Saturday, May 31, 2003

From Here

Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims

Secret transcript revealed Dan Plesch and Richard Norton-Taylor Saturday May 31, 2003 The Guardian Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programme at the very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has learned. Their deep concerns about the intelligence - and about claims being made by their political bosses, Tony Blair and George Bush - emerged at a private meeting between the two men shortly before a crucial UN security council session on February 5. The meeting took place at the Waldorf hotel in New York, where they discussed the growing diplomatic crisis. The exchange about the validity of their respective governments' intelligence reports on Iraq lasted less than 10 minutes, according to a diplomatic source who has read a transcript of the conversation. [...] The Guardian
Office of Special Plans
May your star continue to rise...

Friday, May 30, 2003

How could you even think of putting those shame costumes on a cat? We understand the dignity of these fair creatures, and would never ... we also understand the reality of very tender forearm flesh ... claws win, every time. I use Camino for a browser. It's fast and has minimal graphics. Haven't had time to try an other mail client, maybe this weekend if it rains. Oh, and scored 32.4723%. Some one who scored 44.3787% told me about this: Antonia Hirsch May 31 to June 20, 2003 1.866.SPOKEN4 (1.866.776.5364 toll-free across Canada) +1.604.696.1328 (local and international calls) Lines Spoken For is a telephone project using the familiar voice messaging system format. The telephone is a personal communications device, yet it is connected to massive economic and technological structures. Together with other new communications technologies, it transcends the current time system, effortlessly traversing not only space, but also time zones. The voice, however, is a visceral phenomenon of the here and now. Whether we have 'a voice in a matter' often depends upon our place in administrative structures that prevail inside specific geographical boundaries. Intertwining historical fact with fiction, Lines Spoken For focuses on the International Date Line. This conceptual threshold between today and tomorrow is itself a fiction of staggering proportions. Navigating through the Kafkaesque system, callers uncover the peculiar circumstances of a delegate to the historic Conference for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. At this conference, involving a select group of international stakeholders, an issue of global importance is on the table: the location of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Just as one day would fluidly transform into the next - were it not for the International Date Line - Lines Spoken For exists without temporal regulator: cause and effect and consequently the construction of meaning is determined by the caller's navigation through the system. Significantly, Lines Spoken For exists in a realm of ideas: without physical presence.
Mozilla is slow though. They used to say the browser is slow; I've never heard that Mozilla Mail is slow. And there is aparently a new stand alone mail app built on the Mozilla Mail code, but for stability, I would go with Mozilla Mail. And havent they resolved this speed issue by rendering the gui natively? In any case, its a choice, rather than the absence of a choice, with which, you cannot get mail. What are the shortcomings of OSX Mail? And as for it being ugly, you want to get your mail with it, not fuck it!
Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org is the best mail client that i have ever used. Better than Eudora....its simply awesome. Release candidate 1 for 1.4 is out now, and its perfect. Oh and its got a browser too!
http://www.jca-online.com/chapman.html
RH9
Linux!

What a Tangled Web We Weave . . .

. . . when first we practice to deceive! Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. Dick Cheney Speech to VFW National Convention August 26, 2002 Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. George W. Bush Speech to UN General Assembly September 12, 2002 If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world. Ari Fleischer Press Briefing December 2, 2002 We know for a fact that there are weapons there. Ari Fleischer Press Briefing January 9, 2003 Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. George W. Bush State of the Union Address January 28, 2003 We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more. Colin Powell Remarks to UN Security Council February 5, 2003 We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have. George W. Bush Radio Address February 8, 2003 So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? . . . I think our judgment has to be clearly not. Colin Powell Remarks to UN Security Council March 7, 2003 Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. George W. Bush Address to the Nation March 17, 2003 Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes. Ari Fleisher Press Briefing March 21, 2003 There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them. Gen. Tommy Franks Press Conference March 22, 2003 I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction. Defense Policy Board member Kenneth Adelman Washington Post, p. A27 March 23, 2003 One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites. Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clark Press Briefing March 22, 2003 We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat. Donald Rumsfeld ABC Interview March 30, 2003 Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty. Neocon scholar Robert Kagan Washington Post op-ed April 9, 2003 I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found. Ari Fleischer Press Briefing April 10, 2003 We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them. George W. Bush NBC Interview April 24, 2003 There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country. Donald Rumsfeld Press Briefing April 25, 2003 We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so. George W. Bush Remarks to Reporters May 3, 2003 I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now. Colin Powell Remarks to Reporters May 4, 2003 We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country. Donald Rumsfeld Fox News Interview May 4, 2003 I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program. George W. Bush Remarks to Reporters May 6, 2003 U.S. officials never expected that "we were going to open garages and find" weapons of mass destruction. Condoleeza Rice Reuters Interview May 12, 2003 I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago -- whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they're still hidden. Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne Press Briefing May 13, 2003 Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found. Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps Interview with Reporters May 21, 2003 Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction. Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff NBC Today Show interview May 26, 2003 They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer. Donald Rumsfeld Remarks to Council on Foreign Relations May 27, 2003 For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on. Paul Wolfowitz Vanity Fair interview May 28, 2003

This brilliant piece of work is from here.

Thursday, May 29, 2003

blohole: BLEEEEUUUUCHHHHHH!!!! This has gotta be the worst thing I EVER saw! Even then I only just made it thru the violent spewin scenes!!! Watched completely thru spaces btwn my fingers cudn't bear to watch anymore!! assman: Thats too bad she is kind of cute...but I don't know if I could get past her strange eating habits! spade: its not delivery, its DiGourno! (spelling??) KnowItAll: She did not eat it. They cut the scene and had her eat other stuff. Canadian Dee Dee: Why don't I listen to the warnings? DANGER: I CAN`T EVEN IMAGINE...REFUSE TO DOWNLOAD Kirahonnou: Ehh, its not so bad. I watched it all the way through. I guess I just have built up a tolerance to 'vomit-inducing' stuff. :o until_lisa_sleeps: talk about having heartburn after pizza Englishbloke: I have to say that is totally disgusting.....how can you do that to yourself..one has to questions the mental state of her how can you not use a knife and fork...... Buffalo: Oh jeez - just when you think you've seen it all - this comes around! MissBiatch: What a fucking gross, sleezy, mentally disturbed bitch! That is some sick fucked up stuff. stoner420: where do you come up with this stuff BoBo? BoBo: try the new bolmia and cheese pizza phishinphreak: EVERYONE POOPS! most of us just choose to do it in a different location! farber: .....and that's her idea of fun? dirtykennedy: I here I thought it was just the orientals that did that sick fucked up stuff ...... sassybutclassy: oh my fuckin....ewwwwwwwwwwww thats a nasty ass bitch Medusa: Yum, a pukaroni and mushpoop pizza! (excuse me while I go barf!) Caffeine_Addict: DIRTY FUCKING SKANK ASS WHORE. That bitch is nasty as fuck especially considering that she can blow ass bigger than some guys I know. Hehe. imachick: lol im not even going to start to download it.... i almopst started gagging at the thoguth of what yall are talkign about. what a sicko! fuzzy: I've been wondering, when does she pee on the pizza?? All I see is when she pukes and poos on it. Chrissy: That was SOOOO gross. What would a person do that for???? I hope she got a bacterial infection . figadish: You guys must have a pretty weak stomach. It takes a lot to gross me out. Don't get me wrong, that's a fucking skanky whore, but the clip was nothing to the point of making me want to puke. I have to admit though, I've gotta take a shit now. hahaha Me1: Taste testing the new Domino's all dressed pizza!! Motorhead: I think I am going to puke also. Dragon: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!! this is the most nastyest thing I have ever seen.... Holy shit! .. I almost didn't make through the damn video clip, this was so gross Lorilla: She must be part Japanese. I'm sorry. Dead_Man_Walking: hahahaha hahahahah ahahahahah ahahahaha ---- this is the best round of comments ive ever read --- hahaha hahaha hahaha ..... and only 1 person implied they would fuck her and that was "pope"----way to go, i know i can always count on you to be a true skank lover) RYan: what kind of sick mother fucker gets off to this? how is that sexual in the least? and how much money does it take to get a crackwhore to do that? britneyblewme: THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T KISS PEOPLE IN THE MOUTH fuzzy: I made it!! I almost cried like a baby, but I made it through the whole thing. fuzzy: How many people actually got through the whole thing?? neoShinigami: JESUS H. CHRIST WildChild: 30 sec and I gave up. joephatmamma: i almost threw up juss watching that shit I_B_High: There are asylums for people like this..god..what kind of nut is she?? Trimph: no comment boobookittyfuck: oh fuck i couldnt get past the puking..i was starting to gag ..NASTY.. what the FUCK???? the pope: Wow that hot bitch can really fart Just_Me: What a great diet plan... just watch this every day! ... and try to eat! Prophet_Glenn: This bitch is a SKANK.....But smartass would still do her and kiss her afterwards. Witchy_Bitch: let's tasted it for ourselves!! pissed off: Hate to see what she would put in her salad Battygirl: As soon as she started to shit, I felt myself gagging... I couldn't even finish it. fuzzy: Damn, I couldn't get past the puking. Fucking disgusting, you bitch. GADiva: OMFG!!! Where the hell was this bitch raised? Fuckin nasty!!! scrutinizer: I'll never order another pizza with the "works" again, and the scarey part is, she looks just like the chick that works at Dominos smartass: whatever works for em bloodpuppet: Those crazy crackwhores will do anything for their next fix... britneyblewme: It takes a lot to freak me out and guess what? It didn't...I watched to whole 2:14sec of it and laughed. Put some more shit like this up. Blaster: Some people will do anything for attention! LOSER! ClouD: I couldn't watch that whole thing, and it takes alot to disguist me. Caffeine_Addict: I saw only a few seconds of this clip, then I deleted it. Too gross for me. WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT?!?!?!?!?! Zippo: Aaargh, she doesn't even wince as she eats the last lot. Xes Lana: Why.... Thacker: Sad thing is she wasn't THAT bad looking... I guess I need to be screening the bitches I date from now on? Don't want none of that shit in their past. *shrugs* skunky: that's fuckin mingin! Inflicted: Well there went my plans to have a nice breakfast. =\ Old Fart: The reason it should be legal to shoot some people! Nesha: This bitch should be shot so she can never make another video like this. Is there actually anyone who honestly gets turned on by this??? Thacker: Excited to be first... just not excited that it had to be on this post. Holy fucking shit.
Meffert's
39.44773%
"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in Vanity Fair magazine's July issue.[...] Reuters So they now admit that the war was fradulent. They are war criminals, all. But you know this.
You are Neo
You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.

