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FBI - Freedom of Information Act - Moorish Science Temple of America
The Moorish Science Temple of America was organized in 1913 in Newark, New Jersey. The Temple was investigated in 1953 for violation of the Selective Service Act of 1948 and sedition. In September of 1953, the Department of Justice, concluded that prosecution for violation of the Selective Service Act was not warranted. A 1940, investigation was conducted to determine if the Moorish Science Temple of America was committing subversive activities by adhering to and spreading Japanese propaganda. The investigation failed to substantiate that members were pro-Japanese in their attitude.

Curious: Part 8 has a FOIA cover sheet that states Part 8 of 8- while the next page, the actual hand written cover sheet for the original dossier, states: Part 8 of 14. Warning - 3,117 pages, all in PDF.

Don't forget to stop by and say hello to Nikola Tesla's files while you're there. - chiaroscuro

Judge releases man jailed after refusing to remove fez
An Austell man who refused to remove his fez in court was released Thursday after two days in jail.
Richard Morris Haines Bey was released by Douglas County Superior Court Judge Donald Howe after the American Civil Liberties Union lodged a challenge.
Bey, a member of the Moorish Science Temple, had been in court Tuesday for a child support hearing. Howe told him to remove the fez for security reasons. Bey declined on religious grounds. Ordered by Howe to leave court, Bey was subsequently jailed for failing to appear when his case was called, according to his lawyer. Invisible College

Laser Propelled Light Craft
The futuristic idea of a small laser-propelled spacecraft is being studied at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC).
The laser on the ground fires up under the specially shaped craft. The focused infrared laser beam is absorbed by the air inside the engine, creating a laser supported detonation. The high pressure, high temerature plasma created by the laser absorption cools and expands out the rear of the vehicle producing the thrust which propels the lightcraft into the sky.

Geography Professor Conducts GPR Investigation At Historic Village in Southern France
The investigative work of a faculty-student research team from the geography and anthropology department at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire may help unravel some of the mysteries linked to Rennes-le-Chateau, a small town in southern France.
Harry Jol, professor of geography, and Ryan DeChaine, a senior geography major, recently collaborated with Robert Eisenman from California State University, Long Beach, to do a ground penetrating radar investigation at two sites within the ancient French town.
The town is linked with many traditions and mysteries associated with the Templar movement and its treasure, including, according to some documents, the possible location of the Holy Grail, Jol said.

Milk protest turns sour
POLICE had to break up an animal rights protest yesterday when schoolchildren in Aberdeen pelted activists with cartons of milk.
About 100 children, shouting "milk for the masses" and carrying banners, surrounded Mr Gifford and his "cow" partner and drenched them both in milk for about ten minutes. The police eventually intervened and escorted the PETA members back to their car. Via the Null Device.

The Sims on Steriods?
Will an artificial universe let us watch evolution as it happens, asks Joe Flower? Or will it mutate into the monster that ate the Internet?
EVOLUTION IS A WONDERFUL THEORY, but so far we only have one example of it-carbon-based life forms on the third planet out from the Sun. But what if we could build another example? What if we could build a huge, empty ecosystem-let's call it Tierra-into which we then introduce creatures that could replicate themselves, compete for resources, mutate to make new forms, and travel to find niches that might be better? And what if they evolved quickly, not in aeons and epochs, but in hours, days and months, so that we could watch?
Such a universe could show us evolution in action. We could run experiments by introducing new species, or new environments, or by varying the rate of mutation. We could look at evolution as it happens-not backwards through time, as we are forced do in the real biological world. We might also find that the pattern of evolution observed in the organic world is only one of a multitude of possibilities.

Brain-On-A-Chip Technology Devised to Test Drugs (dip to follow)
An American biotechnology company has developed a way of keeping brain tissue alive for weeks, which will allow scientists to test new drugs for a range of psychiatric diseases including Alzheimer's and schizophrenia.
Using brain cells from rats and mice, scientists at Tensor Biosciences of Irvine, California have devised brain-on-a-chip technology that could speed up the development of new treatments.
"We are building stripped-down mini-brains, if you will, directly on a chip," a spokesman for the company told New Scientist magazine Wednesday.

Scientists Confirm Massive Black Hole in Milky Way
Scientists said Wednesday they have discovered at the center of our galaxy a huge black hole, a mysterious celestial object that sucks in everything around it including light.
By observing the orbit of a star around the invisible gravitational field, an international team of scientists has eliminated other possibilities of explaining the phenomenon. "It is a great step forward," Dr. Reinhard Genzel, of the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics near Munich who led the team, told Reuters Wednesday.

