Your Freewill Astrology for this Week
Aries	Libra
Taurus	Scorpio
Gemini	Sagittarius
Cancer	Capricorn
Leo	Aquarius
Virgo	Pisces

Technorati Profile

Duct Tape Fashion


Via Orlin Grabbe

Angry US will not forgive France

Our in depth analysis follows:
Hallo!
[pause]
Hallo!
FRENCH GUARD: Allo! Who is eet?
ARTHUR: It is King Arthur, and these are my Knights of the Round Table. Whose castle is this?
FRENCH GUARD: This is the castle of my master, Guy de Loimbard.
ARTHUR: Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest. If he will give us food and shelter for the night, he can join us in our quest for the Holy Grail.
FRENCH GUARD: Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen. Uh, he's already got one, you see.
ARTHUR: What?
GALAHAD: He says they've already got one!
ARTHUR: Are you sure he's got one?
FRENCH GUARD: Oh, yes. It's very nice-a. (I told him we already got one.)
FRENCH GUARDS:[chuckling]
ARTHUR: Well, u-- um, can we come up and have a look?
FRENCH GUARD: Of course not! You are English types-a!
ARTHUR: Well, what are you, then?
FRENCH GUARD: I'm French! Why do think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king-a?!
GALAHAD: What are you doing in England?
FRENCH GUARD: Mind your own business!
ARTHUR: If you will not show us the Grail, we shall take your castle by force!
FRENCH GUARD: You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur King, you and all your silly English k-nnnnniggets. Thpppppt! Thppt! Thppt!
GALAHAD: What a strange person.
ARTHUR: Now look here, my good man--
FRENCH GUARD: I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
GALAHAD: Is there someone else up there we could talk to?
FRENCH GUARD: No. Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-a! [sniff]
ARTHUR: Now, this is your last chance. I've been more than reasonable.
FRENCH GUARD:(Fetchez la vache.)
OTHER FRENCH GUARD: Quoi?
FRENCH GUARD: (Fetchez la vache!)
[mooo]
ARTHUR: If you do not agree to my commands, then I shall--
{{{twong}}}
[mooooooo]
Jesus Christ!
KNIGHTS: Christ!
{{{thud}}}
Ah! Ohh!...
ARTHUR: Right! Charge!
KNIGHTS: Charge!
[mayhem]
FRENCH GUARD: Hey, this one is for your mother! There you go.
[mayhem]
FRENCH GUARD: And this one's for your dad!
ARTHUR: Run away!
KNIGHTS: Run away!
FRENCH GUARD: Thppppt!
FRENCH GUARDS:[taunting]
LAUNCELOT: Fiends! I'll tear them apart!
ARTHUR: No, no. No, no.
BEDEVERE: Sir! I have a plan, sir.
[later]
[wind]
[saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw]
[clunk]
[bang]
[rewr!]
[squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak]
[rrrr rrrr rrrr]
[drilllll]
[sawwwww]
[clunk]
[crash]
[clang]
[squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak...]
[creak]
FRENCH GUARDS: [whispering] C'est un lapin, lapin de bois. Quoi? Un cadeau. What? A present. Oh, un cadeau. Oui, oui. Allons-y. What? Let's go. Oh. On y va. Bon magne. Over here...
[squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak...]
[clllank]
ARTHUR: What happens now?
BEDEVERE: Well, now, uh, Launcelot, Galahad, and I, uh, wait until nightfall, and then leap out of the rabbit, taking the French, uh, by surprise. Not only by surprise, but totally unarmed!
ARTHUR: Who leaps out?
BEDEVERE: U-- u-- uh, Launcelot, Galahad, and I, uh, leap out of the rabbit, uh, and uh...
ARTHUR: Ohh.
BEDEVERE: Oh. Um, l-- look, i-- i-- if we built this large wooden badger--
[clank]
{{{twong}}}
ARTHUR: Run away!
KNIGHTS: Run away! Run away! Run away! Run away! Run away! Run away! Run away!
{{{CRASH}}}
FRENCH GUARDS: Oh, haw haw haw haw! Haw! Haw haw heh...

Good Point.

Picture message convicts robbers

Two robbers have been jailed in Italy after being identified from a mobile phone text picture.

Daniel Puiu, 20, and 21-year-old Dorin Oborcianu are thought to be the first crooks in the world to be convicted using the image technology. [Full Story]

24 Hour Party People

One more thing about Google...

The earlier post about Google left out one interesting fact: if you install the Google toolbar and you're using a Windows operating system, every Google search term you've used since then is permanently stored in your Windows Registry. You can't get rid of this list by deleting your cache, cookies, etc. You have to edit the registry and delete these entries one by one. I can't tell you exactly where in the registry to find this, since I wiped Windows off my computer some time ago and installed Linux -- but you'll probably locate it by searching the registry for one of your Google search terms.

The True Cost of War (addendum 1970 by Dalton Trumbo)

An equation: 40,000 dead young men = 3,000 tons of bone and flesh, 124,000 pounds of brain matter, 50,000 gallons of blood, 1,840,000 years of life that will never be lived, 100,000 children who will never be born.

web black-out for next day or so... maybe longer

Fact Sheet: New Terrorist Threat Integration Center Will Open May 1
Whitehouse link with text, audio and video.

President Bush announced plans on February 14 to launch a new
Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) on May 1 to "better protect
America by strengthening counterterrorism intelligence."

