Monthly Archives: January 2011

i am a terrorist

another week closer to the eschaton…

The Illusion Of Money – this goes along nicely with my rant and Robert Anton Wilson’s rant about money and wage-slavery, although it doesn’t quite go all the way…

The United States of America Violates International Bioweapons Treaty – pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…

More troops lost to suicide than lost to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan – this should be a blatant indication that something isn’t right… but NO… 😐

Blood Tests Show Chemicals In Gulf Citizens Blood, US Gov Lied About Gulf Seafood and Only 47% Of Working Age Americans Have Full Time Jobs and We Need To Stop This Culture Before It Kills The Planet – it’s too bad that nobody is going to realise that this stuff is going on until it is too late… oh well, it was nice knowing you…

and, just in case you think that environmental disasters are limited to the western hemisphere, NGOs, Shell lock horns over Nigerian oil spills – 3000 oil spills since 2006, and at least 70% of them caused by sabotage… we need to have that kind of environmental activism around here…

The House GOP’s Plan to Redefine Rape – now that they’re back in control, one of the first things they do is make it so that saying “no” isn’t enough… first with sex, then with more personal stuff… 😐

Man fought the law and the law man won and Americans Are Just As Likely to Get Struck By Lightning As To Be Killed By Terrorists – TSA = Security Theatre, plain and simple.

Color-coded threat system to be replaced in April – i didn’t realise that the colour-coded system had been in place for 9 years, but it hasn’t changed one time in that 9 years: the colour has always been orange – so if they’re replacing the colour-coded system, will they replace it with something else that’s meaningless and won’t change? 😐

US can’t link Julian Assange to Bradley Manning – the case against both of them is fading fast, and the US is struggling to cover its own ass… but what happens when it’s proved that the emperor has no clothes?

Obama Criticizes Internet Kill Switch In Egypt While His Own Administration Tries – AGAIN – To Ram It Through In America – “The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed,
for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies, but would be ashamed to tell big lies” — Adolph Hitler

Obama may get power to shut down Internet without court oversight – guess what? it’s ba-aa-ack! 😐 and if we’re not very, very careful, we could be the next egypt… 😡

not only that, but Justice Department seeks to have all web surfing tracked – time to download Tor, start thinking about building an alternative and abandoning internet…

Google Comes Under Fire for ‘Secret’ Relationship with NSA – DON’T! BE! EVIL!! 😡

Physical Characteristics of Hell – does it exist? can you prove it? is there some non-biblical source of information that you can use to convince me that hell even exists?? then don’t start talking about the “physical characteristics” of something that doesn’t even exist… okay? there’s a reason they don’t compare apples and oranges… geez… 😡

fremont sunday market, i am a terrorist, pupples

bwaxoteebadorf

we had the second to last puppy potluck this evening. there is one puppy that had a home, but the new owner decided against it, so rob (the savage) needs a new home. he is available, if you’re interested.

i’m probably not going to go to the fremont sunday market tomorrow, because the weather has been rainy all day today, and it’s supposed to be rainy tomorrow as well.

egypt is still in turmoil. mubarak hasn’t quit yet, the people are upset, but nobody only about 100 people have been killed. although there appears to be some looting and general thuggery, it’s still not immediately clear whether or not mubarak is behind it. there still is no internet, but news is still getting out the old fashioned way, by shortwave, ham radio, telephone and even by fax. i wonder how long it will be until they restore internet connectivity… or how long it will be until they have internet connectivity regardless of whether or not it is through “normal” channels. i can’t help but think that it won’t be that long.

i am a terrorist, links, quotes, rants

regarding the shutdown of internet in egypt

In the spirit going back to Magna Carta, we require a principle that: No person or organization shall be deprived of their ability to connect to others at will without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty. Neither governments nor corporations should be allowed to use disconnection from the Internet as a way of arbitrarily furthering their own aims.
     — Tim Berners-Lee

Egypt: Tor Use Skyrocketing as Users Route-Around Internet Blocks

they’ve got to realise that as soon as they shut down regular internet access, that would immediately drive initiative to gain alternative access…

i already use Tor and a couple of other anonymizing software packages, but i’m seriously thinking about things like freenet or openmesh…

Communicate if Your Government Shuts Off Your Internet
3 Projects to Create a Government-less Internet
Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts It Down

i am a terrorist, links, rants, technology

this would normally go in the massive link dump on monday…

2 Comments

but by monday there’s a possibility that nobody would be able to read about it… 😐

Internet Shut Down in Egypt – “But Biden Says Mubarak is No Dictator” what would you call someone who deliberately shuts off the only means of communicating with the outside that most of his – dissatisfied – constituents have? is this a prelude to a massacre? or worse? will it happen in the US next?

articles, links, pictures

WTF…?