Plane-sized bird spotted in Alaska
A bird the size of a small airplane was recently spotted flying over southwest Alaska, puzzling scientists, the Anchorage Daily News has reported.
The newspaper quoted residents in the villages of Togiak and Manokotak as saying the creature, like something out of the movie "Jurassic Park," had a wingspan of 14 feet (4.6 metres) -- making it the size of a small airplane.
"At first I thought it was one of those old-time Otter planes," the paper quoted Moses Coupchiak, 43, a heavy equipment operator from Togiak, as saying. "Instead of continuing toward me, it banked to the left, and that's when I noticed it wasn't a plane."

Ship of Fools
A short film, based on the short story by Theodore Kaczynski. The Ship of Fools is headed north and bound to crash, but no one but the Cabin Boy seems to care! In this political satire, filmmaker Danny Ledonne takes us on a comedic - and socially urgent - cartoon voyage. Via Post-Atomic

William S. Burroughs on Electronic Mind Control : Black Magic Mind War
Now anyone who has lived for any time in countries like Morocco where magic is widely practiced has probably seen a curse work. I have. However, the curses tend to be hit or miss, depending on the skill and power of the operator and the susceptibility of the victim. And that isn't good enough for the CIA or similar organization: "Bring us the ones that work not sometimes but every time." So what is the logical step forward? TO DEVISE MACHINES THAT CAN CONCENTRATE AND DIRECT PSYCHIC FORCE WITH PREDICTABLE EFFECTS. (See the chapter in the Iron Curtain book on PSYCHIC GENERATORS.) I suggest that what the CIA is or was working on at the top secret Nevada installation may be described as COMPUTERIZED black magic. If curse A doesn't make it, Curse Program B automatically goes into operation and so on.

NewZoid Headlines
"It is often best to introduce a great truth in the form of an amusement." - Professor Daniel D. Young
NewZoid is based on the quantum discoveries of Professor Daniel Young, formerly of the Institute For Extremely Advanced Studies. It is maintained by his friends and supporters. Prof. Young has been a self-styled "fugitive" since 1988, determined to keep his parallel-world breakthroughs away from governments and corporations. He is allowing this limited use by NewZoid in the hope that, over time*, it will help increase wisdom in this world. A body of scholarly and popular work, centered on NewZoid, has begun to develop and updated excerpts are available on this page. * Prof. Young's estimate is a thousand years.

Reality's Hidden 'Minority Report' The Political Gnosis of Philip K. Dick
It seems hard to imagine that it has been nearly twenty years since Bladerunner was released. That riveting and influential film was the first movie to be inspired by the writings of science-fiction author, Philip K. Dick. Other films, of varying success, have followed, including Total Recall and Screamers, but the until now the most Dickian movies have been those that copped his dystopian and paranoid sensibility without directly basing themselves on one of his books or short stories. The Truman Show, They Live!, Pleasantville, and most notably, The Matrix, were all Dick films at heart, despite his absence from their credits. - Jay Kinney

CIA mind-control trials revealed as secret inspiration behind 'A Clockwork Orange'
Anthony Burgess was inspired to write his most famous novel A Clockwork Orange by his real-life involvement in CIA-run mind-control experiments, a new biography claims.
The revelations, published next month, come as the controversial film version gets its first mainstream British television screening.
The new biography claims A Clockwork Orange's central theme – the use of brainwashing to quell evil impulses in the criminal mind – arose from Burgess's involvement with the British secret service and the CIA experiments. Via Post-Atomic

TimeHunt
Intriguing little "game". Requires Flash. Via Metafilter.

Illegal Art
Wonderful collection of anti-corporate détournement.

Military spyplanes to help hunt for US sniper
Efforts to capture the Washington-area sniper who has killed nine and injured two are to be boosted by the deployment of military surveillance planes.
The Pentagon has agreed to provide a "handful" of RC-7 Airborne Reconnaissance Low (ARL) planes. The craft are heavily modified versions of the civilian DHC-7 fixed wing aircraft, designed to blend in with regular air traffic.
They are fitted with a host of military sensor technologies, including infrared imaging systems and radar used to track moving targets. Information gathered by the crew can be shared immediately with agents on the ground.
The ARL planes are conventionally used to support troops. The Pentagon also uses them to monitor narcotic trafficking in Colombia and military movements in Korea.

Bookforum: Umberto Eco
"Imagine a United States where Bush owns the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, NBC, CBS, ABC, plus Hollywood, too. Wouldn't this monopolistic concentration concern American citizens? You're upset by the mere fact that Bill Gates runs Windows and Internet Explorer. Well, that's our situation.

Hacktivist or cyberterrorist?
In the new First Monday, Sandor Vegh argues that post-9-11 official discourse is driving a still more negative view of hackers. Politically motivated hackers, cyber-interested hackers, or hacktivists, appear increasingly as terrorists.