TTIC will play a lead role in overseeing a national counterterrorism tasking and requirements system and in maintaining an up-to-date database of known and suspected terrorists accessible to appropriate officials at all levels of government.

TTIC will be headed by a senior U.S. government official, who will report to the Director of Central Intelligence.

As an important next step in this effort, the President today announced that the FBI's Counterterrorism Division, the Director of Central Intelligence's Counterterrorist Center, and TTIC will relocate, as soon as possible, to a single new facility in order to improve collaboration and enhance the government's ability to thwart terrorist attacks and bring terrorists to justice. | Following is the text of the fact sheet

Analysis: So you give the ball to Poindexter, who paints a weird Illuminati like symbol on it, but seemingly gets denied at the hoop. The rebound goes to Junior, who takes a marker and scribbles out the symbol, writes Spaulding on it, and defended by daddy's co-horts, goes in for a lay-up, while the refs are watching the new reality TV show, Duct and Cover.

Also see:

U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy Will Enhance National Security

Bush Says Winning War On Terror Requires Perseverance, Coordination:The goal is to develop a comprehensive picture of terrorist activity. When the center is fully operational, it will fully house a database of known and suspected terrorists that officials across the country will be able to access and act upon.

Bush realigns FBI, CIA counterterrorism operations

Mutant goes off on the Google Conspiracy

Posse member Mutant takes a swipe at the Google Conspiracy. Just read it for yourself. I laughed until my stomach hurt!

Added:Incest is best when you put your Mutant to the test.

Terry Gilliam, 'Lost in La Mancha'
Documentary Captures Filmmaker's Aborted Take on 'Don Quixote'
Audio and transcript here

Former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam is probably best known for his fantastical films, such as Brazil and Twelve Monkeys. Now Gilliam himself is the subject of a film -- Lost in La Mancha, a documentary about his failed effort to film his take on the classic novel Don Quixote. Listen to NPR reporter Laura Sydell's extended interview with Gilliam and the documentary filmmakers. | [Full Story]

"embeds" = journalists who will travel with troops

As U.S. military action looms against Iraq, network news divisions are negotiating with the Department of Defense over how many "embeds" - journalists who will travel with troops - they can have filing stories from the front.

Each network and cable news channel is expected to get between eight and 10 teams embedded into fighting units. A team is composed of two journalists.

"If it works, it should be much better than what we had during the [1991] Gulf War and certainly during Afghanistan," CBS News President Andrew Heyward said yesterday during a briefing about his network's plans.

Armageddon asteroids 'best kept secret'

"When a problem arises with high uncertainty, there is an opportunity to spin the problem to avoid global panic. If you can't do anything about a warning, then there is no point in issuing a warning at all," Dr Sommer told the association yesterday.

"Overreaction not just by the public but by policy-makers scurrying around before the thing actually hits because we can't do anything about it anyway ... to a large extent you are better off not adding to your social costs," said Dr Sommer, who is also an adviser on terrorism.

Opera swipes at Microsoft with Muppet browser

Norwegian software group Opera took a swipe at U.S. giant Microsoft on Friday by issuing a an Internet browser that converts text on Microsoft's website into the nonsense language of a popular television puppet.

When Opera users visit Microsoft's MSN site with the new browser, the text displayed there appears to them in a language mimicking that of the Swedish chef on the popular "Muppet Show", Opera said in a statement.

"This joke is for real," Opera's chief technology officer Haakon Wium Lie told Reuters.

Opera calls its new browser the "Bork edition" after the "Bork, Bork, Bork!" sound made by the Swedish chef Muppet.

In the chef's mock Swedish, the MSN site headline "Weekend movie guide" is rendered "Veekend mufeee-a gooeede-a" and "Looking for a new car?" is "Luukeeng fur a noo cer?" to Opera browser users.

On other sites, including Opera's own, the browser functions normally.

Google as Big Brother?
Google deserves your nomination for Big Brother of the Year

1. Google's immortal cookie:
   Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.
   
   
2. Google records everything they can:
   For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."
   
   
3. Google retains all data indefinitely:
   Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.
   
   
4. Google won't say why they need this data:
   Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.
   
   
5. Google hires spooks:
   Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.
   
   
6. Google's toolbar is spyware:
   With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf. Yes, it reads your cookie too, and sends along the last search terms you used in the toolbar. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you phone home. Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google.
   
   
7. Google's cache copy is illegal:
   Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."
   
   
8. Google is not your friend:
   Young, stupid script kiddies and many bloggers still think Google is "way kool," so by now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. No webmaster can avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming he wants to increase traffic to his site. If he tries to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, he may find himself penalized by Google, and his traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time they don't even answer email from webmasters.
   
   
9. Google is a privacy time bomb:
   With 150 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved. Google deserves your nomination for corporate Big Brother of the Year.
   

OS 012

OS 012
A Master Meme to stop the war before it starts.
An Operating System for the Human Being
A pyramid scheme for world peace

Ice Blocks Keep Fallin' on My Head

Another block of ice fell from the sky in Santa Cruz, California. The last one crashed through the ceiling of a child's bedroom, but this one crashed through the roof of a boat while the owner was inside. Ray Erickson was talking on the phone inside his 40-foot Chris Craft boat around 6:30 p.m., when he hear a loud crash. "All of a sudden, bam!—there was a loud, loud noise," he says. "I couldn't figure out what was happening. The person I was talking to on the phone suggested I was hit by a hunk of ice similar to the one that hit that house in Santa Cruz recently." [MORE]

MusicBrainz!

