On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 9:44 PM, Razer wrote:

Ps. I wouldn't suppose a single one of you has ever actually read one of Fleming's books.

Hey, grumpy boy! I read them when I was a kid and I can prove it. The books are still in my parents' house and I think they have a pic of me with their books. My parents do love 007 and I grew up listening to all the soundtracks and watching all the movies with them. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut, a scientist, a painter, a builder, a teacher, a doctor, and the future spy 009. I wanted all the James Bond's weapons, amazing equipments, and fabulous cars, so I decided to study to be like him and read some Fleming's books. I didn't understand very much about the books (cof cof, almost nothing, cof cof!), but noticed they were _not_ good manuals to a future 6 or 7 years old spy. :P I wanted to be the number 009 because of the 'manga' (Japanese comics): "Cyborg 009" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_009). It's was much older than me and I read only some chapters in my now deceased uncle's house, but it revolted me a lot. It was desperately sad to imagine an organization destroying lives, killing people in search of the perfect cyborg. Eight people hurt, eight lives destroyed in experiences to gain powers and abilities, knew only for numbers, not anymore for their names, with no freedom, only orders... but the Cyborg 009 was perfect, so the organization could use him to be the perfect killer. Fortunately, he kept his moral conscience and run away, trying to escape this destiny. Hmm... I need to discover what happened with all those poor cyborgs, their adventures, memories, and traumas. And I need to read Fleming again, now as an adult. Fortunately, now I understand why the girls like James Bond so much... Charming guys are pretty dangerous! :P

On 05/24/2017 07:33 PM, Cecilia Tanaka wrote:

I wanted all the James Bond's weapons, amazing equipments, and fabulous cars,

None of them existed in Fleming's books. Thanks for making my point. Rr

On 05/25/2017 10:29 AM, Steve Kinney wrote:

On 05/25/2017 10:30 AM, Razer wrote:

...

On 05/24/2017 07:33 PM, Cecilia Tanaka wrote:

...

I wanted all the James Bond's weapons, amazing equipments, and fabulous cars, None of them existed in Fleming's books. Thanks for making my point.

On screen, John Drake, played by Patrick McGoohan, was the guy:

"Secret Agent" was good. As realistic as TV was ever going to be about the topic Then McGoohan turned on them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5dNzBx7kgg&index=1&list=PLVALKNg_kP1dYVyBvy71PKRlugiaqGmW1 Rr

His doings were much more realistic than Bond's, with assignments including counter-espionage, political interventions in post-colonial nations, and some missions bordering on international law enforcement. He battled no super-villains, seduced no glamorous women, and always preferred strategic deception to ultra-violence: "I never carry a gun. They're noisy and they hurt people. Besides, I do very well without."

The fanciest gadgets Drake had were micro-miniature tap recorders and cameras, and variously camouflaged dart guns for delivering microphones to hard to reach locations.

Danger Man producer Ralph Smart and the writing staff did their homework and kept the stories as realistic as a 1960 action/adventure TV show could be. So did Patrick McGoohan, who turned down the role of James Bond when approached by Eon Productions. That was Sean Connery's big break.

During the production of Danger Man (released as Secret Agent in the U.S.), McGoohan demanded and got significant creative control, insisting on the "no gun" thing, the "no sex" thing, and that fight scenes be (relatively) realistic and "always different."

Today the John Drake is better known as Number Six. For licensing reasons, McGoohan & co. insisted that the prisoner in The Prisoner was not Drake. But in the series finale, Number Two calls him John - just once, and it's easy to miss.

There's a moral to the Danger Man / Prisoner story: Study espionage long enough and you will conclude that there is nothing admirable or romantic about it: It's a thoroughly vicious trade that eats its own best people alive. At least that's my take-away from the Danger Man / Prisoner story arc. McGoohan isn't around to ask, and probably wouldn't give a straight answer if he was. He was always very forthcoming about technical aspects of the production, fun and games with cast members, etc., but pointedly evaded the question of what The Prisoner was all about.

"Questions are a burden to others, answers a prison for oneself."

