embarrass
in spanish, the word that gets confused with this – embarazada – means “pregnant”…
in french, the word that gets confused with this – embrasser – means “kiss”…
but in english, the word embarrass means “to cause confusion and shame to; make uncomfortably self-conscious.”
no wonder we’re so screwed up as a society… we can’t make love or even kiss one another without getting uncomfortable and self-conscious… 8/
i sincerely wonder why the revolution hasn’t started yet, and i despair for a country that can sit idly by while these kinds of things are perpetrated on us in the name of “protecting our freedoms”. really… bush has gone too far this time, and it’s time somebody did something about it. >8/
Bush Administration Memo Says Fourth Amendment Does Not Apply To Military Operations Within U.S.
the 5th annual moisture festival is into it’s second week of performances, most of which feature the fremont philharmonic. we’re getting more into playing “other peoples'” music more, which is a good idea, i think. we’re also becoming “the” band for a number of performers like godfrey daniels, which is amusing since apart from the moisture festival, we’ve never performed with him as godfrey daniels. it’s much more mellow and laid-back backstage this year, but i think that part of that is because i am not responsible for the programs this year.
these are some of the links i’ve been perusing in the mean time:
Archbishop of Canterbury attacks Creationism – it’s getting pretty obvious that something is wrong with intelligent design when someone like the archbishop of canturbury comes down on the side of the evolutionists…
Hybrid embryos created in Britain – speaking of “intelligent” design…
Two-headed baby hailed as divine – and here’s how india deals with it. (NOTE: i am discounting the fact that this was published on 1 april by knowing that they don’t have april fools day in india. i may be wrong.)
Faeces hint at first Americans – new evidence further negates any “young earth” intelligent design explanations that i have heard…
Pregnant man tells Oprah: It’s a miracle – now this is something i’ve been reading about for a couple of weeks, and it is one of those rare instances when my wife and i disagree. i think it’s perfectly natural for a transgender man to want to have children, but my wife thinks… i’m not sure what she thinks. it’s “unnatural” or something is my guess. maybe she thinks the kid will grow up confused or something. but my point is that kids already grow up confused with “normal” parents, and both my wife and i are fine examples of that. if a kid has even an outside chance of having a relatively normal life, parents should be able to be parents without regard to what their genitals look like, and if, as in this case, the man is already pregnant they should be able to get medical care without having to go through nine doctors! my son is an excellent example of how someone with screwed up parents can have a much more “normal” life than either of their parents had.
The Hypocrisy Gospel: Get Rich for Jesus? – ever wonder why the religious conservatives adore the prosperity gospel so much?
finally,
Battle over Pot Possession in Alaska Is Back in the Courts – prohibitionists, once again, make some sort of lame excuse to overturn alaska’s legal home use of cannabis. they’re going to lose, of course, because their excuse is lame (“it’s not your father’s marijuana”, reefer-madness propaganda), but it’s got a lot of people upset in both camps.
Why records DO all sound the same – No, it’s not you – records do all sound the same these days.
Sony BMG Sued for Software Piracy – Assets Seized – PointDev, a small software company, mandated a bailiff to raid one of Sony BMGs owned building in January this year. The raid revealed that four of the Sony BMGs owned servers contained the pirated software. This is too good to be true, but in fact, it is true. Now if it only makes a difference…
Botanist sues to stop CERN hurling Earth into parallel universe
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so i was digging through the four boxes of 3½-inch floppy disks that were piled up with the rest of the boxes in the living room yesterday, and i discovered that i have not one, but two original copies of Microsoft Word for Mac version 5.1, that are still in their original, unopened, plastic wrappers, and a copy of Microsoft Word for Mac 5.0 that is in it’s original wrapper, but the wrapper is deteriorated enough that it is no longer sealed. Word 5.0 is the one that had some sort of major bug in it, and they released Word 5.1 shortly afterward. one of the Word 5.1 copies is in two packages (the way that they were sold retail), and one is all in one package (the way they were delivered to you if you had purchased Word 5.0). all three copies have never been used, and were a part of the copies of Word that i bought for the manuals when i worked at microsoft. i only found one copy of Word 5.1 on sale at ebay, and there it is touted as “one of the most efficient, basic, and streamlined word processors ever–still viable even today!” i agree with them, and if i had a computer that would run it, i would probably be using it as my word processor.
i am thinking of selling them. based on what i know, i think i should start at $75 a piece for the v5.1 copies, but i’m not sure whether i should go higher or lower for the v5.0, because of the fact that v5.0 was at exactly the same time as bill gates was saying that there were “no appreciable bugs” in microsoft software…
okay, i’ve about had it with the “Athiest 1 – Magick 0” posts that i have been seeing around for the last couple of weeks, in regard to the athiest rationalist who challenged a “tantrik magician” to kill him on television. it’s wrong thinking from the start, and here are some of the reasons why.
by the way, with the exception of the first, all of these reasons assume a hypothetical person who is able to kill the rationalist by using “magic” powers without actually touching him in any way. whether such a person really exists or not is a subject for another discussion at some other time.
1: because of the fact that this took place on television, there’s a good chance that the station that broadcast it was legally liable if anybody died on their set, regardless of how they died. the probability is extremely high that both the rationalist and the “tantrik magician” knew this, even before accepting an appearance on the show. this was not a challenge, it was an entertainment event, and it was known ahead of time, exactly what the outcome would be.
2: the (hypothetical) person who actually has the power to kill the rationalist isn’t the person who is going to be widely known as a “tantrik magician”. such a person avoids fame, would not actively seek out the spotlight, and, when in the spotlight, would demonstrate that anyone could do the things that they do, and/or to give thanks to God (or whatever you may call it) for the abilities that are being ascribed to them. however, especially if they are widely known, such a person would also be very careful about the words that are used to describe them. any words – such as “tantrik magician” – that imply that their powers are in some way “super natural” will be avoided at all costs, and any violation of this would be swiftly and sternly dealt with.
in fact, just from knowing this much, i can tell you with absolute certainty that the “tantrik magician” failed to kill the rationalist, knowing no further information. by the way, if you haven’t already read the article, the “tantrik magician” – big suprise – failed to kill the rationalist.
3: the rationalist, in accepting a challenge from a “tantrik magician”, knew from the start that he would fail, so this wasn’t really a “challenge” at all. such people don’t know a real saint when they see one, because of their mindset that tells them that such people don’t exist. a real saint could perform any miracle, with as much documentation anybody could ask for, and such a person would find some way to prove that they didn’t actually do it.
4: the (hypothetical) person who actually has the power to kill the rationalist will not respond to challenges to “prove” their powers. such a person would consider the whole subject of responding to a challenge superficial, pointless, and actually deterimental to the actual reason why are on earth.
5: perhaps the most important point of all is that the (hypothetical) person who actually has the power to kill the rationalist will be known as a person of peace, and would never kill another conscious being for capricious reasons or to prove a point. this, if no other reason, is why all challenges like this will be met with silence from the people who could actually do it.
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Happy Easter, Purim, Narouz, Eid Milad an Nabi, Small Holi and Magha Puja!
also, happy day-after-the-Punk Rock Flea Market. it was a good one. i made $85, and i actually sold a Ganesha murti, which was the goal that i set for determining whether or not to attend the next one. i still have to unload the car, but i’m still sitting around in my bathrobe at 12:00 in the afternoon, so i don’t think it’s gonna happen soon.
one of moe‘s friends spent the night last night, because it was easier than driving an extra 2 hours from her place to get to a herding trial that both she and moe were going to yesterday and today. unfortunately, that meant that her two herding dogs also spent the night, and what with our own herding dog, and the herding dog that belongs to her that moe is taking care of because she’s pregnant (lucy), that meant about a hundred dogs, most of whom spent their time trying to herd the cats, trying to stare down the cats, and/or barking with that sharp, high-pitched, irritatingly insistant bark that herding dogs have. fortunately they also had the idea of getting take-out from Naan N’ Curry – renton’s other outstanding indian restaurant (the other one being Pabla’s), so after stuffing myself with lamb jalfrazi and chicken pakoras, i retreated to the bedroom and read the sacred magic of abramelin the mage while moe did her doggie thing in the living room. moe and her friend got up at some ungodly hour this morning and went to the 2nd day of their herding trial, and, hopefully, i won’t have to deal with that many dogs again until lucy has her puppies in about a month.
Honk Fest West happens in seattle, tomorrow through sunday. i’m scheduled to perform on friday and sunday. saturday, i’m going to the Punk Rock Flea Market in belltown.
It’s Time to Kick Jesus Out of Politics – Is legislative prayer really necessary?
Satellite measures pollution from east Asia to North America – In a new NASA study, researchers taking advantage of improvements in satellite sensor capabilities offer the first measurement-based estimate of the amount of pollution from East Asian forest fires, urban exhaust, and industrial production that makes its way to western North America.
Legitimate LSD – The first government-approved psychotherapy study of LSD’s therapeutic benefits in human subjects in over thirty-five years is scheduled to proceed.
The Peace Drug – Post-traumatic stress disorder had destroyed Donna Kilgore’s life. Then experimental therapy with MDMA, a psychedelic drug better known as ecstasy, showed her a way out. Was it a fluke — or the future?
Top 5 reasons why “The customer is Always Right” is wrong – Let me get this straight: The company will side with petulant, unreasonable, angry, demanding customers, instead of with me, its loyal employee? And this is meant to lead to better customer service?
here is someone who knows what i went through and is able to talk about it without sounding like a raving idiot!
Dr. Jill Taylor‘s talk at 2008 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design)
a few things are different: i suffered an Arteriovenous Malformation, not a stroke, and i still have quite a bit of trouble with language, mood, and my right hand. my clot was more the size of an egg than a golf-ball, but it was on the periphery of the left hemisphere, just above my left ear, and is in a very similar place to the location of Dr. Taylor’s scar and what i can tell from the angiograms that she shows. of course, she started out as a neuroanatomist to begin with, and has a lot more language skills to describe such an event than i ever had, and i believe my AVM was higher up on the left hemisphere, which affected my language center a lot more profoundly.
i wrote to dr. jill, just to say how much i admired her talk.
House Democrats reject telecom amnesty, warrantless surveillance – another strike for the “terrorists”, but didn’t bush say he would veto anything that doesn’t offer retroactive immunity for telecoms? it sounds like a tiny step in the right direction, but i’m going to wait until this actually passes into law before i start rejoicing… and that’s just a drop in the bucket compared to all of the other bush screwups we’re going to have to fix… 8/
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there are almost a million terrorists in the united states AT THIS VERY MOMENT!!!
are you afraid yet?
the U.S. government’s terrorist list has, as of this posting, 927,436 terrorists, and at the rate it’s increasing, over 20,000 records per month, there will be a million U.S. citizens on the list by july!
are you afraid yet?
and people wonder why i wear a button that says “I AM A TERRORIST!” 8/
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this is exactly why i wanted to get away from using LiveJournal!
No more Basic Accounts – this means that you can no longer sign up for a free account at LiveJournal. they apparently haven’t said whether or not the free accounts created before March 12, 2008 will be grandfathered, or if they will be automatically transferred into “plus” – i.e. “with advertising” – accounts. when i originally signed up at LJ, there was no such thing as advertising, and they assured me that there would never be advertising, and yet not only is it here, but there’s no way to not have advertising on your livejournal account.
i’m SO glad i’m not blogging there any longer! you have no idea!
if you haven’t heard, oklahoma state legislator sally kern recently made some “unfortunate” remarks about gays and terrorists:
“unfortunate” because according to what i have read since then includes the fact that, apparently, sally kern has a gay son, who she has disowned because of his sexuality:
when confronted by the (800,000-some and still rising) people who were offended by her comments, she said that if she had known she were being recorded, she wouldn’t have changed what she said, and she was not going to apologise for standing up for “god’s” word:
first, i wonder how pathetic, puny, childish minds like this ever get elected to public office, then i wonder why it is that when they make their pathetic, puny, childish opinions public like this, that there isn’t more public outcry to get them out of office… and then i remember that this is reality that we live in, and regardless of how nice it would be if we all just got along with each other and respected each other’s private lives without having to make pathetic, puny, childish statements about how “god” doesn’t approve of us, it’s simply not going to happen until we make a concerted effort to rid ourselves of the remaining pathetic, puny, childish mindset that currently plagues us as a whole.
i remember thinking that it was going to be my son’s generation that made the substantial changes that need to be made in our society in order to keep the human race from bombing ourselves into oblivion, but the older i get, the more i see that, even if my son’s generation gets a start on making those changes, it will still be a long, uphill battle to save the planet from ourselves. 8P
yesterday was full of incense orders, appointments, and rehearsals. i got up in time to go to my 10:00 appointment with the DVR lady and her business consultant (more about this later), and discovered that i had a $35 incense order. so i put the order together and was printing out the invoice when i realised that the person to whom i am sending it lives in the UK, which means that i have to figure out extra postage, and then write to them requesting that extra postage before i ship it. as of 1:30 today (more than 24 hours after i sent the request, i still haven’t got a reply from them. i hope it doesn’t turn out that they only notice when their order doesn’t come and they file a complaint with paypal… 8/ ). in any event, the result of all this was that i left about 15 minutes late for my appointment. fortunately i was able to call and let them know, so they woudln’t decide that i wasn’t there and decide not to help me at all.
i ended up getting to my appointment about 5 minutes late, but then i ended up sitting in the lobby for about 15 minutes before someone came out and told me that the appointment was actually scheduled for 10:30, not 10:00, and that the business consultant hadn’t arrived yet. 8/
finally the business consultant arrived, and she, the DVR lady and i talked about Hybrid Elephant for about 2½ hours. she ended up saying not very much that made me feel as though they actually are going to help me, including a blanket statement, which she did clarify later on, that the DVR won’t help people who are interested in self employment. she did qualify this by saying that those people who do get help from DVR with self employment are a lot more likely to be people who fit into the “niche markets” rather than the “fringe economy”, and that, on the surface, Hybrid Elephant sounded a lot more like the latter than the former. however she did say that it has very definite “niche market” potential, and that i should endeavour to work more towards developing those things, which included print brokering and musical instrument repair – neither of which are entirely out of the question, although both could use some help that i either can’t afford, or don’t know how to give them before they become anything like sustainable business material.
i had hoped to come home and take a shower before going to my 3:00 appointment with ned, but as it was i had just about enough time to come home, slam down something to eat, throw my trombone in the car and head out again. i made it to my appointment with about 15 minutes to spare, and when it got out, there wasn’t much point in driving more than i had to, so i drove up to ballard and took a nap until it was time for my BSSB rehearsal, from which i got home at 10:00, at which point i was so tired that i fell asleep on the couch.
that being said, here are a few things that i have found interesting from the past couple of days:
Cats Help Shield Owners From Heart Attack – this makes me wonder a lot about what toxoplasma gondii has, if anything, to do with it… and i, personally, can’t imagine how toxoplasma gondii could not have anything to do with it, considering how prevalent and insidious the microbe is…
The day the wiretaps go dead is about warrantless wiretapping, and how ordinary citizens can secure their communications against such travesties of democracy, while our supposedly democratically elected leaders are going about the business from a completely different angle: House Steers Its Own Path on Wiretaps. we can only hope that they will continue to be successful, if we want to keep democracy around.
finally, we have Crazy ‘Pot Will Make You Sell Your Children’ Warning from Otherwise Sane Senator, which just goes to show how far we have yet to go… 8/
The Wire’s War on the Drug War
Curing Addiction With Cannabis Medicines?
Cannabis Smoke Is Less Likely To Cause Cancer Than Tobacco Smoke
Get your cocaine from Superdrug
Phoenix Tears is a not for profit entity dedicated to the production of Hemp medicines and providing information about the use of natural Hemp oil, (not Hemp Seed oil) as an effective treatment for cancer and other serious illnesses.
Mahasivaratri is March 5 or March 6, 2008 – Happy Mahasivaratri everyone!
Shivaratri is the day of Lord Shiva. Shiva is the lord of meditation and therefore the lord of awakening. Shiva Tatva means to be awakened. Shivaratri is thus an occasion to awaken one’s self from all sorts of slumber.
The night of the rebel God Shivaratri is not a night to be slept over. One should try and be up through the night. It signifies being aware of everything you have and being grateful about it. Be grateful for the happiness which leads to growth, and also for sadness which gives a depth to life. This is the right way of observing Shivaratri.
For the pious, the following method of Shiva worship is advisable – sit down in lotus posture, do some Pranayam to stabilize your breath, then indulge in Dhyana, followed by chanting of “Om Namah Shivay”. It is the greatest mantra and the devout should drown himself in its Kirtan.
Shivaratri worship leads to fulfillment of a devotee’s wishes. There are certain days and time frames in a year that enhance one’s mental and spiritual faculties. In such times, whatever one wishes, materializes. Shivaratri is one such day. All this is very scientific.
Going to temples on this day is OK but you should remember that Shiva is everywhere. The meaning of Kailasa is celebration. So where there is happiness and celebration, Shiva is present. Whether in Sanyasa or Sansara, you can’t escape Shiva. Feeling his presence all the time is the essence of Shivaratri. That is the real Sanyasa.
No worship is complete without offering something to the deity. Shiva is a very simple lord, he is innocent – bholanath. One just needs to offer bel-patra to him. But in this simplicity is a deep message. Bel-patra offerings signify the surrender of all three aspects of one’s nature – Tamas, Rajas and Sattva. You have to surrender the positives and negatives of your life to Shiva and become carefree! The greatest offering is your self.
To offer one’s self is the key to happiness in life. Afterall, why do you get sad? It is mainly because you are not able to achieve something in life. At such times you should surrender everything to the all knowing God. The greatest power is in surrender to the divine. It’s like a drop owning the ocean. If a drop remains separate, it will perish. But when it becomes the ocean, it is eternal!
John King plays the Prelude to the Cello Suite #1 in F, BWV1007 by Johann Sebastian Bach… on the ukelele!
many years ago, when i was taking trombone lessons from dennis smith, emeritus principle trombonist from the los angeles philharmonic, i was given this piece as a “warm up” excercise, and now, even after my injury, i can play it, on the trombone, entirely from memory. dennis used to say that if you don’t work up a sweat playing bach, you’re not doing it right. also, i used to work with a guy who claimed to be a great-great-great-great-great grandson (or something like that) of bach, a guy named James Bach, son of Richard Bach, author of “Johnathan Livingson Seagull”… small world, ain’t it? 8)
John King plays The Washington Post March, by John Philip Sousa… on the ukelele! [thanks to Howlin’ Hobbit]
suspects – either pornographers or journalists, i haven’t completely decided. if nothing else, it’s a good reason to avoid P2P software and to use DHCP… if there’s any doubt about your computer, try ShieldsUp which will tell you where the problems are, and make suggestions about what to do to fix them, hopefully before the police show up.
Child porn found on 20,000 computers in Virginia – "Using a national online system that enables them to remotely download incriminating images directly from a suspect’s computer"… waitaminute… somebody, somewhere has a software application that can discern incriminating photos from ones that are not incriminating on any computer, regardless of it’s operating system whether or not it is a server, and whether or not it is protected by a firewall, and that gives them the ability to download those images without leaving a trace in the target computer’s log files?
if they have the ability to download such images from computers regardless of their network presence or operating system, then why don’t they have the capability to replace the images, or shut down the computer, or introduce a virus, or block its network access? i can just see the shocked look on the pornographer’s face when he comes home one afternoon to discover that his entire hard disk has been wiped clean, or all of his pornography has been replaced by pictures of My Little Pony™.
maybe the reason why they are so confident of their numbers is because of the fact that they introduced the incriminating photos themselves. can you imagine a better way to get "potential terrorists" out of the way than to plant child pornography on their computers without their knowledge?
