If I told you that a brand new analog synthesizer existed that costed about the price of a couple cases of beer and was small enough to fit in your coat pocket, I would probably be laughed out of this century. However, Korg seems to think differently, and just announced the Monotron, which is precisely this. Operating as an analog synthesizer the utilizes a ribbon touch surface for the keys, this thing borrows technology that was derived directly from their classic MS-20 synthesizer from the 1990s. The Monotron has nothing more than your basic, everyday controls. It utilizes a single oscillator, one filter, and one LFO which modulates the oscillator signal (essentially, for non-synth people, it uses a waveform to automate it’s volume over a span of time). It also includes an auxiliary input which you can hook anything from an iPod to a Kaoss Pad to even another synth to further mangle up the sound with, and the headphone jack doubles as the line out, allowing you to easily hook up to an amp or recording device.
Although there are other modular analog synth kits out there that are also about as cheap as the Monotron, this package is great for beginners or people looking to tweak sounds without having to fuss with cables or learning curves. More info on Korg’s website.
Over the last few years, WikiLeaks has been the subject of hostile acts by security organizations. In the developing world, these range from the appalling assassination of two related human rights lawyers in Nairobi last March (an armed attack on my compound there in 2007 is still unattributed) to an unsuccessful mass attack by Chinese computers on our servers in Stockholm, after we published photos of murders in Tibet. In the West this has ranged from the overt, the head of Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, threatening to prosecute us unless we removed a report on CIA activity in Kosovo, to the covert, to an ambush by a "James Bond" character in a Luxembourg car park, an event that ended with a mere "we think it would be in your interest to...".
Developing world violence aside, we've become used to the level of security service interest in us and have established procedures to ignore that interest.
But the increase in surveillance activities this last month, in a time when we are barely publishing due to fundraising, are excessive. Some of the new interest is related to a film exposing a U.S. massacre we will release at the U.S. National Press Club on April 5.
The spying includes attempted covert following, photographng, filming and the overt detention & questioning of a WikiLeaks' volunteer in Iceland on Monday night.
I, and others were in Iceland to advise Icelandic parliamentarians on the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a new package of laws designed to protect investigative journalists and internet services from spying and censorship. As such, the spying has an extra poignancy.
The possible triggers:
our ongoing work on a classified film revealing civilian casualties occurring under the command of the U.S, general, David Petraeus.
our release of a classified 32 page US intelligence report on how to fatally marginalize WikiLeaks (expose our sources, destroy our reputation for integrity, hack us).
pending releases related to the collapse of the Icelandic banks and Icelandic "oligarchs".
We have discovered half a dozen attempts at covert surveillance in Reykjavik both by native English speakers and Icelanders. On the occasions where these individuals were approached, they ran away. One had marked police equipment and the license plates for another suspicious vehicle track back to the Icelandic private VIP bodyguard firm Terr. What does that mean? We don't know. But as you will see, other events are clear.
U.S. sources told Icelandic state media's deputy head of news, that the State Department was aggressively investigating a leak from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik. I was seen at a private U.S Embassy party at the Ambassador's residence, late last year and it is known I had contact with Embassay staff, after.
On Thursday March 18, 2010, I took the 2.15 PM flight out of Reykjavik to Copenhagen--on the way to speak at the SKUP investigative journalism conference in Norway. After receiving a tip, we obtained airline records for the flght concerned. Two individuals, recorded as brandishing diplomatic credentials checked in for my flight at 12:03 and 12:06 under the name of "US State Department". The two are not recorded as having any luggage.
Iceland doesn't have a separate security service. It folds its intelligence function into its police forces, leading to an uneasy overlap of policing and intelligence functions and values.
On Monday 22, March, at approximately 8.30pm, a WikiLeaks volunteer, a minor, was detained by Icelandic police on a wholly insignificant matter. Police then took the opportunity to hold the youth over night, without charge--a highly unusual act in Iceland. The next day, during the course of interrogation, the volunteer was shown covert photos of me outside the Reykjavik restaurant "Icelandic Fish & Chips", where a WikiLeaks production meeting took place on Wednesday March 17--the day before individuals operating under the name of the U.S. State Department boarded my flight to Copenhagen.