110126 Grand Piano on sandbar in Biscayne Bay, Miami, FloridaGrand mystery as piano appears on sandbarBy Josh Levs, CNN
January 26, 2011

Call it the latest piano bar, a large-scale mystery, or a whole new set of Florida Keys.

In Miami’s Biscayne Bay, a grand piano has appeared — perched on the highest point of a sandbar.

“We don’t know how the piano got out there, we don’t know who’s responsible for putting the piano out there and at this point it’s clearly a mystery,” said Jorge Pino of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

And for now, it’s staying put. Authorities told CNN they have no plans to remove it.

“What will probably happen is that the piano will just disintegrate because of the salt water and the salt air,” said Pino, adding that it will not harm the wildlife.

The finding has struck a chord with residents and tourists, inspiring some to board their boats and check it out. But if they’re planning to perform a concerto, their hopes will likely fall flat.

“This piano’s so banged up you can’t even bang out any tunes on it,” reported Andre Hepkins of CNN affiliate WSVN, as he stood on the sandbar attempting to tickle the ivories.

The Miami Herald first alerted Pino to the mysterious piano last week, Pino told CNN.

As word spread, theories took off. Was it a publicity stunt? A music video gone bad? A frustrated musician? A jilted lover trashing an ex’s instrument?

A Miami New Times blog offered explanations such as “The Little Mermaid was not a work of fiction” and “the powers that be are trying new tricks to get your attention about the end of the world.”

Pino has his own ideas. “The person who did this obviously did it as a prank in my opinion,” he said, “and they are getting exactly what they wanted to get, which is the notoriety of knowing that their story went viral.”

It is illegal to dump things into those waters, Pino said. “If you’re caught doing it, you can be arrested.”

But for now, the Department of Environmental Resources Management has not begun an investigation, spokesman Luis Espinoza told CNN. “We’re keeping an eye on it, looking into how it might have gotten there,” he said, adding that an official investigation is “possible.”

In November 2008 a piano was mysteriously discovered in Harwich, Massachusetts, by a woman who was walking a trail in the middle of the woods. That piano — an upright, not a grand — perplexed authorities. A CNN call Wednesday to Harwich police to find out if that mystery was ever solved was not immediately returned.

Biscayne Bay is home to commerce and tourism. The National Park Service describes it as “a shallow estuary, a place where freshwater from the land mixes with salt water from the sea and life abounds. It serves as a nursery where infant and juvenile marine life reside.”

Pino said the piano was found on the sandbar well out into the water, less than half a mile from the shore. “It’s amazing that somebody would go thru the trouble” of hauling “a 650 pound piece of equipment” out that far — even one that’s “not in good shape,” he said.

Still, Pino said, “there’s a lot worse things in the water.”

“We know of a car… that somebody years ago dumped into the water, and the vehicle stayed there. And, as it turns out, the vehicle is quite the habitat for lobster now.”

Pino added, “There’s odd things in the water all the time — shopping carts and tires and all kinds of stuff that people just decide to dump out there.”

pictures, pupples

PUPPIES!

chaos with teeth attack!this is what happens whenever the puppies and i interact. they mob around my feet, chewing everything, tugging on everything, and basically making it so that if i take any further steps i risk stepping on a puppy.

it seems to me that this batch of puppies is a lot more bite-y than the previous batch, but it may be that time has dimmed my experiences…

yeah, they’re cute, but at this point, the only reason i put up with them is because i know that it’s going to be a relatively short period of time before they go away.

geek stuff, malfunctioning computers, meta

hmmm…

all of my categories just disappeared…

interesting… and not in a good way. 😡

ETA: and now, just as mysteriously, they’re all back again…

VERY strange… 😐

ETA: now the categories and the tags are gone… grumble, mutter… 😛 what did i do…?

