiments in post-war South America’ and wondered what was afoot. It was just an interesting little snippet which I came across at … Read more
Thanks again to Terry Hanstock and David Turner for contributions. Although all URLs are checked shortly before publication, occasionally websites unaccountably disappear. Contributions, comments and info welcome – my email address is Secrecy, censorship FOI and released records Freedom of Information Draft Bill http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/foi/dfoibill.htm Link to the draft FOI Bill (May 1999) and FOI … Read more
[…] handling of the trial, transformed into a veritable rodomontade by the D.A.’s claims that he had solved the mystery and counter-allegations that witnesses were subject to truth drugs and hypnosis, as well as by one amazing blunder which effectively sunk the whole case. This blunder concerned one Charles Spiesel, who was exposed in court […]
Colin Crawford. London: Pluto Press, 2003, £14.99, p/back When World-in-Action and Tribune journalist David Boulton published his excellent book, The UVF, 1966-73, (Torc Books, 1974) he bemoaned a near absence of valuable books and journal articles on Loyalism. In contrast to their Republican counterparts, Loyalists do not have a substantive support base overseas; nor … Read more