:o)

On 05/25/2017 08:29 PM, Cecilia Tanaka wrote:

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 11:30 AM, Razer wrote:

...

On 05/24/2017 07:33 PM, Cecilia Tanaka wrote:

...

I wanted all the James Bond's weapons, amazing equipments, and fabulous cars,

None of them existed in Fleming's books. Thanks for making my point.

Razer, did you notice the fact that I read the books when I had less than half of the age of your youngest son? And I admitted I only read some of them because I thought they were good guides to get 007's weapons and fabulous equipment, all those amazing stuff. I wanted to know how to be a spy... :P

But alas, all Fleming pointed us toward was the Walther PPK, favored sidearm of the Gestapo. Then you studied law, thereby acquiring a far more powerful secret weapon than any of the movie props. :o)

On 05/26/2017 03:30 AM, Razer wrote: <SNIP>

http://getprsm.com/

I wonder why they didn't use getprism.com instead. Maybe because it's been squatted: https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=getprism&e=com Only $2,295 :) <SNIP>

On 05/26/2017 11:22 AM, Razer wrote:

On 05/26/2017 08:04 AM, Mirimir wrote:

...

On 05/26/2017 03:30 AM, Razer wrote:

<SNIP>

...

http://getprsm.com/ I wonder why they didn't use getprism.com instead.

Maybe because it's been squatted:

https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=getprism&e=com

Only $2,295 :)

<SNIP>

DomainTools want $ to see the domain history... Nah! But it has some history. SO I suspect it's not a moneymaker.

Btw, that site is pwned by @datacoup who WOULD like people to volunteer their metadataz

https://twitter.com/datacoup https://datacoup.com/

After all, why bother with BTC when you can gamble ur metadataz away:

...

Unlock the Value of Your Personal Data Introducing the world's first personal data marketplace

Very amusing. I'd like to meet their tailor. https://web.archive.org/web/20161228230352/http://getprsm.com/ :o)

On 05/31/2017 08:31 PM, Razer wrote:

On 05/31/2017 09:08 AM, Steve Kinney wrote:

...

Very amusing. I'd like to meet their tailor.

Here he is > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjmOkqU6Roo

Even when I was a little kid I never found that one amusing. But its popularity now makes much more sense to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF0-yNrzHdE :o)

On 05/24/2017 08:44 PM, Razer wrote:

Ps. I wouldn't suppose a single one of you has ever actually read one of Fleming's books.

Only just all of them, even Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. :D "Once is misfortune, twice is happenstance, three times is enemy action." The first Bond flick was OK, but alas... Eon went the way of maximum marketing and before it was over with, selling the Playboy Lifestyle was the whole purpose of making Bond movies. If anyone here digs spy fiction at all, The Night Manager is well worth seeing: It takes a miniseries to tell a LeCarre story. But none of the above is a patch on L. Fletcher Prouty's magnum opiate, The Secret Team. :o)

On 05/26/2017 08:20 AM, John Newman wrote:

...

On May 25, 2017, at 2:28 AM, Steve Kinney wrote:

...

On 05/24/2017 08:44 PM, Razer wrote:

Ps. I wouldn't suppose a single one of you has ever actually read one of Fleming's books.

Only just all of them, even Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. :D

"Once is misfortune, twice is happenstance, three times is enemy action."

The first Bond flick was OK, but alas... Eon went the way of maximum marketing and before it was over with, selling the Playboy Lifestyle was the whole purpose of making Bond movies. If anyone here digs spy fiction at all, The Night Manager is well worth seeing: It takes a miniseries to tell a LeCarre story.

But none of the above is a patch on L. Fletcher Prouty's magnum opiate, The Secret Team.

:o)

I've actually never read Fleming, just sort of assumed it was way cheesy based on the movies?

I have read most of LeCarre's stuff and a few other spy genre guys like Len Deighton and Frederick Forsyth...

The Karla trilogy is the best, for my money.