MusicBrainz is a community music metadatabase that attempts to create a comprehensive music information site. You can use the MusicBrainz data either by browsing this web site, or you can access the data from a client program - for example, a CD player program can use MusicBrainz to identify CDs and provide information about the CD, about the artist or about related information. You can also use the MusicBrainz Tagger to automatically identify and clean up the metadata tags in your MP3 collections.

Blog Debate on Iraq War Takes Shape
Dan Gillmor's eJournal

One of the big problems in the weblog community is the echo-chamber effect, where like-minded bloggers link to each other and exclude opposing viewpoints. This is an especially serious flaw when it comes to politics, though I should note that some of the best political bloggers do invite counter-arguments.

No current issue is more contentious than the impending Gulf War II. An interesting debate is shaping up online, courtesy of some folks who are out to break through the echo chamer.

The Call for Questions is under way at the Truth Laid Bear Cross-Blog Iraq Debate, which promises to be a serious look at a serious subject. Take a look.

Criminal charges filed against 17 accused of hacking into satellite TV transmissions

A federal grand jury has indicted 17 people who authorities say hacked into satellite television transmissions, causing millions of dollars in losses to DirecTV and Dish Network, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

Six of the defendants were charged with violating the anti-encryption provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The other charges involved conspiracy or manufacturing a device for the purpose of stealing satellite signals. All three counts carry a maximum prison sentence of five years.

The indictments were returned last month and unsealed Tuesday.

Huge, Huge Anonymous Conspiracy Postboard

From the depths of kookdom's full-on wack zone, passing - via a multitude of directions - all the way to some lucid, sane-enough paranoia here and there...you can find it all here on a huge, huge postboard where scads of anonymous people respond to a request to post their favourite conspiracy theory du jour. It began as a project put together by Miriam Joan Hill and R.A. Wilson to collect data for a book; that is already a done deal but he chose to leave the page up and actively collecting posts anyway.

I read it for ages, and found it satisfied my daily need for textual lunatic fringiness, in all its splendour and diversity - it's one of the better examples of non-conversational audience participation on the internet. Most internet fora are centered around little cliques who post conversationally, with argumentive discourse amidst snippets of soundbyte-like chatter, usually full of in-jokes no one gets but people who are already friends of whoever's running the place. Not that I think such fora are necessarily bad, it's just refreshing to see something break that mold sometimes...with individuals taking their turn standing on their own soapboxes, then stepping down for the next person.

It's also an example of the rapidly diminishing phenomenon of the anonymous, non-datamining, no-registration post board. This is something I think we all need to make more of.

This has turned into a repository for every set of "the real truth about everything going on" paradigms you've likely ever come across, and maybe some you haven't yet. A few funny sarcasms inbetween the long rants alleviate the onerousness of extended rant-a-thon overload. If you want to take a reading on the pulse of the fringe-ish zone, here's one good vein to hold your fingers on.( I do have a gripe: It would help if the cgi script on this postboard autoformatted carriage returns...it doesn't recognize the enter key at all. A lot of people who wrote posts here would have seemed more lucid had they the advantage of paragraph breaks they intended.)

New pictures prove infant universe "cute as a button"

Astronomers Tuesday unveiled an extraordinarily detailed map of the universe in its earliest stages. The image, compiled by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, charts temperature changes in the cosmic microwave radiation that was produced after the big bang and describes our universe as it was at the beginning of time as we known it -- 13.7 billion years ago. "This is a beginning of a new stage in our study of the early universe," Astronomer David Spergel explained. "We can use this portrait not only to predict the properties of the nearby universe, but can also use it to understand the first moments of the big bang."

Joe Frank :: Shows

WOOT! Joe Frank's shows on the web! Finally, something to get us through a day at work! Via mempool

Deconstructing Newspaper Propaganda
Demitria Monde Thraam

The headline of the Washington Post story reads:
Most Support Attack On Iraq, With Allies

Already, the title misleads. It has the reader possibly assuming that it's saying "Most Americans support an attack on Iraq, along with our allies, who also support it." We find, though, that the reference is actually to the idea: "Most Americans support an attack on Iraq, provided that it has the support of our allies." Yes, bad headlines happen - space limitations cause grammatical flaws aplenty. But is it just me, or does there seem to be lots more of these vague-as-hell headlines these days?

The first paragraph states: "A majority of Americans support attacking Iraq even without the approval of the United Nations, provided that the United States has the backing of some key allies, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll." When we get to the second paragraph, we discover that this majority is "nearly six in ten Americans". In other words, a fraction above no majority at all.

We are then told that "Bush's job approval rating, which had spiraled steadily downward through 2002 and into January, has rebounded and now stands at 64 percent." That's not what I would think of as a "rebound". 64 percent is not a very high majority. Since no data is offered us about what the poll figures were for January and for the months of 2002, we don't have any prior data upon which we might compare the current data, and thus sensibly decide for ourselves whether or not this 64% is a significant figure. This contextual omission, of course, is done quite purposefully. They count on us to skim the newspapers and websites and just take it for granted that everyone wants to do exactly as Bush decrees.

Words like "rebound" can be used to produce the effect of changing public opinion when used in this context. There's a certain strata of the populace which is herdlike and hiveish, a layer of society whose individual members will always be influenced by the general sense of "what everyone else is doing."