"using the nationwide software system, child pornography can easily be downloaded from the computer hard drives of individuals who utilize peer-to-peer file-sharing" so either they’re using P2P software themselves and have access only to the target hard disk’s "shared folders", or they’re using some "law-enforcement-only" software to access entire disks on P2P networks, not just the “shared folders”. i would think that people who had “incriminating” files on their computer, regardless of whether it was child-pornography, pirated music or plans to blow up the white house, would be smart enough not to put them in a place where they can be downloaded, willy-nilly, by just anyone. those criminals that aren’t that smart deserve what they get.
somehow i doubt that their investigation is actually happening that way, but you’ve got to think that a person whose job it is to write a newspaper article about computers would know enough about them to know.
Playing Politics With Intelligence – As President Bush and his aides reject the accusation that they are playing politics with matters of national intelligence, it’s worth noting that they have done precisely that many times. Bush and his top associates have a tradition of selectively disclosing intelligence findings that serve their political agenda — while aggressively asserting the need to keep secret the information that would tend to discredit them. Think the run-up to war in Iraq. Think Valerie Plame…
ANTI-SEMITES FOR OBAMA – the tennessee republican party issued this press release today, in the wake of barack obama’s hesitance to denounce, or reject, anti-semite louis farrakhan’s support in last night’s debate. of course they did – they’re republicans and they’re from tennessee, what did you expect?
Ever wonder where L. Ron Hubbard stole Scientology from? – apparently there was a book published in 1934, in german, by Dr. A. Nordenholz called “Scientology – The Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge” – in german it’s “Scientologie – Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der Tauglichkeit des Wissens” – which bears a striking resemblance to L. Ron Hubbard’s “Scientology”. it makes me wonder what Anonymous and/or the RTC will have to say about it.
If you like mazes this should keep you busy for a while.
Doctors demolish myths on medical marijuana – New analysis shows feds are wrong on pot… as if we needed another group of scientists to tell us that…
Articles Of Faith: Ridiculing gay men is hateful way to preach – ken hutcherson, pastor of the antioch baptist church in kirkland, raises ire… much like bob “More Head” moorehead, pastor of the overlake christian church in bellevue did… will anybody else notice?
Gay Florida Teen Gunned Down in Fort Lauderdale – yep, somebody noticed… but in the wrong way… 8/
as i have said previously, this country, and this society has been getting more and more dysfunctional, and this is a prime example: people espousing hatred of gays results in their dehumanisation to the point where killing them is almost expected behaviour, and nobody says anything when it happens in their neighbourhood. things have got to change, and very, very soon, otherwise we’ll be right back in the middle of a world war over temporary and changing things like oil and beliefs. history has taught us nothing. 8/
A Spry Farrakhan Sings Obama’s Praises – which has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that in the 1950’s Louis Farrakhan was a Calypso Singer…
The Mad, Mad Middle Class – Large numbers of middle-class people are mad, really mad, about the damage Bush-league conservatism has done to the country. That’s what we get for electing not one, but two different presidents named “Bush”. I wondered how long it would be until that would come back to bite us… 8/
New Way To Store Information Via DNA Discovered – now the TSA and the DHS will have an excuse to search even your DNA for covert plans to blow up stuff or to foment revolution. you watch, it will happen… 8/
The Water Cure – Debating torture and counterinsurgency — a century ago
Dare to Know – What is not taught in School, from the Islamic Homeschool blog.
McCain Torture Endorsement Lost Amid Media Sex Scandal Frenzy – The media missed a damning story that has actual implications for American democracy.
now, examples of reasons why this “terroristic” sentiment won’t make any difference at all, and will, in fact, be labeled “terroristic”, regardless of how valid it is:
In election 2008, don’t forget Angry White Man
Transformation Meditation Home Study Courses – another iteration of mahesh varma, but for a newer, more jaded generation.
5 Myths About Torture and Truth
When Change Is Not Enough: The Seven Steps To Revolution
Steal This Wiki – i did… 8)
What We’re Up Against – it’s still an uphill battle with idiocy like this floating around, though… 8/
US Al Qaeda Strategy Fatally Flawed; Causes More Terrorism which is related to Can You Tell a Sunni From a Shiite?
How Well Do You Know The World – i couldn’t make it past level 6, but the map is kinda small…
one step closer to having my ipod be able to play .FLAC and .OGG files, as well as .MP3s.
is it just me, or is this country getting more and more dysfunctional on a daily basis?
Feds admit waterboarding illegal
John McCain Sells His Soul: Backs Off on Torture Ban
U.S. Soldiers Kill Unarmed Iraqis and Afghanis
Bush Won’t Let Facts Stand in the Way of Regime Change in Iran
Surveillance Editorial Roundup
Detention camps at undisclosed locations in the US? Rule by Fear or Rule by Law?
but there are some good things… precious few of them, but here are some that are worth mentioning:
Supporting Research into the Therapeutic Role of Marijuana
ACLU, Rick Steves launch marijuana campaign – i played music for a party given by rick steves last year… 8)
Christian Right’s Emerging Deadly Worldview: Kill Muslims to Purify the Earth – eminentize the eschaton! more jeezis horseshit.
Latest Anti-Pot Quack Science: ‘Marijuana Makes Your Teeth Fall Out’ – more anti-cannabis horseshit
Scientists breed world’s first mentally ill mouse – schizophrenic mice… just what the world needs… 8/
despite the ranting opposition and desperate pleas that have been going on for months, in regard to a more law abiding approach to the FISA fiasco, the senate has decided to pass the bill that will give telecoms retroactive immunity for their collusion with our corrupt administration’s flagrantly going through your private communications without a warrant, not to mention their violations of law and their customers’ trust.
i repeat: the government is spying on you, whether you’re a terrorist or not, and they have full cooperation, and soon will offer retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies that handle all of your telephone calls and email communication. i don’t know about you, but given the government’s record for telling the truth about things, i don’t trust the government to do what is “right” with that information!
it is now even more important that YOUR representative recieves a call or email from you (yes, that means all of you who are american citizens of course… i don’t expect people who aren’t americans to be concerned with this) expressing your displeasure that they have been allowed to do this in the past, and that they are going to be allowed to do this in the future, without having to answer to you.
White House Admits that Defendants in Telecom Cases Assisted in Wiretapping Program
and, in case you’re interested, mccain voted to pass FISA with no amendment removing retroactive immunity, like he said he would, clinton said she was against it, but she was “too busy” to be there for the debate, and then she voted to pass it without the amendment anyway, and obama voted against it, like he said he would. obama is looking more and more like a candidate that i could, reluctantly, support in spite of everything.
Breaking the Drug Taboo: Group of Traumatized Veterans Get Experimental Ecstasy Treatment – we’ve got a country that seems bent on starting war, spending less and less money on medical care for injured soldiers, children and for everyone, and we’ve got a leader who, while he partook of illegal drugs in the past (and may still have at least one habit that we’re not supposed to know about), has basically said “no drugs for anyone”, and his henchmen are doing everything in their power to put as many “drug users” as possible into prison – the maximum pentalty for possession of a nuclear weapon is 12 years, but the maximum pentalty for posession of 3 pounds of cannabis is life, without the possiblility of parole – and yet there are still groups like the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies pushing for things like this. i’m not sure whether or not i feel like this is a lost cause: part of me is very glad that there are groups like this out there changing perceptions of drugs and forcing their use in medicine, but part of me thinks that, with hypocrites like bush, governors like huckabee, and social leaders like james dobson, there is still much, much further to go before cannabis is legal again.
Few From Obama’s Youth Remember His Drug Use – a couple of things strike me about this article. first, my high school girlfriend went to occidental starting in 1979. i wonder if she knew barry obama. the other thing that strikes me is that it really wasn’t that long ago that bill clinton came under intense scrutiny over whether or not the fact that he “didn’t inhale” made him enough of a druggie to impeach him. it’s astounding enough that a black man has a possibility of becoming president, but a black man who lets it be publically known that he did inhale. and yet cannabis is still illegal. i really wonder about people… 8/
Yahoo Board to Reject Takeover Bid From Microsoft – i was getting worried that micro$not was going to get their hands into yet another pie to the general detriment of everybody else…
Our Constitution is under threat and the most basic principle of checks and balances is being undermined. Not since Watergate has a president so openly disregarded the will of Congress.
During hearings in the Judiciary Committee yesterday, I told Attorney General Michael Mukasey that I called for impeachment hearings because of the stonewalling and blatant abuses of the Bush Administration. He responded by stating that he will NOT enforce a contempt of Congress citation against Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten for refusing to testify before Congress. The video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7M9sjRLCtQ
Alberto Gonzales may be long gone, but the Bush Administration continues its executive overreach with the new Attorney General.
We can debate the need for Impeachment hearings. We can argue its effects on the election or our agenda. But one thing is abundantly clear:
If Congress’ right to require testimony is undermined, then our country’s leaders – Democrat, Republican, or Independent – will be immune from accountability.
The power of the subpoena – to call officials before us – is one of the most fundamental safeguards in our system of government. To have it effectively discarded – by virtue of the President instructing Administration officials to ignore a congressional subpoenas and not even appear before Congress – is unprecedented. The idea that the Attorney General would willingly defend this position – despite Congress’ constitutional right to call such witnesses, is outrageous.
Impeachment hearings could render this moot: The President, Vice President, and all officials under them would no longer invoke executive privilege. There would be no more smokescreens.
In one week, I will be delivering my letter calling for impeachment hearings to Chairman John Conyers. Already, 16 Members of Congress have joined my call, including 3 Judiciary Committee members. I am hopeful for more in the coming days, but it is important for you to reach out to your representative in Congress to express how you feel. You can view the current list of signers, here: http://www.wexlerforcongress.com/news.asp?ItemID=230
I do not know how Congress will react, but I do know this: I will pursue this course aggressively. I will not compromise away the constitutional role of Congress. Your support is invaluable. Please know that I am working everyday to ensure that the Bush Administration is held accountable.
Please continue to support this movement at www.wexlerwantshearings.com.
Yours truly,
Congressman Robert Wexler
Waterboarding is legal, White House says – this is ridiculous! the former acting US attorney general said that waterboarding is torture, and he lost his job because of it… but at the same time, the US prides itself on “not torturing” it’s prisoners. this, in and of itself, should be enough to make the people who have the power to do so, stand up and take action against this administration, but instead they sit back and say “now that that’s dealt with, let’s get on to more important matters.” as Michael Varian Daly said, “If you oppress people long enough, they will kill you.” and, in my opinion, it couldn’t be soon enough for the health and well-being of this country. 8/
Speakers at Academy Said to Make False Claims – lemme see if i got this straight: three born muslim, converted to “christianity” middle-eastern men with “western” citizenship, who say that they have been involved with terrorist acts in the past, but are now “reformed”, get to travel around the country, including the US Air Force Academy, talking about their experiences… <yeah, that’s likely… 8/ >
If Mukasey Won’t Investigate Federal Crimes, He Should Resign – related links here, here and here.
Wikipedia ruled by ‘Lord of the Universe’ – hindus no longer have to worry about mahesh prasad varma so much, but there are still charlatans out there, and they own more than you think.
Bush threatens veto in surveillance laws– also – Will Congress Vote “Yes” to More Bush Spying? – bush is the terrorist…
Voters are told pen had ‘invisible ink’ – also – Election officials probe use of ‘magic’ invisible ink pens in 49th Ward – how dumb do you have to be to believe that?
The Surrender is Working: U.S. Cedes Town to ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’
Your Time Is Up, Mr. President — the National Guard Is Coming Home – finally some people are standing up to this shit and telling those responsible to back off. let’s hope that they will be an example to the rest of us!
Bush’s Budget Proposal Would Cut Medicare Funding – how does cutting $196 million from healthcare stimulate our economy???
US: 9 Iraq civilians accidentally killed – oops. i was cleaning it and it went off…
this is flagged as being “inappropriate for some users” by youtube, so you can’t actually see it at youtube without having an account that says you’re over a certain age. it is not flagged here, so you can inform your entire family, and anybody else who happens to be passing by. people need to see this:
What Is the Point of Congress? – he’s got a point… That’s what they’re calling defenders of the Constitution these days — “wackjobs”…
no, not the fab four, the insect that has been around since the dinosaurs, and accounts for 25% of all lifeforms on the planet. i started out with Whirligig Beetle Gets Rock ‘N’ Roll Legendary Name, because it included a quote from roy orbison’s widow, barbara. then i saw Slime-mold Beetles Named For Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, which is from 2005, but still elicted a guffaw from me. from there i proceded to Will Beetles Inherit The Earth? which makes me think that human beings are probably not the “ruling species” on this planet, and it’s arrogant of us to think otherwise. in fact, if humans succeed in killing ourselves off, as it appears like we’re bent on doing these days, beetles will probably not only survive, but not even notice that anything has changed.
yes, i am a geek.
i found this feed a few days ago – Science Daily – and it has really been making my days a lot easier. i could read things like this 24 hours a day, and need very little else.
Blue-eyed Humans Have A Single, Common Ancestor
Mukasey Offers View on Waterboarding – which, oddly enough, is exactly the opposite of what former US Acting Assiatant Attorney General Daniel Levin said about it. it’s extremely suspicious to me that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t say anything about it before he was “elected”, but now that he’s actually got the job, he’s falling right in line with everyone else in this corrupt administration… 8/
Illegal Government Surveillance: It’s Not Just For Foreigners
Cloning Said to Yield Human Embryos
Researchers Take Step Toward Synthetic Life
and yet nobody has said anything about it… you would think that the “christians”, if nobody else, would be all over this, from a variety of different viewpoints…
Robot Orchestra – en français. no, they’re not robot musicians, but they’ve got a robot conductor… from BotJunkie.
Citizen blogger censored, detained by the FBI! – feed – more information – more information
Ask Al-Quaeda: Answers! – feed
Move Along, Nothing to See Here…
The Free Network Project
Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents
Hijackers’ Friend Objects to 9/11 Report – i was sorting through some old paperwork and found this, from august 2004, but still relevant, despite the fact that nobody remembers it. it goes right along with the story of Maher Arar.
We’ve Seen the Enemy, and He is Us – another article from 2004 that still hasn’t gone away, and, in fact, has gotten worse… 8/
i am posting this from my laptop, which is running dyne:bolic on a live CD. dynebolic appears to be an open source multimedia workstation, that will “automatically join the CPU power of all the computers on your local network: let the old computers work together with the new, united they’ll all work better”. it appears to have software to create, edit and manipulate, video, audio and images, along with having a respectable net section as well. right off the top, i’ve noticed that it appears to view my monitor differently, but it’s got a lot of cool things to distract me from that. i can apparently create a “nest” on my flash drive where it will remember my environment, so i’ll be able to boot from the CD with my flash drive anywhere there happens to be a computer.
HUCKABEE!!! >8/ – what i’m afraid of is that “houdini” will pull a convoluted rabbit out of his hat and win the election. if that happens, we’re screwed.
Economy, War To Dominate State of Union – yeah, right… anything to get people to look away from how bad a president he’s been…
Your help is urgently needed to help defeat a Senate bill to revise FISA, the warrantless wiretapping surveillance program and provide sweeping, retroactive immunity, requested by the president, for telecommunications companies that participated in this program.
President Bush is insisting that the phone companies need this immunity or we would be at risk of future terrorist attacks. I remain unconvinced that this is the case and the House passed bill did not include this measure. As I mentioned in previous emails about this issue, if the president was serious about keeping us safe from terrorism while advocating for this immunity, he would long ago have provided us with the necessary documents for Congress to review this program.
In the Senate today, the pressure is on from Republicans to end debate and force a vote to grant phone companies retroactive immunity before any details of their activities is revealed.
Your help is needed now. Contact your Senators today and ask them to vote no on today’s FISA cloture vote. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an action page below that can help you reach your Senator now.
https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?alertId=357&pg=makeACall
Even after today, further efforts may be needed to make sure that a bad bill does not pass the Senate.
Thank you for your help today and your continued support for a better democracy.
=====
Here’s what’s at stake with today’s imminent vote on the FISA Amendments Act:
1. The FISA Amendments Act permits the Attorney General of the United States to order physical searches of your home, your workplace, your property or any other place without the warrant required by the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. A secret FISA court can retroactively determine that the search was inappropriate, but if the Attorney General decides at his or her own discretion that information gained has something to do with a threat to somebody’s security, the information can still be used. The sick punchline is that the Attorney General is tasked with determining whether the Attorney General’s conduct in this regard is legal.
2. The FISA Amendments Act permits the government to eavesdrop on your private conversations over the phone, by e-mail or by fax, indeed on any American’s such conversations, without the warrant required by the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. Even if a secret FISA court retroactively determines that the search was inappropriate, the administration in office can decide that the information gained was important anyway and still use it. And yes, as with physical searches, the administration is itself tasked with determining the appropriateness of its conduct.
3. Telecommunications corporations are prohibited by law from sharing your personal private information with the government unless there is explicit legal authorization. That’s for your protection, and it is, again, mandated by the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The FISA Amendments Act lets telecommunications corporations off the hook for breaking this law for year after year during the reign of the Bush administration. What’s worse than simply coddling corporate crooks, by giving telecommunications corporations immunity from lawsuits for breaking the law the Bush administration makes it impossible for its system of warrantless wiretapping to be brought into the court system for adjudication, which is how the constitutionality of government action is decided. If the FISA Amendments Act is passed, say goodbye to your chance to see surveillance of Americans without a warrant ruled unconstitutional. Such cases will be outlawed.
=====
Call the Congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the offices of the two Senators for your home state. Fill up their voicemail systems with demands that they support two actions:
1. A vote AGAINST cloture on the FISA Amendments Act. Ask your Senators to keep debate on the bill going, because when debating stops voting can begin…
2. Active support FOR Senator Dodd’s filibuster against the FISA Amendments Act should the vote for cloture prevail. Senator Christopher Dodd has committed to intervening and preventing a vote with a personal filibuster. The more Senators that participate in a filibuster, the easier it will physically be for the filibuster to continue. Also, the filibuster can be stopped if enough Senators vote to stop it. Ask your Senators to at least let the filibuster keep going, and preferably support it with their own bodies.
Call the Congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Right now!
Closing the noose on the USA – this is the beginning of having a storm trooper on the corner, asking for papers to go from one part of town to another, making sure that you’re where you’re supposed to be, doing what you’re supposed to be doing. what will have to happen before people will say enough?
Jack Bauer Cellphone Network to Detect Nukes, Surveil Cities – We’re sure some readers are already screaming “Big Brother” and alt-tabbing to their blog window to write about this evil new “Nokia 1984 phone”
Cloudwar – on january 8, bush signed an order expanding the power of federal law enforcement and spy agencies to combat internet attacks on government
after a week of campaign stops in the south where huckabee told his audiences he wanted to rewrite the constition to bring it in line with “god’s standards”, during last night’s republican debate on MSNBC, he assured the audience that he did not want to “impose” his beliefs on anyone…
8/
the question that prompted this remark begins about 6:17 into the video. i didn’t pay any attention to the rest of it.
