[Home]

2016
Year of the Monkey
Islamic calendar 1436-37


30th Summer Olympics in Baghdad
Mass of universe is still expanding, despite theoretical evidence
Mean world temperature increased by 2.0oC since 1990
20% of Antarctic and Arctic ice melted
Grain shortages widespread, prices climb steeply

CLASSIFIED: The Gene Bomb
First Desert Sunsailor World Championship goes to Chinese veteran
DigiValet - a revolutionary multivision add-on that learns all your desires. Pack your bags, Jeeves! DigiValet is here!
Telecommuting and virtual entertainment reducing Westerners' physical condition to alarming levels
Virtual tennis keeps you fit and virile
Nobel Prize goes to Japanese-Indian para-antibiotics pairing

Memo from NATO SOC/GENCOM/rtp *CLASSIFIED*2016/4/14

*CLASSIFIED: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY*

Gen. Ruggles T. Pynchon III, DSACEUR (GENCOM)
Brussels, 14.4.2016

To: Senior Operative Staff Officers (> Security Level 4) in Secondary Member States

The Gene Bomb

Negotiations on the global ban on GSM (Genetic Structural Manipulation) warheads do not appear to be bearing fruit. Thus far these devices have been deployed only among divisions belonging to NATO primary members, but given the current unsettled international climate, the NATO Defense Planning Committee has resolved that they should be distributed to other reliable units within the Organization. Field training is to be implemented immediately.

Background

Development on gene-modifying warheads began simultaneously in the years from 2001-2004 in a few countries, but current estimates suggest that the technology has spread to almost all the 52 independent states. There are many types of gene bomb, each with its own specific target and purpose. The aim of the weapon in general terms is to implant in the enemy forces and/or population a DNA fraction causing alterations in the genetic code that - by rendering the subject prone to disease or hindering brain functions - either destroys the affected population or makes it rapidly incapable of resistance.

A broad range of DNA strand variants have been developed to serve different genetic manipulation ends. The treated strands are planted typically in the kinds of airborne bacteria that easily inhabit the human body, and once settled, they reproduce in the carrier the new DNA variant. The bacteria are spread throughout the population in the target area by means of a bomb or artillery shell, often by low-altitude airburst. The faulty DNA replicates itself onto each surrounding cell, and in the latest laboratory tests on battlefield tactical gene weapons, the genetic code can be broken and a new manipulated genome built in the space of as little as 7 to 8 days.

NATO Response and Preparedness

Following instructions from the Central Secretariat, NATO GENCOM has ordered that the units listed in the attached document (Appendix I: Classified to personnel of Level 4 and above only) be supplied at this stage only with such warheads that will affect the genotype(s) of their immediate neighbouring states. Since the effect of the manipulated DNA fraction is the more limited the more an individual differs from the genotype of the surrounding target population, NATO has divided the globe into demographic groupings differing from each other on ethnic grounds. Certain racial characteristics are the most prominent distinguishing features of these groups. The main categories of the gene warhead variations have therefore been drawn up along racial lines. The effects are the same, regardless of the geographical location of the target subjects. For this reason it is naturally crucial that those units with responsibility for delivery of the weapon in time of war or insurrection be racially and ethnically pure.

Since other states have similar weaponry, in addition to field training in the delivery of the bomb it will be necessary to instigate defensive training exercises (see further below, Appendix 3) to ensure that enemy-launched bacteria and manipulated DNA does not affect our own troops. It is of paramount importance that selected units be trained in the use of ultrasonic field protective gear, as tests have shown that ultrasound at suitable frequencies can kill airborne bacteria. Within the next month, all line troops will be equipped with personal ultrasound protective shields.

An alternative invasive pathway that must be blocked is the water supply. Certain bacterial strains can also be spread via the mains water supply. For this reason, ALL drinking water must be boiled under Code Yellow conditions, both in the field and at military establishments.

Information and disinformation

Claims have been made in the media that the United States and the EU are planning to spread manipulated genes among certain racial groups and minorities in order to alter their brain function, thus rendering these individuals suitable for medical testing and as a source of cheap labour.