ETA: i get the impression that it’s nothing having to do with me… they’re still gone, but some of them are back on some posts… weird.

i am a terrorist

another week closer to the eschaton…

according to ARPAgeddon (IPv4Countdown) we have less than 7 days until there will be NO MORE IPv4 addresses available. does this mean that we’re going to see a mass, instantaneous conversion to IPv6? does it mean no more domain names? does it mean internet will die? nobody appears to care…

GOP senator: Federal ban on child labor is unconstitutional – see? that’s what you get for electing a republican! of course, it’s not an awful lot different if you elect a democrat…

Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance – In 1798 – what kind of human being would vote against universal health care?

Health Authorities Want Depression-Causing Drugs Added To Water Supply – another reason why i drink artesian well water… i’m depressed enough as it is.

FDA System Approves Nonexistent Product from Nonexistent Company for Human Testing – we have lost control of the government…

DoJ veteran sees ‘dangerous precedent’ in letting Bush officials walk – i’m increasingly surprised that more people aren’t up in arms about this…

Homeland Security’s laptop seizures – if you leave the country, for whatever reason, the probability that you will have your electronic devices (laptops, smart phones, ipads, memory sticks, etc.) searched, seized, potentially copied and returned “if they feel like it”, without warrants or reasons, is very high… and it doesn’t matter if your attorney/client or clergy/penitent communications, private medical and psychiatric information and the like are on that device. either you submit to a search and seizure, or you don’t get back into the country… and they call me a terrorist… 😐

‘No Refusal’ Blood Test Checkpoint Program Continues To Expand Nationwide – um, what happened to Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and it’s specific mention of protection from self-incrimination, which has been the law ever since the magna carta?? 😡 i guess it’s time to post this again, for all the good it will do…

When they took the fourth amendment,
     I was quiet because I didn’t deal drugs.
When they took the sixth amendment,
     I was quiet because I was innocent.
When they took the second amendment,
     I was quiet because I didn’t own a gun.
Now they’ve taken the first amendment,
     and I can say nothing about it.

MYTH: the catholic church never instructed bishops to withhold evidence or suspicion of crimes from police – a claim that has been repeated in news stories ever since it first started coming out that priests had been abusing children. REALITY: 1997 letter from the Vatican warned Ireland’s Catholic bishops not to report all suspected child-abuse cases to police

and, speaking of catholics, Pope’s blood to be built into altar – it’s like pharyngula said, they aren’t even trying to avoid the connection to voodoo, vampires, and blood magic… but if they don’t build something incorporating some body part of his, then they won’t have anything to revere in 500 years. 😐

And Now, For No Particular Reason, a Rant About Facebook – with which i totally agree… although i do not have a facebook account, because i truly don’t care if people have trouble getting in touch with me. if they want to be in touch with me, they’ll have to do it like normal people and use email or the telephone, because i’m not going to start a facebook account.

Officials fear bath salts are growing drug problem – instead of snorting bath salts, which are dangerous, why don’t people smoke cannabis, which has never killed anybody? oh, that’s right… cannabis is illegal… 😐

Cat ordered to do jury service – I FIND U ALL GILTY! kthnxby… 😐

fremont sunday market, pictures, pupples

pooples and stuff

the pooples are growing like pooples, and have gotten to the “chaos with teeth” stage, where they’re enthusiastically biting everything that they encounter, whether it is food, toys, doggie boobs, feet, hands, or what-have-you. they mob around my feet with their sharp little teeth whenever i go into their enclosure to feed them, or change their potty-pad… moe sez there’s two more weeks before they go to their new homes.

reba and magick pooples rob and dash

the black one has an official name. they all were called a name beginning with the letter R to help keep them separate when they were born, but the black one is now named Dash (he used to be Rave). the other ones are Reba (the only female), Rob (otherwise known as “the foot savage”) and Roy or Ray or something like that (Rye), which i call “Plug” because he was the one that was plugging up the works when they were being born.