Oops, I neglected to provide a link to The Secret Team. It is kind of hard to find. This is surprising (or not) considering that it is a very detailed history of the CIA from 1947 through 1972, the only text of its kind. https://mega.nz/#!wC4CQAyC!IePufl0noDhv9AfpgpQb9EYQCrfVMtZCn7pi2wfOJPM Page 230: "It was necessary for the CIA to arrange for aircraft to enter the country quite frequently without the usual customs check that all military aircraft must undergo. In the earlier years the CIA would arrange directly or through State or Defense to have customs waive inspection of a plane with classified cargo or carrying a defector or on some other highly classified mission. Then, when such things had become more or less commonplace, the CIA would politely offer to provide a few men to work with the regular customs personnel to take the burden for such activity from them. This was the way it was put in the first place, and the customs office would gratefully accept the assistance. The CIA would go through all the necessary steps to get authorization for increasing the manpower allocations in the customs service by the number of men it planned to put there and then to make arrangements to reimburse the customs office for the payroll and other costs of the office. This latter step would always be taken, because it would be best for the customs office to go through all of the normal motions of paying these men, including promoting them and paying for their travel or other usual expenses, so that their assignment would appear to be completely normal to all others in the office. Then, by special accounting procedures that would take place in the main office, the CIA would reimburse the Treasury Department for the money involved. In the beginning this would all be done with elaborate open-handedness, even to the point where the new agency men would receive training and other prerequisites of the job. However, as the years passed, most of this procedure would be forgotten, and few would recall that those special assignments had even originated with the Agency. Accountants who had known how to transfer the funds would have been transferred themselves, and the Treasury Department might no longer bill for the costs involved. But the Agency men would stay on, their replacements would be carefully fitted into the manning tables, and few would even notice that they were there. This has happened quite extensively in a great many places all throughout the Government. There are CIA men in the Federal Aviation Administration, in State, all over the DOD, and in most other offices where the CIA has wanted to place them. Few top officials, if any, would ever deny the Agency such a service; and as the appointive official departed, and his staffs came and went, the whole device would be lost with only the CIA remembering that they were still there. Many of these people have reached positions of great responsibility. I believe that the most powerful and certainly the most useful agent the CIA has ever had operates in just such a capacity within another branch of the Government, and he has been there for so long that few have any idea that he is a long-term career agent of the CIA. Through his most excellent and skillful services, more CIA operations have been enabled to take place than can be laid at the feet of any other, more "legitimate" agent. This was the plan and the wisdom of the Dulles idea from the beginning. On the basis of security he would place people in all areas of the Government, and then he would move them up and deeper into their cover jobs, until they began to take a very active part in the role of their own cover organizations. This is how the ST was born. Today, the role of the CIA is performed by an ad hoc organization that is much greater in size, strength, and resources than the CIA has ever been visualized to be.

#!wC4CQAyC!IePufl0noDhv9AfpgpQb9EYQCrfVMtZCn7pi2wfOJPM !wC4CQAyC!IePufl0noDhv9AfpgpQb9EYQCrfVMtZCn7pi2wfOJPM wC4CQAyC!IePufl0noDhv9AfpgpQb9EYQCrfVMtZCn7pi2wfOJPM The provided key is invalid... Rr On 06/01/2017 05:43 AM, John Newman wrote:

...

On May 31, 2017, at 12:31 PM, Steve Kinney wrote:

...

On 05/26/2017 08:20 AM, John Newman wrote:

...

On May 25, 2017, at 2:28 AM, Steve Kinney wrote:

...

On 05/24/2017 08:44 PM, Razer wrote:

Ps. I wouldn't suppose a single one of you has ever actually read one of Fleming's books. Only just all of them, even Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. :D

"Once is misfortune, twice is happenstance, three times is enemy action."

The first Bond flick was OK, but alas... Eon went the way of maximum marketing and before it was over with, selling the Playboy Lifestyle was the whole purpose of making Bond movies. If anyone here digs spy fiction at all, The Night Manager is well worth seeing: It takes a miniseries to tell a LeCarre story.

But none of the above is a patch on L. Fletcher Prouty's magnum opiate, The Secret Team.

:o)

I've actually never read Fleming, just sort of assumed it was way cheesy based on the movies?

I have read most of LeCarre's stuff and a few other spy genre guys like Len Deighton and Frederick Forsyth...