Draft Economic Recovery Program To Stop The Bush Depression – now, of course, none of this has the remotest hope of actually coming to pass, which makes me wonder what’s really going to happen…
Let Market Crash Now Or Face Financial Train Wreck – more stuff that will never actually happen, which raises more concerns about what is actually going to happen…
Professor Anderson Explains – having trouble understanding the impact of the national debt on the volatile economic situation? here’s laurie anderson in a PSA from the 1980’s, putting it all into perspective. the numbers have become more extreme and depressing of course – in this video the debt was around 2 trillion dollars and now it’s something like nine trillion…
i have written my representatives several times concerning, among other things, getting bush and his cronies out of office and reversing the direction this country has been headed for the past few years. i have always gotten nice “we’re as concerned as you are, but there’s nothing we can do” responses from my democratic representatives, but my republican representative constantly comes back with this:
One of the most difficult questions raised by these provisions is: What are high crimes and misdemeanors? The conclusion reached by most scholars is that clear criminal law violations represent impeachable offenses, whereas misconduct that is not necessarily criminal but that undermines the integrity of the office (such as disregard of constitutional responsibilities) may rise to the level of an impeachable offense.
when george w. bush took office, he made the following affirmation:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
it is evident to me – and to around 60% to 75% of the rest of the voters in the country currently – that he failed to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” by deliberately misleading us, repeatedly, over a period of two years following september 11, 2001.
False Pretenses – at least 935 false statements about the national security threats that didn’t exist!
i’m pretty sure that at least one of those misleading statements were illegal in some way or another, and even if they were all legal, the resulting mess that was created, without a doubt, contained many aspects that were illegal, and of which, bush and his cronies were definitely a part. to me, this very clearly represents “high crimes and misdemeanors”, and yet, my elected representative, and, presumably, the constituent which elected him (of which i was apparently not a part) says that there are questions about what constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors.
it’s really frightening to me that this country is going the direction it is these days, and the fact that my elected government representative would be so deliberately ignorant of it frightens me even more. and for the icing on the frightful cake, we have mike huck-a-bee and his drones – chuck norris chief among them – who want to change the constitution to more perfectly match the “word of god” on things like birth-control, abortion and homosexual marriage, but not when it comes to other biblical laws like eating shellfish, keeping the sabbath or shaving. and people think that he’s exactly what this country needs!
<shudder>
and, on top of that, i don’t have a job or health insurance, my country is sending old, brain-injured men to war, while at the same time, claiming that there are no homeless vets, and it’s illegal for me to commit suicide. i wonder why?
Pakistan’s Decorated Vehicles – these are far more decorated than Ganesha The Car, which is what i was originally thinking of when i first started work on it. if i ever want to get Ganesha that decorated, i’d better start working on it. these are good inspirations for what i can do…
Talking About AT&T’s Internet Filtering on AT&T’s The Hugh Thompson Show – the editor of Boing Boing Gadgets was interviewed by Hugh Thompston, but the interview didn’t go the way Hugh’s corporate sponsor, AT&T, wanted it to, so they cut it, right after the (hand-picked AT&T) audience voiced their opinions about AT&T filtering their email, and started over. here is just the video, and here is a FAQ about the EFF’s lawsuit against AT&T for violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency. “AT&T: Your World. Delivered. To The NSA.”
Elephants Evolve Smaller Tusks Due to Poaching – more blasphemous evolutionary facts that further negate the jeezis-people’s divine intelligence. what with the mounting evidence over the past 200 years, you would think that evolution would be getting a better rep these days. but at the same time, mike huckabee is supporting a state constitutional amendment in georgia which would reclassify most birth control as abortion. this is to put up a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and, eventually, make birth control illegal. it used to be that i would seek out people like this in order to blast holes in their arguments, but since my injury, all i can do is shake my head, because anything more than that and i end up sounding more idiotic than they do.
Surge To Nowhere – Don’t buy the hawks’ hype. The war may be off the front pages, but Iraq is broken beyond repair, and we still own it.
thanks to my awesome web stats, i just found out that my web site is part of the curriculum for Comp 510 – Web Programming, taught by Dr. Russell Martin at The Department of Computing, University of Liverpool…
Bin Laden’s son plans peace ride on horseback – good for him! it’s about time someone close to bin laden had some ideas for change that didn’t involve violence against innocent people… although i must admit, i’m not sure whether or not i posted this, more than for any other reason, just so that i could have the name “Bin Laden” in my blog… is that shallow of me?
Canada Adds U.S. to List Of Nations That Torture – finally! it’s too bad it was a mistake…
Huckabee vows to defy birthright citizenship – what part of “huckabee should not be in the competition to lead this country” do you not understand? why are more people not up in arms about this?
Montana Governor Foments Real ID Rebellion – let’s hope it’s not too little, too late… why are more people not up in arms about this?
Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision – right here in my own back yard…
Guess which drug is illegal? – mark morford is god!
The Pirates Can’t Be Stopped – will that stop them from trying to defeat the pirates? only time will tell, but at this point, it’s not likely.
Banned From Church – more fun with jeezis
Continue reading jeezis pirates with illegal drugs and super-vision…
the letter i wrote to my "friend" CO resulted in the end of our friendship. this isn’t as stressful to me as the fact that other friends of mine actually live in the same city with CO, and have to put up with her much more personally, and on a daily basis. i’m really glad i don’t live in that city any longer, but it’s really sad to think that some of my former friends are so hung up with childish, petty bickering that they miss out on what’s really important.
sigh… oh well… 8P
i have had too many certifiably crazy people in my life – R&B, osiris, almitra, zanthia, JR, the PHBFH, and now CO – they have all had fairly similar attributes, and i am SO tired of dealing with people who are crazy in that way. you know people say i’m crazy, and i’m sure other people say they’re crazy, but until you have dealt with a person who is certifiably crazy, you won’t know what i’m talking about. you say you’re crazy, i say i’m crazy, but then we get on with our lives and everything is good. but with certifiably crazy people, you don’t have to say they’re crazy, because you’re too busy dodging whatever they just threw at you, both figuratively and literally. they can seem like nice, safe, “normal” people (and i use that word advisedly) one minute, and be completely off the wall the next, and you don’t know from one minute to the next what they’re going to do.
it’s like they say: crazy people make even sane people act crazy. i am SO glad i’m 100 miles away from CO, in a completely different city. 8/
Huck, the Constitution and ‘God’s standards’ – oh! my! gawd!
Recreational Drugs FAR Less Likely to Kill You than Prescribed Drugs! – but it lumps in cannabis with other “recreational drugs including cocaine and heroin”, when cannabis by itself has never caused a single death in recorded human history…
In the future, your music could be listening to you
Man wants his $400K back from the FBI – Rule #1: NEVER let cops into your house unless they have a warrant, and if they have a warrant, allow access only under protest! regardless of how much they seem like they’re “on your side”, you can never trust cops to do the right thing when they have the opportunity.
NBC disinvites Kucinich from debate – no matter how they say it, they don’t want kucinich at their party, which is one of the primary reasons why he gets my vote even if he is forced to withdraw from the race.
Mischievous ‘Filipino Monkey’ could have triggered latest US-Iran row – i realise that it’s just a name, but does the “filipino monkey” really have a radio that will reach all the way to the strait of hormuz? it’s about as likely as “the new jersey monkey”…
Continue reading Bush can’t resist starting one more war before leaving office… 8/
The 01-31-07 Memorial Kit – hurry! you have to get this for me before they run out, and/or 20th january (whichever comes first). i promise to do something artistic with it.
i finally figured out how to operate jUploadr, so i uploaded a whole bunch of gallery stuff: Lost Baby, Rage at the jeezis signs, The Horned One, Tech School Notes (which is actually more drawings, but whatever), sketchbook stuff, and a whole bunch of found objects.
also, figure this out:
Bush can’t resist starting one more war before leaving office – iran, of course, says that the video is a fake…
Supreme Court Weighs Photo-ID Requirement for Voters – photo ID that costs money… but it’s not a poll tax, because there isn’t a fee for voting, just a fee to get the ID that means you can vote…
FBI Wiretaps Dropped Due to Unpaid Bills – didn’t i read a report about something like this a few months ago? well, in any event, it’s happened again…
why do we put up with things like this? it wasn’t that long ago that people were marching in the streets, demanding change (yes, i’m referring to the ’60s), and now we just lie down and let them roll over us! i do what i can, but i can’t do it alone by any stretch of the imagination, and the more i read of stuff like this, the more i am tempted to just abandon ship and go somewhere else.
VERMIN L. SUPREME – if i were in england, i would be campaigning for Screaming Lord Sutch, or someone like that. when the OWL party candidate for governor ran in washington state, i voted for him (hell, i even stayed in his cabin on Shit Creek), and now the time has come for VERMIN SUPREME!
Bush Begins Preparations For Nation’s Final Year – let’s start things off with a bit of humour – or is it?
Conservative pastor urges buying Microsoft stock to fight its gay rights efforts – a black man uses race and his position as a pastor to encourage white people to discriminate against gays?
Iraqi Soldier Who Killed U.S. Troops is a Hero in Iraq – what do you expect? the US troops were acting like assholes, and they got what they deserve for a change!
Adobe, Omniture in hot water for snooping on CS3 users – yet another reason not to use adobe products… it’s too bad that adobe went from making one of the best page layout programs in existence to the microsoft-clone that they are currently…
i paid (heh) my state taxes today… which is to say, i filed my tax return, but i didn’t owe anything. i’m not really sure how that works, because i actually did around $1,200 worth of “taxable” business (i.e. that which isn’t mailing stuff to people who are out of state), but i’m not complaining – if i could complain, it would be because the lady from the department of revenue i talked to on the phone about how to correct the errors in my tax return was wrong, but i don’t know that yet, and i’m hoping that everything is as cool as she assured me it was. i also did about $1,100 worth of mailing stuff to people who are out of state. this year’s inventory came to $1,066.89, and this year’s filled orders came to $2,454.85 which is about twice as much as it was last year, although about $1,200 of that was stuff that didn’t cost me anything to produce, and i didn’t have to buy anything in order to be able to fill their orders. i’ll never figure out why this business of print brokering actually makes money, but as long as it does, i’ll keep doing it.
shortly after i had the irritating, irrational phone conversation with the lady at paypal yesterday, i received the following email from “teresa”, who is one of the uncountable number of paypal agents i have talked to in the past:
I went in and tried to request a debit card to your po box and I
received an error I believe this error was due to the length of your
name. I have escalated this to the debit card processor for review and
you should receive a notification within 24-48 hours. I do apologize for
the inconvenience this may have caused you.
i don’t know if teresa was the person i was talking to yesterday, or before that, and i don’t know whether or not the lady i was talking to yesterday has anything to do with this whole fiasco, but it appears that i am, once again, waiting for 24 to 48 hours for a mysterious email from some unknown body that either will, or will not tell me that i am, or am not eligible for a paypal debit card. just to make sure, i actually purchased $20 worth of swastika jewelry from ManWoman yesterday, so it’s possible that all this uproar is for nothing anyway.
Amnesty International 2007 Report on the United States – hint, it’s not good. while it also has some areas of concern, Canada is substantially better…
Pat Robertson predicts violence, recession for 2008 – i thought the bible specifically said something along the lines of “you should never pay attention to people who predict things that don’t come true”… if i recall correctly, acknowledging that he has made predictions that didn’t come true himself is one of your biggest clues that pat robertson doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Continue reading wake up! pat robertston contradicts the bible!
if you post something that doesn’t make immediate sense to me as your first post on this blog – which has to be moderated by me – especially if that post is a link to a blog that has no comments and doesn’t make any sense, like “hotblog dot co dot cc”, or if you post a small section of text quoted out of context from a much larger article with a link to my blog in another place on the web, i will assume you are a spammer and block your IP address at the /0 level with no further warning. if you’ve already gone through the moderation process, you’re in and you can post as much gibberish as you want without concern. this is primarily to quell the stream of spammers who are trying to break my blog. this will be the only warning you get. i’ve already blocked a large number of IP addresses, and the spam quotient has reduced considerably. i have no dreams of ever completely stemming the tide, but this is actually a fun way to operate.
conversely, if you suddenly find that you are unable to access my blog and there’s no apparent reason for it, it’s likely that your IP address was at the /0 level of another IP address which was blocked due to spamming. if you can see this (which isn’t likely) you can write to me and we’ll see if we can work something out, but i strongly recommend that you switch to an ISP which doesn’t allow spammers to set up shop.
a few months ago, one of my friends told me that i work myself into a frenzy with all of this doom-and-gloom news reporting, and they were probably right. but at the same time, it is astounding to me how many of my fellow humans can be so selectively blind when it comes to issues that will affect the normal passage of their lives, and it’s even more astounding to me that i am posting something that i found on a conservative web site, considering that i am one of the most liberal radicals i know. it is also interestingly frightening to consider how many of these corrupt politicians are now candidates for the upcoming presidential elections…
Pakistan’s Bhutto Killed in Attack – now how long do you think it’s going to be before it is discovered that bush and his cronies had a hand in planning this assassination somehow, in order to keep musharraf in power?
my livejournal is now officially retired. i just received the emails saying that it is now a “free” account, and that all of my “paid” options have expired.
hooray! no more ???!
and, in case anybody else wants to jump ship, download .xml files using ljArchive and get a wordpress account or follow this tutorial.
Reality mining and your cell phone – and people wonder why i am paranoid about cell phones and search engines… the only real advantage that i’ve been able to see to cell phones is that people no longer look at you as though you’re crazy when you walk down the street talking to yourself. 8/
SEATTLE SPAMMER INDICTED FOR MAIL AND WIRE FRAUD, AGGRAVATED IDENTITY THEFT AND MONEY LAUNDERING – i am a part of that lawsuit! and i hope he gets his balls ripped off, slowly, and fed to him in tiny bites! >8( really… even with the decrease in spam messages that i get in my inbox (which is around one or two a day, compared with the 75 to 100 messages i was getting last year), words cannot convey how intensely i despise the actions of this man. it’s getting to the point where i’m about ready to black-hole every IP address in asia, and about half of the IP addresses in europe, to prevent spammers from getting through. i have enough to worry about already without also having to deal with your noxious spew, and the fact that my name is a part of that lawsuit gives me a great deal of pride.
God commands you to read this – mark morford talks to God… 8)
White Separatist Group Sues Town of Jena – it doesn’t sound like they’re going to get anywhere with it, but…
All Iraqi Groups Blame U.S. Invasion for Discord – gee, you think so?
New York Times in Iraq: "Blackwater shot our dog" – more chaos in iraq
America: We’re the new China! – mark morford is god!
in the less-than-12 hours between the time that i posted it and now, Eighty Years of Network Television has been downloaded 8 times. i downloaded it twice and the other guy who i collaborated with likely downloaded it once or twice which means that 4 people that i don’t know found and downloaded it as well… very cool!
a long time ago, a friend of mine and i made a whole bunch of music under the name of And More (that way we get a plug on every “greatest of” albums, whether we actually perform on that album or not). as of about 5 minutes ago, i have posted the first And More creation, Eighty Years of Network Television, from the album This Music Is Drugs – The Litany Of Drep. there will be more there as time goes on, but for now, i’d like to see how frequently this one downloads.
i finished the other one of moe’s holiday gifts today, and i took pictures, but they’re going to have to wait until after the holidays, because of the fact that she might be reading this. the other one is dependent on our getting into the bobs concert on saturday, and if we don’t then it will be her birthday present instead of a holiday gift. the other gifts i have to wrap are for moe’s grandmother, and it’s okay if she reads about them…
i’ve been avoiding places like malls, and grocery stores and suchlike pretty much all the time this year, because i know that the “christmas” music and overabundance of battles between “christians”, jews and muslims these days would bring me down considerably. i’ve been doing a pretty good job of avoiding all of that “stuff” ever since thanksgiving, which has resulted in my not being so overwhelmed with rage at the phony “peace on earth, goodwill towards men” attitude that, without question, will abruptly disappear once december 25th passes. i used to make a habit of going to the solstice grand dance, in bellingham. i actually went to it for long enough for it to become a “tradition” (which, according to what i’ve heard, is seven years), but since i moved to seattle, i haven’t been back to bellingham for the holidays at all, and i kind of miss it. the fremont solstice feast was sort of a stop-gap, in that it was a big social gathering that, at one time, i might have been interested in turning into a “tradition”, but i’ve actually avoided it the past few years, because the politics involved with being involved with it are a little oppressive. i like the idea of celebrating panchaganapathi, but there’s so much “christian” holiday “spirit” permeating my life that it’s difficult for me to break free for a 12-hour meditation, much less for 5 of them.
a little music: The Avant Garde Project has a plethora of music by john cage, harry partch, morton subotnik, pauline oliveros, luciano berio, and other heros of mine. i’m currently downloading The World of Harry Partch, but almost everything there looks interesting enough to download. oddly enough, i only found about the Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC file format) comparitively recently. it’s kind of weird that i would be so stuck on MP3, when there’s a free, lossless format that i could be using instead, and at this point, the only reason i’m not using FLAC or Ogg Vorbis exclusively is because my iPod is still running the proprietary iTunes software (which doesn’t support either .flac or .ogg format files) instead of the free, opensource Rockbox software (which does) instead.
as always, there’s much more that i can’t remember… when i sat down and started typing i had at least 5 different subjects that i intended to discuss, but i can only remember three of them, so there will probably be more later.
GOP Rep Declares US a Christian Nation, Calls on Americans to “Stand Up” and “Worship Christ” – because, you know, “christianity” is opressed by the forces of the devil, and stuff like that…
Colo. Church Gunman Left Twisted Trail – this is what comes of raising your kids to be good “christians”.
Charlie’s Angels – 10 years distributing toys to families of inmates apparently isn’t “christian” enough for gay-hating ministry.
Muslim helps Jews attacked on New York subway – the attackers were “christians”, of course.
The Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band was written up in the Seattle Times on saturday. there are more pictures if you click the javascript gallery at the times site, or on the static page at the BSSB web site. there’s also John Philip Sousa’s favourite recipe, in case you ever wanted to know. the library of congress apparently offers a whole bunch of JPS miscellanea including scores, instrumental parts, audio files and scrap books… 8) looks like i’m going to have some web pages to update with new information here pretty soon…
someone wrote to me asking about baaṇalingams (which is another name for narmada sivalingams), so i steered him this direction, which, oddly enough, is the result of about 1 hour’s worth of research of on the web, but i didn’t have anything anywhere close on my site, so i put together a new page for it.
Bush: Iran report a ‘warning signal’ – Freedom is slavery, war is peace, love is hate…
6Apart sells LiveJournal to СУП
from what i’ve read so far, i’m SO glad i got out of there when i did…
i wonder if there’s any money to be made in helping people who are disillusioned former LJ addicts transfer their blogs to WordPress…?
Oral Roberts President Resigns – Richard Roberts says “I love the students, faculty, staff and administration and I want to see God’s best for all of them.”… but “God’s best”, apparently, doesn’t include himself…
i don’t honestly know why, but i have been getting a lot of business from outside the country recently. the most recent occasion was two days ago, when someone from leicestershire ordered a durga murti. i think i like out-of-the-country business, but i’m not completely sure yet.
two days ago, i replaced the (brand new) power supply, and got a refund for the one that i replaced. today i discovered that, because of a screw up at re-pc, i will not actually be recieving the $27.14 refund for up to thirty days. meanwhile, i applied for a paypal debit card, which has yet to be delivered, and i have more than $100 in my paypal account. i would growl more at re-pc except that they have been very helpful to me over the past couple of months, but it really irritates me that i have to wait thirty days before i get my refund.
in other news, i have joined the Grand Council of Bearded Men, which will make me eligible to compete in the World Beard & Moustache Chamionships in anchorage, alaska next year. of course there’s no hope of me actually winning such a championship, but it’s a step in the right direction.
i have been getting comments in my blog that are spams recently. it’s a very good thing i have a moderation queue, and only accept comments from people who have registered, otherwise i would be bitching more about it.
in other news, my brand new power supply that i bought less than a month ago as part of my ongoing battle with the computer, failed yesterday: i cycled the power, and when i tried to start up the machine again, it didn’t even budge. i panicked, asked advice from my net-geek friends, and then took the whole CPU to re-pc this morning and had it officially diagnosed. it’s a good thing it failed yesterday, though, because if it had waited until today to fail, then i wouldn’t have been able to get a refund from re-pc, because it would have been more than 30 days since i bought it.