only two more weeks, and then we go back down to a “normal” quantity (i.e. four instead of seven) of dogs again… 😉

in other news, i went to the fremont sunday market last sunday and renewed my membership, which means that, tentatively, i will be going to the FSM for real on the 6th of february, but i haven’t ruled out the 30th of january yet, or whenever the weather is nice enough to vend without getting too wet and miserable. i’ve made some minor changes in the way i present myself at the FSM, which, i’m hoping, will mean that i will actually make more money than i have in the past, because, now, people walking by will be able to come in and browse the products without having to ask me for a price for everything they pick up… or, conversely, they will be able to browse the product and not walk away so quickly because nothing has prices on it… i’m really excited to go to the FSM and try this out, but i’m also aware of the fact that, if i don’t grok the weather correctly, i will probably have to set up, tear down, or both, in the pouring rain, which would very definitely not be good for my product or my disposition…

enlightenment, uncle al

also…

i had some maintenance to do on my flickr account, and when i logged out, i was delivered to the front page of Yahoo!

i don’t know for sure that they’re tracking what kind of news stories i read, especially when i’m not logged in, but i think that, when i’m not logged in, they don’t really care – plus i’m paranoid enough that i register every cookie from every web site i visit, and i know for a fact that i don’t have a tracking cookie from yahoo or any of its affiliates…

which makes my experience all the more telling. with all the furor and hoopla that’s going on in the world, the FIRST link that showed up at yahoo was about increased speculation that barack obama dyes his hair… 😐

i guess that’s a drawback of being enlightened: you see where people really need to be taught, and those are the exactly the same times you are effectively prevented from teaching. as uncle al said, it is no good trying to teach people who need to be taught.

uncle al

Skidoo!

THE BOOK OF LIES is a very profound book, and one that contains a fair amount more Truth than the name would imply. today i’ve been taken by Skidoo!, chapter 23. the fact that it is actually chapter 23 (2+3=5) does not escape me, although which came first is quite obvious (the book of lies was first published in 1913, and the principia discordia wasn’t published until the late ’50s or early ’60s). but it’s crowley’s roundabout, poetic way of stating the plain and obvious which makes it so infuriating and intriguing. if he’d just said “The Way out is THE WAY” and given concrete examples of exactly how “The Way out is THE WAY” i probably would have gotten it when i first read the book, in the late ’70s. as it is, i am still pulling threads of wisdom out of it today, and i’m not sure that i’ll ever figure out exactly what he was talking about.

imaginary pooperty, uncle al

i guess i’ll take this as a compliment…

i have posted a number of aleister crowley’s writings on the net, including The Book of Lies, which has been more or less in the same place at least since 090520. my recollection is that it was at a similar location prior to that, and i originally posted it around 1998 or thereabouts.

i was poking around on the web this afternoon, when i found a complete copy of the book of lies down to the "publisher’s imprint" on the title page, and the META reply-to tags with MY email address in it on every page, at Biblioteca Pleyades – which, to it’s credit, makes the claim that “Everything on this Site has been obtained on the Internet… Nothing herein has been produced by us.”

also, my understanding is that the book of lies is one of those books on which the O.T.O. is not, currently, actively pursuing legal complaints when people post it online, but… they COPIED my HTML without even ASKING… 😐

i guess i should remember uncle al’s own words, ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΠΗ…

i am a terrorist

another week closer to the eschaton…

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before i get into it, happy martin luther king jr. day. i was in birmingham during one of his rallies in 1963, and met him when i was three years old. the only other thing i remember about that event was that i also got shit on by a pigeon…

food stamp participation over the past 5 yearsBroke and Hungry: This Chart Says It All – there’s more at the article, but this chart is not particularly encouraging…

Ex-CIA official says US Patriot Act is a Nazi law – gee, ya’ think? meanwhile, Congress quietly prepares to renew Patriot Act – another way the government lies to us, telling us one thing and then doing exactly the opposite… 😡

A Friendly Suggestion on Products Designed to Conceal Sensitive Areas – TSA’s reminder to people who think it’s funny to wear 4th Amendment Underwear: you’re probably going to be groped, and if you think this is TSA’s way of getting back at clever passengers… you’re probably right.

meanwhile, Boy, 9, has Disney World trip ruined after US immigration rules him a threat and Alexander Landau got pulled over for an illegal left turn — and ended up beaten bloody – they’re doing this instead of going after real terrorists.