The Karla trilogy is the best, for my money. Oops, I neglected to provide a link to The Secret Team. It is kind of hard to find. This is surprising (or not) considering that it is a very detailed history of the CIA from 1947 through 1972, the only text of its kind.

https://mega.nz/#!wC4CQAyC!IePufl0noDhv9AfpgpQb9EYQCrfVMtZCn7pi2wfOJPM

Cool, thanks! Fletcher (Prouty) lives ;)

I actually have read large parts of this years ago. You can find it in a few spots on the net, including some HTML versions at various JFK assassination sites. It is really interesting, although much of Fletcher's reasoning (any information you think you have is probably disinformation) would almost make you wary of the ST book itself.. and the never really explained reason by which he somehow never had to sign away his ability to report on all this stuff seems bizarre, although I can imagine bureaucratic over sight being the simplest explanation. In any case, a totally fascinating work. I just reread the intro where he describes the book being essentially disappeared after publication by (presumably) CIA action, something that is no longer possible in the internet/Wikileaks age.

...

Page 230:

"It was necessary for the CIA to arrange for aircraft to enter the country quite frequently without the usual customs check that all military aircraft must undergo. In the earlier years the CIA would arrange directly or through State or Defense to have customs waive inspection of a plane with classified cargo or carrying a defector or on some other highly classified mission. Then, when such things had become more or less commonplace, the CIA would politely offer to provide a few men to work with the regular customs personnel to take the burden for such activity from them. This was the way it was put in the first place, and the customs office would gratefully accept the assistance. The CIA would go through all the necessary steps to get authorization for increasing the manpower allocations in the customs service by the number of men it planned to put there and then to make arrangements to reimburse the customs office for the payroll and other costs of the office.

This latter step would always be taken, because it would be best for the customs office to go through all of the normal motions of paying these men, including promoting them and paying for their travel or other usual expenses, so that their assignment would appear to be completely normal to all others in the office. Then, by special accounting procedures that would take place in the main office, the CIA would reimburse the Treasury Department for the money involved.

In the beginning this would all be done with elaborate open-handedness, even to the point where the new agency men would receive training and other prerequisites of the job. However, as the years passed, most of this procedure would be forgotten, and few would recall that those special assignments had even originated with the Agency. Accountants who had known how to transfer the funds would have been transferred themselves, and the Treasury Department might no longer bill for the costs involved. But the Agency men would stay on, their replacements would be carefully fitted into the manning tables, and few would even notice that they were there.

This has happened quite extensively in a great many places all throughout the Government. There are CIA men in the Federal Aviation Administration, in State, all over the DOD, and in most other offices where the CIA has wanted to place them. Few top officials, if any, would ever deny the Agency such a service; and as the appointive official departed, and his staffs came and went, the whole device would be lost with only the CIA remembering that they were still there.

Many of these people have reached positions of great responsibility. I believe that the most powerful and certainly the most useful agent the CIA has ever had operates in just such a capacity within another branch of the Government, and he has been there for so long that few have any idea that he is a long-term career agent of the CIA. Through his most excellent and skillful services, more CIA operations have been enabled to take place than can be laid at the feet of any other, more "legitimate" agent.

This was the plan and the wisdom of the Dulles idea from the beginning. On the basis of security he would place people in all areas of the Government, and then he would move them up and deeper into their cover jobs, until they began to take a very active part in the role of their own cover organizations. This is how the ST was born. Today, the role of the CIA is performed by an ad hoc organization that is much greater in size, strength, and resources than the CIA has ever been visualized to be.

On 06/01/2017 08:05 AM, Shawn K. Quinn wrote:

On 06/01/2017 09:29 AM, Razer wrote:

...