Were this poll to have resulted in figures which suggested that the regime change that most of us want is the one which would get Prince Shrub off his ersatz White House throne, and bring the Constitution back from its current dismal state of being worth less than the hemp it was penned upon, the language would have been something like this: "The majority of Americans who claim to disagree with Bush's policy is a slim one, with only 64% saying that they do not want America to go to war with Iraq; even so, a number of those who disagree with the planned military action claim they would support it were it also to be supported by only two or three key UN allies."

The article goes on to state that "support for military action is far broader and deeper than opposition to it." Broader and deeper? How is this quantifiable by the results of this poll? This is measurement terminology that fits as a description of a three-dimensional object, but as a meter of public opinion, it only works as a metaphor when describing data that's a lot more detailed than a few answers to yes-or-no questions.

Continuing, we have: "A growing majority say negotiating with Iraq won't work. And the proportion of the public that wants the war to begin in a few weeks rather than a few months has never been higher." Here, the flaw is one of omission: it's conveniently not mentioned that this is very probably the first and only poll taken by the Post that asked respondants any questions pertaining to whether or not America ought to be getting its war on "in a matter of weeks".. This is essentially meaningless data given a context suggesting that it's meaningful by making what I have come to call a "ghost comparison" by using the phrase "has never been higher".

I realize that for most of you reading this, propagandistic rhetorical sneakiness is nothing new. Anyone possessing even the most rudimentary elements of intelligence - anyone who has a mind that hasn't long ago been jammed shut and layered over with an ossified sediment of mixed exterior bullshittings and accumulated internal assumptions - already knows that all the major TV networks and high-circulation newspapers have devolved into flimsily-veiled propaganda mills and mass distraction factories, all of which are completely beholden to the interests of the American coup - or the Bush Regime, or New World Order, or occult conspiracy or globalist oligarchy (oiligarchy?) or whatever-the-hell else you call this highly dubious cluster of powermongers both overt and covert who've managed to shock-and-awe their way into virtually absolute control of the United States of America at this time in history...and in our lives. It seems so obvious to those of us who have been taking any sort of active role in watching, analyzing and forming opinions about the games these people play with our brains. Meaning: those who are, or who identify with, the elements of society collectively known as freaks, geeks, conspiracy buffs, Illuminati-watchers, paranoids, mystics, students of cabal and Kabbala, assorted mages, occultists and shamans, psionts, transhumanists, hedonic engineers and other Weird Scientists, SubGenii, Discordians, entheogenicists, psychedeliacs, tweakers and poly-druggophiles, various and sundry sexual transmutants, radical sociopolitical dissidents of every stripe and spangle, and scads of other enlightened artists, writers and other miscellaneous nutcases, lunatics and crackpots--whether lucidly sane, certifiably wacko or some combination thereof. And even - whodathunkit?! Some really very ordinary people, too.

It seems so obvious that we forget sometimes just how naive the greater majority out there can be when it comes to being aware of rhetorical tactics such as that which we just saw here. A newspaper writer can employ a few well-placed words or phrases in order to elicit whatever particular tilt of opinion is desired from the public's perception of any given statistical data set. This out-in-the-open trickery effectively changes a factual news story into an editorial commentary, but does so in such a way as to make the difference harder for those who are not aware of propaganda to spot. The "average" reader is assumed to have so many other things on his or her mind that the key words "majority supports Bush" get picked up by the non-analytical, distracted mind, with the rest dipping below the radar of conscious attention. The significance of the fact that this "majority" is barely a majority at all fails to stick to the brain.

All this so far has been just wordplay. On top of it is the question of whether or not such poll results can really be trusted to convey any accurate data in the first place. When you have people hearing about this or that new surveillance system, learning that due process is being flushed down the toilet...who knows? Maybe they get a little nervous when some stranger phones them up and starts asking them pointed questions about their political beliefs. The article says this poll was a random sampling of 1,001 people, but 1,001 people living where, how much money do they have? This information could potentially change everything. 1,001 people living in a town whose principal industry is related to aerospace or defense contracts might have different ideas about war than 1,001 people from downtown San Francisco. I'd never trust a poll unless I had taken it myself in person, interviewing people I ran into.

Now more than ever, it is vital for us to see to it that these techniques of manipulation are exposed to anyone who seems to be naive about them. This can be done by having friendly discussions with family, friends, fellow students, co-workers, internet "buddies", acquaintances...and even total strangers. Sitting at a bus stop with nothing to do? Strike up a convo with the person sitting next to you. After a few moments of obligatory inane small talk, pick up the newspaper lying next to you and take on a quizzical facial expression designed to arouse curiosity. Point out the latest glaringly-slanted exercise of freedom of the press (or is it "pressure of the free"? I never know anymore) and gently explain what it is, why it's heinous, and how it has no place in the straight-news section of a newspaper. Point out that no matter what one's opinion of Bush or the Iraq situation might be, this should concern any American who values the things that we've all been taught that we're supposed to hold dear and true as Americans...and that when the press becomes an instrument of the government it becomes more like something one would find in a country that did not live by these "American values" Like maybe Iraq, for example?

Perhaps that person may ignore you at this point, or call you some bad name, usually involving the word "liberal". (Where IS this liberal mainstream media they keep whining about? They must be hiding it from us.) Perhaps he or she will launch into a tirade about how we can't be free without protecting ourselves from those who would attack us for our freedoms, yadda yadda blah blah blah. But if you are calm and possess a self-assuredness based in knowing you're the one making more common sense no matter what this or any other jerk yammers in your face, odds are that you'll have planted a seed of awareness in another mind...and someone else, somewhere, is going to water it. Or will fertilize it a bit with a pile of bullshit that somehow will now smell more like bullshit and less like accepted and acceptable fact to the person you talked with than it once would have, had you not spoken up.