Mission homeowner fined $5,200 for growing cucumbers, Cops targeted wrong address, rousted my family, Man angry after gun-point raid at his home and Police drug raid finds guinea pig heater – they wouldn’t have had to be any raid at all if it all were legal, but cops, apparently, would rather roust innocent people than they would to find an actual terrorist anywhere… 😐

Time to Ban Muslim Immigration – time to ban anyone who wants to ban a group of people just because of a few loonies… but i’m not gonna hold my breath… 😡

at the same time, Political Gifts From Beyond the Grave: Dead Woman Donates Thousands of Dollars to Tea Party Express – some of our best contributors are dead… according to our surveys, they’re also some of the most satisfied with the use of their donations. 😡

Facebook boobs over breastfeeding page… again – first, breasts aren’t obscene. prudish, immaturaty is obscene. second, if they’re going to do something, they should either make up their minds and do it, or apologise, and i’d be willing to bet that neither of those things actually happen.

finally, there’s another good example of someone with way too much time (and skill) on their hands: Meatscapes – what??

depression, fremont sunday market, house stuff, moe, pupples

bleh-ckup

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BLEH!

now that’s out of the way…

i renewed my membership in the fremont sunday market this morning. the probability is high that i will be going to the FSM the first sunday of next month, but there’s nothing firmed up yet.

i did my business taxes today, and for the 10th year in a row, i have not had to pay any business taxes, which may seem like it’s a good thing until you realise that my business has been essentially failing ever since it started. at the same time, i made $1,200 in 2010, compared to $1,000 in 2009, and even though i had fewer sales, the total amount is approximately equal to my 2008 income, so at least i’ve been failing consistently well.

the second puppy potluck was last night. moe’s co-worker, a guy called flash, got his car well and truly stuck in the mud on the other side of our driveway and we had to call a tow truck to winch him out. fortunately, someone gave moe a membership in AAA for xmas, so instead of pissing everybody off and being a royal waste of time, we all joked and laughed about flash’s typical muddy exploits while we waited for the (free) tow-truck winch expert who removed flash and his car from our driveway without any problems. after the potluck, moe and i went bowling with the rest of her coworkers – flash showed up late, because he was stuck in the mud. 😉 because of the fact that i was intensely stiff and sore, i didn’t do any bowling, but i made up for it by devouring their catered dinner because doc C. was paying for it… 😉

i was stiff and sore because i spent friday doing something that i have been talking about for a couple of months, which was clearing the unwanted bric-a-brac out of the loft of the workshop. i started by carrying ⅘ of the stuff that was in the loft out of the loft, sorting through most of it, and then returning the remainder to the loft – which means about 50 trips up and down the ladder with heavy, bulky stuff. i now have a pile of freecycle and/or craigslist stuff (the DVDs are just the tip of the iceberg), and a bunch of stuff that’s either going in the trash or directly to the dump. i’ve also got enough space for a person to comfortably sleep in the loft, now. 🙂 i’m getting really impatient with the DVDs, however, and i may take them to seattle tomorrow and see what i can get for them at that used movie place on the corner of first and stewart.

but i’m still feeling the effects of over-exerting myself

for sale, links

14 DVD movies for sale

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14 DVD movies for sale: – Casino Royale, Gridlock, Stealth, Anacondas – The Hunt for The Blood Orchid, Eddie Murphey – The Haunted Mansion, The Devil Wears Prada, Man on Fire, Sabrina, Syriana, Scary Movie 4 – Unrated, Roswell – Cover-ups and Close Encounters, Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde and Borat. Prefer that they all go at once, but if they go separately, they’re $4.00 each.

depression

same old bleh

of course, now that things have “settled down” a little bit after last month, there’s a whole new level of bleh that’s been slowly creeping up on me, which is the main reason i haven’t been posting the last few days. 😕

i still have a lingering cough after having almost-a-cold about a month ago, combined with various brain-injury-related difficulties getting my body to do what i expect it to do consistently (or not getting it to do what i don’t expect it to, consistently), combined with having one fewer familiar dog and four new, unfamiliar dogs, with corresponding responsibilities, add up to a general feeling of bleh which i have been unable to shake.