Our production meeting used a discreet, closed, backroom, because we were working on the analysis of a classified U.S. military video showing civilian kills by U.S. pilots. During the interrogation, a specific reference was made by police to the video---which could not have been understood from that day's exterior surveillance alone. Another specific reference was made to "important", but unnamed Icelandic figures. References were also made to the names of two senior journalists at the production meeting.
Who are the Icelandic security services loyal to in their values? The new government of April 2009, the old pro-Iraq war government of the Independence party, or perhaps to their personal relationships with peers from another country who have them on a permanment intelligence information drip?
Only a few years ago, Icelandic airspace was used for CIA rendition flights. Why did the CIA think that this was acceptable? In a classified U.S. profile on the former Icelandic Ambassador to the United States, obtained by WikiLeaks, the Ambassador is praised for helping to quell publicity of the CIA's activities.
Often when a bold new government arises, bureaucratic institutions remain loyal to the old regime and it can take time to change the guard. Former regime loyalists must be discovered, dissuaded and removed. But for the security services, that first vital step, discovery, is awry. Congenitally scared of the light, such services hide their activities; if it is not known what security services are doing, then it is surely impossible to know who they are doing it for.
Our plans to release the video on April 5 proceed.
We have asked relevant authorities in the Unites States and Iceland to explain. If these countries are to be treated as legitmate states, they need to start obeying the rule of law. Now.
—Julian Assange (editor@wikileaks.org)
President Obama made a surprise visit to an independent bookstore in downtown Iowa City after delivering a speech on health care reform.
"Well, this used to be my favorite place," Obama said as he walked around the store, Prairie Lights.
Obama looked around in pursuit of a couple of books for his daughters, Sasha and Malia.
Along his way he picked up "No Apology" by Mitt Romney and "Courage and Consequence" by Karl Rove.
"What do you think guys?" he asked reporters, holding up a hardback copy in each hand before setting them back down.
Obama disappeared downstairs for a few minutes and emerged with two books: “Journey to the River Sea” by Eva Ibbotson and “The Secret of Zoom” by Lynne Jonell.
He pulled out five $20 bills to pay the cashier and then offered to pick up the book his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, had grabbed: a large Star Wars pop-up book for his six-year-old son, Ethan.
"It's a little expensive, sir,” Gibbs said to his boss as he handed it over. Obama nonetheless forked over the $37.44 for the book.
"I can handle it,” he said. “It’s for keeping his dad away for too many hours a day.”
"I need more books than that, sir,” Gibbs remarked.
Obama thanked the employees.
"You have a wonderful bookstore,” he said, adding that hopefully he’s helping “to make sure everybody has health insurance.”
He then shook a few hands of customers in the store. Someone remarked about the significance of his dropping by the store.
Obama said he hoped so. "It's not every day a president stops by,” he said.
On his way out the door, Obama said the books he purchased for his daughters were “based on recommendations.”
“Of course the question is how they take to them, but I think they’re going to like them,” he said.
A Christian policing group which believes that the power of prayer can catch criminals and keep officers safe from harm has been awarded a £10,000 grant from the Home Office to widen its involvement with local church groups.
The Christian Police Association (CPA) wants members of the public to "adopt a cop" by praying for the safety of local officers as they ply their beats. Subjects that the association says congregations should be encouraged to pray for include "helping officers make on-the-spot decisions" and encouraging them to "resist corruption".
The nationwide organisation, which boasts 2,000 members, claims that there is "circumstantial evidence" to suggest that regular prayer sessions can help reduce crime rates and encourage criminals to make a new start to their lives.
...
Don Axcell, a retired Metropolitan Police sergeant who heads the CPA, told Police Review: "We want people to pray for the police, for example in solving crimes or protecting officers. We want to see the Christian community fully interacting with the service. I think it will break down barriers."
For my own part, I'd rather see that £10,000 backed by empirical evidence. But that's just me.
The Improbable Research blog had this to add:
The 1994 Ig Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to John Hagelin of Maharishi University and The Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, promulgator of peaceful thoughts, for his experimental conclusion that 4,000 trained meditators caused an 18 percent decrease in violent crime in Washington, D.C.
