The Noble Lie

MSNBC reports that the Yale secret society Skull & Bones sold their trademark skull for $10-20k to an anonymous "European art collector." If they're doing some spring cleaning, how about returning Geronimo's remains to his family, grave-robbed by Prescott Bush?

This syncs nicely with another story found today worth mentioning -- China is pursuing some ambitious long-term cyber-warfare goals in their effort to battle western hegemony on the cheap. The same story mentions an unsuccessful diplomatic bid by the UK to commute the death sentence of a convicted British heroin smuggler in China. In the official statement following the execution, Chinese officials mentioned that China's resentment of foreign drug traffickers was based on "the bitter memory of history," a reference to the large-scale smuggling of opium into China by the Crown and the British East India Company, which ultimately led to the Opium Wars of the 19th century. Heroin is simply a refined form of opium.

The drug trade of centuries past, like today, flowed drugs into the common neighborhoods and flowed money into the coffers of blue-blooded elite. One of the big beneficiaries of opium smuggling was a man named Elihu Yale, the governor of the British East India Company whose name is now carried by one of this nation's most prestigious universities. His British East India Company was also largely responsible for supplying the slave trade of the late 17th century.

Samuel Russell made his fortune smuggling opium into China, and later went on to form the Russell Trust Association, also known as Skull & Bones.

[Correction: It was William Russell, Sam's brother, who apparently started the S&B.]