Spread your memes unto the wind: most may fall fallow, but for every one which germinates, you'll have a whole new meme-seeder. Perhaps at some point there won't be any plausible way for the Bushies (along with those they control - and who control them) to fake it so easily anymore.

And if going to demonstrations and suchlike seems like a waste of time, it helps to remember that even if the juggernaut can't be stopped by it, it serves the purpose of showing the world that we're not all marching to Shrub's terribly off-kilterish drumming. And also gives us something to do, some way to bang our own drums, bang our own heads together, until something syncs up - and gives us some better music to dance to.

Total Information Awareness Gift Shop

The logo of the Information Awareness Office does nothing to allay those concerns with its disturbing Orwellian imagery of the all-knowing eye scanning the globe. The Total Information Awareness Gift Shop is a modest comedic attempt to stimulate public awareness and interest in an issue which could detrimentally impact our civil liberties for years to come.

Any proceeds beyond the basic cost of each product will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union...

Demon-Haunted Brain
If the brain mediates all experience, then paranormal phenomena are nothing more than neuronal events

Five centuries ago demons haunted our world, with incubi and succubi tormenting victims as they lay asleep. Two centuries ago spirits haunted our world, with ghosts and ghouls harassing sufferers during all hours of the night. This past century aliens haunted our world, with grays and greens abducting captives and whisking them away for probing and prodding. Nowadays people are reporting out-of-body experiences, floating above their beds.What is going on here? Are these elusive creatures and mysterious phenomena in our world or in our minds? New evidence adds weight to the notion that they are, in fact, products of the brain. Neuroscientist Michael Persinger, in his laboratory at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, for example, can induce all these perceptions in subjects by subjecting their temporal lobes to patterns of magnetic fields. (I tried it myself and had a mild out-of-body experience.) [MORE] | Via weblogsky

Clearchannel: Preparing for war?
The following is a purported internal memo smuggled out of Clearchannel Radio, the nations largest conglomerate of news/talk radio
02/12/03
WAR PLANS
KFBK and KSTE

NEWS

Make certain that we are monitoring CNN and ABC's Sat Que. Sat Que must be turned up loud. We can not just rely on someone occasionally checking the wires. Do NOT turn down the volume on ABC Sat Que. Ross, please consider setting the volume high and removing the volume knob, otherwise someone will turn it down and you'll miss an important bulletin.

Board ops: The second you get a notification that war has begun make sure you are prepared to hit news bulletin sounder and get the information on IMMEDIATELY. As soon as it is offered, cut to network updates or long-form coverage immediately. Then call and page Ken and Cristi.

If War breaks out after 10AM M-F please make sure that we call Joe and Jack to come in and take KSTE into long-form as well.

Our Coverage will be called America's War with Iraq In writing copy please call our coverage, 'LIVE In-Depth Team Coverage of America's War with Iraq.'

After a major terror attack or after the war begins take all presidential addresses and public appearances. [MORE]

How the tech crash became a generational divide

For the workers most deeply affected by the implosion of the tech sector, the real impact of the downturn can't be measured by money alone. Looking at 19 disrupted lives, Mercury News technology writer Joelle Tessler charts the paths taken by four waves of valley workers and finds four different downturn experiences.

How the tech crash became a generational divide

Many twentysomethings unfazed by the bust

A time to embrace life

Running out of options

Rethinking the endgame

Written in The Stars
Claims of cloning have made UFO religions big news, and a raft of scholarly books is poised to ride the waves

The sky and beyond evokes wonders and mysteries and, now, sadness with the deaths of the seven Columbia astronauts. The space program seeks knowledge of the stars and other planets from a scientific point of view, but some religions follow beliefs they claim were communicated directly by residents of other worlds. Earthbound scholars scrutinize those groups.

These scholarly investigators track the beliefs and activities of UFO sects whether the groups make headlines or not, but when events do bring media coverage, the academics provide expert insight. Relatively few in number, they often contribute to each other's books. The new titles may bring attention and status to a realm of sociological inquiry usually considered a subgroup within the study of new religious movements. "I think we're right on the verge of seeing that field emerge when all these books come out," says James R. Lewis, a scholar of alternative religions. | Via post-atomic

A Short Peek into the Future - Part 1

Click. Click. Click. The familiar sound violently awoke Sam, sending shockwaves down his spine. Click. Click. Click. His first voluntary reaction was to think - Is it me? Do they know? Wondering how far away they were, he threw back the standard issue gray bedding and planted his feet firmly on the cold cement floor. His mind was racing in one consistent direction: escape.

Grabbing his overcoat, he stumbled to the door, while checking the pockets to ensure that he still had the document. I must get rid of it, he thought. Why did I have to be so damn curious? Click. Click. Click. The sound was getting closer. [MORE]

Famous hacker Kevin Mitnick gets hacked

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The world's best-known computer hacker suffered the indignity of having someone break into his new security consulting company's Web site. Mitnick, whose federal probation on hacking charges ended a few weeks ago, acknowledged that this weekend's electronic break-in at Defensive Thinking Inc. of Los Angeles was actually the second time in weeks that hackers found a way into the computer running the firm's Web site. A hacker calling himself "BugBear" added one page to the site with a message, "it was fun and easy to break into your box." Another, similar break-in occurred Sunday by a hacker in Texas who asked Mitnick to hire him as the company's security officer.