Sniper theories run gamut
The baffling paucity of answers in the Washington-area sniper case has fueled wide-ranging speculation that the killer may be taking cues from popular culture.
Serial killer flicks. Violent video games. The Tarot deck's "Death" card.
In the absence of a motive, each can become a focus for conjecture as the public tries to understand the apparently random shootings in the suburbs surrounding the capital.

The Dead Grandmother/Exam Syndrome and the Potential Downfall Of American Society.
The basic problem can be stated very simply: A student's grandmother is far more likely to die suddenly just before the student takes an exam, than at any other time of year. While this idea has long been a matter of conjecture or merely a part of the folklore of college teaching, I can now confirm that the phenomenon is real. For over twenty years I have collected data on this supposed relationship, and have not only confirmed what most faculty had suspected, but also found some additional aspects of this process that are of potential importance to the future of the country. The results presented in this report provide a chilling picture and should waken the profession and the general public to a serious health and sociological problem before it is too late.

Alien Dave, Deprograming Information
"There is a System in place, If you let It, It will think for you, making you part of the system, Having No Truth, Programed, Controled, and WITH -OUT Free Will." - Alien Dave Who are we to say he's wrong? Via Post Atomic

MEMEFEEDER!
After 6 weeks of production, the MemeFeeder collaborative proudly presents MemeFeeder - the first online, multi-directed film. MemeFeeder is all about furthering the Net as a place for collaboration, and personal and creative expression. It is also about doing something that'd never been done; multi-directing an online short film. Watch the original or view a random combination of scenes.

Debate Continues Over Ancient Skull
An ancient skull whose recent discovery was thought to have pushed back the dawn of man was not from a human ancestor after all, but from a gorilla or another ape species, some anthropologists say.
The rebuttal, published in Thursday's issue of the journal nature, is the latest round in a scientific feud over the origins of humankind in Africa.
The so-called Toumai skull, whose discovery was announced in July, was unearthed last year in the African desert nation of Chad. Some described it as the most startling fossil find in decades. The remarkably intact specimen has a thick brow and flat face, and is believed to be between 6 million and 7 million years old.

Nasdaq Down, Psychic Readings Up
Aeion pulled a card from his tarot card deck. "The Four of Swords -- it's shown itself again," he said with a sigh. "I feel like there's a two-month period you're waiting for."
The beneficiary of Aeion's tarot reading, Jennifer, had indeed just landed a temporary two-month job as an office manager in San Francisco, to tide her over until graduate school in the fall.
Aeion may have made a lucky guess, but more and more people are beginning to believe otherwise. In the lackluster economy of San Francisco, psychics are busier than ever.

The Shape of Bots to Come
Four decades ago, TV viewers foresaw a 21st century served by domestic robots like The Jetsons' housekeeper, Rosie. Just a couple of generations later, children watched the cartoon, Transformers, which had robots that could unite and reconstruct to form powerful machines.
Today's robots are closer to Jetsons-like reality, with bots that can vacuum (registration required), mow lawns and appear to serve drinks.

Cat-in-the-box
Are you fed up with absurd notions of quantum weirdness? Don't worry, you're in good company, says Ivan Semeniuk
THE Universe is full of things that are difficult to locate: car keys, umbrellas, matching socks. Some eventually turn up unaided, others have a way of resisting even the most determined search. But everything we lose track of in everyday life is united by one solid physical fact: wherever it is, it can only be in one place at a time.
Until you bring quantum mechanics into the picture, that is. Weird as it seems, your car keys could be hiding in your coat pocket and under a pile of newspapers at the same time, while not fully existing in either place. It may run counter to intuition, but that's what standard quantum theory says. And because the theory does such a good job of describing how the Universe's most fundamental building blocks behave, most physicists feel they have no choice but to go along with it.

Ghosts put N.J. town in high spirits
A woman known only as Emily doesn't have a room at the Flanders Hotel in Ocean City. But workers say she spends a lot of time on the premises anyway.
When confronted, she runs away and disappears into a dark hallway. Later, children of guests say they see the nice lady in another hallway and she tells them secrets.
No one has ever asked Emily to leave. That's because Emily, people in this town say, is a ghost, one of many who make this summer resort town their home.

Michael Jackson's Former Brother-In-Law Lists Family Oddities
LaToya Jackson's former husband, Jack Gordon, claims Michael Jackson and other Jackson family members sacrificed a live monkey in a bizarre ritual. Gordon also states he frequently witnessed Michael punching his pet chimpanzee, Bubbles, in the face and in the stomach.

Embalmed tramp found in artist's studio
An artist kept the preserved body of a tramp at his studio for nearly 20 years, The Times has reported.
The embalmed body of Edwin McKenzie was discovered in the workshop of his former close friend Plymouth artist Robert Lenkiewicz who himself died this summer. McKenzie had been preserved and hidden in 1984.