It is necessary to release bulletins immediately to quash these rumours. The President of the United States and the President of the European Union have issued a joint statement deploring the idea of such actions as inhumane. The Central Secretariat will be despatching publicity material on this question to all relevant units in the next few days.

Appendices

1. Standby Alert (Orders of the Day)
2. Training Manual for Gene Warhead Deployment
3. Training Manual for Ultrasound Protective Shields
4. Instructions to staff officers on the selection and formation of GW units
5. Breakdown of World Population by Ethnic Groupings
6. Likely genetic mutations in various ethnic groups (GENCOM laboratory projections, 2015)

CompumediaSport 29.4.2016

First Desert Sunsailor World Championship goes to Chinese veteran

Chiang Chiu, 32, has won the gold medal in the distance event at the 1st Desert Sunsailor World Championships. She is so far the only competitor to have crossed the finishing line.

The venue for the event, the Namib Desert in Namibia, has long been a favourite among sunsailor enthusiasts. The 1000-kilometre course in the distance event crossed the desert from north to south along Namibia's Atlantic coastline. Chiang Chiu's time of 16:51.08 sliced 14 minutes and 6 seconds off the old record, set in an invitation event last year.

A delighted Chiang attributed her stunning victory to the improved cut of her cart's solar sail: "The solar panel jib is of a completely new design. It was developed jointly by the Chinese Energy Institute and a Hungarian company, SemiLab. In the first place it is a great deal thinner and lighter than earlier sails, and it can store 46.6% of the available solar energy, which gives us a 4% edge on earlier solar rigging."

Some idea of the great strides taken in solar panel technology can be gained from the fact that Chiang's panel is more than twice as efficient as the panels developed by Semilab in the late 1990s for satellite applications.

Another unique feature of the winning cart's sail is an automatic solar rudder, which keeps the panels pointing at an optimal angle, regardless of the direction of travel or time of day. In this way it is possible to squeeze the maximum use out of the very last rays of a setting sun, and it also minimizes temporary cut-outs, for example during undulating sand-dune sections of the Namib course. The use of lightweight materials in the cart's chassis and cockpit has meant that it was possible to keep the overall weight of the craft down, even with the additional ballast of the solar rudder.

For all the technological improvements, however, it must be said that a lot of the credit for Chiang's win is due to her immense sunsailing experience and her skill in overcoming the difficulties of the desert track.

Kuo Mei puts maternal instincts before title

Kuo Mei, the winner of the unofficial world championships held two years ago, was not in Walvis Bay to try for the title this time. She is three months into a virtual pregnancy. Although today's top athletes can no longer conceive and bear children as a result of their genetic recoding, their instincts and desires are still intact. Successful female athletes in China and India in particular are thus permitted - and even encouraged in some case - to use hospital units where they can undergo pregnancy and delivery virtually. Kuo Mei will almost certainly be back at the helm of her sunsailor next year, by which time her virtual offspring will have reached the age of ten, and will no longer require round-the-clock attention.

As with most of the competitors, both Kuo Mei and Chiang Chiu started their desert sunsailing on the water, where solar regattas have been popular for more than a decade. The very first solar yachts emerged a few years after a group of Australian schoolkids built the world's first totally solar-powered riverboat in the late 1990s.

Sony Direct Sales 3.12.2016

DigiValet
- a revolutionary multivision add-on that learns all your desires

"Pack your bags, Jeeves! DigiValet is here!"

Dear Sony Multivisionist,

We'd like to thank you for the wonderful reception you have given to our flagship product, the Sony Multivision IV. Customers all over the world have been delighted with its new properties and ease of use. However, nothing is perfect, and we have had requests for one or two additional features. This is why we at Sony have been granting those wishes with new Multivision IV add-ons every month. Don't forget, the new features are available for and 100% compatible with YOUR MV4, too.