#!wC4CQAyC!IePufl0noDhv9AfpgpQb9EYQCrfVMtZCn7pi2wfOJPM

!wC4CQAyC!IePufl0noDhv9AfpgpQb9EYQCrfVMtZCn7pi2wfOJPM

wC4CQAyC!IePufl0noDhv9AfpgpQb9EYQCrfVMtZCn7pi2wfOJPM

The provided key is invalid... Worked for me. Try this in your BitTorrent client instead:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:59c850afc37d23f1da7d926d76bd58a5135d37da&dn=THE-SECRET-TEAM.pdf

Added a tracker but no seeds available. However, I figured out the problem. Either Noscript or Ublock origin was interfering. Both had been set to ignore Mega... I noticed a flash of an internal page (not in Firefox history) saying "gecko 'something or other'" before the Mega page loaded , and when I disabled them temporarily the gecko and Mega error didn't appear and the file downloaded. FWIW Firefox doesn't display that behavior when I download from my own account's links. Rr

On Wed, 31 May 2017 12:31:52 -0400 Steve Kinney wrote:

Oops, I neglected to provide a link to The Secret Team. It is kind of hard to find. This is surprising (or not) considering that it is a very detailed history of the CIA from 1947 through 1972, the only text of its kind.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:59c850afc37d23f1da7d926d76bd58a5135d37da&dn=THE-SECRET-TEAM.pdf As far as I can tell the book promotes the laughable idea that the Good Americunt Government has been corrupted by some evil 'secret' organization. In case the painfully obvious needs to be stated : the US government has been nothing but an association of murdering psychos since 1776. The author was a high ranking US military murderer so he deserves as much trust as jack the ripper. Or rather, a lot less. That said, there seems to be some interesting information in it.

Page 230:

"It was necessary for the CIA to arrange for aircraft to enter the country quite frequently without the usual customs check that all military aircraft must undergo. In the earlier years the CIA would arrange directly or through State or Defense to have customs waive inspection of a plane with classified cargo or carrying a defector or on some other highly classified mission. Then, when such things had become more or less commonplace, the CIA would politely offer to provide a few men to work with the regular customs personnel to take the burden for such activity from them. This was the way it was put in the first place, and the customs office would gratefully accept the assistance. The CIA would go through all the necessary steps to get authorization for increasing the manpower allocations in the customs service by the number of men it planned to put there and then to make arrangements to reimburse the customs office for the payroll and other costs of the office.

This latter step would always be taken, because it would be best for the customs office to go through all of the normal motions of paying these men, including promoting them and paying for their travel or other usual expenses, so that their assignment would appear to be completely normal to all others in the office. Then, by special accounting procedures that would take place in the main office, the CIA would reimburse the Treasury Department for the money involved.

In the beginning this would all be done with elaborate open-handedness, even to the point where the new agency men would receive training and other prerequisites of the job. However, as the years passed, most of this procedure would be forgotten, and few would recall that those special assignments had even originated with the Agency. Accountants who had known how to transfer the funds would have been transferred themselves, and the Treasury Department might no longer bill for the costs involved. But the Agency men would stay on, their replacements would be carefully fitted into the manning tables, and few would even notice that they were there.

This has happened quite extensively in a great many places all throughout the Government. There are CIA men in the Federal Aviation Administration, in State, all over the DOD, and in most other offices where the CIA has wanted to place them. Few top officials, if any, would ever deny the Agency such a service; and as the appointive official departed, and his staffs came and went, the whole device would be lost with only the CIA remembering that they were still there.

Many of these people have reached positions of great responsibility. I believe that the most powerful and certainly the most useful agent the CIA has ever had operates in just such a capacity within another branch of the Government, and he has been there for so long that few have any idea that he is a long-term career agent of the CIA. Through his most excellent and skillful services, more CIA operations have been enabled to take place than can be laid at the feet of any other, more "legitimate" agent.

This was the plan and the wisdom of the Dulles idea from the beginning. On the basis of security he would place people in all areas of the Government, and then he would move them up and deeper into their cover jobs, until they began to take a very active part in the role of their own cover organizations. This is how the ST was born. Today, the role of the CIA is performed by an ad hoc organization that is much greater in size, strength, and resources than the CIA has ever been visualized to be.

Bon, Simon Le Bon... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9qOXILOe38

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 6:25 AM, Georgi Guninski wrote:

What does it mean on twitter to like the announcement of someone's death? Is it sympathy or antipathy?

Morbid's Cult of Death, so long as it involves dead, they'll like it.