Ex-Blackwater VP/director of operations and founder of competing company edits Wikipedia, or: Blackwater doesn't like competition or criticism.

It is probable that most Wikipedians are part of an virtual army consisting of various forms of fanatics, from the legions who believe that Lost is more important than various African countries to quasi-perpetual tweens who love their High School Musical. GhostSCG (I know the page does not exist, if you think I'm going to give you access to all the secrets in the first paragraph, you are crazy; also, this has been in the works prior to the unveiling of the Wikiscanner site) does not belong to either of those groups, he has his own private army.

GhostSCG, might be better known as Jamie Smith, CEO of military contractor SCG International Risk, who also is a "decorated veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Department of State with service from Operation Desert Shield/Storm to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. He is the former Director of the Antiterrorism Warfare Development Program for the US Navy and a consultant for the US Department of State's Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program. He is also a consultant to the Federal Air Marshal program, a Fox News commentator, Honorary Chairman of the National Business Advisory Council and 2003 recipient of the Congressional National Leadership Award. He is a member of ASLET, ASIS, the NRA and AFIO and has a Juris Doctorate in Law, an LLM in Tax Law and recently finished postgraduate international law studies at the Harvard Law School."

The first thing that Jamie did on Wikipedia was add his company's name to the list on the "private military company" entry. His second edit to the article (and on Wikipedia) was the addition of a tidbit about the companies recent expansion into avaitation services, which contained the somewhat disturbing line "[t]his marks a unique addition and expansion of services to rival the capabilities of some country's armies and air forces."

Promptly after this, Jamie created the article for SCG International Risk. He spent a good portion of his Saturday brushing up his article, before he decided "forget this, I'm going to use my company/personal IP address instead" or did not want the conflict of interest to show. Also on that day, Jamie edited the Blackwater entry to reflect his importance to the company and that founder and owner Erik Prince is an asshole (a claim that has been put forth by many others).

But then, Mike Christie, an enemy of the free marketplace, decided to crush Jamie's efforts and nominate the article for deletion. Mike's user page says "I'm a salesman for a consulting firm in Austin, TX. I sell software risk management services for oil rig and platform construction projects," my blog post says "conflict of interest, he did not want to his job threatened by a company of similar kin." But Jamie is nice enough to still compliment the editing skills of a man trying to destroy his business. The article did not get deleted thanks to Jamie's evidence; it is quite surprising that Jamie actually uses some critical pieces of the company as evidence.

One day shy of two months after that Jamie added an interesting sentence to the "espionage" entry that says "[i]n addition to utilizing agencies within a government many also employ private companies to collect information on their behalf such as SCG International Risk and others." Eleven days later, a Blackwater employee, under the name Freedomandjustice made a few simple and minor clarifications and enhancements, including an edit to the sentences mentioning Smith (which previously said "initially operated by Blackwater USA's then-VP Jamie Smith, who became the first Director of Blackwater Security Consulting. Smith left in late 2002 to become CEO of SCG International Risk") to say that "initially operated by Jamie Smith, who became the first Director of Blackwater Security Consulting. Smith left under allegations of resume fraud in late 2002 and formed SCG International Risk." An allegation that Smith denied and says "[t]hese allegations are being made by those in the company (Blackwater) who don't like that I left and started another company that competes in the same field." This means that the aforementioned user, Freedomandjustice, is either a person in a powerful role at Blackwater (such as Gary Jackson, Bill Matthews, Chris Taylor, or Eric Prince) or someone who writes on their behalf. Jamie posted his account of what happened on the Blackwater entry, saying that he "left after he blew the whistle to management on poor training and preparation of deploying teams (see the section below regarding the lawsuit by families of Blackwater workers killed below) as well as sexual harrassment. Following this, the management then made allegations against him of resume fraud, despite the fact that he'd been working there since 1999 and had received numerous accolades and a substantial raise and promotion."

Six days later, the IP address used by Jamie made an interesting edit to the page for the CBS series The Unit that said "[i]n the real world such units have military cover as this or use commmercial cover by appearing to work for corporations. One such company reported to be a front for Department of Defense operations is SCG International Risk located in Virginia which employs dozens of Special Forces and CIA people around the globe." By logical deduction, no CEO would post something defaming to their company like this, it seems that someone from Blackwater hacked into the computer to intentionally use the IP address as a proxy.

In addition, Blackwater also made edits from the IP address 4.153.188.135 and Blackwater executive vice president Bill Matthews attempts to defend Blackwater from a critical commenter and an uncritical news story.

UPDATE: Multiple persons of Blackwater have visited this blog, as has someone at the Transportation Security Administration near Blackwater headquarters. (And welcome person from the Houston office of Blackwell & Guiliani.)

UPDATE NUMBER TWO: For anyone curious, here is Gary Jackson's very, very briefly-lived Blackwater USA blog (on Blogger).

UPDATE NUMBER THREE: Jamie Smith says "thanks Surfer Girl for printing the truth about the Wiki articles and the attempts by others to snuff it out and squelch both free-speech and free-competition in the marketplace."

Listing

1) Obsidian is NOT making Baldur's Gate 3.
2) Don King's Prizefighter is NOT very good, as previously said.
3) Crysis is NOT a PS3 exclusive.
4) L.A. Noire is still MAYBE NOT coming to the 360.
5) A Wii Star Fox IS under development.
6) Guitar Hero DS IS one of the four Guitar Hero games that EGM mentioned and IS coming out this fall summer.
7) Something called Gears of War 2 IS going to be at something called GDC.
8) Black Rock Studio's first game under its new moniker IS a PS360 off-road title coming in the fall.
9) Grasshopper Manufacturer's next game, a PS360 title, IS delightfully polarizing.