suffice to say that i am still here, in more-or-less decent health, and i will post again when there is less bleh going on. 😕

geek stuff, meta

tee hee…

i’ve finally got around to customising my emoticons… the next step is to animate some of them, but this will do for now, and is a whole hell of a lot better than the default emoticons. these are the ones i’ve got so far. there are more, but this should hold me for a while:

😀 😕 😎 😥 👿 😡 :mrgreen: 😐 😛 😳 🙁 🙂 😮 😉

geek stuff, links, technology

Public Service Announcement: i just found these…

with yesterday’s post still relatively fresh in my mind, i found a couple of utilities that make it easier to disconnect, if you have trouble disconnecting: Anti-Social is a utility that deliberately blocks social networking from your computer (it’s configurable, so, theoretically, you would be able to block any web site) for up to 8 hours. if that’s not austere enough for you, Freedom entirely blocks internet from your computer for up to 8 hours – that’s right, no RSS, no email, no IMs, no YouTube… Anti-Social only works on the mac operating system, but Freedom has a windows option as well…

if you use linux, presumably, you have enough self-control to just disconnect yourself, without having to have a machine do it for you… 😉
big brother, bizarre, drugs, i am a terrorist, jeezis, technology

another week closer to the eschaton…

Future Shock? Welcome to the New Middle Ages – those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. the middle ages were also characterised by illiteracy, the catholic church and the plague… just sayin’…

THE RICH REALLY DON’T CARE ABOUT THE POOR – speaking as one of the poor, tell us something we don’t already know… 😐

WikiLeaks’ Most Terrifying Revelation: Just How Much Our Government Lies to Us – and, if they have their way, the government is all set to make it so that we never find out how much they lie to us. minitrue in action.

also, CIA Doesn’t Want You To Know It Gave Iran Nuclear Blueprints – oops… 😐

US government getting more interested in IPv6 – they’d better be more than just interested in it, considering that all remaining allocatable IPv4 addresses would now fit into a /6 prefix (≘ 67,108,864 addresses).

Microsoft confirms code execution bug in Windows – BWAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH! 😀 it’s just like i said… another good reason not to use micro$awft products…

and, speaking of “another good reason”… Hepatitis A warning issued after Christmas communion – if you took communion on xmas, and you live in long island, they’re saying that you need to get vaccinated… the blood of christ is infected!

Miami-Dade police buy drones – they work so well in afghanistan and iraq that now they’re being used by domestic police forces as well. presumably they won’t be firing missiles with them, just yet… “At this point, it doesn’t really matter if you’re against this technology, because it’s coming…”

meanwhile, Passengers overpower plane hijacker after he storms cockpit shouting he had bomb – no department of homeland security necessary.

The Next Net – abandon the corporate internet!

va fan culoSupreme Court justice: No protection for women in Constitution – reagan-appointed justice scalia wants to force us to live one hundred fifty years in the past. “It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.” — Susan B. Anthony

Scientists Create 52 Artificial Rain Storms in Abu Dhabi Desert and Have scientists discovered how to create downpours in the desert? – my impression is the more we tinker with the inner workings of how the planet really works, the more likely it is that we will have to deal with the unexpected, and potentially disasterous consequenses of our tinkering… of course, on the positive side, once we have blown ourselves up, it won’t be more than 100 years or so until the planet is back to the way it’s supposed to be, more or less.

uh oh… Disaster Tax Rules Don’t Apply For BP Oil Spill Claims – so, in spite of the FACT that the gulf oil spill is the largest oil spill ever to have happened, if you live in the gulf region, have had your income affected by the gulf oil spill, and made claims against BP for lost wages or income, you will still have to pay income tax at the highest rate because BP claims that their oil spill was never officially proclaimed a “disaster”… i bet some people are going to be really thrilled to learn that…

Congressional Prayer Caucus asks for ‘correction’ to ‘E pluribus unum’ – federal endorsement of a religion or deity violates the united states constitution.

All drugs should be legalised – now, let’s see if we can be as forward thinking as they appear to be in the old country, eh’? it would eliminate things like Grandpa killed in drug raid from happening.