Adelita's in the news! Waiters Accused of Serving Drugs!

Would you like cocaine with that?
That's what authorities say some customers were getting with their order at a Santa Cruz County restaurant. Sheriff's deputies have arrested two waiters at Adelita's Mexican Restaurant for dealing cocaine and marijuana. Magdaleno Mendez and his brother, Gabriel Mendez, are charged with possession of narcotics and possession of narcotics for sale. Investigators say people who wanted drugs would sit in a certain section of the restaurant and order chicken nachos. Then, police say, customers would request cocaine or marijuana and place money in a napkin. The waiter would take the napkin, go into the kitchen, replace the money with drugs and return the napkin to the customer. The men were arrested yesterday.

Note: Wait, wait! Ahahahahahahaha! What was it JM said in that Adelita's interview? "I was beginning to understand. That or the Dos Equis was kicking in. I felt lightheaded." Dos Equis, yeah, right.

The 50 Most Ridiculous Things About the Upcoming War in Iraq!

Bush Math 101

Funny and accurate article with tons of info all in one place. Checkit. | Via American Samizdat

Boys with Toys- Another Look at the Equations

Along with others, I also read Clay Shirky's Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality. However, unlike most others, my reaction to Clay's newest gem was to go, "What a load of hooie".

Don't get me wrong, I think Clay's sharp as a tack and smart as a whip. (Do I need any other weapon-like metaphors to make my point?) He's a great speaker, and knows his technology, and loves what he does, and I respect that. But he has one failing in regards to his viewpoints as to social gatherings: he's an elitist. He believes there will always be an 'elite' grouping within any society, something I don't necessarily discount; however, from his writing and actions, he also tends to facilitate the mistaken belief that social groupings must follow fixed statistical patterns that support a static elite, and that we must all behave as the statistics dictate. And I say, what a load of hooie. [MORE]

Here's another analysis from dive into mark:
This conclusion is sure to piss off the “weblogs will set us free” crowd. The ridiculously low barrier to entry of starting your own weblog is invariably held up as a prime reason why personal publishing will lead us into an egalitarian utopia. But all it really means is that anyone can get in on the long tail of the power law distribution, where you (voluntarily) spend all your time linking to Glenn Reynolds or Dave Winer, and never get read by more than 3 people. [MORE]

MATERIAL GIRL IN A POLITICAL WORLD: MADONNA PLANS VIDEO TO PROTEST WAR, BUSH

Madonna is hoping to cause maximum controversy with a new video from her forthcoming CD, AMERICAN LIFE, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal. Editing is in progress on a musical video concept which insiders say may be the most shocking anti-war, anti-Bush statement yet to come from the showbusiness industry.

MORE

"She's taking it all the way this time," one source said from Los Angeles over the weekend, "pushing all of the buttons... It is a sweeping political commentary on the modern 'American Dream' and how 'nothing is what is seems.'" The song will be released to radio next week.
Dressed in commando fatigues, Madonna throws grenades as the techno terror beat pounds, claims a source. Limb-less men and women are reportedly shown, with bloody babies. One disturbing clip features Iraqi children. "The video escalates into a mad frenzy depicting the catastrophic repercussion and horror of war." Madonna spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg did not return repeated calls seeking comment.
The shock film for AMERICAN LIFE comes as Madonna returns to the musical spotlight with a CD of original songs, set for an April release.

Paranoid Fantasies About Sept 11 Distract From The Real Issues

...it's hardly surprising that the events of Sept 11 2001 have spawned their fair share of these ludicrous fairy tales. And as always, there is - sadly - a small but gullible percentage of the population eager to lap up these tall tales, regardless of facts or rational analysis.

One of the wilder stories circulating about Sept 11, and one that has attracted something of a cult following amongst conspiracy buffs is that it was carried out by 19 fanatical Arab hijackers, masterminded by an evil genius named Osama bin Laden, with no apparent motivation other than that they "hate our freedoms."

Never a group of people to be bothered by facts, the perpetrators of this cartoon fantasy have constructed an elaborately woven web of delusions and unsubstantiated hearsay in order to promote this garbage across the internet and the media to the extent that a number of otherwise rational people have actually fallen under its spell... | Via Libertythink

Beyond the big coverup / Indie film takes on conspiracy theories

You wouldn't know it watching the first few minutes of "Nothing So Strange, " which features choppy, Zapruder-style film of a Bill Gates look-alike getting gunned down.

But "Nothing So Strange," which plays this week as part of the San Francisco Indiefest, has almost nothing to do with the Microsoft emperor. Instead it digs into the lives of dedicated conspiracy theorists who are convinced the tragedy is a big coverup. | Via post-atomic

Latent Semantic Analysis for Text-Based Research

Latent semantic analysis (or indexing) is an application of what's called principal components analysis (PCA), or factors analysis, to the domain of information organization. In the basic version, you form a big 2-D matrix with documents (e-mails for instance) along one axis and terms (word, phrases) along the other, and fill in the entries with a 0 when the term doesn't occur in the document, and with a 1 (or count) when it does. Then you take the resulting monstrous matrix and grind it up with an algorithm that finds covariance patterns. That's to say, the associations of words "latent' in the document base you feed in are going to be found. Shovel in several weeks worth of news stories and it's going to be obvious that 'Saddam' and 'Iraq' are highly correlated, or 'Tiger' and 'golf'. The method actually kicks out a transformation matrix into which you can feed the terms observed in a particular document, and get out a score for that document in terms of "warness" or "golfness" - those are principal components, or factors. You compute and save as many factors as you want - presumably less than the number of original terms. (Apologies to any wandering mathematicians for the gross simplications.) | Via Due Diligence

Whitley Strieber checks in on DSEA
Official Terror Worse than 'Night and Fog'

Last night I read a document that turned my blood to ice.
The document I am referring to was created by John Ashcroft last month and presently exists in draft form. It is called the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. It has thus far been given to only two members of congress that I know of, the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, and Vice-President Cheney as President Pro-Tem of the Senate.