What are they waiting for?

For the crowd that prefers text:

The climate crisis is the biggest challenge facing the next president.

But the nation's top reporters don't seem to think so.

In 2007, they asked 2275 questions.

THREE questions mentioned global warming!

Sign the petition: tell reporters to focus on the human race, not the horse race.

What are they waiting for?

The work for the Happy Finger Method must go on.

1) Factor 5 has not abandoned the PS3, despite yesterday's announcement appearing to indicate the contrary. Also, some may mishear one of the company's forthcoming projects as Toucan Sam title.
2) Admist Certain Affinity's currently crop of projects is some lighthearted swashbuckling by pirates.
3) A sequel to Carnival Games is coming in the fall, with other platform(s) added to the mix.
4) Who is the company remaking games for PSN?
Square Enix was the company that the EGM rumor was talking about, but the games are not full-fledged remakes.
5) Titles for Apple multitouch devices will no longer be novelties with a few well-known franchises (most falling in the simulation genre) from a couple of companies you probably have heard of.
6) Unsurprisingly, the game tie-in for Horton Hears a Who is barely mediocre. Surprisingly, I hear the movie is quite good. But the real question is, when will the world get a good Seuss game?

UPDATE: Bonjour Edelman Seattle and Microsoft.

Obscene literature is a two billion dollar a year business.

I know that they all probably assume they have better, much more important, urgent, timely, things to campaign on, but I sure would like to get their individual takes on the new video game that one company is marketing to fifteen year old trucks.

It's called "NASCAR 08" and it allows its players - universally Chevrolet no doubt - to engage in the most racing acts ever conceived. One can custom design the shape, form, bodies, color, style, wheel size of the racecars they wish to "engage" and then watch in crystal clear, LCD, 54 inch screen, HD clarity as the video game "automobiles" hump in every form, format, multiple, brand-oriented possibility they can think of.

The objections to such filth should be simple to understand.

Starting with the disgusting idea that one can "create" their own versions of what automobiles look like, removing scratches, dents, and bald spots while enhancing - shall we say - the extended features of the game's characters tends to objectify tires, tailpipes, and car-to-car relationships. Right? We can all agree on this?

Then there's the dishonesty behind the game' title. "NASCAR 08" sounds like a racing game with a revving virus that is spreading unless the professional automobiles are able to defeat the evil and deadly substance and it's covert illegal plan. By it's design, kids could ask for it, or for their parents' Best Buy Card to go purchase it with nary a raised eye-brow. Generic, non-descriptive, and relatively harmless.

But it IS marketed for the Commodore 64, perhaps the most visually stimulating gaming system ever made. The software for such allows the blending of DVD video, component graphics, and the manipulation of actual pictures so that an alternate reality engulfs the fifteen year old truck playing it without much objection.

Now if I have trouble with my son taking his James Bond 007 games a little too emotionally, imagine the powerful effect that hormones add to the mix when the player's own character is copulating like jack rabbits with Lexuses, Mazdas, and anyone else they can spend the patience to create, name, and "put into play."

I hear the libertarian Ron Paul's answer already, "Government has no business censoring freedom of expression." Figures, he's a libertarian.

In the race for President there has been a lot of discussion about faith and it's impact on the lives of the individual candidate. Some pretty inane ones like Carl Cameron's less lucid moment this past week when he posed the inquiry about marital submission to Governor Mike Huckabee.

Yet here's a question that deserves to be asked, and in all likelihood will not be: "How much moral judgement should the President push into legislative issues that are likely to severely damage our children's innocence, function, and capability?"

I hear the nay-sayers claiming I'm being the wild and crazed Bible thumper I've always been - but its a worthwhile question isn't it?

If a pre-teen, teen, young adult, or adult truck plays such a game in which the sport cars DO submit without choice, are made to appear as Barbie convertibles, and perform whatever act can be imagined, what's to stop that same male from assuming that the sport cars in his "other world" shouldn't be forced to do the same.

We now know because of the lengthy track record of drag racer after another that addictive use of racing was prevalent in case after case - long before the switch got flipped and what their masturbatory imaginations have given into became what they were forcing real live human beings to do.

And because of the digital chip age in which we live - "NASCAR 08" can be customized to be played whatever, whoever, however, the game player wishes.

With it's "over the net" capabilities virtual orgasmic racing is just the push of a button away.

Yes there will be many snickers that I decided to bring this issue up in the Presidential cycle of 2008 but how refreshing would it be for a President to prove to the nation that his own manhood was not in question and put his pen and signature to a bill that dealt with such simulated racing excess in a way that was punitive to its creators to such a degree that they would never recover from it?

As technology continues to push the limits of imagination and interaction more and more the brain, the emotions, the feelings will integrate with physical responses in reality. And while the makers of such trash seem to be pushing our next generation of young men through the gates of hell as fast as is humanly possible, it needn't be that way.

Here's hoping that as the next President will be forced to deal with this continual emerging reality - and enemy that has set its site to our destruction from within - that we will have elected a man of such character that he will have precision in the clarity of his response.

How would that be for a bold and uncompromising "NASCAR 08?"

Bagdasarian

Reader Randall informs of Rudy Giuliani's review of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Finally, a Time Magazine Person of the Year reviews a film instead of one of those faux dilettantes. Film criticism is overrun by these pretentious buffoons now that the lone warrior of common taste, Pete Hammond, has been sacked. As he described the masterpiece Hitman, "[i]t delivers top-notch action, dazzling gunplay and lots of fireworks. What more could we ask for?" Indeed, what more could we ask for?

Also, it's time to get excited, a sequel to Carnival Games is coming in the fall, with other platform(s) added to the mix.