Domestic spying inquiry restarted at DoJ – now that bush has an attorney general that he can trust not to make him look bad…
Judge orders White House to hold e-mails – riiiight… 8/
Former FBI, CIA Employee Pleads Guilty to Computer Crime – thank you, homeland security… 8/
The uninvited guest – why isn’t this news?
Alternative fuels may boost pollution – alternative to who?
Empty Houses Home to Crime As Loans Fail – more economic crisis…
Continue reading nuke washington d.c. before it’s too late for all of us!
another round of The Battle of The Computer begins…
i reinstalled and everything looked like it was going according to plan, until i got to creating the desktop printers. through some miracle, it actually found the laserjet, which is local to my linux box, and i didn’t even know that it was shared. on the other hand, the deskjet installed more or less like it was supposed to, but when i tried to print from it, there was that old familiar “lost contact” error message, and then it wouldn’t empty the trash when i tried to toss the test print, and then it wouldn’t shut down because something was “busy”… so it’s possible that the problem is actually the deskjet and not the mac itself… although it won’t see my external CD-RW drive, either… although that could be because of the fact that i only paid $5 for the actual drive at re-pc. another indication that it might be the printer is that when i ran disk doctor, like i had to do before, it didn’t find any disk errors at all…
sigh… why won’t the computers just do what i want them to do for more than 3 months at a time, and not break… 8/
i keep finding splinters of broken glass on my desk, but as far as i remember, i haven’t broken anything glass on my desk recently. weird.
the mac is in the process of reinstalling. i’ve started out by erasing the system disk and reinstalling OS 9.2.1, which is the newest old operating system i have, and i’m hoping that’s going to take care of the problems i’ve been having. i started out yesterday by doing a clean install of OS 9.1, which fixed the problems that i’ve been having with photoshop almost immediately, but then i realised that i have a newer system disk, and i decided that starting over from scratch, with a clean hard disk, would insure that any future problems i had would be more likely hardware related. besides, i’m confident that, with the mac operating system the way it is generally, i could get the whole thing reinstalled and running far more quickly than i could with linux or windoesn’t.
sandy asked me if i could make a poster for Puss In Boots, but then she remembered that she asked another friend of hers to come up with a poster, so she said that mine would be a poster that we could use if her other friend came up with something horrible. this is the same sandy that i had to deal with earlier in the year for the moisture festival program, so i’m not expecting to get paid, and i’m not expecting her to have much regard for whatever artwork i do provide, and i’m taking my time about coming up with something. it seems incredible, but i’m actually considering asking about doing the moisture festival program again this year. i must be totally out of my mind. perhaps it’s just as well that she’s going with the idea her friend had… 8/
i got a paypal payment from eva, which i transferred to my bank account, but i wonder why it is, when i transfer money from paypal to my bank account, that it takes two to three days to show up. if somebody pays me using paypal, supposedly the money is transferred immediately, and if i had a paypal credit card, supposedly i would be able to access that money as soon as the person made the payment. but, for some reason, it takes two to three days before the money is transferred from my paypal account to my bank account. i assume that the reason for this is because the paypal people want me to keep the money in my paypal account, so they deliberately take their time about transferring money out of my account, but it’s still bizarre, from my point of view.
i’ve got a potential client, the society of veterinary behavior technicians, who wants a (as in “one”) 24″x30″ white foamcore sign, printed in three colours, black, green and purple. so far, i’ve gotten five estimates, from around $55 (for 2 colours) all the way up to $90, with most of them falling between $60 and $75. i’ve also discovered that it’s fairly easy to buy foamcore, canvas, grommet machines, and other sign making materials from a variety of web sites out there, which makes me want a vinyl cutter more than ever. some day…
also, i’ve got a postcard order from eva funderburgh, who got postcards from me earlier this year. this time she wants 1000 4/4 matte cards with an aqueous coating on one side… and, wouldn’t you know it, the old mac has gotten to the point where i can’t even rely on photoshop to work correctly most of the time. it’s now, officially, time for 1) reinstall the old operating system (clean install), or, possibly 2) install a newer operating system (OS10.4), or even 3) install the new hard disk that i got during the last battle of the computer, and install, but at that point i’m not sure if i’m going to install the old system or the new one. one step at a time, as always, but i don’t hold out much hope for the mac at this point… it’s a good thing i got linux working as well as it is… 8/
someone sent me email with the contact form on Hybrid Elephant yesterday, which i just noticed was from a yahoo address in india. it was confusing. it said:
info
contect details
it was apparently from someone named s.m.patel and it had an IP address that resolved to here, which is apparently a Ram Mandir in indore (not this one, but south west, on the other side of indore, in between Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport and Sirpur Tank, in Angad Kapoor’s Region)…
anybody have any clue what it means?
a personal transcript of Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on Waterboarding and Torture…
November 5, 2007
Finally tonight, as promised, a special comment on the meaning of the story of the former US Acting Assiatant Attorney General Daniel Levin. It is a fact, startling in it’s cynical simplicity, and it requires cynical and simple words to be properly expressed.
The presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush. All the petulancy, all the childish threats, all the blank-stare stupidity, all the invocations of World War III, all the sophisic questions about which terrorist attacks we wanted him not to stop, all the phony secrets, all the claims of executive priveledge, all the stumbling tap-dancing of his nominees, all the verbal flatulence of his apologists; all of it is now, after one revelation last week, transparently clear for what it is: the pathetic and desperate manipulation of the government, the re-focusing of our entire nation, towards keeping this mock president and this unstable vice-president and this departed, wildly-self-overrating attorney general and all the others from potential prosecution for having approved or ordered the illegal torture of prisoners being held in the name of our country.
Waterboarding is torture, Daniel Levin was to write. Daniel Levin was no theorist and no protester, he was no trouble-making politician, he was no table-pounding commentator. Daniel Levin was an astonishingly patriotic American and a brave man. Brave not just with words or with stances, even in a dark time when that kind of bravery can usually be scared or bought off. Charged, as you heard in the story from ABC News last friday, with assessing the relative legality of the various nightmares in the pandora’s box that is the Orwell-worthy euphamism “enhanced interrogation”, Mr. Levin decided that the simplest and most honest way to evaluate them was to have them enacted upon himself. Daniel Levin took himself to a military base and let himself be waterboarded.
Mr. Bush, ever done anything that personally courageous?
Perhaps when you’ve gone to Walter Reed and teared up over the maimed servicemen, and then gone back to the White House and confirmed and determined that there would be more maimed servicemen. Has it been that kind of personal courage, Mr. Bush, when you’ve spoken of American triumphs, and the triumph of freedom and sacrifice of your own popularity for the sake of our safety, and then permitted others to fire, or discredit, or destroy anybody who disagreed with you, whether they were your own Generals, or Max Cleveland, or Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, or Daniel Levin?
Daniel Levin should have a statue in his honour in Washington right now. Instead, he was forced out as Acting Assistant Attorney General, nearly three years ago, because he had the guts to do what George Bush could not do in a million years: actually put himself at risk for the sake of his country, for the sake of what is right. And they waterboarded him, and he wrote that even though he knew those doing it meant him no harm, and he knew they would rescue him at the instant of the slightest distress, and he knew he would not die, still with all that reassurance, he could not stop the terrors screaming from inside of him, could not quell the horror, could not convince that which is at the core of each of us, the entity who exists behind all the embellishments we strap to ourselves like purpose and name and family and love, he could not convince his being that he wasn’t drowning.
Waterboarding, he said, is torture. Legally, it is torture. Practically, it is torture. Ethically, it is torture. And he wrote it down. Wrote it down somewhere, where it could be contrasted with the words of this country’s 43rd President: “The United States of America does not torture.” Made you into a liar, Mr. Bush. Made you into, if anybody had the guts to pursue it, a criminal, Mr. Bush.
Waterboarding had already been used on Kalid Sheikh Muhammed, and a couple of other men none of us really care about, except, sir, for the one detail you had forgotten: That there are rules. And even if we just make up these rules, this country observes them anyway, because we’re Americans, sir, and we’re better than that. And we’re better than you! And the man your Justice Department selected to decide whether or not waterboarding really was torture had decided. And not in some phony academic fashion, nor while wearing the Walter Mitty “poseur” attire of flight-suit and helmet. He had put his money, Mr. Bush, where your mouth was. So your sleazy, sychophantic henchman, Mr. Gonzales, had to have him append an asterisk suggesting his black-and-white answer wasn’t black-and-white after all, that there might have been a quasi-legal way of torturing people, maybe with an absolute time limit, and a physician entitled to stop it. Maybe, if your administration had bothered to set any rules or guidelines. And then, when your people realised that even that was too dangerous, Daniel Levin was branded “too independent”, and “someone who could not be counted on”. In other words, Mr. Bush, somebody you couldn’t count on to lie for you.
So Levin was fired, because if it ever got out what he concluded, and the lengths to which he went to validate that conclusion, anybody who had sanctioned waterboarding, and who knows what else, anybody – you yourself, sir – you would have been screwed. And screwed you are!
It can’t be coincidence that the story of Daniel Levin should emerge from the black hole of this secret society of the presidency just at the conclusion of the unhappy saga of the newest Attorney General nominee. Another patriot somewhere listened as Judge Mukasey mumbled like he’d never heard of waterboarding, and refused to answer, in words, that which Daniel Levin answered on a waterboard somewhere in Maryland or Virginia, three years ago. And this someone also heard George Bush say “the United States does not torture”. And he realised that either Mr. Bush was lying, or that this wasn’t the United States of America any more, and either way, he needed to do something. Not in the way Levin needed to do something about it, but in a brave way none the less.
We have United States Senators who need to do something about it, too. Chairman Lehey, of the Judiciary Committee, has seen this for what it is and said enough. Senator Schumer has seen it, reportedly, as some kind of puzzle piece in the New York political patronage system, and unfortunately, he has failed. What Senator Feinstein has seen to justify in joining Schumer in rubber-stamping Mukasey, I cannot guess. It is obvious that both these Senators should look to the meaning of the story of Daniel Levin and recant their support for Mukasey’s confirmation.
And they should look into their own committee’s history, and recall that, in 1973, their predecessors were able to wring, even from Richard Nixon, a guarantee of a Special Prosecutor, ultimately a Special Prosecutor of Richard Nixon, in exchange for their approval of his new Attorney General, Eliott Richardson. If they could get that out of Nixon, you, before you confirm the president’s latest human echo, tomorrow, you better be able to get a yes or a no out of Michael Mukasey. Ideally, you should lock this government down, financially, until a Special Prosecutor is appointed. Or fifty of them! I’m not holding my breath. The yes or the no on waterboarding would have to suffice. Because remember, if you can’t get it, or you won’t, the time between tonight and the next presidential election is likely to be the longest year of our lives.
You are leading this country, and all of us, to the waterboards, symbolic and otherwise, of George W. Bush.
Ultimately, Mr. Bush, the real question isn’t who approved the waterboarding of this fiend Kalid Sheikh Muhammed and two others, it is why were they waterboarded? Study after study for generation after generation, sir, has confirmed that torture gets people to talk, torture gets people to plead, torture gets people to break, but torture does not get them to tell the truth.
Of course, Mr. Bush, this isn’t a problem is it, if you don’t care if the terrorist plots they tell you about are the truth, or just something to stop the tormentors from drowning them. If, say, a president needed a constant supply of terrorist threats to keep the country scared, if, say, he needed phony plots to play hero during, and to boast about interrupting, and to use to distract people from the plot he did not interrupt – if, say, he realised that even terrorised people still need good ghost stories before they will let a president pillage the constitution – well, heck, Mr. Bush, who better to dream them up for you than an actual terrorist? He’ll tell you everything you ever fantasised doing in his most horrific of daydreams, his equivalent of the day you “flew” onto the deck of the Lincoln to explain you’d won in Iraq.
Now if that’s what this is all about, you tortured not because you’re stupid and you think that torture produces confession, but you tortured because you’re smart enough to know it produces really authentic-sounding fiction, well then you’re going to need all the lawyers you can find, because that crime wouldn’t just mean impeachment, would it, sir? That crime would mean that George W. Bush was going to prison.
Thus the master tumblers turn, and the lock yields, and the hidden explanations can all be perceived in their exact proportions, and in their exact progressions. Daniel Levin’s eminently practical, eminently logical, eminantly patriotic way of testing the legality of waterboarding had to vanish, and him with it. Thus Alberto Gonzales has to use that brain that sounds like an old car trying to start on a freezing morning to undo eight centuries of the forward march of law and government. Thus Dick Cheney has to ridiculously assert that confirming we do or do not use any particular interrogation technique would somehow help the terrorists. Thus Michael Mukasey, on the eve of the vote that will make him the High Priest of the law of this land, cannot and must not answer a question, or even hint that he’s thought about a question, which merely concernes the theoretical definition of waterboarding as torture.
Because, Mr. Bush, in the seven years of your nightmare presidency, this whole string of events has been transformed. From it’s beginning, as the most neglectful protection ever of the lives and the safety of the American people, into the most efficient and cynical exploitation of tragedy for political gain in this country’s history. And then to the giddying prospect that maybe you could do what the military fanatics did in Japan in the 1930s, and remake a nation into a fascist state so efficient and so self-sustaining that the fascism itself would be nearly invisible. But at last this frightful plan is ending with an unexpected crash. The shocking reality that no matter how thoroughly you might try to extinguish them, Mr. Bush, how thoroughly you might try to brand disagreement as disloyalty, Mr. Bush, there are still people, like Daniel Levin, who believe in the United States of America as true freedom. Where we are better not because of schemes and wars, but because of dreams and morals. And, ultimately sir, these men, these patriots will defeat you, and they will return this country to it’s righteous standards, and to it’s rightful owners, the people.
Good night and good luck.
paypal has changed the “add to cart” button from the one that i like – 
– to one that clashes with my nice, clean web site – 
, which means that i have to go through and change all of the buttons in my site. i wish they would give me a “heads up” before they just do things like this… 8/
i have decided that i’m going to become a community distributor for OpenOffice.org, as a way of making it easier for the computer illiterate to get things accomplished without having to resort to using microsoft products. OpenOffice is definitely preferable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that most computer virii in existence these days are made to take advantage of “features” in microsoft office that leave the affected computer open to all sorts of nasties. others are, of course, that it is cross-platform compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux/UNIX, it is 100% compatible with microsoft office, and that it is completely free of cost. to that end, i have added a page to the Hybrid Elephant web site containing FREE downloading information, and i am downloading ISOs of the three disks required, so that i can start out by giving copies of them to my (computer illiterate) clients.
i have actully won the Battle of The Computer™ this time! i bought a used 64mb AGP video card (for $15) and installed it, and now my monitor actually does higher resolution than it did with my previous mother board. i can crank it all the way up to 1600×1200 without any problem at all, although i’m pretty happy with 1280×1024 because of the fact that i have to squint to see it at any higher resolution.
please note, for all you people that bought brand new computers recently: i am running the same processor and memory that i had 10 years ago, with a modern operating system, and instead of spending anywhere from $500 to $2,500 or more for a fancy new box, 7 years ago, i built this computer from bits and pieces that i had lying around from other, dead machines, i have recently spent a grand total of $75 and i’ve got a computer that kicks ass! it’s got adequate audio (for someone who composes and records his own music), more than adequate video, and standard network capabilities, and i only spent $75 for the whole thing. admittedly, recently, i had to wade through a week of misery to get here, but all in all, i think it was entirely worth it.
i’m still operating at 1024×768, but it is so much better than operating on my tertiary computer which uses an operating system that i hate. i took the opportunity to run all my cables more efficiently, so now my desk doesn’t have the rat’s nest of cables behind the monitor, and i’ve still got to figure out what to do with the 6g drive, figure out which driver i should download, download it, and recalibrate my monitor, and it would be nice to get my mac cd-rw drive working again, but all those things are not entirely necessary and can be done at a much more leisurely pace. props to Silver Adept for all the helpful suggestions.
i bought a ribbon cable and a 6g hard disk yesterday, got it installed and, after geeking around with jumper settings for most of the morning, got both drives recognised by CMOS, and installed feisty on the smaller one, but when i get around to booting from it, it looks like it’s confused by the second, now slave, hard disk, which, if you’ve been following this miasma from the beginning, has another instance of feisty installed on it which used to be the main OS on this particular machine.
i got feisty installed and running on the primary disk, but so far (not very far along at this point), whenever i try to boot with the secondary disk plugged in, it looks like it’s going to boot, but stops about halfway through and, after some things which could be error messages, but i’m not sure because they don’t stay on the screen for long enough for me to read them, they’re replaced by a flashing cursor with no prompt, and, while i can see the commands i type in, nothing happens.
does linux have difficulty recognising more than one hard disk? i don’t think so (in fact, i sincerely hope not), but i’ve never tried it before. does linux get confused when both the primary (master) and secondary (slave) hard disks have bootable operating systems on them, despite the fact that the primary (master) hard disk has the current GRUB on it?
currently the 6g drive is updating and the 80g drive is unplugged, but it’s got all my data on it. how do i get it off? will i ever be able to use both drives at the same time?
i got the linux box running again, for about 2 hours. then i stupidly believed the system settings when it said that it had detected a different video card – stupidly because, although i am fairly sure it has vesa video hardware, it said it detected sis video hardware, and i don’t know how to change it back using just the text interface. also, it lost the cd-rw drive, but i’m hoping that it is just a ribbon cable, because when i switch ribbon cables, it appears to work. i’m going to buy a hard disk and a ribbon cable at re-pc this afternoon, on my way to rehearsal… and i also have to get another $5 cd-rw drive… 8/
it’s a little easier, though, because i know i’m going to get my data back eventually. when it was actually running, the hard disk seemed fine, and it actually ran the system updater without any problems. also gliz from NBAC called and ordered more business cards, so there’s a bit of money coming in to pay for it all.
i found a manual for the matsonic MS8308EP, which has important things like jumper settings and which pins take which connectors – i had it all hooked up and ready to fire up last night, but i couldn’t figure out which pins the power swich was connected to, so i couldn’t actually fire it up until this morning. but it does POST, and now all i have to do is make the correct settings in the CMOS and then i can start putting the office back together again.
i took back the asus mother board, because i didn’t want to spend time geeking with the dip switches in order to get the damn thing running again. it turned out that, during the intervening time between the time that i brought the asus mobo home and the time that i brought it back, re-pc got a whole bunch more socket A mother boards in stock, so i traded it straight across for another mobo (a matsonic MS8308EP), brought it home, got it all plugged in, but nothing works…
now i know that it works, because i watched the guy (the friendly one with the lip-ring named jake) at re-pc POST it with my processor and my memory while i was at re-pc.… at this point, i’m thinking it was a combination of fried mobo and fried power supply. fortunately the check from australia cleared over the weekend, so now i have $72 in my bank account now, so what i’ll probably do is go back to re-pc on my way to rehearsal this evening, buy the power supply that i took back last week (again) and give that a shot when i get home… 8/
so i went to Re-PC yesterday and bought a new socket A mother board which is an Asus A7V. i got it installed and fired it up and, apparently, the mother board sent a signal to the power supply that said “shut down now, before you start frying things”. not only that, but i had to get a video expansion card because it didn’t have onboard video, like the previous mother board had, but i neglected to get a network expansion card, because it doesn’t have onboard network, like the previous mother board had, because i neglected to think of it until i got it installed, so even if it was working perfectly, i still couldn’t get on the network. not only that, but there are two rows of switches, one component with 4 switches, which, according to the review, has something to do with the front-side bus (whatever that is), and one component with 6 switches, which has something to do with the CPU speed, or something like that, but i don’t know what. there’s a good bet that they have something to do with the fact that the mother board thinks the power supply is going to fry something.