What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

OK, we are now waiting on the webdav bugs to get ironed out, then you will be able to comment on the file simply by browsing to it. To do this you do this: In Acrobat, go
edit>preferences>general>
selecet "online comments" and then, use the dropdown to select "WebDav". In the slot, put:
http://home.r107.co.uk/eu/
and dont forget the trailing slash. You will then be able to make comments directly into the browser instance of the "constitution" and upload/download comments.
...beating him like a red headed step child.
New phrase for getting angry/hysterical: "Getting Aerated"
I was invited, last night, to a performance in Selfridges Oxford Street, where two pain fanatics "swam" in a "pool" of broken glass, ignited fire crackers on each other, were lowered by flesh piercing hooks from the Selfridges atrium, and some other stuff, all to the sound of an amplified hurdy gurdy. Many years ago, famous tatoo and piercing artist Mr. Sebastian and some of his mates were aressted for performing S&M acts in private. Now, in 2003, you can see pain lovers in action, in a department store in central London, and get free drinks. More here.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/phoenix/

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Everyone that downloaded the EU "Constituion" draft acrobat file, please email them to me. I will merge them into one file. alex_t has kindly, brilliantly and incredibly fastly set up a webdav folder so that everyone can comment on the Constitiution from any browser anywhere: http://home.r107.co.uk/eu/eviscerated.pdf is where it will live when it goes live. I will put the file there in 24 hours, so all of your commented files must be in to me by 5pm GMT so that the completed, aggregated file can go live. Then, tell everybody. The resulting commented file will be sent to Valeri Gis. Dest.
Your answer is in here: BERNE CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF LITERARY AND ARTISTIC WORKS (Paris Text 1971) The countries of the Union, being equally animated by the desire to protect, in as effective and uniform a manner as possible, the rights of authors in their literary and artistic works, Recognizing the importance of the work of the Revision Conference held at Stockholm in 1967, Have resolved to revise the Act adopted by the Stockholm Conference, while maintaining without change Articles 1 to 20 and 22 to 26 of that Act. Consequently, the undersigned Plenipotentiaries, having presented their full powers, recognized as in good and due form, have agreed as follows: law.cornell.edu And here for a USA only perspective. IMHO if they got a hold of a script for the original film, and copied it, they would be infringing, but if they simply did a "me too" version of the film, taking the idea, then there is no infringement. If it were the case that an idea for a film could be copyrighted, then any drama involving an axe murderer for example would encounter problems.
More on what the EU "Constitution" needs: "Less Language, More Meaning"
My fault: download it again and there is a document convention note in the upper left hand corner! RED means out, and there is a comment, YELLOW means in, and provisionally OK, SRIKEOUT means cut out, anythinng left uncommented before the last annotation means looks superficially OK. Feel free to comment and drop notes in....hmmm i wonder if you can merge pdfs/notes...have to check the docs.
Fellow Europeans, Our Convention is currently engaged in defining what the European Union is to become. It is reasonable to expect as many of you as possible to be kept informed of the European Convention's approach to this issue, how its ideas are developing and finally, in a few months' time, what proposals it has to make. To achieve this aim and ensure that all Europeans understand what is at stake, we all have a part to play in sharing responsibility for the spread of information. This is why we would call upon all of you, whether citizens, associations, organisations or institutions with a website to link up to the European Convention's site at http://european-convention.eu.int. Thank you for being our relay! Ive just read and annotated 40 pages of the draft constitution. Its a horrifying, mind numbing MESS. Its here with comments see above Frankly, this is not a constitution, but a legal contract between the states, with some vague principles scattered around in it. Little is said about avenues of redress, responsibilities of the EU bodies, but LOTS about the many different redundant beaurocracies that are to be enshrined, and how they are going to be undemocratically organized. This is for sure, the superstate blueprint.
Audacity. Its audacious!
Woooooooow! http://www.canesta.com/products.htm
MLdonkey is a multi-platform multi-networks peer-to-peer client. Originally, it was the first open-source client to access the eDonkey network . The protocol was reverse-engeneered using an efficient protocol sniffer, Pandora . Currently, with eDonkey , it supports several large networks, such as Overnet , Bittorrent , Gnutella (Bearshare, Limewire,etc), Gnutella2 (Shareaza), Fasttrack (Kazaa, Imesh, Grobster), Soulseek (beta), Direct-Connect (alpha), and Opennap (alpha). Networks can be enabled/disabled, searches are performed in parallel on all enabled networks, but each file is only downloaded from one network (wait for next release !), but from multiple clients concurrently. MLdonkey runs as a daemon on the computer. It can be controlled using several interfaces: the simplest one is telnet (telnet 127.0.0.1 4000), a more interesting one is a WEB server (http://127.0.0.1:4080/), and a binary protocol allows access using more elaborate Graphical Interfaces (see the GUIs available on your system at the bottom of the page). MLdonkey comes by default with a GTK interface. All these interfaces can be used locally, or remotely (after disabling security restrictions). MLdonkey is written in Objective-Caml , a powerful language that runs on most Operating Systems. http://www.nongnu.org/mldonkey/ http://mldonkey.org/

US plans death camp

26May03 THE US has floated plans to turn Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, with its own death row and execution chamber. Prisoners would be tried, convicted and executed without leaving its boundaries, without a jury and without right of appeal, The Mail on Sunday newspaper reported yesterday. The plans were revealed by Major-General Geoffrey Miller, who is in charge of 680 suspects from 43 countries, including two Australians. The suspects have been held at Camp Delta on Cuba without charge for 18 months. General Miller said building a death row was one plan. Another was to have a permanent jail, with possibly an execution chamber. The Mail on Sunday reported the move is seen as logical by the US, which has been attacked worldwide for breaching the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war since it established the camp at a naval base to hold alleged terrorists from Afghanistan. But it has horrified human rights groups and lawyers representing detainees. They see it as the clearest indication America has no intention of falling in line with internationally recognised justice. The US has already said detainees would be tried by tribunals, without juries or appeals to a higher court. Detainees will be allowed only US lawyers. British activist Stephen Jakobi, of Fair Trials Abroad, said: "The US is kicking and screaming against any pressure to conform with British or any other kind of international justice." American law professor Jonathan Turley, who has led US civil rights group protests against the military tribunals planned to hear cases at Guantanamo Bay, said: "It is not surprising the authorities are building a death row because they have said they plan to try capital cases before these tribunals. "This camp was created to execute people. The administration has no interest in long-term prison sentences for people it regards as hard-core terrorists." Britain admitted it had been kept in the dark about the plans. A Downing St spokesman said: "The US Government is well aware of the British Government's position on the death penalty." News .com.AU