This, in itself, is highly unusual, as draft legislation is routinely distributed to the appropriate congressional committees. The first page of the document is marked “Confidential—Not For Distribution.” It is clear that an attempt is being made to conceal this bill from congress until the “right moment.” This tactic is consistent with the closed administration of George W. Bush, which seeks to avoid even legally required contact with congress.

Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana, a conservative Republican, the Chairman of the Committee on Government Reform, said recently, "an iron veil is descending over the executive branch."

But why conceal this? What is the moment that they are waiting for? It is chillingly clear: When we are living in abject fear due to a horrible new terrorist attack, this bill, which effectively wrecks American freedom, is going to be brought forward…and just yesterday, as I write this, the president announced that such an attack could happen at any time.

On February 7, the Justice Department, reacting to the leak of the document to the Center for Public Integrity, explained its secretiveness by referring to it as “an idea or proposal that is still being discussed at staff level.” But it is not a proposal. It is an actual, complete bill, fully referenced and annotated, ready to be presented. Normally, this is the form that would have been circularized to the appropriate congressional committees.

There is no national security reason to hide this document. It is not classified and the Justice Department has no legal grounds to suppress it in the way that is being attempted. [MORE]

Two of Charles Fort books are now available online

The Works of Charles Fort

Book of the Damned (1919)
New Lands (1923)

Charles Fort was a crank in the best sense of the word. Lovecraft and the X-files can't begin to compete with the spooky stuff he uncovered. In the early twentieth century he put together great quantities of exhaustively documented 'puzzling evidence' (in the words of David Byrne), data which science is unable or unwilling to explain. Forts' books gave me nightmares when I read them when I was seven. Strange items drop from the sky, bizarre artifacts turn up in unexpected places, stars violate the laws of astronomy, giant clouds blot out the moon and the sun trembles in the sky. Is the world inside out? Is it flat? Or maybe shaped like a giant spindle?

What does it all mean? He drops cryptic, breathless hints such as "I think we're property." and "I think that we're fished for. It may be that we're highly esteemed by super-epicures somewhere." Whatever you think about this information, you will at some point while reading Forts' books feel like the foundations of your reality are slipping slightly to the south...

Consider yourself warned! -DW

BUSH: "HUSSEIN CHEATS AT MONOPOLY"

Washington, D.C. - Feb. 11 2003
AS PART of an escalating war of rhetoric against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, today President Bush accused the Iraqi leader of cheating at a popular board game, Monopoly.

Bush spoke at a local military base today to a standing army only audience: "Recent evidence has come to our attention that only adds to the fact that Saddam Hussein is an evil-doer. Not only does he gas his own people, not only does he snub his nose at the United Nations and the United States on a regular basis, kicking out weapons inspectors whenever he chooses, but the man also cheats at monopoly!

"You show me a man who cheats at monopoly, and I'll show you a man hoarding weapons of mass destruction."

Bush then proceeded to pull out a tape recorder. "Here, let me show you some proof, or let you listen to it, rather. This is an intercept tape our intelligence forces have uh, intercepted recently . . . " He presses play. Garbled Iraqi voices are to be heard.

Bush translates: "Ok here, General Atuwa says, 'You sunk my battleship!'

"Hussein: 'We're not playing that game, idiot! We're playing Monopoly!'

"Atuwa: 'Why we plame stupid capitalist-pig game like Monopoly anyway? Battleship is more for generals.'

"Hussein: 'Shut up and roll the dice, Atuwa, before I make you play hopscotch. Playing capitalistic-pig games helps us get inside their heads. This is a useful psychological device.'"

Here Bush shuts off the tape recorder, motions off-stage.

"Next piece of evidence is a satellite photo. At this point in the game, Saddam takes out a hidden card which was concealed in his sleeve."

We see an enlarged photo on a large white screen behind Bush. On it are 3 red blocks and 2 grey ones.

"The first red block here is Saddam. Now, we can't show you the whole evidence, but if you look closely at the bottom of this block here, you can clearly see a hidden stash of monopoly money, barely concealed under his sleeve."

Bush faces audience again. "I'm sick and tired of this man, America. What kind of a man cheats at Monopoly? The kind that I'm gonna get--dead or alive. God Bless America!"