it’s an ASRock M810LMR mother board, and after clearing the CMOS on it, it still doesn’t work, which is a solid indication that the mother board is defective…
which i don’t get at all… how can a part of the computer that has no moving parts “wear out”?
presumably, if i buy another socket A462 motherboard (because i don’t want to have to buy a new processor), something more than what has been happening will happen. also i have to be careful to get a mother board that takes DIMM memory chips, because i don’t want to have to buy new memory as well. my recollection is that the mother board itself cost around $40, but if i have to buy a new processor and new memory, it will be significantly more.
now it’s just a matter of drumming up enough customers to pay me so that i can actually afford to buy a new mother board… which could be later this week, or it could be early next year. 8/
it’s not the power supply. i just went out to Re-PC and bought a brand new 500 watt AT/ATX power supply, plugged it in, and it didn’t work.
also, boeing surplus is closing it’s doors as of december 21. the guy said that, after that, there will be a few items offered on internet, but most of what boeing surplus sales is now will go in the scrap heap… which means that if you want that sun machine for $25, you’d better go get it now.
okay, this is getting really frustrating:
one of my two remaining computers is a blue and white G3 mac with a “Sonnet” G4 upgrade chip, running Os9. i keep it running Os9 because all of the software i have for mac is stuff that’s Os9 native (quark xpress 5, photoshop 7, fontographer 4, kai’s super goo, etc.). however, either the computer or the operating system is becoming more and more sketchy as time goes on: i can’t keep the computer running for more than a day without having to reboot it, even with nothing running, and frequently, when i try to print something, it starts to print and then it says it has “lost communication” with the printer, and instructs me to try again, but the document in the queue stays in the queue, it doesn’t get deleted. when i try to delete it manually, it says that it’s “still in use” but it doesn’t print, and nothing else that i have sent to the printer after it will print, and very shortly after that, the whole computer freezes, or doesn’t freeze but loses the keyboard. it won’t shut down when i select “Shut Down” from the menu (presumably because it thinks it’s still printing) and when i use the “programmer’s switch” to shut it down, i have to run disk doctor, because it has developed “serious” errors in the B-Tree directory which only get worse if i don’t run disk doctor.
also, when i first boot up, if my external, USB CD-RW drive is hooked up, it says that it can’t find drivers (?) for the "non-specific QT processor with JG" (whatever that means), but can’t “connect to internet”, despite the fact that i can connect to internet at exactly the same time. admittedly, i get almost exactly the same error from windows when i connect the CD-RW drive to it, so that’s probably a problem with the CD-RW drive and not the mac, but still, with my linux box not working, it means that i can no longer burn CDs, which is a royal pain in the neck.
i’ve been seriously considering “upgrading” to OsX, but then i would have to run all my software using the emulator, which would only slow things down, and i don’t know enough about OsX to be able to do any good at all if something screws up.
meanwhile, i’ve somehow been able to crank out a phone book advertisement for a client, but i have been unable to print invoices, and i have had to run disk doctor eight times since 8:00 this morning… 8/
something is wrong with my linux box – my main computer is offline, and i don’t know why!
i’ve noticed over the past few days that, when i run any one of the seven HTML browsers that are on it, that the HTML browser crashes intermittently, and occasionally the whole computer freezes up and has to be rebooted. i know that the 7.1 upgrade for feisty fawn is due out on friday, so i’ve been biting the bullet and not running a HTML browser on that machine except when i absolutely have to, and then shutting it down politely when i’m finished with it. i had also noticed that, occasionally, the power supply doesn’t completely turn off when i turn off the power switch, but continues running for a half-second or so before it turns off. then, yesterday, i did something on the web and the whole computer froze up, and when i tried to reboot it, there wasn’t even the “BEEP” sound to indicate that the POST had completed successfully.
so, i took everything apart, which meant totaly tearing apart my office, and plugged it directly into the monitor, to see if something was wrong with the KVM switch (i have three computers, but only one monitor), but it’s not that, because the KVM switch works perfectly well with my windoesn’t box and my mac, and the linux box doesn’t work, even when it is plugged directly into the monitor…
so, now, i have the linux box completely separated from the rest of the computer systems, and i don’t know what to do. i don’t have ANY money, so taking it somewhere is out of the question, and even if it was, i don’t have ANY money to buy new parts, no matter how inexpensive they are. also, my schedule is on the linux box, and, apart from an appointment with ned at 3:00 today – for which i have a paper reminder separate from my schedule – i have no clue what rehearsals are when. i think i have a trolloween rehearsal on sunday, and i think i have a banda gozona rehearsal on the 25th, but beyond that, i’m totally lost.
in spite of the fact that i’m overall very pleased with the new operating system i put on my linux box (i upgraded from a 5-year-old version of mandrake – which is now called “mandriva” – to the debian distro called Kubuntu – specifically Feisty Fawn), i’m beginning to suspect that there’s something wrong with the current version of the HTML display library that – i believe – it just updated a few days ago. my suspicions are primarily because ever since i ran the updater the last time, my computer has been crashing and freezing on a regular basis, about 3 or 4 times a day. it’s not because of firefox – although it seems that with firefox it happens more regularly – because i’ve downloaded and installed 5 different browsers (amaya, galeon, kazehakaze, dillo, and lynx, which are in addition to the two – konqueror and firefox – that i already had installed: take that, windoesn’t!) and i get exactly the same behaviour whether or not i’m using firefox. it also may have something to do with xscreensaver, because it seems that when i’m not running xscreensaver it happens less frequently.
i hope whatever it is gets fixed soon, because i’m getting tired of rebooting, and restarting my browser… 8/
Oil Prices Hit New Record of $86 Per Barrel – meanwhile, there are people affected by homelessness, hunger, and disease who are suffering because the United States, collectively, can’t get off it’s ass and change things… 8/
the letter i mentioned yesterday has been released. it’s 29 pages and its official web site is here:
Christian Clown Arrested In Child Pornography Bust – as good a reason as any to have an irrational fear of clowns…
Continue reading meanwhile, “christians” keep going from bad to worse…
Muslim Leaders Send Peace Message
plus: a google search that comes up with everybody who is talking about the letter, but no actual links to the letter… Continue reading if i converted to islam, i wonder if anyone would notice…
a person who saw my car at the mason county oyster festival is annoyed by it… but they apparently know other people who are not so annoyed. perhaps their friends will turn into my customers eventually… 8)
‘Dear Abby’ says she’s for gay marriage
Priest gets life sentence over Argentina junta killings
Anti-Abortion Movement Borrows Tactics from the KKK
plus
THE TOMB of NIANKHKHNUM and KHNUMHOTEP – proof that people will be people, regardless of what era they live in.
this is the democrats that “unveiled” this bill… it was my impression that the democrats were supposedly less repulsive than the republicans, but they’re apparently not…
Bush pushes for telecom immunity
071010
By JENNIFER LOVEN
President Bush said Wednesday that he will not sign a new eavesdropping bill if it does not grant retroactive immunity to U.S. telecommunications companies that helped conduct electronic surveillance without court orders.
A proposed bill unveiled by Democrats on Tuesday does not include such a provision. Bush, appearing on the South Lawn as that measure was taken up in two House committees, said the measure is unacceptable for that and other reasons. Continue reading what!?!?
‘War on terror’ has been a ‘disaster’: British think tank
071008
LONDON (AFP) — The US-led “war on terror” has been a “disaster” and Washington and its allies must change their policy in Iraq and Afghanistan to defeat Al-Qaeda, an independent global security think tank said Monday.
The Oxford Research Group (ORG) said in a report that Western strategy since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States had failed to extinguish the threat from Islamist extremism and even fuelled it.
“Every aspect of the war on terror has been counterproductive in Iraq and Afghanistan, from the loss of civilian life through mass detentions without trial. In short, it has been a disaster,” report author Paul Rogers said.
“Western countries simply have to face up to the dangerous mistakes of the past six years and recognise the need for new policies.” Continue reading i am a terrorist… i agree with britain.
UV Black Light Tattoo ink, and a tattoo made with it, or just about anything else they have available… WOW!
Negativland: Our Favorite Things DVD/audio CD
i’ve recently (as in the past month or so) been discovering feeds. a friend of mine mentioned them about a year or so ago, but i didn’t have the application that caused them to be rendered as anything other than plain text, which meant an XML document or something like that, instead of a rendered page. then i upgraded to a new operating system a few weeks ago, and the old standard, Kmail, which has been my email client for almost 10 years now, has been integrated into a new application called Kontact, which is a combination of Kmail, Korganizer, Kaggregator, Kontacts and a few other things which i don’t use, such as the K groupware suite, and other suchlike things. the legacy standard is RSS which stands for Really Simple Syndication, and the newer standard is Atom, and it is apparently a series of HTML or other SGML-child documents, the XML documents that represent them, and a little client-side reader that goes and fetches those XML documents on a regular basis. basically it’s just like your “Friends” list on livejournal, except that it updates itself automatically, and you can “subscribe” to more than just livejournal stuff. it makes me wonder why i stayed at livejournal for as long as i did…
6 years later, US expands Afghan base
October 6, 2007
By JASON STRAZIUSO
Six years after the first U.S. bombs began falling on Afghanistan’s Taliban government and its al-Qaida guests, America is planning for a long stay.
Originally envisioned as a temporary home for invading U.S. forces, the sprawling American base at Bagram, a former Soviet outpost in the shadow of the towering Hindu Kush mountains, is growing in size by nearly a third.
Today the U.S. has about 25,000 troops in the country, and other NATO nations contribute another 25,000, more than three times the number of international troops in the country four years ago, when the Taliban appeared defeated.
The Islamic militia has come roaring back since then, and 2007 has been the battle’s bloodiest year yet. Continue reading this seems vaguely familiar…
Retiring military chief declares: American people can’t vote to end Iraq war
4 October 2007
By Patrick Martin
In a statement remarkable for its blunt rejection of democracy, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, said Monday that opponents of the war in Iraq could not bring it to an end by voting.
Pace made his comments before an audience that included President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and hundreds of high-ranking Pentagon civilian and military officials, as he swore in his successor as the president’s top military adviser, Admiral Michael Mullen. None of those present made any objection to Pace’s statement.
Outside Ft. Myer, where the ceremony took place, a handful of antiwar demonstrators used a bullhorn to shout their opposition. Reporters inside could hear, “Stop the Killing, George!”, “Arrest the Liar for War Crimes!” and other denunciations of the administration and the Pentagon.
Noting the presence of the demonstrators, Pace said the protest against the war was an exercise of the right of free speech, but that there were limits:
“I just want everyone to understand that this dialogue is not about ‘can we vote our way out of a war.’ We have an enemy who has declared war on us. We are in a war. They want to stop us from living the way we want to live our lives. So the dialogue is not about ‘are we in a war,’ but how and where and when to best fight that war.”
Pace was employing the standard “big lie” technique of the Bush administration, presenting the war in Iraq as a response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Continue reading fuming rage!!!
Ohio legislator shows nude image of woman at high school lecture on how a bill becomes law
October 3, 2007
NORWALK, Ohio: An Ohio state legislator surprised a high school class when the computer he was using projected a photo of a nude woman during a lecture on how a bill becomes a law. Continue reading “I have no idea where these came from”… riiiiight…
Sony BMG’s chief anti-piracy lawyer: “Copying” music you own is “stealing”
October 02, 2007
By Eric Bangeman
Duluth, Minnesota — Testimony today in Capitol Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas quickly and inadvertently turned to the topic of fair use when Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, was called to the stand to testify. Pariser said that file-sharing is extremely damaging to the music industry and that record labels are particularly affected. In doing so, she advocated a view of copyright that would turn many honest people into thieves.
Pariser noted that music labels make no money on touring, radio, or merchandise, which leaves the company particularly exposed to the negative effects of file-sharing. “It’s my personal belief that Sony BMG is half the size now as it was in 2000,” she said, thanks to piracy. In Pariser’s view, “when people steal, when they take music without compensation, we are harmed.” Continue reading anybody remember this from 30+ years ago?
White House denies torture assertion
Bush says US ‘does not torture’
2007/10/05
By JENNIFER LOVEN
President Bush defended his administration’s detention and interrogation policies for terrorism suspects on Friday, saying they are both successful and lawful.
“When we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we’re going to detain them, and you bet we’re going to question them,” he said during a hastily called appearance in the Oval Office. “The American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That’s our job.”
Bush was referring to a report on two secret memos in 2005 that authorized extreme interrogation tactics against terror suspects. “This government does not torture people,” the president said. Continue reading bush has lied about so many other things, but he’s not lying now? not likely…
Police now patrolling social Web sites
Oct. 3, 2007
MILWAUKEE — Members of the Milwaukee Police Department now have a new beat to find criminals: social Web sites like MySpace and Facebook.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Tuesday that police officers have begun patrolling the Internet sites where guilty parties sometimes freely admit to committing various crimes without apparent fear of reprisal.
International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators President-elect Lisa Sprague said that by using such Internet sites, police can easily learn valuable information about potentially illegal activities.
“It really does behoove police departments to really be technically proficient on computers, and that includes social networking sites as well, because that’s a very popular way for youth to socialize or to transmit information about parties and protests,” Sprague said.
Research has found that individuals posting on such sites underestimate who will see their posted information and how it could be used against them.
The newspaper said that the social-networking sites have also become valuable tools for police on college campuses, along with becoming hot-spots for potential stalkers as well.
Oregon judge knocks down part of Patriot Act
September 26, 2007
SEATTLE – An Oregon judge on Wednesday ruled that two provisions of the Patriot Act violated the U.S. Constitution’s protection against unlawful searches and seizures.
U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled in favor of Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer wrongly arrested by the FBI in 2004 for possible ties to the Madrid train bombings, who challenged the secret searches of his home and office.
The judge said the amendments made by the Patriot Act to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the government to conduct searches and monitor American citizens without probable cause, which is typically required by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“The defendant here is asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so,” Aiken wrote in her ruling.
In Washington, Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said, “We are reviewing the decision, and while we have no further comment, we are reviewing all our options.”
Aiken’s ruling is the second legal blow delivered to the Patriot Act in less than a month. A district judge in New York said a provision in the Patriot Act that requires people who are formally contacted by the FBI for information to keep it a secret is unconstitutional.
The anti-terror Patriot Act, enacted by Congress after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, expanded the rights of law enforcement agencies and eased restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering.
Iran Labels CIA ‘Terrorist Organization’
September 29, 2007
By Ali Akbar Dareini
TEHRAN — Iran’s parliament voted Saturday to designate the CIA and the U.S. Army as “terrorist organizations,” a largely symbolic response to a U.S. Senate resolution seeking a similar designation for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
The parliament said the Army and the CIA were terrorists because of the atomic bombing of Japan; the use of depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq; support of the killings of Palestinians by Israel; the bombing and killing Iraqi civilians and the torture of imprisoned terror suspects.
“The aggressor U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency are terrorists and also nurture terror,” said a statement by the 215 lawmakers who signed the resolution at an open session of the 290-member Iranian parliament. The session was broadcast live on state-run radio. Continue reading terrorists under scrutiny?
Bush vetoes child health insurance plan
03 October, 2007
By JENNIFER LOVEN
WASHINGTON – President Bush, in a sharp confrontation with Congress, on Wednesday vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children’s health insurance.
It was only the fourth veto of Bush’s presidency, and one that some Republicans feared could carry steep risks for their party in next year’s elections. The Senate approved the bill with enough votes to override the veto, but the margin in the House fell short of the required number. Continue reading no child left behind? not likely… 8/
McCain: No Muslim president, U.S. better with Christian one
September 29th 2007
BY HELEN KENNEDY
GOP presidential candidate John McCain says America is better off with a Christian President and he doesn’t want a Muslim in the Oval Office.
“I admire the Islam. There’s a lot of good principles in it,” he said. “But I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith.”
In a wide-ranging interview about religion and faith with the Web site Beliefnet, McCain said he wouldn’t “rule out under any circumstance” someone who wasn’t Christian, but said, “I just feel that that’s an important part of our qualifications to lead.”
A Mormon such as rival candidate Mitt Romney, he said, would be okay.
“The Mormon religion is a religion that I don’t share, but I respect.
“More importantly, I’ve known so many people of the Mormon faith who have been so magnificent,” he said.
McCain later clarified his remarks, saying, “I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and to defend our political values.”
A Muslim rights group ripped the Arizona Republican’s remarks.
“That kind of attitude goes against the American tradition of religious pluralism and inclusion,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
He urged McCain to “clarify his remarks” and “stress his acceptance of political candidates of any faith.”
The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy group, could not be reached for comment because its offices were closed for the Sukkoth holiday.
In the interview, the senator also said the “Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.”
There is no mention of God, Jesus or Christ in that entirely secular document.
The interview, which included the revelation that he’s talking to his pastor about undergoing a full-immersion baptism after the campaign, sent Beliefnet’s irreverent “God-o-meter” spinning.
“How can the religious right hate this guy?” the site asked.
Beliefnet columnist David Kuo said McCain was “pandering to what he thinks the Christian conservative community wants to hear” and predicted he “will have a lot of explaining to do about this interview.”
The remarks came as he was starting to show gains in the polls.
McCain alienated evangelical voters in 2000 when he branded the Revs. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell “agents of intolerance.”
already the fallout is starting to rain down over the new texas state law that says they have to violate the federal law that says that public schools are no place for religion. i wonder when they’re going to notice that public schools are no place for religion of any kind, even if the kid is a rastafarian. i bet if a kid decided to wear a cross or a star of david to school, nobody would say anything about it, so why can’t a kid who is a rastafarian have his dreadlocks without being punished.
it’s a good thing i don’t live in texas… 8/
Teen Faces Punishment For Long Hair
Daly Says He Can’t Cut Hair Because Of Religious Beliefs
September 26, 2007
LEAKEY, Texas — A Leakey High School senior is being told by his school district to cut his hair, but the student claimed religious values ban him from cutting it.
Now, Ben Daly, 18, said he’s being punished by the school district. Continue reading texas explodes already…
HISD faces Catch-22 on religious viewpoints
With a federal ban still in effect, district must find a way to follow new state law
September 27, 2007
By JENNIFER RADCLIFFE
Even 37 years later, Audrey Guild can still hear the voices of girls taunting her as she walked to Hartman Junior High School.
They were singing Jesus Loves Me to her because her family had sued the Houston school district for allowing Bible verses to be read over school intercoms.
“We got all kinds of hazing — eggs thrown at our house,” Guild, now 50, said. “It was hard as a kid, but it was definitely worth standing up for something like that.”
The Guilds, deeply involved in the Unitarian Church, prevailed. A federal judge ruled in 1970 that the Houston Independent School District was violating a U.S. Supreme Court ruling by permitting or requiring students to read the Bible or say prayers as part of any school practice.
Fast-forward nearly four decades: A new state law — House Bill 3678, or the Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act — requires all Texas school districts to adopt policies creating limited public forums for student speakers at certain school events. Continue reading jeezis, gays, transgenders and government
A Coup Has Occurred
September 26, 2007 (Text of a speech delivered September 20, 2007)
By Daniel Ellsberg
I think nothing has higher priority than averting an attack on Iran, which I think will be accompanied by a further change in our way of governing here that in effect will convert us into what I would call a police state.
If there’s another 9/11 under this regime … it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed, largely secretly at first but eventually leaked out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.
Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its surveillance of us? … They may be to the limit of their technical capability now, or they may not. But if they’re not now they will be after another 9/11.