THE FICTIONAL WAR ON TERRORISM

Fri May 23, 4:01 PM ET By Ted Rall How Bush's Smoke and Mirrors Endanger America Ted Rall NEW YORK--We've killed thousands of Muslims and taken over two of their countries. We're spending billions of dollars to make it easier for our government to spy on us. But we haven't caught Osama, Al Qaeda is doing better than ever and airport security is still a sick joke. So when are Americans going to demand a real war on terrorism? Recent suicide bombings in Riyadh and Casablanca proved with bloody eloquence that Al Qaeda and similar extremist groups are anything but "on the run," as George W. Bush puts it. Bush's tactics are a 100 percent failure, yet his band of clueless Christian soldiers continues to go after mosquitoes with shotguns. "So far," Bush furiously spun after the latest round of attacks, "nearly one-half of Al Qaeda's senior operatives have been captured or killed," promising to "remain on the hunt until they are all brought to justice." Can Bush really be this stupid? All underground organizations, including Al Qaeda, employ a loose hierarchical structure. No individual member is indispensable, so the capture of even a high-ranking official cannot compromise the group. Each lost member is instantly replaced by the next man down in his cell. It doesn't matter whether we catch half, three-quarters or all of Al Qaeda's leadership--hunting down individual terrorists is an expensive and pointless game of whack-a-mole. Only Allah knows how many eager recruits have sprung up, hydra-like, to fill Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's flip-flops. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bob Graham caught heat for calling the war on Iraq (news - web sites) "a distraction" from the war on terrorism, but he was far too kind. The invasions of Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq have replaced a real war on terrorism, and they've vastly increased the likelihood of future September 11's. Bombing Afghanistan scattered bin Laden, his lieutenants and their foot soldiers everywhere from Chechnya (news - web sites) to Sudan to China's Xinjiang province; fleeing Talibs spread new anti-American seed cells while the Taliban and other radical groups retain their pre-9/11 Pakistani headquarters. With radical Shiite clerics like the Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim poised to fill the post-Saddam power vacuum, Iraq could become a Shia version of Taliban-era Afghanistan: an anarchic collection of fiefdoms run by extremist warlords happy to host training camps for terrorist organizations. Yahoo News
I thought you might have interest in the forthcoming launch of a new website, DigiCirc (www.digicirc.com), which will enable music artists worldwide to finance their own releases or concerts rights, and gain full independence from major record companies. This new and innovative music service will launch next week in order to help independent and rising stars in the music industry to raise money to put out their own releases (by trading a percentage of their future royalties) or organise their concert events. http://www.digicirc.com/

Monday, May 26, 2003

http://www.opec.org/NewsInfo/Speeches/sp2002/spAraqueSpainApr14.htm
[...]This process is analogous to Herbert Marcuse's notion of one-dimensionality. The multi-perspectival negating potential of art becomes collapsed into one-dimensional thinking promoted by dominant ideology. The potential for resistance is itself negated through a world of hyperreality, leaving the one-dimensional models to replace polyvalent "reality." Popular music provides a good example. The categories and forms of music are forced onto the musicians by music corporation's categorical conventions. They do change their categories to follow the times but the ultimate end is still restriction/conventionality. What begins as projecting a liberating function at the level of individual expression, gets turned into a repressive category. The actual musicians are turned into simulations on MTV which essentially snuff out their potential resistance to the dominant categories. They no longer have a specific historical context through which they arose. They are merely images on a screen, models to follow for other musicians if they want to get on MTV. The simulations, video images of the musicians and audio "images of the music, no longer refer to a situation which brought on individual resistance/expression. For example- putting gangsta-rap music on the screen completely takes it out of its historical and social context. In this context, the art was created as an expression of resistance to the feeling of domination in urban life. When white suburban kids see the videos, they have no understanding of the actual situational context- the videos are just images on the screen like all the others images on the screen that they see everyday. This takes away the "reality" of the historical context, and replaces it with hyperreality. By removing the context, MTV removes all resistant meaning. Pop music becomes a place of one-dimensionality. In the world of hyperreality, the lines between dominance and resistance, between high and low are collapsing. There is finally no distinction. There is a unification of opposition. Pop music becomes reified.[...] The reason why...

Sunday, May 25, 2003

The oceans of the world turned to blood. How appropriate.
shttp://www.larouchepub.com/other/2001/2839operation_northwds.html

Saddam�s Weapons of Mass Destruction: US Credibility at Stake

Melvin A. Goodman, The Baltimore Sun WASHINGTON, 25 May 2003 � It now appears that the so-called �clear and present danger�� of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, did not exist and that French and German critics were correctly skeptical of the US argument for the use of force. The US task force directing the search for Iraq�s WMD likely will return home next month without discovering chemical, biological or nuclear materials. This failure could do great harm to the credibility of the Bush administration and the integrity of the US intelligence community. Many reasons have been offered for the failure of US weapons experts and scientists to find a trace of nonconventional weapons in Iraq. Israeli intelligence sources claimed these weapons had been moved to Syria before the war began, but US intelligence agencies never believed it. US sources claimed that the Iraqis destroyed vast stocks of WMD before the war, but sophisticated collection technology would have discovered traces of such activity and US inspectors would have located the detritus of a massive destruction effort. It�s possible that the Iraqis could have hidden or deeply buried sensitive materials, but even the leaders of WMD hunters from Task Force 75 and a special operations group from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency don�t believe such a theory. As a result, these teams are now searching for evidence of Saddam Hussein�s crimes against humanity, Iraqi covert actions abroad and even the theft of Jewish antiquities from Iraqi museums � a far cry from the artifacts of WMD. If the claims of President Bush, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and CIA Director George J. Tenet to justify the war were vastly exaggerated or simply false, there will be significant consequences. For one, the distortion of evidence of Iraqi WMD will make it harder to gain international cooperation in the war against terrorism and the campaign to prevent the spread of WMD. These efforts require international assistance. Information from foreign intelligence services has been required in the arrest or capture of all suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists thus far. Any success in stopping the strategic weapons programs of Iran and North Korea, both more advanced than those of prewar Iraq, will require international help. [...] Arab News � Melvin A. Goodman is senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington and former senior analyst at the CIA.

Debunking conspiracy theorists' paranoid fantasies about Sept. 11

Copyright Gerard Holmgren. Jan 2003. Astute observers of history are aware that for every notable event there will usually be at least one, often several wild conspiracy theories which spring up around it. "The CIA killed Hendrix" " The Pope had John Lennon murdered ", "Hitler was half Werewolf", "Space aliens replaced Nixon with a clone" etc,etc. The bigger the event, the more ridiculous and more numerous are the fanciful rantings which circulate in relation to it. So its 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."[...] Libertyforum !
[...]It is a mistake to assume that all jews are supporters of the "Zionist Mafia" or Jewish Supremacy. In fact, some of the strongest condemnations of Zionism and Jewish Supremacy comes from jews themselves! There exists an enormous collection of hard-hitting anti-Zionist writings compiled by such notable jewish authors, historians, and journalists as John Sack, Alfred Lilienthal, Noam Chomsky, Israel Shahak, Benjamin Freedman, and Victor Ostrovsky just to name a few. There is even a jewish religious group called "Neturei Karta, Jews United Against Zionism.". For their brave efforts, these men have had to tolerate vicious abuse from Zionist smear groups like the Anti Defamation League (ADL) - an organization which actually specializes in defamation!. So let us put to rest now and forever the slanderous lie, and strategic Zionist propaganda ploy, that labels anyone who dares to call attention to the dangers of the Zionist Mafia is an "anti-semite", a "hatemonger", or a "skin-head".[...] http://it.geocities.com/comedonchisciotte/wta.html and this is the Neturei Karta website: http://www.nkusa.org/