Our latest pride and joy is DigiValet, a plug-in memory module that observes exactly what makes YOU tick, and learns all of your personal wishes and desires. We believe that DigiValet is going to revolutionize the way people use their Multivision. Imagine how easy it would be to go into a virtual retail warehouse when DigiValet is leading the way and selecting only those things that interest You, and weeding out those that do not.

DigiValet is also your own personal butler. It goes shopping for you, and you can trust that it will never buy anything that doesn't please you. You can also offer the services of your DigiValet to your friends, for example if they want to buy you something for a special occasion. You can even insert your DigiValet preferences chart on your SatWeb or NetWeb sites, for ease of access. DigiValet takes the learning and mental agility skills of NetFin to a quite new plane, adding the all-important psychological dimension. Where NetFin was a cuddly pet and family member, DigiValet KNOWS you - perhaps better even than you know yourself!

Training your DigiValet is so simple, too! It collects data constantly on your preferences and wishes, and you don't need to do a thing. DigiValet never sleeps; it learns what lights you up and turns you off as you watch movies, take part in experiventures, use the vidiphone, or do your virtual shopping. Just like Jeeves at his best, only at a fraction of the cost!

The longer you have your DigiValet, the more useful it becomes. DigiValet is able to screen out from the torrent of network data only those items that interest You. And of course, DigiValet is a vital aid for DetectaDate wearers*. Your contacts will match your desires even more closely, even those unspoken, subsconscious fantasies...

Employ DigiValet today! It's an investment that will make you wonder how you ever managed without it. DigiValet costs a mere EUR 998, including carriage. It will be delivered to you within 24 hours by courier. You can leave your order on our SatWeb pages, where you will also find a more detailed list of specifications, and countless hints for how to optimise your DigiValet experience.

*Please note: compatible only with DetectaDate versions 3.5 or later.

Medimedia 6.12.2016

Telecommuting and virtual entertainment reducing Westerners' physical condition to alarming levels

Teleworking, virtutainment, and other lifestyle factors reducing natural exercise have already seriously affected the physical health of Westerners, according to a WHO study.

The 400-screen WHO report finds that the physical performance of women over the age of 35 in Western countries has declined by some 10% in the last five years, and in men the fall is still greater, at nearly 14%.

Although on the surface these figures do not seem unduly alarming, the WHO considers the change to be a dramatic and worrying one. Whilst experts have long predicted a worsening in our overall physical condition, it has happened a lot more quickly than forecast.

The reason for the acceleration is the almost all-encompassing change in lifestyles that has swept over men and women in the developed world, and affects us both in our work and leisure activities. More and more people today are working from home, sitting or reclining in multimedia chairs. An ever increasing amount of our daily movement from place to place occurs on escalators or moving walkways, and not by actual walking. The old traditional leisuretime hobbies such as jogging, soccer or golf have been replaced in many cases by sedentary virtual experiences.

The worsening state of our bodies is already shown up in illness and disability statistics, from where it will soon spill over into the national economies. The conclusions of the WHO report stress it is essential for governments and international organizations to address the problem over the next decade, making improvements in physical condition one of the key priorities for the 2020s.

VirtualSport - sales brochure 9.12.2016

Virtual tennis keeps you fit and virile

Finding it hard to keep up?
Puffed out on stairs?
Gone off sex, have you?

Sound familiar? You're in bad shape -
and the WHO says you are not alone!

Fortunately, there's now a simple answer: Virtual Tennis.

Many of us reach for our mute-button when we hear the words "working out" or "physical exercise". It brings back unhappy memories of stress, aches and pains in places where you didn't know you even had places, the rank smell of sweaty bodies, unhygienic dressing rooms with wet floors, and expensive monthly payments for the pleasure. But there ARE pleasant ways of taking exercise and keeping fit. One of the nicest is tennis. The only problem today is cost: with the amount of space required for each user of a court, it's beyond the reach of all but the very rich.

But now VirtualSport offers you the chance to enjoy this age-old game easily and at a price your pocket will like. VirtualSport has just completed building a virtual tennis-hall network. Playing virtual tennis is less expensive and even more fun than conventional tennis.