Commuter outrage as terrorist attempts to blow himself up on Quiet Carriage – there is definitely something insane with a society that can make jokes about people blowing themselves up…

Florida Professor Arrested for Having a “Suspicious” Bagel on a Plane, Man at JFK declares rabbit, Customs says it found cocaine, Planet That May Not Exist is For Sale on Ebay, in 10 Acre Chunks, Woman Arrested After Trying To Return Wallet, Saudis detain Israeli vulture for being ‘Zionist spy’ – why do i bother? 😐

fezorocity, geek stuff, rants, technology

social notworking

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listen to this while reading the following post: Have Sex and Die! from Mothra! an opera about insects by Pliny Keep

i got a “connect” message from LinkedIn today, for someone i know only vaguely. i thought about it for a long time before i acceded to their request, and almost immediately i discovered that one of my customers, a guy who, previously, i had only known because he was a repeat customer of my business, was now a “2nd degree” connection. it’s this kind of connection that makes me really wonder about the whole concept of “social networking” and whether, ultimately, it will be good for us, both as individuals and as a society…

not that i can do anything about it, of course… 😐

but i still dislike the idea of facebook, principally because most of the users are unaware of how they are being blatantly, obviously, manipulated, mislead and spied on at the same time. i was talking to a stranger this afternoon, and the subject strayed to the ubiquity of smart-phones. she commented that she doesn’t know most of what the smart-phone can do, and, although she has a facebook account and a twitter account, she doesn’t know “how they work”… and yet she has a smart-phone, and isn’t worried about how much information is out there about her, specifically, because she “has a boring life: nobody would want to know about it”.

if that were only the case, these days… 😐

and yet i can’t help imagining that i’ll eventually sign up for a facebook account, or something like that. so far, i haven’t drunk any of the new water, and i still have a plentiful supply of untainted water, but the desire to connect with other humans tempts me at times. one of those times was last night, when i went to a fez-up with hobbit and fezmonger and his wife, and i was left out of the conversation when i was the only person without a facebook account.

tempted, but, as i said, i still have a plentiful supply of untainted water…

aparajita

aparajita!

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so, back in june of 2010 i ordered, and received a shipment of aparajita from someone who was not the manufacturer. i figured this was as close as i was ever going to come to actually getting in contact with the manufacturer of aparajita, because i had emailed them pretty consistently over the past 10 years or so, with decreasing results (i.e. first no response, then bounced messages, indicating that the email addresses on their web site were no longer functioning).

however, yesterday i got what appeared to be spam (it was from someone i couldn’t place, to someone else i don’t know at yahoo.com.in – india – and it had a vaguely-holiday-like message), but upon closer inspection (which i do with every spam message that ends up in my inbox) i realised that it was from mavana.com – the manufacturer of aparajita!

i guess it’s probably a good thing that i didn’t follow my gut reaction and report it without going through that final inspection, huh? 😳

anyway, apparently one of the reasons aparajita is so difficult to find in the US is because they don’t have a distributor in the US, and one of the first things that the guy said in his reply to me was that if i were interested, i could be a distributor for them.

!! ☺☻☺ !!

i, um…

YAHOO!!!
and not the search engine, thank you very much…

at this point i don’t even care whether or not there’s a demand for it, and i don’t even really care whether or not i actually end up as their distributor in the US (although that would be a perq… 🙂 ) but the mere fact that i have actually gotten in contact with the manufacturer of this incense, which i have been looking for, in wholesale quantities, for twenty years, is just fantastic!!

pictures, pupples

pupples

so i was sitting at my computer terminal today and i heard this sound that sounded like puppies growling, so i got up and grabbed the camera and went to make sure they weren’t ripping each other to pieces, or something like that…

this is what i discovered:

pupples pupples pupples

of course, after five minutes or so they were all asleep again… 8)

bizarre, drugs, gulf oil spill, i am a terrorist, imaginary pooperty, sex

another week closer to the eschaton…

The animal world has its junkies too, Men Have Clitorises, BIOLOGICAL EXUBERANCE – more things you’re not supposed to know, the lack of knowlege about which is used to keep the world in bondage… we have always had the power, but now we only have very small amount of time to break free of the chains, before we quite literally blow ourselves up. who knows how long we’re going to last before…

Drug decriminalization pays off in Portugal as US weighs its options – if the US gummint is really considering this, it would be a giant step forward, but i fear that it will take 15 or 20 years before we’re smart enough to actually try it… and by then, it may be too late…

