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A close up of a YKK zipper. (Photo: Chris 73/ WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0)There is not a groin in the world that the city of Kurobe has not touched. It has done so through the auspices of YKK, the world’s largest manufacturer of zippers, producing roughly half the world’s supply—some 7 billion a year. Yet to understand how Kurobe became the zipper capital of the world, one must travel back to the very birth of the zipper, to a time when the zipper wasn’t even the zipper at all. It was in the midst of the Victorian age that mankind suddenly grew disquieted...

For those of you who thought the Talon domestic surveillance system was dead... it's back! Talon 2.0 coupled with the recent legislation giving the Feds the power to seize control over private networks = not a pretty picture.

US kills controversial anti-terror databaseSubmitted by Layer 8 on Tue, 08/21/2007 - 1:52pm. Long criticized for keeping track of regular everyday citizens, the government’s anti-terror database will officially close Sept. 17.   The Threat and Local Observation Notices or TALON, was established in 2002 by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz as a way to collect and evaluate information about possible threats to U.S. servicemembers and defense civilians all over the world.  Congress and others protested its apparent use as an unauthorized citizen tracking database.  The TALON system came under fire in 2005 for improperly storing information about some civilian individuals...

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon said Tuesday that it will shut down an anti-terror database that has been criticized for improperly storing information on peace activists and others whose actions posed no threat. It will be closed on Sept. 17 and information collected subsequently on potential terror or security threats to Defense Department facilities or personnel will be sent by Pentagon officials to an FBI database known as Guardian, according to Army Col. Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman. Keck said the Pentagon database is being shut down because “the analytical value had declined,” but not because of public criticism of how...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2007 – The Defense Department announced today that it will close the Talon intelligence reporting system Sept. 17 and maintain a record copy of the collected data in accordance with intelligence oversight requirements.  Talon was established in 2002 by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz as a way to collect and evaluate information about possible threats to U.S. servicemembers and defense civilians at stateside and overseas military installations. It is being closed because reporting to the system had declined significantly, and it was determined to no longer be of analytical value, said Army Col. Gary Keck,...

THE Pentagon said today a review launched after revelations that it had collected data on US peace activists found that roughly 260 entries in a classified database of possible terrorist threats should not have been kept there. But the review reaffirmed the value of the so-called Talon reporting system on potential threats to Pentagon personnel or facilities by international terrorists, said Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman. He said the Pentagon was putting in place new safeguards and oversight intended to prevent improper information from going in the database. Mr Whitman said "less than two per cent" of the more...

WASHINGTON - While the White House defended domestic surveillance as a safeguard against terrorism, a Florida peace activist and several Democrats in Congress accused the Bush administration on Friday of spying on Americans who disagree with President Bush's policies. Richard Hersh, of Boca Raton, Fla., director of Truth Project Inc. of Palm Beach County, told an ad hoc panel of House Democrats that his group and others in South Florida have been infiltrated and spied upon despite having no connections to terrorists. "Agents rummaged through the trash, snooped into e-mails, packed Web sites and listened in on phone conversations," Hersh...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2005 – The Defense Department has ordered a review of an intelligence system that compiles information on possible worldwide threats to U.S. military personnel and installations, a senior DoD official said here today. Some recent news reports allege that the Threat and Local Observation Notice system, known by the acronym TALON, had improperly stored information about some civilian individuals and non-government-affiliated groups on its database. "It appears as if there may have been things that were left in the database that shouldn't have been left there," DoD spokesman Bryan Whitman told Pentagon reporters. The TALON system collects...

Democrats Want Investigation of Reporter Using Fake NameBy KATHARINE Q. SEELYE Published: February 11, 2005 wo Democrats in Congress are pressing for investigations into how a Washington reporter who used a pseudonym managed to gain access to the White House and had access to classified documents that named Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. operative.The Democrats, Representatives John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Louise M. Slaughter from Rochester, wrote yesterday to Patrick Fitzgerald, the independent prosecutor appointed in the Plame case, seeking an investigation into how the reporter, James D. Guckert, who used the name Jeff Gannon, had access to classified...

Bush press pal quits over gay prostie link BY HELEN KENNEDY DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU Thursday, February 10th, 2005 WASHINGTON - A conservative ringer who was given a press pass to the White House and lobbed softball questions at President Bush quit yesterday after left-leaning Internet bloggers discovered possible ties to gay prostitution. "The voice goes silent," Jeff Gannon wrote on his Web site. "In consideration of the welfare of me and my family, I have decided to return to private life." Gannon began covering the White House two years ago for an obscure Republican Web site (Talon-News.com). He was...

Beginning this weekend, aircraft buffs will be able to stroll up to and touch about half dozen historic aircraft at the city's newest public facility, the Heritage Airpark. The airpark, at 25th Street East and Avenue P, is a memorial to the aircraft designed, built and tested at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 since the facility was established in 1951. The airpark is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays beginning Jan. 17. A formal ceremony marking the opening of the facility will be held in March, noted Mayor Jim Ledford. Meanwhile, volunteers will continue to prepare...

WITH SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES, in southern Iraq, April 5 — These bombs flutter. With pockets of Iraqi forces continuing to put up fierce resistance around the port city of Basra, Special Operations commanders sent one of the Air Force's most secret aircraft into battle. The MC-130 Combat Talon is loaded with electronic equipment that enables the lumbering, 40-year-old propeller plane to dodge radars, missiles and even fighter jets to deliver commandos deep inside enemy territory. But last night, it carried a different payload: boxes of leaflets. "The coalition is here to put an end to the oppression caused by Saddam...