And I would say after the Iranian retaliation to an American attack on Iran, you will then see an increased attack on Iran – an escalation – which will be also accompanied by a total suppression of dissent in this country, including detention camps. Continue reading A Coup Has Occurred
U.S. Navy to spend money on masking swastika snafu
September 27, 2007
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A U.S. Naval base that appears in the shape of a swastika when seen from above will receive a US$600,000 make-over after sparking concerns from Jewish groups.
“It doesn’t make any sense that a building on government property would be built in the shape of one of the most hated symbols in human history,” Morris Casuto, the Anti-Defamation League’s Regional Director in San Diego, told CNN.
Barracks at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, Calif. were built as four L-shaped buildings, four decades ago.
But it wasn’t until online satellite imaging tools such as Google Earth made pictures from above readily accessible that the shape sparked controversy.
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The swastika, a symbol forever tied to Nazi Germany, is visible to anyone with access to the Internet.
The Navy has said the barracks, used by the Seabees, were constructed in the late 1960s and were not intended to resemble the Nazi symbol.
Casuto readily admits that it was likely an oversight when the complex was built, but says that doesn’t make it right.
After nine months of conversation with the ADL, the Navy has decided to spend US$600,000 on landscaping and architectural changes that would obscure the swastika shape from the air.
“The Navy came to realize that this is a symbol that thousands of people died to defeat and it was inappropriate to have that shape on a military base,” Casuto told Reuters on Wednesday.
Richard Rider, a member of the San Diego Tax Fighters, said spending money on cosmetic changes to military bases is wasteful.
“Should we spend $600,000 on landscaping and cosmetic changes or should we buy three heavily armored humvees for our forces in Iraq?” he told ABC. “Don’t go to the American taxpayer and say we’d rather spend your money on flowerpots and sidewalks than fighting vehicles for our men.”
But the whole debate has flown over the head of John Mock, the architect who designed the buildings, who told CNN last year there was no malicious intent.
“It’s four L-shaped buildings — looking from the ground, the air — it still is,” he said.
The ADL is fighting the appearance of another immense swastika, this one carved into a cornfield in rural New Jersey.
“At a time when Jews around the world and in New Jersey are celebrating the High Holidays, we are confronted with this ugly symbol of hatred against Jews,” said Etzion Neuer, ADL New Jersey Regional Director.
According to the ADL, it’s the third time a swastika has been cut into a New Jersey county cornfield.
from the book “Gentle Swastika – Reclaiming The Innocence” by ManWoman:
Webster’s New American Dictionary (1959) gives this definition for Swastika: “An ancient Jewish religious symbol…”
From the second century BC to the end of the first century AD, a secret, monastic brotherhood of Jews called the Essenes lived in Palestine. Living communally and shunning public life, this hermetic group stressed purity and profound spiritual seeking. The swastika to them was a sacred sign representing the Wheel of Eternal Life. It symbolized the inner movement of the soul which leads through death to resurrection.
Jesus of Nazareth is said to have been trained in his mystical path by the Essene brotherhood, who are probably the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls…
There are associations with the swastika in Hebrew Qabalah, a Jewish mystical teaching. “Aleph” (א) is composed of two “Yodin” (י) and a cross-bar, which is a “Vau” (ו). It represents the World Above separated from the World Below by the Vital Force…
Aleph is symbolic of the primal motion of the Great Breath, the action of the creative center. This may be the source of the swastika as a Jewish religious sign. Some Qabalistic diagrams of the Sepiroth Wheel show a ten-legged swastika-like symbol portraying the manifestation of Primordial or Heavenly Man (Sephiroth) from the Infinite (En Soph)…
The Jewish Defense Leage and the B’Nai Brith Society have been trying to stamp out swastikas, even ones in Chinese shops…
The Jews of the world need to know that there is a gentle swastika, and that they are connected to it by their deepest religious philosophies. Only time can heal the wounds left by Hitler, time and the truth — and that is my purpose in writing this book. Have I chosen an impossible task? I don’t think so.
What do I want from Jews? I want them to realize that the swastika has a life separate and distinct from the nazis.
Swastika building embarrasses US Navy
September 28, 2007
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The US Navy will spend thousands to camouflage a California barracks resembling a Nazi swastika after the embarrassing shape was revealed on the internet.
Navy officials said they became aware the barracks looked like a swastika from the air shortly after its 1967 groundbreaking — and had decided not to do anything.
According to The New York Times the resemblance went unnoticed by the public for decades until it was spotted in aerial views on the internet.
The Navy now plans to spend $682,000 on “camouflage” landscaping and rooftop adjustments to hide any aerial view of the San Diego barracks, known as Naval Base Coronado.
“You have to realise back in the 1960s we did not have the internet,” base spokeswoman Angelic Dolan said. “We don’t want to offend anyone, and we don’t want to be associated with the symbol.”
Ms Dolan said when officials first noticed the swastika look there was “no reason to redo the buildings because they were in use”.
But an anti-bigotry group based in San Diego is not impressed.
Regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, Morris Casuto, said: “We told the Navy this was an incredibly inappropriate shape for a structure on a military installation.”
He said his group “never ascribed evil intent to the structure’s design” and praised the Navy for recognising the problem and “doing the right thing”.
The naval spokeswoman said the barracks were in a no-fly zone that was off limits to commercial airlines, so most people would not see the offending building from the air.
Navy to mask Coronado’s swastika-shaped barracks
Ground level isn’t a problem but aerial views of the Coronado site spark outrage.
September 26, 2007
By Tony Perry
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CORONADO, Calif., — The U.S. Navy has decided to spend as much as $600,000 for landscaping and architectural modifications to obscure the fact that one its building complexes looks like a swastika from the air.
The four L-shaped buildings, constructed in the late 1960s, are part of the amphibious base at Coronado and serve as barracks for Seabees.
From the ground and from inside nearby buildings, the controversial shape cannot be seen. Nor are there any civilian or military landing patterns that provide such a view to airline passengers.
But once people began looking at satellite images from Google Earth, they started commenting about on blogs and websites about how much the buildings resembled the symbol used by the Nazis.
When contacted by a Missouri-based radio talk-show host last year, Navy officials gave no indication they would make changes.
But early this year, the issue was quietly taken up by Morris Casuto, the Anti-Defamation League’s regional director in San Diego, and U.S. Rep. Susan Davis (D-San Diego).
As a result, in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, the Navy has budgeted up to $600,000 for changes in walkways, “camouflage” landscaping and rooftop photovoltaic cells.
The goal is to mask the shape. “We don’t want to be associated with something as symbolic and hateful as a swastika,” said Scott Sutherland, deputy public affairs officer for Navy Region Southwest, the command that is responsible for maintaining buildings on local bases.
The collection of L-shaped buildings is at the corner of Tulagi and Bougainville roads, named after World War II battles.
Navy officials say the shape of the buildings, designed by local architect John Mock, was not noted until after the groundbreaking in 1967 — and since it was not visible from the ground, a decision was made not to make any changes.
It is unclear who first noticed the shape on Google Earth. But one of the first and loudest advocates demanding a change was Dave vonKleist, host of a Missouri-based radio-talk show, The Power Hour, and a website, www.thepowerhour.com.
In spring 2006, he began writing military officials, including then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, calling for action.
That August, he received a response from officials in Coronado, who made no promise to take action and said, “The Navy intends to continue the use of the buildings as long as they remain adequate for the needs of the service.”
In December, the now-defunct San Diego Jewish Times wrote about the buildings and the controversy.
Soon Casuto and Davis got involved.
Casuto began an on-and-off dialogue with the chief of staff to Rear Adm. Len Hering, commander of Region Southwest. He said that several members of the Jewish community had complained to him.
“I don’t ascribe any intentionally evil motives to this,” Casuto said, referring to the design. “It just happened. The Navy has been very good about recognizing the problem. The issue is over.”
Davis, who is Jewish, is also pleased with the Navy’s decision.
During a discussion with military officials on other issues, Davis had mentioned the Coronado buildings and suggested that rooftop photovoltaic arrays might help change the overhead look. The base gets 3% of its power from solar energy and has been looking to increase that percentage.
Reached in Versailles, Mo., vonKleist, the talk-show host, said he was ecstatic.
“I’m concerned about symbolism,” he said. “This is not the type of message America needs to be sending to the world.”
what about hindu anti-defamation? the swastika is a sacred symbol to hindus, and by “camouflaging” it, they are doing a disservice to people (like me) who are trying to reclaim the swastika from people who think that it only means nazi.
let me make it very clear: the swastika has been around for thousands of years and it has only been within the last 100 years that it has meant anything other than good luck, peace and love! even the jews used the swastika as a sacred symbol: the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia says “The swastika appears on various articles excavated in Palestine, on ancient synagogues in Galilee and Syria, and on the Jewish catacombs at the Villa Torlonia in Rome.” there are swastikas that decorate the floor of ancient synagogues in tel hum (capernaum). from the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, again: “In modern times, anti-Semites have given the swastika a baleful significance by adopting it as their symbol; their claim that it is of “Aryan” origin is absurd.” the fact that the US navy is “camouflaging” their swastika-shaped building is an indication that they are buying into the common myth that it means something else.
i understand that it is a common myth, but that doesn’t make it any more right for our government to “disguise” a building that has been in existance since the 1960s, and it is offensive to me that they would disguise it solely because somebody found a satellite photo of it on internet.
White supremacist backlash builds over Jena case
September 24, 2007
By Howard Witt
No sooner did tens of thousands of African-American demonstrators depart the racially tense town of Jena, La., last week after protesting perceived injustices than white supremacists flooded in behind them.
First a neo-Nazi Web site posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six black teenagers and their families at the center of the Jena 6 case and urged followers to find them and “drag them out of the house,” prompting an investigation by the FBI. Continue reading white supremacists, bush, more bush, even more bush, and money
U.S. military cemetery running out of space
September 20, 2007
A Kansas military cemetery has run out of space after the burial of another casualty of the Iraq war, officials said on Thursday.
“We are full,” said Alison Kohler, spokeswoman for the Fort Riley U.S. Army post, home of the 1st Infantry Division. Continue reading full, bizarre, but not a bomb
Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras, yet 80% of crime unsolved
20.09.07
By Justin Davenport
London has 10,000 crime-fighting CCTV cameras which cost £200 million, figures show today.
But an analysis of the publicly funded spy network, which is owned and controlled by local authorities and Transport for London, has cast doubt on its ability to help solve crime. Continue reading Big Brother: doesn’t do any good…
Dobson Says He Won’t Support Thompson
September 19, 2007
By ERIC GORSKI
DENVER — James Dobson, one of the nation’s most politically influential evangelical Christians, made it clear in a message to friends this week he will not support Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson.
In a private e-mail obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, Dobson accuses the former Tennessee senator and actor of being weak on the campaign trail and wrong on issues dear to social conservatives.
“Isn’t Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won’t talk at all about what he believes, and can’t speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?” Dobson wrote.
“He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent ‘want to.’ And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!” Continue reading Dominionists fighting among themselves: a good sign for the rest of us
Big Brother is watching us all
The US and UK governments are developing increasingly sophisticated gadgets to keep individuals under their surveillance. When it comes to technology, the US is determined to stay ahead of the game.
15 September 2007
By Humphrey Hawksley
“Five nine, five ten,” said the research student, pushing down a laptop button to seal the measurement. “That’s your height.”
“Spot on,” I said.
“OK, we’re freezing you now,” interjected another student, studying his computer screen. “So we have height and tracking and your gait DNA”.
“Gait DNA?” I interrupted, raising my head, so inadvertently my full face was caught on a video camera.
“Have we got that?” asked their teacher Professor Rama Challapa. “We rely on just 30 frames – about one second – to get a picture we can work with,” he explained. Continue reading Big Brother: now and forever!
this is probably a hell of a lot more common than anybody thinks. i personally know at least three professional educators who are stoners on the not-so-sly, and more than a few software testers and other geeks too. the way things are these days, you have to pass a drug test for minimum wage employment, like flipping burgers, or working in a warehouse, or sliming fish, but those who have the smarts to get a white collar job, like testing software, or teaching your kids, don’t have to pass a drug test in order to gain employment. my guess is that it’s because if they started enforcing the unconstitutional “drug test as a condition of employment” rules for white collar workers, there would be a major revolt, but as long as it’s just minimum wage and blue collar workers that have to pass a drug test, most pot smokers are going to keep quiet about it, because nobody’s messing with their freedoms… yet…
Toke Like a Girl
August 15, 2007
By Ari Spool
I’m sitting in a coffee shop, sipping apple juice with a suburban schoolteacher who’s wearing running shorts and polar fleece on a chilly summer day.
This teacher’s students and the students’ parents might be startled by today’s agenda: Teach is headed to a guy’s house to do bong hits. And not just any bong hits. This teacher’s dealer has a gravity bong—an often-homemade jug bong that delivers a more intense hit; gravity bongs can be taller than some people. Teach is also going to buy some weed.
“When I buy from him I get an eighth and he smokes me out,” teach tells me, “so I get, you know, the bonus round.” Continue reading this is probably a hell of a lot more common than anybody thinks…
Deceptive or Delusional?
Bush’s appalling Iraq speech.
Sept. 13, 2007
By Fred Kaplan
President Bush’s TV address tonight was the worst speech he’s ever given on the war in Iraq, and that’s saying a lot. Every premise, every proposal, nearly every substantive point was sheer fiction. The only question is whether he was being deceptive or delusional.
The biggest fiction was that because of the “success” of the surge, we can reduce U.S. troop levels in Iraq from 20 combat brigades to 15 by next July. Gen. David Petraeus has recommended this step, and President George W. Bush will order it so. Continue reading Bush: Lying or Delusional? Either way, he’s also a blatant hypocrite, and so are the people who work for him
i’ve resurrected my computer: i got the operating system installed: i’m now running a shiny new version of Feisty Fawn, despite what walt mossberg says, kubuntu linux is vastly preferable to anything micro$not ever produced, if for no other reason than it is free, but there are many other compelling reasons it is preferable as well, such as it installs more quickly, and is easier to configure than any version of windows that i have ever worked with. not only that, but apparently SCO has filed for bankruptcy, which means, at least for the moment, that we can continue to use free, open source software with impunity, while having a hearty laugh at the expense of those who would have made it otherwise. after i got feisty installed, i searched around and discovered that sigrot isn’t a part of debian any longer (for what reason i know not), but signify is, however signify isn’t as easy to configure, so i found an archive that had sigrot on it, installed it, and now i have my email signature, complete with rotating, random quotes again. i even got xscreensaver working better than it was before.
meanwhile, SixApart has seen fit to let barak berkowitz go and get themselves a new CEO, which makes me even more glad that i bailed from livejournal when i did.
i didn’t make that much money at the punk rock flea market, despite the fact that i was there for almost 12 hours, but i did manage to make $30 without realising it (it was 6:30 in the morning when i arrived, and there’s a good chance that i was, for all intents and purposes, asleep when i did it), which makes me wonder if i could do any better in tacoma. if nothing else, it would mean not having to get up at a ridiculously early hour and drive fourty-fiive minutes before getting there. my boxes of stuff are still in the car, but moe’s car is blocking the driveway, so i’ll have to get them out tomorrow.
i’ve also got some “i am a terrorist” articles to post as well, but they’re going to have to wait until tomorrow as well.
it works! 8) i am now posting from my renovated computer!
WHEW!
and, because of the fact that i’ve got many other things to deal with at this point, i’ll post one of those web-quiz things… Continue reading HOORAY!
my disks from cheapbytes arrived today, and feisty fawn is installing at this very moment… which gives me the very strong impression that it actually was the disk from canonical that was wonky, and not the CD-ROM drive or the hard disk.
also, tomorrow is the first day of ganesha chaturthi… so… happy ganesha chaturthi everyone! 8)
now, back to my install. hopefully i will have a functioning computer again shortly.
‘Offensive’ Jesus remarks cut from Emmys
September 12, 2007
US Comic Kathy Griffin’s “offensive” remarks about Jesus at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards would be cut from a pre-taped telecast of the show, the US Academy of Television Arts and Sciences said today.
Griffin made the provocative comment on Saturday night as she took the stage of the Shrine Auditorium to collect her Emmy for best reality program for her Bravo channel show My Life on the D-List.
“A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus,” an exultant Griffin said, holding up her statuette. “Suck it, Jesus. This award is my god now.”
Asked about her speech backstage a short time later, an unrepentant Griffin said: “I hope I offended some people. I didn’t want to win the Emmy for nothing.” Continue reading Blasphemy! yay! 8)
Anti-War Minister Is Attacked, Gets Leg Broken for Trying to Enter Petraeus Hearing
Rev. Lennox Yearwood stood on line waiting his turn to enter the room. This is what happened to him.
September 11, 2007
by Siun
Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus wanted to attend the Petraeus Hearings yesterday. He stood on line waiting his turn to enter the room. This is what happened to him.
Capitol Hill Police “football tackled” Hip Hop Activist who was in line to enter hearing room for General Petreus’ testimony on Capitol Hill
Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., president of the Hip Hop Caucus, was attacked by six capitol police today, when he was stopped from entering the Cannon Caucus Room on Capitol Hill, where General Petreaus gave testimony today to a joint hearing for the House Arms Services Committee and Foreign Relations Committee on the war in Iraq.