Pakistan on strike against bill to amend blasphemy law – okay, here’s my idea: this is the 21st century, for gawd’s sake. if they want to have laws that keep them in the 14th century, that’s fine, but we won’t interact with them at all. we could even build a 15 foot wall around their country, to make sure that nobody is sneaking modern stuff in. this means that if anyone wants to leave the country, they do it the same way they would have in the 14th century; if someone wants to communicate, they do it the same way they would have in the 14th century; no cell phones, no electronic anything, no planes, trains or automobiles, no hospitals or modern medicines, or modern anything at all… and if they want to interact with us, they should be required to follow modern laws… which means no laws about blasphemy, men and women should be treated equally, regardless of their sexual orientation, no stoning for committing adultery or loss of a hand for stealing bread, or anything like that… what do you think?

Almost Everything Is A Crime In America Now – the way to fix this problem is to toss the current system, wholesale, and start from scratch. it is possible to do without war, but we have to do it consciously. conversely, TSA officer sentenced for stealing from fliers’ bags – and he doesn’t even get jail time, just probation and a $5,000 fine, for stealing 5 laptop computers and an xbox… it’s this kind of thing that will make tossing the current system a lot more difficult. keeping the good of everyone in mind is a fair amount more difficult when someone has essentially gotten away with something which would have been disasterously stupid for anyone else to even consider. Counter-terror ‘expert’ tells cops: Kill militant Muslims, ‘including children’ – this is another reason why changing the way society works without war will be extremely difficult. i’ve heard about this shoebat character before, and it seems to me that he has been blatantly lying his way around washington DC for at least five years and nobody seems to have taken notice of his lies…

Terrorist Watch List May Exceed US Population by 2019, World Population by 2023 – we are ALL terrorists! even the people who don’t want to be terrorists!

AHA! i thought so… Oops! Bribing Nigeria for Cheney’s Freedom Not Legal

Police demand new powers to stop and search terror suspects – this wouldn’t disturb me so much if they hadn’t already been denied their previous demand for new powers to stop and search terror suspects…

Israel bombed Syrian nuclear facility – it’s just a matter of time before the lid blows off, and the world as we know it comes to a screeching halt… and that sickening thud that you hear is society taking the first of many ultimately fatal wounds… 😐 don’t say i didn’t warn you…

Julian Assange, The Rosenburgs and the Espionage Act of 1917 – Robert Meeropol, son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, says that the Espionage Act of 1917 is unconstitutional, and that julian assange is just as innocent as his parents were… and his parents were executed…

The naked truth about scanners – we don’t need scanners, we need more effective social engineering…

Woman Who Protested TSA Pat-Downs At OKC Airport Banned From Flying – on tuesday, “they were unable to clear an unusual contour of my buttocks area,” but they letting her fly on wednesday, presumably after she had cleared the TSA screening…

Terrorist watch list: One tip now enough to put name in database – still no word on how easy difficult it will be to have your name removed from the terrorist watch list, if it ends up there in error…

Conservatives have larger ‘fear center’ in brain – now that we know what causes it, the next step is to look for an effective treatment… 😉

NOLA lawyer prepares challenge to declaration of Gulf seafood’s safety – i wouldn’t eat seafood from the gulf at this point… it might be safe, but there’s a good chance that it’s not, regardless of what the gummint tries to make people think.

WTF? OMG, LOL! – someone at DHS needs to RTFM about the intar-tubes, i think…

Exposing The False Sanctity Of ‘Intellectual Property’ – COPYING IS NOT THEFT! i like the idea of calling it “Imaginary Pooperty” instead of “Intellectual Property” though…

i am a terrorist, links

i’m not sure whether or not this is a joke…

and, as moe pointed out, the fact that it’s on internet skews the possibility by 80/20 right off the top…

LIBERATION ARMY AGAINST FREEDOM – one of those “if you don’t accept flash, you don’t get to see our web site” web sites, which says, among other things, a whole bunch of arabic writing, and that it’s for “extermination of roots of freedoms worldwide with the aid of great fireworks”. it appears to be registered to a privacy organisation in the netherlands… but it has a very clear picture of what looks like two people checking out a large quantity of commercial fireworks (i.e. very definitely not explosives)… WTF?