In the old days there was no paper money. The accepted token of exchange was precious metal minted into coins by the Church and the Crown. Because there was only a limited amount of gold and silver available, the economic life of the nation had a certain regularity.
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Speaking of money, I came across this today. Apparently there is a concern that Canada is inserting transmitters into coins to track defence department employees in the U.S. As one commentator said, this makes no sense. Unfortunately that is par for the course.
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I'm not a lover of Fox News, but II don't think they're blaming Canada. They said in the article that the top suspects might be China, Russia or even France, and that all of them run espionage operations inside Canada.
I know such a thing can be accomplished because my engineer husband used to design such gizmos many, many years ago and the technology has certainly gotten better over the years.
Lucille
"Lucille" ,in rec.crafts.textiles.needleworkwrote: and entertained us with
I didn't mean Fox this time round - up here we often have reports or see clips on Fox that are ludicrous, just like this one. I personally do not have Fox (I only have basic cable) but I have been amazed at times.
Pat
It's a plethora of bizarre and not so reliable news all over. Around here, in the DC area, we're inundated. Between the networks, and their cable spin-offs, and some of the extreme people with "news shows" or just platforms to air their opinions.
The media - well - good reminders are to watch Broadcast News occasionally - and Network. News shows, journalism - not so much anymore - it's about the ratings and as long as they don't strictly slander someone - what the heck.
Unfortunately most of us tend to believe things we hear from some media source - regardless of agreeing/disagreeing - and the sense of responsibility that most of those organizations used to have is gone - or displaced by the money quest. Just my opinion, but. And, that goes for NPR as well - though they're better - but still have their own political bias in what they present or how it's presented. It's kind of like I feel as if MIB
- the movie - had it right - we should read some terrible tabloid for the "real news" - to balance the "responsible" sources, and find truth somewhere in the middle.
ellice
Things like this - perhaps not this extreme - aren't totally new. Years ago when I was travelling a lot for work - there was a big scandal with Air France. Bugging their airplanes that flew from here to Europe. Verified. And forget being on official business and staying in hotels - your rooms were regularly searched. Yup. In the 90s. Had to keep all the work stuff locked up, in a case, with you - not left in the hotel - even trivial stuff (not talking about classified national security documents). But the plane thing was a big deal - some kind of equipment had been found in passenger areas such that using the airphones, or even talking about work with a seat neighbor was being picked up.
Stupid.
ellice
There was a big to do when it was "reported" that an other defense contractor had people hanging out at the local watering hole while I was at Raytheon. Supposedly this group (mostly females) were looking for the unhappy engineers for insight into certain processes. Made me glad I didn't drink and drive....
C
LO - Around here there are always briefings about such stuff. The niceish restaurant/bar closest to the lab I worked at was evidently a big place to be wary of. It's in a little burb, not a high end burb, and during the 80s was quite the locale for the attempts to recruit or gain info by members of other intlligence services. You just never know.
ellice
I ever tell you about the reaction an ex-BF had to me being recruited by the CIA. Talk about furious and negative.... Some days, I still regret passing that opportunity up...Then again, I still regret the time I spent with him...
'Planes have been bugged for zonks, mostly for hearing what everyone is trying to 'smuggle' in, but still, they hear other things too. It is (I am told) amazing what strangers will tell each other.
We had a strange case in Canada of the MP who didn't keep his mouth shut on a 'plane and someone from the media, unbeknownst to him, was sitting directly behind. Cost him his job, as it should, the MP, not the journalist.
The following is part of the news release; It should be clarified that it's not necessarily Canada that is using the coins, but we don't know who it is.
The U.S. report doesn't suggest who might be tracking American defense contractors or why. It also doesn't describe how the Pentagon discovered the ruse, how the transmitters might function or even which Canadian currency contained them.
Further details were secret, according to the U.S. Defense Security Service, which issued the warning to the Pentagon's classified contractors. The government insists the incidents happened, and the risk was genuine.
"What's in the report is true," said Martha Deutscher, a spokeswoman for the security service. "This is indeed a sanitized version, which leaves a lot of questions."
Top suspects, according to outside experts: China, Russia or even France - all said to actively run espionage operations inside Canada with enough sophistication to produce such technology.
Oh yes - I've gotten my ear chewed by some real characters.
Don't regret it - really. It's not all that nice - or like the thrillers. And, it's really expensive to live around here ;^)
ellice
But saying yes would have spared me all sorts of pain later!
COn 1/12/07 2:36 PM, "lucretia borgia" wrote:
Yup. People do silly things. Around a place like DC - it is always wise to be a bit careful of what you say - you never know who is there, and what they do for work.
Some stupid, overwrough Buffalo fan at a hockey game a month back was our example. His girlfriend - a very not nice girl - really opened her mouth insulting people. He was upset they were losing, and made some wiseass remark to our friend sitting behind me. Said friend, and her SO are college sweeties, and both went to law school at Syracuse. He is from upstate NY - above Buffalo - right on the border. Betweem the 4 friends in Row B, us, and our other friends in Row D, plus the casual friends in-between the Row B lawyers and the frustrated Buffalonian in Row D - there are about 4 pr 5 lawyers, a few engineers - and at least 3 people working directly for the gov, with a couple of contractors - especially a few of us with DoD connex, and one couple's son an officer in Afghanistan right now. So, this silly guy starts making stupid comments about CAPS fans, and not knowing hockey. We start making jokes about Buffalo - which pisses him off - we're just - look, we're in the game, winning for the moment - we don't really care about the play-offs right now. He starts in on us - so we continue with more Buffalo quips- as several of us are quite familiar with the area. Then the girlfriend calls us bitches, etc - so we retort wondering how long it will take them to drive their house home....Next thing - the guy says "I serve our country but people like you won't even care..." For gosh sakes - you're in DC - what does the hockey team you root for have to do with your political beliefs. So, female lawyer - says, "yup - we're heartless" he makes some crack about terrorists - to which the SO says "yup, if you don't root for Buffalo you must be with the terrorists" , and then finally I just looked around and said - okay - guess we'll all have to give up our jobs and clearances 'cause we don't root for Buffalo. DH was half a beat from asking this guy where his duty station is - cause one more remark and there would've been repercussions. Then the girlfriend actually kept up the traah talk - holding onto her beer evidently to toss at us - but an usher came over at the end of the game and they gave up. Point being - one of our Marine Corps Col friends was supposed to be sitting with us - and believe me
- he wouldn't have tolerated it. The Buffalo guy we guessed hadn't been here long and it just hadn't dawned on him that he was over the bounds, and had no idea who worked where, etc. All kinds of things can get you in trouble.
ellice
Certain people seem to "attract" confidences from strangers. I have a friend that, last time a bunch of us got together and we all had to fly to our meeting place, was telling us about the person on the plane that gave her waaaay too much information. Another friend in the group was sleeping in an old T-shirt that said, "Do I LOOK like a people person?" and we joked that she should relinquish it to friend #1.
sue
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