Consider the advantages: a virtual tennis court is only slightly larger than half the size of a conventional lawn tennis court. In fact the only "real" component is Your side of the net. Across the net is your virtual opponent, who can be programmed to play at any level you choose - left-handed or right-handed, big-serving, a touch player, double-handed backhands, you name it. If you don't feel in the mood for a five-setter, you can simply programme your opponent to hit you just the sort of returns you need to work on - those tricky left-court service returns, topspin passing shots, baseline lobs, or sneaky drop-shots, for example - and the balls will never run out.

The real secret of virtual tennis lies in the "ball" developed by VirtualSport's hologram engineers. The ball is a moving hologram that you cannot tell from the real thing. When you play a shot, you get a realistic feel of the ball on the racquet through the infrasound technology we have incorporated into the system. The ball flies over the net (always assuming you hit it sweetly!) and is returned by your opponent in just the way you have programmed him or her to play.

Prices for virtual tennis sessions are only half those for normal tennis halls, and your opponent is an ideal match for you - the sort of player you have always wanted to face. And better still, as your game improves, so you can programme yourself a worthy challenge for your new skills.

It's never to late to start playing tennis, and now it's never been easier to learn. You can come to the game as a complete beginner, and your virtual opponent will be a perfect teacher - never losing patience, always ready to help you along. And just watch how your condition improves!

You can find the address of your nearest virtual tennis hall from our SportWeb site, along with a list of our tariffs. We'll even offer you a quality racquet that is yours to keep after 20 sessions on court.

Come and play with us - and keep yourself in shape for tomorrow!

NetWeb 12.12.2016

Nobel Prize goes to Japanese-Indian para-antibiotics pairing

Sweden's Queen Victoria yesterday awarded the year's Nobel Prize for Medicine in Stockholm. The honour went jointly to the Indian Nakamura Eto and Indian Sinh Araya for their work in developing para-antibiotics.

Professor Eto has succeeded in developing synthetic para-antibiotics from materials found naturally in human and animal skin, and which kill bacteria and in certain cases even viruses. He has also developed para-antibiotics from the various parts of the so-called "wonder tree", the Neem, as used for its pesticidal, germicidal and medicinal properties by millions in folk healing in Southern Asia.

Eto began his work towards the end of the last century in a research team which succeeded in isolating the para-antibiotic component of human skin. His work thereafter has allowed for the routine treatment of such former killers as bacterial meningitis and tuberculosis. Both these diseases were in danger of becoming endemic as bacterial strains developed resistance to earlier antibiotic cures.

Dr. Araya has for her part developed para-antibiotics while investigating the resistance to viruses and single-strand viroids of certain plant bacteria and the Neem tree. Her breakthroughs made it possible to isolate from the bacteria surface the substance that prevented viruses and viroids from recognizing and penetrating the bacteria. Today the production of many plants and genetically-manipulated animal species has been greatly improved by the para-antibiotics discovered by Dr. Araya. Some of the para-antibiotics are also suitable for the prevention of diseases that are transmitted to man by animals.

Many scientists believe that these medicines provide the answer to the threat of the Ebola virus, although a serum against the disease itself was developed already some 20 years ago. The epidemics caused by viruses in this group nevertheless break out so suddenly and spread so rapidly that in many cases inoculation is too slow a response. Para-antibiotics or infinite-spectrum antibiotics are in many respects akin to conventional antibiotics used against specific disease-causing agents, but differ in the sense that antibiotics are alien to the area to be protected - for example the moulds of the Penicillium genus used in the very first antibiotics do not occur in the human body - whilst para-antibiotics can be found naturally in humans, plants, or animals. Since they are already present in the organism, their use does not stimulate the same kind of resistance in pathogens as has been found with sustained use of antibiotics, and also even massive dosages do not produce clinical side-effects or complications.

The Nobel Prize for Medicine carries with it a cash award of EUR 800,000 divided between the recipients.