U.S. Eyes Pressing Uprising In Iran

Officials Cite Al Qaeda Links, Nuclear Program By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, May 25, 2003; Page A01 The Bush administration, alarm-ed by intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda operatives in Iran had a role in the May 12 suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, has suspended once-promising contacts with Iran and appears ready to embrace an aggressive policy of trying to destabilize the Iranian government, administration officials said. Senior Bush administration officials will meet Tuesday at the White House to discuss the evolving strategy toward the Islamic republic, with Pentagon officials pressing hard for public and private actions that they believe could lead to the toppling of the government through a popular uprising, officials said. The State Department, which had encouraged some form of engagement with the Iranians, appears inclined to accept such a policy, especially if Iran does not take any visible steps to deal with the suspected al Qaeda operatives before Tuesday, officials said. But State Department officials are concerned that the level of popular discontent there is much lower than Pentagon officials believe, leading to the possibility that U.S. efforts could ultimately discredit reformers in Iran. In any case, the Saudi Arabia bombings have ended the tentative signs of engagement between Iran and the United States that had emerged during the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.[...] Wasington Post Now completely emboldened, there is nothing (they think) to stop them.
'Enough is enough' But there is more to this than just a sordid row over money. Those opposed to the war have decided, quite simply, that enough is enough. France and Russia, in particular, want to begin restoring relations with the US and rebuilding their power in the Security Council. It is not a row that is going to be patched up that easily. But the US Ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, did, grudgingly, offer a small olive branch. The US, he said, was appreciative of the "constructive spirit" in which the Council had worked on the resolution. "We look forward to working closely with all of you to implement this important decision." That cannot disguise the reality. This resolution gives official blessing to a new era, an era of what the American right like to believe is the "benevolent hegemony" of the United States in Iraq, and maybe around the world. BBC

Saturday, May 24, 2003

Analysis: Israel weighing EU membership

By Martin Walker UPI Chief International Correspondent From the International Desk Published 5/21/2003 1:16 PM WASHINGTON, May 21 (UPI) -- The visiting delegation from the European Union was startled this week when Israel Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said his government was weighing an application to join the EU. "It doesn't mean he is preparing the dossier for applying tomorrow," an Israeli spokesman said. "In principle, the minister thinks a possibility exists for Israel to join the EU, since Israel and Europe share similar economies and democratic values." [...] UPI
Mimi Majick: The Shape Of. http://turbulence.org/Works/song/index.html

The Mists of Falsehoods

I love this administration's ability to remain cloaked in a mist of falsehoods. If you listen to them, everything is going swimmingly. Retired Gen. Jay Garner and several of his staff are relieved of their posts in Iraq but, of course, have done a splendid job. There is still chaos, looting and a lack of clean water and power, but reconstruction is proceeding with great progress. America is doing a worse job than Saddam Hussein in feeding the Iraqi people, but everyone is so happy to see the tyrant gone � though where he has gone, we don't know. Perhaps he's with Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. Not to worry, paradise is on the way. As for al-Qaida, it has been decimated, crippled, rendered ineffective � except, of course, for those members who simultaneously blew up three foreign compounds and a business in Saudi Arabia. Everything in Afghanistan is peachy-creamy � except, of course, that it looks remarkably as unstable and undeveloped as it did a year ago. The president has also committed himself to his "road map to peace," but never mind that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon refuses to accept it and again embarrasses Secretary of State Colin Powell by clamping down on Palestinians before the secretary has even shaken off the dust of Palestine from his shoes. And, of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the American economy, except the absence of another round of tax cuts. The ability of this administration to live in a dream world, divorced from reality, is quite remarkable. Why, the falling value of the dollar is good for American exports. And the answer to the biggest string of record trade deficits in history is to have more free-trade agreements, never mind that they are the cause of the trade deficits in the first place. Sometimes I think our whole country is on dope. How nice that Poland will administer a third of Iraq provided, naturally, that we foot the bill for the entire operation. But one has to appreciate faithful allies even if they are dead-broke and we have to pay through the nose for their support. I'm sure the Poles, with their vast experience in the Middle East, will be crackerjack administrators. A purely advisory role for the United Nations devoid of one ounce of authority is naturally "a vital role." And while we were impatient with U.N. weapons inspectors, now that we are hunting these so-far-mythical tons of weapons of mass destruction, people must be patient and understand it might even take years. But even if we don't find them, never mind that everything we said to sell the war was a lie. After all, we got rid of a tyrant, even though we have temporarily misplaced him. We shall, of course, leave no child behind � never mind the federal cuts in education because of a ballooning federal deficit and the further cuts in state education because of the state deficits. We have only to say something and it is so. We say we are going to improve public education, and bingo, it is improved. After all, a nation of functional illiterates won't know the difference. And just look how we have expanded the great North Atlantic Treaty Organization, right up to the borders of Russia. Of course, the new members are too broke to buy arms, so we will have to foot the bill, and then there is the problem of no enemy to fight. Never mind. We will find something for NATO to do. NATO, like every other government bureaucracy, shall have eternal life, even though its reason for existence vanished a long time ago. Sometimes, following the news, I think I'm having hallucinations, but I know I'm not, for I am as sober as a Southern Baptist preacher on Sunday morning. Perhaps there is, "Matrix"- style, a dual universe. The Bush administration lives in one, and I in another. I wouldn't mind, except that the Bush Universe is likely to have dire consequences for the universe I live in, as millions of unemployed Americans are discovering. Ah, if only words were magic. Then we could solve all our problems by just saying they are solved. reese Its true! Jay Garner and his staff have been relieved of duty. The internet must not be working, 'cause I did not hear this news.....War fatigue.

Friday, May 23, 2003

Someone clever said about the rfd chips in money: "There is no valid reason for tagging the money, since anyone who wants a transaction trail could use an e-cash card. The Powers are going to eliminate the cash economy. Period. Nothing and no one escapes the net. We are entering a prison like no other in history, for it will be the entire world."

Kazaa nears download record

By Reuters May 22, 2003, 9:10 PM PT Sharman Networks on Thursday said its Kazaa file-sharing software was on track to set a record and become the most-popular free program on the Web with more than 230 million downloads. By hitting that total, Kazaa would surpass the popular ICQ instant messaging program, Sharman said. Kazaa's growing popularity comes at a crucial time for the music industry as it battles file-swapping services in court and tries to develop commercially viable online music services. As of late Thursday, the Kazaa Media Desktop application--a file-sharing software that has drawn the wrath of the music industry by enabling its users to swap songs for free--had been downloaded 229,150,955 times, as measured by Download.com, which is owned by CNET Networks, publisher of News.com. [...] News.com again Well well well. Lets say that each of these users has an average of 200 MP3s on their machine. That means that there are : 229,150,955 * 200 = 45,830,191,000 Fourty five billion, eight hundred and thirty million, one hundred and ninety one thousand MP3 files in the wild. Apple is selling 125,000 files per day. It will take them 366,641.528 days or 1004 years to sell that many files with iTunes. "Whoa..."
Everyone is against ID cards. They wont solve the problem of fraud. They wont solve the problem of terrorism. The consultations have all been overwhelmingly negative. David Blunkett is a fool, a rabid, out of touch control addict, who really doesnt know anything about what he is trying to do when it comes to security. It took a personal appeal from his son (who is in IT) to get him to understand that gathering people communications, storing them and letting anyone in the govt have access to them is wrong. If this is the quality of thought that is coming out of this man, then he should be put in charge of something that he DOES understand....whatever that may be. Once again, no matter how you protest, how you demonstrate, how many numbers are on your side, they are doing what they want, wether you like it or not, and they are making you pay for it. What do you think would happen if people refused to pay this £25 Shlumberger tax (the company that will no doubt get the contract).

Radio ID chips may track banknotes

By Winston Chai Special to CNET News.com May 22, 2003, 4:40 PM PT Radio tags the size of a grain of sand could be embedded in the euro note if a reported deal between the European Central Bank (ECB) and Japanese electronics maker Hitachi is signed. Japanese news agency Kyodo was reportedly told by Hitachi that the ECB has started talks with the company about the use of its radio chip in the banknote. The ECB is deeply concerned about counterfeiting and money-laundering and is said to be looking at radio-tag technology. Last year, Greek authorities were confronted with 2,411 counterfeiting cases and seized 4,776 counterfeit banknotes, while authorities in Poland nabbed a gang suspected of making more than a million fake euros and putting them into circulation. [...] News.com This is the great sad thing about europeans; they have no inherent idea of what freedom is about. They have a chance to capture the world as the center of freedom, and they are throwing it away by every day, covertly trying to remove freedom from the people of Europe. Cash money should be untracable. It should be private. No one has the right to know what magazines I am buying, or where I am spending my cash. These tags will make it possible to track you and your money from the moment it is withdrawn from your account to the instant you buy something with it. Then, that something that you bought will be connected to your name and address via your bank account. They will know where you travelled to, and what you ate on the way to buying that something. For society to work peacefully, this information is not needed. What a terrible shame that the people who run europe have no imagination, no spirit and no sense of decency.
Sweet Lord God in heaven...look at it. This is the Earth, as seen from Mars.
Blogger is about to improve dramatically.