NASA: Evidence Favors Infinitely Expanding Universe

"The Sydney Morning Herald has a story here about how NASA is expected to announce this week that it has proved the existence of "dark energy," a cosmic force that counteracts gravity and will keep the universe expanding forever. The announcement will effectively demolish the theory that life will be wiped out in a "big crunch" when the universe collapses, and should end decades of academic dispute. Scientists ranging from Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge University physicist, to Albert Einstein, have argued that the universe eventually will stop expanding and then implode under the force of gravity, destroying all life. The Chicago Sun Times has some information as well." | Via slashdot

dr menlo's revolution radio

Hey hey, I'm extremely proud to announce that as I post this we are in the very first fifteen minutes of drmenlo radio: music for the revolution.
generate the age of chill / beat on the brat

Big thanks and credit to Jason Lubyk of New World Disorder for the idea--who, by the way, will be announcing this very week the online launch of his New World Disorder magazine. You would be wise to be looking forward to it.

dude, you're getting a cell!
Dell Dude In Pot Bust

Hey, dude, you're getting a cell! Benjamin Curtis, the 22-year old actor who portrays "Steven," the Dell Guy, in those bothersome computer commercials, was arrested late last night (2/9) on a marijuana possession charge, The Smoking Gun has learned. According to police, Curtis was nabbed after cops spotted him buying a "small bag of marijuana" from a dealer on Manhattan's Lower East Side (at Ludlow and Rivington for you Gothamites). Curtis, who lives in lower Manhattan, was charged with criminal possession of marijuana, while Omar Mendez, the 19-year-old alleged dealer, faces drug sale and possession charges. The misdemeanor complaint filed against the pair is below. (2 pages)

Researcher devises system to prove time travel possible

About two weeks ago, Marshall Barnes of Columbus asked me to consider writing an article about time -- more accurately, about manipulating time, which could be closely related to his theory that time travel is possible.
To prove his invention, Barnes took me with him on an experiment, along state Route 104, from state Route 56 to the Columbus corporation limit. The speed limit is 55 mph, except for a short 45-mph stretch near Columbus, with one traffic light near the southern edge of the city.

"This isn't exactly scientific," he said. "But we will eventually do testing at a real testing facility. That will settle this question once and for all."

We made the trip in Barnes' 1988 Olds Cutlass, without the STDTS turned on, in 24 minutes.

Coming back, he turned his machine on, and I watched the speedometer closely. I quietly wondered if the slow car in front of us might affect our results.

Back at Route 56, Barnes cheered when we checked our watches.

We did it in 22 minutes.

"You have been the first man from Circleville to chrono travel," he told me.

The secret is in the software he plays in a tape deck that has an amplifier built into it.

"I put a signal on a tape and it goes through the antennae cables, which are attached to the hood of the car," he said. "When the signal hits the hood it resonates and creates a specially modulated electromagnetic field, consisting of a close-adhering cloud of electrons. The field floats about a quarter inch off the surface, around the front of the car.

He demonstrated the STDTS once for the Sterling Show on WTVN Radio. On that run, however, the motor on his tape deck failed.
His most amazing test to date was accomplished in a stainless steel DeLorean, owned by his friend, Bob Fitrakis. He made the trip from Columbus to Route 56 in 18 minutes. | Read the entire story

Note: I'm not even going to bother to point anything out, I trust the readers to be intelligent enough to catch it. :) Lends a whole new meaning to the statement, "That music takes me back." Current MeFi discussion about TT here.

Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing

A lot of people in the weblog world are asking "How can we make money doing this?" The answer is that most of us can't. Weblogs are not a new kind of publishing that requires a new system of financial reward. Instead, weblogs mark a radical break. They are such an efficient tool for distributing the written word that they make publishing a financially worthless activity. It's intuitively appealing to believe that by making the connection between writer and reader more direct, weblogs will improve the environment for direct payments as well, but the opposite is true. By removing the barriers to publishing, weblogs ensure that the few people who earn anything from their weblogs will make their money indirectly.

The search for direct fees is driven by the belief that, since weblogs make publishing easy, they should lower the barriers to becoming a professional writer. This assumption has it backwards, because mass professionalization is an oxymoron; a professional class implies a minority of members. The principal effect of weblogs is instead mass amateurization.

Mass amateurization is the web's normal pattern. Travelocity doesn't make everyone a travel agent. It undermines the value of being travel agent at all, by fixing the inefficiencies travel agents are paid to overcome one booking at a time. Weblogs fix the inefficiencies traditional publishers are paid to overcome one book at a time, and in a world where publishing is that efficient, it is no longer an activity worth paying for. [MORE]

Brave new program?
From broadband to cable and wireless to broadcasting, FCC Chairman Michael Powell believes in a free market and minimum government intrusion

Michael Powell is an unabashed gadget freak who owns three cell phones, three personal digital assistants, five personal computers, six TVs, a wireless wifi network and of course what he calls "God's Machine'' -- TiVo.

But this techno nerd does more than tinker with his toys -- he wields considerable power to shape the future of the tech industry. As chairman of the Federal Communications Commission at a pivotal moment in tech's history, Powell, 39, will help craft the rules of the road to a new digital promised land, where the lines between computers and entertainment devices blur and consumers have access to a vast array of new services.

A die-hard Republican free-marketeer, he aims to do so with as little government intrusion as possible.

Students cash in on 'human billboards' plan

Instead of using their brains to better themselves, students are being encouraged to use their heads to alleviate their debts. Or, more precisely, their foreheads.
A creative marketing agency, best known for projecting an image of the television presenter Gail Porter on to the Houses of Parliament, has embarked on an initiative to turn students' foreheads into billboards.

The agency, Cunning Stunts, is offering students up to £88.20 a week to wear a corporate logo on their head for a minimum of three hours each day. The brand or product message will be attached by a vegetable dye transfer and the students will be paid to leave the logos untouched.

Note: A case of life imitating art?