After waiting in line throughout the morning for the hearing that was scheduled to start at 12:30pm, Rev. Yearwood was stopped from entering the room, while others behind him were allowed to enter. He told the officers blocking his ability to enter the room, that he was waiting in line with everyone else and had the right to enter as well. When they threatened him with arrest he responded with “I will not be arrested today.” According to witnesses, six capitol police, without warning, “football tackled him. He was carried off in a wheel chair by DC Fire and Emergency to George Washington Hospital. Continue reading rev. yearwood and barack obama
moe and i went camping last week. two days before we were supposed to leave, i tried to log into my (new) blog, only to discover that it had been shut down. apparently the blog software increases the server load enough that my host service thought i had been hacked, so they shut down the whole domain until i called and straightened them out. they removed the block on the main site almost immediately, but they kept the block on my blog until they could figure out what was going on. i said that would be fine, because i was going on vacation for a week, which would give them plenty of time to straighten things out.
also, i figured that, as long as there was a possibility that my personal computer(s) had been coopted as well, i would use the opportunity to upgrade my operating system from a 5-year-old distribution to a more current one, so i made a backup, and went camping for a week, intending to do the upgrade when i returned.
when i returned, the first thing i did was upgrade my OS. i figured (for a variety of reasons) to upgrade to dapper drake (kubuntu 6.06), which i got up and running fairly quickly, although there were some things that i thought strange. i should have known that if something appears wrong, it probably is, but i blissfully ignored it, thinking that it was just something that was named differently between the mandrake OS i was used to and the debian OS to which i had upgraded.
specifically, the “problem” (i don’t know what else to call it at this point) was (is) that, for some reason, the installation of dapper that i got running with no problem, didn’t have some packages that it was supposed to have, including gimp, firefox, ark, and a bunch of other, more arcane stuff. no problem, i figured, i’ll just install the packages separately: no dice… both firefox and gimp “BREAK” when i request their installation, but there is no obvious indication of what “BREAK”s, or how to fix it… ark is installed, but it doesn’t work, so i remove the package and try to reinstall it, but it ignores my requests to install. all during this time, i am blissfully supposing that my installation will work out in the end, and doing things like reinstalling my mail, schedule, address book and so forth.
finally it comes to a head and i decide that reinstallation is the best option, so i reinatall again and get exactly the same thing!!!! 8/
so i tried the old, 5-year-old installation disks, thinking that it was running before, so it should run now. i went through a somewhat more difficult install that ended the way i thought it should, and rebooted…
it started to boot the way i thought it should, but then, when it came time to start initialising the graphics, THE COMPUTER FROZE!!!!!!!!!! >8/
i went through the first part of the install of dapper on my windows laptop (without actually installing it), and determined that it does, indeed, have firefox preinstalled, as well as a bunch of other stuff that wasn’t showing up on my other box. i also went through the other disks on my laptop, which appeared to work okay. so i figured maybe it’s because of the fact that i have a “no-name” generic plug-n-pray monitor. so i just happen to have a sony 17″ monitor lying around (thanks to my mother in law, who said it was a “flat screen” even though it isn’t), so i pull my no-name monitor out and install the sony monitor and try again…
Disk error 10. AX = 4280, drive 9F. Boot failed: press a key to retry
this is from my dapper “live” CD… 8/
i’ve spent all day, two days in a row geeking around with various computers and computer parts, and the only thing i have accomplished is to replace my monitor with this big, ugly silver monstrosity, which, while it does work better, it’s only on my windows and mac machines. i’ve now got a box that used to have a mostly functional installation of mandrake 9.2 on it that is now blank. i stayed up until 2:30 am yesterday, it’s 10:20 pm now, i’m so tired i can’t see straight, but i can’t go to bed without trying something… anything to get my linux box up and running again.
on top of that, i downloaded an .iso of feisty fawn (kubuntu 7.04) to see if that would work, but… on my windows box, the .iso is bigger than the blank CD will accept by a few k, which means that i can’t burn it, on my Os9 mac it fits and it’s all there, but it won’t boot, and when i tried it using the live CD of dapper (before it died), it said that it was going on okay, but when it was finished, the first time it froze before it completed the burning process, and the second time it said it was successful, but when i looked at the disk, it was blank… }8/
however, i also processed three rolls of film from our vacation, and they finally got whatever was wrong with my blog sorted out, so if nothing else, i can bitch about malfunctioning computers…
‘Vatican air’ passengers’ holy water confiscated
29/08/2007
By Malcolm Moore
The passengers on board the Vatican’s first flight to Lourdes may have been pilgrims in search of spiritual healing, but they still had to obey anti-terrorism rules, it has emerged, after several of them had their holy water confiscated. Continue reading bizarre… in so many different ways…
boy am i glad i got out when i did… it just sounds like it’s going from bad to worse…
This journal may disappear at any time. But, guess what? So could yours.
LJ admits they have no legal training re “Bible-based” child abuse communities
And don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
2007-08-06
By insomnia
Looks like Brad is leaving LJ… to the wolves.
He tries to reassure us by saying “LiveJournal’s in good hands — I’m not worried about it.”
Except, of course, that he doesn’t really believe that. He knows LJ is dying, and he’s been openly upset about the unwillingness of 6A to keep its promises to LJ’s users, about LJ’s obvious shrinking, and about the direction the site has been heading in for quite some time. Continue reading And don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Scandal-hit senator urged to quit
A US Republican senator who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after his arrest in a men’s toilet has come under increasing pressure to resign.
2007/08/29
Idaho Senator Larry Craig, 62, has said he should not have pleaded guilty, having in fact done nothing wrong.
But three fellow Republicans have urged him to step down. Among them was John McCain, who warned of more harm to the Republicans’ already “tarnished” image.
The White House also said it was “disappointed” by the scandal.
Mr Craig was arrested in June at Minneapolis-St Paul airport by an undercover police officer investigating complaints of lewd behaviour in men’s toilets. Continue reading Senator Craig’s naughty exploits
A Little Bit of History
August 16, 2007
By Yard[D]og
It’s funny how people come into your lives. If you live long enough and pay attention to the world around you, you might realize the truth in that old saying that each of us only six degrees from one another. Those connections for most of us are like the haze on a mirror after a shower; but wipe the surface with a clean cloth and you will see everything around you or maybe even the glue that holds it together.
Louie was the first gay man to introduce me to piercing. After a career as a geologist for Getty Oil, he had retired in Palm Springs and owned an up-scale house off Farrell Street, at the end of Santa Ynez Way. His home was chock full with mementos, pictures of his kids, grandkids, art he had gathered on his travels; a library full of books, all kinds of videos, a fantastic classical CD collection — it was a place I felt at home. A mutual friend had said, “I think you’ll like Louie.” Continue reading Karl Rove’s gay, pierced father
in other words, it’s only gonna get worse… 8/
oh well…
EDIT: yep, it’s true, more or less…
LiveJournal creator leaves as Six Apart fails to spin
AUG 6 2007
BY OWEN THOMAS
Word is that Brad Fitzpatrick, the founder of LiveJournal and chief architect of Six Apart, is leaving the troubled blog-software company. And the fact that you’re hearing about from a gossip blog rather than the transparency-loving company is itself a sign of how deep the problems run. Continue reading Brad Bails!
the paypal account that was compromised on the 25th has been refunded, but they’re still waiting on a “response from the other party” – which i can almost guarantee is not going to come.
Whistleblowers on Fraud Facing Penalties
08.24.07
By DEBORAH HASTINGS
One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted.
Or worse.
For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods. Continue reading whistleblowers and false flag terror warnings
August 21, 2007
By SETH BORENSTEIN
WASHINGTON — Researchers have figured out how to give an entire community a drug test using just a teaspoon of wastewater from a city’s sewer plant. Continue reading 1105
August 21, 2007
OTTAWA – Protesters are accusing police of using undercover agents to provoke violent confrontations at the North American leaders’ summit in Montebello, Que.
Such accusations have been made before after similar demonstrations but this time the alleged “agents provocateurs” have been caught on camera.
A video, posted on YouTube, shows three young men, their faces masked by bandannas, mingling Monday with protesters in front of a line of police in riot gear. At least one of the masked men is holding a rock in his hand. Continue reading 1103
one of my paypal accounts was compromised, which resulted in about $100 being withdrawn from my bank account for “purchases” and “subscriptions” i did not make. fortunately paypal was on the ball, and fortunately i check the account on a daily basis, otherwise it could have been much worse. also, really fortunately, it wasn’t my hybrid elephant account, but another one. unfortunately, it was an account that i had used to buy a new DVD from The Bobs, and that purchase got caught up in the group of purchases that were cancelled when they realised something screwy was going on. i have to give paypal credit for actually noticing that something was screwy when the person who compromised the account changed the default language to chinese, and limited access to the account at that point. it’s also a good thing that i don’t actually keep any money in my paypal accounts, otherwise that would very likely be in the hands of some chinese hacker at this point. i still have to wait a week while paypal waits for a “response from the other party” before they declare it a fraud and refund my money.
i’m thinking of moving this blog to my own host, and possibly changing the format to wordpress, so as to get away from the bizarreness caused by sixapart and their childish rule-making. i’ve got a server with a lot of space, and the ability to create subdomains, so why not? it would mean that i don’t have to pay 6A for an account, i could let this account lapse back to a free account, so that i could comment on friends’ posts, and there’s a good chance that i could turn my wordpress blog into a RSS feed, so my livejournal friends can keep up with my posts as well.
i’m learning more about this tomorrow.
this sort of makes me wonder…
i wonder if they are hiring clergy from religions other than “christianity”? i wonder if they, for example, would hire me, an ordained christian minister who has been a practicing hindu for 25 years? and once i was hired, i wonder whose script i would be forced to read from to “quell public unrest” when they came to get my neighbors for being illegal aliens, or something like that? i wonder if, at that point, it would even matter who i worship?
August 15, 2007
By Jeff Ferrell
Could martial law ever become a reality in America? Some fear any nuclear, biological or chemical attack on U.S. soil might trigger just that. KSLA News 12 has discovered that the clergy would help the government with potentially their biggest problem: Us.
Charleton Heston’s now-famous speech before the National Rifle Association at a convention back in 2000 will forever be remembered as a stirring moment for all 2nd Amendment advocates. At the end of his remarks, Heston held up his antique rifle and told the crowd in his Moses-like voice, “over my cold, dead hands.”
While Heston, then serving as the NRA President, made those remarks in response to calls for more gun control laws at the time, those words live on. Heston’s declaration captured a truly American value: An over-arching desire to protect our freedoms.
But gun confiscation is exactly what happened during the state of emergency following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, along with forced relocation. U.S. Troops also arrived, something far easier to do now, thanks to last year’s elimination of the 1878 Posse Comitatus act, which had forbid regular U.S. Army troops from policing on American soil.
If martial law were enacted here at home, like depicted in the movie “The Siege”, easing public fears and quelling dissent would be critical. And that’s exactly what the ‘Clergy Response Team’ helped accomplish in the wake of Katrina.
Dr. Durell Tuberville serves as chaplain for the Shreveport Fire Department and the Caddo Sheriff’s Office. Tuberville said of the clergy team’s mission, “the primary thing that we say to anybody is, ‘let’s cooperate and get this thing over with and then we’ll settle the differences once the crisis is over.'”
Such clergy response teams would walk a tight-rope during martial law between the demands of the government on the one side, versus the wishes of the public on the other. “In a lot of cases, these clergy would already be known in the neighborhoods in which they’re helping to diffuse that situation,” assured Sandy Davis. He serves as the director of the Caddo-Bossier Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
For the clergy team, one of the biggest tools that they will have in helping calm the public down or to obey the law is the bible itself, specifically Romans 13. Dr. Tuberville elaborated, “because the government’s established by the Lord, you know. And, that’s what we believe in the Christian faith. That’s what’s stated in the scripture.”
Civil rights advocates believe the amount of public cooperation during such a time of unrest may ultimately depend on how long they expect a suspension of rights might last.
and here is exactly the reason why i’m wondering all that kind of stuff… if there are going to be “behaviour detection officers” in airports, and eventually on street corners in your town, you’d better look “right” – whatever that means – otherwise you’re going to get “disappeared”… what happens next?
August 14, 2007
By Kaitlin Dirrig
Next time you go to the airport, there may be more eyes on you than you notice.
Specially trained security personnel are watching body language and facial cues of passengers for signs of bad intentions. The watcher could be the attendant who hands you the tray for your laptop or the one standing behind the ticket-checker. Or the one next to the curbside baggage attendant.
They’re called Behavior Detection Officers, and they’re part of several recent security upgrades, Transportation Security Administrator Kip Hawley told an aviation industry group in Washington last month. He described them as “a wonderful tool to be able to identify and do risk management prior to somebody coming into the airport or approaching the crowded checkpoint.”
The officers are working in more than a dozen airports already, according to Paul Ekman, a former professor at the University of California at San Francisco who has advised Hawley’s agency on the program. Amy Kudwa, a TSA public affairs specialist, said the agency hopes to have 500 behavior detection officers in place by the end of 2008.
Kudwa described the effort, which began as a pilot program in 2006, as “very successful” at identifying suspicious airline passengers. She said it had netted drug carriers, illegal immigrants and terrorism suspects. She wouldn’t say more.
At the heart of the new screening system is a theory that when people try to conceal their emotions, they reveal their feelings in flashes that Ekman, a pioneer in the field, calls “micro-expressions.” Fear and disgust are the key ones, he said, because they’re associated with deception.
Behavior detection officers work in pairs. Typically, one officer sizes up passengers openly while the other seems to be performing a routine security duty. A passenger who arouses suspicion, whether by micro-expressions, social interaction or body language gets subtle but more serious scrutiny.
A behavior specialist may decide to move in to help the suspicious passenger recover belongings that have passed through the baggage X-ray. Or he may ask where the traveler’s going. If more alarms go off, officers will “refer” the person to law enforcement officials for further questioning.
The strategy is based on a time-tested and successful Israeli model, but in the United States, the scrutiny is much less invasive, Ekman said. American officers receive 16 hours of training — far less than their Israeli counterparts_ because U.S. officials want to be less intrusive.
The use of “micro-expressions” to identify hidden emotions began nearly 30 years ago when Ekman and colleague Maureen O’Sullivan began studying videotapes of people telling lies. When they slowed down the videotapes, they noticed distinct facial movements and began to catalogue them. They were flickers of expression that lasted no more than a fraction of a second.
The Department of Homeland Security hopes to dramatically enhance such security practices.
Jay M. Cohen, undersecretary of Homeland Security for Science and Technology, said in May that he wants to automate passenger screening by using videocams and computers to measure and analyze heart rate, respiration, body temperature and verbal responses as well as facial micro-expressions.
Homeland Security is seeking proposals from scientists to develop such technology. The deadline for submissions is Aug. 31.
The system also would be used for port security, special-event screening and other security screening tasks.
It faces high hurdles, however.
Different cultures express themselves differently. Expressions and body language are easy to misread, and no one’s catalogued them all. Ekman notes that each culture has its own specific body language, but that little has been done to study each individually in order to incorporate them in a surveillance program.
In addition, automation won’t be easy, especially for the multiple variables a computer needs to size up people. Ekman thinks people can do it better. “And it’s going to be hard to get machines that are as accurate as trained human beings,” Ekman said.
Finally, the extensive data-gathering of passengers’ personal information will raise civil-liberties concerns. “If you discover that someone is at risk for heart disease, what happens to that information?” Ekman asked. “How can we be certain that it’s not sold to third parties?”
Whether mass-automated security screening will ever be effective is unclear. In Cohen’s PowerPoint slide accompanying his aviation industry presentation was this slogan: “Every truly great accomplishment is at first impossible.”
also:
TSA Expands Career Opportunities for Transportation Security Officers
and, on top of that, you’re going to need a passport to travel within the united states pretty soon…
can i see your papers? your address is different from the one we have on file for you, you didn’t offer the explanation fast enough, and you looked nervous when you said it, so you must be lying, you terrorist! you’re under arrest!
By Eliott C. McLaughlin
Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states defying the federal Real ID Act.
The act, signed in 2005 as part of an emergency military spending and tsunami relief bill, aims to weave driver’s licenses and state ID cards into a sort of national identification system by May 2008. The law sets baseline criteria for how driver’s licenses will be issued and what information they must contain.
The Department of Homeland Security insists Real ID is an essential weapon in the war on terror, but privacy and civil liberties watchdogs are calling the initiative an overly intrusive measure that smacks of Big Brother.
More than half the nation’s state legislatures have passed or proposed legislation denouncing the plan, and some have penned bills expressly forbidding compliance.
Several states have begun making arrangements for the new requirements — four have passed legislation applauding the measure — but even they may have trouble meeting the act’s deadline.
The cards would be mandatory for all “federal purposes,” which include boarding an airplane or walking into a federal building, nuclear facility or national park, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the National Conference of State Legislatures last week. Citizens in states that don’t comply with the new rules will have to use passports for federal purposes.
“For terrorists, travel documents are like weapons,” Chertoff said. “We do have a right and an obligation to see that those licenses reflect the identity of the person who’s presenting it.”
Chertoff said the Real ID program is essential to national security because there are presently 8,000 types of identification accepted to enter the United States.
“It is simply unreasonable to expect our border inspectors to be able to detect forgeries on documents that range from baptismal certificates from small towns in Texas to cards that purport to reflect citizenship privileges in a province somewhere in Canada,” he said.
Chertoff attended the conference in Boston, Massachusetts, in part to allay states’ concerns, but he had few concrete answers on funding.
The Department of Homeland Security, which estimates state and federal costs could reach $23.1 billion over 10 years, is looking for ways to lessen the burden on states, he said. On the recent congressional front, however, Chertoff could point only to an amendment killed in the Senate last month that would’ve provided $300 million for the program.
“There’s going to be an irreducible expense that falls on you, and that’s part of the shared responsibility,” Chertoff told the state legislators.
Bill Walsh, senior legal fellow for the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based conservative think tank that supports the Real ID Act, said states shouldn’t be pushing for more federal dollars because, ultimately, that will mean more federal oversight — and many complaints about cost coincide with complaints about the federal government overstepping its bounds.
“They are only being asked to do what they should’ve already done to protect their citizens,” Walsh said, blaming arcane software and policies at state motor vehicle departments for what he called “a tremendous trafficking in state driver’s licenses.”
The NCSL is calling Real ID an “unfunded mandate” that could cost states up to $14 billion over the next decade, but for which only $40 million has been federally approved. The group is demanding Congress pony up $1 billion for startup costs by year’s end or scrap the proposal altogether.
Everyone must visit DMV by 2013
The Real ID Act repealed a provision in the 9/11 Commission Implementation Act calling for state and federal officials to examine security standards for driver’s licenses.
It called instead for states to begin issuing new federal licenses, lasting no longer than eight years, by May 11, 2008, unless they are granted an extension.
It also requires all 245 million license and state ID holders to visit their local departments of motor vehicles and apply for a Real ID by 2013. Applicants must bring a photo ID, birth certificate, proof of Social Security number and proof of residence, and states must maintain and protect massive databases housing the information.
NCSL spokesman Bill Wyatt said the requirements are “almost physically impossible.” States will have to build new facilities, secure those facilities and shell out for additional equipment and personnel.
Those costs are going to fall back on the American taxpayer, he said. It might be in the form of a new transportation, motor vehicle or gasoline tax. Or you might find it tacked on to your next state tax bill. In Texas, Wyatt said, one official told him that without federal funding, the Lone Star State might have to charge its citizens more than $100 for a license.
“We kind of feel like the way they went about this is backwards,” Wyatt said, explaining that states would have appreciated more input into the process. “Each state has its own unique challenges and these are best addressed at state levels. A one-size-fits-all approach to driver’s licenses doesn’t necessarily work.”
Many states have revolted. The governors of Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Washington have signed bills refusing to comply with the act. Six others have passed bills and/or resolutions expressing opposition, and 15 have similar legislation pending.
Though the NCSL says most states’ opposition stems from the lack of funding, some states cited other reasons for resisting the initiative.
New Hampshire passed a House bill opposing the program and calling Real ID “contrary and repugnant” to the state and federal constitutions. A Colorado House resolution dismissed Real ID by expressing support for the war on terror but “not at the expense of essential civil rights and liberties of citizens of this country.”
Privacy concerns raised
Colorado and New Hampshire lawmakers are not alone. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation say the IDs and supporting databases — which Chertoff said would eventually be federally interconnected — will infringe on privacy.
EFF says on its Web site that the information in the databases will lay the groundwork for “a wide range of surveillance activities” by government and businesses that “will be able to easily read your private information” because of the bar code required on each card.
The databases will provide a one-stop shop for identity thieves, adds the ACLU on its Web site, and the U.S. “surveillance society” and private sector will have access to the system “for the routine tracking, monitoring and regulation of individuals’ movements and activities.”
The civil liberties watchdog dubs the IDs “internal passports” and claims it wouldn’t be long before office buildings, gas stations, toll booths, subways and buses begin accessing the system.
But Chertoff told legislators last week that DHS has no intention of creating a federal database, and Walsh, of the Heritage Foundation, said the ACLU’s allegations are disingenuous.
States will be permitted to share data only when validating someone’s identity, Walsh said.
“The federal government wouldn’t have any greater access to driver’s license information than it does today,” Walsh said.
States have the right to refuse to comply with the program, he said, and they also have the right to continue issuing IDs and driver’s licenses that don’t meet Real ID requirements.
But, Walsh said, “any state that’s refusing to implement this key recommendation by the 9/11 Commission, and whose state driver’s licenses are as a result used in another terrorist attack, should be held responsible.”
State reaction to Real ID has not been all negative. Four states have passed bills or resolutions expressing approval for the program, and 13 states have similar legislation pending (Several states have pending pieces of legislation both applauding and opposing Real ID).
Chertoff said there would be repercussions for states choosing not to comply.
“This is not a mandate,” Chertoff said. “A state doesn’t have to do this, but if the state doesn’t have — at the end of the day, at the end of the deadline — Real ID-compliant licenses then the state cannot expect that those licenses will be accepted for federal purposes.”