Thursday, May 22, 2003

I know that park. Lovely area, False Creek. You must come visit, Barrie, you are not that far away. And Dav, life is flatter than a pancake and 13 x sweeter ...
Photograph by X-313 Ranx on his new SonyEricsson P800
It seems to me that Apple are tapping into the vast number of their users without a P2P solution to hand. If Kazaa released a MacOSX client, Apple's sales would be slaughtered overnight. I will not buy music in a form that gives me less options than the previous formats did, i.e. unlimited copies and flexibilitiy to play in any existing device and devices yet to be created. Nothing less is acceptable, and is part of the trade off that the public have accepted for the crap sound quality of digital / compressed files. I also dont want our music to be irretrivable in the future. There was a debate about wether CDs would last as long as vinyl; now there is no debate; if the keys to unlock DRM music files are lost and the masters are also lost, then the music is lost. Forever. Only a complete idiot would take that risk. There is of course, the moral issue of consumers rights to dispose of what they have bought in a way that they choose. It is my right to open a CD player and tinker with it. It is my right to copy music that I have bought so that it can play on any device that I own or might own in the future. These rights are non negotiable. I dont have a problem with anyone selling their music via Apple in a DRM format. What is completely unnaceptable is the monopoly lobbying and paid for legislation that attempts to take away our rights to market our music in the way that we see fit. Everyone is free to use whatever formats and strategies they want; the artificial choking off of other avenues, both in terms of playback devices and file formats is completely immoral. In any case, this cat is out of the bag forever. The billions and billions of MP3s that are out there will never be deleted. File sharing will never be stopped. Even music that is exclusively sold on iTunes will be ripped and shared in open formats. There will be a sea change in the public's understanding of the economics of music, and a change in the way music makers organize themselvs. There will be more micro labels, different schemes to make it all pay...whatever happens in the future, it looks today like the following are going to be dead meat: retail music shops, the current incarnation of independent record distributors, the huge monopoly record labels.
negative emphasis, or whatever the term is Talk sense man! Complete thoughts in complete sentenses!
buying dollars enables weapons to destroy lives by spilling blood He is SELLING dollars in exchange for euros and other currencies, sending the value of the dollar DOWN. He is doing this DELIBERATELY to punish the USA over its insane foreign policy.

George Soros Back Doing What He Does Best

Wed May 21, 2003 01:59 PM ET By Peter Graff LONDON (Reuters) - Financier George Soros is back doing the two things he does best -- punishing a global currency and spending some of his billions on projects that irk those in power. This week Soros, who drove down the British pound in 1992, helped push the U.S. dollar down to a near all-time low against the euro by announcing he was selling greenbacks. The man who calls himself a "dissident by nature" also said he was setting up a watchdog group to make sure Washington does not misspend oil revenues from Iraq. Soros may no longer single-handedly wield the power over financial markets he held in the early 1990s, when newspapers dubbed him "the man who broke the Bank of England." Back then his fund earned $1 billion betting against the pound, helping drive it 20 percent lower and out of the European exchange rate grid. Lately, stung by economic crises in Asia and Russia, his funds have become more conservative. But with his reputation still formidable -- and his Soros Fund Management controlling $11.5 billion -- his words still count. The dollar tumbled against the euro when he said he thought U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow wanted it to fall. "I have to disclose that I now have a short position against the dollar because I listen to what the secretary of the Treasury is telling me," Soros said in an interview with broadcaster CNBC. Soros said Snow's apparent shift away from the strong dollar policy was a "mistake," and a beggar-thy-neighbor policy. PHILANTHROPIST The financier, born in Hungary in 1930, has long lavished his billions on philanthropy, especially in eastern Europe. At one point he was said to be spending more on aid to Russia than the U.S. government. In Eastern Europe his cause was "the open society," and he spent money in areas like education which often earned resentment from authorities in recipient countries wary of, say, textbooks commissioned by a foreigner. Lately, the arch-capitalist has become an outspoken critic of what he says are unfair aspects of globalization and trade, which he says makes it difficult for poor countries to catch up to wealthy ones. It is a view more commonly articulated by rock stars than famous financiers, and Britain's Guardian newspaper described him as "the Bono of the financial world." Soft spoken and elegant, with his lilting continental accent, "he has the air of a philosophy professor rather than a gimlet-eyed financier," an interviewer wrote. He once said: "Don't forget, I became a philanthropist only after I became a speculator. It is a luxury." Tuesday he announced at the United Nations that he would set up a watchdog group to guard against any abuses in how the United States manages Iraqi oil resources. Citing reports that a handful of U.S. companies were winning huge reconstruction contracts without competitive bidding, Soros said many people around the world feared the United States might abuse its power while it and Britain occupy Iraq. "It is very much in the interest of the United States to allay these fears, and we want to help," he said. He also said he hoped Iraq would not repay all foreign debt stemming from Saddam Hussein's years in power, to discourage the practice of lending money to dictators. ****************************************** Hmmmmmmm That sounds to me like a man with morals, the bux to back it up and the will to use them. Where in this story is the "blood money"?
But unlike its rivals, Nintendo is not planning to push the idea of online gaming. "The key to our online gaming is to wait and see how it does for the others. It doesn't make business sense at the moment," said Ms Friend. "Rather, Nintendo is looking for something unique that adds to the gameplay and is fun. With online we haven't seen that yet. "We think at the moment it's still better to play with your friends that against someone you're never going to meet." Nintendo's contention that online gaming is not for the masses runs against claims by Sony and Microsoft, who claim about 1.5 million online gamers between them. And that figure does not include the PC masses, which have been online for years. [...] BBC WTF? Did i read that right??!!?
Interesting: Womad is doing a do in Seattle. There is a boycott of the USA going on; astounding that an organization like Womad is playing there....would they have also put on a do in Aparthied era South Africa? I dont think so somehow. Clearly Womad are "not with the terrorists". Shame.
Re Nukular weapons research, I ask you all again: how are they going to pay for this without any MONEY? AC20.eu.org is still not resolving, but I will have a temporary page up later this morning GMT. I require that you comment on it. ps the above also goes for the absurd TIA, Life Log and every other shameful abomination that they are cooking up. None of it can happen without cash to fund them. Are we clear?
http://matrixessays.blogspot.com/
http://www.rrstar.com/audio/RC_audio.mp3

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Hitachi Ltd's prototype super-micro wireless automatic recognition IC chips, or "mu-chips", are shown on a fingertip in Tokyo. "The world's smallest class 0.4-mm IC chip, which can be incorporated into various materials -- even paper -- will make new business development possible in data management, authentication of luxury goods and currencies, and medical treatment, among other uses."
"If you took all the economists in the world and laid them end to end they would still point in different directions."
http://www.indymedia.org/ has been delisted from Google News!

Soros Says He's Selling the Dollar

Reuters Tuesday, May 20, 2003; 1:54 PM NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire investor George Soros, in an interview with cable television station CNBC on Tuesday, said he was selling the dollar against most major currencies. In the wide-ranging interview in which he assailed the Bush administration's policies, Soros said he was buying the euro and the currencies of Australia, Canada and New Zealand against the dollar, as well as gold. The euro briefly broke above $1.17 following his comments before retreating. "I have to disclose that I now have a short position against the dollar because I listen to what the Secretary of the Treasury is telling me," Soros said in the interview. He referred to recent remarks made by U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow that signaled a shift away from a strong dollar policy. Soros was sharply critical of Snow's policy shift, branding it a "mistake," and labeling it a wrongheaded attempt to stimulate the U.S. economy at the expense of other economies. "It's a beggar-thy-neighbor policy," he said. "I think (Snow) was somewhat irresponsible by talking down the dollar." Soros was dubbed "The Man who broke the Bank of England" for his role in amassing bets that the pound would fall in 1992 -- thus facilitating Britain's ejection from Europe's exchange rate mechanism that year. Though analysts say Soros' influence in markets has waned, many are reluctant to fight the trend that has seen the dollar fall sharply against major currencies.[...] Washinton Post
Guardian claims right to free speech Clare Dyer, legal correspondent Wednesday May 21, 2003 The Guardian The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, is taking the Guardian to Britain's highest court today to try to stop the newspaper's challenge to a 155-year-old law which still makes it a criminal offence, punishable by life imprisonment, to advocate abolition of the monarchy in print. Lord Goldsmith is appealing to the House of Lords against a ruling by three appeal court judges last year that the paper should be allowed to argue its case in the high court for a reinterpretation of the Treason Felony Act 1848 in the light of human rights law. The act, passed amid concern over the spread of republican sentiment after the French and American revolutions, made it a serious offence, punishable by transportation, to call for the establishment of a republic in print or writing, even by peaceful means. It remains in force, though last used in 1883, with life imprisonment as the maximum penalty. The Guardian's challenge followed the launch of its campaign in December 2000 for the establishment of a republic by peaceful means in the UK. Before publishing a series of articles on the subject, the editor, Alan Rusbridger, asked the then attorney general, Lord Williams of Mostyn, to confirm that the paper and its staff would not face prosecution under the act. He wrote back: "It is not for any attorney general to disapply an act of parliament; that is a matter for parliament itself." [...] Guardian
HB/JB Biz Markie!
Rows and floes of angel hair And ice-cream castles in the air And feather canyons everywhere I've looked at clouds that way ........... JB is thirty-four today (yesterday). Feelin' da love. just a friend...you you got what i need...

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

http://www.faisal.com/freedom/newImprovedBillOfRights.html
Led Zeppelin have a 5 hour live DVD coming out soon; I had a chance to see it in the cinema. "... it's hard to believe the band was once treated with the same level of respect Britney Spears gets now." This is very true. Today it seems obvious that they are great, but in the '70s they were unbearable in many quarters, not least the electric guitar shops that forbade the playing of "Stairway to heaven" by punters. What a life!
"One evening in 1974, during the first week of September, two friends were sitting on a roof when they observed the triangle depicted in the animation to the right. There were trails coming off the back two points of the triangle, and it appeared to be about as high in the sky as a jetliner." http://www.nuforc.org/

In Reversal, Plan for Iraq Self-Rule Has Been Put Off

By PATRICK E. TYLER AGHDAD, Iraq, May 16 � In an abrupt reversal, the United States and Britain have indefinitely put off their plan to allow Iraqi opposition forces to form a national assembly and an interim government by the end of the month. Instead, top American and British diplomats leading reconstruction efforts here told exile leaders in a meeting tonight that allied officials would remain in charge of Iraq for an indefinite period, said Iraqis who attended the meeting. It was conducted by L. Paul Bremer, the new civilian administrator here.[...] NYT Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!! Ha! haa!! haaaaa!!!!!!
"The U.S. military is using Metallica and the �Barney� theme song as instruments of coercion in Iraq NEWSWEEK May 26 issue � Your parents aren�t the only ones who hate your music�some Iraqis hate it, too. U.S. military units have been breaking Saddam supporters with long sessions in which they�re forced to listen to heavy-metal and children�s songs. �Trust me, it works,� says one U.S. operative. THE IDEA, says Sgt. Mark Hadsell, is to break a subject�s resistance by annoying that person with what some Iraqis would consider culturally offensive music. The songs that are being played include �Bodies� from the Vin Diesel �XXX� movie soundtrack and Metallica�s �Enter Sandman.� �These people haven�t heard heavy metal before,� he explains. �They can�t take it.� Few people could put up with the sledgehammer riffs of Metallica, and kiddie songs aren�t that much easier, especially when selections include the �Sesame Street� theme and some of purple dinosaur Barney�s crooning." And that my friends, is PURE EVIL

U.S. to Fingerprint Most Foreign Visitors

Mon May 19, 7:35 PM ET By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Foreign visitors arriving with visas at U.S. airports or seaports next year will have their travel documents scanned, their fingerprints and photos taken and their identification checked against terrorist watch lists. Such a tracking system could have stopped two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Homeland Security Department undersecretary Asa Hutchinson said Monday as he gave details of the department's new U.S. Visitor and Immigration Status Indication Technology, or U.S. VISIT. The system, which goes into effect Jan. 1, will check the comings and goings of foreign travelers who arrive in this country carrying visas. Travelers with visas made up about 60 percent, or 23 million, of foreign visitors to the United States last year. Hutchinson said such a system could have caught hijackers Mohammed Atta, who had overstayed his visa on a previous occasion, and Hani Hanjour, when he failed to show up at school as required by his student visa. "Border security can no longer be just a coastline, or a line on the ground between two nations. It's also a line of information in a computer, telling us who is in this country, for how long and for what reason," Hutchinson said. Congress has provided about $380 million for the new system, which will replace a paper-based system that been highly criticized since the Sept. 11 attacks. Under the U.S. VISIT system, a visa carrier will be required to provide immigrant and citizenship status, nationality, country of residence and an address where the visitor will be staying in the United States. "In 99.9 percent of the cases, the visitor will simply be wished a good day or sent on their way," Hutchinson said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank. "But with that small percentage of hits, our country will be made much safer and our immigration system will be given a foundation of integrity that has been lacking for too long." [...] Yahoo News And this stops people flying planes int buildings exactly how? What that story means, is that the usa will build up a digital database of tens of millions of foreign people, their pictures, thumbprints and personal details. People on the "enemy country" list will see this as an affront; they will continue to come to the usa, because in many of the countries that they are coming from, they dont have any "rights" dont care that they dont have any rights, and are routinely fingerprinted for things as simple as a driving licence. Amazing....
"The Anomaly is an emergent proprety of the synergy between humanity and machines." Here comes "Architect Speak".

Monday, May 19, 2003

What do you do with tapes and CDrs that you don't like? Occasionally they get sent to colleagues for reality check / appraisal / larf. some get destroyed with a hammer if they are really annoying. Others get dumped in the garbage (the ones with group photos and lyric sheets) and the rest go into an archive.
I saw "The Matrix Reloaded" today at a preview screening...its awesome.

Glaxo board suffers defeat

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has suffered an unprecedented defeat at its annual general meeting when shareholders voted against million pound pay deals for executives. The group said 50.72% of votes were cast against approving the group's renumeration report. Shareholders had voted earlier by a clear majority to re-elect the GSK board. But at the vote on remuneration, only 49.28% backed the board, meaning the biggest shareholder revolt of its kind in UK corporate history. Investors reacted angrily to a controversial "golden parachute" pay package for chief executive Jean-Pierre Garnier. 'Significant concerns' Analysts had expected the pay resolution to squeeze through on proxy votes. But the scale of the protest vote proved to be humiliating for the GSK board - the historic vote, although only advisory, makes GSK the first British blue-chip company to have its pay scheme rejected by shareholders. Major shareholders including Standard Life had already said they would be voting against the pay proposals. The life insurer, which manages over 110 million shares in GSK, said it had "significant concerns over the present pay policies and practices". [...] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3038381.stm
I dont, and that is precisely why.
the other day? No, it was due to the domain not being entered into our namespace before trying to register the domain. Once that was done, it all happened seamilessly. This is a quirk of all european controlled domains aparently. Still waiting for the information to propagate so that the website is to become visible.

His Face Still Gives Fits as Saddam Dinar Soars

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS AGHDAD, Iraq, May 16 � Saddam Hussein may be out of power or even dead. But his maligned currency, the so-called Saddam dinar, has abruptly skyrocketed in value. In a display of what might be called Saddam's revenge, the discredited dinar soared by about one-third against the dollar on Thursday and is now at its highest value since 1996. Its remarkable comeback is likely to cause heartburn for American officials here, and not just because Iraq's currency of choice bears a portrait of the former dictator on every bill. A potentially bigger problem is that the dinar's surge and the dollar's plunge have wiped out a big part of the purchasing power of the $20 emergency payments American administrators have been handing out to workers in lieu of their unpaid monthly salaries. Iraqis, from police officers and teachers to government officials, are grumbling that the $20 was a poor substitute for the pay they have not received since March. But now, taking account of the dinar's total rise over the past month, the payment, which used to equal 40,000 dinars, is now worth about half that much. "Prices in the market have not changed a bit," grumbled Sadiq al-Hamoundi, as he contemplated the diminished value of the $10 remaining from his wife's emergency payment. "This isn't going to last another three days." Iraqis have a great deal of experience with exchange rates, despite Mr. Hussein's effort to maintain an official exchange rate at the absurdly overvalued level of $3 per dinar. On Kifah Street � the gritty and occasionally violent open-air meeting place for hundreds of currency traders and cigarette smugglers � the most prevalent theory for the dinar's startling surge was that the Americans did it to themselves by flooding the market with more dollars than people wanted to spend. With the Americans handing out $20 payments to several million Iraqi workers and preparing to give $40 to about one million pensioners, traders said they were essentially speculating on a looming saturation of dollars. "If you have one million pensioners getting $40 apiece, that's $40 million coming onto the streets," said Ahmed Muhammad Ali, a trader on Kifah Street. "What did you expect would happen?" Saddam dinars have defied expectations for some time. In the last days of Mr. Hussein's government, dinars sank to a low of more than 3,000 to the dollar, and American officials expected them to fade away into worthlessness. But after the war, defying expectations that Iraqis would want to dump dinars as fast they could, the dollar dropped back to 2,000 dinars and more recently to about 1,500. On Thursday, the dinar suddenly exploded in value and dealers refused to offer anything more than 1,000 dinars to the dollar � an increase of one-third in a single day � and some dealers were not paying more than 900.[...] NYTIMES

Friday, May 16, 2003

http://www.blogpulse.com/
nimda cant touch you
Poetry
suffer with me
restoring archives
That Thirstype font tryout applet is awesome; do you remember the agfa version, where you could type in anything and have it rendered to a gif? This was done onto a white background. These guys are a bit more savvy obviously. I wonder if they priced their fonts like apple priced AAC if they would get more sales? $199 for a family means that they will not be getting many ker'ching for each design.