Analysis describes a path to violence for disaffected Muslim youth
August 15, 2007
NEW YORK – Average citizens who quietly band together and adopt radical ways pose a mounting threat to American security that could exceed that of established terrorist groups like al-Qaida, a new police analysis has concluded.
The New York Police Department report released Wednesday describes a process in which young men — often legal immigrants from the Middle East who are frustrated with their lives in their adopted country — adopt a philosophy that puts them on a path to violence.
The report was intended to explain how people become radicalized rather than to lay out specific strategies for thwarting terror plots. It calls for more intelligence gathering, and argues that local law enforcement agencies are in the best position to monitor potential terrorists.
“Hopefully, the better we’re informed about this process, the more likely we’ll be to detect and disrupt it,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said during a briefing with private security executives at police headquarters.
Internet stokes ‘wandering mind’
The study is based on an analysis of a series of domestic plots thwarted since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, including those in Lackawanna, N.Y.; Portland, Ore.; and Virginia. It was prepared by senior analysts with the NYPD Intelligence Division who traveled to Hamburg, Madrid and other overseas spots to confer with authorities about similar cases.
The report found homegrown terrorists often were indoctrinated in local “radicalization incubators” that are “rife with extremist rhetoric.”
Instead of mosques, those places were more likely to be “cafes, cab driver hangouts, flop houses, prisons, student associations, non-governmental organizations, hookah bars, butcher shops and bookstores,” the report says.
The Internet also provides “the wandering mind of the conflicted young Muslim or potential convert with direct access to unfiltered radical and extremist ideology.”
“The Internet is the new Afghanistan,” Kelly said. “It is the de facto training ground. It’s an area of concern.”
Four stages to radicalization
The report identified the four stages to radicalization as pre-radicalization, self-identification, indoctrination, and jihadization, and said the Internet drove and enabled the process.
Radicalization could be triggered by such things as the loss of a job, the death of a close family member, alienation, discrimination, and international conflicts involving Muslims, said the report by senior NYPD intelligence analysts.
“Much different from the Israeli-Palestinian equation, the transformation of a Western-based individual to a terrorist is not triggered by oppression, suffering, revenge or desperation,” it said.
“Rather, it is a phenomenon that occurs because the individual is looking for an identity and a cause and unfortunately, often finds them in extremist Islam,” said the report “Radicalization in the West: The Home-grown Threat.”
The threat posed by homegrown extremists — from “eco-terrorist” groups to neo-Nazis — has long been a top concern for federal counterterror officials.
While economic opportunities in the United States are better and the country’s Muslims are more resistant to Islamist extremism, they are “not immune to the radical message,” the report says. “The powerful gravitational pull of individuals’ religious roots and identity sometimes supersedes the assimilating nature of American society.”
Recently, authorities have taken a closer look at radicalization happening in U.S. prisons, where a study last year by George Washington University and the University of Virginia found that Islamic extremists were turning jail cells into terrorist breeding grounds by preaching violent interpretations of the Quran to their fellow inmates.
Additionally, the Justice Department last year indicted 28-year-old Adam Gadahn, who was raised on a farm in southern California, with treason and supporting terrorism for serving as an al-Qaida propagandist.
Gadahn is believed to have tried to recruit supporters through videos and messages posted on the Internet.
Critics: Report ‘plays into extremists’ plans’
The NYPD report warns that more intelligence gathering is needed since most potential homegrown terrorists “have never been arrested or involved in any kind of legal trouble,” the study says.
They “look, act, talk and walk like everyone around them,” the study adds. “In the early stages of their radicalization, these individuals rarely travel, are not participating in any kind of militant activity, yet they are slowly building the mind-set, intention and commitment to conduct jihad.”
Kareem Shora, legal adviser for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, called the findings faulty and potentially inflammatory.
Police “paint such a broad brush,” Shora said. “It plays right into the extremists’ plans because it’s going to end up angering the community.”
A recently released National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Osama bin Laden’s network had regrouped and remains the most serious threat to the United States.
Kelly insisted the NYPD report made no effort to provide a “cookie-cutter” profile for terrorists. He also argued that the NYPD report “doesn’t contradict the National Intelligence Estimate — it augments it.”
U.S. Moving Against Revolutionary Guard
August 15, 2007
By Robin Wright
The United States has decided to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a “specially designated global terrorist,” according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group’s business operations and finances.
The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran, as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran’s nuclear program, officials said.
The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said — a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.
The order allows the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that “provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists.”
The move reflects escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran over issues including Iraq and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran has been on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1984, but in May the two countries began their first formal one-on-one dialogue in 28 years with a meeting of diplomats in Baghdad.
The main goal of the new designation is to clamp down on the Revolutionary Guard’s vast business network, as well as on foreign companies conducting business linked to the military unit and its personnel. The administration plans to list many of the Revolutionary Guard’s financial operations.
“Anyone doing business with these people will have to reevaluate their actions immediately,” said a U.S. official familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not been announced. “It increases the risks of people who have until now ignored the growing list of sanctions against the Iranians. It makes clear to everyone who the IRGC and their related businesses really are. It removes the excuses for doing business with these people.”
For weeks, the Bush administration has been debating whether to target the Revolutionary Guard Corps in full, or only its Quds Force wing, which U.S. officials have linked to the growing flow of explosives, roadside bombs, rockets and other arms to Shiite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Quds Force also lends support to Shiite allies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and to Sunni movements such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Although administration discussions continue, the initial decision is to target the entire Guard Corps, U.S. officials said. The administration has not yet decided when to announce the new measure, but officials said they would prefer to do so before the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly next month, when the United States intends to increase international pressure against Iran.
Formed in 1979 and originally tasked with protecting the world’s only modern theocracy, the Revolutionary Guard took the lead in battling Iraq during the bloody Iran-Iraq war waged from 1980 to 1988. The Guard, also known as the Pasdaran, has since become a powerful political and economic force in Iran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rose through the ranks of the Revolutionary Guard and came to power with support from its network of veterans. Its leaders are linked to many mainstream businesses in Iran.
“They are heavily involved in everything from pharmaceuticals to telecommunications and pipelines — even the new Imam Khomeini Airport and a great deal of smuggling,” said Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Many of the front companies engaged in procuring nuclear technology are owned and run by the Revolutionary Guards. They’re developing along the lines of the Chinese military, which is involved in many business enterprises. It’s a huge business conglomeration.”
The Revolutionary Guard Corps — with its own navy, air force, ground forces and special forces units — is a rival to Iran’s conventional troops. Its naval forces abducted 15 British sailors and marines this spring, sparking an international crisis, and its special forces armed Lebanon’s Hezbollah with missiles used against Israel in the 2006 war. The corps also plays a key role in Iran’s military industries, including the attempted acquisition of nuclear weapons and surface-to-surface missiles, according to Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The United States took punitive action against Iran after the November 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, including the breaking of diplomatic ties and the freezing of Iranian assets in the United States. More recently, dozens of international banks and financial institutions reduced or eliminated their business with Iran after a quiet campaign by the Treasury Department and State Department aimed at limiting Tehran’s access to the international financial system. Over the past year, two U.N. resolutions have targeted the assets and movements of 28 people — including some Revolutionary Guard members — linked to Iran’s nuclear program.
The key obstacle to stronger international pressure against Tehran has been China, Iran’s largest trading partner. After the Iranian government refused to comply with two U.N. Security Council resolutions dealing with its nuclear program, Beijing balked at a U.S. proposal for a resolution that would have sanctioned the Revolutionary Guard, U.S. officials said.
China’s actions reverse a cycle during which Russia was the most reluctant among the veto-wielding members of the Security Council. “China used to hide behind Russia, but Russia is now hiding behind China,” said a U.S. official familiar with negotiations.
The administration’s move comes amid growing support in Congress for the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, which was introduced in the Senate by Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) and in the House by Tom Lantos (D-Calif.). The bill already has the support of 323 House members.
The administration’s move could hurt diplomatic efforts, some analysts said. “It would greatly complicate our efforts to solve the nuclear issue,” said Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Center for American Progress. “It would tie an end to Iran’s nuclear program to an end to its support of allies in Hezbollah and Hamas. The only way you could get a nuclear deal is as part of a grand bargain, which at this point is completely out of reach.”
Such sanctions can work only alongside diplomatic efforts, Cirincione added.
“Sanctions can serve as a prod, but they have very rarely forced a country to capitulate or collapse,” he said. “All of us want to back Iran into a corner, but we want to give them a way out, too. [The designation] will convince many in Iran’s elite that there’s no point in talking with us and that the only thing that will satisfy us is regime change.”
August 15, 2007
By ROBERT BLOCK
The U.S.’s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation’s vast network of spy satellites in the U.S.
The decision, made three months ago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, places for the first time some of the U.S.’s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials. The move was authorized in a May 25 memo sent to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking his department to facilitate access to the spy network on behalf of civilian agencies and law enforcement.
Until now, only a handful of federal civilian agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey, have had access to the most basic spy-satellite imagery, and only for the purpose of scientific and environmental study.
According to officials, one of the department’s first objectives will be to use the network to enhance border security, determine how best to secure critical infrastructure and help emergency responders after natural disasters. Sometime next year, officials will examine how the satellites can aid federal and local law-enforcement agencies, covering both criminal and civil law. The department is still working on determining how it will engage law enforcement officials and what kind of support it will give them.
Access to the high-tech surveillance tools would, for the first time, allow Homeland Security and law-enforcement officials to see real-time, high-resolution images and data, which would allow them, for example, to identify smuggler staging areas, a gang safehouse, or possibly even a building being used by would-be terrorists to manufacture chemical weapons.
Overseas — the traditional realm of spy satellites — the system was used to monitor tank movements during the Cold War. Today, it’s used to monitor suspected terrorist hideouts, smuggling routes for weapons in Iraq, nuclear tests and the movement of nuclear materials, as well as to make detailed maps for U.S. soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Plans to provide DHS with significantly expanded access have been on the drawing board for over two years. The idea was first talked about as a possibility by the Central Intelligence Agency after 9/11 as a way to help better secure the country. “It is an idea whose time has arrived,” says Charles Allen, the DHS’s chief intelligence officer, who will be in charge of the new program. DHS officials say the program has been granted a budget by Congress and has the approval of the relevant committees in both chambers.
Wiretap Legislation
Coming on the back of legislation that upgraded the administration’s ability to wiretap terrorist suspects without warrants, the development is likely to heat up debate about the balance between civil liberties and national security.
Access to the satellite surveillance will be controlled by a new Homeland Security branch — the National Applications Office — which will be up and running in October. Homeland Security officials say the new office will build on the efforts of its predecessor, the Civil Applications Committee. Under the direction of the Geological Survey, the Civil Applications Committee vets requests from civilian agencies wanting spy data for environmental or scientific study. The Geological Survey has been one of the biggest domestic users of spy-satellite information, to make topographic maps.
Unlike electronic eavesdropping, which is subject to legislative and some judicial control, this use of spy satellites is largely uncharted territory. Although the courts have permitted warrantless aerial searches of private property by law-enforcement aircraft, there are no cases involving the use of satellite technology.
In recent years, some military experts have questioned whether domestic use of such satellites would violate the Posse Comitatus Act. The act bars the military from engaging in law-enforcement activity inside the U.S., and the satellites were predominantly built for and owned by the Defense Department.
According to Pentagon officials, the government has in the past been able to supply information from spy satellites to federal law-enforcement agencies, but that was done on a case-by-case basis and only with special permission from the president.
Even the architects of the current move are unclear about the legal boundaries. A 2005 study commissioned by the U.S. intelligence community, which recommended granting access to the spy satellites for Homeland Security, noted: “There is little if any policy, guidance or procedures regarding the collection, exploitation and dissemination of domestic MASINT.” MASINT stands for Measurement and Signatures Intelligence, a particular kind of information collected by spy satellites which would for the first time become available to civilian agencies.
According to defense experts, MASINT uses radar, lasers, infrared, electromagnetic data and other technologies to see through cloud cover, forest canopies and even concrete to create images or gather data.
Tracking Weapons
The spy satellites are considered by military experts to be more penetrating than civilian ones: They not only take color, as well as black-and-white photos, but can also use different parts of the light spectrum to track human activities, including, for example, traces left by chemical weapons or heat generated by people in a building.
Mr. Allen, the DHS intelligence chief, said the satellites have the ability to take a “multidimensional” look at ports and critical infrastructure from space to identify vulnerabilities. “There are certain technical abilities that will assist on land borders…to try to identify areas where narcotraficantes or alien smugglers may be moving dangerous people or materials,” he said.
The full capabilities of these systems are unknown outside the intelligence community, because they are among the most closely held secrets in government.
Some civil-liberties activists worry that without proper oversight, only those inside the National Application Office will know what is being monitored from space.
“You are talking about enormous power,” said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel and director of the Project on Freedom, Security and Technology for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group advocating privacy rights in the digital age. “Not only is the surveillance they are contemplating intrusive and omnipresent, it’s also invisible. And that’s what makes this so dangerous.”
Mr. Allen, the DHS intelligence chief, says the department is cognizant of the civil-rights and privacy concerns, which is why he plans to take time before providing law-enforcement agencies with access to the data. He says DHS will have a team of lawyers to review requests for access or use of the systems.
“This all has to be vetted through a legal process,” he says. “We have to get this right because we don’t want civil-rights and civil-liberties advocates to have concerns that this is being misused in ways which were not intended.”
DHS’s Mr. Allen says that while he can’t talk about the program’s capabilities in detail, there is a tendency to overestimate its powers. For instance, satellites in orbit are constantly moving and can’t settle over an area for long periods of time. The platforms also don’t show people in detail. “Contrary to what some people believe you cannot see if somebody needs a haircut from space,” he says.
James Devine, a senior adviser to the director of the Geological Survey, who is chairman of the committee now overseeing satellite-access requests, said traditional users of the spy-satellite data in the scientific community are concerned that their needs will be marginalized in favor of security concerns. Mr. Devine said DHS has promised him that won’t be the case, and also has promised to include a geological official on a new interagency executive oversight committee that will monitor the activities of the National Applications Office.
Mr. Devine says officials who vetted requests for the scientific community also are worried about the civil-liberties implications when DHS takes over the program. “We took very seriously our mission and made sure that there was no chance of inappropriate usage of the material,” Mr. Devine says. He says he hopes oversight of the new DHS program will be “rigorous,” but that he doesn’t know what would happen in cases of complaints about misuse.
August 14, 2007
By Dion Nissenbaum
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Saraa Barhoum picked at the buttons on her pink bellbottom jeans as she twisted on a chair inside the bustling new Hamas television headquarters. The afternoon light bounced off the sparkly outlines of butterflies on her frilly top, and a colorful hijab framed her 11-year-old face.
Saraa wants to be a doctor. If she can’t, the young star of Hamas television’s best-known children’s show said, she’d be proud to become a martyr. Saraa says little Jewish girls should be forced from their homes in Israel so that Palestinians can return to their land.
With the show’s producer helpfully offering written tips during an interview, Saraa didn’t get into how she hopes to die for her cause, be it suicide bombing, fighting the Israeli military or some other way. She carefully sidestepped any suggestion that she’s subtly calling for the destruction of Israel .
” Israel says that we are terrorists,” Saraa said minutes before an interview with her was interrupted by an errant Israeli airstrike that slammed into an apartment building on the adjacent block. “But they are the ones that must stop their attacks against us and our kids.”
Saraa is the sweet face of “Tomorrow’s Pioneers,” a weekly, hour-long Hamas television children’s show best known for bringing the world a militant Mickey Mouse look-alike and then having him killed off by an Israeli interrogator.
With her jarring mix of innocent charm and militant rhetoric, Saraa is at the center of the militant Islamist group’s increasingly sophisticated campaign to become the dominant force in Palestinian politics.
” Hamas is fighting a political war for the hearts and minds of the West Bank and Gaza Strip ,” said Robert A. Pape , a University of Chicago political science professor and the author of “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.”
“They are trying to show that they are the true heart-and-soul of the community, all the way down to an 11-year-old-girl,” Pape added.
Since it went on the air last year in the Gaza Strip , the Hamas -funded al Aqsa television has gained momentum and expanded its audience to include the West Bank .
Taking a lead from Hezbollah’s al Manar television station in Beirut , Hamas is using al Aqsa to promote its agenda and challenge its rivals, in this case Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his fractured Fatah allies.
During its decisive June military showdown with Fatah in Gaza , Hamas used its television station to broadcast footage of Fatah leaders joking with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration officials. The message was clear: Fatah is in bed with America. After Fatah lost Gaza to Hamas , Fatah forces laid siege to al Aqsa’s offices in the West Bank and arrested several employees.
The station, which operates with a license from the Palestinian Authority, also features religious lessons, cartoons, advice shows and militant music videos. One video hailed a female suicide bomber whose young daughter vows to follow her mother’s example.
“Tomorrow’s Pioneers” sparked an international furor in April when it began featuring Farfour, the Mickey Mouse look-alike who sounded more like Iran’s firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than a Disney character.
Mustafa Barghouti , then serving as the Palestinian Authority’s information minister, called the show a “mistaken approach” to helping Palestinians and tried unsuccessfully to force the show off the year.
The Israeli government and activists who monitor Palestinian programming accused Hamas of poisoning the minds of young children with the show.
After two months, Farfour was beaten to death on the show by an Israeli interrogator. Nahoul, a larger-than-life bee, is now carrying his message.
“A lot of people in Palestine have died as martyrs, and lots of Palestinians hope to be martyrs,” Saraa said of Farfour’s demise. “This is one of the ends.”
Asked if she hoped one day to be a martyr, Saraa instinctively nodded her head.
“Of course,” Saraa said. “It’s something to be proud of. Every Palestinian citizen hopes to be a martyr.”
Saraa helps deliver similar messages to Palestinian children from a Hamas TV set filled with colorful numbers and pictures of kittens. During the show, Saraa fields calls from Palestinian children who warble songs about Islam, liberating Jerusalem and finding answers in the barrel of a machine gun.
On one show, she cut off a caller who was singing about surrendering herself, presumably to God’s will.
“We don’t want to surrender,” Saraa told the caller. “We want to resist.”
The show has provided new fodder for Israeli activists, who say that Saraa is the true face of Hamas , an extremist group that’s using an innocent front to conceal its real agenda.
Hamas television officials defend the show, saying it’s designed to help young children connect with their country and their God.
Israel and the United States both have pressured the Palestinian Authority to change school textbooks, radio shows and television programming that are seen to be fueling anti-Israeli hatred.
On the show, Saraa offers moral lessons to viewers and urges them to do what they can to fight Israeli occupation. After some prodding in an interview, Saraa offered a personal message for Israeli girls her age.
“They have to leave,” she said. “This is our country. They kicked us out and stole our happiness. This is a natural result.”
Within minutes, an explosion hit the building, rattling windows and sending Saraa and the staff rushing outside. At first, no one was sure if it was an accident or an Israeli airstrike. Then, it became clear that the blast was caused by an Israeli missile that missed a car filled with militants and slammed into an empty bedroom on the top floor of a three-story apartment building.
Standing outside the Hamas building with her producer protectively putting his arm around her shoulders, Saraa looked pensive and anxious. Hamas camera crews and an ambulance rushed down the block. Saraa kept quiet and gazed down the street. The coached revolutionary rhetoric disappeared. Instead, she looked like any frightened young girl caught up in events beyond her control.
Then, after it was clear that no one had been killed in the airstrike, Saraa and her producer headed back upstairs to prepare for the next episode of “Tomorrow’s Pioneers.”