Thursday, May 15, 2003

****** ***** wrote: > Hi, Greets... > > I am the drummer/producer in the London based pop/rock/alternative band drummer: OK Producer: OK London based: OK Pop: uh oh Rock: Oh no Alternative: Oh dear Band: Oh well > Makara (http://www.makaraUK.com. I have just > finished mixing a new mp3, and I wondered if you could have a listen and > tell me what you think. >Stream: http://www.makarauk.com/mp3/RBTL.m3u >Download: http://www.makarauk.com/mp3/RBTL_low_res2.mp3 I just listened to it. > > Thanks for any advice, My advice to you is to completely stop what you are doing, and to engage in some deep and detailed research on popular music from the last 40 years. If, at the time the beatles were playing, they decided to make the music of 30 previously (1930's Jazz, like Fats Waller) we would never have had the beatles as we knew and loved them. The same goes for every group that we have loved, and which have clearly influenced you and your group. Do not bother to record music if your aim is anything less than to superceed, or at the very least, be separate from, everything you have ever heard. If you only want to repeat the music of the past, then do it honestly, and become a cover band. You, as a producer, need to listen to the work of the great producers of the last 40 years, from George Martin to Tony Visconti, John Leckie to Lee Perry and Trevor Horn to Martin Rushent. If your aim is not to outdo these great people, then stop what you are doing immediately. Please be aware; my opinion and advice are worthless. If you really know what you are doing and have a clear direction set out, you should not care what I think, you will get on with what you are doing no matter what anyone says, and you will prevail. Best of luck to you, Akin Fernandez Irdial-Discs
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. -- Gandhi
Yes, Alun... Congratulations. Some words from the great gray bard, one who continues to do this country proud amongst the current madness: Fast Anchor'd Eternal O Love! Fast-anchor'd eternal O love! O woman I love! O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you! Then separate, as disembodied or another born, Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation, I ascend, I float in the regions of your love O man, O sharer of my roving life. --W.Whitman Good luck and love.

Mac software opens path for music pirates

By Jon Healey Los Angeles Times New software from Apple Computer that lets Macintosh users buy songs from an online music store can also be used to share songs via the Internet, raising concerns among record labels and music publishers about a new avenue for piracy. Apple's new iTunes software was designed to allow people to store songs on one Mac and play them on other Macs on the same home network. But users quickly found a way to share songs with a wider group of people over the Net. Since the iTunes software was launched two weeks ago, several Web sites have sprung up to help users find others who are sharing their songs online. Some adept programmers also found a way to let people copy the songs that iTunes users were making available through the Internet. "It sounds as if it is a hole in the security that needs to be closed," said Cary Ramos, an attorney for the National Music Publishers Association. "I don't know what Apple can do to achieve that, but I would certainly hope that they would take steps immediately to address this issue." Notably, the copy-protected songs that Apple sells through its iTunes Music Store apparently cannot be shared through either a home network or the Internet. Only song files that users copy from CDs or download from unauthorized online sources can be shared. [...] Seattle times and we have: http://ileech.sourceforge.net/ What is iLeech? Introduced in iTunes v4.0 is the ability to share your playlist with other iTunes users. This is accomplished locally using Rendezvous/zeroconf/mdns/whatever, or if you know the IP address of a machine you can access it's playlist via daap:// (provided port 3689 is open). However, you can only stream the music from the iTunes host -- no copies are made on your machine. This project will connect to an iTunes host, display their playlist, and allow you to copy the files to your local drive. iLeech v0.25 Binary (64k) iLeech v0.25 Source (64k) Perl script to dump an iTunes v4.0 shared playlist into a human readable file. (3k) Older Releases and this: What Is It? A java based client for the iTunes(tm) song sharing protocol. Allows you to download songs instead of just streaming. Given that this is beta software, please contact me with any bugs. If you're using the platform-independent version, please include the error_log file with any correspondence. http://www.oatbit.com/iSlurp/
I did not read the article The argument sounds like pap to me. ??!? "Ragazzoni's team adapted the theory of the Planck length to predict the amount of distortion they should see. But when they used the Hubble telescope to look at an exploding star about 42 million light years away, and a galaxy more than five billion light years away, they saw no blurring." and "The results show the young galaxy is as far as 13 billion light-years from Earth, based on an estimated age for the universe of approximately 14 billion years." hubblesite And the image is razor sharp.
ABSTRACT This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a �posthuman� stage (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof) (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.[...] Simulation-Agrument.com That would explain this: "Conventional thinking is that space and time can be thought of together as a sort of foam. As light travels through the foam, it ought to be disrupted, ever so slightly, such that by the time it crosses much of the universe it would render only blurry pictures when gathered by a precision telescope. Put simple, Hubble ought to see a pixilation effect when photographing distant objects. It does not. Hubble pictures are crisp and clear, no matter the distance to the object."[...] Nature
That's about 50 to 1 or so That is superb, because it means that a properly designed distributed disruption action can spread like wildfire and fix this problem.

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

Oh, and Happy Birthday to the lovely Alison! All of the lilacs in Vancouver are blooming for you today ...

KNOW YOUR ENEMY:

http://www.endlesspools.com/index.html
http://www.testpilotcollective.com/firstpage/04_18_03.html
Congratulations, Alun! You say pain of death, but you will enjoy every minute of it. I promise. Your sister probably said that too. Heh.
A total Lunar eclipse tomorrow (Thursday) night. Viewable in Europe, the Americas and Africa. National Geographic: During a total solar eclipse, the new moon passes in front of the sun and momentarily casts day into the darkness of night. But during a total lunar eclipse, the moon remains at least partially lit during the event. Even though Earth blocks the moon from direct sunlight during an eclipse, some sunlight is refracted, or bent, by the Earth's atmosphere and illuminates the moon. The atmosphere scatters most of short wavelengths of light�blue, green, and yellow�out of the refracted light so that primarily the orange and red rays reach the moon, said Espenak. "The more dust the atmosphere has, the more scattering takes place and the redder, and darker, the moon appears," he said. Since there have not been any major volcanic eruptions or extensive forest fires recently, astronomers believe the atmosphere is relatively clear of the type of particles that could cause a deep-red eclipse. Check your local news to see when it starts in your area...
******** ******** wrote: > Hi Akin, Greets ***! > > I thought you might be interested in this almanac, this month it is > on interstellar communication. SETI et al. I know you are opposed to > USA institutions at the moment, but it is an interesting read. Thanks for sending it...shall we have fun whilst i read it? it being FIRST EMAIL OF THE MORNING & all!!! :] > > > < Language, Art and Science in Interstellar Communication > > by Douglas A. Vakoch > > > If some day we humans decide to transmit intentional messages to > the stars, what should we say, and how should we say it? This has already been done, both in the form of a probe, and a special treansmission beamed out from Aricebo. > Since > the beginning of the scientific Search for Extraterrestrial > Intelligence (SETI) over 40 years ago, astronomers, physicists > and engineers have mulled over these questions. Seldom, however, > have artists or scholars from the humanities seriously considered > the challenges of interstellar communication. On 23 and 24 March, > 2003, a score of specialists from a range of disciplines gathered > in Paris to change that. But they didnt do their research *first*. > This meeting, "Encoding Altruism: The Art and Science of > Interstellar Message Composition," was sponsored by the Leonardo > Network/OLATS, the SETI Institute, the John Templeton Foundation > and the International Academy of Astronautics. The charge of the > participants was to identify fruitful ways that we could convey > some of humankind's varied notions of altruism in interstellar > messages. Though SETI groups throughout the world agree that it > is premature to transmit prior to broad-based international > discussion, if some day a signal is detected from another > civilization, surely there would be suggestions from some > quarters to reply. My word, I want what he is smoking. Have you ever watched David Blaine? He is a great performer. On one of his shows, he went to the Amazon, and tracked down one of those groups that rarely see people from anywhere, much less brooklyn NY. He tried to show them some magic. They were completely flummoxed by everything he did. He tried some card tricks. No reaction. He took a leaf from a tree, rolled it into a cone in his hand, and then drank a substantial amount of water from it. No reaction. The point of this story is that these people had nothing in common with DB, save that they were both human. His magic could not impress or ever faze them. They didnt even understand that they were watching a magic trick. Aliens (at least in the way that the SETI fixated understand them) would not be able to understand "Altruism" or "Art" since these are artificial constructs created by western man, over 5000 years of soclial development. They are not universal truths understandable and implimented by all sentient things. And I mean "Things". > The workshop was intended to promote that > discussion well before there is a pressing call to begin > transmitting. A transmission has already left, 30 years ago; WFT are you talking about? > > Abstracts of selected papers presented at the 2003 workshop > follow, along with an overview of the science behind SETI that "the science behind SETI"; this phrase, loaded with religion, is an example of why this conference was a waste of time. These people were desperate to commune with science, the new god of the last and this century. How pathetic. If they couldnt even do the work to find out that a transmission has already been sent, its no wonder that they dont know that SETI is a lie, and that we have already made contact with Aliens. > was presented at the 2002 incarnation of the workshop by > astronomer Dan Werthimer and biologist Mary Kate Morris. The priest and priestess. > All > quotes in these prefatory remarks are taken from the abstracts > that follow. A more detailed discussion of many of these issues > can be found in the collection of original essays, *Between > Worlds: The Art and Science of Interstellar Message Composition,* > to be published in the Leonardo Book Series by the MIT Press in > Spring 2004. > > As the following abstracts show, many of the workshop > participants reflected on the origins and nature of language as > they searched for ways to craft meaningful messages to > extraterrestrials. Other themes of the workshop, not highlighted > in this selection of abstracts, included the value of creating > messages that are interactive and the challenges of encoding the > many meanings of altruism. Shockingly stupid. These people have not the slightest understanding of what they are talking about. Hmmm I wonder if they invited a LINGUIST to attend this meeting; certainly it would have been more useful than the priests from SETI > > According to computer scientist Colin Johnson, we are going to > have a difficult time finding a universal language for > interstellar communication when we do not understand well how > even a single language evolved here on Earth. And were it not for the Rosetta Stone, we would not have decoded Ancient Egyptian. The experience of Linear-B would also have been instructional in this meeting. > And, as his fellow > workshop speaker, archeologist John B. Campbell shows, the > problem is not only one of determining the *mechanism* of > language evolution, but also the *timing.* As Campbell > summarizes, "Precisely when symbolic communication began in the > human evolutionary family is a matter for debate." > > The problem with clarifying the origins of language, Johnson > emphasizes, is that we have not been able to compare the origin > and early evolution of many different examples of language here > on Earth. The solution he offers is to draw on the discipline of > artificial life, allowing us to simulate the origin and initial > development of language many times over. ????? > By looking for common > patterns in the thousands of examples, we might get a glimpse > into possible universals that could help us communicate with > independently evolved beings on other worlds. Aparently, they have no problem understanding us. Its our understanding of them that is the problem! > > A similar approach is advocated by Mauro Annunziato, an engineer > who creates art using digital life, and in the process learns > about the evolution of language. Ah yes, a willian latham type. No one has created "digital life" these are words bandied about by hippies to sell pictures in galleries. Nothing wrong with that, but it will be shot down every time when you try and apply it to something serious. Fortuneatly this is not serious, so i can save teh bullets!!!!! > Part of the value of studying > the emergence of autonomous languages in digital beings, > according to Annunziato, is that the characteristics of digital > life may bear similarities to extraterrestrial life, at least > insofar as digital life requires us to be open to new > possibilities for defining exactly what life is: "Digital beings > are different from any well-developed terrestrial organic beings. > They belong to another world, in which some intellectual > abilities developed long before certain sensory capabilities. > Nothing is given, and everything must be created through > evolution." For Annunziato, biological notions of survival of the > fittest, which portray nature red in tooth and claw, might be > replaced by a metaphor emphasizing the importance of language in > the evolutionary process: "survival of the clearest." > > Comparative psychologist and philosopher Dominique Lestel raises > the question of whether language should be our central starting > point in creating interstellar messages: "Up to now, it has > always been through language that humans have evaluated the > effectiveness of language. One of the main interests of SETI is > precisely to think more deeply about these issues." Instead, > Lestel suggests that we might focus on the intentionality of the > communication: "How could we figure out a message whose main > content (but is it really a content?) is to proclaim that it is a > message from intelligent beings? This is a true challenge for > artists...." In Lestel's view, artists might contribute to > interstellar message design by creating messages that draw upon > scientific insights, as illustrated by two "artistic performances > for interstellar communication" that he suggests: "the first one > will be to design self-referential temporally fractal messages, > and the second will be the design of messages based on > non-Darwinian biological mutations." ????! the message that was already sent was beautiful, and worked because anyone who has built a radio capable of recieving the signal could understand it. They sent prime numbers and other stuff that any one with simple math can understand: http://microURL.com/shrinky1vGL Read it, like they didnt. > we live." Would extraterrestrial intelligence, living on worlds > that differ from ours physically, biologically and culturally, > even share a common language of mathematics with humans? if they can build a radio antenna, then yes. Math doesnt change; it is cross cultural and identical all over the (this) universe. That is why they sent the original message the way that they did. > > We might, of course, not rely on languages per se for > interstellar communication. Most proposals for interstellar > messages over the past 40 years have, indeed, not focused on > specifically linguistic messages and many alternatives were > suggested at the recent workshop, including messages based on > images, music, logic and computer algorithms. But regardless of > the *form* that a message might take, what should be its > *content?* in math, the content is the message. if you send prime numbers, then someone will know: A you know your math B you can build transmitters C you sent a message that would be enough to get ANYONE exited. There doesnt need to be anything else. Unless you want to -=colonize=- them with your ideas. > > Suppose we could succeed in communicating notions of altruism, > the central subject matter of the workshop. Wouldn't such a > portrayal border on deception? it would be colonialism. And what about another culture imposing thier ideas on us? Just as Altruism is specific only to humans, there must be millions of other concepts, just as artificial and culture specific waiting to rain down on us. This is part of the purported reason that the big secret has been kept here for over 50 years; cultural contamination and disruption, by even the official admission of contact with Aliens, much less a "donation" of Alien ideas of morality (if they even have that idea) and God knows what else. What is for sure, these aliens must be organized in some way. This organization, however it is done, can be described in english. Once we read this desctiption, and start to borrow from it and adopt it means that we have been colonized. Think aobut the Ford production line, and how that idea spread througout the world. That idea of how to organize workers changed life for hundreds of millions, brought unprecedented wealth to many and flodded the world with cars, gave us our dependence on oil, the gulf wars, and OBL. All from one mans idea. Imagine an idea, (or even worse, a whole book of ideas) as powerful and revolutionary as the production line, but from an alien culture. Everything would be turned upside down. This is far more interesting than artists trying to get a ride on a transmitter to send their art into space. > As novelist Diana Slattery > cautions, "Convincing an ETI, truly an 'outsider' of our > altruistic potential as a species, might be a hard sell if > they've had access to our history books, news services, or > entertainment channels." Indeed, in the recording attached to two > Voyager spacecraft, the 100-plus pictures of Earth lacked any > images of poverty, pestilence or war. Ahhh someone who can google! > > "If some day signals are sent to follow Voyager," Slattery > suggests, "the trust displayed in this effort - that we are > communicating at all - may be the surest sign of our own > potential for altruism. Read my lips: there is no such thing as "Altruism"!!!!!!!! > Whatever we decide to communicate," she > adds, "we are saying in the act 'Here we are; please get in > touch.'" But are images of altruism really representative of our > day-to-day actions? Slattery suggests that it may be appropriate > to start a conversation that could last for generations by > putting our best foot forward. > > Though for now SETI focuses its energies on listening for signs > of intelligence in the universe and not on transmitting, > Slattery's recommendation for how we might some day portray > ourselves in interstellar messages is worth pondering now. "That > we are concerned about how we are perceived," she observes, "that > we are considering how to foreground one of our best aspects - > the altruistic - seems a prudent way to whisper into the void." > > Douglas A. Vakoch > Director of Interstellar Message Composition, SETI Institute > Chair, Encoding Altruism: The Art and Science of Interstellar > Message Composition > vakoch@seti.org Boy, can you imagine these guys "get signal" saying "we got your message" and they reply "What message??!!" Good morning!!! Akin